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The Naval Battle of Actium and the Myth of The The naval battle of Actium and the myth of the ship-holder: the effect of bathymetry Johan Fourdrinoy, Clément Caplier, Yann Devaux, Germain Rousseaux, Areti Gianni, Ierotheos Zacharias, Isabelle Jouteur, Paul-Marius Martin, Julien Dambrine, Madalina Petcu, et al. To cite this version: Johan Fourdrinoy, Clément Caplier, Yann Devaux, Germain Rousseaux, Areti Gianni, et al.. The naval battle of Actium and the myth of the ship-holder: the effect of bathymetry. 5th MASHCON - International Conference on Ship Manoeuvring in Shallow and Confined Water with non-exclusive focus on manoeuvring in waves, wind and current, Flanders Hydraulics Research; Maritime Technology Division, Ghent University, May 2019, Ostend, Belgium. WWC007 (pp 104 - 133). hal-02139218 HAL Id: hal-02139218 https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-02139218 Submitted on 24 May 2019 HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access L’archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est archive for the deposit and dissemination of sci- destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents entific research documents, whether they are pub- scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, lished or not. The documents may come from émanant des établissements d’enseignement et de teaching and research institutions in France or recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires abroad, or from public or private research centers. publics ou privés. THE NAVAL BATTLE OF ACTIUM AND THE MYTH OF THE SHIP-HOLDER: THE EFFECT OF BATHYMETRY Johan Fourdrinoy, Clément Caplier, Yann Devaux and Germain Rousseaux, CNRS – Université de Poitiers – ISAE- ENSMA - Institut Pprime, France Areti Gianni and Ierotheos Zacharias, University of Patras, Greece Isabelle Jouteur, Université de Poitiers, Forellis France Paul Martin, Université de Montpellier, France Julien Dambrine, Madalina Petcu and Morgan Pierre, Université de Poitiers, Laboratoire de Mathématiques et Applications, France. SUMMARY A myth of antiquity is explained with modern science in the context of an ancient naval battle. A legend was invoked by the admiral Pliny the Elder to explain the defeat of Antony and Cleopatra against Octavian at the naval battle of Actium. A fish, called echeneis or remora, is said to have the power to stop ships or to delay their motion by adhering to the hull. Naturalists have since studied how the fish sucking-disk with its typical pattern of parallel striae sticks to its host. Here we show the pattern of the free surface measured in a towing tank in the wake of an ancient galley is similar to the striae pattern of the fish. We have measured the bathymetry at the mouth of the Ambracian Gulf that influenced the physical environment of the battle. The computations demonstrate the increase of wave resistance of a galley as a function of the draft to the water depth ratio in shallow water corresponding to the appearance of a particular wake pattern: the echeneidian free surface pattern. NOMENCLATURE [SUMMARY] times. That day, the confrontation of Antony and Cleopatra against Octavian took place, near Actium in the α Wake angle (°) Ambracian Gulf, the epilogue of the Civil War between An = T/h Antonian number the Western Roman world and the Eastern Oriental world. B Beam (m) Antony, with his heavy fleet composed among others of CF Friction coefficient (N) decaremes, faces Octavian and his light fleet composed Frh = U/√푔ℎ Froude depth number among others of triremes. Two mysterious anomalies disrupt the unfolding of history: Antony remains FrL = U/√푔퐿 Length Froude number inexplicably motionless for three hours at the exit of the g Gravity of Earth (m/s²) Gulf, then, instead of charging forward to break through h Depth (m) the opposing lines, he fails to pick up speed. This forced 2 2 -1 푘 = √푘푥 + 푘푦 Wavelength (m ) him to adopt combat tactics involving getting close to the -1 kx Longitudinal wavelength (m ) enemy in order to board their vessels for which his large -1 ky Transversal wavelength (m ) boats were ill-suited. The ancient sources which mention L Length of ship (m) these anomalies either give no explanation at all or give λ Linear scale of ship model explanations which are less than convincing. Everything ω Pulse wave (rad/s) seems to point to Antony's fleet first having been m Blockage parameter compelled to remain motionless and then to Antony's ν kinematic viscosity (m²/s) having had to choose the least promising combat tactics. Rt Total resistance (N) The explanation usually given by historians and modern Rv Viscosity resistance (N) philologists is that Antony expected wind to rise from the Rw Wave making resistance (N) land; then, his fleet, having repelled that of Octavian, Re = VL/ν Reynolds number could sail off covering Cleopatra who stayed in the rear Density of water (kg/m3) (Antony's rear fleet was a priority, because it was carrying S Wetted surface (m²) the war booty). In contrast to the use of naval combat, the σ Surface tension (kg/s²) fleet of Antony had left the masts and sails lying on the T Draft (m) deck of the ship - which has not been easy manned on tW Water temperature (°C) board, but would allow, when the time comes, to prepare Vm Model speed (m/s) masts and sails to escape and to be sure of not being caught VR Real-scale speed (knots) by the enemy ships, equipped to fight, that is to say, only UKCm Under keel clearance with oars. Things did not go as planned: the collapse of W Tank width Antony’s frontline helped the admiral of Octavian, Agrippa, to attack the isolated part of Antony’s vessels. In 1 INTRODUCTION Section 9.1 with supplementary information on Ancient History, the reasons for the long immobility of the fleet of September 2, 31 BC was a turning point for the ancient Antony are examined. We have a clue that this immobility world, and an enigma for historians and scientists of all was not expected: the surprise of the opponents. As Octavian certainly knew the plan of Antony and the tactics that where recovered during two sampling cruises in he would adopt. He is surprised to see him sitting still. September – October 2012 period. Depth measurements Another clue, less pronounced, is Antony’s customary were made along 10 transects and 20 points, uniformly haranguing of his board troops and crews by moving along distributed in the area of interest. the front of the ship, but he did this on a small boat, and In order to reconstruct the bathymetry (explained in not - as one would have expected - from his flagship. The Section 9.4 with supplementary information on purpose was indeed to harangue the troops from a Oceanography) at the gulf’s entrance in 31 BC, when the dominant position. In a small boat however, the leader is battle occurred, basic modifications to the current map not in a dominant position… (Carter, 1970; Martin, 1995; were made. These modifications were based on: a) the Lange, 2011; Murray 2012). The explanation of these relative sea level changes during the last 2000 years and; events are much written about, and (Tarn, 1931) warned b) the morphological changes due to human interventions us “The true history of Antony and Cleopatra will in the area over the last decades. The dredging of a probably never be known; it is buried too deep beneath the navigational channel during the 1970s, changed the area’s version of the victors”. A legend was invoked by Pliny the bathymetry as well as its hydrodynamics and its Elder (Pliny the Elder, 1857) (the naturalist and the sedimentation processes. These changes resulted in admiral of the western Roman navy in the first century) to morphological structures formation, which were identified explain the defeat of Antony and Cleopatra against and removed during the bathymetry reconstruction. In Octavian. A fish, called echeneis or remora and ship- addition, based on literature and observations data, it was holder or sucking-fish nowadays, is said to have the power concluded that the average sea level during the battle was to stop ships or to delay their motion by adhering to the 75 cm lower than the current one (Lambeck and Purcell, hull (Jouteur, 2009). Some scientists have brought other 2005). This was also considered for the ancient reasoning and arguments: biofouling; rudder effect bathymetry reconstruction. Decaremes (namely the turbulent brake; dead-water in deep water… Gudger biggest boats at Actium, see below), with a draft of 2.1 m, (Gudger, 1918) even concluded his review of these have been limited in their position. Indeed, part of the explanations with the definite statement that “another entrance has a depth of less than 2.5 m. myth of the ancients is dissipated in thin air”. A research project has been set up to defy this point of view by analysing three new scientific reasons for the difficulties in manoeuvring by analysing the effect of shallow water only, stratification in shallow water and ship squat. In this introducing work on a scientific study of the battle of Actium, this paper focuses exclusively on the first effect. The bathymetry at the mouth of the Ambracian Gulf that influenced the physical environment of the battle has been measured and is described in Section 2. The Section 3 of the papers contains mathematical computations that demonstrate the increase of wave resistance of a galley with a draft of the order of the water depth in shallow water corresponding to the appearance of a so-called “echeneis” free surface pattern. 2 BATTLE’S CONDITIONS 2.1 THE OCEANOGRAPHIC CHARACTERISTICS OF THE AMBRACIAN GULF “Oceanographic research in the Amvrakikos Gulf in Western Greece, a semi-enclosed embayment isolated from the Ionian Sea by a narrow, shallow sill, has shown that it is characterized by a fjord-like oceanographic Figure 1.
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