Samaina

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Samaina ( Greek  σάμαινα ) is a type of ship from ancient Greece, a long ship with two rows of oars, sails and a ram . It is possible that the Samainas were built relatively broad, making them suitable both as war and cargo ships.

Samainas were first built on Samos at the time of Polycrates and were so typical of Samos that Sami prisoners of war were branded by the Athenians with the image of a Samaina (which they repaid after the victory over the Athenians under Pericles by making them Athenians with the image branding an owl). The fact that the ship type was strongly identified with Samos is also proven by the fact that it appeared on Sami coins, according to Suda , Samaina was also the name of a coin. Corresponding coins were found, e.g. B. one on 493 to 489 BC Tetradrachm from Zankle-Messana , dated to the 3rd century BC , on which two rows of oars and a peculiarly shaped bow can be seen.

The description of the ship type at Plutarch is somewhat unclear: it can be interpreted in such a way that the bow or ram spur of the ship had the shape of a pig's head or trunk, or, figuratively, that the ram spur was below the waterline (such as the pig's trunk is hidden in the earth while it was rooting) and was therefore not visible from a distance.

Thucydides tells of Ameinocles, a shipbuilder from Corinth who built four ships for the Samians. It is not certain whether these were samainas. After all, the Corinthian shipbuilders had the most experience in building ships with multiple rows of oars.

swell

  • Herodotus Histories 3.39; 3.44; 3.59
  • Thucydides Peloponnesian War 1.13.2f
  • Plutarch Pericles 26
  • Suda , keyword Σαμίων ὁ δῆμος , Adler number: sigma 77 , Suda-Online

literature

  • Schoschana Hetzel: The Maritime Policy of Archaic Tyrants. Dissertation, Dresden 2001, p. 126
  • Raimund Schulz: Antiquity and the Sea. Primus, Darmstadt 2005, ISBN

3-89678-256-8, p. 62

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Williams: Early Greek Ships, Plate XIV (d).