Hannibal is made pretor of Carthage, and reforms the courts 193 Hannibal retires to king Antiochus, whom he advises to carry PAGE 306 308 309 Interview of Hannibal and Villius at Ephesus.... ... 311 313 170 The Romans send commissioners into Africa to decide the difference that arose between the Carthaginians and Masinissa 316 155 Embassy sent by the Romans into Africa to make new inquiries into the differences between these rival powers... Battle between the Carthaginians and Masinissa... 149 Beginning of the third Punic war... Carthage is besieged by the Romans..... Scipio is made consul, and receives the command of the army 317 318 319 324 325 146 Scipio takes, and entirely demolishes Carthage........................................................ 330 THE HISTORY OF THE CARTHAGINIANS. CHAPTER I. THE EARLY HISTORY AND THE FORM OF THE GOVERNMENT OF CARTHAGE. CARTHAGE, called by the Greeks Carchedon, an ancient city and state, and long the rival of Rome, was a colony of the Tyrians, and was probably built about 100 years before Rome. Authors, however, differ very much with regard to the era of the foundation of Carthage. There appears to have been an older Phenician settlement on the spot, which, according to Appian and others, was founded before the siege of Troy; and hence it is that the confusion has arisen concerning the age of Carthage. Most ancient writers agree in following a tradition, that Carthage was founded by Elissa, or Dido, whose husband being murdered by his brother-in-law, Pygmalion, king of Tyre, fled with a numerous body of citizens, and landed on a peninsula on the coast of Africa, between Tunis and Utica, which were older Phenician colonies. Dido purchased, or agreed to pay rent for a piece of ground, whereon to build a town, which was called Betzura, or Bosra, that is, "the cas tle" a name which the Greeks altered into Byrsa, a “hide." The name of Byrsa, and probably the shape of the peninsula, which resembles an ox hide, gave rise to the classical fable, of the manner in which the Libyans were cheated out of their ground, and which reads thus: Dido purchased of the natives: for her intended settlement, only so much land as an ox hide would encompass. This request was thought too moderate to be denied. But it was only a trick; for she cut the hide into the smallest thongs; and with them encompassed a large tract of land, on which she built a city called Byrsa, from the hide. But this is ridiculous, as it would lead to the conclusion that the Phenicians and Carthaginians spoke Greek, or that the Punic language was of Greek origin. As the town increased, the inhabitants excavated a port, which was called Cothon, and which became a great maritime and commercial emporium. This port was built, according to Dionysius and Valleius Paterculus, about sixty years before Rome, or 813 B. C. The Magara, or Magalia, which resembled a large suburb with fine gardens, probably owed its name to the first Phenician habitations, called in the language of the country Magar, or Magalia. The whole was called Carthage, a name which Bochart and others deduce from two oriental words, Charta Hadatta, "the new city;" Dr. Hyde, from Chadre Hanacha, the "chamber of rest," or "palace of repose;" and Servius, whose opinion seems the most correct, from Charta, a city in the vicinity of Tyre, to the monarchy of which Dido bore a near relation, and from whence she came. This very city is called by Cedrenus, Chartica, or Chartaca, that is, Charta Aca, or Charta Ace, the city of Acco, Aca, or Ace, a famous maritime city of Phenicia, near Tyre, in the portion of the tribe of Asher. It is now called St. Jean d'Acre, and is famous for the several sieges it has undergone, as in the time of Richard the Lion-hearted, who took it after a long and vigorous defence. It was again taken from the Christians by Bendocdar, the Mameluke sultan of Egypt, being the last town possessed in Palestine by the knights of St. John of Jerusalem. In more modern times, it sustained a siege by that fierce scourge of mankind, the French emperor, who was there defeated by the English. The intercourse of the Carthaginians with their mother country Tyre, seems to have been closely and constantly maintained. They sent thither, every year, regularly, a ship freighted with presents, as a quit-rent, or acknowledgment, paid to their ancient abode; and they never failed to transmit thither also the first fruits of their revenues, and the tithes of the spoils taken from their enemies, as offerings to Hercules, one of the principal deities of both Tyre and Carthage, and known among the Hebrews under the name of Baal. read in Josephus, moreover, that the Carthaginians sent assistance to the Tyrians, when besieged by the king of Babylon, We about 600 years B. C.; and afterwards, when Tyre was besieged and captured by Alexander the Great, 332 B. C., they afforded a refuge to, and entertained hospitably, some of their fellow-countrymen. To this bond of union, indeed, there is an illusion in the prophecies of Ezekiel. That prophet, predicting the overthrow of Tyre, in order to show how great its ruin would be, says of the states around: "Then all the princes of the sea shall come down from their thrones, and lay away their robes, and put off their broidered garments: they shall clothe themselves with trembling; they shall sit upon the ground, and shall tremble at every moment, and be astonished at thee. And they shall take up a lamentation for thee, and say to thee, How art thou destroyed, that wast inhabited of sea-faring men, the renowned city, which wast strong in the sea, she and her inhabitants, which cause their terror to be on all that haunt it!" Ezek. xxvi. 16, 17. The princes of the sea, and the merchants here spoken of, refer to those of Sidon, Carthage, and other maritime cities, that traded, and were in alliance with Tyre. Of the early history of Carthage, during more than three centuries, very little is known, except that it became a great commercial and maritime, and, to a considerable extent, an agricultural country. In order to show how great it was, and to make the subsequent part of the history clear to the reader, we shall now notice THE FORM OF THE GOVERNMENT OF CARTHAGE. The government of Carthage was considered by the ancients as founded upon principles of consummate wisdom. Aristotle, indeed, ranks this republic in the number of those that were held in the greatest esteem, and which were deserving to be copied by others. He grounds his opinion on this fact that from the foundation of Carthage to his days, a period of five hundred years and upwards, no considerable sedition had disturbed the peace, nor any tyrant destroyed the liberty of the state. Mixed goverments, indeed, such as that of Carthage, where the power was divided betwixt the nobles and the people, are subject to two inconveniences; either of degenerating into an abuse of liberty by the seditions of the populace, as frequently happened in Athens, and in all the Grecian republics; or, in opposition to the public liberty by the tyranny of the nobles, as in Athens, Syracuse, Corinth, |