The Works of Sir Walter Ralegh, Kt Volume 6; The History of the World (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: Caesar a monarch; so hereafter, by God's blessing, who hath converted our greatest hinderance into our greatest help, the enemy that shall dare to try our forces will find cause to wish, that, avoiding us, he had rather encountered as great a puissance as was that of the Roman empire. But it is now high time that, laying aside comparisons, we return to the rehearsal of deeds done; wherein we shall find how Rome began, after Pyrrhus had left Italy, to strive with Carthage for dominion in the first Punic war. SECT. II. The estate of Carthage before it entered into war with Rome. THE city of Carthage had stood above six hundred years, when first it began to contend with Rome for the mastery of Sicily. It forewent Rome one hundred and fifty years in antiquity of foundation; but in the honour of great achievements it excelled far beyond this advantage of time. For Carthage had extended her dominion in Africa itself, from the west part of Cyrene to the straits of Hercules, about one thousand and five hundred miles in length, wherein stood three hundred cities. It had subjected all Spain, even to the Pyrenean mountains, together with all the islands in the Mediterranean sea to the west of Sicily, and of Sicily the better part. It flourished about seven hundred and thirty years before the destruction thereof by Scipio, who, besides other spoils, and all that the soldiers reserved, carried thence four hundred and seventy thousand weight of silver, which make of our money (if our pounds differ not) fourteen hundred and ten thousand pound sterling. So as this glorious city ran the same fortune which many other great ones have done, both before and since; the ruin of the goodliest pieces of the world foreshews the dissolution of the whole. About one hundred years after such time ...