hat
the great and victorious burgesses had not disdained to fraternize
and share the spoil with a venal pack of mercenaries, and had not
sufficient self-denial to prefer the course enjoined by justice and
by honour to the gain of the moment. The Carthaginians, whose troubles
reached their height just about the period of the occupation of
Sardinia, were silent for the time being as to the unwarrantable
violence; but, after this peril had been, contrary to the expectations
and probably contrary to the hopes of the Romans, averted by the
genius of Hamilcar, and Carthage had been reinstated to her full
sovereignty in Africa (517), Carthaginian envoys immediately appeared
at Rome to require the restitution of Sardinia. But the Romans, not
inclined to restore their booty, replied with frivolous or at any rate
irrelevant complaints as to all sorts of injuries which they alleged
that the Carthaginians had inflicted on the Roman traders, and
hastened to declare war;(2) the principle, that in politics power
is the measure of right, appeared in its naked effrontery. Just
resentment urged the Carthaginians to accept that offer of war; had
Catulus insisted upon the cession of Sardinia five years before, the
war would probably have pursued its course. But now, when both
islands were lost, when Libya was in a ferment, and when the state was
weakened to the utmost by its twenty-four years' struggle with Rome
and the dreadful civil war that had raged for nearly five years more,
they were obliged to submit It was only after repeated entreaties,
and after the Phoenicians had bound themselves to pay to Rome a
compensation of 1200 talents (292,000 pounds) for the warlike
preparations which had been wantonly occasioned, that the Romans
reluctantly desisted from war. Thus the Romans acquired Sardinia
almost without a struggle; to which they added Corsica, the ancient
possession of the Etruscans, where perhaps some detached Roman
garrisons still remained over from the last war.(3) In Sardinia,
however, and still more in the rugged Corsica, the Romans restricted
themselves, just as the Phoenicians had done, to an occupation of
the coasts. With the natives in the interior they were continually
engaged in war or, to speak more correctly, in hunting them like wild
beasts; they baited them with dogs, and carried what they captured to
the slave market; but they undertook no real conquest. They had
occupied the islands not on their own accoun