Bireme

A bireme is an ancient Mediterranean oared warship with two superimposed banks of oars on each side, the design that preceded the three-bank trireme. Phoenician and Greek shipwrights developed it around the eighth to seventh century BC; the term comes from Latin biremis, two oars. Assyrian reliefs from the reign of Sennacherib (c.700 BC) show a decked, two-level Phoenician warship of this type. The bireme carried a bronze waterline ram for offensive tactics and gave way to the trireme as the standard line warship by the sixth century BC.