“It happened that a Carthaginian quinquereme had run ashore on the Bruttian coast when Appius Claudius was first crossing over to Sicily, and it was noted as a curious circumstance, that the Roman soldiers had taken a ship of war. This quinquereme, which had probably been sent to Rome as a trophy, was now made the shipwright's model, and a hundred ships were built after her pattern, and launched in two months after the first felling of the timber. The seamen, partly Roman proletarians, or citizens of the poorest class, partly Etruscans or Greeks from the maritime states of Italy, were all unaccustomed to row in quinqueremes, and the Romans had perhaps never handled an oar of any sort. While the ships were building therefore, to lose no time, the future crew of each quinquereme were ranged upon benches ashore, in the same order, that to us undiscoverable problem, in which they were hereafter to sit on board; the keleustes, whose voice or call regulated the stroke in the ancient galleys, stood in the midst of them, and at his signal they went through their movements, and learned to keep time together, as if they had been actually afloat. With such ships and such crews the Romans put to sea early in the spring, to seek an engagement with the fleet of the first naval power in the world.”
[History of Rome, Arnold, 1844]

Note: See Polybius (above.)