NOT WELL IMPRESSED

I recently got an interesting edition of Ancient Warfare magazine. VolXII Issue 4. It is a special edition dealing with Successors at Sea, supposedly.

Get it HERE

I reproduce some illustrations from the article in question in the interests of  debate/criticism. The magazine is good value for money and well-produced. Buy it to see the whole thing and much else.

Many things caught my eye while reading it but none more than' THE MACHIMOI, WARRIOR SAILORS OF THE PTOLEMIES'. The title was a neon lighted misunderstanding for a kick-off. Warriors AND sailors. Tribal maritime raiders tend to be both sailors and fighters such as Vikings or Mycenaeans but Ptolemaics doing this.at a time when soldiers, sailors and oarsmen were three different professions.... mm let's see.


Machimoi is Greek for 'warrior' meaning a lower order of personnel than well-trained/professional troops i.e. 'the rest' - the rest in Ptolemaic Egypt were also non-Greek. Not really rated as good material. In Ptolemaic Egypt 'the rest' means the nonethnic -Greek (or part-Greek) citizens. How the author of this piece knows the ethnicity of Ptolemaic 'marines' is not explained.(1)

The main ilustration of the piece is a 'marine machairophoros'. Obscurantist language which is unecessary to entitle a man armed with a machaira if that is what one means. A machaira is a single-edged slashing sword or knife. This man is armed with a gladius. Why the contradiction? Why is he not a gladiophoros ? Or even a kopisophoros or even a xiphophoros ? This is a common trope in Osprey type books where a name must be found for an ancient troop type because soldier or spearman is not considered good enough. An ancient language must be invoked for authenticity.

MACHISMOs ? Not in that dress.Nice bracelet.

 Next, let's see what the latest style is this Spring for our machimos/machairaphoros.

The well-dressed machimos apparently wears padded or quilted armour. This is a sleeveless garment with a high round neck and vertical stitching. The author suggests this is a multi-layer garment made 'thickly padded' with wool or cotton. He uses the terms kasas and bambakos for this garment. Kasas is apparently Egyptian but we get no information as to what it means. Bambakos is a Greek term for padded armour known from the Byzantine period and this word just means 'stuffed' or 'padded'.

Bambakioi a go go. In the Byzntine era.

 Why this man wears this garment is an interesting story.

The author presents two pieces of evidence which are used to support the synthesis of this garment.

First is a fragment of an oil lamp from the British Museum which was found in Egypt. Here this fragment is said to show 'the padded garments of the soldiers'.

Second is a wall fresco from Kom Madi, illustrated from 'archaeologist Guidotti' - no further reference given.(3) This shows a procession of men with near identical equipment to each other. The procession illustrated is purported to show the deification of Alexander the Great.The author has decided the men shown are 'naval soldiers who seem to be wearing completely padded or quilted armour.'

NAVALSOLDIER IN QUILTED ARMOUR

Third, there is reference in the article to 'Roman triumphal monuments' but these are not further discussed or illustrated. Again, they are said to show 'naval soldiers who seem to be wearing completely padded or quilted armour.' (what could incompletely padded mean ?)


 .............space..for illustration of Romans in quilted armour on triumphal monuments.......


Lets have a closer look.

The lamp fragment is dated to 20BC to 20AD and is considered to refer to the Battle of Actium. (4)
It is 6 by 5 cm in size.It may be copied from Italian originals. If we examine it do we see soldiers with padded armour or do we see barely defined figures. One of which has a tunic with folds. All have Attic-type helmets and long shields which may be rectanguler or oval. One is holding a short sword en garde. 

foto Guy Ulrich and B.M.

You have to make your own mind up if this is a special padded garment or simple illustration of the folds of a tunic.  As indicated in many other works.

  In the absence of any supporting evidence I would suggest there is no evidence of a special garment. The author has form for seeing padded garments instead of clothing folds.

GO HERE TO SEE A CLOSELY PARALLEL UNIVERSE

 This type of lamp was mass produced. A negative mould was made in burnt clay or plaster. Raw clay was pressed into the form to impress the decoration, pulled out, and trimmed and fired to make the finished item. The areas for decoration are small. The finished item has to survive the production process unscathed and we must still consider how far it represented reality in its pristine state. The impression can be incomplete or distorted. Time and use can also do their work.

Many items show figures with folded cloth represented like this. Another lamp.......

MON AMOR OR MON ARMOUR ? - armoured matresses must be solid, durable, absorbent?

The wall fresco has no demonstrated connection with 'naval infantry'. The men all have pleated garments. But are they padded armour?

If we look at the figure - he has 7 vertical lines of stitching on his 'quilted armour'. If we look at the fresco the men have 10/11 strips on their torso and 15/16 on the skirt- The skirt reaches the knee and is full. The illustration has a short stiff skirt - as a quilted armour garment must be. The 'quilting' on the fresco run down off the shoulder of the men as if they are loose fabric. The illustration is given an armless garment ' to allow the arms to move more freely'.

 It is difficult to see how the fresco garments have any relation to the synthesised illustration at all.

I make replica jewellery. There is a basic law that a copy will always lose detail. Anything gained is noise. If one does not count repeated ornament elements carefully one cannot make a replica, just a 'similar-ish' thingy. Or, the lowest blow - ' imaginative reconstruction'/ 'artists impression'.               True replication or re-creation is something different from this.  Dare I say it.

Third. Roman triumphal monuments. ?  ...?  ..? Waiting...

The last details of the synthesised figure are his sword and shield.
The sword is taken from an Egyptian find which is as good an example of a 'Spanish' sword or gladius as one could hope to see. Perfect for our 'machairophoros' ? The sword they are shown with on the fresco is actually much more interesting !!!!!! It is like a cross between a rhomphaia and a machaira. Write about that ! It is interesting !  It is Egyptian ......!!!???? Possibly a khepesh?

The shield of the illustration is a round 'leather covered' shield with a simple small boss and a centre grip. No reference for this is given. But for some reason it was not suitable to try and recreate the shield of either the lamp soldiers or the fresco soldiers. Eh?!

Oh , and 'small boots' complete the equipment. Hopefully not too small for his feet ? Ouch.

The boots are important, because they are the only item accurately represented from the fresco.

The text with the illustration again says .. 'the wool/felt/cotton armour, visible on a variety of monuments.' Which ones ? One asks.

 Back to the frescoes. The fresco warriors have what in any other context one would describe as thureos type shields common in the  Hellenistic world. But we have no date for this fresco.....
The fresco warriors also carry what can only be described as machaira if they were in a Hellenistic context. These men can be described as machairophoroi. Contrary to the synthesised illustration. Now, how about changing that word to 'invented' or 'hypothesised'. Certainly not 'reconstructed'.

 

The last detail is quite revealing. The extreme left figure is not armed as far as we can see. It also looks feminine. Possibly a priest or aristocrat or royalty? Anyway, this figure has its clothing depicted in the same way as the 'naval soldiers'. But it is longer. Is this another example of special quilted armour?. So long one could not walk in it? Or is it a figure in a long robe/tunic - meaning the figures all wear loose pleated -folded garments suitable for the Egyptian climate? Or of rich stuff?

Oh yes, imagine being a 'naval soldier' in quilted armour in Egypt. The Crusaders found it ...warm...And if one ended in the drink... lots of absorbent stuff there.... not good. Although the lack of protection for the arms in a fight would mitigate the tendency to sink or cook, maybe.

The rest of the article discusses Ptolemaic sea power. It is brief and debateable. Did the Ptolemaic kingdom spend 80% of its wealth on the military ? Did the Ptolemaic navy undergo a revolution because or to avoid impressment ? That  'the ethnic composition of the marines, officers naval troops(what are they?!) and sailors was typical of the Hellenistic Age' is difficult to dispute. But then the author states that officers were mostly Greeks. .........

The final point is that the author has decided that the men on the fresco are Egyptian rather than Greek.  How he does this is not apparent. The colour of the man in the illustration is much darker than the flesh tone of the fresco.

Way to go signor D'Amato. For it is he.

Left: Imagination -
Right : Pre-Ptolemaic Super-Heavy Egyptian lotusophoros.
Note quilted armour that appears surprisingly light and handy to wear.

1: https://referenceworks.brillonline.com/entries/brill-s-new-pauly/machimoi-e715600
2: https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/machaira
3: The reference to Guidotti is as follows - from World Cat
Bresciani, E. (2003). Kom Madi 1977 e 1978: Le pitture murali del cenotafio di Alessandro Magno. Pisa: ETS.
4: Williams, H. 1981 A ship ofActium on a Roman Lamp-. IJNAUE 10.1

THAT UNBEARABLE LIGHTNESS OF BEING ON DECK

 

"Single to Sphacteria please"

In the Age of the Ram, before ships became fighting platforms, it was the trireme which dominated ancient naval warfare. No other oared ship, before or since could achieve such speed and agility under oar - the ideal characteristics for ramming combat.

The ramming attack has, though, the paradox that the attacker has to come into contact with the target and give him a chance to engage in deck fighting. Pure ramming tactics eschew deck fighting. The attacker should, ideally, hit the target and back away before its deck crew can take any action against the ship that just sank it. 


Deck troops were a necessary evil to those using what Thucydides terms modern tactics. A sea battle which just resembled a land battle on floating platforms was not very edifying. Brute strength could win rather than skill and technical prowess. The raison d'etre of the trireme was manouvreable speed. Sacrificing this to stay locked with another vessel while the deck troops hacked away at each other was a crass folly. But there was a necessity for some combat troops on deck.

Deck troops had a special role and must learn how their role meshed with the other activities and priorities of the fighting ship. Everything hinged on keeping the ram in action .
Deck troops were there to defend the ship. There were only 10 or so spearmen on each trireme as fighting deck crew. Ten men cannot possibly board and take over an opponent which has 170 oarsmen plus deck crew. With casualties and leaving some men on their own ship this idea leaves us with the suggestion that, say, 6 or 8 marines could fight their way onto an enemy ship and then subdue 200 men. Thus, their job was effective defence in the very special situation of being riders on a ram. They must be effective but not hinder the operation of the trireme. What must they have done and how did they do it ?

Epibatai  were  ranked second on the ship after only the trierarch. Aristotle considered them to control the ship and so these socially and militarily elite members of the crew seemed to have helped the trierarch maintain discipline and morale. Leaving one's oar at a critical stage of the battle was obviously not tolerated. The rowing crew or nautai were usually free men and had some status of their own but that freedom did not extend to endangering the trireme's human engine.

Also a naughtai crew in need of discipline

We have a hint that the Athenian epibatai were a military elite when we learn from Thucydides that the loss of 120 epibatai in Aetolia in 426bc by Demosthenes was considered a tragic loss of the best and fittest soldiers.

The archers aboard Athenian triremes were described as sitting beside the helmsman  and trierarch in the stern. The hoplite-armed were to be found on the main deck.The armament of the epibatai may have included specially long spearsfor ship-to-ship fighting and javelins alongside their normal doru and some form of sword.Throwing javelins from a sitting position was the preferred method. Quite a skill. This was to avoid men standing and moving on the deck which could cause the ship to roll a few degrees and hamper the strokes of the oars, especially the thalamites. - the lowest  row. On Olympias, the movement of one man could lead to complaints from rowers that they could not row efficiently.

Pictures of epibatai standing or running as their ship approaches another to ram it or watching as another attacks them,  are misleading. The force of impact could be up to 2G and the crew must have had a procedure to brace for impact. Anyone standing on the deck when two triremes collided would be thrown off their feet, maybe injured and maybe chucked into the drink.
The epibatai must have waited for the impact to subside and then moved to the forecastle to deter enemy boarding attempts as the ship backed-off to sail away or maybe ram again.

Nice picture shame about the place.

If they were already assembled at the forecastle this would depress the ram in the water, if at the stern this would raise the ram. Either of these cases could increase the chances of the ram being lodging in the enemy hull. The logical solution is that the troops remained midships or distributed but not concentrated in the bows.
If the ship was itself rammed then the epibatai must get to the point of impact as fast as possible and repel any enemy boarding attempt and support or assist their own crew's attempts to get off the enemy ram a.s.a.p..


The elite deck troops were fit and agile. They were used to getting around the shifting  deck in quick order, and they had to be. Their equipment included the large aspis which was about 7kg in weight, the doru a 2.3m spear and a sword about 60cm in the blade. They probably had helmets - In the Persia Wars possibly in Corinthian style and thereafter a more open-faced style. The intense nature of deck fighting might make a simpler, more open helmet more liely so that the soldier could see and hear better. Armour may or may not have been worn. If the epibatai equated with hoplites then they probably did have armour. This would be a linen or bronze cuirass. Greaves were available too. The whole kit could add 25 kilos to the soldier's weight. 
 

Hop-light : Not necessarily soooo heavy infantry

Some authors have written that if an hoplite equipped warrior fell into the sea he was doomed to drown. This is not true. It is possible to swim in a mail shirt so if the man throws his shield and helmet away he should stand a chance to swim a short distance or hang onto a nearby oar. The equipment was, however, quite a burden in a hot climate and the cross-gripped shield in particular could not be shed easily and meant the man's hands were not available to grab a hold if he needed.  When I was a boy I was impressed by bus conductors who could effortlessly stand issuing tickets as the floor of the bus bucked and rolled beneath them using both hands to take money and reel out tikcets. . Epibatai needed to develop such skills.

Bus conductors adjusting extra 25 kg of 'equipment'

The requirement for a deck soldier thus equipped  to get around amongst the ropes and gaps on a moving deck support Thucydides description of the dead of Demosthenes' force as particularly fit and able. Any attempt to go on the offensive and try to board an enemy vessel would be a daunting prospect even for these men. To make an opposed crossing onto the enemy deck would be very dangerous. 

'Lets finish this outside !'

Most of the anecdotes we have for deck fighters end badly. There are no accounts of swashbuckling heroes clearing enemy decks. There are  examples of warriors coming to grief, such as Brasidas - felled as he tries an amphibious landing at Pylos and  Ariamnes at Salamis who is pitched into the sea on the end of Athenian spears as he attempts a boarding. Successful boarding is achieved by the Samothracians at Salamis who, though suffering a deadly ramming attack , revenged themselves by taking over their tormentor whose ram became lodged fast. We must remember here that the Samothracians would have had c. 50 deck troops against the Aeginetians' 15 and the battlefield was now relatively motionless with access to the other ship assured - an exception proving our rule, maybe.

Talking of Brasidas.. the deck soldiers' other function was as amphibious marines. They had to disembark and fight on occasion. Another versatility which infantry did not have to match. At the battle of Kyzikos the Athenians disembarked troops to attack the town and to attack the beached Peloponnesians. They may also have re-embarked some troops and set them into the fight on the other side of the bay. The chance of normal hoplite infantry re-engaging on the same day were small indeed.

In summary; epibatai (literally 'topsiders' or 'passengers') were a special breed. They operated in a small unit with the objective of both helping to control their ship and of protecting it from enemy assault. The deck troops had to get around their ship quickly. They had to meet attacks from all directions and to keep an eye on thier own crew. This was  a tall order for men in heavy gear on a galley at sea. One of the secrets of Athens naval supremacy must have been their maintenance of a corps of quality epibatai . The age of the polyremes reduced the requirement for these specialists and the Romans, characteristically, totally punctured the concept by just floating their army out to sea - before much later developing their own specialist corps of marines....

..and then, there is this ....

Bored with talk of 'boarding actions'

While making my card ships I was set to thinking about the realities of combat between these kinds of ships. I sail with 25-metre viking ships - these are effectively monokrotic pentekonters- and , even without tiered oar positions I would not like to leap at another similar ship with defenders waiting.

One giant leap for mankind

In armour and with a shield the process of negotiating 'the gap' is a tricky one. Add the movement of the ships and whizzing arrows to produce a nasty situation.

If the ships have no railings such as Olympias is today, then an athletic young warrior could leap from deck to deck, his reception notwithstanding. However, it would appear that the usual state for a warship in combat was to have railings and even a line of shields mounted on it too. This means the process of climbing off one's own ship and onto the other is much more difficult.So much so that I begin to think that it was rarely on the cards.

Great ! Now lets try it one more time, at sea, in armour, with a shield and spear, and someone is shooting at you....

 In a battle based upon ramming, the ships usually come into contact with one prow against another part of the opposing ship or two prows meeting. Here there is a bottleneck which is difficult to pass. Little chance of either side getting onto the other. Within seconds or minutes the two ships would be separated again.

One would imagine that ships locked together after collision or press of battle would be more vulnerable to enemy clambering onboard.

However. usually the distance between ships was not negligible. The ram held the target ship at a distance. Oars, even broken, would hold the enemy ship away so it could not lie immediately alongside. Here is one way the oarsmen could contribute to a fight - by holding the opposing ship off with their oars.  The sailors were divided into two teams to mange th efore and aft-ship , Polybius says they had poles/boathooks with which they could fend off other ships to avoid collisions. The usual case would require a leap to gain the other ship. The paraxeiresia / outrigger would be another gap to be crossed - Brasidas fell into the outrigger during fighting at Pylos (also an example that shows a trierarch probably wore military gear).

Brasidas stands on the outrigger he should fall through (because it should not be boxed-in), on a Roman ship from 300 years later. But he cuts a fine figure anyway. 

Shipboard combat did not have space for phalanxes, files and ranks. It was a case of individual prowess and small group cooperation. This also argues against offensive boarding as a common tactic amongst Greek ships with 10 hoplites and 4 archers onboard. The few who clambered aboard the opponent would be met by the enemy with their 14 fighters plus armed sailors and oarsmen. It must have been an exceptional circumstance for a bridgehead to be won in these circumstances.

The corvus was an interesting innovation, not only because it locked the target ship onto the attacker but also because it provided a funnel to pour deck troops onto the enemy ship so that a more regular combat could take place. Its genius is that it solves the two main problems with getting a good solid melee going at sea (which the Romans thought they would usually win) - First problem was to have a solid hold on the enemy ship and the second was to provide a secure footing for attacking marines.

The Persians had circa 40 deck troops on their ships at Salamis according to Herodotos. Many writers assume this is a loading of the ship with marines a la the Roman tactic. But there was no equivalent of the corvus, no mention of gangplanks, even (though a trireme should carry two boarding ladders - for crew embarkation). We also know that the Persian style of fighting called for maximum use of the bow and then a short spear when things got to close quarters. The Greeks were contemptuous of their poor armour and shields. The fighting at Platea illustrates this, where the Persians were admired for their courage but almost pitied for their lack of skill and coordination.

Nice clothes shame about the relatively low combat efficiency against western heavy infantry.

 This large number of troops was most probably expected to fight as they usually did, to shoot with their bows. In this way they could damage the enemy and make any boarding attempt very costly. Not long before, the last stand of the defenders of thermopylae was reduced with massed archery.

'Then we die in the shade !'

Archery should be effective at sea where ships manouvre at a distance and accurate shooting at 100m or less would be potent. A hoplite, with his large shield crouching on a deck of a moving ship was, however, no easy target.

In addition, if the Persian ships had a high side as many suggest with reference to the Sennacherib reliefs, then clambering over them to board anenemy made things even more difficult. Why bother ? Just shoot his deck troops and commanders down then waltz over afterwards.

Diodoros - at a later date - tells of javelins and special long spears being used at distance and then swords when the combatants were at each others' throats.

Even at a later date the value of a long spear for boarding was appreciated : RN 19th century boarding pikes

 Such fighting as took place must have been first and foremost around the forecastles of ramming ships with poor chances for the defender to get onto their tormenter before he backed-off. Any ship using its ram effectively would not be trying to board the other. Ram and sink was better than getting involved in boarding actions. Deck fighting would result from entangled ships and ships held together long enough - and held CLOSE enough - for such fighting to develop by whatever means. The time available after impact and before the rammer backed away was short - the boarders must be well prepared and very aggressive in their actions, not to mention nimble.

How NOT to greet an oncoming rammer : I hope they can swim.

The ramming impact could cause a ship to lurch sideways and to roll violently - the deck troops on the target ship must hold on to avoid being thrown about. They could not stand waiting for the impact ready to simply hop onto the enemy ship. 

He he..good old 'Look and Learn'

  Grappling hooks are little heard of in Herodotos and Thucydides and then mostly in connection with dragging captured or sunk ships away. A ramming ship would by definition not use grapples - no point in holding on to a damaged enemy. A target ship may want to grapple but to organise it when the best option may be just to let the attacker back off and leave makes it doubtful. Grapplers would be sinking ships seeking to be bouyed-up and ships intending to take a crippled opponent as a prize. The idea that two fresh fighting ships with rams would be simultaneously trying to board each other is not logical. In specific circumstances we do read of ships loaded with troops intending to fight it out hand-to-hand but these are mostly larger ships from a later age. The 3 was a mobile ram, not a troop-carrier.


As an aside, the Osprey illustration of a 'grappler' working from within the oarsmen's space does not allow for the closeness of the oarsmens positions nor the chaos he could cause by being there. He would stop at least 2 and maybe 6 men using their oars.
 

An attack with the intention from the outset to grapple and capture the enemy ship is more likely to be conducted like a classic pirate ship action from Hollywood, with ships lying abeam. With the ship approaching the target to lie parallel gunwale to gunwale so its own marines can together jump over to the target ship.

Pirates and RN fight it out : gunwale -to-gunwale

In summary. During the Persian and Peloponnesian wars, down to the Romans' failure to admit  that they could not fight land battles on water, it was exceptional for deck troops to expect to board and sieze enemy ships. Thier job was primarily defensive, allowing the ship to function as a weapon rather than a transporter for them. Of course, those Latins spoilt it all....

A final juicy picture from 'Look and Learn'. If the ancient world did not look like this then it ought to have...

Osprey eat your hearts out..