menced the first Punic war, which lasted twenty-three years, the details of which will be found in the chapters on Roman history.

In this war Carthage lost Sicily, and its supremacy in the western Mediterranean, which involved the fate of all its other insular possessions. The treasury was exhausted, and money was wanting to pay the arrears due to the soldiers. The mercenaries mutinied, and advancing in a body, laid siege to Túnis. Thence they marched against U'tica, while the light African cavalry that had joined in the rebellion ravaged the country up to the very gates of Carthage. The revolters were subdued; but not until they had reduced the fairest provinces of the republic to a desert. The mercenaries in Sardinia had also thrown off their allegiance; and the Romans, in violation of the recent peace, took possession of the island; an injury which Carthage was unable to

resent.

Hamil'car Bar'ca, grieved to see his country sinking, formed a project for raising it once more to an equality with its imperious rival, by completely subduing the Spanish peninsula. His son Han'nibal, then a boy only nine years of age, earnestly besought leave to accompany his father on this expedition; but before granting the request, Hamil'car led the boy to the altar, and made him swear eternal hostility to Rome.

During nine years Hamil'car held the command in Spain, and found means, either by force or negotiation, to subdue almost the entire country. He used the treasures he acquired to strengthen the influence of the Barcan family in the state, relying chiefly on the democracy for support against his great rival Han'no, who had the chief influence among the nobility.

Has'drubal, the son-in-law of Hamil'car, succeeded to his power and his projects. He is suspected of having designed to establish an inde pendent kingdom in Spain, after having failed to make himself absolute in Carthage. He built a new capital with regal splendor, which received the name of New Carthage; the richest silver-inines were opened in its neighborhood, and enormous bribes were sent to Carthage to disarm jealousy or stifle inquiry. Unlike other Carthaginian governors of provinces, he made every possible exertion to win the affections of the native Spaniards, and he married the daughter of one of their kings. The Romans were at length alarmed by his success, and compelled him to sign a treaty, by which he was bound to abstain from passing the Ibérus (Ebro), or attacking the territory of the Saguntines.

When Has'drubal fell by the dagger of an assassin, the Barcan family had sufficient influence to have Han'nibal appointed his successor, though he had barely attained his legal majority (B. C. 221). The youthful general having gained several victories over the Spaniards, boldly laid siege to Sagun'tum, and thus caused the second war with the Romans, for the details of which we must refer to the chapters on Roman history.

During the course of this war, the Carthaginian navy, the source of its greatness and the security of its strength, was neglected. The spirit of party also raged violently in Carthage itself. At the conclusion of the

Barca signifies "thunder" in the Phænician language, and also in Hebrew, which is closely allied to Phoenician. The Hebrew root is 13 to thunder.

war, Carthage was deprived of all her possessions out of Africa, and her fleet was delivered into the hands of the Romans. Thenceforward Carthage was to be nothing more than a commercial city under the protection of Rome. A powerful rival also was raised against the republic in Africa itself by the alliance of the Numidian king Massinis'sa with the Romans; and that monarch took possession of most of the western Carthaginian colonies.

Han'nibal, notwithstanding his late reverses, continued at the head of the Carthaginian state, and reformed several abuses that had crept into the management of the finances and the administration of justice. But these judicious reforms provoked the enmity of the factious nobles who had hitherto been permitted to fatten on public plunder; they joined with the old rivals of the Barcan family, and even degraded themselves so far as to act as spies for the Romans, who still dreaded the abilities of Han'nibal. In consequence of their machinations the old general was forced to fly from the country he had so long labored to serve; and, after several vicissitudes, died of poison, to escape the mean and malignant persecution of the Romans, whose hatred followed him in his exile, and compelled the king of Bithynia to refuse him protection. The mound which marks his last resting-place is still a remarkable object.

But the Carthaginians had soon reason to lament the loss of their champion the Romans were not conciliated by the expulsion of Han'nibal; and Massinis'sa, relying upon their support, made frequent incursions into the territories of the republic. Both parties complained of each other as aggressors before the Roman senate (B. c. 162); but though they received an equal hearing, the decision was long previously settled in favor of Massinis'sa. While these negotiations were pending, Carthage was harassed by political dissension; the popular party -believing, and not without reason, that the low estate of the republic was chiefly owing to the animosity that the aristocratic faction had shown to the Barcan family, and especially to Han'nibal, on account of his financial and judicial reform-convened a tumultuous assembly, and sent forty of the pricipal senators into banishment, exacting an oath from the citizens that they would never permit their return. The exiles sought refuge with Massinis'sa, who sent his sons to intercede with the Carthaginian populace in their favor. The Numidian princes were not only refused admittance to the city, but ignominiously chased from their territory. Such an insult naturally provoked a fresh war, in which the Carthaginians were defeated, and forced to submit to the most onerous conditions.

The Roman senate, continually solicited by the elder Cato, at length came to the resolution of totally destroying Carthage; but it was difficult to discover a pretext for war against a state which, conscious of its weakness, had resolved to obey every command. The Carthaginians gave up three hundred of their noblest youths as hostages, surrendered their ships-of-war and their magazines of arms; but when, after all these concessions, they were ordered to abandon their city, they took courage from despair, and absolutely refused obedience. War was instantly proclaimed; the Romans met with almost uninterrupted success; and at the close of the four years .hat the war lasted, Carthage

was taken by storm, and its magnificent edifices levelled with the ground.

SECTION VI.-Navigation, Trade, and Commerce of Carthage.

THE colonial and commercial policy of the Carthaginians was far less generous than that of their ancestors, the Phoenicians; the harbors of the capital were open to the ships and merchants of foreign nations, but admission was either wholly refused to all the remaining ports in the territory of the republic, or subjected to the most onerous restrictions. This selfish system, which has been imitated by too many modern commercial states, was forced upon the Carthaginians by peculiar cir cumstances. Their trade with the barbarous tribes of Africa was carried on principally by barter; the ignorant savages exchanged valuable commodities for showy trifles; and the admission of competition would at once have shown them how much they lost in the exchange. Had the Carthaginians, under such circumstances, permitted free trade, they would, in fact, have destroyed their own market.

The principal commerce of the Carthaginians in the western Mediterrancan was with the Greek colonies in Sicily and the south of Italy, from which they obtained wine and oil, in exchange for negro slaves, precious stones, and gold, procured from the interior of Africa, and also for cotton cloths manufactured at Carthage and in the island of Malta. Cor'sica supplied honey, wax, and slaves; Sardinia yielded abundance of corn; the Balearic islands produced the best breed of mules; resin and volcanic products, such as sulphur and pumice-stone, were obtained from the Lipari islands; and southern Spain. was, as we have already said, the chief source whence the nations of antiquity procured the precious metals.

Beyond the pillars of Hercules the Carthaginians succeeded the Phoenicians in the tin and amber trade with the south British islands and the nations at the entrance of the Baltic. After the destruction of Carthage, this trade fell into the hands of their earliest rivals, the Phocæans of Marseilles, who changed its route; they made their purchases on the north shore of Gaul, and conveyed their goods overland to the mouth of the Rhone, in that age a journey of thirty days.

On the west coast of Africa the Carthaginian colonies studded the shores of Morocco and Fez; but their great mart was the island of Cer'ne, now Suána, in the Atlantic ocean (29° 10' N. lat., 10° 40′ W. long.). On this island was the great depôt of merchandise; and goods were transported from it in light barks to the opposite coast, where they were bartered with the native inhabitants. The Carthaginian exports were trinkets, saddlery, linen, or more probably, cotton webs, pottery, and arms; for which they received undressed hides and elephants' teeth. To this trade was added a very lucrative fishery: the tunny fish (thynnus scomber), which is still plentiful on the northwestern coast of Africa, was deemed a great luxury by the Carthaginians. There is every reason to believe that these enterprising merchants had some intercourse with the coast of Guinea, and that their navigators advanced beyond the mouths of the Senegal and Gambia; but the caution with which everything respecting this trade was concealed, renders it impossible to determine its nature and extent with accuracy.

It is very difficult to discover any particulars respecting the caravantrade which the Carthaginians carried on from their southern settlements with the interior of Africa. From the districts bordering on the desert the chief articles obtained were dates and salt; but from beyond the desert, the imports were negro slaves and gold-dust. The nature of this lucrative commerce was the more easily concealed, as the caravans were formed not at Carthage, but at remote towns in the interior, and all the chief staples were situated on the confines of the Great Desert.

CHAPTER VIII.

THE FOUNDATION OF

THE GRECIAN STATES.

SECTION I-Geographical Outline of Hellas.

GREECE was bounded on the north by the Cambúnian mountains, which separated it from Macedónia; on the east by the Egean, on the south by the Mediterranean, and on the west by the Ionian seas. Its extent from north to south was about two hundred and twenty geographical miles, from east to west one hundred and sixty miles, and consequently its area was about 34,000 square miles; making a small, indeed too small, a reduction for the irregularity of its outline. No European country was so advantageously situated; on the eastern side, the Ægean sea, studded with islands, brought it into close contact with Asia Minor and the Phoenician frontiers; the voyage to Egypt was neither long nor difficult, though it afforded not so many resting-places to the mariners; and from the west there was a short and easy passage to Italy. The entire line of this extensive coast was indented with bays and harbors, offering every facility for navigation; while the two great gulfs that divided Hel'las, or northern Greece, from the Peloponnésus, or southern Greece, must have, in the very earliest ages, forced naval affairs on the attention of the inhabitants.

Nature herself has formed three great divisions of this very remarkable country. The Saronic and Corinthian gulfs sever the Pelopon nésus from Hellas; and this latter is divided into two nearly equal portions, northern and southern, by the chain of Mount E'ta, which traverses it obliquely, severing Thes'saly and Epírus from central Hellas.

THES'SALY, the largest of all the Grecian provinces, may be generally described as an extensive table-land, enclosed on three sides by the mountains, and by the Ægean sea, close to whose shores rise the lofty peaks of Os ́sa and Olym'pus. Its principal, indeed almost its only river. is the Peneus, which rises in Mount Pin'dus, and flowing in an easterly direction, falls into the Egean sea. Thes'saly was ruined by its natural wealth; the inhabitants rioted in sensual enjoyments; anarchy and tyranny followed each other in regular succession; and thus Thes saly prepared for the yoke of a master, was the first to submit to the Persian invaders, and afterward to the Macedonian Philip.

Erikus was, next to Thes'saly, the largest of the Grecian provinces, but it was also the least cultivated. It was divided into two provinces ; Molos's, and Thesprótia. The interior of Epírus is traversed by wild