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254 THE SECOND PUNIC WAR.

(218–201 B.C.)

The First Roman Province.—For the twenty-three years that followed the close of the first struggle between Rome and Carthage, the two rivals strained every power and taxed every resource in preparation for a renewal of the contest.

The Romans settled the affairs of Sicily, organizing all of it, save the lands belonging to Syracuse, as a province of the republic. This was the first territory beyond the limits of Italy that Rome had conquered, and the Sicilian the first of Roman provinces. But as the imperial city extended her conquests, her provincial possessions increased in number and size until they formed at last a perfect cordon about the Mediterranean. Each province was governed by a magistrate sent out from the capital, and paid an annual tribute, or tax, to Rome.

Rome acquires Sardinia and Corsica.—The first acquisition by the Romans of lands beyond the peninsula seems to have created in them an insatiable ambition for foreign conquests. They soon found a pretext for seizing the island of Sardinia, the most ancient and, after Sicily, the most prized of the possessions of the Carthaginians. The island, in connection with Corsica, which was also seized, was formed into a Roman province. With her hands upon these islands, the authority of Rome in the Western, or Tuscan Sea, was supreme.

The Illyrian Corsairs are punished.—At about the same time, the Romans also extended their influence over the seas that wash the eastern shores of Italy. For a long time the Adriatic and Ionian