The construction of a fleet by
the Romans was in very truth a noble national work--a work through
which, by their clear perception of what was needful and possible, by
ingenuity in invention, and by energy in resolution and in execution,
they rescued their country from a position which was worse than at
first it seemed.

Naval Victory at Mylae

The outset, nevertheless, was not favourable to the Romans. The Roman
admiral, the consul Gnaeus Cornelius Scipio, who had sailed for
Messana with the first seventeen vessels ready for sea (494), fancied,
when on the voyage, that he should be able to capture Lipara by a
coup de main. But a division of the Carthaginian fleet stationed at
Panormus blockaded the harbour of the island where the Roman vessels
rode at anchor, and captured the whole squadron along with the consul
without a struggle. This, however, did not deter the main fleet from
likewise sailing, as soon as its preparations were completed, for
Messana. On its voyage along the Italian coast it fell in with a
Carthaginian reconnoitring squadron of less strength, on which it
had the good fortune to inflict a loss more than counterbalancing
the first loss of the Romans; and thus successful and victorious it
entered the port of Messana, where the second consul Gaius Duilius
took the command in room of his captured colleague. At the promontory
of Mylae, to the north-west of Messana, the Carthaginian fleet, that
advanced from Panormus under the command of Hannibal, encountered the
Roman, which here underwent its first trial on a great scale. The
Carthaginians, seeing in the ill-sailing and unwieldy vessels of the
Romans an easy prey, fell upon them in irregular order; but the newly
invented boarding-bridges proved their thorough efficiency. The Roman
vessels hooked and stormed those of the enemy as they came up one
by one; they could not be approached either in front or on the sides
without the dangerous bridge descending on the enemy's deck. When the
battle was over, about fifty Carthaginian vessels, almost the half of
the fleet, were sunk or captured by the Romans; among the latter was
the ship of the admiral Hannibal, formerly belonging to king Pyrrhus.
The gain was great; still greater the moral effect of the victory.
Rome had suddenly become a naval power, and held in her hand the
means of energetically terminating a war which threatened to be
endlessly prolonged and to involve the commerce of Italy in ruin.