Carpenter, Rhys - The Greek Penetration of The Black Sea

The Greek Penetration of the Black Sea
Author(s): Rhys Carpenter

Source: American Journal of Archaeology, Vol. 52, No. 1 (Jan. - Mar., 1948), pp. 1-10
Published by: Archaeological Institute of America
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/500547 .
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THE GREEK PENETRATION OF THE BLACK SEA
RHYS CARPENTER
PLATE I
the Black
Sea littoral,
two
important
facts seem
likely
to
emerge:
there was no
pre-
classical
("Mycenaean") penetration
of the
Pontus;
and the classical Greek colonies
in that
region
were founded later than those in the West. At first
glance,
there is no inter-
connection between these two
propositions; yet
it is
possible
to discover a common deterrent
cause which closed the Black Sea to both the Helladic and the
Early
Classical
ships.
That
common cause was the
strength
of the
great Bosporus current,
which carries off the excess
surface water of the Black
Sea, discharged
into it in enormous volume
by
the Danube and
the
great
Russian rivers.' Not until
ships
were
built,
and
put
into efficient
service,
which
were
capable
of an oar-driven
speed
of more than four
knots,
could
any Aegean
vessel
pass
beyond
the Golden Horn.
From the outset of this discussion it should be understood that it was never
possible
to
sail
through
the straits from the
Propontis
to the Euxine. The classical
rig
of a
single
sail
hung square
on a horizontal
yard
did not
permit sailing
close-hauled to the wind or of beat-
ing up against
it. It is of course
possible
for a
square-rigged
vessel to make direct
gains
to
windward
by tacking (though accomplishing markedly
less than a fore-and-aft
rigged
ves-
sel);
but even the
best-equipped
modern
sailboat,
if
carrying
a
square-rig,
would
experience
the utmost
difficulty
in
trying
to work
up through
the
Bosporus against
the
wind,
so that
there is not the
slightest probability
that the ancient
ships,
which "came about" with diffi-
culty
and could not be close-hauled without
spilling
the
wind,
could ever have
negotiated
the
swift-running
stream if the
wind,
as
well,
was adverse.
Indeed,
we have in
Demosthenes2
direct
testimony that,
as late as his
day,
the
sailing-vessels
did not
try
to beat
against
the
wind even in
open
water and with a
steady
breeze. But all summer
long,
the
prevailing
air current draws from the Black Sea into the Sea of
Marmora,
blowing straight
down the
drowned
river-valley
of the
Bosporus;3
and
though
this summer wind
may
be
light
toward
sunset and die
away
at
night,
and
though
there
may
even be entire
days
of calm at this
(as
at
any)
season of the
year,
neither of these factors would be of the
slightest
aid
against
the
steady
current
pouring
out of the Black Sea and
running
at its
strongest during
the
sailing
months of late
spring
and
summer.4
A
powerful
southwest wind of almost
gale force,
1
"The volume of water
discharged by
the Danube
alone is 228 thousand million tons in an
average year,
rising
to 350 of these units in a
very rainy year."
-
The
Black Sea Pilot
(London, published by
the
Hydro-
graphic Department
of the British
Admiralty),
9th
ed., 1942, p. 20,
lines 29 ff.
(Hereinafter,
references to
this standard and authoritative handbook will be to
this edition and will be indicated
by
the initials
BSP.)
If we are to credit the
climatologists,
the
early
cen-
turies of the first millennium B.C. were characterized
by abnormally
wet weather in Central
Europe,
so that
the volume of water
reaching
the Black Sea
(and
con-
sequently
the
speed
of the
Bosporus current)
must
have been even
greater
in
early
classical
antiquity
than
they
are
today.
2
Phil.
i,
32.
3 "It is stated that winds never blow across Kara-
deniz
bogazi (i.e.
the
Bosporus)
in summer."
BSP, p.
6,,
1. 38.
4 "The rate
of
the surface current
flowing
out of the
Black Sea is
naturally greatest during
the season when
the rivers
discharge
the
greatest
volume of
water,
due to the
thawing
of the
snow,
and also when winds
from a
northerly quarter
are
strongest.
Both of these
effects coincide in the late
spring
and
early
summer."
(BSP, p. 22, 11.
9-13.)
The Black Sea itself reaches its
highest
level from June to
July
and its lowest level in
October or November
(BSP, p. 36).
1
2 RHYS CARPENTER
blowing straight up
the
Bosporus channel, would be needed to
pile up
the water in
the
northeast corner of the
Propontis sufficiently
to check the current and at the same
time
drive a
square-rigged
vessel before
it;
and such
gales
do not blow between
early April and
late
September,
when ancient seafarers were
abroad.5
Since conditions made it
impossible
to sail out of the
Propontis
into the Euxine, the
passage
of the
Bosporus depended solely
and
simply
on the
rowing speed
of an ancient
vessel.
Unless this
potential
exceeded four
knots,
there was no
prospect
of
making headway against
a current which exceeded this
speed
in numerous
places
where
sheltering
headlands had
to
be rounded into the full force of the stream.
Despite
the convenient eddies and
counter-
currents which set
along
certain stretches of either
shore,
there is no
way
of
avoiding the
main stream into which these back-drifts of water
invariably
lead. This is so
because, as
the Black Sea Pilot
explains it,
"the surface current . . . is similar in character to that
which
would be
produced by
a
great jet
of
water,
under
high pressure,
directed down the narrow
and
irregular
channels. . . . The main current . ..
generally speaking
. .. takes the shortest
route from
point
to
point,
so
that,
at a
bend,
it sets
strongly
towards the convex
side, and
avoids the
opposite
concave side
altogether.
Thus in
every bay,
whatever its
extent,
there is
an
eddy,
with a countercurrent
flowing
northward
along
the shore . ..
rejoining
the main
current in the
vicinity
of the northern entrance
point
of the
bay."'
And
thus, invariably,
a
ship working
northward in the lee of a
projecting
head will be
caught by
the full force of
the current as it rounds the
point. Discouragingly
for the mariner
approaching
from the Sea
of
Marmora,
the entrance to the
Bosporus brings
him into immediate conflict with the
strongest part
of the current. As it leaves the Black
Sea,
the surface water is
moving
at
less than a
knot;
but at the narrows which are marked
by
the late-medieval castles of
Anadolu and Rumeli
Hissar,
the
speed
has risen above two
knots,
thereafter
mounting
to
three, four,
and even five knots
just
before
reaching
the site of ancient
Byzantium.
Thence
to the
widening
into the Sea of
Marmora,
the main current is still
running
some three to
four
knots;
but the
rapid separation
of the two shores offers
opportunities
to avoid its full
strength. Thus,
in
summary,
it would be true that an oar-driven vessel
capable
of a
speed
of two to three knots could
always
work
up
under shelter from the
prevailing
wind and
current as far as the Golden
Horn,
but could not
pass
thence
up
the narrower channel to
the modern
Therapia.
Once
beyond
the two
castles,
it would be able to
struggle
the rest of
the
way
into the Black
Sea;
but it would never have reached this wider and more
tranquil
stretch since the
stronger
current further down off
Chengel
Kioi would have
stopped
it
short.
Obviously,
the crux of the whole
problem
of the ancient
penetration
of the Euxine is the
speed
of the ancient
ships
when rowed. Could
they
be
propelled
at four knots? and if
so,
at what
period
in
Aegean shipbuilding
was this crucial
speed
attained?
On this
question
there is almost no direct
testimony
from classical
antiquity. August
Kister in his excellent
monograph
Das antike
Seewesen
is able to
quote abundant evidence
to show that a
sailing speed of four to five knots was
frequently attained, and even main-
tained for
days at a time; but he cites
only two
passages
to illustrate the
probable speed of
oar-driven
vessels, concluding
that triremes
(which were
specifically built to be
rowed) oc-
5
See the table of wind velocities and directions for
Istanbul, BSP, p. 72,
and
cf. p. 61,
11. 39
ff.,
"In
winter,
from October to
March, ... the
north-easterly
winds
are often
interrupted by
winds from directions be-
tween south-east or south and west.. .. These
southerly
winds .. are
usually strong
and
squally,
and
may
sometimes reach
gale
force." On the other
hand, (p. 62, 11.
44
f.) "April
and
May
are transition
months, with
prevailing north-easterly
winds."
6
BSP, p. 21, 11.
5 ff.
THE GREEK PENETRATION OF THE BLACK SEA 3
casionally
attained a five-knot
speed
or
higher.7
As it cannot be doubted that Greek tri-
remes
penetrated
the
Pontus,
this is
precisely
the verdict we
require;
but it throws no
light
on conditions before such
high-powered
craft were in use. Our
problem
must be solved
by
way
of a more
general understanding
of the
types
of
ships
which the
Aegean people
con-
structed and utilized in
antiquity.
Since
palaeolithic
man seems not to have built
ships
or ventured out on the sea, the
Aegean
islands remained uninhabited for hundreds of centuries until, perhaps
some six
thousand
years ago,
the westward
spread
of the neolithic culture at last
brought
them their
first human settlers.
Presumably,
these
early immigrants
moved themselves and their ani-
mals and other
possessions
out to the islands on rafts or
floats,
which
they paddled
down the
southwesterly
drift of the
prevailing
summer wind. In time, from this
experimentary
navi-
gation
a distinctive
type
of
Aegean ship
was
evolved, markedly
unlike the river craft in
use on the
Nile, though
somewhat reminiscent of a
type appearing
on
Early Mesopotamian
(Sumerian) seal-stones,
and hence
possibly inspired by
this distant source. A reasonable
guess
would be that the flat raft was fitted with a central mast on which a
square
sail could
??,~'?~
CI~;?
?'~ ??
Z ?.??~
,?li
r ''
t0: .
,.O C' ,s;~;
..
,,...
rr .? ~z
C' ??. ~,E':
II
?(
r:
'"I~~ tf~
~.-(??
;n~v Ir~t'C!
'I
I (( ?) * .(
?r
FIG. 1. MYCENAEAN SHIP ON A VASE FROM PYLOS.
(Kdster, fig. 18)
be
hung,
and a raised
platform
on
upright posts
was erected astern to
keep
the
skipper
and
his
possessions dry,-in short,
precisely
the sort of craft which
Odysseus
built8
to
escape
from
Kalypso's
isle
(for which,
it should be noted in
passing,
there is
nothing
but modern
commentators' wilfulness to make us
imagine
that the raised
platform
extended over the
entire
raft). Experience
should also have
suggested
the
utility
of a
wave-guard
at the
front,
leading
to the
construction,
not of a
cutwater,
much less a
bowsprit,
but rather a raised
splashboard
at the
prow.
Some sort of bulwark or rail
along
the sides would be an
equally
obvious
expedient.
But the crucial
step,
which would convert such a
drifting
float into a
true
ship,
would be the substitution of a curved hull
(curved
crosswise to the
ship,
I
mean,
since
lengthwise
to the
ship
the keel would be a
single straight timber),
in
place
of the
uniformly
flat
platform flooring
of the
primitive
raft. The result would be the
peculiar
craft,
lying
low and broad on the water
amidships,
with a
raking
bow- and
stern-piece
at either
end,
cocked at an
abrupt angle
to the
hull,
which we see
crudely portrayed
on
prehistoric
Cycladic
ware and more
intelligibly depicted
on a Late Helladic III
vase from
Pylos,
re-
produced by
Koister and here shown as
Figure
1. Such a craft would have had a
single long
timber for its
keel;
and
this,
for
safety's
sake as a sort of buffer amid reefs and
shoals,
7
"Ueber die
Leistungen
der Trieren sind uns Uber-
haupt
nur
wenige
und unbestimmte Nachrichten aus
dem Altertum Uberkommen. So weit wir danach ur-
teilen
k6nnen,
wurde in einzelnen Fallen eine Fahrt
von 5 Knoten und
dariber
erreicht,
doch wird man in
der
Regel
darunter
geblieben
sein."
Op. cit., (1st. ed.,
1923) p.
125.
s
Od.
v, 243-260.
4 RHYS CARPENTER
could be allowed to
project
out
beyond
the bow
splashboard, making
a
protecting
nose
at
the
water-line,
destined to become in time the ram of the classical
war-ship.
With such
a
protruding
snout
(carved
in the
fully developed
norm to resemble an animal's
head, most
frequently
a
boar),
the ancient
ship
could not well be run
up
on a beach or
shingle,
but
would have to be moored with its stern to
shore,
the
high raking overhang
of the
stern
offering
a
highly
convenient method of descent
dryshod by
means of a
landing-ladder, such
as is so often shown lashed near the
steering-oar
in classical
vase-pictures.9
Since the
vessel
was
primarily
intended for
sailing,
and had to
proceed pretty directly
downwind or at
any
.~
~~Z~c~ cr"i ~
lf~T i ----.~.???
C,3~8 "
~ \~:~ea! r~
~?.
~- ?
\ 'I t? I
'` ' ;'
r.;.c~ti
~-~,~%h~l~~\~*?~'~'~7 :~n~a \ r\.n ~--,
~31 Ci
--a r.
~C~L3~~
--
FIG. 2. IVORY RELIEF FROM THE SANCTUARY OF ARTEMIS ORTHIA.
rate with the wind on the stern
quarter, protection against
the waves was needed
mainly
at
bow and
stern,
while
amidships
the waist could be
kept low,
with
only
a
light gunwale
and
rail;
and it was
here,
between
gunwale
and
rail, that oars could be
attached,
supplanting
the detached
paddles
of more
primitive
times. But with or without
oars,
such a
ship,
we
must
insist,
was
always
intended
primarily
for
sailing
and would make its best
speed only
under sail-
~ Xu~yvsoVpos
E.WL7FElO'U)
67L0'EZ.
Rowing
was
always very
much a
8ErTEpos
'rXois,
often unavoidable for
manoeuvring
in
harbor
and,
under
grim inecessity,
for
working against
an adverse wind into some lee shelter.
It is
perhaps presumptuous
to condemn this as a
poor type
of vessel. Devised for
Aegean
traffic,
it no doubt met
Aegean needs;
but it must have been
nigh
worthless when the course
deviated more than
sixty degrees
from a
tail-wind;
and
though
it
may
have steered
easily,
it must have drifted
badly.
Such as it
was, however, this
Aegean sailing-vessel
was
perpetu-
ated with unbroken
continuity
and
very
little
organic change
from late neolithic into his-
torical times.
From this latter
period
we have almost
innumerable
representations
to confirm the
pre-
9 Though
the need for such an
operation
has
long
since
vanished,
modern Greek
fishing-boats
still dock
stern-first,
even as
they
still brail their canvas to the
yard
instead of
lowering
it to the deck. When
ques-
tioned,
the
modern navigators
will
justify
their
pro-
cedure with various
explanations,
such as that it is
easier to unload
cargo
over the stern or
that,
with the
sails
ready
furled at the hoisted
yard, they
can sooner
catch the fitful offshore
morning
breeze and run out of
harbor down the
wind;
but I
imagine
that the real
explanation
is
merely
the
tenacity
of immemorial
custom. In the familiar
ivory
relief from the Artemis
Orthia
sanctuary
at
Sparta (fig. 2)
the woman is
ap-
parently standing
on
land, against
which the vessel's
stern is moored. The moment is
probably departure
rather than arrival, so that the sail is
being
lowered
rather than furled.
ceding description, beginning
with Attic
black-figure
and
red-figure
vases and
continuing
down to
imperial
Roman mosaics and marble
reliefs, coins,
and
gems.
More than a thousand
years
after the
type
was
established,
the Roman merchantman will often still show the same
single
mast set
deep amidship,
the
square rig
without a boom to
spread
the
sail,
the
straight
hull,
the
raking
bow and stern with elevated
quarter-decks,
and the low waist. But to confine
ourselves to the
early
classical
period,
the
sixth-century
Attic
black-figure vase-drawing
(pl. I, A)
illustrates the
projecting
nose of the
keel,
the
splashboard
at the
bow, probably
masking
a lookout's
quarter-deck,
the
single
mast set
amidship,
and the
single
sail
square-
rigged
to a
long yard,
each arm of which is
stayed
with four lines. There is no boom and in
consequence
the sail bellies
badly.
In the
exquisite composition
in
pl
I,
B,
the same details
may
be
observed, but,
in
addition,
a rather better
integration
of the
upward sweep
of the
stern with the
straight
underline of the hull. There are semicircular notches in the
gunwale,
just
beneath the rail. These are for oars
and,
if their indication is to be taken
literally,
there
is room for seven on a side. As this chances also to be the number of blades
hanging
at
the tholes in the
diverting black-figure drawing
in
pl. I,
c (the ship
is in full career with sail
set,
and the crew are
conversing,
not
rowing),
this
may
be some indication of the oar
power
of the normal
sailing
vessel. It is not a
very
hazardous
prediction
that
ships
such as these
could
develop only
a
very
indifferent
speed
when
propelled by
their oars alone and
hence
would not have been able to
cope
with the
Bosporus
current. As
long
as this was the best
available
craft, seeing
that it was
impossible
either
by sailing
or
by rowing
to drive it
through
the
winding
barrier of
adversely moving water,
the Pontus remained mare clausum
to
Aegean
mariners.
Not so the Sea of Marmora. In
spite
of the obstacle
presented by
the
"swift-flowing
Hellespont,"
it was an easier task to run the Dardanelles than the
Bosporus.
To be
sure,
the same volume of water must
pass through
both
straits,
since the loss
by evaporation
in
the
Propontis
is
replaced by
rainfall and the occasional short rivers
emptying
into that
closely
landlocked sea. But the Dardanelles
passage
is at least twice as wide as the Bos-
porus,10
so that the force of the current is
correspondingly
less.
According
to the estimate
of the Black Sea Pilot
(p. 22),
"the
average
maximum rate of the current in Canakkale
bogazi (sc. Dardanelles),
under normal
conditions,
is from
21
to 3 knots in and southward
of the
Narrows;
this rate increases to 5 knots under abnormal conditions. The
corresponding
rate in the narrower Karadeniz
bogazi (sc. Bosporus)
is from 4 to
5 knots from the
palace
of
Beyler Beyi
towards Vani
Kioi, rising,
in abnormal
conditions,
to 7 knots between Rumeli
burnu and Anadolu
Hisari,
where the current is known as the Devil's current." In
addition,
the conformation of the land makes it
possible
for a
ship,
once out of the
Aegean
and
past
the
point
of
Kumkale,
behind which the Skamander
empties,
to work
up along
the Asiatic
shore without
encountering
the full force of the current
except
in
rounding
the
points
and
with even some occasional help from eddies and countercurrents. But just below the Nar-
rows the full force of the current will be felt and there is no alternative but to work out into
midstream and
struggle
for the easier water in the broader reaches above.
It would seem, therefore, that a
ship which could move under oars at more than
9
knots
might always,
if not
pressed for time and if
prepared
to wait for favorable conditions of
wind and weather, reach the Sea of Marmora from the
Aegean. But this same
ship
could
10
The
Hellespont
has an
average
width of 3-4 miles
with a minimum of
approximately 1 mile at the
Narrows near the ancient Sestos and
Abydos,
where
Xerxes'
bridge
was built. The
corresponding figures
for
the
Bosporus give
a maximum width of Q- miles,
a
minimum of
?
mile. The
depths
in the two water-
courses are
approximately
the same.
6 RHYS CARPENTER
not
penetrate beyond
into the Black Sea unless it could
step up
its
speed
to
nearly twice
the crucial
figure.
When laden with
cargo,
the
ships
would lie lower in the water and hence
be firmer in the
grip
of the
current,
beside
being
harder to
propel.
It
might, therefore, easily
happen that,
even in
prehistoric
times, light
craft
might
have
passed
into the
Propontis,
while commerce in heavier
ships
would still have remained
impractical.
The
history
of
Troy,
in so far as
archaeological exploration
has established it, would
suggest
that the "merchantmen" of the second and
early
third millennia found the current
running through
the
Hellespont
too formidable for them. For it is difficult to believe that
any
fortified
stronghold
such as stood on
Hissarlik,
an hour's
journey
inland from the
Aegean
entrance to the
straits,
could have
grown
rich on
passing commerce, had that com-
merce
really
been able to
pass. Troy's
existence would
hardly
have been
tolerated,
had it
merely preyed
on
shipping by exacting
toll without
rendering
further
service;
and
though
it
may
be
objected
that Homer's
siege
of
Troy proves precisely
that Greece did not tolerate
its continued
existence,
but combined to
destroy it,
the
archaeological
record shows that
Troy
endured and
prospered
over a
great many
centuries. No matter how well fortified,
such a
piratical enterprise
could have been rendered
impotent by destroying
the
Trojan
ships,
since without
ships
it could not have
intercepted
sea-borne trade"- unless the Hel-
lespont
itself was
impassable.
In the latter
event, Troy
would have
occupied
a
position
exactly comparable
to that of
Corinth,
in control of the
portaging
between two bodies of
water. Land-borne
traffic, moving
north and south between the two
continents,
would
scarcely
have
passed Troy
since it would have avoided the
long
detour
along
the
Gallipoli
peninsula (the
Thracian
Chersonese) by crossing
the narrow western mouth of the Pro-
pontis, many
miles to the east. Nor was
Troy
a useful roadhead for
Aegean
trade with the
Anatolian hinterland. We must conclude that her
prosperity depended
on the
impractica-
bility
of the
Hellespont
and that this
persisted through
Late Helladic times.
By
the same
token,
the absence of
any important
classical settlement on or near the
site,
until the rather
artificial
founding
of Hellenistic Alexandria Troas and Roman
Ilium,
should be
eloquent
testimony
that the
necessity
for
trans-shipping by
overland
portage
had
passed.
The Greek
merchantmen were
outspeeding
the current and
carrying
their
cargoes
in and out of the
Sea of Marmora in their own bottoms.
It is a
problem
of extreme
nicety
to determine the date at which this fundamental
change
occurred in the
economy
of the
Propontis;
but it would be safe to
say
that it should
syn-
chronise
pretty closely
with the
Ionian
founding
of
Cyzicus.
Earlier than
that,
even if
high-
walled
Troy
was
standing
abandoned and
slowly disintegrating,
this would not in itself be
proof
that the
Aegean ships
were
already running
the
Dardanelles,
since there
may
not
have been
any
trade
moving
in that
region
at the time.
Thucydides' brilliantly apt
charac-
terization of a
preceding period
when the Greeks were "without
commerce,
without freedom
of communications either
by
land or
by sea, cultivating
no more of their
territory
than the
exigencies of life
required"
and "neither built
large towns nor attained to
any
other form
of
greatness," must be understood to
apply
to the Geometric
Age, especially
as he
specifi-
cally links it with a
period
of
migrations. Indeed, it was the
re-awakening
of commerce
attendant on the "Oriental" contact, and the
dissipation
of
stagnant European
"neolithic"
type
of culture of the
Early
Iron
Age, which
brought the Greeks once more out on the
Mediterranean and stimulated them to build new and better
ships. Thucydides
is
again
our
best source of information on this advance. A little later in the same
introductory chapter
to his
history
he relates how
11
And it is at least worth
remarking
in
passing
that the Iliad nowhere
pretends
that the
Trojans
had
any
ships.
as the
power
of Hellas
grew
and the
acquisition
of wealth became more an
objective, tyrannies were
rather
generally
established from these increased revenues . .. and Hellas
began
to fit out fleets
and
apply
herself more
closely
to the seas. It is said that the Corinthians were the first to
approximate the
modern
style
of
shipbuilding,
and that Corinth was the first
place
in Greece where triremes were
con-
structed. It seems that
Ameinokles,
a Corinthian
shipwright,
built four
ships
for the Samians
(and
it is
just
about three hundred
years
to the end of the
present
war from the time when
Ameinokles
went to
Samos).
The revolution in
shipbuilding
thus
belongs (according
to
Thucydides' testimony)
to the
early
seventh
century during
the turn of what we call the
Orientalising
to the
proto-archaic
period.
The
only misunderstanding
seems to be that
Thucydides apparently
identifies
the
technical advance with the invention of the
trireme,
which leads him into a
quandary through
having
to admit that in the time of
Polykrates
of Samos and the Phokaian foundation
of
Marseilles
"although
so
many generations
had
elapsed
since the
Trojan war,
the navies
seem to have been
principally composed
of the old
fifty-oared
and
long-boats
and to have
counted few triremes
among
them." Yet if Ameinokles had been called to Samos in
ca.
700
B.c.
in order to build
triremes,
is it not inevitable
that, 150
years later,
the Samian
naval
power
of
Polykrates
would have been based
mainly
on
triremes,
as all Greek
seapower
was to be within a
century
thereafter?
The source of
Thucydides' misapprehension
is
easy
to discover.
Though
he is aware that
Homer was "born
long
after the
Trojan war,"
he cannot
altogether escape (any
more than
so
many
modern
critics)
the
fallacy
of
identifying
the
poet
with his
subject
matter. Unaware
how
culturally
anachronistic the Homeric
epics
are and how little
they
can be relied
upon
as evidence for the
Age
of
Mycenae,
he
naturally
believes that the Achaeans came to
Troy
in
fifty-oared ships capable
of
transporting (oarsmen included)
120 warriors in a
single ship,
even as the
Catalog
in Iliad B relates. But the
fifty-oared long-boats
manned
by
Achilles'
Myrmidons
in the Iliad and
by Odysseus' companions
in the
Odyssey
are not
Mycenaean
vessels,
but the
ships
of Homer's own
day. Accordingly,
it is
entirely
irrelevant whether or
not triremes were first built in Corinth: in Ameinokles'
day they
had not
yet
been
thought
of,
and he was summoned to Samos to demonstrate some
wholly
different
product
of his
skill. What
novelty
he could have
produced
for the Samians close to 700
B.c.,
we
may
dis-
cover
by consulting
the
contemporary drawings
on Attic
Dipylon vases'2
and similar ma-
terial from the close of the Geometric
period (pl. I, D,
E).
If we will but
properly
steel our-
selves
against using
Homer as evidence for
Mycenaean
or
sub-Mycenaean times,
it will be
obvious that the
great
innovation of Ameinokles'
day
was the
fifty-oared long-boat.
With 25 rowers on either side and a raised
quarter-deck
fore and
aft,
the new
ships
must
have had an overall
length
of more than 100 feet.
Despite
the
poetical
tradition of the tall
oak of Dodona which became the
Argo's keel,
it is
extremely unlikely
that the keel of these
pentekonters could
any longer be hewn from a
single tree, but was
spliced
of several timbers
end-to-end, with
possibly
all the
complications of strakes and keelson and
stepping-pieces
of a modern
sailing-ship. There must have been
properly curved ribs to
spread the hull and
give room for the rowers'
benches, which would be morticed into these ribs below the rail
as horizontal
braces, crosswise to the
ship. Some sort of
deck-perhaps little more than a
gangplank between the rowers
-
acted as
lengthwise reinforcement. These are
only the most
obvious elements. With
everything else
involved, the construction of a
pentekonter de-
manded the mature
craftsmanship
of
experienced shipwrights and
represented a
great
achievement in the
history
of
ship-building.
It
gave ample scope
for an Ameinokles.
The
underlying motive for the creation of the pentekonter was
only secondarily increase
12
Kister, op. cit., pls.
21-28.
8 RHYS CARPENTER
of
speed. Primarily,
it was
escape
from the
tyranny
of the
winds,
on whose
blowing
from the
proper quarter
the
sailing-ships
had
perforce
to wait. Had Menelaus
(in
the fourth book of
the
Odyssey)
been
captain
of a
pentekonter,
he could have rowed home from
Egypt
instead
of
biding helpless
off the Delta on the Isle of Seals while for
twenty days
"there
appeared
no
sea-breathing winds,
which are the
speeders
of
ships
across the wide backs
of
the sea."
The new
longboats were, accordingly,
not
specifically war-ships
in intent. When
Thucydides
records
(i, 13)
that "the earliest
sea-fight
in
history
took
place
between the Corinthians and
Corcyraeans
about 260
years ago," (sc.
665
B.C.),
it
may
well be that this was the first
deliberate hostile encounter between
pentekonters;13
but this would not in the least
prove
that
pentekonters
were invented as
fighting-ships.
The
Aristonophos
vase
(pl. I, F)
shows
us that an
engagement
could be
fought
on the water with
any type
of craft.
Similarly,
when
Herodotus records of the Asia Minor Phokaians that
"they
were the first of the Greeks to
accomplish long sea-voyages, showing
the
way
to the Adriatic and Etruria and
Spain
and
Tartessos,
not in round
ships
but in
pentekonters,"14
the
point
is not that the merchants of
Phokaia discovered that
they
could
carry
on trade
by employing
men-of-war for commercial
ends,
but
merely
that
they
were the first to avail themselves of the
vastly
increased
cruising
range
of the new
type
of vessel and ventured to take them out into hitherto untravelled
waters. Since the
period
of this Phokaian
enterprise
must be set near the middle of the
seventh
century,
it is clear that this evidence
admirably supports
the thesis that
pente-
konters were not
being
built until the
opening
of this same
century. Incidentally,
it
po-
tently suggests
that the Nostoi of
Odysseus
reflect this same
penetration
of the far western
Mediterranean
by
means of these same
ships
and that at least this element of the
Odyssey
should
belong
to the second half of the seventh
century
B.C.
The
discovery
of the
seaway
westward from
Italy
across the Sardinian Sea to the Balearic
Islands and the southeast coast of
Spain,
and thence to the Andalusian metal-land of
Tartessos
beyond
the Gibraltar
Strait,
was
hardly
more sensational than the
opening
of
new waters on the eastern horizon. While Phokaia steered her
pentekonters
toward the
sunset,
Miletos was able to send her
ships
toward the sunrise into the hitherto untravelled
sea. For the first time in the
history
of
Aegean seamanship, ships
were
being
built and
manned to
go
where the steersman rather than the wind decided and to travel faster than
the
great
stream which
poured ceaselessly
into the Mediterranean
through
the
Bosporus,
Propontis,
and
Hellespont.
It was
easy
now to
pass Troy
and
Abydos
and cruise the Marmora Sea.
Hitherto,
if a
ship
waited hove-to under the shelter of Tenedos or hauled
up
stern-first on the mainland
beaches below the mouth of the
straits,
there
might
come a sudden favorable blow from the
southwest or the
south, pushing
back the
Aegean
to slow the current of the
Hellespont
and
carrying
a
ship safely through
into the slower water of the
Propontis, the shores of which,
long populated with Thracian
villages, could
scarcely
have been
entirely
unfamiliar to the
Greeks, however
rarely visited
by
their
ships.
But now, with
fifty oarsmen
"sitting
well in
order to smite the
grey sea,"
the
2l-knot
current in the mid-stream of the Narrows was
13
Surely,
not triremes!
"Indeed,
it was
only shortly
before the Persian war that the Sicilian
tyrants
and
the
Corcyraeans acquired any quantity
of
triremes;
until
Xerxes, there were no navies of account in
Greece:
Aegina, Athens,
and others
may
have
pos-
sessed a few
vessels,
but
they
were
principally fifty-
oars..,
.and even these vessels had not
complete
decks," Thucyd. i,
14.
14 Hdt.
i,
163.
only
an
inconvenience,
no
longer
a barrier. The
Propontis
was
open
for the Greeks to
come
and
go
as
they
chose. What of the Euxine
beyond?
The Greek colonies
along
the shores of the Sea of
Marmora,-Parion,
Lampsakos,
Perinthos, Selymbria, Kyzikos,
Chalkedon, Byzantium,
- must all have been founded
after
700 B.c. and most of them within a few
years
of each other, around the turn of the
second
quarter
of the
century.
There is little
probability
that Chalkedon, the
"City
of the Blind"
at modern
Kadikeui,
was established for
any
other reason than its
advantageous position
as a
starting-point
for the
passage through
the
Bosporus.
Could we be sure of its foundation
date,
we should have a reliable indication of the exact time when the Greeks first
learned
what
lay beyond
the swift salt river which had hitherto balked further
progress
at
the
farther end of the
Propontis.
Just
opposite,
on the Golden
Horn, Byzantium
seems to have
been founded as a rival station in 657
B.c.
in so
obviously superior
a location that it is safe
to
argue
that it did not succeed Kalchedon
by
more than a decade or two. For an
approxi-
mately
accurate
date, therefore,
the
years just
before or
just
after 680
B.c.
must be our
choice for the sensational event which was to become so
mighty
in
legend,
- the first
passing
of a Greek
ship
into the Black Sea.
There
are,
of
course,
no
Symplegades,
no
narrowing passage through enclosing cliffs,
in
or near the
Bosporus;
and the low
islands,
little
higher
than
washing reefs,
which
antiquity
identified as the
Cyanean
Rocks,
will disillusion
any
seeker for
geologic verity
behind the
legendary
marvel of the
Clashing
Rocks. Nor is it a commendable
(however
euhemeristic)
explanation
to
point
out that in almost
every language
men
may speak
of a tortuous
valley
as
opening
before them and
closing
behind. The truth of the matter must be that the
moving
portal
of
rock,
which
ceaselessly opens
and
shuts,
and
clips
the tail-feathers from the bird
that flies
through,
is
fairy-tale
much older than the Greek
navigation
of the
Bosporus.
The
adventure is
equally adaptable
to travel on land and need not have been invented
by
a
maritime
people; through
its
perilous opening,
on foot or on horse or in
boat,
the hero must
fare in
quest
of the maiden-no matter what
hero,
no matter what maiden. There is no
guessing
how old such a
story may be,
or whether its true
significance
is not the same as the
gate
of the Dead
through
which souls
pass
to the underworld. As a localised
legend
of the
Bosporus,
it could not have been recounted
by
Greeks until the seventh
century
was well
on its
way.
In the twelfth book of the
Odyssey,
Circe in
rehearsing
the
coming
hazards of
Odysseus'
homeward
voyage speaks
of
Plagktai, Splashing
Rocks,15
a sheer
cliff past
which neither
bird nor
ship
can fare because of the
beating surge
and the
fiery gusts,
-
"save
only Argo,
which
passed
from Aietes
faring;
and her too would it have cast
against
the
great rocks,
had not
Hera,
for love of
Jason, given
her escort." Even as the beautiful witch
foretold,
when
Odysseus' ship
had
passed
the Sirens'
isle,
"straightway
I saw
spume
and a
huge
wave
and heard a
crashing," says Odysseus;
but he avoided the hazard
by bidding
his
steersman
"keep the
ship outside of the smoke of the surf and
try
for the
crag" beneath which
Scylla
waited in the
passage. By
the time that the tale of the
Argonauts had taken
epic form, the
roaring lee-cliffs and the alternate
path through the
perilous strait had coalesced into a
single adventure. And an
expedition, whose
objective might conceivably have once been
the
Egyptian gold at the end of the
long sea-journey
to
Okeanos-Nile, was now re-identified
in terms of the
only achievement of Mediterranean
seamanship which bore it the
slightest
resemblance -
the successful
opening
of the
winding fairway
of the
Bosporus, which
through
all
preceding time had refused to let
ships through. At least, such an identification was no
'1 So
correctly interpreted by
a scholium on Od.
xii,
61.
10 RHYS CARPENTER
worse
(and perhaps considerably better)
than the late classical insistence that the harmless
strait of
Messina,
which even routed soldiers could
swim,
was the dreadful
passage,
a bow-
shot
wide,
where
Scylla
fished and
Charybdis
"thrice in the
day"
belched
up
the dark water
"so that all the sea boils like a cauldron over a
great
fire and the
spray
is thrown
high
over
both the headlands" and
again,
thrice a
day,
sucked the salt water down till the
sea-bottom,
"black with
sand,"
was laid bare.
It is characteristic of the veristic behaviour of Greek
epic
that the
fairy-tale
of
Argo's
passage
between the
Symplegades
was so
punctiliously
localised in
after-days
that the latest
writer in the
great tradition, Apollonios
the
Rhodian,
chronicled the entire
voyage
from the
Gulf of
Volo, by way
of
Lemnos,
the
Dardanelles,
the Sea of
Marmora,
the
Bosporus,
and
the Turkish shore of the Black
Sea,
all the
long way
to the Rion river below the southern
slopes
of the
Caucasus,
with a
geographic
detail almost as
precise
as that of an ancient
Periplous
or our own Black Sea Pilot.
HIerein
is some measure of the
great impression
made
upon popular
Greek
memory by
the
report,
first current
among
the
Ionian
sea-towns about
the
year
680
B.C.,
that an
Ionian
pentekonter
had surmounted the
impassable Bosporus
current and climbed to the horizon of the
great
sea
beyond.
BRYN MAWR COLLEGE RHYS CARPENTER
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Carpenter, Rhys - The Greek Penetration of The Black Sea

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