The History of Rome, vol 3 | Page 8

gerusia, consisted of the two kings
nominated annually by the citizens, and of twenty-eight gerusiasts, who
were also, as it appears, chosen annually by the citizens. It was this
council which mainly transacted the business of the state-making, for
instance, the preliminary arrangements for war, appointing levies and
enlistments, nominating the general, and associating with him a number
of gerusiasts from whom the sub-commanders were regularly taken;
and to it despatches were addressed. It is doubtful whether by the side
of this small council there existed a larger one; at any rate it was not of
much importance. As little does any special influence seem to have
belonged to the kings; they acted chiefly as supreme judges, and they
were frequently so named (shofetes, -praetores-). The power of the
general was greater. Isocrates, the senior contemporary of Aristotle,
says that the Carthaginians had an oligarchical government at home,
but a monarchical government in the field; and thus the office of the
Carthaginian general may be correctly described by Roman writers as a
dictatorship, although the gerusiasts attached to him must have
practically at least restricted his power and, after he had laid down his
office, a regular official reckoning--unknown among the
Romans--awaited him. There existed no fixed term of office for the
general, and for this very reason he was doubtless different from the
annual king, from whom Aristotle also expressly distinguishes him.
The combination however of several offices in one person was not
unusual among the Carthaginians, and it is not therefore surprising that
often the same person appears as at once general and shofete.
Judges

But the gerusia and the magistrates were subordinate to the corporation
of the Hundred and Four (in round numbers the Hundred), or the
Judges, the main bulwark of the Carthaginian oligarchy. It had no place
in the original constitution of Carthage, but, like the Spartan ephorate,
it originated in an aristocratic opposition to the monarchical elements
of that constitution. As public offices were purchasable and the number
of members forming the supreme board was small, a single
Carthaginian family, eminent above all others in wealth and military
renown, the clan of Mago,(8) threatened to unite in its own hands the
management of the state in peace and war and the administration of
justice. This led, nearly about the time of the decemvirs, to an alteration
of the constitution and to the appointment of this new board. We know
that the holding of the quaestorship gave a title to admission into the
body of judges, but that the candidate had nevertheless to be elected by
certain self-electing Boards of Five (Pentarchies); and that the judges,
although presumably by law chosen from year to year, practically
remained in office for a longer period or indeed for life, for which
reason they are usually called "senators" by the Greeks and Romans.
Obscure as are the details, we recognize clearly the nature of the body
as an oligarchical board constituted by aristocratic cooptation; an
isolated but characteristic indication of which is found in the fact that
there were in Carthage special baths for the judges over and above the
common baths for the citizens. They were primarily intended to act as
political jurymen, who summoned the generals in particular, but
beyond doubt the shofetes and gerusiasts also when circumstances
required, to a reckoning on resigning office, and inflicted even capital
punishment at pleasure, often with the most reckless cruelty. Of course
in this as in every instance, where administrative functionaries are
subjected to the control of another body, the real centre of power
passed over from the controlled to the controlling authority; and it is
easy to understand on the one hand how the latter came to interfere in
all matters of administration--the gerusia for instance submitted
important despatches first to the judges, and then to the people --and on
the other hand how fear of the control at home, which regularly meted
out its award according to success, hampered the Carthaginian
statesman and general in council and action.

Citizens
The body of citizens in Carthage, though not expressly restricted, as in
Sparta, to the attitude of passive bystanders in the business of the state,
appears to have had but a very slight amount of practical influence on it
In the elections to the gerusia a system of open corruption was the rule;
in the nomination of a general the people were consulted, but only after
the nomination had really been made by proposal on the part of the
gerusia; and other questions only went to the people when the gerusia
thought fit or could not otherwise agree. Assemblies of the people with
judicial functions were unknown in Carthage. The powerlessness of the
citizens probably in the main resulted from their political organization;
the Carthaginian mess- associations, which are