Corvus (weapon)
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A corvus (meaning "raven" in Latin) was a Roman military boarding device used in naval warfare during the First Punic War against Carthage.
In the Book III of his History, Polybius describes the corvus like a bridge 1.2 m (4 ft) wide and 10.9 m (36 ft) long, with a small parapet on both sides. The engine was probably used in the prow of the ship, where a system of pulleys and a pole allowed the bridge to be raised and lowered. On the other side of the device, underneath the bridge, was a heavy spike, shaped as a bird's beak, hence the name. The spike was designed to crush the planking in the enemy ship's deck, when the corvus was lowered from the Roman side. The system allowed a firm grip between the vessels and the boarding route for the legionaries.
In the 3rd century BC, Rome was not a naval power and had little or no experience in war at sea. In fact, before the first Punic war, the Roman Republic had not ventured in campaigns outside the Italian Peninsula yet. Legionares’ skills were perfected for land battles and Rome's greatest assets were the discipline and courage of Roman soldiers. The corvus at sea allowed the Republic to make use of this superiority against the more efficient Carthaginian fleet. The tactics of applying land manpower at sea worked, as the Romans won the battles of Mylae, Sulci, Tindarys and Ecnomus, largely due to the corvus strategy and Carthaginian incapacity to adapt.
Despite all its qualities, the corvus had serious drawbacks: modern enactments show that its use compromised the ship's navigability, since it forces an extra weight on the prow. Romans lost almost two entire fleets to weather conditions, in 255 and 249 BC, largely due to the instability caused by the device. This was probably the reason for the abandonment of the corvus in ship design to the end of the war. As Roman naval tactics improved and the crews became more experienced, the advantage of the corvus in battle lost ground to the risk involved in using them. The engine is not mentioned in the sources after the Ecnomus and apparently the battle of the Aegates Islands that decided the first Punic war was already won without them.
References
- Goldsworthy, Adrian (2004). The Fall of Carthage. Cassel Publications. ISBN 0304366420.de:Corvus (Waffe)