Histria antiqua, Vol. 21 No. 21, 2012.
Izvorni znanstveni članak
Taciti … miracula cursus, Luc., Phars. 4, 425
Siniša BILIĆ – DUJMUŠIĆ
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Sažetak
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. Antonius on the island of Curicta (Krk
in the northern Adriatic) and laid it under siege. Antonius tried to evacuate a part of his troops using three large
rafts. But Octavius saw through his intention and set an undersea trap for his ships of the sort used, as it seems,
by Cilician pirates for capturing merchant ships. The raft carrying a cohort of Venetian Opitergini was captured,
and they committed mass suicide rather than surrender to Caesar’s enemies. As a result, the event became famous
among contemporaries and the poet Lucan dedicated a whole book of his epic Bellum Civile (or Pharsalia) to it. He
describes the rafts as taciti … miracula cursus, the miracle of the silent navigation. This paper suggests a possible reconstruction
of the Opitergine raft, based on an analysis of Lucan’s verses and other historical sources.
The rafts were made by Basilus’ army in an attempt to secretly run the supplies to the Antonius’ soldiers through
the enemy’s maritime blockade. The body of the rafts was made by cross-connecting two lines of logs, and a ring of
empty wooden barrels was attached around it. The raft was oar-propelled with rowers located inside the wooden
bunker for protection against enemy’s projectiles. The oars were fitted in a somewhat unusual way (unusual for
oared ships): probably through the bottom of the raft and under the surrounding barrels. This way an oar’s blade
could not be drawn out of the sea and all oar’s movements must have been made under the sea-surface: oars were
not making the splashing sound in contact with the surface and rowing produced no sound. That’s why Lucanus
attaches the expression taciti miracula cursus, the miracle of the silent navigation, to these craft. In the middle of
each raft was a wooden tower, built probably not for defence purposes, but primarily for observation because early
detection of an enemy’s man-of-war was the best chance for survival. Since the raft was boarded by just under 1000
(vix mille) soldiers from Opitergium, we could assume that it had to be over 60 tons deadweight and at least 25 x
25 metres large.
Ključne riječi
Hrčak ID:
100875
URI
Datum izdavanja:
1.8.2012.
Posjeta: 1.592 *