A weekly feature of the Carthaginian Messenger, quoted from its issue of March 15, 220 B. C.

It is quite a pleasure to be in dear old Rome again after a week spent upon an important mission which your readers are already acquainted with, in the Tuscan country. All that drive through Etruria was very delightful and the investigation will undoubtedly prove of the greatest use. But what a difference it is to be back in the sparkle and gaiety of the Via Sacra. Every day one feels more and more how real the entente is. Probably no nations have become faster friends than those who have learnt to respect each other in war, and though the Romans were compelled to accept our terms, and to undertake the difficult administration of Sicily with money furnished by the Carthaginian Government, all that was[Pg 328] more than twenty years ago and the memory of it does not rankle now. Indeed, I think I may say that the Roman character is a peculiarly generous one in this regard. They know what a good fight is, and they enjoy it—none better—but when it is over no one is readier to shake hands and to make friends again than a Roman. I was talking it over with dear little Lucia Balba the other day and I thought she put it very prettily. She said:

    Est autem amicitia nihil aliud, nisi omnium divinarum huminarumque rerum cockalorumque Romanorum et jejorum concinnatio!

Was it not charming?

Of course there is a little jealousy—no more than a pout!—about Hasdrubal's magnificent work in Spain, but every one recognises what a great man he is, and it was only yesterday that M. Catulus (the son of our fine old enemy Lutatius) said to me with a sigh: "The reason we Romans cannot do that kind of thing is because we cannot stick together. We are for ever fighting among ourselves. Just look at our[Pg 329] history!" On the other hand, I can't think that our mixture of democracy and common sense would suit the Latin temperament, with its verve and nescio quid, which make it at the same time so incalculable and so fascinating. Every nation must have its own advantages and drawbacks. We are a little too stolid, perhaps, and a little too businesslike, but our stolidity and our businesslike capacity have founded Colonies over the whole world and established a magnificent Empire. The Romans are a little too fond of "glory" and give way to sudden emotion in a fashion which seems to us perilously like weakness, but no one can deny that they have established a wonderfully methodical and orderly system of roads all over Italy, and that their capital is still the intellectual centre of the world.

Talking of that I ought to pay a tribute to the Roman home and to Roman thrift. We hear too much in our country of the Roman amphitheatre and all the rest of it. What many Carthaginians do not yet know is that the[Pg 330] stay-at-home sober Roman is the backbone of the whole place. He hates war as heartily as we do, and though his forms of justice are very different from ours he is a sincere lover of right-dealing according to his lights. It is due to such men that Rome is, after ourselves, the chief financial power in the world.

But you will ask me for more interesting news than this sermon. Well! Well! I have plenty to give you. The Debates in the Senate are as brilliant and, I am afraid, as theatrical as usual. Certainly the Romans beat us at oratory. To hear Flaccus deliver a really great speech about the introduction of Greek manners is a thing one can never forget! Of course, it will seem to you in Carthage very unpractical and very "Roman," and it is true that that kind of thing doesn't make a nation gr............