senate possessed greater authority, and the commons were a recognised body in the state. Carthage did not become remarkable in history until it had "touched the highest point of all its greatness," and made the fatal change in its policy which led to its ruin. At first the Carthaginians sought only commercial intercourse with the surrounding nations; but in order to prevent the rivalry of the Greek colonies, they began to aim at territorial aggrandizement, and they particularly courted the possession of Sicily and the islands in the western Mediterranean. Hence arose the necessity for employing mercenary troops, not only during war, but as garrisons in time of peace; and hence also came the ambition of military chiefs to become dictators in the republic. "A Carthaginian army," says Heeren, " would have been a more interesting spectacle for one who desired to study the human species than for any information it afforded respecting military tactics. It was an assemblage of the most opposite races of the human species, from the farthest parts of the globe. Hordes of half-naked Gauls were ranged next to companies of white-clothed Iberians, and savage Ligurians next to the far-travelled Nasamones and Lotophagi; Carthaginians and Phoenici-Africans occupied the centre ; while innumerable troops of Numidian horsemen, taken from all the tribes of the Desert, swarmed around upon unsaddled horses, and composed the wings; the van was composed of Balearic slingers; and a line of colossal elephants, with their Ethiopian guides, formed, as it were, a chain of moving fortresses before the whole army. . . . Almost half Africa and Europe were in the pay of this rich republic.”’* * Heeren's African Nations, i. 251. The advantages of such a system are few: the chief was, that foreign defeats scarcely inflicted any injury on Carthage beyond pecuniary loss. Two remarkable incidents show that the lives of the mercenaries were lightly esteemed by the republic; a band of them which had begun to mutiny, was unscrupulously left on one of the Lipari islands to perish by famine, and when Hamilcar was forced to enter into a treaty, he only stipulated for the lives of the Carthaginian citizens, and abandoned the rest of his forces to their fate. But there was just as little real attachment on the part of the mercenaries towards the republic. They were faithful so long as they could get better pay nowhere else, and not a moment longer. Carthage was more than once in danger of destruction from the mutinous mercenaries when their pay was in arrear. It was no easy matter to collect such an army; it was difficult to manage it when assembled, for the great diversity of languages was a constant source of confusion; and when the services of the soldiers were no longer required, it was found a perilous experiment to dismiss them. When the Carthaginians resolved to have provinces instead of factories, and garrisons instead of colonies, it was necessary to have a large force to keep possession of the conquered lands. But the military occupation of a country is very expensive, and it often happens that the revenues of a province will not defray the expenses of its garrisons. The Carthaginian possessions in Sicily never paid the cost of their occupation, much less of their conquest. Countries held by the tenure of military occupation, are always misgoverned; and those belonging to a commercial state are generally the worst treated of all, for they are regarded as a kind of commodities from which the owners have a right to derive the greatest possible profit. The history of every East India Company that has had possessions beyond the Cape, but more particularly that of the Dutch, shows how systematically the rights of the natives are sacrificed to the thirst for gain by merchant-princes. The constitutional freedom enjoyed by the Carthaginians themselves, was far from teaching them a regard for the rights and privileges of others; it was long ago remarked, that where the free man was the greatest of freemen, the slave was the greatest of slaves. In the United States, at the present hour, slavery is advocated most strenuously by those who support the very extreme of democratic opinions. The provincials were therefore always disaffected to the Carthaginians, and the state scarcely ever suffered any severe disaster abroad that was not immediately aggravated by revolt at home. From the time that a nation of merchants becomes a nation of princes, and exchanges commercial pursuits for territorial possessions, it abandons its proper strength for alien weakness, and fixes the limits of its own duration. Military chiefs in a commercial state are always dangerous to its liberties: the constitution of Carthage was frequently on the point of being overthrown by its generals; it was for this reason that the centumvirate was instituted—a council consisting of one hundred men, the business of which was to superintend the conduct of the generals, and place a check to their ambition. But this institution could not remedy the evil; for to the very end of the republic, a successful warrior might engross the entire authority of the state, by procuring an accumulation of offices in his own person. A general may assume illegal and even tyrannical power without formally taking the title of monarch. Hamilcar Barca, after having subdued a rebellion in Africa, led his army into Spain without waiting for authority or permission, and by his acquisitions in that country, the Peru of the ancient world, obtained sufficient influence to undermine the constitution without formally overthrowing it. His bribes, which the treasures of Spain amply supplied, enabled him to procure the support of a strong faction among the people and in the senate, while his conquests gratified the passion for territorial acquisitions which was then popular among the Carthaginians. His son-in-law, Aschubal, continued the same course of policy; and when, on his death, an attempt was made to bring to trial those who had taken bribes from Hamilcar and Aschubal, Hannibal, the son of the former, precipitated the war against Rome, to divert public attention from the inquiry. During the whole of the second Punic war, a strong party in the Carthaginian senate deprecated the continuance of hostilities, and looked upon the victories at the Ticinus, Thrasymené and Cannæ as barren triumphs. The difference between the two parties in the contest is very striking: Rome was not in danger, though Hannibal remained several years in Italy; Carthage was in imminent peril, the very moment that Scipio effected a landing in Africa: repeated defeats did not force the Romans to submission; the single overthrow at Zama compelled the Carthaginians to yield almost at discretion. It is therefore not quite just to regard the motives of those who opposed Hannibal, as purely selfish and factious; they felt that wars on land and conquests of provinces were unsuited to a commercial people, and the event proved that they were right in their opinions. A manifest injury arising from these territorial con- 8 quests and victories on land, was, that maritime affairs were neglected. We can trace the gradual decline of Carthage as a naval power from the time that an attempt was made to effect the conquest of Sicily. Ever afterwards the army was regarded as of more importance than the navy; and no stronger proof can be given of the neglect of the maritime forces of the republic, than that Scipio transported his army into Africa without meeting a single vessel of war to interrupt his progress. The spirit of party and faction scarcely appeared in Carthage until after the republic had yielded to the heat of conquest and the passion for territorial aggrandizement-soldiers and merchants are not very harmonious elements in a state: the war which the former desires as his only chance of rising in the world, is fatal to the commerce of the latter; it closes markets against his commodities, and it subjects trade to the heavy pressure of taxation. The wealthy aristocracy of Carthage opposed the war with Rome, but the wealth which the Barcine family acquired in Spain, enabled them to overcome all opposition. Still the strength of Carthage in the war depended merely on its mercenaries and its money—it was founded on sand and gold-dust; when the tide of fortune turned, both were swept away. The fate of Carthage was sealed at the close of the second Punic war: the commerce which the citizens had abandoned for the possession of provinces and the barren laurels of military triumph, never returned to its former channels; the provincials whom they had oppressed during the era of their greatness, sought revenge in their destruction; and the mercenaries no longer receiving pay, aban. doned them to their fate. Never did any country more fatally exhibit the ruinous |