PERIOD III. THE PUNIC WARS: TO THE CONQUEST OF CARTHAGE AND OF THE GREEK STATES. (264-146 B.C.) CHAPTER I. THE FIRST AND SECOND PUNIC WABS (264-202 B.C.). THE FIRST PUNIC WAR.--By dint of obstinacy, and hard fighting through long centuries, the Romans had united under them all Italy, or all of what was then known as Italy. It was natural that they should look abroad. The rival power in the West was the great commercial city of _Carthage_. The jealousy between Rome and Carthage had slumbered so long as they were threatened by the invasion of _Pyrrhus_, which was dangerous to both. _Sicily_, from its situation, could hardly fail to furnish the occasion of a conflict. The _Mamertines_, a set of Campanian pirates, had captured _Messana_. They were attacked by _Hiero II_., king of Syracuse. A part of them besought help of the Romans, and a part applied to the Carthaginians. The gravity of the question, whether Rome should enter on an untried path, the end of which no man could foresee, caused hesitation. The assemblies voted to grant the request. The Romans had begun as early as 311 to create a fleet. The ships which they now used, however, were mostly furnished by their South Italian allies. They crossed the channel, and drove out the Carthaginian garrison from _Messana_. The Carthaginians declared war (264). _Hiero_ was gained over to the side of the Romans; and after a bloody conflict, with heavy losses to both armies, the city of _Agrigentum_ was captured by the Romans. The Romans were novices on the sea, where the Carthaginians were supreme. Successful on the land, the former were beaten in naval encounters. One of the most characteristic proofs of the energy of the Romans is their creation of a fleet, at this epoch, to match that of their sea-faring enemies. Using, it is said, for a model, a Carthaginian vessel wrecked on the shore of Italy, they constructed quinqueremes, vessels with five banks of oars, furnished with bridges to drop on the decks of the hostile ships,--thus giving to a sea-fight a resemblance to a combat on land. At first, as might be expected, the Romans were defeated; but in 260, under the consul _Caius Duilius_, they won their first naval victory at _Mylae_, west of Messana. The Roman Senate decided to invade Africa. A fleet of three hundred and thirty vessels sailed under the command of the consul _M. Atilius Regulus_, which was met by a Carthaginian fleet at _Ecnomus_, on the south coast of Sicily. The Carthaginians were completely vanquished. The Romans landed at _Clupea_, to the east of Carthage, and ravaged the adjacent district. There _Regulus_ remained with half the army, fifteen thousand men. The Carthaginians sued for peace; but when he required them to surrender all their ships of war except one, and to come into a dependent relation to Rome, they spurned the proposal. Re-enforcing themselves with mercenaries from Greece under the command of the Spartan, _Xanthippus_, they overpowered and