Battle of Drepana

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Battle of Drepana
Part of: First Punic War
Battle of Drepana
Battle of Drepana
date 249 BC Chr.
place Coast off Drepana in Sicily
output Victory of Carthage
Parties to the conflict

Roman Republic

Carthage

Commander

Publius Claudius Pulcher (Consul)

Admiral Adherbal

Troop strength
about 120 ships about 120 ships
losses

93 ships captured or sunk

0 ships captured or sunk

The Battle of Drepana or Drepanum (off the coast of modern Trapani on the west coast of Sicily in 249 BC ) was a naval battle between the Carthaginian and Roman fleets in the First Punic War - the only sea battle the Carthaginians won in this conflict .

foreplay

The chain of Roman naval victories, as in Mylae and Ecnomus , gave confidence to dare a direct attack on the Carthaginian fortress Lilybaeum , which was under the command of Himilko. The city was blocked by a fleet under the command of this year's consuls Publius Claudius Pulcher and Lucius Junius Pullus . Despite the experience at sea that the Romans now had, the Carthaginians continued to be superior in maneuvers on the open sea. A small squadron under Hannibal of Rhodes managed to break through the blockade in the light of day and to supply the Lilybaeum garrison with supplies. During the night Hannibal left the city, taking the useless cavalry horses with him, and entered the port of Drepana before the Romans noticed.

The success of the company was so overwhelming that the Carthaginians repeated it several times. For the Romans, however, it was more than a humiliation: it destroyed the entire effect of the siege, since the garrison was supplied and kept in contact with Carthage.

If you don't listen to the chickens ...

Pulcher, the senior consul, decided to launch a surprise attack on the port of Drepana, where the challenging ships were anchored. The fleet sailed north from Lilybaeum on a moonless night. The Carthaginian scouts did not discover the Roman ships, but the poor visibility also impaired the battle setup. When the Romans reached Drepana at sunrise, the fleet had broken up into a long and broken line, with Pulcher's ship at the end. The Punic scouts discovered the clumsy approach, and the surprise effect was lost.

In the flagship at that time, Pulcher, following Roman religious traditions, was preparing the questioning of the omens for battle. The most appropriate method for the situation was to observe the feeding behavior of the sacred chickens, in this case on board the ship. If the chickens accepted the food offered, the gods of battle would be weighed. That morning, however, the chickens refused to eat - a terrible omen. Faced with the unexpected and forced to deal with the superstitious and now terrified crews, Pulcher quickly put forward an alternative take on what happened. He threw the holy chickens overboard and shouted: "If you don't want to eat, let them drink!" ( Ut biberent, quando esse nollent )

The Carthaginians did not wait in the harbor to find out what the Romans were up to. Admiral Adherbal ordered the evacuation of the port of Drepana while it was still possible. Carthage's ships sailed south of the city around two small offshore islands out to sea. When Pulcher noticed that his surprise plan had failed, he ordered the regrouping into battle formation - but in such a way that everything was now against him: the Sicilian coast was now at his back, and the Carthaginian fleet in front of him.

Adherbal saw the chance of victory and ordered the attack, more precisely: his right flank received the order to attack the last ships of the Romans. The result was the Roman defeat, in which almost all of the ships commanded by Pulcher sank.

Consequences of the battle

Publius Claudius Pulcher managed to escape and returned to Rome in shame, where he faced treason charges. Unlike in Carthage, incompetent generals were not executed in Rome (compare Hannibal Gisko ). What brought him to justice was the sacrilege to the holy chickens. He was convicted and exiled, and his political career came to an end.

In the same year, Hamilkar Barkas , Hannibal's father, led a successful campaign in Sicily, and a storm destroyed the rest of the Roman fleet, commanded by Junius Pullus. The situation was so desperate that Aulus Atilius Caiatinus was made dictator and sent to the island to secure the warfare. The Drepana defeat was so demoralizing that Rome waited seven years before commissioning a new fleet to be built.

See also

literature

Footnotes

  1. ^ Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus : De vita Caesarum , Book III: Tiberius , chap. 2. Heinemann, London 1914 (= Loeb Classical Library ), Vol. 1, p. 292.
  2. ^ Adrian Goldsworthy: The Fall of Carthage . Cassel, London 2003, chap. 4: The War at Sea . Pp. 96-127.