NAVY. 



159 



nation, that, having scarce ever dreamed of naviga- 

 tion, they yet resolved to attack the Carthaginians on 

 their own element. At this conjecture, a Cartha- 

 ginian cruiser, accidently stranded on their shores, 

 furnished them with a model. But where should 

 they procure mariners to man their galleys ? This 

 difficulty yielded to Roman resolution. Benches 

 were established on the land ; the recruits were 

 placed with their oars, as if embarked, and an officer, 

 standing in a conspicuous position, made signs with 

 his hand, to indicate the instant when they should 

 together dip their oars, and then sweep them 

 with a concerted movement of the arms and body. 

 In this way, a sufficient number of men were taught 

 to row, during the construction of the galleys, and a 

 fleet of 120 vessels, with nearly 40,000 oarsmen and 

 soldiers, was equipped for sea. Before sailing, 

 however, to meet the enemy, these hastily manu- 

 factured sailors were exercised for some time on 

 board the galleys. After all it was probable that 

 this fleet was as awkward and unmanageable as 

 might have been expected, and that the consul 

 Duilius, ere he had long been to sea with it, dis- 

 covered that, though he had copied much from the 

 Carthaginians, there was much still that had escaped 

 him. For we find him soon calling np his ingenuity 

 to devise some means of neutralizing the superior 

 skill and seamanship of the Carthaginians ; this he 

 effected by the invention of the corvus. It was a 

 bridge or platform planted at the bow, and which 

 could be turned at pleasure from side to side, or 

 hoisted up to a mast erected for the purpose. At 

 length the two fleets came in sight, and prepared for 

 battle. The Carthaginians, being superior in num- 

 bers, and still more so in experience and skill, were 

 filled with contempt at the rude appearance of the 

 Roman galleys, and their more clumsy evolutions. 

 They were certain of victory. Nevertheless, as they 

 approached nearer, the awkward appendage at the 

 bow, which had at first excited ridicule, began to 

 inspire mistrust. This was augmented when they 

 found that the Romans paused not to discharge their 

 missiles, but, receiving those of the Carthaginians, 

 steered boldly on, until each Roman galley had 

 struck an enemy, when the ropes that held the corvus 

 suspended to the mast being loosed, it fell witli fatal 

 force upon his deck, crushing those who had collected 

 to defend the entrance. The bars of sharpened iron 

 with which the bottom of the bridge was armed, 

 transfixed the deck, with those who stood in the way, 

 and the two galleys remained firmly grappled. And 

 now the Romans, receiving the enemy's arrows on 

 their shields, raised their war-cry, and rushed, sword 

 in hand, to the assault; seamanship and skill were 

 set aside, and courage and personal prowess became 

 the arbiters of the contest. The former confidence 

 of the Carthaginians was only equalled by their pre- 

 sent consternation. Great and terrible was the 

 slaughter. Eighty galleys were either taken or de- 

 stroyed, among them the famous galley of Hannibal, 

 the Carthaginian admiral, which had once belonged 

 to Pyrrhus. The admiral himself narrowly escaped 

 in a small boat. This victory, if we consider the 

 circumstances under which the battle was fought, is 

 inferior to none in history. It was duly estimated at 

 Rome ; the most extraordinary honours were decreed 

 to Duilius, he being the first Roman who enjoyed a 

 naval triumph. A rostral column was also erected to 

 him, upon which were placed the beaks of the Car- 

 thaginian galleys. This columna rostrata is still seen 

 and admired in old Rome, where the stranger does 

 not fail to visit it, and where, turning from the 

 humiliating picture of modern degeneracy, he traces 

 with pleasure an inscription which recalls the best 

 daya of the republic. 



From this time until the invention of cannon, 

 naval warfare underwent little variation. The em- 

 perors of Constantinople continued to observe the 

 same system of annoyance and defence in their navy, 

 which must have been considerable, as we read of an 

 expedition sent to subdue Crete, consisting of 200 

 ships and 49,000 men. They wisely reduced the 

 height of their galleys, using none but dromones of 

 two tiers, having in all 100 oars, rowed by as many 

 men. A level platform covered the rowers, upon 

 which the soldiers drew up and fought as upon land. 

 The captain stood at the poop between the two 

 steersmen, whence he directed the efforts of his 

 followers. Thence, too, he discovered and obeyed 

 the signals of his admiral an invention already in- 

 troduced to signify orders at a distance. The line of 

 battle was somewhat changed ; from a triangle it 

 had become a crescent. The horns pointed rear- 

 ward, and the admirals stationed in the centre began 

 the attack. The same means of annoyance were 

 still employed : arrows were shot from bows and 

 cross-bows ; javelins were discharged from engines; 

 and huge rocks were projected from machines, which, 

 we are told, often found their way through the deck 

 and bottom of the hostile vessel, destroying both gal- 

 ley and crew. But the most dreadful weapon then 

 in use was the iron tube, from which the Greek fire 

 was projected in streams upon the vessel and crew of 

 an enemy. This combustible, which had been much 

 earlier used, in the less destructive form of missiles, 

 was of such fearful activity that nothing could resist 

 it, and water, instead of extinguishing, did but aug- 

 ment its fury. Terrible must it have been to the 

 northern pirates, of whom we are told that, imitating 

 those of their countrymen who had invaded Europe 

 by other routes, they descended in canoes, by the 

 Borysthenes, into the Black sea. Having plundered 

 its shores, they were hastening to seize upon Con- 

 stantinople, when they were met by the fleet of the 

 emperor. Hardly had they raised the war-shout, as 

 they paddled their canoes to the assault, when they 

 were met by well-directed streams of liquid fire, 

 issuing from the prow of every Grecian galley. Con- 

 sternation seized them, and they plunged into the 

 sea, happy in having yet the alternative of a choice 

 of deaths.* Though the attack of beaks was still con- 

 tinued, less importance was now attached to the point 

 of gaining the wind. In order to escape from the 

 torture or the fire-tube, it was more usual at once to 

 grapple broadside to broadside, and, while the rowers 

 assailed each other with pikes through their row- 

 ports, the soldiers rushed, with sword and buckler, 

 to the attack, fighting desperately, hand to hand. 

 Hence it is that, in the history of those times, we so 

 frequently read of ten, twenty, and even thirty thou- 

 sand men, slain in a single naval encounter. 



At length, a great revolution in naval warfare 

 was brought about by the introduction of cannon. 

 They were first used by the Venetians against the 

 Genoese, in 1370. It is a little singular, when we 

 consider their efficacy for the destruction of ships, 

 that they should not have been employed for this 

 purpose until a whole century from their first use in 

 Europe by the Saracens, in the defence of Niebla, 

 and nearly thirty years from their general introduc- 

 tion, as an implement of war on land, at the siege of 



* The Greek fire has lately been reinvented by an American, 

 of tlie name of Brown. He discharges it, like any other fluid, 

 from a common engine, and, from its resinous and cohesive 

 nature, projects it much farther. As it passes out of tlie tub 

 into i '.' open air, a match, placed at the end, converts it into a 

 liquid fin-, of a destructive energy, not t all inferior to wliiii i 

 attributed to that of the Greeks. He lias offered his imvnt'iui 

 to the American government; and, as connected with a sys- 

 tem of steam-batteries for the defeuce of a coast, it would pruv* 

 terribly efficacious*. 



