History of the Peloponnesian War

These were the strongest of their navies. But even these, though many generations after the Trojan war, appear to have used but few triremes, and to have been still fitted out with fifty-oared vessels, and long boats, as that fleet was.

And it was but a short time before the Median war, and the death of Darius, who was king of the Persians after Cambyses, that triremes were possessed in any number by the tyrants of Sicily and the Corcyraeans. For these were the last navies worth mentioning established in Greece before the expedition of Xerxes:

as the Aeginetans and Athenians, and whoever else had any, possessed but small ones, and of those the greater part fifty-oared vessels; and it was only lately that Themistocles persuaded the Athenians, when at war with the aeginetans, and when the barbarian was also expected, to build those very ships with which they fought him by sea; and these were not yet decked throughout.