On the construction of the ‘Syracusia’ (Athenaeus V. 207 A-B)

Abstract

It is perhaps significant that one of the more informative texts on ancient shipbuilding predates the period in which Greco-Roman shipping flourished. It is Homer's description of how Odysseus built a ship () on the island of the nymph Calypso, with which he intended to return to his native island of Ithaca (Od. 5.244–57). The text is of exceptional interest because it gives as early as the eighth century B.C. a stepby- step description of the tenon-and-dowel ‘shell-first’ method typical of Greco- Roman ship-building, which has been so amply confirmed in the last few decades by underwater archaeology in the Mediterranean.