NAVIES, ANCIENT AND MEDIEVAL. The ancient method of naval warfare consisted in great part, in the driving of beaked vessels against each other: and therefore skill and celerity in maneuvering, so as to strike the enemy at the greatest disadvantage, were of the utmost importance. The victory thus usually remained with the best sailor. This mode of conflict has been attempted to he revived at the present time, and vessels called "steam rams" are specially constructed for this species of conflict. The earliest powers having efficient fleets appear to have been the Phenicians, Carthaginians, Persians, and Greeks; the Greeks had fleets as early as the beginning of the 7th c. B.C.—file first sea-tight on record being that between the Corinthians and their colonists of Corcyra, 664 B.C. The earliest great battle in which tactics appear to have distinctly been opposed to superior force, and with success, was that of Salamis (4S0 fie.), where Tlionistocles taking advan tage of the narrows, forced the Persian fleet of Xerxes to combat in such a manner, that their line of battle but little exceeded in length the line of the much inferior Athenian fleet. The Peloponnesian war, where " Greek met Greek," tended much to develop the art of naval warfare. But the destruction of the Athenian marine power in the Syracusae expe dition of 414 B.C., left Carthage mistress of the Mediterranean. The Roman power, how ever, gradually asserted itself, and after two centuries, became omnipotent by the destruction of Carthage. For several following centuries, the only sea-fights were occa sioned by the civil wars of the Romans. Towards the clOse of the empire, the system of fighting with pointed prows had been discontinued in favor of that which had always co-existed—viz., the running alongside, and boarding by armed men, with whom each
vessel was overloaded. Onagers, balistm, etc., were ultimately carried in the ships, and used as artillery; but they were little relied on, and it was usual, after a discharge of arrows and javelins, to come to close quarters. A sea fight was therefore a hand-to hand struggle on a floating base, iu which the vanquished were almost certainly drowned or slain.
The northern invaders of the empire, and subsequently the Moors, seem to have intro duced swift-sailinggalleys, warring in small squadrons and singly, and ravaging all civil ized coasts for plunder and slaves. This—the break-up of the empire—was the era of piracy, when every nation, which had more to win than lose by freebootiug. sent out its cruisers. Foremost for daring and seamanship were the Norsemen, who penetrated in every direction from the Bosporus to Newfoundland. Combination being the only security against these marauders, the mediaeval navies gradually up; the most conspicuous being—in the Mediterranean, those of Venice, Genoa, Pisa, Aragon; on the Atlantic sea-board, England and France. In the Mediterranean, Venice, after a long struggle with the Genoese, and subsequently with the Turks, became the great naval power. The Aragouese fleet gradually developed into the Spanish navy, which, by the epoch of Columbus, had •a rival in that of Portugal. Many struggles left, in the 16th and 17th centuries, the principal naval power in the hands of the English, French, Dutch, Spaniards, and Portinruese. The present state of these and other existing navies will be briefly given under NAVIES, MODERN.