The Imperial Roman Navy
Created | Updated Sep 27, 2012
Origin:
The Emperor Augustus was the first person to create a full-time professional Roman Navy, which he did after winning the battle of Actium (31 BCE).
He used some of the captured ships to make a sacrifice to the gods and the rest to form a fleet based in southern France, near the modern town of Frejus (apologies to the French for missing an accent, but this computer refuses to add them!).
At some point, probably before Augustus died, this fleet was moved from France, split into two and sent to Italy. One arm was based at Misenum, on the Bay of Naples and its remit was to look after the Western Mediterranean, the other fleet was based at Ravenna, on the Adriatic and looked after the Eastern sea.
Over the next 100 years, other fleets came into existance, but there is very little primary evidence for their activities, mainly because their bases either lie under modern towns and cities (like Boulogne and Dover), or because all evidence has been washed away by rising sea levels (like whatever stood at the mouth of the Rhine, or Reculver fort).
The Men of the Fleets:
The Fleets were commanded by a 'Praefectus', a part-time officer, usually of the equestrian class, who was working his way up to higher political posts. Many fleet 'Praefecti' ended up as governors of a province.
Of the 126 known 'Praefecti' though, there were only five who were freedmen. This has meant that soome scholars have ignored the importance of the fleets, thinking that they couldn't have been very important if they had ex-slaves in command.
These ex-slaves, though, were Imperial freedmen and probably high level bureaucrats. Apart from one, they were all given ther job in the reign of the emperors Claudius and Nero. The odd man out was made 'Praefectus' by Commodus, an emperor well known for bending the rules.
After the emperor Vespasian took over, the legal loophole which allowed freedmen to be given the job of Fleet 'Praefectus' was closed and from then on (bar Commodus' man) all the fleet 'Praefecti' were equestrians.
We know very little about the actual auxiliries themselves. Certainly, the rowers were members of the army, just like everybody else in the fleets - and there is an extant end-of-service military Diploma with the man's name on it: 'ex remigibus'.
One thing that the burial memorials of these men do tell us is that most of them seem to have been Marines, rather than seamen. There are only about 4 burial memorials to sail handlers and only maybe two for rowers, but over 50 for trierarchs!
My own personal opinion is that the trierarchs were in military command of their ships, but that the gubernators were in sailing command, that is, that they were what medieval navies called 'ship masters'. I can't prove it, but it makes sense of some otherwise confusing details reported by Tacitus.
One more thing, the rowers weren't slaves. Thank 'Ben Hur' for this idea, but it's quite wrong. Slaves were forbidden by law from joining the military and there is an extant letter written by the emperor Trajan, which says that if a slave joined the Army knowingly and was found out, he was to be executed.
The Ships.
After the battle of Actium, the big warships seem to disappear, and the biggest vessel the fleets have is the Hexeres (Six) named 'Ops', stationed at Misenum, along with a 'Five' named 'Victory'. Ravenna had two 'Fives', the 'Augustus' and, confusingly, another 'Victory'.
The workhorse ship of the fleets, though, was the trireme, the three banked warship made famous by the Greek navies, although a Roman 'Three' probably looked very different from the restored trireme, 'Olympias'.
For a start, Roman rowers were not boxed in like their Greek counterparts and it could be that 'Libernian' became a catch-all name for all warships, not just biremes (rather like 'dreadnought' became a catch-all word for battleships in the early 20th century).
I've been researching the Roman navies for some time now and hope to get a book about them published very shortly, however, I can recommend Chester Starr's 'The Imperial Roman Navy', with the caveat that it was published a long time ago and Michel Redde's 'Mare Nostrum', which is in French, is fairly recent (1986), but sadly, has never been translated into English, which is a great pity, because it is the most complete study of the Roman fleets which has ever been published.
The Emperor Augustus was the first person to create a full-time professional Roman Navy, which he did after winning the battle of Actium (31 BCE).
He used some of the captured ships to make a sacrifice to the gods and the rest to form a fleet based in southern France, near the modern town of Frejus (apologies to the French for missing an accent, but this computer refuses to add them!).
At some point, probably before Augustus died, this fleet was moved from France, split into two and sent to Italy. One arm was based at Misenum, on the Bay of Naples and its remit was to look after the Western Mediterranean, the other fleet was based at Ravenna, on the Adriatic and looked after the Eastern sea.
Over the next 100 years, other fleets came into existance, but there is very little primary evidence for their activities, mainly because their bases either lie under modern towns and cities (like Boulogne and Dover), or because all evidence has been washed away by rising sea levels (like whatever stood at the mouth of the Rhine, or Reculver fort).
The Men of the Fleets:
The Fleets were commanded by a 'Praefectus', a part-time officer, usually of the equestrian class, who was working his way up to higher political posts. Many fleet 'Praefecti' ended up as governors of a province.
Of the 126 known 'Praefecti' though, there were only five who were freedmen. This has meant that soome scholars have ignored the importance of the fleets, thinking that they couldn't have been very important if they had ex-slaves in command.
These ex-slaves, though, were Imperial freedmen and probably high level bureaucrats. Apart from one, they were all given ther job in the reign of the emperors Claudius and Nero. The odd man out was made 'Praefectus' by Commodus, an emperor well known for bending the rules.
After the emperor Vespasian took over, the legal loophole which allowed freedmen to be given the job of Fleet 'Praefectus' was closed and from then on (bar Commodus' man) all the fleet 'Praefecti' were equestrians.
We know very little about the actual auxiliries themselves. Certainly, the rowers were members of the army, just like everybody else in the fleets - and there is an extant end-of-service military Diploma with the man's name on it: 'ex remigibus'.
One thing that the burial memorials of these men do tell us is that most of them seem to have been Marines, rather than seamen. There are only about 4 burial memorials to sail handlers and only maybe two for rowers, but over 50 for trierarchs!
My own personal opinion is that the trierarchs were in military command of their ships, but that the gubernators were in sailing command, that is, that they were what medieval navies called 'ship masters'. I can't prove it, but it makes sense of some otherwise confusing details reported by Tacitus.
One more thing, the rowers weren't slaves. Thank 'Ben Hur' for this idea, but it's quite wrong. Slaves were forbidden by law from joining the military and there is an extant letter written by the emperor Trajan, which says that if a slave joined the Army knowingly and was found out, he was to be executed.
The Ships.
After the battle of Actium, the big warships seem to disappear, and the biggest vessel the fleets have is the Hexeres (Six) named 'Ops', stationed at Misenum, along with a 'Five' named 'Victory'. Ravenna had two 'Fives', the 'Augustus' and, confusingly, another 'Victory'.
The workhorse ship of the fleets, though, was the trireme, the three banked warship made famous by the Greek navies, although a Roman 'Three' probably looked very different from the restored trireme, 'Olympias'.
For a start, Roman rowers were not boxed in like their Greek counterparts and it could be that 'Libernian' became a catch-all name for all warships, not just biremes (rather like 'dreadnought' became a catch-all word for battleships in the early 20th century).
I've been researching the Roman navies for some time now and hope to get a book about them published very shortly, however, I can recommend Chester Starr's 'The Imperial Roman Navy', with the caveat that it was published a long time ago and Michel Redde's 'Mare Nostrum', which is in French, is fairly recent (1986), but sadly, has never been translated into English, which is a great pity, because it is the most complete study of the Roman fleets which has ever been published.
