battery of guns, and was closed in below so as to
provide quarters for the fighting men. The poop had a deck house
and a smaller battery; this deck also was closed in, furnishing
quarters for the officers. There were two or three masts, lateen
rigged, adorned in peace or war with the greatest profusion of
banners and streamers. Indeed huge sums of money were expended on
the mere ornament of these war galleys, particularly in the elaborate
carvings that adorned the stern and prow.

In the conflict of Christian and Moslem, when Constantinople was
the capital of Christendom, Greek fire on two critical occasions
routed the Saracens. This substance was never understood in western
Europe, and for centuries the secret was carefully preserved in
the eastern capital. In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries,
it was used by the Moslem against the Christian, but the discovery
of gunpowder soon made the earlier substance obsolete. In the 16th
century cannon had already reached considerable dimensions, but in
a naval battle between galleys these weapons were not used after
the first volley or so. The tactics were little different from
those of the day of the trireme, consisting simply of ramming, and
fighting at close quarters with arquebus, bows, pike, and sword.

Twenty feet from the bows of every galley projected her metal beak,
and all her guns pointed forward; hence in the naval tactics of
the period everything turned on a head-on attack. The battle line,
therefore, was line abreast. For the same reasons a commander had
to fear an attack on his flank, and he maneuvered usually to get
at least one flank protected by the shore. The battle line in the
days of the galley could be dressed as accurately as a file of
soldiers, but the fighting was settled in a close melee in which
all formation was lost from the moment of collision between the
two fleets.

_The Campaign of Prevesa_

Such were the men of war and the tactics common to Christian and
corsair during the 16th century. While the Christians were slowly
collecting their armada, Barbarossa, with a force of 122 galleys,
set out to catch his enemy in detail if he could. Pirate as he
was, the old ruffian had a clear strategic grasp of what he might
do with a force that was inferior to the fleet collecting against
him. The Christians were to mobilize at Corfu. The Papal squadron
had collected in the Gulf of Arta, and Barbarossa made for it. By
sheer luck just before he arri