Note 1675 — Chapter X · NAVIGATION.

The sea-term ὑπηρέσιον which occurs in Thucydides, ii. 93, is very variously explained. Mitford (Hist. Greece, iii. 154) contends, that it means a sort of bag placed in the τρῆμα, or aperture through which the oar passed, and was designed to prevent the flowing in of the waves. This bag, however, as I have already remarked in pp. 289, 290, was called ἄσκωμα. Poll. ii. 154. Potter (ii. 136,) thinks it was a skin on which the rowers sat. Lilius Gyraldus, (De Navigiis, c. vi. p. 627,) supposes it to have been that part of the galley on which the oar rested, and sometimes signified the oar itself. The Greek scholiast on Thucydides, (t. v. p. 399,) agrees with Potter, saying, that it means a sheep-skin with the fleece which covered the rowers’ benches.