But the dominion over Libya was only one-half of the Carthaginian power; their maritime and colonial supremacy had, at the same time, developed not less formidable proportions. In Spain the chief seat of the Phœnicians was the ancient Tyrian settlement in Gades (Cadiz); west and east of the latter they also possessed a chain of factories, and in the interior the territory of the silver mines, so that they occupied the modern Andalusia and Granada, at least their coasts. Ebusus and the Balearic Isles the Carthaginians had themselves colonised at an early period, partly for the sake of the fisheries, partly as advance posts against the Massaliots with whom, from this base, they carried on an eager war. Similarly by the end of the second century of Rome the Carthaginians had established themselves in Sardinia, which they exploited in exactly the same way as Libya.
[450-350 B.C.]
In Sicily, finally, it is true that the roads from Messana and the eastern and larger half of the island had early fallen into the hands of the Greeks; but by help of the Carthaginians the Phœnicians maintained themselves, some in the smaller islands in the neighbourhood, the Ægates, Melita, Gaulos, Cossyra, of which the colony in Malta was especially flourishing; some on the western and northwestern coasts of Sicily, where, from Motya, and later from Lilybæum, they kept up relations with Africa and from Panormus and Solœis with Sardinia. The interior of the island remained in possession of the native Elymi, Sicani, and Sicels.
All these settlements and possessions were considerable enough in themselves; but they were of still greater importance as the pillars of the Carthaginian dominion of the sea. By the possession of the south of Spain, the Balearic Islands, Sardinia, the west of Sicily and Melita, in union with the prevention of Hellenic colonisation on the eastern Spanish coast, as well as on Corsica and in the neighbourhood of the Syrtis, the lords of the North African coast closed their seas against the foreigner and monopolised the western waters. The Phœnicians had indeed to share the Tyrrhenian and Gallic seas with other nations; but this might be tolerated so long as the Etruscans and Greeks counterbalanced each other there, and with the former as the less dangerous rival, Carthage even entered into an alliance against the Greeks.
But after the downfall of the Etruscan power, which, as is usually the case in alliances entered into under stress of circumstances, Carthage had probably not exactly used all her strength to avert, and after the frustration of the schemes of Alcibiades, when Syracuse was indisputably the first Greek naval power, this system of balance could no longer be maintained. As the rulers of Syracuse began to aim at the dominion over Sicily and lower Italy, and over the Tyrrhenian and Adriatic seas, the Carthaginians had perforce to pursue an energetic policy. The first result of the long and obstinate struggle between them and their opponent, Dionysius of Syracuse (405-367), a prince as powerful as he was infamous, was the annihilation or reduction to impotence of the central Sicilian states, in the interest of both parties, and the partition of the island between the Syracusans and Carthaginians. But each party constantly renewed the attempt to dislodge its rival. Four times the Carthaginians were masters of all Sicily, save Syracuse, and were baffled by its strong walls; almost as often the Syracusans under able leaders, such as the elder Dionysius, Agathocles, and Pyrrhus, appeared to be almost as near success. But gradually the balance became more and more in favour of the Carthaginians. Meantime the struggle on the sea was already decided. Pyrrhus’ attempt to restore the Syracusan fleet was the last. When it had failed the ships of the Carthaginians ruled the whole western Mediterranean without a rival; and their attempts to occupy Syracuse, Rhegium, and Tarentum showed what they could do and what was their object. Side by side with this went the endeavour to gradually monopolise the maritime trade of these regions against both foreign countries and their own subjects; and it was not a Carthaginian practice to shrink forever from the violence required to further an object. A contemporary of the Punic war, Eratosthenes, the father of geography, testifies that any foreign sailor, who fell into the hands of the Carthaginians on his way to Sardinia or the Straits of Gades, was thrown by them into the sea.
[350-283 B.C.]
Aristotle, who died about fifty years before the first Punic war, describes the Carthaginian government as having passed from a monarchy into an aristocracy or a democracy inclining towards oligarchy; for he calls it by both names. The conduct of business lay first of all with the council of Elders, which like the Spartan Gerusia consisted of two annually appointed kings and twenty-eight Gerontes, who also, as it appears, were elected year by year by the citizens. It was this council which to all intents and purposes carried on the business of the state; for example, it took the steps necessary for war, gave orders for levies and recruiting, appointed the general, and gave him a number of Gerontes as colleagues, from amongst whom the subordinate commanders were as a rule taken; to it the despatches were addressed. It is doubtful whether a larger council stood side by side with this small one; in no case was it of much importance, nor does it appear that any special influence appertained to the kings; their chief function was that of supreme judges, as they are not unfrequently styled (suffets, prætores). The general’s power was greater; Isocrates, an elder contemporary of Aristotle, says that at home the Carthaginians obeyed an oligarchical government, but in the field a monarchical one, and so the office of the Carthaginian general is described by Roman authors as that of a dictator, although the Gerontes joined with him must have, practically at least, limited his power, as must also the regular account which was unknown to the Romans and which he had to render on laying down his office. Above the Gerusia and the officials stood the body of the hundred and four, or, more briefly, the hundred, or judges, the chief bulwark of the Carthaginian oligarchy. This was not part of the original constitution of Carthage, but, like the Spartan ephorate, took its rise in the aristocratic opposition to the monarchical elements in that constitution. Owing to the system of purchasing offices and the small number of the members of the highest court, a single Carthaginian family, that of Hago, which was pre-eminently distinguished for its wealth and military glory, threatened to unite the administration in war and peace, with the charge of justice, in their own hands; this led, about the time of the decemvirs to a change in the constitution and the establishment of this new authority.
It appears that although the Carthaginian citizens were not expressly limited to a passive assistance at the discussion of questions concerning the state, as was the case in Sparta, yet practically their influence in such matters was very slight. At the elections to the Gerusia a system of open bribery prevailed; at the appointment of a general the people were indeed consulted, but probably only when in reality the appointment had already been made on the suggestion of the Gerusia; and in other matters the people were only referred to when the Gerusia thought good or could not agree. Popular tribunals were unknown in Carthage. The impotence of the citizens was probably an essential condition of their political organisation; the Carthaginian messes, which are mentioned in this connection and compared to the Spartan pheiditia, may have been fraternities conducted on an oligarchical basis. We even hear of a distinction between “citizens” and “manual workers,” which leads us to suppose a very degraded position for the latter, and perhaps no rights at all.
Regarded as a whole, the Carthaginian constitution appears to have been a government by capitalists, such as is conceivable in a citizen community without a well-to-do middle class, and consisting on the one hand of a crowd owning no property and living from hand to mouth, on the other of great merchants, estate owners and noble magistrates. Nor was Carthage without that infallible token of a corrupt city oligarchy: the system of enriching the impoverished masters at the cost of the subjects by sending them to the subordinate communities as treasurers and superintendents of forced labour. Aristotle describes this as the main cause of the tried stability of the Carthaginian constitution. Down to his time no revolution worth mentioning had been effected in Carthage, either from above or beneath; the crowd remained leaderless in consequence of the material advantages which the ruling oligarchy was in a position to offer to all ambitious or distressed members of the upper class, and were compensated by the crumbs which fell to them from the master’s table in the form of bribes at elections or in some other fashion.
Of course with such a government there could not fail to be a democratic opposition; yet even at the time of the first Punic war this was completely powerless. Later on, partly under the influence of the defeats suffered, their political influence is seen rapidly increasing, and far more rapidly than that of the similar and contemporary Roman party; the popular assembly began to give the final decision in political questions and broke the all-powerful influence of the Carthaginian oligarchy. A patriotic and reforming energy prevailed in the opposition; still we cannot overlook the fact that it rested on a corrupt and rotten foundation. The Carthaginian citizenhood, which well-informed Greeks have compared to the Alexandrian, was so corrupt that in this respect it deserved to be powerless, and it might well be asked what good could come from revolutions where, as in Carthage, the scamps were instrumental in making them.