The History of Rome, vol 3 | Page 9

mentioned in this
connection and compared with the Spartan Pheiditia, were probably
guilds under oligarchical management. Mention is made even of a
distinction between "burgesses of the city" and "manual labourers,"
which leads us to infer that the latter held a very inferior position,
perhaps beyond the pale of law.
Character Of The Government
On a comprehensive view of its several elements, the Carthaginian
constitution appears to have been a government of capitalists, such as
might naturally arise in a burgess-community which had no middle
class of moderate means but consisted on the one hand of an urban
rabble without property and living from hand to mouth, and on the
other hand of great merchants, planters, and genteel overseers. The
system of repairing the fortunes of decayed grandees at the expense of
the subjects, by despatching them as tax-assessors and
taskwork-overseers to the dependent communities--that infallible token
of a rotten urban oligarchy--was not wanting in Carthage; Aristotle
describes it as the main cause of the tried durability of the Carthaginian
constitution. Up to his time no revolution worth mentioning had taken
place in Carthage either from above or from below. The multitude
remained without leaders in consequence of the material advantages
which the governing oligarchy was able to offer to all ambitious or
necessitous men of rank, and was satisfied with the crumbs, which in

the form of electoral corruption or otherwise fell to it from the table of
the rich. A democratic opposition indeed could not fail with such a
government to emerge; but at the time of the first Punic war it was still
quite powerless. At a later period, partly under the influence of the
defeats which were sustained, its political influence appears on the
increase, and that far more rapidly than the influence of the similar
party at the same period in Rome; the popular assemblies began to give
the ultimate decision in political questions, and broke down the
omnipotence of the Carthaginian oligarchy. After the termination of the
Hannibalic war it was even enacted, on the proposal of Hannibal, that
no member of the council of a Hundred could hold office for two
consecutive years; and thereby a complete democracy was introduced,
which certainly was under existing circumstances the only means of
saving Carthage, if there was still time to do so. This opposition was
swayed by a strong patriotic and reforming enthusiasm; but the fact
cannot withal be overlooked, that it rested on a corrupt and rotten basis.
The body of citizens in Carthage, which is compared by well-informed
Greeks to the people of Alexandria, was so disorderly that to that extent
it had well deserved to be powerless; and it might well be asked, what
good could arise from revolutions, where, as in Carthage, the boys
helped to make them.
Capital And Its Power In Carthage
From a financial point of view, Carthage held in every respect the first
place among the states of antiquity. At the time of the Peloponnesian
war this Phoenician city was, according to the testimony of the first of
Greek historians, financially superior to all the Greek states, and its
revenues were compared to those of the great-king; Polybius calls it the
wealthiest city in the world. The intelligent character of the
Carthaginian husbandry--which, as was the case subsequently in Rome,
generals and statesmen did not disdain scientifically to practise and to
teach--is attested by the agronomic treatise of the Carthaginian Mago,
which was universally regarded by the later Greek and Roman farmers
as the fundamental code of rational husbandry, and was not only
translated into Greek, but was edited also in Latin by command of the
Roman senate and officially recommended to the Italian landholders. A

characteristic feature was the close connection between this Phoenician
management of land and that of capital: it was quoted as a leading
maxim of Phoenician husbandry that one should never acquire more
land than he could thoroughly manage. The rich resources of the
country in horses, oxen, sheep, and goats, in which Libya by reason of
its Nomad economy perhaps excelled at that time, as Polybius testifies,
all other lands of the earth, were of great advantage to the
Carthaginians. As these were the instructors of the Romans in the art of
profitably working the soil, they were so likewise in the art of turning
to good account their subjects; by virtue of which Carthage reaped
indirectly the rents of the "best part of Europe," and of the rich--and in
some portions, such as in Byzacitis and on the lesser Syrtis,
surpassingly productive--region of northern Africa. Commerce, which
was always regarded in Carthage as an honourable pursuit, and the
shipping and manufactures which commerce rendered flourishing,
brought even in the natural course of things golden harvests annually to
the settlers there; and we