Daily Life of the Ancient Greeks

The Public Sphere 249
Graphic reconstruction of fortification wall. From
F. Krischnen, Die Befestigungen von Herakleia am
Latmos (Berlin, 1922), Miletus III/2.
and its width a mere 15 feet, giving it a ratio of nine to one. It provided
accommodation for 170 rowers, with 10 hoplites, 4 archers,
and 16 crew members, making a complement of 200. Its objective
was to ram the enemy by means of an iron ram mounted on its
prow. It is estimated that a trireme could maintain an average speed
of about eight knots and ram at twelve knots. In the Hellenistic
Period, much larger warships, such as quadriremes (four-bankers)
and quinqueremes (five-bankers), became common throughout the
Greek world.
The headquarters of Athens’s navy was in the Piraeus, which
comprises three harbors. The navy occupied the southern shore of
the Grand Harbor in the Piraeus and had exclusive use of the two
other ports, Zea and Mounychia. The discovery of a circuit wall
marking off the naval zone from the rest of the port suggests that