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Chapter XII

THE FIRST PUNIC WAR. 264-241 B.C.

S was but natural, the first conflict between Rome and
Carthage had its origin in the island which lay between

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Italy and Africa. After Pyrrhus had been driven from Sicily and Italy in 275 B.C., the Carthaginians were left masters of more than half the island, and were in possession of the important town of Agrigentum. Syracuse retained nothing but Tauromenium and the southeast of the island. We have above alluded to the roving and mercenary character of the Campanian youth, who, feeling no strong attachment to their native land, had ever been willing to join the forces of Greek adventurers. On the death of Agathocles a band of these mercenaries had, by an act of odious treachery, seized Messana, and in a short time these Mamertines, or men of Mars, as they styled themselves, became the third power in Sicily. Their increasing strength was not unwelcome to the Carthaginians, who gladly saw a new and hostile power established close to Syracuse. Hiero, the new ruler and able general of Syracuse, made great efforts to restore the city to its former eminence, and to unite the Sicilian Greeks. Being at peace for the time with the Carthaginians, he turned his arms against Messana, at the very time that Rome was taking vigorous measures against the Campanian kinsmen of the Mamertines, who had established themselves in Rhegium.

Hiero succeeded in shutting up the Mamertines in their city, and was on the point of successfully terminating a siege which had lasted some years, when the Mamertines in their dire strait turned for help to Rome, and offered to deliver their city into her hands. It was a moment of the deepest significance in the history of the world when the envoys of the Mamertines appeared in the Roman senate. If the Romans acceded to their request, they would not only do violence to their own feelings of right and wrong, by receiving into alliance a band of adventurers stained with the worst crimes, whose very kinsmen in Rhegium they had just

265-262 B.C.

punished for the same offense, but they would throw aside their views of establishing a mere sovereignty in Italy for the wider and more dangerous policy of interference with the outside world-a policy which could not fail to bring them into complicated relations with powers strictly outside their own land. A war with Carthage, serious as it might prove, was not the only result that might follow such a step; no one could calculate the consequences of so bold a leap in the dark. After long deliberation the senate referred the matter to the citizens; and they, fired by a consciousness of what they had already achieved, and by a belief in their future destiny, authorized the senate in 265 B.C. to receive the Mamertines into the Italian confederacy, and to send them aid at once.

When the Roman force dispatched to carry out this policy reached Rhegium it was learned that Carthage had been called in to mediate between Syracuse and Messana, and that the town was now in possession of a Carthaginian garrison. It was the fear of just such a result that had first induced the Romans to interfere in the affair of the Mamertines. Without delay, therefore, the expedition crossed the strait and took forcible possession of Messana.

Carthage declared war 264 B.C., and a strong fleet under Hanno, the son of Hannibal, blockaded Messana. At the same time a Carthaginian land army laid siege to the town on the north side, and Hiero undertook the attack on the south side of the city. But the Roman consul, Appius Claudius Caudex, crossed over from Rhegium, and, uniting his forces with those of Claudius, surprised the enemy, and succeeded in raising the siege. In the following year Marcus Valerius Maximus defeated the allied armies of Carthage and Syracuse. Upon this Hiero went over to the Roman side, and continued to be the most important and the firmest ally the Romans had in the island. The desertion of Hiero and the success of Roman arms forced the Carthaginians to take refuge in their fortresses; and the succeeding year, 262 B.C., practically saw the close, for the time being, of the war in Sicily.

The whole island passed into the hands of the Romans, with the exception of the maritime fortresses, held by the firm grip of Hamilcar, and the coast towns, which were awed into obedience by the all-powerful Carthaginian fleet. The real difficulties of the war were at last beginning to be realized by the Romans, and the necessity of a fleet was clearly recognized. Not only was it impossible for them completely to subdue Sicily while Carthage ruled

260-256 B.C.

the sea, but their own coast was continually ravaged by Carthaginian privateers, and their commerce was well-nigh ruined. Therefore they resolved to build a fleet of one hundred quinqueremes and twenty triremes. A stranded Carthaginian man-ofwar served as a model to the Roman shipbuilders, and in the spring of 260 B. C. the great task was accomplished, and the fleet launched. It has been seen in what poor estimation the Romans held naval matters, and even now, not only the sailors, but also the naval officers, were almost exclusively drawn from their Italian allies. To compensate for their ignorance of nautical tactics and maneuvers, the Romans made great use of soldiers; and by lowering flyingbridges on to the Carthaginian ships, and fastening them with grappling-irons, they reduced the fight to a land conflict, making it possible to board and capture the enemy's ships by assault. The first great trial of strength took place at Mylae, a promontory to the northwest of Messana, where the Roman fleet under Gaius. Duilius encountered the Carthaginian fleet under the command of Hannibal. The Carthaginians, despising their awkward-looking opponents, fell upon then irregular order; but the boardingbridges gave the fans a complete victory, the moral effect of which was far greater than the victory itself. In spite of this success, however, the war dragged on without any decisive action, Hamilcar maintaining himself in Sicily with great skill. At last, weary of this unsatisfactory state of things, the Romans determined to strike at Carthage in her native land. In the spring of 256 B.C. a powerful fleet of 330 ships set sail for Africa; on the way it received on board at Himera, on the south coast of Sicily, four legions under the command of the two consuls, Marcus Atilius Regulus and Lucius Manlius Volso. The Carthaginian fleet, consisting of some 350 ships, had taken up its station at Ecnomus to protect its native shores; thus, when the two fleets met, each side must have numbered little less than one hundred and fifty thousand men. After an obstinate struggle, in which both sides suffered heavily, the Romans gained the day; and the consuls, having deceived the Carthaginians as to their place of landing, disembarked, without any hindrance from the enemy, on the eastern side of the gulf of Carthage, at the bay of Clupea. An entrenched camp was formed on a hill above the harbor, and so confident were the Romans rendered by the success of their plan that half the army and most of the fleet were recalled home by the senate. Regulus remained Hist. Nat. III

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256-255 B.C.

in Africa with 40 ships, 15,000 infantry, and 500 cavalry. The terror-stricken Carthaginians did not dare to face the Romans in the field; the towns everywhere surrendered, and the Numidians rose in revolt against Carthage. Cowed by this accumulation of disasters, the proud Phoenician city sued for peace, but the exorbitant terms proposed by Regulus were little calculated to render such a solution possible. Under the spur of dire necessity, Carthage evinced that energy and enthusiasm which on such occasions often marks Oriental nations. Hamilcar, the hero of the guerrilla war in Sicily, appeared on the scene with the flower of his Sicilian troops; gold purchased the support both of Numidian cavalry and of Greek mercenaries, among whom was the Spartan Xanthippus, famous for his knowledge and skill in the art of war. ing the energetic preparations of Carthage, Regulus remained idle at Tunis; he still pretended to besiege Carthage, and did not even take measures to secure his retreat to the naval camp at Clupea.

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His folly cost him dear. In the spring of 255 B.C. the Carthaginians were in a position to take the held and Regulus accepted, battle without waiting for reinforcements.com courage availed not against the superior tactics of Xanthippus. Outflanked and surrounded by the Numidian horse, crushed and completely broken up by the elephants, the Romans were almost annihilated. The consul was one of the few prisoners; about two thousand fugitives reached Clupea in safety. On the news of this disaster reaching Rome, a large fleet at once started to save the remnant shut up in Clupea. After defeating the Carthaginians off the Hermaean promontory, the Roman ships arrived at Clupea, and carried off what remained of the army of Regulus. Content with accomplishing this, they sailed homeward, and thus evacuated a most important position, and left their African allies to Carthaginian vengeance. To crown the misfortunes of Rome, a terrible storm destroyed three-fourths of their fleet, and only eighty ships reached home in safety.

Carthage took a stern vengeance on the revolted Numidians, and filled her exhausted treasury with the heavy fines in money and cattle which she exacted from her rebellious subjects. Able now to assume the offensive, she dispatched Hasdrubal, son of Hanno, to Sicily, with a force especially strong in elephants. He landed at Lilybaeum, and Sicily once more became the theater of the war. A new Roman fleet of three hundred ships was dispatched thither

254-249 B.C.

in the incredibly short space of three months; and the Carthaginian stronghold of Panormus, with many other places of minor importance, fell into the hands of the Romans. But by land no progress was made, and the Romans did not dare to risk a battle in the face of the overwhelming numbers of Carthaginian elephants. The year 254 B.C. passed by; and the next year, while returning from a plundering expedition to the coast of Africa, the Romans lost 150 vessels in another storm, owing to their obstinate refusal to allow the pilots to take their own course. The senate, utterly downcast by this disaster, reduced their fleet to sixty sail, and limited themselves to the defense of the coast and the convoy of transports. The land war in Sicily was more successful. In 252 B.C., Thermae, the last Carthaginian position on the north coast, and the island of Lipara, yielded to Roman arms; and in the following year the consul Gaius Caecilius Metellus gained a great victory over the Carthaginian army under the walls of Panormus, owing to the disorder of the elephants, which charged their own side. The Carthaginians could no longer take the field, and in a short time they only retained their hold on Drepana and Lilybaeum. The Romans refused the Carthaginian proposals for peace in 249 B.C., and concentrated all their efforts on the capture of Lilybaeum. This was the first great siege undertaken by Rome: but the greater adroitness of the Carthaginian sailors. and the ability of Himilco, the commander of Lilybaeum, parried all the efforts of the Romans both by sea and land. Foiled in their efforts to take the city by assault, they were forced to attempt to reduce it by blockade; but they were unable to completely prevent Carthaginian ships from running into the harbor with supplies from Drepana, while the light Numidian cavalry made all foraging both difficult and dangerous on land. In addition, disease, arising from the malaria of the district, thinned the ranks of the Roman land army. Weary of the tedious blockade, the new consul, Publius Claudius, attempted to surprise the Carthaginian fleet as it lay at anchor before Drepana. Completely outmaneuvered by the Phoenician admiral, Atarbas, the Roman consul fell into the trap set for him, and only escaped by prompt flight himself. Ninety-three Roman vessels, with the legions on board, were captured, and the Carthaginians won their first and only great naval victory over the Romans. Lilybaeum was thus set free from the blockade by sea; in fact, the remains of the Roman fleet were in their turn blockaded by the Carthaginian

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