A trireme was a type of galley, a Hellenistic-era warship that was used by the ancient maritime civilizations of the Mediterranean, especially the Phoenicia

Phoenicia

Phoenicia , was an ancient civilization in Canaan which covered most of the western, coastal part of the Fertile Crescent. Several major Phoenician cities were built on the coastline of the Mediterranean. It was an enterprising maritime trading culture that spread across the Mediterranean from 1550...

ns, ancient Greeks

Ancient Greece

Ancient Greece is a civilization belonging to a period of Greek history that lasted from the Archaic period of the 8th to 6th centuries BC to the end of antiquity. Immediately following this period was the beginning of the Early Middle Ages and the Byzantine era. Included in Ancient Greece is the...

 and Romans

Ancient Rome

Ancient Rome was a thriving civilization that grew on the Italian Peninsula as early as the 8th century BC. Located along the Mediterranean Sea and centered on the city of Rome, it expanded to one of the largest empires in the ancient world....

.

The trireme derives its name from its three rows of oar

Oar

An oar is an implement used for water-borne propulsion. Oars have a flat blade at one end. Oarsmen grasp the oar at the other end. The difference between oars and paddles are that paddles are held by the paddler, and are not connected with the vessel. Oars generally are connected to the vessel by...

s on each side, manned with one man per oar. The early trireme was a development of the penteconter

Penteconter (ship)

The penteconter, alt. spelling pentekonter, also transliterated as pentecontor or pentekontor was an ancient Greek galley in use since the archaic period....

, an ancient warship with a single row of 25 oars on each side, and of the bireme

Bireme

A bireme is an ancient Hellenistic-era warship with two decks of oars, probably invented by the Phoenicians. It typically was about long with a maximum beam width of around . It was modified from the penteconter, a ship that had only one set of oars on each side, the bireme having two sets of oars...

 , a warship with two banks of oars, probably of Phoenician origin.