DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.18096#0027
ROMAN AFRICA
CHAPTER I
i carthage and rome
f B.C. 201-46
The history of Roman Africa commences at the close of the
. ;econd Punic war, b.c. 201. The fall of Pyrrhus, the adven-
- :urous king of Epirus, b.c. 272, whose ambition was to surpass
Alexander the Great in warlike achievements, had made the
Romans masters of Southern Italy, and brought them face to
face with the Carthaginians in the fair island of Sicily. For
nearly two centuries and a half these rival nations had been
watching each other's movements across the sea with jealousy
and dismay. Success to the Romans on the first encounter on
land mattered little to a maritime people like the Carthaginians,
whose fleets were to be found in every port and inlet of the
Mediterranean, and who reigned supreme as the one commercial
people of the known world. The career of these ancient rulers
of North Africa, illustrious from their spirit of adventure,
unflagging energy, and wondrous commerce, is a chapter of
romance. Hemmed in originally between mountain and sea
on the Syrian coast, a little colony of Phoenicians spread itself
in a comparatively short period along the whole seaboard of the
Mediterranean ; then passing the Pillars of Hercules it reached
Sierra Leone in the south, eastward it touched the coast of
Malabar, and northward skirted the inhospitable shores of the
German Ocean. It seems strange that these Canaanites or
Phoenicians, the scorn of Israel, and the people against whom
Joshua bent all his powers, should have enjoyed such an
B
to
CHAPTER I
i carthage and rome
f B.C. 201-46
The history of Roman Africa commences at the close of the
. ;econd Punic war, b.c. 201. The fall of Pyrrhus, the adven-
- :urous king of Epirus, b.c. 272, whose ambition was to surpass
Alexander the Great in warlike achievements, had made the
Romans masters of Southern Italy, and brought them face to
face with the Carthaginians in the fair island of Sicily. For
nearly two centuries and a half these rival nations had been
watching each other's movements across the sea with jealousy
and dismay. Success to the Romans on the first encounter on
land mattered little to a maritime people like the Carthaginians,
whose fleets were to be found in every port and inlet of the
Mediterranean, and who reigned supreme as the one commercial
people of the known world. The career of these ancient rulers
of North Africa, illustrious from their spirit of adventure,
unflagging energy, and wondrous commerce, is a chapter of
romance. Hemmed in originally between mountain and sea
on the Syrian coast, a little colony of Phoenicians spread itself
in a comparatively short period along the whole seaboard of the
Mediterranean ; then passing the Pillars of Hercules it reached
Sierra Leone in the south, eastward it touched the coast of
Malabar, and northward skirted the inhospitable shores of the
German Ocean. It seems strange that these Canaanites or
Phoenicians, the scorn of Israel, and the people against whom
Joshua bent all his powers, should have enjoyed such an
B
to