Back at the Helm. As in Helmet.

 

Another special  helmet found at Egadi..'...there have been found 2 very fine Montefortino types... with animal crests - along with 4 plain examples.

The first has a reclining cat-like figure ...

  Now the second is shown ,cleaned a bit.

Foto from Archaeology News Network

It reveals itself to be an ornate Roman type a Montefortino with extra ornamentation. A beautiful gryphon head which may be a holder for another fitting - see the mouth.Somehwat resembling later heavily ornamented cavalry helmets or even some infantry officer helmets. The cavalry and officers, especially in Republican times, had plenty of cash to display their status in their equipment.
There are small feather holdrs on the sides too.

This one shares its knob with the Egadi helm.

 A nice report at Archaeology News Network gives details HERE.

Did it fall overboard as the wearer stumbled under a blow or did it find its way into Davy Jones' Locker still attached to his noble head?

You can read a Master's Thesis about the 6 Montefortino helmetsfrom Egadi  HERE

This season has revealed 2 more bronze rostra and a sword ....
.... see RPMN website slide show HERE

You can see video of the recovery operations if you click on this foto.

Click to see video of recovery at TP24 Cultura via Facebook

 You can read more about Egadi under my previous posts or at the RPMN website HERE.

The Desolation of Smog

Posted at Amazon.com

 My review:

This review is from: Republican Roman Warships 509-27 BC (New Vanguard) (Paperback)

This book is a poorly written and presented account. The reconstructions are erroneous and at least three directly based on preexisting works. Ancient authors are directly contradicted. Modern researches are not included. I have made a lengthier critique on my blog Rams, Ravens and Wrecks. The text is so idiosycratic and has so many typos that it seems not to have been proof-read. The suggestion that an oarcrew should chant a special song is made, despite Thucydides stating a good crew was a silent one and the crew included a musician who dictated the rythm. A suggestion is made that sailors wore a specific Etruscan costume. etc.
The single star is due to the concise chronology of naval wars - material available many other places.

Andrea Salimbeti says:

Dear Sir
I am always open to criticism but constructive ones. This one is completely useless. You say that the reconstructions are erroneous. Where? It should be important to understand it. The reconstructions are directly based on ancient sources and modern books (all the modern bibliography is quoted) but of course not all the ancient authors are speaking about the same ship model neither existed only one type of Triremes or Quadriremes.
About the text has been review by Osprey, english mother-tongue people. About the mention of Thucydides, I can remember You that we are dealing not with ships of the Thucidides Greeks, but with Roman ships, and the song I reported is from an ancient source. The images of the Roman ships in the punic wars is copied from the Etruscan urnes, where sailors are dressed exactly like I have reconstructed.
At the moment, Your critics are just smog. But I am waiting for technical details, mention of the sources, etc..
Best wishes
Dr. Raffaele D'Amato

I replied:

Take a look at my blog Rams Ravens and Wrecks for detail.
Is this written by Andrea Salimbetti or Raffaele D'Amato ?

Ships Alive !

THFE Productions have a set of three videos on YOUTUBE concerning Punic Wars galleys and naval warfare.

Whilst disagreeing with some minor points, I recommend these videos wholeheartedly.

The videos use the Rome:Total War game package to generate documentary footage and it works very well ! It is great to see galleys in action and they look better here than in the over-dramatic, klunky promo videos for the game.

There are three videos

 FLEET ANATOMY



FLEET OPERATION



BATTLE TACTICS




The content is well-researched and up-to-date rather than the hackneyed material so often regurgitated in popular books and videos.

Watching these videos gives a great overview of naval warfare in the Punic Wars. Certainly more satisfying than Osprey New Vanguard 225.

AND the ships are seen animated - almost alive !!

Curiouser and Curiouser...

Osprey New Vanguard  225 keeps giving.It gives one so much more faith in the illustrators of  Look and Learn and their ilk.

Salamis a la Look and Learn

 Despite the blurb, Osprey push out fodder for eager boys of all ages just as Look and Learn did.

Plate H is all about a Liburnian.

The Liburnian was a type of lembus. That is, a lighter ship. They were heavier than most lembi because they were cataphract - i.e. they had a deck which covered the oarsmen and hold, and they could be  'boxed-in' - i.e. the oars were worked through ports to further protect the rowers in battle and from the weather. Possibly those used by the Romans were inspired in their design by the vessels of Illyrian pirates. Pirates prized speed and manoeuverability in a compact, light ship that did not require a large crew.

The plate caption tells us that the reconstruction is based upon a liburnian of Agrippa from Isernia.
The relief fragments, from the Santa Maria del Monache National Museum at Isernia, on the eastern side of Italy, are shown, in cropped photographs on page 39.  Found in the River Sordo, near the Ponte Nuovo. Probably from a tomb monument, and to be dated in the years after the battle of Actium (31 BCE), there is nothing to link this relief with Agrippa as far as I can find.The only features the reliefs contribute are the prow volute ornament, the proembelion and the ram decoration.

If we examine the rest of the caption we learn that the ship depicted has 82 oars 'dispersed in two orders'(whatever that means), that its length is 'about 108ft(sic)', and that its crew is 114 oarsmen, 10-15 sailors and 40 marines.

No sailors or marines are depicted in the plate.

We also learn from the caption that  ..
'The ram which the word pointed suggests confirms the epithet  of Propertius as rostrata and  the presence of an armament to be used as occasion might demand for defence or offence.'

Now, call me a curmudgeonly old nit-picker but in 1995 John Morrison, writing in 'Hellenistic Oared Warships 399 -31BC' in Conway's 'The Age of the Galley' wrote thus..

'The ram, which the word 'pointed' suggests and which Propertius' epithet rostrata confirms as a regular characteristic of the liburnian, adds an armament to be used as occasion might demand for defence or offence.'

Morison's construction is a little odd. A ram is essentially an offensive armament. The chances that D'Amato lighted by chance upon the same phraseology is slim. Him being Italian and all that.

Earth to Osprey's editorial staff. Come in Osprey's editorial staff, Come in Osprey's editorial staff....

If we do the unmentionable and count things shown we find that there are, on each side, 20 single-manned oars and 21 double-manned oars on each side.

Firstly, there is NO evidence for differently-manned oars in a dikrotic ship unless we are talking about heavier polyremes from a Five and up. Dikrotic ships - biremes -  are known from the seventh century BC down to medieval times. The only suggested case for double-manned oars combined with single-manned is that of the hemiolia, where the mid-half of each side on a MONOKROTIC ship could have had double-manning. Plate H here has a radical interpretation which is not explained or backed-up. Or it is plain wrong.

Secondly, add 20 times 1, to 21 times 2. This gives 124 in my system of arithmetic. There are places for 124 rowers in this picture. The caption says there should be 114. Plain wrong.

With all those men crammed into the ship let us see if there is space for them.

Space to work the oars

Space in a galley is crucial. There must be enough space to work an oar effectively. We know from antiquity and from the Olympias project that the separation between oars should be in the order of a metre 21 oars on a single level needs 21 metres. The ship shown here is 108ft long (why feet ?). This is 32,4 metres. We do not know if this is waterline length or maximum length. If the distance between the outermost oar ports  is 20 metres this would give a ship, as depicted, of 27 metres hull length. The picture is too short. A Four is generally reconstructed as having 88 oars - 22 on one level. A Four is generally reconstructed as being 37 metres long at the waterline. Rather longer than this ship which has just about the same number of oars in a level. The reconstruction is plainly wrong.

The ship shown in plate H has an oarbox. This is a straight-sided closed extension to the hull in which oarports are pierced. Both levels or oars are shown rowed through the oarbox. No ship of this size could have two levels of oars rowed through the oarbox. There is not enough space available inside the ship to allow oars to penetrate the box side and hit the water without having wildly different oar lengths. The smallest ships with oarboxes so large are Fours or maybe trihemiolia.
The most likely configuration for a liburnian with an oarbox is that one level would penetrate the oarbox and the second issue from its underside. In fact, we have no evidence for a liburnian with an oarbox. They can be boxed-in in that they have sides with protection for the oarsmen but oarboxes ? No. In addition, it is essential that an oarbox is straight, because then the oars can be the same length. this drawing has the oarboxes tapered at the stern which defeats their function.
The liburnians from Trajan's Column speak volumes.

Incorrectly positioned oarsmen but no oarbox. These would have been decked and the lattice is ventilation in the sides. The men are sculpted larger than life-size compared to the ships.

Should I go on ? I will.

The profile shows a crennelated bulwark topping a layer of interlocked shields. Where is this structure in the plan view ? Is it represented by the red line running fore-aft ? If so, why would a protective deck bulwark be located where no one can stand behind it unless they tread on a rower's head ? How do they get the shields ?

The caption states that the liburnae were 'decked and boxed-in'. In the context of galleys, 'decked' usually means cataphract - i.e. the deck covers the ship. Plate H shows a ship with an incomplete deck. It is at odds with the caption.

All these details stirred some dusty entry in my mental archive. I checked New Vanguard 225's bibliography and, as one may expect, there stood John Warry's excellent 'Warfare in the Classical World'. In this book is an illustration of a Liburnian, by Clive Spong or Jeff Burns.

Liburnian from John Warry's Salamander book 1980

Clive Spong or Jeff Burns' Liburnian has 48 oars per side. A liburnian with more oars than a Four !

BUT Warry wrote and his illustrator worked before 1980. Much has been discovered since.

If we take the ratios of the oared-length to the total-ship-lengths on these illustrations we can see they are similar.  Rava 1.44,   Spong-Burns1,36.

If we compare the pictures we see a tapered oar-box, alternate single then double-manned oars, an incomplete deck with an arrow shape and a similarity in prow plan, one side of the oar benches unoccupied., no plan representation of the bulwark shown in profile.

It gives the impression of a colouring-in exercise on the earlier drawing.

If we compare the details given alongside the drawing it is conclusive.

Even though the number of rowers changes, the length is kept the same ?

Why would one do that when many interested readers will have Warry's book on their shelves ? How could one concoct a ship which is essentially a trieres - having three men in each interscalmium and call it a Liburnian.

It is not unknown for artists to 'reference' others' work. It is undersandable for an illustrator who has to churn out a lot of stuff quickly to use cut-and-paste. What is taking the piss out of the buyers and readers of Osprey books is when they boldly state

'expertly pieced together from written sources, archaeology and artefact evidence. With meticulously researched artwork..'

(Osprey New Vanguard 225 REPUBLICAN ROMAN WARSHIPS 509-27BC)

We know from Sr. Rava's comment,previously blogged about here, that the author and illustrator collaborate closely to produce the Osprey illustrations. Neither can avoid credit for Plate H.

Jackson, Embleton, Doughty, Lawrence et al who lavishly illustrated the weekly comics of the past were working, apparently, in a similar vein to those hired by Osprey so many years later. Much more is known but this is not always applied due to pressures of time. At least Look and Learn did not claim to be the last word in historical and archaeological accuracy. Look and Learn was an exciting weekly magazine for young people and the broader-minded adult. Is Osprey doing anything more?

Let's row away from this shipwreck (backwards) ! (Don Lawrence)

Oh , I almost forgot. Here is John Coates' drawing of a Liburnian. This is a light version, they could be a little larger, but most had 50 or so oars. his detailed technical drawing and its supporting evidence have been available since 1994. 'expertly', 'meticulously' .. give me strength...

J 'syrACCUSE!

The saga continues. It is mainly because the Osprey NewVanguard225 has been screaming from my bookshelf for a year or so. It seems to take up more space than an encyclopedia. Partly becaue when I first saw the book I was simply glad the subject had been addressed. This I somewhat regret. I hope to lay the ghost by writing these blogposts.

 Last time plate D got it. The Quinquereme also illustrated in plate D is not error-free but for now I will jump to plate E- 'The Siege of Syracuse 212B.C.'.

What a dog's dinner. Apart from the dress of the sailors at the stern (see previous blogpost).

..warning for the faint-hearted

The most salient problem is the theme of the picture, which is the deployment of a sambuca against the walls of Syracuse.

If you are in doubt as to what a sambuca is look here.



The sambuca of the siege of Syracuse was an arrangement of ships and a ramp for mounting the walls and was so-named because it looked like the musical instrument. Note the soundbox - the ships - and the neck - the ramp - linked by ropes, the strings.

The caption to the plate is largely an excerpt from a translation of Polybius (Historia VIII,4).
By this means the caption author(s?) are hoist by their own petard. The contraption in the plate bears little resemblance to Polybius' description. The ship the thing is mounted-on is also odd.

OK let's go through Polybius' recipe and see how one should make a sambuca.

Nice try but no drinking while blogging!

 SAMBUCA DEL D'AMATO-RAVA
 1) Take ONE quinquereme.
2) A ladder four feet wide (1.2 metres ) with a side-railing.
3) The next bits need two ships. Here we have only one !? Skip over..
4) The affair is raised by men in the stern pulling lines which run through a block at the masthead. In the plate there are precisely four sailors in the stern. One is musing on the massive cable in front of him. The others are making themselves look busy to avoid having to pull on it. The end of the cable is indistinctly terminated in the deck. If you follow the cables to the masthead it is apparent that the sambuca itself is not connected to the stern. The cables illustrated are th emast-stays. The forward mast-stays terminate in thin air or off the ship on land? The sambuca hangs in the block suspended from the foremast and a single cable runs down therefrom to the deck. Unmanned. The size of the sambuca makes it unlikely it could have been the foremast that supported it. Polybius must mean the mainmast.In any casehe clearly says the sailors hauling it up are in the stern of the ships.
5) The platform at the end of the ladder was protected by wicker screens on three sides which were thrown off when the escalading troops rushed up to get onto the wall. The wicker screens are still in place in the plate.

SAMBUCA DEL POLYBIO
 1) On a pair of quinqueremes lashed together,
2)Mount over the junction a ladder 1.2metres wide and very long to project before the ships.The ladder is roofed-over and has side-railings.
3)Arrange functional tackle running from the ladder over the mainmasts to enable sailors in the sterns of the ships to raise the ladder with the aid of sailors in the bows who will use poles.
4)The ladder is equipped with a platform at the end occupied by four men protected by wicker screens on three sides.
5) When the platform is in place above the wall then the screens are thrown down and the main escalading party rushes up the ladder and onto the wall.


How long was the sambuca ?
To get maximum lift the ladder must have had a line fitted as near to its extremity as possible. Maybe 2metres behind the tip or immediately behind the platform. When elevated this point cannot have been raised higher than the top of the mast which was the fulcrum.

The mast top block of a quinquereme would be at about 12 metres over the waterline.
Solving the triangle for a hypothetical slope in action for the ramp of 45 degrees...

The sambuca was in the order of 17 metres long. Polybius says it projects a long way forward of the ships and so it does.

Putting all this together we get an arrangement somewhat like this...

Check this with Polybius

The sambuca in red projects forward as it lies ready to be raised.
The lines to raise it run from behind the landing platform over the mainmasts and to parties of seamen (B) in the sterns ready to haul it up.
In the bows (A) of each ship are parties of seamen with poles to help raise and position the ladder.
Troops wait on deck ready to swarm up the ladder when the landing platform is in place on the walls of Syracuse.

While plate E is down let us kick it some more.
The scale of the ship - a quinquereme - is gross. The timbers on the tower at the ship's stern are approximately 20cm or more thick which maybe they have to be because it is armoured with metal shingles and occupied by Chinamen and a bolt-thrower. The height of the deck above the waterline is well over 3 metres judging by the height of the men on the deck.

 It has a strange gangway built onto the side of the bow. There appear to be men marching up the bow ornament. The pedalion disappears through the oarbox which has two holes in it for some reason. In this situation the pedalion cannot be lifted out of the water by angling it back or outward to any great degree. There is no ventilation course of louvres or apertures for the oarsmen who would soon expire.

Plate E : Too-close-up

One should not look landward because the Syracusans are using one of those fairground crane toys to attack the Romans are are shining searchlights on them to set them on fire. The Romans fight back with geometrically impossible combinations of sambucæ.



On the back of this book - Osprey new Vanguard 225 is written ' With dazzling, meticulously researched artwork, it examines Republican Rome's warships...'
Maybe not.
Messrs Connolly and McBride must be gently rotating in their respective Eternities.

Fancy Dress for Roman Marines ? : The answer is dangling in the wind

Halloween approaches. Dressing up is de rigeur. But no ! What is this ? Cultural appropriation by Republican Roman naval soldiery ?
Whatever next ?

Osprey books are a mine of small-scale errors. The format predisposes them to fail on details. It is impossible to cram 'all about X' into a booklet.

Republican Roman Warship is a subject I would like to be as positively disposed toward as I could be. It does grate a little when reading it though.. One asks is it the translation?, or are these really  the words of the author ?

One little sub-theme in the book is the costume of Roman marines. There are not so many depictions of Roman marines and when they do turn up they often look rather like contemporary legionary soldiers. It might be nice, then, to discover some overlooked evidence. But trying too hard sometimes gets the wrong result.

In Roman Republican Warships (Osprey New Vanguard 225) RaffaeleD'Amato suggests that marines in the Republican period - or even all sailors? - wore a distinctive garb. This garb is derived from sculpted Etruscan alabaster cinerary urns of which hundreds have been found in the Volterra area.

Shout! They cannot hear you !

This is illustrated by Giuseppe Rava in several contexts.



The first is an assault on Syracuse where sailors struggle with a monstrous pedalion as their monstrous quinquereme deploys a version of the sambuca against the city walls.



The second is a sea battle where a bow-armed marine dressed as a Spanish sword-and-buckler man supports legionaries advancing over a corvus.

Aie caramba!

Although he does not state it  directly (unless I missed it) D'Amato considers the Volterra urns to show a specific Etruscan costume which somehow relates to republican Roman sailors/marines. Two jumps too many in my opinion.

Firstly, the question of whether the costume on the Volterro urns is a( Etruscan or b) a sailor's/marine's costume.

There are many urns at Volterro. Many examples show stock scenes from mythology and two are recurrent.

The first one is the Rape of Helen.

The men have clothes which are full enough to fall in pleats. Cloaks and cute caps. Paris(?) in the centre and his sidekick to the right have no shoes.

The second is Odysseus and the Sirens.

You may see that there is a common style of dress amongst the crew of the ships in both cases.
Maybe an example of Odysseus' crew with heads on will help also..

'A jock-strap, a jock-strap, my kingdom for a jockstrap...'

The crew have rather gauzey clothing which falls in pleats, cloaks round their shoulders and cute hats with a good firm chin tie. Odysseus, meanwhile, is starkers save for a cloak and cap and no chin-tie necessary for a hero!

What is going on here ? Are these really the clothes of Republican sailors/marines and are they anything of the sort from Etruscan contexts?

First let the Vatican Museum tell us about what these objects are

The rite of cremation, with the resulting funerary custom of placing the ashes of the deceased in urns in sculpted stone or modelled in terra-cotta, is particularly documented in the interior of northern Etruria from the 4th century BC. A great quantity of cinerary urns, with particular artistic and typological characteristics was produced in the main Etruscan cities of this vast area (Volterra, Chiusi and Perugia). The reliefs that decorate the front of the casks are the result of an independent development of the Hellenistic figurative repertoire. Greek myths and, more typically, Etruscan myths co-exist, united by the adoption of the same figurative language, in one of the most characteristic manifestations of Etruscan artistic craftwork. The urns were sculpted from the natural stone of the area which was alabaster for Volterra and Chiusi, and travertine for Perugia, but there were also some less valuable stones. LINK

The art here is not representations of naval themes for a naval audience it is representations of well-known stock themes from mythology and history for a civilian audience.

Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show WAS 'The Wild West'  Discuss.

The two stories here are of exotic characters from the east acting out specific scenes.

Paris and his cronies are Trojans abducting Helen. They are dressed as exotic asiatics. Their full clothes are a contrast to the usual clothes of Latium and Etruria. We can see the same stereotypical representations used to depict mithras at later dates. Mithras was an eastern god often adopted by soldiers. He is always shown in characteristic eastern dress of the magi.

Mithras from Diocletian's baths

 A dead giveaway are the Phrygian caps. They are constant signifiers of eastern characters in Classical art.

Vatican Æneid manuscript : how to tell the Trojans are from the East?

Also, the extra folds around their midriffs are from long over-tunics bound-up to shorten them for easy movement rather than some padded armour.

The Parisians also have cloaks. No cloaks aboard Amato/Rava's ships.

Any padding or jack-like garment as worn by the Osprey characters would appear to be misinterpretation of the pleated clothes from the cinerary urns.

On to Odysseus.

Odysseus' crew have the same exotic(?) garb. The folded/pleated clothes which are figure -hugging and folded-up as per the Parisians. Cloaks figure again. The ones absent in Osprey.

The hat situation is amusing. Now the story of Odysseus and the Sirens includes a key detail which can involve headwear. The cunning skipper blocked his sailor's ears with wax etc so they could no thear the siren song of the Sirens. Contra the Parisians' headgear, Odysseus' crew have hats and ear bandages to emphasise their auditorily-challenged state. This is also exactly what John William Waterhouse did to depict the situation in his 1891 canvas.

Surely not?

So where do we stand now in relation to Republican Roman marines/sailors in action on the pages of Osprey New Vanguard 225 ? Unless these men are pretending to be asiatics - a hideous cultural appropriation and racial sterotyping we should all abjure - then they are dressed in medieval jacks. An anachronism too far, surely.

No. They are actually cultural stereotypes. As devoid of reality and sense  as those who complain about  cultural appropriation and sterotypes.

And were the officers naked ?

This is overlooking the problem of how an Etruscan style should find its way into the Republican Roman navy.....let's leave that question dangling to the four winds, like Odysseus' manhood.

Take that you Roman (Osprey) navy !

SEE ALSO THE SAME INTERPRETATION APPLIED TO EGYPTIAN TROOPS HERE

DREPANUM 2.?

Re. recent posting at TMP of a Drepanum refight.....HERE

I also found this write-up from a game blogged last year of the same battle by George Armold at Lone Warrior HERE.

Arnold's seems a bit pedestrian but he seems to get a result without much pain.
The Ilkley version is more colourful and complex but seems to have been less smooth.

Would be nice to find out more about Arnold's 'Classis' rules - even if hexes are not my cup of tea.
Published in Lone Warrior 182.

Osprey : Republican Roman Warship

It is a long time since I was impressed by an Osprey book so it is a pleasant surprise to get one that is in an special area of interest of mine that delivers more than expected! The format is always limiting but this example - unusually - makes the most of it.

The confusing situation where Osprey display a different cover to the actual book as shown in Amazon notwithstanding,,,,,

Amazon

Osprey ?

 Rafaelle D'Amato strikes a good balance between packing in as much as he can, along with supporting evidences, but keeping it concise and interesting. It is rare to find him going off on personal interpretations or space-filling digressions in this volume and he covers a lot of detail.

One such rare digression is to discuss a poem, 'Colomban's Celeuma'. I think this can just as easily be seen as the author using a literary device based on an observed rythmic phenomenon - that of rowing oarsmen - rather than an objective record of how oarsmen kept time. Circular argument alert..

The book ranges from considering what Rome's earliest warships may have been, down to the battle of Actium and the demise of larger warships. The Egadi material is included with some nice photos.

One advantage D'Amato may have is that a lot of archaeological evidence is relatively close to him but in contrast to many he gets off his backside and takes new photos or gets them taken and does not rely on stock images. This alone makes the book worthwhile. New pictures of sculpture I know from many books but only from one camera angle are very welcome and very informative as well as items previously unpublished in accessible form. Who buys an edition of archaeological papers to get one image of a pot lid ? (Ok, me , maybe . occasionally, but not many )

D'Amato gallops through a lot of modern writing without pausing to give detailed references but the important thing is he compiles the interesting bits here. A single sentence summarises several dusty numismatic papers- BRAVO! In fact one could say that he deals with almost ALL areas -outside shore facilities and administration - so little we know on this subject ..

The colour plates are a key attraction of the Osprey format. Here they are by G. Rava who illustrated 'Ancient Warship' and his style has not changed. Where is the editorial control over images? The ships depicted here are clunky, massive and often two dimensional. The overall effect of action plates like the siege of Syracuse (E) are reasonable but offset by outrageous scale distortions and wierdness such as Pompey's marines attacking pirates up a beach in a Trajanic testudo formation(C).

Illustration increases relative size of man and figurehead by about 3 and oars shown as thick as telegraph poles. Ram is shown as steel or silver but they were of bronze.

On the positive side, I greet  ANY colourful representations of classical galley warfare with an eye on historical accuracy with a cheer.

With reference to the illustrations, and to illustrate another point, as it were, D'Amato's translation of cærulus as 'dusky p.20 is an editorial omission. There are many, which may be due to the author writing in a second language. I know the problems well myself and it is possible to write something in a foreign language one thinks is passable but which grates immediately on native speakers. There are many oddities in the book , giving an impression of Euro-English. What the hell do Osprey editors get paid for ? Cærulus/cæruleus, by the way , CAN mean darkish blue, but it can also mean black. In reference to ships, the obvious black is pitch or tar, used to protect timber and an obvious detail of any wooden ship. 'Dusky' is not a colour, but an adjective. Could not a junior editor or half-blind proof-reader at Osprey have seen this ? Because of this (?) all the ships illustrated get shown as blue but tar and pitch are nowhere to be seen.

There are no battle plans or tactical diagrams. Maybe a good thing, because they are often done poorly or at least, uninspiringly, and we can all read the ancient accounts ourselves anyway. Many aspects of this topic are open to interpretation but in this book the basic information is often provided rather than only the author's view. This treats the reader as an adult and gives confidence in the author.

It is not necessary to write more because this Osprey, at least, is well worth the money. It has certainly given my Punic Wars ship development a big boost.