Boris Rankov is Professor of Ancient History at Royal Holloway, University of London. In 1987 he recruited the first trials crew of 170 rowers to operate the Olympias trireme reconstruction, and was one of the rowing masters on the ship in 1988, 1990 and 1992. In 1996, he succeeded John Morrison as Chairman of the Trireme Trust, and subsequently co-authored the second edition of The Athenian Trireme (Cambridge, 2000). Alongside work on the Roman army and its epigraphy, ancient oared ships have remained a focus of his research and publication, including Trireme Olympias: The Final Report (2012) and the present volume.
