The docks at Piraeus were one of the glories of Athens. Demosthenes mentions them along with the Parthenon and the Propylaea. When the Athenian navy numbered about four hundred warships, we learn from inscriptions that the number of docks was three hundred and seventy-two. But this excess of ships over docks could scarcely have caused inconvenience, as some vessels must always have been in commission. Very considerable remains of the ancient docks are still to be seen in the harbours of Zea and Munychia. The flat beach all round the basin of Zea was enclosed by a wall of ashlar masonry, which ran round the harbour at a distance of fifty or sixty feet from the water’s edge. This formed the back wall of all the docks, which extended at right angles to it and parallel to each other down into the water. The average breadth of each dock or berth was about twenty feet. The docks were separated from each other by rows of columns, the foundations of which, bedded on the shelving rocky beach, descend in steps to the water, and are continued under it for some distance. These columns supported the roofs, which were probably wooden, for no remains of a stone roof have been found. Between these partition rows of columns the rock has been hollowed out and smoothed, so that it forms an inclined plane, descending gradually, like the rows of columns, to the sea, and continued under water for some way. Each of these inclined planes formed the floor of a dock. In the middle of each floor is built a stone pier about ten feet wide and a yard high; in some places the native rock, hewn out at the sides, has been left standing in the centre so as to form a pier of similar dimensions. On these piers, whether built or hewn out of the rock, the ancient ships were hauled up and down. Remains of them may still be seen all round the harbour of Zea running out under the clear water.