Shortly before the launch of the reconstructed Greek warship, Olympias, the first edition of The Athenian Trireme was published, providing historical and technical background to the reconstruction of the ship. Since then, five seasons of experimental trials have been conducted on the ship under oar and sail, and the lessons learned have been supplemented by new archaeological discoveries and by historical, scientific and physiological research over the last fifteen years. For this second edition, the text has been recast and a number of substantive changes have been made. In addition, there is an entirely new chapter which describes the trials of Olympias in detail, reports the performance figures, and outlines the changes desirable in any second reconstruction. There are 19 new illustrations, including 11 photographs of Olympias at sea demonstrating features of the design which could be represented only by drawings in the first edition.