already clear that no Roman general was a
match for Hamilcar, and the time might be calculated when even the
Carthaginian mercenary would be able boldly to measure himself
against the legionary. The privateers of Hamilcar appeared with ever-
increasing audacity on the Italian coast: already a praetor had been
obliged to take the field against a band of Carthaginian rovers which
had landed there. A few years more, and Hamilcar might with his fleet
have accomplished from Sicily what his son subsequently undertook by
the land route from Spain.

A Fleet Built by the Romans
Victory of Catulus at the Island Aegusa

The Roman senate, however, persevered in its inaction;
the desponding party for once had the majority there. At length a
number of sagacious and high-spirited men determined to save the state
even without the interposition of the government, and to put an end to
the ruinous Sicilian war. Successful corsair expeditions, if they had
not raised the courage of the nation, had aroused energy and hope in
a portion of the people; they had already joined together to form
a squadron, burnt down Hippo on the African coast, and sustained a
successful naval conflict with the Carthaginians off Panormus. By a
private subscription--such as had been resorted to in Athens also,
but not on so magnificent a scale--the wealthy and patriotic Romans
equipped a war fleet, the nucleus of which was supplied by the ships
built for privateering and the practised crews which they contained,
and which altogether was far more carefully fitted out than had
hitherto been the case in the shipbuilding of the state. This fact
--that a number of citizens in the twenty-third year of a severe war
voluntarily presented to the state two hundred ships of the line,
manned by 60,000 sailors--stands perhaps unparalleled in the annals of
history. The consul Gaius Lutatius Catulus, to whom fell the honour
of conducting this fleet to the Sicilian seas, met there with almost
no opposition: the two or three Carthaginian vessels, with which
Hamilcar had made his corsair expeditions, disappeared before the
superior force, and almost without resistance the Romans occupied
the harbours of Lilybaeum and Drepana, the siege of which was now
undertaken with energy by water and by land. Carthage was completely
taken by surprise; even the two fortresses, weakly provisioned, were
in great danger. A fleet was equipped at home; but with all the haste
which they di