Afterward Cæsar carried an army of sixty thousand men to Africa; they did not, however, go in a body, but in successive detachments.
The greatest armament of the latter days of the Roman republic was that of Augustus, who transported eighty thousand men and twelve thousand horses into Greece to oppose Antony; for, besides the numerous transports required for such an army, there were two hundred and sixty vessels of war to protect them. Antony was superior in force on land, but trusted the empire of the world to a naval battle: he had one hundred and seventy war-vessels, in addition to sixty of Cleopatra's galleys, the whole manned by twenty-two thousand choice troops, besides the necessary rowers.
Later, Germanicus conducted an expedition of one thousand vessels, carrying sixty thousand men, from the mouths of the Rhine to the mouths of the Ems. Half of this fleet was destroyed on its return by a storm; and it is difficult to understand why Germanicus, controlling both banks of the Rhine, should have exposed his army to the chances of the sea, when he could have reached the same point by land in a few days.
When the Roman authority extended from the Rhine to the Euphrates, maritime expeditions were rare; and the great contest with the races of the North of Europe, which began after the division of the empire, gave employment to the Roman armies on the sides of Germany and Thrace. The eastern fraction of the empire still maintained a powerful navy, which the possession of the islands of the Archipelago made a necessity, while at the same time it afforded the means.
The first five centuries of the Christian era afford but few events of interest in maritime warfare. The Vandals, having acquired Spain, landed in Africa, eighty thousand strong, under Genseric. They were defeated by Belisarius; but, holding the Balearic Isles and Sicily, they controlled the Mediterranean for a time.