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THE POPULAR EDUCATOR. 



the west they met the Greeks of Sicily and Italy, the Greek 

 colony of Marseilles, then Massilia, and the Etruscan pirate 

 merchants, for all of whom the Carthaginians were more than 

 a match. They obtained oil and wine from Sicily ; honey, 

 wax, and slaves, from Corsica ; fruits and beasts of burden, 

 chiefly muiec, from the Balearics ; and bitumen from the Lipari 

 Islands. Malta furnished costly tissues for clothing. Elba, 

 remarkable to this day for the fine iron it produces, supplied 

 material for their furnaces. 



For the commodities thus obtained, the Cartiiaginians gave 

 the produce ol their own industry and commerce, the work of 

 their looms, and especially slaves, precious stones, and gold. 

 As tho state increased in wealth, its system of employing 

 mercenaries became further developed, and draughts of labourers 

 from the islands were employed in Spain to work the mines 

 more vigorously than during the Phoenician period. 



Their maritime commerce outside the Mediterranean extended 

 both north and south, but the extreme limits were kept pro- 

 foundly secret. It is recorded that the master of a merchant 

 vessel voyaging north (probably to Britain), rather than permit 

 a Roman ship, which followed him, to learn his destination, ran 

 his vessel ashore, and led his pursuer to do the same. The 

 Carthaginian, then throwing the whole of the cargo overboard, 

 lightened his vessel and got her off. The merchant, upon his 

 return to Carthage, was commended for doing the state a 

 service, and compensated for the loss of his freight. 



Cerne, an island on the west coast of Africa, opposite Madeira, 

 was the chief station for business with the natives of that part 

 of the continent. According to Herodotus, who learnt more of 

 this commerce than the Carthaginians would willingly have 

 allowed, a silent bargaining used to take place between the 

 natives and merchants. The latter went ashore with their 

 wares, and kindled a fire of damp wood, the ascending smoke 

 of which was the signal that brought the natives down as 

 soon as the sailors retired to their ships. These natives, a tall 

 and handsome race, of dark complexion, with long but not 

 woolly hair, and of pastoral habits, were fond of showy trinkets, 

 which, with harness, pottery, and Egyptian linen, their visitors 

 deposited on the shore. In exchange, they brought elephants' 

 tusks, skins of wild beasts, and gold, placing them alongside 

 the merchants' wares. The Carthaginians again landed ; but, 

 if dissatisfied with the proposed barter, they once more retired, 

 leaving the goods untouched till more gold had been added ; 

 when satisfied, however, they made the exchange and departed. 

 Herodotus speaks of the good faith which was always observed, 

 neither side acting unfairly by the other ; but when the shrewd, 

 calculating Carthaginians met ignorant African tribes, it is not 

 hard to see who were likely to have the best of the bargain. 

 There are so many references in history to this mode of silent 

 barter, in which the contracting parties scarcely saw each other, 

 that we cannot doubt its existence. It was employed in dealing 

 with the natives of India ; and modern travellers describe the 

 practice as continuing in Soudan to the present time. It arose 

 probably from ignorance of each other's language, and from a 

 natural fear of approaching visitors whose power appeared so 

 great. Nevertheless, this mode of conducting traffic could not 

 have been universally practised, for amongst the commodities 

 brought from the interior, black slaves appear prominent, and 

 bulky substances, such as salt from the desert. The whole 

 history of the negro is associated with kidnapping. Negroes 

 were the victims of the slave-dealer, as depicted on the earliest 

 Egyptian monuments ; and the Carthaginians in later times 

 bought them in droves for export to Italy and Greece. A 

 trade in which grain produced in Numidia was exchanged 

 for dates, the produce of less fertile parts, as well as a traffic 

 in feathers, and in furs, completes the summary of the maritime 

 commerce of this people. Southwards, across Sahara, the com- 

 modities brought by caravans were the same as those obtained 

 on the west coast slaves, salt, dates, and gold. Communi- 

 cation between Egypt and Ethiopia was constant, and more 

 particularly with the city of Ammonium, now Siwah. The gems 

 and other precious commodities of India, the perfumes and 

 pearls from the coasts of the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf, 

 the costly furniture, wool, and tapestry of Phoenicia, as well as 

 the scarlet and purple dyes, reached Carthage by this route. 



Despite the military genius of Hamilcar and Hannibal, 

 and the magnanimity and devotion of the latter, Carthage 

 was worsted in the first and second Punic Wars, forced to 



agree to a humiliating peace, and deprived of its foreign 

 possessions. The third Punic \Var, B.C. 149-146, ended in 

 the conquest of the city by the Romans, who were resolved 

 upon its utter destruction. The burning of the temples, 

 palaces, and monuments lasted for seventeen days, and of 

 700,000 inhabitants before the siege, only 50,000 remained 

 alive at its close. Under Augustus a new or Roman Carthage 

 rose upon the site of the former capital, with which it vied in 

 splendour, and became one of the second cities of the empire ; 

 but its Mediterranean trade had departed. Carthage was 

 captured by Genseric, A.D. 439, and made the capital of the 

 Vandal kingdom, re-captured a century later by Belisarius, tho 

 general of Justinian, and finally taken by the Arabs under 

 Hassan, by whom it was sacked and utterly destroyed, A.D. 69. 

 One or two Arab villages now stand amid its ruins. 



The productive resources of Carthage were extended by 

 tillage, manufactures, and commerce. These branches of 

 industry acted and reacted upon each other, fostering tho 

 growth of all, and leading to a vast accumulation of wealth, 

 which the development of maritime power and the establish- 

 ment of trading stations also continually increased. 



A municipal oligarchy, composed of a few wealthy families, 

 whose intelligence in building up their own fortunes by trade 

 ensured some degree of administrative skill, possessed the 

 chief power, and carried their business habits into the offices of 

 government. From them were chosen, to execute the laws, two 

 suffetes, the same title which in the Old Testament is translated 

 "judges." Amongst other regulations by which the suffetes 

 were bound, was one by which they were not permitted to tasto 

 wine during their term of office. The revenue was derived 

 from tribute paid by subjugated races ; from taxes upon distant 

 dependencies, payable in produce or in gold ; from rigorous 

 import duties, and from the Spanish mines. So great was tho 

 revenue from this last source, that the whole cost of the second 

 Punic war was defrayed by it. In the army were to be found 

 Gauls, Iberians, Ligurians, and Negroes ; the officers were 

 native Carthaginians. The most formidable parts of this 

 heterogeneous army were the Numidian horsemen, and tho 

 Balearic slingers. The citadel, Byrza, contained barracks for 

 20,000 troops, with stables for 4,000 horses and 300 elephants. 

 The inner harbour contained the residence of the admiral, 

 magazines and quays for the shipment of cargo, and docks for 

 the building and repairing of 200 merchant vessels and galleys 

 of war. The fleet was very numerous, numbering, in the great 

 engagement with Regulus (B.C. 256), 350 galleys. 



A gloomy and cruel religion was professed. The tutelary 

 deity, Melkarth, has been variously identified with Baal, Bel, 

 Jupiter, and the Sun. The Phoenician Astarte, Ashtaroth, or the 

 Moon, was also worshipped. They sacrificed infants, even of 

 noble families, together with captives taken in war, to Moloch 

 or Saturn, supposed by some to be Melkarth. The cries of the 

 victims were drowned by the sound of fifes and drums. Their 

 religion reflected its character upon their criminal code, which 

 was as severe as that of Draco, crucifixion, for example, being 

 a common punishment. 



We owe to their commercial acuteness the use of bills of 

 exchange and letters of credit, which have done so much to ex- 

 tend the domain of commerce. They also introduced the prac- 

 tice of bottomry, or lending money on mortgage of ships. The 

 earliest of such documents of which mention is made, were pieces 

 of leather impressed with the government mark, and passing 

 current like our bank-notes. Yet they appear not to have had 

 any money proper, although they must have been acquainted 

 with the coinage of Greece. 



The best we know of Carthage is the excellence of her civil 

 constitution, which, according to Aristotle, preserved her for 

 several centuries from anarchy and despotism ; her care for 

 the national credit, which led to the payment of evosy obliga- 

 tion incurred during the struggle with the Romans j and hei 

 filial loyalty to Tyre, when besieged by Nebuchadnezzar and 

 by Alexander the Great, on which occasions sh& opened her 

 gates as an asylum for the Tyrian women, children, and aged 

 people. Literature, that would have at least saved the Cartha- 

 ginians from oblivion, was probably of less account amongs'j 

 them than the acquisition and the retention of riches. Cato'n 

 stern words, Delenda est Carthago, appli-ed to its records, seem 

 to have been as full of meaning a&w.hea applied to the city 

 itself. 



