FALL OF AGRIGENTUM.

77

that wielded it. Thirty of the fifty were killed, and eleven remained alive in the hands of the Romans, as vast moving trophies of the victory that had been won. Hanno saved a remnant of his army by his hasty flight to Heraclea, and Hannibal, whom the Romans looked upon as already within their grasp, sheltered by the darkness of a winter's night, and helped by the energy of despair, made a last effort to break through the lines of his victorious foe. The Romans, overcome with fatigue, or giving the reins to their joy, had relaxed their vigilance. With bags stuffed with straw Hannibal filled up the deep trenches, scaled the ramparts, and managed with the effective part of his army to pass through the Roman lines unobserved. In the morning the enemy, discovering what had happened, went through the form of pursuing the retreating Hannibal; but they were more eager to fall on the unhappy town which he had abandoned to their mercy. The inhabitants surrendered at discretion, but they had to undergo all the horrors of a place taken by storm. The town was given up to plunder, and 25,000 freemen were sold into slavery. Nothing throughout the whole of Sicily now remained in the hands of the Carthaginians save a few fortresses on its western coasts; and this was at the precise moment at which, according to the explicit statement of Polybius,1 it first dawned upon the Romans that they had embarked upon a war the true and only object of which must be to eject the Carthaginians altogether from the island.

I Polyb. . 19, 20, 1-2; Zonaras, viii. 15.

CHAPTER V.

FIRST ROMAN FLEET. BATTLES OF MYLE AND ECNOMUS.

(262-256 B.C.)

Carthaginian naval supremacy-Roman naval affairs-Commercial treaties with Carthage-Difficulties of Romans-Want of ships of war-Want of sailors-The new fleet-Its first ventures-Naval science and tactics of the Ancients-The Corvus-Battle of Myla-Honours paid to Duillius-Egesta-The Romans attack Sardinia and Corsica-Energy of Carthaginians-Romans resolve to invade Africa-Enormous naval armaments-Route taken by the Romans-Order of battle-Battle of Ecnomus.

IF the resolution now come to by Rome was to be carried out, it was clear that a complete change in the conduct of the war would be necessary. The Carthaginians had at length begun to put forth their real strength, and to assert the supremacy over the seas which had, in fact, never ceased to belong to them. With a fleet of sixty ships they coasted round Sicily, and by sheer terror, without striking a blow, brought back to their allegiance many towns which had gone over to Rome. The Romans might retain their grip on the interior of the island, but the coasts, it was clear, would belong to Carthage so long as she remained mistress of the seas. Nor was this all. By making frequent descents at distant points on the Italian coast, the Carthaginian fleet kept the inhabitants of the sea-board in a state of constant alarm, which it was quite beyond the power of any land forces raised by the Italians themselves to allay; for by the nature of the case the Carthaginians, choosing, like the Northmen centuries afterwards, their own place and

ROMAN NAVAL AFFAIRS.

79

time, were able to destroy a town, or to harry a district, before alarm could be given to the nearest military station.1 It was apparent that the war might go on for ever, each of the combatants being able to annoy and injure, but not to paralyse or destroy, the other, unless something should occur to change the conditions under which it was being carried on. The Carthaginians wanted only, what they had not yet succeeded in finding, a first-rate general, to enable them to make a descent in force in Italy, and so make Rome tremble for her own safety. The Romans wanted only an efficient fleet to enable them to meet Carthage on her own element, and then to transfer the contest to Africa. The all-important question was which would be found first. A life and death struggle generally finds out, and brings to the front, in spite of all artificial obstacles, a true military genius, even amongst a people whose collective genius is not military; but it has very rarely been known to change the whole character of a people at once, to transform landlubbers into seamen, and, what is more extraordinary still, to enable them to cope on equal terms with the greatest naval power of the time. The chances therefore were, so far, not in favour of Rome.

But we must beware of indulging in the exaggerations in which it was natural enough for Polybius and other historians of the time to indulge, in their admiration of the energy of Rome. What the Romans did was wonderful enough without the addition of a single fictitious detail to make it more so. It may possibly be true, as Polybius says, that at the outbreak of the war Rome had no decked ships, no ships of war, no, not even a lembus-a small ship's boat with a sharp prow-which she could call her own. But that the Romans were not so wholly ignorant of naval affairs as the ludicrous picture of a hundred batches of would-be sailors, training themselves to row on the sand, from scaffolds, would at first suggest, is clear from the fact that Rome had in the early days of the Republic fitted out Polyb. i. 20. 5-7. 2 Polyb. i. 20. 13.

ships with three banks of oars to keep in order piratical neighbours like the Antiates or the Etruscans:1 that there were magistrates, called Duumviri navales, who, from time to time, were appointed for the express purpose of repairing the fleet; and that the Carthaginians themselves had thought it worth their while repeatedly to form a commercial treaty with the Romans, restricting carefully their mutual rights and duties.

"The Romans and their allies shall not sail beyond the south of the Fair Promontory-that is, the well-known Hermæan promontory to the north-east of Carthage-unless compelled by stress of weather or an enemy; and if so compelled, they shall not take or purchase anything, except what is barely necessary for refitting their vessels, or for sacrifice, and in any case they shall depart within five days. Roman merchants who come for purposes of trade only shall pay no customs except the usual fees to the herald and the notary; and if they sell their goods in the presence of these functionaries in any part of Libya or Sardinia, the state itself will be security for the payment. If any Roman land in that part of Sicily which is subject to the Carthaginians, he shall have no wrong done to him. The Carthaginians, on their part, shall not injure the inhabitants of Ardea, Antium, Laurentum, Circeii, Tarracina, nor any other Latin community subject to Rome; neither shall they meddle at all with any Latin community not so subject. If they do, they shall surrender it unharmed to the Romans. They shall build no fort in any part of Latium, and if they land there while engaged in any military enterprise, they shall not pass. the night on shore." So runs-if Polybius was able to translate correctly the antique phraseology in which it was written the first commercial treaty between Rome and Carthage, concluded, as it would seem from internal evidence no less than from the explicit statement of Polybius, in the consulship of Brutus and Horatius, only a year after the expulsion of the kings, and while as yet Rome was hardly 1 Cf. Livy, viii. 14; ix. 38. 2 Polyb. iii. 22. 3.

TREATIES BETWEEN ROME AND CARTHAGE. 81

1

the undisputed head of the Latin league (B.C. 509). A second treaty, concluded, according to the same authority, one hundred and thirty one years later (B.C. 378), shortly after the passing of the Licinian Rogations, contains similar but still more jealous stipulations. In it the Roman vessels are precluded—and the mere fact of the prohibition is a proof of the possible extent of Roman maritime enterprise —not only from the rich emporia on the Lower Syrtis, but from the navigation of the Atlantic, and from all commercial dealings with the subjects of Carthage in Africa and Sardinia. These two treaties-though their very existence seems to have been forgotten in later times, and though they were unknown even to the better educated Romans contemporary with Polybius-were engraved on brazen tablets, and, together with a third treaty made in view of the invasion of Pyrrhus, were preserved in the Capitol, and were seen there and examined by the historian himself. Still the Romans, though they had made commercial treaties with the great maritime and commercial state, had never been a really maritime or commercial people themselves; they did not love the sea, much less had they been a naval power; and how were they to become so all at once?

3

The question was beset with difficulties. Triremes no doubt they might demand from the Greek cities of the Italian Confederation, as they had done once before; but these would no more face the bulky monsters called quinqueremes, which now formed the Carthaginian ships of the line, than an English revenue cutter could board a frigate. The Romans must have felt all the needs, upon a vaster scale, which dawned upon a people as land-loving and as exclusive as themselves, when the conquest of Ezion Geber opened to the untravelled Israelites the navigation of the Red Sea, and the unknown possibilities of the East beyond it. But to the Hebrew subjects of King Solomon a way out

I Polyb. iii. 22. Mommsen, for reasons which he gives at length, refers the treaty to a much later date, to 348 B.C. (Rom, Hist. i. p. 426 and 442-444.) 3 Polyb. iii. 25, 26. 1-2.

2

Polyb. iii. 24.