wholly enveloped. Navies Quinqueremes, meaning "five-oarsmen", provided the workhorses of the Roman and Carthaginian fleets throughout the Punic Wars. So ubiquitous was the type that Polybius uses it as a shorthand for "warship" in general. A quinquereme carried a crew of 300: 280 oarsmen and 20 deck crew and officers. It would also normally carry a complement of 40 marines; if battle was thought to be imminent this would be increased to as many as 120. In 260BC Romans set out to construct a fleet and used a shipwrecked Carthaginian quinquereme as a blueprint for their own. As novice shipwrights, the Romans built copies that were heavier than the Carthaginian vessels; thus they were slower and less manoeuvrable. Getting the oarsmen to row as a unit, let alone to execute more complex battle manoeuvres, required long and arduous training. At least half of the oarsmen would need to have had some experience if the ship was to be handled effectively. As a result, the Romans were initially at a disadvantage against the more experienced Carthaginians. To counter this, the Romans introduced the corvus, a bridge wide and long, with a heavy spike on the underside, which was designed to pierce and anchor into an enemy ship's deck. This allowed Roman legionaries acting as marines to board enemy ships and capture them, rather than employing the previously traditional tactic of ramming. All warships were equipped with rams, a triple set of bronze blades weighing up to positioned at the waterline. In the century prior to the Punic Wars, boarding had become increasingly common and ramming had declined, as the larger and heavier vessels adopted in this period increasingly lacked the speed and manoeuvrability necessary to ram effectively, while their sturdier construction reduced a ram's effect on them even in case of a successful attack. The Roman adaptation of the was a continuation of this trend and compensated for their initial disadvantage in ship-manoeuvring skills. The added weight in the prow compromised both the ship's manoeuvrability and its seaworthiness, and in rough sea conditions the became useless; part way through the First Punic War the Romans ceased using it. First Punic War, 264–241 BC Course Much of the First Punic War was fought on, or in the waters near, Sicily. Away from the coasts its hilly and rugged terrain made manoeuvring large forces difficult and so encouraged defensive strategies. Land operations were