In the Hellenistic age the art of shipbuilding was carried to high perfection. Instead of the trireme as the standard battleship came the quinquereme (five-banked); and vessels far larger were constructed in the interests of war and peace. The ship here described was the wonder of its age, but was too large and expensive for any regular commercial use, and not fitted to be a warship.
Hieron, king of the Syracusans, was very active in shipbuilding, and built a great number of vessels to carry corn, the construction of one of which I will describe. For the wood he caused such trees to be cut down on Mount Aetrna as would suffice for sixty triremes, and then he prepared nails and planks for the side and inside, some from Italy and some from Sicily. The cordage for the ropes he secured from Spain, hemp and pitch from the river Rhone, and many other useful things from all quarters. Shipwrights and carpenters, too, he collected. He made Archias, the Corinthian, superintendent of them all, and bade them labor with zeal and earnestness, he himself devoting his days to watching their progress.
Thus he finished half the ship in six months, and every part of the vessel, as soon as it was finished, was at once covered over with plates of lead. There were three hundred workmen busy getting ready the timber, besides mere journeymen as helpers. As soon as this first portion [i.e. probably the bare hull] was in shape, it was arranged to draw it down to the sea, there to be completed. After much inquiry as to the best way of launching, Archimedes, the great mechanician, launched it by himself with only a few people to aid. He had prepared a helix, and with this drew the huge ship down to the sea. [It took six months more to complete the ship itself, after which Hieron labored on the interior fittings.]
The ship was built with twenty banks of oars, and three entrances, the lowest to the hold which was reached by two long ladders, the next for persons who wished to reach the dining rooms, the third for the men-at-arms. On either side of the middle entrance were apartments for the men— each with four couches, — thirty in number. The supper room for the sailors could hold fifteen couches, and within it were three special chambers each with three couches. The kitchen was towards the vessel’s stern. All these rooms had floors of mosaic work, of all kinds of tesselated stone. In this mosaic the whole story of the ” Iliad ” was depicted right marvelously. All the furniture, ceilings, and doors were executed and finished most admirably.
Along the uppermost passage was a gymnasium and •walks, their appointments entirely corresponding to the great size of the vessel. In them were beautiful gardens enriched with all manner of plants, and shaded by roofs of lead or tiles. There were also tents covered with boughs of white ivory and the vine, the roots drawing moisture from casks of earth, and watered just as were the gardens. . . . Next there was a tern pie sacred to Aphrodite, containing three couches, with a floor of agate and other most beautiful stones, … its wall and roof were made of cypress wood, its doors of ivory and citrus wood. It was exquisitely furnished with pictures and statues, and goblets and vases of every possible shape.
Also there was a drawing-room, with space for five couches; in it was a bookcase and along the roof a [sun] clock. There was, too, a bathroom having three brazen vessels for holding hot water, and a bath, beautifully variegated with marble. In the ship likewise were ten stalls for horses on each side of the walls, and by them fodder for the horses was kept, and the arms and outfit of the horsemen and the boys. [There was a great cistern for fresh water near the bow and next to it] a large water-tight well for fish made of beams of wood and lead. It was kept full of sea water, and great numbers of fish were kept in it.
In the vessel were eight towers … two in the stern, two at the head, the rest in the middle. [They were equipped with weapons for beating off an enemy. ] A wall having buttresses and decks ran all through the ship, supported on trestles. On these decks was set a catapult, which flung a stone –weighing three talents [about 173 pounds] and an arrow twelve cubits long. This engine was devised by Archimedes, and it could throw an arrow a stadium (circa 600 feet). [There were three masts outfitted with yards for fending off an enemy.] There were four wooden anchors and eight iron ones on the ship. The hold, though of prodigious depth, was pumped out by one man by means of a pulley, thanks to an engine invented by Archimedes. The name of the ship was the Syracusan, but when Hieron sent her to sea, he changed her name to the Alexandrian.
As for crew [besides certain others] there were six hundred men. Their post was always at the bow of the ship watching for the orders of the captain. . . . They put on board the ship 60,000 measures (medimni) of corn; 10,000 jars of Sicilian salt fish, 20,000 talents’ weight of wool, and of other cargo 20,000 talents’ weight also. Besides all this there were the provisions necessary for the crew. Hieron, when he understood that there was no harbor in Sicily large enough [conveniently] to admit this ship, . . . made a present of it to Ptolemy, king of Egypt.