Classis Misenensis

The classis Misenensis ("Fleet of Misenum"), later awarded the honorifics praetoria and Pia Vindex, was the senior fleet of the imperial Roman navy.

The classis Misenensis was founded by Caesar Augustus in 27 BC, when the fleet of Italy, until then based mostly at Ostia, was moved to the new harbour of Portus Julius at Misenum in the Bay of Naples. It was commanded by a praefectus classis, drawn from the highest levels of the equestrian class, those earning more than 200,000 sesterces a year. Its mission was to control the western part of the Mediterranean Sea, and, as the honorific praetoria, awarded by Vespasian for its support during the civil war of AD 69, suggests, the classis Misenensis, together with the classis Ravennatis, formed the naval counterpart of the Praetorian Guard, a permanent naval force at the emperor's direct disposal.

The classis Misenensis recruited its crews mostly from the East, especially from Egypt. Since Rome did not face any naval threat in the Mediterranean, the bulk of the fleet's crews were idle. Some of the sailors were based in Rome itself, initially housed in the barracks of the Praetorian Guard, but later given their own barracks, the Castra Misenatium near the Colosseum. There they were used to stage mock naval battles (naumachiae), and operated the mechanism that deployed the canvas canopy of the Colosseum. Among the sailors of this fleet, Nero levied the legio I Classis, and used some of its leading officers in the murder of his mother Agrippina the Younger.

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