Talk:Ships of ancient Rome

Other types

Noting some types listed in Ematinger-2015: navis aperta, moneris, navis longa, navis tecta, navis strata, navis constrata, or liburna. Mathglot (talk) 20:15, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

Those which don't already have an article should have redirects created for them, pointing to the appropriate section. Mathglot (talk) 06:27, 16 July 2023 (UTC)

Günther quotation

Cross-posting the translated quotation (diff) from Günther-2007, because it may be useful here:

Strikingly, the term aktuaria, which is encountered again and again in the written record, according to Isidor von Sevilla is to be assigned to the class of oared sailing ships. It is sometimes even used as a synonym for this type of ship, as can be seen from a remark by jurist Vulpius Marcellus (mid-second century AD). Regarding the question of whether or not a given class of ships in the empire can claim postliminium or not (Dig. 49, 25,3), only four categories count for him: the navis longa (long ship = warship), navis oneraria (= cargo sailor), navis piscatoria (= fishing boat), and the navis actuaria.

According to Livy, naves actuariae could be manned by up to 30 oarsmen (remiges), which according to the usual thwart spacing on ancient rowing ships suggests hull lengths of over 20 m, but they also operated in much smaller versions as so-called actuariolae. The ship marked as actuaria on the Althiburos mosaic shows a galley equipped with a large square sail and a small artemon sail (headsail), which has a very peculiar front contour with a nose tapering directly above the waterline and a bow parapet swinging back concavely above it and at the same time diverging in a V-shape. These features can be observed in a number of other representations of ships in the Mediterranean region, some of which offer clear indications of cargo (e.g., amphorae) and function (such as for transporting wild animals). The bow shape just described probably also made it possible when the need arose to quickly equip vessels of this type with a ramming device and to use them for naval combat.

The Livy comment that Günther quotes above is at Livy XXI:

"The navis actuaria, 'pinnace', was worked by sails and at least 18 oars, and as many as 30 (cf. 25, 30, 10), (distinguished from the onerariae, which had only sails). They were used as transports, and for active service".

Thanks, Mathglot (talk) 21:34, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

Expanding article scope

I'd recommend renaming this along the lines of classical ancient ships so that it corresponds with medieval ships. Limiting it to just the Roman Empire would make for very abrupt and artificial cut-off points at exactly 27 BC and (possibly) 330 AD. It would kinda exclude any non-Roman seafaring entities before they were gobbled up by the Romans. Peter ^Isotalo 01:32, 13 July 2023 (UTC)

I'm not opposed to this in principle, but it seems too soon to make a good judgment call now, before we know how much material we're going to end up with as the article is fleshed out and expands. I believe I understand what you're going for here: a desire for parallelism in that the "Middle Ages" is a historical periodization without mention of place, as is classical antiquity, implying that your choice might be a better title wrt parallelism with the medieval article; is that a fair statement of how you're viewing this? If so, consider that "Medieval ships" actually is limited in place also, starting from the very first sentence, where the definition of the article scope is "The ships of Medieval Europe were powered by sail, oar, or both" and on through the remainder of the article which never mentions anything outside Europe; the point being, that Medieval ships is already defined by both time and place (i.e., "medieval" + "Europe") in its content, if not in its title, which parallels the current Draft title. Maybe I missed what you had in mind there, if that's not it. Anyway, the more important factor for me, is we don't know how much stuff we will end up with here, and maybe it will be easier to organize an article on a more limited scope, and maybe even there's even too much available and we'd just end up having to split it again.

That said, I get the point about the artificial cutoff points, and that does seem problematic. If we changed it from "Roman Empire" to "Ancient Rome", would that allay some of your concern? That would eliminate particular cutoff dates, and also bring it closer to the scope of your title. I think where we should go from here, is to see how the sources treat this question: are there books about ships in ancient Rome (or the Roman Empire) or primarily just "ancient ships", and is there a strong tendency to one versus the other? Something else that might be helpful, is to check out tertiary sources, and see how they divide things up. The whole concept of periodization and scoping choice is an interesting historiographical question, and to the extent possible, we should probably reflect the sources for the title choice, although I don't think we're straitjacketed by their choices either, since we are an online encyclopedia, which is a different animal; nevertheless, we can take some guidance there. Mathglot (talk) 03:52, 13 July 2023 (UTC)

I think the definition at classical antiquity might be something to work from. The emphasis is on the not-too-strict "centered on the Mediterranean"-notion. What you'll definitely find in a lot sources is that the focus is on the Mediterranean, but that it extended to the Black Sea and Read Sea in the east and the Atlantic in the West. Just estimating here, so don't quote me on that.

Either way, I agree that there's no rush to choose a scope before creating a decent amount of content. I'll dig into the sources I have now and see how they deal with periodization. Peter ^Isotalo 12:20, 13 July 2023 (UTC)

At a broader historical perspective, I would say that solid secondary sources are focused on antiquity ("ancient history") as a cohesive period. The starting point goes as far back as 3000 BC but always ends before the 5th to 7th centuries.

• Casson (1971) Ships and seamanship in the ancient world
• de Graeve (1981) The Ships of the Ancient Near East
• Meijer (1986) A History of Seafaring in the Classical World
• Morrison (1980) Long ships and round ships : warfare and trade in the Mediterranean 3000 BC-500 AD
• Morrison & Williams (1968) Greek Oared Ships 900-322 B.C.
• Rodger (1937) Greek and Roman Naval Warfare
• Rougé (1975) Ships and Fleets of the Ancient Mediterranean
• Starr (1989) The Influence of Sea Power on Ancient History
• Torr (1895) Ancient ships

Works about later ships are focused on the Middle Ages, more or less narrowly defined in time:

• Hutchinson (1994) Medieval ships and shipping
• Pryor (1988) Geography, technology, and war : studies in the maritime history of the Mediterranean, 649-1571
• Rose (2002) Medieval naval warfare, 1000-1500
• Unger (1980) The ship in the medieval economy, 600-1600

There has to be hundreds, if not thousands, of works about ships or maritime history more tightly focused within these timeframes. Probably plenty that cover both ancient and medieval (or simply all of human history). But I believe it's rare to find works that have cutoff points in the middle of the ancient and medieval periods, say from 150 AD to 1300 AD. If they do, it's because they are focused on the timelines of specific political entity or something that is independent of the history of ship design as such. Peter ^Isotalo 12:37, 15 July 2023 (UTC)

I totally believe you that there are hundreds, if not thousands, of works out there for the broader topic, and it would all be fine, if we could actually get someone to volunteer the time to do it. But that is quite a major expansion in time and in space, and so far, no else has stepped up even for the narrower scope (except for Gog, thanks!) so I've gone ahead and pushed to get a draft together based on the more limited scope for now, just so we can get *something* out there fairly soon, rather than expand the scope too much now and risk a draft that becomes stagnant for lack of volunteers to fill out a much larger topic and then see the draft end up getting auto-deleted. That said, I've no objection to expanding a wee bit from "Roman Empire" to "ancient Rome", but if we start including Greece, the Mediterranean, and eras back to the Egyptians and forward to the Middle Ages at this point, it'll never get done, at least, not by me. There will be plenty of time to expand the scope once it is published, so that's my goal, now. I think that can be achieved within the week, and maybe sooner than that. Once it's out there, it will start to be interconnected to other articles and have more visibility, and will start to attract more editors who might be willing to help expand it along the lines you suggest, and all the time in the world to do it, without fear of deletion. Mathglot (talk) 07:03, 16 July 2023 (UTC)

I was actually planning on adding content regarding trade ships from a more relevant broader perspective, especially ships used by Greeks and Phoenicians. Are you opposed to that? Peter ^Isotalo 17:46, 16 July 2023 (UTC)

As long as it can be sandboxed in a section apart, like, "Comparison with other eras" (or other nations), or "Precursors" or something like that and the topic remains the same (for now), then I think that's fine. Let's get it out there (I just did) so other editors can jump in and fix or add what needs to be fixed or expand it just for this narrower topic, and once that settles, we can figure out how best to change the topic of the article itself. There's still plenty to do on just the current topic. Or, you could even create a new article on the broader topic, of which this would become just a child article of that one in summary style. Mathglot (talk) 22:43, 16 July 2023 (UTC)

I was genuinely interested in helping out here, but it seems you've gone off and done your completely own thing here. I think the narrow scope is forced and unhelpful to readers. Fencing the topic off in this way only makes it harder to work on the article.

I'm pretty shocked at the quality of the text you think is okay to move directly into article space. There's not even an attempt at a lead and it's full of pointless expansion templates. It looks like a WP:COATRACK with some extremely obvious errors, like a pic of a 17th century carrack or galleon and the "Terminology" content is a misrepresentation of the cited source followed by editorializing about Latin grammar. Most of the article seems to be recycled material from other articles. Peter ^Isotalo 23:16, 16 July 2023 (UTC)

Can we talk about improving the article, instead of just what you don't like about it? What specifically is a section or sentence you would like to modify/change/add to/delete? I'm sorry about the 17th century images; they were brought in from some other article, and perhaps should be fixed there, first. If I can figure out which one you mean, I'll take care of it.

As far as the #Terminology section, what specifically do you think is a misrepresentation, and how can we improve it? I'm not married to the part about Latin grammar, although this article has some potentially confusing similar terms that readers may not be clear on, and I think its worth pointing out at least the singular-plural distinctions, that are so different in Latin and English. But I'm not opposed to cutting it back, if it seems too detailed. It's true there is no citation there, but it is all standard grammar and verifiABLE, so if we want to keep it and citations are demanded, they won't be hard to find.

A lot of the article is, indeed, recycled material from other articles. What shocked me, was that we had no article on the topic, "Ships of ancient Rome", which seems like an important topic and a big void in our coverage. This article is just a first step in attempting to plug that gap. As time goes on and other editors pitch in, it will hopefully expand into a more mature article, with more unique content; but it's like, an hour old, so please be a little patient. There isn't anything wrong with copying material from other articles; we have multiple ways of doing that, along with templates to describe what is happening, and a section of the Wikimedia Terms of Use that is dedicated to exactly this. So, "recycled" material is fine; if you want to improve on it, please do. Mathglot (talk) 00:24, 17 July 2023 (UTC)

The wrong image is removed; the part of the #Terminology section dealing with Latin roots has been trimmed back by 70%, although I don't think there was anything wrong with it previously. Mathglot (talk) 00:31, 18 July 2023 (UTC)

Shipbuilding

I was pretty much assuming the § Shipbuilding section here was just going to follow summary style and be a brief summary of a nice, long section about it at Ship building#Roman empire. To my surprise, there is no such section at that article, and in fact, the subtopic of Roman shipbuilding is mentioned only once in passing, in section Shipbuilding § Mediterranean. So we might as well develop content about it here first, and if it gets very long, then we could just export most of it to the "Shipbuilding" article, and then write the summary version here, topped with a {{Main}} link. That's kind of how I hope it goes, but it depends how much is out there about the topic. Seems to me I ran across a couple of books on the topic iirc, and if that's true, there's probably no lack of material for a comprehensive treatment of it. Mathglot (talk) 02:53, 13 July 2023 (UTC)

That section might also include something about maintenance and repair. I forget where I read it, but they didn't have dry docks, so maintenance was problematic for them. They didn't even have the technique (which has a special name which I forget) of rolling the ship way over on one side, then the other to permit repairs of the hull that way. Mathglot (talk) 06:32, 16 July 2023 (UTC)

I think you mean Careening. ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 18:57, 28 July 2023 (UTC)

Sources

I would say that https://www.worldhistory.org works as a "External links" entry here. It's a pretty good starting point as a tertiary source to get a broad overview, but we already have plenty of solid secondary sources. It won't actually add any additional details and any synthesis it might contain is questionable since the author is not a published author or expert, just an enthusiast. Peter ^Isotalo 10:29, 14 July 2023 (UTC)

Yes, my sentiments exactly. Mathglot (talk) 05:55, 15 July 2023 (UTC)

Not what I expected

This article is not what I would have expected.

(1) The emphasis seems to be on warships. Rome could not have existed without merchant ships, because these were essential to carry grain. Rome consumed about 150,000 tons of Egyptian grain each year over the first three centuries AD. Without this grain, the plebs (in the technical historical sense) would have rioted and Rome would have been ungovernable. This massive merchant trade may have relied on a pax Romana, but it would not have happened without the merchant ships.

(2) The article structure seems somewhat chaotic. Do I understand correctly that it has been written by taking text from other articles and sticking it together in one article here? A better approach would have been to start with a blank sheet of paper and a stack of sources. Many of the paragraphs would be better to exist simply as links from this article. If there is no way of writing quality text that provides that link, what do we need the link for?

(3) A key reference is missing from the construction section: Wooden Ship Building and the Interpretation of Shipwrecks, by J Richard Steffy. This is the essential text on the subject. I am not sure how one could address this subject without using this reference.
(3a) As an additional thought, one could mention the different construction technique of the Blackfriars ship – arguably the bottom-first construction sequence used for the Cog (ship) but presented by the researchers as a Romano-Celtic construction technique.

(4) There is no mention of the sailing rigs used. Casson has some description of them (and is a source already listed). Colin Palmer and Julian Whitewright have various papers published on the nature and performance of classical era sails, with discussion of the transition from Mediterranean square rig to lateen (this was not to improve windward performance – but that is an error made by a number of maritime historians).

(5) The article should make clear the approximate date range that it is intended to cover. I suggest it should finish at the point when Medieval ships takes over. That would mean discussing the transition to carvel (in the strict archaeologists' definition) frame first construction and the broadly concurrent changeover to lateen. Whitewright has already been mentioned as a potential source.

I am sorry to pile in with a load of criticism, but something has to be said. ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 20:10, 28 July 2023 (UTC)

@ThoughtIdRetired:, Not at all; I'm very glad someone has. And by and large, I don't disagree. I think most of the answer is that it is a brand new, start-class article; there's no time limit; this is an all-volunteer project, and they haven't shown up yet. Hopefully, they will. Meanwhile, point by point:

1. Absolutely; that's what was easiest to source, so you're not wrong. There's a borrowable article at Internet archive on navis oneraria which I've been meaning to add to expand the section on transport ships; it's "Navis oneraria : the cargo carrier of late antiquity" (Ericsson-1984). (Note: Extant reviews note various problems with this source, but also point out where it is useful; see, e.g., see Kreutz (1986). And for the purpose of expanding that one subsection, I believe it has good [enough] content for it.)
2. You mention chaotic structure (by which I understand the basic organization and breakdown of sections and subsections) but your comment appears to address the content ("taking text from other articles and sticking it together"). Addressing the latter first: it absolutely does do that currently, by use of the {{Excerpt}} template which you noticed. This was a quick solution (you could call it "quicky & dirty", and I wouldn't disagree) to what I perceived as a fairly major problem, namely a gap in our coverage: how could it be that we didn't have an article on this topic? With limited time to devote to this, what was the best way to get *something* out there, which hopefully would attract eyeballs—and criticisms—and I used this method to bootstrap *something*, just to fill the gap. That seems to be fulfilling its purpose, and I'm hopeful that you, and others, will notice, point out the defects, and help remedy them, for the benefit of our readers. So, thank you for being the first! The excerpts were meant to be a stopgap, but not the end goal, so that as the article develops and evolves, the excerpts will be replaced by more targeted content, unique to this article. But it's been helpful in getting something out there.
   Back to your former point: can you address the structure, by which I mean, the section titles, and structure? I have various ideas for expansion which I haven't been able to get to, yet. There is sufficient reliably sourced content to introduce an #Experimental archaeology section (e.g., DeCasien's rams), and a #Historiography section (e.g., the transition from primarily ancient literary references to artifact-based, first from Mainz and other wrecks, and then from rams, Egadi et al.) I think a lot could be said there.
3. Totally; the § Shipbuilding section is what I would call a stubbed section; just barely beyond an {{empty section}} template placeholder, and partially uses an {{excerpt}} to bootstrap *something* into that section. Tons of room for expansion there. And yes, I noticed Steffy in my research, but tbh, I'm probably one of the least knowledgeable editors editing in this area, and I didn't realize the importance of it, although the more I read up, the more I get a sense of the important figures in the field, like Casson, Tusa, Morrison, Höckmann. This is literally the first article I have created in this space, and it's exciting to learn about it, and I hope I can count on you, and other editors more familiar with it, to help improve the article. Thank you for mentioning Blackfriars ship, and the cog ship; I have to admit ignorance of both. I hope to get to them, if someone else doesn't first.
4. I'm still trying to sort out what was oar-only, sail-only, and oar-sometimes-augmented-with-sail (which seems like maybe it was the majority, but maybe I'm wrong about that). I don't know enough yet to comment further.
5. Date range: yes, absolutely. Somewhere I have a raw note about this offline, and was planning to key into existing articles about periodization of antiquity and the transition to Middle Ages. A scoping section near the top, or a "Background" or "Introduction" section could cover this.

All of your points are valid, and if I had endless time and no other topic interests here, this article would be in better shape than it is. But as mentioned, it's very early on, I see all sorts of ways it can be improved, and I hope to help out in that effort and continue to learn about this fascinating topic, but you're obviously someone who knows a whole lot more about it than I do, and I hope you can devote some time addressing the points you enumerated that need attention. I look forward to your help in improving the article, and thanks again for taking the time to add your point-by-point comment, and I hope to hear more ideas from you. Mathglot (talk) 09:14, 3 August 2023 (UTC)

#4 is now added. Mathglot (talk) 10:18, 3 August 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for your comments. (I think you mean #5 is now fixed: the date range considered by the article.) I think I made a bad choice of words with "chaotic", as I think I was trying to convey the feel of different bits of text coming from elsewhere and therefore not seeming to mesh well. Obviously something that will disappear with time, if it was a fair criticism to start with.
I would make a lot more input on the article if I had the opportunity, but I have (hopefully temporary) intermittent internet access problems, plus a lot of non-Wikipedia demands on my time. I feel I could put together something sensible on the sailing rigs. It is worth pointing out that sail would be used whenever possible – galleys actually had good sailing performance if the replica trireme is anything to go by. In more recent times (up to 1939, perhaps) navies used some boats that were optimised for use under oar, but still were sailed whenever that would give a quicker journey. A good example of this is the French gig (mislabelled in numerous places in Wikipedia as a longboat) and called a Yol de Bantry[[1]]. This is essentially a boat for fast trips under oar, but is extensively sailed in the modern replicas of the surviving example.
The shipbuilding aspects are interesting, because, despite the predominance of the mortice and tenon edge-joined planking, other techniques were used. Early in the period you could find sewn planks and tenon-joined planks in the same vessel. Sewn planking persisted in the Adriatic (if my memory serves me well). And Roman territories in Northern Europe had a characteristic Celtic construction technique (though I think the Blackfriars Ship example is disputed by some – there are other non-disputed examples.) The date period also takes in the transition to carvel construction. Whilst this is not at all well understood by historians and archaeologists, there is a rational argument that it was driven by the need to cut building and operating costs as Rome started to fall into decline. The concurrent changeover from Mediterranean Square Rig to lateen for the same reasons is a further piece of evidence. ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 12:35, 3 August 2023 (UTC)

Problem illustration

Mortise tenon joint hull trireme-en

This drawing of the edge joining of hull planking has, in my understanding of the subject, some problems.

Firstly it suggests that where two planks in one strake join, there is a simple but joint, with the plank ends cut square. This is not the case, as a scarf joint is used. This is important as the scarf joint is held together with tenons. There are even differences in the way the mortises in the scarf are cut, depending on whether the planks are joined before or after fitting into the hull.

Another problem is that the location of the mortises is often staggered, so that each one is cut in the space that is opposite the gap between the two mortises on the opposite side of the plank.

The drawing also suggests to me that the dowels are driven from the outside of the hull, when they are actually driven from the inside. I have yet to confirm if they were driven into blind holes or ones that went right through the planking. I believe the former.

(1) Does anyone agree with my assessment?
(2) Is there a better illustration anywhere?
ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 14:32, 30 July 2023 (UTC)

As an additional thought, the thickness of the tenons in the Kyrenia wreck were 12.5% (or one eighth) of the hull planking thickness. That is substantially different from the one third (judged by eye) ratio shown in the illustration. ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 16:35, 30 July 2023 (UTC)

@ThoughtIdRetired: I've had good experiences previously with the Graphics Lab illustration workshop; have you ever worked with them before? It sounds you like you have some familiarity with what is needed here, and if you made a request there, it might bear fruit. One thing: as always, they are volunteers, too, so patience is required; but I've uniformly been pleased with the results. Worth a try. Mathglot (talk) 09:19, 3 August 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for the suggestion on the graphics lab. Being an obstinate character, I have had a go at producing an illustration myself. Problems with that: (1) establishing exactly what it should look like (from sources). It's easy to say what is wrong, but difficult to define what is totally right. I need a good illustration in a source to lay the groundwork of ideas, but haven't found one yet (just archaeologist's drawings, which are not quite what is needed). (2) My graphics ability is less than is required for the job, so as soon as I can define what is needed, I guess I need to put in a call for help. I think the current illustration is fine for now, as it gets the concept across admirably. ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 11:59, 3 August 2023 (UTC)