TRIREME (Lat. trirmis, galley with three banks of oars, from tres, three remus, oar). In ancient times, a galley with three banks of oars; the common form of the ancient ship of war in the fifth and fourth centuries B.C. The credit of the invention was given •to the Corin thians, who were said to have used triremes in their war with Coreyra in the seventh century B.C. The details of the structure of the Athenian trireme are still uncertain, as the statements of the ancient writers leave many points obscure, and the testimony of works of art is likewise full of uncertainties. It seems clear that the banks of oars were arranged one above the other, though not perpendicularly, that there was only one man to an oar, and that all the oars eould be, and in battle were, used at the same time. For ordinary purposes the crew was, of course, divided into watches. The ancient trireme was of light draught, and could be easily hauled on shore, so that a high freeboard seems improbable, for reasons of stability; while the difficulty of keeping an effective stroke with oars of widely different lengths also speaks against any such mode of construction. The trireme was provided with a mainmast which carried a large square sail, that was lowered with its yard, or if pos sible left on shore, before ping into action. In the latter case the mast also was nnstepped and laid along the deck. There was also a small. foremast, which seems to have projected some what like a bowsprit and likewise carried a square sail. The Attic trireme of the fourth cen tury carried 170 oars, but probably not over 150 were actually used, the rest being a reserve equipment. Officers, sailors, and ten or twelve hoplites brought the total crew up to about 200 men. The ship was steered by large paddles on either side of the stern, connected inboard so that they could be handled by a single man. The
time was given to the rowers by a special officer, the keleustes. The lowest rank of rowers were called thalawitm, the second zeugitw, and the uppermost thranitw, and these received the highest pay, as handling the lorigest oars. In the early battles, such as Salamis, the chief endeavor was to lay the ships aboard and fight from the decks, trusting little to manoeuvring, in which the Greeks seem to have felt themselves inferior. Later the Athenians developed a high degree of skill in handling their long, light ves sels, and preferred to regard the trireme as the weapon, and to aim at disabling or sinking the enemy by the use of the ram, which projected at the water line or below. The attack was aimed at the quarter or side of the hostile ship, and to meet bows on was held unskillful and even dangerous, as the bow was not strongly built. Against the Carthaginians the Romans used boarding bridges in order to neutralize the sea manship of their opponents, and bring about a having the same ratio. If the arc is to be tri sected the line corresponding to BA is tri seeted. The trisection of an angle is also accom plished by means of the conchoid (q.v.) of Ni comedes (B.C. 180). If AOB in the figure is conflict of soldiers. Consult: Graser, De Veteran. Re Narali (Berlin, 1864), and in Philologus, Spill. Bd. iii.; Serre, Les marines de guerre de l'antiquité et du magen-dge (Paris, 1885, 1891) ; Breusing, Die Nautik der Allen (Bremen, 1886), and Die bosun!' des Trierc»riitarls (11remen, 1889) ; AS3111R1111_, s. v. "Seewesen," iii Eau meister's des klassischen Altertunis (Munich, 1889) ; Luebeck, Des Scemescn der aricehen and Mime). (11amburg, 1890, 1891) ; C. Torr, Ancient Ships (Cambridge, 1894).