Ravenna, A Study | Page 9

was.
Julius Caesar, for all his mighty grasp of reality, had not perceived the enormous value, nay the necessity, of sea power, and because of this failure his career had been twice nearly cut short; at Ilerda, where the naval victory of Decimus Brutus over the Massiliots alone saved him; and at Alexandria. Both the liberators and Antony had possessed ships; but both had failed to use them with any real effect. It was Sextus Pompeius who forced Octavianus to turn to the sea, and when Octavianus became Augustus he did not forget the lesson. Sole master of the Mediterranean and of all its ships of war, he understood at once how great a support sea power offered him and his principate. Nor was the empire, while it was vigorous, though always fearful of and averse from the sea, ever to forget the power that lay in that command.
Thus it was that among the first acts of Augustus was the establishment of two fleets, as we might say, "in being" in the Mediterranean; the fleet of Misenum and the fleet of Ravenna; the latter with stations probably at Aquileia, Brundusium, the Piraeus, and probably elsewhere.
The fleet of Ravenna was, certainly after A.D. 70, probably about A.D. 127, entitled Praetoria. The origin of this title is unknown, but it was also borne by the fleet of Misenum and it distinguishes the Italian from the later Provincial fleets, the former being in closer relation to the emperor, just as the Praetorian cohorts were distinguished from the legions.
The emperor was, of course, head of all the fleets, which were, each of them, commanded by a prefect and sub-prefect appointed by him; and if we may judge from the recorded promotions we have, it would seem that the Misenate prefect ranked before the Ravennate and both before the Provincial. But in the general military system the navy stood lowest in respect of pay and position. The fleets were manned by freed men and foreigners who could not obtain citizenship until after twenty-six years' service. We find Claudius employing the marines of the Classis Ravennas to drain lake Fucinus, and it was probably Vespasian who formed the Legion II. Adjutrix from the Ravennate, even as Nero had formed Legion I. Adjutrix from the Misenate marines.
The Ravenna that Augustus thus chose to be the great base and port of his fleet in the eastern sea was, as we have seen, a place built upon piles in the midst of the marshes, impregnable from the land, and, because impregnable, able, whenever it was in dispute, to command the narrow pass between the mountains and the sea that was the gate of Italy and Cisalpine Gaul. Such a place, situated as it was upon the western shore of that sea which was the fault between East and West, was eminently suitable for the great purpose of the emperor. Pliny[1] indeed would seem to tell us that from time immemorial Ravenna had possessed a small port; but such a place, well enough for the small traders of those days, could not serve usefully the requirements of a great fleet. Therefore the first act of Augustus, when he had chosen Ravenna as his naval base, was the construction of a proper port and harbour, and these came to be named, after the fleet they served and accommodated, Classis. Classis was situated some two and a half miles from the town of Ravenna to the east-south-east. We may perhaps have some idea both of its situation and of its relation to Ravenna if we say that it was to that city what the Porto di Lido is to Venice.
[Footnote 1: Pliny, iii. 20; cf. also Strabo, v. 7.]
It is very difficult, in looking upon Ravenna as we see it to-day, to reconstruct it, even in the imagination, as it was when Augustus had done with it. To begin with, the sea has retreated several miles from the city, which is no longer within sight of it, while all that is left of Classis, which is also now out of sight of the sea, is a single decayed and deserted church, S. Apollinare in Classe. Strabo, however, who wrote his Geography a few years after Augustus had chosen Ravenna for his port upon the Adriatic, has left us a description both of it and the country in which it stood, from which must be drawn any picture we would possess of so changed a place. He speaks of it, as we have seen, as "a great city" situated in the marshes, built entirely upon piles, and traversed by canals which were everywhere crossed by bridges or ferry-boats. While at the full tide he tells us it was swept by the sea and always by the river, and thus the sewage was carried off