Occupying the centre of the Southern Mediterranean coast, and accessible to every port frequented by traders, Carthage was speedily enabled to profit to the utmost by those advantages of geographical position that paved the way to her political and maritime ascendency. At her left hand were the Pillars of Hercules, and the channel through which passed the trade of Spain and Britain; at her right the inexhaustible granaries of Egypt; in front of her, the quarries, mines, and slave-marts of Italy and Greece; in her rear the gold and gems of Libya. Upon a peninsula, whose isthmus was defended by a triple wall, lay the city, embracing a circuit of twenty-three miles, and containing a population of nearly a million. Inside the fortifications, on the east, was the Kothon, a double harbor, consisting of two circular basins connected by a canal sixty feet wide, barricaded with enormous iron chains. The outer and larger basin, six thousand feet in circumference, was destined for the use of merchantmen; the inner one was reserved exclusively for galleys and men-of-war. Both were surrounded by docks, storehouses, quarters for marines, and arsenals, and were approached by splendid Ionic porticos and colonnades of white marble. In the centre of an island in the inner harbor, at whose quays two hundred vessels could ride securely at anchor, rose the castle of the admiral who directed all manœuvres at the sound of trumpet. Immediately over the Kothon, on an elevation that commanded it, stood the famous Byrsa, or citadel. Its wall rose to the height of sixty-five feet, and was flanked by numerous towers; adjoining the latter were stables for four thousand horses and three hundred elephants, and barracks that could accommodate a garrison of twenty-four thousand men. Eighteen cisterns, seven of which are still intact, each ninety-three feet long by twenty wide and twenty-eight feet deep, connected by a tunnel with reservoirs in the suburbs, furnished an abundant supply of water. The highest point of the Byrsa was occupied by the temple of Æsculapius, the tutelary deity of the city, and although, in fact, an almost impregnable fortress, the skill of the engineer had thoroughly disguised its formidable character. It was situated above a series of terraces, resembling the hanging gardens of Assyria, and was reached by superb marble staircases adorned with beautiful statues, urns, and other works of art. Slabs of porphyry and verd-antique covered its walls; its arcades were paved and encrusted with mosaics; and the veneration in which it was held by the people was attested by the gorgeous appointments of its shrine. But the fane of Æsculapius, with all its splendor, was not without many rivals in the African metropolis. The religion of the Carthaginians, originally astronomical and profoundly symbolic, had centuries before discarded the purer forms of astral worship for a debased and cruel polytheism. The different