ong force, which was enabled,
particularly by its enormous number of elephants--amounting to 140
--to keep the field against the Romans: the last battle had shown
that it was possible to make up for the want of good infantry to some
extent by elephants and cavalry. The Romans also resumed the war in
Sicily; the annihilation of their invading army had, as the voluntary
evacuation of Clupea shows, at once restored ascendency in the senate
to the party which was opposed to the war in Africa and was content
with the gradual subjugation of the islands. But for this purpose
too there was need of a fleet; and, since that which had conquered at
Mylae, at Ecnomus, and at the Hermaean promontory was destroyed, they
built a new one. Keels were at once laid down for 220 new vessels
of war--they had never hitherto undertaken the building of so many
simultaneously--and in the incredibly short space of three months
they were all ready for sea. In the spring of 500 the Roman fleet,
numbering 300 vessels mostly new, appeared on the north coast of
Sicily; Panormus, the most important town in Carthaginian Sicily,
was acquired through a successful attack from the seaboard, and the
smaller places there, Soluntum, Cephaloedium, and Tyndaris, likewise
fell into the hands of the Romans, so that along the whole north coast
of the island Thermae alone was retained by the Carthaginians.
Panormus became thenceforth one of the chief stations of the Romans
in Sicily. The war by land, nevertheless, made no progress; the two
armies stood face to face before Lilybaeum, but the Roman commanders,
who knew not how to encounter the mass of elephants, made no attempt
to compel a pitched battle.

In the ensuing year (501) the consuls, instead of pursuing sure
advantages in Sicily, preferred to make an expedition to Africa, for
the purpose not of landing but of plundering the coast towns. They
accomplished their object without opposition; but, after having first
run aground in the troublesome, and to their pilots unknown, waters of
the Lesser Syrtis, whence they with difficulty got clear again, the
fleet encountered a storm between Sicily and Italy, which cost more
than 150 ships. On this occasion also the pilots, notwithstanding
their representations and entreaties to be allowed to take the course
along the coast, were obliged by command of the consuls to steer
straight from Panormus across the open sea to Ostia.

Suspension of the Maritime War
Rom