It is, however, in the Attic trireme such as composed the fleets of Phormio and Conon that historical interest has centred, and though quinqueremes were commonly in use in the second and third centuries, B.C., and even still larger rates of war vessels constructed till they were _inhabilis prope magnitudinis_, unwieldy leviathans, such as the sixteen-banked flagship of Demetrius Poliorcetes, yet the interest in the trireme has never failed, and the splendour of its achievements has insured to it an attention on the part of the learned which no other class of vessel has been able to attract to itself. The problem of construction of the trireme, and of the method of its propulsion, has exercised the ingenuity of scholars ever since the revival of letters. It has a literature of its own, and it may fairly be said that if the enigma has not been solved, it is not for want of industry or acumen.
One point we may as well make clear at once, viz., that whatever was the vessel the ancients invariably went upon the principle, _One man, one oar_. Volumes have been wasted in attempts to prove that the arrangement of the ancient galleys with respect to propulsion were identical with, or very similar to, those of the mediæval galleys of Genoa or Venice. But the mediæval galleys were essentially _monocrota_, or one-banked vessels, though they may have been double-banked or treble-banked in the sense that two or three men were employed upon one oar.
[Illustration: BAS-RELIEF OF ANCIENT GREEK ROWING BOAT.]
Another distinction that it is necessary to note with reference to the ancient galleys is that they were called _Aphract_ or _Kataphract_ according as the upper tier of rowers was unprotected and exposed to view, or fenced in by a bulwark stout enough to protect them from the enemy's missiles. The system of side planking is observable as already adopted in some of the Egyptian vessels, though of the Greeks the Thasians are credited with the invention.
In the year 1834, during the process of excavating some ground for new public buildings in the Piræus near Athens, some engraved stone slabs were found built up in a low wall which had been uncovered. These were happily preserved and deciphered, and were found to be records of the dockyard authorities of the Athenian admiralty in the second and third centuries before Christ. Many interesting details were thus brought to light which were set in order by the illustrious scholar Boeckh in his volume entitled 'Urkunden über das Seewesen des attischen Staates.' His pupil Dr. Graser has carried on his researches by the examination of innumerable coins, vases, etc., and has rescued the subject from much of the obscurity which enveloped it. The following description of the trireme, based upon his labours, is quoted, by permission, from the new edition of the 'Encyclopædia Britannica,' vol. xxi. pp. 806, 807.