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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 February 2009
In his account of the great naval battle in 201 B.C. off Chios between the fleet of Philip II and the combined fleets of Pergamum and Rhodes, Polybius notes a curious exchange of ram blows that took place at one point:
Δεινοκρ⋯της μ⋯ν πρ⋯ς ⋯κτ⋯ρη συμπεσὼν αὐτ⋯ς μ⋯ν ἒζαλον ἒλαβε τ⋯ν, πληγ⋯ν, ⋯ναστε⋯ρου τ⋯σ νεὼσ οὔσησ, δ⋯ τ⋯ν πολεμ⋯ων τρώσας να⋯ν ὑπ⋯ τ⋯ *β⋯αϰα τ⋯ μ⋯ν πρ⋯τον οὐκ ⋯δ⋯νατο ϰωρισθ⋯ναι, κα⋯περ πολλ⋯κς ⋯πιβαλ⋯μενος πρ⋯μναν κρο⋯ειν κτλ.
Dinocrates, who was one of the commanders on the Pergamene side, attacked a Macedonian οκtêrês and, it would appear, struck it with his ram below the waterline; τ⋯β⋯αϰα is unattested elsewhere and its precise meaning is obscure, but the phase ὑπ⋯ τ⋯β⋯αϰα in this context clearly refers to a part of the oktêrêŝ hull that was immersed in water. In the process his own ship was hit; the blow that it took landed above the waterline because the oktêrês that delivered it was a ‘vessel that was anasteiros’ a word also unattested elsewhere. For well over a century there has been universal agreement that it means ‘with a high prow’.
1 Casaubon rendered the phrase ‘infra aquam’ in his edition of 1610, and this has been the meaning given it by almost all translators and commentators since.
2 ‘grâce à la construction du vaisseau ennemi, dont l'éperon était fort élevé’, trans. Bouchot, F. (Paris, 1847)Google Scholar; ‘the enemy's ship had its prow built high’, trans. Shuckburgh, E. (London, 1889)Google Scholar; ‘as she was very high in the prow’, trans. Paton, W. (Loeb, 1926)Google Scholar; ‘with a high prow’, LSJ, s.v. (1940); ‘deren Bug hoch emporragte’, trans. Drexler, H. (Zürich, 1963)Google Scholar; ‘being high in the prow’, Walbank, F., A Historical Commentary on Polybius, note ad loc. (Oxford, 1967)Google Scholar; ‘car la proue du navire adverse était fort haute’, trans. Roussel, D. (Paris, 1970)Google Scholar.
3 Polybii… historiarum quidquid superest. Recensuit…Schweighaeuser, J. (Leipzig, 1789–1795), vii. 241–2Google Scholar. Meibom's book, published originally in Amsterdam in 1671, was reprinted in Graevius, J. G., Thesaurus antiquitatum romanarum (Leyden, 1694–1699Google Scholar; Venice, 1732–7), xii. 553–680 (in the Venice edition); the discussion of 16.3.8 is on pp. 670–4.
4 Cf. Casson, L., Ships and Seamanship in the Ancient world 1 (Princeton, 1986), p. 221Google Scholar.
5 In Meibom's words (Graevius xii.672), ‘extra aquam elatum’.
6 In Graevius xii.671–2.
7 For the shifting of men fore and aft to raise or depress bow or stern, see Dio Cassius 12 (Zonaras 8.16.4), a description of a Roman attack on Hippo in 247 B.C.: the Roman fleet, trapped in the harbour when the locals stretched chains across the mouth, ‘escaped thanks to skill and luck. The vessels quickly headed directly toward the chains, and when their rams were just about to get caught on these, those on deck shifted their position to the stern; the bows, lightened in this way, cleared the chains. Then, when they rushed back to the prow, the sterns of the vessels were elevated.’