PHILEBUS OF PLATO, ETC. 167 



expressed his anxiety to obtain some solution of the difficulty ; and 

 he, in acknowledging my letter veiy politely, has condescended to 

 express his satisfaction with my explanation. About a fortnight 

 after the desj)atch of my letter, I received a very curious confirmation 

 of this derivation, at least in part, fi'om some remarks, which appeared 

 in a following number of the Eevue, by M. le Contre-Amiral Luigi 

 Fincati, of the Italian navy, who has criticised M. de la Gravi^re's 

 statements. M. Fincati, speaking of the Venetian navy, says that 

 the rowers were protected by vertical shields placed above the "arma- 

 tures" (outriggers) on which the oars worked. These shields, he 

 says, were successively called talamii, talari, ali and morti ; and the 

 QaXaiuTTic, was so called, because he sat nearest to the talamii. M. 

 Fincati's view, although pronounced impracticable by the French 

 Admiral, is remarkable. He maintains that, until the latter half of 

 the 16th centurj'', the war-ships of the Mediterranean were always, j5ar 

 excellence, triremes. The crew was composed of two hundred men; of 

 whom one hundred and fifty were rowers, seated three and three on the 

 twenty -five benches placed on either side of the vessel ; he thinks that 

 these benches were arranged obliquely, and that each man had a 

 separate oar ; so that the oars reached the water in groups of three, at 

 intervals corresj^onding with the distance between the benches: but 

 he adds that, about the middle of the 16th century, this arrangement 

 was altered, and the three men rowed with one oar. He cites as his 

 authorities the Historie del mio tempo of Natal Conti, the Armata 

 Navale of Pantero Pantera, Cristoforo da Canale, and other writers 

 to which I have not access. However, the probabilities seem to be 

 decidedly in favour of M. de la Gravi^re, who is even less disposed 

 to allow the possibility of this arrangement than of the old one. 

 Just imagine what would happen, with three men on a bench, each 

 having a good long oar in his hand, if one of them chanced to "catch 

 a crab," or was knocked over at a critical moment ! his swinging oar 

 would throw the whole equipage into a state of disastrous confusion. 

 In one of the early numbers of the Revue, M. de la Gravi^re mentions 

 the fact that the Maritime Statutes, of the 14th century, speak of the 

 galleys as armatae ad tres remos ad hanchum "equipped for three oars 

 to a bench ;" and such passages as this are, in' all probability, the 

 source of what I cannot help calling the error of M. Fincati and his 

 authorities. Barras de la Penne has warned us that we must not 

 sufler ourselves to be misled by the word remus. And, besides, a 

 passage from Zosimus {flor. A.D. 420) wliich has often been cited 

 12 



