chapter 1.

CARTERET, Sir George, The Jersey Grant to.

See NEW JERSEY: A. D. 1664-1667, to 1688-1738.

CARTERET’S MINISTRY.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1742-1745.

CARTHAGE, The founding of.

Ethbaal, or Ithobaal, a priest of Astarte, acquired possession of the throne of Tyre B. C. 917, deposing and putting to death the legitimate prince, a descendant of Hiram, Solomon’s ally and friend. The Jezebel of Jewish history, who married Ahab, king of Israel, was the daughter of this king Ethbaal. "Ethbaal was succeeded by his son Balezor (885-877 B. C.). After eight years Balezor left two sons, Mutton and Sicharbaal, both under age. ... Mutton died in the year 853 B. C. and again left a son nine years old, Pygmalion, and a daughter, Elissa, a few years older, whom he had married to his brother Sicharbaal, the priest of the temple of Melkarth. Mutton had intended that Elissa and Pygmalion should reign together, and thus the power really passed into the hands of Sicharbaal, the husband of Elissa. When Pygmalion reached his sixteenth year the people transferred to him the sovereignty of Tyre, and he put Sicharbaal, his uncle, to death ... (846 B. C.). Elissa [or Dido, as she was also called] fled from Tyre before her brother, as we are told, with others who would not submit to the tyranny of Pygmalion. The exiles ... are said ... to have landed on the coast of Africa, in the neighbourhood of Ityke, the old colony of the Phenicians, and there to have bought as much land of the Libyans as could be covered by the skin of an ox. By dividing this into very thin strips they obtained a piece of land sufficient to enable them to build a fortress. This new dwelling-place, or the city which grew up round this fortress, the wanderers called, in reference to their old home, Karthada (Karta hadasha), i. e., 'the new city,' the Karchedon of the Greeks, the Carthage of the Romans. The legend of the purchase of the soil may have arisen from the fact that the settlers for a long time paid tribute to the ancient population, the Maxyans, for their soil."

_M. Duncker, History of Antiquity, book 3, chapter 11._

CARTHAGE: Divisions, Size and Population.

"The city proper, at the time at which it is best known to us, the period of the Punic wars, consisted of the Byrsa or Citadel quarter, a Greek word corrupted from the Canaanitish Bozra, or Bostra, that is, a fort, and of the Cothon or harbour quarter, so important in the history of the final siege. To the north and west of these, and occupying all the vast space between them and the isthmus behind, were the Megara (Hebrew, Magurim), that is, the suburbs and gardens of Carthage, which, with the city proper, covered an area of 23 miles in circumference. Its population must have been fully proportioned to its size. Just before the third Punic war, when its strength had been drained ... it contained 700,000 inhabitants."

_R. B. Smith, Carthage and the Carthaginians, chapter 1._

ALSO IN: _E. A. Freeman, Carthage (Hist. Essays, 4th series)._

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CARTHAGE: The Dominion of.

"All our positive information, scanty as it is, about Carthage and her institutions, relates to the fourth, third, or second centuries B. C.; yet it may be held to justify presumptive conclusions as to the fifth century B. C., especially in reference to the general system pursued. The maximum of her power was attained before her first war with Rome, which began in 264 B. C.; the first and second Punic wars both of them greatly reduced her strength and dominion. Yet in spite of such reduction we learn that about 150 B. C. shortly before the third Punic war, which ended in the capture and depopulation of the city, not less than 700,000 souls were computed in it, as occupants of a fortified circumference of above twenty miles, covering a peninsula with its isthmus. Upon this isthmus its citadel Byrsa was situated, surrounded by a triple wall of its own, and crowned at its summit by a magnificent temple of Æsculapius. The numerous population is the more remarkable, since Utica (a considerable city, colonized from Phœnicia more anciently than even Carthage itself, and always independent of the Carthaginians, though in the condition of an inferior and discontented ally) was within the distance of seven miles from Carthage on the one side, and Tunis seemingly not much further off on the other. Even at that time, too, the Carthaginians are said to have possessed 300 tributary, cities in Libya. Yet this was but a small fraction of the prodigious empire which had belonged to them certainly in the fourth century B. C. and in all probability also between 480-410 B. C. That empire extended eastward as far as the Altars of the Philæni, near the Great Syrtis,--westward, all along the coast to the Pillars of Herakles and the western coast of Morocco. The line of coast southeast of Carthage, as far as the bay called the Lesser Syrtis, was proverbial (under the name of Byzacium and the Emporia) for its fertility. Along this extensive line were distributed indigenous Libyan tribes, living by agriculture; and a mixed population called Liby-Phœnician. ... Of the Liby-Phœnician towns the number is not known to us, but it must have been prodigiously great. ... A few of the towns along the coast,--Hippo, Utica, Adrumetum, Thapsus. Leptis, &c.--were colonies from Tyre, like Carthage itself. ... Yet the Carthaginians contrived in time to render every town tributary, with the exception of Utica. ... At one time, immediately after the first Punic war, they took from the rural cultivators as much as one-half of their produce, and doubled at one stroke the tribute levied upon the towns. ... The native Carthaginians, though encouraged by honorary marks to undertake ... military service were generally averse to it, and sparingly employed. ... A chosen division of 2,500 citizens, men of wealth and family, formed what was called the Sacred Band of Carthage distinguished for their bravery in the field as well as for the splendour of their arms, and the gold and silver plate which formed part of their baggage. We shall find these citizen troops occasionally employed on service in Sicily: but most part of the Carthaginian army consists of Gauls, Iberians, Libyans, &c., a mingled host got together for the occasion, discordant in language as well as in customs."

_G. Grote, History of Greece, part 2, chapter 81._

CARTHAGE: B. C. 480. Invasion of Sicily. Great defeat at Himera.

See SICILY: B. C. 480.

CARTHAGE: B. C. 409-405. Invasions of Sicily. Destruction of Selinus, Himera and Agrigentum.

See Sicily: B. C. 409-405.

CARTHAGE: B. C. 396. Siege of Syracuse.

See SYRACUSE: B. C. 397-396.

CARTHAGE: B. C. 383. War with Syracuse.

See SICILY: B. C. 383.

CARTHAGE: B. C. 310-306. Invasion by Agathokles.

See SYRACUSE: B. C. 317-289.

CARTHAGE: B. C. 264-241. The first war with Rome. Expulsion from Sicily. Loss of maritime supremacy.

See PUNIC WAR, THE FIRST.

CARTHAGE: B. C. 241-238. Revolt of the mercenaries.

At the close of the First Punic War, the veteran army of mercenaries with which Hamilcar Barca had maintained himself so long in Sicily--a motley gathering of Greeks, Ligurians, Gauls, Iberians, Libyans and others--was sent over to Carthage for the long arrears of pay due them and for their discharge. The party in power in Carthage, being both incapable and mean, and being also embarrassed by an empty treasury, exasperated this dangerous body of men by delays and by attempts at bargaining with them for a reduction of their claims, until a general mutiny was provoked. The mercenaries, 20,000 strong, with Spendius, a runaway Campanian slave, Matho, an African, and Autaritus, a Gaul, for their leaders, marched from the town of Sicca, where they were quartered, and camped near Tunis, threatening Carthage. The government became panic-stricken and took no measures which did not embolden the mutineers and increase their demands. All the oppressed African peoples in the Carthaginian domain rose to join the revolt, and poured into the hands of the mercenaries the tribute money which Carthage would have wrung from them. The latter was soon brought to a state of sore distress, without an army, without ships, and with its supplies of food mostly cut off. The neighboring cities of Utica and Hippo Zarytus were besieged. At length the Carthaginian government, controlled by a party hostile to Hamilcar, was obliged to call him to the command, but associated with him Hanno, his bitterest personal enemy and the most incompetent leader of the ruling faction. Hamilcar succeeded, after a desperate and long struggle, in destroying the mutineers to almost the last man, and in saving Carthage. But the war, which lasted more than three years (B. C. 241-238), was merciless and horrible beyond description. It was known to the ancients as the "Truceless War" and the "Inexpiable War." The scenes and circumstances of it have been extraordinarily pictured in Flaubert's "Salammbo," which is one of the most revolting but most powerful of historical romances.

_R. B. Smith, Carthage and the Carthaginians, chapter 8._

ALSO IN: _W. Ihne, History of Rome, book 4, chapter 4._

CARTHAGE: B. C. 237-202. Hamilcar in Spain. The second war with Rome. Hannibal in Italy and Sicily. Scipio in Africa. The great defeat at Zama. Loss of naval dominion and of Spain.

See PUNIC WAR, THE SECOND.

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CARTHAGE: B. C. 146. Destruction by Scipio.

Carthage existed by Roman sufferance for fifty years after the ending of the Second Punic War, and even recovered some considerable prosperity in trade, though Rome took care that her chances for recovery should be slight. When Hannibal gave signs of being able to reform the government of the city and to distinguish himself in statesmanship as he had immortalized himself in war, Rome demanded him, and he escaped her chains only by flight. When, even without Hannibal, Carthage slowly repaired the broken fortunes of her merchants, there was an enemy at her door always ready, at the bidding of Rome, to plunder them afresh. This was Massinissa, the Numidian prince, client and obedient servant of the Roman state. Again and again the helpless Carthaginians appealed to Rome to protect them from his depredations, and finally they ventured to attempt the protection of themselves. Then the patient perfidy of Roman statecraft grasped its reward. It had waited many years for the provocations of Massinissa to work their effect; the maddened Carthaginians had broken, at last, the hard letter of the treaty of 201 by assailing the friend and ally of Rome. The pretext sufficed for a new declaration of war, with the fixed purpose of pressing it to the last extreme. Old Cato, who had been crying in the ears of the Senate, "Carthago delenda est," should have his wish. The doomed Carthaginians were kept in ignorance of the fate decreed, until they had been foully tricked into the surrender of their arms and the whole armament of their city. But when they knew the dreadful truth, they threw off all cowardice and rose to such a majesty of spirit as had never been exhibited in their history before. Without weapons, or engines or ships, until they made them anew, they shut their gates and kept the Roman armies out for more than two years. It was another Scipio, adopted grandson and namesake of the conqueror of Hannibal, who finally entered Carthage (B. C. 146), fought his way to its citadel, street by street, and, against his own wish, by command of the implacable senate at Rome, levelled its last building to the earth, after sending the inhabitants who survived to be sold as slaves.

_R. B. Smith, Carthage and the Carthaginians, chapter 20._

ALSO IN: _H. G. Liddell, History of Rome, chapter 46._

CARTHAGE: B. C. 44. Restoration by Cæsar.

"A settlement named Junonia, had been made at Carthage by C. Gracchus [which furnished his enemies one of their weapons against him, because, they said, he had drawn on himself the curse of Scipio] and it appears that the city of Gracchus still existed. Cæsar restored the old name, and, as Strabo says, rebuilt the place: many Romans who preferred Carthage to Rome were sent there, and some soldiers; and it is now, adds Strabo [reign of Augustus] more populous than any town in Libya."

_G. Long, Decline of the Roman Republic, volume 5, chapter 32._

CARTHAGE: 2d-4th Centuries. The Christian Church.

See CHRISTIANITY: A. D. 100-312.

CARTHAGE: A. D. 439. Taken by the Vandals.

Carthage was surprised and captured by the Vandals on the 9th of Oct., A. D. 439,--nine years after the conquest and destruction of the African provinces by Genseric began;--585 years after the ancient Carthage was destroyed by Scipio. "A new city had risen from its ruins, with the title of a colony; and though Carthage might yield to the royal prerogatives of Constantinople, and perhaps to the trade of Alexandria or the splendour of Antioch, she still maintained the second rank in the West--as the Rome (if we may use the style of contemporaries) of the African world. ... The buildings of Carthage were uniform and magnificent. A shady grove was planted in the midst of the capital; the new port, a secure and capacious harbour, was subservient to the commercial industry of citizens and strangers; and the splendid games of the circus and theatre were exhibited almost in the presence of the barbarians. The reputation of the Carthaginians was not equal to that of their country, and the reproach of Punic faith still adhered to their subtle and faithless character. The habits of trade and the abuse of luxury had corrupted their manners. ... The King of the Vandals severely reformed the vices of a voluptuous people. ... The lands of the proconsular province, which formed the immediate district of Carthage, were accurately measured and divided among the barbarians."

_E. Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, chapter 33. https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/25717_

See, also, VANDALS: A. D. 429-439.

CARTHAGE: A. D. 533. Taken by Belisarius.

See VANDALS. A. D. 533-534.

CARTHAGE: A. D. 534-558.

The Province of Africa after Justinian's conquest. "Successive inroads [of the Moorish tribes] had reduced the province of Africa to one-third of the measure of Italy; yet the Roman emperors continued to reign above a century over Carthage and the fruitful coast of the Mediterranean. But the victories and the losses of Justinian were alike pernicious to mankind; and such was the desolation of Africa that a stranger might wander whole days without meeting the face either of a friend or an enemy. The nation of the Vandals had disappeared. ... Their numbers were infinitely surpassed by the number of the Moorish families extirpated in a relentless war; and the same destruction was retaliated on the Romans and their allies, who perished by the climate, their mutual quarrels, and the rage of the barbarians. When Procopius first landed [with Belisarius, A. D. 533] he admired the populousness of the cities and country, strenuously exercised in the labours of commerce and agriculture. In less than twenty years that busy scene was converted into a silent solitude; the wealthy citizens escaped to Sicily and Constantinople; and the secret historian has confidently affirmed that five millions of Africans were consumed by the wars and government of the Emperor Justinian."

_E. Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, chapter 43. https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/25717_

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CARTHAGE: A. D. 698. Destruction by the Arabs.

"In the 77th year of the Hegira [A.. D. 698] ... Abd'almalec [the Caliph] sent Hossan Ibn Anno'man, at the head of 40,000 choice troops, to carry out the scheme of African conquest [which had languished for some years, during the civil wars among the Moslems]. That general pressed forward at once with his troops against the city of Carthage, which, though declined from its ancient might and glory, was still an important seaport, fortified with lofty walls, haughty towers and powerful bulwarks, and had a numerous garrison of Greeks and other Christians. Hossan proceeded according to the old Arab mode; beleaguering and reducing it by a long siege; he then assailed it by storm, scaled its lofty walls with ladders, and made himself master of the place. Many of the inhabitants fell by the edge of the sword; many escaped by sea to Sicily and Spain. The walls were then demolished; the city was given up to be plundered by the soldiery, the meanest of whom was enriched by booty. ... The triumph of the Moslem host was suddenly interrupted. While they were revelling in the ravaged palaces of Carthage, a fleet appeared before the port; snapped the strong chain which guarded the entrance, and sailed into the harbor. It was a combined force of ships and troops from Constantinople and Sicily; reinforced by Goths from Spain; all under the command of the prefect John, a patrician general of great valor and experience. Hossan felt himself unable to cope with such a force; he withdrew, however in good order, and conducted his troops laden with spoils to Tripoli and Caerwan, and, having strongly posted them, he awaited reinforcements from the Caliph. These arrived in course of time by sea and land. Hossan again took the field; encountered the prefect John, not far from Utica, defeated him in a pitched battle and drove him to embark the wrecks of his army and make all sail for Constantinople. Carthage was again assailed by the victors, and now its desolation was complete, for the vengeance of the Moslems gave that majestic city to the flames. A heap of ruins and the remains of a noble aqueduct are all the relics of a metropolis that once valiantly contended for dominion with Rome."

_W. Irving, Mahomet and his Successors, volume 2, chapter 54._

ALSO IN: _N. Davis, Carthage and Her Remains._

See, also, MAHOMETAN CONQUEST: A. D. 647-709.

CARTHAGE: End----------

CARTHAGE, Missouri, Battle of.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1861 (JULY-SEPTEMBER: MISSOURI).

CARTHAGENA (NEW CARTHAGE). The founding of the city.

Hasdrubal, son-in-law and successor of Hamilcar Barca in Spain, founded New Carthage--modern Carthagena--some time between 229 and 221 B. C. to be the capital of the Carthaginian dominion in the Spanish peninsula.

_R. B. Smith, Carthage and the Carthaginians, chapter 9._

Capture by Scipio.

See PUNIC WAR. THE SECOND.

Settlement of the Alans in.

See SPAIN: A. D. 409-414.

CARTHAGENA: End----------

CARTHAGENA (South America): A. D. 1697. Taken and sacked by the French.

One of the last enterprises of the French in the war which was closed by the Peace of Ryswick--undertaken, in fact, while the negotiations at Ryswick were in progress--was the storming and sacking of Carthagena by a privateer squadron, from Brest, commanded by rear-admiral Pointis, April, 1697. "The inhabitants were allowed to carry away their effects; but all the gold, silver, and precious stones were the prey of the conqueror. Pointis ... reentered Brest safe and sound, bringing back to his ship-owners more than ten millions. The officers of the squadron and the privateers had well provided for themselves besides, and the Spaniards had probably lost more than twenty millions."

_H. Martin, History of France: Age of Louis XIV. (translated by M. L. Booth), volume 2, chapter 2._

CARTHAGENA: A. D. 1741. Attack and repulse of the English.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1739-1741.

CARTHAGENA A. D. 1815. Siege and capture by the Spaniards.

See COLOMBIAN STATES: A. D. 1810-1819.

CARTHAGENA (South America): End----------

CARTHUSIAN ORDER. La Grande Chartreuse.

"St. Bruno, once a canon of St. Cunibert's, at Cologne, and afterward chancellor of the metropolitan church of Rheims, followed by six companions, founded a monastery near Grenoble, amid the bleak and rugged mountains of the desert of Chartreuse (A. D. 1084). The rule given by St. Bruno to his disciples was founded upon that of St. Benedict, but with such modifications as almost to make of it a new and particular one. The Carthusians were very nearly akin to the monks of Vallis-Umbrosa and Camaldoli; they led the same kind of life--the eremitical joined to the cenobitic. Each religious had his own cell, where he spent the week in solitude, and met the community only on Sunday. ... Never, perhaps, had the monastic life surrounded itself with such rigors and holy austerities. ... The religious were bound to a life-long silence, having renounced the world to hold converse with Heaven alone. Like the solitaries of Thebais they never eat meat, and their dress, as an additional penance, consisted only of a sack-cloth garment. Manual labors, broken only by the exercise of common prayer; a board on the bare earth for a couch; a narrow cell, where the religious twice a day receives his slight allowance of boiled herbs;--such is the life of pious austerities of which the world knows not the heavenly sweetness. For 800 years has this order continued to edify and to serve the Church by the practice of the most sublime virtue; and its very rigor seems to hold out a mysterious attraction to pious souls. A congregation of women has embraced the primitive rule."

_J. E. Darras, History of the Catholic Church,