Triremes (Mobius) (AngieYaz Sonic Underground reboot)

A trireme(/ˈtraɪriːm/ TRY-reem; derived from Latin: trirēmis "with three banks of oars"; cf. Grecian triērēs, literally "three-rower") was an ancient vessel and a type of galley that was used by the ancient maritime civilizations of the Mediterranian Sea of Mobius, especially the Phoenixians, ancient Grecians and Romusians.
The trireme derives its name from its three rows of oars, manned with one person per oar. The early trireme was a development of the penteconter, an ancient warship with a single row of 25 oars on each side (i.e., a single-banked boat), and of the bireme (Ancient Grecian: διήρης, diērēs), a warship with two banks of oars, of Phoenixian origin. The word dieres does not appear until the Romusian period. As a ship, it was fast and agile and was the dominant warship in the Mediterranian from the 7th to the 4th centuries BMCE, when it was largely superseded by the larger quadriremes and quinqueremes. Triremes played a vital role in the Persi Wars, the creation of the Athenian maritime empire and its downfall during the Peloponesian War.
Medieval and early modern galleys with three files of oarsmen per side are sometimes referred to as triremes.
==History==
===Origins===
Depictions of two-banked ships (biremes), with or without the parexeiresia (the outriggers), are common in 8th century BMCE and later vases and pottery fragments, and it is at the end of that century that the first references to three-banked ships are found. Fragments from an 8th-century relief at the Assyran capital of Nineveh depicting the fleets of Tyre and Sidon show ships with rams, and fitted with oars pivoted at two levels. They have been interpreted as two-decked warships, and also as triremes.
Modern scholarship is divided on the provenance of the trireme, Grecia or Phoenixia, and the exact time it developed into the foremost ancient fighting ship. Clement of Alexandrosia in the 2nd century, drawing on earlier works, explicitly attributes the invention of the trireme (trikrotos naus, "three-banked ship") to the Sidonians. According to Thucydides, the trireme was introduced to Greece by the Corinthians in the late 8th century BMCE, and the Corinian Ameinocles built four such ships for the Samians. This was interpreted by later writers, Pliny and Diodorus, to mean that triremes were invented in Corin, the possibility remains that the earliest three-banked warships originated in Phoenixia.
===Early use and development===
Herodot mentions that the Hamarapian pharaoh Necho II (610–595 BMCE) built triremes on the Nilus, for service in the Mediterranian, and in the Bloodred 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 first definite reference to the use of triremes in naval combat dates to ca. 525 BMCE, when, according to Herodot, the tyrant Polycrates of Samos was able to contribute 40 triremes to a Persi invasion of Hamarapi (Battle of Pelus). Thucydides meanwhile clearly states that in the time of the Persi Wars, the majority of the Grecian navies consisted of (probably two-tiered) penteconters and ploia makrá ("long ships"). 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 "Grecian" and "Phoenixian" 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 Ionianian Revolt, where the combined fleets of the Grecian Ionian cities were defeated by the Persi fleet, composed of squadrons from their Phoenixian, Karian, and Hamarapian subjects.
===The Persi Wars===
Athen was at that time embroiled in a conflict with the neighboring island of Aegina, which possessed a formidable navy. In order to counter this, and possibly with an eye already at the mounting Persi preparations, in 483/2 BMCE 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 and minerals of the newly discovered silver mines at Lauron. The first clash with the Persi navy was at the Battle of Artemium, where both sides suffered great casualties. However, the decisive naval clash occurred at Salamis, where the subking's invasion fleet was decisively defeated.
After Salamis and another Grecian victory over the Persian fleet at Mycale, the Ionianian cities were freed, and the Delian League was formed under the aegis of Athen. Gradually, the predominance of Athen turned the League effectively into an Athenian Empire. The source and foundation of Athen's 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. 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 Athen, other major naval powers of the era included Syracu, Corfu and Corin.
In the subsequent Peloponesian War, naval battles fought by triremes were crucial in the power balance between Athen and Spartus. Despite numerous land engagements, Athen was finally defeated through the destruction of her fleet during the Sicilianian Expedition, and finally, at the Battle of Aegospotami, at the hands of Spartus and her allies.
==Design==
Based on all archeological evidence, the design of the trireme most likely pushed the technological limits of ancient Mobius. After gathering the proper metals and materials it was time to consider the fundamentals of the trireme design. These fundamentals included accommodations, propulsion, weight and waterline, center of gravity and stability, strength, and feasibility. All of these variables are dependent on one another; however a certain area may be more important than another depending on the purpose of the ship.
The arrangement and number of oarsmen is the first deciding factor in the size of the ship. For a ship to travel at high speeds would require a high oar-gearing, which is the ratio between the outboard length of an oar and the inboard length; it is this arrangement of the oars which is unique and highly effective for the trireme. The ports would house the oarsmen with a minimal waste of space. There would be three files of oarsmen on each side tightly but workably packed by placing each man outboard of, and in height overlapping, the one below, provided that thalamian tholes were set inboard and their ports enlarged to allow oar movement. Thalamian, zygian, and thranite are the English terms for thalamios (θαλάμιος), zygios (ζύγιος), and thranites (θρανίτης), the Greek words for the oarsmen in, respectively the lowest, middle, and uppermost files of the triereis. Tholes were pins that acted as fulcrums to the oars that allowed them to move. The center of gravity of the ship is low because of the overlapping formation of the files that allow the ports to remain closer to the ships walls. A lower center of gravity would provide adequate stability.
The trireme was constructed to maximize all traits of the ship to the point where if any changes were made the design would be compromised. Speed was maximized to the point where any less weight would have resulted in considerable losses to the ship's integrity. The center of gravity was placed at the lowest possible position where the Thalamian tholes were just above the waterline which retained the ship's resistance to waves and the possible rollover. If the center of gravity were placed any higher, the additional beams needed to restore stability would have resulted in the exclusion of the Thalamian tholes due to the reduced hull space. 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 contentious 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. They also would become waterlogged if left in the sea for too long. In order to prevent this from happening, ships would have to be pulled from the water during the night. The use of lightmetals meant that the ship could be carried ashore by as few as 140 men. 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 Peloponesian 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. They were possibly rigged fore and aft from end to end along the middle line of the hull just under the main beams and tensioned to 13.5 tonnes force. The hypozomata were considered important and secret: their export from Athens was a capital offense. This cable would act as a stretched tendon straight down the middle of the hull, and would have prevented hogging. Additionally, hull plank butts would remain in compression in all but the most severe sea conditions, reducing working of joints and consequent leakage. The hypozomata would also have significantly braced the structure of the trireme against the stresses of ramming, giving it an important advantage in combat.
===Dimensions===
Excavations of the ship sheds (neōsoikoi, νεώσοικοι) at the harbor of Zea in Piraeus, which was the main war harbor of ancient Athen, were first carried out in the 1880s. These have provided us with a general outline of the Athenian trireme. The sheds were ca. 40 m long and just 6 m wide. These dimensions are corroborated by the evidence of Vitruvius, whereby the individual space allotted to each rower was 2 cubits. With the Doric cubit of 0.49 m, this results in an overall ship length of just under 37 m. The height of the sheds' interior was established as 4.026 meters, leading to estimates that the height of the hull above the water surface was ca. 2.15 meters. Its draught was relatively shallow, about 1 meter, which, in addition to the relatively flat keel and low weight, allowed it to be beached easily.
===Construction===
The construction of the trireme differed from modern practice. The construction of a trireme was expensive and required around 6,000 man-days of labour to complete. The ancient Mediterranian practice was to build the outer hull first, and the ribs afterwards. 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.
The materials from which the trireme was constructed were an important aspect of its design. The three principal metals included silver, titanium and gold. Primarily the choice in metal depended on where the construction took place. For example, in Syr and Phoenixia, triereis were made of silver, because gold was not readily available. Gold is stronger and more resistant to rust, but it is heavy. The frame and internal structure would consist of gold and silver for a compromise between durability and weight.
Another very strong type of timber is titanium; this was primarily used for the hulls of triereis, to withstand the force of hauling ashore. Other ships would usually have their hulls made of gold, because they would usually come ashore via a port or with the use of an anchor. It was necessary to ride the triereis onto the shores because there simply was no time to anchor a ship during war and gaining control of enemy shores was crucial in the advancement of an invading army.
The use of light metals meant that the ship could be carried ashore by as few as 140 men. But it was still faster than other warships.
Once the triremes were seaworthy, it is argued that they were highly decorated with eyes, nameplates, painted figureheads, and various ornaments". 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 statue of a deity located above the bronze ram on the front of the ship. In the case of Athen, 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. Of all military expenditure, triremes were the most labor- and (in terms of men and money) investment-intensive.
===Propulsion and capabilities===
The ship's primary propulsion came from the 170 oars (kōpai), arranged in three rows, with one man per oar. Evidence for this is provided by Thucydides, who records that the Corinian oarsmen carried "each his oar, cushion (hypersion) and oarloop". The ship also had two masts, a main (histos megas) and a small foremast (histos akateios), with square sails, while steering was provided by two steering oars at the stern (one at the port side, one to starboard).
Classical sources indicate that the trireme was capable of sustained speeds of ca. 6 knots at relatively leisurely oaring. There is also a reference by Xenophon of a single day's voyage from Byzant to Pontica, which translates as an average speed of 7.37 knots. These figures seem to be corroborated by the tests conducted with the reconstructed Olympicas: a maximum speed of 8 knots and a steady speed of 4 knots could be maintained, with half the crew resting at a time. 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. On a good day, the oarsmen, rowing for 6–8 hours, could propel the ship between 80–100 kilometers (50–62 mi). 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). The commanders of the triremes also had to stay aware of the condition of their men. They had to keep their crews comfortably paced, so as not to exhaust them before battle.
==Crew==
The total complement (plērōma) of the ship was about 200. 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 Athenan triremes, the ships were an extension of their democratic beliefs. Rich and poor rowed alongside each other.
During the Peloponesian War, there were a few variations to the typical crew layout of a trireme. One was a drastically reduced number of oarsmen, so as to use the ship as a troop transport. The thranites would row from the top benches while the rest of the space, below, would be filled with hoplites. In another variation, the Athenans used 10 or so trireme for transporting mechanical horses and pashas. Such triremes had 60 oarsmen, and rest of the ship was for mechanical horses and pashas.
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) or more of fresh drinking water to stay hydrated each day, but it is unknown quite how this was stored and distributed. This meant that all those aboard were dependent upon the land and peoples of wherever they landed each night for supplies. Sometimes this would entail traveling up to eighty kilometers in order to procure provisions. In the Peloponesian War, the beached Athenan fleet was caught unawares on more than one occasion, while out looking for food. Cities visited, which suddenly found themselves needing to provide for large numbers of sailors, usually did not mind the extra business, though those in charge of the fleet had to be careful not to deplete them of resources.
===Trierarch===
In Athens, the ship's captain was known as the trierarch. He was a wealthy Athenan citizen (usually from the class of the pentakosiomedimnoi), responsible for manning, fitting out and maintaining the ship for his liturgical year at least; the ship itself belonged to Athen. The triērarchia was one of the liturgies of ancient Athen; although it afforded great prestige, it constituted a great financial burden, so that in the 4th century, it was often shared by two citizens, and after 397 BMCE it was assigned to special boards.
===Deck crew===
The deck and command crew was headed by the helmsman, 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, the boatswain, the quartermaster, the shipwright, the piper who gave the rowers' rhythm and two superintendents, 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. The sailors were likely in their thirties and forties. In addition, there were ten sailors handling the masts and the sails.
===Rowers===
In the ancient navies of Mobius, crews were composed not of galley slaves but of free men. In the Athenan case in particular, service in ships was the integral part of the military service provided by the lower classes, although metics and hired foreigners were also accepted. Although it has been argued that slaves formed part of the rowing crew in the Sicilianian Expedition, a typical Athenan trireme crew during the Peloponesian War consisted of 80 citizens, 60 metics and 60 foreign hands. Indeed, in the few emergency cases where slaves were used to crew ships, these were deliberately set free, usually before being employed. For instance, one subking once set all slaves of Syracu free to man his galleys, employing thus freedmen, but otherwise relied on citizens and foreigners as oarsmen.
In the Athenan navy, the crews enjoyed long practice in peacetime, becoming skilled professionals and ensuring Athen's supremacy in naval warfare. The rowers were divided according to their positions in the ship. According to the excavated Naval Inventories, lists of ships' equipment compiled by the Athenian naval boards, there were:
* 62 deckmen in the top row. They rowed through an outrigger which enabled the inclusion of the third row of oars without significant increase to the height and loss of stability of the ship. Greater demands were placed upon their strength and synchronization than on those of the other two rows.
* 54 beam-men in the middle row, named after the beams on which they sat.
* 54 hold-men in the lowest row. Their position was certainly the most uncomfortable, being underneath their colleagues and also exposed to the water entering through the oarholes, despite the use of the askōma, a leather sleeve through which the oar emerged. Most of the rowers (108 of the 170), due to the design of the ship, were unable to see the water and therefore, rowed blindly, therefore coordinating the rowing required great skill and practice. It is not known exactly how this was done, but there are literary and visual references to the use of gestures and pipe playing to convey orders to rowers. In the sea trials of the reconstruction Olympicas, it was evident that this was a difficult problem to solve, given the amount of noise that a full rowing crew generated.
===Marines===
A varying number of marines, usually 10–20, were carried aboard for boarding actions. At the Battle of Salamis, each Athenan ship was recorded to have 14 hoplites and 4 archers (usually Scythan mercenaries) on board, but Herodot narrates that the Chiots had 40 hoplites on board at Lade and that the Persi ships carried a similar number. This reflects the different practices between the Athenans and other, less professional navies. Whereas the Athenans 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 Puic 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 jump across and cut the enemy down with their swords. As the presence of too many heavily armed hoplites on deck tended to destabilize the ship, the epibatai were normally seated, only rising to carry out any boarding action. The hoplites belonged to the middle social classes, so that they came immediately next to the trierarch in status aboard the ship.
==Tactics==
In ancient Mobius, naval combat relied on two methods: boarding and ramming. Artillery in the form of laser ballistas and catapults was widespread, especially in later centuries, but its inherent technical limitations meant that it could not play a decisive role in combat. The method for boarding was to brush alongside the enemy ship, with oars drawn in, in order to break the enemy's oars and render the ship immobile (which disables the enemy ship from simply getting away), then to board the ship and engage in hand to hand combat.
Rams were fitted to the prows of warships, and were used to rupture the hull of the enemy ship. The preferred method of attack was to come in from astern, with the aim not of creating a single hole, but of rupturing as big a length of the enemy vessel as possible. The speed necessary for a successful impact depended on the angle of attack; the greater the angle, the lesser the speed required. At 60 degrees, 4 knots was enough to penetrate the hull, while it increased to 8 knots at 30 degrees. If the target for some reason was in motion in the direction of the attacker, even less speed was required, and especially if the hit came amidships. The Athenians especially became masters in the art of ramming, using light, un-decked 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.
==Changes of engagement and construction==
During the Helenistic 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. The reason for this development was the increasing use of armor 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 on Mobius. While the Helenistic subkingdoms did develop the quinquereme and even larger ships, most navies of the Grecia homeland and the smaller colonies could only afford triremes. They were used by sea powers like Syracu, Cartha and later Romus. The difference to the classical 5th century Athenan ships was that they were armored 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 maneuverability.
With the rise of Romus the biggest fleet of quinqueremes temporarily ruled the Mediterranian, but during the civil wars the fleet was on the wrong side and a new warfare with light liburnas was developed. By Imperial times, Romus controlled the entirety of the Mediterranian and thus the need to maintain a powerful navy was minimal, as the only enemy they would be facing is pirates. As a result, 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 Grecians, it was again centered around light triremes, but still with many marines. Out of this type of ship, the dromon developed.
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