uction of
machines, in which we find the Carthaginians regularly superior to
the Siceliots, and the use of elephants, after these had superseded in
warfare the earlier war-chariots: in the casemates of Carthage there
were stalls for 300 elephants. They could not venture to fortify the
dependent cities, and were obliged to submit to the occupation of the
towns and villages as well as of the open country by any hostile army
that landed in Africa--a thorough contrast to the state of Italy,
where most of the subject towns had retained their walls, and a
chain of Roman fortresses commanded the whole peninsula. But on the
fortification of the capital they expended all the resources of money
and of art, and on several occasions nothing but the strength of its
walls saved the state; whereas Rome held a political and military
position so secure that it never underwent a formal siege.
Lastly, the main bulwark of the state was their war-marine, on which
they lavished the utmost care. In the building as well as in the
management of vessels the Carthaginians excelled the Greeks; it was at
Carthage that ships were first built of more than three banks of oars,
and the Carthaginian war-vessels, at this period mostly quinqueremes,
were ordinarily better sailors than the Greek; the rowers, all of them
public slaves, who never stirred from the galleys, were excellently
trained, and the captains were expert and fearless. In this respect
Carthage was decidedly superior to the Romans, who, with the few ships
of their Greek allies and still fewer of their own, were unable even
to show themselves in the open sea against the fleet which at that
time without a rival ruled the western Mediterranean.

If, in conclusion, we sum up the results of this comparison of
the resources of the two great powers, the judgment expressed by a
sagacious and impartial Greek is perhaps borne out, that Carthage and
Rome were, when the struggle between them began, on the whole equally
matched. But we cannot omit to add that, while Carthage had put forth
all the efforts of which intellect and wealth were capable to provide
herself with artificial means of attack and defence, she was unable in
any satisfactory way to make up for the fundamental wants of a land
army of her own and of a symmachy resting on a self-supporting basis.
That Rome could only be seriously attacked in Italy, and Carthage only
in Libya, no one could fail to see; as little could any one fail