Battle of Cape Ecnomus
The Battle of Cape Ecnomus or Eknomos was a naval battle, fought off southern Sicily, in 256 BC, between the fleets of Carthage and the Roman Republic, during the First Punic War. The Carthaginian fleet was commanded by Hanno and Hamilcar; the Roman fleet jointly by the consuls for the year, Marcus Atilius Regulus and Lucius Manlius Vulso Longus. It resulted in a clear victory for the Romans.
The Roman fleet of 330 warships plus an unknown number of transports had sailed from Ostia, the port of Rome, and had embarked approximately 26,000 picked legionaries shortly before the battle. They planned to cross to Africa and invade the Carthaginian homeland, in Tunisia. The Carthaginians were aware of the Romans' intentions and mustered all available warships, 350, off the south coast of Sicily to intercept them. With a combined total of about 680 warships carrying up to 290,000 crew and marines, the battle was arguably the single largest battle of ancient history, and was possibly the largest naval battle in history by the number of combatants involved.
When the fleets met, the Carthaginians took the initiative and the battle devolved into three separate conflicts, where the Carthaginians hoped that their superior ship-handling skills would win the day. After a prolonged and confusing day of fighting, the Carthaginians were decisively defeated, losing 30 ships sunk and 64 captured to Roman losses of 24 ships sunk.
Background
Operations in Sicily
In 264 BC, the states of Carthage and Rome went to war, starting the First Punic War. Carthage was a well-established maritime power in the Western Mediterranean; Rome had recently unified mainland Italy south of the Po under its control. The immediate cause of the war was control of the Sicilian town of Messana. More broadly both sides wished to control Syracuse, the most powerful city-state on Sicily. By 256 BC, the war had grown into a struggle in which the Romans were attempting to defeat decisively the Carthaginians and, at a minimum, control the whole of Sicily.The Carthaginians were engaging in their traditional policy of waiting for their opponents to wear themselves out, in the expectation of then regaining some or all of their possessions and negotiating a mutually satisfactory peace treaty. The Romans were essentially a land-based power and had gained control of most of Sicily. The war there had reached a stalemate, as the Carthaginians focused on defending their well-fortified towns and cities; these were mostly on the coast and so could be supplied and reinforced without the Romans being able to use their superior army to interfere. The focus of the war shifted to the sea, where the Romans had little experience; on the few occasions they had previously felt the need for a naval presence they had relied on small squadrons provided by their allies.
Ships
During this period the standard warship of the Carthaginian navy was the quinquereme, meaning "five-oared". The quinquereme was a galley, long, wide at water level, with its deck standing above the sea, and displacing around. The galley expert John Coates has suggested that they could maintain for extended periods. The quinquereme was superior as a warship to the previous mainstay of Mediterranean navies, the trireme, and, being heavier, performed better than the triremes in bad weather. The modern replica galley Olympias has achieved speeds of and cruised at for hours on end.Image:Trireme cut-fr.svg|thumb|upright=1.1|right|alt=A diagram depicting the position of the rowers in the three levels in a trireme|Depiction of the position of the rowers in three levels in a Greek trireme
The generally accepted theory regarding the arrangement of oarsmen in quinqueremes is that there would be sets – or files – of three oars, one above the other, with two oarsmen on each of the two uppermost oars and one on the lower, for a total of five oarsmen per file. This would be repeated down the side of a galley for a total of 28 files on each side; 168 oars in total. At least one man on each oar would need to have had some experience if the ship was to be handled effectively. Vessels were built as cataphract, or "protected", ships, with a closed hull to protect the rowers, and a full deck able to carry marines and catapults. Carthaginian quinqueremes used a separate "oar box" which contained the rowers and was attached to the main hull. This development meant the rowers would be located above or at deck level, which allowed the hull to be strengthened, and increased carrying capacity; as well as improving the ventilation conditions of the rowers, an important factor in maintaining their stamina, and thereby improving the ship's maintainable speed.
In 260 BC Romans set out to construct a fleet of 100 quinqueremes and 20 triremes. They used a shipwrecked Carthaginian quinquereme as a blueprint for their own. As novice shipwrights, the Romans built copies that were heavier than the Carthaginian vessels, and so slower and less manoeuvrable. The quinquereme provided the workhorse of the Roman and Carthaginian fleets throughout the Punic Wars, although hexaremes, quadriremes and triremes are also occasionally mentioned. So ubiquitous was the type that Polybius uses it as a shorthand for "warship" in general. A quinquereme carried a crew of 300: 280 oarsmen and 20 deck crew and officers; it would also normally carry a complement of 40 marines; if battle was thought to be imminent this would be increased to as many as 120.
Naval operations
Getting the oarsmen to row as a unit, let alone to execute the more complex battle manoeuvres, required long and arduous training. As a result, the Romans were initially at a disadvantage against the more experienced Carthaginians. To counter Carthaginian superiority, the Romans introduced the corvus, a bridge wide and long, with a heavy spike on the underside, which was designed to pierce and anchor into an enemy ship's deck. This allowed Roman legionaries acting as marines to board enemy ships and capture them, rather than employing the previously traditional tactic of ramming. All warships were equipped with rams, a triple set of bronze blades weighing up to positioned at the waterline. They were made individually by the lost-wax method to fit immovably to a galley's prow. In the century prior to the Punic Wars, boarding had become increasingly common and ramming had declined, as the larger and heavier vessels adopted in this period lacked the speed and manoeuvrability necessary to ram, while their sturdier construction reduced the ram's effect even in case of a successful attack. The Roman adaptation of the corvus was a progression of this trend and compensated for their initial disadvantage in ship manoeuvring skills. However, the added weight in the prow compromised the ship's manoeuvrability, and in rough sea conditions the corvus became useless.Largely because of the Romans' use of the corvus, the Carthaginians were defeated in large naval battles at Mylae in 260 BC and Sulci in 257 BC. These victories, and their frustration at the continuing stalemate in Sicily, led the Romans to focus on a sea-based strategy and to develop a plan to invade the Carthaginian heartland in North Africa and threaten their capital, Carthage, in the hope of a war-winning outcome. Both sides were determined to establish naval supremacy and invested large amounts of money and manpower in maintaining and increasing the size of their navies.
Prelude
The Carthaginian fleet mustered at Carthage in the late spring of 256 BC, before sailing for Lilybaeum, their major base in Sicily, to resupply and to embark soldiers to use as marines. It then sailed east along the coast of Sicily to Heraclea Minoa, the easternmost of the Sicilian towns the Carthaginians still held and was joined by those ships already operating from Sicily, at least 62 and probably more. These brought the Carthaginian fleet up to 350 ships, nearly all quinqueremes, commanded by Hanno, who had been defeated at Agrigentum six years earlier, and Hamilcar, the victor of the Battle of Thermae.The Romans mustered at about the same time, probably at Ostia, the port of Rome. The Roman fleet consisted of 330 warships, the large majority quinqueremes. They were accompanied by an unknown number of transports, mostly carrying the horses of the invasion force. The two consuls for the year, Marcus Atilius Regulus and Lucius Manlius Vulso Longus, were given command of the fleet; each sailed in a hexareme, the only larger ships noted as participating in the battle. The Roman fleet sailed south along the coast of Italy, crossed to Sicily at Messana, and sailed south and then west to the roadstead at Phintias where they rendezvoused with the Roman army on Sicily. The Roman fleet embarked 80 picked legionaries on each warship, intending to either land them in Africa in pursuit of their strategic objective or to complement the galleys' marines if the Carthaginian navy challenged them.
In total the Roman fleet had 140,000 men on board: rowers, other crew, marines and soldiers. The number of Carthaginians is less certainly known but was estimated by Polybius at 150,000, and most modern historians broadly support this. If these figures are approximately correct, then the Battle of Ecnomus is possibly the largest naval battle of all time, by the number of combatants involved.
Rather than sail directly from Phintias for North Africa, the Romans sailed west, intending to cross the Strait of Sicily at its narrowest point. This would minimise the time the fleet spent in the open sea; ships of the time, especially the less seaworthy galleys, kept in sight of land whenever possible. The Carthaginians were aware of the Roman intentions and correctly anticipated their route. They intercepted the Roman fleet to the east of Heraclea Minoa, after it had left Licata. The fleets are commonly stated to have met off Cape Ecnomus, immediately after the Romans left Licata. However, this is not supported by Polybius, or any other primary source; it is a modern convention. The medieval historian Joannes Zonaras cites Dio Cassius to locate the battle immediately to the east of Heraclea Minoa.