either side of the stage lengthways
was a parapet, which reached just above the knee. At the farthest
end of this stage or ladder was a bar of iron, whose shape was
somewhat like a pestle; but it was sharpened at the bottom, or
lower point; and on the top of it was a ring. The whole appearance
of this machine very much resembled those that are used in grinding
corn. To the ring just mentioned was fixed a rope, by which, with
the help of the pulley that was at the top of the pillar, they
hoisted up the machines, and, as the vessels of the enemy came near,
let them fall upon them, sometimes on their prow, and sometimes
on their sides, as occasion best served. As the machine fell, it
struck into the decks of the enemy, and held them fast. In this
situation, if the two vessels happened to lie side by side, the
Romans leaped on board from all parts of their ships at once. But
in case that they were joined only by the prow, they then entered
two and two along the machine; the two foremost extending their
bucklers right before them to ward off the strokes that were aimed
against them in front; while those that followed rested the boss
of their bucklers upon the top of the parapet on either side, and
thus covered both their flanks." GENERAL HISTORY, Book 1.]

Armed with this new device, the Consul Duilius took the Roman fleet
to sea to meet an advancing Carthaginian fleet and encountered
it off the port of Mylae (260 B.C.). The Carthaginians had such
contempt for their enemy that they advanced in irregular order,
permitting thirty of their ships to begin the battle unsupported
by the rest of the fleet. One after the other the Carthaginian
quinqueremes were grappled and stormed, for once the great _corvus_
crashed down on a deck all the arts of seamanship were useless.
Before the day was over the Carthaginians had lost 14 ships sunk
and 31 captured, a total of half their fleet, and the rest had
fled in disorder towards Carthage.

The unexpected had happened, as it so frequently does in history.
The amateurs had beaten the professionals, not by trying to achieve
the same efficiency but by inventing something new that would make
that efficiency useless. Thus, as we nave seen, the Syracusans,
who were no match for the Athenians in the open sea, destroyed
the sea power of Athens by bottling up her fleet in a harbor and
bombarding it with catapults. It is an instance such as we shall
see recurring throughout naval history, in whi