The lower passions of pride and avarice are soon aroused among the mass by specious promises of glory and conquest; and though each man might, for himself, have spurned an alliance with the Mamertine mercenaries, the result proved the truth of the saying, that "a corporation will do what an individual will shrink from with shame;" for the Comitia Tributa voted that the disgraceful compact should be formed.
Appius Claudius, the son of the blind Consul, was sent to Messana with a fleet of TRIREMES, or vessels with three ranks of oars, which had been borrowed from the Greek towns of Italy; for the Roman Admiralty, in the true spirit of a board, though continually building ships, was unable to produce an effective navy. Appius Claudius was not seaman enough to carry his TRIREMES to Sicily, and his rowers were not so expert as they should have been in the management of the oars, which were placed in ranks, one above the other, to a considerable height, so that a long pull, a strong pull, and a pull altogether was extremely difficult.
Having at last got near enough for a parley, he invited Hanno, the Carthaginian general, to a conference; and, finding him a weak and nervous person, he seized him by the neck, and fairly shook the whole of his resolution out of him.
Hanno was frightened into delivering up the citadel, and returning to Carthage, he was hurried off to speedy execution, for having failed in the execution of his duty. King Hiero, being deprived of his Carthaginian aid, was completely beaten, and was glad to offer peace, or rather he was glad to get it, on any conditions, for his own condition was truly deplorable. He paid down 200 talents in ready money, which was equivalent to about fifty thousand pounds of our modern coin, to prevent the sacking of Syracuse, and by sacrificing all his cash in hand, he was able to save his capital. From this period may be dated the commencement of the first Punic War; and as a feeble-minded reader may be dwelling on the word Punic, in the silly expectation of a pun, we, by explaining that it is derived from Phœnicia, whence Phœnic or Punic, at once check the morbid appetite. The city of Carthage is said to have been about one hundred years older than Rome; but cities, like ladies beyond a certain date, baffle all attempts to reduce their age to a matter of certainty. Tradition assigns the foundation of Carthage to Dido, who, having been converted into an unprotected female by the murder of her husband, fled from Tyre, and when completely tired out, sat down to rest on the coast of Africa. Here she agreed to take, on a building lease, as much land as could be covered with a bull's hide, when, to the astonishment of the lessor, she produced a skin cut up into thongs, and acting as her own surveyor, she claimed to be monarch of all she surveyed, by putting this new species of leathern girdle round as much earth as possible. There was certainly less of the princess than of the tradeswoman in this transaction, which, however, was characteristic of the future city, for it became famous for its business and its bargains, as well as infamous for its bad faith; the term _Punica fides_ having become a by-word to express the grossest dishonesty. Her devotion to commerce led to the establishment of a powerful navy, and her citizens having something more profitable to do than to fight, her army was always hired from abroad when occasion required. Rome, on the other hand, had made war her chief pursuit, and the consequence was, that she had plenty of soldiers, but no ships, except a few she had taken from her foes; and her occupations being mostly of a military or destructive kind, she had no resources but her valour to rely upon.