_Two important dates_:

Battle of Marathon, 490 B.C. Death of Alexander the Great, 323 B.C.




CHAPTER V


NEW RIVALS OF THE GREEKS

THE GREEK COLONIES AND THE CARTHAGINIANS. The Greek colonies were
sometimes in danger of being attacked by the native tribes whose lands
they had seized or by the wilder tribes that dwelt further from the
coast. In Sicily their most dangerous neighbors were the Carthaginians
at the western end of the island. The chief town of these people was
Carthage, situated opposite Sicily in northern Africa in what is now
Tunis. The Carthaginians were emigrants from Tyre and other cities of
Phoenicia on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean, and because of
their many ships held control of a large part of the western
Mediterranean. They had colonies even in Spain, where in very early
times Phoenician traders had gone to obtain gold and silver.

THE GREEKS AND THE ROMANS. In Italy the most dangerous neighbors of
the Greek colonists were the Romans, who lived half-way up the western
side of the peninsula along the river Tiber. The history of the Romans,
like the history of the Greeks, is full of interesting and wonderful
tales. Some of them are legends, such as every people likes to tell