The History of Rome, vol 3 | Page 4

and originally perhaps a dependency of the adjoining Utica, the oldest
of the Phoenician towns in Libya, it soon outstripped its neighbours and
even the motherland through the incomparable advantages of its
situation and the energetic activity of its inhabitants. It was situated not
far from the (former) mouth of the Bagradas (Mejerda), which flows
through the richest corn district of northern Africa, and was placed on a
fertile rising ground, still occupied with country houses and covered
with groves of olive and orange trees, falling off in a gentle slope
towards the plain, and terminating towards the sea in a sea-girt

promontory. Lying in the heart of the great North-African roadstead,
the Gulf of Tunis, at the very spot where that beautiful basin affords the
best anchorage for vessels of larger size, and where drinkable spring
water is got close by the shore, the place proved singularly favourable
for agriculture and commerce and for the exchange of their respective
commodities--so favourable, that not only was the Tyrian settlement in
that quarter the first of Phoenician mercantile cities, but even in the
Roman period Carthage was no sooner restored than it became the third
city in the empire, and even now, under circumstances far from
favourable and on a site far less judiciously chosen, there exists and
flourishes in that quarter a city of a hundred thousand inhabitants. The
prosperity, agricultural, mercantile, and industrial, of a city so situated
and so peopled, needs no explanation; but the question requires an
answer--in what way did this settlement come to attain a development
of political power, such as no other Phoenician city possessed?
Carthage Heads The Western Phoenicians In Opposition To The
Hellenes
That the Phoenician stock did not even in Carthage renounce its policy
of passiveness, there is no lack of evidence to prove. Carthage paid,
even down to the times of its prosperity, a ground-rent for the space
occupied by the city to the native Berbers, the tribe of the Maxyes or
Maxitani; and although the sea and the desert sufficiently protected the
city from any assault of the eastern powers, Carthage appears to have
recognized--although but nominally--the supremacy of the great- king,
and to have paid tribute to him occasionally, in order to secure its
commercial communications with Tyre and the East.
But with all their disposition to be submissive and cringing,
circumstances occurred which compelled these Phoenicians to adopt a
more energetic policy. The stream of Hellenic migration was pouring
ceaselessly towards the west: it had already dislodged the Phoenicians
from Greece proper and Italy, and it was preparing to supplant them
also in Sicily, in Spain, and even in Libya itself. The Phoenicians had
to make a stand somewhere, if they were not willing to be totally
crushed. In this case, where they had to deal with Greek traders and not

with the great-king, submission did not suffice to secure the
continuance of their commerce and industry on its former footing,
liable merely to tax and tribute. Massilia and Cyrene were already
founded; the whole east of Sicily was already in the hands of the
Greeks; it was full time for the Phoenicians to think of serious
resistance. The Carthaginians undertook the task; after long and
obstinate wars they set a limit to the advance of the Cyrenaeans, and
Hellenism was unable to establish itself to the west of the desert of
Tripolis. With Carthaginian aid, moreover, the Phoenician settlers on
the western point of Sicily defended themselves against the Greeks, and
readily and gladly submitted to the protection of the powerful cognate
city.(2) These important successes, which occurred in the second
century of Rome, and which saved for the Phoenicians the south-
western portion of the Mediterranean, served of themselves to give to
the city which had achieved them the hegemony of the nation, and to
alter at the same time its political position. Carthage was no longer a
mere mercantile city: it aimed at the dominion of Libya and of a part of
the Mediterranean, because it could not avoid doing so. It is probable
that the custom of employing mercenaries contributed materially to
these successes. That custom came into vogue in Greece somewhere
about the middle of the fourth century of Rome, but among the
Orientals and the Carians more especially it was far older, and it was
perhaps the Phoenicians themselves that began it By the system of
foreign recruiting war was converted into a vast pecuniary speculation,
which was quite in keeping with the character and habits of the
Phoenicians.
The Carthaginian Dominion In Africa
It was probably the reflex influence of these successes abroad, that first
led the Carthaginians to change the character of their occupation in
Africa from a tenure of hire and sufferance to one of proprietorship and
conquest. It appears