In 255 BC, during the First Punic War , the Roman Republic attempted to evacuate remnants of its defeated expeditionary force from Carthaginian Africa. A large fleet commanded by Servius Fulvius Paetinus Nobilior and Marcus Aemilius Paullus successfully evacuated survivors after defeating an intercepting Carthaginian fleet, but was struck by a storm while returning, losing most of its ships. The Romans had invaded the Carthaginian homeland (in what is now northeastern Tunisia ) in 256 BC. After initial successes, they had left a force of 15,500 men to hold their lodgement over the winter. This force was decisively beaten at the Battle of Tunis in the spring of 255 BC and its commander, Marcus Atilius Regulus , captured. Two thousand survivors were besieged in the port of Aspis . The Roman fleet of 390 warships was sent to rescue and evacuate them. A Carthaginian fleet of 200 ships intercepted them off Cape Hermaeum (t...