When you look at the map you will see how by this time civilisation has described a semi-circle. It begins in Egypt, and by way of Mesopotamia and the Aegean Islands it moves westward until it reaches the European continent. The first four thousand years, Egyptians and Babylonians and Phoenicians and a large number of Semitic tribes (please remember that the Jews were but one of a large number of Semitic peoples) have carried the torch that was to illuminate the world. They now hand it over to the Indo-European Greeks, who become the teachers of another Indo-European tribe, called the Romans. But meanwhile the Semites have pushed westward along the northern coast of Africa and have made themselves the rulers of the western half of the Mediterranean just when the eastern half has become a Greek (or Indo-European) possession.
现在我们回过头来看一看，你将发现，文明地区已勾勒出一个半圆型的轮廓。它肇始于埃及，再经由美索不达米亚和爱琴海的岛屿向西，一直抵达整个欧洲大陆。在人类文明史的头4000年里，埃及人、巴比伦人、腓尼基人以及大批的闪米特部族（请记住犹太人就是这些闪米特部族之一），都曾高举火炬照亮过世界。现在，他们将文明火炬传递给印欧种族的希腊人，希腊人又将它交给罗马人。他们是地中海东部无可争议的拥有者。而与此同时，闪米特人也正沿北非海岸向西推进，成为了地中海西半部的主人。
This, as you shall see in a moment, leads to a terrible conflict between the two rival races, and out of their struggle arises the victorious Roman Empire, which is to take this Egyptian-Mesopotamian-Greek civilisation to the furthermost corners of the European continent, where it serves as the foundation upon which our modern society is based.
这种状况发展下去，其结果可以想见。到历史的某个时刻，人类两大种族--印欧人和闪米特人，为争夺地中海和其它区域的统治权，展开了一场可怕的战争。在这个巨大的竞技场上，诞生出战功卓著的罗马帝国。它将埃及--美索不达米亚--希腊的文明更深广地与欧洲大陆 结合起来，奠定了我们现代欧洲社会的精神根基。
I know all this sounds very complicated, but if you get hold of these few principles, the rest of our history will become a great deal simpler. The maps will make clear what the words fail to tell. And after this short intermission, we go back to our story and give you an account of the famous war between Carthage and Rome.
我知道，这一切听起来很复杂、很不可思议，但只要你领会了这几条主要的线索，我们其余的历史将变得简明了许多。地图将使我们明白很多文字难以言传的东西。在此简短的小结之后，让我们回到历史前进的道路，看一看发生在迦太基和罗马之间的著名战争。
