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Traduzione

his elephants and the rest of his force, and plainly intended to dispute the possession of the open country. The Romans, on receiving full information about the disaster from the survivors of the shipwreck, were deeply grieved, but being resolved on no account to give in, they decided to put on the stocks a fresh fleet of two hundred and twenty ships. In three months they were completed—a thing difficult to believe—and the new Consuls, Aulus Atilius and Gnaeus Cornelius, having fitted out the fleet, put to sea, and passing the straits picked up at Messene the ships that had escaped shipwreck. Descending with their total fleet of three hundred sail on Panormus, the most important city in the Carthaginian province, they undertook its siege. They threw up works in two places and after making the other necessary preparations brought up their battering-rams. The tower on the sea shore was easily knocked down, and, the soldiers pressing in through this breach, the so-called New Town was stormed, and the part known as the Old Town being now in imminent danger, its inhabitants soon surrendered it. Having taken possession of it the Consuls sailed back to Rome leaving a garrison in the town. 39. Their successors, Gnaeus Servilius and Gaius Sempronius, put to sea with their whole fleet as soon as it was summer and after crossing to Sicily proceeded thence to Libya, and sailing along the coast, made a number of descents in which they accomplished nothing of importance, and finally [Margin: 254 B.C.] [Margin: 253 B.C.]