150,000 Men, 900 Ships: Excavation Reveals Size of Antony & Cleopatra’s Fleet
WarHistoryOnline | May 12, 2019

The battle of Actium, which took place off of the west coast of Greece on September 2, 31 B.C., is widely regarded as the decisive moment at which the Roman Republic fell and the Roman Empire rose in its place following the assassination of Julius Caesar.

Octavian, the adopted son and great-nephew of Caesar, faced off against the combined forces of Egypt, led by Cleopatra and Mark Antony, who had been a close friend of the late Caesar.

Octavian’s fleet of 500 ships and 70,000 infantry faced off against Antony and Cleopatra’s combined 400 ships and 80,000 infantry.

Naval historians have studied the battle extensively, curious about the effect that Octavian’s smaller ships might have played in ensuring their decisive victory over the comparatively larger ships which made up Antony and Cleopatra’s fleet.

Now, a recent archaeological discovery has helped to shed light on exactly how much of an advantage this gave the Roman commander.

[Antony’s] underwater battering rams, designed to break down harbor defenses [but primarily to destroy enemy ships — Oppo], were considerably larger than any that had been previously found.

Although only remnants of the rams themselves were discovered in the excavated ruin (it is assumed that later generations or invading forces stole them and melted them down for bronze), the size of the niches they were placed in led historians to estimate that Antony and Cleopatra sailed in ships as large as 40 metres long.