Battle of Ebro River
Battle of Ebro river was a naval battle fought between a Carthaginian fleet of approximately 40 quinqueremes under Himilco and a Roman fleet of 55 ships under
Gnaeus Cornelius Scipio Calvus near the mouth of Ebro river. The Carthaginians were thoroughly beaten, losing 29 ships and the control of seas around Spain after this defeat.
After the defeat of Hanno in the
Battle of Cissa, Gnaeus Scipio had spent his time consolidating his hold on Northern Spain and raiding the Spanish territory of Carthage south of the Ebro. He had received no major reinforcements from Rome.
Hasdrubal Barca, in the meantime, had raised Iberian levies to expand his army substantially. The Punic navy in Spain numbered 32 Quinqueremes and 5 triremes in 218 BC. Hasdrubal added a further 10 Quinqueremes to this fleet, and in the Spring of 217 BC, mounted a joint expedition towards the Roman territory north of the Ebro. Hasdrubal commanded the army, his deputy Himilco the fleet.
Gnaeus, fearing that the Carthaginian army outnumbered him, resloved to fight a naval battle. Although he had only 35 Quinqueremes (25 ships were sent back to Italy after a Carthaginian raid had caused severe casualties among the crews), the allied Greek city of
Massilia had provided 20 ships for his fleet.
Having reached the Ebro river, the Carthaginian fleet had anchored in the mouth. Although Hasdrubal had posted scouts to detect the Romans, Himilco had no ships out scouting. The Massilian ships had scouted the Punic fleet as it lay at anchor, and slipped away undetected to warn Gneaus, who had sailed from Tarraco and was only 10 miles to the north. Gneaus manned his ships with picked legionaries and sailed down to attack the Punic fleet.
Hasdrubal's army scouts detected the Roman fleet first and warned their fleet by fire signals. Most of the crews had been foraging, and as they hastily had to man their ships and sail out. There was little coordination and some ships were undermanned. Hasdrubal drew up his army on the shore to give encouragement to his fleet.
The Romans caught the Carthaginian ships as they came out of the river, ramming and sinking 4 ships and boarding and capturing 2 more. The Carthaginian crews lost heart, beached their ships and sought safety among the army. The Romans grappled and hauled away 23 of the beached ships.
The defeat was decisive. Hasdrubal was obliged to march back to
Cartagena. Carthaginian prestige suffered severely and there were rebellions among tribes under Carthaginian control, keeping Hasdrubal from attacking the Romans in force until 215 BC. Although the main Carthaginian fleet had captured a supply fleet headed for Spain in 217 BC off Cosa in Italy,
Publius Cornelius Scipio arrived in Spain with 8,000 soldiers in the fall of that year. The Scipio brothers would raid Carthiginian Spain, and meet Hasdrubal at the
Battle of Dertosa in 215 BC.
With the Spanish contigent of the Carthaginian navy shattered, Hasdrubal was forced to either call
Carthage for reinforcements or build news ships. He did neither. Scipio had ensured that his seabourne supplies would not be intercepted by ships from Spain, and his fleet can raid the Carthaginian territories at will. The only major naval expidition against the Romans from Spain will be that of
Mago Barca to Italy in 204 BC.
# Bagnall, Nigel,
The Punic Wars, 1990
ISBN 0312342144# Lazenby, John Francis,
Hannibal, 1978
