Trireme

The trireme was the standard oared warship of the classical Mediterranean, a long, narrow galley rowed by about 170 men in three superimposed banks and armed with a bronze ram at the waterline. Developed by the Phoenicians or Greeks and central to fifth-century BCE Athenian naval power, it decided the Battle of Salamis in 480 BCE and many later actions. Roman and Hellenistic navies fielded triremes alongside larger polyremes. The sailing-and-rowing reconstruction Olympias has tested long-debated questions of speed and seating.