The picturesque land-locked harbours of Zea and Munychia next claim our interest. The pear-shaped Zea basin, now known by the Turco-Greek name of Pashalimani, makes into the neck of the peninsula between the promontory hill of Akte and the Acropolis of Munychia. Behind it and close to it was erected in the fourth century the great Arsenal, and at various points beneath its transparent water may still be seen distinct remains of 38 of the ship-ways that ran down from the ancient ship-houses where the triremes were drawn up. Inscriptions tell us that there were originally 372 in all, of which 82 were in Munychia, 94 in the Great Harbour, and the remainder in Zea. No other relic of antiquity brings us into closer touch with the naval power of Athens and her empire on the Ægean. The covered sheds themselves can only be reconstructed in imagination. Some broken columns of the ship-houses and portions of the launching piers remain _in situ_. To accommodate the 196 triremes, 130-165 feet long, assigned to the Zea Harbour, some of the houses must have been constructed so as to dock the boats in at least two tiers. At Syracuse, the formidable Piræus of the west, remains of ship-sheds have been found, and at Carthage, the bitter foe of Syracuse, they remained for Appian to describe. Dry-docks may have existed near the harbour entrance. This narrow neck of the pear-shaped harbour was still further guarded at the inner opening by projecting moles, which here also are still extant. The entrance was actually closed, in case of need, by chains extended across at the surface of the water. Of the proud warships themselves, those chargers of the sea stabled in Zea, there remains one realistic reminder. Their timbers have long since rotted away, the gulfs have washed down all such small objects of durable material as bronze nails and clamps, but some heavy plates of Parian marble have been found in the harbour. These were set into the bows of the warships, and upon them were painted the vessel’s eyes that used to keep fierce outlook for the enemy or peer through the gloom of night and storm for the first sight of the shoreward lights of Piræus. Danaus at Argos, in the “Suppliants” of Æschylus, as he sees the approaching ship, exclaims:— “The bellying sails I see; the ox-hide bulwarks stretched Along the vessel’s sides; the prow that with its eyes Peers forward o’er the course.” On the marble plates actually recovered the iris is painted bright red or blue, and a vacant hole in the middle suggests the head of a burnished bronze nail that served at once as the pupil of the eye and to rivet on the plate. These eyes are common in representations of ancient vessels, and only in recent years are they disappearing from use among Sicilian and Italian boatmen.