s cannot steal out of port,
cannot cross more or less frequented tracts of ocean, make harassing
descents upon unprotected points of a long coast-line, enter blockaded
harbors. On the contrary, history has shown that such evasions are
always possible, to some extent, to the weaker party, however great
the inequality of naval strength. It is not therefore inconsistent
with the general control of the sea, or of a decisive part of it, by
the Roman fleets, that the Carthaginian admiral Bomilcar in the fourth
year of the war, after the stunning defeat of Cannae, landed four
thousand men and a body of elephants in south Italy; nor that in the
seventh year, flying from the Roman fleet off Syracuse, he again
appeared at Tarentum, then in Hannibal's hands; nor that Hannibal sent
despatch vessels to Carthage; nor even that, at last, he withdrew in
safety to Africa with his wasted army. None of these things prove that
the government in Carthage could, if it wished, have sent Hannibal the
constant support which, as a matter of fact, he did not receive; but
they do tend to create a natural impression that such help could have
been given. Therefore the statement, that the Roman preponderance at
sea had a decisive effect upon the course of the war, needs to be made
good by an examination of ascertained facts. Thus the kind and degree
of its influence may be fairly estimated.

[Illustration: MEDITERRANEAN SEA]

At the beginning of the war, Mommsen says, Rome controlled the seas.
To whatever cause, or combination of causes, it be attributed, this
essentially non-maritime state had in the first Punic War established
over its sea-faring rival a naval supremacy, which still lasted. In
the second war there was no naval battle of importance,--a
circumstance which in itself, and still more in connection with other
well-ascertained facts, indicates a superiority analogous to that
which at other epochs has been marked by the same feature.

As Hannibal left no memoirs, the motives are unknown which determined
him to the perilous and almost ruinous march through Gaul and across
the Alps. It is certain, however, that his fleet on the coast of Spain
was not strong enough to contend with that of Rome. Had it been, he
might still have followed the road he actually did, for reasons that
weighed with him; but had he gone by the sea, he would not have lost
thirty-three thousand out of the sixty thousand veteran soldiers with
whom he started.

Wh