Late summer 250 BC
The elephants break
The mahouts drive the elephants on into the earthworks, where they cannot reach the skirmishers. Struck again and again by javelins, and by some accounts by missiles from the walls, the animals panic and turn back through their own infantry.
When the elephants break, Metellus attacks the left flank of the disordered Carthaginian army from the gate. The army flees, and those who stand are cut down. Metellus forbids a pursuit, but he captures ten elephants at once and, by some accounts, the rest over the following days.
A silver denarius of Metellus Scipio, 47 to 46 BC, with the elephant the Caecilii Metelli took as their emblem after PanormusWikimedia Commons, PHGCOM, Public domain (Silver denarius of Metellus Scipio 47 46 BCE.jpg)
Metellus celebrates a triumph in Rome on 7 September 250 BC and parades the captured elephants, which are then killed in the Circus Maximus. Hasdrubal is recalled to Carthage and executed. His successor abandons and destroys Selinus, which Carthage can no longer garrison, and the Romans move on to besiege Lilybaeum.
The temple of Hera at Selinus, the Greek city on the south coast of Sicily that Carthage abandoned and destroyed after PanormusWikimedia Commons, Chiara Marra, CC BY 2.0 (Selinunte42.jpg)
Sources
- Polybius, Histories, book 1, 40.
- John Lazenby, The First Punic War (1996).
- Nigel Bagnall, The Punic Wars (1999).
Prev: The elephants at the wallsNext: The siege of Lilybaeum