The History of the Saracens of the effectiveness of the Carthaginian cavalry and elephants in open battle. In consequence the Carthaginians, probably with a smaller army than the Romans, dominated the plains; while the Romans stayed on higher and broken ground, where much of the effect of the cavalry and elephants would have been nullified. Both sides declined to fight on their opponents' favoured terrain. Battle. In late summer 250 BC Hasdrubal, hearing that one consul (Gaius Furius Pacilus) had left Sicily with half of the Roman army, marched out from the major Carthaginian stronghold of Lilybaeum towards Panormus with 30,000 men and between 60 	Battle of Panormus
10762335	and 142 elephants. Halting some distance away, he devastated the harvest in the territories of Rome's newly allied cities, in an attempt to provoke the Roman commander, Lucius Caecilius Metellus, into battle. The Roman troops amounted to two legions, and they had been dispersed to gather the harvest. Metellus withdrew them in front of the advancing Carthaginians and they retreated into Panormus. This timidity was what Hasdrubal had come to expect, and he advanced down the Oreto valley, continuing to despoil the countryside. The Oreto reached the sea immediately south of Panormus, and once there Hasdrubal ordered part of 	Battle of Panormus
10762336	his army to cross the river and advance up to the city wall. Once the elephants had crossed, or were crossing, the river, Metellus sent his light infantry to skirmish with the Carthaginians and impede their passage. These light troops hurled javelins at the Carthaginians, and had been instructed to concentrate on their elephants. Panormus was a major supply depot, and townspeople were employed in carrying bundles of javelins from stocks within the city to the foot of the walls so the Roman skirmishers were constantly resupplied. The ground between the river and the city was covered with earthworks, some 	Battle of Panormus
10762337	constructed during the Roman siege and some part of the city's defensive works, which provided cover for the Romans and made it difficult for the elephants to advance, or even manoeuvre. The elephants' mahouts, eager to demonstrate their charges' prowess, nevertheless drove them forward. Some accounts also have missiles being hurled down from the city walls at them. Peppered with missiles and unable to retaliate, the elephants panicked and fled through the Carthaginian infantry behind them. Metellus had concealed himself and a large part of his army either in the woods just outside the city gate, or immediately inside 	Battle of Panormus
10762338	the gates; in either case this meant he was upstream from where the Carthaginian army was fording the river. From here Metellus fed fresh troops into the large-scale skirmish under the city walls. When the elephants broke, disorganising a large part of the Carthaginian army and demoralising all of it, Metellus ordered an attack on its left flank. The Carthaginians fled; those who attempted to fight were cut down. Metellus did not permit a pursuit, but did capture ten elephants in the immediate aftermath and, according to some accounts, the rest of the surviving animals over the succeeding days	Battle of Panormus
10762339	. Contemporary accounts do not report the other losses of either side, although the Carthaginians' are thought to have been heavy. Modern historians consider later claims of 20,000–30,000 Carthaginian casualties improbable. Similarly, later accounts that the large Celtic contingent in the Carthaginian army were drunk when the battle began are usually dismissed; as is the suggestion that a Carthaginian fleet took part in the operation, causing heavy casualties when many fleeing soldiers ran into the sea hoping to be taken off by their ships. Aftermath. The Carthaginian defeat, and especially the loss of their elephants, resulted in the Romans feeling freer 	Battle of Panormus
10762340	to manoeuvre on the plains, and the Carthaginians no longer being willing to challenge them. As was the Carthaginian custom after a defeat, Hasdrubal was recalled to Carthage to be executed. After his success at Panormus, Metellus received a triumph in Rome on 7 September 250 BC, during which he paraded with the elephants he had captured at Panormus, who were then slaughtered in the Circus Maximus. The elephant was adopted as the emblem of the powerful Caecilii Metelli family, whose members featured an elephant on the coins they minted until the end of the Republic. Hasdrubal's successor, Adhubal	Battle of Panormus
10762341	, decided that the large fortified city of Selinus could no longer be garrisoned and had the town evacuated and destroyed. Encouraged by their victory at Panormus, the Romans moved against the main Carthaginian base on Sicily, Lilybaeum, in 249 BC. A large army commanded by the year's consuls Publius Claudius Pulcher and Lucius Junius Pullus besieged the city. They had rebuilt their fleet, and blockaded the harbour with 200 ships. The city was still held by the Carthaginians when the war ended with a Roman victory nine years later in 241 BC. Tension remained high between the two states 	Battle of Panormus
10762342	as they both continued to expand in the western Mediterranean. When Carthage besieged the Roman-protected town of Saguntum in eastern Iberia in 218 BC, it ignited the Second Punic War with Rome. Battle of Panormus The Battle of Panormus was fought in Sicily in 250 BC during the First Punic War between a Roman army led by Lucius Caecilius Metellus and a Carthaginian force led by Hasdrubal, son of Hanno. The Roman force of two legions defending the city of Panormus defeated the much larger Carthaginian army of 30,000 men and between 60 and 142 war elephants. The war 	Battle of Panormus
10762343	The History of the Saracens The History of the Saracens The History of the Saracen Empires is a book written by Simon Ockley of Cambridge University and first published in the early 18th century. The book has been reprinted many times including at London in 1894. It was published in two volumes that appeared a decade apart. The author. Simon Ockley, vicar of Swavesey, Cambridgeshire, devoted himself from an early age to the study of eastern languages and customs and was appointed Sir Thomas Adams Professor of Arabic at Cambridge in 1711. The first volume of his work generally known as The History of the  Saracens", appeared in 1708 as " Conquest of Syria, Persia, and Egypt by the Saracens", the second in 1718, with an introduction dated from Cambridge Castle, where he was then imprisoned for debt. Edward Gibbon, who admired and used his work, speaks of his fate as “unworthy of the man and of his country.” His "History" extends from the death of Mahomet, 632, to that of Abd al-Malik ibn Marwan, 705; the work was cut short by the author's death in 1720. "The Life of Mohammed" prefixed to the third edition of his "History", which was issued for the  benefit of his destitute daughter in 1757, is by Roger Long. Reputation and influence of the work. Ockley based his work on an Arabic manuscript in the Bodleian Library which later scholars have pronounced less trustworthy than he imagined it to be. Stanley Lane-Poole in the "Dictionary of National Biography" wrote that: citing the opinion of William Robertson Smith in the article on Ockley from the ninth edition of the "Encyclopædia Britannica". The author in question is now known as pseudo-Waqidi. Lane-Poole notes that the "History" Alfred Rayney Waller described the author's work: The 1720 play  The Siege of Damascus by John Hughes drew inspiration from the first volume of the work. The History of the Saracens The History of the Saracen Empires is a book written by Simon Ockley of Cambridge University and first published in the early 18th century. The book has been reprinted many times including at London in 1894. It was published in two volumes that appeared a decade apart. The author. Simon Ockley, vicar of Swavesey, Cambridgeshire, devoted himself from an early age to the study of eastern languages and customs and was appointed Sir Thomas Adams Professor of Arabic at