Seafaring on the Ancient Mediterranean

Description

For the people of the ancient Mediterranean, the sea was their highway, the route for conquest and colonisation, the means of spreading civilisation and the way to glorious booty or to profitable trade. But ancient warships have left few if any remains. Most of what we think we know about them comes from ancient literature and iconography, of which there is a great deal. The principal theme of this book is that the written and pictorial evidence on ancient ships has, for the past five hundred years, been treated badly, even contemptuously. This book takes a different approach, searching for hypotheses that conform with the evidence contained in ancient literature and iconography, before considering whether the writer or artist was right or wrong. The result is a number of provocative and insightful reassessments of traditional interpretations of ancient seafaring.