Atilius, the Roman consul, surrounded by the Carthaginians in Sicily, escapes with difficulty.

The Romans were almost without a fleet, and when they formed one the undertaking was ridiculed by the Carthaginians with an unconcealed assumption of superiority.

The consuls chosen in that year were Marcus Livius and Caius Claudius Nero, and without delay they went to take command in southern Italy, which the Carthaginians under Hannibal, though not in much strength, had invaded.

Preparations of Carthage The mighty enthusiasm, which is wont to blaze up nobly among Oriental nations, even the most abased, on the approach of extreme perilthe energy of dire necessityimpelled the Carthaginians to exertions, such as were by no means expected from a nation of shopkeepers.

Under the dictatorship of Calatinus, the Romans expelled almost all the garrisons of the Carthaginians from Agrigentum, Drepanum, Panormus, Eryx, and Lilybæum.

The Carthaginians at war with Dionysius; but, after losing Selinus and other towns, they make peace.

But that very circumstance formed a reason why each desired to have and retain on its frontier an intermediate powerthe Carthaginians for instance reckoning in this way on Tarentum, the Romans on Syracuse and Messanaand why, if that course was impossible, each preferred to see these adjacent places given over to itself rather than to the other great power.

The statement that Xanthippus was put to death by the Carthaginians after the victory, is a fiction; he departed voluntarily, perhaps to enter the Egyptian service.

The Jereed, from the existence in it of a few antiquities, such as pieces of granite and marble, and occasionally a name or a classic inscription, is proved to have been in the possession of the Romans, and undoubtedly of the Carthaginians before them, who could have had no difficulty in holding this flat and exposed country.

With these land and sea forces Tiberius Sempronius was despatched to Sicily, in order to transport his army to Africa if the other consul should be able to prevent the Carthaginian from invading Italy.

Naval victory of the Carthaginians over the Romans at Drepanum.

Although essentially a mercantile and seafaring people, the Carthaginians by no means neglected agriculture.

Spain was, after a thirteen years' struggle, converted from a Carthaginian into a Roman province, in which the conflict with the Romans was still continued for centuries by means of insurrections always suppressed and yet never subdued, but in which at the moment no enemy stood opposed to Rome.

Successful corsair expeditions, if they had not raised the courage of the nation, had aroused energy and hope in a portion of the people; they had already joined together to form a squadron, burnt down Hippo on the African coast, and sustained a successful naval conflict with the Carthaginians off Panormus.

Publius Cornelius Scipio [Scipio Africanus Major] in B.C. 210-206 drove the Carthaginians out of Spain.

Utica alone escaped a similar fate and had its walls and independence preserved to it, less perhaps from its own power than from the pious feeling of the Carthaginians towards their ancient protectors; in fact, the Phoenicians cherished for such relations a remarkable feeling of reverence presenting a thorough contrast to the indifference of the Greeks.

Already, in consequence of the fall of New Carthage, not only had the Spaniards on the north of the Ebro completely submitted, but even beyond the Ebro the most powerful princes had exchanged the Carthaginian for the Roman protectorate.

Having given in a list of about two hundred, a decree of the senate was passed to the effect that the Carthaginian ambassadors should be allowed to take away into Africa to Publius Cornelius Scipio two hundred of the Carthaginian prisoners, selecting whom they pleased; and that they should convey to him a message that if the peace were concluded he should restore them to the Carthaginians without ransom.

That their alliance should rest on the principle, that the Carthaginian should help the Locrian and the Locrian the Carthaginian in peace and war.

The Roman fleet: of 330 sail contained at least 100,000 men in its crews, besides the landing army of about 40,000; the Carthaginian of 350 vessels was manned by at least an equal number; so that well-nigh three hundred thousand men were brought into action on this day to decide the contest between the two mighty civic communities.

The violence of the plague, however, was much greater in the Carthaginian than the Roman army; for the latter, from having been a long time before Syracuse, had become more habituated to the climate and the water.

They had been made prisoners partly at the lake Trasimenus, and partly at Cannae, and had been sent home by the Carthaginian with the same civility which he had shown towards all the Roman allies.

After intelligence of the battle of Cannae, and a report of the approach of Hannibal, circulated by the discourse of Trebius, the Mopsian party had retired from the city; which was thus given up to the Carthaginian without opposition, and a garrison received into it.

The troops underwent unutterable sufferings, particularly the Gallic infantry, which marched behind the Carthaginians along tracks already rendered impassable: they murmured loudly and would undoubtedly have dispersed to a man, had not the Carthaginian cavalry under Mago, which brought up the rear, rendered flight impossible.

We class the Carthaginians among the European nations of antiquity; for, in respect to their origin, their civilization, and all their commercial and political relations, they belonged to the European race, though it is true that their capital was on the African side of the Mediterranean Sea.