Kitap 2
71
I may now fitly close this book. I have completed the introduction and laid the foundation on which my history must rest. I have shown when, how, and why the Romans, after becoming supreme in Italy, began to aim at dominion outside of it, and to dispute with the Carthaginians the dominion of the sea. I have at the same time explained the state of Greece, Macedonia, and Carthage at this epoch. I have now arrived at the period which I originally marked out,—that namely in which the Greeks were on the point of beginning the Social, the Romans the Hannibalic war, and the kings in Asia the war for the possession of Coele-Syria. The termination therefore of the wars just described, and the death of the princes engaged in them, forms a natural period to this book.
