resolutely at bay; time after time great armaments from Carthage landed in the island, enough as it might seem to sweep away all before them, and many of the old cities were ruined in the course of the long struggle, but Syracuse, weakened as she was, was able to the last to make head against her ancient enemy, driving her back sometimes to a little corner of the North-West, once even carrying the war to the very doors of Carthage, and at last only dropping it when Rome was there to take it up with greater might.

Meanwhile the power of Carthage was growing to the fulness of its stature. Though unable to conquer Sicily entirely, she had tightened her grasp upon the islands near it. Sardinia was wholly hers, and she ruled it with such skill and wise economy that after three centuries of tenure she left large parts of it a fair and fruitful garden, to become afterwards, in the hands of other masters, waste and wild.

The Balearic isles formed convenient stepping stones across the sea to Spain, whose coasting trade she now possessed without a rival. Along the continent of Africa she stretched her arms, making or strengthening on the fringe of Mauretania a long line of forts, known as the Metagonite; her surplus population was drafted off in numerous colonies, which spread the civilized arts of peace in the interior, and drove further back the clouds of Nomad savagery. At home she opened up the resources of her fertile

country, making husbandry and irrigation matters of scientific study, so that even the Roman senate in a later age thought her books on agriculture worthy of translation. Abroad, she guided the streams of trade to every quarter, now opening up relations with the heart of Africa by means of caravans, now turning to account in Spain the old Phoenician skill in mining, now with daring enterprise exploring regions hitherto unknown.

was a long coasting

Of two such attempts especially we have some detailed accounts. One called the Periplus of Hanno voyage along the South-West of Africa to about the 8th degree of latitude, conducted by the order of the State with a fleet of 60 vessels. On his return the admiral drew up a report officially, which was consigned to the archives in the temple of Baal, and part of it is still extant in a Greek translation. We may still perhaps distinguish in his narrative the crocodiles of Senegal, the sweet-scented forests of Cape Verde, the lofty mountains of Sierra Leone, and the fantastic forms of the Gorillas, so called from a faulty reading of a passage in the Periplus. The second enterprise under Himilco was directed along the coast of Portugal and Gaul, and thence across to the Cassiterides or Scilly Isles, at which Phoenician adventure in olden times had stopped in its quest for tin, but from which the Carthaginians pushed on to the neighbouring shores of Cornwall and of Ireland.

It is time perhaps to turn from such romantic tales of early navigation to inquire what was the nature of the first relations between this Queen of Western Trade and Rome. The earliest historic datum is furnished by the treaty in Polybius (III. 22), which was concluded in the year after the expulsion of the Tarquins (B.c. 509), and the archaic terms of which in the original Latin were scarcely intelligible in the days of the historian. The Carthaginians on their side pledged themselves not to disturb any of the subjects or allies of Rome, not to hold any fortress or attack a town in Latium, while Rome covenanted for herself and her allies not to sail or trade in Africa beyond the headland to the West of Carthage. Sicily was to be a neutral ground for commerce, in which both were to enjoy like rights.

The treaty points to the increasing enterprise of the Italian traders which stirred so soon the jealousy of Carthage, and to the corsairs of the latter power whose visits were dreaded even then in the Tyrrhenian waters, as when they combined with the Etruscans to crush the Phocæans of Alalia.

A century afterwards a second treaty (B.C. 347) opened the markets of Rome and Carthage to each other, but the former was not to trade in Libya or Sardinia, the latter was to spare the subject-soil of Rome from piracy and damage. Carthage spoke in this case in the name of Utica and of the free Tyrian peoples. This treaty closed to Roman traders many

of the ports which the former had left open, and therefore marked the jealous policy of Carthage, which hoped to monopolize the sources of her wealth.

A third treaty in the time of Pyrrhus (B.c. 279) provided for an alliance of an offensive and defensive nature in which Carthage was to lend its fleet, but maintained the restrictions on free trade. So far it has been seen that Sicily was regarded as commercially a neutral ground between the powers, but it was soon to be their battle field. The long struggle for the possession of the island had greatly weakened Syracuse and ruined most of the Greek cities. One of the few that were still left standing, Messana, was seized by a lawless band of Campanian soldiers turned freebooters, who followed a course that had been popular of late at Rhegium and elsewhere. There they were soon attacked by Hiero, who, first as general, then as king, had lately trained to order the turbulent populace of Syracuse, and revived the dignity of the Sicilian Greeks. Hard pressed by the besiegers the Mamertini, 'men of Mars,' as the free lances called themselves, could only baffle Hiero by turning to Carthage or to Rome, and rival parties in the city made overtures to each. The former was first upon the scene, and her soldiers in the citadel. But Rome who had sternly punished a like act of Campanian treachery at Rhegium, and was besides in league with Hiero the avenger, could not turn her back on the temptation of gaining a footing on the soil of Sicily, with a safe

passage in the straits. She enrolled the Mamertines as her allies, and sent a general to the rescue, who by dexterous use of wiles and force ousted the Carthaginians from Messana. So began the first Punic war (B.C. 264), the first act in a long tragedy of bloodshed.

The steady infantry of the Romans swept before it the motley gatherings of mercenaries brought against them in the field, and Hiero, who had little to hope except a choice of masters, changed sides after a campaign or two, and joined the stronger, whose success he dreaded least. But the war in Sicily could not be decided by hard fighting on the open field. A period of slow sieges followed, and Rome's success was more than balanced by the fleets of privateers which ravaged the coasts of Italy and ruined all its trade, while Carthage was mistress of the seas. Then Rome decided to create a navy. She could not raise at once skilled sailors to manœuvre with precision, and more than one great fleet was lost by the rashness or inexperience of her captains: but she could so build as to enable them to grapple and board each ship that came alongside, and to decide the battle by sheer weight of discipline and numbers. Her navy so constructed swept the seas, and landed her legions under Regulus almost within sight of Carthage, but the rash confidence of general and senate while dictating haughty terms of peace kept the weakened army long inactive, to be crushed at length by overpowering numbers. The well-aimed blow failed utterly, and fresh disasters