Giants of the sea during the hellenistic period

According to data that we have by the very few shipyards found in sea, John Morrison has suggested that the length of the athenian trireme was 37 meters. Olympias, a trireme that was constructed in Greece in 1987, was designed with the same length and 5-4,5 meters width.

The three rows of the oars corresponed to 170 oarsmen. During the years that passed, the war shipbuilding evolved. From the era of Alexander the Great and his successors, on the 1st, 2nd and 3rd century BC, even bigger ships appear. We don't have any evidences of these ships. We only know them from texts of ancient writers. "Syrakoysia", the giant warship of Ieron, oppressor of Syracouses, was so big that only two ports could accept it; The Syracouses and Alexandreia.

There has never been found a shipwreck of such a giant ship and our suspicions come from some carved depictions, probably from mariners, that show big ships with coutless cars. We can take as example the "ακιδογραφήματα" of Delos (we can count up to 80 oars carved in the one side). Another sign is big works of sculpture, like the warship that was made by Pythokritos and which adorned the stone of Acropolis of Lindos ( it is dated around 200 BC ). Finally, (μολύβδινα τμήματα σύνθετων αγκύρων τεραστίου βάρους και όγκου) show that ships of 50-60 meters length, or more, were not something unusual.