Fortunately for the Romans, at that very time the Greeks of Sicily urgently craved the aid of the king of Epirus. They had been defeated by the Carthaginians and their independence was menaced. Pyrrhus accordingly departed from Italy for more than two years, to gain some initial successes in Sicily and end in failure. When he returned to Italy it was too late. The Romans had established their dominion over the Italian rebels and were once more harassing Tarentum. Pyrrhus suffered a disastrous defeat at Beneventum in Samnium (275 B.C.), and Tarentum submitted soon after (272 B.C.). Pyrrhus himself was slain in Greece about the same time.
The subjugation of Italy was now complete. After Rhegium, the southernmost city in Italy, had been wrested from the hands of mutinous mercenaries (270 B.C.), Rome likewise took upon herself the economic administration of Italy by introducing a silver coinage (269 B.C.).
The war with Pyrrhus had clearly shown that Rome could not stop and rest content with the successes she had already gained, but would presently be forced into a struggle for all the countries about the Mediterranean, that is to say, for the dominion of the world as then known.
She contrived, it is true, very quickly to resume friendly relations with the Greek cities of Italy, whose sympathies had in some cases been on the other side in the war with Tarentum. The autonomous administration she allowed them to enjoy on condition of furnishing her with ships, and the protection which they, for their part, received from the leading power in Italy, could not but dispose them favourably to a continuance of her suzerainty.
With Carthage the case was different. Down to the time of the war with Pyrrhus the interests of Rome and Carthage had gone hand in hand to a great extent, or at worst had led to compromises in the three treaties of alliance (348, 343, and 306 B.C.). But in the wars against Pyrrhus it was in the interests of Carthage that Pyrrhus should be kept busy in Italy, while the Romans had contrived to turn his energies against the Carthaginians. And when the Romans were preparing to occupy Tarentum, a Carthaginian fleet hove in sight and manifested a desire to seize upon that city, the most important port of southern Italy. A power which had one foot in Rhegium, as Rome had, was bound presently to set the other down in Messana, and that would be a casus belli under any circumstances. How could the Carthaginians endure to see the island for the possession of which they had striven for two hundred years pass into the hands of the Romans?
The actual pretext for the war is too dramatic to be passed over. The mutinous mercenaries of Agathocles (317-289 B.C.) had taken possession of the city of Messana. They were attacked by Hiero of Syracuse with such success that they appealed alternately to the Carthaginians and Romans for help. The Carthaginians came to the rescue first and put a garrison in the citadel of Messana. But the commander was so foolish as to enter into negotiations with the Roman legate, who had crossed the straits of Messana with a small body of troops, and in the course of them was taken prisoner—through his own perfidious treachery it must be acknowledged. Thus the key of Sicily fell into Roman hands, and war was declared. The history of the next hundred and twenty years is wholly occupied with the great struggle between these two cities, till at length, in 146 B.C., Carthage was laid level with the ground.
Thus the state of Rome, which had won for itself a leading position in Italy in the Wars of Liberation waged with the Etruscans and Sabellians, and had then been forced by the Samnites into a contest for the sovereignty of Italy, found itself driven almost involuntarily into a decisive struggle for dominion over all the coasts of the Mediterranean. The perseverance with which Rome strove towards the goal of ever higher ambitions commands our admiration, and we admire no less the government of the many-headed senate which kept one constant aim in view and consistently pursued it; which, moreover, steered the ship of state safely through all dangers, when the incompetency of its annually elected chief magistrates resulted in the gravest catastrophes. There lay the weakness of the Roman commonwealth. How could Roman consuls, elected annually by the people, usually on political grounds, acquire the capacity to command armies, to master the art of strategy, or to lead troops and fleets in regions to which they themselves were strangers? To the ill effects of this preposterous system Rome owed the severe reverses of the First Punic War (264-241 B.C.) and the beginning of the Second. The situation began to improve when two capable leaders, Marcellus and the Scipios, were left in command for several consecutive years.
Nevertheless, the Roman armies were frequently led by gallant and judicious men, and won some lasting successes even in the First Punic War, one of the most protracted and sanguinary wars of ancient times.
Hiero, king of Syracuse, was defeated at the outset, and compelled to conclude an alliance with Rome, which he loyally observed till his death in 216. Agrigentum and many other Sicilian towns fell into the hands of Roman generals. The famous victory (Mylæ, 260) won by the Romans with their first real navy over the most famous sea power of ancient times is absolutely astonishing. But Rome could be conquered only in Italy, Carthage only in Africa, and the Romans therefore proceeded to cross over to Africa after another brilliant naval victory near Ecnomus in the south of Sicily (256 B.C.). Fortune favoured them in their first engagements. The position of Carthage itself became grave. But after one of the consuls (Manlius) had gone home at the conclusion of his year of office and the Carthaginians had enlisted a sufficient number of Greek mercenaries and Numidian horsemen, the Roman army was annihilated, and its commander, Regulus, taken prisoner. The Roman fleet, which had been created afresh within the space of a few months, did indeed succeed in destroying that of Carthage off the headland of Mercury (Cape Bon), and taking the remnant of the defeated army on board, only to be wrecked itself by tempest off Camarina on the south coast of Sicily (255 B.C.). A like fate befell many another Roman fleet in the years 253 and 249 B.C. The Romans were neither sufficiently versed in the periodic recurrence of storms—a knowledge indispensable to a maritime nation—nor familiar enough with the character of the coast, and the rocks and shallows, to anticipate lasting success in naval warfare with any confidence. The taking of Panormus (Palermo) in the year 254 B.C., and the great victory won by Metellus over a large army of the enemy under the walls of the city in 250, did not suffice to compensate for the naval disasters. In the year 249 B.C. the severe defeat of Publius Claudius Pulcher and his fleet at Drepanum (in the west of Sicily) and the wreck of another fleet forced the Romans definitively to abandon hostilities at sea. Once more the fleets of Carthage swept the Mediterranean, plundered the coasts of Italy, and even endangered Rome’s hold upon Sicily. In the west of the island Hamilcar Barca, the ablest of Carthaginian generals, had established himself upon Mount Eryx. From that base he made successful raids into Roman Sicily. The war dragged on until it was ended at length by a fleet which the Romans built by voluntary contributions. By a brilliant naval victory in the Ægatian Islands, Lutatius Catulus destroyed the last considerable Punic fleet; and so forced the Carthaginians to come to terms. Sicily was ceded to Rome and a moderate war-indemnity exacted from the vanquished city. But the twenty-four years of hostilities in which she had strained her financial capacity to the utmost had exhausted the resources of Carthage, and she could no longer pay her mercenaries. The result was a formidable mutiny, which proclaimed to the world the bankruptcy of the whole body politic. Rome took advantage of her adversary’s embarrassment in a most perfidious fashion. In spite of the fact that peace had been restored she made a compact with the mutineers and prevailed upon them to hand Corsica and Sardinia over to her.