*Macedon.* The kingdom of Macedon, ruled by the house of the Antigonids, was the smallest of the three in extent, population and resources, but possessed an internal strength and solidarity lacking in the others. For in Macedon, the Antigonids, by preserving the traditional character of the patriarchal monarchy, kept alive the national spirit of the Macedonians and made them loyal to the dynasty. They also retained a military system which fostered the traditions of the times of Philip II and Alexander, and which, since the Macedonian people had not lost its martial character, furnished a small but efficient national army. Outside of Macedon, the Antigonids held sway over Thessaly and the eastern part of Greece as far south as the Isthmus of Corinth. Their attempts to dominate the whole peninsula were thwarted by the opposition of the Aetolian and Achaian Confederacies, who were supported in this by the Ptolemies. *The minor Greek states.* In addition to these three great monarchies we should note as powers of minor importance the Confederacies mentioned before, the kingdom of Pergamon on the northwest coast of Asia Minor, the island republic of Rhodes, which was a naval power of considerable strength, and the kingdom of Syracuse in Sicily, the last of the independent Greek cities on that island. *Carthage.* The fourth world power was Carthage, a city state situated on the northern coast of Africa, opposite the western end of the island of Sicily, which had created for itself an empire that controlled the western half of the Mediterranean. Carthage was founded as a colony of the Phoenician city of Tyre about 814 B. C. In the sixth century, with the passing of the cities of Phoenicia under the domination, first of Babylon, and later of the Persian Empire, their colonies in the western Mediterranean severed political ties with their mother land and had henceforth to maintain themselves by their own efforts. *The Carthaginian Empire.* Their weakness was the opportunity of Carthage, which, in the sixth and following centuries, brought under her control the other Phoenician settlements, in addition to founding new colonies of her own. She also extended her sway over the native Libyan population in the vicinity of Carthage. These Libyans were henceforth tributary and under the obligation of rendering military service to the Carthaginians: similar obligations rested upon the dependent Phoenician allies. In the third century the Carthaginian empire included the northern coast of Africa from the Gulf of Syrtis westwards beyond the Straits of Gibraltar, the southern and eastern coasts of Spain as far north as Cape Nao, Corsica, Sardinia, and Sicily, with the exception of Messana in the extreme northeast and the Kingdom of Syracuse in the southeastern part of the island. The smaller islands of the western Mediterranean were likewise under Carthaginian control.