besieging them. However, the people of Rome, not troubled with the
honest scruples of the senate, were, under the direction of the
consuls, inflamed by the hope of conquest and of the riches that they
expected would follow success, and a war which lasted twenty-three
years was the result of their reckless greed (B.C. 264).

The result was really decided during the first two years, for the
Romans persuaded the Mamertines to expel the Carthaginians from
Messana, and then, though besieged by them and by Hiero, drove them
both off, and in the year 263 took many Sicilian towns and even
advanced to Syracuse. Then Hiero concluded a peace with Rome to which
he was faithful to the time of his death, fifty years afterward. The
Sicilian city next to Syracuse in importance was Agrigentum, and this
the Romans took the next year, thus turning the tables and making
themselves instead of the Carthaginians masters of most of the
important island, with the exception of Panormus and Mount Eryx, near
Drepanum (B.C. 262).

The Carthaginians, being a commercial people, were well supplied with
large ships, and the Romans now saw that they, too, must have a navy.
Possessing no models on which to build ships of war larger than those
with three banks of oars, [Footnote: The ancient war vessels were moved
by both sails and oars; but the oars were the great dependence in a
fight. At first there was but one bank of oars; but soon there were two
rows of oarsmen, seated one above the other, the uppermost having long
oars. After awhile three banks were arranged, then four, now five, and
later more, the uppermost oars being of immense length, and requiring
several men to operate each. We do not now know exactly how so many
ranges of rowers were accommodated, nor how such unwieldly oars were
managed. The Athenians tried various kinds of ships, but concluded that