were too disordered to fight effectively and the phalanx held firm. Some units of the Carthaginian cavalry were now returning from their pursuit and started to attack or feint against the Roman rear and flanks. The Romans attempted to fight on all sides which brought their forward momentum to a halt. The Romans held firm, possibly partly because of the way their dense formation jammed them close together, but the elephants continued to rampage through their ranks, and the Carthaginian cavalry pinned them in place by hurling missiles into their rear and flanks. Then Xanthippus ordered the phalanx to attack. Most of the Romans were packed into a space where they could not resist effectively and were slaughtered. Regulus and a small force fought their way out of the encirclement, but were pursued and shortly he and 500 survivors were forced to surrender. A total of about 13,000 Romans were killed. The Carthaginians lost 800 men from the force on their right which was routed; the losses of the rest of their army are not known. A force of 2,000 Romans survived, from the left wing who had broken through into the Carthaginian camp; they escaped the battlefield and retreated to Aspis. This was Carthage's only victory in a major land battle during the war. Xanthippus, fearful of the envy of Hasdrubal and the other Carthaginian generals he had outdone, took his pay and returned to Greece. Regulus died in Carthaginian captivity; later Roman authors invented a tale of him displaying heroic virtue while a prisoner. The Romans sent a fleet to evacuate their survivors and the Carthaginians attempted to oppose it. In the resulting Battle of Cape Hermaeum off Africa the Carthaginians were heavily defeated, losing 114 ships captured and 16 sunk. The Roman fleet, in turn, was devastated by a storm while returning to Italy: 384 ships were sunk from their total of 464 and 100,000 men lost,the majority non-Roman Latin allies. Sicily Having lost most of their fleet in the storm of 255 BC, the Romans rapidly rebuilt it, adding 220 new ships, and launched a determined offensive in Sicily; their entire fleet, under both consuls, attacked Panormus early in 254 BC. Panormus was a large-for-the-time city on the north coast of Sicily, the site of the modern Sicilian capital Palermo. It had a population of approximately 70,000 and was one of the largest Sicilian cities still