io6 Before Chrift 149 — 146. 



moft glaring partiality in favour of their tool, Mafinifla * : and at 

 length, with fcarcely the (hadow of a pretence, they declared war againll 

 Carthage. 



The Carthaginians, now convinced that war mufl: be the ruin of com- 

 merce, made great conceffions to avert it. They even offered to be- 

 come fubjeds to the Romans. But thofe relentlefs barbarians, whom 

 nothing could fatisfy but their deftrucTiion, after manygrofs and perfidi- 

 ous abufes of their patience, had the infolence to propole as the condi- 

 tions of peace, (or, more truely fpeaking, of a precarious temporary for- 

 bearance) that they fhould give up their city to deftrudhon, abandon 

 their maritime fituation, and remove to a new and defencelefs city to 

 be built at a diftance from the fea. Such conditions it was impoffible 

 for a mercantile people to comply with : and the confequences were 

 what the Romans had forefeen, and delired. The Carthaginians were 

 driven to defperation, and though previoully deprived of all their arms 

 and engines of defence by a bafe trick of the Roman confuls, yet, by 

 the aftonifhing exertion and perfeverance of all the men, women, and 

 bigger children, in the city, they inftantaneoufiy provided new arms and 

 engines, and made a noble ftand againft their inveterate enemies, whom 

 they feveral times defeated with confiderable flaughter. When even 

 fhut up within their city by lines drawn acrofs the neck of land behind 

 it, when the one harbour was completely blocked up by the Roman 

 fleet, and the other was rendered ufelefs by a mole formed with prodi- 

 gious labour by the enemy, they in a few days created a new harbour, 

 and a new fleet of fifty triremes, with which they engaged their ene- 

 mies. At another time they deftroyed their engines, and put them to 

 flight, though armed only with lighted torches. But it was impolfible 

 for an exhaufted and diminiflied community, however courageous, to 

 refifl: the frefh and vigorous armies of Rome. The city, when it had 

 held out four years after the time that the Romans thought they had 

 only to take pofTefllon of it, was utterly deftroyed ; the inhabitants of 

 both fexes and all ages, excepting a few, who were referved for the more 

 bitter d- ath of flavery, were butchered ; and Rome triumphed over the 

 afhes of Carthage (a". 146) f. 



Tims, after having for many ages animated and civilized the weftern 

 parts of the world by the vaft extent of her commerce, and by her 

 Icience, after having eclipfed the moft brilliant period in the hiftory of 



* ' Huic bono focioque rcgl favcbalur.' Fkr. (and lie was then romanized) as well as a veiy 



/,. ii, c, 15. faitlilul hiilorian. 



f The account of this waf, or rather carnage, The moft. genuine remains of the Carthaginian 



is chiefly from Appian, with fomc alTillancc from people and language now exiiling are fuppoTed to 



the fragments of Folybius, who was prcfent at tiie be in Malta. \_Sl:ylax, Stcphanus, Wf. ap. Bocbart. 



dtftruttion of Carthage, and contributed to it by Chaiman, I., i, c. 26. — Purchai, B. vi, p. 916.3 



hiB advice : for he was a warrior and a confunimatc Mr. Eton, who has lived at Malta, told me that 



|>olitician in ihc cationalfelfifh ftnfe^pf the word the Maltrfc call their language Punic, and he finde 



1 it much akin to the Arabic. 



