The famous Greek trireme was a welterweight ship compared to what both sides brought to bear at the Battle of Actium. Augustus, whose victory would crown him as the undisputed emperor, had a force primarily composed of quinqueremes, or five row ships. This design allowed...
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Replying to @andonanonandon @visakanv
The Romans to exploit their infantry stength even at sea, as each ship would carry a large contingent of marines and a spiked boarding device.
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Replying to @andonanonandon @visakanv
Mark Antony also possessed a fleet of quinqeremes, but what the ancient sources repeatedly mention are the monsters he augmented this fleet with.
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Replying to @andonanonandon @visakanv
He and Cleopatra brought along Ptolemaic leviathans developed for beseiging port cities . . . from the sea. It's bonkers. We're talking not "threes", like a trireme, or "fives", like a quinquereme, but nines, tens, fifteens, even.
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Replying to @andonanonandon @visakanv
There's a record attesting that at one point in the Ptolemaic dynasty "thirties" were used in combat. Not against other ships, but against 𝐜𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐞𝐬. I could talk more about this tomorrow, but it's late and I gotta wrap up.
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Replying to @andonanonandon @visakanv
Anyway, Antony had these ships because his ultimate goal was to crack open the ports in the "arch" of the Italian boot, and from their conquer his way into Rome and immortalize himself as the first Emperor.
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Replying to @andonanonandon @visakanv
*there , it really is quite late. Augustus, for a variety of reasons, many logistical, beat him and won the glory for himself.
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Replying to @andonanonandon @visakanv
Now that the Med. was under total Roman control, the needs of the Roman fleet shifted from active warfare to anti-piracy measures.
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Replying to @andonanonandon @visakanv
As the big ships were designed to break sieges, and suddenly there were no more naval sieges, not for centuries, the institutional capacity to design and build these monsters withered and died, and all that exist of them now are a few records and trophies.
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Replying to @andonanonandon @visakanv
Oh, and this excellent book by William Murray:https://books.google.com/books/about/The_Age_of_Titans.html?id=1a3MP5E0Wz4C …
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this is amazing thank you!
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