History of the World/History of the World (Bureau Development, Inc.)(1992).BIN/dp/0410/04104.txt

Text File | 1992-10-12 | 29KB | 488 lines

$Unique_ID{how04104}
$Pretitle{}
$Title{Rollin's Ancient History: Ancient History Of The Carthaginians
Sections IV - VIII}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{Rollin, Charles}
$Affiliation{}
$Subject{carthaginians
carthage
footnote
nations
war
time
themselves
commerce
country
romans}
$Date{1731}
$Log{}
Title:       Rollin's Ancient History: Ancient History Of The Carthaginians
Book:        Chapter I.
Author:      Rollin, Charles
Date:        1731

Sections IV - VIII

Section IV: Trade Of Carthage, The First Source Of Its Wealth And Power

     Commerce, strictly speaking, was the occupation of Carthage, the
particular object of its industry, and its peculiar and predominant
characteristic.  It formed the greatest strength, and the chief support of
that commonwealth.  In a word, we may affirm that the power, the conquests,
the credit, and the glory of the Carthaginians, all flowed from their
commerce.  Situated in the centre of the Mediterranean, and stretching out
their arms eastward and westward, the extent of their commerce took in all the
known world; and wafted it to the coast of Spain, of Mauritania, of Gaul, and
beyond the strait and pillars of Hercules. They sailed to all countries, in
order to buy, at a cheap rate, the superfluities of every nation, which, by
the wants of others, became necessaries; and these they sold to them at the
dearest rate.  From Egypt the Carthaginians brought fine flax, paper, corn,
sails, and cables for ships; from the coast of the Red Sea, spices,
frankincense, perfumes, gold, pearl, and precious stones; from Tyre and
Phoenicia, purple and scarlet, rich stuffs, tapestry, costly furniture, and
divers curious and exquisite works of arts; in a word, they brought from
various countries, all things that can supply the necessities, or are capable
of contributing to the comfort, luxury, and the delights of life.  They
brought back from the western parts of the world, in return for the
commodities carried thither, iron, tin, lead, and copper; by the sale of which
articles they enriched themselves at the expense of all nations; and put them
under a kind of contribution, which was so much the surer, as it was
spontaneous.

     In thus becoming the factors and agents of all nations, they had made
themselves lords of the sea; the band which held the east, the west, and south
together, and the necessary channel of their communication; so that Carthage
rose to be the common city, and the centre of the trade of all those nations
which the sea separated from one another.

     The most considerable personages of the city were not ashamed of engaging
in trade.  They applied themselves to it as industriously as the meanest
citizens; and their great wealth did not make them less in love with the
diligence, patience, and labor, which are necessary for the acquisition of it.
To this they owed their empire of the sea; the splendor of their republic;
their being able to dispute for superiority with Rome itself; and their
elevation of power, which forced the Romans to carry on a bloody and doubtful
war for upwards of forty years, in order to humble and subdue this haughty
rival.  In short, Rome, even in its triumphant state, thought Carthage was not
to be entirely reduced any other way than by depriving that city of the
benefits of its commerce, by which it had been so long enabled to resist the
whole strength of that mighty republic.

     However, it is no wonder that, as Carthage came in a manner out of the
greatest school of traffic in the world, I mean Tyre, she should have been
crowned with such rapid and uninterrupted success.  The very vessels in which
its founders had been conveyed into Africa, were afterwards employed by them
in their trade.  They began to make settlements upon the coasts of Spain, in
those ports where they unloaded their goods.  The ease with which they had
founded these settlements, and the conveniences they met with, inspired them
with the design of conquering those vast regions; and some time after, Nova
Carthago, or New Carthage, gave the Carthaginians an empire in that country,
almost equal to that which they enjoyed in Africa.

Section V: The Mines Of Spain, The Second Source Of The Riches And Power Of
Carthage

     Diodorus ^615 justly remarks that the gold and silver mines found by the
Carthaginians in Spain, were an inexhaustible fund of wealth, that enabled
them to sustain such long wars against the Romans.  The natives had long been
ignorant of these treasures that lay concealed in the bowels of the earth, at
least of their use and value.  The Phoenicians took advantage of this
ignorance, and by bartering some wares of little value for this precious
metal, which the natives suffered them to dig up, they amassed infinite
wealth.  When the Carthaginians had made themselves masters of the country,
they dug much deeper into the earth than the old inhabitants of Spain had
done, who probably were content with what they could collect on the surface;
and the Romans, when they had dispossessed the Carthaginians of Spain,
profited by their example, and drew an immense revenue from these mines of
gold and silver.

[Footnote 615: Lib. iv. p. 312, &c.]

     The labor employed to come at these mines, and to dig the gold and silver
out of them, was incredible, for the veins of these metals rarely appeared on
the surface; they were to be sought for and traced through frightful depths,
where very often floods of water stopped the miners, and seemed to defeat all
future pursuits. ^616 But avarice is as patient in undergoing fatigues, as
ingenious in finding expedients.  By pumps, which Archimedes had invented when
in Egypt, the Romans afterwards threw up the water out of these pits, and
quite drained them.  Numberless multitudes of slaves perished in these mines,
which were dug to enrich their masters, who treated them with the utmost
barbarity, forced them by heavy stripes to labor, and gave them no respite
either day or night.  Polybius, ^617 as quoted by Strabo, says, that in his
time, upwards of forty thousand men were employed in the mines near Nova
Carthago, and furnished the Romans every day with twenty-five thousand
drachms, or three thousand eight hundred and fifteen dollars and sixty-three
cents. ^618

[Footnote 616: Lib. iv. p. 312, &c.]

[Footnote 617: Lib. iii. p. 147.]

[Footnote 618: Twenty-five thousand drachms. - An attic drachm, according to
Dr. Berard=8 d.  English money, consequently, 25,000=859l, 7s. 6d.]

     We must not be surprised to see the Carthaginians, soon after the
greatest defeats, sending fresh and numerous armies again into the field;
fitting out mighty fleets, and supporting, at a great expense, for many years,
wars carried on by them in far distant countries.  But it must surprise us to
hear of the Romans doing the same; they whose revenues were very
inconsiderable before those great conquests, which subjected to them the most
powerful nations; and who had no resources, either from trade, to which they
were absolute strangers, or from gold or silver mines, which were very rarely
found in Italy, in case there were any; and consequently, the expenses of
which must have swallowed up all the profit.  The Romans, in the frugal and
simple life they led, in their zeal for the public welfare and love for their
country, possessed funds which were not less ready or secure than those of
Carthage, but at the same time were far more honorable to their nation.

Section VI: War

     Carthage must be considered as a trading, and at the same time a warlike
republic.  Its genius, and the nature of its government, led it to traffic;
and from the necessity the Carthaginians were under, first of defending
themselves against the neighboring nations, and afterwards from a desire of
extending their commerce and empire, they became warlike. This double idea
gives us, in my opinion, the true plan and character of the Carthaginian
republic.  We have already spoken of its commerce.

     The military power of the Carthaginians consisted in their alliances with
kings; in tributary nations, from which they drew both men and money; in some
troops raised from among their own citizens; and in mercenary soldiers,
purchased of neighboring states, without their being obliged to levy or
exercise them, because they were already well disciplined and inured to the
fatigues of war; for they made choice, in every country, of such soldiers as
had the greatest merit and reputation.  They drew from Numidia a nimble, bold,
impetuous and indefatigable cavalry, which formed the principal strength of
their armies; from the Balearian isles, the most expert slingers in the world;
from Spain, a steady and invincible infantry; from the coasts of Genoa and
Gaul, troops of known valor; and from Greece itself, soldiers fit for all the
various operations of war, for the field or the garrison, for besieging or
defending cities.

     In this manner, the Carthaginians sent out at once powerful armies
composed of soldiers which were the flower of all the armies in the universe,
without depopulating either their fields or cities by new levies; without
suspending their manufactures, or disturbing the peaceful artificer; without
interrupting their commerce, or weakening their navy. By venal blood they
possessed themselves of provinces and kingdoms; and made other nations the
instruments of their grandeur and glory, with no other expense of their own
than their money, and even this furnished from the traffic they carried on
with foreign nations.

     If the Carthaginians, in the course of the war, sustained some losses,
these were but as so many foreign accidents, which only grazed, as it were,
the body of the state, but did not make a deep wound in the bowels or heart of
the republic.  These losses were speedily repaired, by sums arising out of a
flourishing commerce, as from a perpetual sinew of war, by which the
government was furnished with new supplies for the purchase of mercenary
forces, who were ready at the first summons.  And, from the vast extent of the
coasts which the Carthaginians possessed, it was easy for them to levy, in a
very little time, a sufficient number of sailors and rowers for the working of
their fleets, and to procure able pilots and experienced captains to conduct
them.

     But, as these parts were fortuitously brought together, they did not
adhere by any natural, intimate, or necessary tie.  No common and reciprocal
interest united them in such a manner as to form a solid and unalterable body.
Not one individual in these mercenary armies wished sincerely the prosperity
of the state.  They did not act with the same zeal, nor expose themselves to
dangers with equal resolution, for a republic which they considered as
foreign, and which consequently was indifferent to them, as they would have
done for their native country, whose happiness constitutes that of the several
members who compose it.

     In great reverses of fortune, the kings in alliance with the
Carthaginians might easily be detached from their interest, either by that
jealousy which the grandeur of a more powerful neighbor naturally gives; or
from the hopes of reaping greater advantages from a new friend; or from the
fear of being involved in the misfortunes of an old ally. ^619

[Footnote 619: As Syphax and Masinissa.]

     The tributary nations, being impatient under the weight and disgrace of a
yoke which had been forced upon their necks, greatly flattered themselves with
the hopes of finding one less galling in changing their masters; or, in case
servitude was unavoidable, the choice was indifferent to them, as will appear
from many instances in the course of this history.

     The mercenary forces, accustomed to measure their fidelity by the
largeness or continuance of their pay, were ever ready, on the least
discontent, or the slightest expectation of a more considerable stipend, to
desert to the enemy with whom they had just before fought, and to turn their
arms against those who had invited them to their assistance.

     Thus the grandeur of the Carthaginians, being sustained only by these
foreign supports, was shaken to the very foundation when they were taken away.
And if, to this, there happened to be added an interruption of their commerce,
by which only they subsisted, arising from the loss of a naval engagement,
they imagined themselves to be on the brink of ruin, and abandoned themselves
to despondency and despair, as was evidently seen at the end of the first
Punic war.

     Aristotle, in the treatise where he shows the advantages and defects of
the government of Carthage, finds no fault with its keeping up none but
foreign forces; it is therefore probable that the Carthaginians did not fall
into this practice till a long time after.  But the rebellions which harassed
Carthage in its later years ought to have taught its citizens, that no
miseries are comparable to those of a government which is supported only by
foreigners; since neither zeal, security, nor obedience, can be expected from
them.

     But this was not the case with the republic of Rome.  As the Romans had
neither trade nor money, they were not able to hire forces, in order to push
on their conquests with the same rapidity as the Carthaginians: but then, as
they procured every thing from within themselves, and as all the parts of the
state were intimately united, they had surer resources in great misfortunes
than the Carthaginians.  And for this reason, they never once thought of suing
for peace after the battle of Cannae, as the Carthaginians had done in a less
imminent danger.

     The Carthaginians had, besides, a body of troops, which was not very
numerous, levied from among their own citizens; and this was a kind of school,
in which the flower of their nobility, and those whose talents and ambition
prompted them to aspire to the first dignities, learned the rudiments of the
art of war.  From among these were selected all the general officers, who were
put at the head of the different bodies of their forces, and had the chief
command in the armies.  This nation was too jealous and suspicious to employ
foreign generals.  But they were not so distrustful of their own citizens as
Rome and Athens; for the Carthaginians, at the same time that they invested
them with great power, did not guard against the abuse they might make of it,
in order to oppress their country.  The command of armies was neither annual,
nor limited to any time, as in the two republics above mentioned.  Many
generals held their commissions for a great number of years. either till the
war or their lives ended; though they were still accountable to the
commonwealth for their conduct, and liable to be recalled, whenever a real
oversight, a misfortune, or the superior interest of a cabal, furnished an
opportunity for it.

Section VII: Arts And Sciences

     It cannot be said that the Carthaginians renounced entirely the glory
which results from study and knowledge.  The sending of Masinissa, son of a
powerful king, ^620 thither for education, gives us room to believe, that
Carthage was provided with an excellent school.  The great Hannibal, who in
all respects was an ornament to that city, was not unacquainted with polite
literature, as will be seen hereafter. ^621 Mago, another very celebrated
general, did as much honor to Carthage by his pen as by his victories. ^622 He
wrote twenty-eight volumes upon husbandry, which the Roman senate had in such
esteem, that after the taking of Carthage, when they presented the African
princes with the libraries founded there, another proof that learning was not
entirely banished from Carthage, they gave orders to have these books
translated into Latin, ^623 though Cato had before written books on that
subject.  There is still extant a Greek version of a treatise, drawn up by
Hanno in the Punic tongue, relating to a voyage he made, by order of the
senate, with a considerable fleet, round Africa, for the settling of different
colonies in that part of the world. ^624

[Footnote 620: Kings of the Massylians in Africa.]

[Footnote 621: Nepos in vita Annibalis.]

[Footnote 622: Cic. de Orat. 1. i. n. 249.  Plin, l. xviii. v. c. 3.]

[Footnote 623: These books were written by Mago in the Punic language, and
translated into Greek by Cassius Dionysius of Utica, from whose version we may
probably suppose the Latin was made.]

[Footnote 624: Voss. de Hist. Gr. l. iv.]

     This Hanno is believed to be more ancient than that person of the same
name who lived in the time of Agathocles.

     Clitomachus, called in the Punic language Asdrubal, was a greater
philosopher. ^625 He succeeded the famous Carneades, whose disciple he had
been; and maintained in Athens the honor of the academic sect.  Cicero says,
that he was a more sensible man, and fonder of study than the Carthaginians
generally are. ^626 He composed several books, in one of which was a treatise
to console the unhappy citizens of Carthage, who, by the ruin of their city,
were reduced to slavery. ^627

[Footnote 625: Plut. de Fort. Alex. p. 328.  Diog. Laert. in Clitom.]

[Footnote 626: Clitomachus nomo et acutus ut Poenus, et valde studiosus ac
diligens. - Academ. Quest. 1. iv. n. 98.]

[Footnote 627: Tusc. Quaest 1. iii. n. 54.]

     I might rank among, or rather place at the head of, the writers who have
adorned Africa with their compositions, the celebrated Terence himself, being
singly capable of reflecting infinite honor 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. ^627a  He was sold for a slave to Terentius Lucanus, a
Roman senator, who, after giving him an excellent education, freed him, 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 Laelius; and it was
common report at Rome, that he had the assistance of these two great men in
composing his pieces.

[Footnote 627a: Suet. in Vit. Terent.]

     The poet so far from endeavoring to stifle a report so advantageous to
him, made a merit of it.  Only six of his comedies are extant.  Some authors,
according to Suetonius (the writer of his life), say, that in his return from
Greece, whither he had made a voyage, he lost a hundred and eight comedies
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, aged thirty-five
years, and consequently 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 Carthagenian
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
reputation physic, which is so advantageous to life, was held at Carthage; or
jurisprudence, so necessary to society.

     As works of wit were generally had in so much disregard, 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 of 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. ^628

[Footnote 628: Factum senatus-consultum ne quis postea Carthaginiensis aut
literis Graecis aut sermoni studeret, ne aut loqui cum hoste, aut scribere
sine interprete posset. - Justin. 1. 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.]

     Now, what could be expected from such a cast of mind?  Accordingly, there
was never seen among them that elegance of behavior, 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 a long
experience, without any great assistance from 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 clear and lasting principles, such as is
everywhere 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 the 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 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.

Section VIII: The Character, Manners, And Qualities Of The Carthaginians

     In the enumeration of the various qualities which Cicero ^629 assigns to
different nations, as their distinguishing characteristics, he declares that
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, hypocrisy, 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; ^630 and it was so notorious, that to
signify any remarkable dishonesty, it was usual to call it, Punic honor, fides
Punica; and to denote a knavish deceitful mind, no expression was thought more
proper and emphatical than this, a Carthaginian mind, Punicum ingenium.

[Footnote 629: Quam volumus licet ipsi nos amemus, tamen nec numero Hispanos,
nec robore Gallos, nec calliditate Poenos, sed pietate ac religione, &c.,
omnes gentes nationesque superavimus. - De Arusp. Resp. n. 19.]

[Footnote 630: Carthaginiensis fraudulenti et mendaces - multis et varus
mercatorum advenarumque sermonibus ad studium fallendi quaestus cupiditate
vocabantur.-Cic. Orat. ii. in. Rull. n. 94.]

     An excessive thirst for, and an immoderate love of profit, generally gave
occasion, in Carthage, to the committing of base and unjust actions. A single
example will prove this.  In the time of a truce, granted by Scipio to the
earnest entreaties of the Carthaginians, some Roman vessels, being driven by a
storm on the coast of Carthage, were seized by order of the senate and people,
^631 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. ^632

[Footnote 631: Magistratus senatum vocare, populus in curiae vestibulo
fremere, ne tanta ex oculis manibusque amitteretur praeda.  Consensum est ut,
&c. - Liv. l. xxx. n. 24.]

[Footnote 632: 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 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 discenti admirabili favore
plauserunt. - S. August. 1. xiii. de Trinit. c. 3.]

     But these were not the only blemishes and faults of the Carthaginians.
^633 They had something austere and savage in their disposition and genius, a
haughty and imperious air, a sort of ferocity, which in its first starts was
deaf to either reason or 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.

[Footnote 633: Plut de Gen. Rep. p. 739.]

     Livy makes a like reflection with regard to Terentius Varro. ^634 That
general, on his return to Rome after the battle of Cannae, 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
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
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.

[Footnote 634: Lib. xxii. n. 61.]