Constitutional History.—The narrative must here be interrupted by an account of the political and religious development of Phoenician Carthage. Carthage was an aristocratic republic based on wealth rather than on birth. Indeed, the popular party, which included certain noble families such as the Barcidae, was always powerful, and thus government by demagogues was not infrequent. So Aristotle, writing about 330, emphasizes the importance of great wealth in Carthaginian politics. The government was in fact a plutocracy. The aristocratic party was represented by the two suffetes and the senate; the democratic by the popular assembly. The suffetes (Sofetim) presided in the senate and controlled the civil administration; the office was annual, but there was no limit to re-election. Hannibal was elected for twenty-two years. The senate, which, like that of Tyre, was composed of 300 members, exercised ultimate control over all public affairs, decided on peace and war, nominated the Commission of Ten, which was charged with aiding and controlling the suffetes. This commission was subsequently replaced, by a council of one hundred, called by the Greeks gerousia. This tribunal, which maintained law and order and called the generals to account, gradually became a tyrannical inquisition. Frequently it met at night in the Temple of Eshmun On Byrsa, in secret sessions described by Aristotle as συσσίτια τῶν ἑταιριῶν.
The popular assembly was composed, not of all the citizens, but of the timuchi (Gr. τιμἠ, ἔχειν), i.e. those who possessed a certain property-qualification. The election of the suffetes had to be ratified by this assembly. The two bodies were almost always in opposition, and this was one of the chief causes of the ruin of Carthage.
The army was recruited externally by senators who were sent to the great emporia or trade-centres, even to the most remote, to contract with local princes for men and officers. The payments, agreed upon in this way, were frequently in arrears; hence the terrible revolts such as that of the “bellum inexpiabile.” It was not till the 3rd century that Carthage, in imitation of the kings of Syria and Egypt, began to make use of elephants in war. The elephant used was the African type (elephas capensis), which was smaller than the Asiatic (elephas indicus), though with longer ears. In addition to the mercenaries, the army contained a legion composed of young men belonging to the best families in the state; this force was important as a nursery of officers.
Religion.—The religion of Carthage was that of the Phoenicians. Over an army of minor deities (alonim and baalim) towered the trinity of great gods composed of Baal-Ammon or Moloch (identified by the Romans with Cronus or Saturn); Tanit, the virgin goddess of the heavens and the moon, the Phoenician Astarte, and known as Juno Caelestis in the Roman period; Eshmun, the protecting deity and protector of the acropolis, generally identified with Aesculapius. There were also special cults: of Iolaus or Tammuz-Adonis, whom the Romans identified to some extent with Mercury; of the god Patechus or Pygmaeus, a deformed and repulsive monster like the Egyptian Ptah, whose images were placed on the prows of ships to frighten the enemy; and lastly of the Tyrian Melkarth, whose functions were analogous to those of Hercules. The statue of this god was carried to Rome after the siege of 146 (Pliny, Nat. Hist. xxxvi. 12. 39). From inscriptions we know the names of other minor deities, which are perhaps only other names of the same gods, e.g. Rabbat Umma, “the great mother”; Baalat haedrat, “mistress of the sanctuary”; Ashtoreth (Astarte), Illat, Sakon, Tsaphon, Sid, Aris (? Ares).
From the close of the 4th century b.c. the intimate relations between the Carthaginians and the Sicilian Greeks began to introduce Hellenic elements into this religion. In the forum of Carthage was a temple to Apollo containing a colossal statue, which was transported to Rome. The Carthaginians once at least sent offerings to Delphi, and Tanit approximated to some extent to Demeter; hence on the coins we find the head of Tanit or the Punic Astarte crowned with ears of corn, in imitation of the coins of the Greek Sicilian colonies. The symbol of Tanit is the crescent moon; in her temple at Carthage was preserved a famous veil or peplus which was venerated as the city’s palladium. On the innumerable votive stelae which have been unearthed, we find invocations to Tanit and Baal-Ammon, as two associate deities (θεοὶ πάρεδροι). The usual formula in these inscriptions is, “To the great lady Tanit, the manifestation [reflex, face] of Baal (Tanti-Penē-Baal) and to our lord Baal-Ammon, the vow of Bomilcar, son of Mago, son of Bomilcar, because they have heard his prayer” (Corp. inscr. semit. vol. i. pp. 276 f.; Audollent, Carth. Rom. p. 369).
Baal-Ammon or Moloch, the great god of all Libya, is represented as an old man with ram’s horns on his forehead; the ram is frequently found with his statues. He appears also with a scythe in his hand (“falcem ferens senex pingitur.” St Cyprian, De idol. vanit. 11). At Carthage children were sacrificed to him, and in his temple there was a colossal bronze statue in the arms of which were placed the children who were to be sacrificed (Diod. Sic. xx. 14; Justin xviii. 6, xix. 1; Plut. De superstit. 13, De sera num. vindic. 6.). The children slipped one by one from the arms into a furnace amid the plaudits of fanatical worshippers. These sacrifices persisted even under Roman rule; Tertullian states that even in his time they took place in secret (Apolog. cix.; cf. Delattre, “Inscript. de Carth.,” in Bulletin épigraphique, iv. p. 317; Audollent, op. cit. p. 398).
(4) Roman Period.—In 122 b.c., twenty-four years after the destruction of the city by Scipio Aemilianus, the Roman senate, on the proposal of Rubrius, decided to plant a Latin colony on the site. C. Gracchus and Fulvius Flaccus were entrusted with the foundation of the new city, which was christened Colonia Junonia, and placed under the protection of Juno Caelestis, the new name for the Punic Tanit. But its prosperity was obstructed both by unpropitious omens and by the very recollection of the ancient feud, and fifty years later Marius, proscribed by Sulla, found the ruins practically deserted. In the neighbourhood were the scattered remnants of the old Punic population, who, according to Athenaeus (Deipnosoph. v. 50), had actually had the assurance to send ambassadors to Mithradates the Great assuring him of their support against Rome. Ultimately M. Minucius Rufus passed a law abrogating that of 122 and suppressing the Colonia Junonia.
Julius Caesar, pursuing the lost supporters of Pompey, encamped on the ruins of the city, and there, according to tradition, had a dream which induced him to re-establish the abandoned colony. Returning to Rome, he despatched thither the poor citizens who were demanding land from him. Later on Augustus sent new colonists, and, henceforward, the machinery of administration was regularly centred there (Appian viii. 136; Dio Cass. lxxx. 1; Audollent, op. cit. p. 46). The proconsuls of the African province had hitherto lived at Utica; in 14-13 b.c. C. Sentius Saturninus transferred his headquarters to Carthage, which was henceforth known as Colonia Julia Carthago. Several inscriptions use this name, as also the bronze coins which bear the heads of Augustus and Tiberius, and were struck at first in the name of the suffetes, afterwards in that of duumviri.
Pomponius Mela and Strabo already describe Carthage as among the greatest and most wealthy cities of the empire. Herodian puts it second to Rome, and such is the force of tradition that the Roman citizens resident in Carthage boasted of its Punic past, and loved to recall its glory. Virgil in the Aeneid celebrated the misfortunes of Dido, whom the colonists ultimately identified with Tanit-Astarte; a public Dido-cult grew up, and the citizens even pretended to have discovered the very house from which she had watched the departure of Aeneas. The religious character of these legends, coupled with the city’s resumption of its old role as mistress of Africa, and its independent spirit, reawakened the old distrust, and even up to the invasions of the Vandals the jealous rivalry of Rome forbade the reconstruction of the city walls.
The revolt of L. Clodius Macer, legate of Numidia, in a.d. 68 was warmly supported by Carthage, and one of the coins of this short-lived power bears the symbol of Carthage personified. At the moment of the accession of Vitellius, Piso, governor of the province of Africa, was in his turn proclaimed emperor at Carthage. A little later, under Antoninus Pius, we read of a fire which devastated the quarter of the forum; about the same time, i.e. under Hadrian and Antoninus, there was built the famous Zaghwan aqueduct, which poured more than seven million gallons of water a day into the reservoirs of the Mapalia (La Malga); the cost of this gigantic work was defrayed by a special tax which pressed heavily on the inhabitants as late as the reign of Septimius Severus; allusions to it are made on the coin-types of this emperor (E. Babelon, Revista italiana di numismatica, 1903, p. 157).