also beat the English ships, which, otherwise, they would have never succeeded in doing. The Romans invented boarding-bridges made of wood, which were wide enough for two men to run upon abreast, and protected on both sides by railings; on the prow of every ship a large mast was set up, resting on which the bridge was drawn up aloft, the upturned end having an iron ring through which a hawser was passed: the bridge was raised or lowered by a windlass, and it fastened itself to the hostile vessel by means of a grappling-iron. Thus the advantage of superior skill which the Carthaginian rowers possessed, was done away with. The Romans, moreover, had their best legions on board, and in all likelihood the Carthaginians had only middling or bad marine soldiers, as these were not picked. This was in the year 492, according to Cato; in 494, according to Varro. The first attempt was not, however, successful, or in the beginning all the ships were not yet armed in this manner. A squadron was caught at a great disadvantage near the Liparian isles, owing to the bad look-out of the Roman commander Cn. Cornelius, and many ships were lost; but the Carthaginians also, some time afterwards, got right into the midst of the Roman squadron, and several of their ships were taken. But the decisive affair was the naval victory of the consul C. Duilius off Mylæ. The Carthaginians engaged in the battle with a feeling of great contempt for their enemy, having 130 vessels against 100 Roman ones; but they soon found how much they were mistaken, when the Romans began to board, and the sea-fight was changed into the nature of a land one. Fifty Carthaginian ships were taken; then the Romans, quite intoxicated with their victory, landed in Sicily, and relieved Segesta (which, like Rome, boasted of its descent from Troy). Duilius was the first who led forth a naval triumph at Rome. He got the right of being lighted by a torch carried before him, when returning home of an evening from a feast, and of being accompanied by a flute player; moreover, as is generally known, the _columna rostrata_ was erected to him. What this really was, we do not exactly know; perhaps it was a brazen pillar, cast from the beaks of the ships which had been taken: a pillar from which brazen beaks stick out, as it is generally represented, is quite a modern, and altogether ungrounded conceit. On the column there was an inscription, in which the victory and the booty won by Duilius were set forth. A small remnant of it is still in existence; yet the present tablet has not been put up in the time of Duilius himself, as some of the Roman antiquaries have also perceived. It is built of Greek marble, which in those days was not yet known in Rome. According to Tacitus, it was struck by lightning in the reign of the emperor Tiberius, and restored by Germanicus; but the old language and spelling were still faithfully kept. With that age, the form of the letters also agrees: those on the