Gaius Duilius

Gaius Duilius won Rome's first naval victory and was granted the first naval triumph. He was consul in 260 BC, in the fourth year of the First Punic War against Carthage, a power whose navy had dominated the western Mediterranean for centuries and which Rome had no tradition of contesting. Rome had built a fleet from scratch, reportedly copying a wrecked Carthaginian quinquereme and training rowers on benches set up on land, and had immediately lost seventeen ships whose commander was seized at a parley. The Romans understood that they could not match Carthaginian seamanship — the ramming and manoeuvring that naval battles were decided by — so they changed what the battle was. The corvus was a boarding bridge about eleven metres long, hinged at the base of a pole in the bow and fitted with a heavy iron spike beneath its far end. Dropped onto an enemy deck, the spike held the two ships together and legionaries crossed. It converted a naval engagement into an infantry action, which Rome was better at than anyone. At Mylae off the north coast of Sicily in 260 BC, Duilius met a Carthaginian fleet that approached in no particular order, expecting an easy victory. The corvus took the leading thirty ships including the flagship, and about fifty were lost in total. He was voted a triumph and a columna rostrata in the Forum, decorated with the bronze rams of captured ships, and part of its inscription survives. He was also granted a torchbearer and a flute player to escort him home from dinner for the rest of his life.

• Lived: 290 BCE – 220 BCE
• Nationality: Roman
• Roles: admiral, naval_commander, politician