HKB
[Sidenote: First Punic War (490-513).]
II. These two powers, of equal ambition, but so opposite in spirit, could not long remain in presence without disputing the command of the rich basin of the Mediterranean. Sicily especially was destined to excite their covetousness. The possession of that island was then shared between Hiero, tyrant of Syracuse, the Carthaginians, and the Mamertines. These last, descended from the old adventurers, mercenaries of Agathocles, who came from Italy in 490 and settled at Messina, proceeded to make war upon the Syracusans. They first sought the assistance of the Carthaginians, and surrendered to them the acropolis of Messina as the price of their protection; but soon, disgusted with their too exacting allies, they sent to demand succour of Rome under the name of a common nationality, for most of them called themselves Italiots, and consequently allies of the Republic; some even were or pretended to be Romans.[487]
The Senate hesitated; but public opinion carried the day, and, in spite of the little interest inspired by the Mamertines, war was decided. A body of troops, sent without delay to Messina, expelled the Carthaginians. Soon after, a consular army crossed the Strait, defeated first the Syracusans and then the Carthaginians, and effected a military settlement in the island. Thus commenced the first Punic War.
Different circumstances favoured the Romans. The Carthaginians had made themselves objects of hatred to the Sicilian Greeks. The towns still independent, comparing the discipline of the legions with the excesses of all kinds which had marked the progress of the mercenaries of Agathocles, Pyrrhus, and the Carthaginian generals, received the consuls as liberators. Hiero, master of Syracuse, the principal town in Sicily, had no sooner experienced the power of the Roman armies than he foresaw the result of the struggle, and declared for the strongest. His alliance, maintained faithfully during fifty years, was of great utility to the Republic.[488] With his support, the Romans, at the end of the third year of the war, had obtained possession of Agrigentum and the greater part of the towns of the interior; but the fleets of the Carthaginians remained masters of the sea and of the fortresses on the coast.
The Romans were deficient in ships of war.[489] They could, no doubt, procure transport vessels, or, by their allies (socii navales), a few triremes,[490] but they had none of those ships with five ranks of oars, better calculated, by their weight and velocity, to sink the ships of the enemy. An incomparable energy supplied in a short time the insufficiency of the fleet: a hundred and twenty galleys were constructed after the model of a Carthaginian quinquireme which had been cast on the coast of Italy; and soldiers were exercised on land in the handling of the oar.[491] At the end of two months, the crews were embarked, and the Carthaginians were defeated at Mylæ (494), and three years after at Tyndaris (497). These two sea-fights deprived Carthage of the prestige of her maritime superiority.