ree of these wars. Rome was successful in the end,
and Carthage was entirely destroyed.

There was no real cause for any disagreement between these two
nations. Their hostility to each other was mere rivalry and
spontaneous hate. They spoke a different language; they had a
different origin; and they lived on opposite sides of the same sea. So
they hated and devoured each other.

Those who have read the history of Alexander the Great, in this
series, will recollect the difficulty he experienced in besieging and
subduing Tyre, a great maritime city, situated about two miles from
the shore, on the eastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea. Carthage was
originally founded by a colony from this city of Tyre, and it soon
became a great commercial and maritime power like its mother. The
Carthaginians built ships, and with them explored all parts of the
Mediterranean Sea. They visited all the nations on these coasts,
purchased the commodities they had to sell, carried them to other
nations, and sold them at great advances. They soon began to grow rich
and powerful. They hired soldiers to fight their battles, and began to
take possession of the islands of the Mediterranean, and, in some
instances, of points on the main land. For example, in Spain: some of
their ships, going there, found that the natives had silver and gold,
which they obtained from veins of ore near the surface of the ground.
At first the Carthaginians obtained this gold and silver by selling
the natives commodities of various kinds, which they had procured in
other countries; paying, of course, to the producers only a very small
price compared with what they required the Spaniards to pay them.
Finally, they took possession of that part of Spain where the mines
were situated, and worked the mines themselves. They dug deeper; they
employed skillful engineers to make pumps to raise the water, which
always accumulates in mines, and prevents their being worked to any
great depth unless the miners have a considerable degree of scientific
and mechanical skill. They founded a city here, which they called New
Carthage--_Nova Carthago_. They fortified and garrisoned this city,
and made it the center of their operations in Spain. This city is
called Carthagena to this day.

Thus the Carthaginians did every thing by power of money. They
extended their operations in every direction, each new extension
bringing in new treasures, and increasing their means of extending
them