War and Game

As their reputation grew, so did requests for their aid. An Italic people calling themselves the Mamertines ("devoted to Mamers," their god of war) had seized the Sicilian town of Messana, appealed to the Carthaginians to help them against the tyrant of Syracuse, Hiero (who wanted to expel them), and then had second thoughts about the garrison the Carthaginians imposed on them. They sought help from the Roman Senate, but the Senate referred the question to the Roman people: Carthage did not threaten Rome's control of Italy, and it had the greatest monetary resources of any city-state in the Mediterranean—an annual tribute of 12,000 talents. The Roman people voted to accept the alliance.

The consul of 264 B.C., Appius Claudius (nicknamed "the Log"), mobilized his forces and dispatched an advance party, which fought its way into the harbor of Messana. The Mamertines ordered the Carthaginians to leave, the Carthaginian commander complied (he had no orders to fight the Romans), and he returned home, there to have his decision repudiated with a death sentence. A Carthaginian army under the command of Hanno was sent to cooperate with Hiero's Syracusan army and put Messana under siege.

The First Punic War (264-241) had begun.

The Romans had a clear and simple strategy—gain a foothold in Sicily, expand their control (and limit Carthaginian control) throughout the island, and then invade Africa and knock Carthage out of the war. Up to a point all went exactly as they planned. Appius Claudius ferried his army across the straits of Messana at night, forced Hiero to retire to Syracuse, drove Hanno from the field, and thus, in two quick operations, accomplished Rome's primary objective—to preserve its new ally, Messana, and to acquire a base of operations.

In 263 B.C. two new consuls convinced Hiero to sign a fifteen-year treaty: the Romans recognized him as "king" of Syracuse, and Hiero paid the Romans an indemnity of 100 talents. At first the Romans were able to win support in Sicily by spreading the Ptolemaic story that they were the descendants of the Trojans—they granted freedom and autonomy to two Sicilian cities that asserted a connection with Aeneas—but soon they committed an act that repulsed Sicily.

The Carthaginians had retired to their base at Agrigentum, and the Romans wasted no time in putting them under siege; they built a double wall around the city, to blockade it and to protect themselves from a Carthaginian relief force of 50,000 infantry and 6,000 cavalry, which soon besieged the Romans besieging Agrigentum. The siege of Agrigentum demonstrated Roman tenacity and confirmed Hiero's loyalty: the Romans ran out of food but did not lift the siege; Hiero broke through the Carthaginian lines to resupply the Romans; a massive Carthaginian assault on the Roman siege works was beaten off with heavy losses, and the Carthaginian garrison inside the city decided to use the cover of the assault to abandon Agrigentum. The Roman commanders occupied Agrigentum and then shocked Sicilian Greeks by giving the city to their troops to sack and by selling the entire population into slavery.

Although the Romans had been successful so far, they now realized that the war would require them to subjugate the whole of Sicily and to neutralize the Carthaginian outposts in Sardinia and Corsica.
Consequently the Roman Senate authorized the construction of a fleet of 20 triremes and 100 quinqueremes (a captured Carthaginian ship was the prototype), and they drafted 30,000 oarsmen to "sit and sweat" at rowing machines on land—the trick to rowing with banks of oars is to train the quinquereme's five-man tier to pull together. The Carthaginians' long experience at sea seemed to give them the upper hand, but a simple invention, the "raven," a boarding plank with a spike at one end and a hinge at the other, changed the nature of war at sea. The consul, Duillius, in command of this new Roman fleet, found the Carthaginians near Mylae. Duillius had thirty ships fewer than the Carthaginians, and he was the first Roman ever to fight a sea battle. The ravens, however, worked perfectly. They locked Roman ships to Carthaginian, and Roman soldiers crossed the planks and slaughtered the Carthaginian crews. Duillius eliminated fifty Carthaginian ships. (The Romans were never to lose a sea battle to the Carthaginians.)

By the end of 257 the Romans had confined the Carthaginians to the western third of Sicily, they had neutralized the Carthaginian forces in Sardinia and Corsica, and they were ready to invade Africa. They organized a fleet of 300 ships with crews of 300 oarsmen and 120 marines each (a total of about 100,000 men) and two legions of about 15,000 men. The invasion force of 256 B.C. was commanded by Marcus Atilius Regulus. Regulus had to fight for his passage against a Carthaginian fleet lying off Cape Ecnomus. The Roman "ravens" worked again, and the Romans captured fifty Carthaginian ships and sank thirty.