Mankind has had to sharpen its ingenuity in the need to practice diving, developing various techniques over the years to enable the activity. Initially, before modern advancements existed, divers had to rely on the technique of freediving.
Freediving: The Greeks' Faithful Ally at the Battle of Artemisium
As early as 484 BC, Herodotus, in his account of the Battle of Artemisium between the Greeks and Persians, describes how a pair of Greeks were tasked with recovering objects from shipwrecks. The protagonists were Scyllias and his daughter, Cyana, who under cover of night dived to the Persian ships of Xerxes I and severed their moorings during a storm. The ultimate aim was for the ships to crash, and this act proved decisive in the Greek victory.
This event became part of diving history, as just a few years later, the Greek commander and historian Thucydides (460–395 BC) documented the wartime actions of combat swimmers during the Peloponnesian War (431–404 BC).
But evidence of diving isn’t limited to the Mediterranean; research suggests freediving was already practiced along the coasts of Peru around 2000 BC.
It’s astonishing to learn that for two thousand years in the Western Pacific, there has been a traditional harvesting of marine resources carried out exclusively by women. These women, known as "ama", are Japanese and Korean freedivers who gather sponges, molluscs (primarily oysters for the pearl trade), and coral.
From childhood, they undergo rigorous training, enabling them as adults to descend with weights to depths exceeding thirty metres.
A Millennia-Old Military Technique
The Greek philosopher and writer Aristotle documented various accounts of battles and conquests where diving was employed for military purposes—sabotaging enemy ships, escaping underwater, or bypassing sieges to secure supplies and weapons.
- Utriculares
Alexander the Great’s armies included diver-soldiers and swimmers tasked with critical underwater military missions in naval battles.
During the conquest of Asia Minor by the Greek army, a specialised group of soldiers called "utriculares" constructed vessels from branches coated in bitumen and air-bladder rafts for naval combat and transport.
An ancient Greek myth tells of Alexander the Great’s curiosity about underwater secrets, prompting him to commission a large oak chest from the Valley of Quasimiyeh, fitted with transparent glass panels and bronze reinforcements. This vessel, built in Tyre and launched into the Erythraean Sea, measured 3.5m wide by 2.5m high.
In this contraption—dubbed "Skaphê andros" (etymology of the word "scaphander")—he and his lieutenant Nearchus were sealed inside with bitumen and lowered to a depth of fourteen "orgyes" (1 orgye = 1.85m) for hours, observing "great sea beasts" circling them.
- The Romans
Later, the Romans—masters of strategy and the "art of war"—incorporated units of combat divers called "urinatores". These men were exceptional swimmers and freedivers, tasked with infiltrating enemy ships underwater to sink or sabotage them. Like modern special forces, they attacked harbour defences and supplied besieged fortifications.
The significance of the "urinatores" is illustrated by two historical episodes: the blockade of the Adriatic port of Oricum by Pompey’s fleet in 49 BC. Julius Caesar’s troops relied on urinatores to break the blockade—they swam to enemy ships at night, hooked them, and towed them ashore where the army destroyed them.
The Roman fleet of Emperor Septimius Severus (AD 194–196) was destroyed by Byzantine divers who tied ropes to the hulls of invading ships and dragged them ashore for attack.
Centuries later, in 1547, the military value of divers in attacking ships with explosives was first demonstrated. The Turkish Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent’s war fleet raided Mediterranean coastal towns, plundering as they went.
In one Italian town, they abducted a woman betrothed to Paolo di Cassia. He sailed a small boat to the anchored fleet, freedived overnight to reach the ships, and ignited a gunpowder store. Amid the chaos, he rescued his fiancée and escaped by swimming while the Turkish ships burned.
The First Professional Divers
During Byzantium’s peak, with fewer military campaigns, skilled divers turned to recovering artefacts from wrecks and underwater construction or ship repairs. Using rudimentary tools, they became the earliest professional divers.
