General Melvill's theory.
It might be unnecessary to offer any further remarks
on this branch of the subject, had not
Mr. 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."[1] 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,[2] "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;
