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Hellenistic and Roman Naval Wars, 336 BC–31 BC Paperback – November 5, 2020

by John D. Grainger (Author)

4.0 51 ratings

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An important but neglected aspect of classical warfare that covers technological, strategic and tactical developments from Alexander to the battle of Actium.

The period covered in this book is well known for its epic battles and grand campaigns of territorial conquest, but Hellenistic monarchies, Carthaginians, and the rapacious Roman Republic were scarcely less active at sea. Huge resources were poured into maintaining fleets not only as symbols of prestige but as means of projecting real military power across the Mediterranean arena.

Taking the period between Alexander the Great's conquests and the Battle of Actium, John Grainger analyzes the developments in naval technology and tactics, the uses and limitations of sea power and the differing strategies of the various powers. He shows, for example, how the Rhodians and the Romans eschewed the ever-larger monster galleys favored by most Hellenistic monarchs in favor of smaller vessels. This is a fascinating study of a neglected aspect of ancient warfare.

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“An inherently fascinating and impressively informative study of a heretofore neglected and obscure aspect of ancient warfare, "Hellenistic and Roman Naval Wars, 336 BC - 31 BC" is an extraordinary work of exceptionally thorough and painstaking research.”
Midwest Book Review

About the Author

John D. Grainger is a former teacher turned professional historian. He has over thirty books to his name, divided between classical history and modern British political and military history. His previous books for Pen & Sword are Hellenistic and Roman Naval Wars; Wars of the Maccabees; Traditional Enemies: Britain’s War with Vichy France 1940-42; Roman Conquests: Egypt and Judaea; Rome, Parthia and India: The Violent Emergence of a New World Order: 150-140 BC; a three-volume history of the Seleukid Empire and British Campaigns in the South Atlantic 1805-1807.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Pen and Sword Military (November 5, 2020)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 224 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1526782324
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1526782328
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 13.6 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6 x 0.5 x 9 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #2,750,036 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #2,984 in Ancient Greek History (Books)
- #4,432 in Ancient Roman History (Books)
- #4,965 in Military Strategy History (Books)

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4.0 51 ratings

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P. Weiser

Time of the Quinquereme

Reviewed in the United States on December 8, 2012

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This is not quite a blow-by-blow description of centuries of Mediterranean naval warfare, but close. And that's a good thing: it's a compact book, information-rich and well written. On a scale of technology to history, it is weighted more to the latter, i.e. there is little (though sufficient) description of warship types and more thorough treatment of general history including Successor politics and the Roman-Carthaginian feud which make sense of the strategies and alliances.

On the Kindle edition specifically: this has the most viewable illustrations (on my Kindle Keboard) of any I've seen - that is, they work properly on a non-backlit display instead of being too small or too low-contrast.

8 people found this helpful

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Keith Sadler

Well researched.

Reviewed in the United States on April 26, 2012

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This work is well researched and a nearly complete overview of the period. For the money there is not a better book on the subject matter.

One person found this helpful

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Bored Reader

More of a Prose Style List of Naval Conflicts

Reviewed in the United States on July 20, 2022

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Seems to be well researched chronogical list of Mediterranean naval conflicts and transport activities. Minimum tactical details due to lack of historical details and tendacy for one sided accounts. Helpful to be familiar with land battles and geographical names for the period.

One person found this helpful

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JPS

A good (and almost comprehensive) summary

Reviewed in the United States on March 15, 2012

First posted on Amazon.co.uk on 10 November 2011

This book does a great job in summarizing a complex and little known topic in about 200 pages (a bit less in fact, if you leave out the bibliography): that of naval warfare from Alexander the Great to the battle of Actium. It is generally well written and the author had certainly done his research, even if naval warfare may not be his favorite topic (he seems to have a soft spot for the Seleukids. His book on Seleukos is in fact excellent, although perhaps not targeted at a wider audience). The book should be both commended and recommended as a very useful introduction for anyone interested in the naval warfare of that period. It could also be seen as a companion book for any historical novel that includes some naval warfare for this period (such as some of the books in Christian Cameron's Tyrant series or the three books on the First Punic war by Mr Stack).

There are, however, a couple of limits. One has been to gloss over the logistical and economic aspects of naval warfare. The other has been the need to simplify, so that a large part of the discussions on ships' sizes and performances have been cut out.

Choosing to avoid most of the discussion on the logistical and economic aspects of naval warfare is understantable to a point. However, it is also a bit of a pity because by doing this the book fails to explain some of the events, such as the demise of Athens as a naval superpower. The drain that a large number of ever larger ships exercized on any city's (or medium-size kingdom) financial and human resources was such that only powers that had both large huiman and financial resources could afford a large fleet. This is probably also one of the main reasons explaining why Macedonia under both Philip V and Perseus never built a fleet of quinquerèmes to challenge Rome at sea.

According to some historians, and just to give a sense of proportions, the annual cost of maintaining (including providing the sails, oars, masts and rigging) a trirème was about a talent of Attic silver a year or 6000 silver drachmes. When you know that a talent was 25.92 kilos, and that was just for ship maintenance you get to release that we are talking serious money. On top of that, the crews had to be paid (both sailors and rowers which were all free men and generally citizens) and this could add another talent per year. Building a new trirème could have cost double that amount (that is 2 talents). Larger ships, with larger crews, were, of course, proportionnally even more expensive to build and maintain...

The author has omitted some of the discussions about the technicalities of the various ships types. While this is understandable, since this book is an introduction and a summary, it can also become a bit confusing at times.

For instance, the basis of larger ship types were the penteconters (one set of oars and one rower per oar on each side). Then came the biremes (two sets of oars per side and one rower per oar) and only AFTER that came the trière (or trirème) with three oars per side and one rower per oar. It is a bit of an over-simplification and NOT quite correct to state that the trirème should "always be the basis from which the discussion must proceed". In fact, that author's previous sentence, mentioning that "it was normal (by 336 BC) to propel a galley with two or three banks of oars" contradicts his previous statement and is also a simplification. A quadrirème was a development of a birème (two sets of oars per side and two rowers per oars instead of one) and NOT of a trirème. The quinquerème was a development of the trirème (two banks with two rowers each per side and a third bank with only one rower). Thus far, historians agree. For sixes, sevens and above, there is some disagreement because, depending on how many men you had per oars, these could be seen as further developments of birèmes (two oars per side and three men per oar)or of trirème (three oars per side and two men per oar). Anyway, the main conclusions are clear: as you added more and more teams of rowers, the ships became heavier, but also slower, more cumbersome to move around and MUCH more expensive so that, increasingly, their role was limited to command ships and floating fortresses, when used in action, or as ships built purely for prestige by the Successor Kings.

A related technical point is the number of rowers for each type of ship had. Conventional numbers are 170 for a trirème and about 270 for a quinquerème (although the author mentions 300). In reality, there seems to have been several sizes of ships called trirèmes or quinquerèmes and built in different countries or cities. There could be variations within a given type depending upon whether, say, the ship had been built in Phoenicia, Cyprus, Egypt, Greek Asia Minor (pick any of the larger coastal cities) or the Islands (Samos, Chios, Rhodes, Mytileni), Greek mainland (Athens or Corinth), Greek West (Corfou, Taranto or Syracuse), Carthage, Massalia or Rome (and I've left out quite a few). We do know, for instance, that trirèmes built towards the end of the 5th century BC in some places (e.g. Corinth) were heavier (and gave a greater role to boarding) than those built in others where the emphasis was put on swiftness under oars and ramming (Athens being the best example). What we do not quite know for sure is whether the number of oars for each side and in each file were necessarily the same in all ships and all countries. This seems unlikely because there was no reason for any uniformity and because ships were, quite litterally, hand made. However, the variations would have had to be limited and the number of oars per file and per side could probably not have varied between more than 25 to 30. For a trirème, for instance, this could have meant a minimum of 150 rowers and a maximum of 180. The 170 rowers given the author in his book is therefore very probably a simplification based on the standard number of rowers for an Athenian trirème which was built for speed, swiftness and raming.

13 people found this helpful

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Kindle Customer

Dull and Out of Context

Reviewed in the United States on August 13, 2022

Dull writing. I actually don't see the purpose in separating out the naval aspect of ancient warfare since it is the land warfare and strategy that determines the naval campaigns. Light on naval equipment and tactics as well. And try to write with a little flair at least.

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Mr L.

lvre escellent

Reviewed in France on October 1, 2019

Verified Purchase

pour connaitre les navires des puissances maritimes de l epoque

Translate review to English

Todor Argirov

Five Stars

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on October 2, 2017

Verified Purchase

Great book

JPS

A good (and almost comprehensive) summary

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on November 10, 2011

Verified Purchase

This book does a great job in summarizing a complex and little known topic in about 200 pages (a bit less in fact, if you leave out the bibliography): that of naval warfare from Alexander the Great to the battle of Actium. It is generally well written and the author had certainly done his research, even if naval warfare may not be his favorite topic (he seems to have a soft spot for the Seleukids. His book on Seleukos is in fact excellent, although perhaps not targeted at a wider audience). The book should be both commended and recommended as a very useful introduction for anyone interested in the naval warfare of that period. It could also be seen as a companion book for any historical novel that includes some naval warfare for this period (such as some of the books in Christian Cameron's Tyrant series or the three books on the First Punic war by Mr Stack).

There are, however, a couple of limits. One has been to gloss over the logistical and economic aspects of naval warfare. The other has been the need to simplify, so that a large part of the discussions on ships' sizes and performances have been cut out.

Choosing to avoid most of the discussion on the logistical and economic aspects of naval warfare is understantable to a point. However, it is also a bit of a pity because by doing this the book fails to explain some of the events, such as the demise of Athens as a naval superpower. The drain that a large number of ever larger ships exercized on any city's (or medium-size kingdom) financial and human resources was such that only powers that had both large huiman and financial resources could afford a large fleet. This is probably also one of the main reasons explaining why Macedonia under both Philip V and Perseus never built a fleet of quinquerèmes to challenge Rome at sea.

According to some historians, and just to give a sense of proportions, the annual cost of maintaining (including providing the sails, oars, masts and rigging) a trirème was about a talent of Attic silver a year or 6000 silver drachmes. When you know that a talent was 25.92 kilos, and that was just for ship maintenance you get to release that we are talking serious money. On top of that, the crews had to be paid (both sailors and rowers which were all free men and generally citizens) and this could add another talent per year. Building a new trirème could have cost double that amount (that is 2 talents). Larger ships, with larger crews, were, of course, proportionnally even more expensive to build and maintain...

The author has omitted some of the discussions about the technicalities of the various ships types. While this is understandable, since this book is an introduction and a summary, it can also become a bit confusing at times.

For instance, the basis of larger ship types were the penteconters (one set of oars and one rower per oar on each side). Then came the biremes (two sets of oars per side and one rower per oar) and only AFTER that came the trière (or trirème) with three oars per side and one rower per oar. It is a bit of an over-simplification and NOT quite correct to state that the trirème should "always be the basis from which the discussion must proceed". In fact, that author's previous sentence, mentioning that "it was normal (by 336 BC) to propel a galley with two or three banks of oars" contradicts his previous statement and is also a simplification. A quadrirème was a development of a birème (two sets of oars per side and two rowers per oars instead of one) and NOT of a trirème. The quinquerème was a development of the trirème (two banks with two rowers each per side and a third bank with only one rower). Thus far, historians agree. For sixes, sevens and above, there is some disagreement because, depending on how many men you had per oars, these could be seen as further developments of birèmes (two oars per side and three men per oar)or of trirème (three oars per side and two men per oar). Anyway, the main conclusions are clear: as you added more and more teams of rowers, the ships became heavier, but also slower, more cumbersome to move around and MUCH more expensive so that, increasingly, their role was limited to command ships and floating fortresses, when used in action, or as ships built purely for prestige by the Successor Kings.

A related technical point is the number of rowers for each type of ship had. Conventional numbers are 170 for a trirème and about 270 for a quinquerème (although the author mentions 300). In reality, there seems to have been several sizes of ships called trirèmes or quinquerèmes and built in different countries or cities. There could be variations within a given type depending upon whether, say, the ship had been built in Phoenicia, Cyprus, Egypt, Greek Asia Minor (pick any of the larger coastal cities) or the Islands (Samos, Chios, Rhodes, Mytileni), Greek mainland (Athens or Corinth), Greek West (Corfou, Taranto or Syracuse), Carthage, Massalia or Rome (and I've left out quite a few). We do know, for instance, that trirèmes built towards the end of the 5th century BC in some places (e.g. Corinth) were heavier (and gave a greater role to boarding) than those built in others where the emphasis was put on swiftness under oars and ramming (Athens being the best example). What we do not quite know for sure is whether the number of oars for each side and in each file were necessarily the same in all ships and all countries. This seems unlikely because there was no reason for any uniformity and because ships were, quite litterally, hand made. However, the variations would have had to be limited and the number of oars per file and per side could probably not have varied between more than 25 to 30. For a trirème, for instance, this could have meant a minimum of 150 rowers and a maximum of 180. The 170 rowers given the author in his book is therefore very probably a simplification based on the standard number of rowers for an Athenian trirème which was based for speed, swiftness and raming.

8 people found this helpful

Dr Ben

Pleasant and Informative

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on October 11, 2021

Verified Purchase

This is a rather traditional take that follows a narrative and chronological path through the period in question. It covers the campaigns of Alexander, the Wars of the Diadochi, the Punic Wars, the Macedonian & Mithridiaic wars, the pirate problem, and finally the Roman civil wars. However, the narrative is too brief to be understandable to those not already familiar with it, while uninformative to those who are already familiar. As the title would suggest, the land aspect of these campaigns are ignored (except to give battle names and dates for context), while focussing heavily on the naval campaigns. Some mention is made of hardware and tactics, more time is spent on logistics and operational decision making, and the largest share is on the politics and grand strategy of these navies.

It provides a refreshing insight into otherwise well trodden ground: for example, the actions of the Carthaginian fleet in the 2nd Punic is often neglected as insignificant, but here Grainer makes the case that they had a meaningful impact in distracting the Romans and were as effective as Punic resources allowed. Sometimes, however, Grainer goes in wild goose hunts to calculate the size of a state's navy by adding up: how many ships went to various places, how many were lost, and how many were captured, and how many were built. Considering that we don't know if it was the same ships moved around lots or different ships that stayed in the same place, that the sources aren't particularly reliable, and that the service life times of ships in this period was only a few decades, this is rather a waste of time. The author is also not afraid to voice his own judgement as authoritative truth, for example decrying the Roman emphasis on ships in the first Punic War as "largely unsuccessful and taught the ruling class little". At times Grainer also interjects some humour, "In one case, Brutus' flagship was about to be attacked by two smaller ships from both sides, but a sudden acceleration left the ships colliding with each other".

I found Hellenistic & Roman Naval Wars to be a solid piece of scholarship that covers the ground stated in the title well, but does not go into much detail of the ships or their crews. I'd recommend it to anyone with some knowledge in the period who wants to learn more about its naval warfare, but someone looking for an academic text may be better suited with a more specialised tome.

Terry whitbread

Five Stars

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on January 14, 2017

Verified Purchase

great

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