During the long deterioration of Roman rule in the western parts of Europe and Africa, the Decline and Fall which ended in 476, civil wars and barbarian invasions took place not on the sea but on land.33 The desperate emperors of the fifth century, hidden in the impregnable fortress of Ravenna, sought to appease the invading German tribes by assigning them tracts of land where they took over usually half the territory, but it is noticeable that in their grants the barbarians were carefully kept away from the seacoast, which still supported some commerce; imperial edicts even banned training the Germans in the building of ships.34
These efforts were in vain. In 429 the able leader of the Vandals, Gaiseric, led his people across the strait of Gibraltar to Africa, where he secured Carthage in 439 and was reluctantly recognized by the Empire as independent in 442. Gaiseric be came strong enough on the sea to attack Rome in 455 and sack it; there was no Misene fleet to counter him on open waters.35 Almost exactly 600 years earlier, when Scipio Aemilianus accepted the surrender of Carthage (146 B.c.), the great Roman aristocrat had turned to his friend, the historian Polybius, and voiced his "dread foreboding that some day the same doom will be pronounced upon my own country."36 The ghost of Hannibal could have looked down on Gaiseric's Vandals in Rome and smiled.
Although the western provinces thus slipped out of central control, the eastern parts of the Mediterranean world, based on the enduring strength of the Greek cities, continued to nourish imperial power in the Byzantine state, ruled from the great capital of Constantinople. Its emperors had reason to pay attention to the sea as well as to the land; a Byzantine fleet was to be invaluable in helping defeat Arab attacks after the rise of Islam. In the west travel was once again as insecure as it had been in the second millennium B.C., and conditions were not to be improved over the next thousand years.
Epilogue
Since the promulgation of Mahan's theory the role of sea power has generally been considered decisive in the history of the modern world and by extension in antiquity at several turning points. Yet acceptance has not been complete; in particular the famous British geographer, Sir Halford Mackinder, argued in Democratic Ideals and Reality, published just after World War I, that control of the great landmass of Eurasia was, or could be, far more significant. This view he summed up in the jingle:
German geopoliticians, including Haushofer, leaned heavily on Mackinder's concept, which thus enjoyed some authority in Nazi times; but otherwise it seems to have sunk into relative obscurity.
In ancient history two states rested their position primarily on the sea. Carthage dominated the western Mediterranean for centuries, with considerable political and economic effects, but it is not clear that Carthage could ever have been a cultural leader, as Rome was to be, even though it was much affected by Hellenistic civilization.3 The other, the Athenian naval empire, has long been taken as a paradigm of the utility of rule of the sea. Here too the political and economic consequences were significant, but we must also reckon into the balance sheet the cultural advances that have influenced Western civilization ever since the great days of Athens.
Both, however, were crushed by states primarily powerful on land. True, Rome and Sparta had to go to sea and gain naval mastery over their opponents, but under the surface the strengths of organization and determination as perfected on land were decisive in their success. Finally, as we have just seen, the Roman Empire produced the most conscious and widely based organization of naval strength to protect the prosperity of an age later hailed as the "most happy" in the history of the human race.4 The eventual deterioration of the navy was, even so, not the principal factor in the Decline and Fall.
The strengths, the weaknesses, and the ultimate values of sea power are well and diversely illuminated in the ancient world; what lessons we may draw from this experience it is not for an ancient historian to presume to suggest. It would be well, nonetheless, to keep in mind Mackinder as well as Mahan.
Notes
Introduction
1. From Sail to Steam (New York, 1907), p. 277.
2. History of Rome, Book 3, chap. 4.
3. W. D. Puleston, Mahan (New Haven, 1933), p. 159; R. B. Downs, Books that Changed the World (2d ed.; Chicago, 1978), pp. 252-62.
4. R. Meiggs, Trees and Timber in the Ancient Mediterranean World (Oxford, 1982), p. 117.
5. Strabo 1. 1. 6 C8, 8. 1. 3 C334, so too 9. 2, 21 C408 in describing Thessaly.
6. Appian, Roman History 8. 87.
7. J. F. Matthews, Journal of Roman Studies 74 (1984), p. 170.
8. As asserted by A. Lesky, Thalatta: Der Weg der Griechen zum Meer (Vienna, 1947), p. 41, "Auf der Schiffahrt beruhten Macht and Wohlstand." Among the many treatments of ancient trade, see recently Trade in the Ancient Economy, edd. P. D. A. Garnsey, K. Hopkins, and C. R. Whittaker (Berkeley, 1983).
9. John Masefield, Cargoes.
10. T. J. Figuera, American Journal of Philology 106 (1985), p. 64.
11. See, for example, the works of Casson, Meijer, Morrison, and Rouge listed in the Bibliography.
12. Here I may note that studies of naval power in modern history such as L. W. Martin, The Sea in Modern Strategy (London, 1967), are not very useful though at times they do suggest its limitations (so P. M. Kennedy, The Rise and Fall of British Naval Mastery [London, 1976]). A. R. Lewis and T. J. Runyan, European Naval and Maritime History 300-1500 (Bloomington, Indiana, 1985), argue that sea power held together empires in this long period but admit that the decisive battles were usually on land; not until the sixteenth century did naval conflicts such as Lepanto and the Spanish Armada have significant consequences.
Chapter I
1. Strabo 1. 3. 4 C49; F. Meijer, A History of Seafaring in the Classical World (New York, 1986), p. 29, has a map of the currents.
2. B. W. Labaree, "How The Greeks Sailed into the Black Sea," American Journal of Archaeology 61 (1957), pp. 29-33.
3. So Strabo 2. 5. 18 CI22ff. subdivides the Mediterranean.
4. K. Honea, "Prehistoric Remains on the Island of Kythnos," American Journal of Archaeology 79 (1975), pp. 277-79.
5. Most recently E. A. Fisher, American Journal of Archaeology 89 (1985), p. 330; but note the caution of R. Ross Holloway, Italy and the Aegean, 3000-700 B.C. (Louvain, 1981), p. 89.
6. On the growth of this trade see J. Bouzek, The Aegean, Anatolia and Europe: Cultural Interrelations in the Second Millennium B. C. (Goteborg, 1985).
7. G. F. Bass, "A Bronze Age Shipwreck at Ulu Bvrun (Kal): 1985 Campaign," American Journal of Archaeology 90 (1986), pp. 26496, and a brief report on the 1986 campaign 91 (1987), p. 321; also the well illustrated survey in National Geographic, December 1987, pp. 693-732.
8. F. Braudel, The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip II (New York, 1973), p. 296, cf. pp. 122-23; J. F. Shepherd and G. M. Walton, Shipping, Maritime Trade, and the Economic Development of Colonial North America (Cambridge, 1972), p. 196; according to L. Casson, Ships and Seamanship in the Ancient World (Princeton, 1971), pp. 171-72, sailing ships still ran 70 to 150 tons in classical times.
9. S. Marinatos, "La Marine Creto-Mycenienne" Bulletin de Corre- spondance Hellenique 57 (1933), pp. 170-235.
10. A. T. Mahan, The Influence of Sea Power upon the French Revolution and Empire (Boston, 1918), p. 152; cf. Braudel, I, pp. 358-74, on the variation in time for various voyages.
11. P. Warren, "The Miniature Fresco from the West House at Akro- tiri, Thera, and its Aegean Setting," Journal of Hellenic Studies 99 (1979), pp. 115-29; A. Raban, "The Thera Ships: Another Interpretation," American Journal of Archaeology 88 (1984), pp. 11-19.
12. Warren, pp. 128-29, is ambiguous as to whether the raiders depicted in the Thera fresco are Mycenaean or Minoan but is willing to believe that Minoans themselves could raid. See my reevaluation of their "peaceful" ways in "Minoan Flower Lovers," The Minoan Thalassocracy: Myth and Reality (Stockholm, 1984), pp. 9-12.
13. T. Save-Soderbergh, The Navy of the Eighteenth Egyptian Dynasty (Upps
ala, 1946).
14. S. R. K. Glanville, Zeitschrift fur A"gyptische Sprache and Altertum- skunde 66 (1930), p. 109, on the Memphis dockyard.
15. Thucydides 1. 4; Herodotus 3. 122; Strabo 10. 4. 8 C476; Diodorus Siculus 5. 78. See generally my "Myth of the Minoan Thalassocracy," Historia 3 (1955), pp. 282-91 (now in my Essays on Ancient History [Leiden, 1979]), pp. 87-96). I adhere to the views there expressed despite the counter by R. J. Buck, "The Minoan Thalassocracy Re-examined," Historia 11 (1962), pp. 129-37. The essays in The Minoan Thalassocracy: Myth or Reality are largely archeologically oriented.
16. L. Casson, The Ancient Mariners (New York, 1959), p. 29.
17. Cf. F. T. Jane, The British Battle Fleet, 1 (2d ed.; London, 1915), pp. 6-7.
18. H. J. Kantor, The Aegean and the Orient in the Second Millennium B. C. (Bloomington, Ind., 1947), p. 54.
19. L. Cohen, "Evidence for the Ram in the Minoan Period," American Journal of Archaeology 42 (1938), pp. 486-94; J. S. Morrison and R. T. Williams, Greek Oared Ships 900-322 B. C. (Cambridge, 1968), p. 7, still invest Mycenaean ships with short rams, but see Casson, Ships and Seamanship, pp. 41-42, 49ff.
20. J. B. Pritchard, Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament (Princeton, 1950), p. 262.
21. H. Nelson, "The Naval Battle Pictured at Medinet Habu," Journal of Near Eastern Studies 2 (1943), pp. 40-55; S. Wachsmann, "The Ships of the Sea Peoples," International Journal of Nautical Archaeology 10 (1981), pp. 187-220; see generally N. K. Sandars, The Sea Peoples: Warriors of the Ancient Mediterranean 1250-1150 B. C. (2d ed.; London, 1985).
22. Pritchard, Ancient Near Eastern Texts, pp. 25-29.
Chapter II
1. J. Collis, The European Iron Age (London, 1984), provides a brief overview of the effects in the west of renewed contacts with the east; see also the detailed and thoughtful synthesis by R. Ross Holloway, Italy and the Aegean, 3000-700 B. C. (Louvain, 1981).
2. F. G. Niemeyer, ed., Die Phonizier im Westen (Mainz, 1982); B. H. Warmington, Carthage (London, 1960).
3. D. Ridgway, L'Alba della Magna Grecia (Milan, 1984).
4. S. Humphreys, Parola del Passato 22 (1967), pp. 384-85.
5. See generally my Economic and Social Growth of Early Greece 800-500 B.C. (New York, 1977); Individual and Community: The Rise of the Polis 800-500 B.C. (New York, 1986).
6. Dio Chrysostom, Orations 36. 5.
7. Works and Days 646ff.
8. Oxford Book of Greek Verse (Oxford, 1953), p. 572.
9. Leskey, Thalatta: Der Weg der Griechen zum Meer, passim.
10. T. S. Noonan, "The Grain Trade of the Northern Black Sea in Antiquity," American Journal of Philology 94 (1973), pp. 231-42; C. A. Roebuck, The Grain Trade between Greece and Egypt," Classical Philology 45 (1950), pp. 236-47, and "The Economic Development of Ionia," Classical Philology 48 (1953), pp. 9-16.
11. Odyssey 8. 159-64; my Economic and Social Growth, pp. 46-54, and Past and Future in Ancient History (Lanham, Maryland, 1987), pp. 16-17. Holloway, Italy and the Aegean, pp. 47-49, has an interesting view of early exchanges.
12. Herodotus 4. 196.
13. Herodotus 4. 152.
14. Iliad 6. 236.
15. Casson, The Ancient Mariners, p. 87, emphasizes the "graceful form and superb lines" of ancient sailing ships against the common view that they were not very reliable tubs; see also C. H. Ericsson, Navis Oneraria (Abo, 1984), and on tonnage H. T. Wallinga, "Nautika I," Mnemosyne 17 (1964), pp. 1-40.
16. N. M. Verdelis, "Der Diolkos am Isthmus von Korinth," Athenische Mitteilungen 71 (1951), pp. 51-59; B. R. MacDonald, "The Diolkos," Journal of Hellenic Studies 106 (1986), pp. 191-95.
17. R. Giingerich, Die Kustenbeschreibung in der griechischen Literatur (Munster, 1950).
18. A. M. Snodgrass, Trade in the Ancient Economy, pp. 16-17, goes so far as to argue that early trade was conducted via pentekonters, but see C. Reed, Ancient World 10 (1984), pp. 39-41.
19. Odyssey 9. 40-42; in 14. 249ff. such a raid fails.
20. G. Ahlberg, Fighting on Land and Sea in Greek Geometric Art (Stockholm, 1971).
21. M. Gras, "A propos de la 'bataille d'Alalia'," Latomus 31 (1972), pp. 698-716.
22. Morrison and Williams, Greek Oared Ships, pp. 181-83.
23. So L. Basch, "Phoenician Oared Ships," The Mariner's Mirror 55 (1969), pp. 139-62, 227-46; Journal of Hellenic Studies 97 (1977), pp. 1-10 and 100 (1980), pp. 198-99; countered by A. B. Lloyd, "Were Necho's Triremes Phoenician?" Journal of Hellenic Studies 95 (1975), pp. 45-61 and 100 (1980), pp. 195-98. A vital question that never seems to be raised is why either Greeks or Phoenicians developed the warship equipped with a ram and several banks of oars. I point out the question only here because the answer is far from clear. True naval battles do not occur until the sixth century as far as our evidence goes; were there earlier skirmishes off Cyprus or elsewhere?
24. Thucydides 1. 14. A. Degani, Studi su Ipponatta (Bari, 1984), would lower Hipponax to the reign of Darius.
25. Most recently J. S. Morrison and J. F. Coates, The Athenian Trireme: The History and Reconstruction of an Ancient Greek Warship (Cambridge, 1986). I have not seen J. F. Coates and S. McGrail, edd., The Greek Trireme of the 5th Century B.C. (London, 1985), or A. W. Sleeswyck, "A New Reconstruction of the Attic Triere and Bireme," International Journal of Naval Archaeology 11 (1982), pp. 35-46.
26. Lucan, Pharsalia 3. 647-52.
27. A. W. Gomme, "A Forgotten Factor in Greek Naval Strategy," Journal of Hellenic Studies 53 (1933), pp. 16-24; Thucydides 1. 48; Xenophon, Hellenica 6. 2, gives a good description of care in landing by night in hostile territory; in Demosthenes, Oration 50, Apollodorus describes the discomfort when ships had to ride at anchor all night.
28. W. W. Tarn, "Fleet Speeds," Classical Review 23 (1909), pp. 184-86.
29. Morrison and Coates, Athenian Trireme, p. 197, suggest that the maximum wave a trireme could take was about 0.85 m.
30. Appian, Civil Wars 2. 59; cf. Xenophon, Hellenica 6. 2, on a blockade of Corcyra "when the weather permitted," and the difficulties of the Athenians at Pylos (Thucydides 4. 26-27).
31. E.g., Herodotus 6. 17; J. Taillardat, "La triere athenienne et la guerre sur mer," Problemes de la guerre en Grece ancienne, ed. J. P. Vernant (Paris, 1968), pp. 183-205.
32. Herodotus 7. 9.
33. Casson, Ships, p. 49.
34. Herodotus 1. 166.
35. Thucydides 2. 89; one of the best pictures of naval tactics is in Polybius 16. 2-7, describing the battle of Chios in 201. See generally on naval maneuvers H. T. Wallinga, The Boarding-Bridge of the Romans (Groningen, 1956), ch. 5, and J. S. Morrison, "Greek Naval Tactics in the 5th Century B.C.," International Journal of Naval Archaeology 3 (1974), pp. 21-26.
36. W. L. Rodgers, Greek and Roman Naval Warfare (Annapolis, 1937), pp. 131-33.
37. Thucydides 4. 32, however, suggests that rowers were not regularly equipped with arms; on occasion hoplites served as rowers so that a full armed force could be landed (Thucydides 3. 18, 8.24).
38. Against B. Jordan, The Athenian Navy in the Classical Period (Berkeley, 1975), pp. 260ff., see J. S. Morrison, Journal of Hellenic Studies 104 (1984), pp. 48-59.
39. My Individual and Community, pp. 46-47.
40. Casson, Ships, pp. 90-91, puts the life of a trireme at 20 years on the average; the wreck of a sailing ship from the fourth century was estimated to have been more than 80 years old (M. L. Katsev, National Geographic 137 [1970], p. 856).
41. Herodotus 3. 19.
42. M. G. lentile, La pirateria tirrenica (Kokalos, Suppl. 6; Rome, 1983); M. Cristofani, Gli Etruschi del mare (Milan, 1983); cf. the exploits in the fifth century of Velthus Spurinna recorded in his elogium at Tarquinia (M. Torelli, Elogia Tarquiniensia [Florence, 1975], pp. 56-66).
43. J. M. Turffa, "Evidence for Etruscan-Punic Relations," American Journal of Archaeology 81 (1977), pp. 368-74.
44. See my Beginnings of Imperial Rome (Ann Arbor, 1980), pp. 33-34.
45. Herodotus 1.
143.
46. Herodotus 4. 44; see recently the careful essay by H. T. Wallinga, "The Ancient Persian Navy and its Predecessors," Archaemenid History 1 (Leiden, 1987), pp. 47-77.
47. Thucydides 1. 15.
48. Herodotus 3. 39ff., 3. 122.
49. Ps.-Plato, Hipparchus 228c.
50. M. M. Eisman, "Attic Kyathos Production," Archaeology 28 (1975), pp. 76-83.
51. Most recently R. Thomsen, Eisphora (Copenhagen, 1964), pp. 120ff.
52. Herodotus 6. 89, 6. 92-93; C. J. Haas, "Athenian Naval Power before Themistocles," Historia 34 (1985), pp. 29-46.
53. Herodotus 6. 39, 6. 41, 5. 97.
54. Thucydides 7. 21.
Chapter III
1. Herodotus 5. 97. There is no need here to footnote the history of Athens and of Greece generally in the fifth and fourth centuries; a sound guide is E. Will, Le Monde grec et l'Orient; le Ve siecle (Paris, 1971), and the companion volume on the fourth century (largely by C. Moss6, Paris, 1975). In English N. G. L. Hammond, History of Greece to 322 B.C. (2d ed.; Oxford, 1977), is detailed.
2. H. T. Wallinga, "The Ionian Revolt," Mnemosyne 37 (1984), pp. 401-37; D. Lateiner, "The Failure of the Ionian Revolt," Historia 31 (1982), pp. 129-60; P. Tozzi, La rivolta ionica (Pisa, 1978).
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