at the site of final battle of the First Punic War

[Ludovicus]

http://news.yahoo.co...ajorromanbattle

 

The remains of a sunken warship recently found in the Mediterranean Sea may confirm the site of a major ancient battle in which Rome trounced Carthage.

 

The year was 241 B.C. and the players were the ascending Roman republic and the declining Carthaginian Empire, which was centered on the northernmost tip of Africa. The two powers were fighting for dominance in the Mediterranean in a series of conflicts called the Punic Wars.

 

Archaeologists think the newly discovered remnants of the warship date from the final battle of the first Punic War, which allowed Rome to expand farther into the Western Mediterranean.

 

"It was the classic battle between Carthage and Rome," said archaeologist Jeffrey G. Royal of the RPM Nautical Foundation in Key West, Fla. "This particular naval battle was the ultimate, crushing defeat for the Carthaginians."

 

Rams reveal clues

 

The shipwreck was found near the island of Levanzo, west of Sicily, which is where historical documents place the battle.

 

In the summer of 2010, Royal and his colleagues discovered a warship's bronze ram - the sharp, prolonged tip of the ship's bow that was used to slam into an enemy vessel. This tactic was heavily used in ancient naval battles and was thought to have played an important role in the Punic fights.

Edited October 19, 2010 by Ludovicus

[Klingan]

Very interesting news (it should perhaps be moved?) but something is seriously wrong with that article:

 

That fits in with the historical accounts of the Carthaginians. While Rome already had a standing fleet before the war, "the ancient sources state that the Carthaginians hurried to rush a fleet together very quickly and then outfitted the ships and sent them off," Royal said.

 

Rome didn't really have a fleet before the Punic war did they? I reckon that there is some sort of story about how the Romans found a Carthaginian shipwreck and based their own fleet on that ship (as they had neither a fleet, nor knowledge about how to build warships).

[GhostOfClayton]

There is a superb documentary on this BBC DVD, that explains very well how the Romans managed to gain some very clever shipbuilding technology from the Carthaginians, and use it to their advantage.

 

In fact, what the heck, I'm going to order it today, so if anyone wants the DVDs I recorded from UKTV History (doesn't have all the episodes), let me know, and I'll get it to you.

[Melvadius]

This is a very interesting article and as has been suggested will be moved to the Roman Archaeology area of the forum. As the article says at the end there is further information actually some very good photographs of the ram (and supplemenatary info on the excavations if you drill down) at the RPM Nautical Foundation site.

 

As to the disparity of the Roman and Carthaginian fleets that is something I am currently reading in Michael Pitassi The Navies of Rome (pgs 43 et seq). Pitassi has compressed a lot of secondary and some primary sources into his work and makes the point that Rome and Carthage had had several treaties and trade relations for 300 years before the outbreak of the war which was probably driven by the expansion of Rome's fleet.

 

He feels that Polybius claim about a shipwrecked Punic ship being the template is apocryphal as at best it would only have provided a few bits of additional intelligence to what the Romans already knew about CArthagininan warships and may in fact simnply be a variation on the story of the capture of a Rhodian blockade runner in 249BC.

 

The Romans seem to have already established major ship building facilities and had been building up a fleet of around 100 quinquiremes and 20 triremes by 261BC. He feels that Polybuis claim for building 120 ships in two months is a mistranslation or mistranscription and actually meant they could build a single ship in two months. They probably started to increase warship production in 267BC and by 265BC had six shipyards in operation so could in effect build an average of 36 ships every year - even if it was only 24 ships a year the Roman fleet of 140 ships by 261BC seems much more plausible.

 

Edit - Info on the Egadi Islands project for 2005/6 when the first rams were discovered is here

[caldrail]

Or the Romans were boasting. They did that often enough, and history is written by the victors after all. Shame we don't have much from the Carthaginians on this subject, but then, the Romans made sure of it.