Tessarakonteres

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 number of oars, but to the number of rowers on each vertical "column" of oars that propelled it, and at the size described it could have been the largest ship constructed in antiquity, and probably the largest human-powered vessel ever built.

==Sources== thumb|upright|Ptolemy IV Philopator|Ptolemy IV, who ordered the ship built The "forty" was reportedly built by Ptolemy IV Philopator of Egypt in the 3rd century BC. It was first described by his contemporary Callixenus of Rhodes in the lost Peri Alexandreias. In the early-3rd century AD, Athenaeus quotes this in his Deipnosophistae.