The History of Rome, vol 3 | Page 5

to have been only about the year 300 of Rome that
the Carthaginian merchants got rid of the rent for the soil, which they
had hitherto been obliged to pay to the natives. This change enabled
them to prosecute a husbandry of their own on a great scale. From the
outset the Phoenicians had been desirous to employ their capital as

landlords as well as traders, and to practise agriculture on a large scale
by means of slaves or hired labourers; a large portion of the Jews in this
way served the merchant-princes of Tyre for daily wages. Now the
Carthaginians could without restriction extract the produce of the rich
Libyan soil by a system akin to that of the modern planters; slaves in
chains cultivated the land--we find single citizens possessing as many
as twenty thousand of them. Nor was this all. The agricultural villages
of the surrounding region--agriculture appears to have been introduced
among the Libyans at a very early period, probably anterior to the
Phoenician settlement, and presumably from Egypt--were subdued by
force of arms, and the free Libyan farmers were transformed into
fellahs, who paid to their lords a fourth part of the produce of the soil as
tribute, and were subjected to a regular system of recruiting for the
formation of a home Carthaginian army. Hostilities were constantly
occurring with the roving pastoral tribes (--nomades--) on the borders;
but a chain of fortified posts secured the territory enclosed by them, and
the Nomades were slowly driven back into the deserts and mountains,
or were compelled to recognize Carthaginian supremacy, to pay tribute,
and to furnish contingents. About the period of the first Punic war their
great town Theveste (Tebessa, at the sources of the Mejerda) was
conquered by the Carthaginians. These formed the "towns and tribes
(--ethne--) of subjects," which appear in the Carthaginian state-treaties;
the former being the non-free Libyan villages, the latter the subject
Nomades.
Libyphoenicians
To this fell to be added the sovereignty of Carthage over the other
Phoenicians in Africa, or the so-called Liby-phoenicians. These
included, on the one hand, the smaller settlements sent forth from
Carthage along the whole northern and part of the north-western coast
of Africa--which cannot have been unimportant, for on the Atlantic
seaboard alone there were settled at one time 30,000 such colonists
--and, on the other hand, the old Phoenician settlements especially
numerous along the coast of the present province of Constantine and
Beylik of Tunis, such as Hippo afterwards called Regius (Bona),
Hadrumetum (Susa), Little Leptis (to the south of Susa)--the second

city of the Phoenicians in Africa--Thapsus (in the same quarter), and
Great Leptis (Lebda to the west of Tripoli). In what way all these cities
came to be subject to Carthage--whether voluntarily, for their
protection perhaps from the attacks of the Cyrenaeans and Numidians,
or by constraint--can no longer be ascertained; but it is certain that they
are designated as subjects of the Carthaginians even in official
documents, that they had to pull down their walls, and that they had to
pay tribute and furnish contingents to Carthage. They were not liable
however either to recruiting or to the land-tax, but contributed a
definite amount of men and money, Little Leptis for instance paying
the enormous sum annually of 365 talents (90,000 pounds); moreover
they lived on a footing of equality in law with the Carthaginians, and
could marry with them on equal terms.(3) Utica alone escaped a similar
fate and had its walls and independence preserved to it, less perhaps
from its own power than from the pious feeling of the Carthaginians
towards their ancient protectors; in fact, the Phoenicians cherished for
such relations a remarkable feeling of reverence presenting a thorough
contrast to the indifference of the Greeks. Even in intercourse with
foreigners it is always "Carthage and Utica" that stipulate and promise
in conjunction; which, of course, did not preclude the far more
important "new town" from practically asserting its hegemony also
over Utica. Thus the Tyrian factory was converted into the capital of a
mighty North -African empire, which extended from the desert of
Tripoli to the Atlantic Ocean, contenting itself in its western portion
(Morocco and Algiers) with the occupation, and that to some extent
superficial, of a belt along the coast, but in the richer eastern portion
(the present districts of Constantine and Tunis) stretching its sway over
the interior also and constantly pushing its frontier farther to the south.
The Carthaginians were, as an ancient author significantly expresses it,
converted from Tyrians into Libyans. Phoenician civilization prevailed
in Libya just as Greek civilization prevailed in Asia Minor and Syria
after the campaigns of Alexander, although not with the same intensity.
Phoenician was spoken and written at the courts of the Nomad sheiks,
and the more civilized native