followed, as fleet after fleet was wrecked by storms, or sunk, or taken by the enemy, till Rome sullenly withdrew from her adventurous policy upon the sea, and confined herself to drawing closer the besieging lines round Drepane and Lilybæum, and the little corner of the North-West of Sicily in which the Carthaginians lay entrenched. But now her fortune seemed to fail her even there, for a commander of genius confronted her. Hamilcar Barca (Barak, lightning) drilled his crowd of fighting-men into an army worthy of its leader; trained them in a war of outposts to withstand the onset of the legions; found natural strongholds first at Ercte then at Eryx, where safe within his lines he could defy attack, so long as the approach by sea was in his grasp.

So years passed away and victory seemed no nearer, while the trade of Italy was ruined and the treasury was exhausted.

But the spirit of the citizens rose higher as the star of Rome's fortunes seemed to sink. Wealthy volunteers came forward with the offer of a fleet, built and equipped at their expense, to make one more bold stroke for possession of the seas. Rome was once more a naval power. The Carthaginians, unprepared for energy so great, had neglected to keep up their navy; the convoys and the transports hastily despatched with the supplies for the Sicilian forts, scantily equipped and badly handled, made a poor show of resistance to the admiral Lutatius, whose victory off

Ægusa crushed for the present all the naval power of Carthage (B.C. 241). The blow was quite decisive. Hamilcar with all his brilliant genius could not hold his highland fortress without access to the sea, and the door had been abruptly closed. At home there were no ships in the arsenals to send him, there was no army except his, there were no levies to meet the legions who might land within sight of Carthage.

They had suffered probably far less than their enemy, to whom the war had caused a fearful loss of men and money: but they were in no heroic mood, and Hamilcar was forced to offer submission in their name. The terms of peace were moderate enough. Sicily had to be surrendered, and a war-contribution to be paid, which was raised from 2000 to 3200 talents, when commissioners were sent from Rome to supersede Lutatius and to conclude a definitive treaty. Carthage was left a sovereign power, though bound as was Rome itself by the condition, that neither should deal separately with the dependent allies of the other.

It

may be well to gather up some of the lessons of the war. It had been proved first that Carthage was no match for Rome in calm and pertinacious vigour. Her resolution was thrown into the shade by the energy with which Rome first created a war navy, and struggled on while fleet after fleet perished by untoward fate, and hostile privateers swept her coasts of merchant shipping. Phoenician enterprise was overmatched on its own element; first it failed in

power of speedy adaptation to the new conditions of the times; next it neglected to put forth all its strength to keep the advantage it had gained.

For Carthage was essentially a trading power, as such it hankered after a policy of peace, and only fitfully encouraged its dreams of imperial ambition.

Secondly, there was a difference in the position of the general in chief of the two states. The commander of the legions was a statesman or a party leader transferred suddenly into the camp: like every Roman, he had had a soldier's training, but when his wealth, or birth, or civil services, or powerful connections had raised him to the highest rank of consul, he had yet to prove his fitness for supreme command. He might leave his mark on history in one short campaign, but the brave rank and file had often cause to rue his inexperience or rash ambition. The single year of office was far too short for a good general, and too long for a bad one. At Carthage the profession of a soldier was often special and life-long. The able man, once found, continued long in office, and could carry out a policy of patient genius like that of Hamilcar, though unlucky blunderers provoked sometimes a burst of fury, and were crucified as a warning to the rest.

But this was balanced by a difference still more marked. The armies of Rome were at once citizens and soldiers, were drilled and trained from early years, called out on active service to fight for their

homes and fatherland.

Carthage relied upon her

Her

wealth to buy the raw material of her armies. people were too busy at their work of agriculture, industry, or commerce, to be spared for the soldier's unproductive trade; but there was no lack of markets in ruder and less civilized countries where men might be had for money's worth. Their recruiting officers went far afield, and the motley host thus gathered to their banners must have presented a strange spectacle indeed, as Heeren pictures to our fancy. "Hordes of half-naked Gauls were ranged next to companies of white-clothed Iberians, and savage Ligurians next to the far-travelled Nasamones and Lotophagi; Carthaginians and Liby-phoenicians formed the centre, the former of whom were a sort of separate corps, dignified by the title of the sacred legion; while innumerable troops of Numidian horsemen, taken from all the tribes of the desert, swarmed around upon unsaddled horses, and formed the wings; the van was composed of Balearic slingers, and a line of colossal elephants, with their Ethiopian guides, formed as it were a chain of moving fortresses before the whole army."

Multitudinous gatherings like these took time to raise, still more to hold well in hand and turn to good account; pestilence often hovered in their train, and they were commonly soon shattered by the onset of steady infantry like that of Rome. There was yet another danger in their use, which was now to be brought home to them in an appalling shape.

The war once over, it remained to pay the arrears and to disband the army. But the funds were long in coming, and the men shipped cautiously in small detachments were allowed to meet once more in Africa, to fan each other's discontent, invent wild stories of the plans hatched for their destruction, and break out at last in open mutiny. So began the disastrous Mercenary war.

The hardy veterans found daring leaders who swept the open country with their arms and carried all before them for a time. Nor was that the only danger to the state. The subject populations all around had little love for the proud city who had been so imperious a mistress. Except a favoured few who had preserved their independence as Phoenician colonies upon the coast, the rest had been governed with a rod of iron, and taxed oppressively in men and money to support the imperial policy of Carthage. In the background rolled the threatening clouds of Nomads, who had never ceased to hate her for her stern repression of their licence. Among all these a smouldering fire of disaffection burnt, which was now to burst into a flame. On every side they made common cause with the insurgent army, and raised the banner of revolt. So Carthage stood upon the very brink of ruin. Besides the enemies thus leagued against her, she suffered from the spirit of faction which crippled her policy and checked her arms. Her foremost leaders, Hamilcar and Hanno, wasted in their mutual jealousy the