in the year 264 before our era, on a rocky beach in sicily, the roman legions set foot for the first time on a shore outside italy. rome had voted for war, but had no fleet of her own to wage it: she crossed the strait of messana in ships lent by naples, tarentum and the rest of her greek allies in southern italy. the outcome of that modest night — a consul, a few legions, borrowed helmets — would be the longest continuous war of antiquity.
the target was messana, a city caught between two fires. commanded by a carthaginian garrison on one side, and harried by hiero ii, the king of syracuse, on the other, the mamertines — former campanian mercenaries who had seized the city by force decades earlier — had asked both of the two greatest powers of the western mediterranean for help at once, and rome decided to intervene. at the head of the legions marched the consul appius claudius, nicknamed caudex, charged with crossing the strait and taking position before carthage or syracuse could get there first.
but when the legions reached the gates of messana, they found the place already cleared: the punic commander had abandoned the citadel before a single legionary had to fight for it. the sources disagree on how it happened. diodorus siculus and zonaras report that it was a ruse by the tribune gaius claudius, sent ahead of the main troops, who persuaded or forced him out. polybius, by contrast, attributes the manoeuvre to the mamertines themselves: it was they, by threat and cunning, who drove the carthaginian officer out of the citadel, and only then — with the place already empty — invited the consul appius claudius to enter.
for surrendering the position without a fight, carthage crucified its own commander.
the outcome for that officer was brutal, and revealing of carthaginian discipline: for surrendering the position without giving battle, carthage crucified him. with the garrison gone and the city already in roman hands, the legions entrenched themselves within the walls of messana and waited for the counterblow, which was not long in coming. hiero of syracuse and the carthaginian contingent still operating in the area laid siege to the city from separate sides, without fully coordinating their offensive — a lack of coordination that appius claudius knew how to exploit.
with the position secured, the moment of iron arrived. the legions sallied through the gates and first smashed the camp of the king of syracuse; the following day, they turned their swords against the carthaginian contingent, and the african troops were broken and forced to abandon their base. it was the first blood of the war, and the first round had fallen rome’s way.
now the historiographical nuance, which is best not to skip. the episode at messana reaches us through two traditions that do not always agree, and polybius — our principal source, written a generation and a half after the events — is also the sparest in detail about the exact role of gaius claudius, while diodorus and zonaras, writing later, inflate his part with the personal ruse. lazenby, in his military study of the war, notes that both versions share the same narrative interest: presenting the taking of messana as a stroke of wit rather than a battle, perhaps because there was scarcely any fighting to recount. what no source disputes is the outcome: for the first time, a roman army had crossed the sea and won in open battle outside italy.
but the victory concealed a long-term trap. as long as carthage kept command of the sea, any roman triumph on land would be, at most, provisional: the legions could win every battle in sicily and still lose the war, because carthage could always resupply, reinforce or evacuate by a route rome did not control. that lesson, still invisible in the newly taken streets of messana, would reveal itself in all its harshness two years later, at the gates of the immense city of acragas.
