A historian called Timaeus of Tauromenium tells this story, which looks very odd to us, but was clearly convincing to the Greeks:
there was a certain house at Acragas called the Trireme [a kind of boat], on this account: - Some young men got drunk in it, and got so mad when excited by the wine, as to think that they were sailing in a trireme, and that they were being tossed about on the sea by a violent storm; and so completely did they lose their senses, that they threw all the furniture, and all the sofas and chairs and beds, out of the window, as if they were throwing them into the sea, fancying that the captain had ordered them to lighten the ship because of the storm. And though a crowd collected round the house and began to plunder what was thrown out, even that did not cure the young men of the frenzy, and the next day, when the generals came to the house, there were the young men still lying, seasick as they said; and, when the magistrates questioned them, they replied that they had been in great danger from a storm, and had consequently been compelled to lighten the ship by throwing all their superfluous cargo into the sea. And while the magistrates marveled at the bewilderment of the men, one of them, who seemed to be older than the rest, said, “I, O Tritons, was so frightened that I threw myself down under the benches, and lay there as low down and as much out of sight as I could.” And the magistrates forgave their folly, and dismissed them with a reproof, and a warning not to indulge in too much wine in the future. And they, professing to be much obliged to them, said, “If we arrive in port after having escaped this terrible storm, we will erect in our own country statues of you as our saviors in a conspicuous place, along with those of the other gods of the sea, as having appeared to us at a seasonable time.” And from this circumstance that house was called the Trireme.
Source:
Forsyth, Mark. “The Greek Symposium.” A Short History of Drunkenness. Three Rivers Press, 2017. 60-1. Print.
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