Preface: Wars at Sea This book, The Blood-Drenched Sea, contains the naval battles and wars fought in the ancient Mediterranean from the first scenes on the walls of an Egyp- tian mortuary temple depicting Egypt’s defeat of a massive seaborne invasion in 1191 BCE to the invasion and destruction of the Roman Empire. Herein are the ships, crews, and leaders who determined the course of ancient his- tory, along with the wars and battles, told through artifacts, extant literary and visual sources, and modern reconstructions—the Minoan sea domain the legendary sack of Troy the wandering of Odysseus and the expansion of Greeks throughout the Mediterranean the great Athenian victory over the Per- sians at Salamis the Athenian sea empire, ruined by one superstitious man and the three wars between Rome and Carthage that cost the Romans hun- dreds of thousands of lives and vast wealth. The Romans brought the whole of the Mediterranean under their control and then fought each other in destructive civil wars until Octavian settled the question of the new empire by winning the sea battle at Actium. The book concludes with the fall of the Roman Empire followed by a brief sketch of the subsequent history of oared warships and the tactic of ramming. This one- volume history puts seemingly isolated events in a larger context: for instance, the first wave of Greek colonization is usually treated as a separate subject, a peaceful settlement of unoccupied territory but seen in context, it becomes a part of the violent movement of the so-called “sea peoples” who ravaged and resettled the Eastern Mediterranean. The purpose of this account is to present the reader with the events as expe- rienced—as far as possible—by the participants. I hope my book will reach everyone interested in the ancient world, naval history, war, and the sea. It is a fascinating story. All translations of Greek and Latin passages are my own.