Before Rome challenged the Carthaginian possession of Sicily and Sardinia, Carthage had for centuries been the master of the western Mediterranean. Twenty-three years of war completely upended that. Rome defeated the Carthaginians, ejected them from Sicily, and forced Carthage to pay indemnities worth 3200 Eu-boian talents over a period of ten years. Then, as Carthage was embroiled in a war with its own former mercenaries, Rome took Sardinia as well and extorted another indemnity worth 1200 Euboian talents. As the historian Polybius puts it:
it is impossible to discover any reasonable pretext or cause … the Carthaginians, contrary to all justice, and merely because the occasion permitted it, were forced to evacuate Sardinia …
– Polybius 3.28.1–2, trans. C. Habicht
For Carthage, the loss of these islands meant the loss of control over the important sailing routes that ran from the African coast along Sicily, Sardinia, and Corsica up to the Ligurian coast. Now Rome had become the new master of the western Mediterranean.
It is worth pointing out that it was the Carthaginian navy that had failed in battle at the ‘moment supreme’, at the Egadi Islands off Sicily in 241 BC. Its mission had been to bring supplies from Carthage, and then to take soldiers onboard to work as rowers and marines and face the waiting Roman
