[Sidenote: Rivalry between Carthage and Rome.]

While Rome was completing the reduction of Italy, Carthage, a Tyrian
colony on the opposite coast of Africa, was extending her conquests in
the Islands of the Mediterranean. The Greek colonies of Sicily had
fallen under her sway. She was a rival whose power was formidable,
enriched by the commerce of the world, and proud in the number of her
allies. The city contained seven hundred thousand inhabitants, and the
walls measured twenty miles in circumference.

[Sidenote: Shall Rome or Carthage have the preeminence.]

[Sidenote: Carthage falls after a long and memorable struggle.]

[Sidenote: Territories acquired by the fall of Carthage.]

Between such ambitious and unscrupulous rivals, peace could not long be
maintained. To the eye of the philosopher the ascendency of Carthage or
of Rome over the countries which border on the Mediterranean was clearly
seen. Which were better? Shall the world be governed by a martial, law-
making, law-loving, heroic commonwealth, not yet seduced and corrupted
by luxury and wealth, or by a commercial, luxurious, selfish nation of
merchants, whose only desire is self-indulgence and folly. Providence
sides with Rome--although Rome cannot be commended, and is ruled by
ambitious and unscrupulous chieftains whose delight is power. If there
is to be one great empire more, before Christianity is proclaimed, which
shall absorb all other empires, now degenerate and corrupt, let that be
given to a people who know how to civilize after they have conquered.
Let the sword rather than gold rule the world--enlightened statesmen