ommenced, the Romans had a fleet of one hundred galleys of five banks
of oars ready. They remained in harbor with them for some time, to
give the oarsmen the opportunity to see whether they could row on the
water as well as on the land, and then boldly put to sea to meet the
Carthaginians.

There was one part of the arrangements made by the Romans in preparing
their fleets which was strikingly characteristic of the determined
resolution which marked all their conduct. They constructed machines
containing grappling irons, which they mounted on the prows of their
vessels. These engines were so contrived, that the moment one of the
ships containing them should encounter a vessel of the enemy, the
grappling irons would fall upon the deck of the latter, and hold the
two firmly together, so as to prevent the possibility of either
escaping from the other. The idea that they themselves should have any
wish to withdraw from the encounter seemed entirely out of the
question. Their only fear was that the Carthaginian seamen would
employ their superior skill and experience in naval maneuvers in
making their escape. Mankind have always regarded the action of the
Romans, in this case, as one of the most striking examples of military
courage and resolution which the history of war has ever recorded. An
army of landsmen come down to the sea-shore, and, without scarcely
having ever seen a ship, undertake to build a fleet, and go out to
attack a power whose navies covered the sea, and made her the sole and
acknowledged mistress of it. They seize a wrecked galley of their
enemies for their model; they build a hundred vessels like it; they
practice maneuvers for a short time in port; and then go forth to
meet the fleets of their powerful enemy, with grappling machines to
hold them, fearing nothing but the possibility of their escape.

The result was as might have been expected. The Romans captured, sunk,
destroyed, or dispersed the Carthaginian fleet which was brought to
oppose them. They took the prows of the ships which they captured and
conveyed them to Rome, and built what is called a _rostral pillar_ of
them. A rostral pillar is a column ornamented with such beaks or
prows, which were, in the Roman language, called _rostra_. This column
was nearly destroyed by lightning about fifty years afterward, but it
was repaired and rebuilt again, and it stood then for many centuries,
a very striking and appropriate monument of this extraordina