Illustrated Companion to the Latin Dictionary/Navis

This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Rich, Anthony (1849). The illustrated companion to the Latin dictionary, and Greek lexicon. p. vi. OCLC 894670115. https://archive.org/details/illustratedcompa00rich. 

NAVIS (ναῦς). A ship; as a general term, including all kinds, whether worked by oars or sails; but mostly applied to vessels of the larger class, with an epithet added to discriminate the particular kind intended; as

1. Navis oneraria (στρογγύλη ναύς, πλοῖον φορτικόν). A ship of burden; employed as a store ship in attendance on a fleet; or as a merchant vessel for the transport of goods, merchandize, or any kind of freight. It was of a heavy build, with a round hull, and generally whole decked, but had not an armed beak (rostrum), and was always worked as a sailing vessel, without oars or sweeps; all which particulars are exhibited in the annexed example (Navis/1.1), representing the vessel of a Pompeian trader or shipowner, from a sepulchral monument. Liv. xxii. 11. xxx. 24. Nep. Them. 2. Non. s. v. p. 536.

2. Navis actuaria (ἐπίκωπος). An open vessel, worked with sweeps as well as sails; not intended to be brought into action, but employed in a fleet for all purposes requiring expedition; for keeping a look out, as a packet-boat, transport, and also by pirates. (Non. s. v. Gell. x. 25. 3. Liv. xxi. 28. xxv. 30.) It was never fitted with less than eighteen oars (Scheffer, Mil. Nav. ii. 2.); and the example (Navis/2.1) introduced, representing the vessel which transported Aeneas and his companions to Italy, in the Vatican Virgil, has twenty, ten on a side.

3. Navis longa (ναῦς μακρά). A long sharp-keeled ship, or galley; propelled by a single bank of oars, and forming an intermediate class between the navis actuaria and those which had more than one bank, such as the biremis, triremis, &c. (Liv. xxx. 24.) These vessels were equipped with as many as fifty oars (Herod. vi. 138.); and the annexed example (Navis/3.1), which is copied from a mosaic in a tomb near Pozzuoli, has forty-eight, twenty-four on a side, the exact number carried by the Mediterranean galleys of the middle ages. (Jal. Archéologie Navale, tom. i. p. 25.) The same word is also used in a generic sense for a man-of-war in general, including those which had several banks of oars, because, in reality, they were all laid down upon the long principle, with a sharp keel and lengthened line from stem to stern, instead of the short round bottoms adopted for the commercial marine and some piratical vessels.

4. Navis tecta, strata, or constrata (ναῦς κατάφρακτη). A decked vessel, as opposed to one which is open or half-decked. (Liv. xxx. 10. xxxvi. 43. Hirt. B. Alex. 11. Tac. Ann. ii. 6.) The first wood-cut shows a decked vessel of the commercial marine; the following one, of the navy proper.

5. Navis aperta (ἄφρακτον). An open vessel, without any deck, or only half-decked. (Liv. xxii. 19. xxxvi. 43.) See the example, No. 2.

6. Navis turrita. A war galley, with a tower erected on its deck, from which the combatants discharged their missiles as from the walls of a fortress (Virg. Aen. viii. 693. Florus, iv. 11. 5.); said to have been first introduced by Agrippa. (Serv. ad Virg. l. c.) The illustration (Navis/6.1) is from a bas-relief, published by Montfaucon.

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  Navis/1.1
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  Navis/2.1
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  Navis/3.1
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  Navis/6.1