Stetson

The speaker recognises "Stetson" on the streets of modern London, but claims to have fought alongside him at Mylae (260 BCE), a decisive sea battle (another example of death by water) of the First Punic War. The reference to the recently-planted corpse suggests battlefield burials in the Great War.

The three Punic Wars were fought between the Rome and the city of Carthage in North Africa for control of the Mediterranean. They ended in 146 BCE with the total destruction of Carthaginian empire and the triumph of the Roman republic. This victory marked the ascendancy of western civilisation; the Great War is a symptom of its decline and fall.

War and violence has been a feature of human life throughout history, and these characters have been reincarnated many times: a reference to the Wheel of Life - the Buddhist concept of the cycle of birth, death and rebirth caused by desire and suffering. Eliot will return to this imagery in the final part.

The influence of Carthage is felt elsewhere in the poem, in allusions to Dido, St Augustine and Phlebas. 

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