advantages in Sicily, preferred to make an expedition to Africa, for
the purpose not of landing but of plundering the coast towns. They
accomplished their object without opposition; but, after having first
run aground in the troublesome, and to their pilots unknown, waters of
the Lesser Syrtis, whence they with difficulty got clear again, the
fleet encountered a storm between Sicily and Italy, which cost more
than 150 ships. On this occasion also the pilots, notwithstanding
their representations and entreaties to be allowed to take the course
along the coast, were obliged by command of the consuls to steer
straight from Panormus across the open sea to Ostia.

Suspension of the Maritime War
Roman Victory at Panormus

Despondency now seized the fathers of the city; they resolved to
reduce their war-fleet to sixty sail, and to confine the war by sea
to the defence of the coasts, and to the convoy of transports.
Fortunately, just at this time, the languishing war in Sicily took a
more favourable turn. In the year 502, Thermae, the last point which
the Carthaginians held on the north coast, and the important island of
Lipara, had fallen into the hands of the Romans, and in the following
year (summer of 503) the consul Lucius Caecilius Metellus achieved
a brilliant victory over the army of elephants under the walls of
Panormus. These animals, which had been imprudently brought forward,
were wounded by the light troops of the Romans stationed in the moat
of the town; some of them fell into the moat, and others fell back
on their own troops, who crowded in wild disorder along with the
elephants towards the beach, that they might be picked up by the
Phoenician ships. One hundred and twenty elephants were captured, and
the Carthaginian army, whose strength depended on these animals, was