Further on in the course of the conversation, Adeimantus, one of the friends, mentions that after stopping to measure the thickness of the anchor, “though I had seen everything, I must needs stop to ask one of the sailors what was the average return to the owner from the ship’s cargo.” “Twelve Attic talents,” he replied, “is the lowest figure, if you like to reckon it that way.”[13]
I make no apology for giving so full a quotation, for there is in the narrative something so sincere and yet so curiously modern: the whole picture is so full of sparkling bits of colour that it is most pleasing, and we can almost see this mammoth ship with her hefty spars and beautiful curves and “flame-coloured” sails. The intervening space of nearly two thousand years seems to have made but little difference in the type of skippers. I am sure that to many a sailing man to-day the delightful little sketch of the captain of the _Goddess Isis_ corn-carrier as “the little old man,” “a bald-pated fellow with a fringe of curly hair” sitting at his tiller, will at once suggest the very counterpart in the style and appearance of the skipper of a corn-barge--“an honest fellow, and good company.” And the account of the bad weather encountered successfully, the use of stellar navigation, the good seamanship employed, and the proof of the corn-ship’s seaworthiness are all too interesting to be lightly dispensed with. In the present days of accurate charts, ingenious nautical instruments, and big, sound ships, one is a little too apt to imagine that the ships and the ability of their crews in ancient times were scarcely worthy of serious consideration--deserving of little more than ridicule. So many ill-informed artists, who have drawn on their imagination in the past to depict what they believed to be the ships of olden times, have been shown to be wrong and misleading, that there has been such a reaction as to make it difficult to obtain any definite legitimate picture in one’s mind. It is just such accounts written by contemporaries as that of the _Goddess Isis_ that enable us once more to see the ships of the past in their true likeness and proportions.
But we must return to the warships. Prior to the time of Augustus there was no fleet in being. Ships were built or fitted out at the approach of war--a principle that the whole maritime history of the world has always shown to be the most unmitigated naval heresy. But by the year 337 B.C. there were certainly docks at Rome--the word used is _navalia_--so at least there was some provision made for the accommodation of ships. Knowing what we do of the Romans as magnificent organisers and soldiers ashore, we are not surprised to find that the same spirit was manifested in arranging the commands afloat. The general command at sea was vested in the two consuls. Later on there were appointed two fleet-masters under the designation, “duoviri navales classis ornandæ reficiendæque causa.” There was thus a double squadron consisting usually of twenty ships, ten being under each duumvir. The coming of the Punic War had this effect, however, that it caused Rome to think more seriously of her ships and to become in fact a great naval power. In 260 B.C. there were built 100 quinquiremes and 20 triremes; with these the Romans defeated the Carthaginian fleet of 130 at Mylæ. The method employed was that which thereafter was to be practised for so many centuries down the history of naval fights; that is to say, the device consisted in boarding each other and engaging in hand-to-hand encounter. In the present instance a boarding bridge was held up against the mast by means of ropes and pulleys and let down promptly on to the enemy’s deck for the troops of the Roman ships to rush furiously across. The Greek word for this boarding bridge was _korax_, the derivative meaning of which was a raven-like beak for grappling. The Latin word was _corvus_. So powerful had the Romans become at sea that they also defeated with 330 ships the Carthaginian fleet of 350 at Ecnomus. Did a violent storm engulf two or three hundred Roman ships? Then they set to work forthwith to build as many and more by the aid of voluntary effort. She had such extensive resources to fall back on that she was destined to win not exclusively by good seamanship and tactics, but by weight of numbers. The boarding bridges just mentioned had been found of the greatest value, and yet prior to their invention boarding tactics had yet been employed. As far back as 413 B.C. (when they used them against the Syracusans) grapnels had been in use for hitching on to the enemy and then pouring slaughter and death into him.