15th Century Byzantine Warships

**ngsh00** · February 17, 2015, 01:58 PM

Hello there,
I am new here and I was wondering if you could help me at all!

I am doing a project and was making a research for it but I am really struggling. I have a script that is about the fall of Constantinople in 1453. It is a fiction one. In the script Constantine XI Palaiologos is leaving the city after losing Constantinople, sailing to Trebizond. I need information about the warship he is sailing with.

The script says it is a Byzantine Katergon(?), it says siphons fire Greek fire onto turkish ships, it says helmsman turns the tiller, (I am writing the key bits) it mentions sails drooping as the wind dies and captain saying "to oars" to the oarsmen. And it mentions a poop deck.

But of course, the person who wrote the script might not be %100 correct with his descriptions. Basically, I need information about the Byzantine warships during the fall of Constantinople. So far, I couldn't find anything. There is a lot of information on dromons online, I can find a good deal of information up until 12th century, but all the information online says, after 12th century Byzantine Navy weakened and there were only a few dozen of warships left. And there is no information on the warships they used during that era.

It is quite shocking that I cannot find any information on warships from that era as the fall of Constantinople is kind of a big deal lol.
Anyway friends, any help will be appreciated a lot.
Please help!

**Magister Militum Flavius Aetius** · February 17, 2015, 09:31 PM

If they had warships (IIRC they had 7 or 10 in 1453), they probably would have been the same as the kind the Venetians or Genoese did.

**Antiochus Seleukos** · February 18, 2015, 01:42 AM

Which script is this?

**ngsh00** · February 18, 2015, 02:10 AM

It is not a known script, this is only for my university project, i am not using the whole script anyway, i am just choosing a scene and i dont mention the script again, i know it sounds a little weird, but basically i need to know byzantine warships of that era, and i really cannot find a single information about it. I did find out that they didnt have many at that point, but no other explanation.