Except for this, matters were at a standstill. The whole strength of the Romans was concentrated in the lines of Lilybæum; but they had no fleet now, and therefore the place was fully supplied from the sea. On the other hand the activity of Hamilcar kept the enemy always in alarm. Slight actions constantly took place; and an anecdote is told by Diodorus, which sets the character of Hamilcar in a pleasing light. In a skirmish with the Roman consul, C. Fundanius, he had suffered some loss, and sent (according to custom) to demand a truce, that he might bury his dead. But the consul insolently replied that he ought to concern himself about the living rather than the dead, and save further bloodshed by surrendering at once. Soon after it was Hamilcar’s turn to defeat the Romans, and when their commander sent for leave to bury their dead, the Carthaginian general at once granted it, saying that he “warred not with the dead, but with the living.”
These interminable hostilities convinced the senate that they must once more build a fleet, or give up all hopes of driving the Carthaginians out of Sicily. Lilybæum would foil all their efforts, as it had foiled the efforts of Pyrrhus. The siege had now lasted eight years, from 250 to 241 B.C., and it appeared no nearer its conclusion than at first. All sacrifices must be made. A fleet must be built. And it was built. At the beginning of the year 241 B.C., the patrician consul, C. Lutatius Catulus, put to sea with more than two hundred sail. This was the fourth navy which the Romans had created. It is impossible not to admire this iron determination; impossible not to feel satisfaction at seeing it rewarded.
The consul, with his new fleet, sailed early in the year, and blockaded Drepana by sea and land, hoping to deprive the Carthaginians of the harbour in which their fleet lay to watch the Romans at Lilybæum. He also took great pains to train his seamen in naval tactics. In an action which took place at Drepana he was severely wounded.
On the other hand the Carthaginians had of late neglected their navy; and it was not till early in the following year (241) that a fleet was despatched to the relief of Drepana. It was heavily freighted with provisions and stores. Hanno, its commander, touched at Hiera, a small island, about twenty or twenty-five miles from the port of Drepana. Of this (it appears) Catulus was informed, and, though still suffering from his wound, he at once put to sea, hoping to intercept the enemy before they unloaded their ships. On the evening of the 9th of March he lay to at Ægusa, another small island, not above ten miles distant from Hiera. Next morning the Carthaginians put to sea and endeavoured to run into Drepana. But they were intercepted by the Roman fleet, and obliged to give battle. They fought under great disadvantages, and the Romans gained an easy victory. Fifty of the enemy’s ships were sunk, seventy taken; the rest escaped to Hiera.
This battle, called the battle of the Ægatian Islands (for that was the general name of the group), decided the war. It was plain that Lilybæum must now surrender; and that though Hamilcar might yet stand at bay, he could not recover Sicily for the present. The merchants of Carthage were eager for the conclusion of the war; and the government sent orders to Hamilcar to make a peace on the best terms he could obtain. Catulus at first required, as a preliminary to all negotiations, that Hamilcar should lay down his arms, and give up all Roman deserters in his service. But when the Carthaginians disdainfully refused this condition, the consul prudently waived it, and a treaty was finally agreed on by the two commanders to the following effect—that the Carthaginians should evacuate Sicily; should give up all Roman prisoners without ransom; and should pay twenty-two hundred talents in twenty years towards the expenses of the war. But the Roman tribes refused to ratify the treaty without inquiry. Accordingly the senate sent over ten envoys, who confirmed the treaty of Catulus, except that they raised the sum to thirty-two hundred talents, and required this larger sum to be paid in ten years, instead of twenty. They also insisted on the cession of all the small islands between Italy and Sicily.
Thus ended the First Punic War. The issue of this long struggle was altogether in favour of Rome. She had performed few brilliant exploits; she had sent few eminent men to conduct the war; but she had done great things. She had beaten the Mistress of the Sea upon her own element. She had gained possession of an island nearly twice as large as Yorkshire, and fertile beyond the example of other lands. Her losses, indeed, had been enormous; for she had lost seven hundred ships, a vast number of men, and large sums of money. But Carthage had suffered still more. For though she had lost not more than five hundred ships, yet the interruption to her trade, and the loss of her great commercial emporiums of Lilybæum and Drepana, not only crippled the resources of the state, but largely diminished the fortunes of every individual citizen. The Romans and Italians, who fought in this war, were mostly agricultural; and the losses of such a people are small, and soon repaired, while those suffered by a great commercial state are often irreparable.
This war was only the prelude to a more fierce and deadly contest. Carthage had withdrawn discomfited from Sicily, and her empty treasury and ruined trade forbade her to continue the conflict at that time. But it was not yet decided whether Rome or Carthage was to rule the coasts of the Mediterranean. The great Hamilcar left Eryx without despair. He foresaw that by patience and prudence he might shake off the control of his jealous government, and train up an army in his own interest, with which he might defy the Roman legions.
EVENTS BETWEEN THE FIRST AND SECOND PUNIC WARS
[241-218 B.C.]
The First Punic War lasted three-and-twenty years; and the interval between the end of this war and the beginning of the next was of nearly the same duration. In the course of this period (from 240 to 218 B.C.) both Rome and Carthage, notwithstanding their exhausted condition, were involved in perilous wars. In the next three years Carthage was brought to the very brink of destruction by a general mutiny of her mercenary troops, which had been employed in Sicily, and were now to be disbanded. Their leaders were Spendius, a runaway Campanian slave, who feared to be given up to the Romans, and Matho, a Libyan, who had been too forward in urging the demands of the army for their pay, to hope for forgiveness from the Carthaginian government. Led on by these desperadoes, the soldiers gave full vent to their ferocity; they seized Gisco, who had been sent to treat with them, as a hostage; plundered the country round about; raised the subject Africans in rebellion; besieged the fortified towns of Utica and Hippo; and cut off all communication by land with the promontory upon which Carthage stands. At the end of the second year, however, Hamilcar, being invested with the command of the civic forces, reduced Spendius to such extremities that he surrendered at discretion, and compelled Matho to shut himself up in Tunis.