in 513--is very ill attested. The later Romans, who sought in the
fortunes and misfortunes of their forefathers mere materials for
school themes, made Regulus the prototype of heroic misfortune as
they made Fabricius the prototype of heroic poverty, and put into
circulation in his name a number of anecdotes invented by way of
due accompaniment--incongruous embellishments, contrasting ill with
serious and sober history.

8. The statement (Zon. viii. 17) that the Carthaginians had to promise
that they would not send any vessels of war into the territories of
the Roman symmachy--and therefore not to Syracuse, perhaps even not
to Massilia--sounds credible enough; but the text of the treaty says
nothing of it (Polyb. iii. 27).




Chapter III

The Extension of Italy to Its Natural Boundaries

Natural Boundaries of Italy

The Italian confederacy as it emerged from the crises of the fifth
century--or, in other words, the State of Italy--united the various
civic and cantonal communities from the Apennines to the Ionian Sea
under the hegemony of Rome. But before the close of the fifth century
these limits were already overpassed in both directions, and Italian
communities belonging to the confederacy had sprung up beyond the
Apennines and beyond the sea. In the north the republic, in revenge