Rome Seizes the Trident: The Defeat of Carthaginian Seapower and the Forging of the Roman Empire by Marc G DeSantis

Author:Marc G DeSantis [Marc G DeSantis]
Language: eng
Format: epub

Supply Expedition to Lilybaeum

Pulcher’s colleague as consul for 249, Lucius Iunius Pullus, was next sent with a fleet of sixty warships to lead a supply convoy to Sicily. He collected a further sixty vessels at Messana, and then sailed on to Syracuse with his augmented fleet and about 800 supply transports. Some of these ships were sent ahead to carry supplies to the legions fighting in the siege at Lilybaeum while Pullus waited in Syracuse for the rest of his straggling ships to arrive and to wait for more grain to come in from Rome’s Sicilian allies. Those ships that had continued on to Lilybaeum found their comrades under attack by a Carthaginian fleet of 100 galleys under the command of Carthalo. These vessels were busy either burning or towing away the Roman ships lying offshore. Himilco, still holding Lilybaeum, heard the clamour of the Romans as they struggled to go to the aid of their ships and ordered an attack on their camp. Carthalo departed after damaging or capturing some Roman ships, and on his way, ran into the scout ships of the Roman supply fleet. With the consul still in Syracuse, the fleet was under the command of a few lower-ranking officers, who did not like their chances against the strong Carthaginian force in front of them. They beached their ships and set up a fortified base protected by catapults and ballistas. Carthalo appeared but was unable to dislodge the Romans from their position. Diodorus relates a more detailed version than does Polybius, with a much more serious outcome. He writes that the Romans sought safety at the city of Phintias, and there Carthalo’s ships sank seventeen Roman warships and disabled fifty large freighters. A further thirteen freighters had their timbers smashed in and were ‘rendered useless’.¹² Carthalo snatched a handful of transport ships from the Romans and then moved off a short distance to wait for the Romans to come back out to sea. Pullus at last arrived from Syracuse, on his way to Lilybaeum, and his approach was spotted by Carthaginian lookouts. Pullus saw the enemy fleet too, and refused to do battle with such a large force. His ships were slower than those of Carthalo, and there was no way that he could outrun them. Instead he chose to take his ships very close to a rugged and dangerous section of the coast, where he moored them.

Carthalo would not approach the Romans so near to the forbidding coastline, and anchored his fleet off a nearby headland for safety. The weather soon turned bad and Carthalo, on the advice of his helmsmen, took his ships away and rounded Cape Pachynus where he found a safe anchorage. The Romans were not so fortunate. The storm that rose drove their ships onto the rocky shore, and the ships of both of their flotilas were wrecked. In Rome, the devastation was so appalling that they gave up their quest for control of the sea for a second time.

Pullus had

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