For, says this author, a man possessed but of one employment is much more capable of acquitting himself well in the execution of it; because affairs are then examined with greater care, and sooner despatched. We never see, continues our author, either by sea or land, the same officer commanding two different bodies, or the same pilot steering two ships. Besides, the welfare of the state requires, that places and preferments should be divided, in order to excite an emulation among men of merit: whereas the bestowing of them on one man too often dazzles him by so distinguishing a preference, and always fills others with jealousy, discontent, and murmurs.

The second defect taken notice of by Aristotle in the government of Carthage, was, that in order for a man to attain the first posts, a certain estate was required, besides merit and a conspicuous birth; by which means poverty might exclude persons of the most exalted merit, which he considers as a great evil in a government. For then, says he, as virtue is wholly disregarded, and money is all-powerful, because all things are attained by it, the admiration and desire of riches seize and corrupt the whole community. Add to this, that when magistrates and judges are obliged to pay large sums for their employments, they seem to have a right to reimburse themselves.

There is not, I believe, one instance in all antiquity, to show that employments, either in the state or the courts of justice, were sold. The expense, therefore, which Aristotle talks of here, to raise men to preferments in Car thage, must doubtless be understood of the presents that were given, in order to procure the votes of the electors: a practice, as Polybius observes, very common at Carthage, where no kind of gain was considered a disgrace.* It is therefore no wonder, that Aristotle should condemn a practice, which it is very plain may in its consequences prove fatal to a government.

But in case he pretended, that the chief employments of a state ought to be equally accessible to the rich and the poor, as he seems to insinuate, his opinion is refuted by the general practice of the wisest republics; for these, without in any way demeaning or aspersing poverty, have thought, that on this occasion the preference ought to be given to riches; because it is to be presumed, that the wealthy have received a better education, have nobler views, are more out of the reach of corruption, and less liable to commit base actions; and that even the state of their affairs makes them more affectionate to the government, inclines them to maintain peace and order in it, and to suppress whatever may tend to sedition and rebellion.

Aristotle, in concluding his reflections on the republic of Carthage, is much pleased with a custom practised in it, viz. of sending from time to time colonies into different countries, and in this manner procuring its citizens commodious settlements. This provided for the necessities of the poor, who, equally with the rich, are members of the state; and it discharged Carthage of mul titudes of lazy, indolent people, who were its disgrace, and often proved dangerous to it it prevented commotions and insurrections, by thus removing such persons as commonly occasion them; and who, being very uneasy under their present circumstances, are always ready for innovations and tumults.

SECTION IV.

TRADE OF CARTHAGE, THE FIRST SOURCE OF ITS WEALTH AND POWER.

COMMERCE, strictly speaking, was the occupation of Carthage, the particular object of its industry, and its peculiar and predominant characteristic. It formed the greatest strength, and the chief support of that commonwealth. In a word, we may affirm that the power, the conquests, the credit, and the glory of the Carthaginians, all flowed from their commerce. Situated in the centre of the Mediterranean, and stretching out their arms eastward and westward,

* Παρά Καρχηδονίοις. ἐδὲν αἰσχρὸν τῶν ἀνηκόντων προς κέρδος. Polyb. l. vi. p. 49%.

the extent of their commerce took in all the known world; and wafted it to the coast of Spain, of Mauritania, of Gaul, and beyond the strait and pillars of Hercules. They sailed to all countries, in order to buy, at a cheap rate, the superfluities of every nation, which, by the wants of others, became necessaries, and these they sold to them at the dearest rate. From Egypt the Carthaginians brought fine flax, paper, corn, sails, and cables for ships; from the coast of the Red Sea, spices, frankincense, perfumes, gold, pearl, and precious stones; from Tyre and Phoenicia, purple and scarlet, rich stuffs, tapestry, costly furniture, and divers curious and exquisite works of art; in a word, they brought from various countries, all things that can supply the necessities, or are capable of contributing to the comfort, luxury, and the delights of life. They brought back from the western parts of the world, in return for the commodities carried thither, iron, tin, lead, and copper: by the sale of which articles, they enriched themselves at the expense of all nations; and put them under a kind of contribution, which was so much the surer, as it was spontaneous. In thus becoming the factors and agents of all nations, they had made themselves lords of the sea; the band which held the east, the west, and south together, and the necessary channel of their communication; so that Carthage rose to be the common city, and the centre of the trade of all those nations which the sea separated from one another.

The most considerable personages of the city were not ashamed of engaging in trade. They applied themselves to it as industriously as the meanest citi zens; and their great wealth did not make them less in love with the diligence, patience, and labour, which are necessary for the acquisition of it. To this they owed their empire of the sea; the splendour of their republic; their being able to dispute for superiority with Rome itself; and their elevation of power, which forced the Romans to carry on a bloody and doubtful war for upwards of forty years, in order to humble and subdue this haughty rival. In short, Rome, even in its triumphant state, thought Carthage was not to be entirely reduced any other way than by depriving that city of the benefit of its commerce, by which it had been so long enabled to resist the whole strength. of that mighty republic.

However, it is no wonder that, as Carthage came in a manner out of the greatest school of traffic in the world, I mean Tyre, she should have been crowned with such rapid and uninterrupted success. The very vessels in which its founders had been conveyed into Africa, were afterwards employed by them in their trade. They began to make settlements upon the coasts of Spain, in those ports where they unloaded their goods. The ease with which they had founded these settlements, and the conveniences they met with, inspired them with the design of conquering those vast regions; and sometime after, Nova Carthago, or New Carthage, gave the Carthaginians an empire in that country, almost equal to that which they enjoyed in Africa

SECTION V.

THE MINES OF SPAIN, THE SECOND SOURCE OF THE RICHES AND POWER OF CARTHAGE.

DIODORUS* justly remarks that the gold and silver mines, found by the Carthaginians in Spain, were an inexhaustible fund of wealth, that enabled them to sustain such long wars against the Romans. The natives had long been ignorant of these treasures that lay concealed in the bowels of the earth, at least of their use and value. The Phoenicians took advantage of this ignorance, and by bartering some wares of little value for this precious metal, which the natives suffered them to dig up, they amassed infinite wealth.

Lib. iv. p. 312, &c.

When the Carthaginians had made themselves masters of the country, they dug much deeper into the earth than the old inhabitants of Spain had done, who probably were content with what they could collect on the surface; and the Romans, when they had dispossessed the Carthaginians of Spain, profited by their example, and drew an immense revenue from these mines of gold and silver.

The labour employed to come at these mines, and to dig the gold and silver out of them, was incredible, for the veins of these metals rarely appeared on the surface; they were to be sought for, and traced through frightful depths, where very often floods of water stopped the miners, and seemed to defeat alí future pursuits. But avarice is as patient in undergoing fatigues, as ingenious in finding expedients. By pumps, which Archimedes had invented when in Egypt, the Romans afterwards threw up the water out of these pits, and quite drained them. Numberless multitudes of slaves perished in these mines, which were dug to enrich their masters, who treated them with the utmost barbarity, forced them by heavy stripes to labour, and gave them no respite either day or night. Polybius,† as quoted by Strabo, says, that in his time, upwards of forty-thousand men were employed in the mines near Nova Car thago, and furnished the Romans every day with twenty-five thousand drachms, or three thousand eight hundred and fifteen dollars and sixty-three cents.

We must not be surprised to see the Carthaginians, soon after the greatest defeats, sending fresh and numerous armies again into the field; fitting out mighty fleets, and supporting, at a great expense, for many years, wars carried on by them in far distant countries. But it must surprise us to hear of the Romans doing the same; they whose revenues were very inconsiderable before those great conquests, which subjected to them the most powerful nations; and who had no resources, either from trade, to which they were absolute strangers, or from gold or silver mines, which were very rarely found in Italy, in case there were any; and consequently, the expenses of which must have swallowed up all the profit. The Romans, in the frugal and simple life they led, in their zeal for the public welfare and love for their country, possessed funds which were not less ready or secure than those of Carthage, but, at the same time were far more honourable to their nation.

SECTION VI

WAR.

CARTHAGE must be considered as a trading, and at the same time a warlike republic. Its genius, and the nature of its government, led it to traffic; and from the necessity the Carthaginians were under, first of defending themselves against the neighbouring nations, and afterwards from a desire of extending their commerce and empire, they became warlike. This double idea gives us, in my opinion, the true plan and character of the Carthaginian republic. We have already spoken of its commerce.

The military power of the Carthaginians consisted in their alliances with kings; in tributary nations, from which they drew both men and money; in some troops raised from among their own citizens; and in mercenary soldiers, purchased of neighbouring states, without their being obliged to levy or exercise them, because they were already well disciplined and inured to the fatigues of war; for they made choice, in every country, of such soldiers as had the greatest merit and reputation. They drew from Numidia a nimble, bold, impetuous and indefatigable cavalry, which formed the principal strength of

*Lib. iv. p. 312, &c.

† Lib. iii. p. 147. Twenty-five thousand drachms.-An attic drachm, according to Dr. Bernard=84d. English money consequently, 25,000=8594 7s. 6d.

their armies; from the Balearian isles, the most expert slingers in the world; from Spain, a steady and invincible infantry; from the coasts of Genoa and Gaul, troops of known valour; and from Greece itself, soldiers fit for all the various operations of war, for the field or the garrison, for besieging or defending cities.

In this manner, the Carthaginians sent out at once powerful armies composed of soldiers which were the flower of all the armies in the universe, without depopulating either their fields or cities by new levies; without suspending their manufactures, or disturbing the peaceful artificer; without interrupting their commerce, or weakening their navy. By venal blood they possessed themselves of provinces and kingdoms; and made other nations the instruments of their grandeur and glory, with no other expense of their own than their money, and even this furnished from the traffic they carried on with foreign nations.

If the Carthaginians, in the course of the war, sustained some losses, these were but as so many foreign accidents, which only grazed, as it were, the body of the state, but did not make a deep wound in the bowels or heart of the republic. These losses were speedily repaired, by sums arising out of a flourishing commerce, as from a perpetual sinew of war, by which the government was furnished with new supplies for the purchase of mercenary forces, who were ready at the first summons. And, from the vast extent of the coasts which the Carthaginians possessed, it was easy for them to levy, in a very little time, a sufficient number of sailors and rowers for the working of their fleets, and to procure able pilots and experienced captains to conduct them. But, as these parts were fortuitously brought together, they did not adhere by any natural, intimate, or necessary tie. No common and reciprocal interest united them in such a manner as to form a solid and unalterable body. Not one individual in these mercenary armies wished sincerely the prosperity of the state. They did not act with the same zeal, nor expose themselves to dangers with equal resolution, for a republic which they considered as foreign, and which consequently was indifferent to them, as they would have done for their native country, whose happiness constitutes that of the several members who compose it.

In great reverses of fortune, the kings in alliance with the Carthaginians might easily be detached from their interest, either by that jealousy which the grandeur of a more powerful neighbour naturally gives; or from the hopes of reaping greater advantages from a new friend; or from the fear of being involved in the misfortunes of an old ally.*

The tributary nations, being impatient under the weight and disgrace of a yoke which had been forced upon their necks, greatly flattered themselves with the hopes of finding one less galling in changing their masters; or, in case servitude was unavoidable, the choice was indifferent to them, as will appear from many instances in the course of this history.

The mercenary forces, accustomed to measure their fidelity by the largeness or continuance of their pay, were ever ready, on the least discontent, or the slightest expectation of a more considerable stipend, to desert to the enemy with whom they had just before fought, and to turn their arms against those who had invited them to their assistance.

Thus the grandeur of the Carthaginians, being sustained only by these foreign supports, was shaken to the very foundation when they were taken away. And if, to this, there happened to be added an interruption of their commerce, by which only they subsisted, arising from the loss of a naval engagement, they imagined themselves to be on the brink of ruin, and abandoned themselves to despondency and despair, as was evidently seen at the end of the first Punic war.

Aristotle, in the treatise where he shows the advantages and defects of the government of Carthage, finds no fault with its keeping up none but foreign As Syphax and Masinissa.

forces; it is therefore probable, that the Carthaginians did not fall into this practice till a long time after. But the rebellions which harassed Carthage in its later years ought to have taught its citizens, that no miseries are comparble to those of a government which is supported only by foreigners; since neither zeal, security, nor obedience, can be expected from them.

But this was not the case with the republic of Rome. As the Romans had neither trade nor money, they were not able to hire forces, in order to push on their conquests with the same rapidity as the Carthaginians: but then, as they procured every thing from within themselves, and as all the parts of the state were intimately united, they had surer resources in great misfortunes than the Carthaginians. And for this reason, they never once thought of suing for peace after the battle of Cannæ, as the Carthaginians had done in a less imminent danger.

The Carthaginians had, besides, a body of troops, which was not very numerous, levied from among their own citizens; and this was a kind of school, in which the flower of their nobility, and those whose talents and ambition prompted them to aspire to the first dignities,learned the rudiments of the art of war. From among these were selected all the general officers, who were put at the head of the different bodies of their forces, and had the chief command in the armies. This nation was too jealous and suspicious to employ foreign generals. But they were not so distrustful of their own citizens as Rome and Athens; for the Carthaginians, at the same time that they invested them with great power, did not guard against the abuse they might make of it, in order to oppress their country. The command of armies was neither annual, nor limited to any time, as in the two republics above mentioned. Many generals held their commissions for a great number of years, either till the war or their lives ended; though they were still accountable to the commonwealth for their conduct, and liable to be recalled, whenever a real oversight, a misfortune, or the superior interest of a cabal, furnished an opportunity for it.

SECTION VII.

ARTS AND SCIENCES.

It cannot be said that the Carthaginians renounced entirely the glory which results from study and knowledge. The sending of Masinissa, son of a powerful king,* thither for education, gives us room to believe, that Carthage was provided with an excellent school. The great Hannibal, who in all respects was an ornament to that city, was not unacquainted with polite literature, as will be seen hereafter. Mago, another very celebrated general, did as much honour to Carthage by his pen as by his victories. He wrote twenty-eight volumes upon husbandry, which the Roman senate had in such esteem, that after the taking of Carthage, when they presented the African princes with the libraries founded there, another proof that learning was not entirely banished from Carthage, they gave orders to have these books translated into Latin, though Cato had before written books on that subject. There is still extant a Greek version of a treatise, drawn up by Hanno in the Punic tongue, relating to a voyage he made, by order of the senate, with a considerable fleet, round Africa, for the settling of different colonies in that part of the world.|| This Hanno is believed to be more ancient than that person of the same name who lived in the time of Agathocles.

Clitomachus, called in the Punic language Asdrubal, was a great philosopher. T He succeeded the famous Carneades, whose disiciple he had been; and main

*King of the Massylians in Africa.

† Nepos in vitâ Annibalis.

Cic. de Orat. 1. i. n. 249. Plin. 1. xvii c. 3. These books were written by Mago in the Punic language, and translated into Greek by Cassius Dio nysius of Utica, from whose version we may probably suppose the Latin was made.

Voss. de Hist. Gr. 1. iv.

Plut. de Fort. Alex. p. 328. Diog. Laêrt. in Clitom.