engleski

Antiqua arte Cilix (Lucan., Phars. 4. 449)

At the beginning of the civil war between Caesar and Pompey in the summer of 49 BC, two Pompeian admirals, M. Octavius and L. Scribonius Libo, suddenly attacked the army of C. Antony on the island of Curicta (Krk in the northern Adriatic) and laid it under siege. Antony tried to evacuate a part of his troops using three large rafts. But Octavius saw through his intention and set an undersea trap for ships, which were used, as it seems, by Cilician pirates for capturing merchant ships. The raft carrying a cohort of Venetian Opitergini vas captured, and they committed mass suicide rather than surrendering to the Cesar's enemies. As a result, the event became rather famous among the contemporaries and the poet M. A. Lucanus dedicated to it a whole book of his epic Bellum civile (or Pharsalia). He describes this undersea trap as antiqua ... arte Cilix. This paper proposes a reconstruction of this trap, based on the analysis of Lucan's verses and other historical sources. The author concludes that the trap was long line of iron chains ; enabled to float by threading with hollowed wood or cork, placed on some depth under the surface, with one side fastened to the island

Civil war ; Caesar ; Pompey ; Curicta ; Opitergines ; naval warfare

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