hese troops would do well so
long as campaigns promised plunder but would became disaffected
if things went wrong.

The Romans, on the other hand, had only a small navy and no naval
experience; their strength lay in their legionaries. And in further
contrast with their enemy they had none but Romans in their forces,
or allies who were proud of fighting on the side of Rome. Consequently
they fought in the spirit of intense patriotism which could stand
the moral strain of defeat and even disaster. On land there was
no better fighter than the Roman soldier. At sea, however, all
the advantage lay with the Carthaginian, and it soon became clear
that if the Romans were to succeed they would have to learn to
fight on water.

For the first three years Carthaginian fleets raided the coasts of
Sicily and Italy with impunity. Finally, in desperation, Rome set
about the creation of a fleet, and the story is that a Carthaginian
quinquereme that had been wrecked an the coast was taken as a model,
and while the ships were building, rowers were trained in rowing
machines set up an shore. The first contact with the enemy was not
encouraging. The new fleet, which was constructed in two months,
consisted of 100 quinqueremes and 30 triremes. Seventeen of these
while on a trial cruise were blockaded in the harbor of Messina
by twenty Carthaginian ships, and the Roman commander was obliged
to surrender after his crews had landed and escaped.

The next encounter was a different story. The Romans, realizing
their ignorance of naval tactics and their superiority in land
fighting, determined to make the next naval battle as nearly as
possible like an engagement of infantry. Accordingly the ships
were fitted with boarding gangways with a huge hooked spike at the
end, like the beak of a crow, which gave them their name, "corvi"
or "crows."[1]

[Footnote 1: The following is the description in Polybius of what
they were like and how they were worked.

"They [the Romans] erected on the prow of every vessel a round pillar
of wood, of about twelve feet in height, and of three palms breadth
in diameter, with a pulley at the top. To this pillar was fitted a
kind of stage, eighteen feet in length and four feet broad, which
was made ladder-wise, of strong timbers laid across, and cramped
together with iron: the pillar being received into an oblong square,
which was opened for that purpose, at the distance of six feet
within the end of the stage. On