This made the voyage without serious loss, and the army established itself successfully north of the Ebro, on Hannibal's line of communications.

At the same time another squadron, with an army commanded by the other consul, was sent to Sicily.

The two together numbered two hundred and twenty ships.

On its station each met and defeated a Carthaginian squadron with an ease which may be inferred from the slight mention made of the actions, and which indicates the actual superiority of the Roman fleet.
After the second year the war assumed the following shape: Hannibal, having entered Italy by the north, after a series of successes had passed southward around Rome and fixed himself in southern Italy, living off the country,--a condition which tended to alienate the people, and was especially precarious when in contact with the mighty political and military system of control which Rome had there established.

It was therefore from the first urgently necessary that he should establish, between himself and some reliable base, that stream of supplies and reinforcements which in terms of modern war is called "communications." There were three friendly regions which might, each or all, serve as such a base,--Carthage itself, Macedonia, and Spain.