Dionysius of Syracuse (405 B.C.) is said to have built the first quadrireme and quinquereme in Greece,--inventions which he probably obtained from the Carthaginians and Salaminians. Alexander the Great built ships with twelve and thirty ranks of oars. Ptolemy Philopator, of Egypt, is said to have constructed one of forty, after a Greek model. Callixenus has left a description of this vessel; and this, having been transcribed by Plutarch and Athenæus, was, until very lately, thus supported by competent authority, regarded as quite authentic. Late investigations have shown conclusively that the vessel, with the proportions given, never could have existed. She was said to have had forty tiers of oars, one above the other. It is clear that the uppermost tiers must have been of enormous length to reach the water, and we find their length stated, in consequence, at seventy feet. Sixty feet of this length must naturally have been without the vessel, leaving ten feet of handle within. As the strength of no one man would be sufficient to manage an oar thus unequally poised, the fabulists assert that the handles were made of lead, that the equilibrium might be restored. What the story thus gains in weight, however, it certainly loses in credibility. Oars of seventy feet were out of the question, even in the heroic ages. Their number was equally extraordinary, for they counted no less than four thousand, and were managed by four thousand men. Besides these, there were two thousand eight hundred and fifty combatants collected in castles and behind her bulwarks. She had four rudders, each forty-five feet long, and a double prow. This last feature would have been an impediment instead of an advantage, as the re-entering angles of the two prows would have presented a very violent resistance to the water, which, in its turn, would have exerted a great power to separate them. Her stern was said to have been decorated with resplendent paintings of terrible and fantastic animals, her oars to have protruded through masses of foliage, and, as if she was not already overladen, her hold was declared to have contained huge quantities of grain. A critical comparison has shown that this famous galley could not have turned her head from west to east without describing an enormous orbit and occupying a full hour in the manoeuvre. Indeed, had the Egyptians been foolish enough to build such a ship, they would not have been fortunate enough to navigate her.