The
tessarakonteres (, "forty-rowed"), or "forty" was a large type of
galley used in the
Hellenistic period. The name "forty" refers to the number of banks of oars that propelled it. It was one of the
largest ships constructed in Antiquity.
Sources
The only recorded instance of this type of vessel is a showpiece galley built for
Ptolemy IV of
Egypt, described by
Callixenus of Rhodes, writing in the
3rd century BCE. The passage survives in
Athenaeus's
Deipnosophistae in the 2nd century AD.
Plutarch also mentions that Ptolemy Philopater owned this
immense vessel in his
Life of Demetrios, and comments:
How many rows of oars?
The
trireme was the main
Greek warship up to and into the Hellenistic period (i.e., at the beginning of the
4th century BC), during which several new galley types were introduced. Their names, such as tetrēreis (i.e., "fours", sing.
tetrērēs) and pentēreis (i.e., "fives", sing.
pentērēs). This led up to the mid-4th century BCE innovations of "sixes", "sevens" and so on, even up to "thirteens" and, by the 3rd century BCE, a "sixteen". This trend culminated with the tessarakontērēs. Little evidence survives about all these giant ships, and their names have proved difficult to interpret.
During this period ships were increasingly designed as artillery platforms, with enclosed sides and a complete deck. The additional weight all this involved was probably the design imperative for adding extra rowing capacity.
Ships of this type were depicted with up to three banks of oars, so that they were really just larger versions of the bireme and trireme with more than one rower per oar. From galleys used in the 17th and 18th centuries BCE, it is known that the maximum number of men that can operate a single oar efficiently is eight, and so the largest efficient Greek vessel would have had three banks of oars with eight men per oar (a "twenty-four"). In fact a "sixteen" is one of the large galleys most frequently mentioned. This could have had two banks of oars on each side, with each oar operated by eight men. However, this theory still leaves the problem of the "forty" without a satisfactory explanation.
If the number was derived from the number of men per pair of oars, it can account easily for the lower numbers in the following way:
- "fours" - two rows of oars each side, with two men per oar and thus "four" on each pair of oars
- "fives" - five rows of oars (? per side)
Construction
A hull of such size would involve great bend-induced stresses, which were dealt with using
strake edge jointing. The plank shear issue was more directly addressed in the ancient practice of
mortise and tenon-jointed planks (strakes), which "certainly goes back to 14th century BC and very much likely before that".
The average trireme was well short of this scale, intended as it was to be fast in the water and light enough to be hauled up on the beach by the crew. The large scale of ship's rams that could be cast in the ancient world was determined from a monument that once displayed them.
Specifications
The current theory is that Ptolemy's ship was an oversize
catamaran galley, measuring 128 m, or 420 ft. The dual hull arrangement with a central working platform was designed for sea battles with catapults and could carry 3 to 4 thousand marines.
- Length 425 feet (280 Greek cubits)
- Height from tip of sternpost to waterline 80 feet
- Length of steering oars 45 feet 6 inches
- Longest rowing oars used 57 feet 8 inches
Record-holder
The
Guinness Book of Records recognizes it as the world's
Largest Human Powered Vessel.
