suers; but he was unequally matched in strength, and was CHAP. III. FOURTH PERIOD, B.C. Distress of the garri Trifling encounters like these could have but little influence on the progress of the siege. Slowly, but securely, 250-249 the Roman works proceeded. The dam which levelled the filled-up moat became broader and broader; the artillery and battering-rams were directed against the towers son of which still remained standing; mines were dug under the Lilybæum. second inner wall, and the besieged were too weak to keep pace with the works of the Romans by counter-mines. It appeared that the loss of Lilybæum was unavoid- Roman works. In this desperate situation Himilco determined to repeat, Destrucunder more favourable circumstances, the attempt which tion of the had once so signally failed.' One night, when a gale siegeof wind was blowing from the west, which overthrew towers and made the buildings in the town tremble and shake, he made a sally, and this time he succeeded in setting fire to the Roman siege-works. The dry wood was at once kindled, and the violent wind fanned the flame into ungovernable fury, blowing the sparks and smoke into the eyes of the Romans, who in vain called up all their courage and perseverance in the hopeless contest with their enemies and the elements. One wooden structure after another was caught by the flames, and burnt to the ground. When the day dawned, the spot was covered with charred beams. The labour of months was destroyed in a few hours, and for the present all hope was lost of taking Lilybæum by storm. ance of the Romans. The consuls now changed the siege into a blockade, a Perseverplan which could not hold out any prospect of success so long as the port was open. But it was not in the nature of the Romans easily to give up what they had once undertaken. Their character in some measure resembled that of the bull-dog, which when it bites will not let ' Polybius, i. 48. BOOK go. The circumvallations of the town were strengthened,' the two Roman camps on the north and south ends of this line were well fortified; and, thus protected against all possible attacks, the besiegers looked forward to the time when they might resume more vigorous operations. Their For the present this was not possible. The Roman special difficulties. army had suffered great losses, not only in battle, but in the labours and privations of so prolonged a siege. The greatest difficulty was to provide an army of 100,000 men with all necessaries at such a distance from Rome.' Sicily was quite drained and impoverished. Hiero of Syracuse, it is true, made every effort in his power, but his power soon reached its limit. Italy alone could supply what was necessary, but even Italy sorely felt the pressure of the war. The Punic fleet of Drepana commanded the sea, and the dreaded Numidian horsemen, the 'Cossacks of antiquity,' overran Sicily, levied heavy contributions from the friends of the Romans, and seized the provisions which were sent by land to the camp of Lilybæum. The winter blockade. The winter had come, with its heavy rains, its storms, and all its usual discomforts. One of the two consuls, with two legions, returned home; the rest of the army remained in the fortified camp before Lilybæum. The Roman soldiers were not accustomed to pass the bad season of the year in tents, exposed to wet, cold, and all kinds of privations. They were in want of indispensable necessaries. The consuls had hoped to be able in the course of the summer to take Lilybæum by storm,3 and therefore the troops were probably not prepared for a winter campaign. Added to all this came hunger, the worst of all evils at this juncture, bearing in its train ravaging sickness. Ten thousand men succumbed to these sufferings,' and the survivors were in such pitiable case that they were like a besieged garrison in the last stage of exhaustion. 1 Thus is explained the fact that Polybius speaks twice of the construction of lines of circumvallation-i. 42, § 8, and i. 48. § 10. The siege of Sebastopol, 1854-55, affords a parallel case and an illus- In Rome it was felt that the Roman fleet, which lay useless on the shore, must be once more equipped. The following year therefore (249) the consul P. Claudius Pulcher, the son of Appius Claudius the Blind, was sent to Sicily with a new consular army, and a division of 10,000 recruits as rowers, to fill up the gaps which fatigue, privations, and sickness had caused in the crews of the fleet. The object of this reinforcement could only be that of attacking the Carthaginian fleet under Adherbal in Drepana, for this fleet was the chief cause of all the misery which had befallen the besieging army. Claudius had without doubt received an express order to hazard a battle by sea. It was nothing but the ill-success of this undertaking that made him afterwards an object of the accusation and reproaches which all unsuccessful generals have to expect. He began by re-establishing strict discipline in the army, and thus he made many enemies. He then vainly sought once more to block up the entrance to the harbour of Lilybæum, and thus to cut off the supply of provisions to the town, which during the winter had been effected without any difficulty. His next step was to equip his fleet, mixing the new rowers with those still left of the old ones, and manning the ships with the picked men of the legion, especially volunteers, who expected certain victory and rich spoil; and, after holding a council of war, in which his scheme was approved, he sailed away from Lilybæum in the stillness of midnight, to surprise the Carthaginian fleet in the harbour of Drepana, which he reached the following morning. Keeping his ships on the right close to shore, he entered the harbour, which, on the south of a crescent-shaped peninsula, opens out towards the west in the form of a trumpet. Adherbal, though unprepared and surprised, formed his plans without delay, and his arrangements for the battle were made as soon as the ships of the enemy came in sight. His fleet was promptly manned and ready for the engagement; and while the Romans sailed slowly in at one side of the harbour, he left it on the other and stood out to sea. Claudius, to avoid СНАР. (III. FOURTH PERIOD, 250-249 B.C. Defeat of Cladius Drepana. BOOK Dictator ship of A. Atilius being shut up in the harbour, gave the order to return. While the Roman ships were one after another obeying this order, they got entangled, broke their oars, hampered each other in their movements, and fell into helpless confusion. Adherbal seized the opportunity for making the attack. The Romans, close to the shore and in the greatest disorder and dismay, were unable to retreat, manœuvre, or assist each other. Almost without resistance they fell into the hands of the Carthaginians, or were wrecked in the shallows near the neighbouring coast. Only thirty ships out of two hundred and ten escaped. Ninety-three were taken with all their crews; the others were sunk or run ashore. Twenty thousand men,' the flower of the Roman army, were taken prisoners. Eight thousand were killed in battle, and many of those who saved themselves from the wrecks fell into the hands of the Carthaginians when they reached the land. It was a day of terror, such as Rome had not experienced since the Allia-the first great decisive defeat by sea during the whole war, disastrous by the multiplied miseries which it occasioned, but still more disastrous as causing the prolongation of the war for eight years more.2 The consul Claudius escaped, but an evil reception awaited him in Rome. It was not customary, it is true, Calatinus. for the Romans to nail their unsuccessful generals to the cross, as the Carthaginians often did; on the contrary, like Sulpicius after the Allia, and like Varro, at a later period, after Cannæ, they were treated mostly with 1 Polybius (i. 51) does not state the total of the Roman fleet, but mentions only the number of the ships that escaped (30), and of those that were taken with their crews (93). This makes 123 in all. Orosius (iv. 10) gives in round numbers 120 ships as the strength of the Roman fleet, reckoning 90 as taken and 30 as saved. But Diodorus (xxiv. fr. 1) states the number of Roman vessels as 210, and Eutropius (ii. 26) even at 220. The latter writer agrees with Polybius and Orosius in giving 90 and 30 as the numbers of the captured and saved vessels respectively. The rest, he says, were sunk. According to his calculation they amounted to 100. It is strange that Polybius does not refer to these, and it is not likely that he includes them among the 93 vessels taken. He also omits all mention of the number of killed and of the prisoners taken, which we borrow from Orosius. Polybius, i. 49–51. III. FOURTH PERIOD, 250-249 B.C. indulgence, and sometimes with honour. But Claudius ¡CHAP. belonged to a house which, although one of the most distinguished among the Roman nobility, had many enemies, and his pride could not stoop to humility and conciliation. With haughty mien and lofty bearing he returned to Rome; and when he was requested to nominate a dictator, as the necessities of the republic were urgent, he named, in utter contempt of the public feeling, his servant and client Glicia. This was too much for the Roman senate. Glicia was compelled to lay down the dictatorship, and the senate, setting aside the old constitutional practice, and dispensing with the nomination by the consul, appointed A. Atilius Calatinus, who made Metellus, the hero of Panormus, his master of the horse. After the expiration of his year of office, Claudius was accused before the people on a capital charge, and only escaped condemnation by the timely outburst of a thunderstorm, which interrupted the proceedings. It seems, however, that he was afterwards condemned to pay a fine.3 Henceforth he disappears from the page of history. It is uncertain whether he went into exile, or whether he soon died. At any rate he was not alive three years later, for it is reported that at that time, his sister, a Claudian as proud as himself, said once, when annoyed by a crowd in the street, she wished her brother were alive to lose another battle, that some of the useless people might be got rid of. 2 of The hypocritical piety of a time in which the whole of Alleged religion was nothing but an empty form, attributed the profanity defeat at Drepana to the godlessness of Claudius. On Claudius. the morning of the battle, when he was informed that the sacred fowls would not eat, he ordered them, it is said, to be cast into the sea, that at least they might drink. It is a pity that anecdotes such as these are so related by Livy, epit. 19; Suetonius, Tib. 2. 2 Valerius Maximus, viii. 1, 4. Polybius, i. 52, § 3.-Scholia Bobiensia ad Cicer. De Natura Deorum, ii. 3, 7. • Gellius, x. 6; Suetonius, Tib. 2. |