The Athenian Trireme: The History and Reconstruction of an Ancient Greek Warship

by J.S. Morrison, J. F. Coates, N. B. Rankov

Shortly before the launch of the reconstructed Greek warship, Olympias, the first edition of The Athenian Trireme was published, providing historical and technical background to the reconstruction of the ship. Since then, five seasons of experimental trials have been conducted on the ship under oar and sail, and the lessons learned have been supplemented by new archaeological discoveries and by historical, scientific and physiological research over the past fifteen years. For this second edition, the text has been recast and a number of substantive changes have been made. In addition, there is an entirely new chapter that describes the trials of Olympias in detail, reports the performance figures, and outlines the changes desirable in any second reconstruction. There are nineteen new illustrations, including eleven photographs of Olympias at sea demonstrating features of the design that could be represented only by drawings in the first edition.

Genres: Ancient History, Nonfiction, History, Maritime

348 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1986

About the author

John Sinclair Morrison (1913 - 2000) - see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Sin...

Reviews

[Daniel Cicero · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very clear, detailed and fascinating book about the reconstruction of an Athenian Trireme (Trieres). The first half of the book covers the archeological, literary and iconographic evidence for the design and operation of the ship. The authors used that evidence to write a specification for a shipyard to actually build one. In itself, that's an amazing achievement.

The second half of the book discusses the construction and performance of the ship under oar and sail. I found this section really engaging. What can be gleaned from the ancient sources runs up on the rocks and shoals of physics, materials, engineering and human physiology. As any good experiment does, the reconstructed ship proved that a three-tiered galley with one man per oar, with all oars of the same length, was possible. At the same time, it brought to light areas where the design might be improved, such as the canting of the seats to develop more power from the oars. These are things probably known to the ancient Greeks, but lost to us, which must be rediscovered through reconstructions like this.

[Budge Burgess · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating piece, two histories in one - the history of the building of a Greek trieres (commonly known as a trireme), researching its likely structure and construction, working from archaeological sources, modelling options, working out the practicalities. A detective story in its own right.
And then the building of a real trieres, courtesy of the Greek Navy, and its trials in Mediterranean waters.
Did I say two histories. Well, make that three - there's a stimulating look at the role of the trieres and similar oared vessels in the civilisations of the Mediterranean world.
Three histories, and maybe you'll end up wanting to go see a trieres in action, maybe even dream of getting a chance to crew one.
Excellent, stimulating read.

[Mae · Rating 4 out of 5]

this was fucking boring in writing but really interesting in content. me and mr horn are going to build a trireme

[Joe White · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a reference type book concerning the recreation of an actual rowed trireme. This is always close at hand for review.