Ancient seafaring was largely dependent on weather
conditions. Sailing was restricted to the annual sailing season and was only
possible in good weather, and most voyages followed the coasts. This practice
continued all over the world until steam engines became widely used in ships in
the nineteenth century. The sailing season in the Mediterranean began in March
and lasted until November; for the rest of the year the ships stayed in port
unless an urgent voyage had to be made. Sailing in winter was avoided because
cloud, fog and mist made navigation difficult and winter storms were dangerous.
Seafarers preferred sailing close to the coast and used landmarks such as
promontories and islands to locate their position. On longer voyages they would
venture further out to sea but tried to ensure that the coast was always
visible. They used the sun and night sky for navigation; the constellation of
Ursa Minor was known in the ancient world as Stella Fenicia. The sailors were
familiar with the winds and sea and land breezes and took advantage of them.
Currents and tides did not generally play a significant role in Mediterranean
seafaring except in narrow channels such as the Chian Strait, the Strait of
Messina and the area of Syrtis Minor. Coastal routes were preferred, not only
because of the protection they offered in bad weather but also because most of
the ships, and especially the warships, had little room to store water and
food, so easy access to the coast was essential to obtain supplies. This
necessity became one of the basic elements in dictating strategy in ancient
warfare at sea: warships could only operate in areas where they could reach the
coast in order to take on water and food and rest their crews. As a result, the
control of harbours and landing places was most important and this can be seen
in the strategies adopted by Rome and Carthage during the conflicts.
Warships worked in cooperation with the army, to transport
troops to attack and ravage enemy territory. Raids were intended to put
political, economic and psychological pressure on the enemy. The rowers had
multiple tasks to perform. As well as rowing and beaching the ships, they built
siege engines when needed and fought on land. Fleets were used to escort
transport vessels and to support or disrupt sieges. Sea battles resulted from
situations where rival powers fought for control of territory that offered safe
harbours and landing places; they were most likely to occur when one side was
intent on taking over an area controlled by a rival. For example, in 260 in
Mylae the Romans defeated the Punic fleet and then started to operate on the
north coast of Sicily, and in 217 a Roman victory at the Ebro allowed Rome to
extend its influence on the Spanish coast. During the Punic Wars there were
many sea battles; in contrast, the First and Second Macedonian Wars saw no sea
battles when the Roman navy established itself in Greece. This was because
during these wars, Rome, with its allies, possessed overwhelming power at sea,
which Philip of Macedon’s fleet was not strong enough to challenge.
The main shipbuilding materials were fir and pine. The types
of warships used in the Punic Wars – the trireme, quadrireme, quinquereme and
six, as well as the pentecontor and other smaller vessels – were the result of
centuries of development in Mediterranean shipbuilding. Advances in naval
design had been made in the eastern and western Mediterranean and they were
quickly adopted by other states around the coast. There were significant
differences between the fleets of the various cities as each city commissioned
ships according to the fighting force it needed and could afford. Cities
constructed their own versions of the main types of ships – for instance, there
were several different types of trireme.
The earliest evidence that has come down to us about
warships is in the Iliad. Homer describes how the Greeks used their oared
warships – longships – to transport men and their equipment to the battlefield.
In this period oarsmen sat on one level and each one pulled an oar. The ships
were triacontors with thirty oars and pentecontors with fifty oars. At the end
of the eighth century BC, however, as naval tactics changed and ramming became
more important, a two-level arrangement of the oarsmen was introduced. By using
the same number of oarsmen but on two levels, one above the other, the ships
could be made shorter which increased the power, speed and agility that were
needed when ramming. Pentecontors were used not only for war but for commerce
and piracy as well. Specially constructed harbours were not needed for the
ships of this period: they used natural landing places along the coasts, where
they could be pulled onto shore to dry out after a voyage.
In these archaic societies, pentecontors were not built and
maintained solely by the states, as in these archaic societies, pentecontors
were not built and maintained solely by the states, as was the case later on
with the more expensive triremes. Aristocrats owned ships and used them for
various purposes. There was a horizontal social mobility of aristocratic
families and individuals throughout the Mediterranean world. The Greek nobility
used ships in war and diplomacy, to visit religious festivals and games, and
they travelled abroad to keep up personal contacts with the leading families in
other states. Similarly, the Carthaginians used ships to maintain contact with
influential families in the Punic colonies as well as in Greek Sicily and
Etruria, and the Etruscans were involved in trade and piracy. At the time, this
activity was not regarded as dishonourable. Plundering was seen as one way to
acquire wealth and status and so ships were used for piracy when the
opportunity arose. The label ‘pirate’ was applied to an enemy to discredit him.
Perhaps this explains why Etruscan and Tyrrhenian pirates are a common motif in
Greek archaic literature and art and yet the Greeks probably behaved in a
similar way at sea.
The next step in ship development was the trireme, in which
oarsmen were located on three levels on each side of the ship. The new design
was probably introduced at Sidon and Corinth at the end of the eighth century
and the first part of the seventh century BC. The trireme was clearly a more
powerful weapon than its predecessor but it was expensive to build and operate
so only the wealthiest states could afford them. The pentecontor required fifty
oarsmen and ten to twenty additional crew members and soldiers, while a trireme
required a crew of about 210. As a result, triremes were adopted slowly and at
different times by Mediterranean states. So, during the Persian Wars (490–479),
while the trireme was the commonest type of ship, other types were still
deployed – pentecontors continued to be operated in the sixth century BC and
even later. However, by the beginning of the fifth century BC, the trireme had
become the principal tool for projecting power in the eastern Mediterranean.
The Carthaginians probably adopted triremes soon after they were invented and
the Romans introduced them to their fleet in 311, when the offices of the
duoviri navales – naval commissioners in charge of equipping and refitting the
fleet – were introduced. While the wealthier states developed ever more
sophisticated ships, triremes, pentecontors and triacontors continued to serve
in the navies of the smaller states; for example, pentecontors were still
deployed in the third century BC and triacontors in the second century BC.
The development of new types of ship had so far been
concentrated in the eastern Mediterranean. In the fourth century BC, however,
the focus shifted to the west, where the introduction of the quadrireme, the
quinquereme and the six took place. This was the result of naval competition
between Carthage and Syracuse that, together with Athens, were the major
maritime cities of their time. Pliny states that, according to Aristotle, the
Carthaginians invented the quadrireme. According to Diodorus, Dionysius
invented the quinquereme. He probably also built sixes. These innovations in
ship design and construction should be seen against the background of how the
Greek colonists sought to put themselves on the map of a history shared with
the old homeland. The Sicilians and especially the Syracusans sought to gain
influence in the Greek world by making it clear that they were sharing the
burden of fighting the barbarians. This attitude is revealed in the tendency of
Greek texts to represent the battles against the barbarians in the east and
west as happening in a synchronized manner: for example, Himera and Salamis in
Herodotus; Pindar mentioning the battles of Salamis, Plataea and Himera as the
crowing glory of the Athenians, Spartans and Syracusans respectively; and
Timaeus highlighting the connection between Himera and Thermopylae. In effect,
these authors were seeking to show that the west is superior to the east when
it comes to fighting the barbarians. In this case, the leading role in
shipbuilding and innovation in ship design had shifted to Syracuse, to the new
Greek world, and these new vessels were used in their campaign against the
barbarians, the Carthaginians. The new types of ship were quickly adopted by
the navies in the east – quadriremes were in use at Sidon in 351 BC, and the
Cypriot kings who came to support Alexander after the Battle of Issus in 333
had quinqueremes. In the fleet of the city of Tyre, which Alexander besieged,
there were quadriremes and quinqueremes, and Alexander’s own fleet had both
these types of ship. In Athens, quadriremes and quinqueremes are recorded in
the naval lists starting from 330. According to Polybius, the Romans first
introduced quadriremes, quinqueremes and sixes at the beginning of the First
Punic War.
A quinquereme needed a crew of around 350. The aim with the
new types of ship was to target the increasing problem of finding skilful
oarsmen. In a trireme only one man sat to an oar, whereas in the ships of the
higher denominations more than one man sat to an oar, thus only one skilled
rower was needed for each oar-gang, the rest of the rowers being there for
power. In a quadrireme, the oarsmen were probably located on two levels, with
two men pulling each oar. In a quinquereme, the oarsmen were arranged on three
levels, with the top and middle levels manned by two men pulling an oar.
All these warships were designed to operate using the same
tactics as had been devised for triremes. They could be used to ram, in which
case the agility and speed of the ship were important as the aim was to stop
the enemy ship or to damage its oars so that it was immobilized and could
easily be put out of action. Warships could also be used as platforms for
hand-to-hand fighting and launching missiles, and soldiers, archers and
javelin-throwers were included in the crews. Warships that were intended to be
employed in this fashion required a more solid superstructure to accommodate
the large number of fighting men and the hulls were modified to ensure greater
stability. In consequence, such ships tended to be slow and less manoeuvrable.
Various ramming tactics were used. The diekplous or
breakthrough was an operation in which ships were arranged in a column in front
of the enemy. They then tried to break through the enemy line and, by using the
ram, damage the hulls and oars of the enemy ships. The defensive tactic against
a diekplous attack was to keep the ships close together, side by side, so that
it was difficult for the attackers to find space between them. Alternatively,
ships could be arranged in a two-line formation; the ships in the second line
were positioned in order to stop any enemy ships that penetrated the first
line. This method was used at the Battle of Ebro in 217 when the Romans,
together with the Massilians, defeated a Punic fleet. Obviously, this tactic
put the attackers at great risk as their ships might be rammed or lose their
oars and become immobile, which would make them easy targets. In the manoeuvre
known as periplous, attackers attempted to sail around the flank of the enemy
ships so as to come at them from the rear. Diekplous and periplous tactics
could only be carried out by well-trained and well-organized fleets and both
types of tactic can be seen in operation in the battles of the First and Second
Punic Wars.
Sails were used when possible, although rowing was
considered to be faster – the average speed of a ship under oar was 7 or 8
knots. There are no surviving representations of how a trireme under sail
appeared. Naval inventories, however, indicate that there were two masts on a
ship. The main mast was probably located in the middle of the ship and another
smaller mast at the front of the ship was probably raked and stepped forward.
The sails were almost certainly rectangular. Battles always took place near a
coast and, before the fighting started, all unnecessary weight, including the
main mast and rigging, was removed and left on the coast so that the ships were
as light and easy to manoeuvre as possible. During a battle, only oars were
used. When breaking off a battle, the small sail at the front of the ship was
raised on the second mast. As with battles on land, one side could refuse to
engage. However, if the commanders chose to fight – or if they could not avoid
it – they had to consider the speed of their fleet compared to that of the
enemy and to decide whether they should adopt offensive or defensive tactics.
If a slow fleet found itself in an unfavourable tactical situation, it might be
forced to attack in order to avoid a certain defeat.
Several factors affected the speed of the ships. They had to
be regularly hauled onto the shore or put into ship-sheds so they could dry
out; if this was not done, their wooden hulls became waterlogged and they
became heavy and slow. Newly-built ships were likely to be faster than the old
and, of course, their speed depended on their design. The speed of the ships
also depended on the strength of the oarsmen; rowing was exhausting work and
rowers could be expected to do it for only a few hours a day. Sometimes actions
were interrupted so that the crews could rest and the fighting then resumed the
following day.
Standardized shipbuilding was used. The rival states of the
Mediterranean borrowed shipbuilding designs and innovations from each other.
For example, Polybius records that at the beginning of the First Punic War the
Romans used as their model a Carthaginian ship that they had captured when it
ran aground. The Romans were not completely unaware of how to build such a ship
– Polybius exaggerates their ignorance – but they were keen to see the latest
development in Carthaginian shipbuilding. The main Roman contribution to
warfare at sea in this period was the corvus, the boarding-bridge, which they
used to attack enemy ships in the First Punic War. This innovation is
characteristic of the Hellenistic period in which the armies and navies knew
their opponents well and were evenly matched. In these circumstances they were
eager to come up with a new weapon or tactic that would give them an advantage.
This kind of development is particularly visible in the armies and navies
operated by the successors of Alexander the Great.
Alexander’s successors competed for supremacy in the eastern
Mediterranean and, in the arms race that followed, built ships of even greater
denomination. The names of these ships are puzzling. In the literature they are
described as the ‘seven’, the ‘eight’, the ‘nine’ and so on – all the way up to
the ‘forty’. We do not know how they were constructed or how the oarsmen in
them were arranged but big ships were a fleet phenomenon: they were used for
ramming and needed the support of smaller vessels in the navy, which protected
the larger ships. A large number of armed soldiers would have been aboard.
Ships of these types were not used in the Punic Wars, except for a Carthaginian
seven which had been captured from Pyrrhus.
Carthaginian Naval Power
The period of Carthaginian naval power spanned the sixth to
third centuries (with some minor activity in the second) bce. It was a period
of technological evolution, beginning with penteconters and the developments of
the trireme in the sixth century, `fours’ and `fives’ in the fourth century,
and, at the end of that century, `sixes’ and `sevens’, although the
Carthaginians appear to have resisted the gigantism of contemporary Hellenistic
fleets, and to have not gone in much for ships larger than the `five’. Other
ships were used; the Marsala wrecks might have been of hemiola (`one and a half
‘) design, or perhaps were fast transport ships. This might not preclude their
temporary use as com- bat craft. Some transports could be fitted with temporary
rams, as it appears the Marsala wrecks were. Our understanding of the types of
craft in use is hindered by the terminology employed by our sources and our
general ignorance of the concepts underlying the classification of polyremes.
It is likely that our literary sources employed shorthand terms that masked the
true complexity of the make-up of fleets and obscured the diversity of ships,
or indeed ship-designs within such a class as the `five’ (penteres,
quinquireme). However, it seems clear that fleets were often a mixture of quality,
design and size. The force left by Hannibal in Spain in 218 bce (Polyb. 3.3.14)
contained fifty `fives,’ two `fours’ and five `threes.’ The Carthaginian fleet
during the `Truceless War’ consisted of triremes, penteconters and the largest
of their skiffs (akatia) (Polyb. 1.73.2), perhaps because the potential for
enemy action at sea was limited and did not warrant the launch of those `fives’
that had survived the Roman triumph at the Aegates in 241 bce, perhaps also
because the cost of manning them was prohibitive for the cash-strapped repub-
lic. According to Livy (30.43), 500 oar-powered ships “of all types”
were towed out to sea and burned by Scipio at the end of the Second Punic war.
Warships, transports and merchantmen might sail together: Diodorus (14.59.7)
mentions transports (olkades) and “ships with rams” (chalkemboloi)
present at the battle of Catana, while Livy (25.27) reports that Bomilcar
sailed for Syracuse in 212 bce with 130 warships and 700 transports.
