Hellenistic-era warships

From the 4th century BC on, new types of oared warships appeared in the Mediterranean Sea, superseding the trireme and transforming naval warfare.

These developments were spearheaded in the Hellenistic Near East, but also to a large extent shared by the naval powers of the Western Mediterranean, specifically Carthage and the Roman Republic.

While the wealthy successor kingdoms in the East built huge warships ("polyremes"), Carthage and Rome, in the intense naval antagonism during the Punic Wars, relied mostly on medium-sized vessels.

In the 1st century AD, the larger warships were retained only as flagships and were gradually supplanted by the light liburnians until, by Late Antiquity, the knowledge of their construction had been lost.

[8] However, the eventual appearance of bigger polyremes ("sixes" and later "sevens", "eights", "nines", "tens", and even a massive "forty"), made this theory implausible.

[9] 20th-century scholarship disproved that theory, and established that the ancient warships were rowed at different levels, with three providing the maximum practical limit.

[12] The "double-banking" theory is supported by the fact that the 4th-century quinqueremes were housed in the same ship sheds as the triremes, and must therefore have had similar width (c. 16 feet (4.9 m)), which fits with the idea of an evolutionary progression from the one type to the other.

[15] It has even been suggested by Lionel Casson that the quinqueremes used by the Romans in the Punic Wars of the 3rd century were of the monoreme design (i.e., with one level and five rowers on each oar), being thus able to carry the large contingent of 120 marines attested for the Battle of Ecnomus.

[21] Based on iconographic evidence from coins, Morrison and Coates have determined that the Punic triremes in the 5th and early 4th centuries BC were largely similar to their Greek counterparts, most likely including an outrigger.

From the middle of the 3rd century BC onwards, Carthaginian "fives" display a separate "oar box" that contained the rowers and that was attached to the main hull.

Given the prominence of close-quarters boarding actions in later years,[14] vessels were built as "cataphract" ships, with a closed hull to protect the rowers, and a full deck able to carry marines and catapults.

[6][26] Pliny the Elder reports that Aristotle ascribed the invention of the quadrireme (Latin: quadriremis; Ancient Greek: τετρήρης, tetrērēs) to the Carthaginians.

Subsequently, the quadrireme was favoured as the main warship of the Rhodian navy, the sole professional naval force in the Eastern Mediterranean.

[6] In the eastern Mediterranean, they were superseded as the heaviest ships by the massive polyremes that began appearing in the last two decades of the 4th century,[6] but in the West, they remained the mainstay of the Carthaginian navy.

[28] Pliny the Elder attributes the creation of the septireme (Latin: septiremis; Ancient Greek: ἑπτήρης, heptērēs) to Alexander the Great.

[47] Curtius corroborates this, and reports that the king gave orders for wood for 700 septiremes to be cut in Mount Lebanon,[48] to be used in his projected circumnavigations of the Arabian peninsula and Africa.

[49] Based on the comments of Orosius that the larger ships in Antony's fleet were only as high as the quinqueremes (their deck standing at c. 3 m above water), it is presumed that "eights", as well as the "nines" and "tens", were rowed at two levels.

The presence of "nines" in Antony's fleet at Actium is recorded by Florus and Cassius Dio, although Plutarch makes explicit mention only of "eights" and "tens".

[52] Like the septireme, the deceres (Ancient Greek: δεκήρης, dekērēs) is attributed by Pliny to Alexander the Great,[47] and they are present alongside "nines" in the fleet of Antigonus Monophthalmus in 315 BC.

[10][52] Eventually, Ptolemy IV built a "forty" (tessarakontērēs) that was 130 metres (430 ft) long, required 4,000 rowers and 400 other crew, and could support a force of 2,850 marines on its decks.

[52] Several types of fast vessels were used during this period, the successors of the 6th and 5th-century BC triacontors (τριακόντοροι, triakontoroi, "thirty-oars") and pentecontors (πεντηκόντοροι, pentēkontoroi, "fifty-oars").

[61] The hemiolia or hemiolos (Greek: ἡμιολία [ναῦς] or ἡμίολος [λέμβος]) was a light and fast warship that appeared in the early 4th century BC.

It was particularly favoured by pirates in the eastern Mediterranean,[62] but also used by Alexander the Great as far as the rivers Indus and Hydaspes, and by the Romans as a troop transport.

[66] Given their lighter hulls, greater length and generally slimmer profile, the hemiolia would have had an advantage in speed even over other light warships like the liburnian.

[51] The trihemiolia (Greek: τριημιολία [ναῦς]) first appears in accounts of the Siege of Rhodes by Demetrius Poliorcetes in 304 BC, where a squadron of trihemioliai was sent out as commerce raiders.

Judging from the Lindos relief and the famous Nike of Samothrace, both of which are thought to represent trihemioliai,[51] the two upper files would have been accommodated in an oarbox, with the half-file located beneath them in the classic thalamitai position of the trireme.

[34] Reconstruction based on the above sculptures shows that the ship was relatively low, with a boxed-in superstructure, a displacement of c. 40 tonnes, and capable of reaching speeds comparable with those of a full trireme.

[71] Livy, Lucan and Appian all describe the liburnian as bireme; they were fully decked (cataphract) ships, with a sharply pointed prow, providing a more streamlined shape designed for greater speed.