The discovery of some rams off the Egades Islands, near Trapani, allows a new reconstruction of the dynamics of the battle which put an end to the First Punic War, in 241 B.C. Of utmost importance is an inscribed Roman ram, the short 4 line inscription of which matches some information by Polybius 1.59.1-8 about a public voluntary loan by the higher classes in 243 B.C. in order to set up the fl eet of Lutatius Catulus. The comparison between the tradition by Zonaras (Cassius Dio) and Polybius shows that the new Roman fl eet was different from the preceding ones: the Roman naval engineers were able to fi ll the gap with their Punic colleagues building ships that were almost identical to the fast punic quadriremes of Hannibal the Rhodian employed during the siege of Lilybaeum, as the perfect resemblance of the Roman and the Punic ram clearly shows. Keywords: First Punic war, rams, fl eet, navigation, economy (3rd century B. C.)