explored, by the bold Phocaeans from Asia
Minor. But about the middle of the second century the progress of
Hellenic colonization was suddenly arrested; and there is no doubt
that the cause of this arrest was the contemporary rapid rise of
Carthage, the most powerful of the Phoenician cities in Libya--a
rise manifestly due to the danger with which Hellenic aggression
threatened the whole Phoenician race. If the nation which had
opened up maritime commerce on the Mediterranean had been already
dislodged by its younger rival from the sole command of the western
half, from the possession of both lines of communication between
the eastern and western basins of the Mediterranean, and from the
monopoly of the carrying trade between east and west, the sovereignty
at least of the seas to the west of Sardinia and Sicily might
still be saved for the Orientals; and to its maintenance Carthage
applied all the tenacious and circumspect energy peculiar to the
Aramaean race. Phoenician colonization and Phoenician resistance
assumed an entirely different character. The earlier Phoenician
settlements, such as those in Sicily described by Thucydides, were
mercantile factories: Carthage subdued extensive territories with
numerous subjects and powerful fortresses. Hitherto the Phoenician
settlements had stood isolated in opposition to the Greeks; now
the powerful Libyan city centralized within its sphere the whole
warlike resources of those akin to it in race with a vigour to
which the history of the Greeks can produce nothing parallel.

Phoenicians and Italians in Opposition to the Hellenes

Perhaps the element in this reaction which exercised the most
momentous influence in the sequel was the close relation into which
the weaker Phoenicians entered with the natives of Sicily and Italy
in order to resist the Hellenes. When the Cnidians and Rhodians
made an attempt about 175 to establish themselves at Lilybaeum, the
centre of the Phoenician settlements in Sicily, they were expelled
by the natives--the Elymi of Segeste--in concert with the Phoenicians.
When the Phocaeans settled about 217 at Alalia (Aleria) in Corsica
opposite to Caere, there appeared for the purpose of expelling
them a combined fleet of Etruscans and Carthaginians, numbering
a hundred and twenty sail; and although in the naval battle that
ensued--one of the earliest known in history-the fleet of the
Phocaeans, which was only half as strong, claimed the victory