Textus Originalis

Traduzione

of them, while the blows were most effective as the strong wind gave them additional force. At the end the completeness of the destruction was such that the bases of the towers and the posts that supported the battering-rams were rendered useless by the fire. After this the Romans gave up the attempt to conduct the siege by works, and digging a trench and erecting a stockade all round the city, at the same time building a wall round their own encampment, they left the result to time. But the garrison of Lilybaeum rebuilt the fallen portions of the wall and now confidently awaited the issue of the siege. 49. On the news reaching Rome, and on it being reported from various quarters that the greater part of the crews of their fleet had perished in the works or in the siege operations in general, they set about actively enlisting sailors, and when they had collected about ten thousand dispatched them to Sicily. These reinforcements were ferried over the Straits and thence proceeded on foot to the camp, where on their arrival the Roman Consul, Publius Claudius Pulcher, called a meeting of the Tribunes and told them that now was the time to attack Drepana with the whole fleet. The Carthaginian general Adherbal who commanded there was, he said, unprepared for such a contingency, as he was ignorant of the arrival of the crews, and convinced that their fleet was unable to take the sea owing to the heavy loss of men in the siege. On the Tribunes readily consenting, he at once embarked the former crews and the new arrivals, and chose for marines the best men in the whole army, who readily volunteered as the [Margin: 249 B.C.]