Close to the end of Hugh Kennedy’s book about the Arab conquests in the Seventh and Eighth Centuries,[1] there is an entire chapter dedicated to the naval warfare of the period. The main opponents were Arabs and Byzantines. Constantinople and Alexandria were the main battle theaters. Both sides used very similar ship designs. Their weapons were essentially the same, as well. Sea battles were usually started with the throwing of projectiles, such as arrows, stones, and inflammable materials, but they ended in hand-to-hand combat. The so-called Greek fire was nothing but crude oil (or naft in Arabic) set alight. In addition to spurting it out of siphons, usually mounted in the bows, burning oil in pots was hurled by catapults, as well. Catapults were occasionally also used to hurl containers of scorpions or vipers on the decks of enemy ships. Given the nature of the combat, Kennedy calls this “one of the more fanciful ideas.”[2] Indeed. As though fanciful ideas are not of the very essence of warfare.

Footnotes

1. The Great Arab Conquests: How the Spread of Islam Changed the World We Live In, London: Weidenfeld and Nicholson, 2007.

2. Op. cit., p. 341.