Battle of the Lipari Islands

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The Lapari islands, also known as the Aeolian Islands.

Date	260 BC
Location	Lipara harbour, Sicily
Result	Carthaginian victory

Combatants

Carthage

Roman Republic

Commanders

Boodes
Hannibal Gisco

Gnaeus Cornelius Scipio Asina

Strength

About 20 ships

About 17 ships

Casualties

Unknown

Fleet captured

Punic Wars
First – Mercenary – Second – Third

First Punic War
Messina - Agrigentum – Lipari Islands – Mylae – Sulci – Tyndaris – Cape Ecnomus – Adys – Tunis – Panormus – Drepana – Lillybaeum - Drepana - Mt Ercte - 1st Mt Eryx - Tarentum - 2nd Mt Eryx - Aegates Islands

The Battle of the Lipari Islands or Lipara (Lipara harbour, 260 BC) was the first encounter between the fleets of Carthage and the Roman Republic, fought during the First Punic War. The Carthaginian victory was a result of an ambush, rather than a fixed battle.

1 Prelude
2 The battle
3 Aftermath
4 References

[edit] Prelude

After the land successes in Sicily showed by the conquest of Agrigentum, the Romans felt confident to build and equip a fleet that allowed them to control the Mediterranean Sea. The Republic ordered, built and drilled the crew of a fleet of about 150 quinqueremes and triremes in a record two months. The patrician Gnaeus Cornelius Scipio (the year's senior consul) was given the command of the first 17 ships produced and sailed to Messana to prepare the fleet's arrival and the crossing to Sicily.

[edit] The battle

While Scipio was on the strait, he received a piece of information that assured that the garrison of Lipara was willing to defect to the Roman side. What happened next is usually described as a treacherous act of the Carthaginians, but the sources do not give much detail and are usually pro-Roman. The consul did not resist the temptation of conquering an important city without a fight and sailed to Lipara. As the Romans entered the harbour with their brand new ships, a part of the Carthaginian fleet, commanded by Hannibal Gisco (the general defeated in Agrigentum) and Boodes, was waiting to ambush. Boodes lead about 20 ships to block the Romans inside the harbour. Scipio and his men offered little resistance. The inexperienced crews panicked and fled and the consul himself was captured. His ingenuity earned him the pejorative cognomen Asina, which means donkey in Latin.

[edit] Aftermath

The Lipara incident did not put an end to the First Punic War, or Scipio Asina's career. Shortly afterwards, the junior consul, Gaius Duilius, avenged the humiliation by winning the battle of Mylae in front of the rest of the fleet.