Battle of Mylae
before the city Mylae (Greek: Mylai, today Milazzo) at the north coast Siziliens occurred in the antique one two sea-battles.
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| Battle of Mylae | |||||||||||||||||
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| conflict | first Puni war | ||||||||||||||||
| date | 260 v. Chr. | ||||||||||||||||
| Place | coast before Mylae in Sicily | ||||||||||||||||
| result | Roman victory | ||||||||||||||||
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the first battle of Mylae (260 v. Chr.) was the first correct sea-battle between Karthago and the Roman republic. She found her result instead of in the first Puni war and was crucial victory of the Romans.
After the battle of Agrigent the Roman republic had sufficient self-assurance to look for the war with Karthago also on lake. With this goal Rome built a fleet of approximately 150 ships, Quinqueremen and Triremen, in the record time of two months. The first episode Roman naval warfare guidance, the battle with the Lipari islands, was not brilliant: Consul Gnaeus Cornelius Scipio Asina succeeded it, its entire fleet, 17 ships, without losing fight.
Short time after this incident looked for the junior consul Gaius Duilius with the remainder of the fleet a meeting with the Karthagern. When sea power of many years had Karthago the experience and the knowledge, the Romans however of again invented corvus at the nose its ships, a Enterbrücke, which should counterbalance the advantage of the Karthager.
The fleets met one another before the coast with Mylae, and at the beginning of the battle already became 30 punische ships, which conquers flagship enclosed, with the help of corvi by Roman soldiers. Hannibal Gisko, the punische admiral, was forced to the escape in extremis into a small boat, in order to arrive at another of its ships. It tried to out-maneuver the Romans to attack it from the tail and be safe thus before corvi, was however devastatingly struck.
After the battle, the first large naval victory of the Romans, Gaius Duilius was celebrated as a hero. The consul celebrated a triumph course, with which it ram-spur (rostra) the karthagischen ships with itself led, which served afterwards for it, him established honour column (columna rostrata) on the forum Romanum to decorate. Duilius was later no longer militarily active, Hannibal Gisko because of inability was a little later gekreuzigt.
In the second sea-battle of Mylae 36 v. defeated. Chr. the fleet of the Roman Triumvirn Octavian, which stood under the command of the Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa, the ships of the Sextus Pompeius.
literature
- Adrian Goldsworthy: The case OF Carthage : the Punic wars 265-146 UC. - London: Cassell Military, 2004. - ISBN 0-304-36642-0
