Battle of the Ebro

After defeating the Carthaginian army of Hannon at Cissis in the fall of 218 BC, Gnei Scipio consolidated his control of southeastern Spain and raided the Spanish possessions of the Carthaginians, and did not receive reinforcements from Italy , which was engaged in the fight against Hannibal . Meanwhile, Hasdrubal Barka recruited among subordinate Iberian tribes, significantly increasing his army. In 218 BC, the Carthaginian fleet in Spain totaled 32 quinquerems and 6 triremes . Hasdrubal added to the squadron another 10 quinqueres that were sent to him from Carthage, and in the spring of 217 BC launched a combined attack from land and sea to Roman-held territories north of Ebro.

Gnei Scipio, fearing the numerical superiority of the Carthaginians in the ground forces, decided to give Gasdrubal a naval battle. The Roman squadron at that time numbered only 35 quinquers (25 ships were sent back to Italy after their crews were destroyed during the Carthaginian raid after the battle of Cissi ), but was reinforced by 20 Greek ships from the allied Romans of Massilia .

Having reached the Ebro River, the Carthaginian fleet anchored at its mouth. Gasdrubal scouts combed the neighborhood in search of Roman troops, but squadron commander Himilkon neglected naval intelligence. As a result, the Greek courts managed to find the Carthaginian fleet, which was anchored, and undetected to retreat in order to warn Scipio, who had sailed with the army from Tarracon and was 15 km from the throat of the Ebro. Scipio loaded select legionnaires onto his ships and moved south towards the Punians.

The first to approach the Roman fleet were the army patrols of Gasdrubal who noticed their squadron with bonfire signals. Most of the Carthaginian crews were ashore; the ships began to hastily take on board the crew and anchor. In a mess and in a hurry, some ships left the anchorage underestimated. Hasdrubal built an army along the coast to give the squadron moral support.

The Romans intercepted the Carthaginian ships at the time of exit from the mouth of the river. They rammed and sunk four ships and boarded two more, after which the Carthaginian sailors fell in disbelief and began to throw the ships ashore, fleeing among the troops. The Romans succeeded in hooking hooks and crippling 23 abandoned crew of the Carthaginian ships.

The victory of the Romans was unconditional; Hasdrubal was forced to withdraw the army back to New Carthage . The prestige of the Punites in Spain received a heavy blow, and among the Iberian tribes subordinate to Carthage, fermentations and uprisings began, the suppression of which did not allow the Carthaginians to concentrate on the fight against Rome right up to 215 BC. The main forces of the Carthaginian fleet were intercepted near Kos in 217 BC. in Italy, an auxiliary Roman fleet, which sailed to Spain, but in the fall of that year, eight-thousandth Roman reinforcements with Publius Scipio at the head arrived in Spain without loss. The Scipio brothers ravaged Carthage Spain until 215 BC, when they again met with the army of Gasdrubal near the throat of the Ebro at the Battle of Dertos .

After the almost complete loss of its naval forces, Hasdrubal had two alternatives: to return to Carthage with a request for reinforcements, or to build new ships. In fact, he did neither one nor the other, giving way to the Romans at sea. By a victory at Ebro, Scipio secured his sea communications with the metropolis from the threat of the Carthaginian forces in Spain and could now carry out attacks on the Carthaginian coast with almost no risk. The only Carthaginian naval expedition against the Romans from Spain - the invasion of Liguria by Magon Barca - occurred only in 204 BC , after Carthage completely lost its Spanish possessions.