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Louise Forsslund - "Old Lady Number 31"

Edward Hutton - "England of My Heart Spring"

Edward Bulwer Lytton - "Alice, or The Mysteries, Complete"

Arthur Train - "Tutt and Mr. Tutt"

Publishers Newswire Announced Today its Latest List of Books to Bookmark, for Q4/2008
REDONDO BEACH, Calif. -- Publishers Newswire, an online resource for small publishers, as well as lesser known and first-time book authors, has announced its latest quarterly 'Books to Bookmark' list, for Q4/2008. This list is a round-up of new and interesting books which are often missed due to not originating from big name authors, or major New York book publishing houses.

Book, 'Letters From Heroes', captures triumphs of the men and women who served in World War I and II
GILROY, Calif. -- The hardships, struggles, hopes and triumphs of the men and women who served in World War I and World War II is wonderfully captured in 'Letters From Heroes' (ISBN: 978-1-58909-570-0), by Edward T. Cook, a new book just published by Bookstand Publishing. This poignant collection of real letters from real servicemen allow the reader to see things through the eyes of these soldiers and understand their thoughts about war, training, sickness, the enemy and even their food.

In New Book, Mystery of the 6,000 Year Old Science and Art of Astrology Has Been Solved
SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. -- Author of the new book, ASTROMASKS (ISBN: 978-0-615-23386-4), Vijay Rishii Ph.D., announced today that his book reveals the secret code behind the ancient and controversial science of astrology. The author decodes astrology using a new concept of complementary pairs, and gives new meanings to the zodiac signs and their real connection to humans on earth, which has never been done before in the entire history of astrology.

The History of Rome (Volumes 1 5) - Theodor Mommsen

T >> Theodor Mommsen >> The History of Rome (Volumes 1 5)

4. The Libyan or Numidian alphabet, by which we mean that which was
and is employed by the Berbers in writing their non-Semitic language
--one of the innumerable alphabets derived from the primitive Aramaean
one--certainly appears to be more closely related in several of its
forms to the latter than is the Phoenician alphabet; but it by no
means follows from this, that the Libyans derived their writing not
from Phoenicians but from earlier immigrants, any more than the
partially older forms of the Italian alphabets prohibit us from
deriving these from the Greek. We must rather assume that the Libyan
alphabet has been derived from the Phoenician at a period of the
latter earlier than the time at which the records of the Phoenician
language that have reached us were written.

5. II. VII. Decline of the Roman Naval Power

6. II. VII. Decline of the Roman Naval Power

7. II. VII. The Roman Fleet

8. II. IV. Etrusco-Carthaginian Maritime Supremacy

9. The steward on a country estate, although a slave, ought, according
to the precept of the Carthaginian agronome Mago (ap. Varro, R. R. i.
17), to be able to read, and ought to possess some culture. In the
prologue of the "Poenulus" of Plautus, it is said of the hero of
the title:-

-Et is omnes linguas scit; sed dissimulat sciens
Se scire; Poenus plane est; quid verbit opus't-?

10. Doubts have been expressed as to the correctness of this number,
and the highest possible number of inhabitants, taking into account
the available space, has been reckoned at 250,000. Apart from the
uncertainty of such calculations, especially as to a commercial city
with houses of six stories, we must remember that the numbering is
doubtless to be understood in a political, not in an urban, sense,
just like the numbers in the Roman census, and that thus all
Carthaginians would be included in it, whether dwelling in the city
or its neighbourhood, or resident in its subject territory or in other
lands. There would, of course, be a large number of such absentees in
the case of Carthage; indeed it is expressly stated that in Gades, for
the same reason, the burgess-roll always showed a far higher number
than that of the citizens who had their fixed residence there.

11. II. VII. System of Government, note




CHAPTER II

The War between Rome and Carthage Concerning Sicily

State of Sicily

For upwards of a century the feud between the Carthaginians and
the rulers of Syracuse had devastated the fair island of Sicily.
On both sides the contest was carried on with the weapons of political
proselytism, for, while Carthage kept up communications with the
aristocratic-republican opposition in Syracuse, the Syracusan dynasts
maintained relations with the national party in the Greek cities that
had become tributary to Carthage. On both sides armies of mercenaries
were employed to fight their battles--by Timoleon and Agathocles, as
well as by the Phoenician generals. And as like means were employed
on both sides, so the conflict had been waged on both with a disregard
of honour and a perfidy unexampled in the history of the west. The
Syracusans were the weaker party. In the peace of 440 Carthage had
still limited her claims to the third of the island to the west of
Heraclea Minoa and Himera, and had expressly recognized the hegemony
of the Syracusans over all the cities to the eastward. The expulsion
of Pyrrhus from Sicily and Italy (479) left by far the larger half of
the island, and especially the important Agrigentum, in the hands of
Carthage; the Syracusans retained nothing but Tauromenium and the
south-east of the island.

Campanian Mercenaries

In the second great city on the east coast, Messana, a band of foreign
soldiers had established themselves and held the city, independent
alike of Syracusans and Carthaginians. These new rulers of Messana
were Campanian mercenaries. The dissolute habits that had become
prevalent among the Sabellians settled in and around Capua,(1) had
made Campania in the fourth and fifth centuries--what Aetolia, Crete,
and Laconia were afterwards--the universal recruiting field for
princes and cities in search of mercenaries. The semi-culture that
had been called into existence there by the Campanian Greeks, the
barbaric luxury of life in Capua and the other Campanian cities,
the political impotence to which the hegemony of Rome condemned them,
while yet its rule was not so stern as wholly to withdraw from them
the right of self-disposal--all tended to drive the youth of Campania
in troops to the standards of the recruiting officers. As a matter of
course, this wanton and unscrupulous selling of themselves here, as
everywhere, brought in its train estrangement from their native land,
habits of violence and military disorder, and indifference to the
breach of their allegiance. These Campanians could see no reason why
a band of mercenaries should not seize on their own behalf any city
entrusted to their guardianship, provided only they were in a position
to hold it--the Samnites had established their dominion in Capua
itself, and the Lucanians in a succession of Greek cities, after
a fashion not much more honourable.

Mammertines

Nowhere was the state of political relations more inviting for such
enterprises than in Sicily. Already the Campanian captains who came
to Sicily during the Peloponnesian war had insinuated themselves in
this way into Entella and Aetna. Somewhere about the year 470 a
Campanian band, which had previously served under Agathocles and after
his death (465) took up the trade of freebooters on their own account,
established themselves in Messana, the second city of Greek Sicily,
and the chief seat of the anti-Syracusan party in that portion of
the island which was still in the power of the Greeks. The citizens
were slain or expelled, their wives and children and houses were
distributed among the soldiers, and the new masters of the city, the
Mamertines or "men of Mars," as they called themselves, soon became
the third power in the island, the north-eastern portion of which they
reduced to subjection in the times of confusion that succeeded the
death of Agathocles. The Carthaginians were no unwilling spectators
of these events, which established in the immediate vicinity of the
Syracusans a new and powerful adversary instead of a cognate and
ordinarily allied or dependent city. With Carthaginian aid the
Mamertines maintained themselves against Pyrrhus, and the untimely
departure of the king restored to them all their power.

Hiero of Syracuse
War between the Syracusans and the Mammertines

It is not becoming in the historian either to excuse the perfidious
crime by which the Mamertines seized their power, or to forget that
the God of history does not necessarily punish the sins of the fathers
to the fourth generation. He who feels it his vocation to judge the
sins of others may condemn the human agents; for Sicily it might be a
blessing that a warlike power, and one belonging to the island, thus
began to be formed in it--a power which was already able to bring
eight thousand men into the field, and which was gradually putting
itself in a position to take up at the proper time and on its own
resources that struggle against the foreigners, to the maintenance
of which the Hellenes, becoming more and more unaccustomed to arms
notwithstanding their perpetual wars, were no longer equal.

In the first instance, however, things took another turn. A young
Syracusan officer, who by his descent from the family of Gelo and
his intimate relations of kindred with king Pyrrhus as well as by the
distinction with which he had fought in the campaigns of the latter,
had attracted the notice of his fellow-citizens as well as of the
Syracusan soldiery--Hiero, son of Hierocles--was called by military
election to command the army, which was at variance with the citizens
(479-480). By his prudent administration, the nobility of his
character, and the moderation of his views, he rapidly gained the
hearts of the citizens of Syracuse--who had been accustomed to the
most scandalous lawlessness in their despots--and of the Sicilian
Greeks in general. He rid himself--in a perfidious manner, it is
true--of the insubordinate army of mercenaries, revived the citizen-
militia, and endeavoured, at first with the title of general,
afterwards with that of king, to re-establish the deeply sunken
Hellenic power by means of his civic troops and of fresh and more
manageable recruits. With the Carthaginians, who in concert with the
Greeks had driven king Pyrrhus from the island, there was at that time
peace. The immediate foes of the Syracusans were the Mamertines.
They were the kinsmen of those hated mercenaries whom the Syracusans
had recently extirpated; they had murdered their own Greek hosts;
they had curtailed the Syracusan territory; they had oppressed and
plundered a number of smaller Greek towns. In league with the Romans
who just about this time were sending their legions against the
Campanians in Rhegium, the allies, kinsmen, and confederates in crime
of the Mamertines,(2) Hiero turned his arms against Messana. By a
great victory, after which Hiero was proclaimed king of the Siceliots
(484), he succeeded in shutting up the Mamertines within their city,
and after the siege had lasted some years, they found themselves
reduced to extremity and unable to hold the city longer against Hiero
on their own resources. It is evident that a surrender on stipulated
conditions was impossible, and that the axe of the executioner, which
had fallen upon the Campanians of Rhegium at Rome, as certainly
awaited those of Messana at Syracuse. Their only means of safety lay
in delivering up the city either to the Carthaginians or to the
Romans, both of whom could not but be so strongly set upon acquiring
that important place as to overlook all other scruples. Whether it
would be more advantageous to surrender it to the masters of Africa
or to the masters of Italy, was doubtful; after long hesitation the
majority of the Campanian burgesses at length resolved to offer
the possession of their sea-commanding fortress to the Romans.

The Mammertines Received into the Italian Confederacy

It was a moment of the deepest significance in the history of the
world, when the envoys of the Mamertines appeared in the Roman senate.
No one indeed could then anticipate all that was to depend on the
crossing of that narrow arm of the sea; but that the decision, however
it should go, would involve consequences far other and more important
than had attached to any decree hitherto passed by the senate, must
have been manifest to every one of the deliberating fathers of the
city. Strictly upright men might indeed ask how it was possible to
deliberate at all, and how any one could even think of suggesting
that the Romans should not only break their alliance with Hiero, but
should, just after the Campanians of Rhegium had been punished by them
with righteous severity, admit the no less guilty Sicilian accomplices
to the alliance and friendship of the state, and thereby rescue them
from the punishment which they deserved. Such an outrage on propriety
would not only afford their adversaries matter for declamation,
but must seriously offend all men of moral feeling. But even the
statesman, with whom political morality was no mere phrase, might ask
in reply, how Roman burgesses, who had broken their military oath and
treacherously murdered the allies of Rome, could be placed on a level
with foreigners who had committed an outrage on foreigners, where
no one had constituted the Romans judges of the one or avengers of
the other? Had the question been only whether the Syracusans or
Mamertines should rule in Messana, Rome might certainly have
acquiesced in the rule of either. Rome was striving for the
possession of Italy, as Carthage for that of Sicily; the designs of
the two powers scarcely then went further. But that very circumstance
formed a reason why each desired to have and retain on its frontier an
intermediate power--the Carthaginians for instance reckoning in this
way on Tarentum, the Romans on Syracuse and Messana--and why, if that
course was impossible, each preferred to see these adjacent places
given over to itself rather than to the other great power.
As Carthage had made an attempt in Italy, when Rhegium and Tarentum
were about to be occupied by the Romans, to acquire these cities for
itself, and had only been prevented from doing so by accident, so in
Sicily an opportunity now offered itself for Rome to bring the city of
Messana into its symmachy; should the Romans reject it, it was not to
be expected that the city would remain independent or would become
Syracusan; they would themselves throw it into the arms of the
Phoenicians. Were they justified in allowing an opportunity to
escape, such as certainly would never recur, of making themselves
masters of the natural tete de pont between Italy and Sicily, and of
securing it by means of a brave garrison on which they could, for good
reasons, rely? Were they justified in abandoning Messana, and thereby
surrendering the command of the last free passage between the eastern
and western seas, and sacrificing the commercial liberty of Italy?
It is true that other objections might be urged to the occupation of
Messana besides mere scruples of feeling and of honourable policy.
That it could not but lead to a war with Carthage, was the least of
these; serious as was such a war, Rome might not fear it. But there
was the more important objection that by crossing the sea the Romans
would depart from the purely Italian and purely continental policy
which they had hitherto pursued; they would abandon the system by
which their ancestors had founded the greatness of Rome, to enter upon
another system the results of which no one could foretell. It was one
of those moments when calculation ceases, and when faith in men's own
and in their country's destiny alone gives them courage to grasp the
hand which beckons to them out of the darkness of the future, and
to follow it no one knows whither. Long and seriously the senate
deliberated on the proposal of the consuls to lead the legions to the
help of the Mamertines; it came to no decisive resolution. But the
burgesses, to whom the matter was referred, were animated by a lively
sense of the greatness of the power which their own energy had
established. The conquest of Italy encouraged the Romans, as that of
Greece encouraged the Macedonians and that of Silesia the Prussians,
to enter upon a new political career. A formal pretext for supporting
the Mamertines was found in the protectorate which Rome claimed the
right to exercise over all Italians. The transmarine Italians were
received into the Italian confederacy;(3) and on the proposal of
the consuls the citizens resolved to send them aid (489).

Variance between Rome and Carthage
Carthaginians in Messana
Messana Seized by the Romans
War between the Romans and the Carthaginians and the Syracusans

Much depended on the way in which the two Sicilian powers, immediately
affected by this intervention of the Romans in the affairs of the
island, and both hitherto nominally in alliance with Rome, would
regard her interference. Hiero had sufficient reason to treat the
summons, by which the Romans required him to desist from hostilities
against their new confederates in Messana, precisely in the same way
as the Samnites and Lucanians in similar circumstances had received
the occupation of Capua and Thurii, and to answer the Romans by a
declaration of war. If, however, he remained unsupported, such a war
would be folly; and it might be expected from his prudent and moderate
policy that he would acquiesce in what was inevitable, if Carthage
should be disposed for peace. This seemed not impossible. A Roman
embassy was now (489) sent to Carthage, seven years after the attempt
of the Phoenician fleet to gain possession of Tarentum, to demand
explanations as to these incidents.(4) Grievances not unfounded, but
half-forgotten, once more emerged--it seemed not superfluous amidst
other warlike preparations to replenish the diplomatic armoury
with reasons for war, and for the coming manifesto to reserve to
themselves, as was the custom of the Romans, the character of the
party aggrieved. This much at least might with entire justice be
affirmed, that the respective enterprises on Tarentum and Messana
stood upon exactly the same footing in point of design and of pretext,
and that it was simply the accident of success that made the
difference. Carthage avoided an open rupture. The ambassadors
carried back to Rome the disavowal of the Carthaginian admiral who
had made the attempt on Tarentum, along with the requisite false
oaths: the counter-complaints, which of course were not wanting on
the part of Carthage, were studiously moderate, and abstained from
characterizing the meditated invasion of Sicily as a ground for war.
Such, however, it was; for Carthage regarded the affairs of Sicily
--just as Rome regarded those of Italy--as internal matters in which
an independent power could allow no interference, and was determined
to act accordingly. But Phoenician policy followed a gentler course
than that of threatening open war. When the preparations of Rome for
sending help to the Mamertines were at length so far advanced that the
fleet formed of the war-vessels of Naples, Tarentum, Velia, and Locri,
and the vanguard of the Roman land army under the military tribune
Gaius Claudius, had appeared at Rhegium (in the spring of 490),
unexpected news arrived from Messana that the Carthaginians, having
come to an understanding with the anti-Roman party there, had as a
neutral power arranged a peace between Hiero and the Mamertines; that
the siege had in consequence been raised; and that a Carthaginian
fleet lay in the harbour of Messana, and a Carthaginian garrison in
the citadel, both under the command of admiral Hanno. The Mamertine
citizens, now controlled by Carthaginian influence, informed the Roman
commanders, with due thanks to the federal help so speedily accorded
to them, that they were glad that they no longer needed it.
The adroit and daring officer who commanded the Roman vanguard
nevertheless set sail with his troops. But the Carthaginians warned
the Roman vessels to retire, and even made some of them prizes; these,
however, the Carthaginian admiral, remembering his strict orders to
give no pretext for the outbreak of hostilities, sent back to his good
friends on the other side of the straits. It almost seemed as if the
Romans had compromised themselves as uselessly before Messana, as the
Carthaginians before Tarentum. But Claudius did not allow himself
to be deterred, and on a second attempt he succeeded in landing.
Scarcely had he arrived when he called a meeting of the citizens; and,
at his wish, the Carthaginian admiral also appeared at the meeting,
still imagining that he should be able to avoid an open breach. But
the Romans seized his person in the assembly itself; and Hanno and the
Phoenician garrison in the citadel, weak and destitute of a leader,
were pusillanimous enough, the former to give to his troops the
command to withdraw, the latter to comply with the orders of their
captive general and to evacuate the city along with him. Thus the
tete de pont of the island fell into the hands of the Romans. The
Carthaginian authorities, justly indignant at the folly and weakness
of their general, caused him to be executed, and declared war against
the Romans. Above all it was their aim to recover the lost place. A
strong Carthaginian fleet, led by Hanno, son of Hannibal, appeared off
Messana; while the fleet blockaded the straits, the Carthaginian army
landing from it began the siege on the north side. Hiero, who had
only waited for the Carthaginian attack to begin the war with Rome,
again brought up his army, which he had hardly withdrawn, against
Messana, and undertook the attack on the south side of the city.

Peace with Hiero

But meanwhile the Roman consul Appius Claudius Caudex had appeared at
Rhegium with the main body of his army, and succeeded in crossing on
a dark night in spite of the Carthaginian fleet. Audacity and fortune
were on the side of the Romans; the allies, not prepared for an attack
by the whole Roman army and consequently not united, were beaten in
detail by the Roman legions issuing from the city; and thus the siege
was raised. The Roman army kept the field during the summer, and
even made an attempt on Syracuse; but, when that had failed and the
siege of Echetla (on the confines of the territories of Syracuse and
Carthage) had to be abandoned with loss, the Roman army returned to
Messana, and thence, leaving a strong garrison behind them, to Italy.
The results obtained in this first campaign of the Romans out of Italy
may not quite have corresponded to the expectations at home, for the
consul had no triumph; nevertheless, the energy which the Romans
displayed in Sicily could not fail to make a great impression on the
Sicilian Greeks. In the following year both consuls and an army twice
as large entered the island unopposed. One of them, Marcus Valerius
Maximus, afterwards called from this campaign the "hero of Messana"
(-Messalla-), achieved a brilliant victory over the allied
Carthaginians and Syracusans. After this battle the Phoenician army
no longer ventured to keep the field against the Romans; Alaesa,
Centuripa, and the smaller Greek towns generally fell to the victors,
and Hiero himself abandoned the Carthaginian side and made peace and
alliance with the Romans (491). He pursued a judicious policy in
joining the Romans as soon as it appeared that their interference in
Sicily was in earnest, and while there was still time to purchase
peace without cessions and sacrifices. The intermediate states in
Sicily, Syracuse and Messana, which were unable to follow out a policy
of their own and had only the choice between Roman and Carthaginian
hegemony, could not but at any rate prefer the former; because the
Romans had very probably not as yet formed the design of conquering
the island for themselves, but sought merely to prevent its being
acquired by Carthage, and at all events Rome might be expected to
substitute a more tolerable treatment and a due protection of
commercial freedom for the tyrannizing and monopolizing system that
Carthage pursued. Henceforth Hiero continued to be the most
important, the steadiest, and the most esteemed ally of the Romans
in the island.

Capture of Agrigentum

The Romans had thus gained their immediate object. By their double
alliance with Messana and Syracuse, and the firm hold which they had
on the whole east coast, they secured the means of landing on the
island and of maintaining--which hitherto had been a very difficult
matter--their armies there; and the war, which had previously been
doubtful and hazardous, lost in a great measure its character of risk.
Accordingly, no greater exertions were made for it than for the wars
in Samnium and Etruria; the two legions which were sent over to the
island for the next year (492) sufficed, in concert with the Sicilian
Greeks, to drive the Carthaginians everywhere into their fortresses.
The commander-in-chief of the Carthaginians, Hannibal son of Gisgo,
threw himself with the flower of his troops into Agrigentum, to defend
to the last that most important of the Carthaginian inland cities.
Unable to storm a city so strong, the Romans blockaded it with
entrenched lines and a double camp; the besieged, who numbered 50,000
soon suffered from want of provisions. To raise the siege the
Carthaginian admiral Hanno landed at Heraclea, and cut off in turn the
supplies from the Roman besieging force. On both sides the distress
was great. At length a battle was resolved on, to put an end to the
state of embarrassment and uncertainty. In this battle the Numidian
cavalry showed itself just as superior to the Roman horse as the Roman
infantry was superior to the Phoenician foot; the infantry decided
the victory, but the losses even of the Romans were very considerable.
The result of the successful struggle was somewhat marred by the
circumstance that, after the battle, during the confusion and fatigue
of the conquerors, the beleaguered army succeeded in escaping from
the city and in reaching the fleet. The victory was nevertheless of
importance; Agrigentum fell into the hands of the Romans, and thus the
whole island was in their power, with the exception of the maritime
fortresses, in which the Carthaginian general Hamilcar, Hanno's
successor in command, entrenched himself to the teeth, and was not to
be driven out either by force or by famine. The war was thenceforth
continued only by sallies of the Carthaginians from the Sicilian
fortresses and their descents on the Italian coasts.

Beginning of the Maritime War
The Romans Build a Fleet

In fact, the Romans now for the first time felt the real difficulties
of the war. If, as we are told, the Carthaginian diplomatists before
the outbreak of hostilities warned the Romans not to push the matter
to a breach, because against their will no Roman could even wash his
hands in the sea, the threat was well founded. The Carthaginian fleet
ruled the sea without a rival, and not only kept the coast towns of
Sicily in due obedience and provided them with all necessaries,
but also threatened a descent upon Italy, for which reason it was
necessary in 492 to retain a consular army there. No invasion on a
large scale occurred; but smaller Carthaginian detachments landed on
the Italian coasts and levied contributions on the allies of Rome,
and what was worst of all, completely paralyzed the commerce of Rome
and her allies. The continuance of such a course for even a short
time would suffice entirely to ruin Caere, Ostia, Neapolis, Tarentum,
and Syracuse, while the Carthaginians easily consoled themselves for
the loss of the tribute of Sicily with the contributions which they
levied and the rich prizes of their privateering. The Romans now
learned, what Dionysius, Agathocles, and Pyrrhus had learned before,
that it was as difficult to conquer the Carthaginians as it was easy
to beat them in the field. They saw that everything depended on
procuring a fleet, and resolved to form one of twenty triremes and
a hundred quinqueremes. The execution, however, of this energetic
resolution was not easy. The representation originating in the
schools of the rhetoricians, which would have us believe that the
Romans then for the first time dipped their oars in water, is no doubt
a childish tale; the mercantile marine of Italy must at this time have
been very extensive, and there was no want even of Italian vessels of
war. But these were war-barks and triremes, such as had been in use
in earlier times; quinqueremes, which under the more modern system of
naval warfare that had originated chiefly in Cartilage were almost
exclusively employed in the line, had not yet been built in Italy.
The measure adopted by the Romans was therefore much as if a maritime
state of the present day were to pass at once from the building of
frigates and cutters to the building of ships of the line; and, just
as in such a case now a foreign ship of the line would, if possible,
be adopted as a pattern, the Romans referred their master shipbuilders
to a stranded Carthaginian -penteres- as a model No doubt the Romans,
had they wished, might have sooner attained their object with the aid
of the Syracusans and Massiliots; but their statesmen had too much
sagacity to desire to defend Italy by means of a fleet not Italian.
The Italian allies, however, were largely drawn upon both for the
naval officers, who must have been for the most part taken from the
Italian mercantile marine, and for the sailors, whose name (-socii
navales-) shows that for a time they were exclusively furnished by
the allies; along with these, slaves provided by the state and
the wealthier families were afterwards employed, and ere long also
the poorer class of burgesses. Under such circumstances, and when we
take into account, as is but fair, on the one hand the comparatively
low state of shipbuilding at that time, and on the other hand the
energy of the Romans, there is nothing incredible in the statement
that the Romans solved within a year the problem--which baffled
Napoleon--of converting a continental into a maritime power, and
actually launched their fleet of 120 sail in the spring of 494.
It is true, that it was by no means a match for the Carthaginian fleet
in numbers and efficiency at sea; and these were points of the greater
importance, as the naval tactics of the period consisted mainly in
manoeuvring. In the maritime warfare of that period hoplites and
archers no doubt fought from the deck, and projectile machines were
also plied from it; but the ordinary and really decisive mode of
action consisted in running foul of the enemy's vessels, for which
purpose the prows were furnished with heavy iron beaks: the vessels
engaged were in the habit of sailing round each other till one or the
other succeeded in giving the thrust, which usually proved decisive.
Accordingly the crew of an ordinary Greek trireme, consisting of about
200 men, contained only about 10 soldiers, but on the other hand 170
rowers, from 50 to 60 on each deck; that of a quinquereme numbered
about 300 rowers, and soldiers in proportion.