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The Lone Badger posted:Were you expected to provide food and wine in addition, or did oarsmen buy it with their pay? In Ancient Greece, soldiers and sailors were expected to buy their own food unless there was no market available for a long period of time. This is one of the reasons that pay for sailors was so critical. If they were not paid, they could not eat, and therefore would become likely to desert or mutiny. Not sure how the Romans handled that in their navy, Fromage may have an answer to that. Roman logistics probably simplified the issue though, since they were a lot less likely to end up in a location where no one was able/willing to sell them food.
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Sep 15, 2021 03:20
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The Romans didn't write as much about naval matters so I am not sure. But given that they're Romans I would assume the crews were state supplied. And once Rome controlled the entire Mediterranean the fleets were more like Coast Guard patrol ships stationed in bases all around the sea, so there weren't situations where you were foraging in hostile territory or anything. At most maybe you'd beach away from supply and have to go buy food at the local market or something.
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Sep 15, 2021 03:55
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FishFood posted:These ships can't stay on the water indefinitely so you can't blockade like you can with modern vessels or ships in the age of sail. Ancient warships don't have cabins, you have to go ashore to sleep or eat. You can beach and launch ships pretty quickly, but maintaining a blockade pretty much requires destroying the enemy's ships. In fact, I can't recall an actual blockade in the record off the top of my head. If you want to prevent a city from resupplying by sea, you need to actually destroy their ships. I'm not sure if anyone seriously attempted it in the Hellenistic period, but it was a fairly common tactic used by classical Athens. The Samian War in 440 BC was won by Athens in large part due to the Athenian fleet blockading the city of Samos. Other conflicts between Athens and rebellious cities in the Delian League in the mid 5th century were resolved in a similar way. Athens could manage this because they had a large enough fleet that they could maintain a blockade while rotating ships in and out of blockade duty for crew leave and ship repair. There are also a number of times Athens attempted this during the Peloponnesian War, although it had mixed success. Athens maintained a quasi-blockade of the mouth of the Corinthian Gulf for a lot of the war, although this was often a pretty porous blockade. The most notable of these was the Athenian blockade of Syracuse, which ended in disaster for Athens. It failed pretty miserably in all regards, Syracuse continued to be resupplied by land because the Athenian army was unable to ever complete their siege walls. It also led to the slow degradation of the Athenian fleet, since they were unable to do regular maintenance on their ships, and men deserted in large numbers due to being asked to spend months on a trireme at a time. Athens did run a successful blockade of Chios a few years later, but in that case their army was able to complete the siege walls and block resupply by land. The Chians and the Spartans attempted to break this blockade several times without success, and Thucydides describes Chios experiencing pretty severe supply issues as a result the siege walls and the blockade of the harbor. However, Athens later abandoned the blockade of Chios due to needing that fleet elsewhere.
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Sep 15, 2021 03:56
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Grand Fromage posted:When ramming was the main weapon, everything was a tradeoff between mass and speed. You wanted the ship to be as heavy as you could handle, because all that mass would give it more momentum to slam into the other ship. But the thing is human powered, so if it's too heavy you can't get up to a decent speed and you're not able to catch the other ship, plus you don't have as much momentum if you can't get it going. Hence why you got giant ships with five or six banks of oars and hundreds of people, trying to find that sweet spot. Dromons were smaller and had maybe 200 crew and marines at most. Especially once they started using Greek fire, it was all about speed and being able to maneuver into position to get the siphon on target and burn 'em. No ship had more than three banks of oars. The larger numbers referred to rowers in a unit.
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Sep 15, 2021 13:23
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FishFood posted:The dominance of large ships, the polyremes, is actually a relatively short period of time, only about 200-300 years, from Alexander to Actium. The Roman navy of the Principate and later never used anything larger than a six, and those were reserved for flagships. The vast majority of ships were approximately trireme sized: the Greeks were pretty clear that ships of that size had the best balance of speed, maneuverability, and strength. The rise of the absurdly huge Hellenistic polyremes has a lot to do with the specifics of warfare in that period between the huge Successor Kingdoms: big professional navies fighting in harbors over cities. In the confines of a harbor, there isn't room for the tight maneuvers triremes and smaller vessels are capable of, you're reduced to head-on ramming, which was a last resort in earlier periods. In those kinds of contests, though, the bigger ship wins. Salamis is actually an early example of this dynamic, even though it predates the use of ships larger than threes: the Athenian ships were made of denser wood and heavier construction than the Phoenecian and Persian ships, and were able to defeat them head-on in the tight quarters of the straits. Where did the greeks get their wood from? I thought a big part of the phoenicians' naval power in the first place was their living around all that levantine cedar.
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Sep 15, 2021 13:49
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There were trees everywhere in the Mediterranean and then they just traded for them when they cut them all down. Wood is easy to transport down rivers.
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Sep 15, 2021 14:19
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CrypticFox posted:Unlike in the modern world, the main cost of running a navy in the ancient Mediterranean was not building the ships, it was paying the crew. Figures from 5th century BC Athens show that it cost about 2 talents of silver (12,000 Athenian drachmas) to build a trireme. Additionally, triremes could be constructed relatively quickly, perhaps in as little as 6 months, which meant that losses could be replaced quickly if you still had sailors to crew your new ships. The construction of triremes was quite fast, but the wood should be dried first, which would take longer than a year. Though there was some war where Athens went with ships made out of undried wood. Those ships probably leaked like sieves and didn't last for long. CrypticFox posted:In Ancient Greece, soldiers and sailors were expected to buy their own food unless there was no market available for a long period of time. This is one of the reasons that pay for sailors was so critical. If they were not paid, they could not eat, and therefore would become likely to desert or mutiny. Yeah, making soldiers pay for their own food and usually equipment too was the norm until 19th century. Iirc the Athenian state paid for the trireme hulls, but the captain had to pay for the rest. They later added another captain to the triremes to help pay for the costs, and then a board of people. Edgar Allen Ho posted:Where did the greeks get their wood from? I thought a big part of the phoenicians' naval power in the first place was their living around all that levantine cedar. They deforested their own land.
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Sep 15, 2021 14:35
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Can someone explain substitution organ offerings to me? Apparently etruscans had a thing where they'd heal, say, a kidney, by making a fascimile of a kidney and offering it - but I'm not sure from what materials, or what rites were attached?
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Sep 15, 2021 14:36
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ChubbyChecker posted:The construction of triremes was quite fast, but the wood should be dried first, which would take longer than a year. Though there was some war where Athens went with ships made out of undried wood. Those ships probably leaked like sieves and didn't last for long. is that still true, out of curiosity, or do we have more advanced idk pitch or sealant or whatever in the last several thousand years
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Sep 15, 2021 14:38
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CoolCab posted:is that still true, out of curiosity, or do we have more advanced idk pitch or sealant or whatever in the last several thousand years There are more efficient methods of drying wood these days, and there are some sealers for green wood, but green wood is mainly used for some special projects like wood carving or some furniture.
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Sep 15, 2021 14:53
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ChubbyChecker posted:There are more efficient methods of drying wood these days, and there are some sealers for green wood, but green wood is mainly used for some special projects like wood carving or some furniture. huh neat, thanks
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Sep 15, 2021 14:55
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Tias posted:Can someone explain substitution organ offerings to me? Apparently etruscans had a thing where they'd heal, say, a kidney, by making a fascimile of a kidney and offering it - but I'm not sure from what materials, or what rites were attached? As far as I know, we don't know much about the actual rituals involved or even if the offerings were done before the fact to appeal to the gods for healing, or afterwards, in thanks, but they were most commonly made from clay.
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Sep 15, 2021 19:32
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Edgar Allen Ho posted:Where did the greeks get their wood from? I thought a big part of the phoenicians' naval power in the first place was their living around all that levantine cedar. In addition to deforesting their own land, which was not a sustainable proposition given how little land many Greek states controlled, wood was also imported from Macedonia. While trees do grow all over, by the 5th century BC and later most places in Southern Greece no longer had large forests of the right kind of wood (mostly cedar). Macedonia controlled a lot more land then most Southern Greek states, and had huge forests of the right kind of wood for ship construction.
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Sep 15, 2021 20:43
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CoolCab posted:is that still true, out of curiosity, or do we have more advanced idk pitch or sealant or whatever in the last several thousand years Timber still needs to be dried. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3jPNyAn5yyk&t=780s And seams still need to be caulked. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9kjdslOna5w
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Sep 15, 2021 21:07
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cheetah7071 posted:The (republican and early empire era) Romans in particular were terrible at it and seem to have mostly just thrown money at the problem by building so many fleets that eventually one of them would succeed by sheer luck. They also invented a bridge thingy that they used to let legionaries just march over to an enemy ship and murder everybody.
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Sep 15, 2021 21:12
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Zopotantor posted:They also invented a bridge thingy that they used to let legionaries just march over to an enemy ship and murder everybody. Senator: I hate naval combat. It should be more like land combat. Centurion: Hold my posca
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Sep 15, 2021 21:39
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The Lone Badger posted:Senator: I hate naval combat. It should be more like land combat. i think it was an earlier version of the thread (or maybe HoR? can't remember) that commented that it was the most roman solution to the naval problem imaginable: build a road at it and keep marching legions over that road at the problem until it surrenders or dies.
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Sep 15, 2021 22:36
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CrypticFox posted:In addition to deforesting their own land, which was not a sustainable proposition given how little land many Greek states controlled, wood was also imported from Macedonia. While trees do grow all over, by the 5th century BC and later most places in Southern Greece no longer had large forests of the right kind of wood (mostly cedar). Macedonia controlled a lot more land then most Southern Greek states, and had huge forests of the right kind of wood for ship construction. By the fifth century, Athens needed to import essentially all of the materials needed to outfit a trieres. This may explain a lot of the variance in the recorded costs and penalties paid by trierarchs, since through extrapolation from some known records the cost of the running equipment of a trieres basically doubled in the fifth century (while costs for things like food remained relatively flat).
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Sep 16, 2021 03:22
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Didn't the Roman's abandon the corvus fairly quickly? As for wood, as it dries it twists and warps. This presumably tends to open gaps in ships, especially using parallel boards like in the thumbnail for the caulking video as opposed to an overlapping style.
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Sep 16, 2021 08:18
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Weka posted:Didn't the Roman's abandon the corvus fairly quickly? Yeah, it's heavy and makes the ship unbalanced. They lost many many ships in storms, which wasn't unusual but the corvus was blamed for making it worse since their ships tended to roll over at the slightest provocation. It was a brilliant solution for the immediate problem but the long term solution was to learn how to use a loving ship properly.
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Sep 16, 2021 17:40
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Grand Fromage posted:learn how to use a loving ship properly. Sounds unmanly. Rome was better back in the old days.
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Sep 16, 2021 17:51
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The Romans replaced the corvus with grappling hooks. Much later on, Agrippa's navy used grappling hook bolts —which were fired from ballistas— to reel in boats at range.
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Sep 16, 2021 18:32
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Edgar Allen Ho posted:Sounds unmanly. Rome was better back in the old days. The Romans: known for being rock stupid and proud of it. 
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Sep 16, 2021 18:43
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I believe the ancient egyptians had a similar problem dealing with the Sea People invasions. I think they ended up forcing the boats to shore so they could kill them on land?
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Sep 16, 2021 20:06
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Isn't the ideas of a sea's-people invasion pretty unsettled at this point? Or an I behind the times.
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Sep 17, 2021 05:04
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Carillon posted:Isn't the ideas of a sea's-people invasion pretty unsettled at this point? Or an I behind the times. There were definitely invaders sailing around the Mediterranean. We have letters begging for help against them, and Egypt erected a monument celebrating their victory over them. The details, and how big their role was in the bronze age collapsed, are unsettled. The hypothesis I'm fond of is that they were made up of raiders and refugees caused by all the climatic and geological crises, and delivered the finishing blow to an already-weakened system.
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Sep 17, 2021 05:09
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the Lower Kingdom actually deep ones commanded by dread Dagon shewing fight on dry land, c/d
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Sep 17, 2021 05:09
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Carillon posted:Isn't the ideas of a sea's-people invasion pretty unsettled at this point? Or an I behind the times. It's clear that there was a lot of military activity occurring, as evidenced by textual records of invading forces and archaeological evidence of destroyed cities. What exactly this was is quite unclear. One of the things that is unclear is whether the "Sea People" can be thought of as a cohesive group in any way. Most scholars now reject the idea that there was a single, unified group launching an invasion or invasions. The term "Sea People" is a modern one, ancient sources either did not name the invaders at all, or referred to them by specific names that are now mostly meaningless to us, since we lack other references to those names to clarify who they were. For example the Egyptian monument cheetah referred to gives five names for the people who were defeated. However, we only have a very tenuous idea of who those five names might refer to. It's also unclear if all the "invasions" were external invaders, its possible some of the destruction may have resulted from internal revolts or civil wars. There is some archaeological evidence to suggest the collapse of the Hittites was internal civil war/revolts rather then external invasions. There is some genetic evidence from the Levant which suggests a large number of genetically distinct people arrived in the region circa 1000 BC, but that is not proof they invaded the region. Political and military unrest often causes migrations, and genetic changes may result from large scale migrations, not conquering invaders. CrypticFox fucked around with this message at 06:23 on Sep 17, 2021 |
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Sep 17, 2021 06:16
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euphronius posted:99% of ships weren’t even war ships. They are finding many ship wrecks in the Mediterranean recently We'll never know the exact relation of warships to merchants as trireme wouldn't sink, and sadly no wrecks will be found waiting at the bottom of the sea. With no ballast a stricken trireme would roll over but keep floating. Maybe find the bronze tip from a broken off ram, but they are exceedingly rare as they would definitely be salvaged and re-used or re-cast. They've been qualified as the jet fighters of their days but I find it helps to think of a trireme as a big fuckoff war canoe with a ram and a taste for wood splinters, where the emphasis was on acceleration and maneuvrability. Tactics as has been pointed out were at the very base of the concept, with manoeuvres as the Diekplous (rowing through gaps in the enemy line, turn around and attack from behind, hahahaaaa!), or shearing of the opponents oars by raking the side with your ship (having obviously taken care to retract your owns oars just prior). Look up The Maritime History podcast If you like me were unaware of the finds at Thonis Herakleion, Uluburun or the Khufu solar ships you're in for a treat!
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Sep 17, 2021 08:32
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Azza Bamboo posted:The Romans replaced the corvus with grappling hooks. Much later on, Agrippa's navy used grappling hook bolts —which were fired from ballistas— to reel in boats at range. Sail me closer, I want to hit them with my sword!
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Sep 17, 2021 09:43
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In our time helps us out with the Sea Peoples https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b07fl5bh
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Sep 17, 2021 11:40
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There's also a pretty good lecture on youtube by professor Eric Cline on the Bronze Age Collapse: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bRcu-ysocX4
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Sep 17, 2021 14:52
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Drakhoran posted:There's also a pretty good lecture on youtube by professor Eric Cline on the Bronze Age Collapse: This was lovely
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Sep 17, 2021 19:27
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Weka posted:As for wood, as it dries it twists and warps. This presumably tends to open gaps in ships, especially using parallel boards like in the thumbnail for the caulking video as opposed to an overlapping style. Yes, this is why the Royal Navy insisted on seasoned wood for ships. Letting the planks dry for a year while they're clamped in place eliminates this problem. For all the French renown in naval architecture they preferred green wood, which made their ships require much more frequent overhauls to stay seaworthy.
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Sep 18, 2021 01:16
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Ports. Ports can give you an idea of how many merchant ships there were.
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Sep 18, 2021 02:08
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Drakhoran posted:There's also a pretty good lecture on youtube by professor Eric Cline on the Bronze Age Collapse: i've watched this before, enjoyed it but all i can remember from it is they really have no idea wtf happened
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Sep 18, 2021 08:03
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Bar Ran Dun posted:Ports. Also all the sunken merchant ships people were just talking about.
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Sep 19, 2021 23:03
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A few years ago they found that awesome one in the Black Sea that was all but intact due to the water's properties.
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Sep 20, 2021 17:36
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Not just one, there are a whole bunch of ships in that find. I don't think the research has been published yet but it may change a lot of what we think about Roman ships, since those ones are so well preserved that even like the rigging is still in place.
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Sep 20, 2021 17:57
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imagining some period captain screaming at his crew "that rigging better last a thousand years!"
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Sep 20, 2021 18:00
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