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votes of the electors; a practice, as Polybius observes, very common at Carthage, where no kind of gain was judged a disgrace. It is, therefore, no wonder, that Aristotle should condemn a practice whose consequences, it is very plain, may prove fatal to a government.

The most considerable personages of the city were not ashamed of engaging in trade. They applied themselves to it as industriously as the meanest citizens; and their great wealth did not make them less in love with the diligence, patience, and labour, which are necessary to augment it. To this they owed their But in case he pretended that the chief employ- empire of the sea, the splendour of their republic; ments of a state ought to be equally accessible to the their being able to dispute for the superiority with rich and the poor, as he seems to insinuate; his opinion Rome itself; and their exalted pitch of power, which is refuted by the general practice of the wisest repub- forced the Romans to carry on a bloody and doubtful lics: for these, without any way demeaning or aspers-war, for upwards of forty years, in order to humble ing poverty, have thought that, on this occasion, the and subdue this haughty rival. In short, Rome, even preference ought to be given to riches; because it is to when triumphant, thought Carthage was not to be presumed, that the wealthy have received a better entirely reduced any other way, than by depriving education, have nobler sentiments, are more out of the that city of the resources which it might still derive reach of corruption, and less liable to commit base from its commerce, by which it had so long been actions; and that even the state of their affairs makes enabled to resist the whole strength of that mighty them more affectionate to the government, more dis- republic. posed to maintain peace and order in it, and more interested in suppressing whatever may tend to sedition and rebellion.

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 Aristotle, in concluding his reflections on the repub- with such rapid and uninterrupted success. The very lic of Carthage, is much pleased with a custom that vessels on which its founders had been conveyed into prevailed there: viz. of sending from time to time Africa, were afterwards employed by them in their colonies into different countries; and in this manner trade. They began to make settlements upon the procuring its citizens commodious settlements. This coasts of Spain, in those ports where they unloaded provided for the necessities of the poor, who, equally their goods. The ease with which they had founded with the rich, are members of the state: and it dis- these settlements, and the conveniences they met burdened Carthage of multitudes of lazy, indolent with inspired them with the design of conquering people, who were its disgrace, and often proved those vast regions; and some time after, Nova Cardangerous to it; it prevented commotions and insur-thago, or New Carthage, gave the Carthaginians an rections, by thus removing such persons as commonly empire in that country, almost equal to that which occasion them; and who, being ever discontented they enjoyed in Africa. 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 glory, of the Carthaginians, all flowed from their commerce. Situated in the centre of the Mediterranean, and stretching out their arms eastward and westward, 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 straits 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 rates. From Egypt the Carthaginians fetched fine flax, paper, corn, sails, and cables for ships; from the coast of the Red Sea, spices frankincense, perfumes, gold, pearls, 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 fetched from various countries, all things that can supply the necessities, or are capable of contributing to the convenience, the luxury, and the delights of life. They brought back from the western parts of the world, in return for the articles carried thither, iron, tin, lead, and copper; by the sale of these various commodities, 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.

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, or 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, they amassed infinite wealth. 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 Bloods of water stopped the miners, and seemed to defeat all future pursuits. But avarice is no less patient in undergoing fatigues, than 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 Carthago; and furnished the Romans every day with twenty-five thousand drachmas, or 8591. 7s. 6d.

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

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Diod. 1. iv. p. 312, &c.

* Lib. iii. p. 147. 25,000 drachmas.-An Attic drachma, according to Dr. 1 Пapà Kapxndoviois obdèv aloxpòv tŵv àvnkóvтwv xpòs Bernard, 84d. English money; consequently, 25,000= Képdes.-Poly. I. vi. p. 497. 8591. 7s. 6d.

We must not be surprised to see the Carthagi-| nians, 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 appear surprising to us, that the Romans should be capable of 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 the expenses of which must, for that very reason, have swallowed up all the profit. The Romans, n the frugal and simple life they led, in their zeal for the public welfare, and their 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 it Decame warlike, first, from the necessity the Carthaginians were under of defending themselves against the neighbouring nations, and afterwards from a desire of extending their commerce and empire. 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 being themselves obliged to levy or exercise them, because they were already well disciplined and inured to the fatigues of war; they making choice, in every country, of such troops as had the greatest merit and reputation. They drew from Numidia a light, bold, impetuous, and indefatigable cavalry, which formed the principal strength of their armies; from the Balearic isles, the most expert slingers in the world; from Spain, a steady and invincible infantry; from the coasts of Genoa and Gaul, troops of acknowledged valour; and from Greece itself, soldiers fit for all the various operations of war, for the field or the garrisons, 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 peaceable 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 a war, sustained some losses, these were but so many foreign accidents, which only grazed, as it were, over 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 continually reinforced 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.

VOL. 1.-5

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 was sincerely interested in the success of measures, or in 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 com pose 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 excites; or by the hopes of reaping greater advantages from a new friend; or by the fear of being involved in the misfortunes of an old ally.

The tributary nations, impatient under the weight and disgrace of a yoke which had been forced upon their necks, generally 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 be fore 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 once taken away. And if to this there happened to be added an interruption of their commerce (which was their sole resource), arising from the loss of a naval engage ment, 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 treatises where he shows the advantages and defects of the government of Carthage, finds no fault with its keeping up none but foreign forces; it is therefore probable, that the Carthagi nians 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 comparable to those of a govern ment 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 sueing for peace after the battle of Cannæ, as the Carthaginians had done in a less imminent danger.

The Carthaginians had, besides, a body of troopTM (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 sus

1 As Syphax and Masinissa.

picious 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 con-writer of his life), say, that in his return from Greece, duct; and liable to be recalled, whenever a real fault, a misfortune, or the superior interest of a cabal, furnished an opportunity for it.

SECTION VII.-ARTS AND SCIENCES.

3

1

giving him an excellent education, gave him his liberty and called him by his own name, as was then the custom. He was united in a very strict friendship with the second Scipio Africanus, and Lælius; and it was a common report at Rome, that he had the assistance of these two great men in composing his pieces. The poet, so far from endeavouring to stifle a report so disadvantageous to him, made a merit of it. Only six of his comedies are extant. Some authors, on the authority of Suetonius (the whither he had made a voyage, he lost a hundred and eight comedies, which he had translated from Menander, and could not survive an accident which must naturally afflict him in a sensible manner: but this incident is not very well founded. Be this as it may, he died in the year of Rome 594, under the consulship of Cneius Cornelius Dolabella and M. Fulvius, at the age of thirty-five years, and consequently he was born anno 560.

Ir 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 excel- It must yet be confessed, notwithstanding all we lent school. The great Hannibal, who, in all re- have said, that there ever was a great scarcity of spects, was an ornament to that city, was not unac- learned men in Carthage, since it hardly furnished quainted with polite literature, as will be seen here- three or four writers of reputation in upwards of se after. Mago, another very celebrated general, did ven hundred years. Although the Carthaginians held as much honour to Carthage by his pen as by his vic-a correspondence with Greece and the most civilized tories. He wrote twenty-eight volumes upon hus- nations, yet this did not excite them to borrow their bandry, which the Roman senate had in such esteem, learning, as being foreign to their views of trade and that after the taking of Carthage, when they present-commerce. Eloquence, poetry, history, seem to have ed the African princes with the libraries found there been little known among them. A Carthaginian (another proof that learning was not entirely banish-philosopher was considered as a sort of prodigy by ed from Carthage,) they gave orders to have these books translated into Latin, though Cato hau before written his books on that subiect. There is still extant a Greek version of a treatise drawn up by Hanno in the Ponic 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.

6

Clitomachus, called in the Punic language AsdruDal, was a great philosopher. He succeeded the famous Carneades, whose disciple he had been; and maintained in Athens the honour of the Academic sect. Cicero says, that he was a more sensible man, and fonder of study, than the Carthaginians generally are. He wrote several books: in one of which he composed a piece to console the unhappy citizens of Carthage, who, by the ruin of their city, were reduced to slavery.

I might rank among, or rather place at the head of, the writers who have adorned Africa, the celebrated Terence; himself singly being capable of reflecting infinite honour on his country by the fame of his productions, if, on this account, Carthage, the place of his birth, ought not to be less considered as his country than Rome, where he was educated, and acquired that purity of style, that delicacy and elegance, which have gained him the admiration of all succeeding ages. It is supposed, that he was carried off when an infant, or at least very young, by the Numidians in their incursions into the Carthaginian territories, during the war carried on between these two nations, from the conclusion of the second, to the beginning of the third, Punic war. He was sold for a slave to Terentius Lucanus, a Roman senator; who, after

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the learned. What then would an astronomer or a geometrician have been thought? I know not in what esteem physic, which is so highly useful to life, was held at Carthage; or jurisprudence, so necessary to society.

As works of wit were generally had in so much disregard, the education of youth must necessarily have been very imperfect and unpolished. In Carthage, the study and knowledge of youth were for the most part confined to writing, arithmetic, bookkeeping, and the buying and selling goods; in a word, to whatever related to traffic. But polite learning, history and philosophy, were in little repute among them. These were in later years even prohibited by the laws, which expressly forbade any Carthaginian to learn the Greek tongue, lest it might qualify them for carrying on a dangerous correspondence with the the enemy, either by letter or word of mouth.10

Now what could be expected from such a cast of mind? Accordingly there was never seen among them that elegance of behaviour, that ease and complacency of manners, and those sentiments of virtue which are generally the fruits of a liberal education in all civilized nations. The small number of great men which this nation has produced, must therefore have owed their merit to the felicity of their genius, to the singularity of their talents, and a long experience, without any great assistance from cultivation and instruction. Hence it was, that the merit of the greatest men of Carthage was sullied by great failings, low vices, and cruel passions; and it is rare to meet with any conspicuous virtue among them without some blemish; with any virtue of a noble, generous, and amiable kind, and supported by enlightened and steady principles, such as is every where found among the Greeks and Romans. The reader will perceive that I here speak only of the heathen virtues, and

10 Factum senatus consultum ne quis postea Carthagin ensis aut literis Græcis aut sermoni studeret; ne aut loqui cum hoste, aut scribere sine interprete posset. Justin. 1. xx. c. 5. Justin ascribes the reason of this law to a treasonable correspondence between one Suniatus, a powerfu! Carthaginian, and Dionysius the Tyrant of Sicily; the former, by letters written in Greek (which afterwards fell into the hands of the Carthaginians), having informed the tyrant of the war designed against him by his country, out of hatred to Hanno the general, to whom he was an enemy.

agreeably to the idea which the Pagans entertained of them.

I meet with as few monuments of their skill in arts of a less noble and necessary kind, as painting and sculpture. I find, indeed, that they had plundered their conquered nations of a great many works in both these kinds; but it does not appear that they themselves had produced many.

From what has been said, one cannot help concluding, that traffic was the predominant inclination, and the peculiar characteristic of the Carthaginians; that it formed, in a manner, the basis of the state, the soul of the commonwealth, and the grand spring which gave motion to all their enterprises. The Carthaginians, in general, were skilful merchants; employed wholly in traffic; excited strongly by the desire of gain, and esteeming nothing but riches; directing all their talents, and placing their chief glory, in amassing them; though at the same time they scarce knew the purpose for which they were designed, or how to use them in a noble or worthy

manner.

SECTION VIII.—THE CHARACTER, MANNERS, AND

QUALITIES OF THE CARTHAGINIANS.

2

But these were not the only blemishes and faults of the Carthaginians. They had something austere and savage in their disposition and genius, a haughty and imperious air, a sort of ferocity, which, in the first transports of passion, was dead to both reason and remonstrances, and plunged brutally into the utmost excesses of violence. The people, cowardly and grovelling under apprehensions, were proud and cruel in their transports: at the same time that they trembled under their magistrates, they were dreaded in their turn by their miserable vassals. In this we see the difference which education makes between one nation and another. The Athenians, whose city was always considered as the centre of learning, were naturally jealous of their authority, and difficult to govern; but still, a fund of good nature and humanity made them compassionate the misfortunes of others, and be indulgent to the errors of their leaders. Cleon one day desired the assembly, in which he presided, to break up, because, as he told them, he had a sacrifice to offer, and friends to entertain. The people only laughed at the request, and immediately separated. Such a liberty, says Plutarch, at Carthage, would have cost a man his life.

Livy makes a like reflection with regard to TeIn the enumeration of the various qualities which rentius Varro. That general, on his return to Rome Cicero assigns to different nations, as their dis- after the battle of Cannæ, which had been lost by his tinguishing characteristics, he declares that of the ill conduct, was met by persons of all orders of the Carthaginians to be craft, skill, address, industry, state, at some distance from Rome; and thanked by cunning, calliditas; which doubtless appeared in war, them, for his not having despaired of the commonbut was still more conspicuous in the rest of their wealth; who, says the historian, had he been a geconduct; and this was joined to another quality that neral of the Carthaginians, must have expected the bears a very near relation to it, and is still less re- most severe punishment: Cui, si Carthaginensium putable. Craft and cunning lead naturally to lying, ductor fuisset, nihil recusandum supplicii foret. Induplicity, and breach of faith; and these, by accus- deed, a court was established at Carthage, where the toming the mind insensibly to be less scrupulous with generals were obliged to give an account of their regard to the choice of the means for compassing its conduct; and they all were made responsible for the designs, prepare it for the basest frauds and the most events of the war. ill success was punished there perfidious actions. This was also one of the charac- as a crime against the state; and whenever a general teristics of the Carthaginians; and it was so noto-lost a battle, he was almost sure, at his return, of rious, that to signify any remarkable dishonesty, it was ending his life upon a gibbet. Such was the furious, usual to call it Punic faith, fides Punica; and to de- cruel, and barbarous disposition of the Carthaginians, note a knavish, deceitful disposition, no expression was who were always ready to shed the blood of their thought more proper and emphatical than this, a citizens as well as of foreigners. The unheard-of Carthaginian disposition, Punicum ingenium. tortures which they made Regulus suffer, are a manAn excessive thirst for amassing wealth, and anifest proof of this assertion; and their history will inordinate love of gain, generally gave occasion in furnish us with such instances of it, as are not to be Carthage to the committing base and unjust actions. read without horror. One single example will prove this. During a truce, granted by Scipio to the earnest entreaties of the Carthaginians, some Roman vessels, being driven by a storm on the coasts of Carthage, were seized by order of the senate and people, who could not suffer so tempting a prey to escape them. They were resolved to get money, though the manner of acquiring it were ever so scandalous. The inhabitants of Carthage, even in St. Austin's time (as that Father informs us), showed, on a particular occasion, that they still retained part of this characteristic.*

1 Quam volumus licèt ipsi nos amemus, tamen nec numero Hispanos, nec robore Gallos, nec calliditate Pœnos, &c. sed pietate ac religione, &c. omnes gentes nationesque superavimus. De Arusp. Resp. n. 19.

Carthaginenses fraudulenti et mendaces-multis et variis mercatorum advenarumque sermonibus ad studium fallendi quæstûs cupiditate vocabantur. Cic. orat. ii. in Rull. n. 94.

3 Magistratus senatum vocare, populus in curia vestibulo fremere, ne tanta ex oculis manisbusque amitteretur præda. Consensum est ut, &c. Liv. 1. xxx. n. 24.

A mountebank had promised the citizens of Carthage to discover to them their most secret thoughts, in case they would come, on a day appointed, to hear him. Being all met, he told them, they were desirous to buy cheap and sell dear. Every man's conscience pleaded guilty to the charge; and the mountebank was dismissed with applause and laughter. Vili vultis emere, et care vendere; in quo dicto levissimi scenici omnes tamen conscientias invenerunt suas, eique vera et tamen improvisa dicenti admirabili favore plauserunt. S. August. l. xiii. de Trinit. c. 3.

PART II.

THE HISTORY OF THE CARTHAGINIANS. THE interval of time between the foundation of Carthage and its ruin, included seven hundred years, and may be divided into two parts. The first, which is much the longest and the least known (as is ordinary with the beginnings of all states), extends to the first Punic war, and takes up five hundred and eighty-two years. The second, which ends at the destruction of Carthage, contains but a hundred and eighteen years.

CHAPTER I.

THE FOUNDATION OF CARTHAGE, AND ITS AGGRAND-
IZEMENT TILL THE TIME OF THE FIRST PUNIC WAR.

CARTHAGE in Africa was a colony from Tyre, the most renowned city at that time for commerce in the world. Tyre had long before transplanted into that country another colony, which built Utica, made fa

Plut. de gen. Rep. p. 799. • Lib. xxii. n. 61.

Utica et Carthago, ambæ inclytæ, ambæ a Phænicibus condite; illa fato Catonis insignis, hæc suo. Pompon. Mel. c. 67. Utica and Carthage, both famous, and both built by Phoenicians; the first renowned by Cato's fate the last by its own

mous by the death of the second Cato, who for this | reason is generally called Cato Uticensis.

Authors disagree very much with regard to the æra of the foundation of Carthage. It is a difficult matter, and not very material, to reconcile them; at least, agreeably to the plan laid down by me, it is sufficient to know, within a few years, the time in which that city was built.

Carthage existed a little above seven hundred years. It was destroyed under the consulate of Cn. Lentulus, and L. Mummius, the 603d year of Rome, 3959th of the world, and 145 before Christ. The foundation of it may therefore be fixed in the year of the world 3158, when Joash was king of Judah, 98 years before the building of Rome, and 846 before our Saviour.

The foundation of Carthage is ascribed to Elisa; a Tyrian princess, better known by the name of Dido. Ithobal, king of Tyre, and father of the famous Jezebel, called in Scripture Ethbaal, was her great grand father. She married her near relation Acerbas, called otherwise Sicharbas and Sichæus, an extremely rich prince, and Pygmalion, king of Tyre, was her brother. This prince having put Sichæus to death, in order that he might have an opportunity of seizing his immense wealth, Dido eluded the cruei avarice of her brother, by withdrawing secretly with all her dead husband's treasures. After having long wandered, she at last landed on the coast of the Mediterranean, in the gulf where Utica stood, and in the country of Africa, properly so called, distant almost fifteen miles from Tunis, so famous at this time for its corsairs, and there settled with her few followers, after having purchased some lands from the inhabitants of the country.

Many of the neighbouring people, invited by the prospect of lucre, repaired thither to sell to these new comers the necessaries of life; and shortly after incorporated themselves with them. These inhabitants, who had been thus gathered from different places, soon grew very numerous. The citizens of Utica, considering them as their countrymen, and as descended from the same common stock, deputed envoys with very considerable presents, and exhorted them to build a city in the place where they had first settled. The natives of the country, from the esteem and respect frequently shown to strangers, did as much on their part. Thus all things conspiring with Dido's views, she built her city, which was charged with the payment of an annual tribute to the Africans for the ground it stood upon: and called Carthada, ⚫or Carthage, a name that, in the Phoenician and Hebrew tongues (which have a great affinity), signifies the New City. It is said, that when the foundations were dug, a horse's head was found, which was thought a good omen, and a presage of the future warlike genius of that people.

1 Our countryman Howel endeavours to reconcile the three different accounts of the foundation of Carthage, in the following manner. He says, that the town consisted of three parts, viz. Cothon, or the Port and buildings adjoining to it, which he supposes to have been first built; Megara, built next, and, in respect to Cothon, called the New Town, or Karthada; and Byrsa, or the citadel, built last of all, and probably by Dido.

Cothon, to agree with Appian, was built fifty years before the taking of Troy; Megara, to correspond with Eusebus, was built a hundred and ninety-four years later; Byrsa, to agree with Menander (cited by Josephus), was built a hundred and sixty-six years after Megara.

2 Liv. Epit. 1. ii.

This princess was afterwards courted by Iarbas, king of Getulia, and threatened with a war in case of refusal. Dido, who had bound herself by an oath not to consent to a second marriage, being incapable of violating the faith she had sworn to Sichæus, desired time for deliberation, and for appeasing the manes of her first husband by sacrifice. Having therefore ordered a pile to be raised, she ascended it; and drawing out a dagger which she had concealed under her robe, stabbed herself with it."

Virgil has made a great alteration in this history, by supposing that Eneas, his hero, was contemporary with Dido, though there was an interval of near three centuries between the one and the other; Carthage being built three hundred years after the destruction of Troy. This liberty is very excusable in a poet, who is not tied to the scrupulous accuracy of an historian; and we admire, with great reason, the judgment which he has shown in his plan, when, to interest the Romans (for whom he wrote) in his subject, he has the art of introducing into it the implacable hatred which subsisted between Carthage and Rome, and ingeniously deduces the original of it from the very remote foundation of those two rival cities.

Carthage, whose beginnings, as we have observed, were very weak at first, grew larger by insensible degrees, in the country where it was founded. But its dominion was not long confined to Africa. This ambitious city extended her conquests into Europe, invaded Sardinia, made herself mistress of a great part of Sicily, and reduced to her subjection almost the whole of Spain; and having sent out powerful colonies into all quarters, enjoyed the empire of the seas for more than six hundred years; and formed a state which was able to dispute pre-eminence with the greatest empires of the world, by her wealth, her commerce, her numerous armies, her formidable fleets, and, above all, by the courage and ability of her captains. The dates and circumstances of many of these conquests are little known. I shall take but a transient notice of them, in order to enable my readers to form some idea of the countries, which will be often mentioned in the course of this history.

Conquests of the Carthaginians in Africa. The first wars made by the Carthaginians, were to free themselves from the annual tribute which they had engaged to pay the Africans, for the territory which had been ceded to them. This conduct does them no honour, as the settlement was granted them upon condition of their paying a tribute. One would be apt to imagine, that they were desirous of covering the obscurity of their original, by abolishing this

Dryden.

From under earth a courser's head they drew, Their growth and future fortune to foreshow. This fated sign their foundress Juno gave, Of a soil fruitful, and a people brave. The story, as it is told more at large in Justin (1. xviii. c. 6.), is this:-Iarbas, king of the Mauritanians, sending for ten of the principal Carthaginians, demanded Dido in marriage, threatening to declare war against her in case of a refusal; the ambassadors being afraid to deliver the message of Iarbas, told her (with Punic honesty) that he wanted to have some person sent him, who was capable of civilizing and polishing himself and his Africans; but that there was no possibility of finding any Carthaginian, who would be willing to quit his native place and kindred, for the conversation of Barbarians, who were as savage as the wildest beasts. Here the queen, with indignation, interrupting them, and asking, if they were not ashamed to refuse living in my

Justin. 1. xviii. c. 4-6. App. de bello Pun. p. 1. manner which might be beneficial to their country, to which Strab. I. xvii. p. 832. Paterc. 1. i. c. 6.

120 stadia Strab. I. xiv. p. 687.
Kartha Hadath, or Hadtha.

• Effodere loco signum, quod regia Juno
Monstrarat, caput acris equi; nam sic fore bello
Egregiam, et facilem victu per secula gentem.
Virg. Æn. l. i. 447.
The Tyrians landing near this holy ground,
And digging here, a prosperous omen found:

they owed even their lives? they then delivered the king's message, and bid her set them a pattern, and sacrifice herself to her country's welfare. Dido, being thus ensnared, called on Sichæus with tears and lamentations, and answered, that she would go where the fate of her city called her. At the expiration of three months, she ascended the fatal pile; and with her last breath told the spectators, that she was going to her husband, as they had ordered her

Justin. 1. xix. c. 1.

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