CHAP. III. SECOND PERIOD, B.C. called Mistrella) on the northern coast of Sicily. In spite of the greatest possible exertions, they had to retreat, at the end of a seven months' siege, with heavy losses.' They lost, further, a number of Sicilian towns, the greater 261-255 part of which, it appears, went over voluntarily to the Carthaginians. Among these is mentioned the important town of Camarina in the immediate neighbourhood of Syracuse, and even Enna, in the middle of the island, the town sacred to Ceres and Proserpina (Demeter and Persephone) the protecting goddesses of Sicily. The hill Camicus, where the citadel of Agrigentum stood, fell also again into the power of the Carthaginians, who would indeed, according to the report of Zonaras, have again subdued the whole of Sicily if the consul of 259, C. Aquillius Florus, had not wintered in the island, instead of returning to Rome with his legions, according to the usual custom after the end of the summer campaign. of the In the following year fortune began once more to smile Renewed on the Romans. Both consuls, A. Atilius Calatinus and successes C. Sulpicius Paterculus, went to Sicily. They succeeded Romans. in retaking the most important of the places which had revolted, especially Camarina and Enna, together with Myttistratum, which had just been so obstinately defended. 3 Polybius (i. 24, § 11) mentions only the final conquest of Myttistratum two years later, after it had, as he says, stood a protracted siege. Diodorus alone (xxiii. fr. 9) states that a previous siege ended with the retreat of the Romans from the place. Polybius betrays here as elsewhere a partiality for the Romans, which is no doubt due, at least in part, to the authorities whom he consulted. At the siege of Camarina the Roman army ran great risk of being annihilated or captured. It was saved by the self-devotion of a military tribune and 400 men (Livy, epit. 17; Zonaras, viii. 12; Gellius, iii. 7). Cato, who, in his historical work Origines, compares the exploit of this tribune to that of Leonidas at Thermopylæ, laments that the Roman hero earned but scanty praise, while the deed of Leonidas was celebrated all over Greece by historians, poets, sculptors, and the whole nation. The brave tribune has indeed been hardly treated, for we do not even know his name. Whilst Cato calls him Q. Cadicius, the annalist Claudius Quadrigarius calls him Laberius, and Livy Marcus Calpurnius. Camarina resisted all the attacks of the Romans until at length Hiero supplied his allies with engines for the siege (Diodorus, loc. cit). It is noteworthy that Polybius says nothing of all this. 3 Polybius, i. 24, §§ 9-12. Littana (Diodorus, xxiii. fr. 9.)—probably identical BOOK Expedition Corsica. At the conquest of this town, which had cost them so much, The successes of Hamilcar in Sicily, in the year 259, of Scipio to were, it appears, to be attributed in part to the circumstance that the Romans after the battle of Mylæ had sent L. Cornelius Scipio, one of the consuls of the year 259, to Corsica, in the hope of driving the Carthaginians quite out On this island the Carthaginians of the Tyrrhenian sea. had, as far as we know, no settlements or possessions. Still they must have had in the town of Aleria a station for their fleet, whence they could constantly alarm and threaten Italy. Aleria fell into the hands of the Romans, and thus the whole island was cleared of the Carthaginians. From thence Scipio sailed to Sardinia; but here nothing was done. Both Carthaginians and Romans avoided an encounter, and Scipio returned home.' This expedition to Corsica and Sardinia, which Polybius, probably on account of its insignificance and its failure, does not even mention, was for the Cornelian house a sufficient occasion to celebrate Scipio as a conqueror and hero. They were justified in with Hippana, mentioned by Polybius, (i. 24, § 10)-was likewise taken, as also the hill Camicus near Agrigentum, and the town of Erbessus. An attempt of the consul Atilius to seize the island of Lipara failed. How little the later compilers of historical compendiaries are to be trusted may be seen from the statements of Aurelius Victor (39) and Florus (ii. 2), that Drepana and Lilybæum were taken by the Romans. Zonaras, viii. 11. CHAP. III. SECOND PERIOD, B.C. saying that he took Aleria; and as the expulsion of the Carthaginians from Corsica followed, he might be regarded as the conqueror of Corsica, though in truth Corsica was not occupied by the Romans till after the peace with 261-255 Carthage. Accordingly these exploits are noticed on the second grave-stone in the series of monuments belonging to the family of the Scipios, with the first of which we have already become acquainted.' From this modesty, which confined itself to the real facts, we cannot help inferring that the inscription was composed shortly after the death of Scipio, when the memory of his deeds was fresh, and a great exaggeration could hardly be ventured upon. If it had not been so, and if the inscription had had a later origin, there is nothing more certain than that in this, as in that of the father, great untruths would have been introduced. This becomes quite evident from the additions which we find in later authors, and which can have originated only in the family traditions of the Scipios. Valerius Maximus, Orosius, and Silius Italicus mention a second campaign of Scipio in Sardinia, in which he besieged and conquered Olbia, defeated Hanno, the Carthaginian general, and displayed his magnanimity by causing his body to be interred with all honours. He then gained possession without difficulty of a number of hostile towns by a peculiar stratagem, and finally, as the Capitoline fasti testify, 1 See vol. i. p. 459. The following is the epitaph (Orelli, Inscript. Latin. Select. n. 552): Honc oino ploirume consentiont R(omae) Luciom Scipione. Filios Barbati Consol censor aidilis hic fuet a(pud vos) Compare Ritschl, Rheinisches Museum, 1854. * Valerius Maximus, v. 1, 2. Orosius, iv. 7. Silius Italicus, vi. 671. Traits of generosity and a chivalrous disposition seldom met with among the Romans we shall frequently find in the history of the Scipios. They are quite characteristic of this particular family, and their insertion into the history of Rome seems to be owing to a writer of poetic imagination. Perhaps we can here trace the hand of the poet Ennius, who was a client of the Scipios. BOOK IV. Battle of celebrated a magnificent triumph.' These additions, of which neither the epitaph of Scipio, nor Zonaras, nor Polybius know anything, are nothing more than empty inventions. Moreover, we see from Polybius and Zonaras, that, in the year before Scipio's consulate, Hannibal, not Hanno, had the command in Sardinia. When the former, in the year following (258), had been blocked up in a harbour in Sardinia by the consul Sulpicius, and, after losing many of his ships, had been murdered by his own mutinous soldiers, Hanno received the command of the Carthaginians in Sardinia, and could not therefore have been conquered, slain, and buried by Scipio the year before.2 The year 258 had restored the superiority of the Romans in Sicily. They had conquered Camarina, Enna, Myttistratum, and many other towns, and driven back Hamilcar to the west side of the island. The expeditions which they had undertaken against Corsica and Sardinia had also been on the whole successful. The power of Carthage in the Tyrrhenian sea was weakened, and Italy for the present secure against any hostile fleet. To these successes was added in the following year a glorious battle by sea (257 B.C.) at Tyndaris, on the northern coast of Sicily. It was no decisive victory, for both parties claimed an advantage. Still it inspired the Romans with new confidence in their navy. It induced them to enlarge their fleet, and to prosecute the naval war on a larger scale. It prompted the bold idea of removing the seat of war into the enemy's country, and of attacking Africa instead of protecting Italy against the Carthaginian invasions. Whether their hopes went further, whether they had 1 We have often had occasion to notice the worthlessness of the Capitoline fasti as historical documents. Circumstantial lies engraved on marble slabs are very imposing; nevertheless the following document must be rejected as entirely fictitious: already conceived the scheme which Scipio succeeded in carrying out at the end of the second war with Carthage, viz. that of aiming a deadly blow at the very centre of Carthaginian power, and so bringing the struggle to a conclusion, would be difficult to prove. In that case they would have estimated the strength of Carthage much too low, and their own powers too high? CHAP. III. SECOND PERIOD, 261-255 and B.C. Efforts were now made in Rome to fit out an armament. Movements of the fleet A fleet of 330 ships of war sailed to Sicily, took on board under an army of about 40,000 men, consisting of two consular Regulus armies, and sailed along the south coast of Sicily west- Manlius wards, under the command of the two consuls, M. Atilius Vulso. Regulus and L. Manlius Vulso. Between the promontory of Ecnomus and the town of Heraclea the Romans met a Carthaginian fleet still stronger than their own, under the command of Hamilcar and Hanno, whose object was to obstruct their way to Africa. If we may rely on the accounts of Polybius, there was here an army of 140,000 Romans, opposed to 150,000 Carthaginians. But it is hardly credible that the Carthaginian ships should have had an army on board equal to that of the Romans, as the latter intended a descent on Africa, and had their whole land force, i.e. four double legions, with them. The Carthaginians would have had no object in encumbering their ships to that extent, especially as their tactics did not consist so much in boarding as in disabling their enemies' ships, and as they endeavoured in every way to avoid the Roman boarding-ladders. We have no Carthaginian authority to test the report of Roman witnesses that the fleet of Hamilcar consisted of 350 ships. There is, then, no choice left but to follow Polybius, who has described the battle at Ecnomus with such clearness and accuracy of detail that nothing more can be desired.' The Carthaginian fleet advanced from the west in a Battle of single long extended front, which stretched from the coast Ecnomus. |