The Travels of Marco Polo — Volume 1 by Marco Polo and da Pisa Rusticiano

it may not be without interest that we say something regarding the equipment of those galleys which are so prominent in the mediæval history of the Mediterranean.[1] Eschewing that “Serbonian Bog, where armies whole have sunk” of Books and Commentators, the theory of the classification of the Biremes and Triremes of the Ancients, we can at least assert on secure grounds that in _mediæval_ armament, up to the middle of the 16th century or thereabouts, the characteristic distinction of galleys of different calibres, so far as such differences existed, was based _on the number of rowers that sat on one bench pulling each his separate oar, but through one_ portella _or rowlock-port_.[2] And to the classes of galleys so distinguished the Italians, of the later Middle Age at least, did certainly apply, rightly or wrongly, the classical terms of _Bireme_, _Trireme_, and _Quinquereme_, in the sense of galleys having two men and two oars to a bench, three men and three oars to a bench, and five men and five oars to a bench.[3] That this was the mediæval arrangement is very certain from the details afforded by Marino Sanudo the Elder, confirmed by later writers and by works of art. Previous to 1290, Sanudo tells us, almost all the galleys that went to the Levant had but two oars and men to a bench; but as it had been found that three oars and men to a bench could be employed with great advantage, after that date nearly all galleys adopted this arrangement, which was called _ai Terzaruoli_.[4] Moreover experiments made by the Venetians in 1316 had shown that four rowers to a bench could be employed still more advantageously. And where the galleys could be used on inland waters, and could be made more bulky, Sanudo would even recommend five to a bench, or have gangs of rowers on two decks with either three or four men to the bench on each deck. [Sidenote: Change of System in the 16th century.]