It was related that
Rome had never had any war-ships, that she took as a model a
Carthaginian galley cast ashore by accident on her coast and began by
exercising her oarsmen in rowing on the land. This legend is without
foundation for the Roman navy had long endured. This is the Roman
account of this war: the Roman consul Duillius had vanquished the
Carthaginian fleet at Mylae (260); a Roman army had disembarked in
Africa under the lead of Regulus, had been attacked and destroyed
(255); Regulus was sent as a prisoner to Rome to conclude a peace, but
persuading the Senate to reject it, he returned to Carthage where he
perished by torture. The war was concentrated in Sicily where the
Carthaginian fleet, at first victorious at Drepana, was defeated at
the AEgates Islands; Hamilcar, besieged on Mount Eryx, signed the
peace.
The second war (from 218 to 201) was the work of Hannibal.
The third war was a war of extermination: the Romans took Carthage by
assault, razed it, and conquered Africa.
These wars had long made Rome tremble. Carthage had the better navy,
but its warriors were armed adventurers fighting not for country but
for pay, lawless, terrible under a general like Hannibal.
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