HEN the Romans succeeded at last in defeating the Carthaginian fleet, they could not be blamed for taking considerable credit to themselves.
You know how they did it? Why, of course you do. They put hooked bridges on their galleys, let the Carthaginians come up alongside, dropped the bridges, and then marched some of the finest across to the enemy's decks, and thus changed the "sea power in history" into a plain old Roman set-to wherein Carthage was not worth six sesterces.
Hence the victory.
Now the commander of the Romans was Duillius, a nice old plain fellow, who had
run for the consulship just to oblige his wife, so she could show the neighbors that there were some folk on the block besides those stuck-up Quadricentuses whose brother was a Prætor once.
Duillius himself was not much on style, but he was popular. He ran far ahead of his ticket and woke up one morning to find himself consul. This was all very fine in ordinary times, but things suddenly turned squally in Sicily, and Carthage began to make trouble along the coast of Italy.
The other consul, one of the Scipios, was wild to build a Roman fleet; and as soon as it was part done, Scipio sailed out amid a lot of cheering to chase the Carthaginians from the bosom of the deep.
Duillius, being a sound and level-headed business man, was perfectly willing to let Scipio have the job, since Duillius had seen other brash young Romans undertake the thing before. Duillius said: "Good for you, Scip, old man! Give it to him—good' and hard. Sic 'em, boy! Meanwhile I'll run the primaries here at home and look after our fences. Good luck, old man!"
Well, Scipio looked fine on the prow of one of the new galleys, and disappeared over the horizon in a nice new suit of armor and a clean toga.
Duillius, however, was not greatly surprised when the Acta Diurna came out not long afterward with a scare-head columns "Gone Where The Woodbine! Scipio scooped by sly sailor strategy," and so on.
The Carthaginians had taken Scipio, ships, crews, new armor, toga, and all.
Duillius did not enjoy his breakfast that day, and he was mighty sarcastic and disagreeable with Mrs. Duillius, for he knew what was coming next. And sure enough, the papers began to point out how the "honor of the Roman name demanded" a lot of things, especially that he, Caius Duillius, Esq., who knew a heap more about the price of dried figs than about a navy, should "chastise the insolent foe!"
That meant a sea trip to begin with, a fight with the nasty Carthaginians to go on with, and probably a good sound thrashing and something worse to end up with—all for Duillius. He grumbled to himself—wondering whether "they took him for an Admiral Farragut or a Lord Nelson," and so on. But there was no getting out of it, and on the ides or nones of something or other our friend Duillius put to sea with the rest of the Roman fleet.
Of course it turned out as such things do in real life. Scipio, who was a born military man, like his family before and after him, had to be euchred. Duillius—just a successful grocer and a good judge of beef—had it all his own way. The Carthaginians lost the whole game—cards, spades, aces, and sweeps—and Duillius came galumphing back to port with all the bass-drums whanging, the steam whistles going like mad, and calliopes playing tunes on all the recreation piers from the mouth of the Tiber way out to Alba Longa or farther. You never saw the like till the Centennial.
Duillius thanked his lucky stars, came home just as soon as he could get away from the reception committees, took off his big sea cothurni and other wet things, called for a cigar and a bottle of cough mixture, and settled down to read the accounts of his groceries during his absence.
"No more salt water in mine!" was his wise and comforting thought. Indeed, he would have been glad to let the whole thing pass. He was a hero, of course, and let it go at that, with breakfast at the usual hour, and a game of bridge at the club after dinner.
But here's where the Roman Senate made itself busy. They were as tickled over Duillius as if he were a new teddy bear. The idea of having a real victorious Admiral right in their own city was a delicious novelty, and they meant to show him what an excellent brand of gratitude the Senators could put up on a proper occasion.
So they voted for Duillius something out of the ordinary. They made a law that whenever Duillius should go out to a banquet, he should be attended by a torch-bearer and a flute-player—all at the public expense. The vote was unanimous. If you don't believe it, you can look it up for yourself in any of the histories. It is a cold fact.