Phycus, Natalka Czartoryska and I found an extraordinary com- 

 plex of channels, tunnels, passages, caves, and tanks, most of them 

 designed presumably for the storage of goods for export and ships' 

 provisions. From the relation of these structures to the water, it was 

 clear that there had been a subsidence of the land of between three 

 and six feet. 



We searched the island chain west of Apollonia for any signs 

 of ancient ruins, but it was only after we had been given a clue by 

 an Arab friend that we found some about three miles away. On a 

 tiny island was a maze of tanks and storage bins which we had 

 been expecting to find. The items stored in these bins would have 

 corresponded to what was carried in amphorae — including grain, 

 oil, wine, fresh water, fish, and shellfish. It is easy to imagine a few 

 ships lying in the shelter of the island while their crews transferred 

 the local produce into amphorae and then loaded them into the 

 cargo holds. 



The incredible engineering genius of the Romans brought about 

 a revolution in harbor construction. By the third century b.c. they 

 were using arches, hydraulic cement, and watertight cofferdams. 

 Vitruvius, an engineer of the first century b.c, gave a detailed 

 description of the methods of construction of breakwaters. The 

 most advanced system then was one devised for coping with a soft 

 sea bed. When Claudius was building the new harbor at Ostia in 

 A.D. 43, he formed one section of the breakwater by filling a huge 

 barge with concrete and sinking the barge in position. 



Giinther has revealed the details of the elaborate Roman ports 

 in the Bay of Naples, and Diole visited many of them in North 

 Africa. The one he studied most thoroughly was Cherchel, in 

 Algeria. This is a very old port, probably in use even before the 

 Phoenicians arrived, calling it lol. The Romans called it Caesarea, 

 and it was their most important naval harbor between Carthage 

 and Gibraltar. But there is one problem: although Caesarea was 

 such an important military base, there is no evidence on the surface 

 of any harbor, except a small one created by the shelter of the 

 island of Joinville. Rene Cagnat, an authority on the Roman colonies 

 in North Africa, could not see how the harbor could have held 

 more than thirteen ships, a number totally inadequate to cope with 

 the pirates and political problems of the time. 



Diole, after braving the town sewers of Caesarea and struggling 

 with rusty cables and tangled wreckage, learned the truth about 

 the Roman port. He found vast areas of submerged masonry and 

 concrete, columns, and a section of a huge arch. From these he 

 concluded that the remains of a mole at the east of the city, first 

 reported in 1932, really did exist. After many long days of swim- 

 ming and searching, he decided that originally there must have 

 been four basins to the Roman harbor, and that there had been a 

 complex system of moles and breakwaters to protect them. If this 

 is the case, then the old harbor would have been large enough to 

 rank as a major Roman naval base. 



In summary, the sequence of development of harbors runs from 

 the Minoan-Egyptian port of Pharos, to the Phoenician port of 

 Tyre, the Carthaginian ports of North Africa, and culminates with 

 the advanced Roman constructions. The Greeks, because their 

 coasts offered so many natural harbors, did not develop such 

 ingenious ports as the other powers of the ancient world. 



Hugh Edwards, an Australian diver wlio worked 

 witii Flemming at Apollonia, displays Ills 

 Greek stone anchor. Pieces of spiked wood, 

 fitted through the holes, dug into the bottom 

 and prevented the anchor from slipping. 



159 



