which forced the Romans to carry on a bloody
and doubtful war, for upwards of forty years, in order to humble and
subdue this haughty rival. In short, Rome, even when triumphant, thought
Carthage was not to be entirely reduced any other way, than by depriving
that city of the resources which it might still derive from its commerce,
by which it had so long been enabled to resist the whole strength of that
mighty republic.

However, it is no wonder that, as Carthage came in a manner out of the
greatest school of traffic in the world, I mean Tyre, she should have been
crowned with such rapid and uninterrupted success. The very vessels on
which its founders had been conveyed into Africa, were afterwards employed
by them in their trade. They began to make settlements upon the coasts of
Spain, in those ports where they unloaded their goods. The ease with which
they had founded these settlements, and the conveniences they met with,
inspired them with the design of conquering those vast regions; and some
time after, _Nova Carthago_, or New Carthage, gave the Carthaginians an
empire in that country, almost equal to that which they enjoyed in Africa.

SECT. V. THE MINES OF SPAIN, THE SECOND SOURCE OF THE RICHES AND POWER OF
CARTHAGE.--Diodorus justly remarks,(545) that the gold and silver mines
found by the Carthaginians in Spain, were an inexhaustible fund of wealth,
that enabled them to sustain such long wars against the Romans. The
natives had long been ignorant of these treasures that lay concealed in
the bowels of the earth, at least of their use and value. The Phoenicians
took advantage of this ignorance; and, by bartering some wares of little
value for this precious metal, they amassed infinite wealth. When the
Carthaginians had made themselves masters of the country, they dug much
deeper into the earth than the old inhabitants of Spain had done, who
probably were content with what they could collect on the surface; and the
Romans, when they had dispossessed the Carthaginians of Spain, profited by
their example, and drew an immense revenue from these mines of gold and
silver.

The labour employed to come at these mines, and to dig the gold and silver
out of them, was incredible.(546) For the veins of these metals rarely
appeared on the surface; they were to be sought for and traced through
frightful depths, where very often floods of water stopped the miners, and
seemed to defeat all future pursuits. But avarice is no le