r. Of this there is a well-known instance in the
account of Caesar's invasion of Britain (_B.G._ iv. 26), when the boats
of the fleet, and the pinnaces, were filled with soldiers and sent to
assist the Legionaries who were being fiercely attacked as they waded on
to the shore. There is also an instance in the civil war, which is a
prototype of a modern attack of torpedo boats upon men of war, when
Antonius manned the pinnaces of his large ships to the number of sixty,
and with them attacked and defeated an imprudent squadron of Quadriremes
(_B.C._ iii. 24). The class of boats so frequently mentioned as
_actuariae_ seems to have contained craft of all sizes, and to have been
used for all purposes, whether as pleasure boats or as despatch vessels,
or for piracy. In fact the term was employed vaguely just as we speak of
craft in general.

The _lembus_, which is often referred to in Livy and Polybius, seems to
have been of Illyrian origin, with fine lines and sharp bows. The class
contained boats of various sizes and with a variable number of oars
(biremis, Livy xxiv. 40, sexdecim, Livy xxxiv. 35); and it is
interesting to note the origin in this case, as the invention of the
light Liburnian galleys, which won the battle of Actium, and altered the
whole system of naval construction, came from the same seaboard.

Besides these, the piratical _myoparones_ (see Cic. _In Verrem_), and
the poetical _phaselus_, deserve mention, but here again we are met with
the difficulty of distinguishing boats from ships. There is also an
interesting notice in Tacitus (_Hist_. iii. 47) of boats hastily
constructed by the natives of the northern coast of Asia Minor, which he
describes as of broad beam with narrow sides (probably meaning that the
sides "tumbled home"), joined together without any fastenings of brass
or iron. In a sea-way the sides were raised with planks added till they
were cased in as with a roof, whence their name _camarae_, and so they
rolled about in the waves, having prow and stern alike and convertible
rowlocks, so that it was a matter of indifference and equally safe, or
perhaps unsafe, whichever way they rowed.

Similar vessels were constructed by Germanicus in his north German
campaign (_Ann_. ii. 6) and by the Suiones (_Ger_. 44). These also had
stem and stern alike, and remind us of the old Norse construction, being
rowed either way, having the oars loose in the rowlock, and not, as was
usual in the south, attached