Rome and Carthage, the Punic wars

Front matter

* Ay o lo V.5 t • o.

* 1^ "^ •

TV < Jot t\>

Preface

The pages which follow are an abbreviation, specially authorized by me for Messrs. Scribner, of my larger work on *' Carthage and the Carthaginians." I have made no attempt to alter the language of the larger work, except where it appeared to me that I could alter it for the better. Indeed, any attempt to write down to the capacities of younger readers seems to me quite unnecessary in dealing with an *' epoch of history" which, in the unique interest and importance of its subject, and in the simple grandeur of its leading characters, appeals with almost equal force to young and old. And if I have been led to dwell at greater length, and with apparently more genuine enthusiasm, on the elements of greatness which are to be found in Carthage, and on the genius of her two greatest sons, than on the qualities of her successful rival, it is not

vii viii Preface.

because I would suggest any doubt that Rome was the fitter of the two for empire, or that her victory was on the whole the victory of progress and of civilization ; but because, owing to the conditions under which the history of Carthage has come down to us, and the distorted medium through which we must needs view it, it is, in my judgment, the proper business of the historian, so far as in him lies, to restore the balance Multitudinous voices of the past, of the present, and in a sense, even of the future, attest, in language that cannot be mistaken by anyone, the greatness of the "Eternal City;" but the mournful and solitary silence which weighs upon the traveller as he stands upon the deserted site of Carthage, while it attests how thoroughly the Romans carried out their hateful work of obliteration, calls upon him in tones which to him, at least, are equally unmistakable, to lay stress on what may be fairly said for the city and the civilization which have never spoken, and can now, unfortunately, no longer speak for themselves.

One chapter only of this volume seems to require special comment here. In the spring of 1877, afLer I had finished the first draft of my larger work, I was enabled to pay a visit to the site of Carthage and its neighbourhood. It was a short visit, but

Preface, ix

was full of deep and varied interest. It was my first sight of an eastern city, and it brought me for the first time into direct personal contact with that vast religious system which is one of the greatest facts of human history, and which from causes deep as human nature itself, seems destined, whatever the upshot of the present Eastern difficulties always to maintain its hold on the Eastern world. I was able several times to visit the site of the Phoenician city, and to study, as far as my limited time would permit me, on the spot those questions of its topography and history with the general bearings of which I had been so long familiar in books. I walked round the harbours of Carthage, bathed in water which half preserves and half conceals its ruins, explored the Byrsa and the cisterns, traced for many miles the course of the aqueduct, crossed the river Bagradas, and examined, amongst other spots renowned in ancient story, the site of the still more ancient city, the parent city of Utica. In the concluding chapter of this volume, I have endeavoured to gather up some of the impressions which I derived from these varied sights and scenes ; and I hope I have been able by these means, as well as by various touches which I have inserted subsequently in other portions of the book, to communicate to my readers in

X Preface.

America, what I think I gained for myself, a more '' vivid " mental picture of that ancient city whose chequered fortunes in connection with her great antagonist, I have endeavoured to relate.

The Knoll, Harrow,

December, 1880.

Chapter I. Carthage

FAGS

Characteristics of Phoenicians — Their defects — Size of their territory — Their relations to Israelites — Early commerce in Mediterranean — Pre eminence of Phoenicians — Origin of Carthage — its position and population — its relation to Sicily — Our knowledge of Carthage, whence derived — its early history — Rapid growth of its empire — Its dealings with the Native Africans — with the Phcenician cities in Africa — with Tyre — with Sicilian Greeks — Constitution of Carthage — The Suffetes — The Senate — Deterioration of constitution — The ''Hundred" Judges — Close oligarchy — ■ General contentment — Social life of Carthaginians — Their commercial principles — Their agriculture — Merits of Mago's work on Agriculture — Carthaginian religion — Worship of Baal-Moloch — of Tanith or Astarte — Inferior divinities — Worship of Melcarth — Carthaginian literature — The Army — The mercenaries and the Numidian Cavalry — Condition of the masses — Colonization — Periplus of Hanno — Disaffection of subject races — Was Rome or Carthage best fitted for empire ?.....!

Chapter II. Carthage And Rome

Rome and Carthage compared — Contrasted— Origin and growth of Rome — Constitutional progress — Military progress—Conquest of Etruscans - of Gauls — of Latins, B.C. 390 — of Samnites — Roman methods in war — War with Pyrrhus — Rome brought face to face with Carthage . 23

xi xii Co7ite7its.

Chapter III. First Punic War

MESS AN A AND AGRIGENTUM,

PAGB

Relations of Sicily to Carthage and Rome — Appeal of Mamertines for aid — The question at issue — Importance of the decision — Romans occupy Messana — They attack Syracuse — Results of first campaign — Romans ally themselves with Hiero — Carthaginians unprepared for war — Agrigentum — Its siege — Its fate .... 30

Chapter IV

FIRST ROMAN FLEET. BATTLES OF MYL.^ AND ECNOMUS.

Carthaginian naval supremacy — Roman naval affairs — Commercial treaties with Carthage — Difficulties of Romans — Want of ships of war — ^Want of sailors — The new fleet — Its first ventures — Naval science and tactics of the Ancients — The Corvus — Batde of Mylaa — Honours paid to Duillius — Egesta — The Romans attack Sardinia and Corsica — Energy of Carthaginians — Romans resolve to invade Africa — Enormous naval armaments — Route taken by the Romans — order of battle — Battle of Ecnomus . 39

Chapter V

INVASION OF AFRICA. REGULUS AND XANTHIPPUS. (256-250 B.C.)

Invasion of Africa — Romans overrun Carthaginian territory — Shortsightedness of Carthaginians — Changes necessary in Roman military system — Recall of Manlius — Victory of Regulus — Desperate plight of Carthaginians — Terms of

Contents. xiii

PAQff

peace rejected — Arrival of Xanthippus — He is given the command — His great victory near Adis — Joy of Carthaginians — Thank-offerings to Moloch — Departure of Xanthippus — The survivors at Clypea — Roman fleet destroyed in a storm — Carthaginian reinforcements for Sicily — Romans build a new fleet — Take Panormus — Second Roman fleet destroyed in a storm — Carthaginians threaten Panormus — Romans build a third fleet— Battle of Panormus — Part played by elephants in first Punic War Story of embassy and death of Regulus — How far true ? , .54

Chapter VI. Hamilcar Barca And The Siege Of Lilyb^um. (250-241 B.c.)

Fortresses remaining to Carthaginians in Sicily - Siege of Lilybaeum — Its origin and situation — Early siege operations — Carthaginians run the blockade — Hannibal the Rhodian — Carthaginian sortie — Distress of Romans — The Consul Claudius— Battle of Drepanum - Claudian family — Roman reinforcements for siege of Lilybaeum lost at sea — Romans seize Eryx — Hamilcar Barca — He occupies Mount Ercte — Exhaustion of Romans — Culpable conduct of Carthaginians — Genius of Hamilcar — His plans — His enterprises — He transfers his camp from Ercte to Eryx — Romans build one more fleet — Lutatius Catulus — The Carthaginian plan — Battle of ^gatian Isles — Magnanimity of Hamilcar — Terms of peace — Roman gains and losses — Carthaginian losses and prospects — Contests only deferred 74

Chapter VII. Hamilcar Barca And The Mercenary War. (241-238 B.c.)

Events between First and Second Punic War -Significance of Mercenary War — Weakness of Carthaginian Government xiv Contents.

PAGE

— Symptoms of mutiny — Revolt of mercenaries and native AMcans — Hanno and Hamilcar Barca — The Truceless War — Its atrocities and termination , . , ,96

Chapter VIII. Hamilcar Barca In Africa And Spain

Conduct of Romans during Mercenary War — They appropriate Sardinia and Corsica — Peace and war parties at Carthage — Hamilcar's command — He crosses to Spain — Advantages of his position there —His administration and death— His character — Administration of Hasdrubal— New Carthage founded — Early career of Hannibal — Remissness of Romans — Rising of Gauls in Italy — Its suppression — Hannibal besieges Saguntum — War declared between Rome and Carthage 102

Chapter IX. Second Punic War

PASSAGE OF THE RHONE AND THE ALPS, b. c. 218

Preparations of Hannibal — He determines to go by land — Numbers of his army — His march through Gaul — His passage of the Rhone — Vagueness of ancient writers in geographical matters — Passage over Alps selected by Hannibal — Route by which he approached it — The first ascent — Valley of the Is^re — The main ascent — The summit — Hannibal addresses his troops — The descent — Interest attaching to the passage of the Alps — Its cost and results —The " War of Hannibal" 114

Contents, xv

Chapter X. Battles Of Trebia And Trasimene

PAGE

P. Scipio returns from Italy to Gaul — Sempronius recalled from Sicily — Battle of the Ticinus — Hannibal crosses the Po — He is joined by the Gauls — Retreat of Scipio to the Trebia — Hannibal selects his ground and time — Battle of the Trebia- -Results of the victory — Hannibal crosses the Apennines — The marshes of the Arno — Position of the Roman armies — Flaminius and his antecedents — Despondency at Rome — Resolution of Flaminius — He follows Hannibal from Arretium — Livy and Polybius compared — Position chosen by Hannibal — Battle of the Trasimene lake —Death of Flaminius 126

Chapter XI. Hannibal Overruns Central Italy

News of the Trasimene defeat reaches Rome — Measures of the Roman Senate — Hannibal marches into Picenum — Sends despatches to Carthage — He arms his troops in the Roman fashion — Advance of the Dictator Fabius — His policy — Discontent of his troops — Hannibal ravages Samnium and Campania — Beauty and wealth of Campania — Continued inaction of Fabius — He tries to entrap Hannibal but fails — Minucius left in command — Is raised to equal rank with Fabius — Is saved from disaster by him — Services of Fabius to Rome. .... 142 xyi Contents.

Chapter XII

. BATTLE OF CANN^, CHARACTER OF HANNIBAL.

PAGE

Energy and spirit of the Romans — The rival armies face each other at Cannae — Nature of the ground — The double command of ^milius Paullus and Varro — Anxiety at Rome — Dispositions of Hannibal for the battle — Battle of Cannae —Number of the slain — Panic at Rome — Measures of the Senate — Course of the war — Was Hannibal right or wrong in not advancing on Rome now ? — Greatness of Hannibal and of Rome — Character and genius of Hannibal — His ascending series of successes — His influence over men — Sources of our knowledge of him — Charges against him— Roman feeling towards him — Change in character of war after Cannae. . 152

Chapter XIII

REVOLT OF CAPUA. SIEGE OF SYRACUSE.

Capua revolts — Marcellus — Hannibal winters at Capua — Latin colonies still true to Rome — Great exertions of Rome —Hannibal negotiates with Syracuse, Sardinia, and Macedon — His position at Tifata — Fabius and Marcellus Consuls — The tide turns against Hannibal — He gains possession of Tarentum — The war in Sicily — Importance of Syracuse— Its siege and capture — Its fate. . . 171

Chapter XIV. Siege Of Capua And Hannibals March On Rome

Importance of war in Spain— Successes and death of the two Scipios — Renewed activity of Hannibal —Siege of Capua — Hannibal attempts to relieve it — His march on Rome —

Contents. xvii

PAGE

Fate of Capua — Continued superiority of Hannibal in the field — Death of Marcellus — Influence of family traditions at Rome — Patriotism of Romans — Latin colonies show symptoms of exhaustion, 182

Chapter XV. Battle Of The Metaurus

The approach of Hasdrubal from Spain — His messengers fail to find Hannibal — Brilliant march of Nero— Battle of the Metaurus — Triumph and brutality of Nero . . . 193

Chapter XVI

Scipio in Spain — His early history — His character and influence — Made proconsul -Takes New Carthage Carthaginians finally driven out of Spain 199

Chapter XVII. The War In Africa; Battle Of Zama. (206-202 B.c.)

Scipio returns to Rome and is elected Consul — Receives leave to invade Africa — Goes to Sicily— His doings and difficulties there — Sails for Africa — Massinissa and Syphax — Roman ignorance of Carthage — The fall of Carthage, how far a matter of regret — Siege of Utica— Scipio's command longed — He burns the Carthaginian camps- — Sophonisba — The Carthaginian peace party — Sons of Hamilcar recalled to Africa — Mago obeys the summons — Hannibal obeys it — Joy in Italy — First operations of Hannibal in Africa — Battle of Zama — Dignity of Hannibal — Terms of peace-- Results of the war — Alternative policies open to

B xviii Contents.

Chapter XVIII. Carthage At The Mercy Of Rome

PAQB

Deterioration of Roman character — Condition of Italy — Condition of Rome— Condition of Roman provinces — Rapid conquest of the East — Reforms introduced by Hannibal at Carthage — Romans demand his surrender — His exile and wanderings — His schemes, his sufferings, and his death — Death of Scipio — Treatment of Carthage by Romans and Massinissa 229

Chapter XIX. Destruction Of Carthage. (149-146 B.c.)

Topography of Carthage — Causes of its obscurity — Changes made by nature and man —The peninsula — The fortifications — The Taenia — The harbours — Resolve of Rome respecting Carthage — Treachery of Romans— Scene at Utica — Scene at Carthage — The Roman attack fails — Repeated failures and losses— Scipio ^milianus — His character and connections — He takes the Megara — Siege of the city proper — Scipio's mole and the new outlet — Contradictions in Carthaginian character — Scipio attacks the harbour quarter — He takes Nepheris — The final assault — The three streets — The Byrsa — Fate of the city and its inhabitants — Curse of Scipio — Unique character of the fall of Carthage — Its consequences — Subsequent cities on its site — Final destruction by the Arabs .... 239

Contents.

Chapter XX. Carthage As It Is

FAGB

Interest of a visit to Carthage — Nature of impressions thence derived — Its topography — The Goletta and the Taenia — Djebel Khawi and the Necropohs — Sanctity of burying-place among Semitic races — Ras Sidi Bu Said and its sanctity — Scene of misadventure of Mancinus — Hill of St. Louis the ancient Byrsa — Gulf of Tunis and Peninsula of the Dakhla — Lake of Tunis and plain of Carthage — ■ The aqueduct — Utica — Obliteration of Punic City — The "smaller cisterns" — The larger cisterns — Excavations of Dr. Davis —Excavations of M. Beule — Remains of ancient harbours — Buildings beneath the sea — Oriental character of Tunis — The neighbourhood of Tunis — Characteristics of the Arab — Conclusion 263

MAPS.

PAGE

^ The Carthaginian Empire and Dependencies . . 9 Sicily, to illustrate the First Punic War . . 30

Battle of Ecxomus . . 51

Italy, TO illustrate THE Second Punic War . . 114

Battle of Trebia 131

Battle of Trasimene 139

Battle of Cann^ 159

Carthage and its Neighbourhood .... 239 Plan of Harbours at Carthage 243

ROME AND CARTHAGE: THE PUNIC WARS.

Chapter I. Carthage

It was well for the development and civilization of the ancient world that the Hebrew fugitives from Egypt were not able to drive at once from the whole ^,

Characteris-

coast of Syria its old inhabitants ; for the tics of the

, /• .1 /- -J. -u r Phoenicians.

accursed race of the Canaanites whom, tor their licentious worship and cruel rites, they were bidden to extirpate from Palestine itself, were no other than those enterprizing mariners and those dauntless colonists who, sallying from their narrow roadsteads, committed their fragile barks to the mercy of unknown seas, and, under their Greek name of Phoenicians, explored island and promonotory, creek and bay, from the coast of Malabar even to the lagunes of the Baltic. From Tyre and Sidon issued those busy merchants who carried, with their wares, to distant shores the rudiments of science and of many practical arts which they had obtained from the far East, and which, probably, they but half understood themselves. It was they who, at a period antecedent to all contemporary historical records, introduced written characters, the foundation of all high intellectual development, into that country which was destined to carry intellectual and artistic culture to the highest point which humanity has yet reached. It was they who learned to steer their ships by the sure help of the Polar Star, while the Greeks still depended on the Great Bear ; it was they who rounded the Cape of Storms, and earned the best right to call it the Cape of Good Hope, 2,000 years before Vasco de Gama. Their ships returned to their native shores bringing with them sandal wood from Malabar, spices from Arabia, fine linen from Egypt, ostrich plumes from the Sahara. Cyprus gave them its copper, Elba its iron, the coast of the Black Sea its manufactured steel. Silver they brought from Spain, gold from the Niger, tin from the Sicily Isles, and amber from the Baltic. Where they sailed, there they planted factories which opened a caravan trade with the interior of vast continents hitherto regarded as inaccessible, and which became inaccessible for centuries again when the Phoenicians disappeared from history. They were as famous for their artistic skill as for their enterprize and energy. Did the greatest of the Jewish kings desire to adorn the Temple which he had erected to the Most High in the manner least unworthy of Him ? A Phoenician king must supply him with the well-hewn cedars of his stately Lebanon, and the cunning hand of a Phoenician artisan must shape the pillars and the lavers, the oxen and the lions of brass, which decorated the shrine. Did the King of Persia himself, in the intoxication of his pride, command miracles to be performed, boisterous straits to

The Phoenicians and their Territory, 3

be bridged, or a peninsula to become an island ? It was Phoenician architects who lashed together the boats that were to connect Asia with Europe, and it was Phoenician workmen who knew best how to economize their toil in digging the canal that was to transport the fleet of Xerxes through dry land, and save it from the winds and waves of Mount Athos. The merchants of Tyre were, in truth, the princes, and her traffickers the honourable men, of the earth. Wherever a ship could penetrate, a factory be planted, a trade developed or created, there we find these ubiquitous, these irrepressible Phoenicians.

We know well what the tiny territory of Palestine has done for the religion of the world, and what the tiny Greece has done for its intellect and its art ; but we are apt to forget that what the Phoeni- Size of their

^ ° territory.

cians did for the development and intercommunication of the world was achieved by a state confined within narrower boundaries still. In the days of their greatest prosperity, when their ships were to be found on every known and on many unknown seas, the Phoenicians proper of the Syrian coast remained content with a narrow strip of fertile territory, squeezed in between the mountains and the sea, of the length of some thirty and of the average breadth of only a single mile ! And if the existence of a few settlements beyond these limits entitles us to extend the name of Phoenicia to some 120 miles of coast, with a plain behind it which sometimes broadened out into a sweep of a dozen miles, was it not sound policy, even in a community so enlarged, to keep for themselves the gold they had so hardly won, rather than lavish it on foreign mercenaries in the hope of extending their sway inland, or in the vain attempt to resist by force of arms the mighty monarchs of Egypt, of Assyria, or of Babylon ? Their strength was to sit still, to acknowledge the titular supremacy of anyone who chose to claim it, and then, when the time came, to buy the intruder off.

The land-locked sea, the eastern extremity of which

washes the shores of Phoenicia proper, connecting as it

does three continents, and abounding in

Extent of their , ,- . _ , , , . ^ .,

commerce and deep guiis, m fine harbours, and m fertile colonization, jgiands, sccms to have been intended by Nature for the early development of commerce and colonization. By robbing the ocean of half its mystery and of more than half its terrors, it allured the timid mariner, even as the eagle does its young, from headland on to headland, or from islet to islet, till it became the highway of the nations of the ancient world ; and the products of each of the countries whose shores it laves became the common property of all.

But in this general race of enterprise and commerce among the nations which bordered on the Mediterranean, it is to the Phoenicians that unquestionably belongs the foremost place. In the dimmest dawn of history, many centuries before the Greeks had set foot in Asia Minor or in Italy, before even they had settled down in secure possession of their own territories, we hear of Phoenician settlements in Asia Minor and in Greece itself, in Africa, in Macedon, and in Spain. There is hardly an island in the Mediterranean which has not preserved some traces of these early visitors : Cyprus, Rhodes, and Crete in the Levant ; Malta, Sicily, and the Balearic Isles in the middle passage ; Sardinia and Corsica in the Tyrrhenian Sea ; the Cyclades, as Thucydides tells us in the mid-^gean ; and even Samothrace and Thasos at its northern extremity, where Herodotus, to use his own forcible expression, himself saw a whole

Rise of Carthage. 5

mountain " turned upside down " by their mining energy ; all have either yielded Phoenician coins and inscriptions, have retained Phoenician proper names and legends, or possess mines, long, perhaps, disused, but which were worked as none but Phoenicians ever worked them.

And among the Phoenician factories which dotted the whole southern shore of the Mediterranean, from the east end of the greater Syrtis even to the Pillars of Hercules, there was one which, from a They found

' Carthage.

concurrence of circumstances, was destined rapidly to outstrip all the others, to make herself their acknowledged head, to become the Queen of the Mediterranean, and, in some sense, of the Ocean beyond, and, for a space of over a hundred years, to maintain a deadly and not unequal contest with the future mistress of the world. The history of that great drama, its antecedents, and its consequences, forms the subject of this volume.

The rising African factory was known to its inhabitants by the name of Kirjath-Hadeschath, or New Town, to distinguish it from the much older settle-

r TT • r 1 • 1 • Position, t< po-

ment of Utica, of which it may have been, graphy, and to some extent, an offshoot. The Greeks, p°P"^^"°"- when they came to know of its existence, called it Karchedon, and the Romans, Carthago. The date of its foundation is uncertain ; but the current tradition refers it to a period about a hundred years before the founding of Rome. The fortress that was to protect the young settlement was built upon a peninsula projecting eastwards from the inner corner of what is now called the Gulf of Tunis, the largest and most beautiful roadstead of the North African coast. The topography of Carthage will be described in detail at a later period of this history. At present it will be sufficient to remark that the city

Rome and Cariha^g.

proper, at the time at which it is best known to us, the period of the Punic wars, consisted of the Byrsa or Citadel quarter, a Greek word corrupted from the Canaanitish Bozra, or Bostra, that is, a fort, and of the Cothon, or harbour quarter, so important in the history of the final siege. To the north and west of these, and occupying all the vast space between them and the isthmus behind, were the Megara (Hebrew, Magurim), that is, the suburbs and gardens of Carthage, which, with the city proper, covered an area twenty-three miles in circumference. Its population must have been fully proportionate to its size. Just before the third Punic war, when its strength had been drained by the two long wars with Rome and by the incessant depredations of that chartered brigand Massinissa, it contained 700,000 inhabitants, and towards the close of the final siege the Byrsa alone was able to give shelter to a motley multitude of 50,000 men, women, and children.

Facing the Hermaean promontory (Cape Bon), the north-eastern horn of the Gulf of Tunis, at a distance of

only ninety miles, was the Island of Sicily, Its relation which, as a glance at the map, and as the

sunken ridge extending from one to the other still clearly show, must have once actually united Europe to Africa. This fair island it was which, crowded, even in those early days, with Phoenician factories, seemed to beckon the chief of Phoenician cities onwards towards an easy and a natural field of foreign conquest. This it was which proved to be the apple of fierce discord for centuries between Carthage and the Greek colonies, which soon disputed its possession with her. This, in an ever chequered warfare, and at the cost of torrents of the blood of her mercenaries, and of untold treasures of her citizens, enriched Carthage with the

Few Records of Carthage. , 7

most splendid trophies — stolen trophies though they were — of Greek art. ThiSj^finally, was the chief battle-field of the contending forces during the whole of the first Punic war — in the beginning that is, of her fierce struggle for existence with all the power of Rome.

Such, very briefly, was the city, and such the race whose varied fortunes, so far as our fragmentary materials allow us, we are about to trace. What were the causes of the rapid rise of Carthage ; what was the extent of her African and her foreign dominions, and the nature of her hold upon them ; what were the peculiar excellences and defects of her internal of^Caitha-^ constitution, and what the principles on fo^ds" '^^' which she traded and colonized, conquered and ruled ; — to these and other questions some answer must be given, as a necessary preliminary to that part of her history which alone we can trace consecutively. Some answer we must give; but how are we to give it.'' No native poet, whose writings have come down to us, has sung of the origin of Carthage, or of her romantic voyages ; no native orator has described, in glowing periods which we can still read, the splendour of her buildings and the opulence of her merchant princes. No native annalist has preserved the story of her long rivalry with Greeks and Etruscans, and no African philosopher has moralized upon the stability of her institutions or the causes of her fall. All have perished. The text of three treaties with Rome, made in the days of her prosperity ; the log-book of an adventurous Carthaginian admiral, dedicated on his return from the Senegal or the Niger as a votive offering in the temple of Baal ; some fragments of the practical precepts of a Carthaginian agriculturist, translated by the order of the utilitarian Roman Senate ; a speech or two of a vagaboiid

Carthaginian in the Paenulus of Plautus, which has been grievously mutilated in the process of transcribing it into Roman letters ; a few Punic inscriptions buried twentyfeet below the surface of the ground, entombed and preserved by successive Roman, and Vandal, and Arab devastations, and now at length revealed and deciphered by the efforts of French and English archaeologists ; the massive substructions of ancient temples ; the enormous reservoirs of water ; and the majestic procession of stately aqueducts which no barbarism has been able to destroy — these are the only native or seminative sources from which we can draw the outlines of our picture, and we must eke out our narrative of Carthage in the days of her prosperity, as best we may, from a few chapters of reflections by the greatest of the Greek philosophers, from the late Roman annalists who saw everything with Roman eyes, and from a few but precious antiquarian remarks in the narrative of the great Greek historian, Polybius, who, with all his love of truth and love of justice, saw Carthage only at the moment of her fall, and was the bosom friend of her destroyer.

In her origin, at least, Carthage seems to have been like other Phoenician settlements, a mere commercial factory. Her inhabitants cultivated friendly Carthaginian relations with the natives, looked upon the'weT-''' themselves as tenants at will rather than as tern Medi- owncrs of the soil, and, as such, cheerfully

terranean. ^

paid a rent to the African Berbers for the ground covered by their dwellings. It was the instinct of self-preservation alone which dictated a change of policy, and transformed this peace-loving mercantile community into the warlike and conquering state, of which the whole of the Western Mediterranean was so