A History of Sea Power Part 3

The downfall of Athenian sea power at Syracuse may be compared with the downfall of Persian sea power at Salamis. Just as the latter prevented the spread of an Asiatic form of civilization in Europe and gave Greek civilization a chance to develop, so the former put an end to the extension of a strong h.e.l.lenic power in Italy and left opportunity for the rise of the civilization of Rome.

REFERENCES

HISTORY OF GREECE, Ernst Curtius, 1874.

HISTORY OF GREECE, George Grote, 1856.

THE GREAT PERSIAN WAR, G. B. Grundy, 1901.

HISTORY OF THE PERSIAN WARS, Herodotus, ed. and transl. by Geo.

Rawlinson, 1862.

HISTORY OF THE PELOPONNESIAN WAR, Thucydides, ed. and transl.

by Jowett.

CHAPTER III

THE SEA POWER OF ROME

1. THE PUNIC WARS

When peoples have migrated in the past, they have frequently changed their habits to conform to new topographical surroundings. We have seen that the Ph?nicians, originally a nomadic people, became a seafaring race because of the conditions of the country they settled in; and on the other hand, at a later period, the Vikings who overran Normandy or Britain forsook the sea and became farmers. The popular idea that a race follows the sea because of an "instinct in the blood of the race" has little to stand on. When, however, the colonists from Ph?nicia settled Carthage and founded an empire, they continued the traditions of their ancestors and built up their power on a foundation of ships. This was due to the conditions--topographical and geographical--which surrounded them, and which were much like those of the mother country. Carthage possessed the finest harbor on the coast of Africa, situated in the middle of the Mediterranean, where all the trade routes crossed. To counteract these attractions of the sea there was nothing but the arid and mountainous character of the interior. It was inevitable, therefore, that the Carthaginians, like their ancestors, should build an empire of the sea.

As early as the sixth century B.C. Carthage had established her power so securely in the western Mediterranean as to be able to set down definite limits beyond which Rome agreed not to go. Thus the opening sentence of a treaty between the two nations in 509 B. C. ran as follows:

"Between the Romans and their allies and the Carthaginians and their allies there shall be peace and alliance upon the conditions that neither the Romans nor their allies shall sail beyond the Fair Promontory[1] unless compelled by bad weather or an enemy; and in case they are forced beyond it they shall not be allowed to take or purchase anything except what is barely necessary for refitting their vessels or for sacrifice, and they shall depart within five days."[2]

[Footnote 1: A cape on the African coast about due north from Carthage.]

[Footnote 2: GENERAL HISTORY, Polybius, Bk. III, chap. 3.]

A second and a third treaty emphasized even mare strongly the Carthaginian dictatorship over the Mediterranean.

[Ill.u.s.tration: SCENE OF THE PUNIC WARS]

It was inevitable, therefore, that as Rome expanded her interests should come in collision with those of Carthage. The immediate causes of the Punic wars are of no consequence for our purpose; the two powers had rival interests in Sicily, and the clash of these brought on the war in the year 264 B.C. There followed a mortal struggle between Rome and Carthage that extended through three distinct wars and a period of aver a hundred years.

When the two nations faced each other in arms, Carthage had the advantage of prestige and the greatest navy in the world. Her weaknesses lay in the strife of political factions and the mercenary character of her forces. Her officers were usually Carthaginians, but it was considered beneath the dignity of a Carthaginian to be a private.

The rank and file, therefore, were either hired or pressed into service from the subject provinces. In the case of Xanthippus, who defeated Regulus in the first Punic war, even the commanding officer was a Spartan mercenary. These troops would do well so long as campaigns promised plunder but would became disaffected if things went wrong.

The Romans, on the other hand, had only a small navy and no naval experience; their strength lay in their legionaries. And in further contrast with their enemy they had none but Romans in their forces, or allies who were proud of fighting on the side of Rome. Consequently they fought in the spirit of intense patriotism which could stand the moral strain of defeat and even disaster. On land there was no better fighter than the Roman soldier. At sea, however, all the advantage lay with the Carthaginian, and it soon became clear that if the Romans were to succeed they would have to learn to fight on water.

For the first three years Carthaginian fleets raided the coasts of Sicily and Italy with impunity. Finally, in desperation, Rome set about the creation of a fleet, and the story is that a Carthaginian quinquereme that had been wrecked an the coast was taken as a model, and while the ships were building, rowers were trained in rowing machines set up an sh.o.r.e. The first contact with the enemy was not encouraging. The new fleet, which was constructed in two months, consisted of 100 quinqueremes and 30 triremes. Seventeen of these while on a trial cruise were blockaded in the harbor of Messina by twenty Carthaginian ships, and the Roman commander was obliged to surrender after his crews had landed and escaped.

The next encounter was a different story. The Romans, realizing their ignorance of naval tactics and their superiority in land fighting, determined to make the next naval battle as nearly as possible like an engagement of infantry. Accordingly the ships were fitted with boarding gangways with a huge hooked spike at the end, like the beak of a crow, which gave them their name, "corvi"

or "crows."[1]

[Footnote 1: The following is the description in Polybius of what they were like and how they were worked.

"They [the Romans] erected on the prow of every vessel a round pillar of wood, of about twelve feet in height, and of three palms breadth in diameter, with a pulley at the top. To this pillar was fitted a kind of stage, eighteen feet in length and four feet broad, which was made ladder-wise, of strong timbers laid across, and cramped together with iron: the pillar being received into an oblong square, which was opened for that purpose, at the distance of six feet within the end of the stage. On either side of the stage lengthways was a parapet, which reached just above the knee. At the farthest end of this stage or ladder was a bar of iron, whose shape was somewhat like a pestle; but it was sharpened at the bottom, or lower point; and on the top of it was a ring. The whole appearance of this machine very much resembled those that are used in grinding corn. To the ring just mentioned was fixed a rope, by which, with the help of the pulley that was at the top of the pillar, they hoisted up the machines, and, as the vessels of the enemy came near, let them fall upon them, sometimes on their prow, and sometimes on their sides, as occasion best served. As the machine fell, it struck into the decks of the enemy, and held them fast. In this situation, if the two vessels happened to lie side by side, the Romans leaped on board from all parts of their ships at once. But in case that they were joined only by the prow, they then entered two and two along the machine; the two foremost extending their bucklers right before them to ward off the strokes that were aimed against them in front; while those that followed rested the boss of their bucklers upon the top of the parapet on either side, and thus covered both their flanks." GENERAL HISTORY, Book 1.]

Armed with this new device, the Consul Duilius took the Roman fleet to sea to meet an advancing Carthaginian fleet and encountered it off the port of Mylae (260 B.C.). The Carthaginians had such contempt for their enemy that they advanced in irregular order, permitting thirty of their ships to begin the battle unsupported by the rest of the fleet. One after the other the Carthaginian quinqueremes were grappled and stormed, for once the great _corvus_ crashed down on a deck all the arts of seamanship were useless.

Before the day was over the Carthaginians had lost 14 ships sunk and 31 captured, a total of half their fleet, and the rest had fled in disorder towards Carthage.

The unexpected had happened, as it so frequently does in history.

The amateurs had beaten the professionals, not by trying to achieve the same efficiency but by inventing something new that would make that efficiency useless. Thus, as we nave seen, the Syracusans, who were no match for the Athenians in the open sea, destroyed the sea power of Athens by bottling up her fleet in a harbor and bombarding it with catapults. It is an instance such as we shall see recurring throughout naval history, in which the power of a great fleet is largely or completely neutralized by a new or device in the hands of the nation with the smaller navy.

The significance of Mylae lay in the fact that a new naval power had arisen, that henceforth Rome must be reckoned with on the sea.

The victory served to encourage the Romans to enlarge their navy, and with it to press the war into the enemy's territory. Soon after Mylae they gained possession of the greater part of Sicily, and in the year 256 they dispatched a fleet to carry the offensive into Africa. This Roman fleet of 330 ships met, just off Ecnomus, on the southern coast of Sicily, a Carthaginian fleet of 350, and a great battle took place, interesting for the grand scale on which it was fought and the tactics employed.

The Romans, an seeing their enemy, a.s.sumed a formation hitherto unknown in tactics at sea. Their first and second squadrons formed the sides of an acute-angled triangle; the third squadron formed the base of the triangle, towing the transports, and the fourth squadron brought up the rear, covering the transports. The whole formed a compact wedge, pushing forward like a great spear head to pierce the enemy's line.

Admirable as this formation was, the Carthaginians were no less skillful in their tactics for destroying it. Instead of keeping an unbroken line to receive the attack, they stationed their left wing at same distance from the center so as to overlap the Roman right, and their right wing in column ahead, so as to overlap the Roman left. As the Romans advanced, the Carthaginian center purposely gave way, drawing the advance wings of their enemy away from the transports and the two squadrons in the rear. Then they faced about and attacked. Meanwhile the two Carthaginian squadrons on the flanks swung round the Roman wedge, the left wing engaging the Roman third squadron, which was hampered by the transports, and driving it toward the sh.o.r.e. At the same time the Carthaginian right wing attacked the fourth, or reserve, squadron from the rear and drove it into the open sea. Thus the battle went on in three distinct engagements, each separated by considerable distance from the others.

The outcome is thus narrated by Polybius:

[Ill.u.s.tration: ROMAN FORMATION AT ECNOMUS]

"Because in each of these divisions the strength of the combatants was nearly equal, the success was also for some time equal. But in the progress of the action the affair was brought at last to a decision: a different one, perhaps, from what might reasonably have been expected in such circ.u.mstances. For the Roman squadron that had begun the engagement gained so full a victory, that Amilcar [the Carthaginian commander] was forced to fly, and the consul Manlius brought away the vessels that were taken.

"The other consul, having now perceived the danger in which the triarii[1] and the transports were involved, hastened to their a.s.sistance with the second squadron, which was still entire. The triarii, having received these succors, when they were Just upon the point of yielding, again resumed their courage, and renewed the fight with vigor: so that the enemy, being surrounded on every side in a manner so sudden and unexpected, and attacked at once both in the front and rear were at last constrained to steer away to sea.

[Footnote 1: The rear guard, or fourth squadron.]

"About this time Manlius also, returning from the engagement, observed that the ships of the third squadron were forced in close to the sh.o.r.e, and there blocked up by the left division of the Carthaginian fleet. He joined his forces, therefore, with those of the other consul, who had now placed the transports and triarii in security, and hastened to a.s.sist these vessels, which were so invested by the enemy that they seemed to suffer a kind of siege. And, indeed, they must have all been long before destroyed if the Carthaginians, through apprehension of the _corvi_, had not still kept themselves at distance, and declined a close engagement. But the consuls, having now advanced together, surround the enemy, and take fifty of their ships with all the men. The rest, being few in number, steered close along the sh.o.r.e, and saved themselves by flight.

[Ill.u.s.tration: CARTHAGINIAN TACTICS AT THE BATTLE OF ECNOMUS, 256 B.C.]

"Such were the circ.u.mstances of this engagement; in which the victory at last was wholly on the side of the Romans. Twenty-four of their ships were sunk in the action, and more than thirty of the Carthaginians. No vessel of the Romans fell into the hands of the enemy; but sixty-four of the Carthaginians were taken with their men."[2]

[Footnote 2: Polybius's GENERAL HISTORY, Book I, Chap. 2.]

The battle of Ecnomus had no such decisive effect on history as the battle of Salamis, but it was on a far greater scale and it reveals an enormous advance in tactics. Three hundred thousand men, rowers and warriors, were engaged, and nearly 700 ships. Up to the battle of Actium, two centuries later, Ecnomus remained the greatest naval action in history. Moreover, the tactics of the rival fleets show a high degree of discipline and efficiency. The Carthaginian plan of dividing their enemy's force and defeating it by a concentrated attack on his transport division, was skillfully carried out and came perilously near succeeding. Had the first and second squadrons of the Carthaginians been able to carry out their part of the plan and "contain" the corresponding advance squadrons of the Romans, the result would have been an overwhelming victory for Carthage, involving not only the destruction of the Roman fleet but also the capture of the Roman army of invasion.

This victory left open the way for the advance into Africa. The Romans had landed and marched almost to the gates of Carthage when the army was destroyed by the skill of a Spartan, Xanthippus, and Regulus, the Consul in command, was captured. This astonishing catastrophe inflicted on the Roman legionaries was due to the use of elephants, and offers a curious parallel to the effect of the _corvi_ on the Carthaginian sailors. Such was the terror inspired by these animals that the Roman soldier would not stand before them until a year or two later, in Sicily, the Consul Cecilius showed how they could not only be repulsed but turned back on their own army by the use of javelins and arrows.

Nothing daunted by the loss of their army, Rome dispatched a fleet of 350 ships to Africa to carry off the remnants of the defeated army that were besieged in the city of Aspis. They were met by a hastily organized Carthaginian fleet off the promontory of Hermaea in a brief action in which the Romans were overwhelmingly victorious.

The latter took 114 vessels with their crews. The Roman expedition continued on its course to Africa, rescued the besieged troops and turned back in high feather toward Sicily. The Consuls in command had been warned by the pilots not to attempt to skirt the southern coast of Sicily at that season of the year, but the warning was disregarded. Suddenly, as the fleet was approaching the sh.o.r.e it was overwhelmed by a great gale, and out of 464 vessels only eighty survived.

Frightful as this loss was in ships and men, Rome proceeded at once to build another fleet, to the number of 250, which, with characteristic energy, was made ready for service in three months.

This force also, after an ineffectual raid on the African coast, fell victim to a storm on the way home with the loss of 150 ships.

Unwilling to relinquish the mastery of the sea that had been won by an uninterrupted series of victories, Rome sent another fleet to attack a Carthaginian force lying in the harbor of Drepanum.

As the Romans approached, the Carthaginians went out to meet them, and so maneuvered as to force them to fight with an enemy in front and the rocks and shoals of the coast in their rear. The Roman ships were never able to extricate themselves from this predicament, and the greater part were either taken or wrecked on the coast.

The Consul in command managed to escape with about thirty of his vessels, but 93 were taken with their crews. This is the single instance of a pitched battle between Roman and Carthaginian fleets in which the victory went to Carthage, a victory due entirely to better seamanship. The immediate result of this success was the destruction of the Roman squadron lying in the port of Lilybaeum which was a.s.sisting the troops in the siege of that town.

Still another Roman fleet that had the temerity to anchor in an exposed position was destroyed by a storm. "For so complete was the destruction," writes Polybius, "that scarcely a single plank remained entire."

Stunned by these disasters, the government at Rome gave up the idea of contesting any further the command of the sea. The citizens, how ever, were not willing to submit, and displayed a magnificent spirit of patriotism in this the darkest period of the war. Individuals of means, or groups of individuals, pledged each a quinquereme, fully equipped, for a new fleet, asking reimburs.e.m.e.nt from the government only in case of victory. By these private efforts a force of 200 quinqueremes was constructed. At this time, as at the very beginning, the model for the Roman ships was a prize taken from the enemy.