William M. Murray (1)

Seeking to put the great galleys of Alexander the Great's successors into context, Murray argues that the history of the period has not been properly compared with the hard evidence we do have. In the beginning there was the real rise of bow-to-bow ramming, which emerged due a need to counter Athenian excellence in naval maneuver and was aided and abetted by the emergence of improved metallurgy (as evidenced by surviving rams); all of which bred a requirement for a bigger and stronger general-purpose ram.

Murray then argues that what really made the phenomena of the super-galley take off was the Hellenistic focus on investing major coastal cities, or at least being able to make the threat to do so, with the big ships being used to alternately force harbor defenses or break blockades.

The problem with all this is that the "naval siege unit" (Murray's term) also required a good high seas fleet to protect it, and only Alexander's successors at their peak could afford this expense. On the other hand the Romans didn't concentrate on investing cities, they conquered whole territories, so this sort of specialized naval force had no attraction for them. This winds up with an examination of Actium, where Murray suggests that the presence of super-galleys in Marc Anthony's fleet were a sign that he planned to invade Italy by storming Roman ports.… (més)