thus able to maintain the insurrection.

Putting these facts together, it is a reasonable inference, and
supported by the whole tenor of the history, that the Roman sea power
controlled the sea north of a line drawn from Tarragona in Spain to
Lilybaeum (the modern Marsala), at the west end of Sicily, thence
round by the north side of the island through the straits of Messina
down to Syracuse, and from there to Brindisi in the Adriatic. This
control lasted, unshaken, throughout the war. It did not exclude
maritime raids, large or small, such as have been spoken of; but it
did forbid the sustained and secure communications of which Hannibal
was in deadly need.

On the other hand, it seems equally plain that for the first ten years
of the war the Roman fleet was not strong enough for sustained
operations in the sea between Sicily and Carthage, nor indeed much to
the south of the line indicated. When Hannibal started, he assigned
such ships as he had to maintaining the communications between Spain
and Africa, which the Romans did not then attempt to disturb.

The Roman sea power, therefore, threw Macedonia wholly out of the war.
It did not keep Carthage from maintaining a useful and most harassing
diversion in Sicily; but it did prevent her sending troops, when they
would have been most useful, to her great general in Italy. How was it
as to Spain?

Spain was the region upon which the father of Hannibal and Hannibal
himself had based their intended invasion of Italy. For eighteen years
before this began they had occupied the country, extending and
consolidating their power, both political and military, with rare