Quinquireme

A quinquireme was a Carthaginian warship used at the time of the Punic Wars against Rome. Since the Carthaginians were a sea based people, they were on the forefront of ship building technology and it was far more maneuverable than anything the Romans could produce. The Carthaginians kept control of the seas with their quinquiremes until the Romans invented the corvus and changed the way sea battles were done.

Sources

Encyclopedia of Military History, Dupuy & Dupuy, 1979