Mass/weight of a triere

[Jona Lendering]

Jona Lendering

I think that smashing the oars is sufficient to disable an opponent, so ramming is not really necessary. It is interesting to see that the first naval battle Thucydides describes, Sybota, is, as he calls it, "old fashioned", i.e., without ramming.

I don’t know that Thucydides meant to imply no ramming, but rather just the opposite. The ‘new’ or ‘Athenian’ fashion was essentially very nearly exclusively one of ramming.

It is possible that we misunderstand eachother. Thucydides means that Sybota was an old, non-ramming battle; he is explicit that diekplus was impossible and describes it as an infantry battle with spearmen, archers, hoplites, et cetera. It is only at the end of the battle, when Athenians do actually get involved (something they had avoided), that ramming occurs.