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It
held a great part of Spain, the whole of Sardinia, most of Sicily, and
many other islands. The Romans saw that they would never be safe as
long as Carthage had the stronger navy; so they began to build one of
their own. They copied a Carthaginian war galley that had been
wrecked; and meanwhile taught their men to row on benches set up
ashore. This made the Carthaginians laugh and led them to expect an
easy victory. But the Romans were thorough in everything they did, and
they had the best trained soldiers in the world. They knew the
Carthaginians could handle war galleys better than they could
themselves; so they tried to give their soldiers the best possible
chance when once the galleys closed. They made a sort of drawbridge
that could be let down with a bang on the enemy boats and there held
fast by sharp iron spikes biting into the enemy decks. Then their
soldiers charged across and cleared everything before them.
[Illustration: ROMAN TRIREME--A vessel with three benches of oars]
The Carthaginians never recovered from this first fatal defeat at Mylae
in 260 B.


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