Rome had learned that the proper role of a navy was to support ground operations and that naval combatants could not bring about a strategic decision by themselves. Thus it placed equal emphasis on its transport ships and combatants.

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War broke out with the Seleucid Empire in the eastern Mediterranean in 192 bc. As Antiochus maintained a large fleet, transporting the Roman army across the Aegean from Greece was a risky proposition. Lucius Scipio, the brother of Scipio Africanus, marched his army overland to cross the Hellespont and take the war to the Asian mainland (present-day western Turkey). Transports ferried his troops across the strait while other naval units blockaded the Syrian fleet at Ephesus. For weeks both sides skirmished off the coast. In December 190 bc, as the Roman army marched down the coast to bring the fight to Antiochus, the Seleucid fleet tried to break the Roman blockade. In a battle off Myonnesus, the Romans carried the day. A few weeks later Antiochus’ army was defeated at Magnesia. Rome now controlled the entire Mediterranean. Only Rhodes, a Roman ally, and Egypt, a broken reed, were left with significant naval assets.

Regardless, Rome still considered itself a land power, and over the next century, wrote Chester Starr in The Influence of Sea Power on Ancient History, “the Romans carried out the most complete process of naval disarmament that the world has ever seen and let her own naval establishment rot away.” That decision led to one of the worst waves of piracy in classical times. By 102 bc more than 1,000 pirate ships preyed on Mediterranean shipping, and more than 400 coastal settlements had been sacked, their populations sold at Roman slave markets. Rome finally reacted when the pirates threatened its grain imports. In 67 bc the Senate sent Pompey the Great to eradicate the outlaw scourge. He attacked the pirates’ coastal strongholds and regained control of the seas within a year. The experience convinced Rome to rebuild its navy.

Until then, Roman naval experience had been restricted to the tideless Mediterranean. It fell to Julius Caesar to fight the first Roman naval battle on the ocean. In 56 bc he launched a campaign against the Veneti in Gaul, who lived along the Bay of Biscay and were excellent sailors. While Caesar moved his armies overland, Decimus Brutus commanded the fleet that engaged the Veneti navy.

The Gallic ships were superior to Roman quinqeremes in every respect. Constructed of oak, they were almost impervious to ramming, with flat bottoms better suited to the coastal shallows. They were higher at the deck line with high sterns and prows from which to fight off Roman marines. The Gallic ships also flew large leather sails that withstood high winds better than canvas and enabled them to run faster before the wind, easily eluding their foes.

But their great strength also revealed a weakness, as the Gallic ships had no oars and relied on the mainsail for propulsion. Supportive halyards were tethered to the deck on either side of the mast. The Romans devised a new weapon to cripple the ship. “Sharp and pointed hooks secured to the ends of long poles,” wrote Caesar of the device, “after the fashion of siege hooks. When these contrivances had caught the halyards supporting the yards, the Roman ship was driven away by the oars, and the halyards were cut in consequence, so the yards fell to the deck.” Their mainsail halyards thus severed, the Gallic ships were immobilized. The Romans could now close with their grappling irons and deploy marines to deal with the crew.

Octavian had formally established the Roman imperial navy following the battle of Actium, when he sent Antony’s captured ships to Forum Iulii (present-day Fréjus on the south coast of France), establishing a permanent naval base to control the northern Mediterranean. He started with two major fleet commands: Classis Praetoria Misenensis, at Misenum on the Gulf of Naples, to protect Italy itself and its grain imports in the south; and Classis Praetoria Ravennatis, at Ravenna at the head of the Adriatic, to deal with trouble in Dalmatia and Illyria. To protect Egypt, the source of Rome’s grain supply, Octavian created the Classis Augusta Alexandrina, at Alexandria.

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