During the First Punic War, 264–241 BC, the Carthaginian and Roman Republic fleets engaged in naval combat in the Battle of Cape Ecnomus, sometimes known as Eknomos, off the coast of southern Sicily in 256 BC. The First Punic War began when the states of Carthage and Rome clashed in 264 BC. Rome had just unified mainland Italy south of the Po under the dominion of Carthage, a long-standing naval power in the Western Mediterranean. Control of the Sicilian town of Messana was the direct cause of ... (Read More)