Page:General History of Europe 1921.djvu/189

Rome and Carthage 129 the merchants of Italy realized that the Carthaginians were in a position to prevent any great extension of Roman foreign trade and that their rivals held even the markets of Sicily, close to the Italian mainland. So after conquering Italy, Rome seemed driven on to extend her borders still farther in order to give free play to her growing commerce and trade. A deadly conflict between Rome and Carthage seemed inevitable. When it came it proved a long one, lasting with interruptions for a hundred and eighteen years and closing with the complete destruction of the great and flourishing African city. The three prolonged wars between Rome and Carthage are called the Punic wars (from the Latin word Punicus, meaning " Phoenician," the Carthaginians being Phoenicians). 199. Carthage : its Government and Army. Carthage seems to have been a very splendid and luxurious city when the wars with Rome began. It was in area perhaps three times the size of its rival. Its government was in the hands of rich business men, who ruled the Carthaginian empire in their own interests. Cen- turies of shrewd guidance on their part had built up a great state far exceeding in power any of the Greek states, not excepting Athens itself. The merchants had to rely on hired soldiers, for there seems not to have been any large class of farmers cultivating the land, from which Carthage could collect an -army of citizen- soldiers, as Rome was able to do. So the forces of Carthage were much less trustworthy, no matter how ably led, than those of the Roman Republic. 200. The Roman Army. The Romans could put an army of over three hundred thousand men in the field made up of her own citizens. She had in addition about an equal number which she could draw from her allies ( 196). The Roman forces far ex- ceeded in strength any army ever before organized in the Mediter- ranean world. The Romans were, moreover, very dexterous with their short swords and javelins as well as with their spears, and they had so improved the group formations, phalanxes ( 152), that they moved about very much more easily than the older ones. So the Romans became adepts in the art of war, and this accounts