Battle of Cape Hermaeum

The Roman withdrawal from Africa was the attempt by the Roman Republic to rescue the survivors of their defeated expeditionary force to Carthaginian Africa during the First Punic War. A large fleet commanded by Servius Fulvius Paetinus Nobilior and Marcus Aemilius Paullus successfully evacuated the remnants of the expedition. The Roman fleet was struck by a storm while returning, losing most of its ships. Despite the heavy losses of both sides, the war continued for a further 14 years, mostly on Sicily or the nearby waters, before ending with a Roman victory.

About Battle of Cape Hermaeum in brief

The Roman withdrawal from Africa was the attempt by the Roman Republic to rescue the survivors of their defeated expeditionary force to Carthaginian Africa during the First Punic War. A large fleet commanded by Servius Fulvius Paetinus Nobilior and Marcus Aemilius Paullus successfully evacuated the remnants of the expedition. The Roman fleet was struck by a storm while returning, losing most of its ships. The Romans landed in Aspis, sortied, dispersed the besiegers and raided the surrounding country for food. All then re-embarked and left for Italy. Despite the heavy losses of both sides, the war continued for a further 14 years, mostly on Sicily or the nearby waters, before ending with a Roman victory. Since 2010 a number of artefacts have been recovered from the site of the Battle of the Aegates, the final battle of the war, fought fourteen years later. The Carthaginians were defeated with 114 of their ships captured, together with their crews, and 16 sunk. What losses the Romans suffered, if any, is not known; most modern historians assume there were none. During this period the standard Mediterranean warship was the quinquerememe, meaning ‘five-rowers’ or ‘five galley ships’ The modern expert on the war is Richard Miles, the Roman historian Richard Miles. According to Miles, Rome established the western Mediterranean after the Romans came under control of southern Italy south of the River Arno. The main source for almost every aspect of the Firstpunic War is the historian Polybius, a Greek sent to Rome in 167 BC as a hostage.

The accuracy ofPolybius’s account has been much debated over the past 150 years, but the modern consensus is to accept it largely at face value, and the details of the battle in modern sources are largely based on interpretations of Polybious’s account. Other sources include inscriptions, archaeological evidence, and empirical evidence from reconstructions such as the trireme Olympias. The war was the issue of control of the Sicilian city of Messana, independent of Carthage, which was independent of Rome and independent of the Roman state of Sicily. The battle of Cape Hermaeum was fought about a century after The Histories, or about a Century after 146 BC, and took place off the south-east corner of Sicily, north of the Cape of Capri. It was the first of a series of naval battles between Carthage and Rome, fought in 264 BC and 264 BC. The Battle of Capreri was won by Carthage’s Carthage with the help of a Roman fleet of 390 ships, but it was followed by a Roman invasion of Sicily in 256 BC. Carthage was a well-established maritime power in the Mediterranean, but Rome’s expansionary attitude combined with its proprietary approach to Sicily caused the two powers to stumble into war more by accident than by design. In 264 BC, the states of Carthages and Rome went to war.

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