The trireme-high-tech weapon of the ancient seas

Abstract

Summary form only given: Sometime in 481, as the Persian king Xerxes gathered a vast invasion force in western Anatolia, the assembly in Athens debated the proper military response. Themistocles alone argued for the need to use sea power. The Oracle's pronouncement that "a wall of wood alone shall be uncaptured, a boon to you and your children" was a clear reference to their ships' hulls, he argued, and not to some ancient fence around the acropolis. He won the argument that day and Athens bet everything on her fleet, eventually securing a great victory at nearby Salamis (in October 480 BCE). Without control of the sea, Xerxes cut the size of his land force, charged a subordinate with continuing the war, and personally returned to Asia. Although the fighting continued for another year, the lesson was not lost on the first historian of western literature, Herodotus of Halicarnassus. For him, Athens and her new fleet of warships-called triremes-saved Greece. The technological key to victory, then, lay in the trireme, a fearful weapon, which Athens was able to use to great effect, not only against Xerxes, but also in the decades to follow. With it, the Athenians forged an Empire and a flowering of culture that still amaze us. This paper explores what is known of the origins, engineering, and role in world history of the trireme, with special attention played the student research done as part of a pioneering class on engineering history at the Stevens Institute of technology.