Early 5th Century Naval Battle

[Michael Kerr]

Zosimus describes the one sided sea battle in his New History.

Thus was Fraiutus occupied in Asia, inspecting not only his camp both day and night, but also the motions of the enemy. He likewise made provision for naval affairs, possessing a fleet, competent for action, of the ships called Liburnae, from Liburnia, a town in Italy, where ships of that kind were first built. These appear to have been as swift-sailing vessels as those of fifty oars, although much inferior to the triremes. Polybius, the historian, gives us a description of the proportion of the six-oared ships, which the Romans and Carthaginians used in their engagements with each other. Gaines, having forced his way through the long wall into the Chersonesus, had ranged his troops along the whole length of the elevated shore in Thrace, which extends from opposite Parium as far as Lampsacus, Abydos, and the narrowest part of the strait, The Roman general, on the other hand, sailed continually about the coast of Asia, to observe the designs of the enemy. Gaines, from the want of provisions, being uneasy at the protraction of the time, cut down a quantity of timber in a wood in the Chersonesus, which he fastened together with great accuracy, and rendering it capable to contain both men and horses, placed his troops upon it, and suffered them to float with the stream. These rafts were incapable of being managed with oars, or of admitting of the pilot's art, being hastily constructed by the rude contrivance of Barbarians. He himself remained on shore, in the hopes of presently acquiring a victory, supposing that the Romans would not be sufficiently strong to contend against his men in an engagement. The prudent Roman general was not incautious, and, therefore, forming a conjecture of what was in agitation, he commanded his ships to put off a little from land: Perceiving the rude vessels of the Barbarians to be carried with the current in whatever direction it drove them, he first attacked the foremost of them in front, and his ship, having a stem of brass, overpowered it, not only distressing it with his ship, but throwing darts at the men who were in it, and thus sunk both them and their vessel. When the crews of his other ships saw this, they imitated the example, killed some of them with their darts, while others, falling off the rafts, were drowned, and scarcely any of them escaped with life.

Regards
Michael Kerr