Ancient Rome: The Lives of Great Men

by Mary Agnes Hamilton

CARTHAGINIAN
PRIESTESS

No man could then have foreseen how long and severe the war was going to be. It lasted three and twenty years (264-241); and at the beginning all the advantage seemed to be on the Carthaginian side. In the first place Carthage had the strongest navy in the world. The Carthaginian army was much the larger, though it was composed of paid soldiers of foreign race. There was no outstanding leader on the Roman side equal to Hamilcar, who commanded the Carthaginians in its later stages.

When the war began the Romans had no fleet. They had never had more than a few transport vessels: no fighting ships. They did not know how they were constructed. This did not daunt them, however. A Carthaginian man-of-war was driven ashore. Roman carpenters and shipwrights at once set to work, studying how it was put together, and thinking out devices by which it could be improved. While the shipwrights were busy the men practised rowing on dry land. The most famous improvement invented by the Romans was the ‘crow’. This was an attachment to the prow, worked by a pulley, consisting of a long pole with a sharp and strong curved iron spike at the end. As soon as an enemy ship came within range this pole was swung round so that the spike caught the vessel and held it in an iron grip. A bridge was fastened to the pole: the soldiers ran along and boarded, forcing a hand-to-hand fight. To this the Carthaginian sailors were not used. They were better navigators than the Romans, but not such good fighters. In hand-to-hand encounters the Romans got the best of it. But they did not know so much of wind and weather, and again and again the storms made havoc with them. Four great fleets were destroyed or captured in the first sixteen years of the war, which lasted for twenty-three. In the year 249 Claudius the Consul lost 93 vessels at a stroke in the disastrous battle of Drepana and killed himself rather than live on under the disgrace. Later in the same year another great fleet was dashed to pieces in a storm.

PICTURES FROM POMPEII—

The year ended with the Carthaginians masters of the seas and on land. Four Roman armies had been lost almost to a man. In five years one man in every six of the population of Rome had perished in battle or on the sea. After sixteen years’ hard fighting and extraordinary efforts the end of the war seemed further off than ever, unless the Romans were to admit defeat. But it was no part of their character to admit defeat. As Polybius, the great Greek historian who knew them well, said some years later, ‘The Romans are never so dangerous as when they seem to be reduced to desperation.’ So it proved. No one had any thought of giving in. Regulus, captured by the Carthaginians and sent by them to Rome to urge his countrymen to surrender, urged them to go on fighting, though he knew he must pay the penalty for such words with his life. Had the Carthaginians been made of the same metal they might have used the hour to strike the fatal blow; but they were not. On land they did not trust the one really great general whom they had—Hamilcar Barca. For six years nothing serious was done in Sicily. On sea they let the fleet fall into disrepair because they were confident that the Romans, after their tremendous losses, could do nothing much. They did not know the Roman temper. In the coffers of the State there was no money to build ships. But there were rich men in Rome who put their country’s needs before their own comfort. A number of them sold all they had and gave the money for shipbuilding. Shipwrights and carpenters worked night and day, and in a wonderfully short time a fleet of 250 vessels was constructed and given to the State. And this fleet ended the war. Every man in it was alive with enthusiasm, ready to die for Rome. The Consul Lutatius Catulus, who was put in command of it, utterly defeated the Carthaginian navy in a great battle off the Aegatian Islands (241). In Sicily Hamilcar could do nothing; no supplies could reach him. With bitterness in his heart he had to make a peace which gave Sicily to Rome. The real heroes are the Roman people who, whether in the armies or the navies or at home, never yielded or lost courage in spite of defeat and disaster but held on to the end. They won the victory. They defeated Hamilcar. In this, the first Punic War, the Carthaginian Government was glad to make peace; Hamilcar was not. He was determined that Carthage should defeat Rome yet: he made his young son Hannibal swear never to be friends with Rome.