The city of Rome was the centre of the republic and the seat of government. Here all the laws were enacted; here all the military movements and other affairs of state were decided upon. The city was at this time nearly twenty miles in circuit, and defended by a triple range of walls. The number of its inhabitants was several millions. Carthage was also a vast city, situated in Africa, about four hundred miles south-west of Rome, the Mediterranean Sea lying between them. It originated with a small colony of people from Tyre, a maritime city in Syria, about a hundred years before Rome was founded by Romulus. It increased rapidly, and became a flourishing place. The city exercised dominion over the whole country around. Its government was a mixture of aristocracy and democracy; the chief men ruling on all ordinary occasions, but sometimes consulting the people. The Carthaginians were an industrious nation and appear to have had no taste or leisure for the gladiator fights, the shows of wild beasts, the theatrical exhibitions and other amusements, that excited such deep interest among the idle and dissipated Romans. They were, in many respects, exemplary in their morals—even abstinence from wine being required of the magistrates while in office. Their religion, however, was a gloomy superstition, and their punishments were cruel. They even sacrificed children to their gods, in the earlier periods of their history. Though chiefly addicted to commerce, the Carthaginians paid great attention to agriculture. The rich men laid out their surplus money in cultivating the lands; and in the time of Hannibal, the whole extent of country around Carthage, which was the territory now called Tunis, was covered with vast herds of the finest cattle, fields waving with corn, vineyards and olive grounds. There were a multitude of small villages scattered over the country; near to the great city, the whole landscape was studded with the splendid villas of the rich citizens. To such a pitch was the art of agriculture carried, that one Mago wrote twenty-eight books upon the subject. These were carried to Rome, after the conquest of Carthage, and greatly increased the knowledge and skill of the Romans, in the science of husbandry. It was at a period when these two great powers had already extended themselves so far as to come in frequent collision, that Hannibal was born. His father was a general, who had served in Spain and fought against the Romans in the first Punic war. His mind was filled with hatred of that nation; and while Hannibal was yet a boy of nine years old, and about to accompany his father in his Spanish campaigns, he caused him to kneel before the altar, and swear eternal hatred to the Romans.