Roman Naval Warfare: The Sea They Called Their Own

Wed, 06 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000

In the National Maritime Museum in Haifa, mounted on a low plinth against a red wall, sits the most significant surviving object from ancient naval warfare: the Atlit Ram, a bronze naval ram recovered by divers off the Israeli coast in 1980, dated to approximately 103–102 BCE, and identified on the basis of its construction and the coins found within it as probably belonging to the fleet of Ptolemy IX Soter II of Egypt. It is roughly 2.3 meters long and weighs over 465 kilograms. It is the only complete ancient naval ram in existence, and looking at it — the three horizontal blades converging at the forward point, the decorated upper surface with its trident and eagle motifs, the massive bronze casting that absorbed decades of seawater and still holds its shape — makes abstract discussions of ancient naval warfare immediately concrete. This is the weapon. Everything else is description.

Actium: The Battle That Made the Empire

Tue, 05 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Outside the Vienna Secession building stands one of the more theatrical bronze monuments in Europe: the Marc Anton Gruppe, cast in 1899 by the Austrian sculptor Arthur Strasser. It shows Mark Antony in full Roman dress, seated in a chariot pulled not by horses but by four lions — two fully grown, two younger, all rendered with remarkable musculature and a controlled ferocity that has not softened in 125 years of Viennese weather. The patina has gone deep green. The lions look ready to move. Antony sits above them with the bearing of a man accustomed to commanding things that could kill him.

Naval Warfare on Ancient Rome

Roman Naval Warfare: The Sea They Called Their Own

Actium: The Battle That Made the Empire