The two nations had once been friends when one of them was strong enough to dominate the other. In 508 they had made a treaty that recognized the hegemony of Rome over the coast of Latium, but pledged the Romans not to sail the Mediterranean west of Carthage, nor to land in Sardinia or Libya except for the brief repair or provisioning of ships.12 It became a common practice among the Carthaginians, says a Greek geographer, to drown any foreign sailor found between Sardinia and Gibraltar.13 The Greeks of Massalia (Marseilles) had developed a peaceful coastal commerce between southern Gaul and northeastern Spain; Carthage, we are told, warred on this trade piratically, and Massalia was a faithful ally of Rome. (We do not know how much of this is war propaganda dignified as history.) Now that Rome controlled Italy she could not feel secure so long as two hostile powers—Greeks and Carthaginians—held Sicily, hardly a mile from the Italian coast. Besides, Sicily was fertile; it might supply half of Italy with grain. Sicily taken, Sardinia and Corsica would of themselves fall into Roman hands. Here was manifest destiny, the natural next step in the expansion of Rome.
How to find a casus belli? About 264 B.C. a band of Samnite mercenaries who called themselves Mamertines—i.e., “Men of Mars”—seized the town of Messana, on the Sicilian coast nearest to Italy. They slew or expelled the Greek citizens, divided among themselves the women, children, and goods of the victims, and made a living by raiding the Greek cities near by. Hiero II, Dictator of Syracuse, besieged them; a Carthaginian force landed at Messana, drove Hiero back, and took possession of the city. The Mamertines appealed to Rome for help in expelling their saviors. The Senate hesitated, knowing the power and wealth of Carthage; but the rich plebeians who dominated the Centurial Assembly clamored for war and Sicily. Rome decided that at whatever cost she must keep the Carthaginians from so near and strategic a port. A fleet was fitted out and dispatched under Caius Claudius to rescue the Mamertines. But these had meanwhile been persuaded by the Carthaginians to withdraw their request for Roman aid, and a message from them to this effect reached Claudius at Rhegium. Ignoring it, he crossed the strait, invited the Carthaginian commander to a conference, imprisoned him, and sent word to the Carthaginian army that he would be killed if they resisted. The mercenaries welcomed so gallant an excuse for avoiding the legions, and Messana fell to Rome.
Two heroes were thrown up by this First Punic War: on the Roman side, Regulus; on the Carthaginian, Hamilcar. Perhaps we should add a third and fourth—the Senate and the Roman people. The Senate won Hiero of Syracuse to Rome’s side, and thereby assured supplies for Roman troops in Sicily; it organized the nation with wisdom and resolution, and led it to victory through almost overwhelming disasters. The citizens provided money, materials, labor, and men to build Rome’s first fleet—330 vessels, nearly all quinqueremes 150 feet long, each manned by 300 rowers and 120 soldiers, and most of them equipped with novel grappling irons and movable gangways for seizing and boarding enemy ships; by these means naval warfare, unfamiliar to the Romans, could be turned into hand-to-hand combat, in which the legionaries could use all their disciplined skill. “This fact,” says Polybius, “shows us better than anything else how spirited and daring the Romans are when they are determined to do a thing. . . . They had never given a thought to a navy; yet when they had once conceived the project they took it in hand so boldly that before gaining any experience in such matters they at once engaged the Carthaginians, who for generations had held undisputed command of the sea.”14 Off Ecnomus, on the southern coast of Sicily, the hostile fleets, carrying 300,000 men, fought the greatest sea battle of antiquity (256). The Romans under Regulus won decisively and sailed on unhindered to Africa. Landing there without careful reconnaissance, they soon met a superior Carthaginian force, which almost annihilated them, and took their reckless consul prisoner. Shortly afterward the Roman fleet was dashed by a storm against a rocky coast, 284 vessels were wrecked, and some 80,000 men were drowned; it was the worst naval calamity in the memory of men. The Romans showed their quality by building 200 new quinqueremes in three months, and training 80,000 men to man them.
After keeping Regulus a prisoner for five years, his captors allowed him to accompany a Carthaginian embassy sent to Rome to seek peace, but on his promise to return to captivity if the Senate refused the proffered terms. When Regulus heard these he advised the Senate to reject them and, despite the entreaties of his family and his friends, went back with the embassy to Carthage. There he was tortured to death by being prevented from sleeping.15 His sons at Rome took two Carthaginian captives of high rank, bound them in a chest studded with spikes, and kept them awake till they died.16 Neither tale seems credible, until we recall the barbarities of our time.