Battles & Wars › Ancient world › Greco-Persian Wars
Trireme and the ramming warship
by c. 550 BC (origins debated); dominant by 500 BC· Invention or discovery· Weapons, armor & warships
Mostly agreedGood evidence; some details, dates or numbers uncertain.
A fast wooden warship rowed by about 170 oarsmen on three levels, whose bronze ram holed enemy ships.
See it on the Battles & Wars map →What happened
A trireme was about 37 m (120 ft) long and only about 5 m wide, with 170 rowers in three tiers and a bronze ram at the bow, at the waterline. Ramming at speed, or shearing off an enemy's oars, was the main tactic; a few marines and archers fought on deck. Crews needed long training to row in time. Athens built about 200 triremes before 480 BC, paid for with silver from its mines at Laurion.
Why it matters
Triremes let Athens win at Salamis and build a naval empire, and they made sea power depend on paying thousands of poor citizen rowers, which strengthened Athenian democracy.
How we know
Herodotus and Thucydides; the excavated ship sheds of Piraeus, which fix the ships' size; inscriptions listing Athenian naval stores; and the full-size rebuild Olympias, rowed in sea trials from 1987 to 1994.
Still debated
Who invented it, Phoenicians or Corinthians, is debated, as is exactly how the three tiers of rowers were arranged.
Connections (3)
▸Trireme and the ramming warship fought and won the Battle of SalamisWell documented
The connection
Greek triremes, mostly Athenian, fought the Persian fleet in the narrow strait. In the crowded water the Persians' greater numbers and skill at maneuver counted for little, and the Greeks rammed ships that could not turn. Persia lost a large part of its fleet.
When and how
Strait of Salamis, September 480 BC: roughly 300–380 Greek triremes against a larger Persian-led fleet.
How we know
Herodotus and Aeschylus, a likely eyewitness, describe ramming as the main tactic; the ship sheds at Piraeus show the size of Athens's fleet.
Debates and open questions
The Persian fleet's size, perhaps 600–1,200 ships, and its losses, perhaps 200 or more, are uncertain.
▸Trireme and the ramming warship fought the naval campaigns of the Peloponnesian WarWell documented
The connection
Athens's fleet of about 300 triremes let it supply itself by sea and raid Spartan territory while avoiding Sparta's army. Sparta won only after building its own fleet with Persian money; Lysander destroyed the Athenian fleet at Aegospotami in 405 BC, and Athens was starved into surrender.
When and how
Aegean, Ionian and Sicilian seas, 431–404 BC; key sea fights include Syracuse (413 BC), Arginusae (406 BC) and Aegospotami (405 BC).
How we know
Thucydides, an Athenian general who wrote a detailed contemporary history, and Xenophon's continuation of it.
Debates and open questions
Historians debate whether Athens could have won by sticking to Pericles's cautious sea strategy instead of launching the disastrous Sicilian expedition.
▸Trireme and the ramming warship evolved into the heavier galleys of Battle of ActiumMostly agreed
The connection
After about 400 BC, navies built bigger galleys called 'fours', 'fives' and larger, with more rowers per oar, heavier rams, and room for catapults and marines. At Actium, Mark Antony's big warships faced Octavian's lighter, more agile fleet under his admiral Agrippa, and lost.
When and how
Off Actium in western Greece, September 2, 31 BC: Antony and Cleopatra against Octavian and Agrippa.
How sure are we?
Sockets for captured bronze rams on Octavian's victory monument near Actium show how large the warships were.
Debates and open questions
Whether Antony meant to fight or only to break out and flee to Egypt is debated, as is how much ship size really mattered.