other Phoenician cities, part
of Sicily, Numidia, Mauritania, Lybia--in short, the northern part of
Africa, and colonies in Spain and the islands of the western part of the
Mediterranean. The city alone could furnish in an exigency forty thousand
heavy infantry, one thousand cavalry, and twenty thousand war chariots.
The garrison of the city amounted to twenty thousand foot and four
thousand horse, and the total force which the city could command was more
than one hundred thousand men. The navy was the largest in the world, for,
in the sea-fight with Regulus, it numbered three hundred and fifty ships,
carrying one hundred and fifty thousand men.

Such was this great power against which the Romans were resolved to
contend. It would seem that Carthage was willing that Rome should have the
sovereignty of Italy, provided it had itself the possession of Sicily. But
this was what the Romans were determined to prevent. The object of
contention, then, between these two rivals, the one all-powerful by land
and the other by sea, was the possession of Sicily.

(M835) During the first three years of the war, the Romans made themselves
masters of all the island, except the maritime fortresses at its western
extremity, Eryx and Panormus. Meanwhile the Carthaginians ravaged the
coasts of Italy, and destroyed its commerce. The Romans then saw that
Sicily could not be held without a navy as powerful as that of their
rivals, and it was resolved to build at once one hundred and twenty ships.
A Carthaginian quinquereme, wrecked on the Bruttian shore, furnished the
model, the forests of Silo the timber, and the maritime cities of Italy
and Greece, the sailors. In sixty days a fleet of one hundred and twenty
ships was built and ready for sea. The superior seamanship of the
Carthaginians was neutralized by converting the decks into a battle-field
for soldiers. Each ship was provided with a long boarding-bridge, hinged
up against the mast, to be let down on the prow, and fixed to the hostile
deck by a long spike, which projected from its end. The bridge was wide
enough for two soldiers to pass abreast, and its sides were protected by
bulwarks.

(M836) The first encounter of the Romans with the Carthaginians resulted
in the capture of the whole force, a squadron of seventeen ships. The
second encounter ended in the capture of more ships than the Roman
admiral, Cn. Scipio, had lost. The next battle, that of Mylae, in which the
whole Roman fle