s ever more favorably
situated for a naval power than Greece, with her fifty islands and her
great extent of coast.

The merchant marine of Athens produced her prosperity, and gave her the
naval power to which Greece was indebted for her independence. Her
fleets, united with those of the islands, were, under Themistocles, the
terror of the Persians and the rulers of the East. They never made grand
descents, because their land-forces were not in proportion to their
naval strength. Had Greece been a united government instead of a
confederation of republics, and had the navies of Athens, Syracuse,
Corinth, and Sparta been combined instead of fighting among each other,
it is probable that the Greeks would have conquered the world before the
Romans.

If we can believe the exaggerated traditions of the old Greek
historians, the famous army of Xerxes had not less than four thousand
vessels; and this number is astonishing, even when we read the account
of them by Herodotus. It is more difficult to believe that at the same
time, and by a concerted movement, five thousand other vessels landed
three hundred thousand Carthaginians in Sicily, where they were totally
defeated by Gelon on the same day that Themistocles destroyed the fleet
of Xerxes at Salamis. Three other expeditions, under Hannibal, Imilcon,
and Hamilcar, carried into Sicily from one hundred to one hundred and
fifty thousand men: Agrigentum and Palermo were taken, Lilybaeum was
founded, and Syracuse besieged twice. The third time Androcles, with
fifteen thousand men, landed in Africa, and made Carthage tremble. This
contest lasted one year and a half.

Alexander the Great crossed the Hellespont with only fifty thousand men:
his naval force was only one hundred and sixty sail, while the Persians
had four hundred; and to save his fleet Alexander sent it back to
Greece.

After Alexander's death, his generals, who quarreled about the division
of the empire, made no important naval expedition.

Pyrrhus, invited by the inhabitants of Tarentum and aided by their
fleet, landed in Italy with twenty-six thousand infantry, three thousand
horses, and the first elephants which had been seen in Italy. This was
two hundred and eighty years before the Christian era.

Conqueror of the Romans at Heraclea and Ascoli, it is difficult to
understand why he should have gone to Sicily at the solicitation of the
Syracusans to expel the Carthaginians. Recalled, after some success, by