upon the history of the world, has been overlooked.' [Footnote 18: R. S. Whiteway, _Rise_of_the_Portuguese_Power_ _in_India_ p. 12. Westminster, 1899.] [Footnote 19: J. H. Burton, _Hist._of_Scotland_, 1873, vol. i. p. 318.] [Footnote 20: Mommsen, i. p. 427.] [Footnote 21: _Inf._on_Hist._, pp. 13-21.] The attainment of all but universal dominion by Rome was now only a question of time. 'The annihilation of the Carthaginian fleet had made the Romans masters of the sea.'[22] A lodgment had already been gained in Illyricum, and countries farther east were before long to be reduced to submission. A glance at the map will show that to effect this the command of the eastern basin of the Mediterranean, like that of the western, must be secured by the Romans. The old historic navies of the Greek and Phoenician states had declined. One considerable naval force there was which, though it could not have prevented, was strong enough to have delayed the Roman progress eastwards. This force belonged to Rhodes, which in the years immediately following the close of the second Punic war reached its highest point as a naval power.[23] Far from trying to obstruct the advance of the Romans the Rhodian fleet helped it. Hannibal, in his exile, saw the necessity of being strong on the sea if the East was to be saved from the grasp of his hereditary foe; but the resources of Antiochus, even with the mighty cooperation of Hannibal, were insufficient. In a later and more often-quoted struggle between East and West--that which was decided at Actium--sea-power was again seen to 'have the casting vote.' When the whole of the Mediterranean coasts became part of a single state the importance of the navy was naturally diminished; but in the struggles within the declining empire it rose again at times. The contest of the Vandal Genseric with Majorian and the African expedition of Belisarius--not to mention others--were largely influenced by the naval operations.[24] [Footnote 22: Schmitz, _Hist._Rome_, p. 256.] [Footnote 23: C. Torr, _Rhodes_in_Ancient_Times_, p. 40.] [Footnote 24: Gibbon, _Dec._and_Fall_, chaps. xxxvi. xli] SEA-POWER IN THE MIDDLE AGES