142 AGKICULTCRE. 



Nomad tribes and Lotophagi. It appears from Diodorus, 

 Polybius, and Strabo, that the Carthaginians received 

 large supplies of grain from Sardinia and Sicily. Heeren, 

 of whose research and judgment it would be impossible to 

 speak too highly, says : * 



" The foreign colonies of Carthage were always chosen for 

 the purposes of commerce ; but those within her own ter- 

 ritory were, at least for the most part, inland, and fixed 



upon fur the promotion of agriculture It 



was a general principle of Carthaginian policy to improve, 

 as much as possible, the cultivation of their lands, and to 

 accustom the native tribes under their subjection to do the 

 same. . . . They, in fact, appear to have attached 

 more importance to agriculture than to commerce. . . . 

 . . It is plain that families of the first rank were in 

 possession of large estates, from whose produce they drew 

 their income ; while on the contrary, there is not a single 

 trace, in the whole history of the republic, of their being 

 concerned in trade." 



It is difficult to reconcile these opinions of Heeren's 

 with Cicero's statement that a preference for trade and 

 navigation, and a neglect of agriculture and arms, were the 

 main causes of the weakness of Carthage.f The modern, 

 however, derives much support from indisputable facts re- 

 lating to Carthaginian literature. Kings, or perhaps pre- 

 sidents, but at all events great generals, were among their 

 agricultural writers. " Mago, the Carthaginian, and Hamil- 

 car (says Columella) held it not beneath their dignity, when 

 they were unoccupied by war, to contribute by treatises on 

 farming their quota towards human life." We learn from 

 several sources that the books of Mago on agriculture 

 amounted to twenty-eight ; that they were translated into 

 Greek by Cassius Dionysius of Utica ; that on the final 

 destruction of Carthage, when the whole literature of the 

 conquered nation was given over by the Romans to their 



* We quote from the translation published at Oxford in 1838. 

 t De Kepublica, 2. 4. 



