thirty ships sunk and sixty-four captured. The Romans lost twenty-four ships sunk.
Regulus after refitting proceeded to Africa and a landing having been effected and Clypæa taken he was left with forty ships, the remaining vessels being recalled by the Senate. The surviving Carthaginian vessels made no attempt to intercept him, and everything seemed open to Roman victory. The 'Blue Water School' at Carthage had controlled matters to the extent of an entire absence of 'bricks and mortar.' Defence lay entirely with the fleet; and so what was left of the fleet was concentrated at Carthage itself for 'harbour defence.'
Regulus advanced to within ten miles of Carthage, and it was a matter of the purest luck that his army was defeated by Xanthippus, a Spartan mercenary who, when all seemed lost, conceived the idea of using elephants on land in a sense much for the same reason that the Romans had used the corvi at sea. Regulus was captured, his army scattered, and the Carthaginian fleet held the sea off Cape Mercurius in order to cut off the retreat of the few survivors.
Matters were at this stage when a huge Roman fleet of 350 ships made its appearance. [1] It destroyed the Carthaginian fleet, and the renewal of the invasion was discussed, but the land upon which they might
- ↑ Polybius, I. 36. According to Zornaras the forty ships of Regulus effected a diversion which caused the victory, but this is probably fiction.
