La Battaglia delle Egadi. Atti del convegno. Favignana, ex Stabilimento Florio, 20-21 novembre 2015", a cura di Sebastiano Tusa e Cecilia Albana Buccellato, 2017
The peculiar importance of the battle of the Egadi Islands is normally based on various quite dif... more The peculiar importance of the battle of the Egadi Islands is normally based on various quite different considerations, such as: the large number of participants, the decisive effectiveness of the naval victory on the conclusion of the war, the crowning of the effort made by Rome in her first challenge against the rival city, as well as the peremptory Roman success over the most gifted and experienced maritime power in the Mediterranean sea.
This last aspect has led many historians to wonder about the possible interpretations to be given to the unexpected deep involvement of the Romans in the naval warfare. Some feeble explanations considered such involvement as episodic, if not merely accidental. A more convincing assessment of the historical significance of the victory of the Egadi should follow its evaluation as part of the grand strategy of ancient Rome.
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Monographic illustration of the innovative fighting component of the imperial navy of ancient Rome: the origins in the republican era, the permanent structure of the imperial navy, the organization, the clothing, the armament, the warlike and collateral functions, the institutional position of the classiari and their position within civil society.
Tuttavia, i pur limitati e frammentari elementi di cui disponiamo hanno consen-tito di procedere ad una cauta ricostruzione storica di questa missione di soccorso, correlando le testimonianze letterarie con le evidenze archeologiche e vulcanologiche lungo l’intera costa vesuviana, con il concorso di molte altre discipline pertinenti, incluse la storia marittima romana, la psicologia, la nautica, la meteorologia, l’oceanografia e l’arte del comando navale.
Ne è scaturita una compiuta raffigurazione, a grandi linee, di questa prima grande operazione navale di protezione civile della storia, effettuata dalle quadriremi romane in presenza di un cataclisma terrificante, con un coraggio sovrumano e con una tale determinazione da conseguire dei risultati di sicuro rilievo, visto anche il considerevole contenimento del numero delle vittime sul popoloso litorale colpito dall’eruzione.
Monographic illustration of the innovative fighting component of the imperial navy of ancient Rome: the origins in the republican era, the permanent structure of the imperial navy, the organization, the clothing, the armament, the warlike and collateral functions, the institutional position of the classiari and their position within civil society.
Tuttavia, i pur limitati e frammentari elementi di cui disponiamo hanno consen-tito di procedere ad una cauta ricostruzione storica di questa missione di soccorso, correlando le testimonianze letterarie con le evidenze archeologiche e vulcanologiche lungo l’intera costa vesuviana, con il concorso di molte altre discipline pertinenti, incluse la storia marittima romana, la psicologia, la nautica, la meteorologia, l’oceanografia e l’arte del comando navale.
Ne è scaturita una compiuta raffigurazione, a grandi linee, di questa prima grande operazione navale di protezione civile della storia, effettuata dalle quadriremi romane in presenza di un cataclisma terrificante, con un coraggio sovrumano e con una tale determinazione da conseguire dei risultati di sicuro rilievo, visto anche il considerevole contenimento del numero delle vittime sul popoloso litorale colpito dall’eruzione.
major maritime powers in the Mediterranean Sea (Carthage and the greatest Hellenistic kingdoms) was ever victorious. Nonetheless, the Romans are generally considered as lacking in seamen skills because they were able to win at sea only by “reducing the naval battle to a battle on land”. Such paradoxical and misleading expression was historically used to show the effects of the boarding, with or without the “corvus” described by Polybius.
The deep analysis of the manoeuvres really needed at sea to board an enemy ship carrying out appropriate counter-manoeuvres showed that: the short-lived and dubious “corvus” proved superfluous and tactically insignificant; the boarding option required as much manoeuvring skills as the ramming one: therefore, it should not be considered as an expedient to avoid the difficulty of the classical attack with the ram. As a matter o fact, the Romans carried out both ramming and boarding attacks, but with a preference for the latter in order to seize the naval booty.
The selection of the naval combatants on the basis of their bravery enabled the Romans to use their marines for several innovating tasks, like the manning of the heavy embarked weapons, the boarding actions and the amphibious landings and ashore operations. So, they anticipated a kind of naval warfare which was adopted by all the subsequent navies until modern times, as well as the tipical employment of our contemporary marine forces.
In order to evaluate the essence of such a contribution, this study analyses the life of Classis Misenensis in its main aspects: the constitution of the fleet, the naval base of Misenum, the strategic role of the imperial naval forces, their various operational commitments – for the war needs, as well as for those of peacetime – and their particular activities in the Gulf, not to mention the extraordinary naval rescue mission carried out on the occasion of the Vesuvius eruption of 79 AD. The attention is finally focused on the personnel of the fleet, on its skills and on the intense relationships entertained on the shores of the Bay of Naples.
This last aspect has led many historians to wonder about the possible interpretations to be given to the unexpected deep involvement of the Romans in the naval warfare. Some feeble explanations considered such involvement as episodic, if not merely accidental. A more convincing assessment of the historical significance of the victory of the Egadi should follow its evaluation as part of the grand strategy of ancient Rome.
Articolo redatto per la rivista mensile "Notiziario CSTN" (Centro Studi Tradizioni Nautiche), Anno IV, numero 36 - Agosto 2015, pp. 2-9
Domenico Carro
Year: 2021
Publisher: L'ERMA di BRETSCHNEIDER
Series: Studia Archaeologica, 247
ISBN: 9788891321329
Binding: Paperback
Pages: 152, 21 ill. Col.