Nobi'lior
1. SER. FULVIUS PAETINUS NOBILIOR, M. F. M. N., was consul B. C. 255, with M. Aemilius Paullus about the middle of the first Punic war.
In the beginning of this year Regulus had been defeated in Africa by the Carthaginians, and the remains of his army were besieged in Clypea.
As soon as the senate heard of this disaster they sent both consuls with a fleet of at least three hundred ships, to bring off the survivors.
After reducing Cossura the Romans met the Carthaginian fleet near the Hermaean promontory, and gained a most brilliant victory over it.
The loss of the Carthaginians was very great, though the numbers are differently stated, and are evidently corrupt in Polybius.
After the victory the consuls landed at Clypea, but did not remain long in Africa on account of the complete want of provisions.
As it was near the summer solstice, in the month of July, when the Romans set out homewards, the pilots cautioned them to avoid the southern coast of Sicily, as violent gales from the south and south-west make that coast very dangerous at that time of the year.
The consuls, however, disregarded their warning; and off Camarina they were surprised by a fearful storm, which destroyed almost the whole fleet, and strewed the coast from Camarina to Pachynus with wrecks and corpses. Both consuls, however, escaped, and celebrated a triumph as proconsuls in the following year (
Plb. 1.36,
37;
Eutrop. 2.22;
Oros. 4.9;
Diod. 23.14 ;
Zonar. 8.14). Respecting the date of this campaign, see Niebuhr,
Hist. of Rome, vol. iii. p. 591, and Arnold,
Hist. of Rome, vol. ii. p. 593. n. 67.
