That same night Demosthenes proposed that they should man their remaining triremes, reduced to sixty in number, and try again to force a way out of the harbor; alleging that they were still stronger than the enemy, who had also lost a number of ships. Nikias gave consent; but when the sailors were ordered to embark once more, they mutinied and flatly refused to do so; saying that their numbers were too much reduced by battle, sickness, and bad food, and that there were no seamen of experience left to take the helm, or rowers in sufficient numbers for the benches. They also declared that the last had been a soldiers’ battle, and that such were better fought on land. They then set fire to the dock-yard and the fleet, and the Syracusan forces appearing, in the midst of this mutiny, captured both men and ships. Her fleet being thus totally destroyed, Athens never recovered from the disaster, and ceased from that day to be a naval power.
The subsequent events in this connection, though interesting and instructive, do not belong to naval history.
A NORSE GALLEY.
III.
ROMANS AND CARTHAGINIANS.
Carthage, the Phenician colony in Africa, which became so famous and powerful, was very near the site of the modern city of Tunis. It has been a point of interest for twenty centuries. Long after the Phenician sway had passed away, and the Arab and Saracen had become lords of the soil, Louis XI, of France, in the Crusade of 1270, took possession of the site of the ancient city, only to give up his last breath there, and add another to the many legends of the spot. The Spaniards afterwards conquered Tunis and held it for a time; and, in our own day, the French have again repossessed themselves of the country, and may retain it long after the events of our time have passed into history.
As soon as Rome rose to assured power, and began her course of conquest, trouble with the powerful State of Carthage ensued. Their clashing interests soon involved them in war, and Sicily and the Sicilian waters, being necessary to both, soon became their battle ground.
The Carthaginians had obtained a footing in Sicily, by assisting Roman renegades and freebooters of all nations who had taken refuge there. The Romans therefore passed a decree directing the Consul, Appius Claudius, to cross over to Messina and expel the Carthaginians who, from that strong point, controlled the passage of the great thoroughfare, the strait of the same name. Thus commenced the first Punic war. The Romans were almost uniformly successful upon land, but the Carthaginians, deriving nautical skill from their Phenician ancestors, overawed, with their fleet, the whole coast of Sicily, and even made frequent and destructive descents upon the Italian shores themselves.
