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 with such rapid and uninterrupted success. The very vessels on which its founders had been conveyed into Africa, were afterwards employed by them in their trade. They began to make settlements upon the coasts of Spain, in those ports where they unloaded their goods. The ease with which they had founded these settlements, and the conveniences they met with, inspired them with the design of conquering those vast regions; and some time after, Nova Carthago, or New Carthage, gave the Carthaginians an empire [pg 106] in that country, almost equal to that which they enjoyed in Africa.
Sect. V. The Mines of Spain, the second Source of the Riches and Power of Carthage.—Diodorus justly remarks,[545] 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, at least of their use and value. The Phœnicians 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.[546] 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 floods 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,[547] 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 [pg 107] twenty-five thousand drachmas, or eight hundred fifty-nine pounds seven shillings and sixpence.[548]
We must not be surprised to see the Carthaginians, 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, in 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.
Sect. 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 became 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. [pg 108] 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 peaceful 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 as 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.
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 [pg 109] 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 compose it.