Download PDF | (The Medieval Mediterranean 62) John H. Pryor, Elizabeth M. Jeffreys - The Age of the ΔΡΟΜΩΝ_ The Byzantine Navy ca 500-1204-Brill Academic Publishers (2006).
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PREFACE AND APPRECIATIONS
We have shared a happy collaboration in this book. Our friendship even survived the translation of the texts for Appendices One to Five, where we were concerned to achieve a delicate balance between producing a readable English translation for Byzantinists and the general public and preserving the literal meaning of technical language as closely as possible for maritime and military historians. John Pryor has been responsible for the historical research and for the writing of the text. Elizabeth Jeffreys has been responsible for the editing of the texts in Appendices One to Five, for the translation of Greek texts, for matters philological, and for the interpretation of the milieux of the Byzantine sources. We are indebted to Ahmad Shboul for his collaboration in Appendix Eight.
An earlier version of some parts of the book was published by John Pryor as “From dromon to galea: Mediterranean bireme galleys AD 500-1300”, in J. Morrison, ed., The age of the galley: Mediterranean oared vessels since pre-classical times (London, Conway Maritime Press, 1995), 101-16. A much shorter version of the first four parts of Chapter One was published by John Pryor as “The Mediterranean breaks up: 500-1000”, in D. Abulafia, ed., The Mediterranean in History (London, Thames & Hudson, 2003), 155-82, and parts of Chapter Four were also used by John Pryor in “Types of ships”, “Byzantium and the Sea’, and “Xtadtodpourkdv”. We acknowledge the permission of the various publishers to reuse material here.
We are grateful to friends and colleagues who kindly read and commented on preliminary drafts of this study or who made valuable contributions in other ways: Professor Lionel Casson, Professor John Dotson, Professor Michael McCormick, Dr John O. Ward, and Mr Nigel Wilson. Professor Reinhold Mueller traced down at our request the medal forged by Alvise Meneghetti and attributed to a Doge Pietro Candiano. Associate Professor Dexter Hoyos was generous in assistance with some tortuous passages in Latin. Mr Maxwell Walkley was our consultant for Old French and Professors Margaret Clunies Ross and Geraldine Barnes for Old Norse. Mr John Coates displayed endless patience and good will in replies to numerous questions from an academic (even if a nautically knowledgable one) to a practised seaman and naval architect, and Ms Ann Hyland was our consultant on horses. We are particularly indebted to Professor Michael Carter for his extensive assistance with matters Arabic in the last years of production of the book and to Professor John Haldon for the unfailing generosity of his collaboration over many years. It is not possible to acknowledge individual contributors everywhere, but they will recognize where we are indebted to them.
We are also grateful to David Frendo for allowing us access to a draft of his translation of the On the capture of Thessaloniké of John Kaminiatés and also to Ann Moffat for her translation of chapters 11.44, 45 of the De cerimoniis of Constantine Porphyrogennétos. We are also indebted to John Haldon for allowing us access to the manuscript of his commentary on chapters II, 44 & 45 of the De cerimoniis, before it was published as “Theory and practice”, and for a pre-publication copy of his “‘Greek Fire’ revisited”.
John Pryor acknowledges that his interest in the Byzantine treatises on naval warfare and in the dpdu@v was originally aroused by a copy of a translation of, and commentary on, the first few paragraphs of the Navpayika Aéovtoc Baowléaws of Leo VI by the late R. H. Dolley, which was made available to him by Mr Brian Dolley, his brother’s executor. He is grateful to him for his generosity. R. H. Dolley had intended to complete a translation of, and commentary on, the whole of the Navuayixa Aégovtog Baowléwc, but never did so. We also acknowledge the unfailingly helpful assistance of the staff of the Bodleian Library, Oxford, in particular of Ms Christine Mason, and of Fisher Library, University of Sydney, in particular of Rod Dyson, Bruce Isaacs, and Megan O’Brien of Inter Library Loans and of Terry O’Brien (no relation), the Library’s wizard at finding “lost” books.
Finally we would like to acknowledge the patience, and also the assistance, of Michael Jeffreys, who suffered endless phone calls to his wife from John Pryor, whom he came to know as “dromons personified”, and of Gail Pryor, who suffered the absence of her husband “away at sea” for years on end. Research for this book, the original draft of which was a 12,000-word article, began in 1987.
John Pryor Sydney
Elizabeth Jeffreys Oxford , January 2006
NOTE ON ORTHOGRAPHY, TRANSLATION, CITATION, AND DATING
Orthography
This work is intended for the use of not only Byzantinists who can read Greek but also maritime historians and medievalists of all persuasions who can not. Therefore, we have tried to be as accomodating as possible, frequently giving terms not only in Greek, but also in transliteration and in translation where we have judged it useful to readers to do so. We have also created a Glossary of selective Arabic, Greek, and Latin technical terms. Usages have usually been given in the text in Roman transliteration or English translation except where specific reference is made to a particular Greek text. All Arabic citations have been made in transliteration. Terms included in the Glossary have been given in italics in the text.
There is also a separate Glossary of English nautical terminology for the assistance of those unfamiliar with matters maritime.
In transliterating Greek we have distinguished ny from e by adding a makron to “e” for the n, as in “é”. Similarly, we have distinguished the Greek “@” from “o” by adding a makron to “o” for the @ as in “6”. The only exception we have made to this rule is the word dpdu@v itself. It would have been pedantic beyond words to have used “dromon” and “dromones” on hundreds of occasions. Except where the use of the word itself is at issue, we have simply used “dromon” and “dromons”. In transliterating Arabic and Turkish we have followed a modified version of the Encyclopedia of Islam system, only replacing “dj” by “jy”, “k” by “q”, and omitting the underlining of digraphs; thus, Aghlabid rather than Aghlabid, Shah rather than Shah, etc.
To assist readers lacking a strong historical background we have created a selective Gazeteer of historical place names which can not be found in commonly available English-language atlases. Place names included in the Gazeteer have been given in italics in the text. In the Gazeteer, and throughout, Greek names of people, places, institutions, etc. have been standardized to the usage of The Oxford dictionary of Byzantium or, failing that, Smith’s Dictionary of Greek and Roman geography, or the British Admiralty Mediterranean Pilot. We have preserved the Greek orthography in the transliteration of proper nouns except where there is a common English equivalent, thus Constantine rather than Konstantinos, Constantinople rather than KOonstantinoupolis, Leo rather than Leon, etc. However, Niképhoros, Lekapénos, etc. On occasions when the extent of a common English equivalent is ambiguous we have had to make a choice, thus Thessaloniké rather than Thesssaloniki or Salonika, etc.
Arabic names and titles have been standardized to the transliterations of the Encyclopedia of Islam as modified above.
Translation
In translating Greek, Latin, and Arabic texts we have have kept in mind throughout our intended readership; namely, not only Byzantinists but also maritime historians and others who cannot read these languages but who are concerned with the close technical meaning of the texts. Therefore we have made our translations as literally close to the Greek, Latin, and Arabic texts as it is possible to do without making the English incomprehensible.
Square brackets [ ] in translations indicate our additions to texts where the corresponding words in English do not exist in the texts but need to be added to make the English comprehensible.
Citation of Primary Sources
Because not all readers will have access to the same editions we have used, we have followed the principle that in citation of primary sources we have given any text subdivisions, for example, book, chapter, verse, etc. first. We have then added the page numbers of the editions we have used in parentheses.
On the one hand, Greek and Latin texts have been cited according to the best editions known to us. Where translations known to us into European languages exist, we have cited the most convenient of these in the Bibliography for the information of readers; however, we have not cited them in the notes.
On the other hand, for Arabic texts we have followed the principle that because standard editions in Arabic are in many cases very difficult to obtain, even in major libraries, and because few readers of this book will be able to read Arabic, we have used translations. In many cases this has meant using a variety of translations, frequently obscure, of selections from, and parts of, texts. The only exceptions to this rule have been where a point has needed to be made in the text from a part of an Arabic text which has no translation known to us or where a word with a technical meaning is at issue.
Dating
All dates refer to the “Christian” (or “Common”’) Era (C.E.) or “Anno Domini” (A.D.) unless otherwise specified. “B.C.E.” is used for the pre-Christian era, “A.H.” for the years of the Hijrah, the Muslim calendar dating from 16 July 622, and “A.M.” for Annus Mundi, the Byzantine sytem of dating from the Creation, reckoned to B.C.E. 5,508.
When citing the regnal dates of Byzantine emperors, we have used their entire reigns, irrespective of whether or not they were only coemperors for part of that time.
NOTE ON METROLOGY AND HOURS OF DAYLIGHT [a] Metrology!
In terms of the practical limitations of medieval shipbuilding and also of medieval mensuration, measurements or trigonometrical calculations taken to tenths or even hundredths of a centimetre, or other equivalents, would have been totally impracticable of course. We have used such equivalents as derived from the nineteenth-century metrological manuals compiled by Martini, Doursther, and others after the metrification of Europe only as a base on which to build more realistic medieval measures. Similarly, we have rounded out the results of often complex mathematical applications to sensible figures.
For hours of daylight we have utilized the United States Naval Observatory, Complete sun and moon data for one day, @ http:/aa.usno.navy.mil/data/docs/RS_OneDay.html. This enables one to enter any town in the world for any day of any year back to 1800 to obtain hours of daylight and moonlight for that day and place. It gives the hours of the beginning of daylight, sunrise, the midday transit, sunset, and the end of twilight. We have used the year 1800 throughout because it is the earliest for which the Observatory has computed data, because it eliminates the effects of modern climate change, and because the climate at that time is considered by historians of climate to have been similar to that of the Middle Ages. Even if the climate was not quite the same, the differences would have been negligable and would not affect any calculations made here.
NOTE ON CITATION OF GREEK AND LATIN GLOSSARIES
At several points in the text, we have cited editions of some of the extant manuscripts of Greek and Latin glossaries, word lists with explanations of the meanings of words, which contain material relevant to our study. Some of these were bilingual, Greek-Latin or Latin-Greek. Some were simply Latin. In all cases, the glossaries had complex transmission and manuscript histories and, in all instances cited, the manuscripts referred to post-date the original compilation of the glossaries, in some cases by many centuries.
In order to avoid tedious repetition in the text, we have given the details of the glossaries and manuscripts here. Cross references to the discussion here have been added to the notes at the appropriate places. The manuscripts are discussed here not in the order in which they appear in the text but rather in an order which best facilitated discussion of transmission processes.
We are perfectly well aware that compilers of glossaries constantly altered, re-arranged, and modified what they had before them. Sometimes they worked ab initio from manuscripts or from marginal glosses on manuscripts but more usually they worked from older glossaries, producing “collected glossaries”. On the one hand, it is clear that the scribes of the manuscripts of the glossaries as we have them frequently had no idea what the words that they were glossing had originally meant. They sometimes produced weird and wonderful explanations, sometimes based on false etymologies. But they themselves may not have been responsible for the loss of understanding. That could have occurred anywhere in the process of transmission to them. Alternatively, the meanings of words may have changed, as they frequently do. On the other hand, even when they do appear to have understood the antique meanings of words that they glossed, and in those cases we have had to assume for want of argument that they really did understand, even that may not necessarily have been the case. They may have been simply copying something they did not understand themselves, or they may have been just guessing. It is rarely possible to know the date and provenance of a gloss, whether it was that of the manuscript in which it survives, or that of the original compilation of the glossary, or that of some point in the transmission process between. We have used the glossaries with extreme caution, being fully conscious of their notorious unreliability and the difficulty of interpretation of these sources.’
1: Rome, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, MS. Vat. Lat. 3321 (= Lowe, CLA, vol. 1, no. 15).
Written on parchment in Uncial majuscule letters, this manuscript is generally dated to the mid eighth century with a provenance in central Italy. Folios 2r-163r were edited in Goetz, Glossarii Latini, vol. 4, 1-198, as Glossae Codicis Vaticani 3321.
The glossary was a copy of an earlier one, also probably produced in Italy, which was the common ancestor of both that of this manuscript and also that of the later tenth-century manuscript Monte Cassino, Biblioteca dell’ Abbazia, MS. Cass. 439, which Goetz noted in his critical apparatus.
Both glossaries contain compilations of two separate earlier glossaries, that known as the Abolita (from its first lemma), which was produced in Spain in the late seventh century, and that known as the Abstrusa (again from its first lemma), which was probably produced in France, perhaps as early as the sixth century. In Goetz’s edition, the Abolita entries are contained within square brackets.
2: Paris, Bibliothéque Nationale, MS. Lat. 7651.
Produced in the ninth century in France, possibly at Laon, and probably compiled from an earlier Uncial exemplar, this manuscript, whose Latin text is in Caroline minuscule, contains the oldest extant copy of the Latin-Greek glosses attributed to Philoxenos. It was intended for Greeks attempting to read Latin. Folios 1r-218r were edited in Goetz, Glossarii Latini, vol. 2, pp. 1-212 as Glossae LatinoGraece.
Who the compiler of the Philoxenos was is unkown, but he was not the consul of 525 C.E. He was probably a monk in an Italian, Greekliterate monastery. He had access to a copy of the Ars grammatica of Flavius Sosipater Charisius (fl. ca 375), so the earliest possible dating would be to the fifth century. However, a sixth-century dating is widely accepted.
3: St Gall, Stiftsbibliothek, MS. 912 (= Lowe, CLA, vol. 7, no. 967a).
Written on parchment as a palimpsest over six other texts dating from the fourth to eighth centuries, in rude Uncial majuscule, this manuscript was once thought to have been produced at St Gall; however, it has been shown to have been written in North Italy in the eighth century, at approximately the same time as Vat. Lat. 3321. The glossary on folios 2v-160v was edited in Goetz, Glossarii Latini, vol. 4, pp. 199-298 as Glossae Codicis Sangallensis 912.
The sources of the St Gall glossary included a composite AbstrusaAbolita glossary as well as a Philoxenos glossary, St Isidore’s Etymologiae, and some bilingual glossary probably produced in an Italian monastery where Greek was spoken or studied, such as Vivarium or Bobbio.
4: London, British Library, MS. Harley 5792 (= Lowe, CLA, vol. 2, no. 203).
A parchment Uncial manuscript probably produced in Italy, possibly Byzantine Italy, possibly as early as the seventh century or alternatively as late as ca 800, this soon found its way to Merovingian France, as is shown by some annotations on it in Merovingian minuscule. Folios 1v-240v were edited in Goetz, Glossarii Latini, vol. 2, pp. 213-483 as Glossae Graeco-Latinae.
The glossary was a copy of the Greek-Latin glosses attributed to a certain Cyrillus and may well have been copied from a papyrus exemplar. The Cyril glosses have been tentatively dated to the sixth century; however, who Cyrillus was is unknown. He was not the fifthcentury Patriarch of Alexandria.
The sources of the Cyril glosses included a Latin-Greek glossary similar to the pseudo-Philoxenos and then turned back to front, and a Latin grammar composed for Greeks.
5: Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Cod. Monac. Lat. 13002.
In a dated manuscript produced in 1158 at the German monastery of Priifening in Bavaria, this glossary is known as the Hermeneumata Monacensia. Folios 209r-218r were edited in Goetz, Glossarii Latini, vol. 3, pp. 117-220.
The glossary was a much-removed copy of glosses from a thirdcentury Greco-Latin schoolbook attributed, falsely, to Dositheus, the author of a Latin grammar for Greeks composed in the early third century which achieved a wide circulation.
6: Metz, Bibliothéque Publique, Cod. Metensis 500.
Folios 9r-24v and 136r-160v of this eleventh-century manuscript contain a late tenth-century copy of a glossary known as the Glossae Aynardi from their inscription attributing them to a certain Aynardus in the year 969. Excerpts from the glosses were edited in Goetz, Glossarii Latini, vol. 5, pp. 615-625.
This was a unique glossary, sui generis, with no known links to any other glossary. The author was an unknown grammarian associated with Toul, at the tomb of St Evre of which he dedicated the glossary, according to his own preface. He knew Origen and St Ambrose, the De compendiosa doctrina of Nonius Marcellus (fl. ca 280) on the literature of Republican Rome, the grammarian Servius (Rome, late fourth to early fifth century), and Horace, Vergil, and Juvenal.
7: Erfurt, Wissenschaftliche Allgemeinbibliothek, Amplon. Fol. 42.
Folios 1-14v contain the so-called Amplonianum Primum, the First Amplonian Glossary. The Second Amplonian Glossary follows on folios 14-34 of the manuscript. The First Amplonian Glossary dates from the ninth century and was probably produced in Germany. It was edited in Goetz, Glossarii Latini, vol. 5, pp. 337-401. It was akin to the manuscript Epinal MS. 7, also of the ninth century, which Goetz included in his critical apparatus.
The glossary included material from the Ars de nomine et verbo of the grammarian Phocas (Rome, fifth century), Hermeneumata materials, glosses of the Antiochene grammarian Rufinus (mid fifth early sixth century) on Eusebius, Orosius, St Jerome, De viris illustribus, the Vulgate Bible, and the Abstrusa and Abolita glossaries.
8: Rome, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, MS. Vat. Lat. 6925.
Folios 67r-78v contain the so-called Hermeneumata Vaticana, like the Hermeneumata Monacensia a much-removed copy of glosses from the Greco-Latin schoolbook attributed to Dositheus. The manuscript is dated to the tenth century. The glossary was edited in Goetz, Glossarii Latini, vol. 3, pp. 421-438.
9: Leiden, Bibliothek der Rijksuniversiteit, MS. BPL 67F (= Lowe, CLA, vol. 10, no. 1575).
In Caroline minuscule, this manuscript was written somewhere in North-East France in the age of Charlemagne and signed on folio 158v by a certain TAWOO MA RWO (Gadsthmar6s). Folios 142v-147r were edited in Goetz, Glossarii Latini, vol. 5, pp. 637-651 as the Glossae Noni.
Compiled by Agellus and Marcellus, the Glossae Nonii contained glosses derived from the De compendiosa doctrina of Nonius Marcellus. It was probably compiled from marginal notes in a manuscript of Nonius, one of which may have been taken to Tours by Alcuin.
NTRODUCTION
There are few images more representative of the Mediterranean Sea in the Early Middle Ages than that of the famous Byzantine war galley known as the dromon. At sea, the succession of the dromon to the Roman bireme /Jiburna and its predecessors, especially the Greek triérés, has been presented in the conventional historiography of the maritime history of the Mediterranean as marking a transition from Rome to Byzantium. Similarly, the succession of the Western galea to the dromon in the late eleventh and twelfth centuries has been presented as marking a transition from the Early Middle Ages to the High Middle Ages in so far as the maritime history of the Mediterranean is concerned.
Behind this conventional presentation lie two intellectual assumptions which have underpinned the historiography. The first is that specific ship types, known by different names, existed in different chronological periods, or in different civilizations, and that these had distinctive construction features which either can be ascertained or, if they cannot be ascertained, would be able to be ascertained if sufficient evidence were available. The second assumption is that when the writers of ancient and medieval texts used terms such as trieérés, liburna, dromon, or galea, they actually intended to refer to such specific ship types because these names were applied to the ship types by their contemporaries. Therefore, if a new name began to be used in the texts from a certain period, this reflects the fact that a new type of ship appeared in that period. Conversely, if a name faded from use in the texts in a certain period, then this indicates that the type of ship to which it referred had disappeared. It has been assumed that there were definite relationships between the words and the physical objects to which they referred, relationships which were both stable over long periods of time and also consistent in usage from place to place and person to person at any one time.
This study was begun by John Pryor as an attempt to research the construction characteristics of the Byzantine dromon in the age of the Macedonian emperors in this conventional way. When it was commenced, there was an implicit acceptance of the assumptions of the conventional historiography. However, in the course of our research we have been led to question them. As a result, we have also been led to question the very basis of any attempt to know what “the” Byzantine dromon actually was. In certain periods Byzantines certainly referred to galleys by the term dromon, and also by chelandion and other terms, but did they always really intend that their use of these terms should actually designate specific galley types with distinctive design characteristics?
On the one hand, maritime historians know well that throughout history gradual evolution has almost invariably been the norm in so far as ship design is concerned. There has very rarely been any sudden technological innovation which has produced a distinctive new ship type overnight. Even submarines and aircraft carriers were developed gradually as new features were experimented with. Ship types have never remained static and fixed in design over time. They have always evolved slowly as generation after generation has progressively refined them and adapted them to changing circumstances. The evolutionary norm has been that eventually changes have become so marked that the ships have become distinctive new types which can be distinguished from their progenitors. Sometimes a previous name or term for a ship type has been taken into a new technological context; for example, the medieval Italian galeone for a small galley eventually became galleon for sailing ships of the sixteenth century. Sometimes a term for a ship type has been replaced by another term; for example, the Scandinavian knérr, which evolved in England into the AngloNorman buss. This being the case, we are led to consider whether “a” distinctive Byzantine warship, known as a dromon, ever actually existed at any time or whether, in fact, different forms of galleys over many centuries were referred to by Byzantines and others by the name dromon? There is no reason per se why the same term used in, say, the sixth century and the tenth, should not have been used with reference to quite different ship types. There is no reason, per se, why the same name should not have continued in use even if the construction features of the ships had changed dramatically.
On the other hand, when we examine texts which use terms such as dromon for ships, the reality for us lies in the texts and terms themselves. In most cases, we cannot see beyond the terms and cannot know whether two authors using the same term, even in the same time period, really had the same type of ship in mind. The same would true of the use of terminology in different geographical regions. Was a ship referred to as a chelandion in Byzantine South Italy in the tenth century really the same as that which was referred to by the same name in Constantinople? Futhermore, in most cases we cannot even know whether authors really even intended to refer to any specific ship type by their use of such terms. Indeed, in many cases, collateral evidence suggests that their use of them was no more specific than is that of “yacht” in our own time: a term which began with a specific reference to a seventeenth-century Dutch ship but which has since been applied to almost any kind of sailing pleasure craft. The popular use of “battleship” is another case in point. The word is correctly used for first-rate capital ships of the modern era of iron ships but is frequently used in popular literature with many other references. Nelson’s Victory, for example, is often referred to as a “battleship”; whereas, she was properly a “first-rate ship of the line”. Only if we had texts which empirically described the construction or operation of galleys referred to as dromones at any particular time could we be confident that we were being informed about actual ships in contemporary use, but even then only for that time and place and for those texts.
To this general problem of the use of technical and technological terminology in texts, we need to add another consideration especially prominent in Byzantine literary texts. As is well known, in most periods most educated Byzantine authors aped the style and vocabulary of classical Greece. Their models were, for example, Homer, Herodotos, and Thucydides. Moreover, Byzantine literati learned their classical Greek by reading and memorizing these and other authors. As a result, classical vocabulary and expressions continually recurred to them when searching for ways in which to express what they wished to say. When writing, they might, on the one hand, attempt to display their education to their intended readers by deliberately quoting or paraphrasing snippets from classical authors. On the other hand, such snippets might find their way to their pens quite unconsciously simply as a product of their education because a word or phrase or clause remembered from their education sprang to their minds as a way to say something. A similar problem occurs in Western medieval Latin texts when authors used short passages of scripture to express something. Often, one can not know whether the quotation was deliberate or simply a product of their education, during which much of the Bible had been memorized. Consequently, when we find Byzantine authors using technical vocabulary derived from a distant past, such as triérés for a “three” or three-banked galley, or triakontérés for a “thirty” [oared galley], or pentékonteros for a “fifty” [oared galley], we can never be sure that they intended to convey to their readers that fact that the ships in question had the technological characteristics to which the terms had originally referred. They may simply have been using a word for a ship which was known to be classical, and therefore approved, without any intent at all to link it in their readers’ minds with the technological characteristics of the ships of their own day referred to. The latter may or may not have had three banks or thirty or fifty oars, etc. There is simply no way of knowing from the texts per se.
Leaving aside the question of subconscious utilization of classical terminology, there is no doubt that educated Byzantines did also deliberately and consciously ransack classical texts for their own purposes. Unfortunately for modern maritime historians, this was the case with the “Naval warfare, commissioned by Basil, the patrician and parakoimomenos’, a treatise compiled by an anonymous author for the parakoimomenos Basil Lekapénos, in 958-59, and which is the only surviving text which purports to describe the contemporary construction of dromones and chelandia.' In the past, this treatise has been accepted as a virtual “shipwright’s manual” by maritime historians; although, its derivative nature has been recognized by literary historians.” It will be shown to have been little more than an exercise in classicizing philology, and therefore to be of only limited use for study of the construction of actual tenth-century dromons.
Since we have been led to question seriously the underlying assumptions for empirical study of the construction of the ships, we have then approached the reality of “the” Byzantine dromon from alternative perspectives. On the one hand, from the sixth to the twelfth centuries, Byzantines and others certainly referred to some kinds of war galleys by the name dromon. On the other hand, real war galleys certainly existed. But, what did contemporaries intend their terminology to signify and what can we know of the physical objects to which they referred? Beyond that, with what degree of confidence can we use their texts to research the construction characteristics of the galleys and the ways in which they may have evolved over time? Our primary objective has become an attempt to elucidate the meanings of terminology as used by contemporaries and how such meanings may have varied from time to time or from author to author.
As a result, large sections of this study have evolved into an etymological and philological hunt for linguistic chimerae. We are well aware, of course, that the hunt was always doomed to only partial success at the best. The passage of the centuries and the disappearance of so many sources has made the recovery of the meaning of terminology in the past possible only in part. Some readers may consider that in some places we have pushed the search for understanding of the meaning of terminology to excessive lengths, or that we have presented the evidence at excessive length. In response, we point out that the search has been successful in some places in elucidating the meaning of some terms whose meaning has been completely forgotten; for example, mepovn (perone) for the “spur” of a galley, «KaAv(u)Boudtocg (kaly(m)bomadtos) for a water tank or possibly something to do with a bilge pump, and tpoyavtnp (trochanter) for a part of a rudder to which the rudder tackles were attached. These are merely three examples and there are many points at which we consider that the results have justified the hunt. Those who find the presentation of the evidence tedious can simply skip to the conclusions; however, there will be some readers who will want the evidence for the conclusions properly presented.
In retrospect, now that the research has been done and the book has been written, there will no doubt be some who will consider that we have made much ado about nothing. What else would one expect but that words, even technical and technological terms, varied in meaning from time to time, place to place, and author to author? What else would one expect but that Byzantine galleys of the tenth century were not the same as those of the sixth century? What else would one expect but that Byzantine authors wrote classicizing philological treatises rather than shipwrights’ manuals? We would respond that these have not been the assumptions of the traditional historiography of maritime history, that there has been an assumption that something called “the dromon” did exist and remained the same for centuries, and that texts referred to actual ships. We came to a full appreciation of the extent of the methodological difficulties and to our questioning of the assumptions of the maritime historiography only slowly.
We have been mindful of all of these considerations throughout and have attempted to avoid referring to dromons as though they were a single reality. Only in Chapter Four, which deals with the construction, equipment, and armaments of tenth-century Byzantine war galleys during the era of the Macedonian emperors, have we used the word dromon as an intellectual shorthand, as though it did represent a single reality. To have avoided it there would have involved endless and tedious circumlocutions. Moreover, since most of the texts under discussion in Chapter IV emanated from Constantinople over a comparatively short period between ca 900 and 960, there is some justification for considering that fairly well-known and standardized types of galleys may have been referred to as dromones in those texts.
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