ment. says the historian, had he been a general of the Cartha ginians, must have expected the most severe punishCui, si Carthaginiensium 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 were all made responsible for the events of 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. PART SECOND. 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 one hundred and eighteen years. CHAPTER I. THE FOUNDATION OF CARTHAGE, AND ITS PROGRESS 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 another colony into that country, 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 145th before Christ. The foundation of Utica et Carthago, ambæ inclyte, ambæ à Phanicibus condita: illa fato Catonis insignis, hæc suo. Pompon. Mel. c. 67. Utica and Carthage, both famous, and both built by Phenicians; 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 one hundred and ninetyfour years after; Byrsa, to agree with Menander, cited by Josephus, was built one hundred and sixty six years after Megara. it may therefore be fixed at the year of the world 3158, when Joash was king of Judah, ninety eight years before the building of Rome, and eight hundred and forty six before our Saviour. "The foundation of Carthage is ascribed to Elisa, a Tyrean princess, better known by the name of Dido. Ithobal, king of Tyre, and father of the famous Jezebel, called in scripture Ethbaal, was her great grandfather. She married her near relation Acerbas, called otherwise Sicharbas and Sicheus, an extremely rich prince, and Pygmalion king of Tyre was her brother. This prince having put Sicheus to death, in order that he might have an opportunity to seize his immense treasures; Dido eluded the cruel avarice of her brother, by withdrawing secretly with all her dead husband's possessions. After having long wandered, she at last landed on the coast of the Mediterranean, in the gulf where Utica stood, and in the country of Africa, properly so called, distant almost fifteen miles from Tunis, so famous, at this time, for its corsairs; and there settled with her few followers, after having purchased some lands from the inhabitants of the country." Justin, 1. xviii. c. 4, 5, 6. App. de bello Pun. p. 1. 832. Paterc. 1. i. c. 6. 120 stadia. Strab. 1. xiv. p. 687. Strab. I. xvii. p. w Some authors say, that Dido put a trick on the natives, by desiring to purchase of them, for her intended settlement, only so much land as an ox's hide would encompass. The request was thought too moderate to be denied. She then cut the hide into the smallest thongs; and with them, encompassed a large tract of ground, on which she built a citadel called Byrsa, from the hide. But this tale of the thongs is generally exploded by the learned; who observe, that the Hebrew word bosra, which signifies a fortification, gave rise to the Greek word byrsa, which is the -name of the citadel of Carthage. Many of the neighbouring people, invited by the prospect of lucre, repaired thither to sell to these foreigners the necessaries of life, and shortly after incorporated themselves with them. These inhabitants, who had been thus gathered from different places, soon grew very numerous. The citizens of Utica, considering them as their countrymen, and as descended from the same common stock, deputed envoys with very considerable presents, and exhorted them to build a city in the place where they had first settled. The natives of the country, from the esteem and respect frequently shown to strangers, made them the like offers. Thus all things conspiring with Dido's views, she built her city, which was appointed to pay an annual tribute to the Africans for the ground it stood upon, and called Carthada, or Carthage, a name that, in the Phenician and Hebrew tongues, which have a great affinity, signifies the new city. It is said that when the foundations were dug, a horse's head was found, which was thought a good omen, and a presage of the future warlike genius of that people. ▾ This princess was afterwards courted by Iarbas, king of Getulia, and threatened with a war in case of refusal. * Kartha Hadath, or Hadtha. y Effodere loco signum, quod regia Juno Monstrarat, caput acris equi; nam sic fore bello, VIRG. En. 1. i. ver. 447. The Tyrians landing near this holy ground, DRYDEN. Dido, who had bound herself by an oath not to consent to a second marriage, being incapable of violating the faith she had sworn to Sicheus, desired time for deliberation, and for appeasing the manes of her first husband by sacrifice. Having, therefore, ordered a pile to be raised, she ascended it; and drawing out a dagger she had concealed under her robe, stabbed herself with it. " Virgil has made a great deal of alteration in this his. tory, by supposing that Eneas, his hero, was cotemporary with Dido, though there was an interval of near three centuries between the one and the other; the era of the building of Carthage being fixed three hundred years lower than the destruction of Troy. This liberty is very excusable in a poet, who is not tied to the scrupulous accuracy of an historian; we admire, with great reason, the judgment he has shown in his plan, when, to effect the Romans the more, for whom he wrote, with his subject, he has the art of intro The story, as it is told more at large in Justin, l. xviii. c. 6, is this: Iarbas, king of the Mauritanians, sending for ten of the principal Carthaginians, demanded Dido in marriage, threatening to declare war against her in case of refusal. The ambassadors being afraid to deliver the message of Iarbas, told her, with Punic honesty, that he wanted to have some person sent him who was capable of civilizing and polishing him. self and his Africans; but that there was no possibility of finding any Carthaginian who would be willing to quit his native place and kindred for the conversation of barbarians, who were as savage as the wildest beasts. Here the queen, with indignation, interrupting them, and asking, if they were not ashamed to refuse living in any manner which might be beneficial to their country, to which they owed even their lives? They then delivered the king's message, and bid her set them a pattern, and sacrifice herself to her country's welfare. Dido, being thus ensnared, called on i heus with tears and lamentations, and answered that she would where the fate of her city called her. At the expiration of three months, she ascended the fatal pile; and with her last breath told the spectators that she was going to her husband, as they had ordered her. go |