composed a piece to console the unhappy citizens of Carthage, who, by the ruin of their city, were reduced to slavery.

I might rank among, or rather place at the head of, the writers who have adorned Africa, the celebrated Terence; himself singly being capable of reflecting infinite honour on his country by the fame of his productions, if, on this account, Carthage, the place of his birth, ought not to be less considered as his country than Rome, where he was educated, and acquired that purity of style, that delicacy and elegance, which have gained him the admiration of all succeeding ages. It is supposed, that he was carried off when an infant, or at least very young, by the Numidians in their incursions into the Carthaginian territories, during the war carried on between these two nations, from the conclusion of the second, to the beginning of the third, Punic war. He was sold for a slave to Terentius Lucanus, a Roman senator; who, after giving him an excellent education, gave him his liberty, and called him by his own name, as was then the custom. He was united in a very strict friendship with the second Scipio Africanus, and Lælius; and it was a common report at Rome, that he had the assistance of these two great men in composing his pieces. The poet, so far from endeavouring to stifle a report so advantageous to him, made a merit of it. Only six of his comedies are extant. Some authors, on the authority of Suetonius, (the writer of his life,) say, that in his return from Greece, whither he had made à voyage, he lost a hundred and eight. comedies, which he had translated from Menander, and could not survive an accident which must naturally afflict him in a sensible manner: but this incident is not very well founded. Be this as it may, he died in the year of Rome 594, under the consulship of Cneius Cornelius Dolabella and M. Fulvius, at the age of thirty-five years, and consequently he was born anno 560.

It must yet be confessed, notwithstanding all we have said, that there ever was a great scarcity of learned men in Carthage, since it hardly furnished three or four writers of reputation in upwards of seven hundred years. Although the Carthaginians held a correspondence with Greece and the most civilized nations, yet this did not excite them to borrow their learning, as being foreign to their views of trade and commerce. Eloquence, poetry, history, seem to have been little known among them. A Carthaginian philosopher was considered as a sort of prodigy by the learned. What then would an astronomer or a geometrician have been thought? I know not in what esteem physic, which is so highly useful to life, was held at Carthage; or jurisprudence, so necessary to society.

As works of wit were generally had in sc much disregard,

i Suet. in vit. Terent.

the education of youth must necessarily have been very imperfect and unpolished. In Carthage, the study and knowledge of youth were for the most part confined to writing, arithmetic, book-keeping, and the buying and selling goods; in a word, to whatever related to traffic. But polite learning, history, and philosophy, were in little repute among them. These were in later years even prohibited by the laws, which expressly forbade any Carthaginian to learn the Greek tongue, lest it might qualify them for carrying on a dangerous correspondence with the enemy, either by letter or word of mouth.

Now what could be expected from such a cast of mind? Accordingly there was never seen among them that elegance of behaviour, that ease and complacency of manners, and those sentiments of virtue, which are generally the fruits of a liberal education in all civilized nations. The small number of great men which this nation has produced, must therefore have owed their merit to the felicity of their genius, to the singularity of their talents, and the long experience, without any great assistance from cultivation and instruction. Hence it was, that the merit of the greatest men of Carthage was sullied by great failings, low vices, and cruel passions; and it is rare to meet with any conspicuous virtue among them without some blemish; with any virtue of a noble, generous, and amiable kind, and supported by enlightened and steady principles, such as is every where found among the Greeks and Romans. The reader will perceive that I here speak only of the heathen virtues, and agreeably to the idea which the pagans entertained of them.

I meet with as few monuments of their skill in arts of a less noble and necessary kind, as painting and sculpture. I find, indeed, that they had plundered their conquered nations of a great many works in both these kinds; but it does not appear that they themselves had produced many.

From what has been said, one cannot help concluding, that traffic was the predominant inclination, and the peculiar characteristic of the Carthaginians; that it formed, in a manner, the basis of the state, the soul of the commonwealth, and the grand spring which gave motion to all their enterprises. The Carthaginians, in general, were skilful merchants; employed wholly in traffic; excited strongly by the desire of gain, and

Factum senatûs consultum ne quis postea Carthaginensis aut literis Græcis aut sermoni studeret; ne aut loqui cum hoste, aut scribere sine interprete posset. Justin. l. xx. c. 5. Justin ascribes the reason of this law to a treasonable correspondence between one Suniatus, a powerful Carthaginian, and Dionysius the Tyrant of Sicily; the former, by letters written in Greek, (which afterwards fell into the hands of the Carthaginians.) having informed the tyrant of the war designed against him by his country, out of hatred to Hanno the general, to whom he was an enemy.

esteeming nothing but riches; directing all their talents, and placing their chief glory, in amassing them; though at the same time they scarce knew the purpose for which they were designed, or how to use them in a noble or worthy manner.

SECT. VIII. THE CHARACTER, MANNERS, AND QUALITIES, OF THE CARTHAGINIANS.

In the enumeration of the various qualities which Cicero' assigns to different nations, as their distinguishing characteristics, he declares those of the Carthaginians to be craft, skill, address, industry, cunning, calliditas; which doubtless appeared in war, but was still more conspicuous in the rest of their conduct; and this was joined to another quality that bears a very near relation to it, and is still less reputable. Craft and cunning lead naturally to lying, duplicity, and breach of faith; and these, by accustoming the mind insensibly to be less scrupulous with regard to the choice of the means for compassing its designs, prepare it for the basest frauds and the most perfidious actions. This was also one of the characteristics of the Carthaginians; and it was so notorious, that to signify any remarkable dishonesty, it was usual to call it Punic faith, fides Punica; and to denote a knavish, deceitful disposition; no expression was thought more proper and emphatical than this, à Carthaginian disposition, Punicum ingenium.

m

An excessive thirst for amassing wealth, and an inordinate love of gain, generally gave occasion in Carthage to the committing base and unjust actions. One single example will prove this. During a truce, granted by Scipio to the earnest entreaties of the Carthaginians, some Roman vessels, being driven by a storm on the coasts of Carthage, were seized by order of the senate and people," who could not suffer so tempting a prey to escape them. They were resolved to get money, though the manner of acquiring it were ever so scandalous. The inhabitants of Carthage, even in St. Austin's time, (as that Father informs us,) showed, on a particular occasion, that they still retained part of this characteristic."

1 Quam volumus licèt ipsi nos amemus, tamen nec numero Hispanos, nec robore Gallos, nec calliditate Poenos, &c. sed pietate ac religione, &c. omnes gentes nationesque superavimus. De Arusp. Resp. n. 19.

Carthaginenses fraudulenti et mendaces-multis et variis mercatorum advenarumque sermonibus ad studium fallendi quæstûs cupiditate vocabanCic. orat ii. in Rull. n. 94.

tur.

" Magistratus senatum vocare, populus in curiæ vestibulo fremere, ne tanta ex oculis manisbusque amitteretur præda. Consensum est ut, &c. Liv. 1. xxx. n. 24.

A mountebank had promised the citizens of Carthage to discover to them their most secret thoughts, in case they would come, on a day appointed, to

But these were not the only blemishes and faults of the Carthaginians. They had something austere and savage in their disposition and genius, a haughty and imperious air, a sort of ferocity, which, in the first transports of passion, was dead to both reason and remonstrances, and plunged brutally into the utmost excesses of violence. The people, cowardly and grovelling under apprehensions, were proud and cruel in their transports at the same time that they trembled under their magistrates, they were dreaded in their turn by their miserable vassals. In this we see the difference which education makes between one nation and another. The Athenians, whose city was always considered as the centre of learning, were naturally jealous of their authority, and difficult to govern; but still a fund of good nature and humanity made them compassionate the misfortunes of others, and be indulgent to the errors of their leaders. Cleon one day desired the assembly, in which he presided, to break up, because, as he told them, he had a sacrifice to offer, and friends to entertain. The people only laughed at the request, and immediately separated. Such a liberty, says Plutarch, at Carthage, would have cost a man his life.

Livy makes a like reflection with regard to Terentius Varro. That general, on his return to Rome after the battle of Cannæ, which had been lost by his ill conduct, was met by persons of all orders of the state, at some distance from Rome; and thanked by them, for his not having despaired of the commonwealth; who, says the historian, had he been a general of the Carthaginians, must have expected the most severe punishment: Cui, si Carthaginensium ductor fuisset, nihil recusandum supplicii foret. Indeed, a court was established at Carthage, where the generals were obliged to give an account of their conduct; and they all were made responsible for the events of the war. Ill success was punished there as a crime against the state; and whenever a general lost a battle, he was almost sure, at his return, of ending his life upon a gibbet. Such was the furious, cruel, and barbarous disposition of the Carthaginians, who were always ready to shed the blood of their citizens as well as of foreigners. The unheard-of tortures which they made Regulus suffer, are a manifest proof of this assertion; and their history will furnish us with such instances of it, as are not to be read without horror.

hear him. Being all met, he told them, they were desirous to buy cheap and sell dear. Every man's conscience pleaded guilty to the charge; and the mountebank was dismissed with applause and laughter. Vili vultis emere, et care vendere; in quo dicto levissimi scenici omnes tamen conscientias invenerunt suas, eique vera et tamen improvisa dicenti admirili favore plauserunt. S. August. 1. xiii. de Trinit. c. 3. Lib. xxii. n. 61.

P Plut. de gen. Rep. p. 799.

PART II.

THE HISTORY OF THE CARTHAGINIANS.

THE interval of time between the foundation of Carthage and its ruin, included seven hundred years, and may be divided into two parts. The first, which is much the longest and the least known, (as is ordinary with the beginnings of all states,) extends to the first Punic war, and takes up five hundred and eighty-two years. The second, which ends at the destruction of Carthage, contains but a hundred and eighteen years.

CHAP. I.

The Foundation of Carthage, and its Aggrandizement, till the Time of the first Punic War.

CARTHAGE in Africa was a colony from Tyre, the most renowned city at that time for commerce in the world. Tyre had long before transplanted into that country another colony, which built Utica," made famous by the death of the second Cato, who for this reason is generally called Cato Uticensis.

Authors disagree very much with regard to the era of the foundation of Carthage. It is a difficult matter, and not very material, to reconcile them; at least, agreeably to the plan laid down by me, it is sufficient to know, within a few years, the time in which that city was built.

Carthage existed a little above seven hundred years. It was destroyed under the consulate of Cn. Lentulus, and L. Mummius, the 603d year of Rome, 3859th of the world, and 145 before Christ. The foundation of it may therefore be fixed in the year of the world 3158, when Joash was king of

Utica et Carthago, ambæ inclytæ, ambæ à Phænicibus condita; illa fato Catonis insignis, hæc suo. Pompon. Mel. c. 67. Utica and Carthage, both famous, and both built by Phoenicians; the first renowned by Cato's fate, the last by its own.

Our countryman Howel endeavours to reconcile the three different accounts of the foundation of Carthage, in the following manner. He says, that the town consisted of three parts, viz. Cothon, or the port and buildings adjoining to it, which he supposes to have been first built; Megara, built next, and, in respect of Cothon, called the New Town, or Karthada: and Byrsa, or the citadel, built last of all, and probably by Dido.

Cothon, to agree with Appian, was built fifty years before the taking of Troy; Megara, to correspond with Eusebius, was built a hundred and ninetyfour years later; Byrsa, to agree with Menander, (cited by Josephus,) was built a hundred and sixty-six years after Megara.

Liv. Epit. 1. ii.