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Ships in Greek Vase-Painting

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 January 2009

R. T. Williams
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From the several references to the crews of ships in the Iliad and the Odyssey it can be seen that the complement of oarsmen is usually twenty. I assume that Homer is describing the Heroic ships, the ships of the Achaeans, and not necessarily the ships of the time in which he lived. However, naval specialists from the west of Greece, like the Phaeacians, were able to build larger ships; for they sent Odysseus home to Ithaca in a ship with a crew of fifty-two. The ship, too, in which Odysseus left Troy must have been about this size; by the time it had reached Circe's island its complement had been reduced to forty-six, including Odysseus and Eurylochus, but then there had been casualties. Each of the ships which originally left Troy with Odysseus had lost six men during the attack of the Cicones; had it not been for this loss, then, the crew would have been fifty-two. It is true that Odysseus' particular ship had lost six men to Cyclops as well; but it is likely that Odysseus' ship would have been made up to strength from the other ships after the incident. It is at any rate clear that Odysseus' ship had a crew of about fifty, and that the pentekontor, although Homer does not use the actual word π∊ντηκóντoρoς, was in use at the time of the Trojan War.

This deduction is supported by a Mycenaean vase decorated with a ship, found during the excavation of the Tragana Tholos Tomb at Pylos (Koryphasion) and dated by Furumark to 1230–1100.

Type
Research Article
Information
Greece & Rome , Volume 18 , Issue 54 , October 1949 , pp. 126 - 137
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1949

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References

page 1 note 1 For kind permission to publish photographs I wish to thank the Directors and Curators of the National Museum, Athens, the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, the Hermitage Museum, Leningrad, the National Museum of Archaeology, Madrid, the Museo Civico, Tarquinia, the Louvre, and the British Museum: for photographs I am grateful to Giraudon (pl. 2a-c), Professor Eichler (pl. 3a), Professor Goukovsky (pl. 3b), Dr. Blas Taracena (pl. 3c), Mr. D. Clarke (pl. 4a), Anderson (pl. 4b), and the B.M. Phot. Dept. (pl. 4c). Professor J. S. Morrison has revised the text and I am indebted to him for his help throughout.

page 1 note 2 Odyssey 8. 35.

page 1 note 3 Ibid. 10. 208.

page 1 note 4 Ibid. 9. 60.

page 1 note 5 Mycenaean Pottery, p. 333.

page 3 note 1 I have been confirmed in this conclusion by an article of Chamoux, , Rev. Arch. 1945, i, p. 55.Google Scholar

page 3 note 2 e.g. Chittenden, and Seltman, , Greek Art, pl. 8.Google Scholar

page 3 note 3 Louvre A. 527; a photograph of this fragment is published by Chamoux, op. cit., fig. 9.

page 3 note 4 I am not at all sure whether this second narrow line is decorative or functional.

page 4 note 1 Louvre A. 535.

page 5 note 1 , Nottbohm, Jahrbuch, 1viii, p. 8, fig. 5.Google Scholar

page 5 note 2 , Lane, Greek Pottery, p1. 10b.Google Scholar

page 5 note 3 The ships on the New York krater, Bull. Metr. xxix, p. 170, figs. 1–3, are possibilities.

page 5 note 4 1. 13.

page 5 note 5 Chamoux, op. cit., fig. 7.

page 6 note 1 Iliad 8. 266.

page 6 note 2 J.H.S. xix, p. 198.

page 6 note 3 Aeneid 5. 114.

page 6 note 4 Ath. Mitth. 1893, p. 152.Google Scholar

page 7 note 1 Cook, J. M., B.S.A. xxxv, pls. 40b and 55c.Google Scholar

page 7 note 2 Odyssey 3. 278.

page 7 note 3 ’Aπoλoγıα ωρooκıας, 4.

page 7 note 4 Furtwängler, and Reichhold, , Griechische Vasenmalerei, pl. 13.Google Scholar

page 8 note 1 Lane, , op. cit., pl. 41.Google Scholar

page 8 note 2 Webster, , J.H.S. lix, p. 108.Google Scholar

page 8 note 3 The style of the scenes of battle preparations on the horizontal rim is characteristic of the very end of the sixth century (C.V.A. Madrid, i, pls. 4–7).

page 10 note 1 Cf. Morrison, , C.Q. xli, p. 124Google Scholar, note 4.

page 11 note 1 C.Q. xli, p. 18.

page 12 note 1 1. 13.

page 12 note 2 Beazley, , A.R.V. 177/1.Google Scholar

page 12 note 3 Tarn, , J.H.S. xxv, p. 211Google Scholar, fig. 3; Morrison, , Mariner's Mirror, 27, pl. 1.Google Scholar

page 12 note 4 By the Talos painter: Beazley, op. cit. 845/1; Pfuhl, , Malerei u. ZeichnungGoogle Scholar, fig. 574; Morrison, , op. cit., pl. 3.Google Scholar

page 12 note 5 Morrison, , op. cit.Google Scholar