Transilire armati in hostium navem. Il corvo di Polibio e l’arrembaggio romano, la più redditizia delle azioni tattiche in mare aperto

Abstract

Ancient Rome’s involvment in naval warfare against the navies of the major maritime powers in the Mediterranean Sea (Carthage and the greatest Hellenistic kingdoms) was ever victorious. Nonetheless, the Romans are generally considered as lacking in seamen skills because they were able to win at sea only by “reducing the naval battle to a battle on land”. Such paradoxical and misleading expression was historically used to show the effects of the boarding, with or without the “corvus” described by Polybius. The deep analysis of the manoeuvres really needed at sea to board an enemy ship carrying out appropriate counter-manoeuvres showed that: the short-lived and dubious “corvus” proved superfluous and tactically insignificant; the boarding option required as much manoeuvring skills as the ramming one: therefore, it should not be considered as an expedient to avoid the difficulty of the classical attack with the ram. As a matter o fact, the Romans carried out both ramming and boarding attacks, but with a preference for the latter in order to seize the naval booty. The selection of the naval combatants on the basis of their bravery enabled the Romans to use their marines for several innovating tasks, like the manning of the heavy embarked weapons, the boarding actions and the amphibious landings and ashore operations. So, they anticipated a kind of naval warfare which was adopted by all the subsequent navies until modern times, as well as the tipical employment of our contemporary marine forces.