The Victory of Mylae
When the Romans had neared the coasts of
Sicily and
learnt the disaster which had befallen Gnaeus, their first step
was to send for Gaius Duilius, who was in command of the
land forces. Until he should come they stayed where they
were; but at the same time, hearing that the enemy's fleet was
no great way off, they busied themselves with preparations
for a sea-fight. Now their ships were badly fitted out and
not easy to manage, and so some one suggested to them as
likely to serve their turn in a fight the construction of what
were afterwards called "crows." Their mechanism was this.
The "corvi" or "crows," for boarding, |
A round pole was placed in the
prow, about twenty-four feet high, and with a
diameter of four palms. The pole itself had a pulley on the
top, and a gangway made with cross planks nailed together,
four feet wide and thirty-six feet long, was made to swing round
it. Now the hole in the gangway was oval shaped, and went
round the pole twelve feet from one end of the gangway, which
had also a wooden railing running down each side of it to
the height of a man's knee. At the extremity of this gangway was fastened an iron spike like a miller's pestle,
sharpened at its lower end and fitted with a ring at its
upper end. The whole thing looked like the machines for
braising corn. To this ring the rope was fastened with
which, when the ships collided, they hauled up the "crows,"
by means of the pulley at the top of the pole, and dropped
them down upon the deck of the enemy's ship, sometimes over
the prow, sometimes swinging them round when the ships
collided broadsides. And as soon as the "crows" were fixed
in the planks of the decks and grappled the ships together, if
the ships were alongside of each other, the men leaped on
board anywhere along the side, but if they were prow to prow,
they used the "crow" itself for boarding, and advanced over
it two abreast. The first two protected their front by holding
up before them their shields, while those who came after
them secured their sides by placing the rims of their shields
upon the top of the railing. Such were the preparations
which they made; and having completed them they watched
an opportunity of engaging at sea.
