Destroy Carthage (19 page)
Sicily
The
First Punic War dragged on another fourteen years, now a
conflict of punishing attrition centred once more on Sicily.
The Pyrrhic invasion had steeped Italy in grief for her fallen
sons; the Punic War produced mourning on an even more
tragic scale. Roman bitterness was not diminished by the
knowledge that Carthage, for all her financial investment,
risked the lives of relatively few of her own menfolk.
Each fresh casualty-list deepened resentment of the Punic
state. Sicily swallowed manpower like some massive pit, and
Punic money followed. The sacrifice would stop when Rome's
vigour was exhausted, Carthage's treasure spent. Until then,
it continued with fluctuating fortunes on both sides, the flair
of Punic generalship insufficient to surmount the reserves of
its dogged foe.
On land, the struggle was of two distinct types: siege warfare, the Romans seeking to reduce Carthage's strongholds in
western Sicily; and what might best be described as a
guerilla
war in which the Carthaginians held the initiative, mounting
surprise attacks and raids from hill bases. Major field battles
were conspicuously absent.
At first, this omission reflected the fear of elephants transmitted to the Roman troops from Africa. Following the defeat
of Regulus, the commander of the Carthaginian forces in Sicily,
Hasdrubal-son-of-Hanno, had 140 elephants at Lilybaeum. For
two years they assured him command of the countryside.
Roman morale was low. Then, in 251, Hasdrubal rashly employed the animals against a walled town, Panormus, which
had fallen to Rome some years earlier.
Emboldened by their fortifications, the defenders allowed
the elephants to draw close before assailing them with arrows
and javelins. The tormented beasts ran amok. Confusion in Hasdrubal's ranks, resulting in his repulse, was overshadowed
by the loss to Carthage of the elephants, most of them escaping
to be caught by the Romans.
Confident again of appearing on open land, the legions converged against Lilybaeum. From 250, the attackers spared no
effort to reduce the stronghold, a base vital to the Punic cause.
It was menaced by siege works and armed camps. Its towers
were mined; its walls battered by great rams. The officers of the
mercenary garrison were suborned.
Against this onslaught, the Carthaginian commander, Himilco, fought a brilliant and fierce defence. With counter-mines
and forays, he drove the besiegers back while the bastions
were rebuilt to block fresh attacks. He used fire against the
enemy. Winning the loyalty of the rank-and-file mercenaries,
he thwarted conspiracy, expelling the traitors from the city.
At the end of the summer, a violent gale wrecked some of
the wooden towers brought forward by the Romans. Himilco
made good use of the chaos. His fire parties sallied against the
siege-works in three places, setting light to the tinder-dry
timber. Strong winds, fanning the flames, gusted smoke in the
faces of the besiegers, increasing their distraction. As they
struggled to douse the fires, Himilco's archers bombarded
them with arrows.
In the end, the siege-works were completely destroyed: even
the metal heads of the battering rams had melted. The Romans
now lost faith in assault, relying on blockade. But hopes of
starving the city dwindled as supplies continued to arrive by
sea.
Meanwhile, the Carthaginians moved their headquarters to
Drepana, a port twenty-five miles north of Lilybaeum. Expressive of Roman frustration at this period (though of questionable veracity) is the familiar story of the martinet Roman
commander P. Claudius Pulcher who, when the sacred chickens
refused to eat - a bad omen - hurled them impatiently into
the sea off Drepana with the injunction, 'Damn well drink,
then!' or words to that effect.
It was Claudius's successor, Junius Pullus, who conceived
the notion of occupying Mount Eryx (Mount San Guiliano)
close to Drepana, thus commanding the land approach to the
port. From this eminence, a height of more than 2,000 feet,
the Romans directed operations in the northwest, possessing a
temple on the summit and the town of Eryx on the lower
slopes.
The land conflict now entered a new phase. In 247, the appointment of an outstanding Carthaginian general to the
Sicilian command heralded a change in the style of war.
Hamilcar Barca, still a young man, was backed by a formidable family. At a time when many in Carthage pressed the
need to develop continental power in North Africa, the Barcids
consistently stressed Mediterranean priorities.
The 'African' party, led by a second Hanno the Great, was
actually active in the extension of Carthaginian territory as
far as Theveste (Tebessa, in modern Algeria) while the Romans
besieged Drepana and Lilybaeum. It may be that this was a
prudent, if belated, policy, but it diverted resources from Sicily
and promoted friction between Hanno and Hamilcar.
Hamilcar, anxious to further Barcid policy, took daring
steps. Instead of reinforcing the beleaguered bases of the far
west, he installed his troops near Roman Panormus, at a place
named Herctae (Monte Pellegrino), a high plateau with cultivable land on top. Herctae was an ideal eyrie from which to
harry the Romans. Precipitous of approach, its few paths
could easily be defended. The height was cool and healthy. It
also possessed access to a natural harbour.
While his ships plundered and ravaged the Italian coast,
Hamilcar waged a three-year campaign of land raids, skirmishes
and ambuscades which, at one stage, engaged a reputed 40,000
Roman troops. It was a strategy quite new to the Punic War.
Without hazarding a single major battle, Hamilcar tied up
enough enemy legions to relieve the pressure on Lilybaeum.
Eventually, becoming restricted at Herctae, he embarked
on another venture. Coasting his forces west to the region of
Mount Eryx, Hamilcar smuggled them past the guard-posts at
its base, stormed the Roman-held town, and trapped the
Romans in the temple on the summit. Here, for another two
years and more, he operated to the exasperation of the enemy,
neutralizing Rome's bid for Drepana.
At last it was clear to the Romans that they could not outfight Hamilcar. For all the men they had committed, with all
the losses they had sustained, victory seemed no closer than
it had done six years before. The Carthaginian was too asute
to accept a set-piece trial of strength. As long as there were
ships to supply his hill base and the Punic ports, Rome's
legions could make no headway.
Either the war had to be abandoned or won at sea.
* * *
Rome's first ambitious naval venture after the Camarina
disaster was a raid on the coast of North Africa. It proved a
fiasco. The newly-built ships ran aground and had to discard
equipment to refloat. Worse, bad weather on the return voyage
to Italy brought tragedy. Half the fleet went down in the
Tyrrhenian; a fresh blow to Roman hopes of sea mastery.
For some time, they restricted their naval effort to the attempt to seal Lilybaeum. Still success eluded them. Amid the
shoals and islands which surrounded the harbour, the blockading fleet was outwitted by better-handled and faster Carthaginian ships. Standing off until the wind was favourable, the
blockade-runners would sweep under full sail through the
dangerous channels straight into harbour, leaving the Romans
fumbling in shoal waters.
Once, a complete convoy of 50 ships gained Lilybaeum in
this manner.
Among the most celebrated of the blockade-runners was a
brilliant seaman known as Hannibal the Rhodian. Every attempt to intercept him failed until a particularly fast Carthaginian vessel fell into Roman hands, enabling the blockaders
to overhaul their quarry and capture him.
Not only did the Carthaginians outsail their opponents, they
engaged them with new success. By now, counter-tactics had
evolved against Rome's unorthodox naval techniques. The poor
performance of Roman ships and crews in tricky waters, especially conspicuous since Camarina, invited exploitation.
Claudius presented a perfect opportunity.
In 249, the consul resolved to destroy the Punic fleet at
Drepana. The method was to be a surprise attack. Sailing
directly into the harbour, Claudius would catch the enemy
beached or at anchor. Chickens or no chickens, he might well
have succeeded had not the Carthaginian admiral, Adherbal,
reacted faultlessly.
Claudius sailed by night, was off Drepana at first light, and,
as planned, had entered the channel to the harbour before
Adherbal could collect his fleet. But the Carthaginian kept a
cool head. Waiting as long as he dared for his crews to muster,
Adherbal led them to the open sea by a second channel.
Claudius had now to extricate his own ships before they in
turn were trapped.
Neither his clumsy vessels nor their seamen were up to the
manoeuvre. Some collided. Others lost their oars in the narrow
channel. Emerging from the harbour in confusion, the Romans
found Adherbal's fleet ranged to seaward, penning them inshore. They had little chance. With every advantage of skill
and disposition, the Carthaginians drove their enemies into the
shallows where, one after another, they ran aground.
'Seeing what was happening, Claudius slipped away, escaping along the coast with about 30 ships,' affirmed the ancient
source. The rest of his fleet floundered. Ninety-three ships were
captured.
While Claudius faced trial in Rome for negligence, his successor, Junius, sailed from Syracuse with a large convoy of
supplies for his western troops. Near fateful Camarina, the
convoy was intercepted by one of Adherbal's lieutenants,
Carthalo. The promised action was forestalled by an approaching storm.Carthalo, noting the weather-signs, immediately ran for
Cape Pachynus, which he doubled to escape catastrophe. The
Romans, too slow or complacent to follow, were caught on the
lee-shore where they suffered the fate of their ill-starred compatriots of 255. 'Scarcely a plank remained intact,' Polybius
wrote of the wrecked fleet. It was too much for the Roman
authorities. Fleet after fleet had met destruction at enormous
cost. From now on, treasury expenditure on naval construction
was ruled out.
