alright, I haven tread through the thread, but here my thoughts-
A)the traits of Scientific, and seafaing accuratley describe the Greeks all through there history- from pre classical times, of the great Minoan mareitime empire based on Crete to the thousand "black ship" (so named for the use of tar and pitch on the bottom to make them wter tight) that set sale from the Mycenaean lands to seige Troy, to the great AThenian navies- even after the great conquests of Alexandetr, the Greeks stayed a greaty sea power, domitinating all sea trade east of Carthage, and even Alexander the great was responsible for, amoung his other great seige weapons, a mighty seige ships- and indeed, it was his navy that had a direct impact of the seige, and conquest of the "unconqourable" island city of Tyre on the levantine coast.
after Alxanders death, and the era of hellinzation of the east was usherd in, the Greek successor kingdoms oftgen engaged in a cold war like build up of hevey ships, of which the Ptolomies were most successful, even at one time building a ship so lage, that it recieved the name "40" as its ship class- this said, a "Trireme" meant "3" and was a refernce to either hom many ore levals were on ench side, or, referred to a slightlly differnt ship, with one leval of ores, that were so large it needed three to work it- the 40 was likelly a meeting of the two concepts...
I also really dont think why I would have to explain the scientific merits of the Greeks...
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now, as soem of you may notice, the traits of scientific and seafaring overlap that of the Byzantines- my suggestion is to make the Byzantines either Sci-Commercial, which is a very accurate portray of the Byzantine empire, Relgios, or even better, Sci- Relgious, as such wonders as the hagia Sophia, and the huge amount of of monistaires in the Byzantine empire certainlyl give a physical reason, not to many the many court intrigues based on religion, and the many Imperial edicts regarding the subject
