In this respect, the historic mission of the imperial navy was an unqualified success for nearly three centuries. As Chester Starr notes, their task was 'not to fight battles but to render them impossible'.

Despite Hollywood's representations of Roman galleys being propelled by chains of slaves, the reality is more likely to have been something along the lines of the Renaissance galleys, in which the men at the oars were a mixture of slaves and free men who were paid for their duties.