PHILEBUS OF PLATO, ETC. 165 



the number of men at each oar ; and this is the view taken by most 

 of the opponents of the theory of three or more tiers of oars. A 

 very strong argument in its favour is derived from the practice on 

 board the war-galleys of the 16th and 17th centuries, in which each 

 oar was worked by five rowers : quinqueremes they ai-e called by the 

 advocates of this view of the question. But, reply the others, in 

 this case, how do you account for the terms Opavirrjq, !^uytrrj<; and 

 Qakaiurrj':, which,, say they, were unmistakably applied to the upper, 

 middle and lower tiei's of rowers respectively, and to the oars used 

 by them 1 Barras de la Penne (following the Scholiast on Aristo- 

 phanes, Ranae), thinks that they received these names from their 

 position, fore, aft or amidships. The Qpavirrjq, who sat nearest to 

 the stern, was placed higher than the daXaiJ.irrjq, used a longer oar 

 and received higher pay. In his opinion, the confusion has arisen 

 from a failure to realize the well known fact that remus is often used 

 with the signification of remex ; just as we say "a good oar" for "a 

 good oarsman." Certainly many passages, in the Ancient Classics, 

 admit of this explanation ; but there are others, in which the supra- 

 position of the one class of rowers seems to be too clearly indicated 

 to be disposed of thus easily. Lastly, the great difficulty has always 

 been the fact that, although, in tlie great majority of pictures repre- 

 senting war-ships, only one tier of oars is to be seen ; still in a few 

 coins and some monuments, notably in the figures on Trajan's column, 

 vessels are depicted, in which we apparently distinguish two tiers of 

 ' oars. 



Here, I think, lies the way out of this last difficulty. Why only 

 two ? " Because there was not room for more on the coins," say the 

 apologists ; but this does not apply to the marbles. It has been 

 remarked that, where there are two tiers visible, the oars in the 

 lower tier do not exactly resemble those in the upper tier ; and it has 

 been suggested that one of these tiers consists of dummies — possibly, 

 guards to prevent one oar from interfering with the other. It may 

 be objected that such dummies would have materially impeded the 

 vessel's progress, against a wind or through I'ough water. After read- 

 ing M. de la Gravi^re's vigorous protest against the admission of what 

 he has stated to be a practical impossibility — whatever history or 

 the monuments might say to the contrary — I was led to the con- 

 clusion that there must be some mode of reconciling fact with 

 tradition ; and the following suggested itself to me as not improbable. 



