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HISTORY OF MARINE ARCHITECTURE.

pro vice arietis vi impellunt, qui bellatores hostium, sive nautas sine dubloprosternit ac perimit, ipsamque navem saqpius perforat.” A thin long beam,not unlike the yard, was suspended nearly in the same manner with the yardfrom the mast of the vessel, each end of it being shod or cased with iron. Thissimple engine, from the method in which it was attached to the mast, could beused as a species of battering ram, whether the enemy was grappled on theright or left hand, the starboard or larboard side. Its effects were extremelydestructive ; for being moved with agility and force, it swept off at one strokeall those with whom it came in contact, destroying or severely maiming boththe soldiers who defended the vessel, and the marineis who worked it; on someoccasions, also, it extended its mischievous efforts even to the perforation orstaving of the vessel itself.

The KBfxict mentioned by Athenreus, in his account of Hiero’s galley, differedbut little from the former, at least in shape. It was in general, however, appliedto a different mode of annoyance. Some have, though erroneously, supposedit was used as a kind of carapalta, or machine, which threw stones of immensesi7,e and weight, with a velocity almost incredible; but the feet really was, thatmi the infancy of the contrivance, a stone of immense weight being suspendedby a stout rope, from the extremity of the a^xm, or antenna, became, on movingthe unloaded end with strength and swiftness, an engine so formidable as toendanger the lives not only of the crew which fought the galley, but, beingpossessed of far more dangerous force than the asser, threatened more heavilythe existence of the vessel itself. As a refinement, or improvement, the stoneused on the first invention became quickly converted into a mass of lead, oriron, cast on purpose, which being more ponderous in proportion to its bulk,was consequently not only more dangerous in its effects, but being formedpurposely for the occasion, was not so liable to escape or slip from the ropewhich encircled it, as a stone furnished by the hand of nature, and not modelledby art, generally must have been.

To these succeeded the corvus of Duilius, who was the first naval prefect belong-ing to the Roman republic of sufficient consequence to be mentioned by historians.Finding, on his approach towards Sicily and the fleet of his enemy, that the gal-lies he commanded were unwieldy, and difficult to be worked, in comparison withthose of the Carthaginians, he turned the inventive faculties of his mind to thecontrivance of the machine in question. Its form differed very immateriallyfrom the ai^oux of the Greeks, except that it was suspended from the top of a

beam.