In affectless, purposeful prose we get a stream of increasingly strange and piquant factoids about these people, who seem to emerge straight out of a Coen brothers movie: One fossil dealer likes cockroaches, Milton Friedman and Greek triremes.
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The Persians were the first nation to use triremes in enormous scale. In fact, the first to commission a large trireme was Cambyses. By 490 BC, the backbone of the fleet was consisted of triremes while Athens had a few after 483 BC. Some triremes were modified as troopers, as well as some for carrying horses and supplies or building bridges. ;Design and dimensions Persian triremes differed from those of the Greek, and used Phoenician design.
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56 but this is a mistake, for Thucydides merely states that triremes were first built at Corinth in Greece, without ascribing their invention to Ameinocles. According to Syncellus, however, triremes were first built at Athens by Ameinocles.
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Leptines commanded the fleet, which was made of 180 Quinqueremes and triremes.
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4-6, 13.84. Carthage doubled the numbers of triremes (only 60 triremes had escorted the expeditions of 480 and 409) because the Syracusan navy had returned from mainland Greece, posing a severe threat to the Carthaginian expedition. Hannibal, before sailing with the main fleet, sent 40 triremes to Sicily, where these ships met the Greek fleet stationed at Eryx and lost fifteen of their number in a skirmish. The main Punic fleet then set sail, led by a vanguard of 50 triremes, while the rest sailed with the main fleet.
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In total, Demosthenes probably had about 600 men, only 90 of which were hoplites. He sent two of his triremes to intercept the Athenian fleet and inform Sophocles and Eurymedon of his danger. The Spartans, meanwhile, had 43 triremes and a large land army. Finding himself thus outnumbered, Demosthenes pulled his remaining three triremes up on land and armed their crews with whatever weapons were at hand.
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The three pirate vessels, two large triremes and the yacht, discharged all their enginery.
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He failed to persuade the Spartans, but the cities of Athens and Eretria agreed to support the rebellion. In the spring of 498 BC, an Athenian force of twenty triremes, accompanied by five from Eretria, for a total of twenty-five triremes, set sail for Ionia.Holland, pp. 160-162.
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Of all military expenditure, triremes were the most labor- and (in terms of men and money) investment-intensive.
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Accounts by Livy and Diodorus Siculus also show that the "five", being heavier, performed better than the triremes in bad weather.
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84 augmented by mercenaries or freed slaves whenever needed. There is no mention of an Akragan navy, but the relief force had 30 triremes.
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A periplus was also an ancient naval maneuver in which attacking triremes would outflank or encircle the defenders to attack them in the rear.
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In this fashion, he assembled a fleet of some 140 triremes. Conon, meanwhile, in command of the Athenian fleet at Samos, was compelled by problems with the morale of his sailors to man only 70 of the more than 100 triremes he had in his possession.Xenophon, Hellenica 1.5.20 Callicratidas, once he had assembled his fleet, sailed against Methymna, on Lesbos, which he laid siege to and stormed.
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In the end, the Athenians decided to send a force of 2000 lightly armed mercenaries (referred to in the sources as peltasts, even if strictly speaking, they were not), and 38 triremes to aid the Olynthians.. Of these triremes, 30 were already in service under Chares, possibly operating in the north Aegean; the other 8 were to be crewed by Athenians citizens. However, it is not clear whether this force achieved anything. Later, in early 348 BC, the Olynthians appealed for help again. The Athenians sent Charidemos, a former general of Kersebleptes who had been adopted as an Athenian citizen, with 4000 peltasts, 150 cavalry and 18 triremes; of the triremes, 10 were probably already in his service, and the other 8 may have been those sent to Chares in 349 BC. Charidemus joined up with the Olynthians, and together they attacked the former territory of Olynthos in western Chalkidike.
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IG I.153 Beaching the ships at night, however, would leave the troops vulnerable to surprise attacks. While well-maintained triremes would last up to 25 years, during the Peloponnesian War, Athens had to build nearly 20 triremes a year to maintain their fleet of 300. The Athenian trireme had two great cables of about 47 mm in diameter and twice the ship's length called hypozomata (undergirding), and carried two spares.
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Tamos, or Tamos the Egyptian, was a mercenary Egyptian Admiral hired by Cyrus the Younger, during his campaign to claim the Persian Throne. It is not known if Tamos served in the entire campaign during 401 BC. Tamos led a fleet of 25 triremes as a backup to Cyrus's mercenary Ten Thousand hoplites and Persian troops. Tamos was Cyrus's secondary admiral, his first being Pythagoras the Spartan, who led the first fleet of 35 triremes.
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Eurymedon left immediately with ten ships, and Demosthenes left sometime later with a much larger force. Meanwhile, in early 413 BC Sparta acted on Alcibiades's advice to fortify Decelea, and the Athenian force sent to relieve it was destroyed. While Eurymedon was sailing, Gylippus's 80 Syracusan ships, including 35 triremes, attacked 60 of the Athenian ships (25 of which were triremes) in the harbour. Gylippus commanded a simultaneous attack on the Athenian land forces.
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45–46 The first definite reference to the use of triremes in naval combat dates to ca. 525 BC, when, according to Herodotus, the tyrant Polycrates of Samos was able to contribute 40 triremes to a Persian invasion of Egypt (Battle of Pelusium).Herodotus, III.44 Thucydides meanwhile clearly states that in the time of the Persian Wars, the majority of the Greek navies consisted of (probably two-tiered) penteconters and ploia makrá ("long ships").
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Unlike the naval warfare of other eras, boarding an enemy ship was not the primary offensive action of triremes. Triremes' small size allowed for a limited number of marines to be carried aboard. During the 5th and 4th centuries, the trireme's strength was in its maneuverability and speed, not its armor or boarding force. That said, fleets less confident in their ability to ram were prone to load more marines onto their ships.
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During its early years under Cambyses, the Achaemenid navy is assumed to possess about 300 triremes, which was equal to the sum of the fleet of Egypt and its ally Polycrates of Samos. This number was later doubled, with 600 triremes mentioned in 494 and 490 BC. The initial set-up of the navy (300 triremes) may have had up to 51,000 rowers and thousands of sailors and marines. The original number of vessels in the fleet was eventually quadrupled, according to Greek sources. Herodotus' account of naval forces under Xerxes I, put the number of warships in service at 1,207, in addition to 3,000 transport ships. Contemporary academic estimates range from 500 to 1,000 vessels, according to Matt Waters.
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When a player captures an opposing Caesar, that opponent loses the game, and all remaining forces and territories are placed under the control of the conquering player. The conquering player may not build new triremes using the opponent's color or in the opponent's home province, but may use existing triremes as his own, as well as using the captured generals to lead a legion. A player wins the game when the last opposing Caesar has been captured.
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Sources are vague for the events of the battle itself. It appears that the Spartan fleet encountered advance elements of the Achaemenid fleet under Conon and engaged them with some success. Then the main body of the Persian fleet arrived and put the Spartans to flight, forcing them to beach many of their ships. The Spartans suffered heavy casualties; according to Diodorus Siculus, fifty Spartan triremes were captured by the Persians while the remaining triremes safely returned to Cnidus.
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Lazenby, p. 46. In the second Persian invasion of Greece, each Persian ship had carried thirty extra marines,Herodotus VII, 184 and this was probably very true in the first invasion when the whole invasion force was apparently carried in triremes. Furthermore, the Chian ships at the Battle of Lade also carried 40 marines each. This suggests that a trireme could probably carry a maximum of 40-45 soldiers--triremes seem to have been easily destabilised by extra weight.
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Gaius Laelius was, at this time, in command of a small fleet of one quinquereme and seven triremes. He sailed to the port of Carteia where the local Punic population conspired to provide access to their city to the Romans. Mago discovered their conspiracy and the responsible parties were detained, locked up, and deported to Carthage by a fleet commanded by Adherbal, the governor of Gades. This fleet was composed of one quinquereme and eight triremes.
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Lazenby, p. 46. In the second Persian invasion of Greece, each Persian ship had carried thirty extra marines,Herodotus VII, 184 and this was probably also true in the first invasion when the whole invasion force was apparently carried in triremes. Furthermore, the Chian ships at the Battle of Lade also carried 40 marines each. This suggests that a trireme could probably carry a maximum of 40–45 soldiers—triremes seem to have been easily destabilised by extra weight.
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In the second Persian invasion of Greece, each Persian ship had carried thirty extra marines,Herodotus VII, 184 and this was probably also true in the first invasion when the whole invasion force was apparently carried in triremes. Furthermore, the Chian ships at the Battle of Lade also carried 40 marines each. This suggests that a trireme could probably carry a maximum of 40-45 soldiers--triremes seem to have been easily destabilised by extra weight.Goldsworthy, p. 103.
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The Carthaginian fleet, which numbered around 105 ships after losing 15 triremes at Eryx to the Greeks fleet under Leptines,Diodorus Siculus, XIII.80 was at Motya and did not accompany the army.
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Torr, Cecil. "Triremes", The Classical Review, Vol. 20, No. 2 (March 1906), p. 137. According to wage rates from 377 BC, a talent was the value of nine man-years of skilled work.
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The Persian force was primarily based around 200 triremes. It is not clear whether there were additional transport ships. The standard complement of a trireme was 200 men, including 14 marines.Lazenby, p. 46.
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Hamilcar was sent to Sicily with 130 triremes, 2,000 citizen soldiers, 10,000 Libyans, 1,000 mercenaries, 200 Etruscans, and 1,000 Balearic slingers. After the army's departure from Carthage, sixty triremes and two hundred supply ships were lost in a storm. Some of the citizens soldiers, of which many were nobles, died in the storm. Once on Sicily, Hamilcar managed to reinforce his army with more mercenaries and troops of the Sicilian allies, as well as the Carthaginian troops already present there.
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He wrote also on the Bible and classical triremes (Fabrica Triremium, 1671). A well-known figure and intellectual of his times, he was considered a polemicist and a somewhat eccentric figure, about whom anecdotes circulated.
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When the surviving Greek triremes beached themselves, the Carthaginian flotilla captured the entire convoy. This solved the supply problems for Himilco, and caused the Greeks in turn to face the threat of starvation.Diod. 13.88.1-5.
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The size of the new naval forces also made it difficult to find enough skilled rowers for the one-man- per-oar system of the earliest triremes. With more than one man per oar, a single rower could set the pace for the others to follow, meaning that more unskilled rowers could be employed.Morrison, Coates & Rankov (2000), pp. 48–49 The successor states of Alexander the Great's empire built galleys that were like triremes or biremes in oar layout, but manned with additional rowers for each oar.
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Lazenby, p.138 The "better sailing" that Herodotus mentions was probably due to the superior seamanship of the crews; most of the Athenian ships (and therefore the majority of the fleet) were newly built as according to Themistocles' request to the Athenians to build a fleet of 200 triremes in 483 BC, and had inexperienced crews. It is important to note that despite the inexperienced crew on part of the Athenians, these newly constructed triremes would ultimately prove crucial in the forthcoming conflict with Persia.
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Numbers of ships and men for the Allies are also somewhat problematic. Herodotus claims that Leotychides had 110 triremes under his command.Herodotus VIII, 131 However, the previous year, the allies had fielded 271 triremes at the Battle of Artemisium, and then 378 at the Battle of Salamis.Herodotus VIII, 2Herodotus VIII, 48 We are also told that the Allies had "command of the sea" after Salamis, which implies that they could at least equal the Persian fleet.Diodorus XI, 19 Diodorus, on the other hand, tells us the allies had 250 ships, which is more consistent with their force levels of the previous year. These two numbers can be reconciled by assuming that Leotychides had 110 triremes under his command before being joined by Xanthippus and the Athenian ships, after the Allied army had marched out from the Peloponnesus.
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Pythagoras, or Pythagoras the Spartan (), was a mercenary Greek Admiral hired to command the first fleet of Cyrus the Younger during his campaign to claim the Persian Throne during 401 BC. Pythagoras led a fleet of 35 triremes as a backup force to Cyrus's Ten Thousand hoplites and Persian troops. Pythagoras led Cyrus' first fleet, the second being led by Tamos the Egyptian consisting of 25 triremes. Pythagoras's fleet is known to be from the Peloponnese. Pythagoras is stated as Lacedaemonian, it is however not known if he is directly from Sparta.
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Over the next several months, Mindarus, with financial support from Pharnabazus, rebuilt his fleet to 80 triremes by the spring of 410 BC. Sailing eastward to Cyzicus, he besieged the city with the assistance of Pharnabazus' army and took it by storm. The Athenians pursued him, and, in the waters off Cyzicus, enticed Mindarus into a fatal trap. While Thrasybulus and Theramenes waited out of sight with a number of triremes, Alcibiades took forty ships and showed himself before Cyzicus. Mindarus took the bait, setting out with his entire fleet in pursuit.
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Himilco then summoned 40 triremes from Motya and Panormus, which sailed up during the night and remained hidden from Greek scouts, then surprised the Greek flotilla at dawn. The Carthaginians sank 8 Greek triremes and captured the entire supply flotilla. The Carthaginians now had food to last for several months and their morale improved. The Greeks now faced a problem – there was not enough food stocked at Akragas to feed both the population and the army until further supplies could be gathered – and organizing that would take time because of the winter season.
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While these dueled with the archers and slingers on board the Carthaginian triremes, taking a heavy toll and preventing Himilco from reaching the beached ships, Dionysius hatched a scheme. He had his men construct a road of wooden planks on the northern isthmus, on which 80 triremes were then hauled to the open sea to the north of the isthmus. Once properly manned, these ships sailed south along the peninsula. The Carthaginian fleet now facing encirclement, Himilco chose not to fight a two-front battle against superior numbers, and sailed away to Carthage.
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Aristagoras had brought all of Hellenic Asia Minor into revolt, but evidently realised that the Greeks would need other allies in order to fight the Persians.Holland, pp. 157–159. In the winter of 499 BC, he sailed to mainland Greece to try to recruit allies. He failed to persuade the Spartans, but the cities of Athens and Eretria agreed to support the rebellion. In the spring of 498 BC, an Athenian force of twenty triremes, accompanied by five from Eretria, for a total of twenty-five triremes set sail for Ionia.
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It is believed that rich Athenian men saw it as an honor to sponsor the triremes (probably because they became leaders of it for the period they supported it) or the festivals and they often engaged in competitive donating.
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Peddie (2005) p. 18 The Iberian contingent of the Carthaginian navy numbered 50 quinqueremes (only 32 were manned) and 5 triremes, which remained in home waters. Carthage mobilized at least 55 quinqueremes for immediate raids on Italy and Sicily.
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After picking up more ships at Samos, Teleutias took command at Cnidus and commenced operations against Rhodes.Xenophon, Hellenica 4.8.23–24 A Greek trireme. Alarmed by this Spartan naval resurgence, the Athenians sent out a fleet of 40 triremes under Thrasybulus.
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With Hysiae destroyed, the Spartans left a garrison in Orneae and left the territory. In response, Athens dispatched a force of 40 triremes and 1,200 hoplites who fought the Battle of Orneae to remove the garrison and take the city.
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After capturing Motya, Dionysius kept Segesta and Entella under siege, garrisoned Motya and withdrew to Syracuse, while his brother Leptines was posted at Eryx with 120 ships (triremes and quinqueremes). Himilco marshalled an army of 50,000 infantry, 4,000 cavalry and 400 chariots, while the Carthaginian navy mobilized 400 triremes and 600 transports.Caven, Brian, Dionysius I,: Warlord of Syracuse, pp107 In term of number of warships this was the largest armada ever mobilized by Carthage. To keep any information from leaking to the Greeks, Himilco wrote down the armada's destinations in sealed letters, which were issued to his captains at the last moment.
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The route the Athenian fleet took to Sicily The Athenian fleet first sailed to Corcyra to meet up with their allies, and the ships were divided into three sections, one for each commander. Three of the ships were sent ahead to look for allies in Sicily.Thucydides, The Peloponnesian War, 6.42. The fleet at this point consisted of 134 triremes (100 of which were from Athens), 5,100 hoplites (of which 2,200 were Athenians), 480 archers, 700 slingers, 120 other light troops, and 30 cavalry, as well as 130 other supply ships and all the crews of the triremes and other non-combatants.
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Plutarch says that upon hearing that the Persian forces were gathering at Aspendos, Cimon sailed from Cnidus (in Caria) with 200 triremes. It is highly likely that Cimon had assembled this force because the Athenians had had some warning of a forthcoming Persian campaign to re-subjugate the Asiatic Greeks. According to Plutarch, Cimon sailed with these 200 triremes to the Greek city of Phaselis (in Lycia) but was refused admittance. He therefore began ravaging the lands of Phaselis, but with the mediation of the Chian contingent of his fleet, the people of Phaselis agreed to join the league.
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The islands of the Aegean Sea provided valuable tax revenue for Athens, but what was probably more vital was their ports. Warships of the era (triremes) could carry little in the way of supplies and had no sleeping space for the crew, and thus needed to stop in port on a daily basis to buy supplies, cook meals, and camp for the night. Triremes were also not particularly seaworthy and thus needed harbors to shelter from rough weather. A trireme could normally travel around 80 km in a day whereas a trip from Athens to Asia Minor is roughly 300 km.
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Himilco had led the Carthaginian force of 50,000 men along with 400 triremes and 600 transports to Sicily in 397 BC. The Carthaginians were joined by 30,000 Sicilians (Sicels, Sikans and Elymians),Diodorus Siculus, X.IV.54 but it is not known what forces Himilco left behind to guard Western Sicily when he sailed to Lipara with 300 triremes and 300 transports. After the Carthaginian forces split up, Mago took command of 200 triremes and 300 transports as the Punic fleet sailed to Catana. Dionysius had mustered an army of 40,000 foot and 3,000 horsemen,Caven, Brian, Dionysius I, pp93 from both citizens and mercenaries (at least 10,000, if not more)Kern, Paul B., Ancient Siege Warfare, pp178 for attacking Motya in 398 BC, perhaps along with 40,000 Greek, Sicel and Sikan volunteers.Diodurus Siculus, X.IV.47 At Catana in 397 BC Dionysius commanded 30,000 foot and 3,000 horse, which included Sicels and Sicilian Greek contingents, while part of the army was guarding Syracuse and Leontini.
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196 The navy which Necho created operated along both the Mediterranean and Red Sea coasts.Herodotus 2.158; Pliny N.H. 6.165ff; Diodorus Siculus 3.43 Necho II constructed warships,The Cambridge Ancient History. Edited by John Boardman, N. G. L. Hammond. p49 including questionably triremes.
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Inspired by success in the battle of Agrigentum, the Romans sought to win all of Sicily, but required naval power to do so. In order to challenge the already prominent Carthaginian naval forces, Rome built a fleet of one hundred quinqueremes and twenty triremes.
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7 The battle began with a signal from the commanders, which was relayed to the fleet by trumpeters. An evenly matched fight ensued, with pilots attempting to ram and disable enemy triremes, while marines on the decks engaged their opposite numbers whenever they came within range of an opposing ship. As the day wore on, neither side was able to gain a decisive advantage until Alcibiades appeared with 18 triremes from Samos. Initially, both fleets believed that the reinforcements might be theirs, but as Alcibiades drew nearer he ran up a red flag, a prearranged signal that told the Athenians the ships were their own.
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Thus, as the Athenian fleet approached them, the Peloponnesian commanders (the names of all of these are not known, but the Corinthian commanders were Machaon, Isocrates, and Agatharchidas) ordered their 47 triremes to draw into a circle, prows outward, for defense. In the center of the circle were gathered the smaller ships and the five fastest triremes, which were to plug any gap that opened in the circle. Phormio chose to attack this formation by using a risky and unorthodox tactic. He led his ships, in line, in a tightening circle around the Peloponnesians, darting inwards at times to drive the defending ships closer to each other.
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Darius's canal was wide enough for two triremes to pass each other with oars extended, and required four days to traverse.Rappoport, S. (Doctor of Philosophy, Basel). History of Egypt (undated, early 20th century), Volume 12, Part B, Chapter V: "The Waterways of Egypt", pp. 248–257 (online).
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Himilco did not march directly to Messina. When the Messinian army marched north, Himilco sent 200 triremes manned with picked rowers and soldiers to the city. Aided by a favourable wind, this fleet managed to arrive and capture the city before the Greeks doubled back.Diodorus Siculus, XIV.
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Specialised crew members capable of providing medical care have been a feature of military vessels for at least two thousand years. The second- century Roman Navy under Emperor Hadrian included a surgeon aboard each of its triremes, with the position earning twice a regular officer's pay.
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111, ed. Reisk These voluntary contributions were frequently very large. Sometimes the more wealthy citizens voluntarily undertook a "trierarchy", or the expenses of equipping a trireme. We read that the freedman Pasion furnished 1000 shields, together with five triremes, which he equipped at his own expense.
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Lazenby, p232 The fleet must have had at least some proportion of transport ships, since the cavalry was carried by ship; whilst Herodotus claims the cavalry was carried in the triremes, this is improbable. Lazenby estimates 30–40 transport ships would be required to carry 1,000 cavalry.
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A schematic view of what the circular kyklos formation would have looked like from above. Squadrons of triremes employed a variety of tactics. The periplous (Gk., "sailing around") involved outflanking or encircling the enemy so as to attack them in the vulnerable rear; the diekplous (Gk.
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Panormus or Panormos () was a harbour on the east coast of ancient Attica. Panormus was captured by Alexander of Pherae during the latter's expedition in Attica. The Athenian admiral Leosthenes defeated Alexander, but Alexander escaped from being blockaded in Panormus, took several Attic triremes, and plundered Piraeus.Polyaenus, vi.
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Liburna was different from the battle triremes, quadriremes and quinqueremes not because of rowing but rather because of its specific constructional features.C.G. Starr Jr., The Roman Imperial Navy 31 B.C. – A.D. 324, West-port, Connecticut 1975, page 54M. Zaninović, Liburnia Militaris, Opusc. Archeol. 13, 43–67 (1988), UDK 904.930.
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As a result, the Persian forces were driven out of Phoenicia. After this, Artaxerxes personally led an army of 330,000 men against Sidon. Artaxerxes' army comprised 300,000 foot soldiers, 30,000 cavalry, 300 triremes, and 500 transports or provision ships. After gathering this army, he sought assistance from the Greeks.
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Plato, Menexenus, 240ALysias, Funeral Oration, 21Justinus II, 9 Modern historians generally dismiss these numbers as exaggerations. One approach to estimate the number of troops is to calculate the number of marines carried by 600 triremes. Herodotus tells us that each trireme in the second invasion of Greece carried 30 extra marines, in addition to a probable 14 standard marines.Herodotus VII, 184 Thus, 600 triremes could easily have carried 18,000–26,000 infantry.Kampouris (2000) Numbers proposed for the Persian infantry are in the range 18,000–100,000.Davis, pp9–13Holland, p390Lloyd, p164 However, the consensus is around 25,000. The Persian infantry used in the invasion was probably a heterogeneous group drawn from across the empire.
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Holland, pp. 217–219. In 483 BC, a vast new seam of silver was found in the Athenian mines at Laurium.Plutarch, Themistocles, 4 Themistocles proposed that the silver should be used to build a new fleet of triremes, ostensibly to assist in a long running war with Aegina.Holland, pp. 219–222.
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Eunomus () was an Athenian admiral during the Corinthian War. In 389 BC he was put in charge of a fleet of 13 triremes to check the operation of the Spartan commander Gorgopas operating out of Aegina.Xenophon, Hellenica 5.1.5 Eunomus encountered Gorgopas as he was sailing back to Aegina from Ephesus.
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To secure and add strength to the hull, cables (hypozōmata) were employed, fitted in the keel and stretched by means of windlasses. Hence the triremes were often called "girded" when in commission.Fields (2007), p. 9 The materials from which the trireme was constructed were an important aspect of its design.
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He also besieged Peparethus, and "even landed troops in Attica itself, and seized the port of Panormus, a little eastward of Sounion." The Athenian admiral Leosthenes defeated Alexander and managed to relieve Peparethus, but Alexander escaped from being blockaded in Panormus, took several Attic triremes, and plundered the Piraeus.Diodorus Siculus, xv. 95Polyaenus, vi.
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Classe could hold a fleet of two hundred and fifty ships and could accommodate arsenals, magazines and barracks.Hutton, Story of Ravenna, 28-29;Deliyannis, Ravenna in Late Antiquity, 28; Charles, Transporting the Troops, 279. The fleet consisted of triremes, quadriremes and liburnians (light vessels). These ships were named after gods, goddesses and rivers.
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Shaw(1995), pp. 164–65 With the consolidation of Roman imperial power, the size of both fleets and galleys decreased considerably. The huge polyremes disappeared and the fleet were equipped primarily with triremes and liburnians, compact biremes with 25 pairs of oars that were well suited for patrol duty and chasing down raiders and pirates.
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Cleander of Sparta () was harmost of Byzantium in 400 BC, and promised Cheirisophus to meet the Ten Thousand at Calpe with ships to convey them to Europe. However, when they reached Calpe, Cleander had not come. Nor had he sent any ships. Later, when he did arrive, he brought only two triremes and no transports.
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Appian, Roman History, Gallic Wars 2.13 [From Constantine Porphyrogenitus, The Embassies] Polybius, The Histories, 2.19.7-13 According to Appian, Dolabella was killed in 282 BC when the Tarentines attacked and sank a small fleet of triremes under the command of Admiral Lucius Valerius. He either drowned, or was taken prisoner and executed in the city.
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In 352 BCE Phillip II besieged the city. Athens decided to send a fleet of forty triremes and to levy sixty talents in order to help the city, but the fleet never set sail. Only later a much smaller fleet of ten ships and money of five talents were sent. But Philip captured the city.
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Despite the council of 355/4 BC having built no triremes, Androtion proposed that the crown should be awarded. After Androtion's proposal was passed, Euktemon and Diodorus brought a prosecution against Androtion claiming that the proposal had been illegal. Androtion was acquitted, and continued to be active in Athenian politics at least until 347/6.
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This led to a warfare style in which both sides were forced to engage in repeated raids over several years without reaching a settlement. It also made sea battle a vital part of warfare. Greek naval battles were fought between triremes – long and speedy rowing ships which engaged the enemy by ramming and boarding actions.
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Akragas hired the Spartan general Dexippus with a band of 1,500 hoplites and some Campanian mercenaries (previously serving under Hannibal Mago at Himera) to augment their force of 10,000 troops.Kern, Paul B. Ancient Siege Warfare, p. 169. Syracuse posted a fleet of forty triremes at Eryx to watch for the movement of the Punic navy.
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Shaw (1995), p. 169 Ancient galleys were built very light and the original triremes are assumed to never have been surpassed in speed.Shaw (1995), p. 163 Medieval galleys are believed to have been considerably slower, especially since they were not built with ramming tactics in mind. A cruising speed of no more than 2–3 knots has been estimated.
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In times of war a special tax was levied on rich citizens. These citizens were also charged permanently with other taxes for the good of the city. This was called the system of liturgy. The taxes were used to maintain the triremes which gave Athens great naval power and to pay and maintain a chorus for large religious festivals.
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Leosthenes (in Greek Λεωσθένης; died 361 BC) was an Athenian, who commanded a fleet and armament in the Cyclades in 361 BC. Having allowed himself to be surprised by Alexander, tyrant of Pherae, and defeated, with a loss of five triremes and 600 men, he was condemned to death by the Athenians, as a punishment for his ill success.
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Carthage had begun to recruit an army and man a fleet to send to Sicily. The final army may have included 50,000 infantry, 4,000 cavalry, and 400 chariots, while the fleet included 400 triremes and 600 transports.Kern, Paul B., Ancient Warfare, pp. 183-184 Himilco, now elected "king", sailed for Sicily in 397 with the army and fleet.
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Simultaneous with the battle at Thermopylae, an Allied naval force of 271 triremes defended the Straits of Artemisium against the Persians.Herodotus, VIII, 2 Directly before Artemisium, the Persian fleet had been caught in a gale off the coast of Magnesia, losing many ships, but could still probably muster over 800 ships at the start of the battle.Holland, pp.
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The total complement (plērōma) of the ship was about 200.Thucydides VI.8, VIII.29.2Xenophon, Hellenica, I.5.3-7 These were divided into the 170 rowers (eretai), who provided the ship's motive power, the deck crew headed by the trierarch, and a marine detachment. For the crew of Athenian triremes, the ships were an extension of their democratic beliefs.
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John Coates, "The Naval Archictecture and Oar Systems of Ancient Galleys" in The Age of the Galley, p. 133. The Athenians especially became masters in the art of ramming, using light, un-decked (aphraktai) triremes. In either case, the masts and railings of the ship were taken down prior to engagement to reduce the opportunities for opponents' grappling hooks.
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The ram on the trireme was the Greek navy's most successful weapon. Triremes were equipped with a large piece of timber sheathed in an envelope of bronze, located in the front of each ship.Casson 1991, p. 89. Although each ship had a ram, the ship needed to have a skilled crew to be successful with this tactic.
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The Carthaginian ships were positioned superbly on the narrow mouth of the channel between the Island of Motya and the isthmus, so the Greeks would not be able to sail out with their whole fleet, and if they sailed out in small groups they would face difficulty in manoeuvring and reforming. Himilco's stratagem failed because instead of trying to engage the Carthaginian fleet, Dionysius sent his catapult armed ships and land based catapults to engage the Carthaginians with missiles. While Himilco's crews suffered casualties, Dionysius had his men drag 80 triremes across the base of the isthmus to the north of Motya into the open sea beyond. These ships then sailed south so the Carthaginians in turn were almost trapped between the Greeks firing catapults and the triremes.
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Ancient Greek triremes that composed the navy of Athens, Corcyra and Corinth. The war between Corcyra and Corinth caused trouble in the peace and was one of the immediate causes of the end of the Thirty Years Peace and the beginning of the Peloponnesian War. The quarrel was over a small distant land, Epidamnus. Corcyra went to Athens to ask for help.
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Scholars maintain that this number included large numbers of reserve ships, and the navy had not enough full oar crews to operate them all. Herodotus also states that Persians arrived for the Battle of Marathon (490 BC) with 600 triremes and some horse transport vessels. Though the number is rejected by some academics, Anthony J. Papalas states that evidence does support this report.
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The lead Athenian ship carried a customary light which the other ships could follow. Gorgopas, keeping his ships dark, followed the light of the Athenian ship. He was able to surprise the Athenian fleet as it passed close to shore around Cape Zoster. The Spartans captured four triremes and forced the rest of the Athenian ships to retreat to Piraeus.
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Freeman, Edward A., History of Sicily Vol IV, pp113 After the defeat of his navy and the desertion of his allies Dionysius' forces had shrunk to 80 ships. He managed to hire some mercenaries to make up for these losses, and the population of Syracuse supplied a number of soldiers to augment his forces. 30 triremes later joined him from Greece.
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The main warships of the fleet were the triremes. With its fleet, Athens obtained hegemony over the rest of the Greek city-states forming the first Athenian Empire. Its fleet was destroyed and empire lost during the Peloponnesian War. Athens regained some of its naval power after the Second Athenian Empire was rebuilt; however, it never fully recovered as its rivals were much stronger than before.
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Later, due to democratic pressures, the 400 were replaced by a broader oligarchy called "the 5000". Alcibiades did not immediately return to Athens. In early 410, Alcibiades led an Athenian fleet of 18 triremes against the Persian-financed Spartan fleet at Abydos near the Hellespont. The Battle of Abydos had actually begun before the arrival of Alcibiades, and had been inclining slightly toward the Athenians.
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Hamilcar chose not to sail to Selinus and then attack Akragas, although it was the coast closest to Carthage. The Carthaginian fleet, escorted by 60 triremes, sailed to Panormus instead. Hamilcar chose this course probably because restoring Terrilus was his primary objective. The conquest of Sicily, if that indeed was a consideration, took second place to his duty as a guest friend of Terrilus.
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Hearing of the Persian preparations, the Athenian general Cimon took 200 triremes and sailed to Phaselis in Pamphylia, which eventually agreed to join the Delian League. This effectively blocked the Persian strategy at its first objective. Cimon then moved to pre-emptively attack the Persian forces near the Eurymedon. Sailing into the mouth of the river, Cimon quickly routed the Persian fleet gathered there.
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Holland, pp.222–224 The most common naval tactics in the Mediterranean area at the time were ramming (triremes being equipped with a ram at the bows), or boarding by ship-borne marines (which essentially turned a sea battle into a land one).Lazenby, pp.34–37 The Persians and Asiatic Greeks had by this time begun to use a manoeuver known as diekplous.
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After some time, Laelius' quinquereme was able to sink two of the Carthaginian triremes and to incapacitate a third. Adherbal, conceding defeat, aimed his ship's bow towards the African coast and fled the action. Laelius made his way back to Carteia, where he was informed that the conspiracy at Gades had been discovered and that the responsible parties had been sent off to Carthage.
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Eumenes decided to march to Susa in the spring of 316 BC. The satraps in Susa had apparently accepted Eumenes' claims of his fighting on behalf of the lawful ruling family against the usurper Antigonus. Eumenes marched his army 300 stadions away from Babylon and tried to cross the Tigris. Seleucus had to act. He sent two triremes and some smaller ships to stop the crossing.
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Dionysius attacked the Phoenician city of Motya in 398 BC, igniting the first of four wars he was to lead against Carthage between 398-368.Church, Alfred J., Carthage, p. 47 After the sack of Motya, Dionysius retired to Syracuse, while Himilco of Carthage arrived in Sicily with 50,000 men along with 400 triremes and 600 transports to continue the war.Caven, Brian, Dionysius I, p.
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Its displacement must have been around 60 tonnes, and its carrying capacity at marines. It was especially valued for its great speed and manoeuvrability, while its relatively shallow draught made it ideal for coastal operations. The "four" was classed as a "major ship" (maioris formae) by the Romans, but as a light craft, serving alongside triremes, in the navies of the major Hellenistic kingdoms like Egypt.
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Hierax () was a Spartan admiral during the Corinthian War. In 389 BC he was dispatched by Sparta to Aegina, to take over the Spartan fleet. The Spartans under the command of Teleutias had earlier driven off the Athenian fleet blockading Aegina. Soon after taking command, Hierax departed for Rhodes with most of the fleet, leaving Gorgopas, his vice-admiral, with twelve triremes as governor in Aegina.
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The Siege of Naxos (499 BC), a failed attempt by the Milesian tyrant Aristagoras, to conquer the island of Naxos in the name of the Persian Empire, was supported by Artaphernes who assisted in the assembly of a force of 200 triremes under the command of Megabates. This was the opening act of the Greco-Persian Wars, which would ultimately last for 50 years.
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On a good day, the oarsmen, rowing for 6–8 hours, could propel the ship between . There were rare instances however when experienced crews and new ships were able to cover nearly twice that distance (Thucydides mentions a trireme travelling 300 kilometres in one day).Hanson (2006), p. 261 The commanders of the triremes also had to stay aware of the condition of their men.
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Consenting to the expedition, the Persians assembled a force of 200 triremes under the command of Megabates. The expedition quickly descended into a debacle. Aristagoras and Megabates quarreled on the journey to Naxos, and someone (possibly Megabates) informed the Naxians of the imminent arrival of the force. When they arrived, the Persians and Ionians were thus faced with a city well prepared to undergo siege.
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Sparta was able to build fleet after fleet, eventually destroying the Athenian fleet at the Battle of Aegospotami. The Spartan General Brasidas summed up the difference in approach to naval warfare between the Spartans and the Athenians: "Athenians relied on speed and maneuverability on the open seas to ram at will clumsier ships; in contrast, a Peloponnesian armada might win only when it fought near land in calm and confined waters, had the greater number of ships in a local theater, and if its better-trained marines on deck and hoplites on shore could turn a sea battle into a contest of infantry."Hanson (2006), p. 255 In addition, compared to the high-finesse of the Athenian navy (superior oarsmen who could outflank and ram enemy triremes from the side), the Spartans (as well as their allies and other enemies of Athens) would focus mainly on ramming Athenian triremes head on.
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At the end of the conflict, the fleet consisted of 50 triremes and was commanded by a "navarch". All this constituted a significant enough force that the Spartans were happy to see the Boeotian confederacy dissolved by the king's peace. This dissolution, however, did not last, and in the 370s there was nothing to stop the Thebans (who had lost the Cadmea to Sparta in 382 BC) from reforming this confederacy.
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Set-piece battles during the Peloponnesian war proved indecisive and instead there was increased reliance on attritionary strategies, naval battle and blockades and sieges. These changes greatly increased the number of casualties and the disruption of Greek society. Athens owned one of the largest war fleets in ancient Greece. It had over 200 triremes each powered by 170 oarsmen who were seated in 3 rows on each side of the ship.
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According to Diodorus, Timoleon arrived at Rhegium three days after Hicetas captured Syracuse partially. Hicetas wanted to prevent him from landing on Sicily, so he sent twenty Carthaginian triremes to Rhegium with envoys of Hicetas. The envoys told Timoleon that the war was almost over and demanded that he sent his fleet back to Corinth. If he wished, Timoleon himself could join Hicetas as his advisor and ally.
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The Carthaginian Senate requested Hannibal Mago to command the Carthaginian expedition to Sicily in 406 BC to punish Hermocrates for raiding Carthaginian possessions around Motya and Panormus. Hannibal initially refused, pleading old age, but accepted when the Carthaginian Senate elected Himilco as his deputy.Diodorus Siculus, 13.80.1-2 Hannibal led 60,000 soldiersKern, Paul B., Ancient Siege Warfare, pp168 and 1000 transports, escorted by 120 triremes to Sicily,Diodorus Siculus, 13.61.
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Without a standing army Himilco could not go to the aid of Motya immediately. While Carthage raised mercenaries and organized logistics, Himilco sent 10 triremes to attack Syracuse itself, hoping to draw off the Greeks from Motya. Although the Carthaginians sank whatever was afloat in the harbour of Syracuse, Dionysius did not withdraw his soldiers from Western Sicily. Himilco could not mount an assault on undefended Syracuse as he lacked soldiers.
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Cimon takes command of the Greek Fleet. Around 466 BC, Cimon carried the war against Persia into Asia Minor and decisively defeated the Persians at the Battle of the Eurymedon on the Eurymedon River in Pamphylia. Cimon's land and sea forces captured the Persian camp and destroyed or captured the entire Persian fleet of 200 triremes manned by Phoenicians. And he established an Athenian colony nearby called Amphipolis with 10,000 settlers.
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In 334 BC, Alexander crossed the Hellespont into Asia. It took over one hundred triremes (triple-banked galleys) to transport the entire Macedonian army, but the Persians decided to ignore the movement.cf. In these early months, Darius still refused to take Alexander seriously or mount a serious challenge to Alexander's movements. Memnon of Rhodes, the Greek mercenary who aligned himself with the Persians, advocated a scorched earth strategy.
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Liburna were usually about 21 meters long, 3.30 meters wide and had a depth of about 0.7 meters. The crew consisted of 44 Rowers, 4 sailors and 16 marines. Larger than the liburna were the triremes which were very similar to the liburnians, but by a distinguished by a third, additional sail. Cargo and load rafts could be up to 30m long, based on finds from Alphen Zwammerdam.
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As the Britons under Caratacus have heavily fortified the opposite bank, Macro and Cato are ordered to scout ahead for a ford upstream. Cato finds one, and the next day the attack goes in. The Ninth Legion, supported by artillery fire from triremes on the river, crosses and assault the enemy ramparts. After sustaining heavy losses, the attack falters, and only the Second Legion's intervention saves the day.
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The Punic war- fleet, made up of 250 triremes and captured Greek quinqueremes, sailed into the Great Harbour at the same time and in perfect order sailed past Syracuse, displaying the spoils captured from the Greeks. 2000–3000 transports then moored in the harbour, bringing in soldiers and supplies. Himilco was ready to begin the siege. The Syracusan navy, which had initially mobilised 180 ships but lost 100 shipsDiodorus Siculus, XIV.
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Artaxerxes was compelled to retreat and postpone his plans to reconquer Egypt. Soon after this defeat, there were rebellions in Phoenicia, Asia Minor and Cyprus. In 343 BC, Artaxerxes committed responsibility for the suppression of the Cyprian rebels to Idrieus, prince of Caria, who employed 8,000 Greek mercenaries and forty triremes, commanded by Phocion the Athenian, and Evagoras, son of the elder Evagoras, the Cypriot monarch. Idrieus succeeded in reducing Cyprus.
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Aristagoras next went to Athens, where he made a convincing speech, promising “everything that came into his head, until at last he succeeded.” Won over, the Athenians agreed to send ships to Ionia and Aristagoras went before them. The Athenians subsequently arrived in Miletus with twenty triremes and five others that belonged to the Eretrians. Herodotus described the arrival of these ships as the beginning of troubles between Greeks and barbarians.
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Indeed, Athens would create the Delian League in 478 BC, uniting the naval power of the Aegean Islands and Ionia under Athenian leadership.Holland, p. 360 Themistocles introduced tax breaks for merchants and artisans, to attract both people and trade to the city to make Athens a great mercantile centre.Diodorus XI, 43 He also instructed the Athenians to build 20 triremes per year, to ensure that their dominance in naval matters continued.
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257 Such triremes had 60 oarsmen, and rest of the ship was for horses. The trireme was designed for day-long journeys, with no capacity to stay at sea overnight, or to carry the provisions needed to sustain its crew overnight. Each crewman required 2 gallons (7.6 L) of fresh drinking water to stay hydrated each day, but it is unknown quite how this was stored and distributed.Hanson (2006), p.
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Herodotus VI, 95 There is no indication in the historical sources of how many transport ships accompanied them, if any. Herodotus claimed that 3,000 transport ships accompanied 1,207 triremes during Xerxes's invasion in 480 BC.Herodotus VII, 97 Among modern historians, some have accepted this number of ships as reasonable; it has been suggested either that the number 600 represents the combined number of triremes and transport ships,Green, p90 or that there were horse transports in addition to 600 triremes.Lazenby, p46 Herodotus does not estimate the size of the Persian army, only saying that they formed a "great and well-furnished army".Herodotus VI 95 Among other ancient sources, the poet Simonides, a near- contemporary, says the campaign force numbered 200,000, while a later writer, the Roman Cornelius Nepos estimates 200,000 infantry and 10,000 cavalry.Cornelius Nepos, Miltiades, 4 Plutarch and Pausanias both independently give 300,000, as does the Suda dictionary;Plutarch, Moralia, 305BPausanias IV, 22Suda dictionary, entry Hippias Plato and Lysias assert 500,000; and Justin 600,000.
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The Corcyraeans, along with Appolonia and Epidamnos, sought assistance from the Leagues of Greece. Ten Achaean ships were engaged by the Illyrian fleet, reinforced by seven warships of the Acarnanians, off the island Paxos south of Corcyra. By superior tactics, the Illyrians took four triremes and sank a quinquereme, while the rest of the Greeks managed to escape. Corcyra was surrendered and was occupied by a garrison under the command of Demetrius of Pharos.
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Going on to Cilicia, where he was reinforced with more troops, Demetrius then crossed over to Cyprus with an army of 15,000 infantry and 500 cavalry. This was accompanied by a fleet numbering 53 heavy ships—7 heptereis, 10 hexereis, 20 quinqueremes—and upwards of 110 lighter vessels—triremes and quadriremes—although the exact numbers are somewhat unclear. He was opposed by Ptolemy's brother, Menelaus, who disposed of 12,000 infantry, 800 cavalry, and 60 ships.
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Eventually, around 451 BC, Cimon returned to Athens. Although he was not allowed to return to the level of power he once enjoyed, he was able to negotiate on Athens' behalf a five-year truce with the Spartans. Later, with a Persian fleet moving against a rebellious Cyprus, Cimon proposed an expedition to fight the Persians. He gained Pericles' support and sailed to Cyprus with two hundred triremes of the Delian League.
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Reconstructed model of a trireme, the type of ship in use by both the Greek and Persian forces According to Plutarch, the League fleet consisted of 200 triremes. These were of the sleek Athenian aphract (deckless) design, originally developed by Themistocles primarily for ramming actions,Goldsworthy, p. 102. although they had been modified by Cimon to improve their suitability for boarding actions. The standard complement of a trireme was 200 men, including 14 marines.
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Panormus or Panormos () was an ancient harbour on the coast of the island of Skopelos in the Northern Sporades. It is mentioned by Diodorus and by Polyaenus; they relate that, around 361/0 BCE, Alexander of Pherae besieged Peparethus and occupied Panormus. Leosthenes, the Athenian admiral, commanded the troops that came to the aid of Peparethus, but Alexander resisted the siege in Panormus, seized some Athenians triremes by a stratagem and plundered Piraeus.Polyaenus, Stratagems 6.2.1.
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When the Carthaginian navy was spotted leaving Carteia, Laelius' fleet gave battle in a formation where his own quinquereme was at the head of his fleet. He successfully surprised Adherbal, who was obliged to fight as the sea currents made an escape impossible. The clashing of the fleets was a chaotic affair as the triremes jockeyed about with difficulty. There were numerous smaller battles between the ships and acts of bravery on both sides.
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The Carthaginians were joined by 30,000 Sicilians (Sicels, Sikans and Elymians),Diodorus Siculus, X.IV.54 but it is not known what forces Himilco left behind to guard western Sicily when he sailed to Lipara with 300 triremes and 300 transports. The Carthaginian army encamped at Cape Peloris near the sanctuary of Posidon.Diodorus Siculus, X.IV.56 Large Sicilian cities like Syracuse and Akragas could field up to 10,000–20,000 citizens,Diodorus Siculus, X.III.
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The mainstay of the Greek army was the hoplite, drawn mainly from the citizens, although mercenaries from Italy and Greece were also employed. The cavalry was recruited from wealthier citizens and hired mercenaries, while some citizens would also serve as peltasts, and mercenaries could be hired to fill the role of archers, slingers, and skirmishers. The Messanian fleet used triremes as the standard fighting ship, but their status and location during this battle is unknown.
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Himilco, informed about the approaching Greek army, decided to outflank them using his naval superiority. He however ordered 200 triremes to be manned by picked crews and soldiers, and sail for Messana, thus outflanking the Greeks and attacking the undefended city directly. The trireme normally carried 200 rowers and 16 crew members (including the ship captain)Warry, John, Warfare in the Classical Age, p. 30 and between 14 and 40 marines,Herodotus VII.
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An ancient Greek trireme. Athenian sacred ships were ancient Athenian ships, often triremes, which had special religious functions such as serving in sacred processions (theoria) or embassies or racing in boat races during religious festivals.Jordan, Athenian Navy, 154-157. The two most famous such ships were the Paralus and the Salaminia, which also served as the messenger ships of the Athenian government in the 5th and 4th centuries BC.Jordan, Athenian Navy, 153.
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After this, Artaxerxes personally led an army of 330,000 men against Sidon. Artaxerxes' army comprised 300,000 foot soldiers, 30,000 cavalry, 300 triremes, and 500 transports or provision ships. After gathering this army, he sought assistance from the Greeks. Though refused aid by Athens and Sparta, he succeeded in obtaining a thousand Theban heavy-armed hoplites under Lacrates, three thousand Argives under Nicostratus, and six thousand Æolians, Ionians, and Dorians from the Greek cities of Anatolia.
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In Ancient Greece, phoros () was the name for the membership dues paid to Athens by the members of the Delian League, formed to offer protection from Persian forces. It could be paid in military equipment (such as triremes) or money, most usually the latter. Consequently, a great deal of funds was paid to Athens for the purpose of military initiatives. Athens increased its military forces, resulting in its becoming a dominant and wealthy power.
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In the eastern Mediterranean, they were superseded as the heaviest ships by the massive polyremes that began appearing in the last two decades of the 4th century, but in the West, they remained the mainstay of the Carthaginian navy. When the Roman Republic, which hitherto lacked a significant navy, was embroiled in the First Punic War with Carthage, the Roman Senate set out to construct a fleet of 100 quinqueremes and 20 triremes.
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Gorgopas was a Spartan commander during the Corinthian War. In 388 BC Hierax was dispatched by Sparta to Aegina to take over the Spartan fleet. The Spartans under the command of Teleutias had earlier driven off the Athenian fleet blockading Aegina. Soon after taking over, Hierax departed for Rhodes with most of the fleet leaving Gorgopas, his vice-admiral with twelve triremes as governor in Aegina, replacing Eteonicus who held the post before.
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After every trip the triremes were pulled ashore in special slides and the hypozomata was re-tightened. The trireme hulls were constructed from planks with closely spaced and pegged mortise and tenon joints. When these are fitted carefully the hull can carry shear stresses well and stay watertight. It was estimated that her ramming speed should have been in excess of , something the present reconstruction could not achieve, possibly because it was overweight.
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Finally, ten Sidonian triremes arrived off Skiathos, and the main Allied fleet was informed by a fire-beacon lit on the island.Herodotus VII, 183 However, the Allied patrol ships themselves were caught unaware and two were captured, whilst one ran aground. According to Herodotus, in the ensuing confusion, unsure whether or not the beacon heralded the arrival of the whole Persian fleet, as a precaution the whole Allied fleet launched into the straits of Artemisium.
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In Dionysius' court, Dion proposed a response to the continuing Carthaginian threat. Dion offered either to travel to Carthage (to seek a diplomatic solution) or to furnish Syracuse with 50 new triremes with his own money to fight the Carthaginians. Although Dionysius was delighted by these suggestions, his courtiers resented Dion's interventions. They suggested to Dionysus that Dion was trying to oust him in favour of the line of his sister Aristomache.
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In addition, as it provided permanent employment for the city's poorer citizens, the fleet played an important role in maintaining and promoting the radical Athenian form of democracy. Athenian maritime power is the first example of thalassocracy in world history. Aside from Athens, other major naval powers of the era included Syracuse, Corfu and Corinth. In the subsequent Peloponnesian War, naval battles fought by triremes were crucial in the power balance between Athens and Sparta.
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It is not known if Hamilcar wished to build siege weapons at Himera or settle the issue through battle. After the camps were erected, the Punic ships dropped off provisions at the sea camp and were sent to Sardinia and Africa for more supplies.Diodorus Siculus, XI.26 20 triremes patrolled the sea, the rest of the ships were beached in the sea camp.Diodorus Siculus, XI.24 Himera was not fully invested – the east and south sides were open.
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The Carthaginian fleet was sailing at a slow pace to give Himilco more time to catch up. The Carthaginian fleet at this time contained 300 triremes and 200 transports. To maximize the fighting potential of the fleet, the Carthaginians had armed the transports, (which were slower than the warships) with rams.Diod. 14.60 The Punic fleet arrived at Catana, aware that without their army present, they were vulnerable to the Greek army when they beached their ships at night.
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The Spartans assaulted the Athenian fortifications on Pylos from both land and sea.Unless otherwise noted, all details of the battle are drawn from Thucydides, The Peloponnesian War 4.11-14. The sea attack came exactly where Demosthenes had expected it would, and he was thus in place to meet it with his men. The landing was difficult at the point of attack, so only a few of the 43 triremes were able to approach the beach at a time.
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There are various different accounts that lay down foundations of what equipment was used and how these ships engaged in combat. The main military applications of Greek Triremes, besides the transport of troops and supplies, would be the advantages of ramming tactics. Developments and innovations of the Greek Trireme evolved over time, especially in respect to ramming tactics. Naval architects during this time saw fit to bring about full effectiveness and damaging power to these ships.
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The Persian Wars were the first to feature large-scale naval operations: not only sophisticated fleet engagements with dozens of triremes on each side, but also combined land-sea operations. Ships in the ancient world could operate only on the relatively quiet waters of seas and rivers; the oceans were off-limits. Navies were almost always used as auxiliaries to land forces, often essential to bringing them supplies. They would rarely strike out on their own.
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Most of the Persian fleet made landfall, and the sailors fled to the shelter of the Persian army. Cimon then landed the Greek marines and proceeded to attack the Persian army, which was also routed. The Greeks captured the Persian camp, taking many prisoners, and were able to destroy 200 beached Persian triremes. This stunning double victory seems to have greatly demoralised the Persians, and prevented any further Persian campaigning in the Aegean until at least 451 BCE.
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In a two-month-long campaign, Hannibal subdued parts of Catalonia between the Ebro, the Pyrenees and the Sicoris river in a swift, if costlyGoldsworthy, Adrian, The Fall of Carthage, p 158 campaign. The Iberian contingent of the Punic navy, which numbered 50 quinqueremes (only 32 were manned) and 5 triremes, remained in Iberian waters, having shadowed Hannibal's army for some way.Dodge, Theodore A., Hannibal, p 172 Carthage mobilized at least 55 Quinqueremes for immediate raids on Italy.
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The term pulling was also used historically.W B Woodgate Boating Read Books, 2008 Sweep or single oar rowing has a long history and was the means of propulsion for Greek triremes and Viking longboats. These boats were wide enough for the pairs of rowers to sit alongside each other. Boats can go faster, the narrower they are, because a smaller cross-sectional area reduces drag and wave drag and gives a sharper angle to the bow.
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While his army was occupied with these activities, Himilco sailed from Carthage to Motya and managed to surprise the Greek navy, most of which was beached on the shore.Church, Alfred J., Carthage, pp. 48-49 Himilco destroyed a large number of the transports and trapped the Greek warships on the northern part of the lagoon. Dionysius responded by building a wooden plank road on the isthmus north of Motya and dragging his triremes to the open sea.
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It was the standard accompaniment of the passionate elegiac poetry. It also accompanied physical activities such as wrestling matches, the broad jump, the discus throw and to mark the rowing cadence on triremes, as well as sacrifices and dramas. Plato associates it with the ecstatic cults of Dionysus and the Korybantes, banning it from his Republic but reintroducing it in "Laws". It appears that some variants of the instrument were loud, shrill, and therefore very hard to blow.
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Triremes, biremes and quinqueremes are all mentioned during New Barbarians. Rather than being defined by banks of oars, the names refer to the number of screw propellers on the boats. Despite being armed with near-modern equipment, the ships are still designed to be used as traditional Roman ships; boarding enemy galleys rather than attacking them directly. Contact with the Aztec/Serican fleet forces the Roman Empire to develop battleships for the first time during New Barbarians.
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Considering that each ship had an average of 50 oarsmen (the absolute minimum for a tririme) and 10 to 20 seamen and marines were also aboard, the navy compromised 36,000 to 42,000 men, at least. After the Battle of Salamis (480 BC), the fleet began to decline and never regained its status at peak. The largest figure estimated after 404 BC is 400 triremes. The number was still equal to, if not more than, fleets of the Athenian alliance.
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At Athens, the Segestan ambassadors presented their case for intervention to the assembly, where debate over the proposal quickly divided along traditional factional lines. The assembly eventually approved an expedition composed of sixty triremes, without hoplite accompaniment, commanded by Nicias, Alcibiades, and Lamachus. Thucydides reports that Nicias had been appointed against his preference, but offers no further detail regarding that debate. Five days after that first debate, a second assembly was held to arrange the logistics of the expedition.
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217-219 In 483 BC, a massive new seam of silver was found in the Athenian mines at Laurium.Plutarch, Themistocles 4 Themistocles proposed that the silver should be used to build a new fleet of 200 triremes, while Aristides suggested it should instead be distributed among the Athenian citizens.Holland, pp. 219-222 Themistocles avoided mentioning Persia, deeming that it was too distant a threat for the Athenians to act on, and instead focused their attention on Aegina.
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Sensing the military might of the Athenians, the city-states and settlers of Asia Minor requested them to lead the league. The Athenians had a formidable navy; they produced an overwhelming number of warships and soldiers and in return demanded tribute from the league members. The Athenians had built dozens of warships known as triremes to defend Greece. The crew consisted of 200 men which included the Captain, ten dignitaries who may have been commanders, several archers, a few soldiers, and 170 oarsmen.
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In practice, Antiochus' ship was sunk, and he was killed, by a sudden Spartan attack; the remaining nine ships of the decoy force were then chased headlong back toward Notium, where the main Athenian force was caught unprepared by the sudden arrival of the whole Spartan fleet. In the ensuing fighting, 15 Athenian triremes were captured and seven more were sunk. The Spartans sailed back to Ephesus, having won an unexpected victory, while the Athenians returned to Notium to regroup.
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Church, Alfred J., Carthage, p47 The Sicilian Greeks and Sikans under Carthaginian dominion took this opportunity to rebel, and by the time Dionysius besieged Motya, only five cities remained in league (Segesta, Entella, Panormus and Solus among them) with Carthage. Lacking a standing army, Carthage could only send a fleet of 100 triremes under Himilco to Sicily. The city of Motya stands on an island in the middle of a lagoon, so Dionysius had to build a mole to reach the city walls.
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Himilco, elected king by the Carthaginians, led the army raised by Carthage, probably 50,000 men along with 400 triremes and 600 transportsCaven, Brian, Dionysius I, pp107 to Sicily. The Greek fleet under Leptines of Syracuse failed to stop the Punic armada, only managing to sink 50 transports.Church, Alfred J., Carthage pp51 The Carthaginians landed at Panormus, then made their way to Eryx, which was occupied through treachery. Himilco next stormed Motya, where the mostly Sicel garrison under Biton was easily overcome.
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By now, in 344/343 BC, the situation in Syracuse had become even more complex as the city was divided between the three belligerents. Dionysius continued to hold Ortygia, Hicetas held the Achradina and Neapolis neighbourhoods on the mainland and Timoleon held the rest of the city. As the allies of Hicetas, the Carthaginians occupied the Great Harbour with 150 triremes and encamped with 50,000 men on the shore. Timoleon allied himself with Adranum and Tyndaris and received reinforcements from them.
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After Timoleon had arrived in Tauromenium with 1,000 soldiers, Hicetas asked the Carthaginians for reinforcements, who sent a large number of triremes to occupy the harbor of Syracuse. Because there was an dispute between two factions in Adranum, one party invited Hicetas and the other party invited Timoleon to intervene or mediate. Both generals marched to Adranum and arrived around the same time. Hicetas had 5,000 men and Timoleon no more than 1,200, but the army of Hicetas was caught unprepared.
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Himilco temporarily placated the unruly mercenaries by bribing them with the gold and silver tableware of the Carthaginian officers. He still needed to improve his supply situation – and he seized on opportune information to achieve this. The Greeks were using grain ships escorted by 30 triremes to supply Akragas and their army, and had become lax due to the absence of Carthaginian ships in the vicinity. Just prior to the winter the Carthaginians managed to learn of the approach of one such convoy.
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Hannibal Mago had brought together an army recruited from Carthaginian citizens, Africa, Spain and Italy, and a fleet of 120 triremes to Sicily. The army had been reduced by plague and casualties at Akragas and it is not known if Himilco had received any reinforcements or recruits while he wintered at Akragas. The original forces may have numbered around 60,000 men,Caven, Brian, Dionysius I: Warlord of Sicily, pp. 45-46 and the survivors marched to Gela in the spring of 405.
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Diodorus Siculus 13.60 The main Syracusan fleet was away from Sicily, but 25 triremes had arrived at Himera after the battle from Syracuse. As the Carthaginian fleet was at Motya, their arrival gave the Greeks command of the sea around Himera.Kern, Paul B., Ancient Siege Warfare, p. 167 Hannibal spread a false report that the Punic army was going to attack Syracuse after sailing there from Motya, as the main army of Syracuse was approaching Himera, thus leaving their city unguarded.
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Greek triremes at Salamis. Regardless of what time they entered the straits, the Persians did not move to attack the Allies until daylight. Since they were not planning to flee after all, the Allies would have been able to spend the night preparing for battle, and after a speech by Themistocles, the marines boarded and the ships made ready to sail.Herodotus VIII, 83 According to Herodotus, this was dawn, and as the Allies "were putting out to sea the barbarians immediately attacked them".
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Little is known of the activities of Carthage during 405–397 BC except that a plague had swept through Africa, which had been carried by the returning army in 405 BC, weakening Carthage. Himilco was again given the task of responding to the threat. While raising a mercenary army (Carthage did not maintain a standing army) Himilco sent ten triremes to raid Syracuse itself. The raiders entered the Great Harbour of Syracuse and destroyed all the ships they could find.
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They used a shipwrecked Carthaginian quinquereme as a blueprint for their own. As novice shipwrights, the Romans built copies that were heavier than the Carthaginian vessels, and so slower and less manoeuvrable. The quinquereme provided the workhorse of the Roman and Carthaginian fleets throughout the Punic Wars, although hexaremes (six oarsmen per bank), quadriremes (four oarsmen per bank) and triremes are also occasionally mentioned. So ubiquitous was the type that Polybius uses it as a shorthand for "warship" in general.
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Athens had secure landing sites for their triremes as far south as Cyprus but they needed a way station between Cyprus and Egypt. They needed a naval base on the coast of Lebanon or Palestine but the Phoenician cities of Sidon and Tyre held much of the mainland coast and those cities were loyal to Persia. Fifty miles south of those cities, however, the Athenians found an isolated and tempting target for establishing a way station. The Athenians seized Dor from Sidon.
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Possibly commercial reasons were a factor; Eretria was a mercantile city, whose trade was threatened by Persian dominance of the Aegean. Herodotus suggests that the Eretrians supported the revolt in order to repay the support the Milesians had given Eretria in a past war against Chalcis.Herodotus V, 98 The Athenians and Eretrians sent a task force of 25 triremes to Asia Minor.Herodotus V, 99 Whilst there, the Greek army surprised and outmaneuvered Artaphernes, marching to Sardis and there burning the lower city.
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Alcibiades, an Athenian general who had been the main proponent of the disastrous Sicilian Expedition during the Peloponnesian Wars, where virtually the entire Athenian invading force of more than 50,000 soldiers and non-combatants (e.g., the rowers of the Triremes) was killed or captured and enslaved, was a student and close friend of Socrates, and his messmate during the siege of Potidaea (433–429 BC). Socrates remained Alcibiades' close friend, admirer, and mentor for about five or six years.Waterfield, Robin.
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This is the approach taken by Holland, and gives a naval force which might well match the remnants of the Persian fleet. Although the Athenians had sent 8,000 hoplites to Plataea,Herodotus IX, 28 they would still have had ample manpower to man a large fleet of triremes, especially since rowers tended to be of the lower classes (the thetes) who could not afford the equipment to fight as hoplites.Holland, p217 The standard complement of a trireme was 200 men, including 14 marines.
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Whereas the Athenians relied on speed and maneuverability, where their highly trained crews had the advantage, other states favored boarding, in a situation that closely mirrored the one that developed during the First Punic War. Grappling hooks would be used both as a weapon and for towing damaged ships (ally or enemy) back to shore. When the triremes were alongside each other, marines would either spear the enemy or hop across and cut the enemy down with their swords.Hanson (2006), p.
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The reason for this development was the increasing use of armour on the bows of warships against ramming attacks, which again required heavier ships for a successful attack. This increased the number of rowers per ship, and also made it possible to use less well-trained personnel for moving these new ships. This change was accompanied by an increased reliance on tactics like boarding, missile skirmishes and using warships as platforms for artillery. Triremes continued to be the mainstay of all smaller navies.
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Holland, p157–161 The reasons that Eretria sent assistance to the Ionians are not completely clear. Possibly commercial reasons were a factor; Eretria was a mercantile city, whose trade was threatened by Persian dominance of the Aegean. Herodotus suggests that the Eretrians supported the revolt in order to repay the support the Milesians had given Eretria in a past war against Chalcis.Herodotus V, 98 The Athenians and Eretrians sent a task force of 25 triremes to Asia Minor to aid the revolt.
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In 357 BC the revolt against the league spread, and between 357 BC and 355 BC, Athens had to face war against its allies—a war whose issue was marked by a decisive intervention by the king of Persia in the form of an ultimatum to Athens, demanding that Athens recognise its allies' independence under threat of Persia's sending 200 triremes against Athens. Athens had to renounce the war and leave the confederacy, thereby weakening itself more and more, and signaling the end of Athenian hegemony.
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Not long after they appeared, a third row of oars was added by the addition to a bireme of an outrigger, a projecting construction that gave more room for the projecting oars. These new galleys were called triērēs ("three-fitted") in Greek. The Romans later called this design the triremis, trireme, the name it is today best known under. It has been hypothesized that early types of triremes existed as early as 700 BC, but the earliest conclusive literary reference dates to 542 BC.Morrison, Coates & Rankov, pp.
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While the Greeks were thus occupied, Himilco managed to surprise the Greek fleet and trap them on the lagoon north of Motya. Most of the Greek ships were beached, and Himilco had destroyed the transports at anchor near Lilybaeum before sailing to Motya. Dionysius managed to hold the Carthaginian fleet off by catapult fire, while his men built a wooden road of planks on the isthmus north of Motya and dragged 80 triremes to the open sea. Himilco, outnumbered and outmaneuvered, was compelled to sail away.
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Thrasybulus, leading the faction that sought to reject the peace offer, regained his position atop Athenian politics. In 389 BC, he led a force of triremes to levy tribute from cities around the Aegean and support Rhodes, where a democratic government was struggling against Sparta. On this campaign, Thrasybulus relaid much of the framework for an Athenian empire on 5th century BC model; he captured Byzantium, imposed a duty on ships passing through the Hellespont, and collected tribute from many of the islands of the Aegean.
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Cimon may have been waiting in Caria because he expected the Persians to march straight into Ionia, along the Royal road from Sardis. According to Plutarch, Cimon sailed with these 200 triremes to the Greek city of Phaselis (in Lycia) but was refused admittance. He therefore began ravaging the lands of Phaselis, but with the mediation of the Chian contingent of his fleet, the people of Phaselis agreed to join the league. They were to contribute troops to the expedition, and to pay the Athenians ten talents.
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The Battle of Paxos was a naval battle between a coalition of Illyrian federation with their Acarnanian allies, against the allies of Corcyra (modern Corfu), the Achaean League and Aetolian League. The battle took place in the spring of 229 BC and was a direct consequence to the siege of Corcyra by the forces of queen Teuta. Polybius describes a cunning maritime stratagem mastered by the Illyrian fleet. The Illyrians took four triremes and sank a quinquereme, while the rest of the Greeks managed to escape.
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During this period the standard warship of the Carthaginian navy was the quinquereme, meaning "five-oared". The quinquereme was a galley, long, wide at water level, with its deck standing above the sea, and displacing around . The galley expert John Coates has suggested that they could maintain 7 knots (8 mph; 13 km/h) for extended periods. The quinquereme was superior as a warship to the previous mainstay of Mediterranean navies, the trireme, and, being heavier, performed better than the triremes in bad weather.
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Equipped with one mast with square sail, the triremes had rudder made up of two bladed oars, one on each side of stern, united by a crossbar. The ram was made out of bronze, and was long and tapered to a single point. ;Armaments The metal rams were designed to slice into the hulls of enemy ships after an impact. Equipment in the vessels included grappling hooks (used to catch and halt enemy ships) and two mangonels, the latter throwing stones or flammable projectiles.
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Finds from Solygeia According to Thucydides, Dorians had seized the hill on which Solygeia sat, in order to carry on war against the Aeolian inhabitants of Corinthians. During the Peloponnesian War, in the year 425 BCE, Solygeia was the scene of a confrontation between Athens and Corinth. The Athenians had undertaken an expedition against Corinth led by, among others, Nicias, with 80 triremes, 2000 hoplites, and 200 horsemen. They were accompanied by allies from Miletus, Andros and Carystus and landed in the territory dominated by Solygeia.
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Map of Modern Mani, also showing Laconia While the Spartans ruled Mani, Tenaron became an important gathering place for mercenaries.. Gythium became a major port under the Spartans as it was only away from Sparta. In 455 BC, during the First Peloponnesian War, it was besieged and captured by the Athenian admiral Tolmides along with 50 triremes and 4,000 hoplites. The city and the dockyards were rebuilt and by the late Peloponnesian War, Gythium was the main building place for the new Spartan fleet.Xenophon. Hellenica, 1.4.
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Romano-Britannic usurper- emperor Allectus (r. 293-296 AD), depicting a trireme on the reverse During the Hellenistic period, the light trireme was supplanted by larger warships in dominant navies, especially the pentere/quinquereme. The maximum practical number of oar banks a ship could have was three. So the number in the type name did not refer to the banks of oars any more (as for biremes and triremes), but to the number of rowers per vertical section, with several men on each oar.
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Later, Magas, having been raised in part at the Ptolemaic court, must also have received first-hand accounts of India from his stepfather Ptolemy I, a former general in Alexander's campaigns. The predecessor of Magas in Cyrene, the Ptolemaic governor named Ophellas, had also been one of the Alexander's officers in India, in charge of one of his triremes during the expedition down the Indus River. Magas was probably quite acquainted with matters pertaining to India through his contacts with such veterans of the Indian campaigns.
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In 425 BC the Athenian politician Cleon sent an expedition to Pylos where the Athenians fortified the rocky promontory now known as Koryphasion (Κορυφάσιον) or Old Pylos at the northern edge of the bay, near the Gialova Lagoon, and after a conflict with Spartan ships in the Battle of Pylos, seized and occupied the bay. Demosthenes, the Athenian commander, completed the fort in 424 BC. The erection of this fort led to one of the most memorable events in the Peloponnesian War. Thucydides has given a minute account of the topography of the district, which, though clear and consistent with itself, does not coincide, in all points, with the existing locality, Thucydides describes the harbour, of which the promontory Coryphasium (Koryphasion) formed the northern termination, as fronted and protected by the island Sphacteria, which stretched along the coast, leaving only two narrow entrances to the harbour,--the one at the northern end, opposite to Coryphasium, being only wide enough to admit two triremes abreast, and the other at the southern end wide enough for eight or nine triremes. The island was about 15 stadia in width, covered with wood, uninhabited and untrodden.
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As a final disastrous coda to the expedition, Thucydides mentions the fate of a squadron of fifty triremes sent to relieve the Siege of Prosopitis. Unaware that the Athenians had finally succumbed, the fleet put in at the Mendesian mouth of the Nile, where it was promptly attacked from the land, and from the sea by the Phoenician navy. Most of the ships were destroyed, with only a handful managing to escape and return to Athens. Total Athenian casualties of the expedition totaled some 50,000 men and 250 ships.
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John Francis Coates, OBE (30 March 1922 – 10 July 2010) was a British naval architect best known for his work on the study of construction of the Ancient Greek trireme. His research led to the construction of the first working replicas of triremes, the fastest and most devastating warship of Mediterranean empires, and gave a greater understanding of how they were built and used. He also carried out research into the use of shipping in Northern Europe during the Bronze Age, in particular the Ferriby Bronze Age boat and the Dover Boat.
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Elsewhere Plutarch illustrates her character with an episode from the proscription of 43 BC, during the Second Triumvirate: During the Perusine War (modern Perugia) between 41 BC-40 BC, Julia left Rome, although Octavian (future Roman Emperor Augustus) treated her with kindness. She never trusted Sextus Pompeius. When Sextus Pompeius was in Sicily, Julia had sent to Greece for Antony, a distinguished escort and convoy of triremes. After the reconciliation of the triumvirs, Julia returned with Antony to Italy in 39 BC and was probably present at the meeting with Sextus Pompeius at Misenum.
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Himilco led the army raised by Carthage, 50,000 men along with 400 triremes and 600 transportsCaven, Brian, Dionysius I, pp107 to Sicily in the spring of 397 BC and reached Panormus despite the efforts of Leptines to stop the Carthaginian armada. However, Dionysius had already moved to western Sicily, and he had bullied the Sikans and Sicels on his way to Segesta, forcing the city of Halikyai to join the Greek side.Diodorus Siculus, XIV.54 He joined the Greek force at Segesta and put the city under blockade.
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In Sicyon also the art of painting was supposed to have been invented. After the fall of the tyrants their institutions survived until the end of the 6th century BC, when Dorian supremacy was re-established, perhaps by the agency of Sparta under the ephor Chilon, and the city was enrolled in the Peloponnesian League. Henceforth, its policy was usually determined either by Sparta or Corinth. During the Persian Wars, the Sicyonians participated with fifteen triremes in the Battle of Salamis and with 3,000 hoplites in the Battle of Plataea.
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Especially in stormy weather, these were effective blockade runners because the Carthaginian triremes had to keep their distance from each other due to the rough sea. Hicetas and Mago noticed the supply ships coming from Catana and marched towards that city to take it. The Corinthian commander of the besieged garrison, Neon, noticed that the troops left to defend the part of Syracuse on the mainland had become inattentive and careless. He made a surprise attack on them and captured the neighborhood Achradina, securing grain and money in the process.
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The Athenians indignantly declined, and instead resolved to open war with Persia. Having thus become the enemy of Persia, Athens was already in a position to support the Ionian cities when they began their revolt. The fact that the Ionian democracies were inspired by the example the Athenians had set no doubt further persuaded the Athenians to support the Ionian Revolt, especially since the cities of Ionia were originally Athenian colonies. The Athenians and Eretrians sent a task force of 25 triremes to Asia Minor to aid the revolt.
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Against Androtion was a speech composed by Demosthenes in which he accused Androtion of making an illegal proposal. This was the first surviving speech of Demosthenes composed on public charges (γραφαί, ). The case was brought in 355/4 by Diodoros and Euktemon, and concerned Androtion's proposal that the council of that year be awarded a crown for their services. This was a customary award for the outgoing council every year, but the crown was only to be awarded to a council that had built a certain number of triremes that year.
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Dionysius brought 30,000 foot and 1,000 horsemen, recruited from Syracuse, allied Sicilian Greek cities, and mercenaries along with 50 triremes to Gela in 405. The mainstay of the Greek army was the hoplite, drawn mainly from the citizens by Dionysius, and had a large number of mercenaries from Italy and Greece as well. Sicels and other native Sicilians also served in the army as hoplites and also supplied peltasts, and a number of Campanians,Diodorus Siculus, XIII.80.4 probably equipped like Samnite or Etruscan warriors, were present as well.
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Apart from his political machinations, Dionysius had managed to make ready an army made of Italian and Sicilian Greeks and mercenaries, numbering at least 30,000 hoplites and 4,000 cavalry and a fleet of 50 triremes,Caven, Brian, Dionysius I, p. 62 and had marched at a slow pace to Gela. The arrival of this army lifted the Punic siege for the time being. The Greeks encamped at the mouth of River Gela on the western bank beside the city opposite the Carthaginian camp, close enough to the sea to direct both land and naval operations.
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Tacitus makes the parenthetical comment that Corbulo had driven the Chauci out of the provinces of Lower Germany which they had invaded in AD 47. and water, occupied the Rhine with his triremes and sent his smaller vessels up the estuaries and canals. The Germanic flotilla was destroyed in a naval engagement, Gannascus was driven out, and Frisian territory was forcibly occupied. A negotiation between the Romans and Gannascus was arranged under the auspices of the 'Greater Chauci', which the Romans used as an opportunity to assassinate their opponent.
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While these ships were built for maximum efficiency, there is room for debate about the conditions and space aboard the ship itself. It is estimated that out of the 200 man crew, around 170 of those men would have been oarsmen with respective positions below deck. These oarsmen below deck would sit on thwarts and kept their personal storage items beneath them, reassuring the theory that these ships would be very crowded with little room for anything other than operational functions. What exactly these Greek triremes were capable of in battle is debated.
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'Agias (Gr. '), the son of Agelochus and grandson of Tisamenus of Elea, was the Spartan seer of Lysander, who predicted that general's victory at the battle of Aegospotami in 404 BC. Some ancient writers considered Agias' prediction—that Lysander would capture the entire fleet except for ten triremes (which fled to Corcyra)--to have been the cause of the victory more than a mere prediction. Pausanias mentions seeing a bronze statue of Agias at the altar of Augustus in the marketplace in Sparta.Pausanias, Description of Greece iii. 11.
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At this point Daphnaeus of Syracuse arrived with 30,000 hoplites and 5,000 cavalry to break the siege, accompanied by thirty triremes. The Greek army may have been larger as light troops are not included in the tally.Kern, Paul B., Ancient Siege Warfare, p170 Himilco led the mercenaries in the eastern camp to intercept this army, while the main army stayed in their camp and kept the garrison of Akragas in check. A battle was joined somewhere on the right bank of the River Himera (the actual battle site is unidentified and subject to debate).
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The Carthaginians learned of the approach of a supply convoy from Syracuse. Himilco managed to convince the mercenaries to stay put for a few more days, by giving them the gold/silver drinking cups of the Carthaginian citizens, then sent word to the Carthaginian fleet to sortie from Motya/Panormus. The Carthaginian fleet of forty ships arrived from the West,Freeman, Edward A., Sicily, p. 150. and managed to surprise the escorting Syracusan fleet, which may have grown complacent due to their command of the sea, and sank eight Greek triremes escorting the grain ships.
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"Consideraciones sobre la Marinay la Guerra durante el Egipto Faraónico" . Accessed 14 May 2008. Later construction efforts continued during the reigns of Necho II, Darius I of Persia and Ptolemy II Philadelphus. > Psammetichus left a son called Necos, who succeeded him upon the throne. > This prince was the first to attempt the construction of the canal to the > Red Sea—a work completed afterwards by Darius the Persian—the length of > which is four days’ journey, and the width is such as to admit of two > triremes being rowed along it abreast.
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361–3 He placed Emperor David, his family and his relatives, his officials and their families with all of their wealth on the Sultan's triremes which took them to Constantinople, where David and all 3 of his sons would be executed less than 2 years later and his daughter married off to the Grand Vizier Zagan Pasha.Doukas mentions David's "uncles and nephews": 45.19; translated by Magoulias, Decline and Fall, p. 259. Kritoboulos, IV.48; translated by Riggs, History of Mehmed, p. 175. Chalkokondyles, 9.77; translated by Kaldellis, The Histories, vol.
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Amasis himself died six months before Cambyses reached Egypt. Psamtik had hoped that Egypt would be able to withstand the threat of the Persian attack by an alliance with the Greeks, but this hope failed, as the Cypriot towns and the tyrant Polycrates of Samos, who possessed a large fleet, now preferred to join the Persians. That one of Egypt's most prominent tactical advisers, Phanes of Halicarnassus, had already gone over to the Persian side meant that Psamtik was entirely dependent on his own limited military experience. Polycrates sent 40 triremes to the Persians.
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Himilco had brought 50,000 men along with 400 triremes and 600 transportsCaven, Brian, Dionysius I, pp107 to Sicily in 397. The majority of this army had been destroyed at Syracuse, and the size of the force Mago commanded at Abacaenum is not known except that it had shrunk by a further 8,000 men after the battle. Carthage sent an army of 80,000 soldiers to Sicily, recruited from AfricSardinia and Campania. No Iberian recruits are mentioned, perhaps the presence of Iberians at Leontini and in the army of Syracuse had made Carthage wary of hiring them.
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At the beginning of the conflict, all naval forces in the eastern Mediterranean had switched to the trireme, a warship powered by three banks of oars. The most common naval tactics during the period were ramming (Greek triremes were equipped with a cast-bronze ram at the bows), or boarding by ship-borne marines. More experienced naval powers had by this time also begun to use a manoeuver known as diekplous. It is not clear what this was, but it probably involved sailing into gaps between enemy ships and then ramming them in the side.
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Achaemenid coinage of Idrieus of Caria during the reign of Artaxerxes III, showing the Achaemenid king on the obverse, and his satrap Idrieus on the reverse. Circa 350-341 BC. Soon after this Egyptian defeat, Phoenicia, Anatolia and Cyprus declared their independence from Persian rule. In 343 BC, Artaxerxes committed responsibility for the suppression of the Cyprian rebels to Idrieus, prince of Caria, who employed 8000 Greek mercenaries and forty triremes, commanded by Phocion the Athenian, and Evagoras, son of the elder Evagoras, the Cypriot monarch. Idrieus succeeded in reducing Cyprus.
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Some 10,000 hoplites had perished and, though this was a blow, the real concern was the loss of the huge fleet dispatched to Sicily. Triremes could be replaced, but the 30,000 experienced oarsmen lost in Sicily were irreplaceable and Athens had to rely on ill-trained slaves to form the backbone of her new fleet. In 411 BC, the Athenian democracy was overthrown in favour of an oligarchy, and Persia joined the war on the Spartan side. Although things looked grim for Athens, they were able to recover for a few years.
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Temple of Isis in Pompeii, Naples National Archaeological Museum. Naval warfare developed when humans first fought from water-borne vessels. Before the introduction of the cannon and ships with enough capacity to carry them, navy warfare primarily involved ramming and boarding actions. In the time of ancient Greece and the Roman Empire, naval warfare centered on long, narrow vessels powered by banks of oarsmen (such as triremes and quinqueremes) designed to ram and sink enemy vessels or come alongside the enemy vessel so its occupants could be attacked hand-to-hand.
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For this, he was captured and crucified in 479 BCE by the Athenian general Xanthippos, the father of Pericles. In 411 BCE, the Athenian squadron under Thrasyllus escaped with difficulty from Sestus to Elaeus; and it was here, just before the fatal Battle of Aegospotami (405 BCE), that the 180 Athenian triremes arrived in time to hear that Lysander was master of Lampsacus. A stele dating from the year 340 BCE, at which time Elaeus was governed by Athens, contains an inscription in Ionian script.Inscriptiones Graecae II², 228, Retrieved on 4 January 2013.
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The attack of Dionysius caused the Sicilian Greeks and Sikans under Carthaginian dominion to rebel, and by the time Dionysius besieged Motya, only 5 cities remained in league (Segesta, Entella, Palermo and Solus among them) with Carthage in Sicily. Lacking a standing army, Carthage could only send a fleet of 100 triremes under Himilco to aid Motya. Himilco was unsuccessful and Dionysius sacked Motya after overcoming fierce Punic resistance.Kern, Paul B., Ancient Siege Warfare, pp179-83 After Carthage had readied its forces, Himilco sailed from Africa and landed at Palermo, and then captured Eryx.
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As a final disastrous coda to the expedition, Thucydides mentions the fate of a squadron of fifty triremes sent to relieve the Siege of Prosopitis. Unaware that the Athenians had finally succumbed, the fleet put in at the Mendesian mouth of the Nile, where it was promptly attacked from the land, and from the sea by the Phoenician navy. Most of the ships were destroyed, with only a handful managing to escape and return to Athens. Total Athenian casualties of the expedition totaled some 50,000 men and 250 ships.
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In foreign affairs, he resumed the policy of Egyptian intervention in the Middle East. As reported by Diodorus Siculus, in 396 BC he supported the Spartan king Agesilaus in his war against the Persians; the Spartans had conquered Cyprus and Rhodes and were attempting to extend their influence further east. Nepherites supplied the Spartans with 500,000 measures of grain and material for 100 triremes. However, the cargo reached Rhodes just after the Persians managed to retake the island, so it was entirely seized by the philo-Persian admiral Conon of Athens.
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At this point, however, a severe storm blew up, and both of these forces were driven back to shore. Eteonicus escaped, and a great number of Athenian sailors—estimates as to the precise figure have ranged from near 1,000 to as many as 5,000—drowned.Kagan (The Peloponnesian War, 459) gives the number as "perhaps a thousand", while Fine (The Ancient Greeks, 515) states it as "between 4,000 and 5,000" An ancient Greek trireme. Twenty-five Athenian triremes were disabled or sunk at Arginusae, and Theramenes was detailed to rescue the survivors.
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An Allied naval force of 271 triremes was thus dispatched to await the arrival of the Persians. Approaching Artemisium towards the end of summer, the Persian navy was caught in a gale off the coast of Magnesia and lost around a third of their 1200 ships. After arriving at Artemisium, the Persians sent a detachment of 200 ships around the coast of Euboea in an attempt to trap the Greeks, but these were caught in another storm and shipwrecked. The main action of the battle took place after two days of smaller engagements.
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These were both feats of exceptional ambition, which would have been beyond any contemporary state.Holland, pp213–214 By early 480 BC, the preparations were complete, and the army Xerxes had mustered at Sardis marched towards Europe, crossing the Hellespont on two pontoon bridges.VII, 35 The Athenians had also been preparing for war with the Persians since the mid-480s BC, and in 482 BC the decision was taken, under the guidance of the Athenian politician Themistocles, to build a massive fleet of triremes that would be necessary for the Greeks to fight the Persians.
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Morrison and Williams 1968:155 As a ship it was fast and agile, and it was the dominant warship in the Mediterranean during the 7th to 4th centuries BC, after which it was largely superseded by the larger quadriremes and quinqueremes. Triremes played a vital role in the Persian Wars, the creation of the Athenian maritime empire, and its downfall in the Peloponnesian War. The term is sometimes also used to refer to medieval and early modern galleys with three files of oarsmen per side as triremes.See index in Morrison (2004) for examples.
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Thucydides I.14.1-3 In any case, by the early 5th century, the trireme was becoming the dominant warship type of the eastern Mediterranean, with minor differences between the "Greek" and "Phoenician" types, as literary references and depictions of the ships on coins make clear. The first large- scale naval battle where triremes participated was the Battle of Lade during the Ionian Revolt, where the combined fleets of the Greek Ionian cities were defeated by the Persian fleet, composed of squadrons from their Phoenician, Carian, Cypriot and Egyptian subjects.
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After Salamis and another Greek victory over the Persian fleet at Mycale, the Ionian cities were freed, and the Delian League was formed under the aegis of Athens. Gradually, the predominance of Athens turned the League effectively into an Athenian Empire. The source and foundation of Athens' power was her strong fleet, composed of over 200 triremes. It not only secured control of the Aegean Sea and the loyalty of her allies, but also safeguarded the trade routes and the grain shipments from the Black Sea, which fed the city's burgeoning population.
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These decorations were used both to show the wealth of the patrician and to make the ship frightening to the enemy. The home port of each trireme was signaled by the wooden statue of a deity located above the bronze ram on the front of the ship.Hanson (2006), p. 239 In the case of Athens, since most of the fleet's triremes were paid for by wealthy citizens, there was a natural sense of competition among the patricians to create the "most impressive" trireme, both to intimidate the enemy and to attract the best oarsmen.
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While the Hellenistic kingdoms did develop the quinquereme and even larger ships, most navies of the Greek homeland and the smaller colonies could only afford triremes. They were used by the Diadochi Empires and sea powers like Syracuse, Carthage and later Rome. The difference to the classical 5th century Athenian ships was that they were armoured against ramming and carried significantly more marines. Lightened versions of the trireme and smaller vessels were often used as auxiliaries, and still performed quite effectively against the heavier ships, thanks to their greater manoeuvrability.
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Additional sea trials took place in 1987, 1990, 1992 and 1994. In 2004 Olympias was used ceremonially to transport the Olympic Flame from the port of Keratsini to the main port of Piraeus as the 2004 Olympic Torch Relay entered its final stages in the run-up to the 2004 Summer Olympics opening ceremony. The builders of the reconstruction project concluded that it effectively proved what had previously been in doubt, i.e., that Athenian triremes were arranged with the crew positioned in a staggered arrangement on three levels with one person per oar.
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As novice shipwrights, the Romans built copies that were heavier than the Carthaginian vessels, and thus slower and less manoeuvrable. The quinquereme was the workhorse of the Roman and Carthaginian fleets throughout the Punic Wars, although hexaremes (six oarsmen per bank), quadriremes (four oarsmen per bank) and triremes (three oarsmen per bank) are occasionally mentioned in the sources. So ubiquitous was the type that Polybius uses it as a shorthand for "warship" in general. A quinquereme carried a crew of 300: 280 oarsmen and 20 deck crew and officers.
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Merchant ships trade resources from the stockpile and exchange it for gold at another player's dock, with the amount of gold earned being relative to the distance between both docks. Transport ships carry land units from one area of land to another. As well as attacking enemy ships, warships can be very effective in attacking land-based units close to the shoreline (because melee units cannot fight back). Warships come either as galleys which fire arrows or triremes which launch bolts or boulders (very effective against buildings near the shoreline).
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Astyra, Mysia. Circa 400-395 BC In the spring of 401 BC, Cyrus united all his forces into an army, which now included Xenophon's "Ten Thousand", and advanced from Sardis without announcing the object of his expedition. By dexterous management and promises of large rewards, he overcame the misgivings of the Greek troops over the length and danger of the war. A Spartan fleet of 35 triremes sent to Cilicia opened the passes of the Amanus into Syria and a Spartan detachment of 700 men under Cheirisophus was conveyed to Cyrus.
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In 407 BC, Lysander was appointed as navarch, commander of the Spartan fleet, replacing the deceased Mindarus. Gathering a fleet as he went, he sailed east across the Aegean from Sparta and eventually reached Ephesus, where he established his base, with 70 triremes, which he increased to 90 through shipbuilding efforts at Ephesus. In Ephesus, he established diplomatic relations with Cyrus, a Persian prince. Lysander built a personal friendship with Cyrus, and the prince agreed to provide funds out of his own purse to increase the pay of Spartan rowers to 4 obols a day from 3.
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In the engagement which followed the Carthaginians held their own, with their lighter craft proving difficult for the Roman ships to deal with. Breaking off the engagement the Carthaginian triremes were covering the withdrawal of their lighter vessels when a collision blocked the new channel. With the Carthaginian ships pinned against the city's sea wall with no room to manoeuvre the Romans sank or captured many of them before the blockage was cleared and the Carthaginian survivors were able to escape back into harbour. The Romans now attempted to advance against the Carthaginian defences in the harbour area.
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Whitaker, Joseph I.S., Motya, p78 note-2 Himilco next manned 100 triremes and sailed to Selinus in Sicily and then arrived at Motya the following day.Diodorus Siculus, 14.49-50 The Greeks had beached their transports to the south of Motya and their warships to the north, while the crews were busy building siege works. The Carthaginians first burned all beached transports then sailed north, trapping the Greek ships in the shallow waters north of the island of Motya.Church, Alfred J., Carthage, pp48 - pp49 Had Himilco attacked the beached Greeks warships he may have won a great victory.
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The Athenians held off the Spartans for a day and a half, however, causing the Spartans to cease their attempts to storm Pylos and instead settled in for a siege. While the Spartans' siege preparations were underway, the Athenian fleet, 50 triremes strong, arrived from Zacynthus. The Spartans failed to blockade the entrance of the harbour, so the Athenians were able to sail in and catch the Spartans unprepared; the Spartan fleet was decisively defeated, and the Athenians gained control of the harbour. In doing so, they trapped 420 Spartan hoplites on the island of Sphacteria, off of Pylos.
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In the days after the battle, the Athenians refitted their ships at Sestos and dispatched a small detachment to Cyzicus, recapturing that town and seizing 8 triremes encountered along the way.Thucydides, The Peloponnesian War 8.107 A trireme was dispatched to Athens, where the unexpected good news restored the people's confidence in the war effort. Historian Donald Kagan has emphasized the effect this victory had on the Athenians. Forced to fight on terms chosen by their enemies, at a time when the city lacked the resources to build another fleet, the Athenians could have lost the war on that day at Cynossema.
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Slaves and metics who participated in the battle were granted Athenian citizenship. The news of the victory itself was met with jubilation at Athens. Their joy was tempered, however, by the aftermath of the battle, in which a storm prevented the ships assigned to rescue the survivors of the 25 disabled or sunken Athenian triremes from performing their duties, and a great number of sailors drowned. A fury erupted at Athens when the public learned of this, and after a bitter struggle in the assembly six of the eight generals who had commanded the fleet were tried as a group and executed.
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The Punic navy had a fleet of 50 quinqueremes and 5 triremes stationed there. However, only 32 Quinqueremes were manned at the start of the Second Punic War. Hasdrubal commanded this force and was to set out for Italy in 217 BC to reinforce Hannibal. Hannibal left another army under Hanno in Catalonia, consisting of 10,000 foot and 1,000 horse on his way to Italy in 218 BC. Left in command of Hispania when Hannibal departed to Italy in 218 BC, Hasdrubal was destined to fight for six years against the brothers Gnaeus and Publius Cornelius Scipio.
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The Carthaginian Senate had offered the command of the coming expedition to Hannibal Mago (the “Greek Hater”), who at first refused the position pleading advanced age. When his kinsman Himilco was appointed as his deputy, Hannibal set about making preparations in earnest.Diod. 13.80.1-2. Aside from Carthaginian citizens, troops were levied from Africa, Spain, and Italy, so an army of 120,000 men (probably exaggerated; around 60,000 is closer to the truthKern, Paul B., Ancient Siege Warfare, p. 168.) and a fleet of 120 triremes and 1,000 transports were made ready by the Spring of 406 BC.Diod. 13.61.
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Model of a Greek trireme from the Deutsches Museum, Munich Throughout their history, the Spartans were a land based force par excellence. During the Persian Wars, they contributed a small navy of 20 triremes, and provided the overall fleet commander, but they largely relied on their allies, primarily the Corinthians, for naval power. This fact meant that, when the Peloponnesian War broke out, the Spartans were supreme on land, but the Athenians supreme at sea. The Spartans repeatedly ravaged Attica, but the Athenians kept being supplied by sea, and were able to stage raids of their own around the Peloponnese with their navy.
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He did not even stop at Thermae to punish the city for rebellion but continued to Lipira, where he coaxed thirty talents of silver as tribute. All the Sicels except the Asserini had deserted the cause of Dionysius by this time, and Himilco made treaties with Thermae and Cephaledion to safeguard his supply route. From Lipara the Punic fleet sailed east and the Carthaginian army was disembarked at Cape Pelorum, north of Messene. Himilco led the Carthaginian force of 50,000 men along with 400 triremes and 600 transportsCaven, Brian, Dionysius I, pp. 107 to Sicily in 397.
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Himilco had brought 50,000 men along with 400 triremes and 600 transports to Sicily in 397 BC. The majority of the army had been destroyed at Syracuse, and the size of the force Mago commanded in 393 BC is not known but would have been significantly smaller than that available to Himilco. Dionysius had an army of 30,000 foot and 3,000 horsemen at Catana along with 180 Quinqueremes. He could muster 110 ships at Syracuse, but his forces had shrunk with the desertion of the Sicels and Sicilian Greeks. The exact size of his army at Tauromenium is also unknown.
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Legions of Death is a one or two-player strategy game set during the Punic Wars between ancient Rome and Carthage. In single-player mode the player controls the fleet of Carthage, in two-player mode one player controls the Roman navy while the other controls the Carthaginian fleet. Each player must try to destroy their opponent's fleet and gain control of the Mediterranean. At the start of play each player receives a number of points to construct their navy using a combination of faster biremes and triremes, along with various heavier combat ships, up to Heptares class.
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The siege was not going well for Philip and the situation worsened as the combined fleets of Pergamum, Rhodes and their new allies, Kos, Cyzicus and Byzantium approached from both the north and south. Philip, comprehending that the allies were attempting to seal his line of retreat, lifted the siege and began to sail for a friendly harbour. However, he was confronted by the allied fleet, precipitating the Battle of Chios. The Macedonian fleet of around 200 ships, manned by 30,000 men, significantly outnumbered the coalition's fleet of sixty-five large warships, nine medium vessels and three triremes.
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Nevertheless, the Athenians and Spartans attacked and burned the laid-up Persian fleet at Mycale, and freed many of the Ionian towns. These battles involved triremes or biremes as the standard fighting platform, and the focus of the battle was to ram the opponent's vessel using the boat's reinforced prow. The opponent would try to maneuver and avoid contact, or alternately rush all the marines to the side about to be hit, thus tilting the boat. When the ram had withdrawn and the marines dispersed, the hole would now be above the waterline and not a critical injury to the ship.
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This would be repeated down the side of a galley for a total of 28 files on each side; 168 oars in total. In 260 BC the Romans set out to construct a fleet and used a shipwrecked Carthaginian quinquereme as a blueprint for their own. As novice shipwrights, the Romans built copies that were heavier than the Carthaginian vessels, which made them slower and less manoeuvrable. The quinquereme was the workhorse of the Roman and Carthaginian fleets throughout the Punic Wars, although hexaremes (six oarsmen per bank), quadriremes (four oarsmen per bank) and triremes (three oarsmen per bank) are also occasionally mentioned.
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The second form began in 409 BCE. It was during this time the trierarchy began being shared by more than one trierarch, this arrangement known as a syntrierarchy may have been because there were not enough citizens of sufficient wealth to support the 400 triremes in use every year. The command of the ship would be as worked out between the two, amongst themselves. The ships improvements that had been funded by a previous trierarch were often left with the ship with the new trierarch(s) being responsible to reimburse the previous trierarch for the improvements.
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Demosthenes, well aware of the defects of the third form or symmoria, brought forward a new law in 340 B.C.E. that improved the funding and operation of the trierarchy. The trierarchy were rated for a trireme according to their property as stated in the register in such a manner that one trireme was required from 10 talents. If their wealth was valued at a higher than 10 talents they would be assigned up to three triremes and one auxiliary vessel. Those who had less than 10 talents were to unite in syntelia until they made up that sum.
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In 377 BC, Pharnabazus was reassigned by Artaxerxes II to help command a military expedition into rebellious Egypt, having proven his ability against the Spartans. Achaemenid campaign of Pharnabazus II against Egypt in 373 BC. After four years of preparations in the Levant, Pharnabazus gathered an expeditionary force of 200,000 Persian troops, 300 triremes, 200 galleys, and 12,000 Greeks under Iphicrates. The Achaemenid Empire had also been applying pressure on Athens to recall the Greek general Chabrias, who was in the service of the Egyptians, but in vain. The Egyptian ruler Nectanebo I was thus supported by Athenian General Chabrias and his mercenaries.
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Himilco led the Carthaginian army (50,000 men, 400 triremes, and 600 transports) to Sicily in 397 BC.Caven, Brian, Dionysius I: Warlord of Sicily, pp107 When the Carthaginians reached Syracuse, their war fleet had shrunk to 208 ships, though 2,000 transports had been employed to carry supplies to the army.Diodorus Siculus, XIV.62 The number of soldiers in Syracuse is unknown, as some garrisoned the Carthaginian possessions, and the Carthaginians had been reinforced by Sicels, Sikans and Elymians after arriving in Sicily. Dionysius had an army of 30,000 foot and 3,000 horsemen at Catana along with 180 quinqueremes.
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Dionysius also acted aggressively, sending out sorties to attack Carthaginian patrols and winning several skirmishes, but the overall tactical situation remained unchanged. In the meantime, Polyxenos had managed to gather a naval squadron in Greece, and under the command of Pharakidas of Sparta, 30 triremes managed to reach Syracuse. The Spartan had apparently captured a number of Punic ships, and the Carthaginian blockade ships had let his ships through thinking a Punic squadron was returning from patrol.Polyanios II.11 The Greeks as well as the Carthaginians were now dependent on overseas supplies for sustaining their efforts.
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According to Herodotus, Xerxes' army was so large that, upon arriving at the banks of the Echeidorus River, his soldiers proceeded to drink it dry. In the face of such imposing numbers, many Greek cities capitulated to the Persian demand for a tribute of earth and water. The Athenians had also been preparing for war with the Persians since the mid-480s BC, and in 482 BC the decision was taken, under the guidance of the Athenian politician Themistocles, to build a massive fleet of triremes that would be essential for the Greeks to fight the Persians.
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The tasks at hand for the Roman navy were now the policing of the Mediterranean waterways and the border rivers, suppression of piracy, and escort duties for the grain shipments to Rome and for imperial army expeditions. Lighter ships were far better suited to these tasks, and after the reorganization of the fleet following Actium, the largest ship kept in service was a hexareme, the flagship of the Classis Misenensis. The bulk of the fleets was composed of the lighter triremes and liburnians (Latin: liburna, Greek: libyrnis), with the latter apparently providing the majority of the provincial fleets.Casson (1995), p.
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311 BC, when, after the conquest of Campania, two new officials, the duumviri navales classis ornandae reficiendaeque causa, were tasked with the maintenance of a fleet.Livy, AUC IX.30; XL.18,26; XLI.1 As a result, the Republic acquired its first fleet, consisting of 20 ships, most likely triremes, with each duumvir commanding a squadron of 10 ships. However, the Republic continued to rely mostly on her legions for expansion in Italy; the navy was most likely geared towards combating piracy and lacked experience in naval warfare, being easily defeated in 282 BC by the Tarentines.
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The document can be dated by its content: a list of 17 thalassocracies extending from the Lydian after the fall of Troy to the Aeginetan, which ended with the cession of power to Athens in 480 BC. The Battle of Salamis included 200 new Athenian triremes plus all the ships of its new ally, Aegina. Despite various revolts Aegina went on to become part of the Delian League, an imperial treaty of the new Athenian thalassocracy. Thucydides writes of it after 432 BC, but Herodotus, who visited Athens “as late as 444 B.C.” does not know a thing about it.
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This caused the alarming possibility of the rope breaking and endangering the crew, so protective measures had to be taken. She underwent sea trials in 1987, 1990, 1992 and 1994, but one of the most informative was a 1987 exercise crewed by 170 volunteer oarsmen and oarswomen. Olympias achieved a speed of and was able to perform 180 degree turns within one minute, in an arc no wider than two and a half (2.5) ship-lengths. These results, achieved with an inexperienced, mixed crew, suggest that ancient historians like Thucydides were not exaggerating about the capabilities of triremes.
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259–271 (259f.) Clement of Alexandria in the 2nd century, drawing on earlier works, explicitly attributes the invention of the trireme (trikrotos naus, "three-banked ship") to the Sidonians.Stromata, I.16.36 According to Thucydides, the trireme was introduced to Greece by the Corinthians in the late 8th century BC, and the Corinthian Ameinocles built four such ships for the Samians.Thucydides I.13.2-5 This was interpreted by later writers, Pliny and Diodorus, to mean that triremes were invented in Corinth,Diodorus, Bibliotheca historica, XIV.42.3 the possibility remains that the earliest three-banked warships originated in Phoenicia.
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The Lenormant Relief, from the Athenian Acropolis, depicting the rowers of an aphract Athenian trireme, ca. 410 BC. Found in 1852, it is one of the main pictorial testaments to the layout of the trireme. Herodotus mentions that the Egyptian pharaoh Necho II (610–595 BC) built triremes on the Nile, for service in the Mediterranean, and in the Red Sea, but this reference is disputed by modern historians, and attributed to a confusion, since "triērēs" was by the 5th century used in the generic sense of "warship", regardless its type.The Age of the Galley, pp.
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With the rise of Rome the biggest fleet of quinqueremes temporarily ruled the Mediterranean, but during the civil wars after Caesar's death the fleet was on the wrong side and a new warfare with light liburnas was developed. By Imperial times the fleet was relatively small and had mostly political influence, controlling the grain supply and fighting pirates, who usually employed light biremes and liburnians. But instead of the successful liburnians of the Greek Civil War, it was again centred around light triremes, but still with many marines. Out of this type of ship, the dromon developed.
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1) claims that Antiochus was the victim of a power struggle at court: Megasthenes, Seleucus' ambassador to India, alleged that Antiochus had misappropriated funds for the construction of four triremes. However, Herodotus (5.33) argues that it was Megasthenes himself who had stolen the money and that Antiochus was simply the scapegoat - without further evidence, the truth cannot be established. After losing his command, Antiochus falls from the historical record until he reappears as a naval commander at the court of Ashoka, the king of the Mauryan Empire in India (Arrian, Indica 2.34.1), likely sometime in the 260s.
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Socii navales or "naval allies", were a class of the socii or foederati (allies) of Rome, that provided naval support. A large number of them were Greek cities in Sicily and mainland Greece. They were often used to augment the main fleet, often with lighter ships that the Romans or their adversaries had, such as triremes or pentekonters. The number of ships provided by the socii navales is disputed, with some saying that by 260 BC 42 ships were being supplied however others argue that by 210 BC only 12 were supplied, and that by 195 BC 25 ships were being supplied.
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He was the second son of Hecatomnus, and succeeded to the throne on the death of his sister Artemisia II of Caria in 351 BC. Shortly after his accession he was required by the Persian king, Artaxerxes III Ochus, to provide arms and troops for the capture of Cyprus, a request with which he readily complied. He equipped a fleet of 40 triremes and assembled an army of 8000 mercenary troops. These were despatched for use against Cyprus under the command of Evagoras and the Athenian general Phocion. This is the only recorded event preserved from his reign.
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Carthage had initially sent an army probably numbering 50,000 men along with 120 triremesCaven, Brian, Dionysius I, pp44 - pp45 to Sicily in 406 BC. The army had suffered casualties at Akragas and Gela, plus the plague had also diminished its ranks. It is not known if Carthage had reinforced Himilco or Sicilians had sent reinforcements, so he could have commanded and army numbering 30,000 – 40,000 souls. The Punic navy was stationed at Motya, far from the area of operation. Dionysius had commanded an army of 30,000 foot and 1,000 horsemen at Gela along with 50 triremes.
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Unit types are identical, regardless of civilization (though certain civilizations may have improved variations of these units). So, for example, a Korean Choson broad swordsman is identical to a Persian or Phoenician one, as are bowmen, axemen, short swordsmen, cavalry, and so forth. Some armors and clothes are historically inaccurate, with the long swordsman bearing more resemblance to a Roman praetorian. Some units were also available in the game to civilizations that never, historically, had them; hoplites can be trained by every civilization except Persia, and some middle-Asian civilizations can train Legions and Centurions, while Japanese Yamato can build triremes.
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After Hanno's defeat in the Battle of Cissa in the winter of 218 BC, Gnaeus Scipio had spent his time consolidating his hold on the Iberian regions north of the Ebro and raiding the Iberian territory of Carthage south of the Ebro from his base at Tarraco. He had received no major reinforcements from Rome to augment his forces. Meanwhile, Hasdrubal Barca, the Carthaginian commander in Iberia, had raised a number of Iberian levies to expand his army substantially. The Punic naval contingent in Iberia contained 32 quinqueremes and 5 triremes in 218 BC when Hannibal had departed from Iberia.
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The Romans used round hulled sailing ships. Continuous Mediterranean "police" protection over several centuries was one of the main factors of success of Roman commerce, given that Roman roads were designed more for feet or hooves than for wheels, and could not support the economical transport of goods over long distances. The Roman ships used would have been easy prey for pirates had it not been for the fleets of Liburna galleys and triremes of the Roman navy. A small coaster Bulky low-valued commodities, like grain and construction materials were traded only by sea routes, since the cost of sea transportation was 60 times lower than land.
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Thucydides I, 109 According to Thucydides, at first Artaxerxes sent Megabazus to try and bribe the Spartans into invading Attica, to draw off the Athenian forces from Egypt. When this failed, he instead assembled a large army under (confusingly) Megabyzus, and dispatched it to Egypt. Diodorus has more or less the same story, with more detail; after the attempt at bribery failed, Artaxerxes put Megabyzus and Artabazus in charge of 300,000 men, with instructions to quell the revolt. They went first from Persia to Cilicia and gathered a fleet of 300 triremes from the Cilicians, Phoenicians and Cypriots, and spent a year training their men.
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Citizenship was defined according to wealth, and Thebes counted 11,000 active citizens. The confederacy was divided up into 11 districts, each providing a federal magistrate called a "boeotarch", a certain number of council members, 1,000 hoplites and 100 horsemen. From the 5th century BC the alliance could field an infantry force of 11,000 men, in addition to an elite corps and a light infantry numbering 10,000; but its real power derived from its cavalry force of 1,100, commanded by a federal magistrate independent of local commanders. It also had a small fleet that played a part in the Peloponnesian War by providing 25 triremes for the Spartans.
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The strength of the Boeotian League explains Athens' problems with her allies in the second Athenian League. Epaminondas succeeded in convincing his countrymen to build a fleet of 100 triremes to pressure cities into leaving the Athenian league and joining a Boeotian maritime league. Epaminondas and Pelopidas also reformed the army of Thebes to introduce new and more effective means of fighting. Thus, the Theban army was able to carry the day against the coalition of other Greek states at the battle of Leuctra in 371 BC and the battle of Mantinea in 362 BC. Sparta also remained an important power in the face of Theban strength.
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Achaemenid campaign of Pharnabazus II against Egypt in 373 BC. In 377 BC, Pharnabazus was then reassigned by Artaxerxes II to help command a military expedition into rebellious Egypt, having proven his ability against the Spartans. After 4 years of preparations in the Levant, Pharnabazes gathered an expeditionary force had 200,000 Persian troops, 300 triremes, 200 galleys, and 12,000 Greeks under Iphicrates. The Achaemenid Empire had also been applying pressure on Athens to recall the Greek general Chabrias, who was in the service of the Egyptians, but in vain. The Egyptian ruler Nectanebo I was thus supported by Athenian General Chabrias and his mercenaries.
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In the following spring Himilco levelled Akragas and marched east to Gela. He did not surround the city with siege walls or "straddle" it by building several camps, but chose to encamp to the west of the city and capture the city through a direct assault. The Carthaginians duly attacked the west wall of Gela with battering rams but the Greeks beat back the attack and repaired the breaches in the walls during the night.Kern, Paul B., Ancient Siege Warfare, pp172 Dionysius soon arrived with a relief force consisting of 30,000 infantry, 4,000 cavalry and 50 triremes and camped to the east of the city.
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It is also said that each oar throughout the ship would be made in length proportionate to the physique of an average Greek man. reconstruction of ancient Greek Trireme Manned crews for these massive warships would have been quite impressive, but accounts vary in actual numbers of men from source to source. Herodotus of Halicarnassus was a Greek historian in the fourth century BC who, through his accounts, said that these Triremes would consist of at least two-hundred men manning all positions. With these massive crews, these ships were able to work at maximum capacity and efficiency in regards to speed, navigation, and transport.
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Alexander the Great would employ this strategy in reverse in winter of 333 BC. Lacking a navy with which to take on the Persians, Alexander settled instead for denying the Persian navy suitable bases, by capturing the ports of southern Asia Minor. Plutarch says that upon hearing that the Persian forces were gathering at Aspendos, Cimon sailed from Cnidus (in Caria) with 200 triremes. It is highly likely that Cimon had assembled this force because the Athenians had had some warning of a forthcoming Persian campaign to re-subjugate the Asiatic Greeks. Certainly, no other league business would have required such a great force.
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This discovery meant that at the beginning of the second Persian invasion of Greece, the Athenian state had at its disposal 100 talents/3 tonnes of silver. Rather than distribute this wealth amongst the citizens of Athens, Themistocles proposed that this money should be used to construct 200 triremes, which were used to conduct the naval campaign against Persia which culminated in victory at the Battle of Salamis in 480 BC. Loss of free men and slaves as a result of the Peloponnesian War (431–404 BC) caused the mines to shut down. This compounded the economic crisis of Athens, along with the infrastructure damage to the port city of Piraeus.
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The Peloponnesian fleet retreated to Cyllene where it met up with Cnemus, who was retreating from a defeat by the Stratians.Thucydides, The Peloponnesian War, 2.83 This double defeat seriously embarrassed Cnemus, and was in general an embarrassing failure for the Spartans; their first attempt at an amphibious offensive had ended in ignominy.Kagan, The Peloponnesian War, 93-4 The victory did not, however, put an end to the Peloponnesian offensive in the Gulf. Within a short period of time the Spartans were able to assemble a substantially larger fleet, this time of 77 triremes; Athens, meanwhile, though it dispatched 20 ships to reinforce Phormio, sent them by way of Crete.
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Cilicia became a vassal state to and satrapy of the Achaemenid Empire after the reign of Cyrus the Great, assisting the Persians in multiple military campaigns. Soli briefly allied itself with the Delian League, but otherwise prospered under Achaemenid hegemony, minting coins to the Persian standard until Alexander the Great drove the Persians out of Cilicia in 333 BCE. He imposed a fine of 200 talents on the city for favoring the Persians, imposed a democratic constitution, made a sacrifice to Asclepius and held honorary games. A year later, Alexander extracted three triremes from Soli and nearby Mallus to assist in his siege of Tyre.
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While part of the Carthaginian army assembled on the shore in Cape Peloris, two hundred triremes, packed with picked soldiers and rowers sailed south to Messene. This contingent quickly reached the city, aided by the north wind, and landed the soldiers near Messene before the Greeks could double back. After taking control of the harbor, Carthaginians entered the city, while part of their forces may have landed to the north and/or south of the city and attacked the place from both landward and seaward side,Freeman, Edward A., History of Sicily Vol IV., p. 106 many Carthaginians had gained access through breaches in the city wall.
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After the decisive defeat of Argos at Hysiae and the razing of the stronghold, the Spartan forces took the city of Orneae, fortified it, and settled the exiles from Argos in the city. The stronghold was left with a strong garrison that they then ordered to harass Argolis. After the withdrawal of the Spartan army, the Athenians sent a force of 40 triremes and 1,200 hoplites to aid the city of Argos in expelling the garrison and taking the city. The Argive/Athenian army then took Orneae by storm, both taking the city and being able to expel the garrison, and execute some of the exiles.
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Vessels were built as cataphract, or "protected", ships, with a closed hull to protect the rowers, and a full deck able to carry marines and catapults. Carthaginian quinqueremes used a separate "oar box" which contained the rowers and was attached to the main hull. This development meant the rowers would be located above or at deck level, which allowed the hull to be strengthened, and increased carrying capacity; as well as improving the ventilation conditions of the rowers, an important factor in maintaining their stamina, and thereby improving the ship's maintainable speed. In 260 BC Romans set out to construct a fleet of 100 quinqueremes and 20 triremes.
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Selge, spanned by the intact Roman bridge Köprüçay, ancient Eurymedon (Ancient Greek: Εὐρυμέδων) is a river that is situated in Antalya Province, Turkey, and empties into the Mediterranean. At its mouth, in the 460s BC (the actual date is highly disputed), the Athenian general Cimon defeated a large Persian force of ships and men moving westwards (Battle of the Eurymedon). The two land and sea battles lasted one day and included Cimon's capture or destruction of the entire Phoenician fleet of 200 triremes. In 190 BC, a Roman fleet led by Lucius Aemilius Regillus defeated the Seleucid fleet of Antiochus III the Great, led by Hannibal, near the river.
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Rădvan, p.253 In 1462, Mehmed the Conqueror's fleet of 25 triremes and 150 other ships burnt the city to the ground. The city was also caught in the conflict between Wallachia and the Moldavian prince Stephen the Great, as the Moldavians destroyed the city during the retaliation campaign against Wallachian prince Radu the Fair. An account of the Moldavian attack is found in Cronica breviter scripta: The conflict was not just political, as the town of Brăila competed against Moldavian town of Chilia.Rădvan, p.254 Nevertheless, Brăila recovered, soon becoming the gateway for Levantine goods into Wallachia. The town was burnt again by Bogdan III of Moldavia in 1512.
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It is believed that the rams were each attached to a sunken warship when they were deposited on the seabed. Six of the helmets were of the Montefortino type typically used by the legions, three with one or both bronze cheek pieces still attached; the seventh, badly corroded, was of a different design and may be Carthaginian. The archaeologists involved stated that the location of artefacts so far discovered supports Polybius's account of where the battle took place. Based on the dimensions of the recovered rams, the archaeologists who have studied them believe that they all came from triremes, contrary to Polybius's account of all of the warships involved being quinqueremes.
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In chapter 54, Aristotle relates that the Festival of Hephaestus was "instituted during the archonship of Cephisophon", which corresponds to 329 BC. In Chapter 62, Aristotle indicates that, at the time he was writing, Athens was still sending officials to Samos. After 322 BC, Samos was no longer under Athenian control. Based on this internal evidence, scholars conclude that the Athenian Constitution was written no earlier than 328 BC and no later than 322 BC. Furthermore, that Aristotle does not mention quinqueremes despite mentioning triremes and quadriremes suggests that it was written no later than 325 BC, when quinqueremes are first recorded in the Athenian Navy.
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Probable Spartan Hoplite, Vix krater, circa 500 BC. The Athenians had been preparing for war with the Persians since the mid-480s BC, and in 482 BC the decision was taken, under the guidance of the politician Themistocles, to build a massive fleet of triremes that would be necessary for the Greeks to fight the Persians.Holland, p. 217-223 The Athenians did not have the man- power to fight on land and sea; therefore combatting the Persians would require an alliance of several Greek city states. In 481 BC Xerxes sent ambassadors around Greece asking for earth and water, but making the very deliberate omission of Athens and Sparta.
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Thucydides I, 109 According to Thucydides, at first Artaxerxes sent Megabazus to try and bribe the Spartans into invading Attica, to draw off the Athenian forces from Egypt. When this failed, he instead assembled a large army under (confusingly) Megabyzus, and dispatched it to Egypt. Diodorus has more or less the same story, with more detail; after the attempt at bribery failed, Artaxerxes put Megabyzus and Artabazus in charge of 300,000 men, with instructions to quell the revolt. They went first from Persia to Cilicia and gathered a fleet of 300 triremes from the Cilicians, Phoenicians and Cypriots, and spent a year training their men.
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Other Ligurians enlisted in the army of Hasdrubal Barca, when he arrived in Cisalpine Gaul (207 BC), in an attempt to rejoin the troops of his brother Hannibal. In the port of Savo (modern-day Savona), then capital of the Ligures Sabazi, triremes of the Carthaginian fleet of Mago Barca, brother of Hannibal, which were intended to cut the Roman trade routes in the Tyrrhenian Sea, found shelter. In the early stages of the war, the pro-Roman Ligurians suffered. The Taurini were on the path of Hannibal's march into Italy, and in 218 BC, they were attacked by him, as he had allied with their long-standing enemies, the Insubres.
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In the last, he found the slave Abdallah and had him castrated as revenge for the insult to his person. When Mehmed arrived before Smyrna, he was met by a large number of local rulers – according to Doukas, "the governors of Old and New Phocaea, Germiyan and upper Phrygia, Menteshe of Caria, the lords of Mytilene and Chios in their triremes, and the grand master of Rhodes". They submitted to him and offered their help against Junayd. Doukas states they did this for two reasons: "Mehmed's goodness and gentle nature and superior military strength" on the one hand, and because of Junayd's "cunningness and rapacity, on the other".
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A Greek trireme Athens was at that time embroiled in a conflict with the neighbouring island of Aegina, which possessed a formidable navy. In order to counter this, and possibly with an eye already at the mounting Persian preparations, in 483/2 BC the Athenian statesman Themistocles used his political skills and influence to persuade the Athenian assembly to start the construction of 200 triremes, using the income of the newly discovered silver mines at Laurion. The first clash with the Persian navy was at the Battle of Artemisium, where both sides suffered great casualties. However, the decisive naval clash occurred at Salamis, where Xerxes' invasion fleet was decisively defeated.
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Making durable rope consisted of using both papyrus and white flax; the idea to use such materials is suggested by evidence to have originated in Egypt. In addition, ropes began being made from a variety of esparto grass in the later third century BC. The use of lightwoods meant that the ship could be carried ashore by as few as 140 men, but also that the hull soaked up water, which adversely affected its speed and maneuverability. But it was still faster than other warships. Bronze trireme ram Once the triremes were seaworthy, it is argued that they were highly decorated with, "eyes, nameplates, painted figureheads, and various ornaments".
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The deck and command crew (hypēresia) was headed by the helmsman, the kybernētēs, who was always an experienced seaman and was often the commander of the vessel. These experienced sailors were to be found on the upper levels of the triremes. Other officers were the bow lookout (prōreus or prōratēs), the boatswain (keleustēs), the quartermaster (pentēkontarchos), the shipwright (naupēgos), the piper (aulētēs) who gave the rowers' rhythm and two superintendents (toicharchoi), in charge of the rowers on each side of the ship. What constituted these sailors' experience was a combination of superior rowing skill (physical stamina and/or consistency in hitting with a full stroke) and previous battle experience.
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The first known naumachia was given by Julius Caesar in Rome in 46 BCE on occasion of his quadruple triumph. After having a basin dug near the Tiber, capable of holding actual biremes, triremes and quinqueremes, he made 2000 combatants and 4000 rowers, all prisoners of war, fight. In 2 BCE on the occasion of the inauguration of the Temple of Mars Ultor ("Mars the Avenger"), Augustus gave a naumachia based on Caesar's model. As cited in Res Gestæ (§ 23), he created a basin on the right bank of the Tiber where 3000 men, not counting rowers, fought in 30 vessels with rams and a number of smaller boats.
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If the number rolled (including any combat advantage) equals or exceeds the attacked piece's strength, the attacked piece is removed from the board. An attacker may attack with more than one legion at a time, and from more than one direction. Only the attacking forces have the option of retreating to their original position(s) (with each general having their own option). If a force has been completely destroyed, the losing general(s) is/are captured by the ultimate winner of the battle, and the loser's triremes destroyed, although the die must be rolled for this to occur in a naval battle, and a trireme can only be attacked after all legions have been destroyed.
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27–32 The emergence of more advanced states and intensified competition between them spurred on the development of advanced galleys with multiple banks of rowers. During the middle of the first millennium BC, the Mediterranean powers developed successively larger and more complex vessels, the most advanced being the classical trireme with up to 170 rowers. Triremes fought several important engagements in the naval battles of the Greco-Persian Wars (502–449 BC) and the Peloponnesian War (431–404 BC), including the Battle of Aegospotami in 405 BC, which sealed the defeat of Athens by Sparta and its allies. The trireme was an advanced ship that was expensive to build and to maintain due its large crew.
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Achaemenid satrap Pharnabazus II, in joint command with self-exiled Athenian admiral Conon, was victorious against Sparta at the Battle of Cnidus. Coinage of Pharnabazus, circa 398-396/5 BC, showing his portrait and the prow of a warship with two dolphins, symbol of his achievement on the sea. The next major action of the war took place at sea, where both the Persians and the Spartans had assembled large fleets during Agesilaus's campaign in Asia. By levying ships from the Aegean states under his control, Agesilaus had raised a force of 120 triremes, which he placed under the command of his brother-in-law Peisander, who had never held a command of this nature before.
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Assyrian warship, a bireme with pointed bow circa 700 BC In the time of Mesopotamia, Ancient Persia, Ancient Greece and the Roman Empire, warships were always galleys (such as biremes, triremes and quinqueremes): long, narrow vessels powered by banks of oarsmen and designed to ram and sink enemy vessels, or to engage them bow-first and follow up with boarding parties. The development of catapults in the 4th century BC and the subsequent refinement of this technology enabled the first fleets of artillery-equipped warships by the Hellenistic age. During late antiquity, ramming fell out of use and the galley tactics against other ships used during the Middle Ages until the late 16th century focused on boarding.
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Himilco chose not to march to Syracuse along the southern coast of Sicily, as Dionysius had destroyed all the crops and hostile Greek cities stood on his path. After garrisoning Carthaginian territory, he made treaties with the cities of Thermae and Cephaleodium on the north coast of Sicily to secure his supply route. Himilco attacked Lipari (whose Dorian Greek inhabitants were notorious pirates and could pose a threat to Carthaginian supplies) with 300 triremes and 300 transports, captured the island and forced the Greeks to pay 30 talents as ransom.Freeman, Edward A., Sicily: Phoenician, Greek and Roman, pp173 Then he sailed and disembarked at Cape Pelorum, 12 miles to the north of Messina.
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A wind propelled fishing boat in Mozambique Until the application of the coal-fired steam engine to ships in the early 19th century, oars or the wind were the principal means of watercraft propulsion. Merchant ships predominantly used sail, but during periods when naval warfare depended on ships closing to ram or to fight hand-to-hand, galley were preferred for their manoeuvrability and speed. The Greek navies that fought in the Peloponnesian War used triremes, as did the Romans at the Battle of Actium. The development of naval gunnery from the 16th century onward vaulted broadside weight ahead of manoeuvrability; this led to the dominance of the sail-powered warship over the following three centuries.
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Samos, Temple of Hera, Statue of a warrior, 530 BC Polycrates leaving his daughter to encounter Oroetus. Herodotus states that Polycrates later established a fleet 40 triremes, probably becoming the first Greek state with a fleet of such ships, which he manned with men he considered to be politically dangerous, and sent to the Persian king Cambyses with instructions to put the crews to death.Herodotus, Histories 3.39 Modern scholars consider this story unlikely.Carty (2005) 136 The dispatch of these ships is usually connected with the Persian invasion of Egypt in 525 BC. Hermann Wallinga argues that the ships were built at Amasis' expense, manned by Polycrates, and sent by him to fight against the Persians.
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G. Claudius commenced negotiations with Hanno, but negotiations must have broken down and Gaius unsuccessfully tried to force passage across the strait, in the process losing some triremes to the skillful Carthaginian sailors. Hanno, understanding the gravity of the situation and not wanting to be blamed for starting a war with the Romans, as a gesture returned the captured vessels to the Romans and urged them to opt for peace.Ioannes Zonaras, An Epitome Of The Lost Books Of Dio, 11.9 Gaius Claudius, it would seem, ignored the gesture and tried again to cross the strait to Messana; this time successfully. The Mamertines urged Hanno to descend from the citadel and parley with the Romans.
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Herodotus VII, 35 The Athenians had also been preparing for war with the Persians since the mid-480s BC, and in 482 BC the decision was taken, under the guidance of the Athenian politician Themistocles, to build a massive fleet of triremes that would be necessary for the Greeks to fight the Persians.Holland, pp.217–223 However, the Athenians did not have the manpower to fight on land and sea; and therefore combatting the Persians would require an alliance of Greek city states. In 481 BC, Xerxes sent ambassadors around Greece asking for earth and water, but made the very deliberate omission of Athens and Sparta.Herodotus VII, 32 Support thus began to coalesce around these two leading states.
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Lacking an army, Himilco was unable to pull off a feat similar to the one Scipio African accomplished at Carthago Nova in 209 BC: attack an almost undefended city while the main army was away and capture it.Whitaker, Joseph I.S., Motya, p78 note-2 Himilco next manned 100 triremes with picked crews and sailed to Selinus in Sicily, arriving at night. From there, the Punic navy sailed to Motya the following day and fell on the transports beached near Lilybaeum, destroying all that lay at anchor. Then the Carthaginian fleet moved into the area between Motya and the peninsula to the west of the lagoon, trapping the beached Greek fleet on the northern shallows of the lagoon.
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184.2 so the Carthaginian strike force probably numbered between 2,400 and 8,000 soldiers. The rowers, hard to replace trained professionals, were unlikely to be used on land battles, but the crew could be added to the troops, augmenting the force by another 3,000. The ships could have been packed over their normal contingent, but it is unknown to what extent because triremes could be unsettled by heavily armored marines moving on deck, who were required to sit down when the ship was sailing. The name of the expedition commander is not known, but Mago, the future victor of the Catana and a kinsman of Himilco, may have been the person in charge.
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After the Roman general Publius Cornelius Scipio was victorious in the Battle of Ilipa (206BC), he sent his friend Gaius Laelius to visit Syphax to ratify the treaty with Rome. Syphax however, refused to ratify any treaty except with Scipio, so Scipio sailed with two quinqueremes to meet with Syphax, taking a considerable risk in doing so. In fact he arrived at the Numidian harbor, at exactly the same time as Hasdrubal Gisco (who had fled from Spain) anchored there on his way back to Carthage. However, Scipio's ship managed to make harbor before Hasdrubal's seven triremes could make out to intercept them, and in a neutral harbor, Hasdrubal dared not act against the Romans.
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The Anopoea path was defended by roughly 1000 Phocians, according to Herodotus, who reportedly fled when confronted by the Persians. Made aware by scouts that they were being outflanked, Leonidas dismissed most of the Allied army, remaining to guard the rear with perhaps 2,000 men. On the final day of the battle, the remaining Allies sallied forth from the wall to meet the Persians in the wider part of the pass to slaughter as many Persians as they could, but eventually they were all killed or captured.Herodotus VII, 223 Simultaneous with the battle at Thermopylae, an Allied naval force of 271 triremes defended the Straits of Artemisium against the Persians, thus protecting the flank of the forces at Thermopylae.
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Based on iconographic evidence from coins, Morrison and Coates have determined that the Punic triremes in the 5th and early 4th centuries BC were largely similar to their Greek counterparts, most likely including an outrigger. From the mid-4th century, however, at about the time the quinquereme was introduced in Phoenicia, there is evidence of ships without outriggers. This would have necessitated a different oar arrangement, with the middle level placed more inwards, as well as a different construction of the hull, with side-decks attached to it. From the middle of the 3rd century BC onwards, Carthaginian "fives" display a separate "oar box" that contained the rowers and that was attached to the main hull.
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The Isola Tiberina prow in Rome. according to Coates, it depicts a Greek-type "five" or "six", while according to Murray, it is a "five". Perhaps the most famous of the Hellenistic-era warships, because of its extensive use by the Carthaginians and Romans, the quinquereme (; , pentērēs) was invented by the tyrant of Syracuse, Dionysius I (r. 405–367 BC) in 399 BC, as part of a major naval armament program directed against the Carthaginians. During most of the 4th century, the "fives" were the heaviest type of warship, and often used as flagships of fleets composed of triremes and quadriremes. Sidon had them by 351, and Athens fielded some in 324.
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As novice shipwrights, the Romans built copies that were heavier than the Carthaginian vessels, and thus slower and less manoeuvrable. The quinquereme provided the workhorse of the Roman and Carthaginian fleets throughout the Punic Wars, although hexaremes (six oarsmen per bank), quadriremes (four oarsmen per bank) and triremes (three oarsmen per bank) are also occasionally mentioned. So ubiquitous was the type that Polybius uses it as a shorthand for "warship" in general. A quinquereme carried a crew of 300: 280 oarsmen and 20 deck crew and officers; it would also normally carry a complement of 40 marines; if battle was thought to be imminent this would be increased to as many as 120.
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5 Dionysius had rebuilt the walls around Ortygia so that they surrounded the whole island and the isthmus connecting the mainland with a robust wall complete with towers at regular intervals which were strongly built.Kern, Paul B., Ancient Siege Warfare, pp174 The isthmus had docks on the west side and the little harbour, Laccius on the east side. Screens and walls were put up to enclose Laccius, and it could accommodate 60 triremes, and a gate was provided between the sea screens that would let one trireme pass at a time.Diodorus Siculus, X.IV.7 Two castles were also built on Ortygia, one near the isthmus, which was the home of Dionysius, and one further south.
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Cimon returned a decade later to complete the expulsion of Persian forces from Europe. This action seems to have occurred concurrently with the Siege of Thasos, and so is generally dated to 465 BC. Evidently, even at this point, some Persian forces were holding (or had re-taken) some part of the Chersonesos with the help of native Thracians.Plutarch, Cimon, 14 Cimon sailed to the Chersonesos with just 4 triremes, but managed to capture the 13 ships of the Persians, and then proceeded to drive them out of the peninsula. Cimon then turned the Chersonesos (of which his father, Miltiades the Younger, had been tyrant before the Greco-Persian Wars began) over to the Athenians for colonisation.
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Artaxerxes' army comprised 300,000-foot soldiers, 30,000 cavalry, 300 triremes, and 500 transports or provision ships. After gathering this army, he sought assistance from the Greeks. Though refused aid by Athens and Sparta, he succeeded in obtaining a thousand Theban heavy-armed hoplites under Lacrates, three thousand Argives under Nicostratus, and six thousand Æolians, Ionians, and Dorians from the Greek cities of Asia Minor. This Greek support was numerically small, amounting to no more than 10,000 men, but it formed, together with the Greek mercenaries from Egypt who went over to him afterwards, the force on which he placed his chief reliance, and to which the ultimate success of his expedition was mainly due.
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Elected archon in 493 BC, he convinced the polis to increase the naval power of Athens, a recurring theme in his political career. During the first Persian invasion of Greece he fought at the Battle of MarathonPlutarch Aristides 5.3 (490 BC) and was possibly one of the ten Athenian strategoi (generals) in that battle. In the years after Marathon, and in the run-up to the second Persian invasion of 480–479 BC, Themistocles became the most prominent politician in Athens. He continued to advocate for a strong Athenian Navy, and in 483 BC he persuaded the Athenians to build a fleet of 200 triremes; these proved crucial in the forthcoming conflict with Persia.
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58 These figures seem to be corroborated by the tests conducted with the reconstructed Olympias: a maximum speed of 8 knots and a steady speed of 4 knots could be maintained, with half the crew resting at a time.Adrian Goldsworthy, The Fall of Carthage: The Punic Wars 265-246 BC, Cassell 2003, p. 98 Given the imperfect nature of the reconstructed ship as well as the fact that it was manned by totally untrained modern men and women, it is reasonable to suggest that ancient triremes, expertly built and navigated by trained men, would attain higher speeds. The distance a trireme could cover in a given day depended much on the weather.
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The Battle of the Port of Carthage was a naval battle of the Third Punic War fought in 147 BC between the Carthaginians and the Roman Republic. In the summer of 147 BC, during the Siege of Carthage, the Roman fleet, under the command of Lucius Hostilius Mancinus kept a close watch on the city from the sea. His warships were reinforced that same year by the forces of Scipio Aemilianus. The Carthaginians managed to find an escape route to the sea that had not been effectively blockaded by the Roman navy and put their fleet of 50 triremes and smaller numbers of other vessels to sea to confront the invading fleet.
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He was received with acclamations by the Syracusans, who immediately proclaimed him commander-in-chief of their naval forces, an appointment which was resented by Dion as an infringement of the supreme authority already entrusted to himself; but the people having revoked their decree, he himself reinstated Heracleides of his own authority.Diodorus Siculus, Bibliotheca historicaPlutarch, Dio 32, 33 Dionysius was at this time shut up in the island citadel of Ortygia, and mainly dependent for his supplies upon the command of the sea. Philistus now approached to his relief with a fleet of 60 triremes, but he was encountered by Heracleides with a force about equal to his own; and after an obstinate combat, totally defeated.
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The fleet of Charitimides was initially part of the Cyprus expedition led by Cimon. Main actions of the Egyptian campaign of the Wars of the Delian League, to which Charitimides participated. Charitimides () (died 455 BCE) was an Athenian admiral of the 5th century BCE. At the time of the Wars of the Delian League, a continuing conflict between the Athenian-led Delian League of Greek city-states and the Achaemenid Empire, he was sent in 460 BCE to Egypt in command of a fleet of triremes (some authors say 40 ships, others 200 ships) to support Inaros II, a Libyan ruler who was leading a revolt against the Achaemenid rule over the country.
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As chief magistrate he also possessed considerable judicial powers, including holding his outgoing predecessor to account, and chairing the assembly when it was functioning as a public court. In the event that the as a whole was involved in a court case, he was responsible for representing it before the . Occupying a crucial position at the interface between the deme and the Athenian , he was also charged with maintaining up to date the deme's register of citizens (ληξιαρχικόν γραμματεῖον ), which he kept sealed at his own residence, as well as registers of those citizens eligible for naval service as rowers in the triremes. It is unclear whether he was also responsible for maintaining registers of those eligible for hoplite service.
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Livingston, a historian and professor of medieval literature, had been writing fiction for years while publishing multiple academic works. He wrote The Shards of Heaven during the decade after the publication of his first short story in 2005. Asked about his choice of setting, Livingston said: Noting that "The Shards of Heaven is intended to fall in the gray area between legend and history", Livingston said that while researching the novel he read "a great many articles and studies that might bring most folk to tears: from scholarly arguments about the construction of Roman triremes to countless ancient descriptions of places like the Great Lighthouse or the Tomb of Alexander the Great." Livingston previewed the cover of The Shards of Heaven on his website in March 2015.
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In Mexifornia (Encounter 2003)—a personal memoir about growing up in rural California and an account of immigration from Mexico—Hanson predicted that illegal immigration would soon reach crisis proportions, unless legal, measured, and diverse immigration was restored, as well as the traditional melting-pot values of integration, assimilation, and intermarriage. Ripples of Battle (Doubleday 2003) chronicled how the cauldron of battle affects combatants' later literary and artistic work, as its larger influence ripples for generations, affecting art, literature, culture, and government. In A War Like No Other (Random House 2005, a New York Times notable book of the year), a history of the Peloponnesian War, Hanson offered an alternative history, arranged by methods of fighting—triremes, hoplites, cavalry, sieges, etc.
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Athens now found itself facing a serious crisis in the open revolt of a powerful subject state, and the situation was made more severe by simultaneous revolts in other parts of the empire, the most critical of which occurred in Byzantium; the powerful city of Mytilene, meanwhile, stood ready to revolt upon receiving a promise of Spartan support.Kagan, Outbreak of the Peloponnesian War, 172 The Athenians immediately dispatched 60 ships to deal with the situation in the Aegean. 16 of these ships were sent on various independent missions, leaving only 44 to face the Samian fleet of 50 triremes and 20 transports. In a battle off the island of Tragia, the Athenians were victorious, and the Samians soon found themselves blockaded by land and sea.
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When the messenger ship reached Athens with news of Conon's situation, the assembly wasted no time in approving extreme measures to build and man a relief force. The golden statues of Nike were melted down to fund the construction of the ships,Kagan, The Peloponnesian War, 452 and slaves and metics were enlisted to crew the fleet. To ensure a sufficiently large and loyal group of crewmen, the Athenians even took the radical step of extending citizenship to thousands of slaves who rowed with the fleet.Hunt, The Slaves and Generals of Arginusae, 359-64 Over a hundred ships were prepared and manned through these measures, and contributions from allied ships raised the fleet's size to 150 triremes after it reached Samos.
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As novice shipwrights, the Romans built copies that were heavier than the Carthaginian vessels, which made them slower and less manoeuvrable. The quinquereme was the workhorse of the Roman and Carthaginian fleets throughout the Punic Wars, so ubiquitous that Polybius uses it as a shorthand for "warship" in general. A quinquereme carried a crew of 300, of which 280 were oarsmen and 20 deck crew and officers; it would normally also carry a complement of 40 marines, and if battle was thought to be imminent, this would be increased to as many as 120. Recreation of a fleet of triremes Getting the oarsmen to row as a unit, as well as execute more complex battle manoeuvres, required long and arduous training.
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In the second year of the war, the first cases of the Athens plague were recorded in Piraeus. In 429 the Spartans ravaged Salamis as part of an abortive attack on the Piraeus, when the Athenians responded by sending a fleet to investigate, the Spartan alliance forces fled. In 404 BC, the Spartan fleet under Lysander blockaded Piraeus and subsequently Athens surrendered to the Spartans, putting an end to the Delian League and the war itself. Piraeus would follow the fate of Athens and was to bear the brunt of the Spartans' rage, as the city's walls and the Long Walls were torn down; the Athenian fleet surrendered to the victors and some of the triremes burnt, while the neosoikoi were also pulled down.
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An ancient Greek trireme vessel The Greeks of Homer just used their ships as transport for land armies, but in 664 BC there is a mention of a battle at sea between Corinth and its colony city Corcyra. Ancient descriptions of the Persian Wars were the first to feature large-scale naval operations, not just sophisticated fleet engagements with dozens of triremes on each side, but combined land-sea operations. It seems unlikely that all this was the product of a single mind or even of a generation; most likely the period of evolution and experimentation was simply not recorded by history. After some initial battles while subjugating the Greeks of the Ionian coast, the Persians determined to invade Greece proper.
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Nectanebo's success in the Nile Delta against the invading Persian armies in 374/3 BCE encouraged Teos to start to plan a military expedition into Palestine and Phoenicia, which were territories controlled by the Persians. Taking advantage of a moment of weakness for the Achaemenid Empire due to riots in some satrapies in Asia Minor, Teos sought assistance from both the octogenarian king Agesilaus II of Sparta and the Athenian general Chabrias, including a number of mercenaries and 200 triremes, from Greece. However, to finance such an expedition, Teos had to impose new taxes and to expropriate the goods of the temples, destroying the delicate balance artfully established by his father Nectanebo. This action ensured to Teos both the required finances and a great unpopularity.
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The first Roman expedition outside mainland Italy was against the island of Sicily in 265 BC. This led to the outbreak of hostilities with Carthage, which would last until 241 BC. At the time, the Punic city was the unchallenged master of the western Mediterranean, possessing a long maritime and naval experience and a large fleet. Although Rome had relied on her legions for the conquest of Italy, operations in Sicily had to be supported by a fleet, and the ships available by Rome's allies were insufficient. Thus in 261 BC, the Roman Senate set out to construct a fleet of 100 quinqueremes and 20 triremes. According to Polybius, the Romans seized a shipwrecked Carthaginian quinquereme, and used it as a blueprint for their own ships.
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Kagan, The Peloponnesian War, 401 After the Athenian victory at Abydos, he took thirty triremes to attack the rebels on Euboea, who were building a causeway to Boeotia to provide land access to their island. Unable to stop the construction, he plundered the territory of several rebellious cities,Kagan, The Peloponnesian War, 409 then travelled around the Aegean suppressing oligarchies and raising funds from various cities of the Athenian Empire.Diodorus Siculus, Library 13.47 He then took his fleet to Macedon, where he assisted the Macedonian king Archelaus in his siege of Pydna, but, with that siege dragging on, he sailed on to join Thrasybulus in Thrace.Diodorus Siculus, Library 13.49 The fleet soon moved on from there to challenge Mindarus' fleet, which had seized the city of Cyzicus.
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Theramenes remained a general through 407 BC, but, in that year, when the Athenian defeat at Notium led to the downfall of Alcibiades and his political allies, Theramenes was not reelected. In the next year, however, he did sail as a trierarch in the scratch Athenian relief fleet sent out to relieve Conon, who had been blockaded with 40 triremes at Mytilene by Callicratidas. That relief force won a surprising victory over the more experienced Spartan force in the Battle of Arginusae, but in the wake of that battle Theramenes found himself in the middle of a massive controversy. At the end of the battle, the generals in command of the fleet had conferred to decide on their next steps.
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The "better sailing" that Herodotus mentions was probably due to the superior seamanship of the crews; most of the Athenian ships (and therefore the majority of the fleet) were newly built, and had inexperienced crews.Holland, pp222–224 The most common naval tactics in the Mediterranean area at the time were ramming (triremes were equipped with a ram at the bows), or boarding by ship-borne marines (which essentially turned a sea battle into a land one).Lazenby, pp34–37 The Persians and Asiatic Greeks had by this time begun to use a manoeuver known as diekplous. It is not entirely clear what this was, but it probably involved sailing into gaps between enemy ships and then ramming them in the side.
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Herodotus VII, 22 Herodotus speculates that pride also was a motivating factor: > As far as I can judge by conjecture, Xerxes gave the command for this > digging out of pride, wishing to display his power and leave a memorial; > with no trouble they could have drawn their ships across the isthmus, yet he > ordered them to dig a canal from sea to sea, wide enough to float two > triremes rowed abreast.Herodotus VII, 24 The work, led by the two Persians Bubares and Artachaies, lasted three years. It was completed in 480 BCE by forcibly recruited locals, as well as Egyptian and Phoenician workers.Herodotus VII, 23–25 The length, according to Herodotus, was 12 stadia, and it was capped at both ends by dikes to prevent surf from clogging it.
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He gathered a fleet consisting of eighty transport ships, sufficient to carry two legions (Legio VII and Legio X), and an unknown number of warships under a quaestor, at an unnamed port in the territory of the Morini, almost certainly Portus Itius (Boulogne). Another eighteen transports of cavalry were to sail from a different port, probably Ambleteuse. These ships may have been triremes or biremes, or may have been adapted from Venetic designs Caesar had seen previously, or may even have been requisitioned from the Veneti and other coastal tribes. Clearly in a hurry, Caesar himself left a garrison at the port and set out "at the third watch" – well after midnight – on 23 August with the legions, leaving the cavalry to march to their ships, embark, and join him as soon as possible.
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The Temple of Zeus, Cyrene According to Greek tradition, Cyrene was founded in 631 BC as a settlement of Greeks from the island of Thera, traditionally led by Battus I, at a site from its associated port, Apollonia (Marsa Sousa). Traditional details concerning the founding of the city are contained in Herodotus' Histories IV. Cyrene promptly became the chief town of Libya and established commercial relations with all the Greek cities, reaching the height of its prosperity under its own kings in the 5th century BC. Soon after 460 BC it became a republic. In 413 BC, during the Peloponnesian War, Cyrene supplied Spartan forces with two triremes and pilots. After the death of Alexander the Great (323 BC), the Cyrenian republic became subject to the Ptolemaic dynasty.
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Philip probably also campaigned in Thrace in late 352 BC, possibly after returning to Macedon from Thessaly.. At this point, if not before, Philip defeated Amadokos and subjugated him, and possibly also expelled Cetriporis from his client kingship. During the campaign, Philip's army reached deep into Kersebleptes' territory and laid siege to the fortress of Heraion Teichos located somewhere near Perinthos, on the coast of the Propontis (although Buckler places this siege in 353 BC).. On learning of the siege, the Athenians voted to dispatch 40 triremes to oppose Philip. However, they then heard that Philip had died (or had been taken ill), so the relief mission never actually sailed. It seems clear that Philip did fall ill during the campaign, but exactly how the campaign ended is unclear.
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Whatever the true course of events, it is clear that when the two fleets met, Cleitus with his 240 ships had a distinct numerical advantage over the Athenian fleet. Despite the full mobilization of their manpower, the Athenians could find enough crews for only about 170 warships, giving preference to manning the city's two quinqueremes and the available quadriremes, while the rest of the fleet was filled out with triremes. According to the Parian Marble, the battle took place at the end of the archonship of Cephisodorus, hence in late May or June 322 BC—perhaps, according to N. G. Ashton, as late as 26 or 27 June. Little detail is known of the battle that is commonly described by scholars as the "decisive sea-battle of the Lamian War".
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Livingston, a historian and professor of medieval literature, said in 2015 about his choice of setting: Noting that the trilogy "is intended to fall in the gray area between legend and history", Livingston said that while researching it he read "a great many articles and studies that might bring most folk to tears: from scholarly arguments about the construction of Roman triremes to countless ancient descriptions of places like the Great Lighthouse or the Tomb of Alexander the Great." In a November 2015 interview, Livingston noted that the sequel to The Shards of Heaven would be called The Temples of the Ark. As of January 2016, the author's web site referred to the second installment as The Gates of Hell. Livingston previewed the cover of The Gates of Hell on his website in March 2016.
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The Segestan appeal had come at a time when Sicilian Greek cities had become politically stable and increased prosperity (partly from overseas trade) enabled some to finance territorial expansion efforts. Syracuse had sent two plundering expeditions against the Etruscans which may have temporarily disrupted Etruscan control over Corsica and Elba in 454 BC. Ducetius had begun uniting the Sicels against the Greeks after 459 BC and Sicel conflictsDiodorus Siculus XI.76,78,91 had kept Syracuse and Akragas occupied until 440 BC.Diodorus Siculus XII.29 Syracuse and Akragas fought a brief war in 445 BC, Sicilian cities became split in their support and defeated Akragas ultimately came to terms.Diodorus Siculus XII.8 Syracuse began massive military preparations in 439 BC by building 100 triremes, doubling their cavalry and reordering the infantry, with the probable aim to conquer all SicilyDiodorus Siculus XII.
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The second objective was to punish the cities (initially Athens and Eretria) which had supported the Ionian Greeks who, under the leadership of Aristagoras of Miletus, revolted against Persian rule in 499 BC. The Athenians had sent twenty triremes in support of the revolt, and the Eretrians sent five. This struggle lasted until the defeat of the Ionians in a naval battle outside Miletus in 494 BC. The Battle of Plataea followed the two simultaneous defeats of the Greeks at the Battle of Thermopylae, and the Battle of Artemisium. At Artemisium in August 480 BC, the storm-buffeted Persians confronted the much smaller fleet of Greek naval forces, who retreated to Salamis. After several indecisive clashes over at least three days, and the news of the defeat on land, the strategy of the Greek allies was in ruins.
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The various soldiers of the army of Darius I are illustrated on the tomb of Darius I at Naqsh-e Rostam, with a mention of each ethnicity in individual labels.The Achaemenid Empire in South Asia and Recent Excavations in Akra in Northwest Pakistan Peter Magee, Cameron Petrie, Robert Knox, Farid Khan, Ken Thomas p.713-714List of ethnicities with corresponding drawing The ethnicities are, in order: Makan, Persian, Median, Elamite, Parthian, Arian, Bactrian, Sogdian, Choresmian, Zarangian, Arachosian, Sattagydian, Gandharan, Hindush (Indian), Saka (haumavarga), Saka (tigraxauda), Babylonian, Assyrian, Arab, Egyptian, Armenian, Cappadocian, Lydian, Ionian, Saka beyond the sea, Skudrian (Thracian), Macedonian, Libyan, Nubian, Carian.DNe inscription Identical depictions were made on the tombs of other Achaemenid emperors, the best preserved frieze being that of Xerxes I. According to Herodotus, the fleet sent by Darius consisted of 600 triremes.
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At the Battle of Sybota, a small contingent of Athenian ships played a critical role in preventing a Corinthian fleet from capturing Corcyra. In order to uphold the Thirty Years' Peace, however, the Athenians were instructed not to intervene in the battle unless it was clear that Corinth was going to press onward to invade Corcyra. However, the Athenian warships participated in the battle nevertheless, and the arrival of additional Athenian triremes was enough to dissuade the Corinthians from exploiting their victory, thus sparing much of the routed Corcyrean and Athenian fleet.Thucydides, Book I, 49–50 Following this, Athens instructed Potidaea in the peninsula of Chalkidiki, a tributary ally of Athens but a colony of Corinth, to tear down its walls, send hostages to Athens, dismiss the Corinthian magistrates from office, and refuse the magistrates that the city would send in the future.
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Several pressing concerns presented themselves; 50 Peloponnesian ships under Eteonicus remained at Mytilene, blockading Conon, and decisive action by the Athenians could lead to the destruction of that force as well, but, at the same time, ships needed to be dispatched to recover the sailors of the twenty five Athenian triremes sunk or disabled in the battle. Accordingly, all eight generals, with the larger part of the fleet, set out for Mytilene, while a rescue force under Thrasybulus and Theramenes, both of whom were trierarchs in this battle but had served as generals in prior campaigns, remained behind to pick up the survivors and retrieve corpses for burial.For the battle and the decision of the generals, see Diodorus, Library, 13.98–100 and Xenophon, Hellenica, 1.6.29–35. For a modern synthesis and analysis, see Kagan, The Peloponnesian War, 454–61.
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The purpose of the area just below the center of gravity and the waterline known as the hypozomata (ὑποζώματα) was to allow bending of the hull when faced with up to 90 kN of force. The calculations of forces that could have been absorbed by the ship are arguable because there is not enough evidence to confirm the exact process of jointing used in ancient times. In a modern reconstruction of the ship, a polysulphide sealant was used to compare to the caulking that evidence suggests was used; however this is also argued because there is simply not enough evidence to authentically reproduce the triereis seams. Triremes required a great deal of upkeep in order to stay afloat, as references to the replacement of ropes, sails, rudders, oars and masts in the middle of campaigns suggest.
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Buchanan p. 76-7. Despite its diminishment of powers, the Theoric Board existed in some way or another up until Aristotle’s Athenian Constitution (326-323 BCE). Lycurgus was using most of the state’s income to pay for its defense, building projects, and religious festivals, which maintained some sense of the theorika’s continuation in Athens. One of the last references to the theorika involved Demades’ notorious attempt at bribing the Athenians. In 331 King Agis III of Sparta persuaded Athens to join him in Sparta’s revolt against Alexander. The Athenians begged Demades, who was then a member of the Theoric Board, to grant money to be used towards the deployment of triremes to aid in the rebellion. His response, as recorded in Plutarch’s Morals (Praecepta Gerendae Reipublicae 818 E-F), was: Demades’ bribery successfully kept the Athenians from taking up arms against Alexander.
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The naval Battle of Pylos took place in 425 BC during the Peloponnesian War at the peninsula of Pylos, on the present-day Bay of Navarino in Messenia, and was an Athenian victory over Sparta. An Athenian fleet had been driven ashore at Pylos by a storm, and, at the instigation of Demosthenes, the Athenian soldiers fortified the peninsula, and a small force was left there when the fleet departed again. The establishment of an Athenian garrison in Spartan territory frightened the Spartan leadership, and the Spartan army, which had been ravaging Attica under the command of Agis, ended their expedition (the expedition only lasted 15 days) and marched home, while the Spartan fleet at Corcyra sailed to Pylos. Demosthenes had five triremes and their complements of soldiers as a garrison, and was reinforced by 40 hoplites from a Messenian ship that happened to stop at Pylos.
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Philip II was also responsible for the establishment of the royal bodyguards (somatophylakes) and royal pages (basilikoi paides).. Philip II was also able to field archers, including mercenary Cretan archers and perhaps some native Macedonians.; . It is unclear if the Thracians, Paionians, and Illyrians fighting as javelin throwers, slingers, and archers serving in Macedonian armies from the reign of Philip II onward were conscripted as allies via a treaty or were simply hired mercenaries.. Philip II hired engineers such as Polyidus of Thessaly and Diades of Pella, who were capable of building state of the art siege engines and artillery firing large bolts. Following the acquisition of the lucrative mines at Krinides (renamed Philippi), the royal treasury could afford to field a permanent, professional standing army.. The increase in state revenues allowed the Macedonians to build a small navy for the first time, which included triremes.
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By dexterous management and large promises, he overcame the misgivings of the Greek troops over the length and danger of the war; a Spartan fleet of thirty-five triremes under the command of Pythagoras the Spartan sent to Cilicia opened the passes of the Amanus into Syria and conveyed to him a Spartan detachment of 700 men under Spartan General Cheirisophus. Cyrus the Younger had obtained the support of the Spartans after having asked them "to show themselves as good friend to him, as he had been to them during their war against Athens", in reference to the support he had given the Spartan in the Peloponnesian War against Athens a few years earlier. The king had only been warned at the last moment by Tissaphernes and gathered an army in haste; Cyrus advanced into Babylonia before he met with an enemy. In October 401 BC, the battle of Cunaxa ensued.
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Naval conflict culminated in the straits between the port of Piraeus and Salamis Island during the Battle of Salamis (September 480 BCE), when 371 Greek triremes and pentekonters defeated King Xerxes' Persian fleet of over 1,200 ships, that included Phoenician, Egyptian, Cilician and Cypriot contingents. The city of Athens, that had risen to naval supremacy among the Greek poleis was defeated in the Peloponnesian War and lost its fleet against the Peloponnesian League under Lysander in the Battle of Aegospotami in 405 BCE. Around 325 B.C. Pytheas, a Greek geographer and explorer undertook a voyage of exploration to northwestern Europe (modern-day Great Britain and Ireland) and beyond. In his account On The Ocean (Τὰ περὶ τοῦ Ὠκεανοῦ), that is only known through the writings of Strabo and Pliny the Elder, he introduces the idea of the land of Thule and describes Celtic and Germanic tribes, the Arctic, polar ice and the midnight sun.
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Rebuilding the walls of Athens, 393 BC. After being convinced by Conon that allowing him to rebuild the Long Walls around Piraeus, the main port of Athens, would be a major blow to the Lacedaemonians, Pharnabazus eagerly gave Conon a fleet of 80 triremes and additional funds to accomplish this task. Pharnabazus dispatched Conon with substantial funds and a large part of the fleet to Attica, where he joined in the rebuilding of the long walls from Athens to Piraeus, a project that had been initiated by Thrasybulus in 394 BC. With the assistance of the rowers of the fleet, and the workers paid for by the Persian money, the construction was soon completed.Xenophon, Hellenica 4.8.7–10 Xenophon in his Hellenica gives a vivid contemporary account of this endeavour: Athens quickly took advantage of its possession of walls and a fleet to seize the islands of Scyros, Imbros, and Lemnos, on which it established cleruchies (citizen colonies).
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Carthage had intervened in favor of Segesta in 409 BC against Selinus, which led to the sack of both Selinus and Himera in 409 BC. This led to Hermocrates raiding Punic territory, and the retaliation of Carthage saw the destruction of Akragas, Gela and Camarina by 405 BC, when a peace treaty ended the war with Carthage in control of much of Sicily and Dionysius to power in Syracuse. After strengthening Syracuse between 404–398 BC, Dionysius attacked the Phoenician city of Motya with an army of 80,000 infantry and 3,000 cavalry, along with a fleet of 200 warships and 500 transports carrying his supplies and war machines in 398 BC, igniting the first of four wars he was to lead against Carthage.Church, Alfred J., Carthage, p47 After Dionysius sacked Motya, Himilco arrived in Sicily with an army numbering 50,000 men along with 400 triremes and 600 transports.Caven, Brian, Dionysius I, pp107 Himilco first stormed Motya, where the mostly Sicel garrison under Biton was easily overcome,Diod.
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According to Tacitus (writing around 50 years after the event): > Claudius equipped triremes, quadriremes, and nineteen thousand combatants: > the lists he surrounded with rafts, so as to leave no unauthorized points of > escape, but reserved space enough in the centre to display the vigour of the > rowing, the arts of the helmsmen, the impetus of the galleys, and the usual > incidents of an engagement. On the rafts were stationed companies and > squadrons of the praetorian cohorts, covered by a breastwork from which to > operate their catapults and ballistae: the rest of the lake was occupied by > marines with decked vessels. The shores, the hills, the mountain-crests, > formed a kind of theatre, soon filled by an untold multitude, attracted from > the neighbouring towns, and in part from the capital itself, by curiosity or > by respect for the sovereign. He and Agrippina presided, the one in a > gorgeous military cloak, the other – not far distant – in a Greek mantle of > cloth of gold.
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It was too late that day to attack, so the Athenians spent the night on a nearby island, hoping to draw the Spartans out into the open sea to battle. The Spartans refused to take this bait, but the next morning the Athenians sailed in both entrances to the harbour, which the Spartans had failed to block, and quickly routed the Spartan fleet (Donald Kagan has suggested that the Spartans' failure to blockade the entrances indicates that they could not do so, and that their plan was thus fatally flawed from the outset).Kagan, The Peloponnesian War, 140 Pursuit was limited by the size of the harbour, but the Athenians captured some triremes at sea and then landed to attempt to seize the Spartan ships once they reached land. A fierce fight ensued, in which the Athenians were eventually unable to seize more than a few ships, withdrawing after heavy casualties had been suffered by both sides.
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The Battle of Rhium (429 BC) or the battle of Chalcisa town on the Aetolian coast near the Evenus was a naval battle in the Peloponnesian War between an Athenian fleet commanded by Phormio and a Peloponnesian fleet composed of contingents from various states, each with its own commander. The battle came about when the Peloponnesian fleet, numbering 47 triremes, attempted to cross over to the northern shore of the Gulf of Patras to attack Acarnania in support of an offensive in northwestern Greece; Phormio's fleet attacked the Peloponnesians while they were making the crossing. In the battle, the Peloponnesian ships, hampered by the fact that many of them were equipped not as fighting vessels but as transports, circled together in a defensive posture. Phormio, taking advantage of his crews' superior seamanship, sailed around the clustered Peloponnesians with his ships, driving the Peloponnesians closer and closer together until they began to foul oars and collide with each other.
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Under the prow there was a rostrum made for striking the enemy ships under the sea. By its original form, the Liburna was the most similar to the Greek penteconter. It had one bench with 25 oars on each side, while in the late ages of the Roman Republic, it became a smaller version of a trireme, but with two banks of oars (a bireme), faster, lighter, and more agile than biremes and triremes. The Liburnian design was adopted by the Romans and became a key part of Ancient Rome's navy, most possibly by mediation of Macedonian navy in the 2nd half of the 1st century BC. Liburna ships played a key role in naval battle of Actium in Greece, which lasted from August 31 to September 2 of 31 BC. Because of its naval and manoeuvrer features and bravery of its Liburnian crews, these ships completely defeated much bigger and heavier eastern ships, quadriremes and penterames.
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Carthage had intervened in favour of Segesta in 409 BC against Selinus, which led to the sack of both Selinus and Himera in 409 BC. This led to Hermocrates raiding Punic territory, with Carthage retaliating through the destruction of Akragas, Gela and Camarina. In 405 BC, a peace treaty ended the war, with Carthage in control of much of Sicily and Dionysius retaining power in Syracuse. After strengthening Syracuse's defences, Dionysius attacked the Phoenician city of Motya with an army of 80,000 infantry and 3,000 cavalry, along with a fleet of 200 warships and 500 transports carrying his supplies and war machines in 398 BC, igniting the first of four wars he was to lead against Carthage.Church, Alfred J., Carthage, p47 After the sack of Motya, Dionysius retired to Syracuse, while Himilco of Carthage arrived in Sicily in 397 BC with 50,000 men along with 400 triremes and 600 transports to continue the war.
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In the winter of 429/8 BC, Phormio was sent out to the Corinthian Gulf as commander of a fleet of 20 triremes; establishing his base at Naupactus, Phormio instituted a blockade of Corinthian shipping.Thucydides, The Peloponnesian War, 2.69 In the summer of 429 BC, however, Sparta began preparing a sizeable fleet and army to attack Athens' allies in the region, hoping to overrun Acarnania on land, capture the islands of Zacynthus and Cephallenia, and possibly even take Naupactus.Thucydides, The Peloponnesian War, 2.80 Phormio was notified of these plans by the concerned Acarnanians, but was initially unwilling to leave Naupactus unprotected.Thucydides, The Peloponnesian War, 2.81 When the Peloponnesian fleet began moving along the south shore of the Corinthian gulf, however, aiming to cross over to Acarnania, the Athenians followed along the north shore and attacked them once they passed out of the Gulf into the open sea and attempted to cross from the south to the north.
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In ancient Greece, Piraeus assumed its importance with its three deep water harbours, the main port of Cantharus and the two smaller of Zea and Munichia, and gradually replaced the older and shallow Phaleron harbour, which gradually fell into disuse. In the late 6th century BC, the area caught attention due to its advantages. In 511 BC, the hill of Munichia was fortified by Hippias and four years later Piraeus became a deme of Athens by Cleisthenes. According to the ancient Greek historian Thucydides, in 493 BC, Themistocles initiated the fortification works in Piraeus and later advised the Athenians to take advantage of its natural harbours' strategic potential instead of using the sandy bay of Phaleron. In 483 BC, a new silver vein was discovered in Laurion mines, which was utilized to fund the construction of 200 triremes, the Athenian fleet which was transferred to Piraeus and was built in its shipyards.
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The following years are quite obscure, but it seems that the Persians first attacked Egypt in 385 BCE and, after three years of war, the Egyptians managed to defeat the invaders. In 381 BCE, Hakor sent aid, money and 50 triremes (apparently without crew, though) to Evagoras in order to contribute to his resistance against the Great King who, after the unsuccessful campaign in Egypt, was now focusing on Cyprus. However, when, in 380 BCE, Evagoras travelled to Egypt to beg for further aid, Hakor saw no need to continue supporting him and sent him back to Cyprus with merely some more money. Evagoras surrendered to Artaxerxes soon after, but Hakor promptly joined a short-lived alliance with Sparta and with Glos, son of the Egyptian admiral, Tamos, who was a supporter of the pretender Cyrus the Younger against Artaxerxes II. Hakor managed to get the Athenian general Chabrias into his service, but the Persian general Pharnabazus II lobbied Athens seeking for them to repatriate him.
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During the final confrontation between Octavian and Mark Antony, Octavian's fleet was composed of quinqueremes, together with some "sixes" and many triremes and liburnians, while Antony, who had the resources of Ptolemaic Egypt to draw upon, fielded a fleet also mostly composed of quinqueremes, but with a sizeable complement of heavier warships, ranging from "sixes" to "tens" (Gk. dekērēs).Cassius Dio, Historia Romana, L.23.2 Later historical tradition made much of the prevalence of lighter and swifter vessels in Octavian's fleet,Plutarch, Antony, 62 with Vegetius even explicitly ascribing Octavian's victory to the liburnians.Vegetius, De Re Militari, IV.33 Reconstruction of a late Roman navis lusoria at Mainz This prominence of lighter craft in the historical narrative is perhaps best explained in light of subsequent developments. After Actium, the operational landscape had changed: for the remainder of the Principate, no opponent existed to challenge Roman naval hegemony, and no massed naval confrontation was likely.
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This was a radical drop in the number of citizens available to pay the expenses of the city-state. Historian Donald Kagan calculates from ancient records that the special war taxes, religious services, and other fiscal demands legally required from the wealthy by the city state during a seven- year period (411–404 BC) was 2.5 talents. Kagan reminds us "that a talent consisted of 6,000 drachmas, that a drachma was a very good day's pay in the late fifth century, and that in those years an Athenian citizen rowing in the fleet was expected to get by on half that amount." Among the things expected of wealthy Athenians, besides special war taxes and religious obligations, were the production of comic and tragic dramas, paying for choral competitions, dancers, athletic contests, trireme races, equipping triremes for battle in the war, serving in positions such as trierarch, and contributing to the eisphora, and a tax on the wealth of the very rich—levied only when needed—usually in times of war.
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Beyond three, the number in the type name did not refer to the number of ranks of oars any more (as for biremes and triremes, respectively two and three ranks of oars with one rower per oar), but to the number of rowers per vertical section, with several men on each oar. Indeed, just because a ship was designated with a larger type number did not mean it necessarily had or operated all three possible ranks: the quadrireme may have been a simple evolution of a standard trireme, but with two rowers on the top oar; it may also have been a bireme with two men on each oar; or it may just have had a single rank with four men on a each single oar. Classes of ship could differ in their configuration between regions and over time, but in no case did a "four" ship have four horizontal ranks of oars. From galleys used in the 16th to 18th centuries AD, it is known that the maximum number of men that can operate a single oar efficiently is eight.
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Strombichides () was an Athenian admiral and politician who lived during the late 5th century BC. A son of Diotimus, Strombichides was appointed to command the eight ships which the Athenians sent to the coast of Asia Minor, following the news of the revolt of Chios in 412 BC. On his arrival at Samos he added a Samian trireme to his squadron and sailed to Teos to check on the rebellion there. But soon after, he was compelled to flee to Samos from a superior Peloponnesian fleet, under Chalcideus and Alcibiades and, as a result, Teos revolted. Not long after this Strombichides seems to have returned to Athens, and later in the same year he was one of three commanders who were sent to the Athenians at Samos with a reinforcement of thirty-five ships, which increased their whole force to 104. This they now divided, retaining the greater part of the fleet at Samos to command the sea, and to carry on the war against Miletus, while Strombichides and two others were despatched to Chios with thirty triremes.
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Segesta had sent 60 talents of silver, enough to keep 60 triremes afloat for a month to Athens, the temple at Eryx contained dazzling treasures, while all the Athenians were feasted to many dinners on plates of gold and silver throughout Segesta and other cities. Phoenicians and Carthaginians had the reputation of being SwindlersEphorus, V. 267 (probably because of their ability to trade cheap trinkets for silver and gold in Iberia and Africa, then use the wealth to buy Greek goods and built navies to keep the Greeks away from these markets). The Elymians probably had picked up a few tricks from their neighbors, because to impress to visiting Athenians of their wealth, they had used the same plates at different parties over and over again, fancy goods were collected from neighboring cities and shown off as the wealth of Segesta and Elymians to their Greek guests. The duped Athenians sent a force to Sicily to aid Segesta and Leontini in 415 BC, but the Athenians attacked Syracuse instead of Selinus and were wiped out after a prolonged struggle by 413 BC. Segesta became a marked enemy of Sicilian Greeks, and Selinus attacked and defeated Segesta in 411 BC.
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Heracleides () was a Syracusan who held the chief command of the mercenary forces under Dionysius II of Syracuse.Diodorus Siculus, Bibliotheca historica 16.6Plutarch, Dio 32 We have little information as to the causes which led to his exile from Syracuse, but it may be inferred, from an expression of PlutarchPlutarch, Dio 12 that he was suspected of conspiring with Dion of Syracuse and others to overthrow Dionysius: and it seems clear that he must have fled from Syracuse either at the same time with Dion and Dion's son Megacles, or shortly afterwards. Having joined the other exiles in the Peloponnesus, he co-operated with Dion in his preparations for the overthrow of Dionysius, and the liberation of Syracuse, but did not accompany him when he actually sailed, having remained behind in the Peloponnesus in order to assemble a larger force both of ships and soldiers. According to the historian Diodorus Siculus, his departure was for some time retarded by adverse weather; but Plutarch (whose account is throughout unfavorable to Heracleides) ascribes the delay to his jealousy of Dion. It is certain, however, that he eventually joined the latter at Syracuse, with a force of 20 triremes and 1,500 heavy- armed troops.
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