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They chose, in the first instance, the former plan of operations. In the year after the battle of Mylae the consul Lucius Scipio captured the port of Aleria in Corsica we still possess the tombstone of the general, which makes mention of this deed and made Corsica a naval station against Sardinia.
Thus was this naval battle so far as historical knowledge reaches, the earliest fought on the Atlantic Ocean just like the engagement at Mylae two hundred years before, notwithstanding the most unfavourable circumstances, decided in favour of the Romans by a lucky invention suggested by necessity.
But for this purpose too there was need of a fleet; and, since that which had conquered at Mylae, at Ecnomus, and at the Hermaean promontory was destroyed, they built a new one. Keels were at once laid down for 220 new vessels of war they had never hitherto undertaken the building of so many simultaneously and in the incredibly short space of three months they were all ready for sea.
Thus was this naval battle so far as historical knowledge reaches, the earliest fought on the Atlantic Ocean just like the engagement at Mylae two hundred years before, notwithstanding the most unfavourable circumstances, decided in favour of the Romans by a lucky invention suggested by necessity.
Off Mylae, a place famous for having witnessed the first naval victory of the Romans, Agrippa encountered the fleet of Sext. Pompeius; but Sextus, with the larger portion of his ships, gave Agrippa the slip, and sailing eastward fell suddenly upon Octavian's squadron off Tauromenium.
Finally Agrippa comprehended that it was not advantageous for him to delay, for the adherents of Sextus, occupying a friendly position, had no need to hurry, and taking the best of his ships set out for Mylae to spy out the numbers of the enemy.
At the promontory of Mylae, to the north-west of Messana, the Carthaginian fleet, that advanced from Panormus under the command of Hannibal, encountered the Roman, which here underwent its first trial on a great scale.
So Diderot perceives the true bent of Rousseau's genius long before the Dijon essay reveals it to the latter himself and to France. Polybius discovers in the war of Regulus and of Mylae the beginning of Rome's imperial career, but a juster instinct leads Livy to devote his most splendid paragraphs to the heroism in defeat of Thrasymene and Cannae.
Formerly the thanks of the community once for all had sufficed for service rendered to the state: now every meritorious act seemed to demand a permanent distinction. Already Gaius Duilius, the victor of Mylae , had gained an exceptional permission that, when he walked in the evening through the streets of the capital, he should be preceded by a torch-bearer and a piper.
Two Messinese battalions in garrison at Mylae laid an ambush for the party landing from the ships, but were routed with great slaughter by the Athenians and their allies, who thereupon assaulted the fortification and compelled them to surrender the Acropolis and to march with them upon Messina.
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