[289] Instances occur in which fleets were fitted out with great rapidity—green wood being necessarily used. Thus Scipio fitted out a large fleet within forty-five days after the timber had been felled (Liv. xxxiii. 45), and Julius Cæsar in thirty days, at Arles, against the people of Marseilles (Cæs. B. Civ. i. 34).
- 1. At the commencement of the first Punic war a fleet was hastily built and, under the command of C. Duilius, destroyed that of the Carthaginians, B.C. 260.
- 2. A second fleet was prepared, and a great victory was won over the Carthaginians near Agrigentum, B.C. 256.
- 3. A third fleet was fitted out in B.C. 250, and nearly destroyed off Drepana, in the next year.
- 4. About the same time a fourth fleet, conveying stores to the army besieging Lilybæum, was entirely destroyed, together with the store ships, by a hurricane off Camarina.
- 5. A fifth fleet was built, B.C. 241, to relieve Lilybæum, which had now been besieged for eight years.
This fleet, under C. Lutatius Catulus, defeated the Carthaginians, and put an end to the first Punic war in B.C. 241.
During the second and third Punic wars no fleets were employed, except as transports.
[291] Carthage fell in B.C. 146, Corinth in B.C. 141.
[292] Details of Pompey’s triumph for this cause are given in Pliny (vii. 98.)
[293] Polybius, iii. 22.
[294] Livy, ii. 27.
[295] “As long as the corn-fleets arrived duly from Sicily and Africa, the populace cared little whether the victory was gained by Octavian or his generals.”—Liddell’s “Hist. of Rome,” p. 628.