A History of Sea Power. Allan F. Westcott
squadron that had begun the engagement gained so full a victory, that Amilcar [the Carthaginian commander] was forced to fly, and the consul Manlius brought away the vessels that were taken.
"The other consul, having now perceived the danger in which the triarii[1] and the transports were involved, hastened to their assistance with the second squadron, which was still entire. The triarii, having received these succors, when they were Just upon the point of yielding, again resumed their courage, and renewed the fight with vigor: so that the enemy, being surrounded on every side in a manner so sudden and unexpected, and attacked at once both in the front and rear were at last constrained to steer away to sea.
[Footnote 1: The rear guard, or fourth squadron.]
"About this time Manlius also, returning from the engagement, observed that the ships of the third squadron were forced in close to the shore, and there blocked up by the left division of the Carthaginian fleet. He joined his forces, therefore, with those of the other consul, who had now placed the transports and triarii in security, and hastened to assist these vessels, which were so invested by the enemy that they seemed to suffer a kind of siege. And, indeed, they must have all been long before destroyed if the Carthaginians, through apprehension of the corvi, had not still kept themselves at distance, and declined a close engagement. But the consuls, having now advanced together, surround the enemy, and take fifty of their ships with all the men. The rest, being few in number, steered close along the shore, and saved themselves by flight.
|
|
| CARTHAGINIAN TACTICS AT THE BATTLE OF ECNOMUS, 256 B.C. |
"Such were the circumstances of this engagement; in which the victory at last was wholly on the side of the Romans. Twenty-four of their ships were sunk in the action, and more than thirty of the Carthaginians. No vessel of the Romans fell into the hands of the enemy; but sixty-four of the Carthaginians were taken with their men."[2]
[Footnote 2: Polybius's General History, Book I, Chap. 2.]
The battle of Ecnomus had no such decisive effect on history as the battle of Salamis, but it was on a far greater scale and it reveals an enormous advance in tactics. Three hundred thousand men, rowers and warriors, were engaged, and nearly 700 ships. Up to the battle of Actium, two centuries later, Ecnomus remained the greatest naval action in history. Moreover, the tactics of the rival fleets show a high degree of discipline and efficiency. The Carthaginian plan of dividing their enemy's force and defeating it by a concentrated attack on his transport division, was skillfully carried out and came perilously near succeeding. Had the first and second squadrons of the Carthaginians been able to carry out their part of the plan and "contain" the corresponding advance squadrons of the Romans, the result would have been an overwhelming victory for Carthage, involving not only the destruction of the Roman fleet but also the capture of the Roman army of invasion.
This victory left open the way for the advance into Africa. The Romans had landed and marched almost to the gates of Carthage when the army was destroyed by the skill of a Spartan, Xanthippus, and Regulus, the Consul in command, was captured. This astonishing catastrophe inflicted on the Roman legionaries was due to the use of elephants, and offers a curious parallel to the effect of the corvi on the Carthaginian sailors. Such was the terror inspired by these animals that the Roman soldier would not stand before them until a year or two later, in Sicily, the Consul Cecilius showed how they could not only be repulsed but turned back on their own army by the use of javelins and arrows.
Nothing daunted by the loss of their army, Rome dispatched a fleet of 350 ships to Africa to carry off the remnants of the defeated army that were besieged in the city of Aspis. They were met by a hastily organized Carthaginian fleet off the promontory of Hermæa in a brief action in which the Romans were overwhelmingly victorious. The latter took 114 vessels with their crews. The Roman expedition continued on its course to Africa, rescued the besieged troops and turned back in high feather toward Sicily. The Consuls in command had been warned by the pilots not to attempt to skirt the southern coast of Sicily at that season of the year, but the warning was disregarded. Suddenly, as the fleet was approaching the shore it was overwhelmed by a great gale, and out of 464 vessels only eighty survived.
Frightful as this loss was in ships and men, Rome proceeded at once to build another fleet, to the number of 250, which, with characteristic energy, was made ready for service in three months. This force also, after an ineffectual raid on the African coast, fell victim to a storm on the way home with the loss of 150 ships.
Unwilling to relinquish the mastery of the sea that had been won by an uninterrupted series of victories, Rome sent another fleet to attack a Carthaginian force lying in the harbor of Drepanum. As the Romans approached, the Carthaginians went out to meet them, and so maneuvered as to force them to fight with an enemy in front and the rocks and shoals of the coast in their rear. The Roman ships were never able to extricate themselves from this predicament, and the greater part were either taken or wrecked on the coast. The Consul in command managed to escape with about thirty of his vessels, but 93 were taken with their crews. This is the single instance of a pitched battle between Roman and Carthaginian fleets in which the victory went to Carthage, a victory due entirely to better seamanship. The immediate result of this success was the destruction of the Roman squadron lying in the port of Lilybæum which was assisting the troops in the siege of that town.
Still another Roman fleet that had the temerity to anchor in an exposed position was destroyed by a storm. "For so complete was the destruction," writes Polybius, "that scarcely a single plank remained entire."
Stunned by these disasters, the government at Rome gave up the idea of contesting any further the command of the sea. The citizens, how ever, were not willing to submit, and displayed a magnificent spirit of patriotism in this the darkest period of the war. Individuals of means, or groups of individuals, pledged each a quinquereme, fully equipped, for a new fleet, asking reimbursement from the government only in case of victory. By these private efforts a force of 200 quinqueremes was constructed. At this time, as at the very beginning, the model for the Roman ships was a prize taken from the enemy.
|
|
| POINTS OF INTEREST IN THE FIRST PUNIC WAR |
Meanwhile the Carthaginians, confident that the Romans were finally driven from the sea, had allowed their own fleet to disintegrate. Accordingly when the astonishing news reached them that the Romans were again abroad they were compelled to fill their ships with raw levies of troops and inexperienced rowers and sailors. And, since the Carthaginian troops who were besieging the city of Eryx in Sicily were in need of supplies, a large number of transports were sent with the fleet. The Carthaginian commander planned to make a landing unobserved, leave his transports, exchange his raw crews for some of the veterans before Eryx and then give battle to the Roman fleet.
This program failed because of the initiative of the Roman Consul commanding the new fleet. Having got word of the coming of the Carthaginians and divining their plan, he braved an unfavorable wind and a rough sea for the sake of forcing an action before they could establish contact with their army. Accordingly he sought out his enemy and met him (in the year 241 B.C.) off the island of Ægusa, near Lilybæum. Almost at the first onset the Romans won an overwhelming victory, capturing seventy and sinking fifty of the Carthaginian force.
This final desperate effort of Rome was decisive. The Carthaginians had no navy left, and their armies in Sicily were cut off from all communications with their base. Accordingly ambassadors went to Rome to sue for peace, and the great struggle that had lasted without intermission for twenty-four years and reduced both parties to the point of exhaustion, ended with a triumph for Rome through a victory on the sea. By the treaty of peace Carthage was obliged to pay a heavy indemnity and yield all claim to Sicily.
Whatever historical moral may be drawn from the story of the first Punic war, the fact remains that a nation