ROMAN NAVAL WARS. 77 



bable that she may have existed, and floated even. It is not, 

 however, pretended by Callixenus that she was ever useful in 

 war: she seems to have been regarded as a curiosity and a 

 spectacle. She was, in fact, the Leviathan of antiquity, — 

 the original "Triton among the minnows." 



The Romans obtained the models of their vessels from the 

 Greeks, though they remained almost entirely unacquainted with 

 the sea till the third century before Christ. They then had no 

 fleet, and few or no ships for any peaceful or commercial use. 

 Livy mentions the appointment of naval decemvirs about the 

 year 300 B.C. But it was not till 260 B.C. that Rome became a 

 maritime power. It was now seen that she could not maintain 

 herself against Carthage without a navy, and the senate 

 ordered the immediate construction of a fleet. Triremes would 

 have been of little avail against the high-bulwarked quinque- 

 remes of the Carthaginians. It so happened, very fortunately 

 for them, that a vessel of the largest class, belonging to Carthage, 

 was wrecked upon the coast of Bruttium, and thus furnished 

 them a model. They built, after this design, over one hundred 

 vessels, the greater part of them quinqueremes, the whole being 

 completed in sixty days after the trees were cut down. Thus 

 built of green timber, they were unsound and clumsy. Still, to 

 their own astonishment, they achieved a naval victory, capturing 

 fifty of the enemy's vessels. Seventeen of their own were 

 taken and destroyed by the Carthaginians off" Messina. It was 

 not long before the Romans completely crippled the maritime 

 power of their African foe. From this time forward they con- 

 tinued to maintain a powerful navy, and built vessels with six 

 and even ten ranks of oars. The construction of their vessels 

 differed little from that of the Greeks, with the exception of the 

 destructive engines of war and the towers and platforms with 

 which they furnished them. 



During the Imperial period, the Romans took great delight in 

 witnessing representations of fights at sea, and their emperors 



