[MichaelCollins]

> Though I also wonder how relatively useful they would be as warships absent cannons.

Without cannons, maneuvering becomes a lot more important because you rely on either ramming the enemy, or pulling up alongside them and boarding them (or both.) These tactics favor rowed galleys, which can sprint quick for short distances and don't depend on the wind.

Even after the invention and proliferation of cannon, navies and pirates in the Med continued to use rowed galleys, direct descendants of ancient triremes, through the middle ages into the 18th century.