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Everything that he had done, everything that he had seen, unfolded itself in his memory: assaults, conflagrations, legions, tempests, Drepanum, Syracuse, Lilybaeum, Mount Etna, the plateau of Eryx, five years of battles, until the fatal day when arms had been laid down and Sicily had been lost.
One of these he left on deposit in Rome; another he despatched to Carthage by a special messenger by way of Rhegium, Messana, the length of Sicily to Lilybaeum and thence by sea to Carthage; and he gave one each to Clatenna and to Rufius. When he gave orders for the despatch of the copy of his will by the special messenger I was astonished, as I assumed that we were to travel by the same route.
But the new consul Publius Claudius considered the task of maintaining the investment of Lilybaeum too trifling: he preferred to change once more the plan of operations, and with his numerous newly-manned vessels suddenly to surprise the Carthaginian fleet which was waiting in the neighbouring harbour of Drepana.
Marcus Brutus and the others were immediately executed; but Pompeius had enjoined that the consul Carbo should be brought before himself at Lilybaeum in order that, unmindful of the protection accorded to him in a season of peril by that very man, he might personally hand him over to the executioner . Africa
He then laid before him the state of the island and the designs of the Carthaginians, and promised that with the same spirit with which he had in his youth assisted the Romans during the former war, he would now assist them in his old age; that he would gratuitously furnish supplies of corn and clothing to the legions and naval crews of the consul; adding, that great danger threatened Lilybaeum and the maritime states, and that a change of affairs would be acceptable to some of them.
The demands made by Regulus, and his very near approach to the obtaining of what he asked, could only be forgotten by those who were willing to forget; and if Rome should now renew from Lilybaeum the enterprise which she had undertaken with so great success from Italy, Carthage would undoubtedly fall, unless the perversity of the enemy or some special piece of good fortune should intervene to save it No doubt they had peace for the present; but the ratification of that peace had hung on a thread, and they knew what public opinion in Rome thought of the terms on which it was concluded.
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.
This mutiny operated injuriously on the African campaign, at least in so far as it considerably delayed the commencement of it. When Caesar arrived at the port of Lilybaeum destined for the embarkation the ten legions intended for Africa werefar from being fully assembled there, and it was the experienced troops that were farthest behind.
He also sent some men to Sicily in order to take the fortress in Lilybaeum, as belonging to the Vandals' kingdom, but he was repulsed from there, since the Goths by no means saw fit to yield any part of Sicily, on the ground that this fortress did not belong to the Vandals at all.
They had tried a landing in Africa with their forces fresh and in the full career of victory, and had totally failed. They had undertaken to storm Sicily town by town; the lesser places had fallen, but the two mighty naval strongholds of Lilybaeum and Drepana stood more invincible than ever. What were they to do? In fact, there was to some extent reason for despondency.
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