No mention is made of any vessel with more than three banks of oars having been employed in the Peloponnesian war, but quadriremes and quinqueremes were known in the reign of Dionysius I., of Syracuse, and were employed by the Carthaginians in the first Punic war, who had also in their service some vessels of the hexireme and septireme class. From the ease, however, with which the Romans captured these large vessels (even allowing for their superior energy and vigorous mode of close action), they were evidently much less efficient in proportion to their size than triremes. Nevertheless, according to the testimony of Plutarch, very large galleys were in high favour with Demetrius Poliorcetes,[380] whom he represents as a prince possessing superior knowledge of the arts, and of a highly inventive turn of mind. This prince, he states, caused several of fifteen and sixteen banks to be built, he himself superintending their construction; and so formidable are these vessels said to have appeared, that Lysimachus, when he had ocular confirmation of the reports he had heard of their strength and capacity, raised the siege of Rhodes rather than encounter them in action. Plutarch also states that Antony[381] possessed a fleet of no less than five hundred armed vessels, magnificently adorned, having eight and ten banks of oars, and that he selected the best and largest of them for the celebrated battle of Actium. However exaggerated some of the accounts preserved of these very large galleys may be, and however imperfect and inconsistent the descriptions of them by ancient authors, their existence has been established beyond all doubt. [Sidenote: Their outfit.] [Sidenote: Beaks.] [Illustration] [Illustration] [Sidenote: Stern.] [Sidenote: Masts and sails.]