This victory restored the courage of the Romans; yet the conclusion of the war was extremely hard to bring about, as they did not again venture over to Africa, and the Carthaginians made no attempts to recover what they had lost in Sicily. The latter were now pent up quite at the western end of the island; all that they had still left were the towns of Lilybæum, Drepana, and Eryx. The year after (502), the Romans therefore began the siege of Lilybæum, which lasted till the close of the war, yet not as a siege in form, but as a blockade. The part of the war which follows, might with great propriety be called the Lilybæan one. This last act is the finest on the side of the Carthaginians; the Romans distinguish themselves in it only by their perseverance. The victory of Metellus in the fourteenth year of the war, was the first pitched battle, with the exception of that near Adin in Africa, in which the Romans had conquered. The siege of Lilybæum was undertaken by them under very unfavourable circumstances. The Carthaginians were in fact masters of the sea; but owing to the tremendous expenses of the war, they had retrenched their naval armaments as much as they possibly could: the Romans had again a fleet off Lilybæum, which was likewise of limited force, and not intended for sea-fights, yet sufficient to make the communication difficult with that town. Lilybæum is a Punic name; it means, according to Bochart, the place which lies towards Libya (לְלֻבִּי); it was without doubt a mixed Punico-Libyan colony, and at that time the only Punic town in Sicily, having been founded by the inhabitants of Motye, which had been destroyed by Dionysius. As Lilybæum was the residence of the Carthaginian general, it had grown into a considerable town just as did Carthagena in Spain; Palermo, on the contrary, was a thoroughly Greek city, peopled by Greeks and Hellenized Siculians and Sicanians, although it had long been under the Punic rule. Lilybæum had a good harbour, which was yet safer from its being so difficult to get into it. The sand which the south winds bring thither from the Syrtes, had already accumulated there, and formed a sort of lagune; owing to this very cause, the whole harbour of Marsala is now no longer in existence. The fortifications of the place were very strong. Besides Lilybæum, three German miles from it, the Carthaginians had Drepana (the present Trapani) with its noble harbour, which even now, in spite of the attempts of Charles V. to fill it up, is excellent; and besides Drepana, the town of Eryx with the mountain of that name. Within this district the war was concentrated for nine years; this gave rise to the utter wretchedness of the island, which was quite ruined by it.