veloped and which they handed
down to the Greeks at this turning point in the world's history.
The bireme and the trireme were adopted by the Greeks, apparently
without alteration, save that at Salamis the Greek galleys were
said to have been more strongly built and to have presented a lower
freeboard than those of the Phoenicians. A hundred years later,
about 330 B.C., the Greeks developed the four-banked ship, and
Alexander of Macedon is said to have maintained on the Euphrates
a squadron of seven-banked ships. In the following century the
Macedonians had ships of sixteen banks of oars, and this was probably
the limit for sea-going ships in antiquity. These multiple banked
ships must have been most unhandy, for a reversal of policy set in
till about the beginning of the Christian era the Romans had gone
back to two-banked ships. In medieval times war galleys reverted
to a single row of oars on each side, but required four or five
men to every oar.

[Illustration: GREEK MERCHANT SHIP

From Torr, _Ancient Ships_.]

At the time of the Persian war the trireme was the standard type of
warship, as it had been for the hundred years before, and continued
to be during the hundred years that followed. In fact, the name
trireme was used loosely for all ships of war whether they had two
banks of oars or three. But the fleets that fought in the Persian
war and in the Peloponnesian war were composed of three-banked ships,
and fortunately we have in the records of the Athenian dockyards
accurate information as to structural detail.

The Athenian trireme was about 150 feet in length with a beam of 20
feet. The beam was therefore only 2/15 of the length. (A merchant
ship of the same period was about 180 feet long with a beam of 1/4
its length.) The trireme was fitted with one mast and square sail,
the latter being used only when the wind was fair, as auxiliary
to the oars, especially when it needed to retire from battle. In
fact, the phrase "hoist the sail" came to be used colloquially
like our "turn tail" as a term for running away.

The triremes carried two sails, usually made of linen, a larger
one used in cruising and a smaller one for emergency in battle.
Before action it was customary to stow the larger sail on shore,
and the mast itself was lowered to prevent its snapping under the
shock of ramming.

The forward part of the trireme was constructed with a view to
effectiveness in ramming. Massive catheads projected far