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38 CAETHAGE to Cadiz, where there existed a temple and statue of Baal-Saturn. The first period of the history of Carthage extends to the beginning of the war with Syracuse, from the commence- ment of the city, whenever that occurred, nominally about 880 to 480 B. C. ; during which time she had conquered her African empire, Sardinia, and the adjacent isles; waged wars with Massilia and the Etrurians, on commercial grounds ; prosecuted her voyages of discovery, traffic, and colonization along the coasts of Spain and far out into the Atlantic; estab- lished trading intercourse with the Scilly isles and parts of the British coast; and, as some believe, pushed her adventures so far as to the inhospitable shores of the Baltic, where she is reported to have collected amber. About 480 begins the second period of Carthaginian his- tory. It opens with their efforts to conquer and attach to their empire the great, rich, and fertile island of Sicily, and closes in 2G4 with the outbreaking of the first Punic war. The Syracusan war was waged long and with va- rious success. In the simultaneous attempt of the Persians on the Hellenic, and the Car- thaginians on the Sicilian Greeks, the Cartha- ginians under Ilamilcar were defeated at Hi- mera, by Gelon, tyrant of Syracuse, and The- ron of Agrigentum, with nearly as much loss as was their ally, Xerxes, at Salamis. Tradi- tion says that of 300,000 Carthaginians, 150,- 000 were killed in battle or flight, and the rest were taken prisoners; while of 2,000 ships of war and 3,000 transports, 8 only escaped, and these were cast away, only a few men saving themselves in a small boat and carrying to Carthage the news of the total loss of the fleet and army. Asa condition of peace the Car- thaginians were compelled to pay 2,000 tal- ents in silver, build two temples, and renounce human sacrifices in their Sicilian trading posts and settlements. In the war with Hiero, Ge- lon's successor, about 410, Hannibal, son of Gisco, conquered and held in occupation the cities of Ilimera, Selinus, and Agrigentum. With Dionysius they were for a short time at peace, and then employed themselves in con- solidating their former conquests on the island, which were now very rich and strong, consist- ing of well fortified seaports, fortresses, dock- yards, naval stations, and garrisons, backed by considerable territorial domains of great pro- ductiveness and wealth. After the refistab- lishment of republicanism in the Greek cities by Timoleon, the Carthaginians were almost invariably unfortunate. Agathocles, however, on attempting, after the policy of Dionysius, to drive them out of the island, was defeated and besieged in his capital of Syracuse; but he broke out of the beleaguered city with a portion of his army, and carried the war into AfriciX. There he overran the open country, took 200 towns, and, although he was twice personally called back to Sicily to quell mutinies and restore order in his home dominions, actually Main- tained himself four entire years on African soil, at the gates of Carthage. At length his for- tune turned, his armies in Africa were obliged to surrender, and in the year 306 he con- ' eluded a peace which restored order to Sicily, and established both parties in possession of the territories each held before the breaking out of the war. After his death the Cartha- ginians increased their possessions and power in Sicily, and established themselves as actual masters and sovereigns of the Balearic isles, Corsica, Sardinia, and the Lipari islands, thus girding the whole Roman seaboard with a belt of insular fortresses. Thus far, however, all was peace and amity between the two great western republics of antiquity. Ten years after the retreat of Pyrrhus, the Romans were undis- puted masters of Italy. Carthage had become yet more influential in Sicily, and was bent on converting influence and ascendancy into em- pire and possession. The little strait of Mes- sina alone divided the possessions and sepa- rated the nrmed forces of the two powerful, ambitious, encroaching, and jealous states, and a contest between them was inevitable. It arose with the invocation of Roman aid by the Mamertines, belonging to an Italian city of Sicily, against the Carthaginians; this being gladly rendered, as by a people seeking pre- text of war, gave birth to the first Punic war, which broke out in 264, and may be regarded as the commencement of tbe third period of Carthaginian history. This war lasted 23 years. It was waged (with the exception of the invasion, defeat, and capture of Marcus Regulus on Carthaginian territory) either on the island of Sicily or on the waters of the Mediterranean. On the latter, at first, the Romans suffered bloody defeats and maritime disasters. Still they persevered, and although when the war broke out they had not a ship of war, a mariner, or an officer who had seen sea service, in the end obtained the mastery of the Mediterranean, crushed the last fleet of the Carthaginians in a terrible conflict off the isl- and of Favignana, at the W. angle of Sicily, and granted the peace which their enemy sued for, on condition that the Carthaginians should evacuate Sicily and all the isles thence to the Italian coast, release all Roman prisoners with- out exchange or ransom, and pay the expenses of the war, at the price of 8,200 Euboic talents, or $3,337,888, within the space of ten years. (See HAMILCAB, and HANNO.) In the 22 years that followed before the commencement of the second Punic war, although the Cartha- ginians had lost Sardinia, of which the Ro- mans, taking advantage of a mutiny of the Car- thaginian mercenaries, made themselves mas- ters, Carthage had more than repaired all her losses by the conquest and colonization of the vast and rich Spanish peninsula, with its vir- gin gold mines and its bold and hardy popula- tion, furnishing an inexhaustible supply of men to recruit the armies of the republic. Han- nibal, the son of Hamilcar, forced the war by laying siege to Saguntum (now Murviedro),