V. History and Antiquities. — The history of Carthage is so interwoven with the general course of ancient history, especially in the parts relating to its wars with the Greeks of Sicily and with the Romans, that it would be alike impracticable and superfluous to narrate it here with any approach to fulness. We can only attempt a brief sketch, to be filled up by the reader from the well-known histories of Greece and Rome. The great work of composing a special history of Carthage, worthy of the present state of ancient scholarship, remains to be performed by some one who may superadd to a prefect knowledge of Greek and Roman history a thorough acquaintance with the language and antiquities of the Semitic races, and a vast power of critical research. The History of Carthage is usually divided into three periods: — the first extending from the foundation of the city to the beginning of the wars with Syracuse, in B.C. 480, and ending with the defeat of the Carthaginians by the Greeks under Gelon at Himera (but see just below); the second from this epoch to the breaking out of the wars with Rome, B.C. 480 — 265; the third is occupied with the Roman, or (as they are usually called, from the Roman point of view) the Punic Wars, and ends with the destruction of the city in B.C. 146. It seems a far better arrangement to extend the first period down to B.C. 410, when the Carthaginians resumed those enterprises in Sicily to which the battle of Himera had given a complete check; and thus to include in one view the great development of their power. The second period will then be devoted almost entirely to her struggle with the Greeks, during which her empire was not materially increased, and her decline can hardly be said to have begun. The third period is that of her "Decline and Fall" to these must be added the history of the restored city under the Romans, the Vandals, and the Byzantine role, down to the Mohammedan conquest, and the destruction of the city by the Arabs in A.D. 698. In round numbers, and allowing for the uncertainty of the date of the original foundation, the histories of the two cities fill the respective spaces of 750 and 850 years. i. First Period — Extension of the Carthaginian Empire. 9th century — 410 B.C. — The first period is by far the most interesting, but unfortunately the most obscure, from the want of native authorities. It embraces the important questions of the Internal Constitution and Resources of the State, its Commerce, Colonies, and Conquests, and its Relations to the surrounding Native Tribes, to the older Phoenician Colonies, and to its own Mother City. 1. Relations to the Mother City. — With respect to Tyre, Carthage seems to have been almost from its foundation independent; but the sacred bond which |
2. First steps towards Supremacy, — At what time, and from what causes, Carthage began to obtain her decided pre-eminence over the other Phoenician colonies, is a point on which we have no adequate information. Much must doubtless be ascribed to her site, which, we may assume, was discovered to be better than those even of Utica and Tunes; and something to the youthful enterprise which naturally distinguished her as the latest colony of Tyre. The conquests of the Assyrian and Babylonian kings in Phoenicia, and their repeated attacks on Tyre [Tyrus], would naturally drive many of the inhabitants of the old country to seek a new abode in the colonies, and especially in the most recent, the strength of which would, at the same time, receive a new development from the diminished power of the metropolis; and, as the Greek maritime states obtained much of the lost commerce of Tyre in the Levant, so would Carthage in the West. But the want of historical records prevents our tracing the steps of this transference of power. 3. Relations to the older Phoenician Colonies, — A like obscurity surrounds the relations of Carthage to the older Phoenician colonies of N. Africa, such as Utica, Tunes, Hippo, Leptis (the Greater and the Less), Hadrumetum, and others; all of which appear to have been at an early period, like Carthage herself, practically independent of the mother country; and all of which are found, in the historical period, acknowledging, in some sense, the supremacy of Carthage. But that supremacy was not an absolute dominion, but rather the headship of a confederacy, in which the leading state exercised an undefined, but not always undisputed, control over the other members, whose existence as independent states seems always to have been recognised, however much their rights may have been invaded. The treaties with Rome, already referred to, mention the allies of Carthage, by which we can hardly be wrong in understanding these cities, which therefore were not subjects. In the case of Utica especially, it is remarkable that her name is not mentioned in the first treaty; but in the second, she appears on an equality with Carthage, as one of the contracting |
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