Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 20.djvu/771

Rh CONQUEST OF THE WEST.] 10 M E 747 connected with Carthage by treaty, and the older purely commercial treaties had quite recently been replaced by a close alliance formed in face of the common danger to which both had been exposed by the adventurous schemes of Pyrrhus. But this danger was past, and it is prob- able that others besides Pyrrhus foresaw that on the old battleground of Greeks and Phoenicians a struggle must soon be fought out between the Phoenician mistress of the Italian seas and the rulers of the Italian peninsula. It was above all things essential for Rome that the Carthaginians should advance no farther eastward. But already in 272 Tarentum had almost fallen into their g ras P> an d seven years later Rome was threatened with a danger at least as serious, the establishment of Car- thaginian rule in the east of Sicily, and within sight of the Italian coast. In 265 a body of Campanian mercenaries, who had seized Messana, found themselves hard pressed by Hiero, king of Syracuse. One party among them appealed for aid to Carthage. The Cartha- ginians readily responded, and a Carthaginian garrison occupied the citadel of Messana. But at Messana, as once at Tarentum, there were others who turned to Rome, and, as Italians themselves, implored the aid of the great Italian republic, offering in return to place Messana under the suzerainty of Rome. The request was a perplexing one. Both Hiero and the Carthaginians were allies of Rome, and Messana, if rescued from the latter, belonged of right to Hiero and not to Rome. Apart, too, from treaty obligations, the Roman senate naturally hesitated before acceding to an appeal which would precipitate a collision with Carthage, and commit Rome to a new and hazardous career of enterprise beyond the sea. Finally, however, all other considerations gave way before the paramount importance of checking the advance of Carthage. The Roman assembly voted that assistance should be sent to the Mamertines, and in 264 the Roman legions for the first time crossed the sea. Messana was occupied, and, after sustaining a defeat, the Carthaginians and Syracusans were forced to raise the siege and withdraw. The opening years of the war which was thus begun gave little promise of the length of the struggle, and it seemed likely at the outset that Rome's immediate object, the expulsion of the Carthaginians from Sicily, would be soon attained. The accession to the Roman side of King Hiero (263) not only confirmed the position which Rome had already assumed in Italy of the champion of the western Greeks against barbarians, but provided her in eastern Sicily with a con- venient base of operations and commodious winter quarters, and in Hiero himself with a loyal and effective ally. In the next year (262) followed the capture of Agrigentum, and in 261 the Roman senate resolved on supplementing these successes on land by the formation of a fleet which should not only enable them to attack the maritime strongholds which defied the assaults of their legions, and protect their own coasts, but even to carry the war into Africa itself. In the spring of 260 the first regular Roman fleet, consisting of one hundred quinqueremes and twenty triremes set sail; 1 and the brilliant naval victory off Mylae, won by the consul C. Duilius in the same year, seemed to promise the Romans as much success by sea as they had won by land. But the promise was not fulfilled; and in 256 the senate, impatient of the slow progress made in Sicily, determined on boldly invading Africa. It was a policy for which, if Africa were once reached, the defenceless state of the Carthaginian territories, the doubt- ful loyalty of her Libyan subjects, and the un warlike habits of her own citizens, gave every hope of success, and, but for the blunders of the Romans themselves, it might have succeeded now as it did fifty years later. The 1 Mommsen, R. G., i. 515. passage to Africa was opened by the defeat of the Cartha- ginian fleet off Ecnomus; the two consuls, L. Manlius Vulso and M. Atilius Regulus, landed in safety and rapidly overran the country. But these successes led the senate, at the close of the summer, into committing the serious blunder of recalling one of the consuls, Manlius, with a large portion of the troops. It was one of many instances in which the rules and traditions of the old republican system proved themselves inconsistent with the new requirements of an extended warfare. The consul came back to hold the elections ; his soldiers returned, as the custom had been, to their homes after a summer's cam- paign ; but the efficiency of the expedition was fatally impaired. The rashness and over-confidence of Regulus aggravated the effects of the senate's action. Emboldened by further successes, and notwithstanding his diminished forces, he met the Carthaginian proposals for peace by terms so harsh that the latter, though the Romans were almost at their gates, their soldiers disheartened, and the nomad tribes swarming on their frontiers, indignantly broke off the negotiations and prepared to resist to the last. At this crisis, so the story runs, the arrival of Xanthippus, a Spartan soldier of fortune, changed the face of affairs, as that of Gylippus had formerly done at Syracuse. His superior military skill remedied the blunders of the Carthaginian generals ; confidence was restored ; and in 255 he triumphantly routed the Roman forces a few 499. miles outside the city. Regulus was taken prisoner, 2 and only a miserable remnant of two thousand men escaped to the Roman camp on the coast. Here they were rescued by a Roman fleet, but their ill-fortune pursued them. On its way home the fleet was wrecked, and all but 80 vessels out of a total of 364 were lost. Still, though abandoning all thoughts of invading Africa, the Romans were unwilling to renounce all thoughts of facing their enemy on the sea. But fresh disasters followed. The hopes raised (254) by the capture of 500. Panormus were dashed to the ground the next year (253) 501. by the total destruction in a storm of the victorious fleet on its way home from Panormus to Rome. Four years later a second fleet, despatched under P. Claudius to assist in the blockade of Lilybseum, was completely defeated off Drepana, while, to make matters worse, his colleague L. Junius, who had been hastily sent out with reinforce- ments, was wrecked near the dangerous promontory of Pachynus. Disheartened by these repeated disasters, the senate resolved to trust only to the legions, and by sheer force of perseverance slowly to force the enemy out of the few positions to which he still clung in Sicily. But, though for five years (248-243) no fresh naval operations were 506-511 attempted, no compensating success by land followed. Hamilcar Barca, the new Carthaginian commander, not only ravaged with his fleet the coasts of Italy, but from his impregnable position at Ercte incessantly harassed the Roman troops in the west of the island, and even recaptured Eryx. Convinced once more of the impossi- bility of driving the Carthaginians out of Sicily as long as their navy swept the seas, the Romans determined on a final effort. The treasury was empty ; but by the liberal contributions of private citizens a fleet was equipped, and C. Lutatius Catulus, consul for 242, started for Sicily early 512. in the summer of that year with 200 quinqueremes. From Drepana, whither he had gone to aid in the blockade, he sailed out to meet a Carthaginian fleet, despatched from Africa against him ; and a battle took place at the JEgates islands, some 20 miles from the Sicilian coast, in which Catulus completely defeated his enemy. The end 2 For criticisms of the story of Eegulus, see Mommsen, i. 523 ; lime ii. 69 ; Rauke, Weltgeschichte, ii. 185. Cf. art. REGULUS.