Summary of ancient Greek Triremes
Ancient Greek ships had the two purposes of war and trading. Greece has a very rich tradition in maritime trade. Trade and war on seas in ships was important to Ancient Greece because they needed things that they couldn’t get in Greece, such as crops since they didn’t have good farmland, and because they had to defend themselves. The ancient Greeks ships they developed helped and would change the Greeks lifestyle because the ships were new ways of trading and naval defense for wars, and the trading was easier because you wouldn't have to travel on land to trade with other civilizations, you could just get in a boat with your trading items and trade with the other people. A unique fact about these ancient Greek ships are that the ancient Greeks ships and trade owners controlled about 16% of the world’s trading of their time. There are no Greek gods for ships, but there is the god Poseidon, who is the god of the waters and seas. Before a voyage, the sailors prayed to the sea god Poseidon, for a safe journey. Today ships are still very important for the military, because giant US airplane carriers are like small cities, and often they are compared with the small triremes showing the advance in technology. Greek warships had oars as well as sails. The largest warships had three banks of oars and were called triremes. A trireme needed 170 men to row it - one man to each oar. It had a long narrow deck that soldiers could run along and fight from. The oarsmen sat underneath the deck.