Chapter XVIII

., at about 700 B.C.

Next, there is the evidence afforded by the ships,[967] which it should be noted are all of the bireme or διήρης form, with two banks of oars. The invention of the trireme, as we learn from Thucydides (i. 13, 5), was due to Ameinokles, about the year 704 B.C. Hence Kroker’s dating of the Dipylon vases about the year 700 can hardly be accepted. But the eighth century may be taken as representing the latest period of the Geometrical pottery, both in Attica and Boeotia. The curious inscription engraved on a Dipylon vase from Athens is dealt with elsewhere (