ch the power of a
great fleet is largely or completely neutralized by a new or device
in the hands of the nation with the smaller navy.

The significance of Mylae lay in the fact that a new naval power
had arisen, that henceforth Rome must be reckoned with on the sea.
The victory served to encourage the Romans to enlarge their navy,
and with it to press the war into the enemy's territory. Soon after
Mylae they gained possession of the greater part of Sicily, and in
the year 256 they dispatched a fleet to carry the offensive into
Africa. This Roman fleet of 330 ships met, just off Ecnomus, on
the southern coast of Sicily, a Carthaginian fleet of 350, and a
great battle took place, interesting for the grand scale on which
it was fought and the tactics employed.

The Romans, an seeing their enemy, assumed a formation hitherto
unknown in tactics at sea. Their first and second squadrons formed
the sides of an acute-angled triangle; the third squadron formed
the base of the triangle, towing the transports, and the fourth
squadron brought up the rear, covering the transports. The whole
formed a compact wedge, pushing forward like a great spear head
to pierce the enemy's line.

Admirable as this formation was, the Carthaginians were no less
skillful in their tactics for destroying it. Instead of keeping
an unbroken line to receive the attack, they stationed their left
wing at same distance from the center so as to overlap the Roman
right, and their right wing in column ahead, so as to overlap the
Roman left. As the Romans advanced, the Carthaginian center purposely
gave way, drawing the advance wings of their enemy away from the
transports and the two squadrons in the rear. Then they faced about
and attacked. Meanwhile the two Carthaginian squadrons on the flanks
swung round the Roman wedge, the left wing engaging the Roman third
squadron, which was hampered by the transports, and driving it
toward the shore. At the same time the Carthaginian right wing
attacked the fourth, or reserve, squadron from the rear and drove
it into the open sea. Thus the battle went on in three distinct
engagements, each separated by considerable distance from the others.
The outcome is thus narrated by Polybius:

[Illustration: ROMAN FORMATION AT ECNOMUS]

"Because in each of these divisions the strength of the combatants
was nearly equal, the success was also for some time equal. But
in the progress of the action the affair was brought at la