The area of Phoenician maritime commerce was vast enough both to excite jealousy and to offer vulnerable points to the cupidity of rivals.  It is probable that the modern estimate of the sea-power of Carthage is much exaggerated.  It was great by comparison, and of course overwhelmingly great when there were none but insignificant competitors to challenge it.  Mommsen holds that, in the fourth and fifth centuries after the foundation of Rome, ’the two main competitors for the dominion of the Western waters’ were Carthage and Syracuse.  ‘Carthage,’ he says, ’had the preponderance, and Syracuse sank more and more into a second-rate naval power.  The maritime importance of the Etruscans was wholly gone....  Rome itself was not exempt from the same fate; its own waters were likewise commanded by foreign fleets.’  The Romans were for a long time too much occupied at home to take much interest in Mediterranean matters.  The position of the Carthaginians in the western basin of the Mediterranean was very like that of the Portuguese long afterwards in India.  The latter kept within reach of the sea; ’nor did their rule ever extend a day’s march from their ships.’[18] ’The Carthaginians in Spain,’ says Mommsen, ’made no effort to acquire the interior from the warlike native nations; they were content with the possession of the mines and of stations for traffic and for shell and other fisheries.’  Allowance being made for the numbers of the classes engaged in administration, commerce, and supervision, it is nearly certain that Carthage could not furnish the crews required by both a great war-navy and a great mercantile marine.  No one is surprised on finding that the land-forces of Carthage were composed largely of alien mercenaries.  We have several examples from which we can infer a parallel, if not an identical, condition of her maritime resources.  How, then, was the great Carthaginian carrying-trade provided for?  The experience of more than one country will enable us to answer this question.  The ocean trade of those off-shoots or dependencies of the United Kingdom, viz. the United States, Australasia, and India, is largely or chiefly conducted by shipping of the old country.  So that of Carthage was largely conducted by old Phoenicians.  These may have obtained a ‘Carthaginian Register,’ or the contemporary equivalent; but they could not all have been purely Carthaginian or Liby-Phoenician.  This must have been the case even more with the war-navy.  British India for a considerable time possessed a real and indeed highly efficient navy; but it was officered entirely and manned almost entirely by men from the ‘old country.’  Moreover, it was small.  The wealth of India would have sufficed to furnish a larger material element; but, as the country could not supply the personnel, it would have been absurd to speak of the sea-power of India apart from that of England.  As soon as the Romans chose to make the most of their natural resources the maritime predominance of Carthage was