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Hyperesia in naval contexts in the fifth and fourth centuries BC

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 October 2013

J. S. Morrison
J. S. Morrison
Affiliation:
Great Shelford, Cambridge
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Extract

L. J. D. Richardson'S article ΥΠΗΡΕΤΗΣ, CQ xxxvii (1943) 55–61, asserted the manifest truth that the word hyperetes, for which ‘an unattested original meaning “under-rower” has been universally assumed, had ceased to be used literally by the time our records, literary and epigraphic, begin’. ‘When ὑπηρέτης and its derivative ὑπηρετέω first appear (in Herodotus saepe), both the particular transferred sense “servant” and the generally transferred sense “subordinate” were already well established to the exclusion of the original meaning (whatever it was), and, what is more, the metaphor from the seafaring usage seems to be already “dead”. The essential note, however, in the group of words (ὑπηρὲτης, ὑπηρετέω, ὑπηρεσία, ὑπηρετικός) is not hard to assess: it is implicit, unquestioning service in response to another's authoritative bidding.’ The truth of this assessment for the fourth as well as the fifth century is plain from an examination of the very frequent use of the word in, e.g., Plato. Richardson proceeded to point out ‘a source of confusion in the dictionaries’ (which still prevails), viz., that of the four chief members of the group of words mentioned, hyperesia alone, having become ‘figurative (as service) in all areas, was then reapplied in the naval domain’, as a name for part of the ship's company of the fifth- and fourth-century trireme. This pattern (of reapplication in a naval context) is in fact also true of hyperesion and hyperetikos. The former is the name given by Thucydides and Isocrates to the oarsman's cushion, called proskephalaion by Hermippus and Theophrastus, while the latter is used of a naval dispatch boat.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Hellenic Studies , Volume 104 , November 1984 , pp. 48 - 59
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies 1984

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References

1 Thuc. ii 93.2; Isoc. viii 48; Hermippus fr. 34; Thphr, . Char, ii 11.Google Scholar

2 X. HG i 6.36 ὑπηρετικὸς κέλης, Ps.-Dem. li 46 ὑπηρετικὸν, D.S. xviii 95.3–4 ὑπηρετικοί: this is the dispatch boat of the hyperetes, the general's ADC.

3 A. Ag. 1617–18; cf. the stern platform, the selma, where the gods sit ibid. 182–3. See Morrison, J.S. and Williams, R.T., Greek Oared Ships (Cambridge 1968) 48, 196–7Google Scholar (henceforward GOS).

4 Jordan, B. in his valuable book The Athenian Navy in the Classical Period, U. Calif. Class. Stud, xiii (1975)Google Scholar; Hammond, N.G.L., ‘The Narrative of Herodotus and the Decree of Themistocles of Troezen’, JHS cii (1982) 75–93CrossRefGoogle Scholar (see n. 54 for his reasons).

5 Thuc. iv 75.1; HellOxy 2 1; Isoc. iv 142; IG ii2 212.

6 Neither are the toxotai: see (ii) and (vi).

7 ‘Empty’ because the provision of gear was the responsibility of the trierarch.

8 See GOS 246–8.

9 See GOS 269–71.

10 See GOS 133–4, 197.

11 Acharnians 162–3.

12 Jordan (n. 4). 240–64.

13 See Denniston, , Greek Particles 574–6Google Scholar II (1) and (2) for τοίνυν marking ‘a fresh step in the thought or action’ or introducing ‘a further item in a series’.

14 For later contexts see Appendix 2.

15 Jordan (n. 4) 257–8.

16 A passage in the description of Ptolemy Philopator's tessarakonteres quoted by Athenaeus from Callixenus (late 3rd century BC) may be noticed here, (v 37, 204b) When the ship underwent its trials it took on board: ἐρέτας πλείους τῶν τετρακισχιλίων, εἰς δὲ τὰς ὑπηρεσίας τετρακοσίους, εἰς δὲ τὸ κατάστρωμα ἐπιβάτας τρισχιλίους ἀποδέοντας ἐκατὸν καὶ πεντήκοντα. Cf. Plut. Demetr. 43 where in the description of the same ship, probably also derived from Callixenus, instead of hyperesia Plutarch uses the phrase ναύταις . . . χωρὶς ἐρετῶν τετρακσίοις and these nautai and eretai are distinguished from hoplitai carried on deck, i.e. epibatai. It may be noticed also that in Plb. i 63.3 pleroma is used for the oarsmen of a warship as distinct from the epibatai.

17 See GOS 266–8.

18 2 × 30 × 200 = 12,000 obols = 20 minai.

19 See GOS 272 n. 16.

20 In GOS 256 line 24 ‘ten’ is a mistake for ‘twenty’.

21 See Segre, Mario, ‘Dedica votiva dell' equipaggio di una nave rodia’, Clara Rhodos viii (1936) 225–44Google Scholar. The inscription dates from the Mithridatic war. The messmates of Alexidamas, a proreus, are listed as a kybernetes a naupegos, a pedaliouchos (tiller-man), five men working (ἐργαζόμενοι) in the bow and five in the stern, two katapeltaphetai (catapulters), six toxotai, an elaiochrëistes (oiler), a kopodetes (oar-binder) and twenty epibatai, making a total, with the proreus, of 45. Since Alexidamas' last ship was a tetreres, it is reasonable to infer that this is a list of the hyperesia of a tetreres. Its ship's company would be about 300,4 × 64 + 45 = 301, and the proportion of the hyperesia to the ship's company would then be the same as for a trireme (30/200 = 45/300). It is to be noted that one of Alexidamas' earlier posts was ‘foreman of the erga’, i.e. of the ergazomenoi. In Maiuri Nuova Sylloge 5 there is a further list: the trierarch's clerk, kybernetes, proreus, keleustes, pentekontarchos, naupegos and ergazomenoi. Plutarch, (Praec. reip. ger. 15–16Google Scholar 812 b–c) speaks of helmsmen ‘doing some things with their own hands, but sitting apart and turning and twisting other things by other persons and other tools. And they employ nautai and proreis and keleustai and often summoning some of them to the stern they commit the tiller to their charge’ (cf. pedaliouchos above). Cf. ibid. 807 b where he is speaking of a merchantman.

22 This backdating of the mobilisation of the fleet strengthens the case for the view that the Greek fleet was slower at Artemisium and Salamis because it had been at sea without ‘drying-out’ much longer than the Persian fleet, which had had the opportunity of drying out at Doriscus in the following spring.

23 IG i2 930.157. See GOS 260.

24 Cf. A. Pers. 380 τάξις δὲ τάξιν παρεκάλει νεὼς μακρᾶς. The embarkation of the Persian fleet on the evening before Salamis is being described. In GOS 153 I said: ‘Aeschylus's phrase suggests different taxeis within each ship. He may then be thinking of the different categories of oarsmen.’ I now think I was wrong to put so much weight on Aeschylus's use of the singular νεὼς μακρᾶς. Similar shouted encouragement from ship to ship seems to be described in Arrian's account of a naval engagement at the siege of Tyre (ii 21.9).

25 For the texts on which this conclusion is based see above p. 55.

26 GOS 135–9, 313–19.

27 Thuc. vii 62.1–4.

28 See above n. 25.

29 D.S. xiii 50–1; xiii 77.3. See p. 55 above.

30 See n. 21. It is interesting in this connexion to observe that Demosthenes twice uses hyperesia in the sense of ‘machination against’ a person: xxxi 8 εἰς τὴν καθ᾿ ἡμῶν ὑπηρεσίαν and Proem. lii τοσαῦται τέχναι καὶ γοητεῖαι καὶ ὅλως ὑπηρεσίαι τινές εἰσιν ἐφ᾿ ὑμᾶς κατεσκευασμέναι. Such usage facilitates the meaning ‘artillery’.

31 GOS 302.