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42
Ships and Fleets of the Ancient Mediterranean, by Jean Rouge (Wesleyan University Press, Middletown CT, 1981, 228 pp., 22 illus., $15 .95). It would be wrong to describe this small volume as being a brief history of ships and seafaring in the ancient Mediterranean world. Rather, the author had attempted to provide specialists and laymen alike with a useful introduction to the subject in which fundamental concerns, the nature and relative importance of sources, and major problems and conflicts in the interpretation of evidence are set forth as succinctly as possible. Sometimes so succinctly, one might add, that the significance of an otherwise valuable observation may elude many of his readers . Susan Frazer has given us a quite readable translation of the original work in French (La marine dans /'antiquite) published in 1975 . She does occasionally make an inappropriate choice of English words, as on page 17 where we learn of the first great "sailing trips" in Neolithic times, and she sometimes forgets to give the English spelling of place names . More unfortunate is the apparent lack of care taken in checking the final proofs. There are too many typographical errors for such a small book, and figure 11 has been printed upside down . Much of this book is well worth reading, Rouge, a professor of ancient history at the University of Lyon who has written extensively on Roman maritime commerce, knows the Mediterranean and is intimately acquainted with the ancient sources pertaining to the people and institutions involved in naval warfare and maritime trade during the Greco-Roman period . Of particular value are Roug6's observations on the attitudes of the ancients toward the sea, the role that seafaring played in their lives, the religion of seafarers, navigation practices, port and shipboard personnel, their ethnic origins and place in society, maritime institutions, customs and laws, and changes in naval and maritime practices through time. Rouge would have served his readers better, however, had he restricted the scope of his book to GrecoRoman times, the period he knows best. Three chapters, devoted to hull construction, ship's rigging and gear, and cargo lading and the tonnage of ships, are, unfortunately, quite disappointing. Rouge's descriptions of hulls and their construction are not very illuminating, and the translator also betrays some unfamiliarity with the subject. We learn little or nothing of how shipwrights approached their task or of changes in their methods through time . Rouge touches briefly on sewm hulls but is unaware that there are exSEA HISTORY, SUMMER 1982