The Romans, as you saw, had made an alliance with the Carthaginians at the time of the invasion of Italy and Sicily by Pyrrhus; but it was a friendship that lasted only a very short while. Our story is now coming to a point at which it will be very largely occupied by wars between these two nations who are now, for the moment, friends. The Romans continually accused the Carthaginians of treachery and of broken faith. The Roman name for the Carthaginians was "Punici," which is somehow derived from the name, Phœnicia, of the country from which, as you know, the colony of Carthage was founded. So bitterly did the Romans resent their acts of treachery that the words "Punica fides," that is to say, Punic, or Carthaginian, faith, were used as a kind of proverb to express a faith or fidelity which was no faith at all--a promise made only to be broken. Probably they were not very true to their engagements; they were a very bold, enterprising people, wonderful sailors, considering the ships that they had. They went round Africa, they planted colonies all along the shores of Spain, they went to the Cassiterides, or tin islands, which are said to have been our own British islands. It is a marvellous record of adventure. But they do not seem to have been as highly civilised as the Romans, who had been very largely influenced by this time by that civilisation and culture of Greece which we have seen spreading itself very widely. Greece had some influence even with them, for among the temples for the worship of those gods Baal and Astaroth, which they had brought with them from Phœnicia, was a temple to the Greek god {171} Apollo. But in thinking over the whole story of the intercourse and the fighting between Rome and Carthage we ought to remember that it is almost entirely from the Roman point of view that we have the story told. We do not know much of what the Carthaginians might have had to say about the Romans. They might perhaps have said something about broken faith on the Roman side also. It is likely that neither party was very particular about keeping promises which it was more convenient not to keep. [Sidenote: First Punic war]