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inside front cover
(Continued on inside back cover)
Grokking Functional
Programming

Michał Płachta

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Dedication
To my dear family: Marta, Wojtek, and Ola, for all the good
vibes and inspiration.

To my parents: Renia and Leszek, for all the opportunities

you’ve given me.
contents
Front matter
preface
acknowledgments
about this book
about the author

Part 1. The functional toolkit

1 Learning functional programming
 Perhaps you picked up this book because...
What do you need to know before we start?
What do functions look like?
Meet the function
When the code lies...
Imperative vs. declarative
Coffee break: Imperative vs. declarative
Coffee break explained: Imperative vs. declarative
How useful is learning functional programming?
Leaping into Scala
Practicing functions in Scala
Getting your tools ready
Getting to know the REPL
Writing your first functions!
How to use this book

2 Pure functions
 Why do we need pure functions?
Coding imperatively
Breaking the code
Passing copies of the data
Breaking the code . . . again
Recalculating instead of storing
Focusing on the logic by passing the state
Where did the state go?
The difference between impure and pure functions
Coffee break: Refactoring to a pure function
Coffee break explained: Refactoring to a pure function
In pure functions we trust
Pure functions in programming languages
Difficulty of staying pure...
Pure functions and clean code
Coffee break: Pure or impure?
Coffee break explained: Pure or impure?
Using Scala to write pure functions
Practicing pure functions in Scala
Testing pure functions
Coffee break: Testing pure functions
Coffee break explained: Testing pure functions

3 Immutable values
 The fuel for the engine
Another case for immutability
Can you trust this function?
Mutability is dangerous
Functions that lie... again
Fighting mutability by working with copies
Coffee break: Getting burned by mutability
Coffee break explained: Getting burned by mutability
Introducing shared mutable state
State’s impact on programming abilities
Dealing with the moving parts
Dealing with the moving parts using FP
Immutable values in Scala
Building our intuition about immutability
Coffee break: The immutable String API
Coffee break explained: The immutable String API
Hold on . . . Isn’t this bad?
Purely functional approach to shared mutable state
Practicing immutable slicing and appending

4 Functions as values
Implementing requirements as functions
Impure functions and mutable values strike back
Using Java Streams to sort the list
Function signatures should tell the whole story
Changing requirements
We just pass the code around!
Using Java’s Function values
Using the Function syntax to deal with code duplication
Passing user-defined functions as arguments
Coffee break: Functions as parameters
Coffee break explained: Functions as parameters
Problems with reading functional Java
Passing functions in Scala
Deep dive into sortBy

Signatures with function parameters in Scala

Passing functions as arguments in Scala
Practicing function passing
Embracing declarative programming
Passing functions to custom-made functions
Small functions and their responsibilities
Passing functions inline
Coffee break: Passing functions in Scala
Coffee break explained: Passing functions in Scala
What else can we achieve just by passing functions?
Applying a function to each element of a list
Applying a function to each element of a list using map

Getting to know map

Practicing map

Learn once, use everywhere

Returning parts of the list based on a condition
Returning parts of the list using filter

Getting to know filter

Practicing filter

Our journey so far...

Don’t repeat yourself?
Is my API easy to use?
Adding a new parameter is not enough
Functions can return functions
Using functions that can return functions
Functions are values
Coffee break: Returning functions
Coffee break explained: Returning functions
Designing functional APIs
Iterative design of functional APIs
Returning functions from returned functions
How to return functions from returned functions
Using the flexible API built with returned functions
Using multiple parameter lists in functions
We have been currying!
Practicing currying
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
vulgar of every rank,” remarks Gibbon, “it was asserted and believed
that an equestrian statue in the square of Taurus was secretly
inscribed with a prophecy, how the Russians, in the last days, should
become masters of Constantinople,”[357]—a belief which, as we
know, was still largely shared in, even so recently as the Crimean
war of 1854-6.
Towards the decline of the Saracen empires, the
The Normans Greeks had to contend with the Normans or
and their Northmen, a race as daring and adventurous as
expeditions.
the Russians, and much more skilled in sea-faring
pursuits. This remarkable people had recently left
a.d. 918. their frozen homes in Norway and adventured
upon unknown and distant oceans, penetrating as
far as the Mediterranean with numerous fleets, and rendering
themselves more dreaded by their maritime genius than the
Russians or Saracens had ever been. Ravaging Flanders, France,
Spain, and Italy, after an infinite series of piratical exploits, they
compelled Charles the Simple to cede and assign to them the large
territory now known as Normandy; and, following up this success by
various adventures in the south of Europe, obtained for themselves a
great name and influence. Thus the Norman kingdoms of Naples and
Sicily, during the eleventh century, played an important part in the
drama of the history of Italy and of the eastern empire.
It is not our intention in this work to follow the
Establish Normans in their conquests or defeats, except in
themselves in so far as these bear on their maritime exploits, and
Italy, a.d. 1016.
on their connection, limited though this may be,
with commerce. At first, a large number of them appear to have
earned their daily subsistence by the sword, having constantly mixed
themselves up in the domestic quarrels then incessantly raging
between the rulers and people of the southern states of Italy; till at
length, chiefly through the aid of the Duke of Naples, whose cause
they had espoused, they secured their first settlement in Italy.
Within eight miles of his residence, he built and fortified for their use
the town of Aversa, granting to them, also, a considerable tract of
the fertile country in the vicinity, over which they were vested with
complete control. Year by year numerous pilgrims from all parts of
Europe, but especially from the north, found shelter under the
independent standard of Aversa, and were quickly assimilated with
the manners and language of the Gallic colony. But the Norman
power soon extended far beyond the infant and limited colony of
Aversa, and embraced the whole of the territory, which for centuries,
and, indeed, until the last few years, was known as the kingdom of
Naples. Within that territory, thirty miles from Naples, stood the
commercially celebrated republic of Amalfi.
Although the port of Amalfi, from which the
Amalfi. republic derived its name, is now an obscure place,
no western harbour then contained a more
enterprising maritime population. Its position, not unlike that of
Tyre, afforded great facilities for carrying on an extensive sea-borne
commerce. Hence it was that Amalfi, in its day, had a very extensive
intercourse with all parts of the then known world, and was among
the earliest of the Italian republics to hold in its hands the trade of
the Mediterranean. Long before the Venetians and Genoese had
become famous, this small but indefatigable republic assumed the
office of supplying the western world with the manufactures and
productions of the East, and that trade proved then, as has been the
case in all ages, a source of immense profit. Though the city
contained only fifty thousand inhabitants, its wealth was enormous,
and its merchants, who had correspondence with all parts of the
coasts of the Mediterranean, dealt largely in the commodities of both
Arabia and India. Their settlements in Constantinople, Antioch,
Jerusalem, and Alexandria, acquired the privileges of independent
colonies. No city or seaport of those days contained more mariners
who excelled in the theory or practice of navigation and astronomy
than Amalfi; indeed, it was long supposed, that to the skill of one of
the seamen of this city, the world owed the discovery of the
mariner’s compass.[358]
 But, after three hundred years of great prosperity,
a.d. 1137. arising entirely from the energetic, and, at the
same time, honest pursuit of commerce, Amalfi,
oppressed by the arms of the Normans, was at last brought under
their rule. Shorn of its independence, and depressed in spirit, the
city was soon after attacked by the jealousy of Pisa, one of its
commercial rivals; but the ruined palaces of its merchants, and the
remains of an arsenal and cathedral, still attest its former splendour
and importance.[359]
Not satisfied with the possessions they had already secured in Italy
and with their conquest of Sicily, the Normans next resolved on the
conquest of Constantinople itself.
Their first attempt was made from the port of
Futile attempts Otranto, where, after a preparation of two years,
of the Normans they had collected a fleet of one hundred and fifty
to take
vessels, and thirty thousand men, including one
Constantinople,
a.d. 1081-1084.
thousand five hundred Norman knights. But this
expedition proved a calamitous failure. The
Normans were no longer the experienced or adventurous mariners,
who had explored unknown oceans, from Greenland to Africa;
hence, in a great storm they encountered at the mouth of the
Adriatic, many of their ships were shattered, while others were
dashed on shore and became hopeless wrecks. Besides, a new, and
a naval, enemy had arisen in the Venetians, who, at the solicitations
and promises of the Byzantine court, were ready enough to aid in
the overthrow of the hated Normans, and, with a view of tempting
commercial advantages for themselves, to assist in defending the
capital of the East. And so it befell, that what the storm had spared
of the Norman fleet, the Venetians and Greek fire destroyed; add to
which, the Greek populations, sallying from their towns along the
southern shores of Italy, carried slaughter and dismay to the tents of
the chiefs of the Norman invaders.
But three years afterwards, their indefatigable duke (Robert
Guiscard) resumed the design of his eastern conquests; preferring,
on this occasion, as the season was far advanced, the harbour of
Brundusium to the open road of Otranto for the assembling of his
fleet of one hundred and twenty vessels. However, in the interval
Alexius, the emperor, had assiduously laboured to restore the naval
forces of the empire, obtaining at the same time, at an exorbitant
price, the aid from the republic of Venice of thirty-six transports,
fourteen galleys, and nine galiots, or ships of unusual strength and
magnitude. The goods and merchandise of the rivals of the
Venetians at Amalfi were taxed to raise the required sum; and by
granting special privileges, such as the licence or monopoly of trade
in the port of Constantinople, with the gift of many shops and
houses, Alexius propitiated the good will of the Venetian merchants.
But this expedition was so far successful, that the Normans captured
and destroyed many of the vessels of the combined fleets; it failed,
however, to take Constantinople, against which the Normans
relinquished any attempts worthy of notice after the death in the
following year of their prince, Guiscard.
While the power and name of the Romans was
Rise of Venice. passing away under the imbecile rule of the Greek
emperors, and commerce and navigation shared in
A.D. 452. the general decay, a new maritime power, the
State of Venice, destined to become the greatest
of the Italian republics, was imperceptibly increasing in strength and
renown. From the time when the inhabitants of that portion of Italy,
now known as Venetian Lombardy, were driven by Alaric, the
barbarian conqueror, to seek refuge in the small islands of the
Adriatic, near the mouth of the Brenta, their progress had been one
of almost uninterrupted prosperity. Devoting their attention
exclusively to the pursuits of commerce, and avoiding, by every
means in their power, interference with the affairs of their
neighbours, the Venetians drew towards their infant colony all whose
habits and tempers induced them to seek industrial pursuits. Among
these, many families of Aquileia, Padua, and other towns, fleeing
from the sword of the Huns and similar barbarous tribes, found a
safe but obscure refuge. A modern writer[360] has eloquently
described Venice as “immoveable on the bosom of the waters from
which her palaces emerge, contemplating the tides of continental
convulsions and invasions, the rise and fall of empires, and the
change of dynasties;” and certainly no description could be more
true of the splendour and position of Venice, and of the policy of its
rulers, when at the height of its prosperity.
But many centuries elapsed from the time when
The cause of its the infant colony was planted, before “the water
prosperity. fowl, who had fixed their nests on the bosom of
the waves,”[361] obtained a prominent and
a.d. 997. independent position as a great maritime nation.
Although in the early career of the Venetians their
independence was more especially due to their determination to
attend to their own affairs, and not to trouble themselves with those
of their neighbours, at a later period the western[362] and eastern
empires, in turn, claimed authority over them, and thus they were
invaded and at last conquered by Pepin, father of Charlemagne,
though ultimately restored to the Greek empire in the tenth century.
The Venetians therefore can hardly be considered as a really
independent republic till they had acquired the maritime cities of
Dalmatia and Istria, including the people of Ragusa, the posterity of
the mariners who, in classical times, owned and manned the fast
sailing Liburnians. The population of these coasts still retained the
piratical habits of their ancestors; and having in some respects
identical interests to defend, were not unwilling to place themselves
under the strong government of the Venetians. From that period the
Venetians carried on, for between four and five centuries, a most
important commercial intercourse with other nations, and exercised,
as a trading people, more influence than any other country had done
before them. The long duration of this enterprising republic, with its
maritime greatness and vast commerce, will, with the story of the
sister republics of Genoa and Pisa, form a subject to which we shall
frequently have occasion hereafter to refer. It is enough now to
remark that these cities, all favourably situated for conducting an
extensive maritime commerce, were among the first to revive the
genuine spirit of trade in the south of Europe after it had been
almost annihilated by the repeated inundations of the barbarians.
The nomad Tatar, or so-called Scythian
Spread of the populations, have been already slightly noticed;
Scythians, Huns, the rapidity with which they spread their arms over
or Turks, a.d.
Asia having been a matter of surprise to every
997-1028. a.d.
1074-1084. historian who has written on the subject. About
the time of Mahmud of Ghazna, after having
overrun the West of India, an important section of
a.d. 1076-1096.
them settled in great force in Asia Minor. Opposed
to the Greeks and their religion, they became the
The Crusades, most powerful enemies the eastern Roman empire
a.d. 1095-1099.
had yet encountered; and their occupation of the
Holy Land, with their conquest of Jerusalem, led to
conflicts with the Greeks only less terrible than had been the earlier
wars between the Saracens and the nations of the West. Their
ignorance of navigation alone deferred for a time the fall of the
eastern empire, though internally weak and decrepid, chiefly owing
to the blow it received during the Crusades, and from which it had
never recovered.[363] The first Crusade, made about twenty years
after the conquest of Jerusalem, had for its object the recovery of
the Holy City from the infidel. To replace the Cross in Palestine,
where the Crescent had been impiously raised, was a duty the whole
of Christendom considered itself bound to accomplish. But the
Christians in their enthusiasm undertook a task as wild as it was
disastrous, and one, too, so miserably planned, that three hundred
thousand of the first Crusaders lost their lives, either by fatigue and
hunger or by disease and the weapons of the Saracens, before they
rescued a single city from their grasp.
The second Crusade called into action the whole of
a.d. 1147. the West, from Rome to Britain. At its head were
displayed the banners of the dukes of Burgundy,
Siege of Acre, Bavaria, and Aquitaine; and the kings of Poland
a.d. 1189. and Bohemia obeyed the summons of the leader of
 an army estimated at more than four hundred
Armistice, a.d. thousand men. But the numbers appear to have
1192. been still greater in the third Crusade, which was
made both by sea and land, and included the siege
of Acre, graphically described by Gibbon[364] in his “Decline and Fall
of the Roman Empire.” After the surrender of Acre, and the
departure of Philip, Richard of England, whose name was long an
object of terror among the Saracens, led the Crusaders to the
recovery of the sea-coast; and the cities of Cæsarea and Jaffa,
afterwards added to the fragments of the kingdom of Guy de
Lusignan, fell into his hands, as Jerusalem would also have done,
had he not been deceived by the envy or the treachery of his
companions. But Plantagenet and Saládin became, in time, alike
weary of a war so tedious and disastrous in its results, especially as
both had suffered in health. An agreement between them was, after
much delay, brought about, and was, naturally, disapproved by the
zealots of both parties alike—the Roman pontiff and the Khalif of
Baghdad. Its leading features were, that Jerusalem and the Holy
Sepulchre should be open, without hindrance or tribute, to the
pilgrimages of the Latin Christians; and that during three years and
three months all hostilities should cease. In the following year
Saládin died; and, immediately after the conclusion of the treaty,
Richard returned to Europe “to seek a long captivity and a
premature grave.”
But the spirit of religious warfare did not rest. Will
Fourth Crusade, it ever do so? A fourth Crusade soon followed. In
a.d. 1202.
this case, however, the Crusade was directed from
Syria to Constantinople; and as there was an
armistice between the Crescent and the Cross, the self-constituted
avengers of the latter quarrelled among themselves—the restoration
of the western empire by Charlemagne having created differences
between the Greek and Latin Churches, which had in course of time
become serious feuds, to be settled only by bloodshed. The aversion
existing between the Greeks and Latins had been manifested in the
three first expeditions. Though alike opposed to the creed of the
Muhammedans, the pride of the emperor of the East was wounded
by the intrusion of foreign armies, who claimed the right of
traversing his dominions, and of passing under the walls of the
capital. He urged, not without reason, that his subjects were insulted
and plundered by the rude strangers of the West; perhaps, too, he
secretly envied the bold enterprises of the Franks.
While, however, the passage of vast armies in their
The effect of pilgrimage to the Holy Land roused feelings of
the Crusades on animosity between the two great sections of
the commerce
professing Christians, they very materially
of
Constantinople, increased their commercial intercourse, and
a.d. 1148. enlarged their knowledge without abating their
religious prejudices. Constantinople proved,
commercially, of great importance to the West, as the then chief
entrepôt of exchange with the distant nations of the East, and as
requiring for the wants of her own wealthy and luxurious people the
productions of every climate. From her situation she invited the
commerce of the world, and the art and labour of her numerous
inhabitants, while it balanced the imports, afforded profitable
employment to the number of foreign merchants resident at
Constantinople, and to their ships in which her over-sea trade was
chiefly conducted. After the decline of Amalfi, the Venetians, Pisans,
and Genoese, had introduced their factories and settlements into the
capital of the empire, had acquired possession of land and houses,
and had greatly increased in numbers, intermingling by marriage,
and in all the social relations of life, with the natives. Constantinople
was therefore largely indebted for her prosperity and wealth to the
foreign merchants resident in, or frequenting her port; and, hence
when these demanded the right of worshipping in accordance with
the Latin forms of Christianity, the emperor, who had tolerated a
Muhammedan mosque,[365] was unable to refuse the demand of the
Christians of the West.
But his good intentions, and those of his successor,
and on its fall. Alexius, were stopped by a popular tumult, which
ended in a terrible massacre of all the Latins whom the vengeance
of a mob, headed and applauded by the Greek priesthood, could
reach. Many, however, of the foreign merchants had escaped on the
first alarm to their vessels, and in these they proceeded to the
western ports to seek protection and redress for the wrongs inflicted
upon themselves and their countrymen.
Joined in their appeal by the son[366] of the
Power of dethroned monarch, Alexius Angelus, who had
Venice, a.d.
1202.
escaped in the disguise of a common sailor on
board an Italian vessel, their case was at once
promised consideration, and was soon after brought under the
notice of the leading pilgrims of the West, Baldwin, Count of
Flanders, and the Marquis of Montferrat, then assembled at Venice,
to negotiate with that republic for shipping to convey them on the
Fourth Crusade.[367] For many centuries the inhabitants of Venice
had been considered as a portion of the subjects of the Greek
empire; but when their power and influence had greatly increased,
notably by the acquisition of the cities on the coasts of Istria and
Dalmatia, the extent of their maritime commerce entitled them to
assume an independent position. “The sea was their patrimony;”
and with the chief command of the western shores of the
Mediterranean, the Venetian galleys had now secured the still more
lucrative commerce of Greece and Egypt.
Nor were they simply traders: Venetian glass and silk manufactures
had an early reputation; while their system of banking and of foreign
exchange, which they worked on a much more extensive scale than
any other nation, gave them a great commercial preponderance in
the south of Europe. To assert these rights and to protect the
freedom of their subjects, they are said to have been able to equip
at very short notice one hundred galleys; but their usual policy was
essentially that of merchants, and was almost wholly regulated by
their trading interests. In their religious dogmas the Venetians
avoided the schism of the Greeks without yielding a servile
obedience to the Roman pontiff; while an unrestrained intercourse
with the Muhammedans, as well as with other nations, encouraged
in her people a spirit of toleration unknown to the Crusaders.
Venice was, therefore, in no haste to launch into a
Her ships join in holy war, and the appeal of the pilgrim
the Crusade, ambassadors, “sent by the greatest and most
which was
powerful barons of France, to implore the aid of
afterwards
altered from its the masters of the sea for the deliverance of
original design. Jerusalem,” though ultimately successful, was
granted only with reservation and mainly on selfish
conditions. The Crusaders, after considering these (they had,
indeed, little option), determined to assemble at Venice, so as to
start on their expedition on the feast of St. John of the ensuing year;
the Venetians, at the same time, engaging to provide flat-bottomed
vessels enough for the conveyance of four thousand five hundred
knights and twenty thousand foot, with the necessary provisions for
nine months, together with a squadron of fifty galleys. The pilgrims,
on the other hand, promised to pay the Venetians, before their
departure, eighty-four thousand marks of silver; any conquests by
sea and land to be equally divided between the confederates. These
exorbitant demands were acceded to, the enthusiasm of the people
enabling fifty-two thousand marks to be collected and paid within a
short time.
But the expedition was diverted from its original design. Thirty-two
thousand of the promised marks being still wanted to complete the
stipulated sum, the Doge, Henry Dandolo, offered to waive this
claim, provided the combined forces were first employed in the
reduction of Zara, a strong city on the opposite shores of the
Adriatic, which had recently thrown off its allegiance to Venice. After
much discussion and many differences of opinion this proposal was
accepted, and proved fully successful; but the sack of Zara scattered
wide the seeds of discord and scandal; and many were shocked that
the arms of professing Crusaders should have been first stained with
the blood, not of the Infidel, but of the Christian.
The presence of this great force revived the hopes of the young
Alexius, while the tale of the massacre of the Latins at
Constantinople seemed to demand a punishment adequate to its
atrocity. The separate interests of many and various parties
supported his appeal; the Doge hoped to increase the commercial
power of Venice by humbling that of the eastern capital; Alexius was
warmly backed by Philip of Germany and the Marquis of Montferrat;
while the promises of the young man himself were liberal enough to
suggest more than a suspicion of his honesty. In the end it was
determined to make a further diversion of the hosts originally
consecrated to the deliverance of Jerusalem, and to employ them on
what to the miscellaneous multitude must have been the far more
congenial office of ravaging and plundering the Greek empire. It can,
indeed, hardly be supposed that many of the Crusaders could have
believed themselves bound to aid in the restoration of an exiled
prince as a step in any way necessary for the recovery of Jerusalem;
while the savage treatment the unfortunate Jews met with at their
hands in every city they passed through, shows how little their
enthusiasm for the Cross was tempered by anything resembling
Christianity. The large majority were, doubtless, mainly swayed by
the hope or the certainty of public plunder or private gain.
Although the boldest hearts were appalled by the
They besiege report of the naval power and impregnable
and take strength of Constantinople, the Venetians
Constantinople,
vigorously urged on the scheme, seeing clearly
a.d. 1204.
that for them it was now or never, and that, with
the aid of the formidable forces at their disposal, they would be able
to avenge themselves for many insults and injuries they had
received from the Byzantine court. No such armament had, indeed,
for ages, if ever, assembled on the waters of the Adriatic. Consisting
of no less than one hundred and twenty flat-bottomed vessels for
the horses; of two hundred and forty transports filled with men and
arms; of seventy store ships laden with provisions; and of fifty stout
galleys prepared to encounter any enemy, the expedition presented
a most imposing appearance.
Favoured with fine weather and a fair wind the fleet made rapid
progress, and, without interruption or loss, anchored, after an
unusually quick passage, at Abydos, on the Asiatic side of the
Hellespont. But here a strong gale sprung up, and swept them to the
eastward, and so close were they brought to the city, that some
volleys of stones and darts were exchanged between them and the
ramparts. Most of the invaders then beheld, for the first time, the
capital of the East; and few cities can boast of so imposing an
appearance; nor could it fail to create a deep impression on the
minds of the invaders. Vain, indeed, would have been the attempt of
the Crusaders to conquer such a city had its people been united, or
its ruler a man of ability and honesty. The sixteen hundred fishing
boats of Constantinople could in themselves have manned a fleet,
which, with their fire-ships, would have been sufficient to have
annihilated the forces of the Crusaders; but the negligence of the
prince, and the venality of his ministers rendered the great city
under their charge an easy prey. There was of course a show of
resistance, but it was so feeble that the tower of Galata, in the
suburb of Pera, was quickly stormed, and easily captured by the
French; while the Venetians forced the boom or chain that was
stretched from the tower to the Byzantine shores, captured or
destroyed twenty Grecian ships of war, and made themselves
masters of the port of Constantinople.
During the sixty years that the Latins held in their
Commerce hands the empire of the East, the Greek emperors
declines under kept their court and maintained a feeble dignity at
the Latins, but
Nicæa (Nice), the most important city in Bithynia.
revives on the
restoration of Yet, though at that city a certain show of pomp
the empire, a.d. and power was maintained, the removal of the
1261. empire from Constantinople, and the sway there of
the Latin princes, produced the most disastrous
effects on the trade of the capital: a race alien in religion and
language, and anarchy withal, were not, indeed, likely to be
favourable to peaceful arts or commerce. When, however, the Greek
empire was afterwards restored in the person of Manuel, that wise
monarch paid little heed to the factions of the Venetians and of
other republicans from Italy, but encouraged their industry by many
privileges, and allowed them full use of their own customs. Thus the
merchants resident at Constantinople preserved their respective
quarters in the city, trading thence whither and how they pleased.
The early history of Genoa was not unlike that of
Genoa. Venice; in so far at least, that, like it, Genoa had
been for some centuries under the control, if not
the vassal, of the eastern empire: at the period, however, to which
we are now referring, the Genoese had a large colony at the seaport
town of Heraclea, in Thrace. From this place the gratitude of the
Greek emperor, Michael, recalled them, at the same time giving
them the exclusive privilege of the suburb of Galata—a settlement
whereby, more than by anything else, the commerce of the
Byzantine empire was revived.[368]
Though indulged in the use of their own laws and
Genoese magistrates, the Genoese were required to submit
settlement at to the duties of subjects, and undertook, in case of
Galata and Pera.
a defensive war, to supply the Greek emperor with
fifty empty galleys and fifty more completely armed and equipped.
In consideration of these services, and to afford them protection
from the Venetian fleets, the Genoese were allowed the dangerous
privilege of surrounding Galata with a strong wall and wet ditch, with
lofty towers and engines of war on their ramparts. No wonder that,
having secured so much, they should seek to acquire more, and
that, within a short space of time, they had covered the adjacent
hills with their villas and castles, each fort being connected with the
next, and protected by new fortifications. Nor, as was natural, did
they stop here; they soon sought to possess themselves of the
whole trade of the Black Sea, long the especial patrimony of the
emperors of Constantinople, and a prerogative which, in the reign of
Michael, had been acknowledged by even Bibars, the Mamluk Sultan
of Egypt.
 Nor, having resolved on the end, were they long in
Arrogance of hesitating about the means to it; first, in seemingly
the Genoese, friendly alliance with the Greeks, they secured for
who at last
their colonies at Galata and Pera the bulk of the
rebel, a.d. 1348,
corn trade; while, at the same time, their
fishermen supplied the wants of the city, the salt fish largely
required by the Catholic nations, and caviare for the Russians. Next,
they secured for themselves the produce of the inland caravan trade
with the remote East, which still, as formerly, found its way by the
waters of the Oxus and the Caspian to the eastern shores of the
Euxine. In almost every case, their course of business was a strict
monopoly, the Venetians and all other rivals being carefully excluded
from any participation in their trade. So powerful, indeed, did they
become, that, while they awed the Greeks into a reluctant
submission, they resisted effectually, at their chief settlement, Caffa,
[369] the inroad of the Tatar hosts. The demands of the Genoese
merchants were in proportion to their rapacity, and at last they
actually usurped the customs and even the tolls of the Bosphorus,
securing for themselves alone a revenue of two hundred thousand
pieces of gold, of which they reluctantly doled out to the emperor
thirty thousand.
The usurpations of the Genoese, which extended over nearly a
century, every year increasing in their arrogance, ended, as might
have been anticipated, with a demand for the empire itself. Having
been refused some commanding heights at Pera, on which to erect
additional fortifications, they embraced the opportunity of the
emperor’s temporary absence from his capital to rise in open
rebellion. “A Byzantine vessel,” remarks Gibbon,[370] “which had
presumed to fish at the mouth of the harbour, was sunk by these
audacious strangers; the fishermen were murdered. Instead of suing
for pardon, the Genoese demanded satisfaction; required in a
haughty strain that the Greeks should renounce the exercise of
navigation; and encountered with regular arms the first sallies of the
popular indignation. They instantly occupied the debatable land; and
by the labour of a whole people, of either sex and of every age, the
wall was raised, and the ditch was sunk with incredible speed. At the
same time, they attacked and burnt two Byzantine galleys; while the
three others, the remainder of the imperial navy, escaped from their
hands; the habitations without the gates or along the shore were
pillaged and destroyed; and the care of the regent, of the empress
Irene, was confined to the preservation of the city. The return of
Cantacuzene dispelled the public consternation; the emperor inclined
to peaceful counsels, but he yielded to the obstinacy of his enemies,
who rejected all reasonable terms, and to the ardour of his subjects,
who threatened, in the style of Scripture, ‘to break them in pieces
like a potter’s vessel.’... The merchants of the colony, who had
believed that a few days would terminate the war, already murmured
at their losses; the succours from their mother-country were delayed
by the factions of Genoa; and the most cautious embraced the
opportunity of a Rhodian vessel to remove their families and effects
from the scene of hostility.”
The peaceful counsels of the emperor having
and declare war, proved of no avail, the Byzantine fleet in the spring
a.d. 1349. of the following year attacked Pera by sea, while
the Greek troops assaulted its walls and ramparts.
The attack, however, wholly failed; the Genoese carried all before
them, and, crowning their galleys with flowers, they added to this
insult the throwing, by means of their engines, of large stones into
the very heart of the imperial city. To insults such as these even
Cantacuzene could not submit; but, discerning clearly his own
weakness, it occurred to him that other and known enemies of
Genoa might do for him what he had not strength to do for himself:
hence his appeal to Venice, as the great naval rival of Genoa, and a
yet more fatal coquetry with the Turkish hosts, who by this time
were in full possession of the wide plains of Asia Minor.
Nor were the Venetians slow to accept an offer likely to lead to the
humbling of enemies so inveterate. The war assumed proportions
nowise foreseen, and fluctuated for more than a century with
alternate success, but with ultimate ruin to the Genoese, whose
audacity had provoked it. During the whole of this struggle the
eastern empire practically counted as nothing, and would, but for
the intervention of the Venetians, have sunk into a province of
Genoa. The connection, however, with the Turkish tribes led to more
deplorable disasters, in that, owing to the weakness of the emperor,
an opportunity was now, for the first time, afforded to them of
obtaining a footing on the sacred land of Europe itself.
The time had indeed come when a Greek emperor,
The progress of more fearful of his own life than of the honour of
the Turks, a.d. his people, could seek the advice, if not the direct
1341-1347.
aid, of the enemies of his faith and country. The
Turks, seeing the chance of great ultimate
Their fleet. advantages, were not unwilling to grant his
requests. Under the pretence of protecting one of
a.d. 1353. their race, who had taken up his residence at the
Greek court, they assembled at Smyrna a fleet of
three hundred vessels and twenty-nine thousand
a.d. 1360-1389.
men, in the depth of winter, and casting anchor at
the mouth of the Hebrus, under the further pretext of guarding their
fleet, landed nine thousand five hundred of their men; thus for the
first time establishing themselves on the continent of Europe. A
position, however small, thus obtained, the further spread of the
Turkish arms was but a question of time. In a few years they were
settled in their new homes; a little later, the whole province of
Roumania and of Thrace fell into their hands; and, in less than forty
years from their first arrival, all the country round Constantinople,
including Adrianople, which they had made their western capital,
became subject to them. From this time the fate of Constantinople
was sealed, and the overthrow of the Cross by the Crescent but a
question of a few years.
Various reasons, however, prevented the
First use of immediate capture of Constantinople; nor was it till
gunpowder, and sixty years after the Turks had secured Adrianople,
of large cannon.
that Muhammed II., who had unceasingly sighed
for its possession, resolved, by an attack of sufficient magnitude,
and at any cost, to make it the centre of the Muhammedan arms
and religion, and to haul down the Christian banner, which for more
than a thousand years had waved over its battlements. Nor was he
unsupported by many favouring accidents, of which the most
valuable was the discovery of gunpowder, as this engine of
destruction rendered the Greek fire of comparatively little advantage,
and left success to those who had best studied the qualities of the
new explosive compound.[371] Muhammed at once devoted himself
to its serious study, the result being that the cannon he cast for the
siege of Constantinople are generally admitted to have been greatly
superior to any weapons of the class hitherto invented.
While Muhammed threatened the capital of the East, the Greek
emperor implored in vain the assistance of the Christian powers of
the West, who were either too weak or too much engaged with their
own contentions, even where favourably disposed, to render him
assistance. Even the princes of the Morea and of the Greek islands
affected a cold neutrality, while the Sultan indulged the Genoese in
the delusive hope that they would still be allowed to retain the
advantages they had possessed under the empire as regarded their
trade with the city and on the Euxine.
But Constantinople did not fall without a desperate
The Turks finally and bloody struggle; and had the zeal and ability
become masters of its inhabitants equalled the heroism of the last
of the Eastern
Constantine, the banner of the Cross might have
capital, a.d.
1453. floated even until now over the great city of the
Eastern Empire.

FOOTNOTES:
[351] Gibbon, ch. liii. Constantine, Vit. Basil. ch. lxxiv-lxxvi.
[352] Voyage of Benjamin of Tudela, book i. ch. v. p. 44-52.
[353] Gibbon, c. liii.
[354] Gibbon, c. lv.
[355] Gibbon, c. lv.
[356] Gibbon, c. lv.
[357] Gibbon, c. lv.
[358] There seems much doubt about the story of the invention of the mariner’s
compass by Flavio Gioga, an Amalfite, in a.d. 1307. The city had ceased to have
any commercial importance since its sack by the Pisans in a.d. 1137 (Sismondi, i.
p. 303); while, on the other hand, Hallam shows that the compass was known as
early as a.d. 1100 (Mid. Ages, iii. 394); and Wachsmuth proves that it was used in
Sweden in a.d. 1250 (Ersch und Grüber’s Encycl. iii. 302). The Italian bussola,
from the French boussole, comes again from the Flemish Boxel (box);—hence,
probably, our term of “boxing” the compass. It was most likely a northern
discovery.
[359] Hallam remarks that “it was the singular fate of this city to have filled up the
interval between two periods of civilization, in neither of which she was destined
to be distinguished. Scarcely known before the end of the sixth century, Amalfi ran
a brilliant career as a free and trading republic, which was checked by the arms of
a conqueror in the middle of the twelfth.”—Mid. Ages, iii. 300.
[360] Sismondi, Republ. Ital. du Moyen Age, i. p. 203.
[361] Cassiodor. Var. l. 12. Epist. 24.
[362] The power of Venice at this early period (a.d. 774) is well shown by the aid
it gave to Charlemagne, at his request, during his siege of Pavia, of twenty-four
galleons said to have carried six thousand horse and foot. This fact has been
recently illustrated by Mr. W. De Gray Birch, of the MS. Room of the British
Museum, who has published a contemporary leaden tablet, in which it is recorded.
(Archæol. xliv. pp. 123-136. 1872.)
[363] Speaking of Timúr, Gibbon observes, “the lord of so many myriads of horse
was not master of a single galley,” c. lxv.
[364] Gibbon, c. lix.
[365] Gibbon, c. lix.
[366] Gibbon, c. lx.
[367] It seems worth while to append here a note concerning the results of the
principal Crusades.
First Crusade.—Preached by Peter the Hermit, and led by Robert Guiscard and
Godfrey de Bouillon, chiefly against the Seljuk Turks, a.d. 1096. Jerusalem taken,
a.d. 1099.

Second Crusade.—Preached by St. Bernard, and led by Louis VII. and Conrad III.,
a.d. 1146. Stopped by the Seljuk Turks, by their victory at Iconium (Konieh), a.d.
1147.
Third Crusade.—To avenge the capture in a.d. 1187 of Jerusalem by Saladin; and
led by Frederick Barbarossa, Richard Cœur-de-Lion, and Philip of France, a.d.
1188. Results: Acre, Joppa, and Askalon taken from Saladin, a.d. 1192.
Fourth Crusade.—Led by Baldwin, Count of Flanders, with aid from Venice, a.d.
1202. Results: taking of Zara and of Constantinople, a.d. 1204.
The remaining Crusades were, comparatively, unimportant.
[368] Gibbon, ch. lxiii.
[369] So late as Chardin, four hundred sail of vessels were occupied at Caffa
during forty days in the corn and fish trade. (“Voy. en Pérse,” i. pp. 46-48.) Clarke
found it wholly demolished by the Russians (“Travels,” i. p. 144)—and so it is now.
[370] Gibbon, ch. lxiii.
[371] The precise era of the invention and application of gunpowder is involved in
doubt, and has formed the subject of many learned disquisitions, not the least
interesting of which will be found in the 1st and 2nd vols. of Bishop Watson’s
“Chemical Essays.”
 CHAPTER IX.
Ancient galleys—Different descriptions—Their outfit—Beaks—Stern—
Masts and sails—Oars—Mode of rowing—Single-banked galleys—
French galley—General Melvill’s theory—Charnock’s theory—Vossius’s
views—Mr. Howell’s plan—Plan of Revd. J. O. W. Haweis (Appendix
No. 1)—Our own views—Biremes—Triremes—Quadriremes—
Quinqueremes—Hexiremes and larger galleys—Suggested plan of
placing the rowers—Summary.

Frequent reference has been made in the course

Ancient galleys. of this work to the row-galleys of the ancients, and
no subject connected with shipping has called
forth more conflicting opinions: nor is this surprising. Most ancient
writers who refer to it are less or more at variance with each other;
while the representations on coins and monumental sculptures are
generally on so small a scale as to afford little assistance in its
elucidation. Within the last two centuries numerous authors have
endeavoured to solve the problem how these galleys were classed
and rowed, and to establish a system of propulsion which, while
applicable to every class, would harmonize with the accounts
preserved of the size of these vessels and of the number of rowers
employed on board of them.
Galleys appear to have been rated by their bank of
Different oars, that is, uniremes had one, biremes two,
descriptions. triremes three, quadriremes four, quinqueremes
five, and so forth, up to the enormous ship of
Ptolemy Philopator, which we have already noticed. But the chief
point of controversy has been what constituted a bank.
According to Homer,[372] the Greek fleet at the siege of Troy
consisted entirely of uniremes. They were then undecked, with the
exception of a platform at each end on which the archers or principal
fighting men stood, and were guided by oars or sweeps at both
extremities so as to ensure rapid evolution. Pliny[373] states that the
Erythræans were the first who built biremes. Various ancient writers
give the Corinthians the credit for having been the first to construct
triremes. “And now Greece,” remarks Thucydides,[374] “began to
construct navies and to apply herself more assiduously to nautical
affairs. The first who introduced a change in the structure of vessels,
so as to form them very nearly in the present mode, are said to have
been the Corinthians; and triremes are thought to have been built
first for Greece at Corinth. It appears, too, that Ameinocles, a
Corinthian ship-builder, also constructed four such vessels for the
Samians.”
Although triremes, in the time of Thucydides, and
b.c. 430. for some centuries afterwards, were more
approved for purposes of war than any other
description of vessel, the authority of Pliny, Athenæus,[375] Polybius,
[376] and others is sufficient proof that vessels of four, five, six, and
ten banks of oars were built;—that Alexander increased the number
of banks to twelve;—that Philip, father of Perseus, had a galley of
sixteen banks;[377] and—that vessels of four and five banks were
frequently engaged in war. The triremes, however, were much more
numerous than any other class of galleys except those which had
only one bank of oars. Themistocles built three hundred triremes for
the purpose of carrying on the war against Ægina; and obtained a
decree authorizing the construction of a further, but limited number
of these vessels from the produce of the mines of Laureium.[378] By
his influence twenty triremes were annually built by the Athenians so
as to maintain in efficient order a permanent fleet of from three to
four hundred vessels of this description.[379] Triremes consisted of
two classes, fighting ships and transports. The former were
propelled at great speed, frequently reaching seven to eight miles an
hour; the number of rowers employed on each varying from fifty to
two hundred. The transports were bulkier and stronger vessels, and,
though armed, were not brought into action except in cases of
urgent necessity.
No mention is made of any vessel with more than
b.c. 431-403. three banks of oars having been employed in the
Peloponnesian war, but quadriremes and
b.c. 400.
quinqueremes were known in the reign of
Dionysius I., of Syracuse, and were employed by
the Carthaginians in the first Punic war, who had
b.c. 255.
also in their service some vessels of the hexireme
and septireme class. From the ease, however, with which the
Romans captured these large vessels (even allowing for their
superior energy and vigorous mode of close action), they were
evidently much less efficient in proportion to their size than triremes.
Nevertheless, according to the testimony of Plutarch, very large
galleys were in high favour with Demetrius Poliorcetes,[380] whom
he represents as a prince possessing superior knowledge of the arts,
and of a highly inventive turn of mind. This prince, he states, caused
several of fifteen and sixteen banks to be built, he himself
superintending their construction; and so formidable are these
vessels said to have appeared, that Lysimachus, when he had ocular
confirmation of the reports he had heard of their strength and
capacity, raised the siege of Rhodes rather than encounter them in
action. Plutarch also states that Antony[381] possessed a fleet of no
less than five hundred armed vessels, magnificently adorned, having
eight and ten banks of oars, and that he selected the best and
largest of them for the celebrated battle of Actium. However
exaggerated some of the accounts preserved of these very large
galleys may be, and however imperfect and inconsistent the
descriptions of them by ancient authors, their existence has been
established beyond all doubt.
 With reference to their outfit, it is sufficient to
Their outfit.
state that, in nearly every instance, they were
highly ornamented with figures carved on the bow
Beaks. and stern. Below the bow, and between it and the
fore-foot or keel, there was generally a projecting
piece of very strong timber, to which was attached either a ram’s
 head, sharp metal bolts, cleavers, or some other
Stern. instrument of destruction. These beaks were at
first constructed so as to be visible above the
Masts and sails. water, but afterwards they were immersed, like the
beaks of the iron-clad rams of our own time,
themselves evidently copies from the original Grecian and Roman
designs. The most trustworthy illustrations of these have been taken
from the Trajan column and a few coins of the period, of which the
accompanying drawings are fair representations. Nearly the whole of
the ancient war-galleys had their bows and sterns considerably
elevated above the level of the deck. From the former, or the
“coursier”—centre platform—an officer regulated the duties of the
rowers; whilst the pilot directed, from the quarterdeck, the course of
the ship. In many cases, this officer sat under a highly ornamented
canopy, from which he issued his commands, and behind it there
was usually carved the image of the tutelar deity of the galley. From
the flag-staff floated her ensign or private signal; and, sometimes, a
large vane on the taffrail pointed to the direction of the wind. On the
column of Trajan a lantern is shown suspended close to the stern in
one of the galleys. Each trireme carried two wooden ladders and
three “spreads,” poles of different lengths. Although the oars were
the chief means of propulsion, almost every vessel above the size of
a trireme had either one or two masts, but one of them, from raking
forward and being comparatively small, resembled in many respects
a bowsprit, so that, practically, there was only one mast except in
very large vessels, which, with the yard and square sail attached,
usually completed their rig. The portion of the mast immediately
above the yard formed a “top,” or structure similar to a basin,
serving for the purpose of a look-out or as a place from which
arrows or other missiles could be discharged. All the Athenian
galleys had square sails only, as may be seen in numerous
illustrations; and it is very questionable if any of the Greek vessels
used topsails of a triangular form, Δ, though they were known to the
Romans;[382] but, from their form, the wide part being attached to
the yard and the point reaching the topmast head, they could, under
any circumstances, have been of very little service, and none
whatever when the wind was abeam or before the beam.
The oars varied in size according to the bank on
Oars. which they were used, of course increasing in
length as they ascended. Their length in a trireme
is stated at from 9 to 9¼ cubits, but no mention is made of the part
of the vessel to which they belonged. An oar, however, of only
fourteen feet in length could have been of no service unless used on
the lowest rank and almost on a level with the water. Those
employed in the smallest wherries of the Thames are from twelve to
fourteen feet long. Thucydides,[383] in describing the attack of the
Peloponnesian commanders on the Piræeus, the harbour of Athens,
remarks, “The plan was that each sailor should take with him his oar,
his cushion and his thong, and go by land from Corinth to the sea
over against Athens, and, proceeding with all speed to Megara,
should put off with forty triremes which happened to be at Nisæa,
their naval station, and sail immediately for Piræeus.” From these
remarks it may be inferred that none of the oars belonging to a
trireme were of greater weight than one man could carry for a
distance of four or five miles; and that only one man was stationed
at an oar, unless “his oar” might be construed as meaning the oar
under his charge. But though no mention is made of different-sized
oars having been used on board of a trireme, there can be no doubt
that the oars of the ancients differed far more in size than those of
the river barge or man-of-war sweeps as compared with the sculls of
the Thames wherry of modern times.
This is clear from the fact that while various
Mode of rowing. ancient writers mention oars of 9½ cubits in
length, Athenæus distinctly states that the oars
belonging to Ptolemy Philopator’s large ship were thirty-eight cubits
long.[384] Here we have a specific account of oars varying from
fourteen to fifty-seven feet in length, the latter requiring to have
lead embedded in their handles as a counterpoise to the weight
outside the rowlock.[385] Besides, it is clear that the oars must have
increased in size according to the banks on which they were
employed. In the case of the oar fifty-seven feet in length, if worked
from a great height a large portion of it would require to be inboard
—say nineteen feet against thirty-eight; and even the one-third
would not, at a line of nine feet above the water, be sufficient as a
counterpoise, unless the shoulder of the oar were of unwieldy
thickness or heavily weighted by lead. In all single-banked vessels
the oar worked on the gunwale, and was kept in its place by means
of a leather thong. In larger galleys it passed through an oar-port.
Various ancient writers assert that there was only one man to each
oar, and add, that he sat, when rowing, on a single bench or small
stool attached to the ribs of the vessel, and within a very short
distance from the scalmus of his oar.
But these assertions, though they increase the difficulty of solving
the intricate problem of how galleys, with more than one bank of
oars, were propelled, can have no weight when opposed to practical
experience. It is clear, without any testimony beyond our knowledge
of the physical power of man, that no one man, however herculean,
unless he had the aid of machinery, of which there is no proof, could
work an oar in the manner described. Indeed, we know that in
ancient galleys of every description, above the smallest uniremes,
more men than one were frequently employed upon the same oar.
Such was the case in the celebrated Liburnian[386] galleys, already
described.
Here the question arises how many men could, with convenience, sit
on each bench? Presuming that, in the case of an oar fifty-seven feet
in length, one-third, or nineteen feet, remained within board, there
would, allowing fifteen inches for each rower, be space for fifteen
men to work at the one oar; and if the men who sat within six feet
of the row-port were of no service, there is still ample space left to
place ten effective rowers.
If in comparatively modern times, when rowers were by no means
crowded, eighteen inches for each man abreast was considered
more than sufficient, we may infer that five men to an oar was far
from an unfrequent practice in manning the state galleys of the
Italian Republics. But while there is no difficulty in understanding
how five or even ten men could be rendered serviceable in working
the oars of single-banked galleys, a great difficulty arises when we
inquire how that number of men could effectively handle the upper
bank oars of the quadriremes and quinqueremes. On these and on
many other matters the accounts of the ancients are conflicting: nor
do the imperfect illustrations on ancient monuments and on coins
materially assist in their elucidation. Assured of the fact that there
were many vessels of much larger dimensions than even
quinqueremes propelled by oars, we have to consider how this was
done. Now the only mode of arriving at correct conclusions on this,
the most conflicting and intricate of all the problems connected with
shipping which ancient authors have left for solution, is to trace the
progress of the galleys themselves, from the single-banked craft or
unireme upwards.
With the exception of the extraordinary Liburnian
Single-banked galleys, every account extant leads to the
galleys. conviction that the single-banked galleys of the
Venetians and Genoese resembled in many
respects those of the Romans and ancient Greeks. Drawings of
Venetian galleys, to which references will hereafter be made, have
been preserved, but, as no detailed account of them exists, we are
obliged to seek for information from a writer of a comparatively
modern date.[387]
In its leading features, a French galley, constructed
French galley. somewhere about the close of the seventeenth
century, would appear to have resembled those of
Venice and of Rome of a similar class. She is described as having
been one hundred and fifty feet long and fifty feet broad; but there
is evidently a mistake in the description of her width, as there is no
record of any war galley, either ancient or modern, where the length
was only three times the breadth of beam. They were invariably
from five to ten times longer than they were wide. All writers on the
ships of the ancients or of the middle ages are agreed upon this
point; nor is there any account of a vessel propelled by oars of our
own times, which is not at least six times longer than she is wide;
therefore, it is safe to assume that the French galley of one hundred
and fifty feet in length did not much exceed thirty feet in width. In
other respects, with the exception of the length of oars, the
description of this single-banked galley is evidently quite reliable.
The author says, that she “consists but of one deck, which covers
the hold; this hold is in the middle nine feet, but at the sides of the
galley only six feet high. By this we may see that the deck rises
about a foot in the middle, and slopes towards the edges to let the
water more easily run off; for when a galley is loaded, it seems to
swim under water, at least the sea constantly washes the deck. The
sea would then necessarily enter the hold by the apertures where
the masts are placed, were it not prevented by what is called the
coursier. This is a long case of boards fixed on the middle or highest
part of the deck, and running from one end of the galley to the
other. There is also a hatchway into the hold as high as the coursier.
From this superficial description, perhaps, it may be imagined that
the slaves and the rest of the crew have their feet always in the
water; but the case is otherwise; to each bench there is a board
raised a foot from the deck, which serves as a footstool to the
rowers, under which the water passes. For the soldiers and marines
there is, running on each side along the gunwale of the vessel, what
is called a bande, which is a bench about the same height with the
coursier, and two feet broad. They never lie here, but each leans on
his own particular bundle of clothes in a very incommodious posture.
The officers themselves are not better accommodated, for the
chambers in the hold are designed only to hold the provisions and
naval stores of the galley.”
The author then proceeds to state that the French galley had a
chamber in the poop or raised deck, only large enough to hold the
captain’s bed; that, contiguous to it, were compartments for the
more valuable stores; and, after remarking on various details, he
adds, that she had twenty-five benches for the rowers on each side
of the vessel. These fifty benches, which were four feet apart, and
ten feet long, are described as having been “covered with sackcloth,
stuffed with flocks, and over this is thrown a cow-hide, which,
reaching down to the banquet or footstool, gives them the
resemblance of large trunks. To these the slaves are chained, six to
a bench; along the bande runs a large rim of timber, about a foot
thick which forms the gunwale of the galley. On this, which is called
the apostic, the oars are worked. These are fifty feet long, and are
poised in equilibrio upon the afore-mentioned piece of timber, so
that the thirteen feet of oar which come inboard are equal in weight
to the thirty-seven feet outboard; and as it would be impossible to
hold them in the hand, because of their thickness, they have handles
by which they are managed by the slaves.”
If the oars of this vessel, which in their leading features no doubt
resembled those of the large single-banked galleys of the ancients
and of the middle ages, were fifty feet in length, then a beam of
thirty feet would not suffice for oars of that enormous length. But if
the beam was only one-fifth of her length, we may assume that the
oars were not more than thirty-nine feet long, especially as that
length would be amply sufficient for propelling a single-banked
vessel. In that case the oar would be “thirteen” feet inboard as
described, affording abundance of space for six slaves to be
stationed at it, although the two nearest the side would be of
comparatively less service in rowing. To enable the rowers, and
especially those who were stationed nearest the centre of the galley,
to work with effect, their benches must have been placed in a
slightly oblique position.
From this description, there is no difficulty in understanding the
character of the uniremes; it is only when we come to inquire what
was meant by biremes, triremes, and so forth, and how they were
propelled, that the most conflicting statements are met with.
Although Scheffer,[388] General Melvill, and others, have bestowed
an immense deal of learning in their endeavours to prove that each
oar was rowed by one man only, and that the banks were placed
directly one over the other, the bulk of the testimony of ancient
writers, confirmed by experience, is opposed to any such views.
Besides, the most casual inquiry will show that it would be
impracticable to row any galley with more than two banks of oars on
the plan suggested. Every additional rank adds to the difficulty in a
greatly increased ratio; and if hexiremes were efficient ships, which,
on the authority of Polybius they were,[389] it would have been
altogether impracticable to propel them by oars on the plan
suggested.
It might be unnecessary to offer any further
General Melvill’s remarks on this branch of the subject, had not Mr.
theory. Mitford, the celebrated historian of Greece,
expressed so strong an opinion in favour of it.
“The most satisfactory conjectures,” he remarks, “that I have met
with by far, are those of General Melvill.”[390] It may, however, be
here explained that General Melvill, in common with other writers,
had previously entertained the opinion that the number of banks
were measured by the number of men at an oar. That is to say, a
unireme, he considered, had only one man placed at an oar, a
bireme two, a trireme three, and so forth, up to the great ship of
Ptolemy Philopator, which had, according to this theory, forty men to
each of its fifty-seven feet oars. As the General on examination
found such a theory to be untenable, he conceived the idea that in
no case was there more than one man to an oar. “He,” then,[391]
“set himself to investigate the subject for confirmation of this opinion
on fact, as he should find that fact to turn out in the descriptions of
sea-fights and other naval transactions, as given by the ancient
authors, particularly Polybius, Cæsar, Livy, and Florus.” Impressed
with his new idea, it occurred to him, that “the indispensable
requisites were, that in the arrangement of the rowers within, each
side ought to have been such as to admit of the greatest number
possible, that they should be so placed as not to impede each other;
that they should be enabled to row to the best advantage; and that
the highest tiers, both in respect to length and weight, should be