Always listen to the sacred chickens

The whole business with the Roman navy in the First Punic War is just amazing. At the start of the war, Rome has no navy. Rome has never had a navy. The Romans practically wouldn’t recognize a navy if one sat on their face. Problem is, they’re up against Carthage, which has the swankiest navy in the Mediterranean. And the war is about control over Sicily, which is, like, an island. So, navies matter.

Therefore, Rome decides to build a navy. If you believe Polybius, they get their hands on a shipwrecked Carthaginian quinquereme, and copy it. Although, Rome also has allies on Sicily, such as Syracuse, who have war ships, so maybe that’s where they get the blueprints. Anyhoo, an enormous amount of carpentry is done, and the Romans now have ships.

Second problem: Tactics. The usual tactic for naval battles at this time is to stick a giant bronze battering ram on the business end of your ship, and ram the opponent. Carthage is better at this, since they have more practice. Solution: Rome is pretty awesome at land warfare, so why not fight naval battles like land battles? To this end, they invent a device called the corvus. This is a wooden bridge attached to a pulley, with a spike on the end. This they put to use for boarding enemy ships.

Bob is now the Romans’ uncle, and things go well. After a while, they decide to take the war to Carthage directly, and invade Africa. This, for reasons I will not get into here, goes a bit pear-shaped, and, long story short, the navy has to evacuate the survivors of a defeated army. Now, new problem: To get home, they need to sail around Sicily, but the weather off the coast of Sicily at this particular time of year is awful. Furthermore, the Roman mastery of the sea is still a bit shaky. Even so, they can’t just leave the army there. The end result of all this is that the entire fleet is sunk in a storm, with possibly the highest loss of life in a naval disaster in history. Oops.

No matter, Rome builds a second navy. This sets out, gets destroyed in another storm. Oops. Again, no matter, Rome builds a *third *navy.

How does this navy fare? Well, this is where the sacred chickens come in. During the siege of Lilybaeum, the Roman consul Publius Claudius Pulcher decides to launch a surprise attack on the Carthaginian fleet, near Drepana. Before this kind of attack, it is prudent to take the auspices, to check whether or not the gods are cool with the plan. For this purpose, what you do is bring along some sacred chickens. Then, you sprinkle some grain in front of the chickens, and observe their behavior. If the chickens eat the grain, things are good to go. If not, hold off the attack.

Before the attack, the chickens refuse to eat. This is a terrible omen, but for some reason, Pulcher decides to trust his own judgement over that of the birds. He throws the chickens overboard, saying: “If they don’t want to eat, maybe they want a drink.”

You can guess how this goes: The battle is lost, and the navy is smashed up. Then, later, what is left of it sinks in another storm. Oops.

At this point, with all their ships repeatedly going “blub, blub”, the Romans are souring a bit on the whole naval idea. Carthage, however, does little to take advantage of the situation, and the war settles into a slogging match on Sicily. Eventually, Rome realizes that despite their mixed success so far, they really need a navy to land a decisive punch. Problem: The treasury is empty. Solution: In a fit of patriotism, a number of wealthy Roman citizens donate their cash to finance new ships, with no expense to the state.

Rome builds a *fourth *navy, and goes on to win the war.

The moral of the story: Adopt a “can do” attitude. Think outside the box. If things don’t go your way on occasion, don’t be deterred, just keep at it until you win. And, most importantly: Always trust the sacred chickens. I think this is advice that we can all put to good use in our own lives.

Listening to the history of rome podcast, I get the distinct idea that the romans and Zapp “I threw wave after wave of my own men at the robots until I hit their pre-set kill limit” Brannigan would have gotten along fine.

I love this mental movie I have of the first time the Romans used the corvus on a Carthaginian ship, with the Romans getting ready to finally get into melee with the Carthaginians, saying “yes, yes, yes, yes” and nodding and the Carthaginians realizing that now they are in a land battle saying “no, no, no, no” frenetically…

That’s what happens, when you put some prettyboy in charge instead of a real admiral.

I see what you did there.

You can draw some parallels and perpendiculars to our situation in the Middle East. For instance, instead of listening to Sacred Chickens we listened to Chicken Hawks.

My wife’s goddamn chickens start to crowin’ about 4:30 a.m. every day. I wish to hell I didn’t have to listen to them.

This post has nothing to do with the Roman Navy.

“When I first came here, this was all swamp. Everyone said I was daft to build a castle on a swamp, but I built in all the same, just to show them. It sank into the swamp. So I built a second one. That sank into the swamp. So I built a third. That burned down, fell over, then sank into the swamp. But the fourth one stayed up. And that’s what you’re going to get, Lad, the strongest castle in all of England”

Keep calm and raise more legions. Or, well, in this case, build more ships.

BTW, somewhere in there I should mention the very first naval engagement, after building the first fleet. This was a cock-up, which earned the commander, Scipio Asina, the cognomen by which he is now forever known to history. (Asina, meaning “the ass”, or literally “female donkey”. Which is possibly my favorite Roman cognomen.)

I mean, it could have been worse. He wasn’t disgraced, or forced to commit suicide, or anything. He was even returned by to Rome by Carthage in a prisoner exchange after being captured. But still, the poor guy never lived it down, and now he never will. “Do they call me Scipio, the general? No. Do they call me Scipio, the two-time consul? No. But you bollix up *one *naval battle…”