The Power That Preserves | My Web Site Page 028 Chapter 02 Page 01

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The _AEdileship_ was originally a Plebeian office, instituted at the same time as the Tribuneship of the Plebs.[39] To the two Plebeian AEdiles two Curule AEdiles were added in B.C. 365. The four AEdiles in common had the charge of the public buildings,[40] the care of the cleansing and draining of the city, and the superintendence of the police. They had also the regulation of the public festivals; and the celebration of the Ludi Magni, or Great Games, was their especial function. Originally they received a sum of money from the state to defray the expenses of these games, but the grant was withdrawn about the time of the First Punic War; a measure attended with important consequences, since the higher magistracies were thus confined to the wealthy, who alone could defray the charges of these costly entertainments. After the Macedonian and Syrian wars, the Curule AEdiles often incurred a prodigious expense, with the view of pleasing the people, and securing their votes in future elections.

_Natural selection_ chooses out for reproduction the individuals that are best equipped for the struggle for existence, and it does so at every stage of development; it thus improves the species in all its stages and forms. _Sexual selection_ operates only on individuals that are already capable of reproduction, and does so only in relation to the attainment of reproduction. It arises from the rivalry of one sex, usually the male, for the possession of the other, usually the female. Its influence can therefore only _directly_ affect one sex, in that it equips it better for attaining possession of the other. But the effect may extend indirectly to the female sex, and thus the whole species may be modified, without, however, becoming any more capable of resistance in the struggle for existence, for sexual selection only gives rise to adaptations which are likely to give their possessor the victory over rivals in the struggle for possession of the female, and which are therefore peculiar to the wooing sex: the manifold "secondary sexual characters." The diversity of these characters is so great that I cannot here attempt to give anything approaching a complete treatment of them, but I should like to give a sufficient number of examples to make the principle itself, in its various modes of expression, quite clear.

About this time a really great man was placed at the head of the Carthaginian army--a man who, at an earlier period of the war, might have brought the struggle to a very different termination. This was the celebrated Hamilcar Barca,[29] the father of the still more celebrated Hannibal. He was still a young man at the time of his appointment to the command in Sicily (B.C. 247). His very first operations were equally daring and successful. Instead of confining himself to the defense of Lilybaeum and Drepanum, with which the Carthaginian commanders had been hitherto contented, he made descents upon the coast of Italy, and then suddenly landed on the north of Sicily, and established himself, with his whole army, on a mountain called Hercte (the modern _Monte Pellegrino_), which overhung the town of Panormus (the modern _Palermo_), one of the most important of the Roman possessions. Here he maintained himself for nearly three years, to the astonishment alike of friends and foes, and from hence he made continual descents into the enemy's country, and completely prevented them from making any vigorous attacks either upon Lilybaeum or Drepanum.

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