Before Chrift 260. ^t 



unfortunate. Seventeen fhips were blocked up in the harbour of Lipara 

 by the Carthaginians, whereupon the Roman failors fled to the land, and 

 left their conful and their fhips a prey to the enemy. Soon after fifry 

 Carthaginian fliips unexpededly found themfelves in the midfl: of the 

 whole Roman fleet, and a confiderable part of them were taken. The 

 next engagement was a general one, wherein the Romans were for the 

 firfl; time to have a fair trial of their valour upon an unknown element. 

 The anxiety, infeparable from the novelty of the danger, put their in- 

 vention on the rack to difcover fome means of making up for the great 

 fuperiority of their enemies in the conflrudion of their fliips, their ma- 

 rine difcipline, and naval tadtics. The mind, unfettered by precedents, 

 often fl:rikes out new thoughts, which the experienced veterans do not 

 venture to conceive, but endeavour to conceal the fterility of their own 

 brains under an affected contempt of the untaught genius of others. So 

 it happened with the Carthaginian lords of the fea : they laughed to 

 fcorn the grapling crows and boarding ftages ereded upon the clumfy 

 fliips of the Roman landfmen, and the natural confequence of defpifing 

 an enemy neceflarily followed. They were defeated by Duilius, a com- 

 mander ignorant of the fea, whofe name is immortalized by the adion, 

 while that of the inventor of the crows, which effeded the vidory, is 

 imknown*. [Polyb. L. i, cc. 21-23.] 



In the courfe of this war the Romans, notwithflanding the vaft infe- 

 riority of their vefl^els and of their feamanfliip, which fubjeded them to 

 prodigious lofl^es byfliormsf, as well as by battles, were feveral times 

 vidorious at fea; and by the general fuperiority of their military dif- 

 cipline they got pofl^eflion of the greateft part of the Carthaginian ter- 

 ritory in Sicily. They even carried the war into Africa (a". 256), where 

 the favage and arrogant conful Regulus, after ravaging the country al- 

 mofl; to the gates of Carthage, was made prifoner; an event, which has 

 furniflied a foundation for ample fiditious embelUfliments. A remark- 

 ably fmft galley, having got aground in the night, fell into the hands of 

 the Romans, who, by means of her, got pofl^eflion of another very faft-go- 

 ing veflTel, which had repeatedly run through the Roman fleet in defiance. 

 The Roman treafury was now exhaufl:ed ; but the citizens at their own ex- 

 penfe furniflied two hundred quinqueremes, built in exad imitation of the 

 two fwift Carthaginian vefl^els (a°. 242) : and with them the Romans, now 

 conliderably improved in nautical knowlege, gained a complete vidory 



* Grappling irons, invented by Nicias, were ed, through the obllinate ignorance of the confuh, 



ufed by the Athenians in their engagements with who defpifed the advice of their pilots. Another 



the Syracufians 413 years before Chrift. But the ftorm made a total deftrufkion of the Roman fleet, 



Romans cannot be fuppofed to have known any leaving not fo much as a plank of it unbroken, 



thing of that invention. The Carthaginian fleet, which was at fea at the 



■\ In one ftorm 384 of their ftiips were wrecked fame time, got into a good harbour, and was ner- 



or foundered, and almoft every foul onboard perifli- fedlly fafe. 



M 2 



