Alex Michael Elliott’s new book on the fleets and naval forces of the late Roman Mediterranean presents a careful reevaluation of Roman naval power and administration from the first to the sixth century (unless otherwise noted, all dates are CE). Elliott strives to provide a corrective to the influential interpretation of The Roman Imperial Navy published by Chester Starr in 1941 and endorsed by many other scholars in part or in whole (e.g., Rougé 1981, Lewis and Runyan 1985, Casson 1991, Rankov 1995, Hocker 1995, Rummel 2008, and Hopkins 2014).[1] In Starr’s view, Roman naval forces were organized into a “Roman navy” with permanent fleets or classes that guarded the waterways of the Mediterranean and hinterlands.[2] Over the course of the first and second centuries, this naval force was allowed to decline until the crises of the third century essentially swept it away. Such a “navy” was almost non-existent in the fourth and fifth centuries until it was reconstituted as a “Byzantine navy” in either the sixth or seventh centuries. The general acceptance of Starr’s view, plus the paucity of sources for the later empire, have led many scholars of Roman naval history to focus on the first to the third centuries, while neglecting later evidence, meager as it is. In a comprehensive review of the surviving written and archaeological evidence, Elliott advances a view of Roman naval power that rejects the concept of a “navy” comprised of permanent fleets existing separate and distinct from the Roman land forces. Beginning in the first century, Elliott describes a model that allows for more continuity in the development of Roman naval policy from the Principate through the later phases of Roman history. The result, which builds and expands upon the views of other scholars, is a much more nuanced version of Roman naval power including the location and use of their naval forces, particularly in the third to sixth centuries.
The book itself is divided into six chapters, with the first serving as an introduction that reviews the modern literature on Roman naval forces and lays the groundwork for the author’s argument. It also stresses the importance of and difficulties in using an administrative list of civilian and military offices called the Notitia Dignitatum (end of the fourth / start of the fifth century). This list provides a useful guide to the organization of the late Roman military, including naval offices.[3] Chapter 2 presents the evidence in a chronological progression for the praetorian fleets based at Misenum and Ravenna, starting from the Principate and continuing to the sixth century. The following chapters adhere to this same chronological organization of subject material starting from the early empire and proceeding to the sixth century. Accordingly, Chapter 3 discusses the fleets and naval forces of the western Mediterranean focusing on the classes or permanent fleets established at Arles and Aquileia, plus the less substantial, often ad hoc forces along the coasts of north Africa. Chapter 4 presents the evidence for the naval forces of the eastern Mediterranean with a focus on Constantinople, Seleucia Pieria, Alexandria and the Nile. Chapter 5 discusses the warship types used in these forces, starting with polyremes (i.e., classes larger than triremes) and triremes, and then discussing the designs preferred in the later empire: the liburnae, lemboi, lusoriae, and dromones.[4] Chapter 6 presents a brief conclusion that restates the author’s main thesis and summarizes the conclusions from all the preceding chapters. The volume includes a list of abbreviations for primary source editions, which is helpful for those not conversant with late Roman sources, an extensive bibliography, general index, and index of Greek terms. The text is accompanied by 35 black and white figures, including 16 maps and plans, and 19 illustrations (a list of these would have been reader friendly).
Overall, Elliott develops his argument carefully, laying out the evidence in a clear and concise manner. He first describes the praetorian fleets established at Misenum and Ravenna during the first and second centuries and then shows how they were dispersed in the third and fourth centuries toward the frontier regions of the empire. In the north, permanent fleets were established at Arles and Aquileia, while military units posted along rivers had such river craft as were appropriate for their individual missions. Such are the ships that were found at Mainz in the 1980s (Bockius 2006). The soldiers at Mainz, never the home of a known classis or permanent fleet, employed these craft for patrolling the Rhine and its tributaries. Elliott argues that our scanty evidence points more toward legionary control over warships as part of their organizational structure. As a result, invasion fleets, when needed, were ad hoc collections of ships that were gathered from near and far (and not solely from permanent fleets) for specific purposes.
Although our surviving sources do not allow for a connected history revealing the detailed workings of such a naval administration, Elliott combines known naval actions with epigraphical and papyrological evidence to paint a similar picture of naval forces established at Aquileia, Constantinople, Seleucia Pieria, and along the northern coasts of Africa, where coastal units and elements of the field army maintained their own light vessels. Although the paucity of our source record often means that his conclusions are based on probability, the naval policy he describes is coherent and corresponds to established Roman naval practice. So, just as some ships from the praetorian fleets of Misenum and Ravenna were assigned to Arles and Aquileia, others were assigned to Constantinople after its refoundation in 330. That Seleucia Pieria, the port of Antioch, seems to have hosted a classis throughout the early and late imperial periods was due to its service as the port of Antioch, one of the most important centers in the East. Since late Roman naval forces were never restricted to standing fleets, when needed, campaign fleets were augmented with ships from coastal units. Such a system can be seen in the western Mediterranean as well as in Egypt, where it is unclear if a classis existed at Alexandria in the late empire. Here, ships drawn from river forces engaged in policing the Nile could be added to campaign fleets in the same way as occurred elsewhere in the Roman world.
The organizational changes described in the text reflect the evolution of galley design, which the author examines in the book’s fifth chapter. Generally speaking, ships decreased in size from those used during the Hellenistic period and early empire. Quinqueremes, so popular during the Punic Wars, were phased out of use along with hexeremes, which functioned as prestige vessels. Quadriremes and triremes appear only in the praetorian fleets at Misenum and Ravenna and were also reduced in number as time passed. Smaller ships like liburnae, lemboi, and lusoriae appear in the source record, although it is often difficult to tell the differences between their designs or the precision with which our sources use these terms as one proceeds into the fourth century and later.
In conjunction with the treatment of different warship types, I would have welcomed a brief discussion concerning the strategic objectives of galley warfare during the third to sixth centuries because such objectives determine both galley design and organizational change. For example, polyreme warships larger than quinqueremes were designed to facilitate naval siege warfare during the Hellenistic period.[5] After Actium, when the state’s strategic objectives no longer required this kind of warfare, these ships were no longer built and maintained. What then were the naval objectives of the late Roman empire? In one example, Elliott questions whether triremes were actually present at the battle of the Hellespont in 324 and considers their mention by Zosimus an anachronistic classicism derived from his source. He does so presumably because the objectives for which triremes were built are not present in the battle’s description. Might the same be said about the occasional vague descriptions of ramming warfare during this same period? For example, is Zosimus’s description (5.21.3) of a ramming attack in 400 also anachronistically “classic”? In the account, the general Fravitta sailed on a bronze-beaked (chalkembolon) liburnian and used it to bear down upon the foremost raft used by the Gothic general Gainas to ferry troops across the Hellespont. While a definite ram strike is not described, Zosimus does mention pushing and a discharge of missiles, which somehow plunged the raft into the sea with all aboard. Such an action could have been effected by a reinforced cutwater such as those Elliott identifies as rams appearing on the fourth century coinage minted by Constans and Gratian (Fig. 31). And finally, as concerns the multiple campaign fleets Elliott uses to measure the continuance of Roman naval power during the third to sixth centuries, a list of campaigns mentioned in the text would have helped greatly to orient the reader.
In conclusion, Elliott has written an important book that offers a cogent interpretation of late Roman naval power and administration. Considering his persuasive arguments, scholars should avoid seeing the “Roman navy” as necessarily separate from the land force, comprised of substantial provincial fleets and having operational authority over wide geographical areas. Rather, Roman naval policy involved provincial fleets that were much smaller and locally confined than is commonly assumed. Chapter by chapter, Elliott convincingly reviews the available evidence and, wherever possible, introduces epigraphical, papyrological and archaeological evidence to support his case. We should no longer see a total collapse of Roman naval power in the third century, nor can we ignore the continuance of naval operations from the fourth to sixth centuries. Admittedly. the evidence is incomplete and, as a result, some of Elliott’s conclusions are conjectural, but they make better sense than the views influenced by Chester Starr. This is not to say that Elliott’s book supersedes Starr’s Roman Imperial Navy as this is not the author’s intent. His book, rather, offers a corrective to Starr’s work, and presents a cogent picture of Roman naval power during the late empire in a clear, concise and convincing narrative.
References
Bockius, Ronald. 2006. Die spätrömischen Schiffswracks aus Mainz: schiffsarchäologisch-technikgeschichtliche Untersuchung spätantiker Schiffsfunde vom nördlichen Oberrhein. Mainz: Römisch-Germanischen Zentralmuseums.
Casson, Lionel. 1991. The Ancient Mariners: Seafarers and Sea Fighters of the Mediterranean in Ancient Times. 2nd ed. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Fairley, William. 1899. Notitia Dignitatum or Register of Dignitaries, in Translations and Reprints from Original Sources of European History, Vol. VI:4 (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.). Open access.
Hocker, Frederick. 1995. “Late Roman, Byzantine, and Islamic Galleys and Fleets.” In The Age of the Galley: Mediterranean Oared Vessels since Pre-Classical Times, edited by R. Gardiner, 86–100. London: Conway Maritime Press. Open access.
Hopkins, Lloyd. 2014. “Fleets and Manpower on Land and Sea: The Italian classes and the Roman Empire 31 BC-AD 193.” Ph.D. diss., Oxford University. Open access.
Lewis, Archibald R., and Timothy J. Runyan. 1985. European Naval and Maritime History 300–1500. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Murray, William M. 2012. The Age of Titans: The Rise and Fall of the Great Hellenistic Navies. (New York: Oxford University Press).
Rankov, Boris. 1995. “Fleets of the Early Roman Empire, 31 BC-AD 324.” In The Age of the Galley: Mediterranean Oared Vessels since Pre-Classical Times, edited by R. Gardiner, 78–85. London: Conway Maritime Press. Open access.
Rougé, Jean. 1981. Ships and Fleets of the Ancient Mediterranean. Translated by S. Frazer. Middletown: Wesleyan University Press. Open access.
Rummel, Christopher. 2008. “The Fleets on the Northern Frontier of the Roman Empire from the 1st to 3rd Century.” Ph.D. diss., University of Nottingham. Open access.
Starr, Chester G. 1993. The Roman Imperial Navy 31 B. C.–A. D. 324. 3rd ed. Chicago: Ares Publishers. [The virtually unchanged first edition was published in 1941 as Vol 26 of the Cornell Studies in Classical Philology. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.]
Notes
[1] Starr’s 1941 work is available today in a virtually unchanged third edition: Starr 1993.
[2] In this review I use the Latin classis/classes for permanent or standing fleets.
[3] A useful English translation can be found in the Medieval Sourcebook hosted by Fordham University. It is a transcription of Fairley 1899.
[4] Scholars group warships into classes (not to be confused with the standing fleets or classes) with ships of like build that follow similar designs and adhere to a set of generally uniform characteristics and dimensions. In this review I use the English term “class / classes” to signify warships like triremes or quinqueremes. When the ancient designs admit to variations that lead ancient authors to blur the differences between types, as seems to be the case with liburnae, lemboi, lusoriae, and dromones, I use the word “type” to indicate differences in basic design. In these cases, type is virtually synonymous with class.
[5] In this regard, Elliott might have consulted Murray 2012.