-marine of the state were again placed on a footing
that should command respect.'[20] It is a gloomy reflection that
the leading men of our own great maritime country could not see
this in 1860. A thorough comprehension of the events of the first
Punic war enables us to solve what, until Mahan wrote, had been
one of the standing enigmas of history, viz. Hannibal's invasion
of Italy by land instead of by sea in the second Punic war. Mahan's
masterly examination of this question has set at rest all doubts
as to the reason of Hannibal's action.[21] The naval predominance
in the western basin of the Mediterranean acquired by Rome had
never been lost. Though modern historians, even those belonging
to a maritime country, may have failed to perceive it, the
Carthaginians knew well enough that the Romans were too strong
for them on the sea. Though other forces co-operated to bring
about the defeat of Carthage in the second Punic war, the Roman
navy, as Mahan demonstrates, was the most important. As a navy, he
tells us in words like those already quoted, 'acts on an element
strange to most writers, as its members have been from time
immemorial a strange race apart, without prophets of their own,
neither themselves nor their calling understood, its immense
determining influence on the history of that era, and consequently
upon the history of the world, has been overlooked.'

[Footnote 18: R. S. Whiteway, _Rise_of_the_Portuguese_Power_
_in_India_ p. 12. Westminster, 1899.]

[Footnote 19: J. H. Burton, _Hist._of_Scotland_, 1873, vol. i.
p. 318.]

[Footnote 20: Mommsen, i. p. 427.]

[Footnote 21: _Inf._on_Hist._, pp. 13-21.]

The attainment of all but universal dominion by Rome was now
only a question of time. 'The annihilation of the Carthaginian
fleet had made the Romans masters of the sea.'[22] A lodgment
had already been gained in Illyricum, and countries farther east
were before long to be reduced to submission. A glance at the
map will show that to effect this the command of the eastern
basin of the Mediterranean, like that of the western, must be
secured by the Romans. The old historic navies of the Greek and
Phoenician states had declined. One considerable naval force
there was which, though it could not have prevented, was strong
enough to have delayed the Roman progress eastwards. This force
belonged to Rhodes, which in the years immediately following
the close of the second Punic war reached its highest point as