It was impossible for the Carthaginians to provision their distressed garrison, and still less could they quickly fit out a new fleet. They therefore resolved to make peace, and, according to Polybius, chose Hamilcar to negociate it. Sicily, of course, was to be ceded; two thousand two hundred talents (3,300,000 dollars) were to be paid, and all the Roman prisoners and deserters to be given up, while they should have to ransom their own prisoners: the assent of the Roman people was reserved. The demand that Hamilcar and his troops should lay down their arms, and march out as prisoners of war, was indignantly rejected. The Roman people insisted on an additional charge of a thousand talents, these to be paid at once, and the two thousand two hundred by instalments within ten years; and likewise on the cession of all the islands between Sicily and Carthage, which shows that the Carthaginians still held the Lipari isles. This was necessary, if a lasting peace was to be concluded. Thus ended this war of twenty-four years, which indeed gained Sicily for the Romans, but turned it into a wilderness: the whole of the western part of the island especially was laid desolate, and from that time it has never recovered. There was yet, it is true, some civilization left; Greek art still lingered there. The work of devastation was completed in the second Punic war; in the Servile war, the island was nothing but a dreary waste, and however wretched its state is now,--the modern Sicilians, next to the Portuguese, rank the lowest among the nations of Europe,--yet it was still more lonely and desolate in the times of Verres. Under the Roman emperors, there was no amendment: hence in the itineraries we find that the roads do not pass by towns,--for these had perished,--but by farms. Thus dissolved into large estates Sicily continues until the days of Gregory the Great, when we may again have an insight into its condition from the letters of that pontiff. The present population, in spite of its miserable government, has risen nearly to the double of what it was: under Verres it was below a million. It is as if the soil had lost all its heart and fruitfulness. The small kingdom of Syracuse was an exception, owing to the great wisdom with which it was ruled by Hiero. SICILY A ROMAN PROVINCE. _PRÆTOR PEREGRINUS._ WAR WITH THE FALISCANS. MUTINY OF THE MERCENARIES IN CARTHAGE. THE FIRST ILLYRIAN WAR. THE _LEX FLAMINIA_ FOR THE DIVISION OF THE _AGER GALLICUS PICENUS_. WAR AGAINST THE CISALPINE GAULS. THE SECOND ILLYRIAN WAR. THE CARTHAGINIANS FOUND AN EMPIRE IN SPAIN.