.
At this point, the Carthaginian garrison had already been thrown out.
Claudius told the Carthaginians that there would be war if they did not stop what they were doing. They did not stop, and so there was War.
The First Punic War.
The next year, 263AD, two Roman consuls moved South with two legions each, which was the most common number for battles like this, and a huge number of 40,000 allies.
They defeated the Carthaginians, and Hiero who had previously had his doubts against Rome changed sides. He was a loyal ally for fifty years, and a number of other Greek cities in Sicily went over to the Romans. .
The Romans then began to attack Greek cities allied with the Carthaginians. When they took a town they sacked it, taking all of the towns possessions and taking control of most things associated with the town. This was normal behavior in antiquity, but in doing so a huge resistance to the Romans grew among the Greek cities. .
The Romans decided in 261 that they needed a fleet and quickly built one. Because they had absolutely no with the naval side of War, they developed an incredibly handy device called the corvus, which means "crow" in Latin. This was a raised gangplank in the bow of the ship with a large spike on the underside. The Romans would drop the plank onto the Carthaginian ships which were more manueveble, and the spike on the underside would hold the Carthaginian ship in place. The Romans could then board the ship and use their superior troops to take the ship. So they pretty much turned naval warfare into land warfare. .
In 260 at the battle of Mylae 143 Roman ships under the command of C. Duilius defeated 130 Carthaginian ships, they captured 31 and sunk 14. Duilius built a victory monument in the Roman forum, pieces of the monument are still preserved today. This naval victory was a great moral victory, but it was not decisive, and the campaigns in Sicily kept going. .
The Romans kept the Carthaginians in the west of the island but couldn't get them out of the island all together.