132

HISTORY OF MARINE ARCHITECTURE

The intent of the simple grappling iron, or <r*$y?ov, is easily understood,and the distinction between that and the ao7r«yij pointed out too clearly to bemistaken. The principal use of the latter, says Schaeffer, in conformity withthe remarks of Folard, was to raise the vessel of an enemy out of the water,and suddenly releasing it, to precipitate it into the sea ; but, continues the sameauthor, the purpose to which the grappling iron was applied was merely thatof detaining, as it were, the ship of the enemy as a captive ; and, by renderingthe footing of the combatants more sure, in consequence of the junction be-tween the two vessels, give to an engagement of this nature by sea, a resem-blance, by no means distant, of a land combat. Diodorus Siculus, whose testi-mony and opinion is quoted on this occasion, states the same fact; as doesCaesar, in his first book de Bello Civili:—“ Itaque dum locus cominus pug-nandi daretur, aequo animo singulas binis navibus objiciebant, atque injecta manuferrea, et retenta utraque nave, diversi pugnabant, atque in hostium navestranscendebant.” In order, therefore, to give a liberal translation of the fore-going passage, that the conflict might be decided by a combat hand to hand,the crews on both sides, animated by the same desire, having alternately throwntheir grappling irons into the vessels of each other, so that they became firmlylocked together, the operation of boarding became a matter of no difficulty, andthe decision of the contest turned exactly on the same point a land engagementwould have done. Livy also, book xxxvii. chap. 44. makes mention of theRoman commander in chief having ordered the crews of the different vesselscomposing his fleet to throw their grappling irons into those of the enemy asthey approached them, and that the contest being then placed exactly on thesame footing with an encounter between two corps of foot, they had, laying allnecessity of naval skill and tactics aside, only to bear in remembrance thevalour and military virtue of their ancestors.

The form of the machine was little dissimilar to that of the anchor; andthe confusion of ideas, which appears to have taken place in the minds andwritings of commentators, as well as historians, has probably arisen from theapplication of that part of the corvus, called by Polybius to the deten-

tion, or purpose of making fast the vessel of an enemy to that of the assailant.It is, however, very apparent, that such detention or mode of grappling waseffected in a very different manner by the two engines; and as the form of thecorvus was more complex, so was the effect more destructive. Different, indeed,

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