Not only is it very difficult to make out Aristotle’s statements about the Carthaginian government,—but some of them are even contradictory. One of these (v, 10, 3) has been pointed out by M. Barthélemy St. Hilaire, who proposes to read ἐν Χαλκηδόνι instead of ἐν Καρχηδόνι. In another place (v, 10, 4) Aristotle calls Carthage (ἐν Καρχηδόνι δημοκρατουμένῃ) a state democratically governed; which cannot be reconciled with what he says in ii, 8, respecting its government.
Aristotle compares the Council of One Hundred and Four at Carthage to the Spartan ephors. But it is not easy to see how so numerous a body could have transacted the infinite diversity of administrative and other business performed by the five ephors.
[886] Justin. xix, 1.
[887] Diodor. xiii.
[888] Justin, xix, 2.
[889] Diodor. xii, 82.
It seems probable that the war which Diodorus mentions to have taken place in 452 B.C., between the Egestæans and Lilybæans—was really a war between Egesta and Selinus (see Diodor, xi, 86—with Wesseling’s note). Lilybæum as a town attained no importance until after the capture of Motyê by the older Dionysius in 393 B.C.
[890] Diodor. xiii, 43.
[891] Diodor. xiii, 43.
[892] Diodor. xiii, 43. Κατέστησαν στρατηγὸν τὸν Ἀννίβαν, κατὰ νόμους τότε βασιλεύοντα. Οὗτος δὲ ἦν υἱωνὸς μὲν τοῦ πρὸς Γέλωνα πολεμήσαντος Ἁμίλκου, καὶ πρὸς Ἱμέρᾳ τελευτήσαντος, υἱὸς δὲ Γέσκωνος, ὃς διὰ τὴν τοῦ πατρὸς ἧτταν ἐφυγαδεύθη, καὶ κατεβίωσεν ἐν τῇ Σελινοῦντι. Ὁ δ’ οὖν Ἀννίβας, ὢν μὲν καὶ φύσει μισέλλην, ὅμως δὲ τὰς τῶν προγόνων ἀτιμίας διορθώσασθαι βουλόμενος, etc.