HELLENISTIC AND ROMAN NAVAL WARS 336BC - 31BC

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Huge resources were poured into maintaining fleets not only as symbols of prestige but as means of projecting real military power across the Mediterranean arena. Taking the period between Alexander the Great's conquests and the Battle of Actium, this analyses the developments in naval technology and tactics, the uses and limitations of sea power, and the differing strategies of the various powers. He shows, for example, how the Rhodians and the Romans eschewed the ever-larger monster galleys favored by most Hellenistic monarchs in favor of smaller vessels.