They did not dare to fight Hannibal in the open field, but tried to
wear him out by cutting off all small bodies of his troops and by
making it difficult for him to get food for his army. They carried the
war into Spain and finally into Africa, and when, with a weakened
army, Hannibal faced them there, they defeated him. His defeat was the
ruin of Carthage, for the unhappy city was compelled to see her fleet
destroyed, to pay the Romans a huge sum of money, and to give up Spain
to them.

[Illustration: A ROMAN SOLDIER]

OTHER ROMAN TRIUMPHS. The war with Carthage ended two hundred and two
years before the birth of Christ. In the wars that followed, Roman
armies fought not only in Spain and Africa, but also in Greece and
Asia. Carthage was destroyed; as was also Corinth, a Greek city. Roman
generals enriched themselves and sent great treasures back to Rome.
Roman merchants grew rich because their rivals in Carthage and Corinth
were ruined or because the conquered cities were forbidden to trade
with any city but Rome. All this took a long time and many wars, but
in the end the Romans became masters of every land along the shores of
the Mediterranean. This was not wholly a misfortune, for the Romans
had learned that the Greeks were superior to them in some things and
they took the Greeks as their teachers in most of the arts of living.
The ancient world became a sort of partnership, and we call its
civilization Graeco-Roman, that is, both Greek and Roman.

THE ROMANS AS RULERS. The Romans at first treated the lands in Sicily,
Spain, Africa, Greece, and Asia as conquered territories, or
provinces, sending to rule over them officers who were to act both as
governors and judges. With these men went many tax-collectors or