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HOW TO NAME A TRIREME

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 September 2023

Mills McArthur
Mills McArthur*
Affiliation:
Southern Adventist University
*
millsmcarthur@southern.edu
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Abstract

The names of Athenian warships are a valuable source for cultural history, but scholars have long laboured without a sense of how these names were chosen. In a recent article, the present author has suggested that naval architects (master craftsmen elected by the Athenian Assembly) were responsible for naming each vessel they built. This explanation applies to the great majority of Athenian warship names known to us, but exceptions to the rule remain. Naval architects cannot have named vessels they did not build, and we know of several foreign-built ships (e.g., captured or donated ships) in the Athenian fleet. Vessels with the special status of ‘sacred triremes’ must also have followed their own unique naming procedure. Such exceptional cases are the subject of this paper.

Τα ονόματα των αθηναϊκών πολεμικών πλοίων είναι μια πολύτιμη πηγή για την πολιτισμική ιστορία, αλλά οι ερευνητές έχουν κοπιάσει εδώ και πολύ καιρό χωρίς καμία αίσθηση του πως επιλέγονταν αυτά τα ονόματα. Σε ένα πρόσφατο άρθρο του, ο συγγραφέας του παρόντος έχει προτείνει ότι οι ναυπηγοί (αρχιτεχνίτες που εκλέγονταν από την αθηναϊκή συνέλευση) ήταν υπεύθυνοι για την ονοματοδοσία κάθε πλοίου που κατασκεύαζαν. Αυτή η εξήγηση ισχύει για τη μεγαλύτερη πλειονότητα των ονομάτων των αθηναϊκών πολεμικών πλοίων που μας είναι γνωστά, αλλά παραμένουν ορισμένες εξαιρέσεις στον κανόνα. Οι ναυπηγοί δεν θα μπορούσαν να ονοματοδοτούν τα πλοία που δεν είχαν κατασκευάσει, και γνωρίζουμε για αρκετά πλοία ξένης κατασκευής (πχ. αιχμαλωτισθέντα ή δωρηθέντα πλοία) στον αθηναϊκό στόλο. Σκάφη με το ειδικό καθεστώς της «ιεράς τριήρους» πρέπει να ακολουθούσαν τη δική τους μοναδική διαδικασία ονοματοδοσίας. Τέτοιες ειδικές περιπτώσεις είναι το θέμα αυτού του άρθρου.

Μετάφραση: Στ. Ιερεμίας

Type
Articles
Information
Annual of the British School at Athens , First View , pp. 1 - 16
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2023. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of The Council, British School at Athens

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