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Battle of the Lipari Islands
Part of the First Punic War
The Lapari islands, also known as the Aeolian Islands.
Date 260 BC Location Lipara harbour, Sicily Result Carthaginian victory
Combatants
Carthage	Roman Republic
Commanders
Boodes Hannibal Gisco	Gnaeus Cornelius Scipio Asina
Strength
About 20 ships	About 17 ships
Casualties
Unknown	Fleet captured

The Battle of the Lipari Islands or Lipara (Lipara harbour, 260 BC) was the first encounter between the fleets of Carthage and the Roman Republic, fought during the First Punic War. The Carthaginian victory was a result of an ambush, rather than a fixed battle.

After the land successes in Sicily showed by the conquest of Agrigentum, the Romans felt confident to build and equip a fleet that allowed them to control the Mediterranean Sea. The Republic ordered, built and drilled the crew of a fleet of about 150 quinqueremes and triremes in a record two months. The patrician Gnaeus Cornelius Scipio (the year's senior consul) was given the command of the first 17 ships produced and sailed to Messana to prepare the fleet's arrival and the crossing to Sicily.

While Scipio was on the strait, he received a piece of information that assured that the garrison of Lipara was willing to defect to the Roman side. What happened next is usually described as a treacherous act of the Carthaginians, but the sources do not give much detail and are usually pro-Roman. The consul did not resist the temptation of conquering an important city without a fight and sailed to Lipara. As the Romans entered the harbour with their brand new ships, a part of the Carthaginian fleet, commanded by Hannibal Gisco (the general defeated in Agrigentum) and Boodes, was waiting to ambush. Boodes lead about 20 ships to block the Romans inside the harbour. Scipio and his men offered little resistance. The inexperienced crews panicked and fled and the consul himself was captured. His ingenuity earned him the pejorative cognomen Asina, which means donkey in Latin.

The Lipara incident did not put an end to the First Punic War, or Scipio Asina's career. Shortly afterwards, the junior consul, Gaius Duilius, avenged the humiliation by winning the battle of Mylae in front of the rest of the fleet.

• The Fall of Carthage, by Adrian Goldsworthy, Cassel