HISTORY OF GREECE, Ernst Curtius, 1874. HISTORY OF GREECE, George Grote, 1856. THE GREAT PERSIAN WAR, G. B. Grundy, 1901. HISTORY OF THE PERSIAN WARS, Herodotus, ed. and transl. by Geo. Rawlinson, 1862. HISTORY OF THE PELOPONNESIAN WAR, Thucydides, ed. and transl. by Jowett. CHAPTER III THE SEA POWER OF ROME 1. THE PUNIC WARS When peoples have migrated in the past, they have frequently changed their habits to conform to new topographical surroundings. We have seen that the Phoenicians, originally a nomadic people, became a seafaring race because of the conditions of the country they settled in; and on the other hand, at a later period, the Vikings who overran Normandy or Britain forsook the sea and became farmers. The popular idea that a race follows the sea because of an "instinct in the blood of the race" has little to stand on. When, however, the colonists from Phoenicia settled Carthage and founded an empire, they continued the traditions of their ancestors and built up their power on a foundation of ships. This was due to the conditions--topographical and geographical--which surrounded them, and which were much like those of the mother country. Carthage possessed the finest harbor on the coast of Africa, situated in the middle of the Mediterranean, where all the trade routes crossed. To counteract these attractions of the sea there was nothing but the arid and mountainous character of the interior. It was inevitable, therefore, that the Carthaginians, like their ancestors, should build an empire of the sea. As early as the sixth century B.C. Carthage had established her power so securely in the western Mediterranean as to be able to set down definite limits beyond which Rome agreed not to go. Thus the opening sentence of a treaty between the two nations in 509 B. C. ran as follows: "Between the Romans and their allies and the Carthaginians and their allies there shall be peace and alliance upon the conditions that neither the Romans nor their allies shall sail beyond the Fair Promontory[1] unless compelled by bad weather or an enemy; and in case they are forced beyond it they shall not be allowed to take or purchase anything except what is barely necessary for refitting their vessels or for sacrifice, and they shall depart within five days."[2] [Footnote 1: A cape on the African coast about due north from Carthage.] [Footnote 2: GENERAL HISTORY, Polybius, Bk. III, chap. 3.] A second and a third treaty emphasized even mare strongly the Carthaginian dictatorship over the Mediterranean. [Illustration: SCENE OF THE PUNIC WARS]