perialism (p. 125), "Rome doubtless intended if successful to demand an indemnity and end the affair". The only way in which considerations of trade influenced the Romans was an indirect one. The commerce of Massilia was suffering severely at the hands of the Carthaginians, and she undoubtedly exerted herself to the utmost to bring her Roman ally into the field against Carthage, so that trade interests played some part in bringing on the war, but not in the way in which de Sanctis implies. In the same connection (I. 418) de Sanctis remarks, "Ma essendo Sagunto città iberica a mezzogiorno dell'Ebro, è evidente che se l'alleanza con Roma era anteriore al trattato d'Asdrubale, a' sensi di esso i Romani's'erano impegnati, almeno implicitamente, a rinunziarvi; se posteriore, costituiva una deroga almeno implicita a quello". This reasoning is open to the double objection that it projects back into the third century before Christ the modern doctrine of the sphere of influence and runs counter to the fact that "in no ancient source is there the slightest indication that Carthage considered her rights in Spain to have been infringed by the Saguntine treaty".[1]
This volume has a peculiar interest at the present time, because no war in the past furnishes so close a parallel to the present war as does the struggle between Rome and Carthage, both in respect to the two protagonists, the questions at issue, and the course of events. That the author has kept his eyes fixed solely on the events of the third century, and has not allowed his interpretation of them to be influenced by conditions in 1914–1917, reflects no small credit upon the soundness of his judgment and his detachment as a scholar.
This is the first volume of our first manual of Roman archaeology. Stuart Jones's Companion to Roman History, Sandys's Companion to Latin Studies, and Baumgarten, Poland, and Wagner's Hellenistisch-Römische Kultur are all manuals with archaeological inclinations, but none lays titular claim to the entire field. MM. Cagnat and Chapot do make such claim. In this first volume they treat of monuments and their sculptural decoration, in the second volume they are to take up painting and mosaic, and the instrumenta of public and private life.
The poor quality of paper used in the book reflects war times. It makes no great difference, to be sure, but many illustrations (there are 371 in the book), especially those reproduced from photographs, have lost the sharpness that is needed to bring out detail. The things one
- ↑ Frank, Roman Imperialism, p. 124.
