The First Punic War lasted 23 years, from 264 to 241 BC, and imposed severe human losses on Rome. One estimate places deaths at seven percent of free Roman men, at the low end of the estimates considered. A Roman fleet returning to Italy after an earlier victory lost a reported 100,000 men in a storm. Crew rosters and records of how ships were manned help establish the scale of naval losses. These records can give sea warfare a numerical visibility that its smaller place in Roman historical writing would not suggest.
Notable Point · 35:19-38:38
A 23-year war of attrition
The scale of Roman losses and earlier fleet disasters explain why the final effort at Aegates carried such strategic weight.