Page:History of merchant shipping and ancient commerce (Volume 1).djvu/308

 to their size than triremes. Nevertheless, according to the testimony of Plutarch, very large galleys were in high favour with Demetrius Poliorcetes, 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 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.

With reference to their outfit, it is sufficient to state that, in nearly every instance, they were highly ornamented with figures carved on the bow and stern. Below the bow, and between it and the fore-foot or keel, there was generally a projecting piece of very strong timber, to which was attached either a ram's head, sharp metal bolts, cleavers, or some other instrument of destruction. These beaks were at first constructed so as to be visible above the water, but