when the curule ædiles were appointed to superintend them (B.C. 367), furnished the nucleus of a national theatre, especially when a stage was erected in the Circus Maximus, and a sum provided by the state for the exhibitions just referred to (B.C. 364). But, though a century had elapsed since that time, there was still a prejudice against the performers, both rooted in public feeling and embodied in the law. The art of the poet and niimist seems to have been despised as generally practised by low foreigners, Oscan and Etruscan, feared as an instrument of the enchanter, and disapproved as a weapon aimed at public order and private character. The Twelve Tables forbad alike the incantations of the sorcerer, the dirges of hired mourners, and the personal attacks of the lampooner; and Cato tells us that "in former times the trade of a poet was not respected; if any one occupied himself therewith, or addicted himself to banquets, he was called an idler ;" and the practice of such arts for pay was held as a special degradation. Performers were excluded by the censors from the army and the comitia. The magistrates sat in judgment on their performances; and the actor who presumed on the grudging patronage of the state might pay for his want of success with imprisonment and stripes. Such discouragements effectually postponed the rise of a national dramatic literature. None but persons of a low class would become performers; and these were for the most part Etruscans.

On the other hand, the chariot races were held in the greatest honour, and presided over by the highest magistrate present at Rome. At first two chariots ran at a time, their drivers being distinguished by colours, which were supposed to have reference to the seasons, the white for the winter snow, the red for the summer heat: two others were afterwards added, the green for spring, and the blue or grey for autumn. Each colour had of course its own eager partisans; but it was not till the time of the empire that they became symbols of political factions, and at last the emblems of those feuds which deluged the circus of Constantinople with blood. The games of the circus must not be dismissed without a mention of that fatal symptom of degeneracy, the first exhibition of gladiatorial shows in the first year of the Punic Wars (B.c. 264) as a part of the solemnities at the funeral of D. Junius Brutus. The practice is said to have been borrowed from the Etruscans, as a substitute for the human sacrifices offered from time immemorial at the funerals of great men, as for example at that of Patroclus in the Iliad, that the deceased might not depart un

attended by the souls of enemies or followers. It is supposed that the victims on this occasion were the Etruscan prisoners from Volsinii, the conquest of which city in this year completed the subjugation of Etruria.

Such, in brief outline, was the condition of the republic at the close of what has well been called the spring-time of its existence. And it is most important to notice that Rome achieved the conquest of Italy just at the time when the kingdoms founded by the succsseors of Alexander in the East had reached their highest pitch. The place of Rome was now clearly acknowledged, as one of the great powers of the world, by the chief among those kingdoms. As the Italian expedition of Pyrrhus had derived its impulse from the conflicts that had been waged for half a century for the dominion of Greece and Asia, so his repulse naturally brought his conquerors within the sphere of Grecian politics. While the Epirot was exciting new alarm by his victories in Greece, an embassy arrived at Rome from Ptolemy Philadelphus, king of Egypt, to propose an alliance with the republic (B.C. 273). The Romans, in return, sent an embassy of three of their most distinguished senators to Alexandria-then at the height of its political power and literary glory. The envoys would not have been Romans, if the sight of all this splendour, following upon their victory over Pyrrhus, had not roused in their minds the prophetic anticipation of an approaching struggle with the Hellenic race for the dominion of the world. But, before the decision of that question between the two branches of their common race, a long war had to be waged for life and death with the great Semitic power, which was the common enemy of both. Rome had to conquer Carthage in a struggle which brought herself to the brink of ruin, before she was prepared to subdue the kindred Greeks.

BOOK VI.

THE ROMAN CONQUEST OF CARTHAGE AND GREECE.

FROM THE BEGINNING OF THE PUNIC WARS TO THE ACQUISITION OF THE PROVINCE OF ASIA.

B.C. 265-130.

VOL. II.

N

CONTENTS OF BOOK VI.

CHAP.

XXIV. THE FIRST PUNIC WAR.

XXV.-INTERVAL IN THE STRUGGLE WITH CARTHAGE.

XXVI. THE SECOND PUNIC WAR.

XXVII.-MACEDONIAN AND ASIATIC WARS.

XXVIII. THE SUBJUGATION OF GREECE.

XXIX. THE THIRD PUNIC WAR.

XXX.-CONQUESTS OF ROME IN THE WEST.-CONDITION
OF THE REPUBLIC.

SICILY THE

CHAPTER XXIV.

THE FIRST PUNIC WAR. B.C. 264 TO B.C. 241.

"Urbs antiqua fuit, Tyrii tenuere coloni

CARTHAGO, Italiam contra Tyberinaque longè

Ostia; dives opum, studiisque asperrima belli."-VIRGIL.

BATTLE-FIELD OF ROME AND CARTHAGE -ITS CONNECTION WITH ITALY, GREECE, AND CARTHAGE-SEIZURE OF MESSANA BY THE MAMERTINES-THEY ARE BESIEGED BY HIERO-AID VOTED TO THEM BY THE ROMANS-BEGINNING OF THE FIRST PUNIC WAR-SUCCESSES OF THE ROMANS-THEY ARE JOINED BY HIERO-THEIR VICTORY AT AGRIGENTUM-HISTORY OF THE PHOENICIANS-THEIR PROPER NAME CANAANITES-THEIR LANGUAGE SEMITIC-TRADITION OF THEIR MIGRATION FROM THE RED SEA TO THE MEDITERRANEAN-THE CITIES OF PHŒNICIA-HISTORY OF TYRE AND SIDON-THEIR COMMERCE AND NAVIGATION-COLONIES OF THE PHOENICIANSCARTHAGE-LEGENDS OF ITS FOUNDATION-ITS DOMINION IN AFRICA-ITS MARITIME AND COLONIAL EMPIRE IN SPAIN, SARDINIA, AND SICILY RIVALRY WITH THE GREEKS AND ALLIANCE WITH THE TYRRHENIANS-THE CARTHAGINIAN CONSTITUTION AND RELIGION RELATIONS WITH ROME TO THE TIME OF THE PUNIO WARSHISTORY OF THE FIRST PUNIC WAR RESUMED -ATTACKS ON THE COASTS OF ITALYTHE ROMAN FLEET-NAVAL VICTORY OF DUILIUS-CAMPAIGNS IN SARDINIA, CORSICA, AND SICILY-NAVAL VICTORY OF REGULUS-HIS SUCCESSES IN AFRICA-HIS DEFEAT AND IMPRISONMENT-THE WAR RESUMED IN SICILY-VICTORY OF PANORMUS AND SIEGE OF LILYBEUM-REGULUS AT ROME-WRECK OF THE ROMAN FLEET-EXPLOITS OF HAMILCAR BARCA IN SICILY-ROMAN VICTORY OFF THE EGATIAN ISLANDS-CONCLUSION OF THE WAR-SICILY A ROMAN PROVINCE-REVOLT AND RECONQUEST OF THE FALISCI POPULATION OF ROME.

WHEN Pyrrhus sailed from the shores of Sicily, he is reported to have exclaimed, "How fine a battle-field are we leaving to the Romans and Carthaginians!" That island has been described as geographically belonging to Italy, as truly as the Peloponnesus belongs to Greece; and that a political division at the straits of Messina is as unnatural as the partition of Italy itself, is proved by the fact that Sicily and the South of Italy have generally been held by the same or kindred nations. The Siceli, from whom the island received its name, were, as we have seen, the same people as the Itali of the peninsula. The Hellenic settlements studded the shores alike of Magna Græcia and of Sicily. By the events now about to be related, the natural union of the island with the peninsula was established by the Romans; and it was preserved under their Gothic successors. When the kingdom of the Lombards was founded in Italy in the sixth century, the Greek empire held Sicily, in conjunction with the duchies of Naples and Rome, under the exarchate of Ravenna. Rent from Italy by the Arabs in the ninth century, as it had nearly been by the Carthaginians, Sicily was reunited to the peninsula by the Norman adventurers of the eleventh century; and the union of the island