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The Carthaginians were famed in antiquity for their seafaring skills and innovation in ship design. The empire their navy protected stretched from Sicily to the Atlantic coast of Africa. Able to match the tyrants of Sicily and the Hellenistic...

Unlike today, where shipbuilding is based on science and where ships are built using computers and sophisticated tools, shipbuilding in ancient Rome was more of an art relying on rules of thumb, inherited techniques and personal experience...

Carthaginian warfare has been overshadowed by defeat to Rome in the Punic Wars, but for six centuries before that Carthage was remarkably successful in conquering lucrative territories in North Africa, the Iberian Peninsula, and Sicily. By...

Military supremacy of the seas could be a crucial factor in the success of any land campaign, and the Romans well knew that a powerful naval fleet could supply troops and equipment to where they were most needed in as short a time as possible...

The Battle of Actium (2 September 31 BCE, fought in the Ionian Sea off Actium, Greece) was the decisive engagement of the civil war fought between Octavian Caesar (l. 63-14 CE, later known as Augustus, r. 27 BCE - 14 CE) and the forces of...

The city of Syracuse is located on the east coast of Sicily and was originally a Greek colony founded by Corinth in 734 BCE. The city enjoyed a period of expansion and prosperity under the tyrant Gelon in the 5th century BCE, survived a two-year...

The First Punic War (264-241 BCE) was fought between Carthage and Rome largely over control of Sicily. The war was fought on the island, at sea, and in north Africa. Both sides enjoyed victories and suffered near-catastrophic defeats. The...

Ptolemaic Egypt was a naval power that exerted influence throughout the Eastern Mediterranean from its foundation in 330 BCE until Cleopatra's defeat by Augustus at the Battle of Actium in 30 BCE. The Ptolemaic Kingdom produced some of the...