The First Punic War (continued)

The conflict in Sicily developed into a series of sieges and raids, with the next major battle not taking place until 250 B.C. Diplomacy and treachery played as much a part in this struggle, as full scale sieges and assaults were costly and time consuming.

Meanwhile, a significant struggle was taking place at sea. In 261 B.C. the Romans built a fleet of 120 ships to challenge Carthaginian control of the seas. The Romans did not have much success initially as their ships could not match the maneuverability and ramming skill of the highly trained Carthaginian Navy.

Several small battles were fought around Sicily, with both sides taking losses, but the Carthaginians proving to be more maneuverable and better at ramming then the Romans. Determining to take advantage of their strengths, the Romans designed a spiked boarding ramp that would effectively grapple an enemy ship and allow for boarding by Roman troops. This device was first used at the Battle of Mylae in 260 B.C., resulting in a Roman victory with around thirty Punic ships captured. The two navies spent the next several years supporting the land war, with the only battle of note at Tyndaris in 257 B.C., where a rash Roman advance resulted in the loss of nine ships by the still more maneuverable Carthaginian fleet. A counterattack by the Romans led to eighteen ships lost or captured by the Carthaginians before the battle broke off.

The Battle of Ecnomus. (G 110)	North Africa. (G 27)

With the war in Sicily mired in siege and counter-siege, the Romans in 260 B.C. launched an invasion of North Africa with a fleet that may have numbered up to 330 ships and 140,000 men, to include 120 marines per ship. The Carthaginians responded with a fleet said to have had 350 ships and 150,000 men. The two navies met off the coast of Sicily near Mount Ecnomus. The Roman fleet was divided into four groups of different sides, three of them deployed in a triangular formation with a larger reserve group trailing behind. The Carthaginians were in a modified line abreast with their left wing angled in from the other ships. The battle opened with the Carthaginians falling back in the center to draw the Romans out. They then turned to fight while the two wings of the fleet enveloped the Roman fleet. The battle was fierce, but the Carthaginian advantages in maneuverability were no longer as marked and they had no answer to the Roman’s spiked boarding ramp. The Carthaginian center was routed, allowing the Romans to turn back and aid the ships battling the two wings. Having lost close to 100 ships to the loss of 24 Roman ships and with the remainder of the fleet dispersed, the Carthaginians could offer no sea borne response to the Roman invasion force. (G 109-115)

Landing at Aspis, near Cape Bon, in North Africa, the Roman army captured the city and launched a series of devastating raids. Then the fleet returned to Sicily, leaving behind forty ships and a consular army of 15,000 infantry and 500 cavalry under the consul Marcus Atilius Regulus to continue operations. The Carthaginians responded by putting together an ad hoc force of about the same size, with substantial cavalry and elephants, and marched to Adys, which the Romans were besieging. The Romans launched a two-pronged attack on the camp, catching the Carthaginians by surprise. A counterattack disorganized one column, but the other column came up and completed the rout. Faced with successive defeats on sea and land, the Carthaginians were now willing to negotiate an end to the war. They were not, however, willing to admit total defeat, and thus rejected the apparently severe terms that the Romans demanded.

The Carthaginians used the winter to form and train a new army under the Spartan mercenary general, Xanthippus. 12,000 infantry, to include a phalanx of Carthaginian citizens, 4000 cavalry and about 100 elephants (G 88) met near Tunis in 255 B.C. at the Battle of Bagradas. The Carthaginians formed up with the elephants in a shorter front line and the rest of the forces in the second line, infantry in the center and cavalry on both flanks. The Romans, concerned about the elephants, sent their light infantry forward and deployed the infantry in a deeper formation than normal, but did nothing to offset the 8:1 disparity in cavalry, perhaps believing they could overwhelm the Carthaginian infantry before the cavalry came into play. Allied troops on the Roman left flank were able to attack and rout the opposing infantry not covered by the elephant line, but everywhere else the Romans were severely pressed by the elephants. Meanwhile, the Carthaginian cavalry overwhelmed their counterparts and came in on the Roman flanks. Between the elephants and the cavalry, the Roman army was destroyed, with only the successful troops from the left flank able to escape. This disaster on land was complemented by an even larger disaster at sea, when a large portion of the Roman fleet was sunk by a storm after inflicting another defeat on the Carthaginian navy while withdrawing the survivors from North Africa.