The Trieres (or Trireme) Michael Lahanas Αρχαία Ελληνική Ναυσιπλοΐα - Πολεμικά πλοία : Τριήρης

Griechische Waffentechnologie: Kriegsschiffe

Part 2

The Crew

Crew	No.	Comments
Captain	1	The Trierarch, Usual a political appointee who knew very little about naval warfare
Archers	4
Spearmen	14
Officers,highly trained sailors	25	A carpenter, sail-crew, helmsman, piper. The actual command of the ship usually fell to the "kybernetes", or helmsmen (pedaliouchos, "stearing-oar holder"). Next came the "proreus", the lookout who was in charge of the foredeck The lowest ranked officer on a trireme was the pentecontarchos who was in charge of wages and the administrative duties of running a ship of war, 1 keleustes and 1 trieraules who with their voice and a musical instrument, the aulos, respectively provided the rhythm to synchronise the rowers. On each side a toicharchos superintendent the rowers.
Rowers	170-174	Majority of the crew arranged in three rows, poor Greek citizens of the city-state or hired rowers from elsewhere in Greece. Aristophanes mentions the olfactory disadvantages of being on bottom tier during a long voyage. 62 thranites, 58 zeugites, 54 thalamites. Rowers could not see very much from their place. They were just the “engine” of the ship.

These numbers are an estimation (some other sources say 170 rowers), for example an old Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities , eds. William Smith, LLD, William Wayte, G. E. Marindin provides as a crew 17 sailors, 1 trierarch, 2 toicharchoi, 1 keleustes , 1 trieraules, 1 eschareus and 10 epibatae (Their number dependends on the mission)

Other specialists

• elaiochreistes, "oil anointer", maybe in charge of leathern gear
  
• kopodetes, "oar binder", in charge of oar straps
  
• ergazomenoi en prymne, "workers in the stern" and ergazomenoi en prora "workers in the prow" for handling sails and lines

Pay for the rowers was 1 drachma a day (increased in 415 BC). Before it was 2 oboloi but at war time it was more. Athens undertook many small military expeditions just to keep the oarsmen fit, although as far as skill was concerned "the majority can row as soon as they get aboard since they have practised all through their life" (The "Old Oligarch").

In 431 BC, the service of 200 triremes for six months cost 800 talents or 4.8 million drachmae. In 483-410 BC Athens commissioned 1,500 triremes at a cost of 15,000 talents or 90 million drachmae. , in his comedy play The Frogs, refers to the common habit of the upper banks of oarsmen "farting in the face of the thalamite."

PERSEUS

Prow of Trireme. (From Greek terra-cotta vase in British Museum.)

Xenophon Anabasis

It is a long day's journey for a trireme to row from Byzantium to Heracleia

Aristotle, Metaphysics , logic and triremes

Again, if all contradictory predications of the same subject at the same time are true, clearly all things will be one. For if it is equally possible either to affirm or deny anything of anything, the same thing will be a trireme and a wall and a man; which is what necessarily follows for those who hold the theory of Protagoras. For if anyone thinks that a man is not a trireme, he is clearly not a trireme; and so he also is a trireme if the contradictory statement is true and the result is the dictum of Anaxagoras, "all things mixed together" ; so that nothing truly exists. It seems, then, that they are speaking of the Indeterminate; and while they think that they are speaking of what exists, they are really speaking of what does not; for the Indeterminate is that which exists potentially but not actually.But indeed they must admit the affirmation or negation of any predicate of any subject, for it is absurd that in the case of each term its own negation should be true, and the negation of some other term which is not true of it should not be true. I mean, e.g., that if it is true to say that a man is not a man, it is obviously also true to say that he is or is not a trireme.Then if the affirmation is true, so must the negation be true; but if the affirmation is not true the negation will be even truer than the negation of the original term itself

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