Fireships

• Because vessels in the Ancient World were made of wood, they easily caught fire.
• One technique to destroy or disperse an Enemy Fleet at anchor, was to send one or several Fireships downwind with their steering oars lashed into position, nobody on board, and let the sparks and flames do the rest.

Peloponnesian War (431-404 BCE)

• The first written account of a Fireship was by Thucydides during the Greek Pelopponesian War (431-404 BCE). Between 415-413 BCE Athens sent a Sicilian Expedition to conquer Syracuse. The Syracusans sent a cargo ship downwind into the Greek Fleet, which they had set on fire

Alexander the Great (356-323 BCE)

• In 332 BCE, during the Siege of Tyre, Alexander built Moles for the Siege Engines to reach the Island City. The Tyreans towed a Fireship beside one Mole, containing wood, pitch and with hanging pots of sulphur and bitumen, set fire to the vessel and swam away. The fire destroyed the Mole.

Third Punic War (149-146 BCE)

• During the Third Punic War Carthaginian Fireships destroyed the Roman invasion Fleet off Utica, near Carthage in 149 BCE.

The Vandals (468 CE)

• In 468 CE The Vandals sent Fireships into a Byzantine Fleet.

Greek Fire (672-3 CE)

• Greek Fire was invented in 672-3 CE.
• This incendiary mixture became the standard weapon of the Byzantine Navy.