Part The Second. The History of the Carthaginians.
The interval of time between the foundation of Carthage and its ruin, included seven hundred years, and may be divided into two parts. The first, which is much the longest and the least known, (as is ordinary with the beginnings of all states,) extends to the first Punic war, and takes up five hundred and eighty-two years. The second, which ends at the destruction of Carthage, contains but a hundred and eighteen years.
Chapter I. The Foundation of Carthage and its Aggrandizement till the Time of the first Punic War.
Carthage in Africa was a colony from Tyre, the most renowned city at that time for commerce in the world. Tyre [pg 117] had long before transplanted into that country another colony, which built Utica,[566] made famous by the death of the second Cato, who, for this reason, is generally called Cato Uticensis.
Authors disagree very much with regard to the æra of the foundation of Carthage.[567] It is a difficult matter, and not very material, to reconcile them; at least, agreeably to the plan laid down by me, it is sufficient to know, within a few years, the time in which that city was built.
Carthage existed a little above seven hundred years.[568] It was destroyed under the consulate of Cn. Lentulus, and L. Mummius, the 603d year of Rome, 3859th of the world, and 145 before Christ. The foundation of it may therefore be fixed in the year of the world 3158, when Joash was king of Judah, 98 years before the building of Rome, and 846 before our Saviour.
The foundation of Carthage is ascribed to Elisa, a Tyrian princess, better known by the name of Dido.[569] Ithobal, king of Tyre, and father of the famous Jezebel, called in Scripture Ethbaal, was her great-grandfather. She married her near relation Acerbas, called otherwise Sicharbas and Sichæus, an extremely rich prince, and Pygmalion, king of Tyre, was her brother. This prince having put Sichæus to death, in order that he might have an opportunity of seizing his immense wealth, Dido eluded the cruel avarice of her brother, by withdrawing secretly with all her dead husband's treasures. After having long wandered, she at last landed on the coast of the Mediterranean, in the gulf where Utica stood, and in the [pg 118] country of Africa, properly so called, distant almost fifteen[570] miles from Tunis, so famous at this time for its corsairs; and there settled with her few followers, after having purchased some lands from the inhabitants of the country.[571]
Many of the neighbouring people, invited by the prospect of lucre, repaired thither to sell these new comers the necessaries of life; and shortly after incorporated themselves with them. These inhabitants, who had been thus gathered from different places, soon grew very numerous. The citizens of Utica, considering them as their countrymen, and as descended from the same common stock, deputed envoys with very considerable presents, and exhorted them to build a city in the place where they had first settled. The natives of the country, from the esteem and respect frequently shown to strangers, did as much on their part. Thus all things conspiring with Dido's views, she built her city, which was charged with the payment of an annual tribute to the Africans for the ground it stood upon; and called Carthada,[572] or Carthage, a name that, in the Phoenician and Hebrew tongues, (which have a great affinity,) signifies the New City. It is said, that when the foundations were dug, a horse's head was found, which was thought a good omen, and a presage of the future warlike genius of that people.[573]
This princess was afterwards courted by Iarbas king of Getulia, and threatened with a war in case of refusal. Dido, [pg 119] who had bound herself by an oath not to consent to a second marriage, being incapable of violating the faith she had sworn to Sichæus, desired time for deliberation, and for appeasing the manes of her first husband by sacrifice. Having therefore ordered a pile to be raised, she ascended it; and drawing out a dagger which she had concealed under her robe, stabbed herself with it.[574]