28.30
Hanno, Mago's lieutenant, had been
despatched during this time, with a small body of Africans to hire troops
among the Spanish tribes, and succeeded in raising 4000 men. Soon
afterwards, his camp was captured by L. Marcius, most of his men were
killed in the assault, some during their flight by the pursuing cavalry; Hanno
himself escaped with a handful of his men. Whilst this was going on at the
Baetis Laelius sailed westward and brought up at Carteia, a city situated on
that part of the coast where the Straits begin to widen into the ocean. Some
men had come into the Roman camp with a voluntary offer to surrender the
city of Gades, but the plot was discovered before it was ripe. All the
conspirators were arrested and Mago handed them over to the custody of
Adherbal for conveyance to Carthage. Adherbal placed them on board a
quinquereme which was sent on in advance as it was a slower vessel than the
eight triremes with which he followed shortly after The quinquereme was
just entering the Straits when Laelius sailed out of the harbour of Carteia in
another quinquereme followed by seven triremes. He bore straight down
upon Adherbal, feeling quite sure that the quinquereme could not be brought
round, as it was caught by the current sweeping through the channel.
Surprised by this unsuspected attack, the Carthaginian general
hesitated for a few moments whether to follow his quinquereme or turn his
prows against the enemy. This hesitation put it out of his power to decline
the contest, for they were now within range of one another's missiles, and
the enemy were pressing on him on all sides. The strength of the tide
prevented them from steering their ships as they wished. There was no
semblance of a naval battle, no freedom of action, no room for tactics or
maneuvers. The tidal currents completely dominated the action and carried
the ships against their own side and against the enemy indiscriminately, in
spite of all the efforts of the rowers. You might see a ship which was
endeavouring to escape carried stem foremost against the victors, whilst the
one pursuing it, if it got into an opposing current, was swept back as though
it were the one in flight. And when they were actually engaged and one ship
was making for another in order to ram it, it would swerve from its course
and receive a side-blow from the other's beak, whilst the one which was
coming broadside on would suddenly be swung round and present its prow.
So the varying struggle of the triremes went on, directed and controlled by
Chance. The Roman quinquereme answered the helm better, either because
its weight made it steadier, or because it had more banks of oars to cut
through the waves. It sank two triremes, and sweeping rapidly past a third
sheared off all the oars on one side, and it would have disabled the rest if
Adherbal had not got clear away with the remaining five, and crowding all
sail reached Africa.