Carthago

CARTHA´GO(ἡ Καρχηδώη), in Africa, the renowned rival of Rome.

I. NAMES.
As there can be no doubt that the Greek and Roman names of the city are but forms of its native name, we must look to the Phoenician, or cognate languages, for the original form; and this is at once found in the Hebrew, where Kerethor Carthis the poetical word which signifies a city,and which enters into the names of other cities of Phoenician (or Carthaginian) and Syrian origin, such as Cirta, in Numidia, and Tigranocertain Armenia. On the coins of Panormus in Sicily, which was subject to Carthage, we find on the reverse the legend, in Phoenician, Kereth-hadeshoth, i. e. New City, which is in all probability the name of Carthage. Some read it as Carth-hadtha, which is merely a dialectic variety. This etymology is confirmed by a tradition preserved by Solinus, who says (100.40):—Istam urbem Carthadam Elissa dixit, quod Phoenicum ore exprimit Civitatem Novam. The reason of the name can be conjectured with a near approach to certainty, for the name of the more ancient Phoenician city in the immediate neighbourhood, Utica, signifies, in Phoenician, the Old City, in contradistinction to which Carthage was called New;one among many examples of the permanence of an appellation the most temporary in its first meaning. In later times, this New Citywas called Carthaqo Vetus, to distinguish it from the celebrated Carthago Novain Spain. (Bochart, Phaleg, p. 468; Gesen. Gesch. d. Hebr. Sprache, pp. 228, 229, and Hebrew Lexicon, s.v. HEBREW; Bayer, ad Sallust. p. 347 ; Mionnet, Descript des Médailles, pl. 20.) Another explanation is given by Niebuhr, namely, that the New City(Carthada) was so called in contradistinction to Byrsa (Bozrah), the original city, just as Neapolis arose by the side of Parthenope.( Lectures, vol. 1. p. 104, 1st ed.) It is remarkable that, in transferring the name to their own languages, the Greeks changed one, and the Romans the other, of the dental consonants in the word into a guttural. The ancient Roman form, as seen on the Columna Rostrata, is CARTACO.
The ethnic and adjective forms are partly derived from the name of the city itself, and partly from that of the mother country. In Greek we have Καρχηδόνιος ( Eth. and Adj., but the commoner Adj. is Καρχηδονιακός, or Καρχηδονικός), and in Latin Carthaginiensis ( Eth. and Adj. ); but the more usual ethnic is Poenus, with the adjective form Punicus (equivalent to, and sometimes actually written, Poenicus:the poets used Poenusfor the adjective); while in Greek also, the Carthaginians, as well as the original Phoenicians, are called Φοίνικες (Hdt. 5.46; Eurip. Troad. 222; Böckh, Expl. Pind. Pyth. 1.72. s. 138).
The territory of Carthage is called Carchedonia (Καρχηδονία, Strab. 2. p. 131, 6. p. 267, xvii. pp. 831, 832), a term sometimes applied also to the city. (Strab. vi. pp. 272, 287).


II. AUTHORITIES.
This great city furnishes the most striking example in the annals of the world of a mighty power which, having long ruled over subject peoples, taught them the arts of commerce and civilization, and created for itself an imperishable name, has left little more than that name behind it, and even that in the keeping of the very enemies to whom she at last succumbed. Vast as is the space which her fame fills in ancient history, the details of her origin, her rise, her constitution, commerce, arts, and religion, are all but unknown.
Of her native literature, we have barely the scantiest fragments left. The treasures of her libraries were disdained by the blind hatred of the Roman aristocracy, who made them a present to the princes of Numidia, reserving only the 32 books of Mago on Agriculturefor translation, as all that could be useful to the republic. (Plin. Nat. 18.4. s. 5: it is worthy of notice, as showing the value of the traditions preserved by Sallust respecting the early population of N. Africa, that he derived them from these Punic records, though through the medium of interpreters; Jug. 17.) Of the records respecting her, preserved at Tyre, we have only a single notice in Josephus. (See below, No. III.)
The Greeks and Romans relate only that part of her story with which they themselves were closely connected; a part only of her external fortunes, which does not commence till she has passed the acme of her prosperity, and the relation of which is distorted bypolitical animosity. At the very outset, we meet with a striking deficiency in the chain even of Greek and Roman testimony. The great historian, whose design so fortunately for us embraced an account of all that was known of the great nations of his day, for some reason or other omitted Carthage from his plan; but yet his few incidental references to her are of great value. Aristotle's brief notice of the Carthaginian constitution (Polit. 2.11), precious and trustworthy as it is, only makes the want of fuller information the more apparent, and compels us the more to regret the loss of his treatise on Governments, in which that of Carthage was discussed at length. Among the historians of the wars of Carthage with the Greeks of Sicily and the Romans, Polybius stands first, in authority and accuracy, as well as in time. Commanding all the means of knowledge which the Romans possessed up to his time, he used them in a spirit above the narrow and selfish patriotism of the Romans. He gives abundant proofs of careful research into the internal state of Carthage, and he has preserved some genuine Punic documents. The chief value of Diodorus, in this inquiry, consists in his narrative of the wars with Syracuse. Livy relates the wars with Rome in the worst spirit of partizanship, and with utter indifference to the internal state, or even the distinctive character of one of the peoples who contended to the death in that bellum maxime omnium memorabile quae unquam gesta sint.(Liv. 21.1.) With less literary power, Appian is a more faithful annalist; but the carelessness of the mere compiler sorely damages his work. In spite of glaring faults, Justin deserves mention as the only writer who has attempted a continuous narrative of the early history of Carthage; which he abridged from Trogus Pompeius, whose account seems to have been founded chiefly on Theopompus. (Heeren, de Fontibus et Auctoritate Justini, in the Comment. Soc. Scient. Götting. vol. xv. pp. 225, foil.)
Among modern authorities, the following are the most important:—on the History, Constitution, and Commerceof the city, Böttiger, Geschichte der Carthager, Berlin, 1827; Campomanes, Antiguedad Maritima de la Republica de Cartagoe;Kluge, Aristoteles de Politia Carthaginiensium;Mövers, Geschichte der Phoenizier;Becker, in Ersch and Gruber's Encyklopädie;Barth, Ueber die friedlichen Verhältnisse zwischen den Karthagern und Hellenen, in the Rheinisches Museum, 3rd Series, vol. 7. p. 65, for 1850; Niebuhr, Lectures on the History of Rome, vol. ii. lect. 2.1st edition; Arnold, History of Rome, vol. 2.100.39; Grote, History of Greece, vol. x. pp. 539, felll; and the chief writers on general history: on its Mythology, Münter, Religion der Karthager, Kopenh. 1821; and Gesenius, in Ersch and Gruber's Encyklopädie;on the Geography and Topography, besides the general works of Mannert, Georgii, Forbiger, and others, Shaw, Travels in Barbary, &c., vol. i. pp. 150, foll., p. 80, 2nd ed.; Estrup, Lineae Topographicae Carthaginis Tyriae, Havn. 1821; Falbe, Recherches sur l'Emplacement de Carthage, Paris, 1835; Dureau de la Malle, Recherches sur la Topographie de Carthage, Paris, 1835; Chateaubriand, Itinéraire, vol. 3. p. 186; Temple, Excursions in the Mediterranean, &c., Lond. 1835; Barth, Wanderungen durch die Küstenländer des Mittelmeeres, vol. i. pp. 80, foll., Berlin, 1849; Ritter, Erdkunde, vol. i. pp. 916, foll.; Ausland, 1836, Nos. 122, 124, 128, 1837, Nos. 110, 140: and on the whole subject, the admirable dissertation of Heeren, Ideen, vol. ii. pt. 1, or, in the English translation, Historical Researches into the Politics, Intercourse, and Trade of the Ancient Nations of Africa, vol. i. pp. 21—285, and Appendix.


III. FOUNDATION.
No account of Carthage would be complete which should pass by in silence the legend related by the old chroniclers, and adorned by the muse of Virgil; how Dido, or Elissa, the daughter of a king of Tyre, escaped from the power of her brother Pygmalion, with the treasures for the sake of which he had murdered her husband, and with a band of noble Tyrians who shared her flight; how, having touched at Cyprus, and carried off thence eighty maidens to be the wives of her followers in their future home, she arrived at a spot on the coast of Africa marked out by nature for the site of a mighty city; how she entered into a treaty with the natives, and purchased from them, for an annual tribute, as much land as could be covered with a bull's hide, but craftily cut the hide into the thinnest strips possible, and so enclosed a space of 22 stadia, and on this ground built her city, which afterwards, as the place grew, became the citadel, and retained in its name BYRSA(Βύρσα, a bull's hide), the memory of a bargain which, however mythical, has many a counterpart for deceitfulness in later times; how, in the laying of the foundations of the city, its future power was presaged through the discovery, first of the head of a bull, and afterwards of that of a horse, a still better omen; how the city grew by the influx of colonists from the surrounding country, and by the friendship of the older Phoenician settlements, especially UTICA;how its growing prosperity excited the envy of Hiarbas, king of the surrounding Libyans, who offered Dido the choice of war or marriage; how, debarred from the latter alternative by her vow of fidelity to her late husband, but urged to embrace it by the importunities of her people, she stabbed herself to death before their eyes on a funeral pyre which she had erected to her husband's honour; and how the Carthaginians enrolled her among their deities (Justin (Justin. 18.4, felll; Virg. Aen. i.—iv., with the commentaries of Servius; Appian. Pun. 1; Sil. Ital. Pun. i. ii.; Procop. B. V. 2.10; Euseb. Chron. ll. inf. cit.;et alii; the introduction of Aeneas into the story is Virgil's poetic version, without any foundation in the original legend as related by the historians). Based as this legend plainly is, in part at least, on old traditions, it contains some points worthy of notice. It testifies to the Tyrian origin of the city, and to its inferiority in point of time to Utica and other Phoenician cities on the coast: it indicates that the impulse which originated the colony was not merely commercial activity, but civil dissension : it describes the relations of the new colony to the natives and older colonists in a manner perfectly consistent with later history, as to the occupation of the country by a comparatively civilized race of Libyans (comp. Sallust. Jug. 21), from whom the land for the city was acquired not by conquest but by a peaceful bargain, the tribute for which continued to be paid in the time of recorded history; and as to the friendship and support of the older colonies. The part of the tale about the oxhide is a mere etymological legend arising from the hellenized form of the native Phoenician name, BOZRA,a fortress.[Comp. BOSTRA425b.] It may be worth while to mention another etymological legend, which ascribes the foundation of the city to Tyrian colonists led by Ezorus, Azorus, or Zorus, and Carchedon (Philist. ap. Syncell. p. 172, s. 324, Fr. 50, ed. Didot; Appian. Pun. 1; Enseb. Chron. s. a. 978). Dido's name, and that of the city too, are also given in the form of Carthagena, and Dido is represented as the daughter of Carchedon (Καρθαγένα;Syncell. p. 183, s. 345). The name of the city is also said to have been at the first Origo (Syncell. p. 181, s. 340).
All writers are agreed that Carthage was a colony of Tyre, and that it was one of the latest Phoenician settlements on the African coast of the Mediterranean (287 years later than Utica, according to Aristotle), but further than this we have no certain knowledge of its origin. Regard being had to the traditions of its peaceful settlement, and to the earlier establishment of great commercial cities by the, Phoenicians on the same coast, and also to the fact, which may be regarded as pretty well established (see below), that the city was founded at the period of the highest commercial prosperity of Tyre, there would seem to be much probability in the conjecture (Becker, in Ersch and Gruber's Encyklopädie), that the city originated in a mere emporium (or, in modern language, a factory,like that in which the Anglo-Indian empire had its first beginning), established jointly by the merchants of the mother city and of Utica, on account of the convenience of its position; and that it rose into importance by the natural process of immigration, from Utica especially.
Such a gradual origin would in part account for the great variety of dates to which its foundation is ascribed; though another cause of this variety is, doubtless,to be sought in the assigned date from which the Greek and Roman authors have made their computations, sometimes from the fall of Troy, sometimes from the foundation of Rome, and sometimes from the commencement of the Olympiads. Besides these, and the era used by Eusebius, namely, from the birth of Abraham, there is an important computation, from the building of the temple by Solomon, which Josephus gives from old Phoenician documents pleserved in his time at Tyre, as well as from Menander of Ephesus.
In order to exhibit the various statements in one view, they are here presented in a tabular form, showing the dates as actually given by the several authorities, and also the corresponding years B.C. To facilitate the comparison, the dates of the eras themselves are also stated. B.C.Ann. Abr.Troy.Rome.Authorities.[2015   BIRTH OF ABRAHAM.Euseb. Common date B.C. 2151.]1234 50 Appian. Pun. 1    Philistus places it about the same time, but his exact date is not quite clear. Syncell. p. 172. s. 324.1184 0 TAKING OF TROY.Common date.][11818350 Ditto. Euseb. Chron. Arm. s. a. ]1038978143 Euseb. Chron. Arm. s. a. 38th year of David's reign.1028 133 Syncell. p. 181. s. 340.10111005  Euseb. Chron. Arm. s. a. 25th year of Solomon.878   Common date. Solin. 30.862   143 years and 8 months after the building of Solomon's temple. Joseph. c. Ap. 1.17, 18; Euseb. Chron. Arm. pt. i. pp. 173, 179, 181, ed. Aucher, pp. 79, 82, 83, ed. Mai; Syncell, p. 183. s. 345.8521164  Euseb. Chron. Arm. s. a. 845  92In the 700th year before its destruction by the Romans. Liv. Epit. li.825  72Trogus Pompeius, ap. Justin. 18.7; Oros. 4.6.818  65Vell. Pater. 1.6.814   Timaeus, ap. Dionys. 1.74, F. 21, ed. Didot: Rome and Carthage, founded about the same time, in the 38th year before the first Olympiad.793  40Serv. ad Virg. Aen. 4.459.[75312634310FOUNDATION OF ROME.][ 020151184753CHRISTIAN ERA.]


IV. SITUATION.
A general description of that part of the coast of Africa on which Carthage stood has been given under AFRICAO n the W. side of the great gulf (anciently called Sinus Carthaginiensis, and now G. of Tunis), formed by the Apollinis Pr. ( C. Farina) on ;the W. and Mercurii Pr. ( C. Bon) on the E., there is a line of elevated ground between the salt marsh called Sebcha-es-Sukara, on the N., and the Lagoon which forms the harbour of Tunison the S., terminating eastward in the two headlands of Ras Ghamartand Ras Sidi Bou Said(or C. Carthage, or Carthagena), of which the former lies a little NW. of the latter. Ras Ghamartis above 300 feet high, C. Carthageabove 400 feet. The latter lies in 36° 52′ 22″ N. lat., and 10° 21′ 49″ E. long., and forms the culminating point of the ridge of elevated land just referred to, which sinks on the W. to the level of the adjacent plains. This ridge was in ancient times an isthmus, uniting the peninsula on which Carthage stood to the mainland. Its breadth at the time of the destruction of Carthage did not exceed 25 stadia (2 1/2 geog. miles, Plb. 1.73; Strab. 17. p. 832), which still corresponds to the distance in some places between the salt-marsh on the N. and the port of Tunison the S. The width, however, must have been much less at the time of the foundation of Carthage; for the same causes must have been continually acting to enlarge the isthmus as those which ultimately effected its union on the N. side with the mainland, namely, the alluvial deposits of the river Mejerdah[BAGRADAS], and the casting up of silt by the force of the NW. winds, to which the coast of the gulf is exposed without a shelter. Through these influences, the sea which washed the peninsula on the N. has been converted partly into the salt-marsh already mentioned, and partly into firm land, upon which the village of El-Mersa(i. e. the Port), adorned with the villas of the Tunisians, bears witness by its name to the change that has taken place; and by the same causes, the port or bay of Tunis, once a deep and open harbour, has been converted into a mere lagoon, with only 6 or 7 ft. of water, and a narrow entrance called Fum-el-Halkor Halk-el-Wad, i. e. Throat of the River, or Goletta, i.e. the Gullet. (Shaw, p. 150, p. 80, 2nd ed.; Barth, Wanderungen, &c., pp. 72, 80—82, 192.) Dr. Henry Barth, the latest and best describer of the site, is inclined to believe that the whole isthmus is of late formation, and that the peninsula once presented the appearance of two islands, formed by the heights of Ras Ghamartand C. Carthage;a conjecture which remains to be tested, as its author observes, by geological investigations. On one side, however, namely, at the SE. extremity of the peninsula, between C. Carithageand the mouth of the harbour of Tunis, the currents of the gulf have not only kept the coast clear of deposit, but have caused an encroachment of the sea upon the land, so that ruins are here found under water to the extent of nearly 3 furlongs in length, and a furlong or more in breadth (Shaw, l. c.). Shaw estimates the whole circuit of the peninsula at 30 miles.
On this commanding spot, just where the African MAP OF ZEUGITANA.1. Tusca Fl.: Wady Zain;boundary towards Numidia.2. Candidum Pr.: C. Blanco. 3. Hippo Diarrhytus or Zaritus: Bizerta. 4. Ras Sidi Bou Shusha, or C. Zibeeb:Pr. Pulcrum?5. Apollinis Pr.: Ras Sidi Ali-al-Mckhi, or C. Farina. 6. Bagradas Fl.: Wady Mejerdah:showing, at and near its mouth, its present course.7. Ancient course of the river near its mouth (the dotted line).8. Utica: Bou-shater. 9. Castra Cornelia: Ghellah. 10. Ancient coast-line (the dotted line).11. Present coast-line.12. Ras Ghamart. 13. Ras Sidi Bousaidor C. Carthage. 14. SITE OF CARTHAGE,and ruins of the Roman city: the oval line marks the site of El-Mersa. 15. Tunes: Tunis. 16. Lagoon or Bay of Tunis. 17. The Goletta. 18. Aqueduct of Carthage.19. Jebel Zaghwan:one source of the aqueduct.20. Maxula: Rhades. 21. Aquae Calidae: Hammam l'Enf. 22. Carpis: Gurbos. 23. Aegimurus I.: Zowamouror Zembra. 24. Aquilaria: Alhoweareah, quarries.25. Mercurii Pr.: Ras Addaror C. Boen. 26. Clypea or Aspis: Aklibiah. 27. Curubis: Kurbah. 28. Neapolis: Nabal. 29. Horrea Caelia: Herklah. 30. Hadrumetum: Sousah. 31. Sinus Carthaginiensis.32. Sinus Neapolitanus.coast juts out into the very centre of the Mediterranean, and approaches nearest to the opposite coast of Sicily; between the old Phoenician colonies of UTICA and TUNIS(Plb. 1.73), and in sight of both; stood the successive Punic, Roman, Vandal, and Byzantine cities, which have borne the renowned name of CARTILAGE;but not all of them within the same limits. The details of the topography are much disputed ; and their discussion will be best postponed to the end of this article. Meanwhile the position of the peninsula, and its relation to the surrounding sites will be seen from the subjoined map, which gives an outline of the whole region known under the Romans as ZEUGITANA.


V. HISTORY AND ANTIQUITIES.
The history of Carthage is so interwoven with the general course of ancient history, especially in the parts relating to its wars with the Greeks of Sicily and with the Romans, that it would be alike impracticable and superfluous to narrate it here with any approach to fulness. We can only attempt a brief sketch, to be filled up by the reader from the well-known histories of Greece and Rome. The great work of composing a special history of Carthage, worthy of the present state of ancient scholarship, remains to be performed by some one who may superadd to a perfect knowledge of Greek and Roman history a thorough acquaintance with the language and antiquities of the Semitic races, and a vast power of critical research. The History of Carthageis usually divided into three periods:—the firstextending from the foundation of the city to the beginning of the wars with Syracuse, in B.C. 480, and ending with the defeat of the Carthaginians by the Greeks under Gelon at Himera (but see just below); the second fromthis epoch to the breaking out of the wars with Rome, B.C. 480—265; the thirdis occupied with the Roman, or (as they are usually called, from the Roman point of view) the Punic Wars, and ends with the destruction of the city in B.C. 146. It seems a far better arrangement to extend the first period down to B.C. 410, when the Carthaginians resumed those enterprises in Sicily to which the battle of Himera had given a complete check; and thus to include in one view the great development of their power. The second period will then be devoted almost entirely to her struggle with the Greeks, during which her empire was not materially increased, and her decline can hardly be said to have begun. The third period is that of her Decline and Fall.To these must be added the history of the restored city under the Romans, the Vandals, and the Byzantine rule, down to the Mohammedan conquest, and the destruction of the city by the Arabs in A.D. 698. In round numbers, and allowing for the uncertainty of the date of the original foundation, the histories of the two cities fill the respective spaces of 750 and 850 years.

i. First Period.—Extension of the Carthaginian Empire. 9th century—410 B.C.
The first period is by far the most interesting, but unfortunately the most obscure, from the want of native authorities. It embraces the important questions of the Internal Constitution and Resources of the State, its Commerce, Colonies, and Conquests, and its Relationsto the surrounding Native Tribes, to the older Phoenician Colonies, and to its own Mother City.

1. Relations to the Mother City.
With respect to Tyre, Carthage seems to have been almost from its foundation independent; but the sacred bond which united a colony to her metropolis appears to have been carefully observed on both sides. For we find the Tyrians refusing to follow Cambyses when he meditated to attack Carthage by a naval expedition (B.C. 523), and appealing to the mighty oaths by which their paternal relation to her was sanctified. (Hdt. 3.17—19.) On the other hand, in the second commercial treaty with Rome, B.C. 348, the parties to the treaty are the Carthaginians, Tyrians, Uticeans, and their allies.(Plb. 3.24: where the idea that either Tysdrusor some unknown Tyrusin Africa is intended is merely an arbitrary evasion of an imaginary difficulty.) Again, we find the Tyrians, when attacked by Alexander, turning their eyes naturally towards Carthage, first as a source of aid, and afterwards as a place of refuge, whither the women and children and old men were actually sent. (Diod. 17.40, 41, 46; Q. Curt, 4.2.) The religious supremacy of the mother city was acknowledged by an annual offering to the temple of Hercules at Tyre of a tithe of all the revenues of Carthage, as well as of the booty obtained in war (Justin. 18.7); a. custom, it is true, omitted in the period of prosperity, but at once resorted to again under the pressure of calamities, which were ascribed to the anger of the neglected deity. (Diod. 20.14.)


2. First steps towards Supremacy.
At what time, and from what causes, Carthage began to obtain her decided pre-eminence over the other Phoenician colonies, is a point on which we have no adequate information. Much must doubtless be ascribed a to her site, which, we may assume, was discovered to be better than those even of Utica and Tunes; and something to the youthful enterprise which naturally distinguished her as the latest colony of Tyre. The conquests of the Assyrian and Babylonian kings in Phoenicia, and their repeated attacks on Tyre [TYPUS], would naturally drive many of the inhabitants of the old country to seek a new abode in the colonies, and especially in the most recent, the strength of which would, at the same time, receive a new development from the diminished power of the metropolis; and, as the Greek maritime states obtained much of the lost commerce of Tyre in the Levant, so would Carthage in the West. But the want of historical records prevents our tracing the steps of this transference of power.


3. Relations to the older Phoenician Colonies.
A like obscurity surrounds the relations of Carthage to the older Phoenician colonies of N. Africa, such as UTICA, TUNES, HIPPO, LEPTIS(the Greater and the Less), HADRUMETUM and others; all of which appear to have been at an early period, like Carthage herself, practically independent of the mother country; and all of which are found, in the historical period, acknowledging, in some sense, the supremacy of Carthage. But that supremacy was not an absolute dominion, but rather the headship of a confederacy, in which the leading state exercised an undefined, but not always undisputed, controul over the other members, whose existence as independent states seems always to have been recognised, however much their rights may have been invaded. The treaties with Rome, already referred to, mention the alliesof Carthage, by which we can hardly be wrong in understanding these cities, which therefore were not subjects.In the case of Utica especially, it is remarkable that her name is not mentioned in the first treaty; but in the second, she appears on an equality with Carthage, as one of the contracting powers; which obviously suggests that, in the interval, changes had been effected in the position of the allies towards Carthage, which Utica alone had successfully resisted. It seems, in fact, that all these cities, except Utica, had been rendered tributary to Carthage, though preserving their municipal organization. Leptis Parva, for example, paid the enormous assessment of a talent a day, or 365 talents every year. (Liv. 34.62.) The period during which the change took place must have been that which followed the battle of Himera, when, induced by that defeat to abandon for a time her projects of further conquests in Sicily, she turned her attention to the consolidation of her power at home. As for Utica, to the very latest period of the existence of Carthage, she retained her separate political existence, in such a manner as to be able to side with Rome against Carthage, and to take her place as the capital of the new Roman province of Africa.
The temper in which Carthage used her supremacy over these allies is one of those points in her history on which we need the guidance of more impartial authorities than we possess. The Greek and Roman writers accuse her of arrogance and oppression; and we can easily believe that she pursued the selfish policy of a commercial aristocracy. In the hour of danger from the revolts of her African subjects, some of the chief Phoeniciani cities refused to abandon her; but their support may have been prompted by the motive of common safety. They were faithful to her cause in the Second Punic War, but in the Third most of them deserted her. Their fidelity in the former case is more to the credit of her rule than their ultimate defection is against it; for her cause in the final struggle was so hopeless, that self-interest is a sufficient motive for the course they pursued in abandoning her. But, even then, examples of fidelity were by no means wanting; and while the rewards obtained by Utica attest the selfish motives of her defection, the severe penalties inflicted on the allies of Carthage show that her deepest danger had called forth proofs of attachment to her, which indicate better antecedents than mere oppression on the one side, and resentment on the other.
But however exaggerated the statements of her enemies may be, and however little their own conduct gave them the right to become accusers; to deny that they contain much truth would not only be contrary to the laws of evidence, but inconsistent with all we know of the maxims of government pursued by even the best of ancient states. The chief difficulty is to distinguish, in such statements, what refers to her Phoenician allies, and to her African subjects: the strongly condemnatory evidence of Polybius, for example, applies primarily to her treatment of the latter; though the former may possibly be included under the denomination of ταῖς πόλεσι (Plb. 1.72.) On the whole, we may suppose that the case of Leptis gives a fair example of that of the Phoenician allies; and that the chief hardship they endured was the exaction of a heavy tribute, which their commerce enabled them, however reluctantly, to pay.


4. Relations to the Peoples of Africa.
With respect to the native tribes, we must carefully observe the distinction, which is made both by Herodotus and Polybius, between those who had fixed abodes and who practised agriculture, and those who were still in the nomad state. This distinction is confirmed by the curious tradition already mentioned as preserved by Sallust ( Jugurth. 18); but it is probably, to be accounted for, not by referring the two peoples to a different origin, but by a regard to the different circumstances of those who roamed over the scattered oases of the desert and semi-desert regions, and those who inhabited the fertile districts in the valley of the Bagradas and the terraces above the N. coast. (Comp. AFRICA and ATLAS) Herodotus distinctly assigns the river Triton, at the bottom of the Lesser Syrtis, as the boundary between the Libyans who were nomads, and those who had fixed abodes and tilled the land; the former extending from the confines of Egypt to the Lesser Syrtis, the latter dwelling in the districts afterwards known as Byzaciurn and Zeugitana, a portion of which districts formed the original territory of Carthage. All these tribes are included by Herodotus under the general name of Libyans; the several peoples, whether nomad or agricultural, being called by their specific names, such as AUSENSES, MAXYES, ZAUECES, GYZANTES,&c. The distinction runs through the whole Carthaginian history, although different names are used to mark it. Polybius applies the name of Libyansto the immediate subjects of the Carthaginians and inhabitants of the original Carthaginian territory ; while he designates the free people of Africa, who served in their armies as mercenaries, by the collective name derived from their mode of life, Nomadsor Numidians;still calling each tribe by its proper name. That he does not, like Herodotus, distinguish those also whom he calls Libyans in general by the specific names of their tribes, may be taken as a proof that their very names had been lost in their complete subjection to Carthage. The new position taken up by certain of these nomad tribes, under Masinissa and other chieftains, in the later period of the Punic Wars, gave a territorial sense to the Numidian. name; but the primary distinction, which we have here to observe, was between the comparatively civilized tribes of Zeugitana and Byzacium, with fixed abodes and agricultural pursuits, whom Polybius calls Libyans, and the Nomadtribes who surrounded them on the E., the S., and the W.
a. The Libyans. —With the former the Carthaginians were of course brought into contact from their first settlement on the tongue of land, for which tradition assures us they paid a tribute to the Libyans even down to the time of Darius the son of Hystaspes (Justin (Justin. 18.5). But such a relation could no more be permanent than the treaties of white men with American Indians. 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, drives 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. Their youth formed the only regular army (as distinguished from mercenaries) which Carthage possessed; and, as a specimen of their taxation, they were made, in the first Punic War, to contribute fifty per cent. on the produce of their land, while those of them who inhabited the cities had to pay twice their former amount of tribute. No respite or remission was given to the poor, but their persons were seized in default of payment. Their uneasiness under this heavy yoke is shown by the ardour with which they joined the mercenary soldiers in their revolt from Carthage. (Plb. 1.72.)
This relation is continually dwelt upon, not only as the main cause of the ruin of Carthage, but as a decided proof of her short-sighted policy. On this point Arnold has the following excellent remarks ( History of Rome, vol. i. pp. 480, foll.):—The contrast between Carthage exercising absolute dominion over her African subjects, and Rome surrounded by her Latin and Italian allies, and gradually communicating more widely the rights of citizenship, so as to change alliance into union, has been often noticed, and is indeed quite sufficient to account for the issue of the Punic Wars. But this difference was owing rather to the good fortune of Rome and to the ill fortune of Carthage, than to the wisdom and liberality of the one and the narrow-mindedness of the other. Rome was placed in the midst of people akin to herself both in race and language ; Carthage was a solitary settlement in a foreign land. The Carthaginian language nearly resembled the Hebrew; it belonged to the Semitic or Aramaic family. Who the native Africans were, and to what family their language belonged, are among the most obscure questions of ancient history... But whatever may be discovered as to the African subjects of Carthage, they were become so distinct from their masters, even if they were originally sprung from a kindred race, that the two people (peoples) were not likely to be melted together into one state, and thus they remained always in the unhappy and suspicious relation of masters and of slaves, rather than in that of fellow-citizens or even of allies.
b. The Libyphoenicians. —Besides these pure native Libyans, another race grew up in the land round Carthage (in Zeugitana and perhaps on the coast of Byzacium), from the mixture of the natives with the Phoenician settlers, or, as Mövers supposes, with a Canaanitish population, akin in race to the Phoenicians, but of still earlier settlement in the country. (Diod: 20.55; Mövers, Gesch. d. Phoenizier, vol. ii. pt. ii. pp. 435—455, ap. Grote, vol. 10. p. 543.) Of these half-caste people, called Libyphoenicians (Λιβυφοίνικες), our information is but scanty. They seem to have been the chief occupiers and cultivators of the rich land in the immediate vicinity of the city, especially in the valley of the Bagradas; while the Libyans in the S., towards the lake Triton, remained so free from Phoenician or Punic blood, that they did not even understand the Phoenician language. (Plb. 3.33.) Like all half-castes, however, the Libyphoenic;ans seem to have been regarded with suspicion as well as favour: and means were devised to dispose of their growing numbers with advantage to the state as well as to themselves, by sending them out as the settlers of distant colonies, in Spain, for instance, and the W. coast of Africa, beyond the Straits. (Scymn. 195, 196.) The voyage of Hanno, of which we still possess the record, had for its object the establishment of 30,000 Libyphoenician colonists on the last-named coast. (Hanno, Peripl. p. 1; comp. LIBYPHOENICES）
The region occupied by the people thus described, and entirely subject to Carthage, never extended further than the lake of Triton on the S., nor than Hippo Regius (if so far) on the W.; and this district may therefore be considered as the territory of Carthage, properly so called, the περιοικίςof the city, as a Greek would say. It included at first the district of Zeugitana, and afterwards Byzacium also, and corresponded very nearly to the present Regency of Tunis. (Respecting the precise boundaries, see further under AFRICA p. 68.) Its inhabitants were, as we have seen, the people of Carthage herself and the other Phoenician colonies, the native Libyans who were not nomads, the mixed race of Libyphoenicians, and further, the people of colonial settlements which the Carthaginians established from time to time on the lands of the district, as a means of providing for her poorer citizens, to whom the Libyan cultivators were assigned with their lands. (Arist. Polit. 2.8.9, 6.3.5.) This provision for poor citizens as emigrants (mainly analogous to the Roman colonies), was a standing feature in the Carthaginian political system, serving the double purpose of obviating discontent among their town population at home, and of keeping watch over their dependencies abroad.(Grote, Hist. of Greece, vol. 10. p. 545.) All these, except the Phoenician cities, were in absolute subjection to Carthage. The marvellous density of the population within these limits is shown by the statement that, even in the last period of her decline, just before the third Punic War, when she had been stripped of all her possessions W. of the Tusca and E. of the Triton, Carthage still possessed 300 tributary cities in Libya. (Strab. 17. p. 833.)
c. The Nomads. —Beyond these limits, along the coast to the E. and to the W., in the valleys of the Atlas, and in the oases of the half-desert country behind the sea-board, from the Pillars of Hercules and the W. coast to the frontier of Cyrenaica, the land was possessed (except where Phoenician and Carthaginian colonies were founded, and even in such cases up to their very walls) by the Nomad tribes, whom Carthage never attempted to subdue, but who were generally kept, by money and other influences, in a sort of rude and loose alliance. They were of service to Carthage in three ways: they furnished her army with mercenary soldiers, especially with the splendid irregular cavalry of whose exploits we read so much in the Punic Wars: they formed, on the E., a bulwark against Cyrene: and they carried on the important land traffic with the countries on the Niger and the Nile, which was a chief source of Carthaginian wealth. The nomad tribes of the country between the Syrtes were thone most intimately connected with Carthage. It may be added that Diodorus expressly divides the inhabitants of Libya (meaning the part about Carthage) into four races, namely, the Phoenicians who inhabited Carthage; the Libyphoenicians, of whom his account is unsatisfactory; the Libyans, or ancient inhabitants, who still (in the time of Agathocles) formed a majority of the population, and who bore the greatest hatred to Carthage for the severity of her rule; and lastly the Nomads, who inhabited the great extent of Libya, as far as the deserts. (Diod. 20.55.)


5. Colonies of Carthage in Africa.
It is evident that the rule of Carthage over the settled Libyans, and her influence over the Nomads, would have been confined within the limits of her immediate neighbourhood, but for the system of colonization, which gave her at least the appearance of imperial authority over the whole N. coast of Africa, W. of Cyrenaica. The original purpose of her colonies, as of every other part of her proceedings, was commercial; and accordingly, with the exception of those already referred to as established in her immediate territory for her poor citizens, they were all on or near the coast. The most important of them were those on the E. coast of Byzacium, and along the shores from the Lesser to the Greater Syrtis, which were called pre-eminently the EMPORIA(τὰ Ἐμπορεῖαor Ἐμπόριζ, Plb. 1.82, 3.23; Appian, App. Pun. 72; Liv. 34.62), and which were so numerous as to give the Carthaginians complete commercial possession of the region of the Syrtes, the proper territorial possession of which was comparatively worthless from the physical character of the region. The colonies on the W. portion of the coast, known as the Urbes METAGONITAE(αἱ Μεταγωνῖται πόλεις), were more thinly scattered: their number and positions are noticed under MAURENTANIA and NUMIDIA. Besides their commercial importance, these colonies formed so many points of command, in a greater or less degree according to their strength or skill, over the nomad tribes; they contributed regularly to the revenue of the mother city, and bore the chief expense of her wars. They contributed 4000 men to the armies of the republic; but, on the other hand, they often needed aid from the mother city in their contests with the neighbouring barbarians. Manv of the cities on this coast were colonies, not of Carthage, but of Phoenicia, and their submission to Carthage seems never to have been with much good will. None of them seem to have had a territory of any considerable extent. The colonies in the neighbourhood of Carthage were in stricter subjection to her, as is denoted by the application of them of the significant Greek term περιοικίδες, the colonies in general being called αἱ πόλεις : they were kept unfortified, and hence fell an easy prey to the invader: Regulus and Agathocles, for example, whose operations did not extend beyond Zeugitana, are said each to have taken about 200 of them; and a single district, that on the Tusca, is mentioned as containing 50 towns. (Diod. 20.17; Appian, App. Pun. 3, 68.)


6. Extent of the Carthaginian Empire in Africa.
Thus, at a period little subsequent to her first distinct appearance on the stage of recorded history, Carthage possessed an imperial authority, in a greater or less degree, over the N. coast of Africa, from the Pillars of Hercules to the bottom of the Great Syrtis, a space reckoned by Polybius at 16,000 stadia, or 160 geographical miles. (Plb. 3.39; comp. Scylax. pp. 51, 52: ὄσα γέγραπται πολίσματα ἢ ἐμπόρια ἐν τῇ Λιβύῃ, ἀπὸ τῆς Σύρτιδος τῆς παρ' Ἑσπερίδας μέχρι Ἡρακλείων στηλῶν ἐν Λιβύῃ, πάντα ἐστὶ Καρχηδονίων.) On the W. her power extended over her colonies on the Atlantic coast at least as far as the end of the Atlas range; and on the E., after a long contest with Cyrene, the only foreign power with which she came into contact in Africa, the boundary was fixed at the bottom of the Great Syrtis, at a period so early that the transaction had already acquired a mythic character in the age of Herodotus. [ARAE PHILAENORUM.]
But of all this extensive empire, it should be carefully remembered, the only part immediately and entirely subject to the dominion of Carthage was the territory which extended S. of the city to a distance of about 80 geographical miles, and the boundaries of which were about the same as those of ZEJGITANA;and further S. the strip of coast along which lay BYZACIUM and the EMPORIAT hese two districts comprised nearly all the reliable resources of the state. Their fertile plains were cultivated to the highest pitch under the eyes of the nobles, who were always famous for their devotion to agriculture; and they supplied the greater part of the corn required for the consumption of the city.


7. Earliest Foreign Conquests.
Like every other great commercial state, both in ancient and modern times, Carthage found that her maritime enterprise led her on, by an inevitable chain of circumstances, to engage in foreign conquests; for effecting which she possessed remarkable opportunities. Surrounded by coasts and islands, which afforded an ample scope for her ambition; supplied with armies from her Libyan subjects and nomad mercenaries, she had likewise the advantage of that systematic traditional policy, which is always followed by governments composed of a few noble families, and in which the very steadfastness with which the end is kept in view is a motive for moderation in its pursuit. The end was the dominion of the western seas for the purposes of her commerce; and to it the means employed were admirably adapted.
Next to an insular position, like that of England, no object is of more consequence to a great maritime power than the possession of islands in the great highways of maritime intercourse; affording, as they do, stations for her fleets and factories, cut off from those attacks of powerful neighbours. and those incursions of vast and warlike peoples, to which continental settlements are exposed. Sensible of this, the Carthaginians turned their first efforts at conquest upon the islands of the W. Mediterranean, resisting the temptation presented by Spain to effect territorial aggrandisement on a much larger scale. Of these enterprises a very brief notice will suffice here, further details belonging rather to the articles on the respective countries.
It should be observed that these expeditions were naturally attended by a development of the military power of the Carthaginians, which manifested itself in successful wars with the Africans at home; and also that they brought Carthage into collision with foreign powers, and gradually involved her in the wars which ended in her ruin.
Of the earliest of these conquests we possess no other information than the brief notices in Justin, according to whom expeditions were undertaken both to Sicily and Sardinia, about the first half of the 6th century B.C.,under a general whom he calls MALCHUS(which is simply the Phoenician for king), who had also performed great exploits against the Africans. After considerable successes in Sicily, Malchus transported his forces to Sardinia, where he suffered a great defeat, and was in consequence banished. Upon this he led his army against Carthage, and took the city, but made a moderate use of his victory. It was not long, however, before he was accused of a design to make himself king, and was put to death. It is worthy of notice that the first foreign wars of Carthage are associated with the first attempt to overthrow her constitution. (Justin. 18.7.)
The enterprise of Malchus was resumed with more success, in the latter half of the same century, by MAGO the head of a family to whom the Carthaginians were indebted at the same time for the earliest organization of their military resources, and the foundation of their foreign empire. (Justin. 18.7: Huic [ Malcho] Mago, imperator successit, cujus industrial et opes Carthayiniensium, et imperii fines, et bellicae gloriae laudes creverunt;and directly after, Mayo, . . . cum primus omnium, ordinata disciplina militari, imperium Poenorum condidisset. ) His sons, HASDRUBAL and HAMILCAR,carried on the wars both in Sardinia and in Africa. The cause of the latter war was the refusal of Carthage to continue the payment of tribute or ground-rent for their city; but the Africans were successful, and the Carthaginians had to purchase peace. In Sardinia the Punic arms were more fortunate: Hasdrubal fell in battle, after holding the chief military command in the republic (dictator) eleven times, and enjoyed four triumphs. He left the command to his brother Hamilcar, who afterwards fell in Sicily, B.C. 480. (Justin. 19.1.) Each brother left three sons, who continued to lead the armies of the state, and, while striving to extend her foreign possessions, protected her at home against the Nomads, and compelled the Africans at length to remit the ground-rent for the city. Their names were HIMILCO, HANNO,and GISCO,the sons of Hamilcar; and HANNIBAL, HASDIRUBAL,and SAPPHO,the sons of Hasdrubal. The details of their actions are not related further; and the chronology is uncertain, resting only on the probable identification of Justin‘s Hamilcar with the celebrated commander who fell in the battle of Himera. The following were the earliest foreign conquests of the Carthaginians:—
(1.) Sardiniawas their earliest province. It belonged to them at the time of their first commercial treaty with Rome, B.C. 509. Its capital, CARALIS( Cagliari), and SULCI were founded by them. The island always ranked as the chief among their foreign possessions. It was the great emporium for their trade with W. Europe, and the chief source of their supply of corn, next to their own territory in Africa. There is reason to suppose that they worked gold and silver mines in the island, and that they obtained from it precious stones. They guarded all access to it with the greatest strictness. The Romans, it is true, were allowed to sail to it by the first treaty, under certain restrictions; but, by the second, even this limited permission was withdrawn, and Strabo (17. p. 802) informs us that the Carthaginians sank every foreign ship which ventured to touch at the island. It was occupied by a garrison, chiefly of mercenaries ; and was governed, like the other foreign possessions of Carthage, by an officer called Boetharch(Βοήθαρχος), that is, the commander of the auxiliaries (mercenaries) in time of peace, and in war by a commander (στρατηγός), specially sent out from Carthage. (Plb. 1.79.) As the Carthaginian power declined, their possession of the island was frequently endangered by revolts of the mercenaries, and at length it fell into the hands of the Romans a little after the end of the First Punic War, B.C. 237. [SARDINIA]
(2.) Corsicawas early occupied, as Sardinia also is said to have been, by the Tyrrhenians; but the Carthaginians also obtained a footing in it very early; and the union of the two peoples to resist the enterprizes of other foreign settlers led to the first recorded collision of Carthage with a Greek state; when the combined fleets of the Tyrrhenians and Carthaginians yielded to the Phocaeans of Aleria a victory so dearly bought that the conquerors soon afterwards retired from the island, B.C. 536. [ALERIA] The power of the two occupants seems to have long been pretty evenly balanced, but that of Carthage at length prevailed. In B.C. 450, Corsica is spoken of as belonging to the Tyrrhenians, but in the Punic Wars it appears as a Carthaginian province, like Sardinia, together with which it fell into the hands of the Romans. This poor, rugged, and sterile island could not, however, be compared to Sardinia in point of its value to its possessors. [CORSICA]
(3.) Sicily, as we have seen, was one of the first objects of the military enterprise of Carthage. Phoenician colonies existed at an early period on all its coasts, especially on the commanding promontories; but many of them succumbed to the steadily advancing power of the Greek colonies; till the Phoenicians only retained their footing on the W. portion of the island, their principal settlements being MOTYA, PANORMUS,and SOLOELS.As the power of Tyre declined, and that of Carthage grew, these colonies, like others in the W. Mediterranean, came under the power of the latter (Thucyd. 6.2); but Carthage does not seem to have founded new colonies in Sicily. She appears to have obtained first those settlements which were nearest to her (Thucyd. l. c.); and their proximity to her resources enabled her to keep them from falling under the power of the Greeks. With this firm footing in the island, the Carthaginians proceeded to foment the dissensions of the Greek cities till they were prepared to venture on a great battle for the supremacy. They had already been engaged in war with Gelon, the tyrant of Syracuse, as we learn from Gelon's speech to the Greek envoys, who sought aid from him against the threatened Persian invasion (Hdt. 7.158) ; and, when they saw that that invasion was about to furnish the Greeks of the mother-country with full occupation, they determined on a grand effort against the Sicilian colonies. An occasion was furnished by the expulsion of Terillus, tyrant of Himera, a city in amity with Carthage, by Theron of Agrigentum, the ally of Syracuse, about B.C. 481. Terillus applied for aid to the Carthaginians, who sent over to Panormus a fleet of 3000 ships of war, which disembarked 300,000 men under the command of Hamilcar, B.C. 480. The list of the peoples who contributed to this army, given by Herodotus, is a remarkable testimony to the extent of the empire and alliances of Carthage at this epoch. They were Phoenicians, Libyans, Iberians, Ligyes (Ligurians from the Gulfs of Lyonand Genoa), Helisyci (which Niebuhr supposes to mean Volsci), Sardinians, and Corsicans. Hamilcar laid siege to Himora: Gelon advanced to raise the siege; and a battle ensued, in which Hamilcar was slain and his army was utterly defeated. (Hdt. 7.165—167; Diod. 11.21—24.) This great battle of Himera was fought, according to Hlerodotus, on the very day of the battle of Salamis; according to Diodorus, on that of Thermopylae. The discrepancy may be taken as a proof that the Greeks, ignorant of the exact day of the battle, tried to improve on a coincidence which was sufficiently remarkable. For Himera, no less than Salamis, was one of the decisive battles of the worldand that in a sense of which no contemporary could form the least anticipation. Had the event of the day been different, there would seem to have been no obstacle to the establishment of a Carthaginian empire in Sicily and Italy, which might have advanced over all the shores of the Mediterranean. (See a similar observation, with reference to a later period, in Plb. 5.104.) But, as it was, the Carthaginians were driven back upon their old limits in the W. part of the island, and they seem to have abandoned, for a time, further efforts there, and to have turned their attention to the complete establishment of their power in Africa, and to the extension of their colonies in the West. They did not resume their designs on Sicily till B.C. 410, and from that time the wars with the Greek colonies, which are the chief events in the second period of the Carthaginian history, fully occupied their armies until Rome had acquired strength to engage in that contest which deprived Carthage not only of Sicily, but at last of her own existence. [SICILIA]
(4.) The Balearic and smaller islands, most of which had been colonized by the Phoenicians, were all occupied by the Carthaginians as emporia or factories. [BALEARES]. Among the smaller islands referred to, were Melita ( Malta), Gaulos ( Gozo), and Cercina ( Karkenah), besides others of less importalce, as, for example, Lipara. (Plb. 1.24.) These islands afforded naval stations of importance, and some of them furnished valuable articles of produce. Malta was made the seat of flourishing manufactories, especially of fine cloth. In fine, we are distinctly told by Polybius that all the islands of the Western Mediterranean belonged to Carthage at the commencement of the Punic Wars. (Plb. 1.10.)
(5.) Spainwas long an object of peaceful commerce, rather than of conquest, to the Carthaginians. Phoenician settlements had existed on its shores from a time earlier than history records; and to these Carthage added colonies of her own; but her relations with the natives were peaceful, and she does not appear to have attempted the subjugation of the country till after the loss of Sardinia and Sicily. But around her colonies and marts she doubtless obtained possession of considerable tracts of land; and hence Polybius (l.c.) tells us that many parts of Spainbelonged to her when she entered on her contest with Rome. The Spanish mines were a most important source of wealth to the republic.
Of the general character of the rule of Carthage over her foreign possessions, we have very little information, beyond the fact that the oppressions of their governors disposed them continually to revolt. In this respect their sufferings seem to have been far less than those of the Roman provinces; but they were likewise borne with far less patience at the hands of a state whose authority was sustained only by a mercenary soldiery, who were themselves in a condition of chronic discontent.


8. Foreign Colonies.
Beyond the limits of the countries or districts of which Carthage took possession, she established many colonies on distant shores, to serve as harbours for her ships, marts for her commerce, and outlets for her surplus population. These settlements occupied many points on the coasts of the W. Mediterranean, not only in Africa, the islands, and Spain, but also in Gaul and Liguria (see above); and beyond the Pillars of Hercules they extended far both N. and S. along the shores of Europe and Africa, and into some of the islands of the Atlantic. Of the colonies in Africa we have had occasion to speak in describing the Carthaginian empire in that continent. Especial interest attaches to those founded on the W. coast of Africa by Hanno, on account of the Greek translation which we still possess of the narrative of his voyage, which he suspended, on his return, in the temple of Cronos at Carthage (Hudson, Geographi Graeci Minores, vol. i. Oxon. 1798). Simultaneously with this expedition, another was sent out under Himilco to explore the western shores of Europe. The narrative of this voyage, which the ancient geographers possessed, has been lost to us; but several particulars of it are preserved in the Ora Maritimaof Festus Avienus, and some of the chief points have been noticed under ATLANTICUM MAREO f the colonies which Himilco, like Hanno, doubtless planted, no traces have come down to us: the supposition that they reached as far as the British islands can neither be positively accepted nor rejected without more evidence than we possess. As to the time of these two great expeditions, there seems good reason to believe that their leaders were the Hanno and Himilco who are mentioned by Justin (vid. suprà) as sons of Hamnilcar, and that the date is therefore about the end of the 6th century B.C.


9. Relations to Foreign Stales.
The points of connection or collision between Carthage and other states during this first period, though few, are very interesting.
(1.) Greeks. —The sea-fight with the Phocaeans off the coasts of Corsica, and her wars with the Greeks of Sicily, have already been noticed.
(2.) Persians. —The time of her great enterprise in Sicily coincided so remarkably with the attacks of Persia upon Greece, as to cause some of the ancient writers to ascribe it to an understanding with the Persian kings. Justin (Justin. 19.1) tells of an embassy, which Darius I. sent to the Carthaginians, in the assumption of that supreme authority which he was at the same time claiming over Greece, requiring them to discontinue the offering of human sacrifices and the practice of burying their dead instead of burning them, and also demanding aid in his war against the Greeks. The wars of Carthage with the neighbouring tribes furnished her with a reason, or pretext, for refusing the desired military aid; but, not to offend the king, she readily complied with his other requests. (The well-ascertained inaccuracy of this last statement is an example of the care required in following the authority of Justin.) The Persian claim of supremacy over Carthage, as a colony of Tyre, is one very likely to have been made; and Ephorus represents the Phoenicians as united with the Persians in another embassy which Xerxes sent to the Carthaginians, to induce them to fit out a great fleet against the Greeks of Sicily and Italy, and so to disable those colonies from affording to the mother-country that aid which she was at the same time seeking at the hands of Gelon. (Ephor. ap. Schol. Pind. Pyth. 1.146, Fr. 1ll, ed. Didot; Diod. 11.1, 2, 20.) Doubts are raised respecting the whole transaction by the silence of Herodotus; but, at all events, it would seem that a direct request from Persia was not needed to induce the Carthaginians to seize the opportunity of pushing her schemes in Sicily when the Greek colonies could receive no aid from the mother-country. That the firstwars did not originate in the agreement with Xerxes is clear from the narrative of Justin, and from the allusion made by Gelon, in his reply to the Greek ambassadors, to a war in which he had already been engaged with Carthage (Hdt. 7.158). The war thus alluded to would seem to be the gravebellumr(Justin. 19.1), in which the Greek cities made a united application for assistance to the Spartans; but we have no information of any collision from this cause between Carthage and Sparta.
(3.) Cyrene. —Another Grecian state, Cyrene, was the only civilized neighbour of Carthage in Africa; but they were almost separated naturally by the deserts which come down to the sea-coast between the Syrtes; and the only collision between them was the obscure and petty war which led to the settlement of their frontier at the bottom of the Great Syrtis. [ARAE PHILAENORUM.]
(4.) Egypt and Ethiopia. —The relations of Carthage with Egypt and Ethiopia were entirely commercial, and chiefly indirect, as will be seen presently. But that much was known of Carthage in Egypt may be inferred from the incidental notices of Herodotus, who no doubt obtained his information from Carthaginians in Egypt.
(5.) Tyrrhenians. —On the side of Europe, Carthage had relations with other peoples besides the Greeks. The Tyrrheniansappear as her allies in Corsica; and Aristotle alludes incidentally to well-known treaties between the two peoples. These treaties evidently arose out of the common interests of the, two great maritime powers of the W. Mediterranean, and also from the desire of Carthage to protect herself by treaties against the piratical habits of the Tyrrhenians. (Aristot. Polit. 3.5. § § 10, 11, where the threefold description deserves attention: συνθῆκαι πεπὶ τῶν εἰσαγωγίμων καὶ σύμβολα περὶ τοῦ μὴ ἀδικεῖν καὶ γραφαὶ περὶ συμμαχίας).
(6.) Romne.—First Treaty. —Somewhat similar to these conventions was the treaty which furnishes the first instance of any relations between Rome and Carthage. This celebrated document is preserved by Polybius (Plb. 3.22), who tells us that it was made in the consulship of L. Junins Brutus and M. Horatius, the first consuls after the expulsion of the kings, and 28 years before the invasion of Greece by Xerxes, that is, in B.C. 509. It was still preserved, inscribed on tablets of bronze, among the archives of the aediles in the temple of Jove in the Capitol (100.26), but its old Latin idiom was, in some passages, hardly intelligible to the most learned anltiquarians. Its substance is as follows:—That there shall be friendship between the Romans and their allies, and the Carthaginians and their allies, on these conditions: the Romans and their allies are restricted from sailing beyond (i. e. to the W. or S. of) the Fair Promontory (τὸ καλὸν ἀκρωτήριον), which seems here to indicate the Mercurii Pr., C. Bon, the E. headland of the Gulf of Carthage, rather than, as elsewhere in Polybius, Apollinis Pr., C. Farina, its W. headland, the object of this restriction being, in the opinion of Polybius, to keep foreigners from a share in the trade of the colonies on the coast of Byzacium and the Emporia on the Lesser Syrtis: if forced into the forbidden seas by weather or war, they are neither to buy nor take anything except necessaries for refitting the ship, and offering sacrifice, and they must depart within five days: but they are allowed to trade with Carthage herself, and the part of Africa immediately adjacent (at least this seems to be the meaning), with Sardinia, and with the part of Sicily possessed by Carthage, under certain conditions. the object of which was as much to give additional security to such commerce, as to impose restrictions on it, namely, the goods must be sold by public auction, and then the public faith was pledged to the foreigner for his payment: on the other hand, the Carthaginians are bound to refrain from injuring the cities of Ardea, Antium, Laurentum (or more probably Aricia), Circeii, and Terracina, or any other Latin cities which were subject to the Romans, and not to meddle with (i. e. not to make their own) the cities which were not under the Roman dominion, but if they shall have taken any of the latter, they are to restore such uninjured to the Romans: they are to build no fort on the Latin territory, nor, if they should land there in arms, to remain a single night. This treaty clearly indicates the respective dominions, and the relative positions of the two states at the end of the sixth century B.C.;for it is ridiculous to suppose that it was designed to anticipate relations which might occur at some future time, and not to settle questions which had actually arisen. Rome, at the height of the prosperity which she attained in the regal period, and in possession of the chief cities on the Latin coast, even beyond the later limits of Latium, is beginning to extend her commerce over the W. parts of the Mediterranean; while Carthage is pushing hers to the very coasts of Latium, and is also carrying on military operations there for its defence. It is an interesting fact, as Polybius observes (100.23), that the treaty is wholly silent respecting the parts of Italy beyond the Roman territory: the Tyrrhenians and the Greeks are not referred to, unless tacitly as among the enemies against whose interference with their commerce the Carthaginians may have to conduct military operations. With the Tyrrhenians we have seen that the Carthaginians dealt, as with Rome, by separate treaties, as the occasion arose: of their relations with Magna Graecia it is much to be regretted that history is almost silent; but we may fairly conjecture that any serious efforts of commerce or conquest in that quarter were postponed until Sicily should be made their own.
The genuineness of the first treaty with Rome has been disputed on the very ground which affords its strongest confirmation; the position, namely, to which it represents Rome as having already attained at this early period of her history. The only difficulty arises from the mis-statements of the Roman annalists, who refused to acknowledge the depression which Rome suffered as the first consequence of the revolution which made her a republic; and from which she was so long in recovering. (Niebuhr, History of Rome, vol. i. pp. 533, foll.) Accordingly, when, a century and a half later, B.C. 348, the Roman republic was sufficiently recovered from its long struggle for existence, to have a foreign commerce worth the protection of a second treaty with Carthage, we find, amidst a general similarity to the provisions of the first treaty, this important difference, that the Romans are excluded from Sardinia and Libya as rigidly as from the seas beyond the Fair Promontory, with the exception that their traders may expose their goods for sale at Carthage; and the same privilege is granted to the Carthaginians at Rome.
The date assigned to this treaty is on the authority of Livy (Liv. 7.27), who only just refers to it. Polybius, who recites it in full (3.24), does not mention its date. Several of the best critics hesitate to assume the identity of the treaty in Polybius with that referred to by Livy. Grote (vol. 10. p. 541) supposes that the former was made somewhere between 480—410 B.C.,chiefly on the ground that it argues a comparative superiority of Carthage to Rome, which would rather seem to belong to the latter half of the fifth century B.C., than to the latter half of the fourth.Niebuhr (vol. 3. p. 87), on the other hand, thinks that Polybius was not acquainted with the transaction mentioned by Livy, and that the treaty which he speaks of as the second, was the one of the year 447, B.C. 306. It is seldom fair to play off great authorities against each other; but it may be done in this case, for there is really no good ground for doubting that Livy and Polybius each meant by the second treaty that which really was the second and the same.
This Second Treaty between Rome and Carthagebelongs chronologically to the second period of Carthaginian history; but the natural connection of the events demands the notice at one view of the relations between the states, from the beginning, to their quarrel about Sicilian affairs. Livy, with his usual partiality, represents the Carthaginians as sending ambassadors to Rome, to sue for this alliance. But we know that Carthage was mistress of the Tyrrhenian seas, along the coasts of Italy (Diod. 16.66); and that the coasts of Latium were insulted and plundered by a Greek fleet. Against such invaders, Niebuhr supposes, the Romans sought protection from the great maritime power of Carthage (Niebuhr, vol. iii. pp. 85—87); and they would readily consent to renounce a commerce, which they had already lost, with Sardinia and Africa, for the sake of safety on their own coasts.
The amicable relations between the two republics, and the concord of their views respecting Italy, are further attested by the congratulations which the Carthaginians sent to Rome, on the conclusion of the first Samnite War (B.C. 342), with the present of a gold crown of 25 pounds' weight for the shrine of Jupiter in the Capitol. (Liv. 7.38.) And again, in B.C. 306, the ancient treaty between Rome and Carthage was renewed for the third time, with a fresh offering of rich presents. (Liv. 9.43.)
But such friendships between ambitious republics necessarily involve jealousies, the sure presage of alienation, quarrel, and internecine war; and: both the friendship and the jealousy are further shown in the history of the more intimate alliance which was formed by Rome and Carthage in view of a common danger. Each state had evidently come to regard Grecian Italy as its future prize, when the aid brought by Pyrrhus to the Tarentines raised an obstacle to their designs, which they at once united to remove, with a cordiality precisely measured and limited by the interests of each. Carthage had doubtless viewed the progress of the Roman arms in S. Italy with feelings which her own position in Sicily compelled her to dissemble; and Rome, on her part, showed no disposition to seek aid from Carthage, till the war with Pyrrhus became very critical. In the third year of the war, B.C. 279, Rome and Carthage concluded a close defensive alliance, which Livy ( Epit. xiii.) expressly calls the fourth,and Polybius (Plb. 3.25) the last,treaty between the two republics. The provisions of the former treaties were renewed, with additional articles, which, with the events that ensued, we give in Niebuhr's words (vol. 3. p. 506):—It was provided, that neither should make a treaty of friendship with Pyrrhus without the accession of the other, in order that if he attacked the latter, the former might still have the right of sending succours. The auxiliaries were to be paid by the state, which should send them; the ships to convey them to and fro were to be given by Carthage. The latter was also to afford assistance with ships of war, in case of need; but the marines were not to be compelled to land against their will. This clause in, case of needCarthage, with the wish of compelling Pyrrhus to return to Epirus, may probably have interpreted in such a way that, without waiting for a summons from Rome, a fleet of one hundred and thirty galleys under Mago cast anchor near Ostia, at the disposal of the senate. It was dismissed with thanks without being used, probably because Rome did not wish the Poenians to carry off the population and wealth of Italian towns, or because it feared lest they should establish themselves in Italy. There was no need of their assistance. The Punic admiral now went to Pyrrhus as a neutral and unsuccessful mediator of peace, as the latter was already known to have directed his thoughts to Sicily. (Justin. 18.2.)The events which followed the transference of the war to that country belong to the history of the Carthaginian affairs in Sicily; but they may be dismissed here, partly because they led to no permanent result, and partly because their progress furnishes another proof of the deeply rooted jealousy which now existed between Rome and Carthage. Pyrrhus spent three years in Sicily, B.C. 278—276, attempting to do his part to fulfil the bright prospects held out by the Greeks who had called him thither, of a Greek kingdom over which he was to rule after the expulsion of the Carthaginians. The faithlessness of the Greeks to their promises and their interests alone spoiled the scheme; and, after wasting his efforts on the impregnable fortress of Lilybaeum, he abandoned the enterprise in disgust. During these three years Rome was steadily pursuing her own interests in Italy, by subduing the states which had aided Pyrrhus, and Carthage was left to fight her own battle in Sicily. That there prevailed a deeply founded mistrust between the two republics,says Niebuhr (vol. 3. p. 511), is clear even from the fact, that Roman auxiliaries were either not demanded, or else were not given for the defence of the Punic province: though Carthage, it is true, raised soldiers in Italy.(Zonaras (Zonar. 8.5.)
From this view of the relations of the two republics, during their state of amity, it is impossible not to be struck with the fact, remarked by Niebuhr elsewhere, how the order in which Rome was called to deal with her successive enemies contributed to fulfil the designs of providence for her advancement to universal empire, and how different would have been her fate, and that of Carthage, and of the world, had Carthage deserted her during her struggles with the Etruscans and other peoples of Italy, with the Gauls, and with Pyrrhus.
(7.) Athens. —There was another foreign power, with whom Carthage never came actually in contact, but whom nevertheless she watched with deep interest and anxiety (Thucyd. 6.34), and whose fortunes had no small influence on her own. Had the Athenian expedition to Sicily been successful, a conflict must have ensued with Carthage; but she was relieved from this danger, and left the more free to pursue her own designs in Sicily by the destruction of that ill-fated armament, B.C. 411.


10. Summary.
Such was the growth of the Carthaginian empire, and such her relations to foreign states, during a time partly extending into the second period of her history, though belonging chiefly to the first. To sum up, in a few words, her position at the great historical epoch marked by the renewal of her wars with the Greeks of Sicily:—In Africashe had subdued the Libyans immediately round the city; formed relations with the Nomads, which enabled her to purchase their services as mercenaries in her wars, and carriers for her inland commerce; planted agricultural colonies in the fertile districts about the city, and others, both commercial and agricultural, along the coasts of Byzacium and the Lesser Syrtis, and even to the Great Syrtis, so far as the physical character of the district permitted; as well as on the W. portion of the N. coast, to the Pillars of Hercules. Beyond these limits she held possession of Sardinia, Corsica (at least in part), the W. part of Sicily, and all the islands of the W. Mediterranean; and her colonies extended along the Mediterranean coasts of Iberia and Liguria, and beyond the Pillars. far towards the Equator on the one side, and the Arctic regions on the other. Towards her mother city she continued to acknowledge the filial duties of a colony: with her nearest neighbour, Cyrene, she had settled a disputed boundary line: she had met the Greeks in a sea-fight off Corcyra; and had retired from a brief struggle with them in Sicily, which she was about to renew, after an interval of 70 years spent in improving her resources; she had avoided the double dangers of Persian alliance and resentment, and had seen the naval force of her most formidable rival for the empire of the seas destroyed in the Syracusan expedition: in the Tyrrhenian seas she had protected her own commerce by treaties with the Italian states, one of which laid the foundation of an intercourse destined to end in her destruction.
To complete the review of this first period of her history, it is necessary to turn to her internal condition and resources. On this subject, as well as in the preceding account of her empire, it is well to bear in mind the remark of Grote, that all our positive information, scanty as it is, about Carthage and her institutions, relates to the fourth, third, and second centuries B.C.;yet it may be held to justify presumptive conclusions as to the fifth century B.C.,especially in reference to the general system pursued.( Hist. of Greece, vol. 10. p. 542.)


11. Political Constitution.
Our information on this subject is of the most tantalizing kind; just enough to show us how interesting is the problem, which we have no sufficient materials to solve. The brief account of Aristotle, and the incidental notices of Polybius (especially 6.51, et seq.), and other writers, are very elaborately discussed by Heeren ( African Nations, vol. i. chap. 3), and Kluge (Aristoteles de Politia Carthaginiensium, Wratisl. 1824); whose dissertations the inquirer should study, with Grote's caution that their materials do not enable them to reach. any certainty.As a summary of the subject, it would be fruitless to attempt to improve on the condensed account of Grote (vol. x. pp. 548, foll.):—Respecting the political constitution of Carthage,the facts known are too few, and too indistinct, to enable us to comprehend its real working. The magistrates most conspicuous in rank and precedence were, the two Kings or Suffetes, who presided over the Senate. There were in like manner two Suffetes in Gades, and each of the other Phoenician colonies(Liv. 28.37). The name of these Suffetes is probably identical with the Hebrew Shofetim, i. e. Judges. They seem to have been renewed annually, though how far the same persons were re-eligible or actually re-chosen, we do not know; but they were always selected out of some few principal families or Gentes. There is reason for believing that the genuine Carthaginian citizens were distributed into three tribes, thirty curiae, and three hundred gentes,—something in the manner of the Roman patricians. From these gentes emanated a Senate of three hundred, out of which again was formed a smaller council or committee of thirty principesrepresenting the curiae (Mövers, die Phönizier, vol. ii. pt. 1. pp. 483—499); sometimes a still smaller of only ten principes.These little councils are both frequently mentioned in the political proceedings of Carthage; and perhaps the Thirty may coincide with what Polybius calls the Gerusia or Council of Ancients,—the Three Hundred, with that which he calls the Senate. (Plb. 10.18; Liv. 30.16.) Aristotle assimilates the, two Kings (Suffetes) of Carthage to the two Kings of Sparta, and the Gerusia of Carthage also to that of Sparta (Plb. 2.8.2); which latter consisted of thirty members, including the Kings, who sat in it. But Aristotle does not allude to any assembly at Carthage analogous to what Polybius calls the Senate. He mentions two councils, one of one hundred members, the other of one hundred and four (comp. Niebuhr, vol. 1. p. 85); and certain Boards of Five—the Pentarchies. He. compares the Council of one hundred and four to the Spartan Ephors; yet again, he talks of the Pentarchies as invested with extensive functions, and terms the Council of one hundred the greatest authority in the state. Perhaps this last Council. was identical with the assembly of one hundred Judges (said to have been chosen from the Senate as a check upon the generals employed), or Ordo Judicum; of which Livy speaks after the second Punic war, as existing with its members perpetual, and so powerful that it overruled all the other assemblies and magistracies of the state. Through the influence of Hannibal, a law was passed to lessen the overweening power of this Order of Judges; causing them to be elected only for one year, instead of being perpetual. (Liv. 33.46; Justin. 19.2, mentions the 100 select Senators set apart as judges.)
These statements, though coming from valuable authors, convey so little information, and are withal so difficult to reconcile, that both the structure and working of the political machine at Carthage may be said to be unknown. But it seems clear that the general spirit of the government was highly oligarchical; that a few rich, old, and powerful families divided among themselves the great offices and influence of the state; that they maintained them-selves in pointed and even insolent distinction from the multitude (Val. Max.); that they stood opposed to each other in bitter feuds, often stained by gross perfidy and bloodshed; and that the treatment with which, through these violent party antipathies, unsuccessful generals were visited, was cruel in the extreme. (Diod. 20.10, 23.9; Val. Max..) It appears that wealth was one indispensable qualification, and that magistrates and generals procured their appointments in a great measure by corrupt means. Of such corruption, one variety was, the habit of constantly regaling the citizens in collective banquets of the curiae, or the political associations; a habit so continual, and embracing so wide a circle of citizens, that Aristotle compares these banquets to the Phiditia, or public mess of Sparta. (Pol. 3.5.6.) There was a Demos or people at Carthage, who were consulted on particular occasions, and before whom. propositions were publicly debated, in cases where the Suffetes and the small Council were not all of one mind. (Aristot. Pol. 2.8.3.) How numerous this Demos was, or what proportion of the whole population it comprised, we have no means of knowing. But it is plain that, whether more or less considerable, its multitude was kept under dependence to the rich families by stratagems such as the banquets, the lucrative appointments, with lots of land in foreign dependencies, &c. The purposes of government were determined, its powers; wielded, and the great offices held,—Suffetes, Senators, Generals, or Judges,—by the members of a small number of wealthy families; and the chief opposition they encountered was from their feuds against each other. In the main, the government was conducted with skill and steadiness, as well for internal tranquillity, as for systematic foreign and commercial aggrandisement. Within the knowledge of Aristotle, Carthage had never suffered either the successful usurpation of a despot, or any violent intestine commotion. (Aristot. Pol. 2.8.1.) He briefly alludes to the abortive conspiracy of Hanno (5.6.2), which is also mentioned in Justin (Justin. 21.4). Hanno is said to have formed the plan of putting to death the Senate, and making himself despot. But he was detected, and executed under the severest tortures; all his family being put to death along with him, B.C. 340.His attempt is compared by Aristotle to that of Pausanias at Sparta. The other attempt was that of Bomilcar, B.C. 308. ( Dict. of Greek and Roman Biog., arts. Bomilcarand Hanno.) The resemblance of the Carthaginian constitution to that of Venice is by no means so close as some writers fancy.
In the later ages of the republic, when bitter factions divided the state, we read of popular tumults which are compared to those of Alexandria for their violence, as well as for the strange spectacle of boys joining in them as eagerly as the men. (Plb. 15.30.)


12. Military Resources and Organization.
In order to understand both the progress and the decline of Carthage, no part of her polity requires more attentive consideration than her military system. Founded as the state was without difficulty, at a distance from any formidable enemies, and soon raised by commerce to the highest prosperity, it would have been strange if her citizens had displayed any great measure of military spirit, such as that which is inseparably identified with the Roman character. There are not wanting examples of the greatest devotion in times of extreme danger; but how little occasion there was for their display, in the age during which the military system was formed, is clear from the consideration that the first invasion of the Carthaginian territory was made by Agathocles in. B.C. 316, more than five centures from the foundation of the city. As to the Libyan tribes, their predatory incursions on the cultivators of the soil were curbed by the simple defence of a line of ditch. (Appian. Pun. 32, 54, 59; Phlegon, Mirab. 18: this trench must not be confounded with that dug by the younger Scipio Africanus for a boundary between the Carthaginian and Numidian territory: AFRICA) The military system of Carthage therefore grew entirely out of that necessity for foreign conquest which was entailed upon the state, as we have seen, by the extension of her commerce. Men do not risk their lives in war merely for the acquisition of wealth, least of all when a force of dependents and mercenaries can easily be found to fight their battles for them. Nay, it would at first sight seem good policy thus to throw the burthen upon others, while the state reaped the profit; and it required the bitter lessons of experience to prove that such a force was a broken reed, in the double sense of the Hebrew prophet, piercing the hand which it failed to support. Such a resource was at hand for the Carthaginians in a threefold form: the enforced service of her Libyan subjects; the mercenary aid of the Nomad tribes; and the labour of her slaves.
(1.) Naval Forces. —From the nature of the case, the earliest warlike enterprises of Carthage were upon the sea. She not only required a powerful navy to transport her forces to Sardinia and Sicily; but she must be prepared to encounter the fleets of the Tyrrhenians and those of the Greeks of Sicily and Massilia; and, as we have seen, her first actual encounter was with the Phocaeans of Sardinia. Fortunately, our information on her naval resources and arrangements is tolerably complete: we derive most of it from Polybius and Appian. (On the general subject, see especially Plb. 1.20, 39, 6.52.)
One of the earliest works of the first settlers was; the excavation of a spacious harbour (Cothon),within the city; with an outer harbour for transports and merchant vessels; and with docks and magazines containing everything required for the outfit of the ships. (See below under Topography. ) The number of vessels of war (besides transports) thus provided for is stated at 220 (Appian. Pun. 96); but it is natural to suppose that extra arrangements could be made for a much larger number. Accordingly, we find the Carthaginians, in their Sicilian wars, with from 150 to 200 ships of war; but, in the first Punic War, they had 350 ships of war, carrying 150,000 men, at the great sea-fight with Regulus, B.C. 254. This was at the climax of their naval power; which not only suffered greatly from its repeated defeats by the Romans, but must also: have lost very much of its importance when the state was deprived of its possessions in Sicily (B.C. 241), Sardinia, and Corsica (B.C. 238); besides which it was always the policy of the Barcine family (whose ascendancy dates from B.C. 247) to fight the battles of Carthage by land rather than by sea.
Triremes seem to have constituted the Carthaginian fleet during their Sicilian wars; and it seems probable that they followed the Syracusan models. (Heeren, p. 246.) A tradition preserved by Pliny; from Aristotle makes them the inventors of quadriremes. (Plin. Nat. 7.57.) The war with Pyrrhus in, Sicily naturally led them to adopt the larger vessels which had been introduced by the Greeks (especially by Demetrius Poliorcetes); and in the wars with Rome they generally used quinqueremes (Polyb. i 20, 27, 59, 63, et alib.;Liv. 21.22): and the same form was adopted by the Romans from a Punic model. (Plb. 1.20.) The admiral's ship in the battle with Duilius, which had seven banks of oars, had been taken from Pyrrhus. (Plb. 1.23.) Polybius computes the ships lostin the First Punic War at 500 quinqueremes on the side of the Carthaginians, and 700 on that of the Romans (1.63). Fire ships were used in the defence of the city in the Third Punic War. (Appian. Pun. 99.) The complement of men to aquinquereme was 420, namely 120 fighting men, and 300 rowers. (Plb. 1.26.Polybius makes this statement of the numbers of the Roman crews; but it agrees with the totals of ships and men given for the Carthaginian fleet. Heeren ascribes to a larger number of rowers in the Punic ships, that superiority over the Syracusans and Romans in manoeuvre, which his authorities refer expressly to greater skill. (Plb. 1.22, 51; Diod. 20.5.) The models being alike, the number of rowers could not well be different; but those of, the Carthaginians were thoroughly trained galley, slaves.The rowers were public slaves, who were procured chiefly from the interior of Africa, in such numbers that Hasdrubal, in the Second Punic War; bought 5000 at one time (Appian. Pun. 9); and they were doubtless kept in constant exercise: hence the rapidity with which Carthage prepared: her fleets. The accounts in Polybius of the sea-fights in the First Punic War should be carefully studied, especially that with Regulus, in which the Romans adopted the manoeuvre now so well known under the name of breaking the line.In combined operations, the admiral acted under the commander of the land forces, as in the case of Hamilcar and Hasdrubal (Plb. 2.1); but sometimes he took out sealed orders from the senate or the commander-in-chief. (Diod. 14.55; Polyaen. 5.10.2.) The ships of Carthage were placed under the protection of her sea-deities, whose images seem to have been carved upon the sterns. (Sil. Ital.; Munter, pp. 97, foil.)
(2.) Land Forces. —The bulk of the Carthaginian army was composed of their Libyan subjects and of mercenaries, not only from Africa, but from nearly all the shores of Western Europe. Small, however, as was the purely Punic portion, it deserves particular attention. The chief commands were assigned, of course, to Carthaginian citizens; but, besides this, motives of honour were held out to lead them into the service, each citizen wearing as many rings as he had served campaigns. (Aristot. Pol. 7.2.6: as Heeren observes, this custom gives significance to Hannibal's message sent to Carthage with the rings of the Roman knights who were slain at Cannae.) It would even seem, if we are to trust Diodorus, that the honour to be reaped from the Sicilian wars moved the citizens of Carthage so strongly, as to lead considerable bodies of them into destruction, and to induce the state to be more sparing of their lives. (Diod. 16.70, 71, 19.106.) The expensive service of the cavalry seems to have had a strong attraction for the higher classes. But, above all, we generally find in a Punic army a small body of 2500 citizens, called the Sacred Band, chosen for their station, wealth, and courage, and distinguished by the splendour of their arms and by their vessels of gold and silver plate. They appear to have fought on foot, and to have formed the general's body-guard. (Diod. 16.80, 20.10, et seq.;Plut. Tim. 27,28; Polyb.15.13.) In the extreme danger of the state, all the citizens formed a Sacred Band, and could furnish an army as formidable for its numbers as for its desperate bravery. The city poured out 40,000 heavy-armed infantry, with 1000 cavalry and 2000 war-chariots, to meet Agathocles (Appian. Pun. 80); and the desperate defence of the city, at the close of the Third Punic War. showed that the Carthaginians would have made no mean soldiers.
Of their other forces, for the full detail of which our space is inadequate, Heeren has given an admirable account. He remarks the resemblance between the Persian and Carthaginian armies, the former uniting nearly all the nations of the East, and the latter of the West: had their league with Xerxes against Greece succeeded, and had the two armies joined on the soil of Sicily, they would have pre. sented the remarkable exhibition of a muster of nearly all the varieties of the human species at that time known.( African Nations, vol. 1. p. 252.) Polybius ascribes this mixture of peoples to design, that the difference in their languages might be an obstacle to conspiracies and revolt, which, however, when they did occur, were for the same reason the more difficult to. allay. (Polyb. i, 67.) The main dependence was placed on the subject Libyans, who, armed with long lances, formed the bulk of the infantry and heavy cavalry. Next came the Iberians, equipped with white linen vests, and swords fit both to cut or thrust; of whose conspicuous valour many examples occur: and then their rude and savage neighbours, the Gauls, from the Gulf of Lyon, who fought naked, with a sword only made for striking, and were renowned for their perfidy: both peoples served as infantry and cavalry. (Plb. 2.7, 3.114; Liv. 22.46; Diod. 5.33.) Besides these, there were Campanian mercenaries, who had deserted the Greeks in the Sicilian wars; Ligurians, who are first mentioned in the Punic Wars; and Greeks, who appear about the same time, and who may have been introduced into the service through the campaigns of Pyrrhus in Sicily. To these must be added two descriptions of force peculiar to the Carthaginian armies; the Balearic slingers, who skirmished in front [BALEARES], and the light cavalry: of the Nomads, who were levied by deputations sent out by the senate, from the Maurusii near the Pillars of Hercules, to the frontiers of Cyrenaica. Mounted without a saddle on small active horses, so well trained as not to need even the rush halter, which formed their only bridle; equipped with a lion-skin for dress and bed, and a piece of elephant-hide for a shield; rapid alike in the charge, the flight, the rally; they were to the Carthaginians far more than the Cossacks are to the Russians. (Diod. 13.80; Strab. 17. p. 828; Polyb., Liv., passim.) Chariots, derived doubtless from their Phoenician ancestors, were used by the Carthaginians in their wars with Timoleon and Agathocles (Diod. 16.80, 20.10); but they were superseded by the elephantsof whom we hear so much in the wars with Rome. Having borrowed from Pyrrhus, as is supposed, the idea of training these beasts to war, they kept up the supply by means of their inland trade with Africa, and also by demanding them as tribute from some of the subject cities. A tract of land near the city was set apart for their maintenance; and vaulted chambers were provided in the triple landward wall for 300 elephants and their food. Another row of such chambers contained stables for 4000 horses, and stores for their food; and in the same line of defences there were barracks for 20,000 infantry and 4000 cavalry, besides immense magazines of provisions and military stores. The total force, which Carthage could raise with ease, may be computed at 100,000 men. Though the standing armiesof modern states were then unknown, a military force must always have been kept on foot to garrison the city and the foreign possessions; and in both cases these garrisons were composed of mercenaries.
Such was the army of Carthage, equally wanting in consistence and security. The discipline of such a motley host was as difficult as it was necessary; and Livy justly adduces, as one proof of Hannibal's, genius, his maintenance of authority over his troops. (Liv. 28.12.) The general results of the system are well summed up by Grote:—Such men had never any attachment to the cause in which they fought, seldom to the commanders under whom they served ; while they were often treated by Carthage with bad faith, and recklessly abandoned to destruction. (Plb. 1.65—67; Diod. 14.75—77.) A military system such as this was pregnant with danger, if ever the mercenary soldiers got footing in Africa; as happened after the First Punic War, when the city was brought to the brink of ruin. But on foreign service in Sicily, these mercenaries often enabled Carthage to make conquest at the cost only of her money, without any waste of the blood of her own citizens. The Carthaginian generals seem generally to have relied, like Persians, upon numbers—manifesting little or no military skill; until we come to the Punic wars with Rome, conducted under Hamilcar Barca and his illustrious son Hannibal.( Hist. of Greece, vol. x. pp. 547, 548.) Another source of danger in the system is pointed out by Heeren:—Upon the whole, however, this system could afford the republic but little internal security. The impossibility of calling an army like this together in a short time must have made every sudden attack dreadful. Their enemies soon found this out; and repeated examples have shown that their fleets were not always sufficient to repel invasion. As often as this happened, a struggle for life or death must have ensued; and although they might easily make good the loss of a foreign defeat, yet, in every war upon their own ground, their ALL rested upon the cast of a die.(Heeren, African Nations, vol. i. pp. 259, 260.)


13. Financial Affairs.
One of the obscurest parts of the whole subject is the mode of raising and administering those enormous revenues, which must have been required to support the colonial and military expenses, as well as the home government of the state.
(1.) Sources of Wealth in general. —It is wrong to think of Carthage as a purely commercial state. Her prosperity rested, as already intimated in speaking of her territory, on the solid basis of the land. Agriculturewas the favourite pursuit of her nobles, citizens, and colonists; her immediate territory was so fertile, that the soil of Byzacium is said to have yielded a hundred-fold return (Plin. Nat. 5.4. s. 3.); and her foreign possessions, especially Sardinia and Sicily, were made to contribute large supplies of corn for the consumption of the city. The devotion of her chief men to agriculture is indicated by the great work of Mago, in 28 books, which alone of all the treasures of Punic literature the Romans thought worth pre-serving. That the taste for agriculture declined with the growth of commerce, is affirmed by Cicero, who regards the change as a main cause of the decline of Carthage ( Repub. 2.4); but the decline was only comparative, as is shown by the great prosperity of the city in the period preceding the Third Punic War, when she was shut up to her own immediate territory. Neither were manufacturesand the mechanical artsneglected; and great wealth flowed into the city by the import of the precious metalsfrom Spain and other parts. It is true that the mines were generally reserved bv the state, but that they were sometimes private property is proved by the example of Hannibal. (Plin. Nat. 33.6. s. 31: unless the passage refers to Hannibal in his public capacity.)
(2.) Expenses of the State. —The chief offices of state being held without a salary, the expenses of the home government were probably light. The great demands upon the public resources were for the maintenance of her military forces, and the expenses of her colonial and commercial expeditions; but in both cases the actual demands in money were partly lightened by payments in kind, and the use of barter in commercial intercourse with foreigners.
(3.) Revenue. —The following. were the chief sources of the public revenue.
a. The Tributepaid by the subject nations and allies. In Africa the country districts paid taxes in produce, and the cities in money, the greatest contributions being derived from the rich district of Emporia. It is supposed that the amount of the assessment, in both cases, was ordinarily fixed: reference has already been made to its great increase upon emergencies. The same system appears to have been pursued in the provinces, among which Sardinia was the chief contributor. In this case we have ample proof that the tribute was raised for the most part in produce, of which a portion was retained for the maintenance and pay of the garrison, and the remainder was remitted to Carthage, where large magazines were provided for its reception.
b. Customs. —In all the ports of the colonies and provinces, as well as of the city, import duties were rigorously levied. The importance attached to this branch of revenue is attested by the existing treaties with Rome,and by those with the Tyrrhenians referred to by Aristotle. (See above.) The heavy amount of the customs is shown by the active contraband trade which was carried on across the desert frontier of Cyrenaica. (Strab. 17. p. 836.) In the last age of the republic, and as the result of the financial reforms made by Hannibal after the Second Punic War, the customs seem to have been the principal source of revenue. (Liv. 33.47, assuming, with Heeren, that vectigaliahere means customs.）
c. Mines. —A chief branch of the Punic, as of the Phoenician, trade was the import of the precious and useful metals; gold, silver, tin, &c. Where they could obtain a secure footing on the soil, they worked the mines themselves, partly by the labour of the natives and partly by slaves. The Spanish mines were the great source of the precious metals; and Diodorus tells us that all of them, known in his time, had been opened by the Carthaginians during their possession of the country. (For further particulars, see HISPANIA) The produce of these mines was enormous; and it sufficed to pay the military expenses of the state, probably with a large surplus. The possession of these resources dates chiefly from the conquests of the Barcine/family in Spain (a certain importation, especially from Baetica, had been made from very early times); and accordingly, while the want of money, during and after the First Punic War, forced Carthage to make terms with Rome, and involved her in the war with her mercenaries, her pecuniary resources, during the Second War, seem to have had no limit.
d. Extraordinary Resources. —Under this head, Heeren mentions an attempt to obtain a loan from Ptolemy Philadelphus, during the First Punic War, which, though unsuccessful, is worthy of notice as an early example of the financial expedient so familiar to modern states; and also a system of privateering, which seems, however, to rest on the false reading of Καρχηδσόιοιfor Καρχηδσόιοιin Aristotle. (Oecon. 2.2.10.)
(4.) Financial Administration. —Under this head, unfortunately, there is nothing to be said but what we do notknow. That the management of the finances was entrusted to one of the committees or Pentarchies, under the controul of the senate, and by means of an executive officer, whom the Romans call Quaestor, are rather conjectures from the general character of the government than facts established by evidence. But how many questions still remain which we either cannot answer at all, or at best only by conjecture? Before whom did the managers lay their accounts? Who fixed the taxes; was it the people, or, as seems most probable, the senate? But it is better to confess our ignorance than to advance empty conjectures. Even the little that might be deduced from the passage of Livy, already mentioned (33.45, 46), would only perhaps lead us to false conclusions; since he only speaks of abuses,from which we cannot infer the state of things during the flourishing period of the republic.(Heeren, African Nations, vol. i. pp. 154, 155.)
(5.) Money. —The entire absence of Punic coins (for those which are extant belong to the restored Roman city) has raised the interesting question, whether this great power was without a mint of her own. Gold and silver were the standard of value at Carthage, as elsewhere, but we have no evidence that the republic coined money. Some of the Sicilian states which were subject to Carthage, especially Panormus, struck coins with epigraphs in the Punic language, which are still extant; and such money was doubtless current at Carthage, as well as other foreign coinages. The only money we hear of as peculiar to Carthage was a sort of token, consisting of a substance enclosed in leather, sealed, and bearing the stamp of the state, the whole being of the size and value of a tetradrachm: the exact composition of the enclosed substance was kept secret. (Aesch. Dial. Socrat. p. 78, ed. Fischer; Aristid. Orat. Platon. 2. p. 145 ; Eckhel, Doctr. Num. Vet. vol. iv. pp. 136, 137, where the whole subject of the Punic money is discussed.)


14. Trade of Carthage.
On this subject, which is fully discussed by Heeren in two of the best chapters of his most valuable essay, we have only space for a few brief remarks. The whole foreign trade of Carthage was, as far as possible, a rigid system of monopoly. Other great maritime states have generally sought to develope the commerce of their colonies; but Carthage regarded her colonies and possessions merely as staples for her own trade; and made every effort, as the treaties with Rome show, to exclude foreign merchants from all ports except her own.
(1.) Her Maritime commerceof course included all her colonies and possessions, and extended also to the shores of other states. The chief scene of its activity was the W. Mediterranean, including, besides her own ports, those of the Greek states of Sicily and Southern Italy, whence she imported oil and wine for her own use and for the market of Cyrene; giving in return the agricultural produce and cloth manufactures of her own territory, with gold, silver, and precious stones, and negro slaves from Inner Africa. Among her other chief imports were linen cloths from Malta for the African market; alum from Lipara; from Corsica, wax and honey, and slaves, who were most highly esteemed; iron from Aethalia ( Elba) ; and from the Balearic islands mules and fruits, giving in return the commodities of which the islanders were fondest, wine and women. [BALEARES] But these islands were chiefly of importance as a station off the coast of Spain, for the trade with the peninsula in oil and wine, as well as in the precious metals. This trade is thought by Heeren to have been the channel also for that with Gaul, on the coast of which the Carthaginians had no colonies, and where the only foreign maritime state, Massilia, was always at enmity with Carthage; for that the Carthaginians had relations with Gaul, directly or indirectly, is proved by the lists of mercenaries in their armies. Beyond the Straits, their trade extended northwards as far as the CASSITERIDES, whence they imported tin, and even to the amber-producing coasts of N. Europe (Pest. Avien Or. Marit. 95, foil., 375, foll.; comp. BRITANNICAE INSULAE). On the W. coast of Africa, their colonies extended as far S. as the island of CERNE the great mart of their trade, in which they exchanged ornaments, vessels, wine, and Egyptian linen, for elephants' teeth and the hides of beasts. They seem even to have reached the gold-producing countries about the Niger. (See the curious account in Hdt. 4.196, as illustrated by the narratives of recent travellers in Heeren, Afr. Nat. vol. i. pp. 175. foll.) Beyond the parts they had reached, they pretended that the Atlantic became unnavigable through fogs, shallows, and sea-weed; tales founded doubtless upon the marine vegetation which surrounds the Azores and other islands of the Atlantic; but exaggerated for the purpose of deterring other mariners from dividing with them a lucrative commerce. [ATLANTICUM MARE]
(2.) Land Trade. —By the agency of the Nomad tribes, especially the NASAMONESC arthage carried on a very extensive trade in Inner Africa, to the banks of the Nile, on the one side, and of the Niger on the other, and in the intervening space to the oases of Augila, the Garamantes ( Fezzan), and others; whence their chief importations seem to have been a few precious stones and a vast number of negro slaves. But this subject is so mixed up with the caravan routes over the desert, and with the geography of Africa in general, that it cannot be discussed here.


15. Religion.
Those who wish to study this most interesting but obscure branch of Carthaginian antiquities may consult the works of Munter and Gesenius mentioned above. Not having space for speculation, we here set down merely the few ascertained facts. The Punicworship,though influenced by foreign elements, especially the Greek, was doubtless at first identical with that of the Phoenicians, which was a form of the Sabaeism so generally prevalent in the East. They adored the following divinities, who are mentioned, of course, by the ancient writers, under the names of their supposed equivalents in the Greek and Roman systems.
(1.) Kronosor Saturn, who is generally identified with the Molochof the Canaanites, and by some with Baal, and whose natural manifestation is supposed by some to be the Sun, as the chief power of Nature; by others the planet Saturn, as the most malignant of celestial influences. To him they had recourse in the disasters of the state, propitiating him with human sacrifices, sometimes of captives taken in war, and at others, as the most acceptable offering, of the best beloved children of the noblest citizens. (Diod. 13.86, 20.14, 65; Justin. 18.6; Oros. 4.6.) Certainly the description of this deity and his rites answers exactly to that of Moloch, horrid king, besmeared with bloodOf human sacrifice and parents' tears;Though, for the noise of drums and timbrels loud,Their children's cries unheard, that passed through fireTo his grim idol.(Milton, Par. Lost, ii.)
(2.) The Tyrian Hercules, the patron deity of the mother city and all her colonies, whose Phoenician name was Melcarth, i. e. King of the City, is by some identified with Baal and the Sun, by others with the Babylonish Bel and the planet Jupiter, the most genial of celestial influences. Or account of her worship of this her tutelar deity, Carthage is personified as the daughter of Hercules. (Cic. N. D. 3.1. 6）
(3.) The female deity associated with him is the Phoenician Astarte, or Tanith, the goddess of the elements, whom the Romans commonly mention by the name of Coelestis. She was some-times identified with Vesta, sometimes with Diana, on account of her symbol, the crescent moon, and sometimes with Venus, on account of her worship which was celebrated with the most lascivious abominations, as in Phoenicia, so also at Carthage and other places in the territory, especially SICCA VENERIA(Val. Max.; Appul. Met. 11. p. 257, Bip.; Salvian, de Prov. 8. p. 95; Morcelli, Afr. Christ. s. aa. 399, 421; Augustin. Civ. Dei, 2.4, 4.10; Tertull. Apol. 12, et alib.）
(4.) Esmun, the god of the celestial vault, whose temple occupied a conspicuous place in the city, is identified by the Greeks and Romans with Aesculapius.
(5.) Apollo, whose temple and golden shrine stood near the form, is supposed to be Baal-Hamman. (Barth, p. 96.)
(6.) Poseidonand Tritonare mentioned by Herodotus as Libyan deities; but he does not give their native names. (Hdt. 2.50, 4.179.) The latter deity had an oracle, with a sacred tripod, like that at Delphi. [Comp. TRITON, TRITONIS PALUS.]
(7.) Among Geniiand Heroes, we find that the following were worshipped: a Genius of Death, to whom also hymns were sung at Gades (Philostr. Vit. Apoll. 5.4); Dido, as the foundress of the city (Justin. 18.6); Hamilcar, who fell at Himera, and whose worship was connected with the story of his supernatural disappearance on that day (Hdt. 7.167); the brothers Philaeni [ARAE PHILAENORUM]; and Iolaüs, a hero of Sardinia (Plb. 7.9.)
(8.) Foreign Deities. —The influence upon Carthage of intercourse with Greece is shown by her adoption, from Sicily, of the worship of Demeter and Persephone. (Diod. 14.77.) The motive to this step was the fearful pestilence which had destroyed their victorious army before Syracuse (B.C. 395), and which they attributed to the wrath of the goddesses for the pillage by Himilco of their temple in the suburb of Achradina.
There seems to have been no sacerdotal caste at Carthage; but the offices of the priesthood were filled by the highest persons in the state; and in war we find the generals offering sacrifices, sometimes during the heat of battle. (Hdt. 7.167; Diod. 14.77; Justin. 17.7.) The armies were attended by prophets, whose voice controuled their movements. The enterprises of commerce and colonization were placed under the sanction of religion, monuments of them being dedicated in the temples, as in the cases of the voyage of Hanno, which has come down to us, and the memorials of the mysterious death of Hamilcar at Himera, which were dedicated in all the colonies, as well as at Carthage. (Hdt. 7.167.) Of the sanctuaries which they established in connection with their colonies, we have examples in that of Hercules at CARTHAGO NOVA and that of Poseidon founded by Hanno on the W. coast of Africa. [SOLOEIS.]
Such was the state of Carthage during the time of her greatest prosperity; and such the system which seems to have been fully developed at the epoch which we have marked as the termination of the first period of her history, B.C. 410. The two remaining periods are so closely mixed up with the Hellenic and Roman histories, and are so fully treated of in the works of our great historians, that the briefest possible outline will serve the purpose of this work.



ii. Second Period of Carthaginian history, B.C. 410—264.
The wars with the Greeks of Sicily, which were renewed in B.C. 410, by the appeal of EGESTA to Carthage for aid in her quarrel with SELINUS occupied nearly all the century and a half which intervenes till the commencement of those with Rome. The most marked epochs in them are the conflicts in Sicily with Dionysius I. (B.C. 410—368), and Timoleon (B.C. 345—340), and in Africa with Agathocles (B.C. 311—307), whose invasion, though ultimately defeated, pointed out where the power of Carthage was most. vulnerable, and gave the precedent for the fatal enterprizes of the Scipios. Our chief ancient authority for this period is Diodorus, compared with Plutarch, Appian, and Justin. The chief details are related in this work, under SICILIA, SYRACUSAE, EGESTA, SELINUS, AGRIGENTUM,&c., in the several articles in the Dictionary af Greek and Roman Biography(HANNIBAL, HIMILCON, MAGO, DIONYSIUS, TIMOLEON, AGATHOCLES,&c.), and in the histories of Greece, especially Grote (vol. x. chaps. 81, 82), whose very full narrative, however, only extends as yet to the destruction of the victorious Carthaginian army before Syracuse by pestilence rather than by the arms of Dionysius, B.C. 394. The ultimate issue of these campaigns was in favour of the Carthaginians, whose conquest of the island seemed about to be completed, when the invasion of Pyrrhus effected a brief diversion (B.C. 277—275). His retreat seemed to leave the Carthaginians, at length, free to snatch the prize, which they had coveted as their first foreign conquest, and had so perseveringly pursued. But the Roman eagle was already watching the same rich prize from the other bank of the narrow straits; the affair of Messana and the Mamertines gave a pretext for interposition; and the landing of a Roman host in Sicily, B.C. 264, sealed the fate both of the island and of Carthage.
The other principal events of this period were the second, third, and fourth treaties with Rome, the revolutionary attempts of Hanno (B.C. 340) and Bomilcar (B.C. 308), already mentioned, and a dangerous revolt of the subject Libyans after the great disaster before Syracuse in B.C. 394. To this period belongs also the reception at Carthage of the fugitives from the destruction of Tyre by Alexander, already noticed. The success of the Macedonian conqueror and his alliance with Cyrene, seem to have excited some alarm at Carthage; and the republic is said to have sent an embassy to Alexander, to congratulate him on his return from India. (Diod. 17.113; comp. Justin. 21.6; Oros. 4.6.)


iii. Third Period.—Wars with Rome, B.C. 264—146.

iii. Third Period.—Wars with Rome, B.C. 264—146.
The First Punic War was a contest for the dominion of Sicily. Though virtually decided in its second and third years by Hiero's adhesion to the Romans (B.C. 263), and by the fall of Agrigentum (B.C. 262), the great resources of Carthage prolonged it for twenty-three years (B.C. 264—241), and it was only brought to a close by the exhaustion of her finances. Besides the loss of Sicily, it cost her the dominion of the W. Mediterranean, and placed Rome on more than an equality with her as a naval power. But there were two results of the war still more fatal to the republic.


2. Revolt of the Mercenaries,
The total want of money at the end of the war led to the Revolt of the Mercenaries, who were joined by most of the subject Libyans and allied cities in Africa, and carried on for three years and a half a civil war which reduced the city to the brink of ruin (B.C. 240—237), and, extending to Sardinia, it gave the Romans a pretext for taking possession of that island, and soon afterwards of Corsica and the smaller islands.


3. Rise of Aristocratic and Democratic factions.
From the very source, whence Carthage obtained her salvation in this war, sprang the baneful feud which infected all her subsequent being; that of the house of Hamilcar Barca and Hanno. In this great party struggle we first trace the breaking up of Carthage into an aristocratic and democratic faction, which not only distracted her councils, but exposed her to the danger, which a divided state always incurs in presence of a powerful enemy, of her intestine parties either strengthening themselves by the foreign influence, or determining their relations of war or peace by selfish, instead of patriotic, considerations. The influence of these factions on the fate of Carthage is admirably traced by Heeren, in his chapter on her Decline and Fall.


4. Conquest of Spain
Closely connected with these party contests is the event which gives a deceitful appearance of prosperity to the period between the First and Second Punic Wars, the Conquest of Spain by Hamilcar Barca and his son-in-law, Hasdrubal, B.C. 237—221. [HISPANIA] This great enterprise, while advancing the power of the Barcine family, was acceptable to the people as a compensation for the loss of Sicily and Sardinia; but it committed them, as Hamilcar desired, to a final struggle for the mastery with Rome.


5. Second Punic War
The Second Punic War was a decisive conflict which, like the war of 1793 between England and France, may have been the inevitable consequence of the relative positions of the states, but of which, as of that war, the immediate occasion was the supposed interest of one of the two parties in the state; and the same motives which led Hannibal to plunge into it, induced him to prolong it to the utmost. It lasted seventeen years, B.C. 218—201, and resulted in the utter prostration of Carthage before her rival. She lost her fleet and all her possessions out of Africa, and even there Masinissa was planted as a thorn in her side, at the head of a powerful new state, and restlessly eager to pick a new quarrel, which might give Rome a pretext for her destruction. [AFRICA, NUMIDIA].


6. Administration of Hannibal
Still the Administration of Hannibal shed one ray of hope upon the dark prospects of the devoted state. He overthrew the despotism of the Ordo Judicum, notwithstanding that its undue power had been the creation of the democratic party which supported his family, by confining to a year the term of office, which had before been for life; and he introduced such order into the finances, that ten years sufficed to pay the tribute imposed by the peace with Rome. Meanwhile, a new rival of Rome was rising in the East; and if, as Hannibal meditated, Carthage could have brought what force she yet had to the aid of Antiochus the Great, the career of the triumphant republic might perhaps yet have been checked. But, denounced by the opposite faction, and proscribed by Rome, Hannibal was compelled to fly to Antiochus, B.C. 195. With his departure his party became extinct, and the influence of Rome became supreme even within the state.


7. Third Punic War.
After this it could not be doubted that the tongue of Cato uttered the decree of fate as much as the voice of hatred, in the celebrated sentence Carthago delenda est.Amidst the conflicts which Rome had yet before her in the East, Carthage, fallen as she was, and though daily suffering more and more from the encroachments of Masinissa [AFRICA], might yet be troublesome if not formidable. The chance of such a danger was exaggerated in the reports carried back to Rome by Cato from his embassy to settle the disputes with Masinissa, his failure in which added the stimulus of personal resentment to the hatred which his party bore to Carthage; and the pretext of the armed resistance, to which Masinissa at length drove the Carthaginians, was eagerly seized for commencing the Third Punic War. The affecting story of that heroic struggle almost obliterates the memory of the faults for which Carthage was now doomed to suffer. It lasted three years, B.C. 150—146, and ended with the utter destruction of the city, in the very same year in which the fall of Corinth completed the conquest of Greece. Thus the two peoples who had so long contended on the plains of Sicily for the dominion of the Mediterranean, fell at once before the rival, whose existence they had then hardly recognised. It is not within the province of this work to meditate on such a fall.
The statistics given by Strabo (17. p. 833; comp. Plb. 36.4; Appian. Pun. 80), of the resources and efforts of Carthage at the time of this war are very valuable. At the commencement of the war, she had 300 subject cities in Libya, and the population of the city was 700,000. When, in the first instance, she accepted the terms imposed by the Romans, in the vain hope of their being satisfied with this submission, she gave up 200,000 stand of arms and 3000 (or 2000) catapults. When war broke out again, manufactories of arms were established, which turned out daily 140 shields, 300 swords, 500 spears, and 1000 missiles for catapults, while the female servants gave their hair to make strings for the catapults. Though, as bound by the treaty at the end of the Second Punic War, they had for fifty years possessed only twelve ships of war, and though they were now besieged in the Byrsa, they built 120 decked vessels in the space of two months, from the old stores of timber remaining in the dockyards; and, as the mouth of their harbour was blockaded, they cut a new entrance, through which their fleet suddenly put to sea.




VI. ROMAN CARTHAGE.
The final destruction of the city, the curse pronounced upon her site, the constitution of her territory as the new Roman province of Africa, and the history of that province down to its final conquest by the Arabs, are treated of under AFRICAI t remains to state a few facts relating specifically to the city.
Notwithstanding the prohibition of any attempt to rebuild Carthage, its admirable site and the fertility of the surrounding country rendered its remaining long desolate unlikely; and its restoration seems to have been a favourite project with the democratic party in Rome. Only twenty-four years had elapsed, B.C. 122, when C. Gracchus sent out a colony of 6000 settlers to found on the site of Carthage the new city of JUNONIA,a name to which old traditions would seem to give a peculiar significance. But evil prodigies at its foundation gave the sanction of superstition to the decision of the senate, annulling this with the other acts of Gracchus. (Appian. Pun. 136; Plut. C. Gracch. 13; Liv. Epit. lx.; Vell. Patere. 1.15; Solin. 27). The project was revived by Julius Caesar, who with a sort of poetical justice planned the restoration of Carthage and of Corinth in the same year, B.C. 46; but, by his murder, the full execution of his design devolved upon his successor. (Appian. l. c.;Plut. Caes. 57; Strab. 17. p. 833; Dio Cass., comp. 52.43; Paus. 2.1.) Lepidus seems to have deprived the new colony of its privileges, during his short rule in Africa; but it was restored by Augustus (B.C. 19), under whom 3000 colonists were joined with the inhabitants of the neighbouring country to found the new city of Carthage, which, already when Strabo wrote, was as populous as any city of Africa (καὶ νῦν εἴ τις ἄλλη καλῶς οἰκεῖται τῶν ἐν Λιβύη πόλεων : Strab., Dion, Appian., Solin., ll. cc.). It was made, in place of the Pompeian Utica, the seat of the proconsul of Old Africa. [AFRICA]
It continued to flourish more and more during the whole period till the Vandal invasion. Herodian (7.6) calls it the next city after Rome, in size and wealth; and Ausonius thus compares it with Rome and Constantinople ( Carm. 286):—Constantinopoli adsurgit Carthago priori, Non toto cessura gradu, quia tertia dici Fastidit.
Ecclesiastically, it was one of the most important of the numerous bishoprics of Africa: among the great names connected with it, are Cyprian, as its bishop, and Tertullian, who was probably a native of the city. In A.D. 439, it was taken by Genseric, and made the capital of the Vandal kingdom in Africa. It was retaken by Belisarius, in 533, and named Justiniana. It was finally taken and destroyed, in 647, by the Arabs under Hassan. (Clinton, Fasti Romani, s. aa,;Gibbon, vol. 6. p. 26, vol. vii. pp. 180, foil., 350—352, vol. ix. pp. 450, 458.) Whatever yet remained of Carthage was delivered to the flames, and the colony of Dido and Caesar lay desolate above two hundred years, till a part, perhaps a twentieth of the old circumference, was repeopled by the first of the Fatimite caliphs. In the COINS OF CARTHAGE beginning of the sixteenth century, the second capital of the West was represented by a mosque, a college without students, twenty-five or thirty shops, and the huts of five hundred peasants, who, in their abject poverty, displayed the arrogance of the Punic senators. Even that paltry village was swept away by the Spaniards, whom Charles V. had stationed in the fortress of Goletta. The ruins of Carthage have perished; and the place might be unknown if some broken arches of an aqueduct did not guide the footsteps of the inquisitive traveller.(Gibbon.)
Very few of its coins are extant, a large number of those ascribed to it being spurious. Among the genuine ones, besides those of the Roman emperors, there is a very rare and valuable medal of Hilderic, the Vandal king, with the legend FELIX KART.(Eckhel, vol. iv. pp. 136, &c.) The cuts above represent a gold coin, the actual size, and one of bronze, two-thirds the size of the original.


VII. TOPOGRAPHY OF CARTHAGE.
The general situation of the city has already been described; but, when we come to the details of its topography, we find the same tantalizing want of certain information, which renders all else respecting her so difficult.
The present remains are insufficient to guide us to an understanding of the obscure and often apparently contradictory statements of the ancient writers; and the inquirer often sighs over the loss of that picture, representing the site and size of Carthage, which Mancinus, the commander of the fleet in the Third Punic War (B.C. 148), exhibited to the Roman people in the forum, and won the consulship by his zeal in explaining its details. Appian (App. Pun. 95, foll.) is almost the only ancient author who has left any considerable details; and he is, as usual, very inexact, and in some points evidently quite wrong. Of the main difficulty, it is scarcely an exaggeration to compare it with a doubt among the future antiquaries twenty-five centuries hence, whether London or Southwark stood on the N. side of the Thames. We know that the old Punic city grew up round the original Bozra or Byrsa (whether the citadel called Byrsa in historical times stood on the old site is even doubtful), and that it gradually covered the whole peninsula; aud we know that it had a large suburb called Megara or Magalia, and also the New City (Diod. 20.44). We also know that the Roman city stood on a part of the ancient site, and was far inferior to the Old City in extent. But, whether the original Punic city, with its harbours, was on the N. or S. part of the peninsula; on which side of it the suburb of Megara was situated; and whether the Roman city was built on the site of the former, or of the latter; are questions on which some of the best scholars and geographers hold directly opposite opinions.
Upon the whole, comparing the statements of the ancient writers with the present state of the locality and the few ruins of the Punic city which remain, it seems most probable that the original city was on the SE. part of the peninsula about C. Carthage. The subjoined ground-plan from Mannert is given merely as an approximation to the ancient positions. For the details of the topography, the latest and best authority is Dr. H. Barth, who has compared the researches of Falbe with his own observations. ( Wanderungen, &c. pp. 80, foll.)
The following are the most important details of the topography:—

1. The Taenia(ταινία）
was a tongue of land, of a considerable length, and half a stadium in breadth, mentioned again and again by Appian in PLAN OF CARTHAGE (MANNERT). C. The Punic city.M. The suburb of Megara.L. Lagoon, anciently the bay of Tunis.T. City of Tunis.Max. City of Maxula.B. The byrsa.F. The forum.aa. Walls towards the sea.b. Triple wall on the land side.c. The Cothon, with its island.d. Entrance to Cothon, made when Scipio had blocked up the proper entrance.e. Outer harbour.f. Scipio's mole.g. The Golettaor present mouth of the Lagoon of Tunis.1. Temple of Aesculapius (Esmun).2. Temple of Apollo.
such a manner that the determination of its position goes far to settle the chief doubt already referred to. It jutted out from the isthmus (ἀπὸ τοῦ αὔχενος) towards the W., between the lake and the sea(μέση λίμνης τε καὶ τῆς θαλάσσης), and in the closest proximity to the harbours, and also at the weaker extremity of the strong landward wall of the city. (See below.) All the particulars of Appian's description seem to point to the sandy tongue of land which extends SW. from the S. extremity of the peninsula to the Goletta, or mouth of the Lagoon of Tunis, and divides in part this lagoon (the λίμνηof Appian) from the open sea. That this tongue of land is larger than he describes it, is a confirmation of the identity, considering the changes which we know to have been going on; and the slight discrepancy involved in his making the taeniajut out from the isthmus,whereas it actually proceeds from the peninsula,is surely hardly worthy of discussion. No room would have been left for doubt, had Appian told us what lake(λίμνη) he meant; but that he omits to tell us this, seems of itself a strong proof that he meant the Lagoon of Tunis. The other and much less probable opinion is that the lakewas on the N. side of the isthmus, where we now find the salt marsh of Sebcha-es-Sukara:this view of course inverts the whole topography of the peninsula, by involving the necessity of seeking the Byrsa and the harbour on its N. side. Those writers, including even Ritter, who have adopted the latter view, seem to have been misled by Shaw, who, finding on the N. side the village now called El-Mersa, i. e. the Port, in a position which, though now inland, must anciently have been on the sea shore, proceeds to identify this site (though indeed rather by implication than positive assertion) with the ancient harbour of Carthage. (Shaw, Travels, &c., p. 150.)


2. The Walls
are especially difficult to trace with any certainty. At the time when the city was most flourishing, it is pretty clear that they encompassed, as might have been expected, the whole circuit of the peninsula, speaking generally; and Appian informs us that on one side (evidently towards the sea, but the words are wanting) there was only a single wall, because of the precipitous nature of the ground; but that on the S., towards the land-side, it was threefold. But when we come to particulars, first, as to the sea-side, it is not certain whether the two eminences of C. Ghamartand C. Carthagewere included within the fortifications, or were left, either wholly or in part, unfortified on account of their natural strength. In the final siege, we find Mancinus attacking from the side of the sea a part of the wall, the defence of which was neglected on account of the almost inaccessible precipices on that side, and establishing himself in a fort adjacent to the walls (Appian. Pun. 113). On the whole, it seems probable that on both the great heights the walls were drawn along the summit rather than the base, so that they would not include the N. slope of C. Ghamart, nor the E. and S. slopes of C. Carthage. (Barth, pp. 83, 84.)
The land side presents still greater difficulties. The length of the wall which Scipio drew across the isthmus to blockade the city, and which was 25 stadia (or 3 M. P.) from sea to sea (Appian. Pun. 95, 119; Plb. 1.73; Strab. 17. p. 832), gives us only the measure of the width of the isthmus (probably at its narrowest part), not of the landface of the city, which stood on wider ground. Strabo (17. p. 832) assigns to the whole walls a circumference of 360 stadia, 60 of which belonged to the wall on the land side, which reached from sea to sea. Explicit as this statement is, it seems impossible to reconcile it with the actual dimensions of the peninsula, for which even the 23 M. P. assigned to it by Livy (Epit. li.; Oros. 4.22, gives 22 M. P.) would seem to be too much (Barth, p. 85). Attempts have been made to obtain the 60 stadia of Strabo by taking in the walls along the N. and S. sides of the peninsula, as well as that across it on the land side, which is quite inconsistent with the plain meaning of the writer; or by supposing that Strabo gives the total length of the triple line of wall, a most arbitrary and improbable assumption. Besides, the language of Strabo seems obviously to refer to the actual width of that part of the isthmus across which the wall was built (τὸ ἑξηκονταστάδιον μῆκος αὐτὸς ὁ αὐχὴν ἐπέχει, καθῆκον ἀπὸ θαλάττης ἐπὶ θάλατταν). The only feasible explanation seems to be, that the wall was not built across the narrowest part of the isthmus, but was thrown back to where it had begun to widen out into the peninsula; and it seems also fair to make some allowance for deviations from a straight line. A confirmation of the length assigned to the wall by Strabo is found in Appian's statement, that Scipio made simultaneous attacks on the land defences of Megara alone at points 20 stadia distant from each other, the whole breadth of the isthmus being, as we have seen, only 25 stadia.
Be this as it may, we know that this land wall formed by far the most important part of the defences of the city. It consisted of three distinct lines, one behind the other, each of them 30 cubits high without the parapets. There were towers at the distance of 2 plethra, 4 stories high, and 30 feet deep. Within each wall were built two stories of vaulted chambers, or casemates, in the lower range of Which were stables for 300 elephants, and in the upper range stables for 4000 horses, with ample stores of food for both. In the spaces between the walls (τόπος εὐρυχωρής, Strab. 17. p. 832), there were barracks for 20,000 infantry, and 4000 cavalry, with magazines and stores of pro-portionate magnitude; forming, in fact, a vast fortified camp between the city and the isthmus., It would seem from Appian (8.95) that this description applies only to the S. part of the landward wall, behind which lay Byrsa (τὰ πρὸς μεσημβρίαν ἐς ἤπειρον, ἔνθα καὶ ἡ Βύρσα ἦν ἐπὶ τοῦ αὐχένος). The N. part of the landward wall, surrounding the suburb of Megara, seems to have been less strongly fortified, and accordingly we find some of the chief attacks of Scipio directed against it. Appian adds to his description of the triple wall, that its corner which bent round towards the harbors, by the Taenia, or tongue of land mentioned above, was the only part that was weak and low; and on this point also we find the Romans directing their attacks.
The limits of the Roman city can be defined with greater certainty. It remained, indeed, without a fortified enclosure, down to the fourteenth year of Theodosius II. (B.C. 424), when the increasing dangers of the African province both from the native and foreign barbarians suggested the policy of fortifying its capital. The remains of the wall then built can still be traced, and sufficient ruins of the city are visible to indicate its extent; while the limits are still further marked by the position of the great reservoirs, which we know to have been without the walls. But as the city was far gone in its decline when these walls were built, it might be supposed that the limits indicated by them were narrower than the original boundaries, were it not for a most interesting discovery made by Falbe, to whose researches during a long residence at Tunis, we owe most of our knowledge of Carthaginian topography. Struck by the fact, that the land W. and NW. of the Roman city is divided into regular rectangles by roads utterly different from the crooked ways which are common in Mohammedan countries, he suspected that these roads might mark out the divisions of the land among the Roman colonists; and, upon measuring the rectangles, he found that they were of equal area, each containing 100 haeredia,or 200 jugera.Of such plots, 28 are clearly visible, and the land which has been broken up to form the gardens of El-Mersafurnishes space for 2 more; so that we have the land without the walls of the Roman city divided into 30 centuries of haeredia,precisely the proper quantity for the 3000 colonists whom Augustus settled in the new city. (Appian. Pun. 138.)
That Roman Carthage stood on the site of the ancient Punic city, and not, as some maintain, on that of the suburb of Megara, seems tolerably clear. Not to lay too much stress on Pliny's phrase (5.2), in vestigiis magnae Carthaginis,it appears that the new city was supplied from the same aqueduct and reservoirs, and had its citadel and chief temples on the same sites, as of old. The restored temple of Aesculapius was again the chief sanctuary, and that of the goddess Coelestis became more magnificent than ever. (Barth, p. 83.)


3. Harbours.
In accordance with that view of the topography which we follow, the double harbour of Carthage must be looked for on the S. side of the peninsula, at the angle which it forms with the Taeniadescribed above, within the Lagoon of Tunis. The fact that Scipio Africanus the elder could see from Tunis the Punic fleet sailing out of the harbour (Appian. Pun. 24), seems a decisive proof of the position, which is confirmed by many other indications. (Barth, p. 88.)
The port consisted of an outer and an inner harbour, with a passage from the one into the other; and the outer had an entrance from the seaThe general term ἐκ πελάγουςwhich Appian here uses is not inconsistent with the view that the port opened into the lagoon.70 feet wide, which was closed with iron chains. The outer harbour was for the merchantmen, and was full of moorings. The inner harbour was reserved for the ships of war. Just within its entrance was an island called Cothon (Κώθων, whence the harbour itself was called Cothon also), rising to a considerable elevation above the surrounding banks, and thus serving the double purpose of a mask to conceal the harbour from without, and of an observatory for the port-admiral (ναύαρχος), who had his tent upon it, whence he gave signals by the trumpet and commands by the voice of a herald. The shores of the island and of the port were built up with great quays, in which were constructed docks for 220 ships (one, it would seem, for each), with storehouses for all their equipments. The entrance of each dock was adorned with a pair of Ionic columns, which gave the whole circuit of the island and the harbour the appearance of a magnificent colonnade on each side.When Appian (App. Pun. 127) distinguishes the squarepart of the Cothon (τὸ μέρος τοῦ Κώθωνος τὸ τετράγωνον) from its round(or surrounding) part on the opposite side (ἐπὶ θάτερα τοῦ Κώσωνος ἐς τὸ περιφερὲς αὐτον), he seems to mean by the former the island, and by the latter the bank on the land side. The Punic fleet, which had put out to sea by the new mouth (see below), being destroyed, Scipio naturally first storms the island in the Cothon; meanwhile Laelius seizes the opportunity for a sudden attack upon the other bank, which proves successful, and the Romans, thus possessed of the whole enclosure of the Cothon, are prepared to attack the Byrsa.So jealously was this inner harbour guarded, even from the sight of those frequenting the outer, that, besides a double wall of separation, gates were provided to give access to the city from the outer harbour, without passing through the docks. (Appian. Pun. 96, 127.) That the inner harbour at least, and probably both, were artificial excavations, seems almost certain from their position and from the name Cothon (Gesen. Mon. Phoen. p. 422), to say nothing of Virgil's phrase ( Aen. 1.427):—hie portus alii effodiunt, which, remembering the poet's antiquarian tastes, should hardly be regarded as unmeaning.
The remains of two basins still exist, near the base of the tongue of land, the one more to the S. being of an oblong shape, and the other of a rounder form, with a little peninsula in the middle; both divided from the sea on the E. by a narrow ridge. These basins would be at once identified as the harbours of Carthage, but for their apparently inadequate size; an objection which, we think, Barth has successfully removed. (pp. 88—90). Whatever size the harbours had at first, was necessarily preserved,for the adjacent quarter was the most populous in the city. A calculation made by Barth of the circuit of the inner basin and island (now a peninsula) shows at least a probability that they could contain the 220 vessels; while, for the general traffic, the Lagoon of Tuniscould be used as a roadstead: and that it was so used in later times is proved, by the fact that Misua, on its opposite shore, was the port of Carthage under the Vandals. (Procop. B. V. 1.16.) Further, we know that extra accommodation was provided, at some early period, for the merchantmen, in the shape of a spacious quay on the sea-shore (not that of the lagoon) outside of the city walls (Appian. Pun. 123), of which the foundations are still visible; the ancient purpose of the existing substructions being confirmed by their resemblance to those at Leptis Magna.
But what, then, has become of all the masonry of the quays and docks and colonnades which surrounded the Cothon and its island, but of which the present inner basin exhibits no remains? The doubt is easily removed. Carthage, like Rome, has been the quarry of successive nations, but for a much longer period, for doubtless even the Roman city was built in great measure from the remains of the Punic one; and the masonry of the docks, lying in the very midst of the city, and at the part which would be the first rebuilt to form a port, would naturally be among the first used. The substructions on the sea-coast, on the contrary, have been preserved, and afterwards in part uncovered, by the waves of the Mediterranean.
The manner in which the harbours ran up close along the SE. shore of the peninsula enables us to understand the resource adopted by the Carthaginians when Scipio, in the Third Punic War, shut up the common outer entrance of their harbours by a mole thrown across from the Taeniato the isthmus: they cut a new channel from the Cothon into the deep sea, where such a mode of blockade was impracticable, and put out to sea with their newly constructed fleet. (Appian. Pun. 121, 122; Strab. 17. p. 833.) Whether, after the restoration of the city, Scipio's mole was removed, and the ancient entrance of the port restored, we are not informed. Probably it was so: but the new mouth cut by the Carthaginians would naturally remain open, and this, with the part of the Cothon to which it gave immediate access, seems to be the Mandracionor Portus Mandracius, of later times. (Procop. B. V. 1.20, 2.8.)


4. Byrsa.
This name is used in a double sense, for the most ancient part of the city, adjoining to the harbours, and for the citadel or Byrsa, in the stricter sense. When Appian (App. Pun. 95) speaks of the triple land wall on the S., as where the Byrsa was upon the isthmus(ἔνθα καὶ ἡ Βύρσα ἦν ἐπὶ τοῦ αὐχένος), it may be doubted in which sense he uses the term; but, when he comes to describe the storming of the city (100.127, foil.), he gives us a minute description of the locality of the citadel.
Close to the harbours stood the Forum, from which three narrow streets of houses six stories high ascended to the Byrsa, which was by far the strongest position in the whole city. (Appian. Pun. 128.) There can be little doubt of its identity with the Hill of S. Louis, an eminence rising to the height of 188 Paris feet (about 200 English), and having its summit in the form of an almost regular plateau, sloping a little towards the sea. Its regularity suggests the probability of its being an artificial mound (probably about a natural core) formed of the earth dug up in excavating the harbours; a kind of work which we know to have been common among the old Semitic nations. (Barth, pp. 94, 123; comp. Strab. 9. p. 512.) The obvious objection, that it could not then be the post first occupied by the Phoenician colonists, Barth boldly and ingeniously meets by replying that it was not;that they would naturally establish themselves first on the lofty eminence of C. Carthage;and that, when they descended to the lower ground, there built their city, and excavated their port, and made a new citadel in its neighbourhood, they still applied to it the ancient name. The summit of the hill is now occupied by a chapel to the memory of S. Louis, the royal crusader who died in his expedition against Tunis;and, in the mutations of time, the citadel of Carthage has become a possession of the French! The chambers which surround the chapel contain an interesting museum of objects found at Carthage and among other ruins of Africa.
On the sides of the hill there are still traces of the ancient walls which enclosed the Byrsa and made it a distinct fortress, and which seem to have risen, terrace above terrace, like those of the citadel of Ecbatana. (Hdt. 1.98.) Orosius (Oros. 4.22) gives 2 M. P. for the circuit of the Byrsa, meaning, it is to be presumed, the base of the hill.
On the summit stood the temple of Aesculapius (Esmun), by far the richest in the city (Appian. Pun. 130), raised on a platform which was ascended by sixty steps, and probably resembling in its structure the temple of Belus at Babylon. (Hdt. 1.181; Barth, p. 95). It was in this temple that; the senate held in secret their most important meetings.
The Byrsa remained the citadel of Carthage in its later existence; and the temple of Aesculapius was restored by the Romans. (Appul. Florida, pp. 361, foll.) On it was the praetoriumof the proconsul of Africa, which became successively the palace of the Vandal kings and of the Byzantine governors. (Passio Cypriani, ap. Ruinart, Acta Martyrum, pp. 205, foll.; Barth, p. 96.)


5. Forum and Streets.
As we have just seen, the forum lay at the S. foot of the hill of Byrsa, adjacent to the harbours. It contained the senate house, the tribunal, and the temple of the god whom the Greeks and Romans call Apollo, whose golden image stood in a chapel overlaid with gold to the weight of 1000 talents. (Appian. Pun. 127). The three streets already mentioned as ascending from the forum to the Byrsa formed an important outwork to its fortifications; and Scipio had to storm them house by house. The centre street, which probably led straight up to the temple of Aesculapius, was called, in Roman Carthage, Via Salutaris.The other streets of the city seem to have been for the most part straight and regularly disposed at right angles. (Mai, Auct. Class. vol. 3. p. 387.)


6. Other Temples.
On the N. side of the Byrsa, on lower terraces of the hill, are the remains of two temples, which some take for those of Coelestis and Saturn; but the localities are doubtful. We know that the worship of both these deities was continued in the Roman city. (Barth, pp. 96—98.)


7. Baths.
On the W. and SW. side of the Byrsa are ruins of Baths, probably the Thermae Gargilianae, a locality famous in the ecclesiastical history of Carthage; of a spacious Circus, and of an Amphitheatre. (Barth, pp. 98—99.)


8. Aqueduct and Reservoirs
The great aqueduct, fifty miles long, by which Carthage was supplied with water from Jebel Zaghwan(see Map, p. 532), is supposed by some to be a work of the Punic age; but Barth believes it to be Roman. It is fully described by Shaw (p. 153) and Barth (pp. 100. foell.). The Reservoirsare among the most interesting remains of Carthage, especially on account of the peculiarly constructed vaulting which covers them. They are probably of Punic work-manship. Besides some smaller ones, there are two principal sets; those on the W. of the city, where the aqueduct terminated, and those on the S., near the Cothon. (Shaw; Barth.)


9. Theatre
Besides the above, there are ruins which seem to be those of a Theatre, and also the remains of a great building, apparently the largest in the city, which Barth conjectures to be the temple of Coelestis. These ruins consist, like the rest, only of broken foundations. (Barth, 105, 106.)


10. The Suburb of Megara, Magar, or Magalia,
afterwards considered as a quarter of the city, under the name of the New City (Νεάπολις), was surrounded by a wall of its own, and adorned with beautiful gardens, watered by canals. (Diod. 20.44; Appian. 8.117; Serv. ad Virg. Aen. 1.372; Isidor. Etym. 15.12.) It seems to have occupied the site on the NW. side of the peninsula, now called El-Mersa, and still the site of the beautiful gardens of the wealthy citizens of Tunis.


11. Necropolis.
From the few graves found in the rocky soil of the hill of C. Ghamart, it seems probable that here was the ancient necropolis, N. of the city, a position in which it is frequently, if not generally, found in other ancient cities. There is, however, some doubt on the matter, which the evidence is insufficient to decide. (Tertullian. Scorp. 42; Barth, p. 107.) PLAN OF CARTHAGE ACCORDING TO RITTER.B. BYRSA,the ancient Phoenician city.C. MEGARA afterwards CARTHAGO NOVA and MAGNA CARTHAGO,the Roman city.L. Lagoon, formerly an open bay of the sea, now partly firm land and partly a salt-marsh.G. Gulf of Tunis, now a lagoon, and much diminished.T. The city of TUNESM. The city of MAXULA a a. Carthaginian walls.b b. Roman walls.c. Outer harbour.d. Inner harbour and island.e. Scipio's mole.f. Taenia.g. Aqueduct.h. Portus Mandracius.1. The citadel (Byrsa) and temple of Aesculapius.2. Cothon.3. Forum and temple of Apollo.4. Other temples.5, 6. Reservoirs.
It has been already intimated that the views now stated are those only of one party among the geographers and scholars who have studied the topography of Carthage. Of their general correctness, we are more and more convinced; but it seems only fair to those who desire to pursue the subject further to exhibit the results of the opposite views, in the form of the above ground-plan, copied from the Atlas Antiquusof Spruner, who has taken it from the Erdkundeof Karl Ritter.
A very complete plan of the ruins in their present state, by Falbe, is given in the periodical entitled Ausland, for 1836, No. 122.


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