The reader is aware that we have had necessity to refer more than once to the corn-ships from Egypt, and in an age that was given up rather to the development of the fighting galley than to the exploiting of the cargo ship these trans-Mediterranean grain-carriers stand out prominently as a class by themselves. It is most unlikely that they altered much during a space of several hundred years, when even that much-petted craft, the galley, remained so little modified. Therefore the following account which has been left to us by Lucian may be regarded not merely as representative of the corn-ship in his immediate period, but as characteristic of the ship for probably five hundred years at least. Lucian lived in the second century, and was born probably about A.D. 120. In the dialogue from which the following extract is taken he taunts his friend Timolaus with being ever fond of a fine spectacle; to which the latter replies that he had had nothing to do, and being told of “this monster vessel of extraordinary proportions putting in at the Piræus,” he goes on to explain that “she is one of the Egyptian corn-ships and bound for Italy.” [Illustration: THE EGYPTIAN CORN-SHIP “GODDESS ISIS” (_circa_ A.D. 120).] Keenly interested, they went on board her by the gangway, and he goes on to refer to the ship’s cabins, which he examined, to the shipwright who conducted them round the ship, calls attention to the lofty mast, stares in amazement at the sailors “as they mounted by the ropes, and then with perfect safety ran along the yards holding on to the halyards.” A hundred and thirty feet long she measured, with 30-feet beam, whilst from deck to bottom of hold she was 29 feet at her deepest part. “What a mast she has!” exclaims Samippus, one of the friends; “and how huge a yard she carries, and what a stay it requires to hold it up in its place! With what a gentle curve her stern rises, finished with a goose-neck all of gold! At the other end, in just proportion, the prow stands up, lengthening itself out as it gets forward, and showing the ship’s name, the _Goddess Isis_, on either side.... The decorations and the flame-coloured foresail, and beyond these the anchor with the windlass and capstan, and I must not omit the stern cabins. Then the number of souls would make one think it was a camp. We were told it carried enough corn to feed all the people of Athens for a year. And all we saw had so far been carried safe and sound by a little old man, using a slight tiller to turn that huge rudder. They showed him to me--a bald-pated fellow with a fringe of curly hair. Hero, I think, by name.” Then Timolaus still further enriches the narrative: “The passenger told me of his marvellous seamanship; in all seafaring matters he out-Proteused Proteus in skill. Did you hear how he brought his ship home, and all they went through on the voyage, or how the star guided them to safety?” Lucian answers that he has not heard, so Timolaus goes on to inform him.