the end he took to flight with the remnant of his fleet.[1]
He reached Carthage before the news of the battle. According to a French historian,[2] suppressing the intelligence, he sent an officer who told the Senate that the Romans were at sea with a fleet. 'Their ships,' said he, 'are like merchant ships. It is their first attempt; they have no nautical experience. On the bows of their ships they have certain machines, the use of which we cannot ascertain. Would it be rash to attack them and preserve our sovereignty of the seas, or shall I allow them to ravage our coasts?'
Orders to attack were given: then he announced the defeat, adding, 'Hannibal thought as you. What you have ordered he has attempted: and, if Fortune has not smiled upon his enterprise, does that make him a criminal?'
Thus diplomatically, if the story be true, he avoided the consequences of defeat: but his diplomacy was more than a clever excuse. Negligent as he had shown himself, his assumption of certain victory when he encountered Duilius was at any rate natural. His contempt for his opponents, however unwise, was exactly the contempt that would be felt in any efficient
- ↑ Polybius, I. 23.
- ↑ Histoire de la Marine. A. du Sein, professcur de l'ecole navale en retrait (vol.i. p.248). His authority is not given. The story is not in Polybius, Livy, or Zonaras, nor is it mentioned by Mommsen, Ihne, Arnold, Niebuhr, or Liddell. It is probably, therefore, a very late story, but deemed worthy of reference here because the line of argument is so very natural.
