CHAPTER XXI

ROME AND CARTHAGE: THE FIRST PUNIC WAR

I.

CARTHAGE

DURING the Pyrrhic War the farsighted policy of Carthage had revealed itself at Rome when Mago accompanied his request for an alliance with a gift of gold and a demonstration of force. And the guarded phrases of the treaty which Rome granted proved that the senators were suspicious of their new friend. The friendship was not to last long. The city of Carthage was probably larger than Rome and was certainly wealthier. Her actual territory was not extensive, containing, besides rough pasture land, only about six hundred square miles of arable soil. But Carthage was then probably the most prosperous commercial and industrial city of the world. She carefully kept for herself and her allies a monopoly of the trade in her colonies and trading posts, and these were many. There were several in Southern Spain, including Gades, and they tapped the resources of the richest part of the peninsula; the Punic posts on the coast of North Africa, from Tripolis to beyond Tangiers, attracted the more profitable barter of some three million Moors and Numidians; five colonies exploited the resources of Sardinia, and the tithes of more than half of Sicily went to Carthage.

The ruling nobles of Carthage were largely rich merchants and manufacturers who saw to it that the state maintained a navy powerful enough to enforce embargo acts, protect the trading posts and prevent pirating in the western Mediterranean. The people of the city were the more prosperous because they had no military duties to call them away from their lucrative occupations. Mercenaries were hired and subject peoples conscripted for the army and navy, and the expenses were paid from the tribute exacted from their subjects. But commerce and industry were not the only sources of private wealth. The arable land, though not extensive, was generally held by rich landlords, and Punic planters were rapidly penetrating far into Numidia. Hanno’s expedition to Theveste during the First Punic War shows that these landed proprietors were powerful enough to force the government into a policy of territorial expansion at a time when the commercial party needed all possible resources to hold the sea and the Sicilian sea ports.

The constitution of the city was not remarkably unlike Rome’s. It had attracted the attention of Aristotle because of its aristocratic provisions and its stability. The regal form, so customary in the East, had never been adopted, because Carthage began life as a colony; and pure democracy, for some reason, never found favour among Semitic peoples. The magistrates were two “judges” who held office for but a year. Like the Roman consuls, these suffetes had to be men of property. Carthage however had an advantage over Rome in that skilled generals could be elected for long terms to direct the armies in time of war. Hence her armies were often led by far better tacticians than were Rome’s. At Carthage also the great Council was the regular lawmaking body, and proposals were not submitted to the popular assembly except in case of decided disagreement. It consisted of about three hundred men who held their seats ex officio. A committee of thirty of its members seems to have been an inner deliberative and advisory body of much importance. Carthage, then, was a timocracy with two excellent safety valves, on the one hand a popular referendum which prevented democratic explosions, on the other a centralization of executive power in wartime to provide efficient generalship.

Where the Carthaginian government differed most from the Roman was in its manner of ruling and employing its subjects and allies. Rome professed to be the leader of a large federation of free allies and associates, who, though providing contingents for the federal army, were not subject to a humiliating tribute. Carthage not only commandeered troops from the Phoenician colonies and from the nomad tribes of Africa but exacted a fixed annual tribute from the former and a heavy percentage of the annual crop—from twenty-five to fifty per cent.—from the latter. If these sums, as has been estimated, amounted to 12,000 talents per year, her revenues must have been about twenty times as much as Athens drew from her league in her most prosperous days. Obviously Carthage could face the costs of a large navy far more easily than the Roman state which could tax only its own citizens. But the advantages did not all lie with Carthage. The troops provided by the subject peoples who went into battle with memories of heavy grievances against their ruler were not very enthusiastic soldiers, and the mercenaries would probably have fought better in attacking towns that afforded booty than in facing bare armies of legionaries. In a word, the First Punic War proved to be a test of staying powers between a federation of autonomous peoples and a wealthy city which employed strangers or conscripted subjects to fight for her.

II.

THE ALLIANCE WITH THE MAMERTINES

Rome’s army had not yet returned from Volsinii when the Mamertines of Messana asked for admission into the federation and a protecting garrison (264 BC). Rome after a long debate consented, thereby becoming involved in a war with Carthage that lasted twenty-four years. The exigencies of this war, by which Rome extended her influence over cities not independent, as in Italy, but already subject to the imperial control or ownership of Carthage or of the king of Syracuse, converted Rome gradually into an imperial state. The conquest of Sicily, therefore, marks the end of the consistent policy, adhered to for eighty years, of building a confederation of related states. In Sicily Rome found and adopted old Asiatic ideas of territorial sovereignty which involved provincial domination, standing armies, and the exaction of tithes. It is not to be assumed that when the question was first presented the Senate believed a war inevitable, much less that a conquest of Sicily or an acquisition of subjects was considered a possibility, and yet the invitation of the Mamertines seemed so full of hazard that the debate proved inconclusive and the senate refused to decide the question. It was the assembly (whether the plebeian or the centuriate is not known) that finally accepted the offer.

Conditions in Sicily had long been highly critical. When in 276 Pyrrhus had made himself obnoxious to his Greek subjects in Sicily, several cities had revolted to Carthage and others had gone over to the Mamertines. Carthage soon regained control of western and central Sicily while the Mamertines mastered all the north-eastern angle as far as Halaesa. It will be remembered that the Mamertines had formerly been mercenaries whom Agathocles had enlisted in Campania and Bruttium and that on his death in 289 they had treacherously occupied Messana, murdered its leading citizens, and forming their own government had set out to shape a tributary empire in that part of the island. Hiero, elected strategus of Syracuse soon after Pyrrhus’ departure, was also attempting to build an empire in emulation of Dionysius I and Agathocles, for he knew that only by success in war could he impose himself upon Syracuse as ‘tyrant’ for life. Hence he had refused to recognize the legitimacy of Mamertine rule in Messana on the pretext of their usurpation of fifteen years before, in reality, however, because they were less dangerous than the Carthaginians as foes from whom to make conquests. His first encounter with them resulted in a defeat—brought on intentionally, according to the Sicilian version, in order to rid himself of mutinous mercenaries—but after a few years he marched northward again, captured Halaesa and Tyndaris and finally completely defeated the full force of the Mamertines on the Longanus river. Thereupon he was elected king by his people. This seems to have been in 265, though the date isuncertain. Hiero hoped to take Messana and become master of the whole eastern part of the island, but the Carthaginian admiral Hannibal, who lay with his fleet off the Liparaean islands watching Hiero’s advance, saved the city by throwing in a Punic garrison with the consent of the Mamertines. The Carthaginians, who had so long fought for the control of Sicily, naturally did not wish their ambitious rival to seize the harbour which commanded the Sicilian straits. Hiero, who despite the flattering assurance of the poet Theocritus was not yet ready to match his strength with Carthage, returned home in disappointment, and the Carthaginians to strengthen their position proceeded to seize and garrison Tyndaris as well.

The Mamertines were grateful enough for their present salvation but were far from intending to keep the garrison and become Punic subjects. Since, however, their army had been almost completely destroyed on the Longanus, they feared that they would not be able to preserve their autonomy by means of their own resources alone. Some advocated an attempt to reach a formal understanding with Carthage which would acknowledge their autonomy under a protectorate; others favoured an alliance with Rome on the same basis as that of Rhegium, holding that since the Punic garrison was there by their consent, they were at liberty to ask it or compel it to depart. The latter course was decided upon, and envoys were sent to Rome with the proposal. The Roman senators, who knew something of Sicily because of the Pyrrhic War, soon comprehended that the question might well be more complicated than it seemed. They probably did not suppose that Hiero would attack again, for he had been very friendly in 270 when he had offered the services of his fleet against Rhegium, and he had not only fought the Carthaginians in the days of Pyrrhus but had been grievously offended by the Carthaginian entry into Messana. There was a reasonable possibility, however, that the Punic garrison would not depart at the request of the Mamertines or that it would receive orders from home to hold the fort at all costs. It is likely that the strongest deterrent in the minds of well-informed senators at Rome was the fear that acceptance would eventually result in a war with Carthage.

Polybius, who gives a good but brief account of this war, cannot be relied upon for a full expression of Roman views, for he had at hand in this portion of his history only the account of Fabius Pictor, who, half a century after the event, repeated some of the arguments of the nobles opposing the measure. According to this version the senators fully realized the importance of saving Messana from Carthaginian domination but were deterred by the moral consideration that the Mamertines were brigands whom it would be a disgrace to accept as allies. The reasons for agreeing to the alliance were indeed cogent. The time-honoured policy of Carthage had been to establish a mare clausum and a monopoly of trade wherever possible. Rome had good reason to know this, for she had been compelled in two treaties with Carthage to recognize the policy in Africa, southern Spain, and Sardinia. If such a monopoly had not as yet been established in the Punic cities of Sicily, it was wholly due to the fact that the land-routes of Sicily could not be controlled; it was apparent, however, that, the moment Carthage gained mastery of all Sicilian ports, the same embargo would be declared there as in Sardinia. To be sure, the senators were not directly interested in trade, but indirectly the question would soon concern the southern members of Rome’s federation, since the closing of Sicilian ports to free trade would in time compel the Greek allies of the south, who were trading folk, to desire closer connections with Carthage in order to save their commerce with Sicily. While Punic vessels could enter their ports, they would be denied entry into Sicilian ports, and the resulting economic pressure might induce them to invite Punic garrisons into their cities and to revolt from Rome. Their disaffection would be enhanced by the presence of the Punic fleet in the straits, which could block them as effectively as it had the Straits of Gibraltar for two centuries. Even Rome’s navy cruising to her southern and Adriatic ports might some day have to sail around the whole of Sicily in order to reach its destination. In fact it is difficult to see how the Senate could have hesitated, as we are told the Roman Senate did, on this occasion.

The moralistic argument against the alliance was probably not the most important objection. The Mamertines, in seizing Messana, had committed a crime which all their neighbours execrated, and Rome had punished with extreme severity its own Campanian troops who had similarly taken and sacked Rhegium. But the crime of Messana was now twenty-five years past, committed when Rome had no interest below Neapolis, and probably was not even reported at Rome; and the status quo at Messana had been recognized in treaties by Carthage and several Greek cities even in the days of Pyrrhus. That Hiero had withheld recognition was hardly due to a higher morality—since he had vaulted into power by an act no less questionable—but rather to an intention to enlarge his dominions northward. Ancient states were perhaps not quite as ready as modern ones to recognize statutes of limitations in international affairs, but much could be forgotten in one generation even then. Apparently Fabius Pictor, in reporting senatorial debates, enlarged upon an argument which, though not urged very seriously by wiser statesmen, seemed later to shield timidity and myopia under a cloak of respectability. Events had lost their relation in perspective and men no longer remembered that between 289 and 264 Rome had become u world-power and many wars had been fought.

The senators’ aversion to the alliance could hardly be summed up in one sentence, for mixed motives were at work. They certainly remembered that a similar appeal from Thurii—granted by the assembly—had led to a perilous contest with Pyrrhus. In this new venture, if Carthage declared war, the struggle would probably be even more severe and prolonged, since Carthage was very rich and could presumably continue to hire mercenaries longer than Rome’s recently enrolled allies would care to fight. Moreover, the war would be fought in Sicily or Africa and could hardly be determined without control of the seas: and Rome had not one battleship while Carthage kept a fleet of a hundred and twenty quinqueremes that scoured the western Mediterranean. Even if it were merely a question of Messana, Carthage might— granted that the Roman army could be ferried across the straits— blockade Messana by sea and land and starve it into disgraceful submission. If the war continued beyond Messana, Carthage with the control of the sea could bring reinforcements to the island at will, whereas Rome’s army might be cut off by Punic cruisers in the straits. In case of even greater success Pyrrhus’s failure to take the stronghold of Lilybaeum without a blockading fleet was not an encouraging object lesson. Certainly Rome was not ready for a contest with a great sea power.

It is also reasonable to suppose that the aversion of the old aristocratic clique to the policy of expansion which had not only strengthened the democratic assembly but had elevated a large number of war heroes into the Senate and consulship worked as a strong if tacit deterrent. Ever since the Caudine Forks the assembly had been able to exercise the ultimate right to ratify declarations of war and terms of peace. Moreover, twenty-three years before this time, the Hortensian law had been passed giving the plebeian assembly power not only to ratify, but to take the initiative and dispose of any business of state regardless of the Senate. The advance of the theory of popular sovereignty had been marked by the elevation into the senate of a number of new men like Curius, Fabricius, Decius, Marcius, Publilius, Junius, Fulvius, and Caecilius. A new war would inevitably raise a group of new officers and politicians who would impress the people as worthy of magistracies. After all, when war began, it was the senate which had to face the responsibility of directing the campaigns, providing the means, and taking the blame for mistaken policies while denied the ultimate decision if the people chose to interfere. It is therefore not difficult to comprehend why the senators were divided on the question.

Polybius does not say which assembly passed the measure, but since it was a tribune who had taken the initiative in the Thurian alliance and since Polybius’ account implies that the Senate did not participate in the final decision, it is perhaps safe to assume that the democratic leaders who had elevated the plebeian assembly by means of the Hortensian law were still in political control. Polybius, in explaining the action of the assembly, says that the people had been wearied by recent wars and were convinced by the military leaders not only of the danger of having a Punic garrison near the straits but also of the advantages that would accrue to Roman citizens through the alliance, and that they therefore approved. What could these advantages have been? Presumably not those of a possible war, for they ‘were weary of wars.’ Nor were they looking for more land; there was public land in Etruria as well as the Ager Gallicus awaiting distribution, and every new colonization cheapened land values for the Roman voters. Nor is it plausible that the question of winning tribute from new possessions entered into the discussion. The Roman people had never exacted tribute from subjects, and any suggestion that Sicilian grain might after the war be brought to Rome to compete with their own in their only market—thirty-one of the thirty-five tribes were rural—would hardly have been greeted with applause.

At any rate the question before the assembly was not whether or not there should be a war, but whether or not there should be an alliance with Messana. If the people were war-weary, such an alliance could be advocated as an insurance against further wars, since it would prevent Carthage from gaining a bridgehead against Italy. Furthermore every new ally added strength to the federal forces, thereby lessening the quota of the citizen army. There can of course be little doubt that the officers who persuaded the people to vote entertained suspicions and hopes which they did not express. They must have seen the strategic importance of Messana and the necessity of blocking Punic advance; they probably also felt quite certain that war would result and presumably they were not wholly averse to it, since military glory and triumphs were prizes worth winning at Rome.

The Sicilian historian, Philinus, asserted that the alliance was a breach of an old treaty with Carthage which specifically denied Rome the right to enter Sicily, as it denied Carthage the right to enter Italy. Polybius explicitly denies the existence of such a treaty. Both historians are fairly trustworthy, but perhaps historical criticism is reasonable in holding to the principle that a correction after discussion and examination is to be given more weight as evidence than a simple statement. It would seem that Philinus had drawn hasty inferences from the treaty of Mago, which implied that the Carthaginian fleet might aid Rome against Pyrrhus without landing its crew, while if Rome’s army aided Carthage in Sicily, transports should be provided for its return . The careful phrasing of those clauses seems to justify the inference that a mutual fear of permanent acquisitions was felt at the time and that provisions had been made against plausible pretexts for attempting to acquire territory, but Polybius is probably correct in saying that, so far as treaties were concerned, Rome broke no agreement in making an alliance with Messana.

After the assembly had voted to make the alliance, it devolved upon the Senate to take up the awkward task of carrying out its mandate. A consul must be sent to negotiate and he must have sufficient forces to give weight to his words. Much would depend upon the temper and tact of the consul. The lot ominously fell upon Appius Claudius, a cousin, it seems, of the blind censor who had supported the war party against Pyrrhus. Since it would take time to mobilize his two legions and to march four hundred miles to Rhegium, he designated a relative, C. Claudius, who was military tribune, to sail down to Messana at once with an expeditionary force in order, if possible, to announce Rome’s decision and to garrison the town. The tribune found the straits patrolled by Punic cruisers that tried to block his entry into the harbour. But he succeeded in making his way through them with but a slight loss of ships. It seems that the commander of the Punic fleet had orders to avoid open warfare, for he returned the captured ships with a warning that Carthage claimed these waters as mare clausum. The Mamertines, emboldened by the tribune’s presence, now rid themselves of Hanno and his garrison by threats of force. Hanno, it appears, had received no command from his government to remain against the consent of Messana, and being a subordinate officer he dared not risk a hostile act. That he was more scrupulous than was desired he soon discovered when Carthage ordered his execution for betraying the state’s interest. There are several instances on record where Punic officers lost their lives by guessing incorrectly in emergencies of this kind.

Carthage, learning what had happened—a few days would suffice for a message to reach Africa—determined if possible to recover Messana. An army was immediately sent to Sicily under the command of one of her most trusted generals, Hanno the son of Hannibal. Landing at Lilybaeum, he marched by way of Agrigentum (Acragas) where he made a firm alliance with the city and left a garrison. Then he came to an agreement with Hiero—he must have brought a treaty with liberal terms from home—and both marched upon Messana with their full forces. Hanno pitched his camp north-west of the city; Hiero encamped some distance away to the south. The two had been at enmity too long to begin to fraternize at once.

III.

 THE CROSSING TO SICILY: ALLIANCE WITH HIERO

Meanwhile Appius Claudius had arrived at the straits with his two legions. Transports were provided by Rhegium and the neighbouring socii navales. Had Hanno been ordered to prevent his crossing at all costs, he could probably have done so, but there had been no declaration of war as yet, and there was a possibility that even after the entry of Appius, Messana if carefully blockaded might be starved into a friendly attitude. Appius succeeded in getting his troops across by night, and having gained this advantage he began negotiations with both generals. To Hiero particularly he made friendly overtures assuring him that Rome desired to retain his goodwill. When negotiations failed—and a Claudius could not be expected to exert himself strenuously for peace—he attacked, choosing Hiero’s camp first as being the weaker. The attack was not a complete success. Hiero saved his camp, but suspecting his ally of treachery in not patrolling the straits, having learned also of Rome’s friendly instructions, and having experienced the force of the legionary attack, he withdrew that night to the hills and presently retreated to Syracuse. Claudius was somewhat weakened by his strenuous attack, but learning of Hiero’s retreat he at once turned upon Hanno. Again he failed to reach his objective though he caused much damage to the enemy. Hanno at least concluded that, deserted by Hiero, he could not successfully invest Messana. Hence he too withdrew to find a safer and more favourable ground for the contest.

Claudius now marched southward, first storming Echetla, a fort not far from Leontini that marked the eastern limits of the Carthaginian empire. Taking this fort, he advanced directly upon Syracuse, hoping to intimidate Hiero into the desired alliance. An attack upon the splendid fortifications of Syracuse would hardly be feasible with his forces nor could a siege be profitable so long as the harbour was open. Since no offers came from Hiero he withdrew to Messana, and leaving his garrison there for his successor, he returned to Rome. Despite his vigour in relieving Messana he was strangely enough not granted a triumph and it was one of his successors who won the honorary cognomen of ‘Messalla.’ It is a conjecture—but a plausible one—that the Senate’s displeasure was due to his failure to secure peace. Instead of an alliance to ensure the peace of Italy the senate had to face two wars on difficult ground with well-armed foes. Prospects seemed rather unpromising at Rome, and the people elected to the consulship men quite outside the Claudian circle, M. Valerius and M. Otacilius, a plebeian of Samnite stock. Of Appius Claudius Caudex, ‘the log,’ we hear no more.

In 263 both consuls were sent to Sicily with four legions and a full contingent of allies, probably 40,000 men all told. The situation was serious in the extreme. No definite policy regarding the future of Sicily seems however to have been shaped as yet. The immediate task of compelling the enemies to recognize the alliance and sign a peace agreement was enough. Hence no fleet was built; during the year pledges of freedom were given to several cities which left them for all time outside the federation, and the alliance with Hiero, when made, was for the brief term of fifteen years, a very unusual feature in Rome’s treaties. We may safely infer that the Senate had not yet envisaged the conquest of Sicily, but we may be equally sure that the necessity of planting garrisons, consolidating gains and making agreements with Sicilian cities forced the question into prominence before the year was over.

The first task was to overcome Hiero. The consuls marched directly into Syracusan territory and stormed the frontier fort of Hadranum under Aetna. Quick success and a demonstration of force met with a speedy response. A large number of cities under Punic and Syracusan rule sent offers of submission, among them Halaesa, far off on the north coast, Centuripa, Catana and Tauromenium, cities circling Aetna. The first two became free cities. Tauromenium was presently given back to Syracuse, and Catana, whatever her status in 263, became after the war a tribute paying city. Now the road lay open to Syracuse, which was at once invested and attacked. It is difficult to see how the Romans expected to take the city without control of the sea. But the memory of Hiero’s faint-hearted retreat from Messana justified the attempt, and this calculation proved to be well-founded. Hiero in fact soon found that his subjects disliked fighting on the side of their secular enemy, and so he decided to secure as favourable terms as possible by negotiating quickly. It was agreed, subject to ratification by the assembly, that in return for an alliance of fifteen years and an indemnity of one hundred talents (twenty-five to be paid at once, the rest in fifteen instalments) Hiero should be recognized as king of Syracuse and of most of the territory which he had conquered during his brief reign. This was to include the cities of Megara, Leontini, Acrae, Neetum, and Helorum— a semi-circle about Syracuse with a radius of about thirty miles— and also Tauromenium which lay high on the plateau between Messana and Catana. The inclusion of this city implies that Rome had as yet not considered the question of holding Catana in the league. It seems that Hiero was not required to supply any ships during the war—naval warfare was not yet contemplated—and the grain which he sent from time to time was apparently purchased or given voluntarily. These terms were ratified by the Roman people, who were glad to have this enemy, who possessed much corn-land, converted to friendship.

To the Romans this seemed a great gain, but a more generous treaty would probably have been a good investment. Pyrrhus, for instance, who had proclaimed the liberation of the Greeks as his programme, had been rewarded immediately by the submission of every city in which Greeks were a strong element of the population. In consequence his advance as far as Eryx had been a triumphal procession. Rome was still to find many friendly offers, since the free status of cities like Halaesa and Centuripa gave her a good name, she had not yet imposed tithes as was the custom of Carthage and Hiero, and her legions were kept under stricter discipline than were the unruly mercenaries of her foes. Nevertheless the treaty with Syracuse, the chief Greek city of Sicily, Was proof that Rome had not come as liberator. The gates of Sicilian cities were not henceforth to swing open to the Romans with quite the same ease as before.

On his return home Valerius, though he had won no great victory on the field of battle, was granted a triumph by the senate ‘over the Carthaginians and Hiero, king of the Sicilians’ and was honoured with the cognomen ‘Messalla.’ So much more highly was his diplomatic victory valued by the Senate than Claudius’ overhasty resort to arms. In addition he was permitted to have a wall of the senate-chamber painted with a battle-scene representing himself as a victorious hero. This was the first of the banal war-museum murals that Rome acquired, but far from the last. We may suppose that Valerius had been shown similar frescoes by Hiero at Syracuse, modelled upon the famous battle-scenes of Alexander the Great, and that the king provided the artist. In the succeeding years of this war, Hiero’s beautiful city gave many a visiting Roman officer a lesson in art and manners, destined before long to transform Rome and its people.

Valerius left but two legions in Sicily over the winter, for the Senate had decided that, with one enemy disposed of, the difficulty of provisioning troops so far away from home demanded a reduction of forces. However, during the winter news reached Rome that Punic officers were vigorously recruiting mercenaries among the Celts and Ligurians of North Italy and that troops were concentrating at Agrigentum. Hence both the consuls of 262, L. Postumius and Q. Mamilius, the latter a plebeian of obscure family, were dispatched with about forty thousand men. Two old Hellenized cities under Punic rule, Segesta and Halicyae, sent them assurances of friendship. Segesta, as Vergil remembers, claimed descent from Aeneas’ refugees, and since the Sicilian historian Timaeus had recently recorded the same pedigree for the Romans the envoys came with excellent recommendations, which flattered the Romans and won complete freedom for Segesta and new favours in succeeding years. Halicyae secured the same status. It looks as if the Senate had not yet formed a definite policy respecting Sicily.

IV.

SIEGE OF AGRIGENTUM. THE NEW ROMAN FLEET

The Carthaginian general, Hannibal, had wisely decided to take his stand at Agrigentum. This city had a strong wall enclosing an area overlarge for its diminished population of 50,000 inhabitants. Greek though it was, its situation facing Africa had always invited Punic traders, and Carthaginian customs and cults had entered there as early as the days of Phalaris. That Carthaginian relations were still very strong is proved by the stubbornness of its citizens in resisting the terrors of famine and fire during the siege. Hannibal was not ready to fight a pitched battle: the mercenaries being recruited in every land had not yet arrived, but at Agrigentum he could presumably hold Rome at bay till he was ready for battle. The consuls arrived about June, harvested the Agrigentine crops, though not without many costly skirmishes, and then began the siege. A double line of deep trenches was dug about the whole city to protect the besiegers from attacks from within and without—for the relieving forces were expected. After five months the city was near exhaustion, when Hanno at last arrived from Africa with a formidable army of 50,000 foot, 6000 horse and 60 elephants. His troops were, however, not yet trained, and consisted of incongruous masses of barbarians fighting for pay and caring little for success in a battle unless the goal were some city to plunder. Indeed Hanno very much desired more time, but distress signals from the city came more insistently day by day. He therefore seized the Roman base of supplies and blocked the roads so that the Romans also were reduced to low rations. It was Hiero who eventually ran the blockade and brought food to the Romans.

This double siege had continued for two months, when Hanno felt constrained to offer battle in order to relieve the city. He was defeated with heavy losses, escaping to Heraclea with less than half his army. For his failure he was deposed from his command and heavily fined. The Romans however had suffered so severely in the battle that they were unable to prevent the escape of Hannibal’s garrison from the city. The day after their escape the Roman army entered, sacked the defenceless town and sold its inhabitants into slavery. This had been the time-honoured custom in Sicily after long sieges, among Greeks as well as Carthaginians, and most Sicilian cities had suffered similar experiences in the past; but since the Romans had hitherto made a distinction between Greek citizens and foreign garrisons, such an example of terror could hardly have been expected. The immediate effect was to frighten some wavering cities into acquiescence. Time, however, proved the act wholly imprudent. A stubborn hatred displaced goodwill, and henceforth Rome had to fight for every advance and guard her gains with wasteful garrisons. In fact the following year the Romans made no progress, though the Punic forces had been badly shattered, and the Punic fleet won several coast towns back to their old allegiance, "he consuls who captured Agrigentum received no triumph on their return home.

When the capture of this city brought no confession of defeat and Carthage merely substituted a better general, Hamilcar, for Hanno, the Senate, as Polybius informs us, decided to master the whole of Sicily. In view of the situation, which the Senate now well comprehended, this decision could only mean that Rome had determined to rule subject peoples and therefore had frankly adopted from her foes the policy of imperialism from which Sicily had already suffered too severely. As we have seen, the army made no progress in 261, while the Carthaginians won back several cities. Their fleet even ravaged the coast of Italy. The senate accordingly—since Sicily was to be the prize—determined to build a fleet and clear the seas. Rome had as yet no war-vessels and it is not probable that any of her socii navales had ever owned a quinquereme, the standard battleship which had only recently been introduced into western waters and of which the Carthaginians had a great number. The Mediterranean is too tranquil for reliance upon sails, and since success in naval warfare depended largely upon driving force in ramming, three banks of oars did not provide adequate power against ships of five banks. As a model the Roman shipwrights took a Punic vessel which had grounded in the first skirmish of 264; not that Hiero might not have provided a model, but the Punic ships had been proved and tested by the most expert seamen of that day and were presumably the best. A hundred quinqueremes and twenty triremes were ordered to be ready in two months. Doubtless hulls were laid down at Ostia, Antium, Naples, and some of the seaports of south Italy. Simultaneously more than 30,000 rowers had to be found and trained. Rowing in quinqueremes required much skill. Some of these men could be provided by the socii navales, but most of them seem to have been hardy Italian peasants, and these had to be given a hurried training in skeleton ship-frames fitted with benches. There was another serious difficulty in that sea-captains skilled in the rapid manoeuvring of ships in battle were not to be found, and Roman legionaries could not well be turned into marines overnight. To give the soldiers some semblance of a land battle, long cranes were fitted with grappling spikes that could be swung and dropped on the enemy’s deck so as to pin the ship fast and hold it while the marines boarded and cleared it. This device, called a ‘raven’ in soldier slang, was probably supplied by some of Hiero’s shipwrights, for it had been used at Syracuse by the ill-starred Athenian expedition in the days of the Peloponnesian War.

In the spring Cornelius Scipio sailed southward with the lumbering fleet while Duillius, the other consul, took charge of land operations. At Messana Scipio, hearing that the city of Lipara was disposed to join the Romans, sailed off with twelve ships to negotiate for its surrender. While he was anchored there, a small Punic fleet arrived and captured the consul and his squadron. Cornelius, who seems at this time to have received the appropriate cognomen of Asina, was taken to Carthage as prisoner. The other consul, Duillius, now took command of the fleet and sailed to encounter the enemy who were harassing the coast near Mylae. The Carthaginian admiral Hannibal, superior in strength by nearly thirty ships, and having experienced crews, expected an easy victory, but to his surprise the cranes dropped and held his ships fast at the first onset. The Romans swept the decks and disposed of more than fifty ships. The rest fled in dismay. Duillius at once sailed westward and landed in time to relieve Segesta which was being besieged by Hamilcar and in the last stage of distress. At the news of the naval victory the joy at Rome was unbounded. In the Forum a column of victory was raised to Duillius bearing rams of captured vessels and a fulsome inscription with all the honours voted the successful general. The still existing fragment of a copy of this inscription is now in the Capitoline Museum. It records how Duillius was the first Roman to fight on the high seas and how he conquered in battle the whole Punic fleet commanded by Hannibal the dictator, capturing with their crews one septireme and thirty quinqueremes and triremes and sinking many more. The un-Roman rhetoric of the elaborate phrasing is another evidence of the fact that the consuls campaigning in Sicily were successfully learning the manners and customs of the Greeks.

The Punic fleet, however, was not yet wholly destroyed and Rome did not have the courage to attack Africa. Hence, while one of the consuls of 259, Aquilius Florus, went to Sicily to watch Hamilcar, Cornelius Scipio, a brother of Asina, sailed for Corsica and Sardinia, whither Hannibal had gone presumably to organize raids against the Italian coast. After taking Aleria in Corsica, as his epitaph records, he made for Olbia, the northernmost Punic port of Sardinia, but dared not engage the enemy who was now reinforced. It was his successor of the next year, Sulpicius, who, apparently possessing a stronger force, again assayed a naval battle. Hannibal was forced to beach his ships and abandon them; and his men, disgusted with his futile leadership, crucified him.

Meanwhile in Sicily Hamilcar was proving himself a more worthy opponent. In 259 he won at Thermae the first battle to the credit of Punic arms against the Romans, and advancing eastward rapidly he seized the strong hill town of Enna in the centre of the island and got possession of Camarina far to the south-east. The Punic advance was so threatening that Aquilius Florus had to remain in Sicily during the winter to strengthen Roman garrisons and counteract the diplomacy of the shrewd enemy. Since the situation was perilous, and one consul was now in command of the fleet, Aquilius continued in command of his troops as proconsul while the consul of 258, Atilius Calatinus, brought up new forces. Acting together, the two drove Hamilcar back toward his base at Panormus (Palermo), offering battle which he dared not accept, and now stormed Mytistratus, the Punic stronghold of the central road, which had resisted a seven months siege after the fall of Agrigentum. The walls of the city were destroyed and the inhabitants sold into slavery. After these Roman successes Hamilcar was confined behind a line running from Heraclea to Panormus and the Romans found it possible to eject most of the Punic garrisons east of it. Enna gave in quickly; Camarina was stormed and severely punished.

The year 257, the eighth of the war, began with the assurance that the situation was in hand, but that was all. In Sicily the line had not advanced far beyond Agrigentum and it required a consular and proconsular army, some 50,000 men, to keep Hamilcar in check. To advance farther meant attacking difficult positions like Panormus and Lilybaeum. As for the navy, it had destroyed the Punic fleet which operated from Sardinia, but it had not been able to land enough marines to take possession of Sardinia, and, important as the possession of that island seemed, Rome had for the present to leave it in Punic hands. During the year Cornelius Blasio in Sicily had the aid of the preceding consul, now proconsul, but made no progress. However, the other consul, C. Atilius Regulus, who had command of the fleet, made a dash upon Melita, devastated the island and gathered much booty. He seems to have been training his crews and marines for the more daring enterprise of the coming year. Returning to Sicily he found the refitted Punic fleet off Tyndaris, and sinking eighteen ships came off with enough success to win a triumph. This was Rome’s third naval victory. Indeed one of the surprises of this war was that the Romans, who knew nothing of seamanship before it and were wholly helpless before storms, won six of its seven naval battles, and did so against a naval power that had controlled the western Mediterranean for centuries.

V.

REGULUS IN AFRICA

Now that the sea had lost its terrors, it was decided to invade Africa and thus withdraw the enemy from Sicily and if possible compel the Punic government to make peace. The Punic fleet had had less than a hundred ships at the last encounter, but it was probably known that Carthage was building new quinqueremes in haste. To meet a possible fleet of two hundred or more successfully and at the same time to provide a convoy for the transports that were to carry 500 horse and an army’s food-supplies for a winter would require a navy such as Rome had never heard of. Polybius puts the Roman fleet at 330 ships. If his number is correct, we may assume that it included about 250 battleships, largely quinqueremes, and about eighty transports. These war vessels were of course not very large, being made to carry little except the 300 rowers and 120 marines, but they had to be built strong and firm to withstand the impact of ramming ships. To hold 300 oarsmen on five banks the vessel must be over 150 feet long and have at least five feet of freeboard. The beam was as narrow as was consistent with safety, probably not over 30 feet. The cost of such a fleet can hardly be estimated, but the drain on the slender public purse of that day can be imagined when we know that the oars alone cost more than a million sesterces. A hundred thousand men drawn largely from the Italian allies and the Roman proletariat would barely suffice for the crews, while the 250 battleships required at least 25,000 marines. The soldiers who were to remain in Africa, 15,000 in number, doubtless served as marines during the crossing. The Punic fleet though not encumbered with transports was about as strong in battleships. There is no doubt that both sides had withdrawn part of their forces from Sicily to man these enormous fleets and that the rest were entrenched where they were to await the contest on the sea and in Africa.

In the summer of 256 the Romans sailed southward under the command of L. Manlius Vulso and M. Atilius Regulus who had succeeded his relative, C. Atilius. Off Cape Ecnomus on the southern coast of Sicily they met the Punic fleet under Hamilcar and Hanno whom they had faced before at Agrigentum. The Romans advanced in wedge formation, protecting the transports at the base of the triangle by a covering line of battleships behind. They readily broke through the Punic line which stood only one ship deep, with the result, however, that as they moved on they were completely surrounded on all sides by the lithely manoeuvred ships of the enemy. However, in the battle which followed, ship by ship, the Romans again used the ‘ravens,’ grappling and boarding as at Mylae. Then, driving the Carthaginian right wing off in flight, they penned up the left wing against the shore and took fifty ships, having sunk thirty others. The Roman loss was twenty-four sunk. The victors mended their ships, which consumed much time, added the fifty captured ones to their fleet and sailed on to Africa. The Carthaginians who had escaped with some 170 ships, repaired home to defend their capital.

The Romans disembarked at the nearest landing point, Aspis (Roman Clupea), about three or four days’ march from Carthage, stormed the town and devastated the Punic estates of the region while waiting for further orders from the senate. Repairing damages had taken time, and, with a large force in Carthage, which was well fortified, any attempt to storm the city before winter was not possible. Furthermore the region of Aspis was hardly a suitable place in which to provision 100,000 rowers and numerous prisoners during the winter, and the convoy would be needed at Rome to carry men and provisions in the spring. The Senate, therefore, ordered one consul to remain with 15,000 men and his cavalry force of 500, retaining also forty ships as a safeguard in case of disaster. The rest were ordered to return. Doubtless the returning fleet carried a goodly force of fighting men against a possible sally of the Punic fleet from Carthage. It was Regulus to whom fell the lot to remain. The Carthaginian generals chosen for the defence of the city were Hamilcar, who came from Sicily with another 5000 men, Hasdrubal and Bostar.

At this time the territory of Carthage was not large. It probably did not extend farther westward than Dougga nor beyond Zag-houan southward. Her great strength lay in her commerce at her African trading posts and in her tribute-paying subject allies, many of whom had territories fully as large as her own. On the north were Utica and Hippo, while on the Libyphoenician coast lay the thriving cities of Hadrumetum, Leptis Minor and Acholla, and farther off on the Tripolitan coast were Sabratha, Oea, and Leptis Magna. The last named1, for instance, paid Carthage a daily revenue of one talent not long after this war. Had these cities been severed from Carthage and assured independence and immunity (and they were too heavily taxed to be loyal) Carthage would have suffered severely in revenue and in naval supplies. Furthermore Punic landlords had for some time been acquiring lands and estates far up along the Bagradas valley in Numidia, so that a prudent general might have done much to cripple Punic resources by offering protection to the Numidian tribes that were eager to regain their possessions. It is apparent, therefore, that the campaign was well planned in that the Roman forces were landed between Carthage and the richest subject cities, and advanced upon Carthage from the rear.

Regulus at once marched toward Carthage but found his way blocked at Adys (Uthina). While he was besieging the city the Carthaginian army marched up to its relief. With their vast superiority in available forces and especially in cavalry and a large array of elephants—they had the marines of two hundred ships and five thousand veterans besides the manhood of Carthage—it would obviously have been wise for them to await the Romans and offer battle in the plains. But eager to relieve Adys, where many of their wealthy citizens had their homes, they advanced into the hills. As a result Regulus was able to strike at them on unfavourable ground. He defeated them with ease, capturing their camp. The remnants withdrew toward Carthage while Regulus marched on unhindered to Tunis where he pitched his camp for the winter.

Oversanguine because of his two victories, Regulus completely neglected his opportunities. The Numidians, oppressed by heavy tribute, were only too glad to revolt at his approach and they so devastated the Carthaginian plains that the city suffered much from lack of food. Yet Regulus made no effort to enlist them, though he had but 500 horse, and cavalry was indispensable in flanking movements, since the strong Punic line of elephants was sure, if well directed, to break the force of the attacking legions. So hopeful was he of completing his task before the spring, when new consuls would come to succeed him, that he announced his readiness to receive offers of peace. Carthage gladly took up negotiations, but found the Roman terms too severe. The late historian, Dio Cassius—never very trustworthy for the history of the Republic —gives what he calls the items of Regulus’ demands. These terms seem preposterous since they include not only the surrender of Sicily and Sardinia, an annual tribute besides full indemnity for the cost of the war, but also a complete surrender of sovereignty. It is difficult to believe that any Roman could ask Carthage to accept a position far inferior to that of Tarentum. However, all the actions of Regulus show that he had little comprehension of the situation in Africa, and Dio’s account may be correct, and, as such, a fair commentary on the consul’s stupidity. Had he invited the co-operation of the Africans and then asked for a light  indemnity and the surrender of Sicily and Sardinia, he might have succeeded and ended the war. Carthage had just lost two disastrous battles and was suffering severely from Numidian incursions.

At this juncture a troop of Spartan mercenaries arrived at Carthage, and with them an officer, Xanthippus, who proved to be a good drill-master. By his convincing bearing, his engaging qualities, and his thorough knowledge of tactics he inspired confidence and was given a high position at headquarters. In a short time he re-organized the Punic army and led it out on the plains of the Bagradas before Regulus could advance from winter quarters to invest the city, Xanthippus, having formed his men in solid phalanxes, according to the best Greek tactics, placed a hundred elephants in front of them and four thousand horse on the wings. Regulus, fearing the elephants, likewise massed his maniples many lines deep, but this only made them the easier victims of the trampling feet. Had he read the tacticians he might well have drawn thinner lines, as Scipio did later at Zama, thus enabling him to open lanes through which to drive the beasts to the rear. As it was, the elephants ploughed into his massed men, broke the lines and left them an easy prey to the oncoming phalanx. Meanwhile the strong Punic cavalry had cleared both wings and circled in on the rear. Only two thousand Romans escaped to Aspis. Regulus and five hundred men were captured. The rest were dead.

But this was only the beginning of Rome’s disasters. The fugitives at Aspis held out successfully against attack but dared not sail off for fear of the Punic navy. Meanwhile at Rome a splendid fleet of 350 ships had been fitted out for the purpose of dispersing the Carthaginian fleet and blockading the city’s harbour while Regulus besieged it by land. Though the news of the consul’s disaster probably reached Rome before the fleet sailed, orders to proceed were nevertheless given. The investment of Carthage would have to be postponed, but the Punic navy must if possible be destroyed and the stragglers must be rescued. The consuls of the year, Aemilius Paullus and Servius Fulvius, were in command. They found the Punic fleet, recently enlarged, awaiting them off the Hermaean promontory not far from Aspis, but defeated it with ease, taking 24 ships with their crews, an exploit for which both consuls were voted triumphs and one at least a columna rostrata like that of Duillius. Embarking the refugees at Aspis, they sailed directly for home, skirting the dangerous southern coast of Sicily, since the enemy was still in command of most of the harbours of the west and north. Off Camarina, however, a terrific gale dashed them against the rocks scattering wreckage and corpses as far as Cape Pachynus. Of the 364 ships only 80 weathered the storm. Polybius knew of no greater calamity at sea. If the crews perished with the ships— and those rescued could not have been many—we must assume a probable loss of about 25,000 marines and 70,000 rowers; and since free men were then generally used as rowers it would appear that nearly fifteen per cent, of Italy’s able-bodied men went down in that disaster.

The Romans set their teeth, raised their taxes, ordered two hundred new quinqueremes to be ready in three months and somehow found 80,000 men for the naval campaign of 254. And such things were done by a state whose census of citizens, including the unfranchised class, fell below 300,000. The two consuls who had fought so well at the Hermaean promontory were not blamed for the loss of the fleet but were kept with the navy for another year. Perhaps it was assumed that they at least had acquired some knowledge of seamanship.

Carthage had cause to rejoice at this turn of fortune, but was still far from victorious. Hamilcar had to employ a considerable force that year in punishing the revolting Numidians, and it required more time to rebuild a fleet at Carthage than at Rome. Hasdrubal, to be sure, was sent to Sicily with a large herd of elephants since these had proved so effective against the Romans before Tunis, but there was little use in risking an open battle while the best troops were operating in Numidia. Hence Carthalo, who had chief command in Sicily, generally kept on the defensive, taking the aggressive once only to make a dash upon the ill-starred city of Agrigentum, which he captured and burned to the ground. The Romans succeeded better. With a formidable fleet on the seas and considerable land forces the two new consuls, Atilius Calatinus, who was now re-elected, and Cornelius Asina, who had been ransomed and somehow regained his reputation, aided by the two experienced ex-consuls, dashed upon Panormus which had long been the Punic headquarters in Sicily, invested it by sea and land, and after a series of tireless attacks took the city. Such of the inhabitants of the inner city as could produce two hundred drachmas each were permitted to redeem themselves at that price. Thirteen thousand who could not, presumably slaves, were carried off as captives. Panormus became one of Rome’s chief army posts during the rest of the war, and after the war was given independence and immunity from obligations. This fact would seem to indicate that a large part of the inhabitants had co-operated with the Romans.

This success was of far-reaching importance. Cities like Tyndaris which had long before desired to revolt to Rome had not dared to do so because the Carthaginians had taken hostages from them. In the loss of Panormus these hostages seem to have gained their liberty. At any rate, Tyndaris, Solus, Petra, and several other towns immediately rid themselves of their Punic garrisons and joined Rome.

The Punic possessions in Sicily were now restricted to a few coast cities of the east: Heraclea, Selinus, Lilybaeum and Drepana, with Thermae on the north isolated and of little use. To besiege these places might take years of costly effort, so it was again decided to strike into Africa, if only to entice the natives to revolt and to cut into the Carthaginian revenues. The new consuls of 253, Servilius and Sempronius, accordingly sailed for Africa, aiming not directly at Carthage but at the rich Libyan cities of Tripolis. However, through lack of knowledge of the coast, a number of ships stranded on the shallows in the Syrtes and the venture was given up. In making for Italy the fleet was wrecked by a storm off Cape Palinurus with another loss of 150 ships and a large part of their men.

VI.

STALEMATE BY LAND AND SEA

The Senate was discouraged. The navy, though successful in nearly every battle, seemed helpless before the wind. It was decided to revert to the slower and safer method of tiring out the enemy in Sicily, though the process must be tedious, for the troops refused to face the elephants and a siege of the ports was hopeless without a fleet. Accordingly during the next two years nothing was accomplished except the capture of the unimportant town of Thermae.

But early in 250 Hasdrubal took the aggressive. Knowing that the Romans were exchanging forces and that the new consuls had not yet arrived, he marched upon Panormus and tried to draw the retiring consul Caecilius Metellus out to battle. Caecilius, however, warily dug his trenches near the city walls, and refused to be enticed beyond them. Finally, by a show of timidity which was real enough, he lured the attacking party, led by the charging elephants, up to the very trenches, where the beasts became confused and turned on their own men. A quick sally on Hasdrubal’s flank, succeeded. The Carthaginians were routed, leaving sixty elephants with not a few of their Indian mahouts for the Romans to send home to amuse the public. Hasdrubal’s army was nearly destroyed and what was more important the dreaded elephants had lost their power of terrifying. Hasdrubal was recalled and put to death, and Adherbal sent out in his place. Finding it inconvenient to garrison the low-lying Selinus, the Carthaginians now moved its inhabitants to Lilybaeum, and destroyed its dwellings and walls. The imposing temples were plundered and left standing in desolation to await the earthquakes that finally shattered them.

The new consuls of 250 were both tried men, C. Atilius and Manlius Vulso. They advanced on Lilybaeum to attempt finally the assault of the chief port of the enemy, and for this purpose they also brought a new fleet of 240 warships that had been built at leisure. With their four legions, marines, and crews, they had at least 100,000 men. Within the walls were the inhabitants of Lilybaeum and of Selinus, a mercenary garrison of 10,000 Gauls and Greeks, and another 10,000 recruits brought from Africa. At Drepana Adherbal had a considerable fleet which was not yet ready for battle but which aided the city by skilful blockaderunning. The Romans put into service all the arts of siege which they had learned from the Sicilians: building walls and equipping them with stockades and battering-rams, constructing moving towers filled with soldiers and catapults to be raised by inclined viaducts up to the city walls, driving mines deep under the ramparts till they were stopped by countermining from within. To block the harbour they would fill boats with rocks and sink them in the channel. But despite months of most strenuous efforts the besieged always raised new walls as the old ones fell and finally on a stormy day succeeded in burning down most of the siege-works. The Romans then had to dig themselves in and wait. Lilybaeum withstood the siege to the very end of the war, eight years later.

The new consuls of 249, P. Claudius Pulcher and L. Junius Pullus, came with orders to drive hard. Claudius, impatient for results, secretly led off his best soldiers and manned the ships hoping to surprise the Punic navy under Adherbal at Drepana. But in his haste he let his ships get caught in confusion at the mouth of the harbour. Nearly a hundred ships were lost. Fortunately they were so near the beach that the loss of men was not quite in proportion, but twenty thousand were among the missing. Despite all its losses by storm at sea, this was in fact the only serious defeat the Roman navy sustained during the war. By this time the Romans had learned certain Punic customs: they recalled Claudius and condemned him to pay a fine of 12,000 denarii.

Junius fared even worse. It was his task to carry supplies to Lilybaeum, for the siege promised to be long, the number of men engaged was very large, and food could not be requisitioned in Sicily except at high prices without endangering good relations. Junius had been given 120 fully-manned ships with which to convoy his 800 transports. Not knowing of the disaster at Drepana and wishing to make haste, he sent a part of his convoy ahead under his quaestor. Adherbal, learning of their approach, sent Carthalo with b large fleet to meet them. This skilful admiral encountered the first division near Phintias and forced them to anchor with considerable loss near the rough coast, then proceeding to meet the second division he drove them likewise to seek refuge. Then as a storm was approaching he put out into deeper water and rounded Pachynus in safety while the winds and waves completely shattered the whole Roman convoy. Again Rome was without a navy and the year had cost her almost as much as the disasters of 254. The Senate had to establish a caravan of wagons and pack animals to haul food the whole length of Sicily to the hungry army besieging Lilybaeum.

Junius reached Lilybaeum with only two ships, but set out at once to retrieve his honour. There was naturally no use in trying to take the city without ships to block the harbour, and half his force would suffice to carry on the siege by land. With the rest he marched upon Drepana, and taking possession of Mt Eryx behind the city he cut all the roads from Drepana, so that the troublesome Punic cavalry might be restrained from devastating the open country. And now at least the two ports that Carthage still possessed on the island were closed off from the rest of Sicily. The venture was wise, but Junius was presently captured in a sally, and a dictator was named at Rome to complete the work of this disastrous year. Junius later returned to Rome apparently by the exchange of prisoners carried out two years later, and to escape the condemnation that had befallen his colleague he committed suicide.

Rome was near bankruptcy and exhaustion. The census of 247 shows that during the twenty years just passed the citizen list had fallen 50,000, or seventeen per cent., instead of rising some twenty per cent., the normal increase to be expected in peace times. The allied states had of course suffered equally. Taxes had reached the limit of endurance and it was impossible to find money with which to build new ships. And there was danger that if a call were issued for new crews the allies might be driven to revolt. They had discovered that the casualties of the new crews were even higher than those of the legions and that the apparently simple task of sitting on protected benches, sedantes atque sudantes, as Naevius says, might prove very perilous under the command of unpractised Roman admirals. Already at least five hundred fully manned vessels of war and a thousand transports had gone down. At this juncture the Romans might have been expected to ask for terms of peace, but the old tradition, recalled by the blind Appius Claudius, still held firmly: Rome negotiated only after victories. But that the people were determined to have a breathing space is clear from their re-electing to the consulship for the year 248 the slow-goers of 252, C. Aurelius and P. Servilius. Nothing was expected of these men but that they should hold the line with as few losses as possible, and this is all they did.

Nor were the Carthaginians active during the year except for some feeble raids by Carthalo along the Italian coast. The explanation lies perhaps in a temporary party change at Carthage, for during this year we hear that Hanno ‘the Great,’ who later appears repeatedly as an opponent of the Barcids, was operating far inland in Numidia, and that he captured Theveste, the farthest point to which Punic conquests ever extended in Africa. In later history this Hanno seems to represent the landed nobility of Carthage, who were more interested in exploiting an African agrarian empire than in foreign conquests which benefited the mercantile classes at the price of high taxes on land. If this be the explanation, we can understand why at this time the Punic fleet did not take advantage of its control of the seas.

It was apparently at this turn of events that Carthage sent a commission to Rome to offer an exchange of prisoners and if possible open negotiations for peace. Rome had the advantage in the number of captives, and for the excess Carthage offered to pay a ransom. According to Sempronius Tuditanus, who seems wholly trustworthy, the prisoner Regulus was sent with the commission in the hope that he would plead for the exchange. The story— which inspired Horace’s stirring ode—goes on to relate how Regulus refused to urge the exchange since it would weaken the morale of the Roman army, and for this action he was somehow brought to his death. From Punic sources we have some confirmation of the tale, for Diodorus reveals the fact that Regulus died in captivity ‘from neglect’ before the exchange could be effected, and that his wife upon hearing of this avenged her wrath upon Bodostar, a Punic hostage at Rome1. The incident is at least significant of a desire for peace on the part of a strong group within the Punic government.

This is also the year in which Hiero’s treaty with Rome expired. The King had been a loyal friend, had frequently harboured Rome’s shattered ships in his great port, and had helped the armies with grain on at least two occasions when rations were running low. A treaty of friendship for all time was now offered him, and since the first indemnity which had been collected in instalments had now been fully paid, he was henceforth free from all burdens. It is also probable that some territory was added to his kingdom, since we find later that Herbessus belonged to him and that he colonized and erected public buildings at Agyrium. It would seem that he now possessed at least a fourth of Sicily and that the richest part. He spent the rest of his life—more than thirty years—in furthering commerce, agriculture, and the arts. That he comprehended the full meaning of the pax Romana is evident from his subsequent gift of all his machines of war to the island of Rhodes.

In 247 Carthage, eager for a more effective campaign, chose as general Hamilcar Barca, a young man of vigour, daring and some ingenuity. He refused to waste his time in resisting the besieging armies at the two ports, attempting rather to work from the rear of the enemy. An attack on Locri in Italy failed except for the damage caused by a raiding party through the fields of the region. Rome refused however to be drawn off from her grip on western Sicily. Italian towns were left to the protection of their own garrisons, and new colonies were planted along the coast: first Alsium, a small citizen garrison below Caere, and soon after Fregenae, between Alsium and Ostia. These were doubtless placed here in order to prevent the enemy from landing troops within striking distance of Rome. Then in 246 a Latin colony was placed at the port of Brundisium in case Hamilcar should succeed in taking the Greek ports of the south.

Hamilcar failing in his attacks upon Italy and having no Punic harbours left in Sicily that gave free access to the country, effected a landing west of Panormus, seized the mountains behind the city (whether the towering Mte Pellegrino or Mte Billiemi to the west represents the ancient Heirkte, is not known), whence he could threaten the besieging armies in the rear and possibly draw off Roman forces to the defence of Panormus as well. While the site was being fortified and a harbour built for his fleet, he made new raids upon the Italian coast as far as Cumae. The Romans continued to elect inexperienced men who spent the year learning the art of war only to be replaced as soon as they had acquired the elements. No new navy was built, but letters of marque were issued to those who cared to venture out as privateers in the few war vessels remaining, and indeed one raid upon Hippo (Bizerta) resulted in the capture of considerable booty.

VII.

 THE FINAL EFFORT

In 244 since Hamilcar had not succeeded by raids or threats in drawing off the Roman besieging parties, he drove a wedge between Drepana and the fort of Mt Eryx, hoping to lock in the besiegers and if possible cut off their supplies. He got possession of the mountain without, however, driving away the besiegers; and Rome, convinced now that Hamilcar was too good a soldier to outwit on land, decided once more to subdue the Carthaginian fleet so as to make the blockade of the ports effective. Unfortunately there was no money in the treasury and taxes could not be raised to a higher rate. Hence it was decided that the wealthier men of the state should make the necessary contributions in proportion to their wealth with the understanding that if Rome were victorious the moneys advanced should be paid back. Since the Senate adopted the measure and the members of the Senate were doubtless those upon whom the burden fell heaviest, one ought perhaps to say that the senators imposed upon themselves & heavy loan repayable in case of victory. It seems to be the only instance of this kind of government loan in Roman history, though crews of rowers were secured by a similar scheme in the Second Punic War.

The fleet thus built consisted of some two hundred war vessels with a large number of transports to carry supplies to the army. For this navy, since former ones had suffered so severely from storms, a new type of vessel was chosen, modelled on a light and swift blockade-runner which had been captured at Lilybaeum a few years before.

In the summer of 242 Lutatius Catulus sailed with the fleet to Drepana. Strange though it seems, the great Carthaginian fleet was not there to meet him. It was lying idle at home. Polybius holds that the Carthaginians did not think that the Romans would contest the seas again and therefore did not keep their warships manned. Perhaps this is true, but it does not explain why no one had discovered that Rome was rebuilding a fleet, nor why the ships were not anchored within reach of Hamilcar. When the Carthaginian fleet finally arrived it was badly undermanned with raw recruits, for it had been planned that Hamilcar and his soldiers should be taken on board before the battle. All this one can explain only on the supposition that the party in control at home had ceased to give hearty support to the army and was throwing the burden of the war upon Hamilcar and his mercenary troops. No fleet appeared that autumn or winter, and the Punic garrisons in Sicily were reduced to very low rations. In March 241, finally, Hanno was sent with supply-transports convoyed by the full Punic navy. Catulus was awaiting his approach at the Aegates islands. When the enemy convoy approached he drew up his line across their course in front of the harbour of Drepana, ready for battle though an unfavourable gale was blowing against him. The battle was brief and decisive. The Romans took seventy ships and sank fifty more. Hanno escaped, but was, of course, crucified. The starving garrisons of the enemy were now at Rome’s mercy, for they could not last out till another fleet was built.

Carthage gave Hamilcar full powers to end the war on the best terms he could secure. He had the good fortune of dealing with a consul far more intelligent than Regulus, and though the negotiations were protracted—Hamilcar absolutely refused to surrender deserters—it was finally agreed, subject to ratification by the Roman people, that friendship should be established on these terms: the Carthaginians were to evacuate Sicily, to give up all prisoners without ransom, and to pay in twenty annual instalments the sum of 2200 talents; the allies of both parties were to be secure from attack by the other, neither party was to impose contributions or enrol soldiers in the dominions of the other nor to form alliances with the allies of the other. In other words, Rome would receive about enough by way of indemnity to pay the cost of Lutatius’ fleet, and in addition the surrender of the two garrisons that were near the starving point. The Roman people were naturally dissatisfied and decided to send a committee of ten to secure more favourable terms. The commissioners went to Sicily and entered into negotiations, but were themselves convinced that Hamilcar was a man of determination who would prolong the war if need be. They succeeded in adding a thousand talents to the indemnity, apparently in cash so as to make some immediate payment to those who had built the fleet on credit; they also reduced the term of the payments to ten years. This Hamilcar could readily grant, for even then the annual payments would be more than covered by the revenues which Carthage drew from her subjects in Tripolis alone. As for the rest, the commissioners added some clauses to the treaty which laid no burden upon Carthage not already implied in the terms but which would do something to satisfy the Romans, namely that the islands between Sicily and Italy (the Lipari, already in Roman hands) should belong to Rome, that Punic war-vessels should not sail in Italian waters, and that Carthage should not recruit mercenaries in Italy. These terms the Roman people accepted, and the First Punic War came to an end.

This war had lasted long enough to test the staying powers of both combatants and to reveal the strength and weakness of both. In strategic skill and intelligence there proved to be no great difference between them—it discovered no great general on either side—but the resources of the two powers differed in that Carthage matched her great wealth against Rome’s superiority in men. Carthage might have been expected to produce superior generals, since her constitution permitted long terms in the supreme command whereas Rome’s did not, and Punic officers had learned the art of war in Sicily where the best tactics of the Aegean world were known, while the Romans had shaped their army and strategy in warfare with inexpert Italian country folk. During the war the Punic generals displayed no little ingenuity in defending besieged cities, but they failed to plan far-reaching campaigns, to build up an effective striking force, to reveal any notable capacity for strategy, and indeed to win the loyalty and confidence of their troops.

They were, to be sure, severely hampered by having to operate with mercenary troops. Carthage, though rich in subject-allies, had chosen to exact from them a heavy tribute in gold rather than, like Rome, to retain them as autonomous partners capable of contributing men to a common army. And her citizens had long since decided to relieve themselves of military burdens by hiring mercenaries by means of the tribute derived from subject cities. Only once during the war, when Regulus threatened the walls of Carthage, were the citizens mustered for service, and that time, skilfully drilled by the Spartan Xanthippus, they acquitted themselves well; but as soon as the immediate danger to the city was over they returned to civil life. The mercenaries of Spain, Liguria, Gaul and Greece, good fighters though they were, proved inconstant and untrustworthy under their command. We constantly hear of large bodies of two or three thousand men deserting to the enemy at critical moments. Hannibal’s later success with similar material proves that this need not have been if the generals had won the confidence of their men as Hannibal did. It is a significant fact that the Punic forces won no important engagement in the open field during the twenty-four years of this war except on the plains before Carthage. Near the end Hamilcar acquired a striking reputation by his dogged resistance, but even he did not trust himself to take a bold offensive and carry the war back to central or eastern Sicily. To be sure, he arrived too late, and his government did not give him wholehearted support, but the fact, that he also suffered severely from the desertion of troops would seem to indicate lack of the qualities essential in a great general.

The failure of the Carthaginian navy is equally surprising. With the strongest fleet on the seas, and with naval experience gained through centuries, the Carthaginian admirals lost six out of seven of the naval battles, despite the fact that the Romans had never possessed a quinquereme before this time, and very few Romans had ever set foot on shipboard. Roman success is not here to be attributed to the use of borrowed Greek sailors. Rome with characteristic caution had refused to trust the recently acquired socii navales or to impose upon them the burden of providing ships. In fact the treaties signed with them at a time when the Romans had not yet thought of a navy required so small a contribution of ships that their contingents were almost negligible. The helplessness of the Roman pilots whenever a storm arose is evidence enough that experienced Greeks were not being employed, and that the silence of Polybius regarding Greek aid is sincere. The fleets were built, manned, and officered by Romans. But, as Polybius makes evident, the victories were not won by skilful manoeuvring or brilliant generalship but by dogged determination on the consuls’ part and splendid courage on the part of the soldiers who served as marines—not to mention the advantage derived from the unwisdom of Punic generals and the timidity of their hired crews.

Roman generalship seldom proved more capable than that of the Carthaginians. The war on land as well as on the sea was of a kind new to the Romans, and the consuls did not remain in office long enough to learn how to cope with the problems presented by it. The manipular legion, weak in cavalry, trained only for straightforward fighting, untaught in the strategy of surprise and flank movements, was not well adapted to meet the phalanx, the mass of elephants and the strong troops of Numidian horse. Yet we hear of no serious attempt to alter or adapt the tactics of the army. That so few of the consuls met defeat is surprising. For what they lacked in experience and intuition they seem to have compensated by determination and courage. The hopeless attack of Regulus before Carthage with a mere handful of men reveals to what lengths their stolid confidence could carry them, a confidence not only in themselves but in the staying qualities of their men as well. It was, in fact, the Italian rank and file that won the war. The mainstay of the army consisted of the property-holding citizens of Rome who comprehended that the war was their own contest. And the allied contingent proved equally trustworthy, for they too were conscious of their share of the responsibility in the federation. Had that federation been held together merely by compulsion and fear it could not have survived this war. The allied troops would have betrayed the consuls in battle and the cities would have withheld their contingents. Rome’s success proved for the first time that a great power could be built upon the well organized co-operation of many autonomous peoples if the cementing force were an intelligible community of interests. Certain it is that Rome’s victory was due to the sturdy qualities of the Roman legions and Italian troops, and to the founders of the federation who a century before had evolved a government which could make effective use of this man-power.

VIII.

THE EFFECT OF THE WAR ON ROME

The most important result of the war was the eventual acceptance of a non-Roman theory of ownership in subject territory from the former sovereigns of Sicily, a theory that was destined when fully formulated to change the entire conception of government of the Republic. We need not suppose that the Senate considered all the implications of their decision; perhaps the only question discussed was whether or not to collect a tribute in Sicily, as Carthage had done in the western portion and the Syracusan tyrants in the cities subject to them. The Romans had conquered most of Sicily by arms but they had already admitted Hiero and the Mamertines to alliances of the old type, and had accepted several cities as free and equal amici during the first two years of the war. The rest of Sicily, about half of the island, was ordered to pay annual tithes to the Roman quaestor, according to a system which will be discussed in a later chapter. Within a few years it was also discovered that the collection of tribute necessitated the institution of a court and an executive, and a praetor was therefore assigned to the island with an army empowered to represent the sovereign state. From this time onwards, Rome’s territorial acquisitions extended the boundaries not of a confederation but of an empire subject to Rome.

Upon the constitution of the city the effects of the war were not as marked as one might expect. Long wars in the past had usually elevated new war heroes into the senate and consequently into the nobility, and this war was no exception. The Mamilii, Otacilii, Aquilii, Atilii of Calatia, the Aurelii and Lutatii owed their rank to the First Punic War, and other plebeian families long in obscurity, like the Duillii, Caecilii and Fulvii, came back upon the stage. But the war did not create powerful military family as other wars had done before. The senate did not allow itself to be overshadowed. Consulships were distributed with remarkable evenness and there were relatively few instances of iteration. Of the forty-eight consuls, twelve held the office a second time, two or three extended their services into a second year, though not with certainty as proconsuls; no consul held office a third time. It is apparent that something like a senatorial esprit de corps was powerful enough to effect such control at a time when the state’s highest interests would have been served by generals of long experience. On the other hand, the even senatorial restraint does not demonstrate a decided weakening of the assemblies. One might expect that the intricate problems of a foreign war would so constantly call the administrative Senate into action as to enlarge its scope and power at the expense of the now sovereign assembly. It is true that the Senate’s activities increased with the enlargement of the field of operation. However the facts that new men rose to power so readily, that the old patrician families did not gain any noticeable distinctions, and that at the end the assembly retained the right to ratify and even exerted the right to call for a revision of the terms, demonstrate clearly enough that while the Senate’s field of action was enlarged, the aristocracy had not quite gained the dominating influence during this war that it did in the Second Punic War.

The influence of the war upon Roman life and custom must have been very great. When one remembers how in the recent war young men returned from the continent after a few campaigns filled with French phrases, habits and ideas, one naturally turns to the new literature of Rome to see whether it may not reveal the effects of this great experience. We must assume that almost all able-bodied citizens of Rome who, group after group, passed through the prime of manhood during this quarter-century saw service in Sicily. The sons of landowners made up the mainstay of the four legions, of the marines and the many garrisons placed in Sicilian cities, and since the period of service was then usually about six years, few could have escaped. Since a vast transport system had to be maintained and a large number of workmen were used in the siege operations and in the manufacture of arms the proletariat of the city also took their turn. This explains how it is that Naevius and Plautus could in their comedies make the freest use of Greek puns, jokes, oaths, and colloquial expressions with the assurance that the audience would comprehend them. While out foraging or prowling for food the soldiers had learned the meaning of words like harpagare, phylaca, apage, mastigia, colaphus, and perhaps we may add gynaeceum; words of the marketplace like danista, trapezita, chrysos, drachuma, mina, marsuppium are very numerous, and of the drinking bout even more so: cadus, cyathus, propinare, thermipolium and crapula, to record a few; and Greek military terms like machaera, catapulta, strategics, and techina, not to mention colloquial expletives like evax, attatae and euge, show that the Roman soldier fought by the side of his Greek allies. The Greek scenes of saucy slaves and intriguing parasites, of hetaerae, and of the balineum, transferred bodily to Rome, did not picture actual Roman life, but they portrayed a life with which the Romans had become familiar in Sicily, and because of this familiarity they were destined the sooner to enter the staid and peaceful city. To what length imitation might go, we can see in the accompaniment of ‘ flute and torch ’ granted as a special honour to Duillius by the senate—‘a distinction never given before.’ It has been plausibly suggested that Duillius had observed some after-dinner Komos, perhaps ordered by Hiero in his honour, and that he naively carried the outlandish custom home.

But the Roman drama itself both in its form and its contents sprang out of Sicilian associations. Excellent Greek dramatists were then still writing for the stage, and not the least among them was Sosiphanes of Syracuse. Performances not only of new plays but of the classic writers were constantly given in the cities where Roman soldiers were stationed or visited on their furloughs. Hiero, who was still building theatres in his cities, was invited to Rome to see the games immediately after the close of the war, the year when Livius produced the first play staged at Rome, and Naevius, who wrote most of the Roman comedies of the next thirty years, had campaigned in Sicily. It is noteworthy that the Greek tragedies which at first found greatest favour at Rome belonged to the Trojan cycle, a reminder of the fact that in Sicily the Romans had constantly been flattered with suggestions concerning their descent from Aeneas and the Trojans. The very form of the plays with their substitution of cantica for choruses seems to suggest Sicilian performances in which the expense of the chorus had to be considered. It was the Trojan story also which occupied a large part of Rome’s first epic, the Bellum Punicum of Naevius. The story was, to be sure, written in the native Saturnian verse, but the fact that it was composed in metre points to the influence of the national epics so popular in Hellenistic literature at this time. It is therefore to the observations made during this war that the Romans were indebted for the amazing outburst of production in tragedy, comedy, and epic during the period immediately following.

In other fields of art similar influences must have been at work, though the evidence has largely been obliterated by time. We have mentioned the boastful fresco on the walls of the senate chamber painted in honour of Valerius, the first Messalla, and the columna rostrata of Duillius with its rhetorical inscription in Greek style. A generation later, as the Scipionic inscriptions show, the Romans had gained poise and wrote their epitaphs with a native dignity. When the excavators have finally disclosed the remains of the many temples erected at Rome during and after the war—to Janus, Spes, Fides, Honos, Flora and the Tempests —we shall doubtless find that Greek architecture, observed and studied in Sicily, wrought as thorough a revolution in this period as did the other arts.

In time it also became apparent that Rome’s victory over Carthage would lead to closer political associations with the more sophisticated world of the Aegean. The Greeks were so concerned with their own affairs that they generally missed the true significance of what had occurred in the West, but here and there a wiser statesman added the facts of this victory to the impressions gained in the Pyrrhic War and concluded that Rome would some day have to be reckoned with. The Romans, on the other hand, came to learn through the increasing exchange of embassies that they were parvenus in the region of international politics as in the arts of civilization. They had too high a regard for the mos maiorum to abandon tradition lightly and sit down humbly as the devoted pupils of the East, but they observed thoughtfully, and during the next generation, as will be seen, they learned not a little about the statecraft of the Hellenistic monarchies.

CHAPTER XXII

THE STRUGGLE OF EGYPT AGAINST SYRIA AND MACEDONIA