5 2 Before Chrifl: 240. 



over the Carchaginians, M'ho were obliged to fue for peace, which they 

 obtained on the hard terms of refigning all their territory in Sicily and 

 the iflands on the north fide of it, and paying to the Romans three thou- 

 fand two hundred Euboic talents, which contained as much filver as 

 would make fix hundred and twenty thoufand pounds of modern Britifli 

 filver money. And fuch, notwithftanding the acknowleged fuperior ta- 

 lents of the Carthaginian commanders by land as well as by fea, was the 

 end of the Sicilian war, called by later writers the firft Punic war. 



At this time the modius (a fmall fradion more than a peck) of corn 

 (far) was fold at Rome for an as, which then contained two ounces of 

 iDrafs. The fame money might purchafe a congius (7^ pints) of wine, 

 thirty p07ido of dried figs, ttn pondo of oil, or twelve pon do of butcher 

 meat. \Varro, ap Pliii. Hiji. nat. L. xviii, c. 3.] N. B. The pondo isfome- 



what leis than our pound troye If fuch were the prices in the time of 



an exhaufting war, what might they have been, had the Romans ever 

 been at peace ? 



Immediately after the peace the Carthaginians experienced the dread- 

 ful confequences of trufting their arms (agreeable to the erroneous max- 

 ims of their Tyrian ancefiors) almofl: entirely in the hands of mercena- 

 ries. Thofe foldiers, who had no regard for Carthage, oflfended at fome 

 imprudent, or inevitable, delay in difcharging their pay, took advantage 

 of the reduced fi;ate of the republic, and drew in almoft all the neigh- 

 bouring fiates of Africa to affifl: them to ruin Carthage, The dreadfvil 

 atrocities of this war, which are unparalleled in the hiflory of human 

 crimes and calamities, were at lafi: terminated (a". 238) by the condudl of 

 Amilcar. 



During this war Italian merchants fupplied Carthage with neceflaries, 

 by permiflion of the Romans, who prohibited them from carrying any 

 to the revolted mercenaries. 



The Sardinians had taken the opportunity of the troubles of Carthage 

 to fliake off their dependence upon that republic ; and the Romans, 

 though for fome time they had fhcwn an appearance of adhering with 

 the ftrideft honour to the treaty of peace, made themfelves mafters of 

 the noble ifland of Sardinia in a manner, which even Livy \L xxi, f. i] 

 acknowleges to be fraudulent, and Polybius \L. iii, c. 28] execrates 

 with the warm refentment, which an honeft man feels at the perpetra- 

 tion of a bale fraud. Not contented with robbing the Carthaginians 

 of the ifland, they even prefumed fo far on their diftrefled fituation as 

 to extort twelve hundred talents in name of re-imburfement for the ex- 

 penle of the robbery. 



About this time a banker (r^xTs^iT)i() of Sicyon, a city of Peloponnefus, 

 is mentioned by Plutarch in his Life of Aratus. His bufineis feems to 

 have confif\ed in exchanging one fpecies of money for another. 



240 — Aradus, or Arvad, was a fmall rocky ifland, which the Sidoniaits 



