NĀVARCHUS (ναύαρχος), the name by which the Greeks designated both
the captain of a single ship, and the admiral of a fleet. The office
itself was called ναυαρχία. The admiral of the Athenian fleet was
always one of the ten generals (στρατηγοί) elected every year, and
he had either the whole or the chief command of the fleet. The
chief officers who served under him were the trierarchs and the
pentecontarchs, each of whom commanded one vessel; the inferior
officers in the vessels were the κυβερνῆται or helmsmen, the
κελευσταί or commanders of the rowers, and the πρωρᾶται, who must
have been employed at the prow of the vessels. Other Greek states
who kept a navy had likewise their navarchs. The chief admiral of
the Spartan fleet was called navarchus, and the second in command
_epistoleus_ (ἐπιστολεύς). The same person was not allowed to hold
the office of navarchus two successive years at Sparta. [EPISTOLEUS.]
NAUCRĀRĬA (ναυκραρία), the name of a division of the inhabitants
of Attica. The four ancient phylae were each divided into three
phratries, and each of these twelve phratries into four naucraries,
of which there were thus forty-eight. What the naucraries were
previous to the legislation of Solon is not stated anywhere, but it
is not improbable that they were political divisions similar to the
demes in the constitution of Cleisthenes, and were made perhaps at
the time of the institution of the nine archons, for the purpose of
regulating the liturgies, taxes, or financial and military affairs
in general. At any rate, however, the naucraries before the time of
Solon can have had no connection with the navy, for the Athenians
then had no navy; the word ναύκραρος therefore cannot be derived
from ναῦς, ship, but must come from ναιω, and ναύκραρος is thus only
another form for ναύκληρος in the sense of a householder, as ναῦλον
was used for the rent of a house. Solon in his legislation retained
the old institution of the naucraries, and charged each of them with
the equipment of one trireme and with the mounting of two horsemen.
All military affairs, as far as regards the defraying of expenses,
probably continued as before to be regulated according to naucraries.
Cleisthenes, in his change of the Solonian constitution, retained
the division into naucraries for military and financial purposes;
but he increased their number to fifty, making five for each of his
ten tribes; so that now the number of their ships was increased from
forty-eight to fifty, and that of horsemen from ninety-six to one
hundred. The statement of Herodotus, that the Athenians in their war
against Aegina had only fifty ships of their own, is thus perfectly
in accordance with the fifty naucraries of Cleisthenes. The functions
of the former ναύκραροι, or the heads of their respective naucraries,
were now transferred to the demarchs. [DEMARCHI.] The obligation of
each naucrary to equip a ship of war for the service of the republic
may be regarded as the first form of trierarchy. As the system of
trierarchy became developed and established, this obligation of the
naucraries appears to have gradually ceased, and to have fallen into
disuse. [TRIERARCHIA.]