Pliny the Elder attributes the creation of the septireme (; , heptērēs) to Alexander the Great. Curtius corroborates this, and reports that the king gave orders for wood for 700 septiremes to be cut in Mount Lebanon, to be used in his projected circumnavigations of the Arabian peninsula and Africa. At Salamis Demetrius Poliorcetes had seven such ships, built in Phoenicia, and later Ptolemy II (r. 283-246 BC) had 36 septiremes constructed. Pyrrhus of Epirus (r. 306-302 and 297-272 BC) also apparently had at least one seven, which was captured by the Carthaginians and eventually lost at Mylae.