Olympias, Reconstructed trireme ship at Hellenic Navy Museum, Greece

Olympias is a reconstruction of an ancient Athenian trireme, built from Douglas fir with Virginia oak tenons and an iroko keel. It has three banks of oars for 170 rowers and a bronze bow ram weighing 200 kg. It is displayed in a dry dock at the Naval Tradition Park in Palaio Faliro, Athens.

The Hellenic Navy launched this vessel in 1987 to recreate the warships Athens used to defeat the Persian fleet at Salamis. That sea battle took place in 480 BCE and changed the course of Mediterranean history.

The ship is named after Olympias, mother of Alexander the Great. Its crew of 200 included a single auletes, a flute player who kept the oar timing for the 170 rowers. The rowers sat in three banks: 62 thranitai on top, 54 zygitai in the middle and 54 thalamitai below.

Olympias lies in a dry dock at the Naval Tradition Park in Palaio Faliro, a coastal suburb south of central Athens. Visitors view the hull from the dock side rather than boarding, so the three oar banks and the 200 kg bronze ram can be seen from outside. The ship remains a commissioned Hellenic Navy vessel.

The bronze bow ram weighs 200 kg and is a copy of an original held in the Archaeological Museum of Piraeus. The hull is Douglas fir joined with Virginia oak tenons, and the keel is iroko hardwood. The bracing ropes, the hypozomata, had to be replaced with steel cable because no fibre rope with a comparable elastic modulus to hemp could be obtained economically.