Page:Heresies of Sea Power (1906).djvu/67

Rh have lived had already been ravaged by Regulus in his advance on Carthage, and the dread that over-sea supplies would be intercepted by Carthaginian ships led to the re-embarkation of the entire Eoman force.

They sailed, therefore, toward Sicily, and all but eighty of the 464 ships, which including transports the fleet numbered, were lost in a storm.

A new fleet of 200 ships took the Carthaginian port at Panormus in Sicily: but on its way back to Italy, being attacked by the Carthaginians, lost all its transports. In the next year (254 B.C.) this fleet again operated against Africa, but ignorance of navigation got the ships aground and necessitated throwing overboard the spoils of the raid, and subsequently all but sixty ships were wrecked and lost.

Upon this the anti-Sea Power party in the Senate gained the upper hand: maritime expeditions were decided against, and the fleet reduced to sixty vessels for coast defence.

Carthage got together a new fleet; but the army which it carried to Sicily being defeated, peace overtures were made. Thus encouraged Rome once more made a bid for the mastery of the sea, and equipping 240 ships besieged Lilybamm (Marsala) and Drepanum (Trapani)—the only two Carthaginian strongholds left. Here Carthaginian seamanship displayed itself. Another Hannibal took a fleet to the Ægates Islands