any means of prosperity from
without. Their sole policy was either to absorb under their own spirit
and conditions of rule, or to destroy, whatever was rich or great beyond
their borders. Nothing is more marked in the past history of the world
than this struggle of commerce to establish conditions of security and
means of communication with distant parts. When almost driven from the
land, it often found both on the sea; and often, when its success had
become brilliant and renowned, it perished under the assault of stronger
powers, only to rise again in new centres and to find new channels of
intercourse.

Carthage.

Roman conquests.

Palmyra.

While Rome was giving laws and order to the half-civilized tribes of
Italy, Carthage, operating on a different base, and by other methods,
was opening trade with less accessible parts of Europe. The strength of
Rome was in her legions, that of Carthage in her ships; and her ships
could cover ground where the legions were powerless. Her mariners had
passed the mythical straits into the Atlantic, and established the port
of Cadiz. Within the Mediterranean itself they founded Carthagena and
Barcelona on the same Iberian peninsula, and ahead of the Roman legions
had depots and traders on the shores of Gaul. After the destruction of
Tyre, Carthage became the greatest power in the Mediterranean, and
inherited the trade of her Phoenician ancestors with Egypt, Greece and
Asia Minor, as well as her own settlements in Sicily and on the European
coasts. An antagonism between the great naval and the great military
power, whose interests crossed each other at so many points, was sure to
occur; and in the three Punic wars Carthage measured her strength with
that of Rome both on sea and on land with no unequal success. But a
commercial state impelled into a series of great wars has departed from
its own proper base; and in the year 146 B.C. Carthage was so totally
destroyed by the Romans that of the great city, more than 20 m. in
circumference, and containing at one period near a million of
inhabitants, only a few thousands were found within its ruined walls. In
the same year Corinth, one of the greatest of the Greek capitals and
seaports, was captured, plundered of vast wealth and given to the flames
by a Roman consul. Athens and her magnificent harbour of the Piraeus
fell into the same hands 60 years later. It may be presumed that trade
went on under the Roman conquests in some d