Battle of the Lipari Islands

Agrigento - Mylae - Aeolian Islands - Sulci - Tyndaris - Cape Ecnomus - Aspis - Ady - Tunes - Cape Bon - Panormus - Drepana I - Drepana II - Ägatische Islands

The Battle of the Lipari Islands in 260 BC was the first meeting between the fleets of the Roman Republic and Carthage in the First Punic War. The result of this ambush, which can hardly be called a battle, was a Carthaginian victory.

Following the successes of Sicily, for example, in the Battle of Agrigento, the Romans had enough self- confidence to build a fleet and equip that would allow them to dominate the Mediterranean. The Republic of commissioned and built a fleet of around 150 quinqueremes and triremes in the record time of two months. The patrician Gnaeus Cornelius Scipio, the senior consul of the year, took over the command of the first 17 completed ships, which were built in Messana and lowered into the water to prepare for the landing of the fleet in Sicily.

As Scipio was in the Straits, he received the information, the Carthaginian stronghold of Lipari intend to defect to his side. What followed now commonly referred to as Carthaginian treachery, but the sources do not give many details on this award and are generally adjusted pro-Roman. The fact is that the consul could not resist the temptation to play a major city without a fight, and sailed to Lipara. When the Romans with their brand new ships pulled into the harbor, waiting for a part of the Carthaginian fleet under Hannibal Gisco - the beat in Agrigento General - and Boodes in ambush. Boodes left with around 20 ships of the harbor and so the Romans block. Scipio and his men contributed little resistance. The inexperienced crews fled to the country and the consul himself was captured. His ingenuity earned him the pejorative cognomen Asina, the donkey, a. The disparaging nickname donkeys and donkey in particular were in Rome for stupidity and impulsiveness.

The Lipara incident made ​​the First Punic War nor an end as Scipio's career. A short time later, avenged the junior consul Gaius Duilius with the rest of the fleet, the humiliation at the Battle of Mylae.