While recent years have seen a spate of new publications on ancient seafaring, it is fair to say, as the editors do in their introduction to this volume (p. 2), that most studies are focused on the practical, ‘objective’ aspects of seafaring. This book intends to take a different approach, concentrating on the ‘subjective’ aspects: how sea travel was experienced and how experiences were later passed on to others through being re-enacted or re-narrated. According to the editors, the unifying theme of the volume is the shared concept of ‘experientiality’ which enables the individual contributions to join up and form a ‘methodisch wie inhaltlich kohärentes Tableau’ (p. 4).
Following the introduction, the chapters are divided into three main sections, dealing with the reality of sea travel (‘Mobilität auf dem Mittelmeer: Reale und fiktionale Erlebnishorizonte’), religion (‘Nautik und Götter: Reisen unter göttlichem Schutz’) and literary images of the sea (‘Poetik der Seereise: Das Meer als literarisch gestalteter Raum’). The volume concludes with an index of names and subjects and an index locorum.
The first chapter by T.N. Kirstein, S. Ritz and A. Cubasch (‘Schiffe, dem Tode willkommene Mittel’) is subtitled ‘Eine technikhistorische Betrachtung der Sicherheit römischer Handelsschiffe’. The authors engage critically with the literary image of the dangerous sea and the hazards of sea travel. Through an impressive series of technical calculations they conclude that Roman ships were not inherently unsafe by virtue of their construction, though, being smaller, they were more prone to rolling and pitching than modern vessels (pp. 31–4). The possibility that crews lacked the necessary qualifications – a concern frequently voiced in ancient travel narratives, for example by Synesius or the author of Acts – is briefly discussed, then dismissed as groundless (pp. 20–1). Yet from the perspective of Erlebnis the passengers' perceptions, even if erroneous, remain relevant.
In the following chapter, ‘Beim Sturm mit den Weibern um die Wette heulen’, N. Zwingmann traces the contradictory literary images of female seafarers through more than four centuries of Roman literature. On the one hand, women are often either invisible or stereotypically feminine. On the other hand, in moments of crisis, they may exhibit ‘manly’ qualities (p. 42). How frequently Roman women journeyed by ship is difficult to estimate, but Zwingmann notes that of the passengers described by Synesius in his fifth Letter about one third are female.
As a frequent sea traveller and a prolific writer well versed in nautical terminology, Cicero offers many insights into the realities, fears and perceptions of journeys by sea. Y. Benferhat, in ‘Reiseerfahrungen am Ende der Republik’, explores the theme of sea travel in the Letters, while M. Hellwing, ‘Kein Ruder und kein Wind schienen schnell genug’, analyses Cicero's description of a journey by sea in the First Philippic Oration (1.7–9).
The best known ancient sea yarns concern the voyages of Paul as related in his Letters and in Acts. P. Pilhofer's contribution, ‘Paulus und das Mittelmeer’, traces Paul's journeys for us, accompanied by maps and colour photographs. By disposition, Paul was a reluctant seafarer who preferred land travel (p. 102) but took to the sea when the need arose. A more detailed analysis of Paul's last and longest sea voyage, with special focus on the sequence of events leading to the stranding on Malta, is offered by K.M. Schmidt in Section 2 (‘Zwillinge an Bord. Die Schiffsreise des Apostels Paulus nach Puteoli und der Verweis auf die Dioskuren in Apg 28,11’).
‘Die Wahl des Schiffes und ihre Motivik zur Zeit der Zweiten Sophistik’ by C. Fron explores the symbolic–metaphorical uses of ships and sea journeys by leading writers of the Second Sophistic: Menander Rhetor, Libanius, Philostratus, Aelius Aristides and Dio Chrysostom. This is followed by I. Höhler's analysis of Namatianus' De reditu suo (‘Von Wind und Tag verlassen. Eine knappe Poetologie der Seekrankheit bei Rutilius Namatianus'). Read together, the contributions by Fron and Höhler highlight the complexity and artificiality of seemingly simple travel narratives and warn us against reading De reditu suo or Dio's Euboean oration as pieces of travel reportage. They also highlight another aspect of the sea voyage as literary trope: the ship becomes a place of virtual exile, removed from the mundane reality of Roman society. Especially interesting in this context is Höhler's perceptive analysis of Ovidian echoes in De reditu suo (pp. 134–7).
While divine protection at sea is a topic that has often been treated in scholarly literature on ancient seafaring, several of the texts singled out for analysis in Section 2 have not received the attention they deserve. H. Krasser, in ‘Mit Göttern reisen’, analyses a propempticon by Statius (Silvae 3.2), wishing his friend Maecius Celer a safe voyage on the large freighter that is being prepared for departure. Where Statius calls on Neptune to protect Maecius, the anonymous author of a poem in the Anthologia Palatina addresses Oceanus, the undarum rector. The content and context of this short text (28 lines) are analysed in detail by B. Dunsch in ‘Sint fluctus, celerem valeant qui pellere puppem. Die poetische Vision der gelungenen Seefahrt im Oceanus-Hymnus (Anth. Lat. I2, 718 R.)’. Contrary to an older view that would see the text as a prayer to the god of the sea, Dunsch argues that the preserved version originally formed the opening prooemium of a longer didactic poem on seafaring (pp. 182–7).
B. Descharmes, in ‘Seefahrt mit Dame. Schutz- und Geleitvorstellungen am Beispiel der Aphrodite, Venus und Isis', traces the interrelations between the female deities that protected Roman sailors. While Venus enjoyed a preferred position as the ‘official’ Roman goddess of the sea and the ancestress of the Julio-Claudian dynasty, in everyday religious practice she was eventually displaced by her eastern colleagues, especially Isis. As the goddess of grain, her popularity increased as the grain trade with Egypt increased. The myth of Isis was interwoven with that of Sarapis, one of the gods invoked by Aelius Aristides along with Zeus and Asclepius. J. Börstinghaus, in ‘Seenot und die Hilfe der Götter bei Aelius Aristides', discusses the place of marine protecting deities in the oeuvre of Aristides as well as a fragmentary inscription attributed to Aristides (Inschriften von Pergamon 3.145), found in the Asclepieum of Pergamon and thanking the god for his aid during three crises at sea. The chapter by K.M. Schmidt on Paul's voyage (see above) closes the second section.
Section 3, ‘Poetik der Seereise’, opens with D. Meyer's study of the shipwreck poetry of Posidippus – who is generally seen as the founder of the genre – and Callimachus (‘Schiffbruch mit Homer und Hesiod. Ethisches und Poetisches in einigen frühhellenistischen Epigrammen’). On the one hand, Hellenistic poets were bound to follow the maritime paradigm offered by the Odyssey and Works and Days with their pessimistic depictions of the merciless sea, but Posidippus and especially Callimachus also find a place for a more optimistic view where seamanship, advance planning and courage may, the gods willing, carry the voyage to a successful conclusion. In a similar manner, Virgil's Georgics, the topic of the next chapter by C.D. Haß (‘“Den Rand der Küste lesen.” Die Metapher der Seefahrt und die Metonymie der Erde in Vergil, Georgica 2,35–46’), may be read as Virgil's attempt to bridge the gap between the mental world of Callimachus and the staunchly agrarian ideology of Republican Italy.
J. Breuer's ‘Mare naufragum. Motivik, Poetik und Funktion nautischer Szenen in Horazens lyrischen Gedichten’ presents the results of a systematic reading of another Augustan poet, Horace. Unlike most other writers discussed in this volume, Horace not only describes voyages for peaceful purposes, but also the horror and glory of war at sea.
The following contribution by U. Egelhaaf-Gaiser, ‘Poeta und gubernator. Eumolp und die Poetik des Schiffbruchs bei Petron (Sat. 100–115)’, is a close reading of the shipwreck narrative in the Satyricon, exposing its complex layers of meaning and narration. Rather more straightforward is the text analysed by N. Mindt in ‘Die Schiffsreise in Flavischer Zeit’: the Natural History of Pliny the Elder. The Argonautica by his contemporary Valerius Flaccus belongs to an altogether different genre, but the two authors share a fascination with voyages of exploration – Pliny's Alexander in the Indian waters (pp. 356–8), Valerius' Jason on the shores of the Black Sea.
The last chapter, by C. Bachmann, ‘Bildbetrachtung unter dem Segel der Rhetorik. Eine Kreuzfahrt in den Eikones Philostrats des Älteren’, follows Philostratus the Elder on his virtual voyage of exploration into the painting titled ‘Islands' (Eikones 2.17). In her analysis, Bachmann underlines the nature of the eikones as representations not of actual nature, but as ‘fictional, but possible images' (p. 375) and points to the Odyssey as a source of inspiration, if not the actual model, for the imaginary ‘Inselkreuzfahrt’ around the nine islands on the painting.
Having reached the end of this rich volume, the reader feels well informed on a series of individual questions, but is left wondering where to find the ‘methodisch wie inhaltlich kohärentes Tableau’ that was promised in the introduction. The careful literary artificiality of De reditu suo (Höhler) or the hymn to Oceanus (Dunsch), the use of sea travel as metaphor (Haß) and the Homerically inspired cruise of Philostratus (Bachmann) are as difficult to situate within the volume's methodological frame (‘experientiality’) as are Hesiod and Callimachus (Meyer) within its chronological frame (‘Späthellenismus und römische Kaiserzeit’). The staccato style of Pilhofer's contribution and the maieutic focus points of Haß contrast strangely with the elegant academic prose of other chapters.
When quoting classical authors, some contributors give only the Greek or Latin original (Dunsch, Benferhat); some both original and translation in the main text (Börstinghaus, Meyer); some give the translation in the text and original in the footnotes (Zwingmann, Descharmes), others vice versa (Haß, Schmidt). Kirstein, Ritz and Cubasch give the German translation, but not the original. Only readers who take the time to look up the text for themselves will discover that the formula ‘ships, instruments welcome to death’ (‘Schiffe, dem Tode willkommene Mittel’), which forms the motto of their chapter, derives not from Propertius but from a German nineteenth-century translation that does not quite capture the sense of the original: ite, rates curvate et leti texite causas (Propertius 3.7.29).
