ROMAN CONQUEST OF
THE MEDITERRANEAN AND THE ADRIATIC
The Battle of Mylae
In 260 BC the completed Roman battle-fleet, some 140 strong, fell in with a Punic squadron of 130 ships off the north coast of Sicily near Mylae. The Carthaginians, thinking to make an easy prey of the Italian land-lubbers, rushed in pell-mell upon them, only to find themselves held fast by newly invented boarding bridges or grappling irons (corvi) and involved in a hand-to-hand tussle on unfavorable terms. In the end they broke away with a loss of fifty vessels. The action of Mylae, for which the Romans rewarded their admiral, C. Duillius, with a commemorative column in the Forum, gave them the command of the Sicilian waters for several years to come, for the Punic government, with unaccountable supineness, made no immediate attempt to recover its naval ascendancy. On the other hand, the Romans who were somewhat bewildered by the completeness of their victory, wasted it in operations, not altogether unsuccessful but wholly indecisive, against the Carthaginian colonies in Corsica and Sardinia (259 BC). In the meantime the Roman land forces in Sicily had carried all the towns in the center of the island, but had not come within reach of the three main Punic strongholds at Panoramus (modern Palermo), Drepana (Trapani) and Lilybaeum (Marsala).
The Invasion of Africa
In 256-255 BC the end of the war drew within sight, but was again lost to view. Having learned the futility of striking at the wings of the Carthaginian empire, the Romans prepared to deliver a blow at its heart. Some fifty years previously a despot of Syracuse named Agathocles had defended himself against the Carthaginians by invading Africa, and had all but succeeded in reducing Carthage itself (310-306 BC). With the object lesson before them, the consuls Atilius Regulus and Manlius Vulso set out for Africa in 256 BC with a fleet raised to 230 galleys.
The Battle of Cape Ecnomus
Near Cape Ecnomus, off the south coast of Sicily, they fell in with the Carthaginians, who had made a belated effort under the threat of invasion and brought their numbers almost to the level of the Romans. In this encounter the Punic admirals experimented with a plan which Hannibal and Scipio subsequently carried out with success in the land battles of the Second Punic War. While the Carthaginian center drew on the Romans by a feigned retreat, they prepared an enveloping movement on both flanks. The Roman center actually went into the trap; but the wings held up the enclosing attacks of the enemy by resolute grappling and boarding, and the center, after extricating itself by a clean break-through, returned to the original scene of action, where it crumpled up the Punic left wing against the coast.
The Romans Land in Africa
The battle of Ecnomus, the hardest fought of ancient naval actions in western waters, gave the Romans an unopposed landing in Africa. Here Atilius Regulus, who had been detailed with a mere 15,000 men to hold a base for the next year's offensive, gained such rapid successes against the hastily levied Punic militia that he was emboldened to advance his winter quarters within one day's march of Carthage. The campaign of 256 BC had virtually won Sicily for the Romans, as the Carthaginians, beaten out of the field and distracted by a native uprising in their hinterland, entered into peace negotiations with Regulus. The latter, however, by laying down conditions (including the evacuation of Sicily) such as only an utterly defenseless enemy could have accepted, goaded the Carthaginians into a characteristic rally at the eleventh hour.
The Romans Defeated Near Carthage
With the assistance of a Spartan condottiere named Xanthippus they equipped and drilled their home defense force according to the best Greek methods, and in the spring of 255 BC they brought Regulus to battle in the valley of the Bagradas. In this action Xanthippus rehearsed Hannibal's tactics at Cannae. Pinning down the Roman center with his infantry and elephants, he enveloped both their wings with his horsemen. The invading army was virtually destroyed, and their commander was taken prisoner.
Evacuation of Africa
A counter-attack which the Carthaginians made with their refitted fleet was less fortunate, for in an action off Cape Hermaeum against the Roman navy they sustained losses which crippled their sea power for the next five years. But the victorious Roman fleet, which had come to reinforce Regulus for his second campaign in Africa, could do nothing more than pick up the survivors of the land campaign and transport them back to Italy. On the way home, however, it was caught in a storm in which more than 250 vessels (including some 100 captured Carthaginian ships) foundered and was reduced to a mere eighty sail.
Later Operations in Sicily
At the end of 255 BC the Romans seemed no nearer success than before Mylae. But they had by now grasped the importance of sea power so firmly that by another effort, surpassing all their previous exertions, they quickly replaced all the lost ships. The reconstructed fleet, however, instead of being used to convoy fresh expeditions to Africa, was directed to co-operate with the army in Sicily for an attack on the remaining Carthaginian fortresses.
Combined Roman Operations in Sicily
The first fruits of this amended policy were gathered in 254 BC, when the city of Panoramus was carried in a joint assault, which found a weak point in the defenses on the sea front. In spite of this success the Romans contented themselves in 253 BC with a raiding expedition to the coast of Tripoli which yielded no other result than further casualties by storm. For the first time in the war the Romans faltered, and two uneventful years passed in which each side waited upon the other. In 250 BC at last a Carthaginian commander, with a sudden flash of enterprise, attempted to recover Panormus, but in a battle outside the gates he was heavily defeated and lost his entire elephant corps. This victory so reassured the Romans that in the following year they resumed their offensive against the Punic strongholds in western Sicily.
The Siege of Lilybaeum
Their attack upon Lilybaeum was their first notable attempt at scientific siege-craft (in which the officers of King Hiero no doubt gave them the necessary lessons). But even with Greek aid they failed against the superior resourcefulness of the defenders.
Roman Losses in Battles and in Storms
The danger to Lilybaeum, moreover, roused the Carthaginians to refit their long neglected fleet and to put their superior seamanship to better use. In 249 BC the consul Claudius Pulcher, who was stationed with 120 sail off Lilybaeum, made a dash into the port of Drepana, where the new enemy squadrons were being concentrated; but the Punic commander Adherbal, with rare presence of mind defiled out of the harbor and drove ashore Claudius' ships as they doubled back in pursuit, capturing most of them. A few days later the other division of the Roman fleet, under the consul Iunius Pullus, was herded by the Carthaginians admiral Carthalo towards the coast by Cape Passaro and left to be destroyed by a rising south-westerly gale, while the Punic ships doubled around the headland into sheltered water. By land, however, Iunius then managed to seize the city of Eryx and the temple of Aphrodite on the mountain behind Drepana, thus commanding all roads leading to the city. But after the two successes of the Carthaginians by sea, which left Rome virtually without a navy, they negotiated with their adversaries about an exchange of prisoners. If they went further and sounded the Romans about possible peace negotiations, nothing came of it. But the Romans were willing to recognize a de facto armistice since they had for the time being reached the limits of their manpower and financial strength. Hamilcar Barca's Guerrilla Attack
From 248 to 242 BC the Carthaginians obtained one last lease of naval power and had ample leisure to prepare a decisive counter-attack upon their exhausted adversary. In 247 BC they conferred the chief command in Sicily upon a young officer named Hamilcar Barca, who subsequently won fame as an attacking general. Hamilcar made several raids upon the Italian seaboard, which obliged the Romans to establish some more protective colonies. Among those coast guard stations Brundisium presently grew into a commercial port and surpassed its neighbor Tarentum. In Sicily Hamilcar seized two natural strongholds in succession, Mt. Hercte near Panormus and Mt. Eryx by Drepana from which he conducted a successful guerilla attack against the Romans, in order to relax their hold upon the besieged towns in the west of the island. But he was not supplied with sufficient troops to attempt a decision in set battle, nor with enough ships to venture an attack in force upon Italy.
The Battle of the "Aegates Islands"
By 242 BC the Romans had nursed their resources to the point of recovering the initiative. With the help of a forced loan upon its own members, and of a special call for materials upon the arsenals of the Etruscan cities, the Senate contrived to fit out 200 new lighter galleys to complete the investment of Drepana and Lilybaeum. By a crowning example of false economy the Carthaginians had in the meantime laid up their ships and dispersed their crews. Unable to reorganize their navy in time to save the fortresses, they hurried out a relief fleet which was little better than a scratch force. Against this ill-found armada the Roman admiral, Lutatius Catulus, fought the last action of the war near the Aegates Islands off Drepana, gaining a victory as complete as it was easy (March 241 BC). With Lilybaeum and Drepana now past all hope of rescue, and the way open for a new invasion of Africa by the Romans, the Punic government accepted peace on the enemy's terms. The terms proposed by Lutatius on the spot seemed to lenient to the Roman Comitia, which tightened them up and increased the proposed indemnity. The Roman people had not declared war from aggressively imperialistic motives, but in making peace they were determined to secure adequate compensation for their losses. The Punic governments was forced to abandon all claims to Sicily and undertook to pay a substantial indemnity (3200 Euboic talents = 1600 cwt of silver) within ten years. Thus Rome's war effort resulted in the acquisition of an annual revenue, the overseas province of Sicily - which marked the first step in the creation of a Mediterranean empire - and finally a navy which dominated the western seas.
The First Punic War Concludes
The First Punic War was a conflict of giants, during which each side repeatedly sent armies of 50,000 and fleets of 70,000 or more men into action. Its long duration may be explained by the fact that the Carthaginians deliberately tried to convert it into a war of exhaustion, while the Romans endeavored to force the issue, but were continually held in check. For their setbacks the Romans were themselves largely responsible.
Causes of the Roman Victory
The effect of their early naval victories were nullified by Regulus's over-confidence and by the Senate's premature despair in the invasion of Africa. In the later stages of the war successive Roman admirals threw away their fleets through faulty seamanship, so that the total losses of the winners in ships (not less than 600) and seamen exceeded those of the losers. But the failures of the Romans were more than made good by their abundant manpower (the fruit of their successful organization of Italy), by their nerve in capturing and recapturing the initiative, and by their readiness to learn the enemy's game in order to beat him at it. On the other hand, the continual economy of effort on the side of the Carthaginians both delayed their defeat and made it certain in the end. Their policy of half measures was correctly imputed by their adversaries to their mercantile habit of "peddling" war (as Ennius put it) and of weighing gains and costs too nicely. But it must be remembered that their lack of trustworthy manpower obliged them to limit their risks, while the Romans could afford to pile loss upon loss.
The effect of the Roman victory was to draw the Republic irrevocable into the wider field of Mediterranean politics. It opened the eyes of the Romans to those profits of empire on which the Carthaginians had long fixed their gaze, and it gave them a nearer acquaintance with that Hellenic culture of which Syracuse was the most brilliant exponent in the western Mediterranean.
The Seizure of Sardinia and Corsica - Mutiny of the Punic Mercenaries
The settlement of 241 BC was put to the test in the very next year when the mercenaries whom Hamilcar had brought back to Africa to be paid off broke into open mutiny over a quarrel about their wages and fomented an insurrection among the Libyan natives. The Carthaginians, taken unawares, were virtually placed under siege, and they could not have extricated themselves without reinforcements of fresh mercenary troops from overseas, for which they were dependent upon Roman goodwill. In the first instance the Romans gave them every facility (possibly even to hire new forces in Italy), and they refused an offer from the disloyal Punic garrison of mercenaries in Sardinia to hand over that island to their keeping.
The Romans Occupy Sardinia
But in 238 BC a sudden turn of fortune in Africa, where, after long hesitations, Hamilcar was given the chief command and completely restored Carthaginian sovereignty, caused a brusque change of attitude in Rome. In the same year a second overture from the Punic mercenaries in Sardinia (who had exposed themselves to attacks by natives of the island, was accepted by the Romans, who sent a force to occupy the Carthaginian stations on the south-western coast. Heaping insult upon injury, the Romans met a protest from Carthage with a declaration of war and refused an offer of arbitration.
The Romans Demand Corsica
For the moment the Carthaginians had no option but to submit to the Roman conditions of peace, which required them not only to abandon their claims upon Sardinia, but to surrender Corsica and to pay an additional indemnity (1700 Talents). The motive of the Romans in grabbing Sardinia and Corsica is not altogether clear. The strategic value of these islands was as slight as that of Sicily was great, and their natural resources - which in the case of Sardinia at least were considerable - were never fully developed by them. Their sharp practice may have been inspired by a false calculation of future profits, but its main object, no doubt, was to take precautions against a change of Carthaginian policy under the influence of Hamilcar. In any case, the seizure of the two islands completely belied Rome's reputation for fair dealing, and it fostered rather than stifled the spirit of revenge at Carthage.
The Last Gallic Invasion
Pending the next trial of strength with Carthage the Roman armies found employment in the suppression of native uprisings in Sardinia and Corsica - a task which provided a quick succession of cheaply won triumphs for the Roman commanders - and in a new Gallic war, the greatest of those fought on Italic soil. After their encounters with the Romans in the early part of the third century the Gauls of northern Italy showed a disposition to settle down to a more peaceful mode of life. During the Pyrric and First Punic Wars they did not take advantage of Rome's preoccupation to resume their raids into Etruria. Their quiescence may be partly explained by their opportunities for mercenary service in the Carthaginian forces during the First Punic War.
Renewed Gallic Unrest
But the end of that war was followed by unrest in northern Italy. It is true that an isolated movement by the Boii in 236 BC was halted by the mere appearance of a Roman army at Ariminum. For the moment the Romans could afford to celebrate their easy success by closing the temple of Janus in the Forum - a ceremony which was only sanctioned at times of complete peace in the Roman dominions, and was therefore an extremely rare occurrence - and by throwing open for settlement part of the land taken from the Senones fifty years before and since left waste. During the next few years Rome's attention was directed to the Adriatic. But in 225 BC a general coalition of Gallic tribes, assisted by mercenaries from Transalpine Gaul, collected a force estimated at 70,000 men, to overrun the peninsula. The Romans, however, with all central and southern Italy to draw upon, and the more than willing co-operation of their dependants against such an enemy, rapidly mobilized a force of not less than 130,000 defenders.
The Invasion of Etruria
The invaders succeeded in breaking into Etruria by an unguarded pass in the western Apennines and made their way as far as Clusium. But converging Roman armies presently shepherded them towards the Tuscan coast, and another expeditionary force, which had been recalled from Sardinia and made an opportune landing near Pisae, cut off their retreat.
The Battle of Telamon
At Telamon, a point on the coast of central Etruria, the Gauls made a last stand, fighting back to back against the Romans closing in upon them from two sides. But failing to break through - for the Romans by now had learned to disarrange the first terrible charge of the enemy by concentrated javelin fire, and then to outfence them at close quarters - they were cut down almost to the last man.
The Romans Counter-Invade Northern Italy
The alarm caused by the inroad of the Gauls decided the Romans to end their forays once and for all by conquering northern Italy. In making this resolve they committed themselves to overrunning and colonizing a territory nearly as large as the peninsula. Yet the Roman armies accomplished their task in three sweeping campaigns, during which they made short work of some isolated and irresolute attempts at defense by the separate Gallic tribes. In 224 BC they subdued Cispadane Gaul; in 223 C. Flaminius crossed the Po, dismantled his bridges and defeated the Insubres; in 222 M. Claudius Marcellus revived the old dueling warfare in slaying an Insubrian chief at Clastidium by his own hand. By 220 BC the Romans had received the submission of all the Gallic tribes except the Taurini of Piedmont and a few of the lesser sub-Alpine peoples.
New Roman Roads
In the same year they established Latin colonies at Placentia and Cremona to control the passages of the middle Po; and Flaminius, now promoted to a censorship, made arrangements for the construction of Rome's Great North Road (the so-called Via Flaminia) as far as Ariminum. About this time a parallel road, the Via Aurelia, was built along the coast of Tuscany to Pisae, and naval stations were established at Luna (Spezia) and Genua (Genoa). By their acquisition of the northern plain and of the chain of islands in the Tyrrhenian Sea the Romans had extended their dominion almost to the limits of the present state of Italy.
Constitutional Developments
During these years the home front had seen some changes. In 241 BC two new rural tribes were created to incorporate the Picentes and Sabines, thus bringing the total of tribes to thirty-five, a number never increased (hereafter any new citizens were enrolled in one of the existing tribes). The Comitia Centuriata was reformed, probably at the same time, in order to correlate the centuries and tribes and perhaps to make it somewhat more democratic. Further, the middle class and poorer peasants found a champion in Gaius Flaminius, a plebian and a novus homo who later won the consulship (223 BC) and thus nobility.
Flaminius and the Senate
As tribune in 232 BC he proposed that part of the ager Gallicus taken from the Senones should be divided into small allotments for poor citizens. This met with bitter senatorial opposition, so he carried the measure in the plebian assembly. The suggestion, deriving from the hostile aristocratic tradition, that this measure caused the beginning of "the demoralization of the people" and also hastened the Gallic invasion of 225 BC, may be dismissed. He also was the only senator to support a measure, proposed by a tribune, Q. Claudius, that prohibited senators from possessing ships of sea-going capacity: they must concentrate on their landed estates rather than be allowed to develop private commercial interest which might pervert their political judgments. New fields of administration of Sicily, which had been governed by a quaestor, was changed. The number of praetors was raised to four in order that each year one might go as governor to each of the two overseas provinces.
The Illyrian Wars
The Romans were gradually compelled to extend their gaze over the troubled waters of the Adriatic and to become responsible for the protection of the Adriatic trade-routes, which had been previously under the care of the Tarentines.
Illyrian Piracy
This obligation became urgent after the First Punic War, when the scattered tribes of Illyria were united under a line of rulers who organized piracy as a regular state industry and whose realm stretched from Dalmatia in the north down to the coast opposite the heel of Italy. The Senate, however, took no action until 230 BC when it went so far as to remonstrate with the reigning Illyrian queen TEUTA. The matter would no doubt have ended there, had not TEUTA compassed or connived at the murder of one of the Roman envoys. In answer to this direct challenge the Senate sent the two consuls of 229 BC with an army and with the fleet which had won the First Punic War to sweep queen TEUTA's subjects off the Adriatic.
The First Illyrian War
Distrusting her prompt offer of submission the Romans established a protectorate over the towns (as Issa [Vis], Corcyra Nigra [Korcula], Apollonia [Pojan], and Dyrrachium [Durres - on the coast of Albania] and tribes on the east side of the Strait of Otranto.- see map) These states were left free, without taxes, garrisons or governors. They were not bound to Rome by formal treaty, but became "friends" (amici). The only link was a moral one, which arose from the beneficium of their liberation; they must show Rome practical gratitude, while Rome was morally engaged to maintain their liberty.
Roman Influence in Greece
Thus Rome had secured a potential foothold east of the Adriatic and developed a new diplomatic method of extending her clientela to Greek cities. Further, as these operations were of benefit to the trading communities of the Greek mainland, where many might regard Rome's first step across the Adriatic with suspicion, the Senate dispatched envoys to Athens, Corinth, Achaea and Aetolia to report on their result (228 BC). Although this mission ended in nothing more than an exchange of courtesies, the Corinthians, by admitting the Romans to the Isthmian Games, recognized them as part of the civilized world.
The Second Illyrian War
The Roman broom, however, had not swept the Adriatic quite clear. In 219 BC a Greek adventurer named Demetrius of Pharos (Hvar), who had deserted from the Illyrian queen TEUTA to the Romans and had in consequence been confirmed as an amicus of Rome in his little principality (an island off the Dalmatian coast), resumed his buccaneering expeditions. If he had reckoned on immunity as a result of Rome's possible embroilment with Hannibal over Saguntum in Spain, he was soon undeceived. The Senate, temporizing over affairs in Spain, sent to the Adriatic a second armada under the consuls of 219 BC, who duly smoked out the pirate's nest. Demetrius fled to Philip of Macedon, and the consuls, anxious at the news that Hannibal was now actually besieging Saguntum, another "client" of Rome, made a quick settlement on the same lines as that of ten years before. The outbreak of the Second Punic War in the following year obliged the Romans to put Greece out of mind, at least until the shadow of Philip of Macedon began to fall across their path. In any event the problem of the Adriatic pirates was a local one: taken by itself it would not have led to a permanent Roman engagement in Greek affairs, nor is their any evidence that the Senate before the Illyrian wars had any imperialistic eastern policy or during the 220's sought any lasting involvement in the Greek affairs.
Compiled by Marko Marelich
Retired Mechanical Engineer
San Francisco, California USA
June 7th, 2006