The Entrance Was Lengthways, And It Could Be Moved About The Piece Of Timber, First Described, As On A Spindle, And Could Be Hoisted Within Six Feet Of The Top.

Round this there was a parapet, knee high, which was defended with upright bars of iron, sharpened at the end.

Towards the top there was a ring, through which a rope was fastened, by means of which they could raise and lower the engine at pleasure. With this machine they attacked the enemy's vessels, sometimes on their bow, and sometimes on their broadside. When they had grappled the enemy with these iron spikes, if the ships happened to swing broadside to broadside, then the Romans boarded them from all parts; but when they were obliged to grapple them on the bow, they entered two and two, by the help of this engine, the foremost defending the forepart, and those who followed the flanks, keeping the boss of their bucklers level with the top of the parapet."

From this description of the corvus, it is evident that it had two distinct uses to serve: in the first place, to lay hold of and entangle the enemy's ships; and, secondly, after it had accomplished this object, it served as a means of entering the enemy's vessels, and also as a protection while the boarding was taking place. With respect to the question, whether the _harpagones_ or manus ferraeae; were the same with the _corvi_, it appears to us that the former were of much older invention, as they certainly were much more simple in their construction; and that, probably, the engineer who invented the corvi, borrowed his idea of them from the harpagones, and in fact incorporated the two machines in one engine.

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