Ships of the Hellenistic period

thumb|upright=1.4|Syracusia as imagined in 1671. Syracusia (, syrakousía, literally "of Syracuse") was an ancient Greek ship sometimes claimed to be the largest transport ship of antiquity. She was reportedly too big for any port in Sicily, and thus only sailed once from Syracuse in Sicily to Alexandria in the Ptolemaic Kingdom of Egypt, whereupon she was given as a present to Ptolemy III Euergetes. The exact dimension of Syracusia is unknown; Historian Michael Lahanas put it at long, 14 m wide, and 13 m high.

ancient Greek merchant ship wreck

oared warships

thumb|The tessarakonteres, 1858 illustration Tessarakonteres (, "forty-rowed"), or simply "forty", was a very large catamaran galley reportedly built in the Hellenistic period by Ptolemy IV Philopator of Egypt. It was described by a number of ancient sources, including a lost work by Callixenus of Rhodes and surviving texts by Athenaeus and Plutarch. According to these descriptions, supported by modern research by Lionel Casson, the enormous size of the vessel made it impractical and it was built only as a prestige vessel, rather than an effective warship. The name "forty" refers not to the nu