in the rule of either.  Rome was striving for the possession of Italy, as Carthage for that of Sicily; the designs of the two powers scarcely then went further.  But that very circumstance formed a reason why each desired to have and retain on its frontier an intermediate power—­the Carthaginians for instance reckoning in this way on Tarentum, the Romans on Syracuse and Messana—­and why, if that course was impossible, each preferred to see these adjacent places given over to itself rather than to the other great power.  As Carthage had made an attempt in Italy, when Rhegium and Tarentum were about to be occupied by the Romans, to acquire these cities for itself, and had only been prevented from doing so by accident, so in Sicily an opportunity now offered itself for Rome to bring the city of Messana into its symmachy; should the Romans reject it, it was not to be expected that the city would remain independent or would become Syracusan; they would themselves throw it into the arms of the Phoenicians.  Were they justified in allowing an opportunity to escape, such as certainly would never recur, of making themselves masters of the natural tete de pont between Italy and Sicily, and of securing it by means of a brave garrison on which they could, for good reasons, rely?  Were they justified in abandoning Messana, and thereby surrendering the command of the last free passage between the eastern and western seas, and sacrificing the commercial liberty of Italy?  It is true that other objections might be urged to the occupation of Messana besides mere scruples of feeling and of honourable policy.  That it could not but lead to a war with Carthage, was the least of these; serious as was such a war, Rome might not fear it.  But there was the more important objection that by crossing the sea the Romans would depart from the purely Italian and purely continental policy which they had hitherto pursued; they would abandon the system by which their ancestors had founded the greatness of Rome, to enter upon another system the results of which no one could foretell.  It was one of those moments when calculation ceases, and when faith in men’s own and in their country’s destiny alone gives them courage to grasp the hand which beckons to them out of the darkness of the future, and to follow it no one knows whither.  Long and seriously the senate deliberated on the proposal of the consuls to lead the legions to the help of the Mamertines; it came to no decisive resolution.  But the burgesses, to whom the matter was referred, were animated by a lively sense of the greatness of the power which their own energy had established.  The conquest of Italy encouraged the Romans, as that of Greece encouraged the Macedonians and that of Silesia the Prussians, to enter upon a new political career.  A formal pretext for supporting the Mamertines was found in the protectorate which Rome claimed the right to exercise over all Italians.  The transmarine Italians were received into the Italian confederacy;(3) and on the proposal of the consuls the citizens resolved to send them aid (489).