NAVA´LIA
NAVA´LIA were dry docks where ships were built, or
drawn up (
subductae) to be repaired or laid up
till they were again needed. Those at Rome were opposite the Prata Quinctia
in the upper bend of the Tiber (Livo fii. 26, 8.15; Burn,
Rome and
Campagna, p. 51), and so described as above the Aventine (
Plut. Cat. Mi. 39). In
Liv. 45.42 we are told of
navalia
in the Campus Martius, where the ships taken from Perseus were laid up. The
use of these Roman navalia for large ships was generally lessened under the
Empire when the mouth of the Tiber was much more silted up, and Puteoli
became the harbour where vessels trading to Rome discharged their cargo and
were docked: others, however, still ran up to Rome after they had been
lightened by discharging part of their cargo at Ostia, to be taken up in
smaller boats (
naves codicariae). (
Strabo v. p.231; Sen.
de brev.
Vit. 13; cf. Marquardt,
Privatleben, p. 408.) The
docks (
νεώσοικοι or
νεώρια: see below) at Piraeus were constructed by Pericles
(
Paus. 1.29,
16）
at a cost of 1000 talents, according to Isocrates (
Areopag.
§ 66), and, having been destroyed after the Peloponnesian War, were
restored in the administration of Lycurgus. For their management, see
EPIMELETAE (6), Vol. I. p.
749
b. As to the distinction between
νεώσοικοι and
νεώρια, Arnold rightly points out in his note on
Thuc. 7.25 that
νεώρια are strictly the dockyards,
νεώσοικοι the large covered sheds for the reception of ships
laid up, on the roofs of which the Syracusans stand (cf. Demosth.
de
Symm. p. 184.26). But there can be no doubt that in
Thuc. 1.108, when Tolmides burns
τὸ νεώριον at Gytheum, we are to understand
especially the
νεώσοικοι, and conversely
Isocrates (
l.c.) uses
νεώσοικοι for dockyard, sheds and all.
[
W.S] [
G.E.M]
