Arms and Armor: Let's Talk About Triremes

Apology/Preface: This is very late, and I am very sorry. I will try to have another post ready on time tomorrow! But now, on the what you're really here for: Triremes!

Possibly one of the most iconic Greek war assets was the Trireme: long, thin ships built for ramming. They had sails for cruising, but were actually operated in battle by 170 oarsmen – you heard me, 170 oarsmen - in three tiers. They had named ranks, with the thranites on top, zygians in the middle, and thalamians at the bottom. They sat on small seats, not benches, and were packed in so tightly that “Each seat was level with the shoulders of the oarsmen below” (31). The ships were fast, maneuverable, and equipped with a bronze-covered ram at the prow built specifically for breaching enemy hulls. The one pictured, on the reconstructed ship the Olympias, weighs 440lb (200kg).

As though that wasn’t a large number to accommodate already, there were also around thirty other crewmen, including marine hoplites (those fellows you see forming phalanxes, named for the shield they carry, which is round and called either an aspis or a hoplon) and archers, as well as a helmsman to work the tillers; there were two tillers, and they were normally operated by the same person. On triremes “There was room to carry only a few basic supplies and insufficient space for the whole crew to sleep on board” (30), so the solution to fitting all those people was simply to overcrowd them.

However, all the oarsmen were free citizens, people who had chosen the work and were compensated for it based on their seat. For example, the thranites had the toughest job because of the angle their oars entered the sea, so they enjoyed higher pay.

And it makes sense, in a way, for the free citizens of Greece to want to row for a trireme – Greece was famous for its navy, and it’s not difficult to understand why:

“In action, a trireme with a skilled helmsman and a disciplined crew could ram an enemy vessel or ride over its oars, then reverse and leave it crippled in the water. If its own hull was holed, a trireme would not sink because it was made from buoyant wood such as pine, poplar, or fir.” (30, emphasis added)

In short, the Greeks had a navy that could mess up your navy and sail away from it, even if they’d suffered what would, to other ships, be considered serious damage. And that is pretty badass.

I am currently reading Military History: The Definitive Visual Guide to the Objects of Warfare, with senior editor Gareth Jones and published by DK Publishing with the cooperation of the Smithsonian, ISBN 978-0-7566-9838-6. In case you wondered where this information was coming from. 

Photos of the Olympias found through Google at http://www.hellenicnavy.gr/images/history/triiris/TRIHR005.jpg
http://www.abc.se/~pa/bld/img/olympram.jpg

Going Back

Going through your old things has a way of getting to you, one way or another.

That’s jumping ahead a bit, but there really isn’t any way to begin this story, except, perhaps, before I was born.

When my mom was a teenager, she made friends with two young men. I don’t have strictest permission to write about them publicly, so we’ll call them G and B. They were a couple, and they became fast friends with my mom, her siblings, and the rest of the family. I don’t remember any details of how they met, or where, or how they became so close: it was always just a simple fact that G and B were part of the family and always had been. They were there before my mom went to college, where she met my dad; they were there for both my parents when my dad got in the car accident that took most of his right arm; they were at my parent’s wedding; and they were part of every major family function for as long as I can remember. Every Christmas Eve my mom’s side of the family comes over and we have too much food, too much to drink, generally make merry nuisances of ourselves, and have a gift exchange.

All of this is important because one of them, B, can now only attend in spirit. We honestly think that he does, but that’s a different story. It’s important here because of another reason.

Over the last weekend, I graduated from Western Washington University and, true to my role as a member of the boomerang generation, have moved back into my parent’s house until I can get my feet under me. Moving is an insane process, especially when you’ve been splitting time between two locations and have acquired detritus in both (I come from a long line of pack rats); after coming back there was literally no floor space left in my room, and half the garage was incapacitated. My first reaction was to tear my room apart and get rid of everything I knew could have a better home elsewhere.

The process is still in motion, but while cleaning I came across something I didn’t remember: a blue metal gift box with a gold ribbon. Inside was a gift from B from years ago, an antique beaded purse with the figure of a man, possibly a soldier, astride a horse. There was a note underneath it. B wrote to me about how, when he was a kid, he enjoyed making beaded jewelry. His grandmother noticed this, and, being the dedicated auction-goer she was, bought the purse and brought it to him. She thought he could take it apart to use the beads. He wrote that he “didn’t have the heart to cut it up.” I am so glad that he didn’t, not because I love the purse (though I do), but because if he had, the note wouldn’t have existed, waiting for me to find it.

In loving memory of B, 1945-2011

Paris is Burning

I must ask for your forgiveness, world at large! I am presenting my reviews out of order. Fie and for shame!

Paris is Burning is a documentary I encountered through my English 227 class. Directed by Jennie Livingston and released in 1990, it chronicles the lives of New York's underclass of the late 1980s, namely the attendees of 'Balls' - events some of us might argue could be called Drag Shows. The film has received twelve very well-deserved awards, and is considered one of Miramax Films' earliest successes.

I think my favorite part of this documentary is that it presents the viewer with vocabulary - words like House, Reading, Shade, Voguing, and Mopping - and educates the viewer not only through explanations offered by the Ball-goers, but through demonstration. My second favorite part is that it represents so totally and unabashedly a slice of life which is so often swept under the carpet, and not just in the sense that it deals with people who have sexual, gender, or image identities which are counter to what is considered socially "normative." It also has a lot of statements to make about oppression based on other forms of identity, especially race. The quote that honestly stuck with me the most throughout the whole film speaks to all of the above. The shot, I recall, was of a young man standing on the sidewalk in the pseudo-night of New York city, and he said: "I remember my dad - he'd say you have three strikes against you in this world. Every black man has two - that they are black and they are male. But you're a black and you're a male and you're gay.... If you're gonna do this, you're gonna have to be stronger than you ever imagined." Something in those words, for me, epitomized the struggles prevalent in the whole film. Not even in the specifics of it, just in that simple phrase, "You're gonna have to be stronger than you ever imagined."

It's a wonderful piece of work. I would love to own it, to see it again, to talk to scores of people about it and get their thoughts. It made me want to go to New York and see what I can, two decades later, and sort through the city for traces of that culture.

Interested? Check it out!
IMDb
Wiki