When the Cnidians and Rhodians made an attempt about 175 to establish themselves at Lilybaeum, the centre of the Phoenician settlements in Sicily, they were expelled by the natives--the Elymi of Segeste--in concert with the Phoenicians.
When the Phocaeans settled about 217 at Alalia (Aleria) in Corsica opposite to Caere, there appeared for the purpose of expelling them a combined fleet of Etruscans and Carthaginians, numbering a hundred and twenty sail; and although in the naval battle that ensued--one of the earliest known in history-the fleet of the Phocaeans, which was only half as strong, claimed the victory, the Carthaginians and Etruscans gained the object which they had in view in the attack; the Phocaeans abandoned Corsica, and preferred to settle at Hyde (Velia) on the less exposed coast of Lucania.

A treaty between Etruria and Carthage not only established regulations regarding the import of goods and the giving due effect to rights, but included also an alliance-in-arms (-- summachia--), the serious import of which is shown by that very battle of Alalia.

It is a significant indication of the position of the Caerites, that they stoned the Phocaean captives in the market at Caere and then sent an embassy to the Delphic Apollo to atone for the crime.
Latium did not join in these hostilities against the Hellenes; on the contrary, we find friendly relations subsisting in very ancient times between the Romans and the Phocaeans in Velia as well as in Massilia, and the Ardeates are even said to have founded in concert with the Zacynthians a colony in Spain, the later Saguntum.

Much less, however, did the Latins range themselves on the side of the Hellenes: the neutrality of their position in this respect is attested by the close relations maintained between Caere and Rome, as well as by the traces of ancient intercourse between the Latins and the Carthaginians.

It was through the medium of the Hellenes that the Cannanite race became known to the Romans, for, as we have already seen,( 7) they always designated it by its Greek name; but the fact that they did not borrow from the Greeks either the name for the city of Carthage( 8) or the national name of the -Afri-,( 9) and the circumstance that among the earlier Romans Tyrian wares were designated by the adjective -Sarranus-,( 10) which in like manner precludes the idea of Greek intervention, demonstrate--what the treaties of a later period concur in proving--the direct commercial intercourse anciently subsisting between Latium and Carthage.
The combined power of the Italians and Phoenicians actually succeeded in substantially retaining the western half of the Mediterranean in their hands.