Council of Carthage

“ Then there was the Proprætor of Africa who, being in control of the government of the whole African province, had an officium still larger perhaps than the Proconsul's. After them came the city magistrates, who were aided in their functions by the Council of the Decurions—the Senate of Carthage. These Carthaginian senators cut a considerable figure: for them their colleagues at Rome were full of airs and graces, and the Emperors endeavoured to keep them in a good-humour. ”

“ These were appointed by the council, and were ever ready to carry out their behest, consequently justice in Carthage was a mockery. Interest and intrigue were paramount in the law courts, as in every department of state. Every prominent citizen, every successful general, every man who seemed likely, by his ability or his wealth, to become a popular personage with the masses, fell under the ban of the council, and sooner or later was certain to be disgraced. ”

“ You have been watched ever since you came into Carthage, though you have not known it. The council have spies everywhere, and they know their business. They knew that you were a friend of Hasdrubal, and felt sure that you would do your best to help him. They followed you to his house, they heard what you said to him and he to you, and they brought the report to the chief. He has a great liking for you, and gave me carte blanche to do what I pleased, if only I could keep you out of danger. So, if there has been anything rude in the method of saving you, it is I whom you must blame. ”

“ Carthage, a colony of Tyre, became sovereign of the shores and islands of the western Mediterranean, a rival of Greece, and an ally of Rome. Her army and navy were largely composed of European and African mercenaries. Her government was republican, with two judges at its head, foreign affairs being transacted by a council of citizens. Religious ceremonies claimed a large share of attention, both in war and peace. Commerce extended by land to the interior of Africa ”

“ As they increased in strength, the Carthaginians not only ceased to pay the tribute, but reduced the Libyans to entire subjection. The former lords of the country, driven back from the coast and pent up in the interior, tilled the soil for the profit of their new masters, whether as tenants or still as nominal owners we know not, nor does it matter, for all that they might call their own was held at the mere pleasure of the sovereign state. They were subject to the caprice of Carthaginian officers, and to any exaction of money and men which the exigencies of Carthage might seem to demand. ”

“ I had intended to offer you a post on my staff, but, as things are at present, [131] the less you have to do with a suspected man the better for you. If things turn out more favourably than I fear they may—we will certainly talk of this again."
"But, sir," broke in the Greek with some heat, "it is surely impossible that the Senate should listen to such palpable absurdities as this. Why, there is not a general in Carthage who has such a record of successes as yours."
"My dear young friend," replied the general, "you don't know us. The Carthaginians always suspect their generals. ”

“ The population is said still to have numbered 700,000, and despite its humiliation, the city never ceased to inspire alarm at Rome. The Numidian prince Massinissa, rival of Syphax and a Roman protégé, took advantage of a clause in the treaty of 202, which forbade Carthage to make war without the consent of the Roman senate, to extend his possessions at the expense of Carthage. ”

“ He at last extorted from them their consent; and departed amidst the tears of his family, the importunites of his friends, the applauses of the Senate, and the tumultuous opposition of the people; and, as a great poet of his own nation beautifully observes, "he embarked for Carthage as calm and unconcerned as if, on finishing the tedious law-suits of his clients, he was retiring to Venafrian fields, or the sweet country of Tarentum." ”

“ Happily for the Carthaginians, this numerous army had no leader, but was like a body uninformed with a soul; no provisions nor military engines; no discipline nor subordination, was seen among them: every man setting himself up for a general, or claiming an independence on the rest. Divisions therefore arising in this rabble of an army, and the famine increasing daily, the individuals of it withdrew to their respective homes, and delivered Carthage from a dreadful alarm.
The Carthaginians were not discouraged by their late disaster, but continued their enterprises on Sicily. ”

“ The reputation of the Carthaginians was not equal to that of their country, and the reproach of Punic faith still adhered to their subtle and faithless character. The habits of trade and the abuse of luxury had corrupted their manners. ... The King of the Vandals severely reformed the vices of a voluptuous people. ... The lands of the proconsular province, which formed the immediate district of Carthage, were accurately measured and divided among the barbarians." E. Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, chapter 33. ”

“ For the people, grown insolent by their wealth and conquests, and forgetting that they owed these blessings to the prudent conduct of the senate, were desirous of having a share in the government, and arrogated to themselves almost the whole power. From that period, the public affairs were transacted wholly by cabals and factions: and this Polybius assigns as one of the chief causes of the ruin of Carthage. ”

“ His sword would fall harmless upon his opponents shield!
But if he cannot live, he can at least die, for his country. Do not deny him this supreme consolation. Consider! Every indignity, every torture which Carthage shall heap on his dying hours, will be better than a trumpet's call to your armies. They will remember only Regulus, their fellow-soldier and their leader. They will forget his defeats. They will regard only his services to the Republic. Tunis, Sicily, Sardinia, every well-fought field, won by his blood and theirs, will flash on their remembrance and kindle their avenging wrath! ”

“ They consider it sufficient that their liberty should be defended by your arms, since they are unable to protect it by their own. But it is objected, that some of their states sided with Antiochus. So did others, before, with Philip; so did the Tarentines with Pyrrhus. Not to enumerate other nations, Carthage enjoys liberty and its own laws. Consider, conscript fathers, how much you owe to this example, set by yourselves. You will surely make up your mind to refuse to the ambition of Eumenes, what you refused to your own most just resentment. ”

“ More than once it has seemed likely that the Fates had decreed that the seat of empire should be in Africa rather than in Italy. But this was not their will. We have long been convinced that we were not to rule; we now perceive that we are not even to be permitted to exist. But though it is necessary for the honour, if not for the safety, of Rome, that Carthage should be destroyed, it is not necessary that a multitude of [290] innocent persons, whose sole offence is to have been born within the walls of a doomed city, should also perish. ”

“ III. Form of the Government of Carthage.—The government of Carthage was founded upon principles of the most consummate wisdom; and it is with reason that Aristotle528 ranks this republic in the number of those that were had in the greatest esteem by the ancients, and which were fit to serve as a model for others. He grounds his opinion on a reflection, which does great honour to Carthage, by remarking, that, from its foundation to his time, (that is, upwards of five hundred years,) no considerable sedition had disturbed the peace, nor any tyrant oppressed the liberty of that state. ”

“ The courts should be open to all, the judges should be impartial and incorruptible; every man should have his rights and his privileges, then each man, feeling an interest in the stability of the state, would be ready to bear arms in its defence, and Carthage, instead of being dependent entirely upon her tributaries and mercenaries, would be able to place a great army in the field by her own unaided exertions. ”

“ The Phœnicians, as we have seen, had planted colonies of their own at all convenient places along the Mediterranean shore, and of all these Carthage had grown to be by far the strongest in its numbers. It was regarded as the capital city, the headquarters, of all that half-merchant and half-pirate host which we have seen always going to and fro on the waters of the great inland sea. For fifty years and more before the battle of Marathon was fought it had become a great power, the chief naval power of the world, and it had already come into collision with the Greeks. ”

“ Wealth and population of Carthage. Power of Carthage. As has been narrated, Carthage was founded upon a peninsula, or rocky promontory, sixty-five years before the foundation of Rome. The inhabitants of Carthage, descendants of Phœnicians, were therefore of Semitic [pg 432] origin. The African farmer was a Canaanite, and all the Canaanites lacked the instinct of political life. The Phœnicians thought of commerce and wealth, and not political aggrandizement. With half their power, the Hellenic cities achieved their independence. Carthage was a colony of Phœnicians, and had their ideas. ”

“ Impious men are endeavoring to transfer our republic to that town in which our ancestors decided that there should be no republic at all, when they resolved that there were but three cities in the whole earth, Carthage, Corinth, and Capua, which could aspire to the power and name of the imperial city. Carthage has been destroyed, because, both from its vast population, and from the natural advantages of its situation, being surrounded with harbors, and fortified with walls, it appeared to project out of Africa, and to threaten the most productive islands of the Roman people. ”

“ The vagabond part of the constituency was well contented with what it had obtained, a life in the city, supported at the public expense, with politics and games for its amusements. It had not the least inclination to be drafted off into settlements in Spain or Africa, where there would be work instead of pleasant idleness. Carthage was still a name of terror. To restore Carthage was no better than treason. Still less had the Roman citizens an inclination to share their privileges with Samnites and Etruscans, and see the value of their votes watered down. Political storms are always cyclones. ”

“ The Carthaginian polity is highly praised, and not without reason. It may be compared with the Spartan; it is an oligarchy with some democratic features. It lays stress upon wealth; in Carthage all offices are bought and sold. Also, one man may hold several offices together. ”

“ These agents of ours, you see, Malchus, are not for the most part animated by any feeling of pure patriotism, it is their own wrongs and not the injuries of Carthage which they would avenge. But we must take them as we find them; one cannot expect any deep feeling of patriotism on the part of the masses, who, it must be owned, have no very great reason to feel any lively interest in the glories of the republic. So that they eat and drink sufficiently, and can earn their living, it matters not very greatly to them whether Carthage is great and glorious, or humbled and defeated. ”

“ As to the territory in question, it was impossible for them to prove that it had been in their possession from the beginning or even for any considerable length of time. The Carthaginians and the kings of Numidia laid alternate claims to it as opportunity offered; it always became the possession of those who for the time being were the strongest in arms. They begged the senate to let matters remain in the same state in which they were before Carthage became the enemy or Masinissa the friend and ally of Rome, and not to prevent him who was able to hold it from doing so. ”

“ An army of seventy thousand men landed on the western corner of the island, brought thither by a fleet of two hundred triremes and one thousand transports. In the army were ten thousand heavy-armed Carthaginians, who carried white shields and wore elaborate breastplates. Among these were many of the rich men of Carthage, who brought with them costly baggage and rich articles of gold and silver. Twenty-five hundred of them were called the Sacred Band of Carthage. That great city had rarely before made such a determined effort at conquest. ”

“ The envoys sent to Africa by the Senate to settle the dispute, unfairly adjudged every case in favor of the robber Masinissa. In this way Carthage was deprived of her lands and towns.
Chief of one of the embassies sent out was Marcus Cato the Censor. When he saw the prosperity of Carthage,—her immense trade, which crowded her harbor with ships, and the country for miles back of the city a beautiful landscape of gardens and villas,—he was amazed at the growing power and wealth of the city, and returned home convinced that the safety of Rome demanded the destruction of her rival. ”

“ As choosing men of fortune to be magistrates make a state incline to an oligarchy, and men of abilities to an aristocracy, so is there a third method of proceeding which took place in the polity of Carthage; for they have an eye to these two particulars when they elect their officers, particularly those of the highest rank, their kings and their generals. It must be admitted, that it was a great fault in their legislator not to guard against the constitution's degenerating from an aristocracy ”