Greek Trireme's Important Role In Ancient Greek Culture

The Greek Trireme warship played a very important role in the ancient Greek culture. It shaped the Athenian Empire and allowed the rise of Greek power and naval warfare. The ancient Greek ship called the trireme was the largest warship. The designers started working on it by attempting to build a boat that would do better on the seas for longer distances and in storms. The boats before the Trireme were not built very well and could not get very big or hold a lot of cargo. The Triremes were the first ships to be able to stay out in the oceans. This gave the people of Greece a way to explore more and trade farther distances away. If people traveled through the sea it was faster than traveling through the land. Historians think that the trireme was first built in Phonetia. It was much bigger, stronger
and could hold more men and carry more cargo than the boats that were built before it. It also was stronger for military purposes, by including the arsenal and not the soldiers who had to do the fighting. The whole boat was made stronger by bracing and framing from the inside and the ram was also made stronger by being wrapped with bronze. The biggest part of the new design was adding a third row of ores. This gave the ram much more power but the rowers had to have a lot of skill to use it right. The rowers had to have a way to all row at the same time and they thought this was done by chants or a way to keep rowing time for all of the rowers. This is talked about in the play Frogs, that was written by Aristophanes. He showed a scene where Dionysus is asking how can he row when he is not an oarsmen. The person in the boat tells him that he will hear a lovely timing song and he just has to row with it. This shows a reference to how the oarsman must have kept their rowing all together. The trireme stayed the same over 200 years. It was the main ship that the Greek Military used from 600BC - 400BC. It was also reported to be the ship that pirates preferred to use. Life at the time the trireme was used was hard. There were many battles to defend their city states from being taken over by others. The land around Athens was not good for growing food because of the infertile soil, so they had to depend on trade with other places. They used the sea to trade and Athens became a leader in trade for Greece. The people of Greece were important and were a part of the decisions made for the city states. This can be seen with the men who were the rowers on the trireme. They were citizens of Greek city states and not slaves like other places used for their military. Every citizen owned their own armor and weapons. Naval warfare was important and the city states were responsible for the maintenance of their war boats. The Greek city states was where the democracy we have today was started. The citizens helped in how things were handled and they were able to vote on them and their government. Religion was also important. We see this on the Greek ships which had an "all-seeing eye" painted on the front of their war ships. Their belief was that the magic eye would get them safely home. The sailors would also prey to the God Poseidon to keep them safe before they went out on the water. The trireme is important to ancient Greece because it made them strong in war.
By their use of the trireme it helped the Greeks win the war that they fought with the Persians. It was called the Battle of Salamin. The Oracle at Delphi told them that the people would be saved by a wooden wall. The messages weren’t always clear, Themistocles thought that “a wooden wall” meant a wooden wall of boats and wanted to fight and defend them with a wall of triremes. Other people thought the message meant they were suppose to build a wall around the acropolis and keep the army out and the people safe inside. The choice to build the wall of ships was what worked. The Persians broke down the wall around the acropolis and all of the people inside were killed. The wall of ships was what was able to defeat the Persians during the battle that happened in the gulf off of the shore. The triremes were lighter and did better in the waves. They were able to destroy most of the Persian boats by ramming them. This helped them win the battle. After the war the Greek city states all worked together and became strong enough to defend themselves and became a military
power. The trireme was chosen because of its strength and shows how smart the Greek people were and that is why we have so many Greek influences and ideas today come that from the Greek people. It was a huge ship and held 200 people on it, all of them had to work together to make it work. This shows how hard the rowers had to train and practice to become so good at it. The way that the trireme worked is so powerful. It is able to ram other ships without falling apart. Sometimes even splitting the other ships in half. It also had to ram them and then the rowers had to back up very fast to get away from the other boats. This shows how much skill they had. It is also incredible that they used the design of the trireme for over 200 years. It took 200 years for them to find something that worked better than the Trireme. This shows how well it was built and designed. Today we still show Greek influences in our daily life. This is shown in our democracy in the United States is based on how the Greek government was run. They had the right to vote, the right to debate, taxes, right to an education and to be a part of the military, similar to what we also have. Other influences that we still see today that came from the Greek people are literature, religion, language and architecture. The trireme shows their intelligence, skills and discipline. If the Greek people had been defeated by the Persians they would not have become so powerful and created so much of what we have and use today.