"At sea, the Pompeians are indeed less vigilant than on land because you don't have a fleet or control of the port, so they don't think you can threaten their safety from the sea. In fact, these coastal towns in Campania haven't faced an attack from the sea for one or two hundred years, and their harbor defenses are extremely weak.
Take Pompeii, for example. Its port area has five harbors; the two built early on even have water gates. Later, due to the prosperous sea trade, the original harbors were insufficient, so two more were built, but those were constructed for the sake of convenience, without water gates or iron chains for interception, and not even a patrol ship around the harbor. The only warning system relies on the lighthouse keeper, but if ships are disguised in advance, he might not immediately notice anything unusual."
"And what about the other port?" the attentive Maximus asked.
