Lloyd Triremes and the Saite Navy

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Egypt Exploration Society

Triremes and the Sate NavyAuthor(s): Alan B. LloydSource: The Journal of Egyptian Archaeology, Vol. 58 (Aug., 1972), pp. 268-279Published by: Egypt Exploration SocietyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3856256

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TRIREMES AND THE SAITE NAVYBy ALAN B. LLOYD

IN Herodotus' discussion of the reign of Necho (610-595 B.C.)we read the followingstatement:I1uavadFLevos8E Tr]s StapvXos o N?KCSS TpdaTTEToTrpo arpaT7ilas., Kal rpLqJpeES t pLeVTC rrj RoprfqitOacdaccro o'7Orlaav at 8' ev rco Apa/Bt KO'ATcom) T 'EpvOpnjOaAdaar, v stL oLoXAKOiat S&rjAo&.Kat avrrlaLe eXpa7O E TC sOVTr . . .Whenhe had desisted romthe canalNechoturnedhis attention o military ampaigns,ndtriremes ereconstructed,ome ortheMediterraneanndothersn theRedSea foroperationsntheErythrian cean.2 heslipways fthe latterarestillto beseen.Andtheseshipsheputto usewhen heneedarose ..This passagecreatesa strong impressionthat the Saiteswere getting assistance fromthe Greeksin navalmattersand that the copiously documentedemploymentof Greekmilitaryexpertise in their armywas but one aspect of a more generaldependence,butthis conclusion has proved distinctly unpalatablein many quarters. De Meulenaerewrites, 'On the basis of the word rpTjpeEs in Herodotus Drioton and Vandiertake theview (L'tgypte, pp. 554-5) that the Saite navy was of Greek origin and was probablyfor the most part manned by foreigners; this seems to us very doubtful' and 'By therptqpeES mentioned by Herodotus we should doubtless understand kbnt-ships, a typeencountered as early as the 6th Dynasty; they were large sea-going vessels which inthe Saite and Ptolemaic Periods were also used as warships'.3M. .Austin adopts asimilarly sceptical attitude. 'From the fact that Herodotus (2. I59) speaksof Necho ashavinga fleet of "triremes", t is veryoften assumed that Greeksalso helped to developthe Egyptian fleet.... But Greek sources never state this .. '4 For these writers theword TrpLep?Es s a careless, anachronistic slip, the merest assumptionlike the 6tXavaland iron tools, which, accordingto Herodotus, the Egyptianshad used in building theGreat Pyramid.5Despite this scepticism we believe that the obvious interpretation scorrect. Since, however, many would presumablybe perfectly preparedto accept that

2. I59. I.2 ApadftosKoATross used by Hdt. when he wishes to identify precisely what we call the Red Sea (cf 2.. . 4;I02. 2; T58. 3; 4. 39. I; 42. 2; 43. 3). 'Epv6p?] cfdXaaaas, in origin, a more general term, being identical with7 vor07tOAXaaaa, hough it can be also used both of the Red Sea (2. 158. 2; 4. 39. I; 42. 3) and the PersianGulf(I. 80o.I89; 3. 30. 3; 93. 2; 6. 20). Since there is a clear antithesis in this passage between p op-rr)OaXaaaa, i.e. the ocean of the northern part of the oIKovU&ev7r,nd D 'EpvOpqjOdAaaaa, .e. the ocean of thesouthernhemisphere, E. 0. must here be identicalwith 0 vor5r)daOaaaa nd we should,therefore, ranslate'Erythrian' or 'Southern Ocean'.3 Herodotosover de 26ste Dynastie. Bibliothequedu Musdon,27 (Louvain, I95I), 60 with n. 49.4 Greece and Egypt in the Archaic Age. Proceedingsof the CambridgePhilological Society. Suppl. 2 (1970), 555 2. 125.


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TRIREMES AND THE SAITE NAVYGreek warshipswere used in Necho's reign while baulkingat the difficultiesposed bythe suggestion that they were triremes, it seems advisable,in our attemptto vindicateHerodotus, that we should approachthe problem in two stages:I. Did Necho get assistancein the construction of warshipsfrom Greece?2. If so, what was the rating of the ships concerned?i. Greekassistance

There are excellent reasons for believing that the Pharaohs of the Twenty-SixthDynasty turned to Greece for help in building up a fleet:(a) It is clear that imitation of foreign ship design was by no means an impossibilityfor an Egyptian;for in the reliefs depictingthe battle between the Egyptiansandthe Sea Peoples at Medinet Habu the two sides use ships which show strikingsimilarities.' Certainlythe hull designs are different,the Egyptian being clearlythe traditionalNilotic type,2but the deckupperworksare identical in both fleetsas are the rigging and the fighting tops. Since the latter are totally un-Egyptianin style, we must surely assumethat the Egyptians are imitatingthe example oftheir neighbours in the Eastern Mediterranean.This new style of rigging is, ofcourse, both more economical and more efficient but its adoptionmay well havebeen prompted by specifically military considerations, since loose footed sailswhich could be brailedup to the top yard out of harm's way were much morehandy3than the traditionalsystem whereby two yards werereemployed, a fixedlower and a movable upper, arranged n such a way that the sail was raised orloweredby hoistingthe upper yardup or down. Such a scheme could have beena distinct embarrassment n the type of action depicted in the reliefs.(b) Since the Saite Pharaohs were using Greek mercenaries on a large scale,4 itwould be a naturalstep to employ Greek sailors and with them Greek ships.(c) The Saites, like many Egyptian rulers after the traumatic experience of theHyksos occupation,were deeplyconscious of the dangersof theirAsiatic frontier,as is clearly demonstratedby the heavy concentrations of Greek mercenaries,the best troops they had, in the 2Tparo'reSa and, later, Daphnae, in the north-eastern Delta. It was not, however,only the armies of the Assyrians,Chaldaeans,or Persianswhich constituteda threat.They hadgood reason to fearnavalactionalso; for it would need little strategicacumento realize that the Phoenician fleetwould be at the disposal of any great power invading from Asia. Indeed, joint

I Nelson et al., Medinet Habu (Chicago, 1930), I, pi. 36-7. Cf. our fig. I.2 So tentatively but rightly Landstr6m, Ships of the Pharaohs: 4000 Years of Egyptian Shipbuilding.Archi-tectura Navalis, I (London, 1970), IIn. Faulkner ('Egyptian Seagoing Ships', JEA 26 (I940), 9) thoughtdifferently.3 The position of the reefing/brailing ropes (Gk. KcaAot)s not clearly indicated but L. is surely correct incomparing Hdt. 2. 36 and in making them run down the inside of the sail supported in rings (Gk. KpiKO&).For Ptolemaic representations of this rig, perfectly substantiating Herodotus, see Chassinat, Le Templed'Edfou(Cairo, I892-1934), XIII, pls. 470; 471; 508; 530.4 Parke, Greek Mercenary Soldiers (Oxford, I933), 4 ff.; Kienitz, Die politische GeschichteAgyptens vom 7bis zum 4 Jahrhundertvor der Zeitwende(Berlin, 1953), 35 ff.

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ALAN B. LLOYDnavaland militaryoperationswereby no meansunknown n earlierEgyptianhistory,'andwerecertainlyconductedby the Saites,the Asiaticcampaignsof

Egyptian Galley

Warshipsof the Sea PeoplesFIG. I

Apries providinga classic case (videinfra, pp. 271 ff.). It could not havebeen lostonthem hattheir enemiesmightdolikewise. ndeed,such acircumstanceid nfactariseduring he Persiannvasionof Egyptwhich ed to theoverthrow f theSaiteDynastyin 525 when we findPhoenicianwarshipsoperatingrom AcreI Urk.I, ioI ff.; DriotonandVandier,L'Agypte4,Paris,1962),435ff.; FaulknerCAH (Cambridge,1966),II, Ch. 23, 2 iff.

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TRIREMES AND THE SAITE NAVYin supportof Cambyses'army.' Now Phoenicianwarships,as earlyas c. 700 B.C.,were two-deckers built for ramming2and by Necho's time this tactic had longbeen standard in naval warfare,quite supersedingthe old maritimeland-battlesuch as is representedat Medinet Habu. The design of native Egyptian ships,

FIG. 2. Phoenician War Galley c. 700 B.C.however, was quite unsuitable for fighting actions of this type. The hull profilewas such that at allperiodsthe forwardoverhangmadea killingblow on the waterline absolutely impossible (cf. figs. i and 3 and contrast 2). Furthermore,andeven more important, they had no keel3 and without the longitudinalstrengthimpartedby this featurerammingwould have been suicidal. The attackerwouldsimply have disintegrated-a fate which many a trireme came near to sufferingdespite its rpor7Tm.4Greekwarships,on the other hand, from a very early periodhad beenfast, highlymanceuvrable alleys expresslybuilt forthis style of fighting.It seems extremelyunlikely that the Saite kings would fail to obtain an antidoteto the Phoeniciannavy when suchnav obvious remedy lay at hand-and plenty ofGreeks likely to point it out(d) There is another, closely related argument. Apries is known to have foughtsuccessful naval actions againstthe Phoeniciansduringthe Syriancampaignsof

Strabo, I6. 2. 25 (C. 758). That Acre was a naval base is certain: (a) OdpqrrjpLOVs exemplified in that senseboth ap. Strabo and elsewhere (LSJ9, p. 1253 (b) s.v. op1trip&ov, II); (b) it is much too far north to act as abase of operations for the army. Joint naval and military campaigns were a Persian speciality, e.g. the counter-measures during the revolt of Inarus (D.S. I 1. 77) and Xerxes' invasion of Greece.2 Layard, Monumentsof Nineveh (First Series, London, I853), pl. 7I; cf. our fig. 2; Morrison and Williams,Greek Oared Ships (Cambridge, 1968), pl. 22a; Basch, 'Phoenician Oared Ships', The Mariner's Mirror 55

(1969), 139 ff. See Postscript, p. 279.3 Landstr6m (op. cit. I07) states that a keel was employed in the N.K. but his only evidence consists ofship models found in the tombs of Amenophis II and Tut'ankhamun. This is not enough:(a) In Egyptology models cannot be taken as a guide for technical details of this sort.(b) If the keel were used, we should not expect a hogging truss on the Punt ships of Hatshepsut (fig. 3).(c) Evidence from the Pharaonic Period down to modem times indicates essential continuity in hull con-struction on the Nile-and in Nubia during the last century no keel was employed (Homell, WaterTransport, Origins and Early Evolution [Cambridge, 1946], 215 ff.).4 Tarn, Hellenistic Military and Naval Developments(Cambridge, I930), 144.

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c. 589-573 B.C.' This proves that the Egyptian navy was able to meet thePhoenicianswith ships at least as good as anythingthe latterpossessed and that,in turn, surely, compels us to admit that Apries was using war galleys built forramming.(e) Finally, we may turn to a philologicalpoint. In Egyptian texts of the Saite andPersianPeriod we encounterseveraltimes the word T' .a 'kbnt-ship' n con-texts which prove that it is a warship:(i) In the Stele of Year I of Amasis largenumbers of kbnt-shipsare mentioned in the same breath as Greek mercenaries(HIjwnbw)as part of the forces of Apries.2 (2) In the texts on the NaophorousStatue of Wadjhorresnewhich dates to the early Persian Period we meet thetitle imkc k y-r kbntnsw 'Admiralof the Royalkbnt-ships',a title,indeed,which thatworthyboreunderAmasisandPsammetichusIII,3presumablyto be relieved of it by the Persians in accordance with their policy of keepingthe highest military commands in Persian and Median hands.4 There is good

reasonto believethatthis word denotesGreek-stylewargalleys,since (i) the kbnt-ships of Apries are presumablythe fleet with which he had previously defeatedthe Phoenicians, and that fleet, as we haveshown, must have consisted of war-ships built for ramming.(2) The title imy-rkbnt does not occur before the SaitePeriod. In the New Kingdom the expression for Admiral of the Fleet wasL-,4ak=ik-4NJ imy-r rhrw nsw.5Why should such a consciously archaizingbodyof men as the Saiterulers ntroduceor countenance uch a novel term?The answermustbethatsomething ompletelynew hadappearedwhichneededa novelexpressiono describe t. Now thereareonlythreewaysof solvingtheproblemof naminga newlyintroduced bject: (a) take overthe foreignname,if oneexists; b)coin a newone;(c)employone of the oldwordsof the languageto referto it. In this case it is clearlythe third alternativewhich has beenemployed.Nowthere s one essentialprecondition ithoutwhichsucha semanticdevelopment annot akeplace,viz., that the newobjector ideawhichrequiresa namemustbearsomegeneral imilarityo theobjector ideawhoseappellationit is borrowing.Appliedto the case in point this principlesuggeststhat thenoveltywhich we aretryingto identifywill bearsomegeneralresemblanceothe old Egyptiankbnt, .e. it must resemblewhatSive-Soderbergh efinesas a'fast-runningalley'.6Wouldnot Greekwargalleys illthe bill admirably?3)Inthe PersianPeriodwe findthattriremeswerebeing employedon a largescalein the Egyptiannavy.Accordingo Herodotus he Egyptians ent a contingentof 200 shipsof this classas theircontributiono the Persian leet whichfought

Herodotus, 2. i6i. 2; D.S. I. 68. i.2 Daressy, 'Stele de 1'An III d'Amasis', RT 22 (1900), I ff.; 11.3 and 12. Jelinkova-Reymond ('QuelquesRecherches sur les Reformes d'Amasis',A SAE 54 (I957), 263 ff.) and Posener ('Les Douanes de la Medi-terranee dans 1'Egypte Saite', RdPh 21 (1947), I29) show that the date is Year i.3 Posener, La PremiereDomination Perse en Egypte. Bibliothequed'Stude, II, (Cairo, 1936), 9.4 Gray, CAH (1926), Iv, I90 ff.; Olmstead, History of the Persian Empire (Chicago, 1959 [1948]), 237 ff.5 Save-S6derbergh, The Navy of the EighteenthEgyptian Dynasty (Uppsala, Universitets Arsskrift, 6, 1946,88 ff. 6 On the kbnt-ship see SaIve-S6derbergh,op. cit. 48 ff.

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TRIREMES AND THE SAITE NAVYat Salamis (7. 89) and we are further told that they distinguished themselvesmightily therewithat the Battle of Artemisium(8. I17).In the next centuryAchoris(393-380 B.C.) sent no fewer than fifty triremes to the assistance of EvagorasofCyprus.' The Egyptianswould requirea name for these vessels and, as we have

FIG. 3. Eighteenth-Dynasty kbnt-ships.alreadyshown, the obvious candidate is kbnt. Certainly,it is true that the worddoes not occur in the required context at this period, but that may simplybe because the office and title imy-r kbnt were no longer held by an Egyptian(vide supra,p. 272) and, therefore, kbnt-shipsdo not figure on the monuments.(4) Although it has apparentlynever been noticed, the wordkbnt s certainlyusedof Greekwargalleys in the PtolemaicPeriod. In an official document of Ptolemy,son of Lagus, dating from the 7th Year of Alexander II (3 I I B.C.)we read, amongstother things, the following passage referringin general terms to the victoriouscampaignswhich he had waged against Laomedon, Antigonus, and Demetrius.The text concentrates on the military campaigns in Syria between 320 and

I Theopompus, FgrH II5, F. 103; D.S. 15. 2. 4. Gyles, Pharaonic Policies and Administration, 663 to323 B.C. (James Sprunt Studies in History and Political Science 4I, Chapel Hill, I959), 43 claims that Nepherites(399-393 B.C.) sent the Spartans 100 triremes. Justin says so (6. 2. 2) but D.S. states (14. 79. 4) that it was onlythe equipment aKEv ') for that number. The authority of D.S. is little enough, but that of Justin is still lesson such a matter. We should, therefore, prefer the older writer.

C 8219 T

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ALAN B. LLOYD312 B.C.but it also hints at the wide-rangingand highly successful naval opera-tions conducted by Ptolemy in the Eastern Mediterranean.''He musteredthe Greeks n greatnumberstogetherwiththeirhorses andmanykbnt-shipswith their crews. He marchedwith his armyagainstthe landof Syria.They [sc. the Syrians] fought against him when he entered amongst them, his

5e ? hm + ' - OX/ -- eS0-

:5P


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TRIREMES AND THE SAITE NAVY322 B.C.downto Actium. Indeed, since we find the Phoeniciansbuilding E7TrrIpeIsfor Demetriusprobably n 314 and since such warshipswere actuallyused atSalamisn 306,Ithe Ptolemaic avyclearlyhad to dealwith evenmore ormidableopponents han quinqueremes.This threat he Lagid leetwas not onlyabletofacebut to checkquiteeffectivelyorseveralyears,capturingCyprusn 3 5 anddominatinghe EasternMediterranean ntil306. It could not havebeen onejotinferior.Thesecircumstances,aken ogetherwith theprideof placeaccordedothe kbnt n our text, createa verystrongpresumptionhatin the latterwe arefaced with nothingother than the Ptolemaicbattle fleet of Greekwargalleys.This conclusions considerablyeinforced ythesecondoccurrence f theword.The kbnwtwhich were capturedduringthese campaignswere certainlynotEgyptian hips.The wordhasclearlybeen applied o aforeign ype equivalentto Ptolemy's hips-surely elements f the fleetof his Macedonian ivals n Syria,i.e. probablyquinqueremes, ertainlywargalleys.

^^i j i ^II, 23 9 II, 77- I5 II, I79. 7

FIG. 5.These growingsuspicionsare transmuted nto absolutecertaintyby writingsof the wordkbntelsewhere n Urkundeni. The threedeterminativesannotbyanystretchof theimagination e regarded srepresentingnEgyptianhip.The

hulldesignandramof allthree,the doublemaston the firstand the absenceofamaston thethird mastunshipped learedoraction?)allindicateunmistakablythat the ships in questionare Greekwargalleys.There can, therefore,be nodoubtwhatsoeverhat in the late fourthcentury he old wordkbntwasused todenotesuch vessels.What, hen,doesthisphilological rgument mounto ? In thereignofAmasisthe word kbnt s usedof a fleetwhich,we have reason o believe,wascomposedof wargalleys,builtfor ramming.Slightly aterwe encountera new naval itle,viz. imy-rkbnt, mbodyinghewordkbntwhichsemantic onsiderationsuggestmust denotea noveltypeof wargalley.Furthermore,we findthe needforjustsuchaword mperativelyresent n thePersianPeriodwhenthe Egyptianswerecertainlyusing triremes.Finally,the word in questionis known o apply toGreekgalleys n the fourthcentury.The reasonable onclusion o drawfromall this is thatkbntwasnotgiventhis newmeaningn thetimeof PtolemyI buthadacquiredt asearlyasthe SaitePeriodand hat my-rkbntmaybetranslated,or ratherparaphrased,Admiral f Greek-styleWarGalleys'.Tarn, op. cit. 122 ff., though his explanation of what triremes and quinqueremes actually were is quiteunacceptable (cf. Morrison and Williams, op. cit. 154 ff.; 170 ff.; 289 ff.).

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ALAN B. LLOYDLet us now summarizethe conclusions of the first phase of our argument:(I) it isclear that the Egyptians had the precedent, motive, and opportunity to make navalborrowingsfrom the Greeks.(2) The naval history of the reign of Apries can only beexplained if he employed warships of a totally un-Egyptian type built for ramming.(3) It is well-nigh certainthatwe have identified the word used by the Egyptiansduringthe Saite Periodto denote Greek-stylewar galleys employed in their own fleet. In thelight of such evidencewe have no alternativebut to acceptthat the Saites did makeuseof such vessels?I

2. RatingFor the time of Necho we need discuss only two possibilities-pentaconters andtriremes, both of which were built for ramming,a technique of naval warfare denti-fiable in Greece from the first half of the second millennium B.c.2 and absolutelystan-dardby the period in question.The pentaconter,rowedby fifty men, was the standardcapitalship in the Greek world from the seventh centuryand retained this position wellinto the sixth until the time of Polycratesof Samos,when it was being relegatedslowlybut surely to the rank of the frigate in an eighteenth-centuryEuropean navy, thoughit formed the backbone of second-rate navies such as those of Athens and Aeginadown to the Persian Wars.3Pentaconters, then, were clearly available to Necho buttriremes are a different matter, for it is generally assumed that they had not beeninvented by Necho's reign. We believe this opinion to be mistaken.The evidence is asfollows:(a) Theearliest xtant eferenceo atrireme ccursn Hipponaxn theearly econdhalfof thesixthcentury.4(b) The earliestextantrepresentations foundin the secondhalf of the fifth century.5(c) Ourpassage mpliesthattriremeswereavailablen the reignof Necho(610-595 B.C.). t maybe a guess andthen again t maynot. A decisionon thatquestionmustdependon our otherevidence.(d) Thucydides, . I3. I-4. The interpretationfthispassagehasbeenbedevilledbyscholarswho,in the interestsoftheirownpreconceiveddeas,haveattemptedo distort ts obviousmeaning.Two pointsneed discussion:

(I) Kal Tpnpew e'vKoplvO0 rpwTrovTs 'EA?d$osvavrrfqyqOrvat.orrregardedthisas entirelyparenthetical. Having once thought of the naval innovation of Corinth, Thucydides naturallyswitches to another Corinthian first which has no chronological links with the surroundingpassage.6This idea is designed to remove all association of the passage with Ameinocles andthe late eighth century B.C. and is based entirely on Torr's distaste for the idea of eighth-century triremes. Steup7 is obviously right that the trend of the passage, 'wenn man ihnunbefangenbetrachtet's opposedto such an interpretation.The Kat andthe infinitivecon-struction join the clause too closely with what precedes for any other alternative to be possible.

It would be gratifying if I could accept that the Louvre jewel boats (E I0687) represented Necho's Greekgalleys, as is usually claimed. Unfortunately, they almost certainly do not (see my n. pp. 307 f.).2 Morrison and Williams, op. cit. 37 ff.3 Thucydides, I. I4. In general Morrison and Williams, op. cit. I28 ff.4 Diehl, Anthologia Lyrica Graeca (3rd edn., Leipzig, 1952), Fasc. 3, 94, F. 45.s Morrison and Williams, op. cit. I69. 6 Ancient Ships (Chicago, I964), 4 n. 8.7 ap. Classen, Thukydides Berlin, 1963), I, 50, n. ad loc.

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TRIREMES AND THE SAITE NAVY(2) 9atvErat e Kat2atLoLtsAULELVOKA7sgoplvtos av7rrr-yoSvavS 7roiq'aaS e'EaapaS MorrisonandWilliamspointout that Ameinocles s not statedto have built triremesfor the Samians,simply vavs re'aaapas.' That is true, but in the context the natural assumption is thatThucydidesmeans riremesand wereit not for the chronologicaldifficultieswe may legiti-

matelydoubtthat anyonewould ever have questioned t. We thereforeparaphraseThucy-dides' meaningas follows. With the rise of wealth in Greek states after the regal periodtyrannieswereestablishedandin thesecircumstances he Greeks ook moreinterestin navalaffairsand seafaring.The Corinthianswere the first to make navalarrangementsimilar tothose of Thucydides'owntime2and werethe firstpeopleto build triremes n Greece.Therewas reason o believe that Ameinocleswent to Samos and therebuilt fourof thesevesselsforthe Samians,an event whichtookplaceabout300yearsbeforethe end of the PeloponnesianWar.The difficultyhere s clearlychronological.Thucydides irst alksof thetyrannies ndtheconsiderable increase in revenues at that period, but then goes on to discuss Corinth and hernaval innovations which must date at the latest,3 on his chronology, earlier than the knowndate of the Cypselid tyranny (second half of the seventh century B.C.).4 Something hasobviously gone badly wrongsomewhere,but it is possibleto isolatethe area in which themistake must lie. Only two possibilities exist: either the association of the naval developmentswith tyranny is wrong, or the dates of Ameinocles and the vavtaXtla between Corinth andCorcyra are incorrect. The second is the obvious answer since (a) on general grounds, giventhe nature of the human mind, we may say that the association of two phenomena is morelikely to be correctly transmitted than their date; (b) not only were the construction, main-tenance, and manning of triremes extremely expensive, but the other naval reforms mentionedwould require considerable resources, in finance, man-power, and technical skill, as well asthe means to concentrate these resources for one particular task. A tyranny would providethe perfect conditions.

It is, then, evident that Thucydides firmly believed that the trireme was invented atCorinth in the time of the Cypselids, but was hopelessly confused on the question oftheir date. This is not as disturbing as it might seem at first sight when once we beginto inquire how Thucydides obtained these figures. For such an early period it isunlikely that he had any source other than genealogies.S That such existed both forlegendary and historical times is certain, and absolute dates could only have beenobtained from them by relating one's own time to the genealogical scheme and thenconverting the genealogy into years on the basis of a fixed generation length. Now thelength of the generation, like most things in Greece, was not a matter of commonagreement. We know of 40 years, 30 years, and the Herodotean scheme of 3 yeveat toIoo years, only the last two of which are, for a Greek context, statistically near the truth.Thus, whenever we have a year figure of this type for early Greek history we mustaccept that it is at best approximate and may be much too high if it is based on a 40-yearOp. cit. 158. 2 Trpj2TOL e KoplvOtoLEyovral eyyvTraa TOVVVv TrporoV LETaXeplaal Ta 7replras vavs.

3 According to the view we take of reAEVT)rTOVSE TOV 1IroAiEtov. Is it the Peace of Nicias or 404? I believethe latter.4 According to the Traditional (Apollodoran) Chronology the date was 657-584/3 B.C. (evidence Will,Korinthiaka, Paris, 1955, 363 ff.). The Low Chronology (c. 620-550 B.C.) championed by Will (op. cit.366 ff.) et al. is surely placed out of court by epigraphic evidence (Meiggs and Lewis, A Selection of GreekHistorical Inscriptions, Oxford, I969, p. i ).5 Gomme, Commentaryon Thucydides(Oxford, I945, repr. 966), I, I22, n. ad loc., thinks along the samelines and considers that the figure was deduced like that in Herodotus, 2. 53. 2.

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ALAN B. LLOYDgeneration.If such figuresare to be of any use, allwe can do is to tryto determinewhatthe numberof yeveal behind them happenedto be, i.e. whatgeneration-length heywerebasedupon. Now thatthis is a hazardousbusinesswe should readilyadmit,but worth-while results can be obtainedif we observe one elementaryand oft-ignored principle.We should try, firstof all, to obtain,on general grounds, a pictureof the naturalcourseof events and their interrelationsand then deal empiricallywith the year-figuresin anattemptto identify them with a chronologicalrelationshipwhich fits. Wherethis is im-possible we have no basis for analysisand the figuresmust be left to their own devices.In the present case, fortunately,we are not in such desperatestraits. It has alreadybeen demonstrated that there is excellent reason to accept that the phenomenon inquestion was connected with the Cypselids who are known to date to the latter halfof the seventh century. Now Thucydides gives us two figures. Ameinocles is datedc. 300 years e' -rjvTEAev7vvrov8 TO roAov = 7 generations at 40 years per genera-tion and the vaviaXia is dated c. 250 years before the same point = 61 generations atthe same rate, exactly one generation later.I If we take the reAEvr7jov&e rovi 7VroA4tovas 404 B.C. and convert at the rate of 3 generationsper Ioo years2we obtain as a datefor Ameinocles c. 2 X I00+404 years = c. 654 B.C.and a date for the vavuaXxia onegenerationlater. This fits what the generalconsiderationsmentioned above would leadus to suspect and harmonizes with two other considerations:

I. The period of the Cypselids saw the rise of Aegina as a threat to Corinthiancommercialsupremacyand was also a period of considerable overseasexpansion,sometimes, as at Potidaea,at the expense of other Greek states 3 Such a situationmight well have provided a marked stimulus to experimentation n navalmattersat Corinth.2. It is probable that hoplite tactis were invented some time in the middle of theseventh centuryB.C., though hoplite equipmenthad been availablesince the latterpart of the eighth.4The earliest certainrepresentationof a phalanxoccurs c. 650B.C.5 though it is possible, if undemonstrable,that this tactical unit had beeninvented by Pheidon of Argos some decades before.6Such an innovation consti-tuted a revolution in Greekwarfare,the passing of the individualchampion,andthe rise of the citizen armywhich functioned as a single, coherent body. In suchan atmosphere of upheaval in military thinking it would be likely enough tlatsome agile mind would turn its thoughts towardsmakingcorresponding nnova-tions in naval techniques.7

Forrest, 'Two Chronographic Notes', CQ 19 (I969), ioo, interprets the figures in the same way though heuses them for a different purpose.2 This is the Herodotean scheme. It is statistically more or less right and we use it for that reason only.

3 Andrewes, The Greek Tyrants (London, 1956), 49 ff.4 Snodgrass, Early GreekArmourand Weapons Edinburgh, I964), 195 ff., has demolished the old view thatthe introduction of hoplite equipment and hoplite tactics must be contemporaneous. He demonstrates beyondall doubt that there is a considerable time lag between the two.5 The Chigi-Vase c. 650 B.C.(Lorimer, 'The Hoplite Phalanx', BSA 42 [I1947], fig. 3; Snodgrass, op. cit.I97 ff.). 6 Andrewes, op. cit. 39.7 If Andrewes is correct in believing that Pheidon was the inventor of hoplite tactics, the impact of theinvention may have been particularly strong at Corinth because Pheidon was certainly active in Corinthian

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TRIREMES AND THE SAITE NAVYWe submit, therefore, that Thucydides, or his source, knew a tradition that anAmeinocleshad built triremes at SamosI7i generationsbefore 404 andthat these shipshad been invented in Corinthsome time about the middle of the seventh centuryB.C.2Let us now sum up. The evidence herepresented suggeststhattriremeswereinvented

in the latterpartof the seventhcenturyat Corinthand that Ameinocleswasoneof thefirstexponents of the art of building them. During the sixth century they spread slowly,for lack of builders, crews, and money, and doubtless also the innate conservatismof the militarymind, until they were found, if sporadically, n the Eastern and WesternMediterranean.The rise of the tyrants in the west provided ideal conditions for theconstructionof largefleets about the turn of the sixth centuryand their examplebeganto be followed in the homeland during the first half of the fifth century B.C.Given this picturewe have no reasonto rejectthe possibility that triremes were builtfor Necho, especiallysince Egyptianrelationswith Corinth appearto have been close.Indeed, Periander'snephew was actually called Psammetichus.3 If Ameinocles couldgo to Samos in the seventh century it is perfectly possible that the wealth of Pharaohwould attractlater shipwrightsto Egypt in order to build this new type for him.

ConclusionsThere is a strong case on historicaland linguistic groundsin favourof the thesis thatGreekwar galleys were in use in Egypt duringthe Saite Period. Furthermore,there isgood reason to believe that triremes were availableand that the Saites were in touchwith the city responsiblefor their development. Even by itself the evidence presentedamountsto the most compellingcircumstantialcase. If we add to it Herodotus' expressstatement,we should be guilty of the merestperversityif we denied that in the reign ofNecho triremes were constructedfor the Egyptian navy.

PostscriptWhenthis articlewasalreadyn prooftherecameto my attention n extremelynterestingstudyby LucienBasch ntitledPhoenician aredShips' TheMariner'sMirror 5(I969),I39ff.,227 ff.) in which t is argued hatNecho'striremeswerePhoenician, ot Greek n origin.Thisview finds a willing champion n Casson,ShipsandSeamanshipn the AncientWorld,Princeton,I971, 8I n. I9. Excitingthoughthis thesismaybe, I find it unconvincingand hope to replyat alaterdate.politics and, since he is said to have been killed there, this action may well have had a military character (cf.Forrest, The Emergenceof Greek Democracy (London, 1966) 116 ff.).

I In the development of the trireme it was the rTapeetlpeata, 'outrigger', which was the crucial step (K6ster,Das antike Seewesen [Berlin, 1923], I05 ff.). Presumably Ameinocles invented this device and then added athird bank to the biremes which had already been in existence tor some time.2 Cf. Morrison and Williams, op. cit. I29. 3 Nic. Dam., FgrH go, F. 59.

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Lloyd Triremes and the Saite Navy