03-25-2014, 09:31 PM
Thanks, everyone, for your replies - very helpful.
There are two very interesting points about these various figures from the sources. The first is the huge number of vessels needed to transport an army by sea. The second is the -apparently - low number of men per ship. Obviously there's no way of knowing how many vessels in these armadas were carrying men and how many supplies, but with the numbers of ships involved, each would have needed to carry only a double-figure number of men.
In which case, Caesar's 'nearly two hundred veterans' aboard a ship is rather high, and Michael's suggestion of either 80 or 125 seems perhaps about right. A century or two, perhaps, might have been usual.
By comparison, the 'first rate ship' of the medieval era apparently had a much greater carrying capacity - around 600 men! Which is strange, as we know that the Roman could build some pretty big vessels. I wondered if this might suggest something about the decking arrangements - the medieval ship maybe had multiple internal decks, suitable for carrying passengers, whereas the ancient cargo carrier was effectively just a big deep hull space.
So any troops carried would need to berth on the open deck, or in the confined space aft perhaps, which would severely reduce the carrying capacity.
There are two very interesting points about these various figures from the sources. The first is the huge number of vessels needed to transport an army by sea. The second is the -apparently - low number of men per ship. Obviously there's no way of knowing how many vessels in these armadas were carrying men and how many supplies, but with the numbers of ships involved, each would have needed to carry only a double-figure number of men.
In which case, Caesar's 'nearly two hundred veterans' aboard a ship is rather high, and Michael's suggestion of either 80 or 125 seems perhaps about right. A century or two, perhaps, might have been usual.
By comparison, the 'first rate ship' of the medieval era apparently had a much greater carrying capacity - around 600 men! Which is strange, as we know that the Roman could build some pretty big vessels. I wondered if this might suggest something about the decking arrangements - the medieval ship maybe had multiple internal decks, suitable for carrying passengers, whereas the ancient cargo carrier was effectively just a big deep hull space.
So any troops carried would need to berth on the open deck, or in the confined space aft perhaps, which would severely reduce the carrying capacity.
Nathan Ross
