Our race was not then conscious of itself. Gaul, Spain, the Alps and Italy north of the Apennines were a dust of tribes, villages and little fortified towns to which there was not to be given for many centuries the visible unity which we inherit from Rome. Rome itself was not yet walled. Southern Italy, though far more wealthy, was divided, and as for Africa it was full of roving men, Berbers, to whom some prehistoric chance, coupled with their soil and climate, had bequeathed such horses and such a tradition of riding as their descendants still possess. These savages must have felt in their blood that the Greek colonies, (when such towns were planted among them,) were of their own family and worshipped gods whom they could understand; just as, much later, they learnt to accept quite easily the kindred domination of the Italians: but the western instinct was still far too vague to permit of any coalition, or to react with any vigour against the newcomers from the east. It was not till travel, increasing wealth and the discipline of government had permitted the nomads to know themselves for Europeans that the presence of the foreigner became first irksome and then intolerable. It was not till nearly seven hundred years had passed that Rome, the centre and representative of the West, first conquered and then obliterated the power of Asia in this land. Meanwhile Carthage grew pre-eminent, and as she grew, manifested to the full the spirit which had made her. Her citizens sailed through the Straits of Gibraltar; they knew the African and the Iberian coasts of the Atlantic. They may have visited Britain. They crossed Gaul. It is said that they saw the Baltic. And everywhere they sought eagerly and obtained the two objects of their desire: metals and negotiation. In this quest, in spite of themselves, these merchants, who could see nothing glorious in either the plough or the sword, stumbled upon an empire. Their constitution and their religion are enough to explain the fate which befell it.