Non refert quam multos, sed quam bonos habeas (It’s not how much you have, but how good they are)
Roman shipbuilding was entirely in line with the general Mediterranean tradition. As the analysis of written sources, as well as numerous material evidences – reliefs, mosaics, etc. – shows, the types of ships used by the Romans in military operations and transport operations were not fundamentally different in design from similar types of ships in Greece and the Hellenistic states of Asia Minor. Carthaginian (i.e. Phoenician and Near Eastern in essence) shipbuilding had a huge influence on the formation of the Roman navy. Carthage not only became the most significant threat to Rome at the time of its entry into the international arena, but also contributed to the rapid progress, or rather, the very emergence of Roman military shipbuilding. Without copying the Punic tradition exactly, the Romans, pushing off from it, could not help but adopt many of its characteristic design features. Carthage was the main rival on land and sea, so when building a fleet, it was necessary to take into account its characteristics for successful counteraction – the best was adopted, the imperfect, if possible, was tried to be improved. At the same time, Italy itself had a considerable number of tribes that had developed shipbuilding. The Etruscans stood out against their background, really giving a certain impetus to the improvement of Roman shipbuilding skills.
It is sad and perhaps painfully offensive, but it is an undeniable fact: the early history of Roman merchant and military shipbuilding is shrouded in darkness, which is sometimes slightly dispelled solely by chance finds, mainly on the seabed. However, the degree of this dispel remains disappointingly low. One of the main intrigues is whether the Romans had a battle fleet before the First Punic War? Apparently, no. They simply did not have such a task. One can argue and bring arguments for and against this opinion, but the main fact remains – all sources point to a certain degree of confusion of the Romans at the very beginning of the war, when they seriously realized the need to build not just a few warships, but an entire military fleet. Obviously, this confusion was not a consequence of some natural and innate caution of the Romans – they were never distinguished by this. So, without a doubt, the fathers-senators and Roman military leaders were familiar with warships before this – at least from the example of their Greek allies, who lived two steps away from the Eternal City – but the degree of this familiarity was very superficial. Let’s say, as an analogy, we can give the following example. A certain general, who still remembered his lieutenant years somewhere near Sedan, in his old age, attending tactical training of a tank unit in about 1917, in principle, could admire the power of the machines and even nod in agreement when all the advantages of their use were explained to him, but absolutely everything that was connected with the design, characteristics and specifics of the combat use of these funny things, for him, undoubtedly, continued to remain a great mystery, which he did not even try to solve. Perhaps some facets of the worldview of this conventional general were quite characteristic of the Roman commanders at a turning point in the history of their state. Ideally, of course, it would have been simpler to “strain” the allies and use their ships, crews, helmsmen, navigators, etc. In fact, this is what they did at first. We will never know the details and timing of the transition to using predominantly our own forces – and this is absolutely certain. But it is clear that the refusal to use the allies’ forces dragged on not even for decades, but for centuries. Even in civil wars, ships of “imported” construction were actively used, which were borrowed from the peoples and states under their control. But, in parallel with this, their own ships were built en masse and of high quality. This practice quietly outlived itself only during the Empire – with the change in the political situation and the status of former allies.
In general, the question was not so acute. The fact that the Roman merchant navy existed from very ancient times cannot be doubted. Otherwise, the Punic Wars would hardly have arisen, and Carthage would have had to be ploughed and salted by some other tribe, but not the Latins. Roman merchant ships plied the Mediterranean Sea long before the Senate formulated the desire to firmly set foot on Sicily. These ships were their own, which is fundamentally important. In fact, a merchant ship at that time differed from a combat ship in the contours of the hull, a number of design features and purpose. The general dimensions and, if you like, the degree of complexity of the entire structure were quite comparable. That is why the famous phrase of T. Mommsen that the construction of a combat fleet at the beginning of the Punic Wars was similar to the construction of a battle fleet by a state that previously had only a light fleet, causes some bewilderment and, in any case, rejection. No qualitative leap was required. It was necessary to master and put into production a different design – naturally, having slightly changed one’s own traditions, thinking and, most importantly, having received a sample. This is exactly what happened after the famous Carthaginian ship ran aground, which served the Romans as a kind of prototype and impetus for the development of their own engineering imagination.
However, this ship, of course, did not become a revelation and the ultimate truth. The Romans were surrounded by much more talented and definitely more loyal than the Carthaginians, the Italian Greeks. It was not difficult at all to steal or copy their technology for building a warship, and, fortunately, there was no trace of licenses and copyright in those days. But the Romans needed a Carthaginian ship, because it was with such ships that they intended to wage a difficult and bloody war. And yet, the new Roman ships were neither a mirror copy nor a slavish imitation of the Carthaginian trophy. Sources repeatedly emphasize that throughout the war, the average Roman ship remained heavier, slower and less maneuverable. This could happen in two cases. Firstly, it was possible to actually copy the external contours of the vessel, but violate a number of technological rules and know-how, for example, to assemble the hull not from bent frame parts, but from composite ones – knocked together from several parts. As is known, in late Byzantium, this was approximately what the degradation of the shipbuilding tradition consisted of. As a result, the hull would have turned out to be heavier and less durable. Of course, such a possibility is not excluded, but it still seems more likely that the Romans initially intended to use their invention in the form of a boarding bridge. In this context, the large passenger capacity of the vessel was much preferable to its ease of movement – in fact, the Carthaginians initially did not intend to avoid fights, but they themselves went to the Roman “ravens”. This is precisely why it is hardly worth attaching such great importance to the act of research of the captured ship by Roman naval engineers and shipbuilders – although, of course, it cannot be ignored, like any other historical fact. Much more important was a thorough study of the enemy’s equipment, identifying its strengths and weaknesses, and borrowings, of course, were of secondary importance. And the idea of carrying a significant mass of marines on a ship and landing them – with considerable, it must be noted, convenience – directly on the deck of an enemy vessel, of course, was brilliant – just the kind for which humanity bows down to the ancient Romans.
As already mentioned, the Romans in designing their ships were guided primarily by the achievements of the Greek, Etruscan and Carthaginian traditions. The source for the reconstruction and study of the transformation of the specific appearance of Roman ships over at least 800 years are both numerous texts of ancient authors and a number of pictorial sources, as well as relatively few archaeological finds. Along with the fact that the information outwardly seems quite abundant, it is worth noting that we are still mainly familiar only with the external appearance of Roman ships. What was happening inside them and, above all, how the warship was arranged and equipped, still remains to a large extent the result of more or less justified conjectures, hypotheses, assumptions and analogies. However, much is still clear.
The history of Roman shipbuilding had three main periods. The first of them is connected with the era of the First and Second Punic Wars, the second – with the period from the beginning of the Eastern Wars to the Battle of Actium, and the third came mainly after it and continued until the complete decline of the Roman Empire.
The first period is easy enough to define – it was the period of mass construction of large series of identical ships using standardization and completely flow-line production. This large-scale shipbuilding was entirely determined by the specific military-historical situation, which also determined the basic types of ships. The ships that came down in hundreds from the shipyards of Ostia and a number of cities in Italy and Sicily almost all belonged to the class of quinqueremes or triremes. It would not be an exaggeration to say that the former accounted for at least two-thirds of the total number of ships launched, and the latter – more than half of the remaining sides. Light ships, absolutely necessary for patrol, messenger, reconnaissance service, pursuit of the enemy and other purposes, were undoubtedly built, but here it is necessary to take into account one very important circumstance. The light fleet suffered symbolic losses in these wars. The lion’s share of these on both sides fell to quinqueremes, leaving triremes far behind in this indicator. Therefore, the turnover of materiel and the need for its renewal in the light fleet sector were much lower and less intense.
The second period was characterized by the fact that the Romans, exhausted by the confrontation with Carthage, initially preferred to use the ships of their eastern allies – mainly Rhodes. Both the number of ships in service at one time and the number of newly commissioned ships decreased sharply. The principle was that the ships mainly served “until they were worn out”, and new programs were implemented on an ad hoc basis, to solve a specific combat task within the framework of a planned strategic operation. At first, there seemed to be no fundamental difference with the previous time in the most popular classes of ships, but gradually certain changes began to occur, expressed in a gradual increase in the size of ships and their displacement. There were two reasons for this: familiarity with Hellenistic ships and the realization that a larger number of marines and a greater height of the side frankly contribute to winning a victory over the enemy.
The apotheosis of this process was the battles of Agrippa at Naulochus and Agrippa and Octavian at Actium. The latter battle, however, did not demonstrate the obvious and indisputable advantages of light classes of ships over super-heavy ones. If the Empire had still had sea enemies or civil wars had continued, perhaps the naval arms race would have made another turn or two (although, it seems, there was nowhere else to go). But there were no enemies left, and the time of the Liburnians, i.e. the third period proper, had arrived. Within its framework, medium ships were, of course, built and operated, but they were no longer the backbone of the fleet or its main force. The time had come when the fleet performed mainly police functions.
The continuity of shipbuilding traditions was ensured by the fact that the ships had a very long service life. With proper handling and care, a ship could be in service for up to 50 years or more when stored on the shore. Most of the ships of the First Punic War successfully made it to the Second and faithfully served their crews and Rome for many more years.
Roman warships implemented the general antique concept of a multi-oared and often multi-tiered vessel. Unlike transport ships, which most often had only a sail engine and lost speed in calm weather (they had to be towed), warships had a combined drive system – they had both oars and masts with sails. If early ships were, in principle, identical in size and shape to Greek ones, then gradually the dimensions of ships increased.
According to Roman tradition, the term naves longae, literally “long ship” (compare the completely identical Scandinavian term langskipp of the Viking era) was used to define warships. This was explained by the fact that sooner or later all ancient peoples came to the empirical discovery of the fact that the speed of travel – the most important indicator of a warship in most cases – is entirely determined by both the hydrodynamic culture of the manufacture of the underwater part of the hull and the relative dimensions of the hull. Even the Homeric Greeks knew that the ratio of the length of the hull at the waterline to its width should be no less than 1:6, and, ideally, reach a proportion of 1:10 and even 1:12. Naturally, this affected the stability of the vessel, but gave its run that very delightful swiftness of which the sailors themselves were so proud.
As the antithesis of the warships, the transports were called naves rotundae, literally “round ships”, or naves onerariae – mostly sailing, with a spacious hold (alveus). They were indeed shorter and wider (like their Scandinavian counterparts) – the length-to-width ratio was usually 4:1 – and, although inferior in speed, were much better in terms of load-carrying capacity and stability on the waves.
The sources regularly refer to the division of covered and open warships. The former, the so-called naves constratae, usually represented the bulk of the battle fleets, having a deck covering the interior of the vessel. They were the main striking force, because it was in them that the concept of a full-fledged warship of the new era was realized. It is symptomatic that Polybius, for example, when mentioning the numerical strength of the fleets, usually indicates that among the ships there were so many “closed” (or rather, “covered”), i.e. actually decked, the number of the rest is not specified exactly. Light “open” ships (naves apertae), without a deck, in principle had no more than two rows of oars, in the overwhelming majority of cases – only one. These, in fact, were the light forces of the fleet.
Just as regularly, especially during the Punic Wars, naves rostratae (ships with rostra, i.e. rams) are mentioned. This indicates – quite definitely – that already in this period the Romans were building ships that fundamentally did not have rams and were not intended for “classical” (in the Greek sense, for example) naval combat. Since the role of ramming combat inexorably declined over time, the number of references to this class of ships also decreased, in some sources simply fading to nothing.
As is known, the main principle of classifying ancient ships – both in sources and in modern literature – is their distribution into classes according to the number of rows of oars. The complete chaos and confusion that exist in this matter are fully explained by the aforementioned lack of reliable and consistent data on the internal structure of ancient ships. A classic example is a number of translations of ancient authors into Russian, where the same ships are called “five-row”, “five-deck”, “vessels with five rows of oars”, “penters”, or “quinqueremes”. If the last two names can still be accepted as literal renderings of Greek and Latin terms, then it is simply impossible to work with the rest adequately during analysis. Moreover, if for translations made in the 19th century this is somehow forgivable – after all, historians and especially philologists in that era were little interested in the specifics of military affairs, preferring quite amateurish “workarounds” of the sharp corners of the text – then for our time this is literally beyond all bounds.
The fact is that the undisputed leaders in terms of mentions – quinqueremes and triremes – can still be taken literally (and even then only in terms of the trireme).
Indeed, the traditional, lay understanding of the issue (formed, it must be said, by the masters of the past) assumes that three, five (or, in the case of a quadrireme, four) rows of rowers sat one above the other, and each rowed with one oar. Let’s accept this logic and try to count. Apparently, the rowers did not sit strictly one above the other, but with some offset, so that the bench of the upper rower was approximately at the level of the head or neck of the rower of the row that was lower, and so on. With an average height of a seated person of 1.3-1.4 m and the necessary clearance for movement above the head, it can be argued that a vessel with three rows of rowers had a maximum height of the “rower layer” of at least 3 m, with five – about 4.5-5 m. If we assume that they sat without displacement, directly above each other, on separate deck levels, the figures will become simply threatening – at least 5 and 7.5 m, respectively. But the rowers of the lower row clearly did not sit at the waterline, and there was a deck above and some kind of structures on it. In addition to the absurdity of ships with a freeboard as high as a three-story building from a structural and military point of view, it must be taken into account that the oar of the upper tier of such a hypothetical monster would have been at least 10 m long. It was impossible to turn such a log alone. Moreover, in order to make a stroke while holding the end of the handle (otherwise the oar simply would not move from its place), the rower would have to run back and forth along the deck rather than sit.
And if at the level of triremes such a scheme still made sense, then further on the problems really begin. Ancient historiography knows of references to hexeres, hepteres, octeres, enneres, decemeres – ships, supposedly, with six, seven, eight, nine, ten rows of oars. The latter, in particular, were thought of by Antony as the main force of his fleet at Actium. Something much more impressive is also known, like the several times mentioned “sixteen-row”, however, the absolute record of ancient historiography is the so-called “tesseracontera”, i.e. “forty-row ship”. The “obvious reconstructions” proposed almost a century and a half ago envisaged a ship with a freeboard of at least 15 m and oars up to 75 m long, which was not just absurd, but also a mockery of common sense and the elementary laws of physics. In the ancient world, there were no barrels of such length, and composite oars of this size are truly something special.
In general, the literal reading of the term is unconvincing. A long time ago, a completely reasonable and consistent solution was proposed. According to it, the number in the name of the class of ship meant the number of rowers who set in motion the oars of one row along one of the sides. In other words, a ship with two rows of oars, each of which was rowed by two people, could be called a quadrireme; a ship carrying three rows of oars, where one person sat on the lower one (on the shortest and lightest oars), and two on the upper ones, was a quinquereme (pentera in the Greek version). In this case, the hexera also had three rows of oars with one, two and three rowers respectively – the length of the oars increased with height. All this is confirmed by the fact that not a single image of a ship from the Roman period shows us more than three rows of oars.
Undoubtedly, there was quite an adequate background of real historical facts under the mention of “multi-row” ships. From the point of view of common sense, the placement of rowers according to the above-mentioned scheme on a “sixteen-row” vessel was quite consistent – for example, on the lower row there could be 3 rowers on one oar, on the second – 5, and on the upper – 8 rowers. Undoubtedly, in this case the overall width of the vessel increased. At the level of the upper row, the width of the hull had to reach 10-12 m. This problem was solved in a traditional Mediterranean way: the higher, the more the hull widened, “mushroom-shaped” hanging over the water in section, and the oarlocks of the upper tier were carried out on protruding balustrades to increase the span of the oar lever. As a result, along the waterline, the vessel could still maintain acceptable dimensions, although it no longer shone with speed.
However, these ships were not intended to chase each other across the sea and maneuver. They crossed the entire Mediterranean quite satisfactorily – in clear weather, of course, and in “short dashes” from island to island. But the last two great sea battles of antiquity – Naulochus and Actium – were more reminiscent of knightly tournaments: the opponents agreed to meet and quietly lined up in front of each other, crawling heavily out of the harbors, after which, having met, they began a fierce exchange of fire from everything that could be thrown at the enemy. In fact, this no longer had any relation to tactics, and such battles, of course, were simply unthinkable in the “classical” era of the past. In general, a full house in the theater of the absurd, as they say. Showdowns, “shootouts” among their own and by agreement.
As for the tesserakontera, mentioned in particular by Athenaeus of Naucratis, first of all, a self-evident solution suggests itself, reminiscent of the elimination of the famous “Gordian knot”. By comparing the name of this ship to the “pentekontera” known from Homeric times, we get an unexpected result. That, as is known, was simply a fifty-oared vessel with the oars arranged on one tier, 25 on each side. Even the most inveterate gigantomaniacs and adherents of the early Greek civilization do not dare to “shove” a second row of oars onto Homeric ships. If the tesserakontera were such a ship – even with 40 not oars, but benches for rowers – it would somehow resemble the truth. Otherwise, the question about it simply hangs in the air, and with all the desire to resolve it cannot be resolved in any other way.
The norm, of course, was ships with one, two and three rows of oars. The former were of the most varied types and in the Latin tradition were called uniremes. Biremes, which first appeared among the Greeks, are quite mysterious. They were apparently less common than the later triremes, but were recorded as early as the 6th century BC. In Roman historiography, biremes and uniremes are mentioned as if in passing, and at the end of the 1st century BC they basically merged with the liburnian class, dissolving in this universal name that filled the pages of late Roman literature.
All nations that developed shipbuilding to an acceptable or extraordinary level have a fairly universal tradition that stems from elementary calculations of strength of materials and practical experience. The maximum length of a vessel was determined by the length of the keel beam, to which was added the length of the curved stems attached to the keel beam. These connections, ideally, were the only ones at the keel level – the keel beam itself had to have a monolithic structure. Making it composite meant causing serious damage to the longitudinal strength of the entire vessel, which could simply not withstand the onset of a wave and break in the middle. The ancient Scandinavians knew this, and the peoples of the Mediterranean Sea naturally knew this (or rather, were convinced of this from bitter experience). And given that the length of a monolithic beam was determined by the height of the ship’s trees, it was this that limited the maximum longitudinal dimension of ancient ships. It is for this reason that the length of the hull of ordinary triremes and quinqueremes, as a rule, did not exceed 25-35 m. Liburnians of the subsequent period also had approximately the same parameters, differing in a more modest displacement.
Based on historiography, archaeological finds, images and other data, it is possible to compile a certain average “portrait” of the main ships. Interesting data were also obtained from the analysis of ship sheds, in which, in stationary conditions, during the off-season and between voyages, ships pulled onto land were stored. Such structures were discovered in Carthage, Piraeus and a number of other cities of the ancient world. Quinqueremes, apparently, had a length of no more than 35 m, and their width in the maximum version, at the level of the rowers of the upper tier, did not exceed 5.5-5.9 m. The underwater part of the vessel was significantly narrower – usually no more than 4.5 m. The draft of such a vessel, as a rule, did not exceed 1.2 m; in the overloaded version (for example, when transporting legionnaires or supplies) it could increase, but it was unlikely to exceed 1.5 m – the oar ports of the lower tier had to be located high enough above the water so as not to flood with high waves. The displacement of such a vessel was within 110-140 tons, perhaps even more. According to the established Mediterranean tradition, ships had a high sternpost, exceptionally gracefully curved upward and forward and usually crowned with carved decorations like the tail fin of a giant fish. The stem of the ship was also decorated, but here the main attention was paid to the convenience of using the ram and the “raven”. Cargo ships, as a rule, had relatively symmetrical ends and bow decorations, often very artistic.
The classic version of the crew of a quinquereme-type warship of the Punic Wars, according to the only evidence we have from Polybius, was a contingent of 300 rowers (150 on each side, 30 rows of oars), as well as 120 marine legionaries, intended for boarding attacks on the enemy using the “raven”. In addition, there was a command staff of several people – it is unlikely that the helmsman on a ship of this class was alone – and, of course, sailors in total numbering up to 15-20 people. Their purpose was to perform the necessary work on the ship, as well as control the ship’s sailing equipment. Warships were required to have masts – as a rule, not too high, no more than 6-8 m above the deck. Usually there was one mast, but large ships could carry two or even three masts, installed with a slight tilt forward – for better control of the ship under sail. Already in the second phase of the Punic Wars, throwing machines appeared on ships of the middle classes. On quinqueremes, as a rule, there were no more than two to four of them.
The trireme was somewhat smaller in size – not so much shorter as “more graceful” – and had a smaller displacement. It carried an average of 150-170 rowers, helmsmen, and 10-12 sailors. Depending on the situation, the marine landing force included 50 to 100 legionnaires, and in case of overload – for transfer by sea to the destination – another hundred soldiers could be taken on board. Throwing devices and, naturally, “ravens” could also be installed.
These two classes of ships formed the basis of the Roman fleet for centuries. Despite the apparent universality, relative cheapness and ease of construction, complete balance of combat and seaworthiness, the trireme never became the most common ship of Ancient Rome (unlike, say, Ancient Greece). Its “niche” in the fleets of modern times, perhaps most closely corresponding to the niche occupied by cruisers, was always more limited than that of other ships. At first, triremes were too small to dominate the seas, and after Actium, they suddenly became too large. With all this, triremes were, in their own way, unique long-livers. This “middle class” existed from the very beginning of Roman military shipbuilding to its very end, entering our era and lasting, apparently, until the final collapse of the Empire. Triremes were often the flagships of the fleet, combining mobility and reliability. They were equipped with artillery and could accommodate large military formations.
Quadriremes occupied an intermediate position and were apparently a very small type of ship. At least, references to them are much rarer than to the two preceding classes. Against the background of bright battle events involving triremes and quinqueremes, quadriremes are somehow lost, and it is impossible to say anything intelligible about them. A similar fate befell the bireme. A vessel with two rows of oars, which appeared in very ancient times, was widely used by the Romans, but it is mentioned extremely rarely. Like regular single-row ships, the bireme fell into the class of reconnaissance, dispatch, and auxiliary vessels, which, when describing battles from a long distance in time (most authors were separated from the events by centuries of history), were enumerated wholesale in the category of “other ships,” and none of the reputable historians usually counted them, saying in such cases “many,” or “countless numbers,” or something like that. Biremes and uniremes could effectively attack only similar ships, and battles between them occupied the same position in the chain of events of war that duels between destroyers occupied in the 20th century.
The other pole of ship classes was represented by large vessels – from hexers and above. Typologically and structurally, they differed from quinqueremes by their greater bulkiness and freeboard height, as well as, as a rule, by the forced structural weakening of the hull frame. The overall dimensions of ships of these types were much larger, the largest of them could reach 70 m in length and even more. The keel had to be made of several parts, which led to a sharp weakening of the structure, which had to be strengthened by overweighting it, these loads were compensated by new reinforcements, etc. As a result, hexers, septers and other decemremes were slow-moving, unseaworthy, and applicable only for defense needs, sieges of coastal fortresses, or could be used by agreement, in “artificial” battles. They were the absolute record holders in terms of the installation of battle towers, assault ladders, throwing machines, as well as in the number of crews. Theoretically, it is possible to assume the appearance of a fourth row of oars on them (nothing more!), but so far no archaeological or written sources confirm this. The arrangement of rowers on board, in tiers, could be (for a decemreme), for example, 2-4-4, or 5-5 (as an option – 4-6) – with a two-row arrangement of oars. However, this, of course, is only an assumption. With a 40-50-row arrangement of oars, the total number of rowers was estimated at 800-1,000 people, which corresponded to at least 400-500 legionnaires, shooters and artillery crews, servicing up to a dozen different throwing devices. This structure can hardly be called a ship at all, and it is not surprising that Mark Antony had serious problems with the staffing of crews. However, time passed a sentence on these classes of ships, and they safely left the stage.
It is also worth mentioning the achievement of a certain “ceiling” in shipbuilding, which really bordered on the absurd. We are talking about the grandiose “representative” ships that became widespread in the Hellenistic world and eventually found their way into Roman history. Thus, the personal ship of Ptolemy Flopator was, as reported, about 120 m long, and the total height from the keel to the deck reached almost 25 m. Carrying seven towers, the ship was ornately decorated and propelled by oars 17 m long, the handles of which were filled with lead for balance. The total number of the crew reached 7,000 people, including 4,000 rowers. For the Syracusan tyrant Hieron II, Archimedes himself built a gigantic ship. The ship had eight towers, numerous halls for holding festivities and banquets, temple premises and luxurious living quarters; the ship had baths, a dozen stalls for horses, huge water tanks. The main catapult, also built by Archimedes, could allegedly throw stones weighing up to 50-60 kg for hundreds of meters, and an iron-clad barrier protected against boarding “ravens”. The ship had 8 anchors (4 wooden and 4 iron), and the tallest tree in Bruttium was cut down to make its mast. Such ships were decorated inside in full accordance with the Hellenistic fashion of the time and were more like floating residences than warships: they had mosaic floors, gardens and greenhouses, and marble, ivory, gold and Lebanese cedar were used in the decoration. It is clear that the habitability of such ships was at a completely acceptable level. The ship on which Cleopatra first came to Antony probably looked similar. The impracticality of such structures is further evidenced by the fact that Archimedes’ invention was never really put to good use by Hieron – the ship did not fit into most of the Sicilian harbors, and was cramped in the rest, so it was given to the Egyptian monarch, who did not have such problems.
A famous find of this kind was made at the bottom of Lake Nemi in the Albani Mountains near Rome. There, underwater, during archaeological research, fragments of the hulls of giant ships were discovered. These flat-bottomed monsters, which were apparently no less than 75 m long and up to 19 m wide, naturally belonged to the category of imperial amusements of the crazy 1st century AD and had no military significance, as evidenced by the place where they were found. The discovered ships were probably nothing more than floating palaces and spent the vast majority of their time at anchor at the pier, only occasionally going out onto the calm waters of the lake. They had all the necessary rooms for a luxurious life with the appropriate decoration. It is noteworthy that they were not high and most likely had only two rows of oars with a large number of rowers on each. Unfortunately, during the Second World War, these ships were destroyed in the course of hostilities.
But these ships only emphasized the fact that the era of giant warships was irrevocably passing or had already passed into the past.
Antiquity knew many different types of ships, about which it is difficult to say anything definite without serious analysis. Thus, the so-called hippagoges (horse carriers), which transported war horses for the army, hemiolias and trihemiolia, celoses (keles) and a number of other ships were widely used. Polybius mentions a certain “one-and-a-half”, which was probably a bireme, in which one row of oars was much smaller than the other. In general, due to problems with interpreting the facts, it is better to refrain from categorical comments about these ships.
Not only the ram, which is natural, but also the hull of the warship was subjected to additional reinforcement. The ram has been forged in bronze since time immemorial. Known from Greek practice, the epotida beams – a kind of “bumper” of the ship – were widely used on the heavy ships of the Hellenistic states, and with the expansion of the Roman presence in the Eastern Mediterranean and the growth of ships, they migrated to the Roman fleet. They were made of powerful wooden beams and protected the hull from frontal and cheek ramming blows of the enemy, performing the function of a kind of outer layer of spaced armor. Approximately similar functions were taken on in emergency cases by the belt of the upper row of oars, extended far beyond the level of the freeboard – in the event of a broadside ramming blow, it (as well as the oars sticking out to the side) still had to be broken through with the stem in order to reach the underwater side of the enemy ship with the end of the ram. However, the most important role was played by the direct armouring of the hull. Quite early on, certainly during the Punic Wars, the underwater and partly above-water parts of heavy ships, in the area of the waterline, began to be covered with sheet bronze. Rectangular sheets of this armour were usually several millimeters thick and, when butt-jointed or overlapped with forged seams, provided extremely effective coverage of the threatened areas of the ship’s hull. Relatively elastic and viscous bronze, applied to a strong wooden lining of the hull, created a very stable barrier to the penetration of an enemy ram. At first, only the bow of the ship was armoured – its cheek surfaces 3-4 m from the stem, but over time, the entire waterline began to be covered on heavy ships. By the 2nd-1st centuries BC. Bronze plate armoring becomes an integral part of hexagons and larger ships, almost always found on quinqueremes, and partial armor is also found on triremes.
The square sail rigging on the masts allowed sailing with a fair wind, but according to the age-old tradition, the sails were removed before battle, since it was not only difficult but also dangerous to control a ship under sail in battle. Maneuvering resulted in an elementary loss of wind, which could also simply die down or change to the opposite. Under sail, they usually fled from the enemy or pursued him – if the wind was fair. In later times – such as before the Battle of Actium – the norm was that the sails were folded on the shore. However, in the era of “spontaneous” battles, upon seeing the enemy, the sails were removed and, rolled up, laid on the deck – just like that or packed in special covers. There, on the decks, they also folded the removed yards and masts, fastened in nests on the keel beam and in holes in the deck.
The standing rigging that consistently appears on the images of “merchants” of the Roman period, supporting the mast, demonstrates that on them, most likely, it was in principle non-removable, stationary. Warships, on the contrary, usually do not carry such rigging. Removing and installing the mast on them was a routine operation, which was carried out quickly and smoothly.
The speed of Roman ships was a very “floating” value. At the moment of attack at a short distance, quinqueremes and triremes could give up to 8-9 knots. It is clear that long-term navigation with constant tension of the rowers at a similar level was impossible. During long passages, the rowers worked in shifts: for example, first one row of oars, then another, or in another order. This achieved uniformity of motion, but the cruising speed as a result, naturally, dropped to 4-5 knots, and sometimes even less. Such an indicator, no matter how funny it may look from the point of view of today, was a very good achievement for ships of such displacement and such a class. Heavy ships, of course, had a lower speed. For hexeres, 5-6 knots was the maximum, and the crew of a decemreme most likely did not even dream of the treasured 5 knots. These ships “crawled”, being only a mobile platform for weapons.
At the same time, with the spread of liburnians, more solid indicators become the norm. Speeds of 10-12 knots were achieved by ships of this class quite adequately and over large sections of the route – without any serious efforts. Considering that in the imperial period, the primary importance was not the classic sea battle, but the interception of the enemy (usurpers, barbarians, etc.), as well as the rapid response of troops of relatively small contingents, liburnians turned out to be indispensable. Transports, capacious and heavy, taking on board up to 250-300 tons of cargo, had a speed under sail of about 5 knots with a tailwind. With a headwind, as well as without it, they lost speed. As part of convoys with warships, tow ropes from warships were attached to the transports, but the overall speed of such a convoy, naturally, fell by at least half, or even more. In addition, one military vessel could clearly lead “by the bridle” no more than two transports. Since a hundred liburnians could transfer an entire legion of the Roman army to the required point in two trips, since the speed of such a caravan was constant and did not depend on either the speed or the direction of the wind, it was the liburnians that became the ideal means of rapid response. Troops from Moesia to Taurica, from Italy to the Balkans and the East, as well as along the border rivers of the Empire were ideally transported in this way. Of course, the cost of such a crossing was much higher, but this was compensated by the speed, and in the conditions of predominantly natural settlements and in the imperial situation, such “trifles” did not have serious significance and were most often not taken into account. Apparently, the basic units for carrying out such trips over short distances were subdivisions of two dozen liburnians, which raised just a cohort of a legion – one of the main maneuver groups of that era, numbering 600 soldiers.
Naturally, the main type of sea travel was coastal navigation in sight of the coast. The reason for this was not only and not so much a poor knowledge of orientation in the open sea and fear of it, but the need to periodically disembark the crew ashore. If special transport ships could still have some amenities for the transported troops – partitions, bunks, a galley lined with fireproof bricks for thermal insulation, etc. – then on warships, taking on board infantry or dismounted horsemen for crossing by sea, there was not even a hint of such. On the average quinquereme with a standard crew of 450 people, it was very uncomfortable and cramped even in a normal situation. Having taken on an overload of a landing party of a hundred or two people, such a vessel turned into sheer hell for everyone on it, especially since most of the legionnaires being transported, naturally, had never been to sea and had no immunity to seasickness. They slept side by side on the deck and in the hold. If it happened that a sea crossing had to be made in such conditions – for example, to Africa – and that the journey lasted two or three days, then the warriors who survived such an execution were truly worthy of the highest available awards, even without engaging in a clash with the enemy on the shore or at sea. Perhaps this explains the wary attitude of the Romans towards the sea – after all, they looked at it largely through the eyes of their soldiers and officers.
That is why daytime passages along the coast were the norm of the era. At night, ships would anchor or be pulled ashore if the coastal relief allowed it. The troops and crew would go ashore and either set up camp or simply pitch their tents, where they would spend the night. As a rule, if it was during military operations and not far from the enemy, a duty shift of rowers and a guard of soldiers would remain on board. In peacetime, this could naturally be neglected. In any case, keeping a crew and legionnaires on board all the time was impossible, and pointless – warships did not shine in terms of habitability of their interiors even for regular rowers. The low seaworthiness of ships is confirmed by numerous shipwrecks as a result of storms and gales, as well as navigation errors. The record holders for this indicator were the periods of the First Punic War and the era of the confrontation between Octavian and Sextus Pompey off the coast of Sicily. In total, up to one and a half thousand ships perished in these disasters.
The new era brought new trends. The Romans had become familiar with the light and fast ships of the Illyrian tribe of Liburnians a long time ago – already between the First and Second Punic Wars they had to deal with the Illyrians, and it was then that these “Liburnian galleys”, “Liburnian type galleys”, or simply Liburnians, began to arouse the interest of Roman naval commanders. Their agility and enviable seaworthiness – with quite satisfactory capacity and carrying capacity – inspired respect. There is no doubt that they were already accepted into service – they were captured as trophies and, undoubtedly, people tried to copy them. There can be no exact data on this, since the historians of that time did not condescend to describe the ships used for everyday and somewhat routine combat work – they were interested in striking facts. This is why the opinion has become established in literature that Liburnians were started to be built en masse almost by Agrippa himself. He certainly built them and loved them, but he was far, far from the first in this.
It is quite difficult to talk about liburnians in general, since this name of the class of ships quickly became almost a household word, almost associated with the concept of “warship”. In the overwhelming majority of cases, these were single- and double-row ships with no more than 30 m in length and no more than 4-5 m in width. Liburnians normally had from 40 to 100 oars, each of which was operated by one rower. At least 30 soldiers could be on board such a ship, which also housed light throwing machines and even towers. This was possible since large liburnians belonged to the class of closed vessels and were covered – entirely or partially – by a deck.
However, regarding the typology, construction technology, strategy and tactics of using the liburnians, the most complete data is given by Vegetius, to the excerpt from which the author refers the reader, published as an appendix to the book, so that he can form his own idea of the subject of the conversation.
Autore: Khlevov A. A. (Хлевов А. А.)
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