NAVY AND NAVIES. Originally the navy of a country meant the whole of its shipping, whether used for war, the carry ing of merchandise or fishing. In modern parlance, however, the word is generally taken to mean a nation's warships and craft of every kind maintained for fighting on, under or over the sea and the personnel which mans them, e.g., the British Navy consists of the surface warships,—battleships, cruisers, aircraft carriers, de stroyers, mine-layers, mine-sweepers, gun-boats and other auxil iary craft; the submarines; and the fleet air arm. Behind the actual fighting units there is, necessarily, a vast organization for their administration and upkeep. See the sections "Defence" of the articles UNITED STATES, FRANCE, GERMANY and other coun tries; also such articles as ADMIRALTY, STAFF, NAVAL AND DOCK YARDS and NAVAL BASES.
History of Navies.—In early history we find navies in the form of the armed men of a tribe or town putting to sea in such large boats or ships as might be available to give battle to enemies similarly equipped or to raid territory from the sea. The craft themselves were for the most part those used for commerce, fish ing or, when occasion served, for war or piracy. It was the excep tion that they were built especially for fighting purposes. But later we see special types of war craft designed as such beginning to assume a recognized place in the armory of peoples and their sovereigns. Some of the earliest of what we should, to-day, term sea powers were the Phoenicians, Athenians, Carthaginians, Ro mans, Norsemen, Venetians, French and early English, but navies in legendary form are to be found 2,000 years before they ma terialised in accredited records and the adventures of the Argo nauts and of Ulysses would seem poetic forecasts of the age of the Vikings. In regard to the vessels themselves, there are definite indications of long ships built for speed as distinguished from round ships for burden from the time of the ancient Greeks and Romans. The Athenian navy was a state force and in 483 B.C. the threat of Persian attack caused Athens to increase her fleet from 5o to 100 long ships which were paid for out of the proceeds of the mines of Laureium (see THEMISTOCLES). The effect of this was to make Athens the predominating partner in the league formed by the Greeks for their common naval defence. By the end of the 5th century B.C. the fleet had increased to 300 long ships and later to as many as 36o. In peace these war vessels were kept on slips and under cover in sheds ; in war a strategos was appointed in command and he chose the trierarchs who were deputed to commission the vessels, partly at their own expense, under the supervision of State Inspectors.
In general the organization of the Athenian navy resembled closely that of the British navy in the 16th and 17th centuries. The trierarch, who was either one of a group of citizens assisting to finance one or more war vessels, or someone paid to discharge the duty, answered to the captain; there was a sailing master; a num ber of petty officers; seamen and oarsmen; while soldiers or marines formed the fighting personnel. The most ancient warships were many-oared galleys (q.v.), each requiring a very large num ber of rowers. The result was that the personnel provided to man a fleet of those times had to be a considerable one. For in stance, the Roman and Carthaginian forces in the first Punic War numbered approximately 150,000 men on each side. These great rowing galleys relied for their offensive powers on boarding or ramming, and we see them in great numbers in the Mediterra nean as the war fleets of the succession of Alexander, of Carthage, of Rome, of Byzantium, of the Italian Republics, of the Arabs and of Aragon. (See also SHIP.) In the naval organization of ancient Rome we see the beginning of the idea of an Admiralty in the navy commissioners appointed in 311 B.C. It is interesting to note, too, that the Roman Empire was faced, on a small scale, with maritime problems which have assumed such vast importance to the British Empire of to-day. Not only had Rome to maintain a fleet to neutralize the threat arising from rival sea powers, but sea-borne trade was of such importance as to compel her to provide a navy capable of dealing with prevalent piracy and the needful safeguarding of routes. This organization, which was very complete, included two main fleets which guarded the coasts of Italy at Ravenna and Misenum. These were known as the Praetorian. Other squadrons were allo cated to Forum Julii, to the mouth of the Orontes, to Alexandria, to Carpathus (between Crete and Rhodes), to Aquileia (at the head of the Adriatic), to the Black Sea and to Britain. River flotillas were stationed on the Rhine and Danube and, later, on the Euphrates. All these squadrons did not exist at the same time, but there was always a highly organized navy with a body of soldiers, the classici, specially assigned for service afloat.