An odd reversal of reputations was taking place. On the one hand, the Republic was ruling the waves, launching successful raids and scoring a devastating second victory over the enemy fleet; on the other, the Carthaginians were doing well on land in Sicily. They practiced a policy of attrition, avoiding open battle and forcing the Romans to undertake siege after lengthy siege of fortified hill town after hill town.
The Senate engaged in another strategic review. It was decided to exploit Rome’s new superiority at sea, bypass Sicily, and send an expeditionary force to attack Carthage itself. In 256, the two consuls and an armada of 330 ships set sail for North Africa; 120 foot soldiers joined each boat, making a total army strength of 120,000 in addition to the regular 100,000 oarsmen. This was a hugely ambitious project, with an unprecedented number of lives at risk.
The Carthaginians saw that this was a crisis point and assembled an even larger fleet of 350 galleys. The two sides met at Cape Ecnomus (today’s Poggio di Sant’Angelo, in Licata), on Sicily’s southern coast, and once again the Romans routed the enemy, sinking or capturing more than ninety ships. The way lay clear to the Punic capital.
The consuls disembarked safely to the east of Cape Bon, a promontory at the opposite end of the Gulf of Tunis from Carthage, and set about plundering the countryside, ravaging fertile estates and capturing twenty thousand slaves. The campaign could not have gotten off to a better start. But summer was wearing on, and the Senate recalled one of the consuls, who sailed back to Italy with much of the army, loot, and captives. His colleague, Marcus Atilius Regulus, was left behind to winter in Africa with fifteen thousand infantry, five thousand cavalry, and forty ships. The Carthaginians realized, as they were meant to do, that this was no brief raid but an invasion. The legions intended to stay.
The Punic army came to the relief of a fort only twenty or so miles from the town of Tunes (today’s Tunis). Nervous of the Roman infantry, its commanders did their best to avoid a set-piece battle but still managed to get dislodged, with heavy losses, from their safe position on high ground. Tunes then fell to Regulus. Refugees from the hinterland crowded into Carthage and food supplies fell dangerously low. The endgame was at hand.
The Carthaginians opened peace talks. Regulus was an unimaginative man with too high an opinion of himself. He wanted the campaign over during his year of office, and then the satisfaction of a triumph. He was in a hurry. Virtually master of the city, he felt that all he needed to do was state his terms for them to be accepted. These were unrealistically harsh and had the opposite of the intended effect. The Carthaginians were to withdraw from Sicily and Sardinia; all Roman prisoners of war were to be released, while Punic captives were to be ransomed. Rome’s war costs were to be paid and an annual tribute levied. Carthage would be allowed to go to war only with Rome’s permission. These conditions were tantamount to unconditional surrender, but while the situation of the Punic state was critical, it was by no means terminal. The talks foundered.
Meanwhile, the Carthaginian high command recognized that its generals were incompetent and, in the spring of 255, sought advice from a Spartan military expert on the best way of dealing with the invaders. Firm discipline and training were introduced, and the soldiers’ morale rose. The Punic army marched out and trounced the complacent Romans. The victory was won by cavalry outflanking the legions and destroying them. Regulus and five hundred others were captured, and of the rest of his force only two thousand made their escape from the field of slaughter.
Regulus’s fate is uncertain. He most probably died of natural causes in captivity. A tradition grew that he was released on his honor to negotiate a treaty at Rome. He advised the Senate to reject the Punic proposals and, keeping his word, returned to Carthage. According to a first-century historian, an acquaintance of Cicero:
They locked him in a dark and deep dungeon, and a long time later brought him out into the bright light of the sun, held him in its direct rays and forced him to look up at the sky. They even pulled his eyelids apart up and down and sewed them fast, so that he could not close his eyes.
Others report that he died from sleep deprivation.
The disaster put an end to the invasion, but it was not yet complete. The Senate had intended to send out a fleet to blockade Carthage while Regulus attacked from the city’s landward side. News of the debacle arrived before the fleet set out, but some 210 vessels were dispatched to rescue what was left of the expeditionary force. This they accomplished, brushing off a Carthaginian fleet and raiding the countryside for provisions. On their way home, though, they sailed into a tremendous storm. Hampered by their corvi, most ships were driven onto the rocks off the southeastern corner of Sicily. About 25,000 soldiers and 70,000 oarsmen drowned. In no previous war had Rome lost so many men at a single blow. The fleet was soon rebuilt, but in 253 it, too, was destroyed in a storm after raiding the African coast. This time, 150 ships were lost.
It is hard to know how much these catastrophes owed to bad luck. No doubt, something, but it seems that Rome’s admirals understood fighting better than they did seamanship. Whatever the explanation, the public in Italy was shocked by the losses at sea and even Rome could not stand this human hemorrhage. The decision to fight Carthage by sea had failed. The Carthaginians were exhausted, too, not only by the struggle with Rome but also by a long-standing insurgency by the Numidians, their African neighbors. The war had reached a stalemate. For the next two years, there was a lull in hostilities.
A NEW CLAUDIUS now arrived on the political scene at Rome. Grandson of Claudius Caecus, the Blind, Publius possessed a full share of the clan’s awkward, arrogant genes (or else was typecast by later disobliging historians). He was given the cognomen of Pulcher, meaning beautiful or pretty, so good looks can be inferred—or perhaps merely vanity about his looks.
The campaign in Sicily remained a long, hard slog, but Rome made some progress, capturing the Punic city of Panormus (today’s Palermo). Lilybaeum, on the island’s western tip, was one of Carthage’s last two strongholds. In 250, it was decided that a further effort should be made to clear Sicily of Carthaginians. A consular army and a new fleet of two hundred ships was sent out from Italy and invested the highly defensible port.
Consul for the following year, Claudius decided to launch a surprise attack on nearby Drepana (close to modern Trapani), the only other Punic base. Before battle commenced, he took the auspices in his capacity as admiral. An auspice was an omen as revealed through the observed behavior of birds—how they flew, sang, or ate. On this occasion, some sacred chickens were given food. They refused to touch it, a very bad sign, and Claudius ought to have aborted his enterprise, at least for that day. Instead, he lost his temper and threw the fowls into the sea, with the words “Let them drink, if they won’t eat!”
The raid was an embarrassing failure. Apparently the Roman ships were not equipped with the corvus, allowing the enemy full scope for maneuver and ramming. Claudius lost more than 90 galleys (out of 120), although many of the crew made it to shore and rejoined the army outside Lilybaeum.
But a fresh disaster quickly followed. A consular fleet of 120 ships accompanying 800 transports sailed from Syracuse to resupply the army outside Lilybaeum. It was outsmarted by the enemy and driven without a battle onto the rocky coastline of southern Sicily. The Carthaginian admiral, an experienced sailor, detected a change in the weather and withdrew behind a promontory, Cape Pachynus (today’s Cape Passero), leaving the Romans to face a tempest that blew unforgivingly at the shore. The entire fleet was wrecked, except for twenty ships.
Claudius was recalled and put on trial. He was accused of impiety as well as of commanding without due care and attention. A thunderstorm, a bad omen, halted the trial, but he was impeached a second time and found guilty. He was heavily fined and only just escaped the death penalty. He did not long survive his disgrace and may have killed himself. Not long after his death, one of his sisters, another chip off the old block, was returning home from the Games in her litter a
nd was held up by large numbers of people in the street. “If only my brother were alive,” she exclaimed, “he might lose another fleet and thin out these crowds!”
ROME WAS NOW without a navy and was too exhausted to raise another one. Carthage also was content to let sleeping dogs lie. It was running out of money and had to debase its coinage. It was reduced to asking its North African neighbor Ptolemy II of Egypt for a large loan. The king was too wily to intervene in a quarrel between two states, both of which he wanted to be on good terms. He explained, dryly, “It is perfectly proper to assist one’s friends against one’s enemies, but not against one’s friends.” Meanwhile, the Senate had relatively few financial worries, for Hiero was minting large quantities of silver and bronze coinage and helped finance his ally’s war effort.
Although nothing much was happening to relieve the Sicilian stalemate, the Romans were in much the stronger position, for the enemy had only a toehold on the island. Lilybaeum and Drepana remained under siege. In 247, an energetic young Punic commander, Hamilcar Barca, arrived in Sicily after raiding southern Italy. He was probably too much of a realist to suppose he could win the war, but he aimed to at least wear the enemy down. He mostly avoided pitched battles and adopted guerrilla tactics. He made a permanent camp on a mountain not far from Panormus and later at the high-altitude city of Eryx, although the temple sacred to Astarte, the Phoenician goddess of fertility and sexual relations, which was perched on a mountaintop above Eryx, remained in Roman hands. From these bases, he launched hit-and-run attacks. He scored many successes, although they were more spectacular than of strategic importance.
The weary years passed. Both sides were being driven to despair by the strain of an unbroken succession of hard-fought Sicilian campaigns. Polybius writes:
In the end the contest was left drawn; … but they left the field like two champions, still unbroken and unconquered. What happened was that before either side could overcome the other … the war was decided by other means and in another place.
This was because Hamilcar’s efforts did achieve something, for they persuaded Rome, not for the first time, that it would not win the war on land.
So the Senate braced itself for one last life-and-death effort. It would launch another fleet and, for the third time, try its fortunes at sea. It raised a loan, repayable in the event of victory, and no doubt the wealthy and the well-to-do were pressed for “voluntary” patriotic contributions. Individuals and syndicates each promised to pay for a quinquereme. Two hundred warships were built and fitted out in short order, on the more technically advanced and lighter model of a Punic galley captured off Lilybaeum. These vessels were not equipped with corvi, in the belief that their crews were expert enough now to outdo the enemy at its own combat methods.
The arrival of a new Roman fleet in Sicilian waters in the summer of 242 astonished the enemy. The Carthaginians’ own ships were laid up at home, for the crews were needed for continuing wars in Africa. By March of the following year, they managed to man about 170 ships, recruiting sailors mostly from citizens. The plan was to resupply Hamilcar’s forces, take on board some of his best mercenaries as marines, and return to the open sea to face the Romans. Because of a lack of transports, the warships were weighed down with freight.
Unluckily for the Carthaginians, the commanding consul, Gaius Lutatius Catulus, learned that they were approaching and lay in wait for them at the island of Aegusa off Lilybaeum. He warned his crews that a battle would probably take place the following day. With dawn, though, the weather deteriorated. A strong breeze blew and it would be difficult for the Romans to beat up against the wind. However, they dared not wait and risk the Carthaginian fleet’s linking with Hamilcar’s land forces, so an attack was decided. The fleet was marshaled in a single row facing the enemy.
The Carthaginians stowed their masts and, cheering one another on, advanced toward the enemy. Their confidence was ill-placed: the heavily laden ships were clumsy to maneuver; the new crews were poorly trained; and such marines as there were were raw recruits. They were swiftly put to flight. Fifty ships were sunk outright and seventy captured. The poor remainder raised their sails and ran before the wind, which had swung to an easterly, to make their escape. The victorious Roman consul sailed to the army at Lilybaeum and busied himself with disposing of the men and ships he had captured. This was a considerable task, for he had in his possession nearly ten thousand prisoners.
Carthage had shot its bolt. No longer in control of the seas, it could not supply its forces in Sicily and had none at home with which to continue the war. Hamilcar was given full powers to take what steps he deemed necessary. All his instincts were to continue the fight, but he was too prudent a commander not to see that this was impossible. He sued for peace.
Catulus’s opening position was that he would not agree to a cease-fire until Hamilcar’s army handed over its arms and left Sicily. Hamilcar replied, “Even though my country submits, I would rather perish on the spot than go back home under such disgraceful conditions.” The Romans conceded the point and, in the event, agreed to fairly lenient terms. The two warring states were to be friends and allies; Carthage should evacuate Sicily and not make war on Hiero, return all prisoners without ransom, and pay substantial reparations in annual installments over twenty years.
The authorities in Rome took a sterner view and refused to ratify the draft treaty. Ten commissioners were sent to Sicily to renegotiate it. They raised the indemnity and reduced the repayment period to ten years. Perhaps as a compensating concession to Hamilcar, a new clause stated that the allies of both parties should be secure from attacks by the other.
SUDDENLY, THE WAR was over. It had lasted twenty-three years and cost hundreds of thousands of lives (most of them Romans or their allies). As Polybius wrote in the second century, it was “the longest, the most continuous and the greatest conflict of which we have knowledge.” Nevertheless, it had not been a struggle à outrance. As in a boxing match, the decision had been given on points, not by a knockout.
In essence, the quarrel had been over who was to control Sicily. That question was now settled, for the island was to become Rome’s first province. A provincia usually signified an elected official’s sphere of activity (for example, a campaign against a particular enemy), but from now it began to take on its conventional meaning as a territory outside Italy under Rome’s direct rule. This was a novelty, for in Italy the Republic usually imposed its will by treaty or by absorption. It preferred to allow local administrations to govern themselves. But Sicily was rather too large and too far away to be left safely to its own devices. A governor was appointed, probably a former praetor.
The loss of Sicily was a setback, a bad one, but not a mortal blow. In fact, it seems that Carthage had already been contemplating expansion elsewhere. For some time it had been fighting on two fronts, battling with local tribes to enlarge its lands in Africa while simultaneously trying to fend off the Romans.
Rome showed that, in addition to stamina, it had a killer instinct, and was beginning to imagine for itself an imperial destiny. By contrast, its Punic opponents were willing enough to endure but they did not have a hunger for victory, nor did they ever come close to achieving it. They did not want the war, they did not choose the war, and if only the war would go away they could concentrate on their peaceful habit of wealth creation.
And, in spite of defeat, that was what the peace allowed them to do. Carthage remained a great mercantile power and still dominated the trade routes of the Western Mediterranean. The voyages of Hanno and Himilco had pointed the way long ago to a prosperous future in corners of the world free from the aggressive interference of their new “friends and allies.”
12
“Hannibal at the Gates!”
THE ELDERLY GENERAL WAS A VISITOR AT COURT. NO longer in command of any armies, he was a wandering exile. He was hoping to be military adviser to Antiochus the Great, lord of many of the Asian lands conquered a century before by Alexander the Gre
at. The king was pondering a war with that annoying new Mediterranean power, Rome, and was uncertain of his guest’s loyalty.
In response, the old man told a story to prove his bona fides:
I was nine years old and my father was about to set off on a military expedition to Spain. I was standing beside him in the temple of Baal Hammon where he was conducting a sacrifice. The omens proved favorable, and my father poured a libation to the gods and performed the usual ceremonies. He then ordered all present to stand back a little way from the altar and called me to him. He asked me affectionately if I would like to come on the expedition. I was thrilled to accept and, like a boy, begged to be allowed to go. My father took me by the hand, led me up to the altar and made me place my hand on the victim that had been sacrificed and swear that I would never become a friend to the Romans.
The king was convinced and put the old man on his payroll.
For the little boy, the oath he swore that day was a defining, emotionally purifying moment. It remained a vivid memory and guided his actions all his life. He was Hannibal the Carthaginian—a military genius and, in all its long history, the Roman Republic’s most formidable enemy.
When, as commander of a great army, he camped outside Rome’s walls, it was a monstrous, never-to-be-forgotten image of nightmare; in future, if Roman children were boisterous their parents would calm them by uttering the worst threat imaginable: “Hannibal ad portas” (“Hannibal’s outside the city gates”).
HANNIBAL’S FATHER WAS the energetic Hamilcar Barca, who had commanded Carthage’s armed forces in Sicily during the final years of the First Punic War. His arrival on the island in 247 coincided with his son’s birth. Barca was not a family or clan name but a nickname meaning “lightning” or “sword flash” (the word is related to the Hebrew barak), which conveys a reputation for liveliness and drive.
The Rise of Rome Page 24
