The Roman fleet of 330 warships plus an unknown number of transports had sailed from Ostia, the port of Rome, and had embarked approximately 26,000 picked legionaries shortly before the battle.

His works include a now lost manual on military tactics,[8] but he is best known for The Histories, written sometime after 167 BC, or about a century after the Battle of Ecnomus.

[11][12] Most Carthaginian written records were destroyed along with their capital, Carthage, in 146 BC and so Polybius's account of the First Punic War is based on several, now lost, Greek and Latin sources.

[16][17][18] Other, later, histories of the war exist, but in fragmentary or summary form,[19] and they usually cover military operations on land in more detail than those at sea.

[23] Carthage was a well-established maritime power in the Western Mediterranean; Rome had recently unified mainland Italy south of the Po under its control.

[24] By 256 BC, the war had grown into a struggle in which the Romans were attempting to defeat decisively the Carthaginians and, at a minimum, control the whole of Sicily.

[25] The Carthaginians were engaging in their traditional policy of waiting for their opponents to wear themselves out, in the expectation of then regaining some or all of their possessions and negotiating a mutually satisfactory peace treaty.

The war there had reached a stalemate, as the Carthaginians focused on defending their well-fortified towns and cities; these were mostly on the coast and so could be supplied and reinforced without the Romans being able to use their superior army to interfere.

[27][28] The focus of the war shifted to the sea, where the Romans had little experience; on the few occasions they had previously felt the need for a naval presence they had relied on small squadrons provided by their allies.

[45][46] Getting the oarsmen to row as a unit, let alone to execute the more complex battle manoeuvres, required long and arduous training.

[45] This allowed Roman legionaries acting as marines to board enemy ships and capture them, rather than employing the previously traditional tactic of ramming.

All warships were equipped with rams, a triple set of 60-centimetre-wide (2 ft) bronze blades weighing up to 270 kilograms (600 lb) positioned at the waterline.

However, the added weight in the prow compromised the ship's manoeuvrability, and in rough sea conditions the corvus became useless.

These victories, and their frustration at the continuing stalemate in Sicily, led the Romans to focus on a sea-based strategy and to develop a plan to invade the Carthaginian heartland in North Africa and threaten their capital, Carthage (close to what is now Tunis), in the hope of a war-winning outcome.

[51] Both sides were determined to establish naval supremacy and invested large amounts of money and manpower in maintaining and increasing the size of their navies.

[52][53] The Carthaginian fleet mustered at Carthage in the late spring of 256 BC, before sailing for Lilybaeum (modern Marsala), their major base in Sicily, to resupply and to embark soldiers to use as marines.

[6] The two consuls for the year, Marcus Atilius Regulus and Lucius Manlius Vulso Longus, were given command of the fleet; each sailed in a hexareme, the only larger ships noted as participating in the battle.

The Roman fleet embarked 80 picked legionaries on each warship, intending to either land them in Africa in pursuit of their strategic objective or to complement the galleys' marines if the Carthaginian navy challenged them.

[61] The medieval historian Joannes Zonaras cites Dio Cassius to locate the battle immediately to the east of Heraclea Minoa.

The Carthaginians sailed east, expecting to encounter the Roman fleet, and were possibly warned of its approach by small scout-ships.

Both Carthaginian wings advanced on the two rearmost squadrons, by-passing the Roman centre and attempting to attack from the flanks to avoid the corvus boarding mechanism.

On the other hand, when the Romans were able to employ their corvi and board, they had the advantage of the experienced and heavily armoured legionaries they had embarked to transport to Africa.

Despite having started the battle echeloned forward from their main fleet, their opponents, the ships of the Carthaginian first squadron, were unable to cut them off from the coast.

[65] The Roman centre broke off its pursuit in response to the consuls' signals, and rowed back to assist their two rear squadrons, and to rescue the drifting transports.

The prows of the captured Carthaginian ships were sent to Rome to adorn the speaker's platform of the Forum, according to the tradition initiated after the Battle of Mylae.

[77] The war eventually ended in 241 BC with a Roman victory at the Battle of the Aegates Islands, leading to an agreed peace.

The immense effort of building 1,000 galleys during the war laid the foundation for Rome's maritime dominance for 600 years.