Catching up: The Battle of Mylae and the Corvus

At the beginning of the First Punic War, Rome and Carthage both faced significant disadvantages to one another, and a kind of Cold War stalemate ensued for the first four years of the war. By 264 BCE, the Roman army had been honed into a victory machine in most land battles, particularly where rough, hilly terrain was the proving ground. This gave them many tactical victories in Sicily early on, the primary theater of the war, but the Carthaginians had been holding that land for many years, and developed a solid defensive strategy that left them well-fortified even if the local garrison had been routed. Carthaginian ships would arrive with fresh mercenary troops and supplies, making it difficult for the Romans to really gain any ground, since they didn't have a navy of their own to counter the enemy.

The story goes that some Carthaginian ships washed up on the Italian shore and were discovered by the Romans, who copied the design and made themselves ready for a sea invasion of North Africa or Iberia. However, siege weapons aboard boats were pretty useless in those days, so crews had to rely on ramming to tear their enemy's hulls and sink them in the Mediterranean, an art in which the Carthaginians were well-versed. Time and again, they sunk every Roman ship that dared cross into their space, breaking blockades with ease and resupplying their dwindling, demoralized armies in Sicily. So how does a land-based power defeat a naval power? By turning sea battles into land battles.

Roman engineers developed the Corvus, a swiveling draw-bridge device whose spiked tip could be smashed onto an enemy deck, attaching the two ships and allowing for legionnaires to take the ship. The Carthaginian fleet didn't know what hit them at Mylae: they lost almost half of their fleet to the Romans, who appropriated the vessels and bolstered their navy. Carthage's biggest advantage was lost, and the surprise of the Roman tactics cost them heavily. The war would drag on for nineteen more years, however, and end with Carthage being driven out of Sicily for good, causing them to intensify their colonization efforts in Spain and once again come into conflict with Rome.

While the Corvus remains one of the most brilliant innovations in ancient naval warfare, Carthage adjusted its sea tactics after several other disastrous encounters with Roman fleets. Roman innovation won the day, and the tired old Phoenician stronghold teetered one step closer to eventual annihilation.

Pax vobiscum