Roman Ships for life.

1. Roman War Ships By John McArthur and Will Laskero

2. History of The War Ships -The Roman Navy was first founded in 311BC, but was very week, it only consisted of about 20 ships -Rome started putting more effort into their ships 50 years later when fighting Carthage in the First Punic War -During the First Punic War the navy expanded and became important because it was needed to win the battles. -The oldest Roman Ship recorded was a warship that took troops to Delphini

3. Crew Members -People who made up most of the crew were the rowers -The men who rowed were free, not slaves. Slaves only rowed when there was an emergency -Men who worked on Roman Ships were able to become citizens of Rome if they worked for 26 years. -Each ship was commanded by a Trierarchus -Ships were put into squadrons of about 10-7 ships each, and that was headed by a Nauarchus

4. Different kinds of Ships -There were many kinds of war ships -Romans didn't like big ships, they prefered small and quick vessles -The heaviest ship their navy had was the Hexareme. They were mainly used as flagships. Another heavy ship the Romans had was the Quinquereme. It had a crew of about 400, and it was about 50 meters long. It had 90 oars on either side, and 30 files of rowers.

5. Battle Tactics -In most naval battles, the main weapon was the ram at the front of the ship. However, it took much skill to manuver a big ship around to hit another one -Another tactic was to put catipults and ballistae on a big ship and fire them off at other ships.