HISTORY AND ARCHAEOLOGY OF THE SHIP - LECTURE NOTES

26 Triremes

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• Trireme  Trust
• Trireme Rowing Controversy
• Trieres Olympiaz - 1987 Trials
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• Review of H. T. Wallinga, Ships and Sea-Power before the Great Persian War: The Ancestry of the Ancient Trireme. Leiden,

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Once the principle of multiple banking had been grasped it was not difficult to extend it to the three banks and by the C5th three banked warships known as triremes were the standard warships of the ancient world. Understanding exactly what the trireme was has been a source of formidable difficulty for classical scholars. The first and older problem has been to unravel the terminology used to describe ancient multi banked galleys. Trireme is the English equivalent of the Roman word used to describe a three banked galley. The Greek word for the three banked ships of the fifth and fourth centuries is 'trieres' which means 'three fitted' rather than three oar levels. Before the trieres the only words used in Greek literature for galleys were Triacontor, meaning a total rowing crew of 30, and Pentecontor meaning a total rowing crew of 50. The trieres, and subsequent larger vessels evidently used a different method of classification such as tetreres, meaning four fitted, penteres, meaning five fitted, hexares, meaning six fitted, up to tesserakontores meaning forty fitted.

Unfortunately there is no continuity between the galleys of the ancient world and the galleys of the medieval and early modern period which therefore use quite different terminology. Scholars assumed that the numbers referred to the superimposed banks of oars, thus trieres meant three banks, tetreres four banks and so on. This certainly squared with the trieres, which indubitably had three banks of oars but little or nothing was known of the disposition of the larger vessels described in Hellenistic and Roman literature. Common sense dictates that galleys with more than three banks of oars are likely to be impractical and galleys with forty banks would be impossible. The obvious reason is that each bank raised the oarsmen above the water thus entailing a correspondingly longer oar. A point would quickly be reached at which the oars would be too long to be handled by one man. The galley most widely used in the Renaissance Mediterranean was the Venetian zenzile galley which was wrongly thought to be descended from the trireme. In fact the zenzile galley was a c16th invention which did not even go back n ancestry to the medieval period and was certainly totally different from the iconographic evidence for two and three banked galleys from the fifth and fourth century BC.

The principal modern contributors to this debate are Professors Morrison and Casson, though many others have contributed including in particular Lucien Basch, Sleeswyk, de Weerd etc. The problem to be overcome is that whilst scholarship is limited only by imagination shipbuilding is subject to immutable rules of physics which make certain solutions to totally impractical. The first problem to be overcome in increasing the oar banks from two to three levels is the difficulty of position the upper bank of oarsmen in such a way that they are not so far above the waterline that they cannot comfortably pull on their oar and that the beam is not increased significantly in order to accommodate them. The solution proposed by Morrison was to fit an outrigger or parados which extended out laterally beyond the gunwhale(145) . The standard Greek trireme would therefore consist of three levels of oarsmen with one man only for each oar. Those on the lower bank were known as Thalamites. There were usually 27 on each side and they rowed their oars blind through oar ports cut in the sides of the boat very close to the water line. In order to stop water coming in when the boat heeled the thalamian oar ports were fitted with leather sleeves which fitted tightly round the oar and its adjacent port. The second level of oarsmen were known as Zygites. They rowed a little above and slightly forward of the Thalamians, sitting on the cross beams Zyga and rowing against thole pins set in the gunwhale (845) . Usually there would be 32 Zygites per side. The upper level were known as Thranites. They sat slightly above and forward and outboard of the Zygites, literally on the edge of the gunwhale and rowed against thole pins set in the outrigger approximately two feet from the side of the ship. Usually there were 31 Thranites per side. By using the outrigger the height of the gunwhale from the waterline was kept at a minimum so that the angle at which the Thranite oars struck the water was not so acute as to be unmanageable. All of the oars at all three levels could thus be the same length, except at the stem and the stern where the boat narrowed, and all struck the water in the same track. In effect the oarsmen were clustered vertically in threes in an oblique line, hence three fitted.

The second problem is to establish evidence for this hypothesis. The ascendancy of the trieres as the instrument of maritime hegemony coincides, of course, with the flowering of the Greek city states, especially Athens, and with the art and literature which was part of that culture. References to the trieres are common in Greek literature at all levels and it is largely on the basis of the literary evidence that Morrison first became interested in attempting to reconstruct it. But although the literature talks about trieres and their components and their crews, the ship itself is never described in such a way that it can be visualised, nor is it explained how the rowing system works. This is for the simple reason that the literature of ancient Greece was written by men who knew what the trieres as for people who were also totally familiar with it.

Nor are illustrations of the trieres as plentiful as might be anticipated in a culture which owed so much to its ships. The principal sources of iconographic evidence are fairly limited, and include the Lernormant relief [see Morrison for other arguments]. The interpretation of the iconography has tended to concentrate on establishing that three levels of oarsmen are visible, and that the upper level is rowing over an outrigger.

With one possible exception there is no direct archaeological evidence for the reason already stated that unballasted wooden ships did not sink and could not therefore be preserved on the sea bed. Land excavations at Zea in Piraeus and elsewhere (259) [cf David Blackman] have revealed both ancient harbours and, more importantly, the ship sheds in which the triremes were stored. These ship sheds are not builders yards, and evidence for the actual location of trireme building has yet to be advanced, but the ancient equivalent of missile silos where the ships were stored and maintain ready for launching. Trireme shipshed have remarkably uniform dimensions which tend to suggest an overall length of between 115 and 130 feet and a beam of around 16 feet, giving a length to beam ratio of 10:1. In addition the building stones which remain of the Zea shipsheds are inscribed with inventories of the gear and equipment to be carried by the trieres including oars of 13' 6". Two other aspects of archaeological evidence include the Marsala Punic Ships, of which more anon, and the Athlit bronze ram and other reproductions of three pronged rams recovered from sites both on land and underwater.

On the basis of the evidence available the characteristic trieres probably looked much like this (791) . The very prominent three pronged ram is designed to run just below the waterline and cannot therefore be a direct extension of the keel forefoot. (806) The keel is therefore rockered both at stem and stern so that comes up to the waterline. The conjunction of the forward upcurved end of the keel with the stem post and the two waterline level whales terminating in the ram provides the necessary reinforcement for the ram. A second set of whales just below the gunwhale terminate in a second ram or buffer some distance above and behind the main ram to absorb any shock to the vertical body of the stem post. The stem post itself is relatively unadorned and curves up to form a vestigial horn, an echo of its ancestors in the 8th century. Behind the forecastle are the reinforced cross beams (epotides) which support the end of the outrigger and protect it from damage. The outrigger itself is supported by stanchions or brackets fastened to the sides of the hull. The stern is curved up to form the aphlaston splayed out over the command position behind the steersman. (831) About three feet above the Thranite rowers is a deck which extends along the full length of the ship, covering the oarsmen on either side but leaving room for a central catwalk (katastroma). Unlike the decks on the earlier pentecontors and biremes this is not intended to accommodate marines and does not contribute to the structural integrity of the ship. Its function is simply to protect the oarsmen. Further protection could be provided by hanging leather shields along the sides of the ship between the gunwhale and the decking.

The actual shape of the hull is uncertain was probably rounded with fairly straight sides and a rockered keel to improve turning ability. The hulls themselves were almost certainly built using the close fitting mortise and tenon technique for which substantial evidence exists from underwater excavations of contemporary merchant ships. There is no obvious reason to suppose that building methods differed between warship and merchant, though it should be noted with caution that in a later age the Vikings did construct their warships in a different way from their merchant ships putting a premium on hull flexibility rather than solidity. The hull of the standard trireme at 130 feet could be prone to hogging and part of the equipment specified for the trireme was a the hypozoma which is generally assumed to be a hogging truss. However there is no evidence of a hypozoma above the deck level, as on Egyptian ships, but if it was fitted internally it would not be visible to the artist. Controversy exists about the hypozoma because the word implies circularity rather than linearity. In Morrison's reconstruction the hypozoma lies along the central line of the vessel (815) fastened to the stem and stern posts internally at suitable points and, in the ancient world, tensioned by the equivalent of a Spanish windlass. There is an alternative view, supported by some later iconographic evidence, that the hypozoma went around the outside of the boat at gunwhale level, rather like the webbing trusses which can be seen around the outside of some Egyptian ships. There is also literary evidence of the hulls of triremes being reinforced in bad weather by passing frapping ropes around the hull and under the keel. NB SEE BIBLE ACTS FOR DESCRIPTION OF ST PAUL'S SHIP WHICH HAD FRAPPING AND GIRDLING TRUSSES, TORMENTUM.

The ability to beach and portage the trireme was thought at one time to be an essential factor in its deployment since a dried out vessel had greater buoyancy and therefore more speed and manoeuvrability than one which had been some time in the water. It was, in part, for this reason that operational triremes were kept out of the water in ship sheds. Moreover, no living quarters were provided on board the trireme so the crews expected to moor or beach th boat at night and camp onshore. The arrival of a fleet of triremes each with a crew of more than two hundred men must have been a daunting prospect for the coastal villages which were expected to offer them hospitality. Drying out resting could give the trireme a tactical advantage over an enemy but the freshness of the crew was probably more important than any gains in buoyancy as for example at the battle of Salamis where the rested Greek crews in undried boats had an advantage over the fatigued Persians in boats which had been dried out. [cf Morrison IJNA 13.3 1984]

Throughout the period of the Trireme the Greek galleys were rowed by free men who were skilled and highly efficient and strongly motivated. The need for skilled men to row meant that ancient navies based on triremes were limited in size by the pool of skilled rowers available. Smaller states which could not man large fleets of triremes would fall back on older types such as the single banked descendants of the pentecontor.

Literary accounts of the speed and performance of the trireme have been tested recently by the reconstruction of an Athenian trireme under the direction of Morrison and Coates [REF]. Ancient claims for the speed under oars of the trireme are open to a number of questions. Xenophon describes a famous journey from Piraeus to Mytilene on the island of Lesbos, a distance of 168 miles which one fast trireme was said to have covered in a long day. Interpreted as 24 hours this would give an average speed of 7 approximately 7 knots. However the reconstruction has not yet been able to sustain 7 knots and the role of the sailing capability of the trireme has not been adequately addressed. Whilst it is true that no one would sail such a superb rowing machine into battle, it would make a great deal of sense to sail to the battle area, thus saving the strength of the crew for the coming conflict. NB READ IPHEGENIA IN AULIS FOR CONTRASTING VIEWS IN ROWING AND SAILING>

The triremes developed by the Greeks were all basically similar in design , though literary sources suggests that there were minor variations which allegedly made some more effective than others. There were also modified triremes which were used as troop transports [hoplitagagos] and horse transports [hippagagos], usually old triremes converted to new functions.

The efficiency of the trireme was closely linked to its deployment by the Greeks. Since the ship was used as a weapon in its own right rather than merely being a fighting platform for marines it was inevitable that the various Greek navies would devise tactics to optimise its performance. The Athenians in particular devised methods of fighting which initially made them invincible. DIEKPLOUS AND PERIPLOUS. SEE MORRISON IJNA 3.1 P.2 1974.

As the Athenian tactics came to be understood by their adversaries the trireme lost ist superiority. Ships were reinforced to withstand ramming so that the lighter triremes could be grappled during an engagement and boarded by marines. This forced the Athenians to reinforce their own ships to accommodate more marines and the increase in weight which followed nullified the advantages of speed and manoeuvrability. These changes effectively destroyed the tactical superiority of the trireme and eventually the Athenians were defeated by the much heavier fleet of the Syracusans.

Naval tactics thus shifted from the use of the ship as a weapon in its own right whose primary function was to hole and then abandon an enemy, to the use of the ship as a fighting platform prompted the development of new and larger vessels which coincided in turn with geopolitical changes which shifted the emphasis away from intership engagements and back to land warfare supported by marine assaults.

26 Triremes

Updated by J.S. Illsley 13/08/1999

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26 Triremes