Romans made no more use of the boarding-bridges. Ninety-three Roman ships were taken, many were destroyed, not more than about thirty reached Lilybæum: with them was the consul Claudius. He was recalled: fierce reproaches were made against him that he was the cause of the disaster; that he had impiously scorned the auspices; that the birds of the augurs had refused to eat, and that thereupon he had ordered them to be thrown into the sea. He had to appoint a dictator: in mockery he named the son of a freedman, a client of his, one M. Claudius Glycia: the name of the grandfather is not mentioned in the Fasti. Since the curies had lost their power, it had become the right of the consul to appoint a dictator; whereas formerly he merely proclaimed him. P. Claudius was put on his trial: according to Polybius, and to judge from an expression of Cicero’s, he was condemned to a severe punishment; according to others, the _comitia_ were dispersed by a thunderstorm, whereupon the matter was dropped, which seems to betoken the influence of a powerful party. When he was already dead, his sister likewise brought upon herself a severe punishment by her genuine Claudian insolence. Annoyed by the crowd in a procession, in which she took a part as a Vestal, she loudly exclaimed, it was a pity that her brother was no more alive to get rid of some of the rabble at sea. This also proves, that at that time the sailors were levied from the _capite censi_. She was prosecuted for a _crimen majestatis_ before the plebeian ædiles, and condemned to pay a heavy fine. The dictator Claudius Glycia was of course induced by the senate and the people to resign his dignity. The conduct of Claudius is quite in keeping with the many acts of wanton insolence which were displayed by all his family; they may be traced from the middle of the fourth century down to the emperor Tiberius: the character for insolence is nearly hereditary in them. Immediately afterwards, another misfortune befalls the Romans. They had still kept up their spirits; for they already sent again eight hundred ships with provisions to Lilybæum, without doubt escorted by a considerable fleet, a proof of the importance of the commerce in the Mediterranean; but the ships of war were not sufficient to protect them. With this fleet the consul L. Junius sailed again through the straits of Messina to Syracuse, as the commissariat was chiefly dependent on the latter town; he there took in his full cargo, and very imprudently sent part of the fleet with some ships of war in advance. The Carthaginians under Carthalo put to sea to meet them, and so frightened them, that they laid to in a very bad roadsted among breakers, off the southern coast (between Agrigentum and Camarina), so that even Carthalo shrank from attacking them. L. Junius was very late before he set out from Syracuse, and when he found that Carthalo was lying between him and the other convoy, he likewise went to a bad roadsted.