255 BC
The retreat and the storm
Xanthippus takes his pay and returns to Greece. A Roman fleet sails to Africa to take off the survivors at Aspis and meets the Carthaginian fleet off Cape Hermaeum. The Carthaginians lose 114 ships captured and 16 sunk.
On the way home the Roman fleet is caught by a storm off Camarina, on the south coast of Sicily. Of its 464 ships 384 sink, and about 100,000 men are lost, most of them Latin allies.
The Departure of Regulus, painting by Benjamin West, 1769, after the story told by later Roman writersWikimedia Commons, Benjamin West, Public domain (Benjamin West (1738-1820) - The Departure of Regulus - RCIN 405416 - Royal Collection.jpg)
Regulus dies in captivity in Carthage. Later Roman writers add a story in which Carthage sends him to Rome on parole to arrange a peace, and Regulus keeps his word and returns to Carthage to die.
Sources
- Polybius, Histories, book 1, 36 to 37.
- John Lazenby, The First Punic War (1996).
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