The mainmasts and larger sails were often lefi ashore if a conflict was expected.
The crew of the Attic trireme consisted of from 260 to 225 men inall, Ofthese 174 were rowers—s4 on the lower bank (thala- inites), 58 on the middle hank (zygites), and 62 on the upper bank (thranites),—the upper oars being more numerous because of the contraction of the space available for the lower tiers near the bow and stern, Besides the rowers were about to marines (émeSira:) and zo seamen, The officers were the tricrarch and next to him the helmsman (xuSepyjrys), who was the navigating officer of the treme, Each tier of rowers had its captain (aroeyupxés). ‘There were also the captain of the forecastle (jpepes), the ‘keleustes’ who gave the time to the rowers, and the ship’s piper (rpsypavdjs). The rowers descended into the seven-foot space between the dia- phragmata and took their places in regular order, beginning with the thalamites. The economy of space was such that, as Cicero
remarks, there was not room for one man more.Such, we may believe, was the trireme of the palmy days of Athens. Built for speed, it was necessarily light and handy, and easily turned, so that the formidable beak could be plunged into the enemy’s side, the moment a chance wasgiven. But it required sea room for its manœuvres, and in a narrow strait or Jand-locked harbour, such as that of Syracuse, was no match for the solid balks of timber with which Corinthian and Syracusan shipwrights strengthened the bows of their vessels. Against these the pride of Athens was hurled in vain, only to find itself broken up and rendered unseaworthy by the crash of its own ram.
With the defeat of Athens comes in the fashion of larger vessels with more banks of oars, quadriremes, quinqueremes, and so on up to sixteen banks, when the increase of the motive power had been more than overtaken by the increase in bulk and weight. The principles of construction in these larger vessels seem to have been the same as in the trireme. The space for each man was probably somewhat less, and the handles of the upper tiers of oars were weighted with lead, so as to give a balance at the thowl between the parts outboard and inboard.
