A trireme was an Ancient Greek warship. They were the fastest, deadliest ships in the ancient world. They were called “triremes” because they had three tiers of oars.
The trireme was so-called because of the arrangement of rowers in three lines down the length of each side of the ship. Concrete archaeological evidence is lacking and scholars debate the exact arrangement; however, from depictions on ancient carvings and pottery and references from classical authors such as Homer, Thucydides, and Apollonius of Rhodes, a wide consensus has been reached. As many as 30 oars, each with a single oarsman, ran the length of the ship in three tiers. Consequently, the total number of rowers could have been between 170 and 180, allowing a speed of as high as nine or ten knots in short bursts. Each oarsman had a fixed seat (and leather or wool cushion) and the rowers were arranged with 31 on the top row , 27 in the middle , and 27 on the lowest level . Their 4 m long oars were attached to a tholepin (fixed vertical peg) with a leather oar-loop.
Most scholars credit the Phoenicians with first inventing the trireme which was itself an adaptation of the earlier bireme. According to Thucydides, it was the Corinthians who first adopted triremes on the Greek mainland c. 700 BCE. However, it was the Athenians, with their newly found wealth from local silver mines, who constructed a fleet of triremes large enough to hold sway over the Aegean.
The Greek ships were built using softwoods such as pine, fir, and cypress for interiors, and oak only for the outer hulls. Oars were made from a single young fir tree and measured some 4.5 Metres in length. As a consequence of using lighter woods, the ship was highly manoeuvrable. The full-size reconstruction Olympias built in the 1980s CE has demonstrated that a trireme could turn 360 degrees in less than two ship's lengths and turn 90 degrees in a matter of seconds in only a ship's length. The vessel also displayed impressive acceleration and deceleration rates.
