Trireme

Trireme (Greek Τριήρεις pl. (Τριήρης sing.)) refers to a class of warships used by the ancient civilizations of the Mediterranean, especially the Phoenicians, ancient Greeks and Romans. In English, no differentiation is made between the Greek trieres and the Latin triremes. This is sometimes a source of confusion, as in other languages these terms refer to different styles of ships.

The early type had three rows of oars on each side, manned with one man per oar. They originated with the Phoenicians and are best known from the fleets of Ancient Greece. The early trireme was a development of the pentekonter, an ancient warship with a single row of 25 oars on each side. The trireme's staggered seating permitted three benches per vertical section with an oarsmen on each. The outrigger above the gunwale, projecting laterally beyond it, kept the third row of oars on deck out of the way of the first two under deck. Early triremes were the dominant warship in the Mediterranean from the 7th to the 4th century BC.

The heavily armored Greek/Phoenician trireme was the mainstay of most navies during the times of quinquiremes/penteres. Like these, all rowers were now protected under deck and battle was mainly fought by marines. A different system of classification was also used, referring to the men per vertical section, so that they did not necessarily have three rows of oars any more.

Light Roman triremes supplanted the liburnians in the late Roman navy. They were like the early triremes a light type of warship, but with 150 rowers under deck instead of 170, with little armor, but significantly more marines and less structural support for ramming. Later it developed into the heavier dromon.

Origin

The date of the introduction of the trireme is uncertain, not only because of ambiguities in the few scattered mentions of triremes by ancient Greek writers, such as Herodotus and Thucydides, but also because the evolutionary development of the ship is not well understood and its origin is possibly not in Greece.

According to Thucydides, the trireme was introduced by Ameinocles of Corinth in the late 8th century BC. However, we also know that triremes were not truly effectively used in naval combat until about 525 BC, when according to Herodotus, the ruler Polycrates of Samos was able to contribute 40 triremes to a joint invasion of Egypt. To suppose that no improvements were made to the design of the trireme — as the 40 ships contributed by Polycrates were still relatively primitive — when, in ten years in the early 5th century BC the Athenians were able to make sufficient improvements to the design to ensure their naval ascendancy for 60 years, is something of a stretch of the imagination. Some historians argue, therefore, that the introduction of the trireme did not take place until during the reign of Polycrates of Samos, as he was known to have a fleet of pentekonters at the beginning of his rule, and yet had switched to triremes by 525 BC. This would make the revolution of the design by the Athenians, then, much more plausible.

Add to this the uncertainty over the terminology used in the ancient texts - essentially, there is no guarantee that when the ancient writers used the term "trieres" that they were, in fact, referring to the trireme, and not to just any "warship", and the introduction in the late 8th century BC becomes quite questionable.

However, there are some reinforcements for the suggestion of the earlier introduction. Herodotus mentions that the Egyptian pharaoh Necho (610–595 BC) built triremes on the Nile, for service in the Mediterranean, and in the Red Sea for service in the Indian Ocean. That Pharaoh had close ties with Greece, and especially with Corinth, where it is likely — if the Corinthians had indeed introduced the ship in the late 8th century BC — he acquired the design.

Additionally, there is a fragment of Attic pottery, dated to between 735 and 710 BC, which seems to show a ship with three levels of oarsmen, although the third level is unmanned in the illustration. It is thought that the image represents an early example, or even a prototype, of a trireme, and the unmanned third level is explained, by proponents of the earlier introduction theory, as being quite natural, since the illustration is part of a relief depicting an evacuation, and oarsmen would surely have been in short supply.

It is still not certain which of the two theories is true, and much research is still being done into the questions which surround the introduction of this warship

Tactics

Fleets of triremes employed a variety of tactics. The periplous (Gk., "sailing around") involved outflanking or encircling the enemy so as to attack them in the vulnerable rear; the diekplous (Gk., "Sailing out through") involved a concentrated charge so as to break a hole in the enemy line, allowing galleys to break through and attack the line from behind; and the kuklos (Gk., "circle") was a defensive circle employed against these tactics. In all of these maneuvers, the ability to accelerate faster, row faster, and turn more sharply than one's enemy was very important.

The early 5th century BC saw a conflict between the cities of Greece and the expansionist Persian Empire under Darius and Xerxes, who hired ships from their Phoenician cities. Since these early craft were not heavily armored and did not carry a large compliment of marines the main tactic used by ancient navies was to quickly ram enemy ships with the prow of the vessel with the intention of either sinking the enemy ship, or breaking its oars, thus immobilizing it.

The Greeks defeated the first invasion force at the Battle of Marathon in 490 BC, but realized that pursuing land battles against the more numerous Persians could not hope to win in the long term. When news came that Xerxes was amassing an enormous invasion force in Asia Minor, the Greek cities expanded their navies: in 482 BC the Athenian statesman Themistocles realized that if Greece was to survive another Persian invasion then it must take control of the Aegean . Themistocles used his political skills and influence (i.e. lied to the Athenians) and successfully started a program for the construction of 200 triremes. The project must have been very successful, as 150 Athenian triremes were reported to have seen action in the Battle of Salamis in 480 BC at which Xerxes' second invasion fleet was defeated. They were also used in the famous battle of Thermopolye, Themistocles himself commandeered the fleet that he built and was incredibly able to fight and hold off the Persian navy (which used similar triremes) for two days against 6:1 odds.

Triremes fought in the naval battles of the Peloponnesian War, including the Battle of Aegospotami, which sealed the defeat of the Athenian Empire by Sparta and its allies.

Changes of engagement and construction

During the Hellenistic period, the light trireme was supplanted by larger warships in dominant navies, especially the pentere/quinquereme. The maximum to coordinate effectively were three oars atop. So the numbers did not refer to the banks of oars anymore (for biremes, triremes and quinquiremes), but to the number of rowers per vertical section, with often multiple men on an oar. The reasons for this development were armoring bows of warships against ramming attacks which again required heavier ships for successful attack. Such increased the need for rowers per ship and either made it possible to use less trained personnel for moving these new ships to the minimum impact speed of 10 knots. This change was accompanied by an increased reliance on tactics like boarding, missile skirmishes and using warships as platforms for artillery.

Triremes continued to be the mainstay of all smaller navies. While the Greeks did develop the quinquireme, the navies of Greek homeland and colonies could only afford triremes. It was used by the Diadochi Empires and sea powers like Syracuse, Carthage and later Rome. The difference to Athenian ships was, that they were armored against ramming and carried significantly more marines. Lightened versions of the trireme and smaller vessels were often used as auxiliaries, and performed quite effectively against the heavier ships, thanks to their greater maneuverability. With the rise of Rome the biggest fleet of quinquiremes temporarily ruled the Mediterranean, but during the civil wars after Caesar's death the fleet was on the wrong side and a new warfare with light liburnians was developed. By Imperial times the fleet was relatively small and had mostly political influence, controlling the grain supply and fighting pirates, who usually employed light biremes and liburnians. But instead of the successful liburnians of the civil war, it was again centered around light triremes, but still with many marines. Out of this type of ship the dromon developed.

Reconstruction

In 1985–1987 a shipbuilder in Piraeus, financed by Frank Welsh (a Suffolk banker, writer and trireme enthusiast), advised by historian J. S. Morrison and naval architect John F. Coates - who with Welsh founded the Trireme Trust that initiated and managed the project, and informed by evidence from underwater archaeology, built a reconstructed Athenian trireme, Olympias.

Crewed by 170 volunteer oarsmen and oarswomen, Olympias in 1988 achieved 9 knots (17 km/h). These results, achieved with inexperienced crew, suggest that the ancient writers were not exaggerating about straight-line performance. In addition, Olympias was able to execute a 180-degree turn in one minute and in an arc no wider than two and one half (2.5) ship-lengths. Additional sea trials took place in 1987, 1990, 1992 and 1994. In 2004 Olympias was used ceremonially to transport the Olympic Flame from the port of Keratsini to the main port of Piraeus as the Olympic Torch Relay entered its final stages in the runup to the 2004 Summer Olympics opening ceremony.

The builders of the reconstruction project considered that it effectively proved conclusively what had previously been in doubt, that Athenian triremes were arranged with the crew positioned in a staggered arrangement on three levels with one person per oar. This would have made optimum use of the available internal dimensions. However since modern humans are on average approximately 6 cm (2 inches) taller than Ancient Greeks (and the same relative dimensions can be presumed for oarsmen and other athletes), the construction of a craft which followed the precise dimensions of the ancient vessel led to cramped rowing conditions and consequent restrictions on the modern crew's ability to propel the vessel with full efficiency, which perhaps explains why the ancient speed records stand unbroken.

References

• Lionel Casson, The Ancient Mariners, 2nd edition, Princeton University Press, 1991, ISBN 0-691-01477-9.
• John F. Coates, The trireme sails again, Scientific American, 261(4):68–75, April 1989.
• Vernon Foley and Werner Soedel, Ancient oared warships, Scientific American, 244(4):116–129, April 1981.
• Fik Meijer, A History of Seafaring in the Classical World, Croom and Helm, 1986.
• J. S. Morrison, Greek naval tactics in the 5th century BC, International Journal of Nautical Archaeology and Underwater Exploration, 3(1):21–26, 1974.
• J. S. Morrison and John F. Coates, Athenian Trireme: the History and Reconstruction of an Ancient Greek Warship, Cambridge University Press, 1986.
• J. S. Morrison and R. T. Williams, Greek Oared Ships: 900–322 BC, Cambridge University Press, 1968.

Template:Commons

Wikipedia information about Trireme This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Trireme". It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer). Help contribute to Americola and edit this article.