The Ancients - The First Punic War

Episode Date: September 13, 2026

How did the Romans ambush a massive Carthaginian fleet from behind a Sicilian island to win one of history's fiercest sea battles? For over 20 years, Rome and Carthage fought a brutal war for supremacy over Sicily. Tristan Hughes is joined by Carthage expert Dr. Eve MacDonald to explore the epic First Punic War; a conflict defined by titanic naval clashes, lethal boarding bridges, war elephants...sacred chickens!MORERise of HannibalListen on AppleListen on SpotifyHow To Survive in CarthageListen on AppleListen on SpotifyPresented by Tristan Hughes. Edited by Natasha Hughes. The producers are Joseph Knight & McKenna Fernandez. The senior producer is Anne-Marie Luff.All music courtesy of Epidemic SoundsThe Ancients is a History Hit podcast.History Hit is part of Little Dot Studios, a Certified B Corp™The Ancients is now on YouTube! Watch HEREWant even MORE Ancients? Sign up to History Hit for early access ad-free, plus exclusive subscriber-only episodes, including our recent 'After Ancients' interview with Dr. Eve MacDonald. PLUS with a History Hit subscription you can watch hundreds of hours of original documentaries, with a new release every week. Sign up at https://www.historyhit.com/subscribe. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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Just visit historyhit.com slash subscribe. What a battlefield we are leaving for the Romans and Carthaginians to fight over. That is what a famous ancient Greek warlord supposedly said, as he left the island of Sicily behind him in the early 3rd century BC. His name was Pyrrhus, King Pyrrhus of Epirus, and those words proved prophetic. Within two decades of Pyrrhus sailing away, Sicily would be the central battleground for the first great war between Rome and Carthage. First Punic War.

Lasting more than 20 years, this war would witness brutal city sieges and titanic naval battles as the two major powers of the Western Mediterranean came to blows again and again. War elephants, warship drawbridges, sacred chickens, this story has it all. Welcome to the ancients. I'm Tristan Hughes, your host, and this is the story of the bloody and brutal the First Punic War, the struggle for Sicily, with ancient historian and the ancients fan favorite, Dr. Eve MacDonald. Eve, great to have you back on the show. Thank you, Tristan.

Pleasure to be here. And this time we're talking about the first great war between Roman Carthage, sometimes overshadowed by Hannibal Barker in the second Punic War, but this is the big one that kicks it all off. Absolutely, the first Punic War. or maybe the first Romano-Carthaginian war is how we would prefer to call it if we were Carthaginian. But yes, definitely.

It is such a big battle and is such a long war. And it's a bit epic in every way. And it's interesting that we don't talk about it as much as we do because it does set up everything that follows on as well. And is the central battleground for this war? Is it Sicily? Is this just the big struggle for Sicily? It is. And of course, the big struggle for Sicily means so many things more than just an island.

It means struggle for control over the Central Mediterranean, because if you control Sicily, you control the Central Mediterranean. And I also think it's a three-way struggle to begin with, for the first year anyway, between Rome, Carthage and Syracuse, or Syracuse, depending on your accent. because really it is these three cities, three very important cities in the central Mediterranean that start off being key to the first Punic War. Carthage, Rome, Syracuse. Yes. Okay, interesting. And so let's set the scene first of all with the background.

So we're talking the early third century BC. Carthage, first of all, how powerful is Carthage and how large is Carthage at that time? Carthage is an important city. It is a big city on the north coast of Africa. It's jutting out into the center of the Mediterranean, so it's a city that controls a lot of the seaways back and forth, east and west, and north and south. It's been allied to the west part of Sicily for, since the beginning of its existence, and also to, you have to think geographically the southern bit of Sardinia. So all of these places were Carthaginian allied territories, even the Aeolian islands, which are just north of Sicily itself between Italy mainland and between Sicily, two is part of Carthaginian allied territory. So that's Carthage's sort of central Mediterranean link, and it's so close from Carthage up to the west part of Sicily.

It's very, very, you know, it's not a long sail, but it's all. Also, and on a clear day, you can see, you know, North Africa from Sicily, from higher parts, you know. So it's actually a really easily and important territory for Carthage. But Carthage is also controlling, we think, through allies rather than direct territorial control, quite a bit of space along North Africa as well. So it's a power. It's an important power. It's allies are often Phoenician speaking.

peoples from the Western Mediterranean, but also many Greek-speaking peoples on Sicily are also allied to the Carthaginians. It's not super clear-cut that just because you're Greek-speaking, you're allied to the bigger Greek cities and just because you're Phoenician speaking, you're allied to Carthage. That really simplifies things. Sicily is a big mix of indigenous people called Elimnians, also Sikkels. So Carthage has allies who are both Phoenician-speaking, at cities like Palermo and Trappany and Lilibeam, which is modern Marcella, and also allies who are indigenous Sicilians, really. Cartaginian-aligned cities in Sicily, hopefully we'll have a map-up.

I mean, you mentioned some of them there, like Lily Beham. Pernormous is the ancient name for Palermo, correct? And the other one I think of is Mottia from many centuries before. The Carthaginians have been there for a long time. For a long time. Carthaginians and the Phoenicians, who founded a lot of these sites, have been there for a long time. Motia was a foundation of the Phoenicians, probably in the 8th century BC, that becomes allied to the Carthaginians, but then gets destroyed in the late 4th, early 3rd century in a rather epic siege between a Greek Syracuse and Tyrant and the Carthaginians sort of battling over the control of this island off of the island. and it's classic Phoenician island, port city, just off of a larger island.

So it's in a bay, it's protected. So you can pull your ships into the bay, and it's an amazing place. It was walled, highly developed urban infrastructure, temples, absolutely spectacular city, but it is destroyed in a long siege by the Greek tyrant Dionysius. And the interesting thing is that it's never completely abandoned because there seems to be a sacred temple there to the god Bal. But the Carthaginians move their center of operations to a new city. And that's when Lilibeam, which is modern Mar Sala, is founded. And so they're intricately connected.

So although Motiah is still occupied at some level, main center for that southwestern part of Sicily moves to Lili Bay. And I think the most important point to highlight, isn't it, when setting the scene for the first Punic War, is that Carthage has had a presence in Sicily, particularly in the western part of Sicily, for centuries before we get to the third century BC, fighting against Greeks and the Sicilians, but the Carthaginians have been there. They've been there. And not only have they been there is that from our very, very first treaty that we know of between the Carthaginians and the Romans that dates. Yes, which we'll get to, yeah. Yes, to right to the sixth century, to the very beginning of the Roman Republic, Sicily is mentioned. is Carthaginian allied territory automatically. So, yeah. And interesting.

You said you've never used the word Carthaginian empire. You said anything outside of Carthage, the city proper, whether it's in southern Sardinia or Sicily, Carthaginian allied territory. So should we say Carthage has an empire in the early third century, B.C. Oh, it's a very tricky subject. And I would hate to, you know, sort of leap too far one way or the other. I would say it's fair to say for me that you wouldn't have. actually speak about a Carthaginian empire per se, probably until after the first Punic War.

I really think when we get to the Barcids and we get to Iberia and we get much more direct control that you really can say they have an empire of some sort with Hannibal, with Hannibal's father. It's a little bit tricky to know exactly what's going on in the relationship between the cities in the west of Sicily, Sardinia, other places in Carthage. We know they're allied and we know they're a sort of functional Commonwealth. So, you know, if there's trouble, in Sicily, everybody calls them the Carthaginians, calls them in to defend. And there's key ports that are allied to Carthage, and Carthage collects fees. They obviously are, I mean, I don't want to say they're running a racket. But in a way, there's this idea of how they, their income

functions is around sort of state support for ports. So is that an empire? I always don't know if we can. I mean, I wouldn't even know if we could call the Roman. We wouldn't call the Romans an empire at this point either, would we? So I wouldn't say. No, interesting. And let's move on to the Romans now briefly. So the Romans have been growing over the past century or so by the beginning of the third century to become a very powerful force in central Italy. And now they're looking further north and further south into the territory of the Greek cities, in particular Magna Grykia, so Tarantam. And then, of course, you've got Syracuse on Sicily too. So the Romans are growing.

growing at this point as we get to the third century BC. And so naturally their sphere of influence is creeping ever nearer that of the Carthaginians. It is. And it's really, I always think it's the Samnites. It's the Samnite wars at the end of the fourth and into the beginning of the third century that really solidifies Rome's expansive ideology into the south of Italy. which is what really concerns us here. And it is absolutely the defeat of the Saminites in very hard-fought wars. I mean, to be fair, the Saminite wars were quite intense for the Romans.

And I think that sort of all of a sudden the Greek city stings of Magna Gratia. It's called around the arch of the heel, arch of the foot of Italy, are facing Roman power now instead of the buffer of the Saminites, which they have had for a long time. And so the Romans are expanding. And Rome is a big important city at this period. Rome was a big important city back in the 6th century. I mean, it was a substantial city with big public monuments, big temples. And so Rome is a big powerful place as well.

And then you get emerging onto the scene, this fascinating figure who we can't sadly spend much time on at the moment. This warlord who comes across from Greece, Pyrrhus of Epirus to go and help the Greek cities, and maybe the Samnites and Lucanians and the like against the Romans, and you get the Pyrrhic War where he fights against the Romans with his elephants and then he also fights against the Carthaginians as well it's a fascinating story

where he is almost this last chance saloon buffer against the expanding Romans but then also has a go against the Carthaginians as well in Sicily. This is an interesting chapter and this is important highlight because this is the last kind of great event where the Romans and Carthaginians are fighting against someone else. Exactly. So the Romans and the Carthaginians have been

allied since the sixth century BC. They are allied for so long before they actually become these great enemies. Yes, and it is Pyrus of Epirus, who really is the trigger and to launch hostilities. But it's Pyrrhus' invasion of Italy at the Tarantines, the city of Tarantantham, calls Pyrrhus in and asks for help against Rome. And of course, before that, the Epirats had come into Italy to help one Greek city-state, fight against another Greek city-state, and that sort of thing. But this is this big sort of invasion of Pyrrhus, and the Romans fight these big battles, and they, you know, Pyrrhic victories, of course, happened. So Pyrrhus wins, but he doesn't really win because he's lost so many soldiers. And the Romans come back. They always come back, yeah. Exactly. And for the Romans and for the

Carthaginians, and perhaps for Pyrus himself, this is a really pivotal moment in the way in which Roman power is defined. And there's certainly all this echoes of Pyrrhus' lessons of fighting the Romans that the Carthaginians take on later when they fight successfully against the Romans. So it's quite an important moment in terms of the construction of the two powers as enemies, the Romans and the Carthaginians. But when Pyrrhus defeats the Romans in Italy, the Syracusans, who are, again, as I always say, it's more of a threesome really in this war. They're always the Syracusans. And they call the, they're like, hey, Pyrrhus is in town. He's in the neighborhood. Let's call him in and see if we can get him to help us against our old enemy, the Carthaginians. And it's really this, Pyrrhus coming to Sicily and Pyrrhus fighting the Carthaginians. And the Carthaginians not showing up at all, doing abysmally against Pyrrists. So they're literally beaten all the way back to Lily Baim, their base on the southwest coast of Sicily. And he leaves. So Paris just leaves.

He's beaten the Romans, but the Romans have come back really strong. He's beaten the Carthaginians, and then he leaves Sicily. And the Carthaginians sort of bounce back from their defeat, and they really, you know, push themselves out across Sicily. And we have the Romans right at the tip of Italy and the Carthaginians just at the northeast corner of Sicily and they really are facing each other across the Straits of Messina as we call them or the Straits of Massana. And this is why it's so important to cover Pyrrhus quickly because, yeah, he's that last kind of, that last dividing line between the Romans and the Carthaginians. And there's that famous, quote, supposedly that he says when he leaves Sicily.

And of course it said in hindsight knowing what happened. but he says, I mean, oh, what a battlefield we are leaving, remarking on Sicily itself, for the Carthaginians and the Romans to fight over. But you're quite right. By 270 BC, Pyrrhus goes back to Greece. The Romans come in, they take control of the Greek cities in southern Italy, Taranto, all the way down to Reggio, ancient Regium. And as you say, so they're at the Strait of Messina.

They're on the right-hand side. And then Messina on the left-hand side. So you've got two Greek cities, Messina and Regio, regium with the Carthaginians on one side and the Romans on the other. And this is a pivotal moment in what will happen next. I mean, no longer are they separate from each other. They are right on each other's doorstep. Their spheres of influence. Absolutely. And they're facing each other. And rumor has this. Our sources, of course, are a little bit confused or, you know, fragmentary for this period. But there is, in Polybius,

a mention of a treaty of Rome and Carthage, actually allying over fighting Pyrrhus. And, you know, they, it's sort of the last time they sign a treaty in friendship against Pyrrhus. And that's, I think, important too, because it's this framework changes completely because all of a sudden there is no buffer. There's nobody in between them. But Messina or Masana, as it is, is the key point for the trigger. because the people who are occupying that city itself, who are called the Mamertines, and who are a group of mercenary soldiers who have occupied Messina,

and they've taken the city. And the king of Syracuse, who is a king called Hira II, he's been trying to dislodge these rather disruptive mercenary soldiers who are really wreaking havoc in the countryside. So Carthage doesn't own the city at that time. This is almost like an independent city-holing. by these rogue mercenaries. Interesting. But Carthage does control those islands just north.

Lipari. Yeah, the Lippuri or Aeolian islands today. And they have a base there. So they are very much connected to this northeastern part of Sicily. But they don't actually control Messina at the time. But what happens is the Mamertines are defeated by Hero of Syracuse. and they're like, oh, we don't really want to give up our city. And half of the Mamertines, who are a Campanian group of mercenaries, so they're from mainland Italy.

It's a Naples area. Naples, exactly. And they are called the Mamertimes because they worship the god Mamars. And Mamers is the Oscan word, which is the language of the people of the Campania in central Italy, is their word for Mars, the god of war, the indigenous god of war. And so they're named after the god of war. They're mercenary soldiers. They're living large in a sort of very fruitful environment that has existed in Sicily for mercenary soldiers. And they're not really willing to give up their city.

And so some of the Mamertines appeal to Carthage to help them. And another group appealed to the Romans to help them against Syracuse. So these two separate, you know, groups within this conglomeration of, mercenaries, appeal to the Romans and to the Carthaginians separately. So the Carthaginians come and help their group from their base at Lippery. They're really close by. And they help take the city or secure the city of Messina for their supporters, but also for themselves. And then the Romans show up as well to take Messina. And then that's really what we have is the beginning of conflict. And how does that snowball into something bigger where the Romans and Carthaginians

decide to actively fight each other. So I think it's really interesting because what happens initially is that Syracuse and Carthage ally. Hiero the 2nd and the Carthaginian generals in Sicily decide to ally against a Roman invasion. And the Romans invade big time. They turn up with big soldiers.

They're not just like, oh, we're going to just come over and help them at our times. They have both consular armies with them. They literally show up with an invasion force. So it seems to me that the story that we get in the Roman sources like, oh, the accidental empire that they've created is a little bit tricky because they do show up in force to take the city of Messina, but also to be involved in Sicilian affairs. And Polybius actually tells us at the very beginning of his history that he's going to take from his starting point the moment that the Romans cross for the first time into Sicily. So the Roman historians see this moment of Rome's crossing the sea into Sicily as the beginning of their imperial. It's a big moment.

It's a big moment. As you say, the first time they cross into Sicily with military force is a full-scale invasion, tens of thousands of troops, as recorded by our main source, this fascinating Greek historian, Polybius. So, yeah, big moment. Big moment. Huge moment. And I love the reaction of the Syracusans. because Hiero is like first allied with Carthage. They've been fighting each other off and on,

allied know each other really well. And then he looks fairly skeptically at their own the Carthaginian ability and the Syracuse an ability to deal with this massive Roman army. And he turns around in allies with the Romans. He makes a deal. Well, do you've seen how Pyrrhus easily beat those Carthaginians a decade or so earlier?

Okay, interesting. Exactly. So he makes a deal with the Romans after an initial. she'll skirmishes. And he makes peace with the Romans. And from that moment on, you have the Romans and the Syracuse. And so two significant powers allied in Sicily against the Carthaginians. To me, it's a miracle that the Carthaginians were managed to hold on to anything in Sicily for as long as they did. We sometimes forget to think about this because they don't have a strong standing army in Sicily. That's not the way they're operating. They have some soldiers. They have allies.

soldiers, they have Carthaginian soldiers, but they don't have this kind of massive force. And now of a sudden we have Rome allied with Syracuse. We have Rome then with the Syracuse an army at their disposal. And also Rome has all of Syracuse's knowledge of how to fight Carthage at their disposal too. No, that's so interesting and so important to highlight because I think I'm guilty of saying it myself, even in the intro, how it can be pitched as, you know, this great war between the two major powers of the Western Mediterranean. You've got the Carthage power and you've got Rome. And you've made two clear points there.

First of all, they're three major powers. And how major a power you can actually say Carthage is at that time with its military strength, that's very much up for debate. Absolutely. I mean, the Carthaginians are an important wealthy place. In the Central Mediterranean, we know they are. But we see them perhaps as these great equals to Rome, which they do become. They do rise to that occasion.

and there's no question, the first Punic War, sorry, helps create them as this force that can fight the Romans. But they probably aren't that force when this war starts. And I think that's super interesting too, because we always want to think about the adaptability of the Romans because the Roman sources tell us this story. But perhaps we also need to think a little bit about that resilience and adaptability of the Carthaginians

to really understand how this could have been such a big epic war for 20 odd years and been fought in the way it was fought. Because both sides, you know, the equality was definitely there. We said 20 years, so we've got a bit to get through. So let's keep going. No, but it's very important to highlight all of this, first of all. But, I mean, for the Romans, you know, getting control of Messina with the Mametines and then Hero the second and the Syracuse is allying with the Romans.

All of a sudden, the Romans have got friendly territory along that eastern side of Sicily. I'm guessing, probably also because of all the successes they've gained over recent decades in their expansion, they're thirsty for more. Can they sense blood? Can they sense that Sicily is theirs for the taking? I think they do. They must. And I think it's interesting because what happens is the war is as a long war, as we've said, but it's sort of fought in phases. And it's fought around Sicily going clockwise. So if you start from Messina and then you go down towards Syracuse and then you come along the south shore and then you go across and up to the last battle on the northwest. And if we think about it that way they have, they've crossed over, they've got the west, they've got all these allied resources now.

And they basically want blood, but they also want wealth. And Cicely is home to a lot of very prosperous, very sophisticated city. and that's really where we see the beginnings of some of the key battles. We have a couple of key land battles that focus on prosperous cities and then we have the beginnings of big naval battles as well. So the Romans, they started well and now they march west towards another of those prosperous cities on the mainland of Sicily. And this is a place that people might know the name of today

because it has this valley of beautiful ancient Greek temples. Agrigento or Agrigento? Agriento today. Agrigento in the Latin, Acragas. Acragas, isn't it? In the Greek. The crab symbol, isn't it? Yes, yes.

One of the valley of the temples there is so incredibly well preserved, isn't it? So people, yeah, may have seen that or gone. And it is one of the big moments early in the war. For two reasons, I think, that it's depicted as such by our key sources. one is that it's a big city, big walled city. An old historic rival of Syracuse as well. An old historic rival of Syracuse, but also occupied at this point by the Carthaginians. So the Carthaginians have a Gretento at this point, and the Romans laid siege.

Romans and Syracusans lay siege to it. And the Carthaginians really hire a whole new army in order to deal with this situation and they land. And they encircle the besieging army. of the Romans. And so we have early in the war this sort of story of a really incredible siege of this very famous beautiful city decorated with monumental temples. And it's a long and complicated story in which it gets very much into the gory details of the starving people inside and the attempts by Carthaginian generals to break the siege of the Romans and the eventual sort of Roman garrison, the Carthaginian garrison inside of

Agrigento busting out to try and beat the Romans, losing, and then the city is left open to the Romans. And the Romans were told, although of course this must be an exaggeration, enslave the whole population, 50,000 people and sack the city. And it's this idea in the Roman sources of the wealth of Agriento being paraded through Rome a triumph that becomes the moment when the Roman people support this effort and war in Sicily. So I think that's important to talk about is that up until then they were maybe, we get the impression the Roman people were a little skeptical about the Roman endeavors in Sicily, but all of a

sudden they see all this wealth flooding back into the city and of course all these enslaved people and all of this happens. And so yeah, it's sort of the first big urban city to fall. Not good for the Carthaginians at the moment, but Carthage is, well, Phoenician heritage, a maritime power. So does it look to the sea to fight back? Well, it does. So the first key battle on the sea, now Carthage would really prefer, we think, to fight naval battles. And they're incredibly adaptable maritime power. So they fight using really skilled sailors and they build ships really quickly and well.

And in fact, we're told that the Romans adapt their navy when they build it in this period to Carthaginian standards. Because the Carthaginians are building the sort of best standard warships at the time. But interestingly, at this first battle in Maile, which is the Melazzo Peninsula, now that sticks up. in the north of the island of Sicily, off the Malazzo Peninsula, Malay. The first battle is fought between the Carthaginians and the Roman navies. And it's this new adaptation of the Romans, which is called the Corvus, that our historians focus on. And the corvus means crow. And it's like a boarding bridge. So the Romans have taken Carthaginian standardized ships, we think,

and added these bridges in which they can grapple onto the enemy ships and then they can have their Marines cross over and fight more in a kind of land battle style. Yes, turning a sea bass into a land battle with this grapple thing, yes. This is all part of the narrative of the First Punic War that the historians focus on. There are some pretty difficult questions to be answered about this. But nonetheless, the Corvus is always focused on as one of the key moments. where the Carthaginians don't seem to know what to do, and they don't really adapt very well, and they lose the battle of Maillai quite significantly.

A number of ships are lost, and these ships are filled with soldiers, and they're up until, you know, the first Punic War, ramming was the way in which naval battles were won or lost. So the Carthaginians were excellent at them. They were super skilled with their rowers, and they could maneuver their boats really well. And so they would often have the advantage in a naval battle because of this. But this Corvus then allowed the Romans to kind of take the advantage away from the Carthaginians. So they seem surprised by the Roman adaptation and they lose that battle. So it's really not looking good for Carthage.

They've been beaten on land and at sea with this new innovation of the Roman fleet. And I think that that first battles, that over 100 ships on either side as well. These are not small naval battles that are happening. The Romans are at sea from the beginning with their innovative fleet. And are the Romans just emboldened further? This is looking good for us. Well, they are exactly. And the loss of Agrigento on the South Coast gives them access to a port on the South Coast.

And from there, the Romans decide that, well, what we should really do now is head to Africa. We're going even further already. It's like, why stop here? We got Africa next stop. And we go back to this idea that the Romans have the Syracusans on side. Because at the end of the 4th century, there had been a Syracusan invasion of Africa under their tyrant Agathocles. And the Romans really followed this exact playbook. So they must have got this idea, either from studying what Agathocles did or from people in Syracuse who knew exactly what needed to have.

happen. And Pyrrhus likely also had a similar idea, a similar plan as well. So they're all following that same Syracuse and playbook. How do you defeat Carthage? You go to Africa, you take their allies away from them and Carthage itself as the city becomes much more vulnerable. And it stops the Carthaginians from being able to reinforce their troops in Sicily. So that's what the Romans intend to do. And they gather a massive force. So they hundreds supposedly of ship. hundreds, 350 is the number, I think, on both sides, which again, is just hard to have believed. Now, of course, we have to remember this is taking place over 10, 15 years. It's not all happening in the same year.

All these battles, and then the recovery from them, the rebuilding of fleets that has to happen for the destroyed ships. All this stuff is taking quite a few years. But we are in around the two 50s, early 250s, when this battle is taking place off of the south coast of Sicily near a place called Eknomus, Cape Economus. And we have the two sides gathering together there, the Romans to invade Africa and the Carthaginians to try and stop them. So the Carthaginians, they know that they're preparing for this invasion. They're like, we have to stop this from happening. The Carthaginians are as aware as everyone else's,

by this point of how vulnerable they are in Africa. And this is a theme all the way through these histories, is the Carthaginians want to stop invasions of Africa. They know. that it's very difficult for them to defend the countryside there. And so the Romans gather near Agrigento, and the Carthaginian fleet comes over lands at Lillibayam and then makes its way around the south coast from the west. So we have the Romans coming from the east and the Carthaginians coming from the west along the south coast of Sicily.

What happens? They meet in this epic battle. I mean, supposedly, now, It's only if we really truly believe the numbers. And of course, we know that's always a little bit tricky to do. But they supposedly, this is the largest sea battle ever fought in terms of marine sailors, ships, and everything else. Bigger than anything else that has ever happened since. I don't know if that's actually true or not.

But even if we reduce down the numbers to something practical, we're still talking about 100,000 or something of. soldiers and sailors and marines and everything else. But the Romans are loaded up for an invasion. So they have ships with horses on them. They have troops and supplies. So they don't just have naval vessels for fighting military and naval battles, but they have supply ships. So it's huge.

It's a massive battle. And it's close fought. It's very close. The story is quite interesting because it's quite intricate in Polybius. So perhaps somebody was watching from the coast. Which would be amazing if they were, yeah. Yeah, it's like almost an eyewitness because the description is of different groups sort of breaking off and battling in different places.

Eventually, though, supposedly the Corvus wins and the Carthaginians are defeated and the Romans regroup and sail across Africa. And once again, the innovation of the Corvus is credited as being a big part of why they win. The Romans able to board the Carthaginian ships and, and then fight on the ships like that seems to have, you know, made it almost impossible for the Carthaginians to maneuver properly, which makes sense. If you've, you know, grasped on and grappled onto an opposing ship, you can hold it in place. So they win that major, major battle. And so the route is clear for the Roman invasion force to go ahead and land in Africa. Yeah, and the

Carthaginians lose hundreds of ships, so tens of thousands of soldiers. And the Romans cross over into Africa and they land up on the area that we call Capon today, the beautiful Cape or the good cape, and that's sort of across the Bay of Tunis on the east side of the mainland of what is Tunisia today is where they seem to have landed, and that's also where the previous invasion had landed as well. This is a really prosperous agricultural area, not too far from Carthage, but outside of the, you know, the sort of local area of Carthes. So it's an area that's got a small town and rich agricultural villas and things like that. Many Carthaginians surely must have thought by that time that the writing was on the wall for them.

Absolutely. I mean the Romans were they landed. They are pretty much unstoppable. They take the cities that are on the coast, they looped the countryside, they march towards Carthage. they are, you know, the Carthaginians send out another army to meet them and they get defeated there. You know, it's looking really bad for the Carthaginians. It's always incredible to think about how it's possible to raise and continue to raise all the soldiers that we have. I want to big up the emphasis of that because it feels like the Romans are literally knocking on the door of Carthage, on the walls, on the gates of Carthage.

But of course the famous fall of Carthage happens more than a century later. So what happens? Well, the Carthaginians just keep coming back as well. Interesting. This time, they've been, they're very desperate. Things are really desperate. They always talk about, Diodorus Siculus tells us about the fact that the Carthaginians draped their walls of their city in black when they've lost a sea battle. So after Echnomis, of course, the city of Carthage would have been draped in black.

And, I mean, all the families who were involved in sea battles would have been affected. And they've done a terrible job defending the countryside. We have evidence that this city on the northwest coast of Tunisia called Kerouan. That gets destroyed in this period. So it's a really destructive invasion. But they regroup and they send an expedition off to the eastern Mediterranean to recruit a new army. From where? Phoenicia?

from all over, Greece, Phoenicia, they recruit soldiers, we think, from the Iberians, the Ligurians, lots of Greeks in all of Asia Minor. Ships going everywhere. Yeah, all over the place. And of course, they have allies who are fighting for them in Africa, the Numidians. But the Numidians, you know, they live in this landscape that's being pillaged and destroyed by the Romans. So there's another discussion that they have to have about what makes sense for them in terms of saving themselves. And so the, yeah, the Carthaginians not only recruit new soldiers, but they recruit a new commander. And this is a Spartan whose name is Xanthippus.

And he sort of steps back and reorganizes the Carthaginian military and restructures the way they're using their elephants, which we have only just briefly touched on. It is, of course, Pyrrhus, who is the first time that the Carthaginians start to use elephants as after the Pyrrhic wars. So that's interesting. Yes, the Carthaginians had not used elephants before, but they see Pyrrhus bringing these big Indian beasts across. Carthaginians realizing that they have a smaller African cousin available to them.

Exactly. And so by the time we get to Xanthippus and the Roman invasion, we have elephants being used by the Carthaginians as well. And so this becomes the way in which the Carthaginians fight back. And it goes in what the Spartans have been doing for more than a century by this time. They don't send an army. They send one man. I think they did it with the Syracusans, the Athenian expedition to Sicily.

And now they've done it with Xanthippus coming to help the Carthaginians and enacting these reforms. And does it work? Well, it does. I mean, he's successful. And he destroys the Romans. And the Roman consul, Regulus, is captured by the Carthaginian army. This new Carthaginian army that Zensipath is restructured is so interesting. The Spartan stuff, I think, is fascinating.

Again, and other people who somehow are always playing somehow just second fiddle to all these narratives. Yet they do keep turning up all the time. And there's such an interesting study about that. And we know that the Carthaginians are schooled in Greek tactics by Greek. Greek tacticians. And so, yeah, Santhippus is this example of saving Carthage by the, you know, restructuring really and reusing their forces. And for the first time in this war, Roma suffered a devastating defeat. Tens of thousands of soldiers lost. The expedition is lost. The expedition is lost completely. And the consul's been captured. And so it's a catastrophic

defeat and lives long in Roman memory. This is a humiliation that the Romans have rarely suffered and it becomes this incredible moment where the way in which the story and the relationship between Carthage and Rome is really defined in later years by Regulus, this figure of Regulus and what happens and this defeat. And all sorts of bad things happen to the Romans because those who survive, the remaining force, a fleet is sent to pick them up off of the coast of Africa and that fleet is destroyed in a storm on the way back to Sicily.

So the Romans lose massive amounts of soldiers at sea. Their invasion force is destroyed and the consul is captured. Right. So expedition to our... Africa, a disaster, nearly a great success, but ends in total disaster for the Romans. Total disaster, a great success if you're Roman, an incredible relief if you're a Carthaginian. They have managed to hold the line by, you know, extending themselves enormously. And both sides are totally overextended economically. They must be exhausted.

This war has been going on for over a decade by now. At least, well, over a decade. And they also, you know, we start to see in Carthage that the coinage is devalued, the silver content is devalued. We see real economic impact of the war in the city of Carthage. And the Romans for the first time are starting to feel that. Interesting. So do they now sue for peace? The Carthaginians.

Oh, okay. Send the consul, regular. The captured consul. Yes. To negotiate peace with the Romans. And it's just such a great moment of Roman rhetorical, their own, you know, self-reverence in a way and successionalism, is that the Romans and Regulus himself goes into the Roman Senate and it's like, don't surrender. These Carthaginians are ripe for the taking. We can't surrender.

And of course, Regulus is an honorable man. And the agreement has been that if there's going to be no peace, then he has to return to his capital. And he goes back and he ends up dying in horrific ways, we think. But these, we don't know if this is true or not. But yes, put into like a box with iron steak sticking into him and left to die. Or, I mean, there's a whole variety of different ways in which Regulus dies. And it's really interesting because our credible sources don't really mention this. So it's difficult to know how much of it is hyperbole. But we do know that he dies in captivity. He dies in captivity. in Carthage. And the peace is rejected and the Romans fight on. So this is the next phase, kind of, you know, so you've had the initial Roman success, alliance with Syracuse,

Agrigentum, Miley, Echnomous, Basel victories. Then you've had the disastrous invasion. So it's almost like one-all, I would say, maybe I'm being a bit, and probably being a bit gracious to the Carthage Indians there. Possibly, yes. Possibly, yeah. But now we're going to the, is it,

250 or the 240s now, BC. And this is the next phase of the war. So what's the big event that happens next? So there's a couple of things that have, oh, there's, there's, there's a number of things that happen between the 250s and then 241. So the last nine years, the last bit of the war, it's focused on the west and northwest of Sicily. It becomes, uh, the city of Panormus falls to the Romans.

Palermo today. Yes. Which is this huge natural harbor. Big harbor. Yes. big harbor and it falls to the Romans. And in 247 BC, the Carthaginians select a new commander to take the land battle off of, to fight the land battle in Sicily. And that is Hamilcar Barca. And Hamilcar Barca is the father of Hannibal Barca. So he enters the story at this point. And

it's actually interesting, it's the same year that Hannibal's born. Well, actually, before that, because I cannot have us not cover this story. You know I'm going to ask. What is the story of the sacred chickens of 249 BC? That's true. We hadn't talked about the chickens. The Romans lose another sea battle off of the city of Trapani today, or Drapanum, as it's called. And that's on the northwest coast.

They've lost Panormus. The Carthaginians have lost Panormus. the Romans have taken it. And again, the Carthaginians are not succeeding very well at land or at sea. So the Roman land forces have taken a lot of the territory in the north. And the sea forces muster again to raise another fleet, both sides, to fight this battle. The Roman consul who's leading the fleet is Tiberius Claudius Polkher. And he's a famous Roman consul from an old Roman family. And the way that this story is told it really focuses on this character. It focuses on his arrogance.

It focuses on his sort of disdain for the traditions of Roman warfare. And we can always tell when our Roman sources are doing that, something bad has happened. The Carthaginians have raised another fleet. And this fight is going on. If they lose Drapanum, Drapanum is in another important port. It would just be really the end of the story. And in 249, this big Roman fleet is brought to fight the Carthaginians off of the West Coast. It supposedly includes slaves being recruited into the Navy because there are so few recruits available to the Romans even.

So Romans having manpower. problems. Rome is having financial problems. Carthage is having financial problems. So this seems to be, and it's built up to be this last gasp. The consul Tiberius, Claudius, is trying to do all the correct rituals before the sea battle is fought. And he's on his ship, the fleet commanding ship, probably a seven, so a big ship with seven banks of oars. And he has chickens, and these chickens are supposed to give him the auspices. So the chickens eating in a certain way will tell the consul or the people who are reading the auspices, the omens, whether or not the battle should be fought that day. The chickens have to eat. The chickens have to eat the grain that they're given, or you can't

fight the battle. It would be bad luck, and that's the story. And supposedly, as the story goes, Tiberius Claudius, the chickens won't eat, the chickens won't eat, and he's absolutely fed up, So he picks up the chickens, he said, well, if they won't eat, maybe they'll drink, and he throws them into the sea. And this is viewed by the Romans as the most atrocious thing could happen. And of course, what happens afterwards is the defeated the Roman fleet off of Drapani. And Rome scoots back to Rome, and they don't turn up again with another fleet for eight years. So they learn their lesson. It's a disaster for the Romans.

And it's an amazing story. It's a great story because of the chickens. It's a great story because of consular arrogance. against. It's an amazing story because it turns up in various sources much, much later, like Suetonius is the one who talks about, you know, the recruitment issues that he faces Tiberius Claudius. So it's really fascinating tale about the Romans and their superstitious beliefs and why they lose battles. And it is all about the gods. And we forget that sometimes. We're about the gods, all about the chickens in that case. But we had to cover the story of

Japan. Yeah, the chickens is too bit of a story. But continuing on, as you say, so Palermo has fallen, Phnomus has fallen. On land, the Romans are doing well. The Romans are doing land. On sea, yes, okay, the defeated Drapana has stopped the Romans for a bit of time. We'll come back to the naval sphere in due time, though. Of course we will. But you mentioned before we did that chickens detour,

that the Carthaginians 248, 247, that's a, they bring in a new general with a new strategy. And he is the father of Hannibal Barker. This is the legendary figure of Hamel Cubber. Yes, exactly. And I think it's important, too, of course, Drapanum is a key part in this moment because the loss of the Roman Navy at Drapanum means that the Carthaginians have free reign of the sea on the west coast. And this is really important because they have been having to negotiate the Roman fleets up until this moment. But Drapanum is a crisis for the Romans and they really disappear from the sea for quite a long time. So the Rho, the Carthaginians feel that they've got a bit of free reign here, that they can, start to build up forces on land again and perhaps try and take on the Romans. And they send Hamel Carbarka, the legendary leader, Hannibal's father, this great general, perhaps somebody who has come into Carthaginian society more recently. Some people think that he is a soldier who's

migrated into Carthaginian society in the 4th century BC from recent studies. And he leads a group of soldiers who are called in Polybius Mix Helenes. So they're a group of soldiers who come from North Africa, who are Greek and Phoenician, we think origin, Greek, Libyan, Phoenician, origin soldiers. And Hamilcar brings this group, and they start to fight a guerrilla war against the Romans. And they occupy

the heights above Drapanum, but also Palermo as well, or Panormus. And they start to fight guerrilla war against the Romans to quite a great success, actually. And so he's very successful. It's the first time really the land armies of the Carthaginians have done well against the Romans, and he builds up quite a relationship with them,

with this sort of victory. But he also takes the heights of Erics, as it's called. And again, we always forget about how important religion is in war in this part and time, this time in the world. And the chicken story tells us one thing, but also Erex is this incredibly important temple complex and mountain that's above the city of Drapanum on the northwest coast of Sicily. And it was the home of a sanctuary to the goddess Aphrodite. And that goddess was worshipped by the Carthaginians and the Phoenicians as a Starte. And this is a sacred mountain.

And Hamilcar takes the temple complex. And it's this idea of, again, calling the God to your side, goddess, taking the power of the deity, that really is important to in the way in which these battles are remembered. And so there's pretty fierce fighting over Erex between the Hamilcar and also the Roman forces which hold on to part of the mountain. And so they are battling over this sacred ground in this period. And this continues on then for the next few years, really. Hamilcar is very well supplied because the Carthaginian fleets can come and supply him

but it's a bit of a stalemate. So the Carthaginians can keep fighting because they have control of the sea and Hamilcar's holding ground on land. So surely the Romans must realize, right, if we're going to cut off the Carthaginians once and for all, we need to regain supremacy on the sea, in the sea.

Absolutely. Carthage can't hold Cisley if they are defeated in a naval battle. I mean, that's been proven over and over again this war. Carthage is struggling. They, you know, they've sued for peace a number of times after Dupanum, after the invasion. Every time they've won any set of victory, they offer peace. And of course, we'll see, we've seen this as the way they, the modus operandi.

The Romans refuse any kind of peace in which they aren't the victors. And so in 241, the Romans have managed to gather together another. massive navy and they are ready to launch again in try to defeat the Carthaginians. I think it's really interesting if we think about 249 to 241, eight years, that amount of time it's taken them to regroup, the amount of time that we're talking about to raise the kind of forces in which they're raising to build the ships to, we often don't think about time in the same way. So they've taken all this time to regroup and rearm and. to rebuild another fleet.

And the Carthaginians have their fleet as well ready and prepared. They probably know that the battle is coming, as you say, if it's been many, many years to prepare. Well, it's interesting. It seems that they're a little surprised by the Romans. Wow. There's been raiding going on, of course, on the coast of Italy as well, by Carthaginian individual ships, raiding coastal areas.

It's not just been in Sicily. And we don't really know exactly how much the Carthaginians are aware of Roman plans, but there's no question that when the final battle takes place, which is called the Battle of the Agati Islands, which happens in 21, the Carthaginian fleet is surprised by a Roman fleet, which hides itself behind one of the Agatte Islands and comes out and attacks the Carthaginian fleet, which is loaded down with supplies for resupply for Hamilcar. And these are hundreds of ships.

So the Romans have hidden hundreds of, like over a hundred ships, right? Yeah. And then they all, I'm just trying to reimagine the scene quite a, quite a moment when you just see the prowls of those ships emerge from behind the island and surprise the Carthaginian fleet. And the havoc and destruction that quickly follows, right?

It's absolutely amazing. And what would have always surprises me is if you go up to Erics, go up to RERC today, on a clear day, you can see all of this very, very clearly. You can see the Agatty Islands. You could have seen the battles, certainly, happening. You could go there and actually say the ships came from over there, and the ships there and the ambush there. And actually, you'd be where Hamilcar was.

So he was just watching from the land as he saw this disaster unfold. I think so. I think so he would have seen the ships coming out from behind Maritima, one of the islands, and attacking at Le Vanzo, the Carthaginian fleet. And the Carthaginian fleet is ambushed attacked, And it's pretty disastrous as far as we know, according to the sources. They lose number of ships and they can't continue. They give up after this battle in 241.

They sue for peace. They say, okay, that's it. We can't fight anymore. And I guess we have to mention the other thing with this battle. We know exactly where it happened because this is one of those rare, amazing cases where the archaeology of the battle site has survived beneath the waves. It's so cool. that we have found this battle site is absolutely amazing and it's so interesting because it it answers questions and it brings up lots of questions but underwater archaeologists searching the seabed floor off of the island of levanso which is one of the agate islands the northernmost found these big bronze rams and this has been over the past 20 years these excavations have unfolded and they've found all these these rams that have

were attached to ships that were sunk in this battle. And we know this because some of them are stamped with the Roman consul's names. And other ones have Punic inscriptions and sculptures on them. And we have helmets, these Monte Fortino type helmets that. The bowl ones, yep, for the Romans, yep. Well, both sides would have been using. Both sides, if you think about it, because Monte Fortino is a Celtic kind of helmet. And the Carthaginians used Celtic soldiers too.

So it's interesting. We don't know which side they belong to, but they both would have used them. And we have the helmets and we have the Rams and we have the ceramic vessels, the amphrey that we're on some of the ships. And so it's absolutely astounding that we can see scattered across the seabed the detritus of this incredible battle in which many soldiers' lives were lost and Marines and ships were sunk. And it was, again, close fought. You know, could have gone. either way, but the Carthaginians lose this battle. The more of their ships are sunk, according to our sources, and they sue for peace. What a story. And the archaeology part of that is just fantastic. But the Romans win, the Carthaginians lose, and for the Carthaginians, they now know the game is up. So what happens next? The Roman consul, whose name is Lutatius, is the one who creates the peace. Hamilcar is left on the Heights of Erics at this point and he is not, he negotiates the piece and then he goes back to Carthage, we think.

And the city of Lilibeam, which is the big Carthaginian city that is left, is handed over to the Romans, as are the rest of the territories. And so there's a general, a Carthaginian general in Lillibayam, whose name is Mago, and he is left to sort of deal with the intricacies of demobilization because they have a land army and they have ships still and soldiers and population and all that. And so the Romans, it's sort of, we have an insight into this kind of formal process. A treaty is designed. It's called the Treaty of Lutatius. It's 20 years. It sets out that the Carthaginians will. They'll pay a war indemnity every year for 20 years to the Romans and that Carthage will lose Sicily and all its possessions on Sicily and that it retains its territory in Africa and it also retains the territories in Sardinia at this point. At this point. It's really interesting yet because for centuries, Carthage has had a presence on Sicily. But now with that treaty, with a defeat against Rome in the first Punic War,

Carthaginian control over Sicily has ceased completely. It's a big moment. Yeah, hundreds of years. And we can't cover it now, but of course, you did hint at there briefly. Sardinia remains in control of the Carthaginians, but not for long because the Carthaginians, they have problems straight away with the mercenaries. There's the Mercenary War, which is another episode in its own right, and then the Romans take advantage of a delay in one of the payments to kind of trick the Roman.

into giving them control of Sardinia, which I think even the Roman writers think was a bit of a dick move there, I think. Absolutely. It's so true. Exactly what it is. Even the Romans criticize the Romans on this one. You just know where the Romans are really badly behaved when that happens. But yes, it leads into chaos for Carthage. It's chaos within their home territories within Africa.

It's not just a mercenary war, but it's a rebellion of its allied territories in Africa. But really the loss of Sicily is devastating for Carthage as its idea and conceptualization of itself, as can in control of that central Mediterranean zone. But you still have the likes of Hamelcar there. You've got the young Hannibal Barker as well soon to rise. Carthage has suffered a very, very bloody nose, but it will rise again. It will indeed. I think that's the story for another day.

But Eve, this has been absolutely fantastic. This is only part of Carthage's amazing story. which you cover the whole tale of Carthage in your most recent book. It is cool. Indeed. The Carthage, a new history of an ancient empire. And that came out last year. And it's in paperback now. And yeah, the whole history of Carthage, not just the Punic War. So other things too. But yeah. More Punic Wars to come. It just goes to me to say, as always, thank you so much for taking the time to come on the show.

Thank you, Tristan. A pleasure. Thanks so much for joining us on The Ancients Today. I hope you enjoyed the episode. And if you are loving the ancients, then why not become a history hit subscriber? As a subscriber, you will have access to hundreds of hours of original documentaries with a new release every week, plus early access and ad-free podcasts. You can sign up at historyhit.com slash subscribe. See you in the next episode.