Hamilcar Barca.
The embassy having thus failed, the attack on the fortresses, which alone linked Africa with Sicily, was renewed. The siege of Lilybæum lasted till the end of the war, which, from the mutual exhaustion of the parties, now languished for six years. The Romans had lost four great fleets, three of which had arms on board, and the census of the city, in the seventeenth year, showed a decrease of forty thousand citizens. During this interval of stagnation, when petty warfare alone existed, Hamilcar Burca was appointed general of Carthage, and in the same year his son Hannibal was born, B.C. 247.
Conquest of Sicily.
The Romans, disgusted with the apathy of the government, fitted out a fleet of privateers of two hundred ships, manned by sixty thousand sailors, and this fleet gained a victory over the Carthaginians, unprepared for such a force, [pg 437] so that fifty ships were sunk, and seventy more were carried by the victors into port. This victory gave Sicily to the Romans, and ended the war. The Roman prisoners were surrendered by Hamilcar, who had full powers for peace, and Carthage engaged to pay three thousand two hundred talents for the expenses of the war.
Acquisition of Sicily.
The Romans were gainers by this war. They acquired the richest island in the world, fertile in all the fruits of the earth, with splendid harbors, cities, and a great accumulation of wealth. The long war of twenty-four years, nearly a whole generation, was not conducted on such a scale as essentially to impoverish the contending parties. There were no debts contracted for future generations to pay. It was the most absorbing object of public interest, indeed; but many other events and subjects must also have occupied the Roman mind. It was a foreign war, the first that Rome had waged. It was a war of ambition, the commencement of those unscrupulous and aggressive measures that finally resulted in the political annihilation of all the other great powers of the world.
But this war, compared with those foreign wars which Rome subsequently conducted, was carried on without science and skill. It was carried on in the transition period of Roman warfare, when tactics were more highly prized than strategy. It was by a militia, and agricultural generals, and tactics, and personal bravery, that the various Italian nations were subdued, when war had not ripened into a science, such as was conducted even by the Greeks. There was no skill or experience in the conduct of sieges. The navy was managed by Greek mercenaries.
Creation of a Roman naval power.
The great improvement in the science of war which this first contest with a foreign power led to, was the creation of a navy, and the necessity of employing veteran troops, led by experienced generals. A deliberative assembly, like the Senate, it was found could not conduct a foreign war. It was left to generals, who were to learn marches and countermarches, sieges, and a strategical system. [pg 438] The withdrawal of half the army of Regulus by the Senate proved nearly fatal. Carthage could not be subdued by that rustic warfare which had sufficed for the conquest of Etruria or Samnium. The new system of war demanded generals who had military training and a military eye, and not citizen admirals. The final success was owing to the errors of the Carthaginians rather than military science.