The “Age of the Trireme” parallels Greece’s Hellenic era (c.500-c.338 BCE), and its use as the primary capital ship of both Greece and the major naval powers of the Mediterranean corresponds to this roughly 170 year time span.  Although most closely associated with Athens, nearly all Greek city states or poleis with access to the sea constructed triremes to defend local waters and to participate in allied naval engagements, first against the invading Persians during the Persian Wars (499-449 BCE) at the beginning of the century, and later in the two Greek civil wars, the First Peloponnesian War (460-445 BCE) and the more infamous Second or “Great” Peloponnesian War (431-404 BCE). Typically, a Greek trireme was a shallow-keeled longboat around 120 feet long, twenty feet wide, and displaced just over forty tons empty. It was manned by a crew of 200, including 170 oarsmen, eighty-five a side, arranged in three tiers (“tri” meaning three and “remes” meaning banks of oars) and thirty officers and deck hands.  Additionally, a trireme had a complement of archers and marine hoplite heavy infantry on board, a number that could be as many as forty warfighters, making the trireme an excellent seaborne predator because of the bronze ram affixed to its prow and a ship-to-ship assault vessel and beach landing craft, depending on tactical circumstances.

TRIREME TACTICS DURING THE PERSIAN WARS (499-469 BCE)

This era began as with the epic naval confrontation between the Achaemenid Persian Empire and the free Greek city-states in the Persian Wars. In fact, a classical form of “gunboat diplomacy” sparked the conflict with Persia when Athens sent twenty triremes in 498 BCE to assist a Greek uprising on the Ionian coast of Anatolia. The Greeks quickly understood they stood little chance of defeating the Persian armies deployed to the region in 497 BCE and prosecuted a naval campaign to secure Cyprus and confine the Persian’s Phoenician fleet to the southern Mediterranean. Here, the Ionians defeated the Phoenician fleet, but the Cyprian Greeks were routed by the Persian army and the island capitulated to the Persians in 496 BCE.  Farther north the Persians regained control of the Bosporus and Hellespont (modern Dardanelles), strategic waterways lost during the rebellion. Methodically, the Persians used a combined land and sea campaign to slowly retake the Ionian coastline with the Persian army holding the coast near Miletus, a large fleet recruited from Egypt, Phoenicia, and Cyprus, advanced to harbors controlled by the army and engaged the Ionian fleet of 353 triremes near the island of Lade off the coast of Miletus. The Persian victory at sea was decisive.  After the last rebel stronghold of Miletus fell in 494 BCE, the angry ruler of Persia, Great King Darius I (r.522-486 BCE) turned his attention to Athens, the wealthiest and strongest of the Greek thalassocracies, and launched his seaborne “Punitive Expedition” against the city-state in 480 BCE.  However, the Athenians met the Persians as they were creating a beachhead in the bay of Marathon, and decisively defeated the Allied Persian army on the beaches, forcing a hasty withdrawal.  Embarrassed, Darius immediately prepared a return expedition to conquer the entire Greek mainland, but his death in 486 BCE left the planning of the larger “Persian Expedition” to his son Xerxes (r.486-465 BCE), who attempted to fulfill his father’s dream of retribution by launching an invasion of Greece with between 80,000 and 250,000 troops and support personnel, supported by a navy of roughly 600 ships.

The Kuklos Maneuver: The Battle of Artemisium, 480 BCE

During the decade between Darius’ loss at Marathon and the Xerxes’ invasion of Europe, the Greeks prepared for the possibility of Persian retribution. Under their influential politician and general (strategos) Themistocles (c.524-460 BCE) Athens wisely used the proceeds from newly found silver finance the building of a large navy. This navy would prove to be indispensable in the naval engagements of Artemisium and Salamis in August and September 480 BCE. As the commanders of the Panhellenic allied fleet gathering at the Strait of Artemisium, Spartan King Leonidas (r.489-480 BCE) and his allies performed a heroic delaying action at the Pass of Thermopylae. The earlier Isthmus of Corinth accord gave overall command to the inexperienced Spartan Eurybiades, with the very experienced Athenian Themistocles and Corinthian Adeimantus as advisors, despite most of the ships coming from Athens and Corinth. The Greek flotilla consisted of 280 ships, made up overwhelmingly of newly built triremes (271 warships) and older pentekontors (nine ships).  In late summer, the Greek fleet sailed separately from Athens, Corinth, and bases in the Peloponnesus to the northern tip of the long island of Euboea off the eastern coast of the Greek mainland, arriving in the protected waters of Cape Artemisium where they beached their ships and waited for the Persian fleet shadowing the invasion army to appear. Two weeks passed before an advanced reconnaissance force of ten Phoenician triremes met a Greek naval patrol.  Not knowing whether this was the van of the fleet or the entire fleet itself, the decision was made to withdraw southward along the eastern coast of Euboea and the Greek mainland to the protected harbor of Chalcis. Ten days later, the main Persian flotilla approached the precarious waters known as the Gap of Sciathos northeast of Thermopylae but was caught in a dangerous late-summer storm.  A great many Persian ships were crushed against the rocks, destroying perhaps a third of the entire invading fleet. News of the wrath of Poseidon reached Themistocles and his allies safely tucked away at Chalcis, and the order was given to return to Cape Artemisium to support Leonidas and the allied army holding Thermopylae against overwhelming odds.  Both the land battle of Thermopylae and the sea battle of Artemisium took place over the same three day span in August. 

Reconnaissance informed the Greek admirals the Persians had peeled away 200 warships from the main fleet south along the coast of Euboea to cut off the Greek retreat, somewhat evening the odds for an open sea engagement.  Seizing the opportunity, the allied Greek fleet rowed towards the Persians, who in turn came about to meet the advancing triremes.  The Greek historian Herodotus (484-425 BCE) tells us that the Greeks quickly adopted the kuklos defensive maneuver to mitigate the Persian’s numerical superiority before springing a surprise attack:

“When the Hellenes [Greeks] got the signal.  The first thing they did was turn the prows of their ships outward to face the barbarians, drawing their sterns close together toward a central point.  At the second signal, they apply themselves to the work at hand, though hemmed in within a confined space and facing the enemy head-on.  In the battle that ensued they took thirty of the barbarians’ ships.”

Modern scholars believe the kuklos formation utilized was probably a crescent rather than a full circle because of the size of the Greek fleet, but the maneuver succeeded in first protecting the allied ships as the Persians approached, before surging forward and catching the enemy off guard in a flurry of well executed oar strokes.  The two fleets withdrew to safe harbor as the sun set and a second storm descended upon the island, striking the Persian detachment sailing southward and pushing the ships off course and, according to Herodotus, into the rocky coast of the “Hollows of Euboea.” On the second day, both fleets made repairs as a reinforcing squadron of fifty-three Athenian triremes arrived at the harbor of Artemisium.  Itching for a fight, a Greek detachment went to sea late in the afternoon and fell upon a squadron of Cilician ships either on patrol, or limping back to the main Persian fleet, survivors of the wrecked detachment sent southward the previous day.

Having completed repairs and fearful of the wrath of Xerxes after so many setbacks, the Persian fleet drew up for battle and advanced towards the Greek anchorage at Artemisium, approaching line abeam in a long crescent (probably in two lines) attempting a periplous maneuver.  Fearing this outflanking maneuver, the Greek flotilla rowed out to meet the enemy.  Precise details of how the Greeks engaged are unknown to us, although it is possible the Greeks attempted a diekplous maneuver to push through the approaching formations. However, Herodotus states that:

“In this fight, the two sides turn out to be just about an even match for each other.  For Xerxes’ forces failed by reason of their own size and numbers; their ships chaotically crashed into one another and were wrecked.  Nevertheless, they held out and would not give way, since they thought it would be terrible to be put to flight by such a small force. Many Hellene [Greek] ships and men were lost there, but many more of the barbarians, ships and men were destroyed.  The fight continued until the two sides broke off the engagement and parted from each other.”

Both navies suffered heavy losses. Herodotus tells us the Egyptian contingent distinguished itself as the bravest of Xerxes’ ships, while the Athenians were the best of the Greeks. However, he also tells us the Athenians lost or damaged half of their fleet. The Greeks quickly realized that they had a better chance at victory against the superior Persian numbers in narrower waters. That evening after news of the fall of Thermopylae reached them, the Greek fleet withdrew down the Euboic Channel and took up position in the more favorable narrow straits of Salamis, pulling their ships from the water to dry out in anticipation for the upcoming naval battle.

Photo One: Map showing the Greek world during the Greco-Persian Wars (ca. 500–479 BCE). Source: Wikipedia. In the Public Domain.

Photo Two: Model of a Greek trireme Deutsches Museum, Munich, Germany. Source: Wikimedia. In the Public Domain.

Photo Three: Map of the Battle of Salamis, 480 BCE. Source: Wikipedia. In the Public Domain.

The Diekplous Maneuver: The Battle of Salamis, 480 BCE

The battle of Salamis was one of the largest naval engagements in the classical era, and also one of the most decisive both politically and militarily.  After the Persian victory at Thermopylae, the invading host marched southward, destroying Greek cities along the way towards their primary target, the city of Athens.  Athens and its harbor town of Piraeus were evacuated, with only a small number of citizens staying within the city walls.  The Persians reached the city in September, looting and razing the city in retribution for Athenian assistance to the Ionian Greeks and the Athenian victory at Marathon decade earlier.  The Persians then took much of their allied fleet out of the water at Piraeus to dry out before the next engagement, a necessary tactic for all wooden warships in the classical world.  Further west, the allied Greek army prepared their defenses at the Isthmus of Corinth, destroying the main road south and building a defensive wall at this important strategic chokepoint separating the mainland from the Peloponnesus Peninsula.  However, the next defensive stance would be a naval battle for control of the Gulf of Salamis, a necessary precursor for the land invasion of the Peloponnesus.

The Greek allies argued for different naval strategies. The Corinthian naval commander Adeimantus wanted to use their Greek fleet to enforce a blockade to assist the land forces gathered at the isthmus, while Themistocles wanted to use the Greek triremes in an offensive in the Strait of Salamis, narrow waters very familiar to the Greeks and less so to the invading Persian fleet. The exact number of ships in the Persian fleet is not known.  The invading flotilla was divided into different missions, with many of the vessels shadowing the invading army offshore to provide logistical support, while others patrolled the numerous straits between Greek islands as a naval cordon for the advancing fleet. By the time of Salamis, some of these vessels were left to guard newly captured ports, while others were lost in storms (especially at Magnesia) and in the battle of Artemisium a month earlier. Our chief source for this sea battle, Herodotus, states the Persian fleet had approximately 1,200 ships compared to the combined Greek force of only 310 triremes.  However, the main fleet that sailed to Salamis was much smaller, due to both storm damage and protecting the lines of communication back to Anatolia.  Modern scholars estimate a fleet of approximately 500 Persian triremes faced the Greeks at Salamis.  The Persians would have also had numerous smaller ships such as biremes, pentekonters (50 oars) and trikonters (30 oars) but Herodotus' stated figure of 3,000 (most likely including ships of all types) seems exaggerated.  Whatever the actual size of the Persian fleet, it was large enough to bottle up both the eastern and western entrances to the Strait of Salamis, as well as threaten the Greek allied army at the Isthmus of Corinth.

The battle of Salamis took place on either the 26 or 27 of September, with numerous classical historians weighing in on the battle, including Herodotus, Thucydides, Diodorus Siculus, and Plutarch. Herodotus describes some subterfuge by Themistocles, specifically the sending of messages to Xerxes, intimating the fragile Greek alliance was breaking up and the fleet was preparing to retreat.  Seizing the opportunity, Xerxes ordered the flotilla into the water to patrol off the coast of Salamis, sending the Egyptian contingent Greek fleet’s western exit.  Modern historians are unsure whether Themistocles’ ruse was designed to trick the Persian fleet into the narrow straits or force the Greek allies to stay and fight rather than retreat to the isthmus.  Either way, the result was the same, and an impatient Xerxes ordered the main Persian fleet into the eastern entrance of a narrow strait that mitigated the Persians numerical superiority.  Based on the topography of the area, the two fleets most likely aligned along an oblique east-west axis with the Persians close to the mainland coastline (where Persian archers waited to harass Greeks ships) and the Greeks staying closer to the island of Salamis, where Athenian refugees first watched the burning of their city and now watched the Greek fleet assemble below in the strait.  The Greeks formed up in two lines, with the Spartans holding the right flank in the Athenians holding the left flank across a frontage of perhaps 130 triremes along a 1.8 mile curve. The Greek second line consisted of triremes from the island power of nearby Aegina, along with a reserve of Athenian warships.  The Corinthians had the important role of guarding the western approach to the Strait of Salamis to block the Egyptian contingent from entering the fray.  Interestingly, the western departure of the Corinthian contingent may have emboldened Xerxes, now sitting on a golden throne on the northern shore of the straits, to signal the attack, believing the withdrawing Corinthians were evidence of a disintegrating Greek alliance. On the approaching Persian lines, the Phoenicians faced the Athenians and the Ionians rowed up against the Spartans in a line perhaps 150 triremes line abeam, with other allied warships deployed in the center and behind in two additional lines.

 The precise details of the battle are somewhat nebulous.  Most likely, the Greeks utilized excellent seamanship and timing in order to initially outnumber the leading or right wing Persian squadrons and were able to cut them off and drive them ashore before turning on the left wing. Athenians successfully engage the advancing Phoenicians, killing the brother of Xerxes and leaving the Phoenician squadrons leaderless. Herodotus tells us that the first line of the Persian ships were pushed back by the Greeks, fouling the advancing second and third lines:

“Most of their fleet was destroyed when the ships in the lead turned to flee, because those deployed behind them were trying to sail past so as to perform some spectacular feat before the king, and they collided with the leading ships from their own side who were in the fight.”

Further right, the Greek center successfully split the approaching Persian fleet in two, apparently successfully executing the diekplous (“sailing though”) maneuver. The Persians continue to advance; however, the Greek flotilla held discipline, drawing the large Persian fleet into an ever tightening confine. As ships began to ram one another, the superior arms, armor, and fighting skills of Greek hoplite marines became quickly apparent against their lighter armed Asian counterparts. The two fighting fleets became entangled as the Corinthian contingent swung about and returned to the battle, ramming enemy vessels broadside.  As enemy decks were cleared by Greek hoplites javelineers, and archers, Persian soldiers and sailors jumped into the water, to either drown or make their way towards the safety of the friendly northern shore or the southern shore of Salamis island, where they were either murdered or captured.  Although exact casualty numbers are unknown, modern historians estimate the Greeks lost approximately forty triremes, while the Persians lost between 200 and 300 ships.  If the higher estimate is believed, Persian casualties were near 50,000, making the battle of Salamis, one of the deadliest naval battles in history.  The Greek victory at Salamis scattered the Persian fleet, forcing Xerxes to withdrawal the majority of his land and naval invasion force back to Anatolia.  However, he left a sizable army in Greece to winter before the campaigning season of 479 BCE, giving the Greek poleis time to prepare.  That year would be famous for a Greek land victory at Plataea and a naval victory on the western coast of Turkey at Mycale, ending the threat of another Persian expedition against the Greek mainland.

Shore Assault: The Battle of Mycale, 479 BCE

The month of August 479 BCE proved decisive in the Persian Wars on land and on sea. The Greek city-states launched a joint force offensive against the Persian forces in Asia commanded by the Spartan king Leotychides and the Athenian General Xanthippus, Themistocles’ successor. After their defeat at Salamis, the remaining Persian fleet of between 200 and 300 ships sailed east to harbor at Samos, while the Greek allied flotilla of around 250 triremes also sailed east to assemble at the sacred island of Delos. Greek delegates from the island of Samos arrived and explained to the gathered admirals that Persian morale was low and their fleet in disarray. The delegation also explained the Greek Ionians would rebel again if they received military assistance in western Anatolia. Seeing an opportunity, the Spartan king ordered the allied fleet to Samos for a confrontation, only to find the Persian navy had retreated east to the Ionian coast, their numbers now reduced by the departing Phoenician squadrons. Making landfall on the beaches near Mount Mycale near the mouth of the Maeander River, the Persian commanders ordered the triremes pulled ashore and a wooden palisade built around the fleet, creating a makeshift fort on the beach.

Reaching Samos, the Greek fleet learned of the newly fortified Persian position and sailed just off the coast of the beached Persian fleet in an attempt to compel the enemy to abandon the palisades and fight a naval battle. Herodotus tells us that Leotychides ordered a ship to sail close enough to shore for a Greek herald to remind the Ionians (mostly Samians from Samos and Milesians from nearby Miletus) serving the Persians to “remember their freedom” when battle is joined, hoping to persuade defections among the Persian ranks. The call to arms did have an effect. The Persians stripped the Samians of their arms and armor and sent the Milesians out of the camp to guard the mountain passes. After relaying the message, the Greek navy beached their triremes about a mile and half away from the Persian camp, disembarking their heavily armed hoplite marines and sailors/rowers onto the beachhead. All told, the Greeks assembled an assault force of around 40,000 men, of which perhaps 10,000 were heavy infantry hoplites. The Persians fielded a much larger army, estimated to be close to 60,000, with a higher percentage of lighter armed and armored fighters among that total number. 

The Greeks formed up in two phalanxes, with the Athenians and Corinthians on the right near the sea, and the Spartans and their allies on the left, pushing through broken terrain in hopes of flanking the larger Persian host as it emerged from the palisades and formed for battle.  The uneven terrain slowed the Spartan phalanx’s march, and the Athenians and Corinthians met the enemy first, with Herodotus commenting on the moment of engagement:

“They charged forward and push their way through the wicker shields, falling upon the Persians in a mass.  The Persians received the attack and defended themselves for quite some time, but in the end, they began to flee within the wall.  The Athenians and Corinthians pursued them closely and rushed inside the wall with them.  Once the wall had been breached, all of the barbarians, except for the Persians lost their will to fight and attempted only to escape.” 

Herodotus also tells us that the any competition between the Athenians and the Spartans fueled this attack, with the Athenians wanting to secure victory before the Spartans arrived.  While the Greeks were fighting within the palisades, the Spartans arrived and flanked the camp, falling on the enemy as they attempted to escape. Herodotus also tells us that sometime during this point of the battle, the unarmed Samians and Milesians guarding the passes turned on their Asian masters, and also entered the fray.  Casualty figures are not given for the Greeks, however Diodorus Siculus states the Persians lost 40,000 men at the battle of Mycale, with the survivors making their way to the Persian provincial capital of Sardis.  After the Spartans arrived, the Greeks looted the Persian camp and destroyed the beached ships. More importantly, the Persian army left by Xerxes to menace the Greek mainland was defeated at the battle of Plataea, either on the same day or very near the same day as the victory at Mycale. Their work done; the Greek fleet returned to the safety of Samos before sailing north to the Hellespont to destroy the pontoon bridges Xenophon had used to cross from Asia to Europe.  However, they found the pontoon bridges already dismantled.  In just two short years, Athens would devise a collective security arrangement called the Delian League (477-401 BCE) to police the Aegean and keep the Persian fleets at bay. The Ionian Greeks would join this alliance, however. Sparta and its Peloponnesian League would not, leading to growing frictions and ultimately to Greek civil wars.

Photo Four: A schematic view of what the circular kuklos formation would have looked like from above.

Photo Five: The Athlit Ram, on display in Israel's National Maritime Museum. Haifa.

Photo Six: Alliances at the start of the Second Peloponnesian War, c.431 BCE. Source: Wikimedia. In the Public Domain.

TRIREME TACTICS DURING THE PELOPONNESIAN WARS (460-404 BCE)

Like later maritime powers like the British Empire and the modern United States, Athens had the financial means to create a large professional navy, first to defend itself and its Greek allies from Persian expansion during the Persian Wars, and then secure its maritime empire through the creation of the Delian League. The Delian League formed in the winter of 478-477 BCE as a collective security arrangement to guard against a third Persian invasion of Greece and provide extra protections to the Greek city-states in the eastern Aegean and along the western coast of Anatolia. It was named after the league’s meeting place and treasury on the island of Delos in the central Aegean, the location of the important Temple to Apollo. Initially, each city-state had an equal vote in meetings held on Delos. Members were expected to give tribute to the treasury which was used to build and maintain the naval fleet led by Athens. An alternative to providing money was to give ships or materials (especially timber) and grain. The Delian League continued after the end of the Persian Wars with the proceeds from membership dues used to reconstruct Athens (sacked in 480 BC) out of marble. In 454 BCE, the governor of Athens, Pericles (r.461-429 BC) moved the treasury to Athens. At its height, the Athenian-led Delian League consisted of over 179 poleis which included perhaps two million Greeks, with the most remote colony some 250 miles from Athens (an eight day voyage from Athens). However, modern scholars also see the Delian League as instrument of Athenian imperialism. When members wanted to withdrawal, Athens attacked, tore down walls, seized fleets and forced tribute (Naxos in 470, Thasos in 465 BCE). The Delian League was used against Sparta and its Peloponnesian League during the First and Second (or “Great”) Peloponnesian wars.  During both of these Greek civil conflicts, the trireme continued to be the premier capital ship used by all combatants. 

Countering the Kyklos—the Phormian Manuever: The Battle of Rhium, 429 BCE

Two early naval battles during the Second or Great Peloponnesian War showcase the capabilities of the trireme as a weapon of war. These took place near the beginning of the conflict at Rhium and Naupactus in 429 BCE.  Both Peloponnesian wars essentially pitted a traditional land power, Sparta, against a sea power, Athens, although both city states and their allies were comfortable fighting in both domains. Sparta’s primary naval ally was Corinth, a long-time rival of Athens, and a participant in each of these battles against Athens. During the civil wars, triremes were not only warships capable of ramming, boarding actions and shore assaults, but also troop carriers in support of inland operations, although in this capacity their seaworthiness was greatly reduced due to the added weight.  In 429 BCE, the Spartans and their Peloponnesian allies were trying to control the Gulf of Corinth separating the Peloponnesus Peninsula from the Greek mainland. They launched an offensive from the coast of the northwestern Peloponnesus across the smaller Gulf of Patras against Athen’s allies on the Greek mainland. The Peloponnesian fleet numbered forty-seven triremes and an undetermined number of smaller vessels, but the ships were mostly configured as transports to ferry troops across the gulf.  Shadowing this invasion fleet were twenty Athenian triremes lead by the experienced Admiral Phormio, who, seeing the heavily encumbered enemy triremes, gave chase and caught the Peloponnesian fleet in open water. Recognizing their precarious position, the heavily laden vessels quickly formed up in a full circle, bronze sheathed bows outward, to execute the kuklos defensive maneuver.  In the center of the defensive circle, the Peloponnesians placed their five best crewed triremes and the smaller vessels in order to plug any gap that opened in the formation.  To counter this defensive disposition, Admiral Phormio executed a novel maneuver, whereby he ordered the better trained Athenian triremes to form up line ahead in column and expertly row around the circled Peloponnesian ships in an ever tightening circle, tempting the less experienced Peloponnesian vessels to break ranks and expose themselves to a ramming attack from a follow-on enemy trireme. Familiar with the local waters and winds, Phormio continued this naval tactic while waiting for an expected change in the weather to blow the encircled fleet into one another.  According to the Athenian general and historian Thucydides (c.460-c.398 BCE):

“When the wind came up, the enemy’s ships were now in a narrow space, and what with the wind and the small craft dashing against them, at once fell into confusion: ship fell afoul of ship, while the crews were pushing them off with poles, and by their shouting, swearing, and struggling with one another…. At this moment Phormio gave the signal, and the Athenians attacked.  Sinking first one of the commander’s ships, they then disabled all they came across….”

No longer able to defend themselves, the remaining Spartan and Corinthian ships fled quickly to friendly northern shore of the Peloponnesus. The Athenians gave chase and captured twelve ships.

Pursuit and Counterattack: The Battle of Naupactus, 429 BCE

 A second naval battle took place at Naupactus week later between the same belligerents.  With more Peloponnesian triremes and hoplites arriving, Phormio sent word for reinforcement to defend the northern shore of the Gulf of Corinth and the strategically important naval base at Naupactus on the waterway’s eastern coast. The fleets faced off at anchor across the strait from each other, twenty Athenian triremes at Antirrhium and now some seventy-seven Peloponnesian warships across the Gulf at Panormus.  Realizing that Athenian reinforcements were on the way, the Peloponnesian admiralty, led by the Spartan grand admiral or navarch Cnemus, initiated the operation, sailing eastward deeper into the Gulf of Corinth to threaten Naupactus, forcing the Athenian fleet to pursue into constricted waters which mitigated their superior seamanship. Phormio’s fleet hugged the northern shoreline at a slow pace, shadowed on land by Messenian hoplites marching along the coastal road in relief of Naupactus.  Across the Gulf to the south, the numerically superior Peloponnesian fleet was sailing in four lines parallel to the shore, a separate squadron of twenty well-trained triremes positioned on the right wing tasked to pursue any breakaway Athenian warships once the engagement began.  Outnumbering the enemy nearly 4 to 1, Cnemus ordered his fleet to turn northward against the Athenian column, successfully cutting off the trailing nine triremes and driving the warships ashore.  The remaining Athenian triremes successfully slipped around the Peloponnesian right wing and fled towards Naupactus, with one vessel lagging behind with the Peloponnesian fast squadron in hot pursuit.  The leading nine vessels reached the safety of the harbor, quickly swung about with rams facing the approaching pursuit squadron and waited for their lagging companion to reach the safety of the harbor.  In an exhibition of superior rowing skills, the last Athenian trireme sailed near a merchant ship anchored outside the harbor, and using the vessel to protect its flanks, executed a 270 degree turn and rammed the leading pursuer in the side, sinking it.  Once again, Thucydides describes the scene:

“An exploit so sudden and unexpected produced a panic among the Peloponnesians; and having fallen out of order in the excitement of victory, some of them dropped their oars and stopped their way in order to let the main body catch up – an unsafe thing to do, considering how near they were to the enemy’s prows….  Elated at this incident, the Athenians gave a cheer, and dashed at the enemy, who, embarrassed by their mistakes and the disorder in which they found themselves, only stood for an instant and then fled.  The Athenians followed on their heels, taking the six enemy vessels nearest to them, before recovering those of their own which had been disabled close inshore and taken in tow at the beginning of the action.”

Although not a great tactical victory on paper, the battle of Naupactus demonstrated the tactical capabilities of well-trained trireme crews under the command of experienced captains.  It was, however, an important strategic victory for the Athenians. The Peloponnesians retreated to Corinth under cover of darkness, leaving the Athenians in control of Naupactus and in position to dominate the gulf.

Amphibious Assault and Siege: The Sicilian Expedition, 415-413 BCE

The second phase of the Great Peloponnesian War was initiated by Alcibiades (c.450-404 BC), elected to the generalship in 420 BC. In 415 BC, he convinced the Athenians to attack Syracuse, a Sicilian city-state friendly to the Peloponnesian League. Alcibiades argued that its conquest would give the Athenians a strong source of support to continue a lengthy war against the Spartans.  But the Sicilian Expedition was ill fated. Alcibiades himself was removed from leadership of the expedition on a charge of profaning the religious mysteries before the expedition left Athens. Rather than return to Athens and stand trial, he fled to Sparta and advised them in how to defeat the Athenian expeditionary force. After arriving off the eastern coast of Sicily, the Athenian fleet occupied the harbor of Syracuse and landed its army. With sailors and allies, the entire Athenian expeditionary force surpassed 27,000 men. The attacking army began constructing a double encircling wall, the inner wall designed to hold in the besieged (contravallation), the outer wall to fend off any relief force (circumvallation), while the attackers held the ground between the two walls.  More Athenian troops landed in the spring of 414 BCE, and it seemed Syracuse was doomed.  But the commanding general pushed the construction of the walls so sluggishly that the Spartans were able to reinforce the garrison at Syracuse and build counter walls, squeezing the Athenians into the lower ground near the harbor. Additional reinforcements reached Syracuse from Corinth, Thebes and other Spartan allies. Syracuse was targeted by the Athenians because it was the most powerful state on Sicily and a key ally of Sparta. Syracuse responded slowly to the Athenian threat, and as a result was almost completely invested before the arrival of the Spartan general Gylippus galvanized its inhabitants into action. From that point forward, however, as the Athenians ceded the initiative to their newly energized opponents, the tide of the conflict shifted. A massive reinforcing armada from Athens briefly gave the Athenians the upper hand once more, but a disastrous failed assault on a strategic high point and several crippling naval defeats damaged the besiegers' fighting capacity and morale, and the Athenians were eventually forced to attempt a desperate overland escape from the city they had hoped to conquer. That last measure, too, failed, and nearly the entire expedition surrendered or was destroyed in the Sicilian interior.

The Sicilian Expedition debacle ushered in the final phase of the war, generally referred to either as the Decelean War, or the Ionian War, from 413 to 404 BCE. The Spartans occupied the region of Decelea (connecting the island of Euboea with Athens), effectively blocking the Athenians from accessing their silver mines. The Athenian military and its democracy were severely weakened, and an aristocratic oligarchy was temporarily established in Athens in 410-411 BC. In this phase, Sparta, now receiving support from Persia, supported rebellions in Athens' subject states in the Aegean Sea and Ionia, undermining Athens' empire, and, eventually, depriving the city of naval supremacy. Despite some military successes (Athenian naval victories over Sparta at Abydos in 411 BC over Persia at Cyzucus in 410 BC), the Athenians were not able to regain their naval superiority. In Sparta, the rise of a new admiral Lysander (d.395 BC) would seal the fate for the Athenian thalassocracy. Lysander defeated Alcibiades at the sea battle of Notium in 406 BC.  A year later, Lysander’s Spartan fleet surprised the Athenians at anchor off Aegospotami, in the Hellespont and defeated them decisively. The Athenians escaped with only twenty of 180 ships, and the Spartans put almost 4,000 captured Athenians to death. This fleet was nearly the entirety of Athens' naval power. Without a navy to protect its maritime interests, Athens was now at the mercy of the Spartan fleet.  Lysander sailed up to the Athenian port of Piraeus and blockaded it. Cut off from their Black Sea grain supply, the Athenians were unable to feed themselves and surrendered to the Spartans in 404 BC.  Athens’ walls were torn down, the Delian League was disbanded, and Sparta imposed a new government. 

Conclusion

The trireme proved itself as the premier capital ship during the fifth century BCE, an indispensable instrument of war increases defense against Persia, and during the two Greek civil wars that plagued the second half of the century.  It would continue to figure prominently in the fourth century BCE when the Greek world once again fell into a period of civil war known to history as the “Age of Switching Hegemonies” as Sparta, Corinth, and Thebes each took turns as the preeminent Aegean power.  This warship would also be utilized by the emerging northern power of Macedonia and would be instrumental in both the campaigns of Philip II (r.356-338 BCE) and his more famous son Alexander III of Macedon, known to history as Alexander the Great (r.338-323 BCE). But the trireme’s reign would be successfully challenged by larger warships beginning in the Hellenistic era (338-31 BCE), when naval strategy and tactics emphasized boarding and shore assault over precise rowing and maritime maneuverability. These larger and taller “titans of the sea” were polyreme warships (quadriremes, quinqueremes, and larger), employed large compliments of marines and even ship mounted ballistae and catapults ship-to-ship and ship-to-shore attacks, ending the trireme’s nearly two century dominance of the Aegean.

Suggested Readings:

Primary Sources

Strassler, Robert B. ed. The Landmark Herodotus: The Histories. Translated by Andrea L. Purvis. Anchor, 2009.

Strassler, Robert B., ed. The Landmark Thucydides.  Translated by Richard Crawley.  Free Press, 2008.

Secondary Sources

Casson, Lionel. The Ancient Mariners: Seafarers and Sea Fighters of the Mediterranean in Ancient Times, Second Edition. Princeton University Press, 1991.

Fields, Nic. Ancient Greek Warship, 500-322 BC. Osprey, 2007.

Kagan, Donald. New History of the Peloponnesian War. Cornell University Press, 2013.

Starr, Chester G. The Influence of Sea Power on Ancient History. Oxford University Press, 1989.