8. How differently did the Romans and the Greeks govern themselves? EXERCISES 1. Read the story of Horatius in Macaulay's "Lays of Ancient Rome." 2. Collect pictures of Rome and Italy. 3. Is there a modern city of Carthage? What country rules over Tunis? Are there now any Phoenicians? 4. Read the description of Tyre in the Bible, Ezekiel xxvii. 3-25, and tell what is said there about the riches of the Tyrians. Find out who destroyed Tyre. [Illustration: AN EARLY ROMAN COIN] CHAPTER VI THE MEDITERRANEAN A ROMAN LAKE ROME IN PERIL. The conquest of Italy by the Romans took about two hundred and fifty years. The conquest of the peoples living in the other lands on the shores of the Mediterranean took nearly as long again. Only twice in these four or five hundred years was Rome in serious danger of destruction. Once it was by the Gauls, as we have read, who captured all the city except the citadel. The second time it was by the Carthaginians, who lived on the northern coast of Africa. The Romans were finally victorious over all their enemies because they were patient and courageous in misfortune and refused to believe that they could be conquered. CAUSE OF WAR WITH CARTHAGE. The Carthaginians were angry at the way the Romans treated them. They watched with alarm the steady growth of the Roman power, and feared that the Romans, if masters of Italy, would attack their trade with the cities of the western Mediterranean. A quarrel broke out over a city in Sicily. At first the Carthaginians seemed to have the best of it, because they had a strong war fleet while the Romans had only a few small vessels. But the Romans hurriedly built ships and placed upon each a kind of drawbridge, fitted with great hooks called grappling-irons. These they let down upon the enemy's decks as soon as the ships came close enough, and over these drawbridges the Roman soldiers rushed and captured the Carthaginian ships. When the Carthaginians asked for peace, the Romans demanded a great sum of money and a promise that the Carthaginians would leave the cities in Sicily which they occupied. Soon afterward the Romans took advantage of a mutiny in the Carthaginian army to demand more money and to seize Sardinia and Corsica. No wonder the Carthaginians were angry. The result was a new and more terrible war.