The Influence of Sea Power on Ancient History Read online

  THE INFLUENCE

  OF SEA POWER ON ANCIENT HISTORY

  THE INFLUENCE

  OF SEA POWER

  ON ANCIENT HISTORY

  Chester G. Starr

  To

  Adrienne, Art, Dick, Joan, John, Josh, and Tom in deep thanks

  Preface

  Once again I am grateful for the encouragement of Nancy Lane at Oxford University Press, who has provided wise counsel as in several earlier books; she has become a valued friend as well as a sagacious editor.

  To explain the list of names in my dedication: Arther Ferrill and Thomas Kelly assembled and edited my essays for publication by Brill; John and Joan Eadie, with Josiah Ober and Adrienne Mayor, produced a magnificent Festschrift; Richard Mitchell had much to do with my honorary degree from Illinois. Three have been my students, two have been warm-hearted colleagues for a number of years. I am much indebted to them.

  Contents

  LIST OF MAPS xi

  INTRODUCTION 3

  I SHIPS AND SEAS 7

  II PRELUDE TO THALASSOCRACY 15

  III ATHENS ON THE SEA 29

  IV THE AGE OF MONSTER FLEETS 50

  V THE ROMAN IMPERIAL PEACE 67

  EPILOGUE 83

  NOTES 85

  BIBLIOGRAPHY 101

  INDEX 103

  Maps

  Expansion of Greek Civilization, 750-500 B.C. 18

  Athenian Empire about 440 B.C. 37

  Alexander and the Hellenistic World 51

  Roman Empire under Augustus 70

  THE INFLUENCE

  OF SEA POWER ON ANCIENT HISTORY

  Introduction

  Early in the 1880's a captain in the United States navy, stationed off Peru, received an invitation to lecture on naval history at the new Naval War College, soon to open its doors. Alfred Thayer Mahan already had a scholarly reputation; he could not have guessed that this opportunity would lead him to become the most influential theorist of sea power in modern times.

  First he had to choose a topic and do some reading. The latter was not an easy task, but fortunately the English Club of Callao extended its hospitality to American officers. In its library Mahan came upon Mommsen's History of Rome. As he commented in his autobiography, "It suddenly struck me, whether by some chance phrase of the author I do not know, how different things might have been could Hannibal have invaded Italy by sea."' By the time he returned to the United States in 1885 the framework of The Influence of Sea Power upon History 1660-1783 was firmly set.

  Actually Mommsen, while stressing that Rome was mistress of the western Mediterranean at the beginning of the Second Punic War, had not flatly said that Hannibal could not have gone to Italy by sea, but that he chose the land route for reasons which were not entirely obvious; probably, suggested Mommsen, he preferred not to expose his forces "to the unknown and less calculable contingencies of a sea voyage and of naval war."2 As we shall see in a later chapter, the real explanation was of a different order, not directly connected to sea power; but no matter, Mahan's emphasis on the importance of naval superiority fitted magnificently into the bellicose, imperialistic outburst of the late nineteenth century in the United States, Great Britain, and Germany. He was awarded honorary degrees by both Oxford and Cambridge, and Kaiser Wilhelm II enthusiastically telegraphed that his naval officers were "devouring Captain Mahan's book." It would have been an indigestible diet, for Mahan's prose was lackluster and his theoretical analyses superficial, yet his work has been listed as one of the most influential books ever written .3

  In view of the enduring popularity of Mahan's comments among modern historians it is not surprising that students of ancient history have likewise tended to emphasize the role of sea power in classical times: "In the Mediterranean world the influence of sea power was rarely dormant and sometimes de- cisive."4 Even a cursory glance at a map suggests that the Mediterranean Sea was the geographical focus of Greek and Roman civilization and political activity. From Hecataeus in the sixth century onwards descriptions of the peoples on its shore commonly followed the coast line. More generally, the geographer Strabo in the age of Augustus asserted, "In a sense we are amphibious, and belong no more to the land than to the sea," and in his treatment of Greece followed the practice of the historian Ephorus in using the sea as the base for topographical discus- sion.5 Both of the first ancient historians, Herodotus and Thucydides, automatically took the seas as the backdrop for their narratives.

  Yet a careful consideration of the fundamental characteristics of ancient political, social, and economic organization might suggest the desirability of a more circumspect assessment of the place of sea power. First, ancient life always and everywhere was rooted in agriculture, for rural productivity was, except in Egypt and a few other favored areas, too limited to support the overwhelmingly urban tilt we now consider normal. So the Roman envoy Censorinus, advising the Carthaginians in 149 B.C., could support his demand that Carthage abandon its seacoast harbors and move 10 miles inland by pointing out how much more stable its position would be.6 As recently observed, local leaders at Alexandria and other major cities, including even Carthage, were "more likely to derive their wealth from the ownership of land than from active participation in manufacture or even com- merce."7 Political power everywhere naturally resided in the hands of agriculturally rooted elements.

  Secondly, maritime commerce itself was throughout antiquity not "the base of power and prosperity,"8 but rather was largely devoted to the transport of luxury items for these aristocrats: cargoes of "ivory and apes and peacocks, sandal-wood, cedarwood and sweet white wine."9 Consequently it was less likely to be a major concern of political and military policies. Here, to be sure, one must be discriminating in judgment. Metals, including tin, copper, and iron, as well as good stone, were not to be found everywhere; wool and timber often had to be imported as raw materials for local manufactures. From time to time urban agglomerations arose that were large enough to require seaborne grain, such as Athens in the fifth and fourth centuries B.c. and the city of Rome from at least the third century on down to the end of antiquity. In both examples control of the seas was to be a conscious concern, but by and large most communities were small enough to be fed from their countryside.

  And finally the deliberate exercise of sea power depended upon the rise of firm political units with sufficient resources to support navies. Armies can often live off the land and in antiquity did not need continuous supplies of ammunition and other necessities; ships on the other hand have always been expensive, and their crews usually have to be paid. Throughout the prehistoric stage, which lasted in most parts of the Mediterranean to almost 500 B.C., political structures were too amorphous even to dream of naval command or see its utility; only in Egypt and Syria do we find exceptions.

  Thalassocracy, thus, requires political and economic systems that can consciously aim at naval control of sea lanes for the transport of useful supplies and also of armies toward that end. Sea power must be able to facilitate and protect a state's commerce and deny that of opposing states, though in classical times the limited seakeeping qualities of galleys severely restricted this role.10 Instead of viewing sea power as an important element in the course of ancient history, we must expect it to be a spasmodic factor, though at points it does indeed become a critical force.

  The point of view encapsulated in Mahan's works must not mislead us. At the outset, let me make it clear that I do not propose to write a general descriptive treatment of ancient seafaring and commerce, or to stray far into technological aspects of the construction of ancient ships; both have been well treated in several recent works.'1 The important matter i
s the degree to which ships could be and were utilized to support sea power; my approach will be analytical rather than narrative.12

  CHAPTER I

  Ships and Seas

  The Mediterranean Sea, to repeat an earlier observation, was the center of Greek and Roman life. Its European shores were sufficiently separated on the north from the rest of the continental landmass by mountain chains to discourage casual interchanges; much of its African coast was guarded by the Saharan desert and the swamps of the upper Nile. At its western end the inland sea, mare nostrum, opened into the Atlantic through the strait of Gibraltar; the underwater sill here, known to ancient geographers, led to a difference in water level between the ocean and the Mediterranean that produced a major eastward current in the latter.'

  To the east lay the Black Sea, approached likewise by the narrow passage of the Hellespont; a downstream current of some six knots required careful navigation by ships bound for the grain, metal, and other products of south Russia and Armenia.2 Southeast was the Red Sea, connected to the Mediterranean by a canal in the days of the pharaohs and again under the Persian king Darius; but most imports of spices, perfumes, pearls, and other luxuries moved from India and Arabia by land in their final passage to Syria or Egypt. In classical antiquity, until the last days of the Roman Empire, no truly major incursions or political pressures affected the Mediterranean enclave save for those exerted by the Persian empire and its successors in the Parthian and Sassanian dynasties.

  Not only were the lands of ancient times bound together by water; they also shared a common "Mediterranean" climate that encouraged similar agricultural practices and patterns of human settlement. Still, it would be misleading to overemphasize either geographical or cultural uniformities. The Mediterranean was divided into a number of subsidiary seas: the Tyrrhenian or Sardinian west of Italy; the narrow Adriatic down which harsh winds often blew; the island-studded Aegean and others.3 The peoples inhabiting these basins developed many different linguistic and cultural characteristics across the prehistoric era, many of which endured throughout ancient history. This chapter will consider the earliest stages to about 1000 B.c., and must rely-save for Syria and Egypt-on the physical evidence provided by archeological exploration. Such material often raises unanswerable questions, but it well illustrates maritime interconnections and may help to support the proposition advanced in the Introduction as to the fundamental requirements for the existence of true sea power.

  The movement of physical objects within each basin can be traced far back into Neolithic times (down to about 3000). Obsidian from the island of Melos even appears on the Greek mainland in the preceding Mesolithic era; one can only speculate how knowledge of its availability was discovered and exploited in a period when Melos itself appears not to have been inhabited-were fishermen blown far offshore? To the north of Melos excavations on the island of Cythnos have revealed ties by the eighth and seventh millennia around the coasts of the Peloponnesus into the Adriatic.4 Predynastic Egypt, in the fourth millennium, had established continuous relations with Syria, probably to gain the cedars of Lebanon which were still prized in historic times. By at least the third millennium interconnections between basins grew more noticeable, as in the appearance of objects made in the Cyclades as far as the Balearic islands and south France. Here too one can only guess what drew Aegean seafarers westward or why their products were acceptable in exchange for native items.

  Across the second millennium, the height of the Bronze Age, physical objects, peoples, and even ideas moved about on a far larger scale, to the point that one can speak in terms of lines of trade. Egyptian gods were worshipped at Byblos, and the ves sels that plied this route were called Byblos ships in hieroglyphic records. Economic ties led. to political and military interventions by the powerful pharaohs of the Eighteenth Dynasty, culminating in the almost yearly invasions of Palestine and Syria by Thutmose III; in some of these his troops were transported by sea to avoid the arduous land march across the Sinai desert.

  Particularly impressive was the swift progress of the inhabitants of the Aegean. Early in the second millennium the natives of Crete had advanced so far culturally that they could take the decisive step of creating civilized states, on the model of Syrian principalities, which were centered in the palaces of Cnossus, Phaestus, Kato Zakro, and elsewhere. Minoan civilization utilized scribes, writing in Linear A, to keep palace inventories and the like; its potters, ivory workers, and metal smiths produced magnificent artistic creations, which were attractive westward to the Lipari islands and other Tyrrhenian sites and eastward and south to Asia Minor, Syria, and Egypt; in Egyptian tombs of the era, opposite Luxor, exotic foreigners called Keftiu are pictured, who appear to be Minoans.

  Objects of Minoan origin turn up widely in the Aegean itself, and what may be called colonies existed on the islands of Cythera and Thera, the latter ended by a violent eruption in the seventeenth century; then its fresco-decorated houses were buried under mounds of ash that have only recently been partially uncovered. The uncivilized lords of the mainland were also tempted by Minoan products, and the simple hillforts of Mycenae and elsewhere were embellished by true palaces that imitated Minoan ways by supporting scribes, fresco-painters, ivory workers, and other artisans and smiths.

  The range of Mycenaean mariners stretched even farther afield than had that of Minoan merchants and raiders. At Scoglio del Tonno, a site on the heel of the Italian boot, so much Mycenaean pottery has been found that one may postulate a lasting settlement,5 but Mycenaean vases turn up as far as Etruria, and a Mycenaean axe even in south England. The demand by Aegean craftsmen for amber also produced a regular route from the Baltic source down across central Europe to the Adriatic; once again one can only form hypotheses as to how the amber was passed from one set of hands to another and how knowledge of its existence was first attained.6 Eastward Mycenaean settlement and acceptance of its wares are evident at several points on the coast of Asia Minor, Rhodes, Cyprus, Syria (particularly the site of Ras Shamra), and Egypt; in return eastern objects appear in Greece, such as Babylonian seals at iniand Thebes.

  Underwater archeology has of late been able to explore systematically a number of shipwrecks, especially along the coast of Asia Minor, which throw vivid light on aspects of this trade. A recent example, probably of the fourteenth century, at Ulu Burun opposite Rhodes had a varied cargo: 200 copper ingots of varying weight and shape along with tin and glass ingots; unworked elephant and hippopotamus ivory; gold and silver jewelry and medallions of Canaanite types and also a scarab of Nefertiti from Egypt; pottery of Cypriote, Mycenaean, and Syro- Palestinian origin; Babylonian objects; beads of faience, glass, and amber; myrrh or frankincense; figs and probably olive oil and wine-a traveling store indeed.? The excavators suggest that the voyage began on the Syrian coast but touched at Cyprus on its way to the Aegean, where perhaps the raw materials would have been traded for Mycenaean vases to be taken on to Egypt in a circular route.

  The ship itself was a sailing vessel similar in construction to those of historic times. Reliefs at Deir el Bahri depict in great clarity the ship that Hatshepsut sent down the Red Sea to the fabled land of Punt; more sketchy representations on Minoan and Mycenaean seals also attest the use of ships with one mast and a big sail in the Aegean. Such vessels were undoubtedly small, like the caiques of historic times on to modern days. In the Mediterranean and Atlantic to the sixteenth century after Christ, as Braudel has demonstrated, ships were "little boats, mostly under 100 and even under 50 tons"; custom records in the Caribbean for the eighteenth century corroborate this pic- ture.8 Traders thus would need only limited capital; but even so how did the skipper of the Ulu Burun ship pay for his copper ingots from Cyprus or his tin and glass? Ports for such craft were no more than roadsteads.

  Beside ships relying on sails, however, there were also rowed galleys of sleeker lines. On Minoan and Mycenaean seals five rowers at most are depicted, but ships on the Thera frescoes show an oarage of more than 20 on a side,
and at least by Homeric times a complement of 50 rowers had become the stan- dard.9 The Mediterranean essentially lacks tides so that vessels of shallow draft could be drawn up on an open shore to rest the rowers at night; it also has very unreliable winds-Nelson, chasing Villeneuve in 1805, was delayed over a week off Sar- dinia.10 Accordingly, methods of propulsion independent of external aid could have their advantages especially for piracy and coastal raids. The existence of the former scourge can only be presumed for the second millennium, but since it remained an endemic profession across Mediterranean history there is no reason to doubt that the question posed of strangers in the Odyssey, "Are you a pirate?" could have been put earlier. For coastal raids there is firmer evidence, both in Hittite complaints about attacks on Asia Minor coasts and in a fresco from Minoan Thera perhaps depicting an assault on a seacoast town; a similar raid is also shown on a silver vessel from Mycenae, of Minoan origin.11 Oddly enough there has been serious effort to exculpate the "peace-loving" Minoans from any responsibility for nefarious marauding by sea; thus the commander in the Thera relief is asserted to have been Mycenaean even if in command of a Minoan crew.12 We need not seek to rescue Minoan nobility by such tenuous arguments, though it is indeed quite likely that Mycenaean seafarers covered a wider zone in raiding as well as in trading.

  What does this evidence on maritime activity especially in the second millennium have to do with the conscious utilization of sea power? The answer must be very little, and that has been my objective in surveying the archeological record in general outlines. Seaborne movement of physical objects in small vessels was not the dominant factor in economic life anywhere even if it provided the raw materials-metals, ivory, and so on-for craftsmen working for pharaohs, Syrian princelings, or Minoan and Mycenaean masters. Piracy and coastal raids were only incidental pinpricks on this trade, which suffered much more directly from sudden storms such as that which sank the Ulu Burun ship.