Trajans Navy on Trajans Column

by

Dana S. Adler,
BA(Hons), Dip Arch, MA.

Trajans Navy on Trajans Column

Acknowledgements: My most grateful thanks to the Librarians and Library Assistants at the Library of the Institute of Classical Studies, currently located in Senate House, Malet Street, London, England. They are extremely helpful and can always find that one much needed book, even when it has been replaced on the wrong shelf!

Introduction: In 1967 a paper on Trajans Column, written by the British archaeologist, Sir Ian Richmond, was published. After his death, the information was turned into a small book and published as: Trajans Army on Trajans Column. As the Romans considered their fleets to be part of the Armys auxiliary support units, along with the light infantry and the cavalry, it might be expected that the book would contain some information about the ships used in Trajans Dacian expedition, but it was not there, largely due to the lack of archaeological information on the Roman navy at that time. For anyone interested in the reliefs on Trajans Column, Trajans conquest of Dacia, or the clothing, armour and equipment of Trajans Army, I would unhesitatingly recommend the Lepper & Frere book called simply, Trajans Column (published in 1988). This paper, however, was written to even up the balance and to show that without Trajans navy, its support functions as well as its transport of men, supplies and the cavalrys horses, the outcome of Trajans campaign might have been very different. Trajans Column stands in Rome, but there are also three sets of casts, one in Rome, one in Germany and the third in the Victoria & Albert Museum, London. In the late 19th century, a German scholar, Corad Cichorius, photographed the whole sert of casts and published them, along with 2 volumes of commentary, between 1896 and 1900. Courtesy of the Library of the Institute of Classical Studies,

London, I was fortunate enough to be able to obtain photographs of the original plates Cichorius made in the late 19th century.

The Ships on Trajans Column: It is worthwhile to examine the depictions of ships on Trajans Column and find out exactly what it does display about Trajans Navy. After all, to invade Dacia, Trajan first had to cross over the river Danube. The first scene on the column is of boats, small boats moored on the River outside a town (Cichorius Plates 2 and 3). Barrels wait on shore, whilst several small vessels are in the process of being loaded (although the other small boat has been cut from this frame), apparently from a wharf just outside the walls. These particular boats are very small, with a canted bow and a relatively low stern.

After them come two slightly larger vessels, one of which carries bundles, another, barrels. Although they show no means of propulsion, both have a

steering oar and a small stern cabin.

Past these two boats, the god of the River, (Old Father Danube) rises from the water to watch the soldiers crossing his river (Plates 10 and 11).

The next scenes are of soldiers on land, marching and building fortifications. Further along there is a depiction of a fortress with an associated harbour. In the harbour, warships are moored and so are a number of smaller

boats carrying a variety of cargo, including a horse transport, whilst others carry bundles. perhaps armour and weapons, perhaps food and water. (Plates 80 to 83)

The next group shows a barge, a small warship with someone in the bows apparently about to tie the vessel to a mooring, the horse transport, then above it, a roofed rowed vessel, and finally, in the next register two larger warships. All the ships are larger than the barges, whilst the two warships have two banks of oars each.

Both vessels have a mast for an artemon, the small foresail used to assist steering and, in addition, the lower vessel has what appears to be a rope passing

from the rowers benches to around the bows. This may be an example of a hogging truss, a cable used in the past, to run along the whole length of a long vessel, to keep it in horizontal alignment and so, to stop it sagging at the centre of the vessel. An extra large helmsman stands in the stern of one of the smaller vessels, his hand on the steering oar, whilst the sailors appear to be paddling with their oars resting on the top of the bulwark. Finally, another barge appears to be unloading (Plates 84 to 87). In this frame, the difference between the dress of the rowers, the auxiliaries and the legionary officers is very clear.

Next, there is a small scene showing a boat being loaded over what seems to be a gangplank, with a small warship nearby. It is a bireme, with 8 oars showing and a more or less normal sized person is at the helm, holding the steering oar.

The next scene shows 2 small warships, the smaller vessel has a bank of six oars, the other ten. Both vessels are biremes The stern of the six-oar ship is hidden by a town building and erosion, but the ten-oar ship has the usual volute stern and stern cabin. The six-oar vessel is much smaller, has one and a second, much eroded, sailor depicted, a small ram and forecastle, but no mainmast and no artemon, either. The ten oared vessel hides much of the smaller ship, but a great deal more is visible on this vessel. She has three crew shown, perhaps rowers, but maybe stevedores. The man facing the stern may be the helmsman, but careful inspection of the photographs shows that he is not holding the steering oar. The middle man appears to be lifting something hidden below the level of the bulwarks, whilst the third man is working on the sheets which set the artemon. This ship has a beaked ram and a small forecastle and a space for boarding just after the forecastle. (Plate 118)

There is no sign of a mainmast and no crutches on which it could be rested when unstepped, suggesting that this type of vessel simply did not carry a

mainmast, only an artemon, the small foresail which projected forwards over the forecastle.

The Big Three: The main scene shows 3 large warships which appear to be manned and ready to sail. Unfortunately, this scene is so large that when originally

photographed, it had to be cut into two and the cut goes almost directly through the centre of the ships!

The illustration on the previous page was produced by joining the photographs of the two sets of frames showing the stern and the bows of the three vessels. It is not a good match and the differing tints of Cichorius original make it somewhat difficult to picture all three vessels properly, but it does give some indication of what the scene carved on the Column looks like. Each ship has an extra large personage at the helm, the middle ship apparently being steered by no less a person then Trajan himself.

The lowest ship of the three has an eye painted on her bows, a small beaked ram, a forecastle, no artemon, two banks of oars, with seven oars shown in total (but only six rowers) and a steering oar which has nobody holding it, for the extra large person (dressed only in a tunic) on this ship has his hand outspread and appears to be orating. Behind him three Legionary standards are set before the usual stern cabin and volute sternpost. (Plates 208 to 213 - The bow of the upper ship appears on a separate frame).

The middle ship is the largest of the group. She carries a sea-goat carved on her bows (and therefore may have been named Capricornus, or something similar), has a small beaked ram and relatively large forecastle.

Unlike all the other ships, she is a trireme, with three banks of oars, seven of which can be seen - more are obscured by the rowers in the ship below. There is a more than usually ornate stern cabin, behind which is a small standard, apparently attached to the stern-post, whose volute flares over Trajans shoulder, carrying what looks like a lantern. The next frame, which displays the bows of the upper two ships, shows that she also has an artemon, which has been brailed up.

The third, uppermost, ship is intriguing. Her stern is clearly visible above the heads of the Sea Goats rowers. The usual volute sternpost curves over an

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ornately decorated stern cabin, whilst in front of it, the extra large person on this ship is clearly the helmsman, for he actually has the steering oar in one hand, whilst the other rests on his bent knee.

This ship carries no design painted on her bows, although she does have a particularly fearsome looking ram. She also has a large and ornate forecastle, with three small arches shown, as if, perhaps, she is shipping archers, or some kind of artillery. She does not have an artemon, which may be due to artistic convention, since she is facing a large crowd of important persons on a town wall and the artemon, if set, would hide some of the people. However, she does have an unstepped mainmast, with the mainsail carefully brailed around it and quite clearly set on crutches, one set forward, one aft.

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There is also space just after the forecastle where a gangplank could be placed, which is not quite so evident in the Sea Goat, although it is there. Although there appears to be enough space along the hull for a third bank of oars, she is shown as a bireme, with five oars in 2 banks showing. A slightly later frame (no: 226, below) shows the ornate bow of another bireme, close up against a bridge over which important personages are passing. In the previous frame, the stern of the ship is hidden.

This ship is decorated with an eye at her bow, but she is much more ornate than the vessel with an eye on her bow shown with Trajan. She has an arched

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forecastle, with a decorated bow below it. The railing through which the upper level of oars are rowed, is clearly visible, however, there is no sign of any rowers. The oar-ports for the lower level are not shown The mast is stepped and the forward crutch is shown, with, apparently, the mainsail wrapped around the mast and tied down.

The Sailing Ship: There are actually three types of ship shown on Trajans column, there being only one representative of the third class, a large sailing ship with a single mast, moored in a harbour by the town walls. This is undoubtedly a merchant ship, although whether it was privately owned, commandeered by the Army, or part of a Legions own transport service, is uncertain.

Two conjoined photographs showing the sailing ship as a whole.

The Landsmen: The Columns sculptors were remarkably consistent in the way in which they represented the various parties concerned in the conquest of Dacia. Both Romans and Dacians can be easily identified, as well as details of clothing, hairstyle, armour, horse furniture and ship types.

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The Dacians themselves are shown mainly as long haired, bearded barbarians, while their cavalry wear conical helmets and scale armour, with their horses equally well armoured. Some carry oval shields and/or sickle shaped short swords. The Roman auxiliary infantry are shown with their calf-length breeches and very short tunics, one group of cavalry is equipped in a very similar manner, whilst others have much smaller, round shields and hair in a style which looks almost like dreadlocks (these may be the Equitates Afrorum, who appear on a number of burial memorials). Then there are the specialist archers with their bows, mail shirts, conical helmets and non-Roman features. The Roman legionaries wear tunics, without trousers or breeches, segmented armour round their waists and over their shoulders, whilst the officers wear military tunics overlaid with breast- and back-plates and cloaks. They are also sculpted much larger than everyone else.

The Men of the Fleets: The men on the ships generally wear tunics, but with the sleeves gathered up and apparently tied in a knot on their shoulders, although some of the loading/unloading scenes involve auxiliaries, carrying baggage and oval shields. Helmsmen wear tunics and sometimes cloaks. Rowers were never depicted in auxiliary-type clothing, suggesting that they were not expected to fight.

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In their book on Cichorius photographs of the Column, Lepper and Frere comment that Cichorius identified some bare-armed workmen shown in Frames 241 244, who are wearing military caligae boots, with the classiarii, acutely pointing out that their unusual hexagonal shields: ... must bespeak a special corps and (they) bore marine symbols (tridents and starfish). (Lepper & Frere 1988, p 142). The picture below was made by joining photographs of Frame 240 to the next series of frames, to show the odd hexagonal shields stacked near the tunicand military boot-wearing workmen.

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The Small Boats: The very small boats, without oars or sails may well be barges, either pulled along the river bank by men or oxen, or poled through the water by their crews. Considering that the river in question is the Danube (fast flowing, with nasty cross currents), poling is unlikely, although this river, like the Thames, may have been shallower and wider in the past and therefore slower flowing. Although there are no further depictions of boats or ships on the column, Cichorius plates 355 and 356 do show two soldiers in legion uniforms working wood into the shape of small boats.

Conclusions: Therefore, it seems that the main class of vessel shown on the column are the warships. There are 4 smaller and 7 (or possibly, 8) larger vessels, one of which is a trireme and clearly the flagship, since Trajan himself is shown at the helm.

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All the warships show the top bank of rowers with their heads and shoulders above the bulwarks, so that they are in the Liburnian, open, aphract style, rather than cataphract style of the decked-in Greek triremes. (Liburnians were a type of fast, open decked bireme, much favoured by pirates, which were introduced into the Roman fleets by the Emperor Augustus, after they helped him win at the battle of Actium). The Roman warships all have the same cross hatched railing through which the top row of oars were placed and rowed, whilst none of them carry the outrigger oar box, through which the top row of oars were rowed on the older style Greek warships. All the warships pictured have a beaked ram, some larger, some smaller (suggesting that, perhaps, in the smaller vessels, the keelboards were drawn forward, as in the Mainz A type vessel, to mimic a ram); all have a forecastle, although in the smaller ships it is hardly visible at all. Some vessels are shown with an artemon, some are not; some are shown with an unstepped mainmast set on fore-and-aft crutches, some are not. None are shown with a mainmast stepped or a mainsail set. All have a volute stern-post, some slightly more decorative than others and all have some kind of small stern cabin, again, some more ornate than others. Whether these are different types of ship is questionable. It is more likely that, with space at a premium and with the need to sculpt a balanced picture, the artists have chosen to show some ships with a mainmast stowed and other ships with the artemon set. F. Renatus Vegetius, the late 4th/early 5th century Imperial bureaucrat whose book on military organisation somehow survived though the centuries, says about

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the Army: Plains are held by the cavalry, seas and rivers by the navy, hills, cities, flat and broken country by the infantry ... (Part 2, Ch 1). It is possible, therefore, that the warships shown on the Column are different types of vessel. The smallest could be the Pictae scout ships which are described by Vegetius (Part 4, Ch 37), as having 20 oars per side and being painted a blue-green colour, used for scouting and ambush. Being river craft, they would not necessarily need a mainmast, although having a sail would certainly spare the rowers some hard work. Vegetius also gives details of two other types of warship, the big

Liburnians and the smaller Naves Lusoriae (Vegetius, Part 2, Ch 1 and Part 4, Ch 37). Whether these latter vessels are the same as the scouting pictae, or whether there are actually three types of ship is unclear, as he never describes the Lusoriae in any detail. It should be noted, however, that not one of the burial memorials for Fleet auxiliaries mention service aboard a Lusoria, nor a Picta. Although there are other illustrations of ships, both war and merchant vessels, most are decorative, either as house paintings (as at Pompeii) or as mosaics, although there are several sculptures of galleys extant, however, many of these representations cannot be linked to a specific date Even the Pompeii paintings may reflect vessels from the time of Caesar and Cleopatra. As, however, the carvings on Trajans Column are definite representations of ships belonging to a known, historical, military expedition at a specific point in time, they are invaluable as illustrations of warships in a time before cameras and photographic prints had been invented.

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Bibliography:

Cichorius, C. Die Reliefs der Trajanssale, Vol: 1. (Berlin, 1896). Lepper, F. & Frere, S. Trajans Column, (Alan Sutton, Gloucester, 1988). Richmond, Sir Ian, Trajans Army on Trajans Column, (British School in Rome, 1982). Vegetius, F. Renatus. Epitome of Military Science. tr: N. P, Milner, (Liverpool U.P, 2001).

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