| Battle of Sapriportis | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Part of the Second Punic War | |||||||
 Sapriportis | |||||||
| |||||||
| Belligerents | |||||||
| Roman Republic | Tarentines | ||||||
| Commanders and leaders | |||||||
| Decimo Quinzio [1] | Democrates | ||||||
| Strength | |||||||
| 20 navy [2] | 20 navy [3] | ||||||
| Casualties and losses | |||||||
| Unknown | Unknown | ||||||
The Battle of Sapriportis was a naval clash that took place in 210 BC, during the Second Punic War, fought 15 miles off the coast of Taranto, during which the Tarentine fleet, allied with the Carthaginians, got the better of the Roman one.
Here is how Titus Livy describes the particular moment of the war which has been ongoing for eight long years:
There was no other moment of the war in which the Carthaginians and Romans [...] found themselves more in doubt between hope and fear. In fact, on the part of the Romans, in the provinces, on the one hand following the defeats in Spain, on the other due to the outcome of the operations in Sicily (212-211 BC), there was an alternation of joys and sorrows. In Italy, the loss of Taranto generated damage and fear, but having preserved the garrison in the fortress against all hope generated great satisfaction (212 BC). The sudden dismay and terror that Rome was besieged and attacked, after a few days vanished to make way for the joy for the surrender of Capua (211 BC). Even the overseas war was as if on equal terms between the parties [...]: [if on the one hand] Philip became an enemy of Rome in a anything but favorable moment (215 BC), new allies were welcomed, such as the Aetolians and Attalus, kings of Asia, almost as if the fortune already promised the Romans the eastern empire. The Carthaginians also contrasted the loss of Capua with the capture of Taranto and, if it was a source of glory for them to have reached the walls of Rome without anyone stopping them, they on the other hand felt the regret of a vain undertaking and the shame that, while they were under the walls of Rome, from another gate a Roman army was setting out for Spain. Spain itself, when the Carthaginians had hoped to complete the war there and expel the Romans after destroying two great generals (Publius and Gnaeus Scipio ) and their armies, [...] their victory had been rendered useless by an improvised general, Lucius Marcius. And so, thanks to the balancing action of fortune, hopes and fears remained intact on both sides, as if from that precise moment the entire war were to begin for the first time. [4]
In this period, since the famine was becoming intolerable in the fortress of Taranto, the Roman garrison and its commander, M. Livy, had placed all their hopes in the supplies sent to them from Sicily and, in order to allow the transport ships to safely sail along the Italian coast, a fleet had been prepared at Reggio, composed of about twenty ships. At the head of the fleet and the cargo was placed a certain Decimo Quinzio, born of an obscure family, but full of military glory for many acts of valor performed previously. Initially he had command of five ships, the largest of which, two triremes, had been delivered to him by Marcus Claudius Marcellus himself. Later, since he had conducted all his undertakings with great competence, three quinqueremi were added to him. In the end, the same man, after having requested help from the allies of Reggio, Velia and Pesto, obtained other ships on the basis of a previous treaty, and put together a fleet of twenty ships. [5]
The Roman fleet was met, fifteen miles from Taranto near Sapriportis, by a certain Democrates with an equal number of Tarentine ships. [6] The Roman commander arrived with full sail having not foreseen the imminent clash that awaited him. Near Crotone and then Sibari he had supplied the ships with rowers, thus having a very well equipped and armed fleet, based on the size of the ships. And when the strength of the wind began to decline, the enemies appeared. This allowed Quinctius to lower the sails and prepare the oarsmen and soldiers for the imminent clash. [7]
Rarely did other regular fleets face each other with such violence, as they fought to decide a battle whose importance exceeded the value of the fleets themselves. [8]
The Tarentines who, after about sixty years, had taken the city back from the Romans, hoped to also free the fortress, trying to prevent supplies to the Roman garrison, and taking away the dominion of the sea from the enemy with a naval battle. On the contrary, the Romans tried to maintain possession of the fortress. [9]
And so, given the signal from both sides, the ships went to contract, one against the other with rostra. Between them they then threw a sort of iron claw at the nearby enemy ship, trying to board it. They fought at close range and struck with swords in furious "melee". The prows were joined with the harpoons and were tied to each other, while the sterns were turned by the oarsmen of the enemy ships. Thus in an extremely narrow space, barely a few missiles fell between one ship and another. The ranks clashed as if they were in a land battle. [10]
Titus Livy then recounts an episode of two ships which, the first of the two teams, clashed with each other. [11] On the Roman ship was the Quinzio himself, on the Tarentine side a certain Nicone, nicknamed Percone, who had always been hostile to the Romans and who belonged to the faction that had handed over Taranto to Hannibal. He managed to pierce the Roman commander with his spear, while he was distracted because he was inciting his men to battle. Quinctius rushed forward with his weapons, in front of the bow of the ship. The victor from Tarentine then crossed over to the Roman ship, whose crew was disoriented due to the loss of their captain, and repelled the enemy, occupying its bow. The Romans, massed at the stern, were having great difficulty defending it, when another enemy trireme appeared from that side. The Roman ship, closed in the middle, had to capitulate. When the other Roman boats saw that the commander's ship had been captured, they were all gripped by great terror, all looking for escape routes to get away from the battle as quickly as possible. Some of these boats were overtaken and sunk on the high seas. Others were dragged towards land by oars, becoming prey to the inhabitants of Thurii and Metapontum. Of all the cargo ships that followed with supplies, very few were captured by the enemy, some in fact managed to move away towards the high seas. [12]
Precisely in those same days, the fighting in Taranto had a totally different fate. While around four thousand Tarentines had gone out to collect fodder and wandered through the fields, the Roman commander of the fortress, M. Livy, ready to seize every opportunity to fight, sent two thousand five hundred soldiers out of the garrison, under the command of Gaius Persius. He attacked the Tarentines scattered and scattered across the fields and, after having caused a great massacre, he chased the few survivors up to the city walls and almost missed the city being taken in that furious assault. [13]
Thus in Taranto the fate between the parties was equal. The Romans won a battle on land, while the Tarentines won by sea. And the hopes of a supply were thus dashed for both parties. [14]
The First Macedonian War was fought by Rome, allied with the Aetolian League and Attalus I of Pergamon, against Philip V of Macedon, contemporaneously with the Second Punic War against Carthage. There were no decisive engagements, and the war ended in a stalemate.
The Battle of Cape Ecnomus or Eknomos was a naval battle, fought off southern Sicily, in 256 BC, between the fleets of Carthage and the Roman Republic, during the First Punic War. The Carthaginian fleet was commanded by Hanno and Hamilcar; the Roman fleet jointly by the consuls for the year, Marcus Atilius Regulus and Lucius Manlius Vulso Longus. It resulted in a clear victory for the Romans.
The Battle of the Aegates was a naval battle fought on 10 March 241 BC between the fleets of Carthage and Rome during the First Punic War. It took place among the Aegates Islands, off the western coast of the island of Sicily. The Carthaginians were commanded by Hanno, and the Romans were under the overall authority of Gaius Lutatius Catulus, but Quintus Valerius Falto commanded during the battle. It was the final and deciding battle of the 23-year-long First Punic War.
The Battle of Heraclea took place in 280 BC between the Romans under the command of consul Publius Valerius Laevinus, and the combined forces of Greeks from Epirus, Tarentum, Thurii, Metapontum, and Heraclea under the command of Pyrrhus, king of Epirus. Although the battle was a victory for the Greeks and their casualties were lower than the Romans, they had lost many veteran soldiers that would be hard to replace on foreign soil.
The Pyrrhic War was largely fought between the Roman Republic and Pyrrhus, the king of Epirus, who had been asked by the people of the Greek city of Tarentum in southern Italy to help them in their war against the Romans.
The naval forces of the ancient Roman state were instrumental in the Roman conquest of the Mediterranean Basin, but it never enjoyed the prestige of the Roman legions. Throughout their history, the Romans remained a primarily land-based people and relied partially on their more nautically inclined subjects, such as the Greeks and the Egyptians, to build their ships. Because of that, the navy was never completely embraced by the Roman state, and deemed somewhat "un-Roman".
The Battles of Kroton in 204 and 203 BC were, as well as the raid in Cisalpine Gaul, the last larger scale engagements between the Romans and the Carthaginians in Italy during the Second Punic War. After Hannibal’s retreat to Bruttium due to the Metaurus debacle, the Romans continuously tried to block his forces from gaining access to the Ionian Sea and cut his eventual escape to Carthage by capturing Kroton, the last port which had remained in his hands after years of fighting.
The siege of Syracuse in 397 BC was the first of four unsuccessful sieges Carthaginian forces would undertake against Syracuse from 397 to 278 BC. In retaliation for the siege of Motya by Dionysius of Syracuse, Himilco of the Magonid family of Carthage led a substantial force to Sicily. After retaking Motya and founding Lilybaeum, Himilco sacked Messana, then laid siege to Syracuse in the autumn of 397 BC after the Greek navy was crushed at Catana.
The origin of the city of Taranto dates from the 8th century BC when it was founded as a Greek colony, known as Taras.
The Battle of Ebro River was a naval battle fought near the mouth of Ebro River in the spring of 217 BC between a Carthaginian fleet of approximately 40 quinqueremes, under the command of Himilco, and a Roman fleet of 35 ships, under Gnaeus Cornelius Scipio Calvus. Hasdrubal Barca, the Carthaginian commander in Iberia, had launched a joint expedition to destroy the Roman base north of the Ebro River. The Carthaginian naval contingent was totally defeated after a surprise attack by the Roman ships, losing 29 ships and the control of seas around Iberia. The reputation of the Romans was further enhanced in Iberia after this victory, causing rebellion among some of the Iberian tribes under Carthaginian control.
The Roman Republic conquered and occupied territories in the Iberian Peninsula that were previously under the control of native Celtic, Iberian, Celtiberian and Aquitanian tribes and the Carthaginian Empire. The Carthaginian territories in the south and east of the peninsula were conquered in 206 BC during the Second Punic War. Control was gradually extended over most of the Iberian Peninsula without annexations. It was completed after the end of the Roman Republic, by Augustus, the first Roman emperor, who annexed the whole of the peninsula to the Roman Empire in 19 BC.
The Battle of Tarentum in March 212 BC was a military engagement in the Second Punic War.
Bomilcar was a Carthaginian commander in the Second Punic War.
The Battle of Messene took place in 397 BC in Sicily. Carthage, in retaliation for the attack on Motya by Dionysius, had sent an army under Himilco, to Sicily to regain lost territory. Himilco sailed to Panormus, and from there again sailed and marched along the northern coast of Sicily to Cape Pelorum, 12 miles (19 km) north of Messene. While the Messenian army marched out to offer battle, Himilco sent 200 ships filled with soldiers to the city itself, which was stormed and the citizens were forced to disperse to forts in the countryside. Himilco later sacked and leveled the city, which was again rebuilt after the war.
Agesimbrotus was the commander of the Rhodian fleet, consisting of 20 decked ships, during the Second Macedonian War, and sailed against Philip of Macedon from 200 to 197 BC. Agesimbrotus' fleet met with the 24 quinqueremes of Attalus I near Andros, and the two sailed for Euboea, and ravaged the lands belonging to Carystus. When that city received reinforcements from Chalcis, the fleets diverted to Eretria rather than engage a more prepared enemy. There they united with the fleet of Roman admiral Lucius Quinctius Flamininus, and the three of them laid heavy siege to Eretria, which surrendered after a nighttime assault by Quinctius. The three commanders sailed back to Carystus, which evacuated into the city citadel at the approach of such a fleet, and sent ambassadors to beg protection from Quinctius. The townspeople were freed and the Macedonian garrison was ransomed and deported, unarmed, to Boeotia.
Himilco was a member of the Magonids, a Carthaginian family of hereditary generals, and had command over the Carthaginian forces between 406 BC and 397 BC. He is chiefly known for his war in Sicily against Dionysius I of Syracuse.
The Roman withdrawal from Africa was the attempt by the Roman Republic in 255 BC to rescue the survivors of their defeated expeditionary force to Carthaginian Africa during the First Punic War. A large fleet commanded by Servius Fulvius Paetinus Nobilior and Marcus Aemilius Paullus successfully evacuated the survivors after defeating an intercepting Carthaginian fleet, but was struck by a storm while returning, losing most of its ships.
The Battle of Victumulae, fought in January of 217 BC during the Second Punic War, represented a clash of secondary importance, engaged between the army of consul Tiberius Sempronius Longus and the Carthage army of Hannibal, after the victories of the latter reported in Battle of Ticinus and at the Battle of Trebbia.
The Hannibal's raid to Rome occurred in 211 BC during the Second Punic War; the Carthaginian leader Hannibal marched by surprise with his army towards Rome, initially causing great concern among the leaders and citizens of the republic. The raid, however, ended in failure; soon, faced with firm resistance from the Romans, Hannibal left the city to head with his troops to Campania.
The Battle of Placentia which took place in January of 217 BC during the Second Punic War, represented a double clash of secondary importance, engaged between the army of the consul Tiberius Sempronius Longus and the Carthagese army of Hannibal, after the latter's victories at the Ticinus and at the Trebbia.