page_title: Hellenistic-era warships
section_title: Liburnians
hierarchical_section_title: Hellenistic-era warships / Light warships / Liburnians
caption_attribution_description: Deutsch: Seereise Traians (Szene LXXIX) English: Trajan’s voyage (scene LXXIX)
context_page_description: From the 4th century BC on, new types of oared warships appeared in the Mediterranean Sea, superseding the trireme and transforming naval warfare. Ships became increasingly large and heavy, including some of the largest wooden ships hitherto constructed. These developments were spearheaded in the Hellenistic Near East, but also to a large extent shared by the naval powers of the Western Mediterranean, more specifically Carthage and the Roman Republic. While the wealthy successor kingdoms in the East built huge warships, Carthage and Rome, in the intense naval antagonism during the Punic Wars, relied mostly on medium-sized vessels. At the same time, smaller naval powers employed an array of small and fast craft, which were also used by the ubiquitous pirates. Following the establishment of complete Roman hegemony in the Mediterranean after the Battle of Actium, the nascent Roman Empire faced no major naval threats. In the 1st century AD, the larger warships were retained only as flagships, and were gradually supplanted by the light liburnians until, by Late Antiquity, the knowledge of their construction had been lost.
context_section_description: The liburnian (Latin: liburna, Greek: λιβυρνίς, libyrnis) was a variant of lembos invented by the tribe of the Liburnians. Initially used for piracy and scouting, this light and swift vessel was adopted by the Romans during the Illyrian Wars, and eventually became the mainstay of the fleets of the Roman Empire following Actium, displacing the heavier vessels. Especially the provincial Roman fleets were composed almost exclusively of liburnians.  Livy, Lucan and Appian all describe the liburnian as bireme; they were fully decked (cataphract) ships, with a sharply pointed prow, providing a more streamlined shape designed for greater speed. In terms of speed, the liburnian was probably considerably slower than a trireme, but on a par with a "five".
caption: Bireme Roman warships, probably liburnians, of the Danube fleet during Trajan's Dacian Wars.
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