Naumachia
Encyclopedia
The naumachia in the Ancient Roman
world referred to both the re-enactment of naval battles and the basin (or more broadly, the complex) in which this took place.
in Rome in 46 BC on occasion of his quadruple triumph
. After having a basin dug near the Tiber
, capable of holding actual bireme
s, trireme
s and quinquereme
s, he made 2000 combatants and 4000 rowers, all prisoners of war, fight. In 2 BC on the occasion of the inauguration of the Temple of Mars Ultor ("Mars the Avenger"), Augustus gave a naumachia based on Caesar's model. As cited in Res Gestæ (§ 23), he created a basin on the right bank of the Tiber where 3000 men, not counting rowers, fought in 30 vessels with rams and a number of smaller boats.
Claudius
gave a naumachia in 52 AD on a natural body of water, Lake Fucino, to celebrate the completion of drainage work and tunneling on the site. The combatants were prisoners who had been condemned to death: before the combat Suetonius has them salute the emperor with the phrase "morituri te salutant" ("those who are about to die salute you"). There is no evidence that this form of address was used on any occasion other than this single naumachia.
The naumachia was thus a bloodier show than gladiatorial combat, which consisted of smaller engagements and where the combat did not necessarily end with the death of the losers. More exactly, the appearance of naumachia is closely tied and only slightly earlier than that other spectacle, "group combat", which did not pit single combatants against one another, but rather used two small armies. There again, the combatants were frequently those on death row and did not have the specialized training of true gladiators. Caesar, creator of the naumachia, simply had to transpose the same principle to another environment.
Through the choreography of the combat, the naumachia had the ability to represent historical or pseudo-historical themes. Each of the fleets participating represented a maritime power of Ancient Greece
or the Hellenistic east: Egyptians
and the Tyrians for Caesar’s naumachia, Persians and Athenians for that of Augustus, Sicilians
and Rhodeans
for that of Claudius. It required significantly greater resources than other such entertainments, and as such these spectacles were reserved for exceptional occasions, closely tied to celebrations of the emperor, his victories and his monuments. The specific nature of the spectacle as well as the historical themes borrowed from the Greek world are closely tied to the term naumachia. This word, a phonetic transcription of the Greek word for a naval battle (ναυμαχία / naumakhía), has since come to also refer to the large artificial basins created for them.
In contrast, the naumachia of Augustus is better known: in his Res Gestæ (23) Augustus himself indicates that the basin measured 1800 x 1200 Roman feet (approximately 533 x 355 meters). Pliny the Elder
(Natural History, 16, 200), tells us that there was an island in the center, probably rectangular and connected to the shore by a bridge where the privileged spectators likely sat.
Taking into consideration the size of the basin and the dimensions of a trireme (approximately 35 x 4.90 meters), the thirty vessels used would hardly be able to manoeuvre. Knowing that the crew of a Roman trireme was approximately 170 rowers and 50 to 60 soldiers, a simple calculation allows us to see that to achieve the number of 3000 men the vessels of Augustus' fleet would have to have held more combatants than an actual fleet. The spectacle thus focused less on the movement of the vessels than the actual presence of them in the artificial basin, and the hand-to-hand combat which developed.
It was different for Claudius' naumachia. The two fleets each consisted of 50 vessels, which corresponds to the number of vessels in each of the two military fleets based at Misenum and at Ravenna
. Lake Fucino was large enough that only part of it was needed, surrounded by pontoons, and there was room enough for the vessels to manoeuvre and ram each other. The naumachia of Claudius therefore truly reproduced naval combat.
According to Sextus Julius Frontinus
(De aquis urbis Romæ, 11, 1-2 : opus naumachiæ), the water supply for the naumachia of Augustus was specially constructed, with the surplus used to water neighbouring gardens in the Trans Tiberim. This was the Aqua Alsietina aqueduct, remains of which have been found on the slopes of Janiculus (the "8th hill of Rome") below the monastery of San Cosimato
. There are several theories as to the precise location of the site; the latest of which places it between Via Aurelia
in the north and the church of San Francesco a Ripa
in the southeast, in the loop of the Tiber. The republican viaduct discovered in the Via Aurelia near San Crisogono
may also have served as a conduit for the basin.
The basin did not last very long. During the reign of Augustus it was partly replaced (Suetonius, Augustus, 43, 1) by the nemus Cæsarum (sacred forest of the Caesars), later renamed "forest of Gaius and Lucius" (Dion Cassius, 66, 25, 3). This vast area was probably built upon by the end of the 1st century.
A new development occurred during the reign of Nero
: a naumachia in an amphitheatre
. Suetonius (Nero, XII, 2-6) and Dion Cassius (Roman History, LXI, 9, 5) speak of such a spectacle in 57 CE in a wooden amphitheatre inaugurated by the last of the Julio-Claudian dynasty
. Nothing is known of the site other than that it was built on the Campus Martius
. Nero presented another naumachia in 64 CE. This was preceded by hunts and followed by gladiatorial combat and a great banquet (Dion Cassius, LXII, 15, 1). It is unknown what form these games took. It was probably the same wooden amphitheatre, given that there is no mention of its destruction before the great fire of Rome
which happened shortly afterwards.
For the inauguration of the Colosseum
in 80 CE, Titus
gave two naumachiai, one in the Augustinian basin, again using several thousand men, and the other in the new amphitheatre (Dion Cassius, LXVI, 25, 1-4). According to Suetonius (Domitian, IV, 6-7), Domitian
organised a naumachia inside the Colosseum, undoubtedly circa 85 CE, and another one in the year 89 CE in a new basin dug beyond the Tiber; with the stone removed serving to repair the Circus Maximus, which had burnt on two sides. It was probably in the time between these two naumachia that Domitian completed the network of rooms underneath the Colosseum that are visible today, at the same time precluding such spectacles in the arena.
The arena at the Colosseum only measured 79.35 x 47.20 meters, far removed from the dimensions of the Augustinian basin. Naumachia in the Colosseum could therefore not have been as grand as the previous ones. One can imagine a confrontation between the crews of several reproductions of warships, potentially life-size or reasonably close to it, but actual maneuvers or even floating seems doubtful. It is known that stage-props were used to represent ships, sometimes with mechanisms to simulate shipwrecks, both on stage and in the arena (Tacitus
, Annales, XIV, 6, 1 ; Dion Cassius LXI, 12,2).
does as well speaking of Titus' naumachia in the Colosseum (Book of Spectacles, XXIV). The only surviving written sources offer no descriptions of the mechanisms or engineering involved. Archaeology provides no clues: the basement of the Colosseum has since been modified. Only two provincial amphitheatres, those at Verona
and Mérida, Spain, provide any technical evidence.
The central pit of the Verona amphitheatre was deeper than the rooms normally found underneath the arena, and served as a basin. It was connected to two axial conduits. One, circulating under the West gallery of the arena was not connected to the drainage system and had to be connected to an aqueduct
in order to fill the basin. The East conduit was deeper and designed to drain water into the Adige River. The basin at the Mérida amphitheatre, at only 1.5 meters, was shallower than that at Verona. Because it is so shallow - less than the height of a standing man - it cannot be confused with an underground service room. This basin was equipped with access stairs and covered with material similar to that used for swimming pools and Roman baths
. It was also served by two conduits; the western one of which connected to the nearby San Lazaro aqueduct.
The dimensions of these basins however rule out even the most basic of naumachiai: the one at Mérida measures a mere 18.5 x 3.7 meters. Only the most modest of water spectacles could have taken place here. This leads one to conclude that, even assuming that the Colosseum had a similar basin before construction of the hypogeum
(underground complex), naumachiai would have been performed on only a shallow layer of water covering the surface of the arena.
bears witness to this. Of some twenty representations of a naumachia in Roman art
, nearly all are of the Fourth Style, of the time of Nero
and the Flavian dynasty
.
After the Flavian period, naumachiai disappear from the texts almost completely. Apart from a mention in the Augustan History
, a late source of limited reliability, only the town records (fastia) of Ostia tells us that in 109 Trajan
inaugurated a naumachia basin. This site was discovered in the 18th century on the grounds of the Vatican City
, behind the Castel Sant'Angelo
. Subsequent digs have revealed the complete site plan. It had bleacher
s (tiered stands for spectators) and the surface was about one sixth the size of the Augustan naumachia. In the absence of any texts, it has to be assumed that it was only used at the time of Trajan.
Nevertheless, if late Roman Empire sources and persistence into the Middle Ages
in terms of the toponymy
of naumachia and dalmachia at the site are taken into consideration, it still existed into the 5th century. Moreover, the presence of bleachers on its perimeter is a strong indicator of regular shows. According to the Ostia municipal records, the inauguration involved 127 pairs of gladiators; leading one to believe that as in the amphitheatre, the restrictive space at Trajan's basin was not conducive to large combats involving many untrained prisoners, or would have required over-simplification of naval combats, leading to a preference for single combat. In this form, and with a dedicated site, naumachiai could easily have continued (though likely at a reducing frequency) for several centuries without mention in sources, as they would not have been particularly worthy of mention: they simply lost their grandeur and impressive character.
In the provinces, the influence of Roman naumachiai is easily discernible, but limited and reduced to local and innocuous naval games and re-enactments. A competition which went under the name of naumaciva was part of the Panathenaic Games
between the Athenian
Ephebos
from the Flavian period onward. It replaced the regatta
s which had taken place at these games earlier. If Ausonius
is to be believed, (Moselle, 200-2,29), a naumachia was held on the Moselle River
between local youth.
in Rouen
in 1550. Another was held in Milan
for Napoleon in 1807.
Parc Monceau
in Paris
features a naumachia water feature, surrounded by a colonnade. In 18th and 19th century England, several parks featured mock naval battles with model ships, which were also referred to as naumachia. Peasholm Park
in Scarborough, England, still stages such an event. Smaller, theatre-based aqua drama
s were also popular.
New York artist Duke Riley
staged a naumachia in 2009 at the Queens Museum of Art
.
Ancient Rome
Ancient Rome was a thriving civilization that grew on the Italian Peninsula as early as the 8th century BC. Located along the Mediterranean Sea and centered on the city of Rome, it expanded to one of the largest empires in the ancient world....
world referred to both the re-enactment of naval battles and the basin (or more broadly, the complex) in which this took place.
Early naumachia
The first known naumachia was given by Julius CaesarJulius Caesar
Gaius Julius Caesar was a Roman general and statesman and a distinguished writer of Latin prose. He played a critical role in the gradual transformation of the Roman Republic into the Roman Empire....
in Rome in 46 BC on occasion of his quadruple triumph
Roman triumph
The Roman triumph was a civil ceremony and religious rite of ancient Rome, held to publicly celebrate and sanctify the military achievement of an army commander who had won great military successes, or originally and traditionally, one who had successfully completed a foreign war. In Republican...
. After having a basin dug near the Tiber
Tiber
The Tiber is the third-longest river in Italy, rising in the Apennine Mountains in Emilia-Romagna and flowing through Umbria and Lazio to the Tyrrhenian Sea. It drains a basin estimated at...
, capable of holding actual bireme
Bireme
A bireme is an ancient Hellenistic-era warship with two decks of oars, probably invented by the Phoenicians. It typically was about long with a maximum beam width of around . It was modified from the penteconter, a ship that had only one set of oars on each side, the bireme having two sets of oars...
s, trireme
Trireme
A trireme was a type of galley, a Hellenistic-era warship that was used by the ancient maritime civilizations of the Mediterranean, especially the Phoenicians, ancient Greeks and Romans.The trireme derives its name from its three rows of oars on each side, manned with one man per oar...
s and quinquereme
Quinquereme
From the 4th century BC on, new types of oared warships appeared in the Mediterranean Sea, superseding the trireme and transforming naval warfare. Ships became increasingly bigger and heavier, including some of the largest wooden ships ever constructed...
s, he made 2000 combatants and 4000 rowers, all prisoners of war, fight. In 2 BC on the occasion of the inauguration of the Temple of Mars Ultor ("Mars the Avenger"), Augustus gave a naumachia based on Caesar's model. As cited in Res Gestæ (§ 23), he created a basin on the right bank of the Tiber where 3000 men, not counting rowers, fought in 30 vessels with rams and a number of smaller boats.
Claudius
Claudius
Claudius , was Roman Emperor from 41 to 54. A member of the Julio-Claudian dynasty, he was the son of Drusus and Antonia Minor. He was born at Lugdunum in Gaul and was the first Roman Emperor to be born outside Italy...
gave a naumachia in 52 AD on a natural body of water, Lake Fucino, to celebrate the completion of drainage work and tunneling on the site. The combatants were prisoners who had been condemned to death: before the combat Suetonius has them salute the emperor with the phrase "morituri te salutant" ("those who are about to die salute you"). There is no evidence that this form of address was used on any occasion other than this single naumachia.
The naumachia was thus a bloodier show than gladiatorial combat, which consisted of smaller engagements and where the combat did not necessarily end with the death of the losers. More exactly, the appearance of naumachia is closely tied and only slightly earlier than that other spectacle, "group combat", which did not pit single combatants against one another, but rather used two small armies. There again, the combatants were frequently those on death row and did not have the specialized training of true gladiators. Caesar, creator of the naumachia, simply had to transpose the same principle to another environment.
Through the choreography of the combat, the naumachia had the ability to represent historical or pseudo-historical themes. Each of the fleets participating represented a maritime power of Ancient Greece
Ancient Greece
Ancient Greece is a civilization belonging to a period of Greek history that lasted from the Archaic period of the 8th to 6th centuries BC to the end of antiquity. Immediately following this period was the beginning of the Early Middle Ages and the Byzantine era. Included in Ancient Greece is the...
or the Hellenistic east: Egyptians
Ancient Egypt
Ancient Egypt was an ancient civilization of Northeastern Africa, concentrated along the lower reaches of the Nile River in what is now the modern country of Egypt. Egyptian civilization coalesced around 3150 BC with the political unification of Upper and Lower Egypt under the first pharaoh...
and the Tyrians for Caesar’s naumachia, Persians and Athenians for that of Augustus, Sicilians
History of Sicily
The history of Sicily has seen Sicily usually controlled by greater powers—Roman, Vandal, Byzantine, Islamic, Norman, Hohenstaufen, Catalan, Spaniard—but also experiencing short periods of independence, as under the Greeks and later as the Emirate then Kingdom of Sicily...
and Rhodeans
Rhodes
Rhodes is an island in Greece, located in the eastern Aegean Sea. It is the largest of the Dodecanese islands in terms of both land area and population, with a population of 117,007, and also the island group's historical capital. Administratively the island forms a separate municipality within...
for that of Claudius. It required significantly greater resources than other such entertainments, and as such these spectacles were reserved for exceptional occasions, closely tied to celebrations of the emperor, his victories and his monuments. The specific nature of the spectacle as well as the historical themes borrowed from the Greek world are closely tied to the term naumachia. This word, a phonetic transcription of the Greek word for a naval battle (ναυμαχία / naumakhía), has since come to also refer to the large artificial basins created for them.
Naumachia building
Caesar’s naumachia, the precise location of which remains unknown, was probably a simple basin dug in the bank of the Tiber.In contrast, the naumachia of Augustus is better known: in his Res Gestæ (23) Augustus himself indicates that the basin measured 1800 x 1200 Roman feet (approximately 533 x 355 meters). Pliny the Elder
Pliny the Elder
Gaius Plinius Secundus , better known as Pliny the Elder, was a Roman author, naturalist, and natural philosopher, as well as naval and army commander of the early Roman Empire, and personal friend of the emperor Vespasian...
(Natural History, 16, 200), tells us that there was an island in the center, probably rectangular and connected to the shore by a bridge where the privileged spectators likely sat.
Taking into consideration the size of the basin and the dimensions of a trireme (approximately 35 x 4.90 meters), the thirty vessels used would hardly be able to manoeuvre. Knowing that the crew of a Roman trireme was approximately 170 rowers and 50 to 60 soldiers, a simple calculation allows us to see that to achieve the number of 3000 men the vessels of Augustus' fleet would have to have held more combatants than an actual fleet. The spectacle thus focused less on the movement of the vessels than the actual presence of them in the artificial basin, and the hand-to-hand combat which developed.
It was different for Claudius' naumachia. The two fleets each consisted of 50 vessels, which corresponds to the number of vessels in each of the two military fleets based at Misenum and at Ravenna
Ravenna
Ravenna is the capital city of the Province of Ravenna in the Emilia-Romagna region of Italy and the second largest comune in Italy by land area, although, at , it is little more than half the size of the largest comune, Rome...
. Lake Fucino was large enough that only part of it was needed, surrounded by pontoons, and there was room enough for the vessels to manoeuvre and ram each other. The naumachia of Claudius therefore truly reproduced naval combat.
According to Sextus Julius Frontinus
Sextus Julius Frontinus
Sextus Julius Frontinus was one of the most distinguished Roman aristocrats of the late 1st century AD, but is best known to the post-Classical world as an author of technical treatises, especially one dealing with the aqueducts of Rome....
(De aquis urbis Romæ, 11, 1-2 : opus naumachiæ), the water supply for the naumachia of Augustus was specially constructed, with the surplus used to water neighbouring gardens in the Trans Tiberim. This was the Aqua Alsietina aqueduct, remains of which have been found on the slopes of Janiculus (the "8th hill of Rome") below the monastery of San Cosimato
San Cosimato
The church of San Cosimato is a church located in the city of Rome, Italy. It was originally built in the 10th century in the Trastevere rione and now includes the hospital known as "Nuovo Regina Margherita." Originally, it was built as a Benedictine monastery dedicated to Saints Cosmas and...
. There are several theories as to the precise location of the site; the latest of which places it between Via Aurelia
Via Aurelia
The Via Aurelia was a Roman road in Italy constructed around the year 241 BC. The project was undertaken by C. Aurelius Cotta, who at that time was censor...
in the north and the church of San Francesco a Ripa
San Francesco a Ripa
San Francesco a Ripa is a church in Rome, Italy. It is dedicated to Francis of Assisi because the adjacent convent accommodated him, while the term Ripa refers to the nearby river-edge of the Tiber.-History:...
in the southeast, in the loop of the Tiber. The republican viaduct discovered in the Via Aurelia near San Crisogono
San Crisogono
San Crisogono is a church in Rome dedicated to the martyr Saint Chrysogonus.-History:The church was one of the tituli, the first parish churches of Rome...
may also have served as a conduit for the basin.
The basin did not last very long. During the reign of Augustus it was partly replaced (Suetonius, Augustus, 43, 1) by the nemus Cæsarum (sacred forest of the Caesars), later renamed "forest of Gaius and Lucius" (Dion Cassius, 66, 25, 3). This vast area was probably built upon by the end of the 1st century.
Naumachiai in amphitheatres
Nero
Nero , was Roman Emperor from 54 to 68, and the last in the Julio-Claudian dynasty. Nero was adopted by his great-uncle Claudius to become his heir and successor, and succeeded to the throne in 54 following Claudius' death....
: a naumachia in an amphitheatre
Amphitheatre
An amphitheatre is an open-air venue used for entertainment and performances.There are two similar, but distinct, types of structure for which the word "amphitheatre" is used: Ancient Roman amphitheatres were large central performance spaces surrounded by ascending seating, and were commonly used...
. Suetonius (Nero, XII, 2-6) and Dion Cassius (Roman History, LXI, 9, 5) speak of such a spectacle in 57 CE in a wooden amphitheatre inaugurated by the last of the Julio-Claudian dynasty
Julio-Claudian Dynasty
The Julio-Claudian dynasty normally refers to the first five Roman Emperors: Augustus, Tiberius, Caligula , Claudius, and Nero, or the family to which they belonged; they ruled the Roman Empire from its formation, in the second half of the 1st century BC, until AD 68, when the last of the line,...
. Nothing is known of the site other than that it was built on the Campus Martius
Campus Martius
The Campus Martius , was a publicly owned area of ancient Rome about in extent. In the Middle Ages, it was the most populous area of Rome...
. Nero presented another naumachia in 64 CE. This was preceded by hunts and followed by gladiatorial combat and a great banquet (Dion Cassius, LXII, 15, 1). It is unknown what form these games took. It was probably the same wooden amphitheatre, given that there is no mention of its destruction before the great fire of Rome
Great Fire of Rome
The Great Fire of Rome was an urban fire that occurred beginning July 19, AD 64.-Background:According to Tacitus, the fire spread quickly and burned for six days. Only four of the fourteen districts of Rome escaped the fire; three districts were completely destroyed and the other seven suffered...
which happened shortly afterwards.
For the inauguration of the Colosseum
Colosseum
The Colosseum, or the Coliseum, originally the Flavian Amphitheatre , is an elliptical amphitheatre in the centre of the city of Rome, Italy, the largest ever built in the Roman Empire...
in 80 CE, Titus
Titus
Titus , was Roman Emperor from 79 to 81. A member of the Flavian dynasty, Titus succeeded his father Vespasian upon his death, thus becoming the first Roman Emperor to come to the throne after his own father....
gave two naumachiai, one in the Augustinian basin, again using several thousand men, and the other in the new amphitheatre (Dion Cassius, LXVI, 25, 1-4). According to Suetonius (Domitian, IV, 6-7), Domitian
Domitian
Domitian was Roman Emperor from 81 to 96. Domitian was the third and last emperor of the Flavian dynasty.Domitian's youth and early career were largely spent in the shadow of his brother Titus, who gained military renown during the First Jewish-Roman War...
organised a naumachia inside the Colosseum, undoubtedly circa 85 CE, and another one in the year 89 CE in a new basin dug beyond the Tiber; with the stone removed serving to repair the Circus Maximus, which had burnt on two sides. It was probably in the time between these two naumachia that Domitian completed the network of rooms underneath the Colosseum that are visible today, at the same time precluding such spectacles in the arena.
The arena at the Colosseum only measured 79.35 x 47.20 meters, far removed from the dimensions of the Augustinian basin. Naumachia in the Colosseum could therefore not have been as grand as the previous ones. One can imagine a confrontation between the crews of several reproductions of warships, potentially life-size or reasonably close to it, but actual maneuvers or even floating seems doubtful. It is known that stage-props were used to represent ships, sometimes with mechanisms to simulate shipwrecks, both on stage and in the arena (Tacitus
Tacitus
Publius Cornelius Tacitus was a senator and a historian of the Roman Empire. The surviving portions of his two major works—the Annals and the Histories—examine the reigns of the Roman Emperors Tiberius, Claudius, Nero and those who reigned in the Year of the Four Emperors...
, Annales, XIV, 6, 1 ; Dion Cassius LXI, 12,2).
Water in the amphitheatres
The use of enough water to float vessels in amphitheatres raises technical questions. Amphitheatres were not exclusively used for naumachiai; they would have been filled and drained rapidly enough for use in gladiatorial combats and other spectacles. The rapid transition between water shows and earth-based shows seems to have been one of the great attractions. Dion Cassius underscores this as it relates to Nero's naumachia (LXI, 9, 5); MartialMartial
Marcus Valerius Martialis , was a Latin poet from Hispania best known for his twelve books of Epigrams, published in Rome between AD 86 and 103, during the reigns of the emperors Domitian, Nerva and Trajan...
does as well speaking of Titus' naumachia in the Colosseum (Book of Spectacles, XXIV). The only surviving written sources offer no descriptions of the mechanisms or engineering involved. Archaeology provides no clues: the basement of the Colosseum has since been modified. Only two provincial amphitheatres, those at Verona
Verona
Verona ; German Bern, Dietrichsbern or Welschbern) is a city in the Veneto, northern Italy, with approx. 265,000 inhabitants and one of the seven chef-lieus of the region. It is the second largest city municipality in the region and the third of North-Eastern Italy. The metropolitan area of Verona...
and Mérida, Spain, provide any technical evidence.
The central pit of the Verona amphitheatre was deeper than the rooms normally found underneath the arena, and served as a basin. It was connected to two axial conduits. One, circulating under the West gallery of the arena was not connected to the drainage system and had to be connected to an aqueduct
Aqueduct
An aqueduct is a water supply or navigable channel constructed to convey water. In modern engineering, the term is used for any system of pipes, ditches, canals, tunnels, and other structures used for this purpose....
in order to fill the basin. The East conduit was deeper and designed to drain water into the Adige River. The basin at the Mérida amphitheatre, at only 1.5 meters, was shallower than that at Verona. Because it is so shallow - less than the height of a standing man - it cannot be confused with an underground service room. This basin was equipped with access stairs and covered with material similar to that used for swimming pools and Roman baths
Roman Baths
The Roman Baths complex is a site of historical interest in the English city of Bath. The house is a well-preserved Roman site for public bathing....
. It was also served by two conduits; the western one of which connected to the nearby San Lazaro aqueduct.
The dimensions of these basins however rule out even the most basic of naumachiai: the one at Mérida measures a mere 18.5 x 3.7 meters. Only the most modest of water spectacles could have taken place here. This leads one to conclude that, even assuming that the Colosseum had a similar basin before construction of the hypogeum
Hypogeum
Hypogeum or hypogaeum literally means "underground", from Greek hypo and gaia . It usually refers to an underground, non-Christian temple or a tomb...
(underground complex), naumachiai would have been performed on only a shallow layer of water covering the surface of the arena.
Decline of Roman naumachia
The introduction of new technologies initially led to an increased number of naumachia. The first three naumachia were spaced about 50 years apart; the following six, most of which took place in amphitheatres, occurred in a space of 30 years. Less costly in material and human terms, they could afford to be staged more frequently. Less grandiose, they became a feature of the games, but could not be considered exceptional. The iconographyIconography
Iconography is the branch of art history which studies the identification, description, and the interpretation of the content of images. The word iconography literally means "image writing", and comes from the Greek "image" and "to write". A secondary meaning is the painting of icons in the...
bears witness to this. Of some twenty representations of a naumachia in Roman art
Roman art
Roman art has the visual arts made in Ancient Rome, and in the territories of the Roman Empire. Major forms of Roman art are architecture, painting, sculpture and mosaic work...
, nearly all are of the Fourth Style, of the time of Nero
Nero
Nero , was Roman Emperor from 54 to 68, and the last in the Julio-Claudian dynasty. Nero was adopted by his great-uncle Claudius to become his heir and successor, and succeeded to the throne in 54 following Claudius' death....
and the Flavian dynasty
Flavian dynasty
The Flavian dynasty was a Roman Imperial Dynasty, which ruled the Roman Empire between 69 and 96 AD, encompassing the reigns of Vespasian , and his two sons Titus and Domitian . The Flavians rose to power during the civil war of 69, known as the Year of the Four Emperors...
.
After the Flavian period, naumachiai disappear from the texts almost completely. Apart from a mention in the Augustan History
Augustan History
The Augustan History is a late Roman collection of biographies, in Latin, of the Roman Emperors, their junior colleagues and usurpers of the period 117 to 284...
, a late source of limited reliability, only the town records (fastia) of Ostia tells us that in 109 Trajan
Trajan
Trajan , was Roman Emperor from 98 to 117 AD. Born into a non-patrician family in the province of Hispania Baetica, in Spain Trajan rose to prominence during the reign of emperor Domitian. Serving as a legatus legionis in Hispania Tarraconensis, in Spain, in 89 Trajan supported the emperor against...
inaugurated a naumachia basin. This site was discovered in the 18th century on the grounds of the Vatican City
Vatican City
Vatican City , or Vatican City State, in Italian officially Stato della Città del Vaticano , which translates literally as State of the City of the Vatican, is a landlocked sovereign city-state whose territory consists of a walled enclave within the city of Rome, Italy. It has an area of...
, behind the Castel Sant'Angelo
Castel Sant'Angelo
The Mausoleum of Hadrian, usually known as the Castel Sant'Angelo, is a towering cylindrical building in Parco Adriano, Rome, Italy. It was initially commissioned by the Roman Emperor Hadrian as a mausoleum for himself and his family...
. Subsequent digs have revealed the complete site plan. It had bleacher
Bleacher
Bleachers is an American term used to describe the raised, tiered rows of seats found at sports fields or at other spectator events...
s (tiered stands for spectators) and the surface was about one sixth the size of the Augustan naumachia. In the absence of any texts, it has to be assumed that it was only used at the time of Trajan.
Nevertheless, if late Roman Empire sources and persistence into the Middle Ages
Middle Ages
The Middle Ages is a periodization of European history from the 5th century to the 15th century. The Middle Ages follows the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 and precedes the Early Modern Era. It is the middle period of a three-period division of Western history: Classic, Medieval and Modern...
in terms of the toponymy
Toponymy
Toponymy is the scientific study of place names , their origins, meanings, use and typology. The word "toponymy" is derived from the Greek words tópos and ónoma . Toponymy is itself a branch of onomastics, the study of names of all kinds...
of naumachia and dalmachia at the site are taken into consideration, it still existed into the 5th century. Moreover, the presence of bleachers on its perimeter is a strong indicator of regular shows. According to the Ostia municipal records, the inauguration involved 127 pairs of gladiators; leading one to believe that as in the amphitheatre, the restrictive space at Trajan's basin was not conducive to large combats involving many untrained prisoners, or would have required over-simplification of naval combats, leading to a preference for single combat. In this form, and with a dedicated site, naumachiai could easily have continued (though likely at a reducing frequency) for several centuries without mention in sources, as they would not have been particularly worthy of mention: they simply lost their grandeur and impressive character.
In the provinces, the influence of Roman naumachiai is easily discernible, but limited and reduced to local and innocuous naval games and re-enactments. A competition which went under the name of naumaciva was part of the Panathenaic Games
Panathenaic Games
The Panathenaic Games were held every four years in Athens in Ancient Greece since 566 BC. They continued into the third century AD. These Games incorporated religious festival, ceremony , athletic competitions, and cultural events hosted within a stadium.-Religious festival:The games were part of...
between the Athenian
Athens
Athens , is the capital and largest city of Greece. Athens dominates the Attica region and is one of the world's oldest cities, as its recorded history spans around 3,400 years. Classical Athens was a powerful city-state...
Ephebos
Ephebos
Ephebos , also anglicised as ephebe or archaically ephebus , is a Greek word for an adolescent age group or a social status reserved for that age in Antiquity....
from the Flavian period onward. It replaced the regatta
Regatta
A regatta is a series of boat races. The term typically describes racing events of rowed or sailed water craft, although some powerboat race series are also called regattas...
s which had taken place at these games earlier. If Ausonius
Ausonius
Decimius Magnus Ausonius was a Latin poet and rhetorician, born at Burdigala .-Biography:Decimius Magnus Ausonius was born in Bordeaux in ca. 310. His father was a noted physician of Greek ancestry and his mother was descended on both sides from long-established aristocratic Gallo-Roman families...
is to be believed, (Moselle, 200-2,29), a naumachia was held on the Moselle River
Moselle River
The Moselle is a river flowing through France, Luxembourg, and Germany. It is a left tributary of the Rhine, joining the Rhine at Koblenz. A small part of Belgium is also drained by the Mosel through the Our....
between local youth.
Post-Roman naumachiai
A naumachia was performed for Henry II of FranceHenry II of France
Henry II was King of France from 31 March 1547 until his death in 1559.-Early years:Henry was born in the royal Château de Saint-Germain-en-Laye, near Paris, the son of Francis I and Claude, Duchess of Brittany .His father was captured at the Battle of Pavia in 1525 by his sworn enemy,...
in Rouen
Rouen
Rouen , in northern France on the River Seine, is the capital of the Haute-Normandie region and the historic capital city of Normandy. Once one of the largest and most prosperous cities of medieval Europe , it was the seat of the Exchequer of Normandy in the Middle Ages...
in 1550. Another was held in Milan
Milan
Milan is the second-largest city in Italy and the capital city of the region of Lombardy and of the province of Milan. The city proper has a population of about 1.3 million, while its urban area, roughly coinciding with its administrative province and the bordering Province of Monza and Brianza ,...
for Napoleon in 1807.
Parc Monceau
Parc Monceau
Parc Monceau is a semi-public park situated in the 8th arrondissement of Paris, France, at the junction of Boulevard de Courcelles, Rue de Prony and Rue Georges Berger. At the main entrance is a rotunda. The park covers an area of 8.2 hectares ....
in Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
features a naumachia water feature, surrounded by a colonnade. In 18th and 19th century England, several parks featured mock naval battles with model ships, which were also referred to as naumachia. Peasholm Park
Peasholm Park
Peasholm Park is an oriental themed municipal park located in the seaside town of Scarborough, North Yorkshire, England. It opened in 1912 and became a favourite venue for galas, displays and exhibitions. The park was extended to include Peasholm Glen, a natural ravine, in 1924...
in Scarborough, England, still stages such an event. Smaller, theatre-based aqua drama
Aqua drama
The theatrical genre of aqua drama that was popular in 19th century France, England, and the United States involved flooding the arenas of circuses for recreations of major naval conflicts and similar aquatic events; some venues participated to such a great extent in this once-popular form as to...
s were also popular.
New York artist Duke Riley
Duke Riley
Duke Riley is an American artist.Riley earned a BFA in painting form the Rhode Island School of Design, and a MFA in Sculpture from the Pratt Institute. He lives in Brooklyn, New York...
staged a naumachia in 2009 at the Queens Museum of Art
Queens Museum of Art
The Queens Museum of Art is an art museum and educational center located in Flushing Meadows-Corona Park in the borough of Queens in New York City, United States.-Overview:...
.