05-08-2005, 11:07 AM
oooh, lots of new thoughts!
I agree, Florian, that the fleets could of course be pooled - but surely so can modern ones? Not that I want to get into comparisons with the modern world, they always end up slightly abstract... Interesting, though, does anyone *know* of any evidence for centralized control at all? There is of course the Praetorian Fleet praefect (whats his name again?) who was in charge of Ravenna AND Misenum, and there are a couple of indicators that the provincial fleets could all be pooled for large scale military campaigns (Marcomannic Wars and the guy in charge of the CLBRIT, CLGPF, CLPANN & CLFLM, as you say) - but how would this have worked? Surely they cannot have been the entire navies, but must have been vexillations??
As for the Colosseum, am still intrigued on how the vela would have worked exactly - there are all these sail theories, and literary references as well as a few inscriptions, but ... HOW????? And why fleet soldiers? There are several mosaics from El Djem, for example, that show this amphitheatre, too, had vela - but no indications (literary or epigraphic) of anyone specific necessary to operate them...
So many questions...
I agree, Florian, that the fleets could of course be pooled - but surely so can modern ones? Not that I want to get into comparisons with the modern world, they always end up slightly abstract... Interesting, though, does anyone *know* of any evidence for centralized control at all? There is of course the Praetorian Fleet praefect (whats his name again?) who was in charge of Ravenna AND Misenum, and there are a couple of indicators that the provincial fleets could all be pooled for large scale military campaigns (Marcomannic Wars and the guy in charge of the CLBRIT, CLGPF, CLPANN & CLFLM, as you say) - but how would this have worked? Surely they cannot have been the entire navies, but must have been vexillations??
As for the Colosseum, am still intrigued on how the vela would have worked exactly - there are all these sail theories, and literary references as well as a few inscriptions, but ... HOW????? And why fleet soldiers? There are several mosaics from El Djem, for example, that show this amphitheatre, too, had vela - but no indications (literary or epigraphic) of anyone specific necessary to operate them...
So many questions...
Christoph Rummel
