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Sto caricando le informazioni... The Age of Titans: The Rise and Fall of the Great Hellenistic Navies (Onassis Series in Hellenic Culture)di William M. Murray
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While we know a great deal about naval strategies in the classical Greek and later Roman periods, our understanding of the period in between--the Hellenistic Age--has never been as complete. However, thanks to new physical evidence discovered in the past half-century and the construction of Olympias, a full-scale working model of an Athenian trieres (trireme) by the Hellenic Navy during the 1980s, we now have new insights into the evolution of naval warfare following the death of Alexander the Great. In what has been described as an ancient naval arms race, the successors of Alexander produced the largest warships of antiquity, some as long as 400 feet carrying as many as 4000 rowers and 3000 marines. Vast, impressive, and elaborate, these warships "of larger form"--as described by Livy--were built not just to simply convey power but to secure specific strategic objectives. When these particular factors disappeared, this "Macedonian" model of naval power also faded away--that is, until Cleopatra and Mark Antony made one brief, extravagant attempt to reestablish it, an endeavor Octavian put an end to once and for all at the battle of Actium. Representing the fruits of more than thirty years of research, The Age of Titans provides the most vibrant account to date of Hellenistic naval warfare. Non sono state trovate descrizioni di biblioteche |
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Google Books — Sto caricando le informazioni... GeneriSistema Decimale Melvil (DDC)359.00938Social sciences Public Administration, Military Science Navy; Naval Science Biography; History By Place Ancient WorldClassificazione LCVotoMedia:
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Murray then argues that what really made the phenomena of the super-galley take off was the Hellenistic focus on investing major coastal cities, or at least being able to make the threat to do so, with the big ships being used to alternately force harbor defenses or break blockades.
The problem with all this is that the "naval siege unit" (Murray's term) also required a good high seas fleet to protect it, and only Alexander's successors at their peak could afford this expense. On the other hand the Romans didn't concentrate on investing cities, they conquered whole territories, so this sort of specialized naval force had no attraction for them. This winds up with an examination of Actium, where Murray suggests that the presence of super-galleys in Marc Anthony's fleet were a sign that he planned to invade Italy by storming Roman ports. ( )