Note 288 — Chapter VI

The first Roman ships were probably little better than the boats used on the Tiber, called from their thick coarse planks Naves Caudicariæ—whence Appius Claudius, A.U.C. 489, B.C. 264, who first induced his people to fit out a fleet, obtained the name of Caudex (Senec. de Brev. Vit. 13. Varro de Vit. Rom. 11). According to Polybius a stranded Carthaginian ship was their first good model (i. 20, 21), though this is hard to reconcile with Livy, ix. 30, 38. Possibly their first ship of war was copied from one of Antium (Livy, viii. 14). The treaties with Carthage long before the Punic wars prove that the Romans had a fleet even then—though, probably, of a very inferior kind.