Dr. William Murray and the Battle of Actium

By VICKI J. YIANNIAS – “Although by the third century the ancients had forgotten most of the details of ancient warship construction, archaeological evidence accumulated over the past twenty years has placed us in an excellent position to appreciate the many variables involved in ancient naval warfare,” said Dr. William M. Murray in his lecture The Search for the Battle of Actium at the Onassis Foundation on Monday, November 1.

“In terms of naval history, the Battle of Actium is significant because it marks the last time in antiquity that sizeable fleets of medium to large warships fought for control of the Mediterranean Sea.”

Dr. Murray is the Mary and Gus Stathis Professor of Greek History and Executive Director of the University’s Interdisciplinary Center for Hellenic Studies at the University of South Florida. He accompanied his lecture with vivid slides of color drawings, diagrams, photographs and maps.

This last major naval battle of antiquity was fought outside the entrance to the Ambracian Gulf. The combatants are well known: on the one side there was Marcus Antonius, Kleopatra VII, and various Kings and Princes from the Eastern Mediterranean; on the other was Octavian, his admiral Agrippa, and as Octavian once wrote, ‘tota Italia’ — ‘all Italy’ — who took his side rather than watch a woman march on Rome”.

The battle concluded a summer-long war between the two forces in the region of Greece and resulted in a crushing defeat for Antony’s side, said Murray, “The Battle of Actium is one of those rare events that marked a ‘turning point’ in world history. In simple terms, it divides the Hellenistic Age from the Principate — or we might say the legacy of Alexander from the World of Augustus”.

Murray’s lecture re-created the important features of this final major naval battle of antiquity, which took place outside the entrance to the Ambracian Gulf. He described his discoveries and continuing research to prove the battle’s obvious importance, making up for inadequate ancient accounts describing the conflict.

“It has been said that ancient accounts were seriously exaggerated, that no great battle occurred at Actium, and that the battle was “the foundation myth of the Roman Empire,” said Murray. “If two great historians of the period say the battle was either a lie or a myth, then who am I to say otherwise? The answer involves the simple fact that there is new evidence that helps prove the battle involved a desperate fight between ships of impressive dimensions.”

In 1988, Olympias, a Greco-British reconstruction of the ancient warship, the trireme (constructed to hold three files of oarsmen on each side of the ship), revolutionized the understanding of what it felt like to go into naval battles like Marathon and Salamis.

Triremes were not the end-all of ancient warship constructions, however. Warships got bigger and so did the size of their warheads, or rams, which were both beautiful and deadly, said Dr. Murray, “Olympias appears like a toy next to the bows of Antony’s biggest ships . . . The point of all this was to use your ship to drive a bronze ram — which grew in size and weight with each increase in ship size – into the hull of the enemy ship.”

In his excavations at Octavian’s campsite, the Greek archaeologist Dr. Zachos had found clear evidence for the beautifully decorated monument built by Octavian to commemorate his victory at Actium, referred to variously as Octavian’s Campsite Memorial for the Actian War, Augustus’ Naval Trophy Monument, and Augustus’ Actian Victory Monument.

There, in 1986, Murray recognized priceless physical clues about warship rams in the structure’s massive 20-foot high retaining wall, built of large limestone blocks set in concrete, intricate sockets to accommodate the back ends of 36 warship rams cut from the bows of Antony and Kleopatra’s largest ships.

What happened to the 36 bronze rams? Murray suspects that the battle resulted in the loss of 50 or more rams “most likely to fire, just as the ancient authors describe.”

He discovered then that he “needed to understand the battle in which they took part. I wanted to understand how these giant bronze weapons were originally intended to be used and why they did not work so well in the Battle of Actium.”

Guided by the results of extensive sonar surveys conducted in the battle zone, Murray is carrying out underwater excavations to retrieve the catapult balls that he has discovered lie 3 km. offshore and what might be a whole range of items that fell into the sea during the day of the battle, such as spears, arrows, swords, helmets, armour, buckets, boat poles, and, of course, the possible 50 to 80 bronze rams that he thinks may have dropped from their burning ships at the battle’s conclusion.

“My search is not yet over,” said Murray, about those items, “we have a warship ram to build, Dr. Zachos still needs to reconstruct Augustus’ triumphal relief. That remains for the future.”

Dr. Murray considers his major contribution to be the understanding of the ram facade at the Monument of Augustus and the extraction from the cuttings of the bow dimensions of Antony’s and Kleopatra’s largest ships. He hopes to publish a book eventually that explains how these big ships were used in battle.

He has written Octavian’s Campsite Memorial for the Actian War among other major works, and numerous articles.

The Alexander S. Onassis Public Benefit Foundation (USA) and The Archaeological Institute of America collaborated to sponsor this lecture.