ANTH 489 Romans, Arabs and Vikings. Seafaring in the Mediterranean during the Early Christian Era. Class 8: Liburnians: Warships from the 1st to the 5th Century AD.

Roman Imperial sources mention a ship type in the 1st century BC, the liburnian, probably light and fast, without an outrigger. The term first appeared around the 5th century BC.In the Late Roman/Early Byzantine period (4th century AD) liburnian became a synonym of warship. Nobody really knows what liburnians looked like, and written sources do not give many clues. It seems that liburnians were small, with a maximum of two rowers in a room, but the sources don‟t not say whether each rower had an oar to himself. It seems that they had really sharp bows, designed for speed. In the late 1st century BC, at the Battle of Actium (31 BC), Octavian used some kind of these small, pirate vessels, possibly developed in the Illyrian coast, by a tribe of pirates. The Battle of Actium was fought between the forces of Octavian (63 BC – AD 14) and Mark Anthony (83 BC – 30 BC) and Cleopatra (69 BC – 30 BC) on September 2nd 31 BC. Actium was the last big naval battle of the Roman period. After that the Mediterranean became a Roman lake, the Mare Nostrum, where piracy was almost completely eliminated. Although surveys have been conducted on the area in the 1990s, no remains of this battle have been found. Nobody really knows what Octavian or Marc Anthony‟s ships looked like. Octavian, later Caesar Augustus, built Nicopolis (“city of victory”) to commemorate his victory over Mark Antony at the battle of Actium on September 2, 31 B.C. Nicopolis became the capital of Epirus in northwestern Greece. At Nicopolis, Octavian built a monument commemorating his victory and included spaces for the rams of his adversary ships. We don‟t know exactly what warships looked like in late antiquity, nor do we know what they looked like until the 11th AD. Triremes, the typical war ships since the Greeks, 600 years before, evolved in time and are thought to have grown considerably before being replaced by the liburnians. Marc Anthony‟s ships were large and are referred to as triremes, „fours,‟ „fives,‟ „sixes,‟ „sevens‟ and even larger vessels. Fives, sixes, sevens, eights, etc. refer to the number of rows of oars per side (half room). Some scholars believe that „fives‟ had one row with one oarsman per oar, and two with two oarsmen per oar; sixes two rowers per oar, sevens 3 + 2 + 2, etc. Representations of early warships from the Illyrian coast may yield clues to the reconstruction of this vessel type. These representations frequently show rams, and double-ended hulls. During the Empire Rome subdued most pirates and gained control of large portions of the Mediterranean. There were many pirates, especially in Illyria, where they used small craft named Liburni and an effective warfare tactic for the period: hit and run. General Sextus Pompey (67-35 BC) , naval commander in the 1st century BC, led an effective campaign against piracy in the second half of the century. Around this time, liburnians seem to become and increasingly important part of the Roman fleets. What do we know about the vessels of the Illyricum? There is a 5th century BC image of an engagement at sea on a bronze vessel. The ship represented ahs only one line of oars and no outrigger. In the 2nd century BC some coins show the same type of small ship, with only one line of oars and no outrigger. Instead, the oars rest on the gunwale or pass through oar ports, like in the 5th century image. Some coins represent vessels with sterns similar to the bows, a feature that may not be just a stylistic modification to better fit the coin surface. Some sources mention liburnians as ships capable to reverse movement and even ram with both the bow and the stern. Because a small number of Roman reliefs show rowers rowing forward, some scholars hypothesized that liburnians could move in both directions. Stern rams are not described in ancient sources, although some texts seem to suggest their existence. Representations of Illyrian ships sometimes show almost straight sterns, sometimes with a small protuberance abaft the post. They were adopted by the Roman navy and seem to have made ideal patrol boats. Stationed in provincial rivers, they became an increasingly larger portion of the Roman army/navy. Another characteristic that makes liburnians different from the previous fighting galleys if the absence of a fighting deck above rower‟s compartments. In the iconography the rower‟s upper bodies remain visible. Sometimes rowers can be seen from the waist up. Bow castles seem to be another characteristic of the liburnians. In conclusion: In the 4th and 5th centuries liburnians seem to have been: 1. Lightly built; 2. With one or two levels of rowers; 3. A sharp bow; 4. Forecastles; 5. Upper rowers with their heads above the railing; 6. A fighting platform in the middle.