A trierarchy (Greek: τριηραρχία, romanized: trierarchia) was a type of obligation called a liturgy, a debt similar to a tax on the very wealthy in Ancient Athens.
The trierarch was responsible for the outfitting, maintenance, operation and leadership of a warship known as a trireme, the hull and mast of the ship being provided by the State.
[2] It was during this time the trierarchy began being shared by more than one trierarch, this arrangement known as a syntrierarchy may have been because there were not enough citizens of sufficient wealth to support the 400 triremes in use every year.
The supervision of the whole business would be left to the wealthiest individual, who would often contract a commander for the whole sum from their colleagues so that many in reality paid nothing and yet were exempted by the trierarchy from all other liturgies.
[6] Demosthenes, well aware of the defects of the third form or symmoria, brought forward a new law in 340 BCE that improved the funding and operation of the trierarchy.