the head of a compact nationality (see map). The strength of Carthage lay in her wealth and navy (the latter partly offset by the vicinity of Italy to Sicily). Her weak points were: the jealousy felt by the ruling families at home toward their own successful generals; the difficulty of dealing with her mercenaries; the danger of revolt among her Libyan subjects; and the fact that an invading army after one victory would find no resistance outside her walls, since her jealousy had leveled the defenses of her tributary towns in Africa. Rome was strong in an enterprising public spirit, in the discipline and fighting qualities of her legions, and in the fidelity and strength of her allies. Her weakness lay in the want of a better military system than the one of annually-changing officers and short-term soldiers,' and in the total lack of preparation for conflict with a naval power.

361. General Progress; Value of Naval Supremacy. The war lasted twenty-three years (just the length of the Second Samnite War), and is ranked by Polybius above all previous wars for severity. Few conflicts illustrate better the supreme value of naval superiority. At first the Carthaginians were undisputed masters of the sea. They therefore reënforced their troops in Sicily at pleasure, and ravaged the coasts of Italy to the utter ruin of seaboard prosperity; indeed, for a time they made good their warning to the Roman senate before the war began, — that against their will no Roman could dip his hands in the sea.

But the Romans, with sagacity and boldness, built their first important war fleet and soon met the ancient Queen of the Seas on her own element. Winning command there temporarily, they invaded Africa itself, shaking the Carthaginian Em

1 The changes referred to in § 355 had not yet taken place.

2 Special report: the new naval tactics of the Romans (Mommsen, II. 173– 176; Ihne, II. 50-55).

Despite real genius in the device by which Rome changed a naval into a land battle to so great a degree, her immediate victory at sea over the veteran navy of Carthage is explicable chiefly on the supposition that the "Roman"

pire at once to its foundations: and some years later a more complete defeat at sea made it impossible for Carthage to continue the conflict in Sicily, and brought her to sue for peace. To secure it, she surrendered Sicily and paid a heavy war indemnity. Syracuse with the neighboring territory in the southeast of the island was left under the rule of Hiero, a faithful Roman ally in the war, and the rest of Sicily became a possession of Rome.

362. Special Features in the Struggle. Two matters deserve special mention, because they illustrate the notable public spirit at Rome and the need of a more permanent army.

1

a. The Roman invasion of Africa in 256 B.C. was at first brilliantly successful; but, as winter approached, the shortterm levies were mostly recalled, according to custom, and the weak reinnant under the consul Regulus was soon completely crushed. The lesson of the need of a more permanent military system for distant warfare was not forgotten (§ 355).

b. Rome's first attempts upon the sea were surprisingly successful; but soon terrible reverses and accidents befell her. In quick succession four great fleets were lost, with as many Roman armies on board. One sixth the burgess-body had perished in the war; the treasury was empty; and the state gave up the desperate, but absolutely essential, effort to secure. the sea. In this crisis the fleet of two hundred ships (with sixty thousand men) that was finally to win the decisive victory was built and equipped by the lavish free-will contributions of public-spirited citizens.

navy was furnished by the "allies" in Magna Graecia. The old story that Rome built her fleet in two months on the model of a stranded Carthaginian vessel, and meantime trained her sailors to row sitting on the sand, must be in the main a quaint invention (see Ihne, II. 52-55). Mommsen (II. 43–46) outlines the history of the Roman navy for sixty years before the war, and (II. 172–176) gives a possible meaning to the old account by Polybius.

1 Special report: the story of Regulus, and modern criticism; Mommsen, II. 184, note; Ihne, II. 78-81.

III. FROM THE FIRST TO THE SECOND PUNIC WAR.

The first half century after the completion of Italian unity in the war with Pyrrhus, is marked by two great processes (§§ 363, 364).

1

363. The Extension of Italy to its Natural Borders. — The old Apennine Italy ($ 271) had been united under Rome at the close of the Pyrrhic War. Next, that narrow Italy widened to its natural limits by three great steps, the acquisition of Sicily, of Sardinia and Corsica, and of the Po valley. The First Punic War had secured Sicily. Three years later (238 B.C.), while Carthage was engaged in the horrible "Inexpiable War" with her revolted mercenaries and subjects in Africa, her mercenary armies in Sardinia and Corsica also mutinied and offered those islands to Rome. The temptation was too much for Roman honor. The offer was shamelessly accepted; and when Carthage made a well-grounded protest, she was met by a stern threat of war. Then, in 225 B.C., the last step was taken. The Gauls, that abiding terror of the north, again threatened Italy, and actually penetrated to within three days' march of Rome; Italian patriotism, however, rallied round the capital city to resist the barbarous invaders; they were overwhelmed and crushed, and, by the year 222 B.C., Cisalpine Gaul also had become a Roman possession, garrisoned by colonies. It was certainly a happy chance that gave Rome so good excuse just at this time to push her northern boundary from the low, easily crossed Apennines to the great crescent wall of the Alps.

364. The Organization of these New Conquests: the Provincial System. Unfortunately, Rome could devise no new principle of government by which to rule these new realms, which were still looked upon as outside Italy. Distance, and the character of the countries, seemed to forbid the generous treatment accorded the "allies" in Italy proper, and they became,

1 Special report.

strictly, subject possessions, ruled upon the model of the Italian praefectures (§ 340). Sicily, the first possession out of Italy, was managed temporarily by a Roman praetor; but in 227 B.C., when some semblance of order had been introduced into Sardinia and Corsica, the senate adopted a permanent plan of government for all the new insular possessions. Two additional praetors, it was decided, should be elected each year,

one to rule Sicily, the other for the two other islands. The two governments received the name of provinces. Some time afterward Cisalpine Gaul was organized in a like manner, though it was not given the title of a province until much later. Such was the beginning of the provincial system that was to spread finally far beyond these "suburbs of Italy."1

IV. THE SECOND PUNIC WAR (SOMETIMES STYLED “THE WAR FOR SPAIN ❞ 2).

365. General Character. - - Rome and Carthage were still too equally matched for either to resign the sovereignty of the western Mediterranean without another struggle. The decisive contest was the Second Punic War (218-202 B.C.). It was waged mainly in Italy itself; and it is notable for the dazzling career of Hannibal (so that Roman historians called it "the Hannibalic war") and for bringing the Greek kingdoms of the East into hostile contact with Rome.

366. Occasion: Carthage in Spain. - Rome's policy of "blunder and plunder" in seizing Sardinia gave Carthage excuse enough for war, if she could find leaders and resources. These were both furnished by the great Barca family. Hamilcar Barca had been the greatest general and the only hero of the First Punic War. From Rome's high-handed treachery in Sardinia, he had imbibed a deathless hatred for that state; and

1 The features of the system are treated in §§ 401–404.

2 Spain was the important territory that passed to Rome as a result of the war, but the struggle did not begin as a war for Spain.

immediately after putting down the Mercenary War, he had begun to prepare for another conflict. To offset the loss of the great Mediterranean islands and to provide a new base of operations, he sought to strengthen Carthaginian dominion in Spain. The mines of that country, he saw, would furnish the needful wealth, and its hardy tribes, when disciplined, would make an unsurpassed infantry.

When Hamilcar was about to cross to Spain, in 236 B.C., he swore his son Hannibal at the altar to eternal hostility to Rome. Hannibal was then a boy of nine years. He followed Hamilcar to the wars, and, as a youth, became a dashing cavalry officer and the idol of the rude soldiery. He used his camp leisure to store his mind with all the culture of Greece. At twenty-six, he succeeded to the command in Spain. He possessed in rare degree the ability to secure the unwavering devotion of fickle, mercenary troops, and to bind his officers to him by enduring ties. He was a statesman of a high order, and possibly the greatest captain in history. No friendly pen has left us a record of him; Roman annalists have even sought to stain his fame with envious slander: but, through it all, his character shines out chivalrous, noble, heroic, and pure.' Says Colonel Dodge:

"Putting aside Roman hate, there is not in history a figure more noble in purity, more radiant in patriotism, more heroic in genius, more pathetic in its misfortunes."

Hannibal won the Spaniards rapidly, carried the Carthaginian frontier to the Ebro, collected a magnificent army of over a hundred thousand men, and besieged Saguntum, an ancient Greek colony on the east coast. Fearing Carthaginian advance, Saguntum had sought Roman alliance; and now, when Carthage refused to disavow Hannibal, Rome declared war (218 B.C.).

1 On Hannibal, read Mommsen, II. 243-245; Ihne, II. 147-152, 170, 190, 191, 251; Smith's Rome and Carthage; and especially Dodge's Hannibal,

614-653.