Athenian Trireme vs Persian Trireme Spiral-Bound | 2022-07-19

The trireme was a sleek, wooden oar-powered warship armed with a bronze-sheathed waterline ram. It was very long and narrow for its length and beam, which made the vessel as fragile as it was fast. Triremes fought in several crucial clashes of the Graeco-Persian Wars, including Artemisium and Salamis. Alongside developments that took place in the design of these vessels, naval tactics in this period also flourished, the diekplous being the best known (a manoeuvre designed to row between opposing ships and to turn about so as to ram an enemy vessel in the stern quarter). Such advances were to make the Athenian trireme an object of dread by mid-5th century BC.
This fascinating volume vividly brings to life these popular fighting ships. Superb colour artworks reveal construction and design differences between the triremes used by the opposing Persian and Athenian fleets, tactical differences in their employment, and their epic clashes at Salamis and Artemisium.