NAUMACHIA
NAUMACHIA was the name given to the representation of a naval
battle among the Romans, and also to the places where such exhibitions took
place. These sham fights were sometimes arranged in the Amphitheatre,
sufficient water being introduced to float the ships [
AMPHITHEATRUM Vol. I. p.
113]; but more frequently in places specially constructed for the purpose,
that is, vast basins faced with stone and surrounded by stone seats, like an
amphitheatre.
The first representation of a sea-fight was given B.C. 46 by Julius Caesar,
who caused a basin to be dug for the purpose in a district called Codeta
Minor (
Suet. Jul. 39;
D. C. 43.23), which, according to Friedländer and
Marquardt, was in the Campus Martius. According to Burn (
Rome and
Campagna, p. 268), the Codeta Major was in the Campus, the
Codeta Minor in the Transtiberine region: both derived their name from the
abundance of marestail (
equisetum) which grew there.
The second was given by Augustus, B.C. 2, at the dedication of the temple of
Mars Ultor, and for this purpose a basin was dug, 1800 feet by 1200,
probably in the gardens of Caesar in the Transtiberine region. It is pretty
clear from the wording of the inscription of Ancyra, “Navalis praelii
spectaculum dedi trans Tiberim in quo loco nunc nemus est Caesarum,
cavato solo,” &c., that the construction was in a new
place, and not, as Burn says, an enlargement of Julius Caesar's basin. Even
about the site of this naumachia there is some question, since
D. C. 55.10 places it in the Circus Flaminius,
and in Tacitus there are various readings,
cis
and
trans Tiberim. We may, however, best
conclude that (as stated in the
Mon. Ancyr. and in Suetonius)
the naumachia of Augustus was in the
horti
Caesaris, on the further side of the river, and that its site is
marked by remains recently found. (See Middleton's
Rome, p.
291; Burn's
Rome and Campagna, p. 268.) This naumachia
continued in use after others had been made (the
Notitia speaks of five), and was subsequently called
vetus naumachia (
Suet. Tit.
7).
D. C. 61.9 speaks of it as the place
where Nero gave a public banquet. The most remarkable naumachia was that
given by Claudius, A.D. 52, on Lake Fucinus, to celebrate the draining of
the lake (but before the completion of the work), where 19,000 men dressed
as Rhodians and Sicilians manœuvred in the fight with fifty ships
on each side, the spectators being grouped on the shore and the surrounding
hills, as on the tiers of seats in an amphitheatre: the signal for battle
was given by a trumpet, sounded by a silver image of a Triton. (
Suet. Cl. 21;
Tac.
Ann. 12.56.) Nero's naumachiae are mentioned by
D. C. 61.9,
62.15;
but they seem to have been sometimes in the amphitheatre, sometimes in the
stagna Neronis, a great basin in Nero's
Golden House, on the site where the Flavian Amphitheatre or
[p. 2.225]Colosseum was afterwards built (Mart.
Spect. 2).
Titus used the
vetus naumachia of Augustus, but
Domitian had a new and larger lake dug below the Vatican ( “in a new
place,”
D. C. 67.8). He afterwards pulled it to pieces
and used the stone to replace the wooden seats of the Circus Maximus which
had been burnt (
Suet. Dom. 4,
5). Naumachiae were not confined to Rome: on the
contrary we can have no doubt that they took place in many provincial
amphitheatres. In the amphitheatres at Capua and Nîmes, for
instance, the arrangements for flooding the amphitheatre have been traced.
The combatants in these sea-fights, called
naumachiarii (
Suet. Cl. 21), were
captives (
D. C. 48.19), or criminals condemned
to death (
D. C. 60.33), who fought as in
gladiatorial contests till one party was killed, unless preserved by the
clemency of the emperor (cf.
Suet. Cl. 21).
The ships were divided into two parties (cf. the domestic imitation
mentioned in
Hor. Ep. 1.18,
61), and the crews were dressed to represent
different maritime nations, as Tyrians and Egyptians (
Suet. Jul. 31), Rhodians and Sicilians (
Suet. Cl. 21;
D. C.
60.33), Persians and Athenians (
D. C.
61.9), Corcyraeans and Corinthians (Id. 66.25). These sea-fights were
exhibited with the same magnificence and the same lavish expenditure of
human life which characterised the gladiatorial combats. In Nero's naumachia
there were sea-monsters swimming in the lake (
Suet.
Nero 12); the magnificence of the naumachia given by Claudius is
mentioned above: in the games exhibited by Titus in the vetus naumachia of
Augustus, we find on the first day the basin covered with planks supported
on piles forming an arena for gladiators and a
venatio, on the second day a chariot-race, on the third a naval
combat of 3000 Athenians and Syracusans, in the course of which the
Athenians landed on an island in the basin and took a fort there. Martial,
however (
Spect. 24), vaunts the naumachia of Domitian as
superior to all that went before. (See also Friedlander,
Sittengeschichte, 2.367 ff.; Marquardt,
Staatsverwaltung, 3.558 f.)
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