In Sicily they took possession of many Greek towns, and this made Rome jealous. Their fleet, too, was often seen sailing along the coasts of Italy. Like the Vikings of the North, the Carthaginians would suddenly swoop down upon some undefended coast town and plunder it and the surrounding district. Farm-houses were burned, plantations destroyed, and men and women dragged away to be sold as slaves, long before the Romans had been able to gather an army and march to the spot to punish the offenders. But such insolence Rome could not brook, and she declared war against the bold intruders. This was the beginning of the first Punic war, which was the name given to the struggle between the Romans and Pœni or Carthaginians for the empire of the world. On land the Romans quickly showed that they were more powerful than their former allies, and in about three years the Carthaginians had been forced to sail away to the shores of Africa, while those who stayed behind held only a few sea-coast towns in Sicily. But the Carthaginian fleet was as powerful as ever, and the Romans saw that they would never get rid of their enemy, until they, too, had a fleet, and could cope with them on sea as well as on land. So, although they knew little about ships and none of them were sailors, the Romans determined to build a fleet. The Carthaginian warships were large vessels with five benches, built one above the other. The five benches were provided for five sets of rowers. These large five-decked boats were called quinqueremes, quinque being the Latin word for five, and remus for an oar. One day, one of these Punic vessels was stranded on the Italian coast. Here was the very model the Romans needed. They seized it, and sent it to Rome as a copy for the ships that were to form the new fleet. When the quinquereme reached Rome the shipwrights at once set to work. Forests were hewn down, timber was sawn, and in two short months the Romans had built and launched one hundred ships, large and solid as those of the Carthaginians. And what was perhaps even more wonderful was that there were sailors ready to man the fleet. For while the ships were being built, the men chosen to form the crew had been placed on benches on dry land. These benches were arranged in the position they would have on board. Here the landsmen, who had still to be changed into sailors, had practised the movements of the oars, and had learned to keep time as they would have to do when actually at sea. A musical accompaniment had helped them to pull the oars together.