Battle of Cape Ecnomus
The Carthaginian fleet was commanded by Hanno and Hamilcar; the Roman fleet jointly by the consuls for the year, Marcus Atilius Regulus and Lucius Manlius Vulso Longus. The Roman fleet of 330 warships plus an unknown number of transports had sailed from Ostia, the port of Rome, and had embarked approximately 26,000 picked legionaries shortly before the battle. After a prolonged and confusing day of fighting, the Carthaginians were decisively defeated, losing 30 ships sunk and 64 captured to Roman losses of 24 ships sunk.
About Battle of Cape Ecnomus in brief
The Carthaginian fleet was commanded by Hanno and Hamilcar; the Roman fleet jointly by the consuls for the year, Marcus Atilius Regulus and Lucius Manlius Vulso Longus. The Roman fleet of 330 warships plus an unknown number of transports had sailed from Ostia, the port of Rome, and had embarked approximately 26,000 picked legionaries shortly before the battle. With a combined total of about 680 warships carrying up to 290,000 crew and marines, the battle was possibly the largest naval battle in history by the number of combatants involved. After a prolonged and confusing day of fighting, the Carthaginians were decisively defeated, losing 30 ships sunk and 64 captured to Roman losses of 24 ships sunk. The main source for almost every aspect of the First Punic War is the historian Polybius, a Greek sent to Rome in 167 BC as a hostage. Modern historians usually also take into account the later histories of Diodorus Siculus and Dio Cassius, although the classicist Adrian Goldsworthy states that “Polybius’s account is usually to be preferred when it differs with any of our other accounts”. Other sources include inscriptions, archaeological evidence and empirical evidence from reconstructions such as the trireme Olympias. The Romans gained control of most of Sicily and had essentially a land-based power and had focused on defending their well-fortified towns and cities; these were mostly on the coast. The focus of the war shifted to the sea, where the Romans had little experience; on the few occasions they had previously felt the need for a naval presence they relied on small squadrons provided by their allies.
The Carthaginia was a well-established maritime power in the Western Mediterranean; Rome had recently unified mainland Italy south of the Po under its control. Both sides wished to control Syracuse, the most powerful city-state on Sicily. By 256 BC, the war had grown into a struggle in which the Romans were attempting to defeat decisively the Carthagenians and, at a minimum, control the whole of Sicily. The modern consensus is to accept it largely at face value, and the details of the battle in modern sources are almost entirely based on interpretations of Polybious’s account. Most Carthaginist written records were destroyed along with their capital, Carthage, in 146 BC and so Polybio’s account of the Battle of Ecnomus is based on several, now lost, Greek and Latin sources. Only the first book of the 40 comprising The Histories deals with this war, but the modern historian G. K. Tipps considers that The History contains an extensive and meticulously detailed account of this battle. The immediate cause of the fight was control of the Sicilian town of Messana. More broadly both sides wished for control of Syracuse, and so the war reached stalemate, as the Romans focused on the defense of their land and so could be reinforced without the use of their army.
You want to know more about Battle of Cape Ecnomus?
This page is based on the article Battle of Cape Ecnomus published in Wikipedia (as of Oct. 30, 2020) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
