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Naval Warfare and Marines in the Classical World,

1200 B. C. To 900 A. D.

 

WHAT IS A MARINE?

 

Historically any people who develop maritime trade and offshore possessions must, perforce develop militarily capable naval forces to protect their endeavors. Included among the development of these naval forces is a class of seagoing warrior to serve aboard their warships. During the period under consideration these warriors fall into three general classes: members of the army temporarily assigned to naval duty, sailors with “soldier” type training, and, military forces specifically organized and trained as naval war fighters.

 

These seagoing soldiers are known today as “marines”. Marines are commonly understood to be soldiers who fight on or from the sea and this paradigm has not changed in over 3000 years.

 

But what is a marine? Historically, marines serve on warships and assist the crew in fighting naval battles. They attack and board enemy ships, protect the officers from mutinous crewmen, protect ports and naval bases, and serve as an amphibious landing force conducting raids or surprise attacks in places an enemy least expects or is least prepared to defend. The existence of marines in a combat theatre will force an enemy to spread his land army thinly along his shores or else defend widely separated positions on the chance that the marine attack “may” occur anywhere accessible from the sea.

 

Simplified, it may be said that sailors have a primary mission of ensuring a ship moves from point “a” to point “b” with an adjunct mission of “fighting the ship”. While marines may be seen as primarily a close quarters naval combat and security force whose single focused mission is to close with and destroy the enemy utilizing the techniques of a soldier. Even though the early historical record does not differentiate marines as such with a name or title this was the function they served.

 

HOW IS A MARINE DIFFERENT FROM A SAILOR OR SOLDIER?

 

Can sailors or soldiers embarked in an ad hoc basis provide the same combat capability as marines? Certainly, however, historically this is most often seen as a mission of necessity thrust upon a crew/nation as opposed to a reason for being embarked aboard a combatant vessel in the first place. How could one sail and fight a Classical era ship at the same time? It is this separation of missions that has defined the standard mission of “marines” from early on. This concept may best be illustrated by considering the ancient Greek term for marine, Epibatae, or “heavy armed sea soldier” which is a definite difference from “sailor,” “oarsman,” or “merchant seaman” as a descriptor. Surely, a word would not be coined for something that did not exist, or for which another word that already existed would suffice.

 

The differentiation between marines and sailors as a class of war fighter becomes grayer the further back in history one goes. This is not because the two distinct missions didn’t exist, which they certainly did due to the requirements of naval combat of the time. But, rather because the primary source documents do not address this issue or because the entire ship’s complement was indiscriminately described as “sailors”.

 

A frog and a toad are different classes of amphibian regardless of a common ancestor.

 

In comparison, what separates a marine from a land soldier? This is a far more concrete separation than that of sailors and marines. Marines are lightly armed with weapons which, while often the same as that of land soldiers are augmented by weapons specifically designed or modified for operations at sea. Thus, marines are not as heavily equipped as soldiers who are engaged in sustained land operations. Marines are also required to perform, or repel, boarding actions at sea and are trained to operate weapons that are peculiar in function to shipboard combat operations. Neither of these missions is applicable to a land-based army. Finally, what is the cost to remove from land and put to sea members of the army? This was one of General George Washington’s major problems with being directed to provide men for the Colonial marines, and it was not far removed from issues held by earlier Classical generals.

 

Naval Warfare in the Classical through the early feudal age

 

During the focus period of this article, the tactical destruction or capture of an enemy’s ships and removal of his ability to build or maintain a “navy” were seen as the primary goal in Classical naval warfare. Control of the sea-lanes as a strategic goal would not surface until late in the 1800’s or well into the age of steam driven steel ships.

 

From the late Bronze Age through the “Pax Romana” of the Roman Mediterranean countries very early on developed military ships and kept them active patrolling nearby waters to protect themselves from surprise attack, control smuggling, combat pirates that had infested the Mediterranean almost from the dawn of western civilization and act as a visible deterrent to would be foes.

 

A Classical city-state could be put in immediate jeopardy through destruction of its navy or simply by the lack of military naval assets. This dire occurrence could result in the removal of a very important first line of communication and defense. It could also cause foregoing the ability to protect the merchant shipping that brought critical supplies to the nation and carried trade goods to other nations. It was finally detrimental to the nation’s ability to conduct warfare by not having ships and crews to fight at sea or to transport troops and reinforcements in both offensive and defensive operations.

 

Understandably, replacement of the ships and specialized navel crews lost in combat or the hazardous environment of the sea posed an expensive and difficult undertaking. Thus, these factors led to four operational considerations:

 

a. Only the richest states could develop a quasi regular navy or could afford to hire specialized naval mercenaries,

 

b. Only the richest states could afford to train and maintain regular serving naval crews to ensure the least possible losses in all operations/conditions,

 

c. A land army could be raised (often by recruiting mercenaries and foreign soldiers) trained and equipped for a particular campaign or war, then at its conclusion, demobilized with its surviving members returned to their former lives, and,

 

d. Naval forces were not as easily maintained. Warships could not be quickly built or replaced and crews required extensive training. Consequently semi-standing navies remained active even during nominal periods of peace.

 

These requirements for naval preparedness eventually led to the birth of the professional military navy and a steady improvement of equipment and capabilities of Classical military ships and their embarked crews.

 

Early on, naval warfare in the Classical Age was viewed tactically as an extension of land warfare, only on water. This meant that the destruction or capture of the enemy’s ships was the over-riding goal. Capture of the enemy’s ships was an especially desirable outcome as they could then be inexpensively refitted and deployed against their former owners.

 

During Classical times battles were fought with a land warfare mindset focused primarily on projectiles, fire pots, and ramming followed by boarding attacks by sea soldiers. Regard that early on there was no capability that could threaten a ship from a significant distance. This war fighting paradigm required sailors to “work” the ship and marines to provide a close combat capability.

 

EARLY MARINE TYPE OPERATIONS AND DEVELOPMENT OF A NEW CLASS OF WAR FIGHTER

 

With these basic concepts in hand, we will now look at the history of Classical naval warfare and the development of marines as a class of war fighter. It is commonly held that Crete developed the first organized western navy between 2500 – 1200 B. C. Given the above cited methods of warfare at sea, it is probable that they also floated the first “proto-marines” or naval infantry. However, this author has yet to locate any definitive evidence that this assumption is true.

 

Beginning approximately in 1200 B. C. we see major naval battles between the Sea People and the various other cultures surrounding the Mediterranean Sea.

This aggregation fought both for and against Egypt, with the Shardana and to a lesser extent the Weshesh groups being identified in period documentation as being “of the sea.” This is consistent with their depiction in other references of the time as being either pirates or aggressive nomads who migrated mostly by sea routes.

 

It is possible that some of the Sea People were also early seafaring Philistines. Taken as a “group” the Sea People may have been responsible for part of the Bronze Age collapse, (circa 1206 – 1150 B. C.) of several Mediterranean civilizations and the rise of others such as the Phoenicians.

 

In approximately 1198 B. C., a major battle at sea is documented in both literary sources and a sculptural relief showing what are thought to be a part of the Shardana and other Sea People in a massive single sea battle with the forces of King Ramses III of Egypt. Or the relief could be a composite of the Egyptian campaign to halt Philistine, Libyan, and Sea People incursions into the Egyptian Empire. This relief, supported by a letter in the Papyrus Harris with a quote attributed to Ramses III, shows a chaotic sea battle with much of the action being depicted as close combat by both antagonists between warriors that are operating as marines aboard ships. The Egyptian translation states: (“… I slew the Denyen in their islands, while the Tjeker and the Philistines were made ashes. The Shardan and the Weshesh of the Sea were nonexistent, captured all together and brought in captivity to Egypt like the sands of the shore…”)

 

Significantly, the Sea People ships in the relief are shown being powered by sails only and not by oars. This would have limited their ability to maneuver once contact was made and would have facilitated boarding operations by the Egyptian ships that were equipped with sails, oars and, sea soldiers, thus enabling the Egyptian victory. This record would also appear to document major amphibious landings by Egyptian military naval assets on the “islands” of the Sea People colonies or home ports. While neither source identifies the combatants as “marines” per se, both the relief and the primary documentation certainly support a series of major sea battles resolved by marine type ship to ship assaults and close combat combined with planned amphibious operations.

 

THE PHONECIANS AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE GALLEY WARSHIP

 

The Phoenicians who originated in what is today the Middle East, were one of the first Peoples to develop a true widespread “seafaring” culture during the period from approximately 1200 to 900 B. C. Maintaining control of its maritime trade routes and communicating with its autonomous colonies required a regular navy consisting of a military class of ships and in all probability, a force of sea soldiers, as opposed to temporarily embarked army personnel given the length of time Phoenician ships spent at sea. The Phoenicians are credited with the initial development of the military galley type warship.

 

The table below shows the war fighting characteristics of Classical age galleys.

 

Primary Secondary

 

Propulsion Oars Sails

 

Weapons Rams/Projectiles Individual weapons, e.g.

Swords, boarding pikes, spears

 

Formation Line-Abreast Encircling Flanks

 

Crews Rowers, Sailors Sea Soldiers

 

The galley as seen in its simplest form is a class of sleek, fast war ship powered by both sail and oars. Initial classes of the galley type vessel had the oarsmen sitting on exposed benches in the waist of the ship with the fighters standing in the center of the vessel or between the oars. The manning complement of a galley consisted of rowers, sailors, officers and sea soldiers.

 

The galleys were almost always equipped with a bronze plated ram and either spearmen or slingers and archers. The Classical navy galley was crewed by specialized free crews adept at maintaining a steady and controlled pace at the oars, necessary for the difficult task of ramming an enemy ship or overtaking it to allow embarked marines to board the enemy vessel and capture it.

 

In the naval warfare concepts of the time the first objective was to immobilize an enemy vessel by attacking or disrupting its motive capability by ramming or projectile weapons/fire. Once the enemy vessel was dead in the water the next objective was for marines to board and capture her. Actually, few galleys “sank” during a battle, more frequently they swamped or capsized and floated in the battle area, later to be recovered by the victors.

 

PIRATE MERCENARIES AS PROTO MARINES

 

Documentation by Thucydides, Xenophon and Homer indicates the routine use of pirates as naval cadres by the smaller Greek city-states with maritime interests to man their military naval war fighting requirements. It was commonly held by the Greek city states that a cost effective alternative to maintaining a state navy was the employment of pirates manning their own mercenary vessels. The fighting ability and experience of the free lancing pirate fleets and crews made them an effective resource in not only ship to ship warfare at sea, but also useful for amphibious landings and raids and as experienced land fighters as well.

 

However, the use of pirates as mercenaries often became a double edged sword, as ships and equipment captured by them and the experience they gained often were used against the erstwhile employer after the war. Also, like any mercenary force, loyalty to any employer could often be lost to an opponent

by his simple application of higher pay.

 

One fact needs to be kept in mind vis-à-vis the similarity of operations carried out by marines, and those carried out by pirates and Vikings, and that is that while pirates and Vikings executed marine type amphibious operations and boarding actions they did so as a private entity. They were either working for themselves or, in the employ of some other individual. Marines on the other hand performed their missions under the aegis of their nation’s needs. However, as will be seen, both pirates and Viking groups had an impact on the development of organized marines.

 

ESTABLISAHMENT OF STANDING MILITARY FLEETS

 

The development of organized Western state navies established and maintained as a matter of course during both times of peace and war probably began in earnest with the city states of Athens, Rhodes and Syracuse. All would rise as major naval powers on the waves of the Mediterranean Sea through the late Roman Republican period, often renting their naval assets to the highest bidder to assist in defraying the cost of maintaining a professional navy and its infrastructure

 

GREEK AND PERSIAN WARS

 

It was during the wars between the Persians and Athenians and their allies, circa 492 to 480 B. C. that we see, for the first time, documented use of a named class of sea soldier. While the causes of the Persian/Greek wars are beyond the scope of this article, the military naval developments of this war are certainly germane. At war with Athens and her allies, the Persians under Darius were initially successful in utilizing their fleet to subdue many of the smaller Greek states on the south of the Aegean in Asia Minor.

 

Herodotus indicates that a Persian amphibious invasion fleet of over 600 galleys was marshaled for the war against Athens. These vessels were manned by a crew of 50 rowers, 10 sailors and, 10 “soldiers” these numbers represented a reduced crew from the normal ship’s complement of 150 men. The reduction in crew allowed the ships to carry more as transports. The ships being divided between troop and horse transports, 30 troops or 5 horse each. Given this capacity, a fleet of this size was estimated to carry some 15,000 invasion troops.

 

This appears to be the first time in history that a ships company included a regular, documented detachment of “marines” as opposed to temporarily embarked soldiers. Executing an amphibious landing in Greece at Marathon, subsequent tactical errors by the Persians allowed the Athenians to engage them at a position favorable to the Greeks. Defeated, the surviving Persians retreated to their ships and were able to escape. As a result of this operation two major events stand out. First, this was possibly the largest and most well documented amphibious landing of the period. Second, the Persians introduced the concept of marines or, regular soldiers who were a part of the ship’s crew to the western world.

 

The Greeks were quick to see the benefit of using soldiers as a part of the ships crew. In fact, once they were introduced to the concept of regular sea soldiers they almost immediately made an important adaptation. The Persian marines were normally unarmored and, equipped with spears and slings, formed a light “shipboard artillery” element. The Greeks put their marines aboard ship wearing armor and armed with swords, spears, and slings. These differences would make a dramatic difference in subsequent naval battles between the two cultures. Closely following the defeat of the Persians, Athens – already recognized as a major sea power in the region – was credited, via the efforts of Themistocles with the upgrading and expansion of the Greek war fleets to further combat the Persians.

 

The new Greek warship, the Trireme was larger then the Pentekonter used by both the Greeks and the Persians earlier. It allowed a crew of 90 rowers, 10 sailors and officers, and 20 soldiers for a total of 120 men aboard a ship which was thought to have been originally 75 feet long and 13 feet wide at the waterline. The new Greek marines stationed aboard 200 ships of this new class of warship assisted in the major naval defeat of Xerxes’ Persians and their allies at Salamis.

 

However, even with this example of the value of the new marine contingent stationed aboard ship the marines were not maintained as a regular component of the crew; rather, while the “class” of sea soldier (Epibatae) was seen as a requirement, his existence was still ad hoc with the Greek marines only stationed aboard when needed.

 

Thus the marines were still a temporary expedient, but this was soon to change.

 

CARTHAGE AND ROME

 

Founded in 814 BC, the Phoenician colony of Carthage on the coast of North Central Africa rapidly spread its influence across the Mediterranean Basin. In the late 390’s B.C., Carthage was involved in an ongoing naval war with both Athens and Syracuse. A major naval victory by the Carthaginians resulted in 100 ships of Syracuse boarded or sunk with more then 20,000 captives taken according to ancient sources. Even if only 50 of the ships of Syracuse were “boarded” and captured, this presupposes a large number of marines in action aboard the warships of Carthage.

 

Rome’s rise and expansion of influence inevitably led to a collision between it and Carthage when Carthage inserted itself into the affairs of Sicily. This resulted in the first of three major wars between the two powers which began in approximately 263 B. C.

 

Amphibious raids into Italy by Carthage forced Rome to build its first war fleet in 261 B. C. Historical sources indicate that the first Roman warships built were patterned after Carthaginian Triremes washed up on shore in Italy. A series of crushing naval losses by Carthage contributed to the loss of the First Punic War by Carthage in 241 B. C. As a result, Sicily became a Roman possession.

 

THE FIRST STANDING CORPS OF MARINES

 

It was during these Punic Wars that Rome established the first standing body of marines in the history of the world. Called “Classiarii Milites” or soldiers of the fleet, detachments of these marines were permanently stationed aboard Roman war ships.

 

Early on, some Roman war ships were outfitted with a boarding bridge equipped with a large spike in the end to aid in attaching it to an enemy vessel. Called the Corvus, this device would allow Roman marines to board the enemy ship thus exploiting Rome’s strongest asset, its ability in land combat operations by changing a sea battle into essentially what could be termed a land battle through the deployment of Roman marines aboard an enemy vessel. However, it is doubtful that this device was used to any great extent. It made a ship equipped with a Corvus so unstable it was unsafe to sail across any extended stretch of open ocean. By the Second Punic War in 202 B. C., there is no more mention of the Corvus. In 214 B. C. Syracuse also falls to Rome, effectively beginning an evolution of the Mediterranean into the Roman Sea. It has been stated that Rome was not well versed in naval warfare, and that Carthage was the strongest military power at sea. Both of these assumptions are over simplifications, as each culture demonstrated an adeptness in both sea and land operations during these conflicts. The Third Punic War ended in 146 B. C. with the total defeat and destruction of Carthage. After the end of the Punic Wars most of the missions of the Roman marines were security on the high seas and along major rivers and conducting amphibious and ship to ship operations against pirates. While Rome maintained a standing group of marines, it was not adverse to utilizing legionaries as sea soldiers as well and at least 2 legions have sea service in their military heritage. In 31 B. C., the massive naval battle of Actium between the combined forces of Roman Mark Antony and the Egyptian Queen Cleopatra (approximately 230 ships) against Octavian, the adopted son of Julius Caesar, and Agrippa his admiral occurred off the coast of what is now northern Greece. The loss of the battle by Antony and Cleopatra to Octavian marked the rise of Imperial Rome.

 

Rome’s imperial marines were stationed at her two major naval bases, Misenum on the west coast of Italy near current day Naples, and at Ravenna on the northeast coast of Italy. Detachments of imperial marines also served at Ostia, Rome, Britain, Egypt, and along the Rhine and Danube Rivers. Most Roman Marines were non-Italian, (consequently they were considered part of the Auxilia or auxiliary forces of Rome,) served a 26 year enlistment and upon completing their military commitment, they and their children were granted Roman citizenship.

 

In approximately 68 A. D. Nero raised a legion called I Auditrix (Latin for “Supportive”) from the marines based at the Imperial naval base at Misenum. In approximately 69 A. D. he, or Galba – it is not certain which – raised a second legion, the II Auditrix using the marines from the Imperial naval base at Ravenna. Germane to these events are that:

a) Rome had enough marines to stand up two legions which consisted of approximately 5000 heavy infantry each from the marines of the fleet, and,

That Rome saw its marines capable of easily making the transition from

marine to soldier, indicating a more then casual acquaintance with land

warfare and its associated skills.

 

As a historical side note, on two occasions the Imperial Marine detachment at Rome was used to disarm rebellious Praetorian Guard units at Rome during the never ending series of revolutions and civil wars of the middle Imperial period.

 

 

ROME’S COLLAPSE AND THE STATUS OF ORGAINZED MARINES

 

With the collapse of the Western Roman Empire – 460 A. D. there were no longer any standing organizations of marines in Europe. Further, the vacuum left by the collapse of the Roman Empire resulted in a hole filled by the sea faring Saxon and Norse raiders in the North Atlantic. This chaotic collapse and change also facilitated wholesale Norse amphibious invasions of Ireland, Britain, and France, along with the universally feared incursions of an amphibious nature and the capture of any ship that showed the possibility of plunder on the major rivers as far inland as the Rhine and the Danube and into the Mediterranean as far away as Constantinople – currently Istanbul – from approximately 600 A. D. to 900 A. D. If nothing else, the Viking raids firmly installed the tactical value of sea soldiers and amphibious operations in the European mind. However, no organized states existed which could afford a standing military navy or regular sea soldiers aboard its ships.

 

 

THE RETURN OF MARINES AS A STANDING COMPONENT OF NATIONAL FLEETS

 

Until the mid 1500’s there were no standing bodies of marines in the Western World. However, through the Renaissance, city states would again draft soldiers or sailors into sea soldier service in time of need. This would remain the case until the resurgence of major organized sea faring countries with overseas interests such as England, Holland, Portugal, Spain and France at which time, regular standing corps of marines would again stand on the decks of ships at sea or boldly launch amphibious assaults ashore across the globe.