CONQUEST OF CISALPINE GUAL.--The Carthaginians were for some time busy at home in putting down a revolt of mercenary troops, whose wages they refused to pay in full. The Romans snatched the occasion to extort a cession of the island of _Sardinia_ (238), which they subsequently united with _Corsica_ in one province. They entered, about ten years later (229-228), upon an important and successful war against the _Illyrian pirates_, whose depredations on the coasts of the Adriatic and Ionian seas were very daring and destructive. The Greek cities which the pirates held were surrendered. The sway of the Romans in the Adriatic was secured, and their supremacy in _Corcyra_, _Epidamnus_, and other important places. The next contest was a terrific one with the _Cisalpine Gauls_, who were stirred up by the founding of Roman military colonies on the Adriatic, and by other proceedings of Rome. They called in the help of transalpine Gauls, and entered _Etruria_, on their way to Rome, with an army of seventy thousand men. They met the Roman armies near _Telamon_, south of the mouth of the Umbro, but were routed, with a loss of forty thousand men slain, and ten thousand men prisoners (225). The Romans marched northward, crossed the _Po_, and subdued the most powerful of the Gallic tribes, the _Insubrians_ (223). Other victories in the following year reduced the whole of upper Italy, with _Mediolanum_ (Milan) the capital of the _Insubrians_, under Roman rule. Fortresses were founded as usual, and the great _Flaminian_ and _Aemilian_ roads connected that region with the capital. Later, _Cisalpine Gaul_ became a Roman province. CARTHAGINIANS IN SPAIN.--Meantime Carthage endeavored in Southern Spain to make up for its losses. The old tribes, the _Celtiberians_ and _Lusitanians_ in the central and western districts, and the _Cantabrians_ and _Basques_ in the north, brave as they were, were too much divided by tribal feuds to make an effectual resistance. The national party at Carthage, which wished for war, had able leaders in _Hamilcar_ and his three sons. By the military skill of _Hamilcar_, and of _Hasdrubal_ his son-in-law, the Carthaginians built up a flourishing dominion on the south and east coasts. The Romans watched the growth of the Carthaginian power there with discontent, and compelled _Hasdrubal_ to declare in a treaty that the _Ebro_ should be the limit of Carthaginian conquests (226). At the same time Rome made a protective alliance with _Saguntum_, a rich and powerful trading-city on the south of that river. _Hasdrubal_ was murdered in 221; and the son of Hamilcar Barca, _Hannibal_, who was then only twenty-eight years old, was chosen by the army to be their general. He laid hold of a pretext for beginning an attack upon _Saguntum_, which he took after a stout resistance, prolonged for eight months (219). The demand of a Roman embassy at Carthage--that _Hannibal_ should be delivered up--being refused, Rome declared war.