According to an exercise physiologist, even with modern training and diet, it would be difficult to find enough elite athletes today to power the ancient Greeks' fleet of rower-powered warships, the Athenian trireme.
The conclusion, from Dr. Harry Rossiter of the University of Leeds, came from a study he recently published in the journal New Scientist. In the study, Rossiter measured the metabolic rates of modern athletes rowing in a reconstruction of an Athenian trireme. The athletes' metabolism was measured with portable metabolic analyzers, and energy consumption for a sample of the athletes powering the trireme was recorded over a range of different speeds to estimate the efficiency of the human engine of the warship.
Rossiter compared the findings to classical texts and found that the ancient Athenian rowers would have been considered elite athletes even by today's standards.
Athenian triremes were ancient warships measuring 121 feet long and powered by rowers arranged in three tiers. Rossiter said the ancient Athenians had up to 200 triremes at any one time, with each warship requiring 170 rowers each. Thus the ancient Athenians had a large group of rowers who would have matched up well with the best of today's athletes. Rossiter's data also seemed to indicate these ancient rowers were genetically better adapted to endurance exercise than modern people.
Rossiter worked with another expert, Professor Boris Rankov of the University of London to interpret details of the ancient rowers' endurance from classical texts. In one example, the texts mentioned the Athenian assembly sending a trireme to massacre the men of Mytilene who had revolted on the island of Lesbos in the eastern Aegean. The assembly changed its mind and sent another trireme to halt the massacre. From records, the second trireme would have made the trip in 24 hours.
With historical records such as these, Rossiter could estimate the average sustainable speeds of the triremes. From the metabolic energy consumption data of the rowers in the reconstructed trireme, Rossiter concluded that, if the historical data were correct, it would be difficult today to find enough athletes fit enough to power these kinds of warships.
The trireme revolutionized naval warfare and allowed the Athenians to dominate the seas. An Athenian trireme, in addition to the 170 rowers, included 20 crew, 10 marines, and a captain. The rowers sat in three rows on each side, 31 at the top, 27 in the middle and 27 at the bottom. The design and number of rowers allowed the trireme to be fast and maneuverable enough to ram and hole other ships—a new tactic in naval warfare.
Feeds