History of the Peloponnesian War

And the Ionians afterwards had a large navy in the time of Cyrus, the first king of the Persians, and Cambyses his son; and while at war with Cyrus, commanded the sea along their coast for some time. Polycrates also, tyrant of Samos, in the time of Cambyses, having a strong fleet, both made some other of the islands subject to him, and took Rhenea and dedicated it to the Delian Apollo. And the Phocaeans, while founding Massalia, conquered the Carthaginians in a sea-fight.

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: