Before Chrift 280 — 271. 89 



the Mediterranean and Red feas. The univerfal ufe of the Greek lan- 

 guage among the fuperior people of almoft every part of the Mediter- 

 ranean coaft, as flir wefl as Sicily on the one hand and Cyrenaica on 

 the other, alfo contributed to give the merchants of Alexandria a very 

 great advantage over the Phoenicians in every port throughout thofe 

 rich and extenfive trails of coaft. Thefe great difcouragements, co- 

 operating with the infalts of the foldiers placed among tliem by Anti- 

 gonus, muft have compelled many of the merchants, rnanufadturers, 

 and other inhabitants, of Tyre and the neighbouring towns, to remove 

 their families, their capitals, and as much as poffible of their commerce, 

 to Carthage, where they could enjoy liberty among a free people of kin- 

 dred manners and fpeech. Such an acceflion of wealthy and induftrious 

 inhabitants was fufficient to raife Carthage in the fcale of commercial 

 profperity and naval fuperiority beyond any degree of competition 

 which could be attempted (except in the one branch of trade with Ara- 

 bia) by the new-eftabliflied port of Alexandria, by Syracufe, by Co- 

 rinth, or by any other port in the Mediterranean lea. And this reafon- 

 ing, highly probable from the natural confequence of known hiftoric 

 events, receives clear confirmation from the pofitive and unqueftion- 

 able teftimony of Polybius, who repeatedly informs us that the Cartha- 

 ginians were at this time the acknowleged fovereigns of the fea, and in 

 every refped at the zenith of their profperity. 



280 — At this time the invafion of Italy by Pyrrhus, a valiant and 

 turbulent king of Epirus, obliged the Romans to court the friendfhip 

 of the Carthaginians, to fecure their powerful afliftance, if neceflary, 

 againft the moft formidable enemy they had ever encountered. A third 

 treaty between the two republics was accordingly concluded, wherein 

 they contraded, that each (hould aflift the other, if invaded ; the fliips 

 in either cafe to be furnilhed by the Carthaginians, and the troops to 

 be paid by the ftate requiring their afliftance. [Poijl?. L. iii, c. 25.] 



271 — When the Carthaginians, by an unremitting attention to com- 

 merce, had raifed themfelves, with the general good will of the neigh- 

 bouring nations, to a height of wealth and profperity, which Appian 

 compares to the empire of the Macedonians for power, and to that of 

 the Perfians for opulence, the Romans, by an equally-unremitting at- 

 tention to war and plunder^ had now extended their dominion over al- 

 moft all the peninlular part of Italy ; and their ambition now afpired 

 to the empire of the v.'orld. 



A band of Campanian banditti had treacheroufly got into the city of 

 Meffana in Sicily, where they murdered the citizens, raviftied their 

 wives, and feized their property. They afterwards intefted the Cartha- 

 ginian and Grecian colonies in Sicily with frequent plundering excur- 

 fions, wherein they were aflifted by a fimilar gang of ruffians, who, by 

 a fimilar villany, had feized on Rhegium upon the oppolite fide of the 



Vol. T. M 



