In the third year after the victory of Duilius, the Romans appeared with a considerable naval force before Sicily; and a drawn battle was fought off Tyndaris on the northern coast, of which the Carthaginians were masters, from Lilybæum nearly to Mylæ. But as the war in Sicily was not decided, and year by year a few small places only were taken, while the Carthaginians still held all the important possessions in their province, the Romans in 496 resolved upon transporting the war to Africa, as there was no hope of its being ended without some great blow being struck. The example of Agathocles had shown how vulnerable the Carthaginians were in Africa. They therefore intended to force the Carthaginians to make peace; at that time they would indeed have contented themselves with Sicily. They now doubled their armaments, and built an immense fleet; the Carthaginians likewise, when they heard of it, built a very great number of ships. Such huge masses do not give one much pleasure in history, as even barbarians are able to get them up: the superiority of talent and skill over physical force has no chance on such occasions. The victory also of Duilius by means of boarding-bridges, is, when closely looked at, only the result of a clumsy device by which the true science of the Carthaginian navy was baffled. In the seven years’ war, when line-tactics were in vogue, the art of war, as an art, was of a far higher order than it is, now that armies fight in masses: the masses likewise of artillery mark the evident decline of the intellectual spirit and of humanity in warfare. The Romans put to sea with three hundred and thirty ships, most of which were quinqueremes, and the Carthaginians with three hundred and fifty. Polybius himself is amazed at these huge masses, and remarks in his preface, how even the great battles of the Macedonian kings, of Demetrius, Ptolemy, and others, and in later times, those of the Rhodians, shrink to nothing in comparison. They also outvied each other from henceforth in the size of their ships, some of which had even as many as nine banks of oars, like the one which was built by Archimedes for Hiero, who sent it to Alexandria. These preposterous monsters surpassed in bulk our ships of the line. Men afterwards came back to the use of the very lightest vessels, such as liburnæ and lembi; of these we are unable to give a clear idea. In the most brilliant days of the Byzantines and Venetians, battles were fought with very small ships. The Romans were 140,000 rowers and marines, the land forces alone amounting to 40,000: they had also a number of transports, especially for the cavalry (ἱππηγοί). It is not unlikely that the Romans built so many ships, merely to carry over their large army to Africa in one voyage; and that the Carthaginians did so, on the other hand, in order to resist them. The expectations of every one were riveted upon this undertaking, just as in the times of the Spanish Armada.
As the most important points on the northern coast of Sicily were still in the possession of the Carthaginians, and provisions had to be taken in at Syracuse, the Romans did not venture to sail round Lilybæum; but they preferred the way round Pachynus. Between that headland and Agrigentum, the Carthaginians met them with the whole of their fleet. The Roman ships being still unwieldy, the result depended, as before, on the use of the boarding-bridges. They had hit upon a strange disposition: their ships were divided into four squadrons, each of which had one legion with its brigade of allies, and a number of transports. The two first squadrons sailed so as to form two sides of a triangle, or an angle, the two admirals being placed side by side, and therefore with their rostra standing out towards the sea. The base of the triangle was formed by the third squadron, which advanced straight forwards, and had the transports in tow. Behind these sailed the fourth squadron, which was to cover the rear. The two first were each commanded by a consul, the third and fourth by other leaders, of whom we do not know any thing further. They therefore formed an ἔμβολον, in which the attack of the enemy is a manœuvre for the execution of which a great many favourable circumstances are requisite; and the ships which at other times used to sail on in a straight line, diverged and made a wedge.
1, 2, 3, 4, the numbers of the squadrons. 5, the transports.
The Carthaginians, who fell in with them near Ecnomus, had a more judicious arrangement. Their left wing, being about the fourth part of the whole of their fleet, sailed in a long line along the coast; and joining it at a right angle was the main body of their large armament, which, ship by ship, stood out far into the sea. The Romans passed by the line along the coast, and attacked the salient line. It was not the plan of the Carthaginian admiral, that this should withstand the end of the wedge which was forcing itself in; they therefore set sail, and seemed to flee, so as to separate the Romans from their third and fourth lines, and the Romans pursued them. But two parts of the long line formed again, and fell upon the Romans, who had detached themselves from the third squadron; the third part, which was sailing in the open sea, returned and attacked the fourth Roman squadron; and in the meanwhile, the line which was off the coast, came up and engaged the third squadron, which now abandoned the transports to their fate. Thus arose three distinct sea-fights: the first and second Roman squadrons conquered easily; the fourth had a doubtful victory; and the third was hard pressed, but the centre turned back to defend it. The boarding-bridges were also employed in this action with great effect. The result was the complete rout of the Carthaginians: thirty ships were sunk, part of them being driven ashore and wrecked, and sixty-four taken; from thirty to forty thousand men fell into the power of the Romans.
After this defeat, the beaten fleet made its escape to Africa, and went to protect Carthage against an attack; the men had lost all strength and spirit. The Romans had the sea clear before them to carry their plan into execution, and the two consular armies, that of Manlius and that of Regulus, proceeded to Africa. They landed on the south side of the headland of Hermæum, over-against Carthage, at the mouth of the gulf of Tunis, near a town which the Romans call Clupea, the Greeks Aspis, (the Punic name we do not know,) a place, which they took after a creditable defence. They now made it their arsenal, and spread from thence into the heart of the country. The really efficient armies of the enemy were stationed in Sicily; the Carthaginians had made sure of baffling the undertaking, and were therefore quite unprepared in Africa. They had fortified colonies on the coast only; as for the interior, with the exception of a few municipia, they had the same policy as the Vandals, who, fearing rebellions, pulled down all the walls of the towns, just as the Lombards did afterwards in Italy. Wherever therefore the Romans came, they marched in: a foreign conqueror was looked upon by the Libyans as a deliverer; for, although the Carthaginians were no barbarians, yet they were very hard masters. For they followed the system, which is found throughout the East, that the sovereign is the owner of the soil, and the possessor has the enjoyment of it only so long as it pleases the lord and master. They also wanted immense sums of money for their Celtic and Iberian mercenaries, and were therefore obliged to squeeze them out of their subjects. In the war of Agathocles, the consequences of this system had already been seen. Indeed the spirit of the Africans had been crushed, so that they did not break out in open rebellion, as they did in his time; for the Carthaginians had taken a fell revenge after his departure. Yet they did not aid Carthage in any way. A most inconceivable order now came from Rome, that one of the consuls, L. Manlius, should return home, it being perhaps believed, that the force of Regulus was sufficient by itself: Manlius therefore sailed back with almost the whole of the fleet, and brought over the booty. The Carthaginians retreated into inaccessible parts of the country: Regulus nevertheless defeated them near Adis. Their militia troops were exceedingly timid; it was easy for the Romans to drive them out of their strongholds. Regulus stationed himself not far from Carthage: he took the fortified town of Tunes, and encamped near the river Bagradas: the Carthaginians were pressed most closely. In this camp, as the ancients generally relate, (Livy also has it,) a serpent, which was a hundred and twenty ells in length, is said to have made its appearance, and to have torn to pieces a great many Romans, until the soldiers battered it with catapults and ballistæ. This tale, in the midst of an account which is quite historical, is most surprising. That earth and sea may contain creatures which occur so rarely, that one is inclined to take them for fabulous, cannot indeed be positively denied; it may have been a giant serpent. But in all likelihood, this story, like so many others, has its origin in Nævius’ Bellum Punicum, which poet himself served as a soldier in that war. At all events, it would be wonderful if the size of the dragon had amounted in ells to exactly that number which is so often met with in Roman measurements, namely, 12 × 10.
The Carthaginians had utterly lost courage, and they could not withdraw their army from Sicily without giving up that island altogether: they therefore sent an embassy to Regulus, and sued for peace. Regulus’ fame has been very much exaggerated by apophthegmatical histories; he is undeservedly represented as a martyr: in the heyday of his good fortune, he showed himself ruthless, intoxicated with victory, and ungenerous. We have a story of him, that he had then asked the senate for his recall, that he might attend to his farm; but we know on the contrary from Polybius, that he had particularly set his heart upon bringing the war to a brilliant end, before a successor arrived. So much the more senseless was it in him to ask of the Carthaginians impossibilities, and to offer them much worse terms than they really obtained at the conclusion of the war, just as if he had meant to drive them to despair. Had he stipulated for the evacuation of Sicily and the payment of a contribution, the Carthaginians would have been quite willing; but he had the preposterous idea of crushing Carthage with one blow. His conditions were quite insane: even had they been besieged, the Carthaginians could not have fared worse. They were to acknowledge the supremacy of Rome; to make an offensive and defensive alliance with the Romans; to enter into no treaty without the permission of the Romans; to yield up all their ships of war but one, and to have nothing but triremes; to give up Sicily, Sardinia, Corsica, and the Lipari isles; to abandon their Italian allies; to deliver up the prisoners and deserters; to ransom their own captives; to pay all the expenses of the war, and a contribution besides. The Carthaginians declared that they would rather perish; and luckily for them the Romans carried on the war badly. Instead of establishing themselves within the gulf of Tunis, opposite Carthage, as they ought to have done, they had now sent off their fleet; the Carthaginians therefore could make use of their ships to hire troops everywhere. Among these, there were also many from Greece; one of them, the celebrated Xanthippus, who was not, as Diodorus says, a Spartan, but as we learn from Polybius, a Neodamode who in his education had been subjected to the laws of the Spartans (τῆς Λακωνικῆς ἀγωγῆς μετεσχηκώς), and had thereby acquired an inferior right of citizenship. In the case of a Spartan, this would have been quite a matter of course; but, besides these, Lacedæmonians also (περίοικοι), and Neodamodes, even the children of foreign πρόξενοι, might subject themselves to the laws of Lycurgus, which is a position not yet clearly explained. Xanthippus was one of the greatest men of his age; and he furnishes us with a case in point, which shows how much Sparta must have been stunted, owing to her not making the Lacedæmonians equal to the Spartans. He came to Carthage as a mercenary, but as an officer: he had certainly been recruiting at Tænarus. When he saw the preparations of the Carthaginians, he openly declared that it was no wonder that Carthage was going to ruin; and on this he was called before the senate,—in this case, it was an advantage that the military and the civil administrations were distinct,—and he was asked for his opinion. He explained to them, that as indeed they had plenty of elephants[4] and Numidian cavalry, which was a formidable force against such a small army as that of the Romans in the midst of an enemy’s country, (about 16,000 men, according to Polybius; with all the reinforcements, perhaps 20,000, among whom there were 15 or 1,600 cavalry) they ought to seek the plains, whilst the advantage of the Romans was in the mountains. The elephants had hardly been employed in any battle by land at all, unless perhaps in the little skirmish near Tunis. Xanthippus was listened to: he was intrusted with the charge of the mercenaries. His arrangements excited astonishment: the soldiers believed that under his guidance they were sure to conquer; the whole of the camp demanded him for their leader, and the Carthaginian general, who very likely had got his instructions in this matter from the city, yielded the command to him. This is a great resolve. When Xanthippus had now well drilled the Carthaginians, he went out against the Romans into the open field, and thereby filled them with great wonder and dismay. He compelled them to fight, and made a masterly disposition: the Roman army had no centre; but the Greeks had three divisions, and he drew up his army in the following manner. The Carthaginians occupied the centre as a phalanx; for being townsmen, they could only be usefully employed in masses:[5] on the two wings, he placed the mercenaries, and joined to them the cavalry on the flanks. The Romans likewise put their cavalry on the flanks; but in placing the infantry they departed from their general custom, as before the centre of the Carthaginians a hundred elephants had been stationed: they formed themselves against these in an order of battle of great depth. Yet the shock was irresistible: the left wing of the Romans indeed conquered the mercenaries; but in the meanwhile, the cavalry of the Carthaginians had thrown itself upon the right wing, and the elephants trampled down everything before them: then the phalanx rushed on, and the whole of the Roman army was annihilated. Only two thousand men of the left wing made their escape in the rear of the Carthaginians to Clupea. Regulus retreated with five hundred Romans to a hill, and was obliged to surrender. Xanthippus was now the universal hero: they wished him to stay at Carthage; but he was wise enough to return home with the rich presents which he received, lest he should become an eyesore to an envious and heartless people, as the Carthaginians were. Polybius tells us that there was also another account, even that the Carthaginians had given him a bad ship, that he might perish on the passage; and that according to some, he had really become a victim, and according to others, he had saved himself by getting into another vessel. The Romans sent out the fleet, which had been still preserved, to take up the garrison of the besieged town of Clupea; the Carthaginians went against them, and were defeated. The number of ships which, according to Polybius, were captured on this occasion, is very likely to have been changed from 114 to 14.
The Romans now evacuated Africa, taking with them the garrison of Clupea; and they sailed back for Syracuse, to make their passage through the straits of Messina to Rome. As it was the time of the summer-solstice, the pilots warned them against the possibility of a storm, as the Sirocco at that season of the year sometimes increases into the most dreadful hurricane, and the coast in those parts is destitute of harbours. But the commanders scorned them, most likely because they were foreigners; and thus a terrible shipwreck between Agrigentum and Pachynus utterly destroyed nearly three hundred vessels out of three hundred and sixty, which was the most dreadful disaster that had occurred until then (497). Not long afterwards, Seleucus Callinicus also suffered a similar shipwreck. The Carthaginians might now believe that the Romans would grant a peace on fair terms. For this reason, it is said, they sent Regulus to Rome with offers of peace: if he could not get them accepted, he was to obtain at least an exchange of prisoners; yet Regulus advised against both of these things, returned to Carthage, and was there put to death by torture. The first who, with great independence of spirit, proved the groundlessness of this story, was the excellent French philologist Paulmier de Grentemesnil (Palmerius). He lived in the times of the brothers Henry and Adrian Valesius (Valois); he was particularly well read in Polybius, and he pointed out, how incomprehensible it was, that Polybius, although he told the achievements of Regulus at such length, should not have mentioned a word of this story. The further arguments have been put forth by Beaufort. From a fragment of Diodorus, it appears that the Roman senate gave as a pledge for Regulus, into the hands of his wife and family, two Carthaginian prisoners of rank; and that these were most frightfully tortured, so that the tribunes of the people called together the senate, and compelled the monsters to liberate one of the prisoners whom they had shut up in an exceedingly narrow chest with the other, who was already dead. Now, both of these learned critics say very rightly, that even if the Carthaginians had really tortured Regulus, this had merely been done in retaliation; and that moreover the accounts of his death are so very different. According to some, he was blinded; according to others, tortured to death in a chest stuck full of iron spikes; and again, according to others, he was exposed to the sun and the insects. Some writers of the middle ages, like the authors of the spurious Acta Martyrum, felt quite a particular pleasure in devising the most horrible and complicated tortures: this is also the case with the story of Regulus. It is altogether a forgery; and Palmerius and Beaufort have just grounds for their conclusion, that it was only invented to wash out the foul stain of the tortures of the Carthaginian prisoners. I believe that it has been borrowed from Nævius; for Diodorus does not know of it, as is evident from his fragments: he had but a very imperfect knowledge of Roman history, and only from the earlier, and almost contemporary writers, Philinus of Agrigentum, Timæus, and Fabius Pictor; the poet Nævius, he had not read. Thus it was very likely that the latest Roman historians brought that tale into circulation from Nævius. Cicero already is acquainted with the legend; it must have therefore been either in Cato’s Origines or in Nævius.[6] If it originated with the later historians, it has arisen at least a hundred, or a hundred and twenty years after the time of Regulus.
The Romans did not conclude the peace; in spite of their ill luck, they were resolved upon going on with the war. The Carthaginians now armed themselves with redoubled courage: they sent considerable reinforcements to Sicily, and learnt how to make a right use of their elephants; the Romans, on the other hand, became daunted, and withdrew into the mountains. The Carthaginians wished to carry on the war either by sea or by land: to do both at the same time, was more than they could manage. The Romans then built a new fleet, took Panormus (Palermo), and went again to Africa, and wasted the country between Carthage and Tripolis; hereupon they returned to Sicily, the fleet having had a wonderful escape in the small Syrtis. When bound for Italy, they were again overtaken on the passage by a storm, and hardly a vessel was saved.
The southern gales, every one of them from south-east to south-west, are always in the Mediterranean the most dangerous storm-winds; and they are the more destructive, as the Italian coast is almost without any harbours, and full of breakers: the storms which blow from the north are harmless. Yet when the currents from the Adriatic and the Pontus meet, ships during a north easterly wind are irresistibly drawn into the Syrtes (from σύρειν), so that they are in them before their reckonings would lead one to suppose it.