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Search results for alpha,1756 in Adler number:
Headword:
*)amfipru/mnais
Adler number: alpha,1756
Translated headword: double-sterned
Vetting Status: high
Translation: A type of ships. "He prepared to enter the Istros[1] again in those of his ships which were double-sterned".[2]
Greek Original:*)amfipru/mnais: ei)=dos ploi/wn. e)/mpalin dielqei=n pareskeu/ase to\n *)/istron e)n tai=s a)mfipru/mnais tw=n new=n.
Notes:
Same entry in ps.-
Zonaras.
[1] The Greek name for the lower Danube; see OCD(4) p.749, s.v.
Ister.
[2] Part of
Menander Protector fr. 21 Blockley (192-193), on Baian (cf.
alpha 209 note) crossing the Danube in order to attack Slav villages. See the following lines in this fragment at
alpha 209. According to LSJ s.v. (web address 1), "double-sterned" means "with rudder behind and before"; but even if for their "rudder" we understand "pair of steering-oars" (on which see generally e.g. L. Casson,
Ships and Seamanship in the Ancient World (Baltimore 1995) 224-8), this is not how ancient ships were constructed. So the present "double-sterned" vessels were perhaps like the ones which, according to
Polyaenus 3.11.14, the Athenian general Chabrias (
chi 1) used in the mid C4 BCE: with a second pair of steering oars, for rough water.
R.C. Blockley, ed. and trans., The History of Menander the Guardsman, (Cambridge 1985)
Associated internet address:
Web address 1
Keywords: biography; definition; geography; history; military affairs; science and technology; trade and manufacture
Translated by: Jennifer Benedict on 10 August 2000@14:04:01.
Vetted by:
No. of records found: 1
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