Product Code Database
The naval forces of the Ancient Rome () were instrumental in the Roman conquest of the Mediterranean Basin, but it never enjoyed the prestige of the . Throughout their history, the Romans remained a primarily land-based people and relied partially on their more nautically inclined subjects, such as the Greeks and the Egyptians, to build their ships. Because of that, the navy was never completely embraced by the Roman state, and deemed somewhat "un-Roman".
In antiquity, navies and trading fleets did not have the logistical autonomy that modern ships and fleets possess, and unlike modern naval forces, the Roman navy even at its height never existed as an autonomous service but operated as an adjunct to the Roman army.
During the course of the First Punic War, the Roman navy was massively expanded and played a vital role in the Roman victory and the Roman Republic's eventual ascension to hegemony in the Mediterranean Sea. In the course of the first half of the 2nd century BC, Rome went on to destroy Carthage and subdue the Hellenistic kingdoms of the eastern Mediterranean, achieving complete mastery of the inland sea, which they called Mare Nostrum. The Roman fleets were again prominent in the 1st century BC in the wars against the pirates, and in the civil wars that brought down the Roman Republic, whose campaigns ranged across the Mediterranean. In 31 BC, the great naval Battle of Actium ended the civil wars culminating in the final victory of Augustus and the establishment of the Roman Empire.
During the Imperial period, the Mediterranean became largely a peaceful "Roman lake". In the absence of a maritime enemy, the navy was reduced mostly to patrol, anti-piracy and transport duties. By far, the navy's most vital task was to ensure Cura Annonae were shipped and delivered to the capital unimpeded across the Mediterranean. The navy also manned and maintained craft on major frontier rivers such as the Rhine and the Danube for supplying the army and preventing crossings by enemies.
On the fringes of the Empire, in new conquests or, increasingly, in defense against barbarian invasions, the Roman fleets were still engaged in open warfare. The decline of the Empire in the 3rd century took a heavy toll on the navy, which was reduced to a shadow of its former self, both in size and in combat ability. As successive waves of the Migration Period crashed on the land frontiers of the battered Empire, the navy could only play a secondary role. In the early 5th century, the Roman frontiers were breached, and barbarian kingdoms appeared on the shores of the western Mediterranean. One of them, the Vandal Kingdom with its capital at Carthage, raised a navy of its own and raided the shores of the Mediterranean, even sacking Rome, while the diminished Roman fleets were incapable of offering any resistance. The Western Roman Empire collapsed in the late 5th century. The navy of the surviving Eastern Roman Empire is known as the Byzantine navy.
This situation continued until the First Punic War: the main task of the Roman fleet was patrolling along the Italian coast and rivers, protecting seaborne trade from piracy. Whenever larger tasks had to be undertaken, such as the naval blockade of a besieged city, the Romans called on the allied Greek cities of southern Italy, the socii navales, to provide ships and crews. It is possible that the supervision of these maritime allies was one of the duties of the four new praetores classici, who were established in 267 BC.
Despite the massive buildup, the Roman crews remained inferior in naval experience to the Carthaginians, and could not hope to match them in naval tactics, which required great maneuverability and experience. They, therefore, employed a novel weapon that transformed sea warfare to their advantage. They equipped their ships with the corvus, possibly developed earlier by the Syracusans against the Classical Athens. This was a long plank with a spike for hooking onto enemy ships. Using it as a boarding bridge, marines were able to board an enemy ship, transforming sea combat into a version of land combat, where the Roman legionaries had the upper hand. However, it is believed that the Corvus weight made the ships unstable, and could capsize a ship in rough seas.
Although the first sea engagement of the war, the Battle of the Lipari Islands in 260 BC, was a defeat for Rome, the forces involved were relatively small. Through the use of the Corvus, the fledgling Roman navy under Gaius Duilius won its first major engagement later that year at the Battle of Mylae. During the course of the war, Rome continued to be victorious at sea: victories at Sulci (258 BC) and Tyndaris (257 BC) were followed by the massive Battle of Cape Ecnomus, where the Roman fleet under the consuls Marcus Atilius Regulus and Lucius Manlius inflicted a severe defeat on the Carthaginians. This string of successes allowed Rome to push the war further across the sea to Africa and Carthage itself. Continued Roman success also meant that their navy gained significant experience, although it also suffered a number of catastrophic losses due to storms, while conversely, the Carthaginian navy suffered from attrition.
The Battle of Drepana in 249 BC resulted in the only major Carthaginian sea victory, forcing the Romans to equip a new fleet from donations by private citizens. In the last battle of the war, at Aegates Islands in 241 BC, the Romans under Gaius Lutatius Catulus displayed superior seamanship to the Carthaginians, notably using their rams rather than the now-abandoned Corvus to achieve victory.
Due to Rome's command of the seas, Hannibal, Carthage's great general, was forced to eschew a sea-borne invasion, instead choosing to bring the war over land to the Italian peninsula. Unlike the first war, the navy played little role on either side in this war. The only naval encounters occurred in the first years of the war, at Lilybaeum (218 BC) and the Ebro River (217 BC), both resulting Roman victories. Despite an overall numerical parity, for the remainder of the war the Carthaginians did not seriously challenge Roman supremacy. The Roman fleet was hence engaged primarily with raiding the shores of Africa and guarding Italy, a task which included the interception of Carthaginian convoys of supplies and reinforcements for Hannibal's army, as well as keeping an eye on a potential intervention by Carthage's ally, Philip V. The only major action in which the Roman fleet was involved was the siege of Syracuse in 214–212 BC with 130 ships under Marcus Claudius Marcellus. The siege is remembered for the ingenious inventions of Archimedes, such as mirrors that burned ships or the so-called "Claw of Archimedes", which kept the besieging army at bay for two years. A fleet of 160 vessels was assembled to support Scipio Africanus' army in Africa in 202 BC, and, should his expedition fail, evacuate his men. In the event, Scipio achieved a decisive victory at Zama, and the subsequent peace stripped Carthage of its fleet.
Almost immediately following the defeat of Macedon, Rome became embroiled in a war with the Seleucid Empire. This war too was decided mainly on land, although the combined Roman–Rhodian navy also achieved victories over the Seleucids at Myonessus and Eurymedon. These victories, which were invariably concluded with the imposition of peace treaties that prohibited the maintenance of anything but token naval forces, spelled the disappearance of the Hellenistic royal navies, leaving Rome and her allies unchallenged at sea. Coupled with the final destruction of Carthage, and the end of Macedon's independence, by the latter half of the 2nd century BC, Roman control over all of what was later to be dubbed mare nostrum ("our sea") had been established. Subsequently, the Roman navy was drastically reduced, depending on its Socii navales.
Immediately after the end of the war, a permanent force of ca. 100 vessels was established in the Aegean from the contributions of Rome's allied maritime states. Although sufficient to guard against Mithridates, this force was totally inadequate against the pirates, whose power grew rapidly. Over the next decade, the pirates defeated several Roman commanders, and raided unhindered even to the shores of Italy, reaching Rome's harbor, Ostia Antica.Cassius Dio, Historia Romana, XXXVI.22 According to the account of Plutarch, "the ships of the pirates numbered more than a thousand, and the cities captured by them four hundred."Plutarch, Life of Pompey, § 24 Their activity posed a growing threat for the Roman economy, and a challenge to Roman power: several prominent Romans, including two with their retinue and the young Julius Caesar, were captured and held for ransom. Perhaps most important of all, the pirates disrupted Rome's vital lifeline, namely the massive shipments of grain and other produce from Africa and Egypt that were needed to sustain the city's population.Appian, The Mithridatic Wars, § 93
The resulting grain shortages were a major political issue, and popular discontent threatened to become explosive. In 74 BC, with the outbreak of the Third Mithridatic War, Marcus Antonius (the father of Mark Antony) was appointed praetor with extraordinary imperium against the pirate threat, but signally failed in his task: he was defeated off Crete in 72 BC, and died shortly after. Finally, in 67 BC the Lex Gabinia was passed in the Plebeian Council, vesting Pompey with unprecedented powers and authorizing him to move against them.Appian, The Mithridatic Wars, § 94 In a massive and concerted campaign, Pompey cleared the seas of the pirates in only three months.Appian, The Mithridatic Wars, § 95– § 96 Afterwards, the fleet was reduced again to policing duties against intermittent piracy.
The last major campaigns of the Roman navy in the Mediterranean until the late 3rd century AD would be in the civil wars that ended the Republic. In the East, the Republican faction quickly established its control, and Rhodes, the last independent maritime power in the Aegean, was subdued by Gaius Cassius Longinus in 43 BC, after its fleet was defeated off Kos. In the West, against the triumvirs stood Sextus Pompeius, who had been given command of the Italian fleet by the Senate in 43 BC. He took control of Sicily and made it his base, blockading Italy and stopping the politically crucial supply of grain from Africa to Rome. After suffering a defeat from Sextus in 42 BC, Octavian initiated massive naval armaments, aided by his closest associate, Marcus Agrippa: ships were built at Ravenna and Ostia, the new artificial harbor of Portus Julius built at Cumae, and soldiers and rowers levied, including over 20,000 manumitted slaves. Finally, Octavian and Agrippa defeated Sextus in the Battle of Naulochus in 36 BC, putting an end to all Pompeian resistance.
Octavian's power was further enhanced after his victory against the combined fleets of Mark Antony and Cleopatra, Queen of Ptolemaic Egypt, in the Battle of Actium in 31 BC, where Antony had assembled 500 ships against Octavian's 400 ships. This last naval battle of the Roman Republic definitively established Octavian as the sole ruler over Rome and the Mediterranean world. In the aftermath of his victory, he formalized the Fleet's structure, establishing several key harbors in the Mediterranean (see below). The now fully professional navy had its main duties consist of protecting against piracy, escorting troops and patrolling the river frontiers of Europe. It remained however engaged in active warfare in the periphery of the Empire.
At the other end of the Empire, in Germania, the navy played an important role in the supply and transport of the Roman legion. In 15 BC an independent fleet was installed at Lake Constance. Later, the generals Drusus and Tiberius used the Navy extensively, when they tried to extend the Roman frontier to the Elbe. In 12 BC Drusus ordered the construction of a fleet of 1,000 ships and sailed them along the Rhine into the North Sea.Tacitus, The Frisii and Chauci had nothing to oppose the superior numbers, tactics and technology of the Romans. When these entered the river mouths of Weser and Ems, the local tribes had to surrender.
In 5 BC the Roman knowledge concerning the North and Baltic Sea was fairly extended during a campaign by Tiberius, reaching as far as the Elbe: Pliny the Elder describes how Roman naval formations came past Heligoland and set sail to the north-eastern coast of Denmark, and Augustus himself boasts in his Res Gestae: "My fleet sailed from the mouth of the Rhine eastward as far as the lands of the Cimbri to which, up to that time, no Roman had ever penetrated either by land or by sea...". Res Gestae, 26.4 The multiple naval operations north of Germania had to be abandoned after the battle of the Teutoburg Forest in the year 9 AD.
It seems that under Nero, the navy obtained strategically important positions for trading with India; but there was no known fleet in the Red Sea. Possibly, parts of the fleet were operating as escorts for the Indian trade. In the Jewish revolt, from 66 to 70, the Romans were forced to fight Jewish ships, operating from a harbour in the area of modern Tel Aviv, on Israel's Mediterranean coast. In the meantime several flotilla engagements on the Sea of Galilee took place.
In 68, as his reign became increasingly insecure, Nero raised legio I Adiutrix from sailors of the praetorian fleets. After Nero's overthrow, in 69, the "Year of the four emperors", the praetorian fleets supported Emperor Otho against the usurper Vitellius,Tacitus, and after his eventual victory, Vespasian formed another legion, legio II Adiutrix, from their ranks.Tacitus, Only in Pontus did Anicetus, the commander of the Classis Pontica, support Vitellius. He burned the fleet, and sought refuge with the Iberian tribes, engaging in piracy. After a new fleet was built, this revolt was subdued.
In the years 82 to 85, the Romans under Gnaeus Julius Agricola launched a campaign against the Caledonians in modern Scotland. In this context the Roman navy significantly escalated activities on the eastern Scottish coast.Tacitus, Simultaneously multiple expeditions and reconnaissance trips were launched. During these the Romans would capture the Orkney Islands ( Orcades) for a short period of time and obtained information about the Shetland Islands.Tacitus, There is some speculation about a Roman landing in Ireland, based on Tacitus reports about Agricola contemplating the island's conquest,Tacitus, but no conclusive evidence to support this theory has been found.
Under the Five Good Emperors the navy operated mainly on the rivers; so it played an important role during Trajan's conquest of Dacia and temporarily an independent fleet for the Euphrates and Tigris rivers was founded. Also during the Marcomannic Wars under Marcus Aurelius several combats took place on the Danube and the Tisza.
Under the aegis of the Severan dynasty, the only known military operations of the navy were carried out under Septimius Severus, using naval assistance on his campaigns along the Euphrates and Tigris, as well as in Scotland. Thereby Roman ships reached inter alia the Persian Gulf and the top of the British Isles.
In 267–270 another, much fiercer series of attacks took place. A fleet composed of Heruli and other tribes raided the coasts of Thrace and Pontus. Defeated off Byzantium by general Venerianus, Scriptores Historiae Augustae, Vita Gallienii, 13.6–7 the barbarians fled into the Aegean, and ravaged many islands and coastal cities, including Athens and Corinth. As they retreated northwards over land, they were defeated by Emperor Gallienus at River Nestos. Scriptores Historiae Augustae, Vita Gallienii, 13.8–9 However, this was merely the prelude to an even larger invasion that was launched in 268/269: several tribes banded together (the Historia Augusta mentions Scythians, Greuthungi, Tervingi, Gepids, Bastarnae, Celts and Heruli) and allegedly 2,000 ships and 325,000 men strong, Scriptores Historiae Augustae, Vita Divi Claudii, 6.2–4; 8.1 raided the Thracian shore, attacked Byzantium and continued raiding the Aegean as far as Crete, while the main force approached Thessalonica. Emperor Claudius II however was able to defeat them at the Battle of Naissus, ending the Gothic threat for the time being.Zosimus, Historia Nova, I.42–45
Barbarian raids also increased along the Rhine frontier and in the North Sea. Eutropius mentions that during the 280s, the sea along the coasts of the provinces of Gallia Belgica and Armorica was "infested with Franks and Saxons". To counter them, Maximian appointed Carausius as commander of the Classis Britannica.Eutropius, Breviarium, However, Carausius rose up in late 286 and Carausian Revolt with Britannia and parts of the northern Gallic coast. Panegyrici Latini, 8.6 With a single blow Roman control of the channel and the North Sea was lost, and the Caesar Maximinus II was forced to create a completely new Northern Fleet, but in lack of training it was almost immediately destroyed in a storm. Panegyrici Latini, 8.12 Only in 293, under Caesar Constantius Chlorus did Rome regain the Gallic coast. A new fleet was constructed in order to cross the Channel, Panegyrici Latini, 6.5; 8.6–8 and in 296, with a concentric attack on Londinium the insurgent province was retaken.Eutropius, Breviarium ; Aurelius Victor, Book of Caesars 39.42
For the West, there would be no recovery, as the last Western Emperor, Romulus Augustulus, was deposed in 476. In the East however, the classical naval tradition survived, and in the 6th century, a standing navy was reformed. The Byzantine navy would remain a formidable force in the Mediterranean until the 11th century.
During the early Principate, a ship's crew, regardless of its size, was organized as a centuria. Crewmen could sign on as marines, rowers/seamen, craftsmen and various other jobs, though all personnel serving in the imperial fleet were classed as milites ("soldiers"), regardless of their function; only when differentiation with the army was required were the adjectives classiarius or classicus added. Along with several other instances of prevalence of army terminology, this testifies to the lower social status of naval personnel, considered inferior to the auxiliaries and the legionaries. Emperor Claudius first gave legal privileges to the navy's crewmen, enabling them to receive Roman citizenship after their period of service. This period was initially set at a minimum of 26 years (one year more than the legions), and was later expanded to 28. Upon honorable discharge ( honesta missio), the sailors received a sizable cash payment as well.
As in the army, the ship's centuria was headed by a centurion with an optio as his deputy, while a beneficiarius supervised a small administrative staff. Among the crew were also a number of principales (junior officers) and immunes (specialists exempt from certain duties). Some of these positions, mostly administrative, were identical to those of the army auxiliaries, while some (mostly of Greek provenance) were peculiar to the fleet. An inscription from the island of Kos, dated to the First Mithridatic War, provides us with a list of a ship's officers, the nautae: the gubernator ( kybernētēs in Greek) was the helmsman or pilot, the celeusta (keleustēs in Greek) supervised the rowers, a proreta ( prōreus in Greek) was the look-out stationed at the bow, a pentacontarchos was apparently a junior officer, and an iatros (Lat. medicus), the ship's doctor.
Each ship was commanded by a , whose exact relationship with the ship's centurion is unclear. Squadrons, most likely of ten ships each, were put under a Navarch, who often appears to have risen from the ranks of the trierarchi. The post of nauarchus archigubernes or nauarchus princeps appeared later in the Imperial period, and functioned either as a commander of several squadrons or as an executive officer under a civilian admiral, equivalent to the legionary primus pilus. All these were professional officers, usually peregrini, who had a status equal to an auxiliary centurion (and were thus increasingly called centuriones classiarii after ca. 70 AD). Until the reign of Antoninus Pius, their careers were restricted to the fleet. Only in the 3rd century were these officers equated to the legionary centurions in status and pay, and could henceforth be transferred to a similar position in the legions.
Merchant vessels were commanded by the magister navis. If privately owned, the owner was called exercitor navis. The modern term of "Sea captain" to designate a captain of a merchant vessel derives from the magister navis.
Initially subordinate to the magistrate in command, after the fleet's reorganization by Augustus, the praefectus classis became a procuratorial position in charge of each of the permanent fleets. These posts were initially filled either from among the equestrian class, or, especially under Claudius, from the Emperor's freedmen, thus securing imperial control over the fleets. From the period of the Flavian dynasty, the status of the praefectura was raised, and only equestrians with military experience who had gone through the militia equestri were appointed. Nevertheless, the prefects remained largely political appointees, and despite their military experience, usually in command of army auxiliary units, their knowledge of naval matters was minimal, forcing them to rely on their professional subordinates. The difference in importance of the fleets they commanded was also reflected by the rank and the corresponding pay of the commanders. The prefects of the two praetorian fleets were ranked procuratores ducenarii, meaning they earned 200,000 sesterces annually, the prefects of the Classis Germanica, the Classis Britannica and later the Classis Pontica were centenarii (i.e. earning 100,000 sesterces), while the other fleet prefects were sexagenarii (i.e. they received 60,000 sesterces). Pflaum, H.G. (1950). Les procurateurs équestres sous le Haut-Empire romain, pp. 50–53
The navy consisted of a wide variety of different classes of warships, from heavy polyremes to light raiding and scouting vessels. Unlike the rich Hellenistic Diadochi in the East however, the Romans did not rely on heavy warships, with (Gk. pentērēs), and to a lesser extent (Gk. tetrērēs) and (Gk. triērēs) providing the mainstay of the Roman fleets from the Punic Wars to the end of the Civil Wars. The heaviest vessel mentioned in Roman fleets during this period was the hexareme, of which a few were used as flagships. Lighter vessels such as the liburnians and the hemiolia, both swift types invented by pirates, were also adopted as scouts and light transport vessels.
During the final confrontation between Octavian and Mark Antony, Octavian's fleet was composed of quinqueremes, together with some "sixes" and many triremes and liburnians, while Antony, who had the resources of Ptolemaic Egypt to draw upon, fielded a fleet also mostly composed of quinqueremes, but with a sizeable complement of heavier warships, ranging from "sixes" to "tens" (Gk. dekērēs).Cassius Dio, Historia Romana, L.23.2 Later historical tradition made much of the prevalence of lighter and swifter vessels in Octavian's fleet,Plutarch, Antony, 62 with Vegetius even explicitly ascribing Octavian's victory to the liburnians.Vegetius, De Re Militari, IV.33
This prominence of lighter craft in the historical narrative is perhaps best explained in light of subsequent developments. After Actium, the operational landscape had changed: for the remainder of the Principate, no opponent existed to challenge Roman naval hegemony, and no massed naval confrontation was likely. The tasks at hand for the Roman navy were now the policing of the Mediterranean waterways and the border rivers, suppression of piracy, and escort duties for the grain shipments to Rome and for imperial army expeditions. Lighter ships were far better suited to these tasks, and after the reorganization of the fleet following Actium, the largest ship kept in service was a hexareme, the flagship of the Classis Misenensis. The bulk of the fleets was composed of the lighter triremes and liburnians (Latin: liburna, Greek: libyrnis), with the latter apparently providing the majority of the provincial fleets. In time, the term "liburnian" came to mean "warship" in a generic sense.
Roman ships were commonly named after gods ( Mars, Iuppiter, Minerva, Isis), mythological heroes ( Hercules), geographical maritime features such as Rhine or Oceanus, concepts such as Harmony, Peace, Loyalty, Victory ( Concordia, Pax, Fides, Victoria) or after important events ( Dacicus for the Trajan's Dacian Wars or Salamina for the Battle of Salamis). They were distinguished by their figurehead ( insigne or parasemum), and, during the Civil Wars at least, by the paint schemes on their turrets, which varied according to each fleet.
Although the ram continued to be a standard feature of all warships and ramming the standard mode of attack, these developments transformed the role of a warship: from the old "manned missile", designed to sink enemy ships, they became mobile artillery platforms, which engaged in missile exchange and boarding actions. The Romans in particular, being initially inexperienced at sea combat, relied upon boarding actions through the use of the Corvus. Although it brought them some decisive victories, it was discontinued because it tended to unbalance the quinqueremes in high seas; two Roman fleets are recorded to have been lost during storms in the First Punic War.
During the Civil Wars, a number of technical innovations, which are attributed to Agrippa,Appian, The Civil Wars, V.106 & V.118 took place: the harpax, a catapult-fired grappling hook, which was used to clamp onto an enemy ship, reel it in and board it, in a much more efficient way than with the old corvus, and the use of collapsible fighting towers placed one apiece bow and stern, which were used to provide the boarders with supporting fire.
In addition, there is significant archaeological evidence for naval activity by certain legions, which in all likelihood operated their own squadrons: legio XXII Primigenia in the Upper Rhine and Main rivers, legio X Fretensis in the Jordan River and the Sea of Galilee, and several legionary squadrons in the Danube frontier.
It is notable that, with the exception of the praetorian fleets (whose retention in the list does not necessarily signify an active status), the old fleets of the Principate are missing. The Classis Britannica vanishes under that name after the mid-3rd century; Classis Britannica at RomanBritain.org its remnants were later subsumed in the Saxon Shore system.
By the time of the Notitia Dignitatum, the Classis Germanica has ceased to exist (it is last mentioned under Julian in 359),Pauly-Wissowa, III.2645–2646 & XXII.1300 most probably due to the collapse of the Limes Germanicus after the Crossing of the Rhine by the barbarians in winter 405–406, and the Mauretanian and African fleets had been disbanded or taken over by the Vandals.
|
|
