The proper territory of Carthage was regarded as extending southward to Lake Triton, and westward to the river Tusca, which separated Zeugitána from Numidia, thus almost corresponding to the modern Beylik of Tunis. From this compact and valuable territory the Carthaginians proceeded to extend their supremacy or influence over all Northern Africa from the Cyrenaica (the modern Barca) on the east to the Atlantic on the west; and their authority came to be gradually acknowledged by all the coast tribes between the Tusca and the Pillars of Hercules, and also by the numerous nomad races between Lake Triton and Cyrenaica. the former region numerous Carthaginian settlements were made, while Carthage claimed and exercised the right to march troops along the shore. From the latter tract only commercial advantages were obtained, but these were very important. In We have already observed that the Phoenicians had established numerous settlements on the northern coast of Africa long before the founding of Carthage, but Carthage soon eclipsed all these in power and importance. Utica, Hadrumetum, Leptis Magna and other cities were at first independent Phoenician colonies, as free of the authority of Carthage as she was of their dominion. But by degrees Carthage extended her sway over these cities. Yet to the very last Utica and several others of these Phoenician communities maintained a certain degree of independence, being only members of a confederacy under the leadership of Carthage. These confederates of Carthage were unable to resist her, or to exercise much check upon her policy, but she was not absolute mistress upon all places within her territory. Carthage even extended her dominion beyond the limits of Northern Africa. She established her influence in the West of Sicily at an early date, and superseded the more ancient influence of Phoenicia in that island. The Carthaginians conquered Sardinia near the end of the sixth century before Christ, after long and sanguinary wars. They had already occupied the Balearic Isles-Majorca, Minorca and Ivica. They subsequently made settlements in Corsica and in Spain, and subjugated the smaller islands of Malta, Gaulos (now Gozo) and Cercina in the Mediterranean, and those of Madeira and the Canaries in the Atlantic. By the end of the sixth century before Christ, Carthage had extended her power from the Greater Syrtis on the east to the Fortunate Isles (the Canaries) on the coast, and from Corsica on the north to the Atlas mountain chain on the south. The great commercial city effected her extensive conquests by the employment of foreign mercenaries. Besides the disciplined force which Carthage obtained from her own native citizens and from the mixed race of Liby-Phoenices, and besides the irregular troops which she drew from her other subjects, she employed large bodies of hired troops, derived partly from the independent African nations, such as the Numidians and the Mauritanians, and partly from the warlike European races brought into contact with her by her foreign trade, such as the Iberians of Spain, the Gauls of Gaul (now France), and the Ligurians of Northern Italy. We have evidence that this practice existed as early as the year B. C. 480, and there are abundant reasons for believing that it began at a considerably earlier period. The naval power of Carthage must have dated from the very founding of the city. As the sea in ancient times swarmed with pirates, an extensive commerce required the possession of a powerful navy to protect it. For several centuries Carthage must have been undisputed mistress of the Western Mediterranean. The officers and sailors in her fleets were mainly native Carthaginians, while the rowers were principally slaves, bred or bought by the state for the purpose. Carthage was an aristocratic republic, and its constitution vested the political power in a privileged class. The native element, located at Carthage, or in its immediate vicinity, were the ruling element, and virtually governed all the rest of the Carthaginian dominion. This native element itself was final. Questions of peace or war were frequently brought before them, though not necessarily so. The aristocratical features of the constitution were upheld by the weight of popular sentiment, which favored the vesting of political power in the hands. of the rich. The openings which trade gave to enterprise enabled any one to become rich, and abject poverty was scarcely known, because as soon as it made an appearance it was relieved by the planting of colonies and the allotment of waste lands to all such as applied for them. was divided by class distinctions, according | cussed and took action, and their decision to wealth. The two Suffetes, who stood at the head of the state, were chosen only from certain families, but all native Carthaginians were eligible to all other offices. Still, as no office was salaried, the poor man could not afford to serve the state in any civil or political capacity, and thus the offices virtually fell into the hands of the rich. Public opinion was likewise strongly on the side of wealth. Candidates for office were expected to expend large sums of money in treating on the most extensive scale, if not in actual bribery. Thus office and political power practically became the heritage of a circle of wealthy families. At the head of the state were two Suffetes, or Judges, who, in early times, were Captainsgeneral, as well as civil chief magistrates, but whose offices by degrees came to be regarded as only civil and not military. These Suffetes were chosen by the citizens from certain wealthy families, perhaps for life. Next to these magistrates was the Council, consisting of several hundred men, and from this body almost all the officers of the government were appointed, either directly or indirectly as the Senate of One Hundred, a select committee of the Council, which directed all its proceedings; and the Pentarchies, commissions of five members each, which managed the different departments of state and filled vacancies in the Senate. The Council of One Hundred Judges (or with the two Suffetes and the two High Priests, 104), a high court of judicature chosen by the people, was the most popular element in the constitution of Carthage; but the members of the court were virtually selected from the upper classes, and their power was rather employed to check the excessive ambition of individul members of the aristocracy than to enlarge the civil rights or improve the social condition of the masses. The people were contented, however, as they elected the Suffetes under certain limitations, and usually, freely. The people may have filled vacancies in the Great Council; and when the Suffetes and the Council disagreed on public measures the people dis It was necessary for Carthage to have a large and secure revenue, since her power mainly depended upon her maintenance of vast armies of foreign mercenaries. This revenue was partly drawn from state property, especially rich mines in Spain and elsewhere; partly from the tribute which was paid by the confederated cities, such as Utica, Hadrumetum and others, as well as by the Liby-Phoenices, the dependent African nomads, and the provinces, such as Sardinia, Sicily, etc.; and partly from customs rigorously exacted from all the Carthaginian dominions. The tribute was the most elastic of all these sources of revenue, which was increased or diminished as the demands of the state required, and is reputed to have sometimes amounted to fifty per cent. on the income of those subject to it. A curious kind of banking was established at Carthage. Pieces of a compound metal, the secret of whose composition was strictly preserved, so as to prevent forgery, were sewed up in leather coverings and marked with a government seal declaring the nominal value. This money was only current in Carthage itself. The religion of Carthage was that of her mother Tyre, and was therefore polluted by obscene rites and sanguinary human sacrifices. But the Carthaginians also introduced foreign gods into their pantheon, as they adopted the worship of Ceres from the Sicilians, and sent embassadors to Greece to consult the oracle of Delphi. There does seem to have been a distinct priestly caste, or even order, in Carthage, the sacerdotal functions being exercised by the magistrates. Diodorus informs us that in the temple of Saturn at Carthage the brazen image of the god stood with outstretched hands to receive the bodies of children offered to it. Mothers brought their infants in their arms; and as any indications of reluctance would have rendered the sacrifice unacceptable to the image, they caressed them to keep them quiet until the moment when they were handed over to the image, which was contrived so as to consign whatever it received to a fiery furnace beneath it. Inscriptions have been discovered at Carthage recording the offering of such sacrifices. They continued after the Roman conquest of Carthage, until the Roman Proconsul Tiberius suppressed these bloody rites by hanging the priests who conducted them on the trees of their own sacred grove. Thenceforth the public exhibitions of the sacrifice ceased, but they continued in secret to the time of Tertullian, in the third century of the Christian era. In the history of Phoenicia we have given accounts of these sacrifices. SECTION III.-CARTHAGINIAN COMMERCE. HE commerce of Carthage extended in the north as far as Cornwall in Britain and the Scilly Isles, in the east to Phonicia, in the west to Madeira and the Canaries, in the south by sea to the coast of Guinea, and by caravans across the Great Desert to Fezzan and to Central Africa. Carthage obtained the commodities that she needed mainly by trade, exchanging for them her own manufactures, such as textile fabrics, hardware, pottery, personal ornaments, harness for horses, tools, etc. But it was likewise to a great extent a carrying trade, by which Carthage enabled the nations of Western Europe, Western Asia and Central Africa respectively to obtain each other's products. Carthaginian commerce was partly a sea and partly a land traffic. By sea this commerce was mainly with her mother Tyre, with her own colonies, with the nations along the Western Mediterranean, with the tribes along the Alantic coast of Africa from the Pillars of Hercules to the coast of Guinea, and with the savage Britons of Cornwall and the Scilly Isles. But while Carthaginian merchants scoured the sea in every direction in their trading ships, caravans directed by Carthaginian enterprise crossed the Great Desert and brought to Carthage from Central Africa the products of those remote regions, such as gold-dust and negro slaves, while from the districts north of the desert were obtained dates and salt. Upper Egypt, Cyrêné, the oases of the Sahara, Fezzan, and probably Ethiopia and Bornou carried on this traffic with the famous commercial republic. The principal commerce of the Carthaginians in the Western Mediterranean was with the Greek colonies in Sicily and Southern Italy, from which they obtained. wine and oil in exchange for negro slaves, precious stones and gold, procured from the interior of Africa, and also for cotton cloths manufactured at Carthage and in the island of Malta. From Corsica they procured honey, wax and slaves; from Sardinia, corn; from the Balearic Isles, the best breed of mules; from the Lipari Isles, resin, sulphur and pumice-stone; from Southern Spain, the precious metals. Beyond the Pillars of Hercules the Carthaginians superseded the Phoenicians in the tin trade with the British Isles and the amber traffic with the nations along the Baltic. On the western coast of Africa, Carthaginian colonies lined the shores of the present Morocco and Fez, but their chief mart in this region was the island of Cerne, now Suána, in the Atlantic Ocean, which was the great depot of merchandise, and from which goods were transported in light barks to the opposite coast, where they SECTION IV.-WARS OF CARTHAGE IN SICILY. YRENÉ, the Greek colony which had attained great commercial prosperity, regarded the Carthaginians with jealousy, and war soon broke out between the rival commercial cities. While the great Medo-Persian Empire was making itself master of the East, the Republic of Carthage was fast becoming supreme in the West, under the family of Mágo a family which possessed the chief power for more than a century. But just as they were rising into importance they had to meet a powerful enemy in the Western Mediterranean, whose recognized skill and valor threatened a dangerous rivalry. The enterprising inhabitants of Phocæa, a great maritime city of Iona, in Grecian Asia Minor, unable to resist the conquering Persians, abandoned their country and settled in the island of Corsica, a portion of which was already occupied by the Carthaginians. The Carthaginians and Tyrrhenians, or Tuscans, of Italy, jealous of the rivalry of the Phocæans, entered into an alliance to exterminate them, and sent a fleet of one hundred and twenty sail to drive them from Corsica; but this allied fleet was defeated by a Phocæan fleet half as large, after which, however, they abandoned Corsica for the southern shores of Gaul, where they founded the city of Massilia, now Marseilles. In B. C. 508, just after Rome had become a republic by the expulsion of Tarquin the Proud, a commercial treaty was concluded between the republics of Rome and Carthage, from the terms of which it is shown that Carthage was already mistress of the West ern Mediterranean, being supreme on the northern coast of Africa and the island of Sardinia, and also holding possession of the Balearic Isles and a large part of Sicily and Spain. Carthage, jealous of Grecian valor and enterprise, and alarmed at the rapidly-increasing wealth and power of the Greek colonies in Sicily and Southern Italy, entered into an alliance with Xerxes the Great, King of Persia, when that famous monarch led his gigantic expedition into Greece, and agreed to assail the Grecian colonies while he waged war with Greece itself. Accordingly a Carthaginian armament was prepared, consisting of two thousand ships of war, three thousand transports and vessels of burden, and an army of three hundred thousand men; the command of the entire expedition being assigned to Hamilcar, the head of the celebrated family of Mágo. This vast host consisted mainly of African mercenaries, and was composed of light troops, wholly undisciplined. This immense expedition landed in Sicily at Panormus (now Palermo); and, after a short rest, Hamilcar advanced and besieged Himéra. The governor of the city, Théron, made a heroic defense, and sorely pressed by famine and the overwhelming force of the besiegers, urgently requested aid from Syracuse. Thereupon Gelo, King of Syracuse, led a force of five thousand horse and fifteen thousand foot against the Carthaginians. On the way he captured a messenger from the Selinuntines to Hamilcar, promising on a certain day to join the Carthaginians with the auxiliary force of cavalry that he had requested. Hamilcar had offered large bribes to win over Selinuntum and Himéra were taken by storm, and their inhabitants were massacred. The Sicilian Greeks requested a truce, which was granted them on conditions exceedingly favorable to the Carthaginians. some of the Greek colonies in Sicily to the side | Gisgon. This invasion was successful. of the Carthaginians; but the Selinuntines, the old foes of the Syracusans, alone agreed to aid him. Gelo sent the letter to Hamilcar; and having taken steps to intercept the treacherous Selinuntines, he sent a select body of his own troops to the Carthaginian camp in their stead at the stated time. The Syracusans being admitted without being suspected, suddenly galloped to Hamilcar's tent, killed the general and his principal officers, and set fire to the Carthaginian fleet in the harbor. The blaze of the burning ships, the cries of Hamilcar's servants, and the triumphant shout of the Syracusans, threw the entire Carthaginian army into confusion, in the midst of which it was attacked by Gelo with the remainder of his forces. Having lost their leaders, the Carthaginians could make no successful resistance, and lost more than half their number in the field; while the remainder, without arms or provisions, sought refuge in the interior of the island, where most of them perished. This great victory of the Greek race in Sicily was won on the same day that the Greeks in the mother country resisted the Persian hosts at Thermopylæ and defeated the Persian fleet at Artimisium-three of the grandest triumphs won in the gigantic struggle for Hellenic freedom, B. C. 480. The miserable remnant of the mighty Carthaginian hosts under Gisgon, Hamilcar's son, was obliged to surrender at discretion. For the next seventy years Carthage made no further effort to conquer Sicily from the Greeks, but greatly extended her power over the native tribes of Northern Africa, and made important conquests from the Cyrenians. After an Athenian fleet had been destroyed in an attack upon Syracuse, B. C. 416, the Carthaginians again had their attention directed to Sicily by an embassy from the city of Segesta, asking their protection against the Syracusans, whose anger it had incurred by its alliance with the Athenians. The Carthaginians readily seized the pretext afforded them by the Segestan embassy, and sent another expedition against Sicily under the command of Hannibal, the son of Elated with this success the Carthaginians now aimed at the complete conquest of Sicily. Inules, the son of Hanno and Hannibal, at the head of a large armament, besieged Agrigentum, the second city of the island. The siege lasted eight months, during which the besiegers suffered severely from pestilence, and the garrison from famine. The Agrigentines finally sallied from the city, forced their way through the Carthaginian lines by night, and retreated to Gela, leaving the aged, the sick and the wounded to the mercy of the Carthaginians. Himilco, who had succeeded to the chief command of the Carthaginians on the death of his father Hannibal, ordered the massacre of these helpless victims. Gela soon shared the fate of Agrigentum; and Dionysius I., King of Syracuse, who had assumed the command. of the confederated Sicilians, negotiated for peace; whereupon a treaty was concluded, which neither party sincerely desired to observe any longer than would be necessary to prepare for a more decisive struggle, B. C. 405. As soon as the Carthaginians had retired, Dionysius I. sent deputies to all the Greek states of Sicily, requesting them to make a simultaneous attempt to drive the Carthaginians from the island, and secure their independence from any danger in the future. He succeeded in his plans. The Carthaginian merchants who had settled in the chief towns, on the faith of the late treaty of peace, were treacherously massacred; while Dionysius, at the head of a formidable army, took several important Carthaginian fortresses, B. C. 397. Carthage sent a gigantic force to punish this treachery, and Himilco advanced against Syracuse and besieged the city, but a violent plague carried off a large part of the Carthaginian army; while Dionysius sallied from the city with all his forces, and assailed the camp of the besiegers with such success |