"Athenian Trieres" Topic

I'm looking to build a Athenian navy from the Peloponnesian Wars. I've read that Athens used the fast trireme. Would a fast trireme be the earlier Aphract type Langton sells or would it be the later Aphract type that they sell? I can provide pics, but a simple search you can see examples.

Athenian triremes were fully decked-over, but did not have the reinforced prows the Corinthians introduced during the course of the war. They also carried fairly small marine contingents. Combined, that's why they were 'fast' (which is a modern categorisation).

I have no idea what that means in terms of Langton's range (you might be better off asking him): there is only fragmentary evidence to go on, so there is no definitive answer to what an Athenian trireme looked like – except we can be pretty sure they were fully decked over, open sided (at least for the upper deck), and had only a small contingent of marines.

Phil

The current theory – reflected in the construction of the Olympias – is that the Athenian fast Triere was fully planked over but much of it was a fairly light deck.

This means that the space on 'deck' for fighting troops wasn't much greater than that of an undecked vessel but the rowers were protected against missiles.

The hull does not need to be as strong or have weight higher up so the underwater hull area is lower and the vessel is more stable. This makes the vessel faster and more maneouvrable.

Bear in mind also that the Athenian crews were probably amongst the best trained in the Ancient world – at least for a short period of time.