A Child's History of the World

by V. M. Hillyer

Well, two countries are at times just like little boys; they start a fight with just as little excuse, and though they call the fight “war” it is nothing but a “scrap.” Only there are no fathers to come along and give them both a spanking and send them to bed without any supper.

So it didn’t take long for Rome and Carthage to find an excuse, and a war was started between them. The Romans called this fight a Punic War, for “Punic” was their name for Phenician, and the Carthaginians were Phenicians.

As Carthage was across the water, the Romans could not get to her except in boats. But Rome had no boats. She was not on the sea-shore, and she knew nothing about making boats, nor about sailing them, if she had had them.

The Carthaginians, on the other hand, had many, many boats, and, like all the Phenicians, were old and experienced sailors.

But Rome happened to find the wreck of a Carthaginian ship that had been cast ashore, and she at once set to work to make a copy of it. In a remarkably short time she had built one ship, then another and another, until she had a great many ships. Then, though she was new at the game, she attacked the Carthaginian fleet.

It would seem that the Carthaginians could easily have won, for the Romans knew so little about boats. But in sea battles, before this, the fighting had been done by running into the enemy and ramming and sinking their ships.

The Romans knew they were no match for the Carthaginians in this sort of fighting. So they thought up a way in which they could fight them as on land.

To do this they invented a kind of big hook which they called a “crow.” The idea was for a ship to run close alongside a Carthaginian ship and, instead of trying to sink her, to throw out this big hook or “crow,” catch hold of the other ship, and pull both boats dose together. The Roman soldiers would then scramble over the sides into the enemy’s boat and fight them the same way they would on land.

The scheme worked.

This new kind of fighting took the Carthaginians by surprise, and they were no match for the Romans at first.