Jim Webster & The Aegates Island Slingshot 364

[Monad]

Jim, so you don't die wondering but Polybius's 200 Roman ships at the Aegates Island has been rounded from 198 ships, with the consul commanding 132 and the praetor 66 ships.

Diodorus numbers the Roman fleet that sailed to Sicily at 1,000 ships, consisting of 300 quinqueremes and 700 transports and carriers. (3) Diodorus, Eutropius, Orosius and Sextus Aurelius number the Roman fleet at 300 ships. This is a rounded number but is close to the mark. After deducting the revictual fleet that protected the anchorage, this leaves 198 ships to face the Carthaginians. Diodorus also claims the 300 Roman ships also had 700 transports. As 2 consular fleets amount to 350 ships, Diodorus or his source has mistakenly allocated each consul 350 ships, which strangely, have been converted to transports. Not the first time either.

Good article by the way.

[Jim Webster]

Jim, so you don't die wondering but Polybius's 200 Roman ships at the Aegates Island has been rounded from 198 ships, with the consul commanding 132 and the praetor 66 ships.

Diodorus numbers the Roman fleet that sailed to Sicily at 1,000 ships, consisting of 300 quinqueremes and 700 transports and carriers. (3) Diodorus, Eutropius, Orosius and Sextus Aurelius number the Roman fleet at 300 ships. This is a rounded number but is close to the mark. After deducting the revictual fleet that protected the anchorage, this leaves 198 ships to face the Carthaginians. Diodorus also claims the 300 Roman ships also had 700 transports. As 2 consular fleets amount to 350 ships, Diodorus or his source has mistakenly allocated each consul 350 ships, which strangely, have been converted to transports. Not the first time either.

Good article by the way.

I confess that must admit that I was more interested in the type of ships than the number. I also wonder at times what proportion of legionaries travelled by transport and what proportion were told off to serve as marines. Some of this would depend on whether there was any plan to do anything with the fleet, separately to the army. Certainly there are times where the fleet seems to have been pulled out of the water once the army 'disembarked' and other times where the fleet actually did something.
It's one of those things that I keep feeling I ought to look into   

[Monad]

Before Caesar's time, especially during the Punic Wars and after, the only transports in a fleet were horse transports. The infantry and cavalry for a consular army were conveyed by warships. When at their anchorage, the revictual fleet, which was part of the consular fleet, screened the anchorage. During the campaign, parts of the fleet were conveying new replacements and those that had been discharged. There was a lot of back and forth between the home country and the country of conflict.

[Adrian Nayler]

I confess that must admit that I was more interested in the type of ships than the number.

The latest archaeology-based paper concerning the ships at the Aegates is now available in open access:

Davies, M. (2026) 'Reassessing Polybius' Account of the Battle of Aegates (241 BC) Using Underwater Material Culture,' in Capulli, M. (ed.) SOMA 2023 Proceedings of the 24th Symposium on Mediterranean Archaeology Ideas that Travelled by the Sea, Udine, 2-4 February, 2023, Bicester, Archaeopress.

https://www.archaeopress.com/Archaeopress/Products/9781805833284 Note that this downloads the entire volume of papers.

Davies' paper is somewhat tentative and feeds off previous doubts concerning Polybius' veracity in respect of ship types. His contribution is in suggesting that the Egadi rams may come from ships smaller than triremes, which he terms lemboi, capable of carrying cargo and fighting in the line if battle.

[Jim Webster]

I've downloaded it and it's in my heap to read thanks. 

I'd question the term lembi.
Given the Roman clash with Illyrians wasn't until after the 1st Punic war. These ships were sunk in 241BC, the Illyrian wars were 229BC.
Obviously the Romans could know about them without fighting them, but I'd beware of that specific term. Also Lembi as such did not appear to have rams anyway.

[Adrian Nayler]

Indeed, the definition of the term lemboi is certainly an issue. He outlines his view of what one could have been, which may not align with other understandings. Perhaps lemboi may indeed have covered a variety of designs in one cover all term? Whatever he and we may call them, his suggestion is that the rams are probably too small for triremes.

[Jim Webster]

Indeed, the definition of the term lemboi is certainly an issue. He outlines his view of what one could have been, which may not align with other understandings. Perhaps lemboi may indeed have covered a variety of designs in one cover all term? Whatever he and we may call them, his suggestion is that the rams are probably too small for triremes.

It has to be said that the rams are small. Whether too small for triremes I don't know. But a ram armed supply squadron (which may have fallen in with an enemy ram armed supply squadron) does seem to over complicate things. Both sides generally using smaller ships that Polybius realised also works. I'll get it on my kindle and start reading it when I've finished the book I'm on now 

[Jim Webster]

Had a look at the article.
Just for interest, the average weight of the first ten rams raised was 160kg whilst the ram cast for the Olympias was about 200kg.

Because the ram was cast individually for a ship, and the size and weight of the ram would depend on the timber used for the keel, you would see rams differ.
I wonder if what we see with the Aegates Island rams is rams from ships build using 'lighter' timber because two decades of fleet building had meant the best and most suitable timber had already been used?

[Monad]

Taken from the paper discussed. Mark Davies writes: The numbers of casualties are also inconsistent with quinquereme losses. Polybius (1. 26. 7) states that Roman quinqueremes had 300 rowers and 120 marines, and assuming the Carthaginians had something similar, then 10,000 prisoners from 70 captured warships (a total complement of 29,400 crew and marines) suggests that either many were killed in action, or that the size of the ships was exaggerated by Polybius.

In fact, Polybius' figure of 10,000 prisoners has nothing to do with the 70 captured Carthaginian warships. And Polybius actually writes "about" 10,000 prisoners, which I have confirmed equates to 10,032 prisoners, but they are not Carthaginian prisoners, they are all Roman and allies. The 10,000 prisoners have been taken from the praetor's fleet, and in so many other examples, all the horse transports have incorrectly been allocated marines, which kinda messes things up a bit.

Mark Davies writes: Diodorus refers to other types of ships at the battle, and the numbers of prisoners do not agree with the number of ships captured.

Now that depends on what the number of prisoners has been taken from. Once that is established the numbers are not that far off the mark. Again, there is slight rounding of the numbers occurring.

Mark Davies writes: Lazenby (1996: 154) reads the Carthaginian casualty list of 50 sunk and 70 captured as evidence against the Romans adopting ramming tactics.

None of those ship numbers were even in the battle. This is the folly of academia, coming to conclusions without even investigating what these ship numbers represent. After the drum roll, the 50 ships sunk are rounded and represents the consul Caius Lutatius Catulus's revictual fleet. The 70 ships captured actually represent the consul's revictual fleet again (double counted) and the praetor Valerius Flato's revictual fleet, that remained behind and protected the anchorage, something all academics have failed to notice. But hey, examining the data won't tell us anything will it.

Eutropius has 13,000 killed, Orosius 14,000 killed. Diodorus claims another source has 4,040 killed and another 6,000 prisoners. Well, you add 6,000 and 4,040 and you get 10,040 men, which does represent Polybius' "about" 10,000, which represents 10,032. Now if you taken Polybius' 10,000 and add the 4,040 to it, you get Orosius 14,000 killed, which has been rounded from 14,040. The 4,040 men should have been deducted, not added.

Now, can we back this up? Well, yes, and it can all be done by applying third grade mathematics to the problem, Diodorus claims that 117 Carthaginian ships were captured, and following Polybius that a quinquereme had 120 marines, 117 ships x 120 marines = 14,040 marines. Oh, I can just hear your thoughts "here goes Steven again cherry picking the numbers."

The conclusion is, the ancient historians base all their ships on being quinqueremes, because it is convenient for them. However, there is a reference to quadriremes and 1,700 Carthaginians captured that does not equate to the numbers being based on quinqueremes. From this, I tried to work out a mathematical scaling between ship sizes and crews. I have arrived at the figure of 1,680 Carthaginians captured, but as I no other data to back it, it is just speculation, so it does not appear in my volume "A Critical Analyst on the Roman Navy 264 BC to 31 BC." Oh, and what I found funny was those 6 Carthaginian ships that were part of the Roman fleet in 191 BC, turns out they are 6 Roman horse transports. Someone wants us to believe the Carthaginians were subjects of the Romans and to add insult to injury, turned the Roman horse transports into Carthaginian ships.

[Monad]

This conversation about ram sizes caused a spark to light, or the penny to drop moment. The first mention of a quadrireme by Polybius (2 9) is 228 BC. There is also a reference I found that gives the number of quinqueremes and quadriremes in a fleet, and the number of ships given is for a replacement fleet, that will replace those troops being discharged.

Relating to my research, during the First Punic War, those ships conveying the cavalrymen, acted as command ships, and during the First Punic War a quinquereme carried more cavalrymen than an infantry quinquereme, which following Polybius, conveyed 120 infantry. However, during the Second Punic War, because the command structure of the Roman fleet changed, which involved more command ships, this resulted in the number of cavalrymen allocated to a ship being reduced to under that of an infantry quinquereme. My conclusion is, from the first Illyrian war, the command ships conveying the cavalrymen were now quadriremes.