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The tasks at hand for the Roman navy were now the policing of the Mediterranean waterways and the border rivers, suppression of piracy, and escort duties for the grain shipments to Rome and for imperial army expeditions.
In the early days of its existence, royal Rome maintained the organizational structure of the city-state, fighting mainly with its land-based neighbours to seize hegemony in the Apennine Peninsula.
13 kwi 2014 · Rome had employed naval vessels from the early Roman Republic in the 4th century BCE, especially in response to the threat from pirates in the Tyrrhenian Sea, but it was in 260 BCE that they built, in a mere 60 days, their first significant navy. A fleet of 100 quinqueremes and 20 triremes was assembled in response to the threat from Carthage.
The Roman Navy was always considered an inferior arm and was strictly under army control. But already during the First Punic War, Rome proved itself capable of launching a fleet capable of checking an established naval power such as Carthage.
Between the Battle of Mylae in 260 bc (when Rome defeated Carthage off the north coast of Sicily) and the Battle of Myonnesus in 190 (when Rome defeated the Seleucid navy off the west coast of Asia Minor), the Romans established naval domination over the whole Mediterranean.
Besides supporting Augustus’s expansion of the Empire into the Red Sea and Crimea and to the line of the Danube, the navy kept the trade pathways clear of pirates. It is difficult to overstate the strategic impact of this: Roman naval power made it safe to trade throughout the Empire and beyond.
The Roman Fleet traditionally comprised four main types of units, with the smallest being specialized vessels known as “naval dust,” alongside the light Romanized Triconteres, Diconteres, and Pentaconteres utilized for liaison and reconnaissance purposes.
