The first great age of naval warfare had drawn to a close. When significant levels of maritime activity resumed after 400 CE, based on a wider network of global trade connections and the slow spread of improved ship technology, the naval establishments and warfare that activity spawned would have a more varied and geographically dispersed character than the galley warfare of the Mediterranean world covered in this chapter. Those developments are covered in Chapter 10.
The navies of the classical age of galley battles had a significant impact on warfare and contributed to broader historical developments. From the invention of the alphabet by the sea-going Phoenicians, to the triremes at Salamis launching the great age of Athenian culture and conquest, to the quinqueremes of the First Punic War laying the foundations of Roman imperial expansion, to the end of the Roman Republic at Actium, naval warfare played a central role in the military history of the ancient Mediterranean world. Its further development would extend that role to wider realms of global history.
Casson, Lionel. Ships and Seafaring in Ancient Times. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1994. An update and popularization of his important Ships and Seamanship in the Ancient World (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1971), a fundamental work.
Goldsworthy, Adrian. The Punic Wars. London: Cassell, 2000.
Contains accessible sections on the naval aspects of the wars.
Jordan, Boromir. The Athenian Navy in the Classical Period.
Berkeley: University of California Classical Studies 13, 1972. A detailed study of the administration of the Athenian fleet and its connection to political structures of the Athenian state. Lazenby, J. F. The First Punic War. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1996. An authoritative study of this conflict, based on careful evaluation of the sources and cautious judgments about controversial points.
Meijer, Fik. A History of Seafaring in the Ancient World. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1986. A thorough narrative of naval warfare from earliest times through the height of Roman imperial power.
Morrison, J. S., and J. F. Coates. The Athenian Trireme. History and Reconstruction of an Ancient Greek Warship. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986. A fascinating and well-illustrated account of the building of the Olympias.
Strauss, Barry. The Battle of Salamis: The Naval Encounter That Saved Greece—and Western Civilization. New York: Simon and Schuster, 2004. A lively and readable but also reliable account of the campaign and battle. Despite the subtitle, Strauss in fact downplays the historical impact of the battle in the terms in which that impact is usually stated.