Trireme
Trirreme
- Date
- c. 650 BCE · confidence medium
- Place
- Corinth, Greece (with Phoenician precedents at Sidon)
- Credited to
- Ameinocles of Corinth (according to Thucydides); Phoenician shipyards
- Field
- Movement
⚠️ Disputed: the sources disagree.
What it is
A warship with three superimposed banks of oars (170 oars) reaching 8-9 knots with great manoeuvrability. It was the dominant Mediterranean warship for three centuries.
Thucydides attributes its invention to Corinth, but Assyrian reliefs show Phoenician biremes with a ram c. 700 BCE; the Olympias reconstruction (1987) validated its design.
What it led to
- Thalassocracies such as Athens': control of the sea as the basis of empire
- Paid citizen oarsmen, which reinforced radical democracy in Athens
- State arsenals (Piraeus) and large-scale naval logistics
- Decisive battles such as Salamis (480 BCE)
Built on
- Mortise-and-tenon plank-built hullc. 1320 BCE
- Naval ramc. 850 BCE
- Bireme (two banks of oars)c. 750 BCE
- Penteconter
- Mortise-and-tenon hull joinery
- Square sail