o States.

The military situation which finally resulted in the battle of the
Metaurus and the triumph of Rome may be summed up as follows: To
overthrow Rome it was necessary to attack her in Italy at the heart of
her power, and shatter the strongly linked confederacy of which she
was the head. This was the objective. To reach it, the Carthaginians
needed a solid base of operations and a secure line of communications.
The former was established in Spain by the genius of the great Barca
family; the latter was never achieved. There were two lines
possible,--the one direct by sea, the other circuitous through Gaul.
The first was blocked by the Roman sea power, the second imperilled
and finally intercepted through the occupation of northern Spain by
the Roman army. This occupation was made possible through the control
of the sea, which the Carthaginians never endangered. With respect to
Hannibal and his base, therefore, Rome occupied two central positions,
Rome itself and northern Spain, joined by an easy interior line of
communications, the sea; by which mutual support was continually
given.

Had the Mediterranean been a level desert of land, in which the Romans
held strong mountain ranges in Corsica and Sardinia, fortified posts
at Tarragona, Lilybaeum, and Messina, the Italian coast-line nearly to
Genoa, and allied fortresses in Marseilles and other points; had they
also possessed an armed force capable by its character of traversing
that desert at will, but in which their opponents were very inferior
and therefore compelled to a great circuit in order to concentrate
their troops, the military situation would have been at once
recognized, and no words would have been too strong to express the
value and effect of that peculiar force. It would have been perceived,
also, that the enemy's force of the same kind might, however inferior
in strength, make an inroad, or raid, upon the territory thus held,
might burn a village or waste a few miles of borderland, might even
cut off a convoy at times, without, in a military sense, endangering
the communications. Such predatory operations have been carried on in
all ages by the weaker maritime belligerent, but they by no means
warrant the inference, irreconcilable with the known facts, "that
neither Rome nor Carthage could be said to have undisputed mastery of
the sea," because "Roman fleets sometimes visited the coasts of
Africa, and Carthaginian fleets in the same way appeared o