Episode 1254
Battle of Cape Ecnomus
Sat, 2020-Oct-10 00:26 UTC
Length - 2:44
Direct Link
Welcome to featured Wiki of the Day where we read the summary of the featured Wikipedia article every day.
The featured article for Saturday, 10 October 2020 is Battle of Cape Ecnomus.
The Battle of Cape Ecnomus or Eknomos (Ancient Greek: Ἔκνομος) 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 (264–241 BC). 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 Roman fleet of 330 warships plus an unknown number of transports had sailed from Ostia, the port of Rome, and had embarked approximately 26,000 picked legionaries shortly before the battle. They planned to cross to Africa and invade the Carthaginian homeland, in what is now Tunisia. The Carthaginians were aware of the Romans' intentions and mustered all available warships, 350, off the south coast of Sicily to intercept them. With a combined total of about 680 warships carrying up to 290,000 crew and marines, the battle was possibly the largest naval battle in history by the number of combatants involved.
When they met, the Carthaginians took the initiative and the battle devolved into three separate conflicts, where they hoped that their superior ship handling skills would tell. After a prolonged and confused day of fighting the Carthaginians were decisively defeated, losing 30 ships sunk and 64 captured to Roman losses of 24 ships sunk.
This recording reflects the Wikipedia text as of 00:26 UTC on Saturday, 10 October 2020.
For the full current version of the article, see Battle of Cape Ecnomus on Wikipedia.
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This has been Kendra Neural. Thank you for listening to featured Wiki of the Day.
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