Description
The Epic Third Century (symbol) BC Struggle for Supremacy in the West.
The Mamertines' machinations having plunged the western Mediterranean into war, led by Appius Claudius Caudex - confidently crosses into Sicily. Deserted by its Syracusan ally, King Hieron, the awesome Carthaginian Empire resolves to oppose the pretentious Roman invaders and defend its pre-eminence in the Western World. Victorious on land - in the fearsome battle of Acragas - the Romans are, nevertheless, woefully ill-equipped to counter the overwhelming naval might of the African Colossus. Enmeshed in a web of depravity and corruption; plagued by sedition and treachery; and rent by unfettered ambition and rancorous personal animosities; the archaic system of governance of the Roman Republic struggles to adapt to a distant war.
With the wily Hieron - abetted by his sensuous queen - hovering over the conflicting powers; and with neither of the major antagonists prepared to concede; the Sicilian squabble inexorably escalates into a war of continents, the greatest conflict yet to rock the Western World.
For more than twenty years, by land and sea, the hitherto land-based forces of the Roman Republic will contend with the mighty naval power of the indomitable Punic Empire for dominance of the Western World.