Военное обозрение By Top War
First Book of Maccabees, 13:29
History battles at sea. After the publication of the material about the hypothetical warship of Heron, several readers of the site “Military Review” asked me to tell about Roman warships and the naval battles in which they participated. In general, there is a book “Greece and Rome in Wars. Encyclopedia of Military History” by Peter Connolly (Eksmo-Press, 2000), but it was published a long time ago, and historical science does not stand still. Therefore, this material was based on historical studies that are less well known in our country in this area in recent years, in particular the book by Mikael Pitassi “Fleet Rome 350 BC – 475 AD published by Seaforth. And it took time to read and translate it. But now we can fulfill our readers’ request.
So…
Ceramic model of a ship from the island of Cyprus, 600-450 BC. Metropolitan Museum of Art New York
Tradition has it that Rome was founded on April 21, 753 BC as a monarchy, and archaeological finds have indeed confirmed that settlements had existed on the hills of Rome since the eighth century BC. The city was located on the Tiber River, which was navigable for small and medium-sized vessels of the time. The water level was higher then than it is today. And the first thing that the rulers of Rome did at that time was to establish control over the mouth of the river, 14 miles (24,5 km) from the city, in order to secure access to the sea. The last three kings of Rome were Etruscans, and the Etruscans had a long history of seafaring, so it is safe to assume that some of the Romans may have owned and operated ships or served on ships. If so, it is quite possible that the first Roman ships already existed in those distant times. Warships were the preserve of the Etruscans, although Romans were also quite capable of serving on them. In 510 BCE, the Romans expelled the last of their kings and established a republic. One of the young state’s first acts was to sign the first of three treaties of friendship with Carthage, the pre-eminent naval power of the central and western Mediterranean…
READ FULL ARTICLE HERE… (en.topwar.ru)
Home | Caravan to Midnight (zutalk.com)
