Hellenic Navy - History - Archaic Period
The history of the Hellenic Navy does not have a concrete point of beginning.Its roots are lost in the depths of centuries of the history of mankind. In a geographical area of which any part is no more than 150 km.away from the sea, the Greeks developed from the Prehistoric Age societies which were coastal in their majority. There, they learned to exploit the marine resources and loved the sea. Automatically, the need for protecting and further spreading the cultures that they had developed was created, having as a result the progressive development of the first organised units of the Hellenic Navy.The Trojan War, an expedition that is lost in the mist of fable of Iliad and Odyssey, was the first Pan-Hellenic naval expedition. Noteworthy that the camp of Aghaion was made from Greek boats pulled in the land. After the distraction of Troy and the end of the war which lasted for ten years, the adventures of the return of the fearless seamen-heroes back in their home grounds began. It is obvious that from the Archaic Period the Greeks had already earned good experience in the art of shipbuilding. The 8th century ships described by Homer are refered to as "swift" and "hollow". Ships of that age as their predecessors, had an incomplete deck, which took the form of an extension of the prow on which men stood to follow the course of the ship, with a larger one at the stern for the captain or other officer. The crew sat on a lower level, on which the helmsman also sat.
The size of the ships varied. Boats for short journeys and trading vessels had twenty oars, and the biggest ship of the period was the penticonter, which had fifty oars. This was a long, narrow vessel used as warship and a transport vessel. The hull was black, the prow was normally painted red or blue and adorned with a figure-head, and the stern was elevated. Both prow and stern ended in horns like those of a cow, or curling like those of a ram. There were two kinds of ships: one with a low, open hull, and the other with a raised hull. The sails used in this period were of linen cloth and were raised or lowered on the mast.A basic feature was the ram. This had first appeared in the Mycenaean period in the form of a slide projection, and after the 9th century it is fully formed and extends a considerable distance.
There were three types of warships throughout the Archaic period: (1) Ships with a single bank of oars, with no parexeiresia (a vertical extension to the sides of ship, in which the oars were placed). These had 20 to 50 oars and in the later case they were known as penteconters. (2) Light warships, whiich did have a parexeiresia. The construction and use of these ships was confined to Attica. (3) Ships with two banks of oars. These had 80 to 120 seats for oarsmen. These types of warships held sway in Greece until the appearance of the trieme at the end of the 6th century B.C.. Thus, in the 7th and 6th centuries the Greeks dominated all the coasts of the Mediterranean. Beginning with the navigation in the Aegean Sea, they opened up new horizons by exploring previously unexplored areas; they explored all the Mediterranean Sea shores, set up colonies from the Pillars of Hercules (Gilbraltar) to the Black Sea, and vindicated their prosperity with the sovereignty of the seas.
Hundreds of colonies were founded around the edge of the Mediterranean basin. During these centuries, Greek seafaring was indissolubly linked with the planting of colonies and the growth of trade and the economy in general. So many Greek colonies were founded in southern Italy, that the area is known as Magna Graecia. The eastern part of Sicily was equaly densely populated with Greek cities, as were the coasts of modern France, Spain, and the shores of Lybia. In the northern Aegean, colonies were founded in Chalkidiki, Macedonia, and Thrace, while a ring of Greek cities was formed in the Black Sea.
Although trade continued with Egypt and the Near East, it was also conducted in this period between mother-cities and their colonies. The seaman's radius of activity continually increased, trade expanded, and the influence of peoples on each other became clearer. In 638 B.C., unfavourable winds blew a Samian ship off course and drove it beyond the Pillars of Hercules (Gilbraltar). On their return voyage, the Samian sailors took on a load of silver from south-west Spain and sold it at a good price in their homeland. Shortly afterwards, in 620 B.C., the Phocaeans ploughed the sea route between Asia Minor and Spain, carrying this precious material in their boats to the markets of the Aegean. On their return they took on board the goods of the Etruscans and the products of Carthage, and traded them in the ports of the Greek colonists. Their example was followed by the merchants who sailed the sea routes from Corinth, Chalkis, and Eretria, the islands of Samos, Chios, and Rhodes, and the cities of Asia Minor. Athens founded no colonies at this period. Only Solon travelled abroad at the beginning of the 6th century to see, learn, and record his impressions of his journeys, thus, we have the first attempt to improve the mind through travel.
At this period, Athens suffered from a deficit of certain products, such as grain, and a surplus of others, like olive oil, wine, and her excellent pottery. The city decided, therefore, to construct a merchant fleet for trading purposes alongside the military one. To build this, wood and metal had to be imported. Conflicts inevitably followed, a climate of competition between the city-states was created, and there were disputes with other naval peoples. Once the Athenian merchant fleet was at sea, alongside the warships, the middle classes began to participate more actively in public affairs. At the same time, the processes intensified that gradually transformed the oligarchic-aristocratic forms of government into timocratic-democratic ones. The 6th century was a critical period for the political, economic, and geographical space of Greece and foreshadowed the triumph of the Classical civilization that was to follow. New paths were opened up in every sphere of life at this period, as a result both of the contacts arizing out of the Pan-Hellenic games at the major sanctuaries of Olympia, Delphi, the Isthmus, and Nemea, and of the colonies. The ships of the Archaic period inherited their form from their Geometric forerunners, and the shipbuilding in the 7th and 6th centuries had nothing new to add.
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