What if Carthage pressed her naval superiority in the First Punic War after the Battle of Drepana in 249 BC?
WI: Carthage Presses its Naval Superiority in the First Punic War
- Thread starter Monopolist
- Start date
By the time of Drepana, the Carthaginians had been pushed back to a small foothold around Lilybaeum and had already decided to refuse to engage the Romans in open battle on land anyway after the disaster at Agrigentum. Rome can and did build a new fleet, and what can the Carthaginian fleet possibly accomplish in the meantime?
Depends of what you call "naval superiority".
Carthagians have a better naval tradition, of course, but it's critically a merchant naval tradition, and know how use merchant ship, how fight on its very different than military naval tradition.
Of course, Carthage know HOW fight, but the city didn't have to fight a real opponent in Western Mediterranean sea, and with a lighter danger, Carthage fleet wasn't the same that 100 years before the war.
Second : What's your opinion about the roman corvus? A after-war propaganda fact, or historical reality?
Carthagians have a better naval tradition, of course, but it's critically a merchant naval tradition, and know how use merchant ship, how fight on its very different than military naval tradition.
Of course, Carthage know HOW fight, but the city didn't have to fight a real opponent in Western Mediterranean sea, and with a lighter danger, Carthage fleet wasn't the same that 100 years before the war.
Second : What's your opinion about the roman corvus? A after-war propaganda fact, or historical reality?
I have no information. However, it would have certainly made ships much more vulnerable to bad weather. There is fair evidence that the Romans had problems with weather. So can we add 2 + 2 to get 5. If used in the initial battles it might have been abandoned when the defect became apparent.
Which is pretty much what happened as after the initial Roman sea victories and the losing the fleet to a storm after the African invasion, Polybius does not mention corvi any more.
I pretty much view it as an initial stop-gap measure that was successful and allowed the more inexperienced Roman fleets and their commanders (Im pretty sure they were commanded by the same group of aristocrats as the armies) win some initial battles...
Obviously, ships w/them were not nearly as stable in storms and it was abandoned once the Romans adapted better to naval warfare and didnt need to try to board ships to win battles anymore...
Obviously, ships w/them were not nearly as stable in storms and it was abandoned once the Romans adapted better to naval warfare and didnt need to try to board ships to win battles anymore...