es were intended for the accommodation of
the soldiers and sailors, who could, by means of them, move freely round
the vessel without interfering with the rowers. They were frequently
fenced in with stout planking on the outside, so as to protect the
soldiers. They do not appear to have been used on galleys of the
earliest period.

We have no direct evidence as to the dimensions of ships of four and
five banks. Polybios tells us that the crew of a Roman quinquereme in
the first Carthaginian War, at a battle fought in 256 B.C., numbered
300, in addition to 120 soldiers. Now, the number 300 can be obtained by
adding two banks of respectively 64 and 62 rowers to the 172 of the
trireme. We may, perhaps, infer that the quinquereme of that time was a
little longer than the trireme, and had about 3 ft. more freeboard, this
being the additional height required to accommodate two extra banks of
oars. Three hundred years later than the above-mentioned date Pliny
tells us that this type of galley carried 400 rowers.

We know no detailed particulars of vessels having a greater number of
banks than five till we get to the alleged forty-banker of Ptolemy
Philopater. Of this ship Callixenos gives the following
particulars:--Her dimensions were: length, 420 ft.; breadth, 57 ft.;
draught, under 6 ft.; height of stern ornament above water-line, 79 ft.
6 in.; height of stem ornament, 72 ft.; length of the longest oars, 57
ft. The oars were stated to have been weighted with lead inboard, so as
to balance the great overhanging length. The number of the rowers was
4,000, and of the remainder of the crew 3,500, making a total of 7,500
men, for whom, we are asked to believe, accommodation was found on a
vessel of the dimensions given. This last statement is quite sufficient
to utterly discredit the whole story, as it implies that each man had a
cubic space of only about 130 ft. to live in, and that, too, in the
climate of Egypt. Moreover, if we look into the question of the oars we
shall see that the dimensions given are absolutely impossible--that is
to say, if we make the usual assumption that the banks were successive
horizontal tiers of oars placed one above the other. There were said to
have been forty banks. Now, the smallest distance, vertically, between
two successive banks, if the oar-ports were arranged as in Fig. 14, with
the object of economizing space in the vertical direction to the
greatest possible degree, would be 1 ft. 3 in.