The banishment of Giskon, and that too for the whole of his life, deserves notice, as a point of comparison between the Greek republics and Carthage. A defeated general in Greece, if he survived his defeat, was not unfrequently banished, even where there seems neither proof nor probability that he had been guilty of misconduct, or misjudgment, or omission. But I do not recollect any case in which, when a Grecian general thus apparently innocent was not merely defeated but slain in the battle, his son was banished for life, as Giskon was banished by the Carthaginians. In appreciating the manner in which the Grecian states, both democratical and oligarchical, dealt with their officers, the contemporary republic of Carthage is one important standard of comparison. Those who censure the Greeks, will have to find stronger terms of condemnation when they review the proceedings of the Carthaginians.
[893] Diodor. xiii, 43, 44.
[894] Diodor. xiii, 44.
[895] Diodor. xiii, 59.
[896] Diodor. xiii, 55; xi, 21.
[897] Diodor. xiii, 54-58. οἱ τοῖς Καρχηδονίοις Ἕλληνες ξυμμαχοῦντες, etc.
It cannot therefore be exact,—that which Plutarch affirms, Timoleon, c. 30,—that the Carthaginians had never employed Greeks in their service, at the time of the battle of the Krimêsus,—B.C. 340.
[898] Thucyd. vi, 34. δυνατοὶ δέ εἰσι (the Carthaginians) μάλιστα τῶν νῦν, βουληθέντες· χρυσὸν γὰρ καὶ ἄργυρον πλεῖστον κέκτηνται, ὅθεν ὅ τε πόλεμος καὶ τἄλλα εὐπορεῖ.
[899] Diodor. xiii, 54, 55.
[900] Diodor. xiii, 56, 57.