The Carthaginians,
who generally pushed their commerce into all the countries with which their
parent state had traded, seem to have visited Italy as merchants or
conquerors at a very early period; but when their first visit took place in
either character is not known. The treaty between them and the Romans, (to
which we have had occasion to refer more than once,) which was formed in
the year after the expulsion of the Tarquins, expressly stipulated that the
Romans, who should touch at Sardinia, or that part of Sicily which belonged
to the Carthaginians, should be received there in the same manner as the
Carthaginians themselves. They must, however, soon afterwards have been
driven out of the island; for at the time of the invasion of Greece by
Xerxes, (which happened about thirty years after the expulsion of the
Tarquins,) Gelon, the king of Syracuse, expressly states that they no
longer possessed any territory there, in a speech which he made to the
ambassadors of Athens and Sparta, the Cathaginians having united with
Xerxes, and he having offered to ally himself with the Greeks. The
circumstances and even the very nature of the victory which Gelon gained
over the Carthaginians, which ended in their expulsion from Sicily, cannot
accurately be ascertained: but from a comparison of the principal
authorities on this point, it would, appear that it was a naval victory; or
at least that the Carthaginian fleet was defeated as well as their army.
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