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Ships became increasingly large and heavy, including some of the largest wooden ships hitherto constructed. These developments were spearheaded in the Hellenistic Near East , but also to a large extent shared by the naval powers of the Western Mediterranean, specifically Carthage and the Roman Republic .
As a result, it is unclear exactly what specific title the Carthaginians bestowed on their military commanders as the few accurate Roman and Greek sources we do have often confuse Carthaginian offices. [29] Greek sources referred to the commander of Punic forces as a Strategos, a catch all Hellenic term meaning general or commander; accordingly ...
The Romans, who had little experience in naval warfare prior to the First Punic War, managed to defeat Carthage in part by reverse engineering captured Carthaginian ships, aided by the recruitment of experienced Greek sailors from conquered cities, the unorthodox corvus device, and their superior numbers in marines and rowers. Polybius ...
Hanno the Navigator (sometimes "Hannon"; Punic: 𐤇𐤍𐤀, ḤNʾ; [1] Greek: Ἄννων, romanized: Annōn [2]) was a Carthaginian explorer (sometimes identified as a king) who lived during the fifth century BC, known for his naval expedition along the coast of West Africa.
Triremes continued to be the mainstay of all smaller navies. While the Hellenistic kingdoms did develop the quinquereme and even larger ships, most navies of the Greek homeland and the smaller colonies could only afford triremes. They were used by the Diadochi Empires and sea powers like Syracuse, Carthage and later Rome. The difference to the ...
Quinqueremes, meaning "five-oarsmen", [57] provided the workhorses of the Roman and Carthaginian fleets throughout the Punic Wars. [58] So ubiquitous was the type that Polybius uses it as a shorthand for "warship" in general. [ 59 ]
The naval Battle of Alalia took place between 540 BC and 535 BC off the coast of Corsica between Greeks and the allied Etruscans and Carthaginians.A Greek force of 60 Phocaean ships defeated a Punic-Etruscan fleet of 120 ships while emigrating to the western Mediterranean and the nearby colony of Alalia (now Aléria).
The Carthaginian fleet of forty ships arrived from the West, [24] and managed to surprise the escorting Syracusan fleet, which may have grown complacent due to their command of the sea, [22] and sank eight Greek triremes escorting the grain ships. When the surviving Greek triremes beached themselves, the Carthaginian flotilla captured the ...