Tessarakonteres: An Ancient Supership

In the 3rd century BCE, at the height of the Hellenistic age’s appetite for spectacle and scale, a ship was built so vast that even ancient writers struggled to describe it without awe. It was called the Tessarakonteres, or “forty-rowed”, and it was the largest and most ambitious naval constructions of antiquity.

Credit: Wikimedia Commons

The Tessarakonteres was commissioned by Ptolemy IV Philopator (reigned 221–204 BCE), the Ptolemaic ruler of Egypt whose court in Alexandria was famed for extravagance. According to Callixenus of Rhodes, quoted later by Athenaeus of Naucratis in his Deipnosophistae, the ship was a “forty,” meaning it was arranged in a configuration of forty rowers on each vertical column of oars that propelled it.

Ancient warships were classified both by the number of oar ranks and the number of rowers per vertical. The maximum practical number of oar ranks a ship could have logistically was three. Beyond three, the number in the type name did not refer to the number of ranks of oars any more but to the number of rowers per vertical section, with several men on each oar.

A typical three-ranked galley with one man per oar—called the trireme— was the main Hellenistic warship up to and into the 4th century BC. The requirement for heavier ships led to the development of “polyremes” meaning “many oars”. Fours, fives and later up to tens were built and used in battles. Ptolemy II Philadelphus started building even larger polyremes—a twenty and a thirty—and Ptolemy IV Philopator eventually built a forty, the Tessarakonteres.

Possible arrangement of a "twelve" and a "sixteen". The upper boat is a trireme and the lower is a bireme. Credit: Lionel Casson

However, just because a ship was designated with a larger type number did not mean it necessarily had or operated all three possible ranks. For example, a four may have been a trireme with one rower each on the bottom two ranks and two rowers on the top oar. It may also have been a bireme with two men on each oar, or it may just have had a single rank with four men on each single oar.

The Tessarakonteres likely grouped rowers in complex arrangements, possibly with multiple men per oar. Classical archaeologist Lionel Casson believes the Tessarakonteres had three ranks. Designers of galleys in the 16th to 18th centuries noted that the maximum number of men that could operate a single oar efficiently was eight. If we consider that to be true, then that maximum size class of three-ranked galley was “twenty-four”. To accommodate forty rowers per rank, the deck of the ships must have been vast and combined with Callixenus's description of the ship having two prows and two sterns, Casson suggests that the "forty" must have been a catamaran made up of two three-ranked "twenties" joined by a deck. Each column or section of the ship would be composed of twenty rowers; perhaps eight rowers on each section's top rank, seven in the middle, and five on the bottom rank.

Reconstruction of the Tessarakonteres showing possible rower configuration. Credit: Lionel Casson

The ship’s dimensions were staggering. Athenaeus reports a length of about 280 cubits (roughly 128 meters or 420 feet) and a beam of 38 cubits (around 17 meters or 56 feet). It supposedly required 4,000 rowers, 400 officers and sailors, and nearly 3,000 marines. Its deck structures included shaded promenades supported by columns. It was less a practical warship than a demonstration of engineering prowess and royal wealth, a statement that Ptolemaic Egypt could rival or surpass any navy in the Mediterranean.

Yet despite its fearsome classification, the Tessarakonteres probably never saw battle. Its size would have made manoeuvring in combat nearly impossible. Instead, it functioned as a ceremonial vessel or a floating palace.