Corvus: A Review of the Design and Use of the Roman Boarding Bridge During the First Punic War 264 -241 B.c.An analysis and review of the design of the roman boarding bridge as used by Roman fleets during the First Punic War 264-241 B.C. Based on historical sources and modern research into the corvus, this study resurrects thinking on the viability of the boarding bridge and reasseses Roman tactics and successes during their first encounter with naval warfare. |
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Expressions et termes fréquents
abolition Africa Agrigentum allow angle attack attempt Battle of Ecnomus battle of Mylae boarding bridge boarding-bridge bow-mast bow-rail Carthage Carthaginian fleet Carthaginian ships Carthaginian vessels Cited in Wallingha clear coast command consuls corvi corvus counter-weapon crews defeat Drepana Duilius duoviri Ecnomus encounter enemy ship enemy vessel Etruscan evidence fleet figures found at Chapter Frontinus Furthermore galley gangplank gangway grappling Haltaus Hannibal Hannibal the Rhodian harbour legions Lilybaeum Manlius manoeuvres marine contingent measurements in feet Meijer mention Mylae naval allies naval battles naval warfare number of ships pentekonters Philinus Polybius describes Polybius says problem prow Punic fleet Punic ships Punic War quinqueremes ramming realised rear section reconstruction Regulus Rodgers Roman fleet Roman marines Roman navy Roman quinquereme Roman ships Roman vessels Rome Rome’s rowers sailed Sandys,J.E. scholars Scipio ships captured Sicily side siege socii navales soldiers storm sunk Tarn Thiel and Tarn Tipps Triarii triremes victory Wallingha Zonaras
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Page 21 - Carthaginians put to sea to attack them as they were crossing the straits, and one of their decked ships advanced too far in its eagerness to overtake them and running aground fell into the hands of the Romans. This ship they now used as a model, and built their whole fleet on its pattern ; so that it is evident that if this had not occurred they would have been entirely prevented from carrying out their design by lack of practical knowledge.
Page 14 - Messene not only had they not any decked ships, but no long warships at all, not even a single boat, and borrowing fifty-oared boats and triremes from the Tarentines and Locrians, and also from the people of Elea and Naples they took their troops across in these at great hazard.
Page 93 - ... prow stood a round pole four fathoms in height and three palms in diameter. This pole had a pulley at the summit and round it was put a gangway made of cross planks attached by nails, four feet in width and six fathoms in length. In this gangway was an oblong hole," and it went round the pole at a distance of two fathoms from its near end. The gangway also had a railing on each of its long sides as high as a man's knee. At its extremity was fastened an iron object like a pestle pointed at one...
Page 21 - ... on the benches of the ships themselves, and stationing the fugle-man in the middle, they accustomed them to fall back all at once bringing their hands up to them, and again to come forward pushing out their hands, and to begin and finish these movements at the word of command of the fugle-man. When the crews had been trained, they launched the ships as soon as they were completed, and having practised for a brief time actual rowing at sea, they sailed" along the coast of Italy as their commander...
Page 94 - ... broadsides. Once the ravens were fixed in the planks of the enemy's deck and grappled the ships together, if they were broadside on, they boarded from all directions but if they charged with the prow, they attacked by passing over the gangway of the raven itself two abreast. The leading pair protected the front by holding up their shields, and those who followed secured the two flanks by resting the rims of their shields on the top of the railing. Having, then, adopted this device, they awaited...
Page 16 - ... booty of every description. 20. When the news of what had occurred at Agrigentum reached the Roman Senate, in their joy and elation they no longer confined themselves to their original designs and were no longer satisfied with having saved the Mamertines and with what they had gained in the war itself, but, hoping that it would be possible to drive the Carthaginians entirely out of the island...
Page 17 - ... how, when, and for what reasons the Romans first took to the sea. When they saw that the war was dragging on, they undertook for the first time to build ships, a hundred quinqueremes and twenty triremes. As their shipwrights were absolutely inexperienced in building quinqueremes, such ships never having been in use in Italy, the matter caused them much difficulty, and this fact shows us better than anything else how spirited and daring the Romans...
Page 129 - Polybius' story that the Romans invented boarding-bridges in the first Punic War, used them at Mylae and Ecnomus with tremendous success, and then never used them again, is pure myth; what the ships did carry was some sort of grapnel. Boarding-bridges had in fact been invented by Diades 70 years before, and if a quinquereme had attempted to carry and use one in the way Polybius describes she would have turned turtle; a quinquereme could not even throw a grapnel without the rowers...
Page 129 - ... story that the Romans invented boarding-bridges in the first Punic War, used them at Mylae and Ecnomus with tremendous success, and then never used them again, is pure myth; what the ships did carry was some sort of grapnel. Boarding-bridges had in fact been invented by Diades 70 years before, and if a quinquereme had attempted to carry and use one in the way Polybius describes she would have turned turtle; a quinquereme could not even throw a grapnel without the rowers keeping their oars in...

