Siege of Lilybaeum ( 250 BC ) The Siege of Lilybaeum ( 250 BC ) was a battle of the First Punic War that pitted a Roman Consular army led by Gaius Atilius Regulus Serranus and Lucius Manlius Vulso Longus against a Carthaginian army under the command of the general Himilcon . The battle resulted in a Roman retreat from the siege after the destruction of their fleet at Drepana . After their victory at the Battle of Panormus of the previous year , the Roman Senate decided to raise an army to decisively put an end to the fighting in Sicily . To this end , a new fleet was commissioned to be made up of 240 ships . The two consuls that year were sent to Sicily at the head of four legions . The Roman forces were likely made up of up to 100 , 000 men , including the crews of galleys and the auxiliary troops that normally accompanied the legions . Caius Atilius Regulus Serranus and Lucius Manlius Vulso Longus both had significant military experience having both previously served as consuls . The Romans arrived at Lilybaeum and began their siege of the city , building siege works around the city including rams , walls , trenches , catapult s and siege tower s . They further attempted to mine underneath the city walls and to block the city ' s port with their fleet . The Carthaginian force was up to this point , based almost exclusively on a force of 10 , 000 mercenaries inside the city . Historically , Carthage had typically relied on mercenary armies and did not maintain its own standing army . According to the historian Polybius , many of the mercenary captains gathered together and decided to desert to the Roman side after fears were raised that they did not stand a chance against the Romans . The Carthaginian command gained knowledge of this plot and the traitors were not allowed to return to the city once they entered the Roman camp . The loyalty of the remaining mercenaries was thereafter not in question and the city was shortly thereafter reinforced by fresh troops from Carthago . The fleet that brought these reinforcements sailed to the Carthaginian base at modern day Trapani ( then called Drepana ) and were able to consistently run the Roman blockade of Lilybaeum to bring supplies to the town . After a storm destroyed the Roman defensive works protecting their siege craft , the Carthaginians came out of the city on sorties and set most of the Roman siege weapons on fire , destroying them . This damage could have been repaired with time , but a second blow befell the Roman camp . The following year , new and non battle tested consuls arrived at the siege with reinforcements . The senior consul , Publius Claudius Pulcher , decided to launch an attack against the Carthaginian fleet at the First Battle of Drepana which turned into the worst naval disaster for the Roman fleet in the entire war . 93 of their ships were captured by the Carthaginian navy , with a mere 30 Roman ships escaping destruction or capture . Publius Claudius Pulcher was disgraced and called back to Rome where he was fined for his incompetence . Shortly after the defeat at Drepana , another Roman fleet under the second new consul , Lucius Junius C . f . C . n . Pullus , was destroyed by the Carthaginians . Aftermath . The Romans attempted to reroute all trade away from the city in an effort to isolate Drepana . In response , Carthage designated Hamilcar Barca , the Carthaginian chief of Sicily in 247 BC to concentrate his forces elsewhere on the island . Attempts to take Lilybaeum by the Romans did not stop until their decisive victory at the Battle of the Aegates Islands in 241 BC . This defeat finally forced Carthage to negotiate a peace on Roman terms . One of the terms that Carthage was obliged to agree to was the complete abandonment of Sicily which included Lilybaeum .