[264-262 B.C.]

THE WAR BEGINS

To make the dreary length of this war more intelligible, it may conveniently be divided into three periods. The first comprises its first seven years (264-257), during which the Romans were uniformly successful, and at the close of which they had driven the Carthaginians to the south and west coasts of Sicily. The second is an anxious period of mingled success and failure, also lasting for seven years (256-250): it begins with the invasion of Africa by Regulus, and ends with his embassy and death. The third is a long and listless period of nine years (249-241), in which the Romans slowly retrieve their losses, and at length conclude the war by a great victory at sea.

FIRST PERIOD (264-257 B.C.)

The ill success of Hanno at Messana so displeased the Carthaginian government that they ordered the unfortunate general to be crucified. The Romans pursued their first success with vigour. In the year 264 B.C. both the consuls crossed over into Sicily with an army of nearly fifty thousand men. A number of the Sicilian towns declared in favour of the new power, which might (they hoped) secure their independence against both Syracuse and Carthage; for at present no one dreamed of a permanent occupation of the island by the Romans. Hiero, a prudent man, was struck by the energy of the new invaders. "They had conquered him," he said, "before he had had time to see them." He shrewdly calculated that the Carthaginians would prove inferior in the struggle, and forthwith concluded a treaty of alliance

with Rome, by which he was left in undisturbed possession of a small but fertile region lying round Syracuse; some more remote towns, as Tauromenium, being also subject to his sceptre.

From this time forth to the time of his death, a period of forty-seven years, he remained a useful ally of the Roman people. In 262 B.C. both

[262-260 B.C.] consuls laid siege to the city of Agrigentum, which, though fallen from her ancient splendour, was still the second of the Hellenic communities in Sicily. Another Hanno was sent from Carthage to raise the siege, and for some time fortune favoured him. He drew a second circle of entrenchments round the Roman lines, so as to intercept all supplies; and thus the besiegers, being themselves besieged, were reduced to the greatest straits. But the consul at length forced Hanno to give him battle, and gained a complete victory. Upon this the commandant of the garrison, finding further defence useless, slipped out of Agrigentum by night, and deserted the hapless city after a siege of seven months. The Romans repaid themselves for the miseries they had undergone by indulging in all those excesses which soldiers are wont to commit when they take a town by storm after a long and obstinate defence. It is said that twentyfive thousand men were slain.

This great success raised the spirits of the Romans. And now the senate conceived the hope and formed the plan of expelling the Carthaginians entirely from Sicily: but after a short experience, that sagacious council became aware that a fleet was indispensable for success. Nothing shows the courage and resolution of the Romans more than their manner of acting in this matter. It is no light matter for landsmen to become seamen; but for unpractised landsmen to think of encountering the most skilful seamen then known might have been deemed a piece of romantic absurdity, if the men of Rome had not undertaken and accomplished it.

What they wanted first was a set of ships, which, in size at least and weight, should be a match for those of the enemy. It is a mistake to suppose that the Romans had no fleet before this time. The treaties with Carthage sufficiently prove the contrary; and on several occasions we hear of ships being employed by them. But these ships were of the trireme kind, formerly employed by the Greeks. The Carthaginians, like the Greeks after Alexander, used quinqueremes; and it would have been as absurd for the small Roman ships to have encountered those heavier vessels, as for a frigate to cope with a three-decker. The Romans therefore determined to build quinqueremes. A Carthaginian ship cast ashore on the coast of Bruttium served as a model; the forest of Sila, in that district, supplied timber. In sixty day from the time the trees were felled they had completed, probably by the help of Greek artisans, a fleet of one hundred quinqueremes, and twenty triremes; and while it was building, they trained men to row in a manner which to us seems laughable, by placing them on scaffolds ranged on land in the same way as the benches in the ships (262 B.C.).

The consul Cn. Cornelius put to sea first with seventeen ships, leaving the rest of the fleet to follow; but he was surprised near Lipara and captured, with the whole of his little squadron, by the Carthaginian admiral. His plebeian colleague, C. Duilius, was in command of the army in Sicily; but as soon as he heard of this disaster, he hastened to take charge of the main body of the fleet, and sailed slowly along the north coast of Sicily (260 B.C.).

Meantime, the Roman shipwrights had contrived certain engines, by means of which their seamen might grapple with the enemy's ships, so as to bring them to close quarters and deprive them of the superiority derived from their better construction and the greater skill of their crews. These engines were called crows (corvi). They consisted of a gangway thirty-six feet long and four broad, pierced with an oblong hole towards

[260-256 B.C.]

one end, so as to play freely round a strong pole twenty-four feet high, which was fixed near the ship's prow. At the other end was attached a strong rope, which passed over a sheaf at the head of the pole. By this rope the gangway was kept hauled up till within reach of the enemy's ship; it was then suddenly let go, and as it fell with all its weight, a strong spike on its under side (shaped like a crow's beak) was driven into the enemy's deck. Then the Roman men-at-arms poured along the gangway, and a stand-up fight followed, in which the best soldiers must prevail.

Thus prepared, Duilius encountered the enemy's fleet. He found them ravaging the coast at Mylæ, a little to the west of Palermo. The admiral was the same person who had commanded the garrison of Agrigentum, and was carried in an enormous septireme, which had formerly belonged to Pyrrhus. Nothing daunted, Duilius attacked without delay. By his rude assault the skilful tactics of the Carthaginian seamen were confounded. The Roman fighting-men were very numerous, and when they had once boarded an enemy's ship, easily made themselves masters of her. Duilius took thirty-one Carthaginian ships and sunk fourteen. For a season, no Roman name stood so high as that of Duilius. Public honours were awarded him; he was to be escorted home at night from banquets and festivals by the light of torches and the music of the flute; a pillar was set up in the Forum, ornamented with the beaks of the captured ships, and therefore called the Columna Rostrata, to commemorate the great event; fragments of the inscription still remain in the Capitoline Museum at Rome. And no doubt the triumph was signal. The honours conferred upon the conqueror cannot but give a pleasing impression of the simple manners then prevailing at Rome, especially when we contrast them with the cruelty of the Carthaginian government, who crucified their unfortunate admiral. To have defeated the Mistress of the Sea upon her own element in the first trial of strength was indeed remarkable.

The sea fight of Duilius was fought in the year 260 B.C. In the following years the Carthaginians were only able to act upon the defensive. Not only Agrigentum, but Camarina, Gela, Enna, Segesta, and many other cities had surrendered to the Romans. The Carthaginians were confined to their great trading marts, Drepana, Lilybæum, Eryx, and Panormus. They did not dare to meet the Romans in the field; yet these places were very strong, especially Lilybæum. Against its iron fortifications all the strength of Pyrrhus had been broken. It was not time yet for Carthage to despair.

But in the eighth year of the war the senate determined on more decisive measures. They knew the weakness of the Carthaginians at home; they had a victorious fleet, and they determined not to let their fortune slumber.

SECOND PERIOD (256-250 B.C.)

Duilius appears for a brief time as the hero of the first part of the war; but its second period is marked by the name of a man who has become famous as a patriot-M. Atilius Regulus. It was in the year 256, the eighth of the war, that the consuls, M. Regulus and L. Manlius, sailed from Italy and doubled Cape Pachynus with a fleet of 330 quinqueremes. The Carthaginian fleet, even larger in number, had been stationed at Lilybæum to meet the enemy, whether they should approach from the north or from the

[256 B.C.] east. They now put to sea, and sailed westwards along the southern coast of Sicily. They met the Roman fleet at a place called Ecnomus, a little more than halfway along that coast. The battle that ensued was the greatest that, up to that time, had ever been fought at sea; it is calculated that not fewer than 300,000 men were engaged. It was desperately contested on both sides; but at Ecnomus, again, we are astonished to find the Roman fleet victorious (256 B.C.).

The way was now open to Africa. The consuls, after refitting and provisioning their fleet, sailed straight across to the Hermæan promontory, which is distant from the nearest point of Sicily not more than eighty miles. But the omens were not auspicious; the Roman soldiery went on board with

gloomy forebodings of their fate; one of the tribunes refused to lead his legionaries into the ships, till Regulus ordered the lictors to seize him. The passage, however, was favoured by the wind. The consuls landed their men, drew up the fleet on shore, and fortified it in a naval camp; and then, marching southwards, they took the city of Aspis or Clupea by assault. No Carthaginian army met them; every place they came near, except Utica, surrendered at discretion, for they were unfortified and defenceless. Carthage, being of old mistress of the sea, feared no invaders, and, like England, trusted for defence to her wooden walls. Yet she had not been unwarned. Sixty years before the adventurous Agathocles had landed like Regulus. Then, as now, the whole country lay like a garden before him, covered with wealthy towns and the luxurious villas of the Carthaginian merchants. Then two hundred towns or more had surrendered almost without stroke of sword. It appeared as if the same easy success now awaited Regulus and the Romans.

[256-255 B.C.]

The consuls were advancing along the coast of the gulf towards Carthage, when Manlius was recalled with the greater part of the army, and Regulus was left in Africa with only fifteen thousand foot and five hundred horse. Yet even with this small force he remained master of the country. He had gone round the whole Gulf of Tunis as far as Utica, and now he turned upon his steps with the intention of marching upon the capital itself. On his way he was obliged to cross the river Bagradas, and here (so ran the legend) the army was stopped by a huge serpent, so strong and tough of skin that they were unable to destroy it, till they brought up their artillery of catapults and balists; he then continued his route southwards to the Bay of Carthage. He was allowed to take Tunis, which stood within twenty miles of Carthage. The great city was now reduced to the utmost straits. A Roman army was encamped within sight; famine stared the townsmen in the face; the government trembled. In this abject condition the council sent an embassy to ask what terms of peace Regulus would grant.

The consul was so elated by success, that he demanded the most extravagant concessions. The Carthaginians were to give up their fleet, pay all the expenses of the war, and cede all Sicily, with Sardinia, Corsica, and the Balearic Isles, to Rome. When these terms were reported, the government took care to publish them, and public indignation rose against the arrogant invaders. The civic force was not untrained to arms, and they had now to fight for their hearths and altars. A good general was sought for. At that time there happened to be at Carthage a soldier of fortune, by name Xanthippus, a Lacedæmonian.1 This man had been heard to censure the native generals, and to declare that the victories of the Romans were due, not to their own superior skill, but to the faults of their opponents. He was summoned before the council and desired to give reasons for his remarks. He did so; and, for a moment, the government, dismissing all jealousy, appointed this obscure foreigner general-in-chief. Xanthippus immediately drew together all the mercenaries he could find, and united them with the armed citizens; then, supported by a large body of elephants, he boldly took the field. The Romans were astonished; but they were too much accustomed to victory to hesitate about accepting battle. But they were both outnumbered and outgeneralled. Xanthippus gained a victory as easy as it was complete. Regulus himself was taken prisoner; only two thousand of his men succeeded in making good their retreat to Clupea.

Thus was Carthage delivered by the ability of one man, and that man a foreigner. The government did not improve in wisdom or generosity; their incapable generals resumed the command, and Xanthippus, loaded with honours and presents, prudently withdrew from the jealous city.

The Roman senate did their best to repair this great calamity. The new consuls were ordered to put to sea, and bring off the garrison and fugitives from Clupea. Near the Hermæan promontory they encountered the enemy's fleet, and again defeated it; and then, having taken up the ships and men at Clupea, they sailed for Syracuse. But a still greater disaster was in store for Rome than the destruction of her African army. This was the loss of that fleet of which she was justly proud. The time of year was about the beginning of the dog-days, when the Mediterranean is apt to be visited by sudden storms. The consuls, upon their passage, were warned that such a storm was at hand; but they were ignorant and rash, and continued their course. Before they could double Cape Pachynus they were caught by the

[1 Appian says that Lacedæmon, being asked for a general, sent Xanthippus.]