Page:Heresies of Sea Power (1906).djvu/62

46 blockaded the Roman fleet in harbour, and Scipio surrendered after his crews had landed and fled.

The Romans in their aspirations for Sea Power recognised as clearly as the Syracusans in the Peloponnesian war, the nature of their limitations and the existence of 'other ways.' As the Syracusans invented a species of battleship for their needs in order to overcome Athenian skill, so the Romans evolved a type of warship designed to let their soldiers fight at sea. They invented the corvi, a species of drawbridge, each thirty-six feet long by four feet wide, with a hook at the far end, secured to a twenty-four-foot mast and designed to be let down in battle the moment close quarters were reached. Thus, all the accepted naval tactics of the time were made of no account, for over these boarding bridges the Roman soldiers rushed to victory.

Duilius, the Roman Consul, so soon as the corvi were fitted, went to sea to meet the Carthaginians under Hannibal. These, full of contempt for their unnautical opponents, advanced to the attack in no particular order, with the result that thirty ships alone began the battle. These were destroyed and Hannibal's attempts to repair his error failed. In