SUMMARY
The old stories of Rome give a good idea of the character of the people . The houses and the food were simple . The toga was the chief article of the man's dress, the stola of the woman's. Children were taught to know a little of books , to use their bodies well, to worship the gods , to love their country , and to be obedient .
The Romans had many gods . Their worship was a sort of barter between themselves and the gods . The augur was the interpreter of the will of the gods and of the significance of omens. The wed ding ceremonies required a full day.
The Romans were famous builders . The chief object of their roads was to enable them to march bodies of troops rapidly . Rome kept her conquests by force and by founding colonies.
SUGGESTIONS FOR WRITTEN WORK
Fabius Cunctator tells the story of saluting his son .
A Roman school-boy tells what he likes best to do .
A Roman describes the omens seen by an augur .
A description of a wedding procession . VII
HOW THE ROMANS CONQUERED CARTHAGE
a ITALY is shaped like a boot , and the toe of the boot points across Sicily and the Mediterranean to Africa where the city of Car'thage once stood . Carthage was founded about one hundred years earlier than Rome. The land about it was
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OF THE ROMAN PEOPLE
HOW THE ROMANS CONQUERED CARTHAGE 73
most fertile , and it had an excellent harbor . The Carthagin ians were famous merchants , and they had a large number of trading vessels . They loaded these with gold , ivory , linen , precious stones, and slaves from Africa ; embroideries and purple cloth and glass from the eastern coast of the Mediter ranean ; iron from the little island of El'ba ; wax from Cor' si- ca ; gold from Spain ; and oil and wine from Sicily ; and these products they carried from port to port . Chiefly through this trading , Carthage had become wealthy : her rule extended over all northern Africa to the westward, and over several large islands ; southern Spain paid her tribute ; her trading posts and colonies were so thickly scattered over the Mediterranean shores that the Cartha ginians declared this sea to be only a Car thaginian lake, wherein no one might venture to wash his hands without their permission . They could well defend their claims , for they had , besides trading vessels , a powerful navy of warships . Just between Carthage and the " toe " of Italy lies the island of Sicily , only ninety miles from the African shores. The Cartha ginians traded with Sicily , and finally planted colonies on the western coast . On the eastern coast were some Greek colonies, settled soon after the founding of Rome . The Greeks were traders as well as the Carthaginians , and the two peoples carried on a constant warfare . In the midst of this enmity , some military adven
CARTHAGINIAN FOOT SOLDIER
STORY OF THE ROMAN PEOPLE
turers from Italy took possession of Mes-sa'na (Mes - si'na ), the Si-cil'i-an town nearest Italy. The Greeks attempted to drive them away , and the Italians asked the Romans for aid. We are Mam'er - tines (sons of Mars) , they said , and you , too , are descended from Mars . We have come for help to our brothers." The Romans did not wish to help these pirates ; but if aid was refused , they would ask the Cartha ginians to be come their al lies, and Mes would become a Car thaginian town. That would never do , de clared the Ro mans ; and so the first war with Carthage began . Carthage had been founded by Phæ-nic'i-ans , whom the Romans called Pæ'ni. Therefore the wars with Carthage were known as the Pu' nic Wars .
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For nearly twenty years the Romans had paid no atten tion to their navy , and they were now almost without war ships. They borrowed a few from the Greek colonies in south ern Italy and succeeded in landing troops on the shores of Sicily . It was not easy to win a victory over the Romans, and they were as successful in Sicily as elsewhere. They began to dream of more than winning a few Sicilian cities and taking some land and treasure . Why not go on and
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SLINGERS IN CARTHAGINIAN ARMY a
HOW THE ROMANS CONQUERED CARTHAGE 75
conquer the whole island ? There was one extremely good reason " why not, and that was their lack of warships . While they were in Sicily , the Carthaginians had been send ing their ships of war along the Italian coast, and what the Romans had gained in Sicily they had lost at home . More over , even if they captured the island , they could not hope to keep it if they had no navy with which to meet the attacks of the Carthaginians. We must build warships , the Romans declared ; but that was more easily said than done , for no one knew how . The ships of war of those days galleys , they were called were moved by both sails and oars , but the Romans did not understand how to sail against the wind ; therefore, in a naval battle , where it was necessary to move rapidly , they depended chiefly upon the use of oars . The oarsmen sat in tiers , one above another , the higher tier using longer oars than the one below . The Romans could borrow of the Etruscans and the Greeks galleys with two or three banks of oars ; but these would be helpless before the Car thaginian galleys with five banks.
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People as determined as the Romans can usually find a way out of a difficulty. A Carthaginian warship was wrecked on their coast , and they thought they could make this serve as a model . They began to cut down trees . In sixty days , if we may trust the old story, a forest had been made into a fleet of one hundred and twenty warships. The Romans had not forgotten that the ships must have men ; and while the shore resounded with the noise of hammers and axes and saws, soldiers were sitting on tiers of benches , practicing a sort of dry land rowing. At length the ships were ready ; but
