Boarding a Byzantine warship

[VRob98]

Greets to all forum members. I'm new to the forum but I've been a lurker here for a while, so thought I'd make it official.

I'm writing a fiction piece based in C6th Byzantium and have a question that I'm hoping somebody here can help with. It's essentially a very simple question but one that's proving frustratingly difficult to find a reliable answer for. (The same question could actually be applied to Roman ships too.)

Basically, by what method would the crew of a warship (dromon) have boarded the vessel?

Assuming that the ship is in a dock, would the sailors and troops have simply stepped onto the deck from a quayside of the same height? Would they have used rigging ladders to climb up the hull? Or would they have laid gangplanks across the gunwale to allow men to board? Or was there some other method, like ladders built into the hull? Or scaffolding perhaps built on the quayside to the ship's height?

I'm assuming that heavy provisions and artillery would have been brought aboard with cranes and hoists, but I haven't read or seen any account of how the personnel got aboard the ship.

Of course, the reverse applies when the ship reaches its destination and the troops need to disembark (presumably in coastal shallows). Would they have just jumped off the side, or was there some more orderly and advanced system for disembarking?

Thanks in advance to any who can help.

Cheers
Rob

[Robert Vermaat]

Hi Rob,

Welcome to the forum. Please write your real (first) name in your signature (profile). It's a forum rule.

[VRob98]

Ok, done :wink:

[Gaius Julius Caesar]

A gang plank/ boarding plank. Pretty common method across the ages and cultures.....maybe?

[VRob98]

A gangplank was my assumption, but looking at the structure of a galley/dromon, there doesn't seem to be an obvious place (i.e. a gap in the ship's rail) where a load-bearing structure could be easily laid?

[markusaurelius]

Judging by some of the amazing harbors used to store the war ships, I would think some sort of system would have been used that was as technologically in-genius as the harbor design :-) )

Portus image from Ostia
[url:49g44ll0]http://www.ostia-antica.org/map/portus-m.htm[/url]

Or this reconstructed image of the harbour of Carthage.


But I'm just guessing. The over all designs of these facilities always amazed me in either case.[/img]

[Gaius Julius Caesar]

I don't know of any wrecks to go by, but looking at the Olympia, I don't recall any rails...But that is a greek trireme..

I imagine if a ship is low enough to board by jumping down, it wouldbe done, but I wonder if they had gates on any railings, if they did have them.

Also, a gangway can be secured to a rail as well.

[VRob98]

Yes, by 'rail' I mean the gunwale of course (the uppermost strake).

And yes, a gangplank could indeed be secured that way. In fact, to board the ship any other way seems a bit unlikely considering their efficiency in other areas.

I guess the bottom line is that we don't really know. In which case, it's okay to employ a little artistic license? :wink:

Thanks to all who've taken the time to reply so far - it's been very helpful.

[Sean Manning]

Books by Lionel Casson and Morrison and Coates would be useful here. In the Classical period, crews got on and off using boarding ladders, but I don't know how it worked in the Byzantine world. Remember that when not in dock a galley would 'dock' by running stern-first onto a handy beach!

[Carlton Bach]

The Liber ad honorem Augusti (South Italian, c. 1190) shows a gangplank used to board a (Siculo-Norman) galley that is beached stern first. The design of a Byzantine warship would have allowed that, and it seems to have been common in ancient times (I recall seeing it in Greek vase paintings). Unfortunately, I haven't been able to find any depictions for 'core' Byzantium or any pictures of galleys in a built-up port where arrangements may have been different.

[VRob98]

Thank you, gentlmen. There is a carving from Naxos which shows a man stepping onto a boarding platform, and it seems that ancient Greek vessels in the Aegean customarily beached stern-first to use a landing gangplank. I believe the gangplank was also used later in Crusader times and by William the Conqueror's horse transports. It's just that it seems to disappear almost entirely during the Roman and early Byzantine times, and references to it are conspicuously absent in contemporary accounts, which is perhaps surprising. However, it does seem feasible that such a system might have been occasionally used -- if not all the time -- and that docks would certainly have been equipped with the devices.

[Peter Raftos]

The book that could provide an answer for you is The Age of the Dromon: the Byzantine navy ca 500-1204 by John Pryor, Elizabeth M. Jeffreys and Ahmad Shbou. You may have to track this down at a university library it is rather expensive and I am trying to talk Santa into buying it for me.

One illumination in the Skylitzes manuscript (fol. 147) shows boarding by ladders but this is later than your period of interest. Skylites fol. 147