A History of Sea Power Part 4

[Ill.u.s.tration: POINTS OF INTEREST IN THE FIRST PUNIC WAR]

Meanwhile the Carthaginians, confident that the Romans were finally driven from the sea, had allowed their own fleet to disintegrate.

Accordingly when the astonishing news reached them that the Romans were again abroad they were compelled to fill their ships with raw levies of troops and inexperienced rowers and sailors. And, since the Carthaginian troops who were besieging the city of Eryx in Sicily were in need of supplies, a large number of transports were sent with the fleet. The Carthaginian commander planned to make a landing un.o.bserved, leave his transports, exchange his raw crews for some of the veterans before Eryx and then give battle to the Roman fleet.

This program failed because of the initiative of the Roman Consul commanding the new fleet. Having got word of the coming of the Carthaginians and divining their plan, he braved an unfavorable wind and a rough sea for the sake of forcing an action before they could establish contact with their army. Accordingly he sought out his enemy and met him (in the year 241 B.C.) off the island of aegusa, near Lilybaeum. Almost at the first onset the Romans won an overwhelming victory, capturing seventy and sinking fifty of the Carthaginian force.

This final desperate effort of Rome was decisive. The Carthaginians had no navy left, and their armies in Sicily were cut off from all communications with their base. Accordingly amba.s.sadors went to Rome to sue for peace, and the great struggle that had lasted without intermission for twenty-four years and reduced both parties to the point of exhaustion, ended with a triumph for Rome through a victory on the sea. By the treaty of peace Carthage was obliged to pay a heavy indemnity and yield all claim to Sicily.

Whatever historical moral may be drawn from the story of the first Punic war, the fact remains that a nation of landsmen met the greatest maritime power in the world and defeated it on its own element. In every naval battle save one the Romans were victors. It is true, however, that in the single defeat off Drepanum and in the dreadful disasters inflicted by storms, Rome lost through lack of knowledge of wind and sea. No great naval genius stands above the rest, to whom the final success can be attributed. Rome won simply through the better fighting qualities of her rank and file and the stamina of her citizens. To quote the phrase of a British writer,[1] Rome showed the superior "fitness to win."

[Footnote 1: Fred Jane, HERESIES OF SEA POWER, _pa.s.sim_.]

_The Second Punic War_

In the first Punic war the prize was an island, Sicily. Naturally, therefore, the fighting was primarily naval. The second Punic war (218-202 B.C.) was essentially a war on land. Carthage, driven from Sicily, turned to Spain and made the southern part of the peninsula her province. Using this as his base, Hannibal marched overland, crossed the Alps, and invaded Italy from the north. Had he followed up his unbroken series of victories by marching on the capital instead of going into winter quarters at Capua, it is possible that Rome might have been destroyed and all subsequent history radically changed. The Romans had no general who could measure up to the genius of Hannibal, but their spirit was unbroken even by the slaughter of Cannae, and their allies remained loyal.

Moreover, Carthage, thanks to factional quarrels and personal jealousies, was deaf to all the requests sent by Hannibal for reenforcements when he needed them most. In the end, Scipio, after having driven the Carthaginians out of Spain, dislodged Hannibal from Italy by carrying an invasion into Africa. At the battle of Zama the Romans defeated Hannibal and won the war.

It is difficult to see any significant use of sea power in this second Punic war. Neither side seemed to realize what might be done in cutting the communications of the other, and both sides seemed to be able to use the sea at will. Of course due allowance must be made for the limitations of naval activity. The quinquereme was too frail to attempt a blockade or to patrol the sea lanes in all seasons. Nevertheless both sides used the sea for the transport of troops and the conveying of intelligence, and neither side made any determined effort to establish a real control of the sea.[1]

[Footnote 1: For a distinguished opinion to the contrary, v. Mahan, INFLUENCE OF SEA POWER UPON HISTORY, 14 ff. In this view, however, Mahan is not supported by Mommsen (vol. II, p. 100). See also Jane, HERESIES OF SEA POWER, 60 ff.]

_The Third Punic War_ (149-146 B.C.)

The third Punic war has no naval interest. Rome, not satisfied with defeating her rival in the two previous wars, took a convenient pretext to invade Carthage and destroy every vestige of the city.

With this the great maritime empire came to an end, and Rome became supreme in the Mediterranean.

2. THE IMPERIAL NAVY; THE CAMPAIGN OF ACTIUM

After the fall of Carthage no rival appeared to contest the sovereignty of Rome upon the sea. The next great naval battle was waged between two rival factions of Rome herself at the time when the republic had fallen and the empire was about to be reared on its ruins. This was the battle of Actium, one of the most decisive in the world's history.

The rivalry between Antony and Octavius as to who should control the destinies of Rome was the immediate cause of the conflict.

In the parceling out of spoil from the civil wars following the murder of Caesar, Octavius had taken the West, Lepidus the African provinces, and Antony the East. Octavius soon ousted Lepidus and then turned to settle the issue of mastery with Antony. In this he had motives of revenge as well as ambition. Antony had robbed him of his inheritance from Caesar, and divorced his wife, the sister of Octavius, in favor of Cleopatra, with whom he had become completely infatuated. In this quarrel the people of Rome were inclined to support Octavius, because of their indignation over a reported declaration made by Antony to the effect that he intended to make Alexandria rather than Rome the capital of the empire and rule East and West from the Nile rather than the Tiber. Both sides began preparations for the conflict. Antony possessed the bulk of the Roman navy and the Roman legions of the eastern provinces. To his fleet he added squadrons of Egyptian and Ph?nician vessels of war, and to his army he brought large bodies of troops from the subject provinces of the East. In addition he spent great sums of money by means of his agents in Rome to arouse disaffection against Octavius.

At the outset he acted with energy and caused his antagonist the gravest anxiety. It was clear also that Antony intended to take the offensive. He established winter quarters at Patras, on the Gulf of Corinth, during the winter of 32-31 B.C., billeting his army in various towns on the west coast of Greece, and keeping it supplied by grain ships from Alexandria. His fleet he anch.o.r.ed in the Ambracian Gulf, a landlocked bay, thirty miles wide, lying north of the Gulf of Corinth; it is known to-day as the Gulf of Arta.

Octavius, however, was equally determined not to yield the offensive to his adversary, and boldly collected ships and troops for a movement in force against Antony's position. His troops were also Roman legionaries, experienced in war, but his fleet was considerably less in numbers and the individual ships much smaller than the quinqueremes and octiremes of Antony. The ships of Octavius were mostly biremes and triremes. These disadvantages, however, were offset by the fact that his admiral, Agrippa, was an experienced sea-fighter, having won a victory near Mylae during the civil wars, and by the other fact that the crews under him, recruited from the Dalmatian coast, were hardy, seafaring men. These were called Liburni, and the type of ship they used was known as the _Liburna_.

This was a two-banked galley, but the term was already becoming current for any light man of war, irrespective of the number of banks of oars. In contrast with these Liburni, who divided their days between fishing and piracy and knew all the tricks of fighting at sea, the crews of Antony's great fleet were in many cases landsmen who had been suddenly impressed into service.

As soon as Antony had moved his force to western Greece he seemed paralyzed by indecision and made no move to avail himself of his advantageous position to strike. He had plenty of money, while his adversary was at his wit's end to find even credit. He had the admiration of his soldiers, who had followed him through many a campaign to victory, while Octavius had no popularity with his troops, most of whom were reluctant to fight against their old comrades in arms. And finally, Antony had a preponderating fleet with which he could command the sea and compel his opponent to fight on the defensive in Italian territory. All these advantages he allowed to slip away.

During the winter of 32-31 one-third of Antony's crews perished from lack of proper supplies and the gaps were filled by slaves, mule-drivers, and plowmen--any one whom his captains could seize and impress from the surrounding country. The following spring Agrippa made a feint to the south by capturing Methone at the southern tip of the Peloponnesus, thus threatening the wheat squadrons from Egypt on which Antony depended. Next came the news that Octavius had landed an army in Epirus and was marching south. Then Antony realized that his adversary was aiming to destroy the fleet in the Ambracian Gulf and hastened thither. He arrived with a squadron ahead of his troops, at almost the same instant as Octavius, and if Octavius had had the courage to attack the tired and disorganized crews of Antony's squadron, Antony would have been lost. But by dressing his crews in the armor of legionaries and drawing up his ships in a position for fighting, with oars suspended, he "bluffed"

his enemy into thinking that he had the support of his troops.

When the latter arrived Antony established a great camp on Cape Actium, which closes the southern side of the Gulf, and fortified the entrance on that side.

Thereafter for months the two forces faced each other on opposite sides of the Gulf, neither side risking more than insignificant skirmishes. During this time Octavius had free use of the sea for his supplies, while the heavier fleet of Antony lay idle in harbor.

Nevertheless, Octavius did not dare to risk all on a land battle, and conducted his campaign in a characteristically timid and vacillating manner which should have made it easy for Antony to take the aggressive and win. But the famous lieutenant of Julius Caesar was no longer the man who used to win the devotion of his soldiers by his courage and audacity. He was broken by debauchery and torn this way and that by two violently hostile parties in his own camp. One party, called the Roman, wanted him to come to an understanding with Octavius, or beat him in battle, and go to Rome as the restorer of the republic. The other party, the Egyptian, was Cleopatra and her following. Cleopatra was interested in holding Antony to Egypt, to consolidate through him a strong Egyptian empire, and she was not at all interested in the restoration of Roman liberties. In Antony's desire to please Cleopatra and his attempt to deceive his Roman friends into thinking that he was working for their aims, may be seen the explanation of the utter lack of strategy or consistent plan in his entire campaign against Octavius.

At the beginning of July Antony apparently proposed a naval battle.

Instantly the suspicions of the Roman party were awakened. They cried out that Antony was evidently going back to Egypt without having won the decisive battle against Octavius on land, which would really break the enemy's power, and without paying any heed to the political problems at Rome. Such a furor was raised between the two parties that Antony abandoned his plan and made a feint toward the land battle in Epirus that the Romans wanted. Meanwhile two of his adherents, one a Roman, the other a king from Asia Minor, exasperated by the insolence of Cleopatra, deserted to Octavius.

August came and went without action or change in the situation.

Meanwhile as Antony's camp had been placed in a pestilential spot for midsummer heat, he suffered great losses from disease. By this time Cleopatra was interested in nothing but a return to Egypt.

Accordingly she persuaded Antony to order a naval battle without asking anybody's advice, and he set the date August 29 for the sally of his fleet. The Romans were amazed and protested, but in vain. Preparations went on in such a way as to make it clear to the observing that what Antony was planning was not so much a battle as a return to Egypt. Vessels which he did not need outside for battle he ordered burned, although such ships would usually be kept as reserves to make up losses in fighting. Moreover, he astonished the captains by ordering them to take out into action the big sails which were always left ash.o.r.e before a battle. Nor did his explanation that they would be needed in pursuit satisfy them. It appeared also that he was employing trusted slaves at night to load the Egyptian galleys with all of Cleopatra's treasure. Two more Roman leaders, satisfied as to Antony's real intention, deserted to Octavius and informed him of Antony's plans.

Meanwhile a heavy storm had made it impossible to attempt the action on August 29 or several days after. On the 2d of September (31 B.C.) the sea became smooth again. Octavius and Agrippa drew out their fleet into open water, about three-quarters of a mile from the mouth of the gulf, forming line in three divisions. They waited till nearly noon before Antony's fleet began to make its expected appearance to offer battle. This also was formed in three divisions corresponding to those of their enemy. The Egyptian division of sixty ships under Cleopatra took up a safe position in the rear of the center.

[Ill.u.s.tration: SCENE OF BATTLE OF ACTIUM, 31 B.C.]

There was a striking contrast in the types of ships in the opposing ranks. The galleys of Octavius were low in the water, and nimble in their handling; those of Antony were bulky and high, with five to ten banks of oars, and their natural unhandiness was made worse by a device intended to protect them against ramming. This consisted of a kind of boom of heavy timbers rigged out on all sides of the hull. In addition to the higher sides these ships supported towers and citadels built upon their decks, equipped with every form of the artillery of that day, especially catapults capable of hurling heavy stones upon the enemy's deck.

Against such formidable floating castles, the light ships of Agrippa and Octavius could adopt only skirmishing tactics. They rushed in where they could shear away the oar blades of an enemy without getting caught by the great grappling irons swung out from his decks. They kept clear of the heavy stones from the catapults through superior speed and ability to maneuver quickly, but they were unable to strike their ponderous adversaries any vital blow. On the other hand the great hulks of Antony were unable to close with them, and though the air was filled with a storm of arrows, stones and javelins, neither side was able to strike decisively at the other.

As at Salamis the opposite sh.o.r.es were lined with the opposing armies, and every small success was hailed by shouts from a hundred thousand throats on the one side and long drawn murmurs of dismay from an equal host on the other.

In these waters a north wind springs up every afternoon--a fact that Antony and Cleopatra had counted on--and as soon as the breeze shifted the royal galley of Cleopatra spread its crimson sail and, followed by the entire Egyptian division, sailed through the lines and headed south. Antony immediately left his flagship, boarded a quinquereme and followed. This contemptible desertion of the commander in chief was not generally known in his fleet; as for the disappearance of the Egyptian squadron, it was doubtless regarded as a good riddance. The battle, therefore, went on as stubbornly as ever.

Late in the afternoon Agrippa, despairing of harming his enemy by ordinary tactics, achieved considerable success by the use of javelins wrapped in burning tow, and fire rafts that were set drifting upon the clumsy hulks which could not get out of their way. By this means a number of Antony's ships were destroyed, but the contest remained indecisive. At sunset Antony's fleet retired in some disorder to their anchorage in the gulf. Octavius attempted no pursuit but kept the sea all night, fearing a surprise attack or an attempted flight from the gulf.

Meanwhile a flying wing of Octavius's fleet had been sent in pursuit of Antony and Cleopatra, who escaped only after a rear guard action had been fought in which two of Cleopatra's ships were captured.

The fugitives put ash.o.r.e at Cape Taenarus, to enable Antony to send a message to his general, Canidius, ordering him to take his army through Macedonia into Asia. Then the flight was resumed to Alexandria.

On the morning of the 3d Octavius sent a message to the enemy's camp announcing the fact of Antony's desertion and calling on the fleet and army to surrender. The Roman soldiers were unwilling to believe that their commander had been guilty of desertion, and were confident that he had been summoned away on important business connected with the campaign. Their general, however, did not dare convey to them Antony's orders because they would betray the truth and provoke mutiny. Consequently he did nothing. Certain Roman senators and eastern princes saw the light and quietly went over to the camp of Octavius. Several days of inaction followed, during which the desertions continued and the rumor of Antony's flight found increasing belief. On the seventh day, Canidius, who found himself in a hopeless dilemma, also went over to Octavius. This desertion by the commander settled the rest of the force. A few scattered into Macedonia, but the great bulk of the army and all that was left of the fleet surrendered. Nineteen legions and more than ten thousand cavalry thus came over to Octavius and took service under him. This was the real victory of Actium. In the words of the Italian historian Ferrero, "it was a victory gained without fighting, and Antony was defeated in this supreme struggle, not by the valor of his adversary or by his own defective strategy or tactics, but by the hopeless inconsistency of his double-faced policy, which, while professing to be republican and Roman, was actually Egyptian and monarchical."

The story of the naval battle of Actium is a baffling problem to reconstruct on account of the wide divergence in the accounts.

For instance, the actual number of ships engaged is a matter of choice between the extremes of 200 to 500 on a side. And the consequences were so important to Octavius and to Rome that the accounts were naturally adorned afterwards with the most glowing colors. Every poet who lived by the bounty of Augustus in later years naturally felt inspired to pay tribute to it in verse. But the actual naval battle seems to have been of an indecisive character.

For that matter, even after the wholesale surrender of Antony's Roman army and fleet, neither Anthony nor Octavius realized the importance of what had happened. Antony had recovered from worse disasters before, and felt secure in Alexandria. Octavius at first followed up his advantage with timid and uncertain steps. Only after the way was made easy by the hasty submission of the Asiatic princes and the wave of popularity and enthusiasm that was raised in Rome by the news of the victory, did Octavius press the issue to Egypt itself. There the war came to an end with the suicide of both Antony and Cleopatra.

As in the case of the indecisive naval battle off the capes of the Chesapeake, which led directly to the surrender of Cornwallis, an action indecisive in character may be most decisive in results.

Actium may not have been a p.r.o.nounced naval victory but it had tremendous consequences. As at Salamis, East and West met for the supremacy of the western world, and the East was beaten back. It is not likely that the Egyptian or the Syrian would have dominated the genius of the western world for any length of time, but the defeat of Octavius would have meant a hybrid empire which would have fallen to pieces like the empire of Alexander, leaving western Europe split into a number of petty states. On the other hand, Octavius was enabled to build on the consequences of Actium the great outlines of the Roman empire, the influence of which on the civilized world to-day is still incalculable. When he left Rome to fight Antony, the government was bankrupt and the people torn with faction. When he returned he brought the vast treasure of Egypt and found a people united to support him. Actium, therefore, is properly taken as the significant date for the beginning of the Roman empire. Octavius took the name of his grand-uncle Caesar, the t.i.tle of Augustus, and as "Imperator" became the first of the Roman emperors.

The relation of the battle of Actium to this portentous change in the fortunes of Octavius was formally recognized by him on the scene where it took place. Nicopolis, the City of Victory, was founded upon the site of his camp, with the beaks of the captured ships as trophies adorning its forum. The little temple of Apollo on the point of Actium he rebuilt on an imposing scale and inst.i.tuted there in honor of his victory the "Actian games," which were held thereafter for two hundred years.

After the battle of Actium and the establishment of a powerful Roman empire without a rival in the world, there follows a long period in which the Mediterranean, and indeed all the waterways known to the civilized nations, belonged without challenge to the galleys of Rome. Naval stations were established to a.s.sist in the one activity left to ships of war, the pursuit of pirates, but otherwise there was little or nothing to do. And during this long period, indeed, down to the Middle Ages, practically nothing is known of the development in naval types until the emergence of the low, one- or two-banked galley of the wars between the Christian and the Mohammedan. The first definite description we have of warships after the period of Actium comes at the end of the ninth century.

There was some futile naval fighting against the Vandals in the days when Rome was crumbling. Finally, by a curious freak of history, Genseric the Vandal took a fleet out from Carthage against Rome, and swept the Mediterranean. In the year 455, some six centuries after Rome had wreaked her vengeance on Carthage, this Vandal fleet anch.o.r.ed unopposed in the Tiber and landed an army that sacked the imperial city, which had been for so long a period mistress of the world, and had given her name to a great civilization.

During the four centuries in which the _Pax Romana_ rested upon the world, it is easy to conceive of the enormous importance to history and civilization of having sea and river, the known world over, an undisputed highway for the fleets of Rome. Along these routes, even more than along the military roads, traveled the inst.i.tutions, the arts, the language, the literature, the laws, of one of the greatest civilizations in history. And ruthless as was the destruction of Vandal and Goth in the city itself and in the peninsula, they could not destroy the heritage that had been spread from Britain to the Black Sea and from the Elbe to the upper waters of the Nile.

REFERENCES

HISTORY OF ROME, Theodor Mommsen, tr. by W. P. d.i.c.kson, 1867.

GENERAL HISTORY, Polybius, transl. by Hampton, 1823.

HISTORY OF THE ROMANS UNDER THE EMPIRE, Chas. Merivale (vol. III.), 1866.

THE GREATNESS AND DECLINE OF ROME, G. Ferrero, tr. by A. E.

Zemmern, 1909.

eTUDES SUR L'HISTOIRE MILITAIRE ET MARITIME DES GRECS ET DES ROMAINS, Paul Serre, 1888.

FLEETS OF THE FIRST PUNIC WAR, W. W. Tarn, in _Journal of h.e.l.lenic Studies_, 1907.

HERESIES OF SEA POWER (pp. 40-71), Fred Jane, 1906.

INFLUENCE OF SEA POWER ON HISTORY (pp. 15 ff.), A. T. Mahan, 1889.

For a complete bibliography of Roman sea power, v. INFLUENCE OF SEA POWER ON THE ROMAN REPUBLIC (Doctoral Dissertation), F. W. Clark, 1915.