Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- List of Contributors
- Introduction générale et remerciements par Christian Buchet
- General introduction and acknowledgements
- Introduction (français)
- Introduction (English)
- La mer est le propre d'Homo sapiens
- PREHISTORICAL CASE STUDIES
- HISTORIAL CASE STUDIES: The Ancient Near East and Pharaonic Egypt
- HISTORICAL CASE STUDIES: The Mediterranean world
- Mediterranean ship technology in Antiquity
- Greek colonization, connectivity, and the Middle Sea
- Les infrastructures portuaires antiques
- Alexandria and the sea in Hellenistic and Roman times
- The development of Roman maritime trade after the Second Punic war
- La mer et l'approvisionnement de la ville de Rome
- The Roman Empire and the seas
- Les techniques de pêche dans l'Antiquité
- The consumption of salted fish in the Roman Empire
- Taxing the sea
- Les détroits méditerranéens dans la construction de l'image de la mer Intérieure dans l'Antiquité
- Ancient sea routes in the Black Sea
- Maritime risk and ritual responses: sailing with the gods in the Ancient Mediterranean
- La mer, vecteur d'expansion du christianisme au Ier siècle
- Maritime military practices in the pre-Phoenician Levant
- La naissance des flottes en Egée
- The Athenian maritime empire of the fifth century BC
- Financial, human, material and economic resources required to build and operate navies in the classical Greek world
- Les expéditions athéniennes en Sicile, ou la difficulté pour une marine de garder sa supériorité
- Pourquoi Alexandre le Grand a-t-il choisi de licencier sa flotte à Milet?
- Hellenistic and Roman republican naval warfare technology
- La marine de guerre romaine de 284 à 363
- Rome and the Vandals
- HISTORICAL CASE STUDIES: The Indian Ocean and the Far East
- Conclusion (français)
- Conclusion (English)
- Conclusion générale par Christian Buchet
- General conclusion
- Comprendre le rôle de la mer dans L'histoire pour éclairer notre avenir
- Understanding the role the sea has played in our past in order to shed light on our future!
Financial, human, material and economic resources required to build and operate navies in the classical Greek world
from HISTORICAL CASE STUDIES: The Mediterranean world
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 20 April 2017
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- List of Contributors
- Introduction générale et remerciements par Christian Buchet
- General introduction and acknowledgements
- Introduction (français)
- Introduction (English)
- La mer est le propre d'Homo sapiens
- PREHISTORICAL CASE STUDIES
- HISTORIAL CASE STUDIES: The Ancient Near East and Pharaonic Egypt
- HISTORICAL CASE STUDIES: The Mediterranean world
- Mediterranean ship technology in Antiquity
- Greek colonization, connectivity, and the Middle Sea
- Les infrastructures portuaires antiques
- Alexandria and the sea in Hellenistic and Roman times
- The development of Roman maritime trade after the Second Punic war
- La mer et l'approvisionnement de la ville de Rome
- The Roman Empire and the seas
- Les techniques de pêche dans l'Antiquité
- The consumption of salted fish in the Roman Empire
- Taxing the sea
- Les détroits méditerranéens dans la construction de l'image de la mer Intérieure dans l'Antiquité
- Ancient sea routes in the Black Sea
- Maritime risk and ritual responses: sailing with the gods in the Ancient Mediterranean
- La mer, vecteur d'expansion du christianisme au Ier siècle
- Maritime military practices in the pre-Phoenician Levant
- La naissance des flottes en Egée
- The Athenian maritime empire of the fifth century BC
- Financial, human, material and economic resources required to build and operate navies in the classical Greek world
- Les expéditions athéniennes en Sicile, ou la difficulté pour une marine de garder sa supériorité
- Pourquoi Alexandre le Grand a-t-il choisi de licencier sa flotte à Milet?
- Hellenistic and Roman republican naval warfare technology
- La marine de guerre romaine de 284 à 363
- Rome and the Vandals
- HISTORICAL CASE STUDIES: The Indian Ocean and the Far East
- Conclusion (français)
- Conclusion (English)
- Conclusion générale par Christian Buchet
- General conclusion
- Comprendre le rôle de la mer dans L'histoire pour éclairer notre avenir
- Understanding the role the sea has played in our past in order to shed light on our future!
Summary
ABSTRACT.This contribution describes and assesses the magnitude of the resource demands facing Greek city-states aiming at naval pre-eminence in the fifth and fourth centuries BC, and indicates how those states tried to meet them. It argues that, because these issues had a direct bearing on political, social and economic developments, sea power had an immense influence on ancient societies, as can be seen most clearly in the case of Classical Athens.
RÉSUMÉ.Cette contribution décrit et évalue l'ampleur des exigences en termes de ressources auxquelles firent face les cités-États grecques cherchant à établir leur prédominance maritime au Vème et IVème siècles av. J.-C., et indique les moyens employés par ces États pour les réunir. En tenant compte de l'emprise directe de ces questions sur les développements politique, économique et social, elle témoigne de l'immense influence du pouvoir maritime sur les sociétés antiques, comme il apparaît très clairement dans le cas d'Athènes.
INTRODUCTION
In the Archaic period (c. 800–500 BC), several Greek poleis boasted fleets, some of them quite sizeable ones: for instance, Samos, Corinth, Syracuse, Phokaia, Miletos, and even Sparta. It was the Greek tyrants, who, according to Thucydides, spearheaded the building of large fleets. Some of these poleis began to provide their fleets with a proper military organization, one increasingly, but not solely, sustained by public means. As it was expanding, that organization came to include an administrative apparatus, initially a rudimentary one, with harbours with ship sheds and other infrastructural facilities, and a formal command structure effective in wartime. The transition was gradually being made from a fleet to a navy proper (to nautikon). For most of this period the largest type of warship was the ‘fifty-oared galley’, the penteconter (pentêkontoros), with a crew of just over fifty.4 Its tactical strength lay in the bronze ram fastened at the bow.
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- The Sea in History - The Ancient World , pp. 426 - 442Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2017