mass in which all advantage of numbers was lost.
Moreover, against the deadly rain of huge stones the Athenians had
no defense whatever.

The result was an overwhelming victory for the Syracusans. Out
of 110 triremes the Athenians lost fifty. The besieging army went
to pieces in attempting a retreat across the island, and the whole
expedition came to a tragic end. This defeat of the Athenian fleet
in the harbor of Syracuse was the ruin of Athens. When the news
reached Greece, many of her dependencies revolted, the Peloponnesian
war had broken out anew, and she had no strength left to hold her
own. The deathblow was given when a Spartan admiral destroyed all
that was left of the Athenian navy at AEgospotami in the year 405.
Thereafter Athens was merely a conquered province, permitted to
keep a fleet of only twelve ships, and watched by a garrison of
Spartan soldiers in the citadel.

The downfall of Athenian sea power at Syracuse may be compared
with the downfall of Persian sea power at Salamis. Just as the
latter prevented the spread of an Asiatic form of civilization
in Europe and gave Greek civilization a chance to develop, so the
former put an end to the extension of a strong Hellenic power in
Italy and left opportunity for the rise of the civilization of
Rome.

REFERENCES

HISTORY OF GREECE, Ernst Curtius, 1874.
HISTORY OF GREECE, George Grote, 1856.
THE GREAT PERSIAN WAR, G. B. Grundy, 1901.
HISTORY OF THE PERSIAN WARS, Herodotus, ed. and transl. by Geo.
Rawlinson, 1862.
HISTORY OF THE PELOPONNESIAN WAR, Thucydides, ed. and transl.
by Jowett.

CHAPTER III

THE SEA POWER OF ROME

1. THE PUNIC WARS

When peoples have migrated in the past, they have frequently changed
their habits to conform to new topographical surroundings. We have
seen that the Phoenicians, originally a nomadic people, became a
seafaring race because of the conditions of the country they settled
in; and on the other hand, at a later period, the Vikings who overran
Normandy or Britain forsook the sea and became farmers. The popular
idea that a race follows the sea because of an "instinct in the blood
of the race" has little to stand on. When, however, the colonists
from Phoenicia settled Carthage and founded an empire, they continued
the traditions of their ancestors and built up their power on a
foundation of ships. This was due to the conditions--topographical
and geographical--which surrounded them, and which were much li