frica, where it had maintained itself for three years (August 310 to
October 307). After the death of Agathocles, the Carthaginians
re-established their supremacy in Sicily, and Mago even offered
assistance to Rome against the invasion of Pyrrhus (480). Pyrrhus
crossed to Sicily in 277, and was preparing to emulate Agathocles by
sailing to Africa when he was compelled to return to Italy (see SICILY:
_History_).

Delivered from these dangers and more arrogant than before, Carthage
claimed the monopoly of Mediterranean waters, and seized every foreign
ship found between Sardinia and the Pillars of Hercules. "At Carthage,"
said Polybius, "no one is blamed, however he may have acquired his
wealth." The sailors took the utmost care to conceal the routes which
they followed; there is a story that a Carthaginian ship, pursued by a
Roman galley as far as the Atlantic, preferred to be driven out of her
course and sunk rather than reveal the course to the Cassiterides,
whither she was bound in quest of tin. The owner being saved, the senate
made good his losses from the public treasury (Strabo, iii. 5. 11).

(3) _Wars with Rome._[4]--The first Punic War lasted twenty-seven years
(268-241); it was fought by Carthage for the defence of her Sicilian
possessions and her supremacy in the Tyrrhenian Sea. The Romans,
victorious at the naval battles of Mylae (Melazzo) and Ecnomus (260 and
256), sent M. Atilius Regulus with an army to Africa. But the
Carthaginians, by the help of the Spartan Xanthippus, were successful,
and Regulus was captured. The fighting was then transferred to Sicily,
where Hasdrubal was defeated at Panormus (250); subsequently the Romans
failed before Lilybaeum and were defeated at Drepanum, but their victory
at the Aegates Islands ended the war (241). Carthage now desired to
disband her forces, but the mercenaries claimed their arrears of pay,
and on being refused revolted under Spendius and Matho, pillaged the
suburbs of Carthage and laid siege to the city itself. Only the genius
of Hamilcar Barca raised the siege; the mercenaries were caught in the
defile of the Axe, where they were cut down without mercy. This war,
which all but ruined Carthage, is known to the Roman historians as the
_bellum inexpiabile._

This peril averted, Carthage undertook the conquest of Spain. It was the
work of Hamilcar, and lasted nine years up to the day of Hamilcar's
death, sword in hand, in 228. His son-in-law, Hasdrubal Pulcher,