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is the spirit of industry, of commerce, of navigation. The two opposite races have everywhere come into contact, everywhere into hostility. In the primitive history of Persia and Chaldea, the heroes are perpetually engaged in combat with their industrious and perfidious neighbours. The struggle is renewed between the Phoenicians and the Greeks on every coast of the Mediterranean. The Greek supplants the Phoenician in all his factories, all his colonies in the east; soon will the Roman come and do likewise in the west. Alexander did far more against Tyre than Salmanasar or Nebuchodonosor had done. Not content with crushing her, he took care that she never should survive: for he founded Alexandria as her substitute, and changed for ever the track of the commerce of the world. There remained Carthage-the great Carthage and her mighty empire,―mighty in a far different degree than Phœnicia's had been. Rome annihilated it. Then occurred that which has no parallel in history,- an entire civilisation perished at one blow-vanished, like a falling star. The Periplus' of Hanno, a few coins, a score of lines in Plautus, and, lo, all that remains of the Carthaginian world!

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Many generations must needs pass away before the struggle between the two races could be renewed; and the Arabs, that formidable rear guard of the Semitic world, dashed forth from their deserts. The conflict between the two races then became the conflict of two religions. Fortunate was it that those daring Saracenic cavaliers encountered in the east the impregnable walls of Constantinople, in the west the chivalrous valour of

Charles Martel, and the sword of the Cid. The crusades were the natural reprisals for the Arab invasions, and form the last epoch of that great struggle between the two principal families of the human race."

In the destruction of Carthage perished almost all the documents which would have conveyed to posterity a full idea of the character and institutions of Rome's great rival.

But we can perceive how inferior Carthage was to her competitor in military spirit, military resources, and position; and how far less fitted than Rome she was to become the founder of a dominion destined to exist for ages, which should bind together barbarians of every race and language into an organised empire, and fit them for becoming, after that empire should be dissolved, the free members of the commonwealth of Christian Europe.

One great source of the inferiority of Carthage was that she had no native army. Her citizens were essentially, that which the English have sometimes been taunted with being-a trading people.

Michelet remarks : "The life of an industrious merchant, of a Carthaginian, was too precious to be risked, as long as it was possible to substitute advantageously for it that of a barbarian from Spain or Gaul. Carthage knew, and could tell to a drachma, what the life of a man from each nation came to. A Greek was worth more than a Campanian, a Campanian worth more than a Gaul or a Spaniard. When once this tariff of blood was correctly made out, Carthage began a war as a mercantile speculation. She tried to make conquests in the hope of

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getting new mines to work, or to open fresh markets for her exports. In one venture she could afford to spend 50,000 mercenaries, in another rather more. If the returns were good, there was no regret felt for the capital that had been lavished in the investment: more money got more men, and all went on well."

And commenting on this, Professor Creasy, in his most interesting and valuable work on the "Decisive Battles of the World" has the following eloquent passage:

"Armies composed of mercenaries have, in all ages, been as formidable to their employers as to the enemy against whom they were directed. We know of one occasion (between the first and second Punic wars) when Carthage was brought to the very brink of destruction by a revolt of her foreign troops. Other mutinies of the

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same kind must from time to time have occurred. bably one of these was the cause of the comparative weakness of Carthage at the time of the Athenian expedition against Syracuse; so different from the energy with which she attacked Gelon half a century earlier, and Dionysius half a century later. And even when we consider her armies with reference only to their efficiency in warfare, we perceive at once the inferiority of such bands of condottieri, brought together without any common bond of origin, tactics, or cause, to the legions of Rome, which, at the time of the Punic wars, were raised from the very flower of a hardy agricultural population, trained in the strictest discipline, habituated to victory, and animated by the most resolute patriotism. And this shows also the transcendency of the genius of Hannibal,

which could form such discordant materials into a compact organised force, and inspire them with the spirit of patient discipline and loyalty to their chief; so that they were true to him in his adverse as well as in his prosperous fortunes, and throughout the chequered series of his campaigns no panic rout ever disgraced a division under his command; no mutiny, or even attempt at mutiny, was ever known in his camp; and, finally, after fifteen years of Italian warfare, his men followed their old leader to Zama, with no fear, and little hope;' and there on that disastrous field stood firm around him his old guard, till Scipio's Numidian allies came up on their flank; when at last, surrounded and overpowered, the veteran battalions sealed their devotion to their general with their blood!"

The general appearance of a Carthaginian army has been described by one of the historians of the period as follows:

"It was an assemblage of the most opposite races of the human species, from the farthest parts of the globe. Hordes of half-naked Gauls were ranged next to companies of white-clothed Iberians, and savage Ligurians next to the far-travelled Nasamones and Lotophagi. Carthaginians and Phoenici-Africans formed the centre; while innumerable troops of Numidian horsemen, taken from all the tribes of the Desert, swarmed about on unsaddled horses, and formed the wings; the van was composed of Balearic slingers; and a line of colossal elephants, with their Ethiopian guides, formed, as it were, a chain of moving fortresses before the whole army."

The Spaniards and Africans were armed with helmets

and shields; and, for offensive weapons, with short cut and thrust swords. But after the battle of Thrasymene Hannibal armed his Spanish and African infantry after the Roman fashion, by means of the arms taken in the battle.

The Gauls carried long javelins, and huge broad swords and targets, similar to those described by Sir Walter Scott as having been the weapons of the Scottish Gael at a more recent period.

In the contest now under consideration, Hannibal's heavy infantry was composed of Spaniards, Africans, and Gauls. His light infantry, of the famous and formidable Balearic slingers and Gaulish irregulars. The only cavalry we read of as having accompanied him into Italy consisted of Numidian irregulars, who were yet very formidable in the field, and the best scouts in the world. But, after his entrance into Italy, Hannibal organised a body of Gaulish heavy cavalry, which did him good service in his subsequent campaigns.

Rome, the iron kingdom of prophecy, was the greatest military power the world has ever seen; conquest was the breath of her nostrils; and her military organisation was the most perfect that has ever existed. The following extract from Gibbon enables us to understand by what means the Roman dominion was extended over the whole of the known world.

"The Roman peasant, or mechanic, imbibed the useful prejudice that he received advancement in being permitted to enter the more dignified profession of arms, in which his rank and reputation would depend on his own valour; and that, although the prowess of a private

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