170 SOME OBSERVATIONS ON THE PHILEBUS OF PLATO, ETC. 



may be met, I tliink, with the answer that these oars are not summi 

 as com]3ared with others in the same ship, but in comparison with 

 those of the other vessels. Again Bayfius cites passages in which 

 we are told, incidentally, that the quinqueremes breasted a rough sea 

 better than the triremes ; and this could hardly have been the case if 

 their oars, necessarily longer and heavier, had been mam^ed by a 

 single rower. 



^schylus, Agam. v. 1618. 



ah raura ^coy£l<; vepripa ■7rpo<Tyj/j.£%>o<; 

 xionrj xparoortcDv rutv im Zoy^ dopoq ; 



Here, ol k-n:\ Zoyw are supposed to be ol Zoy'^rai — and Paley renders 

 *' those on the upper benches." But it is more natural to understand 

 here, the officers and fighting men; who occupied a higher position, 

 in both senses, than those who " sat at the oar below." The haughty 

 taunt of u-^gisthixs is shorn of half its sax-casm, if he merely contrasts 

 himself with fellow workers, who occupied a position but one grade 

 lower than his own. 



Aristophanes, Equites, v. 545. Al'peaff ahrw iroXb rb 'poBLOf, 

 -apa-ilicpar i<l> epdexa xwKaii; x.r.X. 



Although this passage does not bear directly upon the subject- 

 of m/ remarks, I cannot help noticing, as I have not seen it else- 

 where, a curious explanation which Isaac Voss gives of the phrase 

 i(j) ivdsxa xd>7raig : he says that the speed at which a galley was going, 

 was roughly calculated by the number of benches which were passed 

 at a stroke ; fast travelling, in his day, was a stroke which drove the 

 galley a distance of seven benches. According to his view, " with 

 an eleven oar stroke," would mean that the distance between eleven 

 benches was passed at each stroke. Scheffer quotes Silius, where a 

 light Libumian galley is said to have passed more than its own 

 length at each stroke. Pim. XIII. v. 240. 



" Quanta est vis agili per caerula summa" Liburnae, 

 Quae, pariter quoties revocatae ad pectora tonsae 

 Percussere fretum, ventis fugit ocior, et se, 

 Quam longa est, uno remorum praetei-it ictu." 



Of course, the actual speed would depend upon the time of the 

 stroke. Voss tells us that twelve hundred stadia (about 140 miles) 

 a day, was considered very fast sailing for a Liburnian, whereas the 

 modern galleys went much faster — often covering a distance of 1,400 

 stadia in that time. 



