CHAPTER IV.

OF CARTHAGE.

Of all the free states whose memory is preserved to us in history, Carthage bears the nearest resemblance to Britain, both in her commerce, opulence, sovereignty of the sea, and her method of carrying on her land wars by foreign mercenaries. If to these we add the vicinity of the Carthaginians to the Romans, the most formidable and most rapacious people at that time in Europe, and the specifick difference, as I may term it, of the respective military force of each nation, the situation of Carthage with respect to Rome, seems greatly analogous to that of Britain with respect to France, at least for this last century. Consequently, the dreadful fate of that republick, once the most flourishing state in the universe, and the most formidable rival Rome ever had to cope with, must merit our highest attention at this juncture: both as the greatness of her power arose from, and was supported by commerce, and as she owed her ruin more to her own intestine divisions, than to the arms of the Romans.

We know very little of this opulent and powerful people until the time of the first Punick war. For as not one of their own historians has reached our times, we have no accounts of them but what are transmitted to us by their enemies. Such writers consequently deserve little credit, as well from their ignorance of the Carthaginian constitution, as their inveterate prejudice against that great people. Hence it is that we know so little of their laws, and have but an imperfect idea of their constitutional form of government.

The government of Carthage, if we may credit the judicious Aristotle, seems to have been founded on the wisest maxim of policy. For he affirms, the different branches of their legislature were so exactly balanced,[197] that for the space of five hundred years, from the commencement of the republick down to his time, the repose of Carthage had never been disturbed by any considerable sedition, or her liberty invaded by any single tyrant: the two fatal evils to which every republican government is daily liable, from the very nature of their constitution. An additional proof too may be drawn from this consideration, that Carthage was able to support herself upwards of seven hundred years in opulence and splendour in the midst of so many powerful enemies, and during the greater part of that time, was the centre of commerce of the known world, and enjoyed the uninterrupted sovereignty of the sea without a rival.

The genius of the Carthaginians was warlike as well as commercial, and affords undeniable proof, that those qualities are by no means incompatible to the same people. It is almost impossible indeed to discover the real character of this great people. The Roman historians, their implacable enemies, constantly paint them in the blackest colours, to palliate the perfidious and merciless behaviour of their own countrymen towards that unfortunate republick. A fact so notorious, that neither Livy, nor any other of their writers, with all their art, were able to conceal it. The Greek historians, whose countrymen had suffered so greatly by the Carthaginian arms in Sicily and all the other islands in the Mediterranean, betray as strong a prejudice against them as the Roman. Even the respectable Polybius, the only author amongst them who deserves any degree of credit, is plainly partial, when he speaks of the Carthaginian manners. The Romans continually charge them with the want of publick faith, and have handed down the _Punica fides_ as a proverb. I shall take notice of this scandalous charge in another place, where I shall show how much more justly it may be retorted upon the Romans.

As the desire of gain is the chief spur to commerce, and as the greatest men in Carthage never thought it beneath them to engage in that lucrative employment, all the historians have represented the whole body of the people as so insatiably fond of amassing wealth, that they esteemed even the lowest and dirtiest means lawful, that tended to the acquisition of their darling object. “Amongst the Carthaginians,” says Polybius, when he compares the manners of that people with those of the Romans, “nothing was infamous that was attended with gain.[198] Amongst the Romans nothing so infamous as bribery,[199] and to enrich themselves by unwarrantable means.” He adds in proof of his assertion, that, “at Carthage all the dignities, and highest employments in the state were openly sold.[200] A practice, he affirms, which at Rome was a capital crime.” Yet but a few pages before, where he inveighs bitterly against the sordid love of money, and rapacious avarice of the Cretans, he remarks that, “they were the only people in the world to whom no kind of gain appeared either infamous or unlawful.”[201] In another place where he censures the Greeks for aspersing Titus Flamius the Roman general, as if he had not been proof against the gold of Macedon, he affirms, “that whilst the Romans preserved the virtuous manners of their forefathers, and had not yet carried their arms into foreign countries, not a single man of them would have been guilty of a crime of that nature.”[202] But though he can boldly assert, as he says, “that in his time many of the Romans, if taken man by man, were able to preserve he trust reposed in them inviolable as to that point, yet he owns he durst not venture to say the same of all.” Though he speaks as modestly as he can to avoid giving offence, yet this hint is sufficient to convince us, that corruption was neither new nor uncommon at that time amongst the Romans. But as I shall resume this subject in a more proper place, I shall only observe from Polybius’s own detail of the history of the Carthaginians, that unless when the intrigues of faction prevailed, all their great posts were generally filled by men of the most distinguished merit.

The charge of cruelty is brought against them with a very ill grace by the Romans, who treated even monarchs themselves, if they were so unhappy as to become their prisoners of war, with the utmost inhumanity, and threw them to perish in dungeons, after they had exposed them in triumph to the insults of their own populace.[203]

The story indeed of Regulus has afforded a noble subject for Horace, which he has embellished with some of the most beautiful strokes of poetry, and that fine ode has propagated and confirmed the belief of it, more perhaps than the writings of all their historians. But as neither Polybius nor Diodorus Siculus makes the least mention of such an event (though the Greeks bore an equal aversion to the Carthaginians) and as the Roman writers from whom we received it, differ greatly in their accounts of it, I cannot help joining in opinion with many learned men, that it was a Roman forgery.

The Greek writers accuse them of barbarism and a total ignorance of the _belles lettres_, the study of which was the reigning taste of Greece. Rollin contemptuously affirms, that their education in general amounted to no more than writing and the knowledge of merchants accounts; that a Carthaginian philosopher would have been a prodigy amongst the learned; and then asks, “what would they have thought of a geometrician or astronomer of that nation?” Rollin seems to have put this question too hastily, since it is unanimously confessed; that they were the best ship builders, the ablest navigators, and the most skilful mechanicks at that time in the world: that they raised abundance of magnificent structures, and very well understood the art of fortification; all which (especially as the use of the compass was then unknown) must of necessity imply a more than common knowledge of astronomy, geometry, and every other branch of mathematicks. Let me add too that their knowledge in agriculture was so eminent;[204] that the works of Mago the Carthaginian upon that subject were ordered to be translated by a decree of the senate for the use of the Romans and their colonies.

That the education of their youth was not confined to the mercantile part only, must be evident from that number of great men, who make such a figure in their history; particularly Hannibal, perhaps the greatest captain which any age has ever yet produced, and at the same time the most consummate statesman, and disinterested patriot. Painting, sculpture, and poetry, they seem to have left to their more idle and more luxurious neighbours the Greeks, and applied their wealth to the infinitely nobler uses of supporting their marine, enlarging and protecting their commerce and colonies. What opinion even the wiser part of the Romans had of these specious arts, and how unworthy they judged them of the close attention of a brave and free people, we may learn from the advice which Virgil gives his countrymen by the mouth of his hero’s father Anchises.[205] I have endeavoured here to clear the much injured character of this great people from the aspersions and gross misrepresentations of historians, by proofs drawn from the concessions and self-contradictions of the historians themselves.

The state of Carthage bears so near a resemblance to that of our own nation, both in their constitution (as far as we are able to judge of it) maritime power, commerce, party divisions, and long as well as bloody war which they carried on with the most powerful nation in the universe, that their history, I again repeat it, affords us, in my judgment, more useful rules for our present conduct than that of any other ancient republick. As we are engaged in a war (which was until very lately unsuccessful) with an enemy, less powerful indeed, but equally rapacious as the Romans, and acting upon the same principles, we ought most carefully to beware of those false steps both in war and policy, which brought on the ruin of the Carthaginians. For should we be so unhappy as to be compelled to receive law from that haughty nation, we must expect to be reduced to the same wretched situation in which the Romans left Carthage at the conclusion of the second Punick war. This island has been hitherto the inexpugnable barrier of the liberties of Europe, and is as much the object of the jealousy and hatred of the French as ever Carthage was of the Romans. As they are sensible that nothing but the destruction of this country can open them a way to their grand project of universal monarchy, we may be certain that _delenda est Britannia_ will be as much the popular maxim at Paris, as _delenda est Carthago_ was at Rome.... But I shall wave these reflections at present, and point out the real causes of the total ruin of that powerful republick.

Carthage took its rise from a handful of distressed Tyrians who settled in that country by permission of the natives, like our colonies in America, and actually paid a kind of rent, under the name of tribute, for the very ground on which their city was founded. As they brought with them the commercial genius of their mother country they soon arrived at such a state of opulence by their frugality and indefatigable industry, as occasioned the envy of their poorer neighbours. Thus jealousy on the one hand, and pride naturally arising from great wealth on the other, quickly involved them in a war. The natives justly feared the growing power of the Carthaginians, and the latter feeling their own strength, wanted to throw off the yoke of tribute, which they looked upon as dishonourable and even galling to a free people. The contest was by no means equal. The neighbouring princes were poor and divided by separate interests, the Carthaginians were rich and united in one common cause. Their commerce made them masters of the sea, and their wealth enabled them to bribe one part of their neighbours to fight against the other, and thus by playing one against the other alternately, they reduced all at last to be their tributaries, and extended their dominions near two thousand miles upon that continent. It may be objected that the conduct of the Carthaginians in this case was highly criminal. I grant it: but if we view all those master strokes of policy, and all those splendid conquests which shine so much in history, in their true colours, they will appear to be nothing more than fraud and robbery, gilded over with those pompous appellations. Did not every nation that makes a figure in history rise to empire upon the ruin of their neighbours? did not France acquire her present formidable power, and is she not at this time endeavouring to worm us out of our American settlements by the very same means? but though the motives are not to be justified, yet the conduct of the Carthaginians upon these occasions, will afford us some very useful and instructive lessons in our present situation.

It is evident that the mighty power of these people was founded in and supported by commerce, and that they owed their vast acquisitions, which extended down both sides of the Mediterranean quite into the main ocean, to a right application of the publick money, and a proper exertion of their naval force. Had they bounded their views to this single point, viz. the support of their commerce and colonies, they either would not have given such terrible umbrage to the Romans, who, as Polybius observes, could brook no equal, or might safely have bid defiance to their utmost efforts. For the immense sums which they squandered away in subsidies to so many foreign princes, and to support such numerous armies of foreign mercenaries, which they constantly kept in pay, to complete the reduction of Spain and Sicily, would have enabled them to cover their coasts with such a fleet as would have secured them from any apprehension of foreign invasions. Besides ... the Roman genius was so little turned for maritime affairs, that at the time of their first breach with Carthage they were not masters of one single ship of war, and were such absolute strangers to the mechanism of a ship, that a Carthaginian galley driven by accident on their coasts gave them the first notion of a model. But the ambition of Carthage grew as her wealth increased; and how difficult a task is it to set bounds to that restless passion! thus by grasping at too much, she lost all. It is not probable therefore that the Romans would ever have attempted to disturb any of the Carthaginian settlements, when the whole coast of Italy lay open to the insults and depredations of so formidable a maritime power. The Romans felt this so sensibly in the beginning of the first Punick war, that they never rested until they had acquired the superiority at sea. It is evident too, that the Romans always maintained that superiority: for if Hannibal could possibly have passed by sea into Italy, so able a general would never have harrassed his troops by that long and seemingly impossible march over the Alps, which cost him above half his army; an expedition which has been, and ever will be, the wonder of all succeeding ages. Nor could Scipio have landed without opposition so very near the city of Carthage itself, if the maritime force of that people had not been at the very lowest ebb.

The Carthaginians were certainly greatly weakened by the long continuance of their first war with the Romans, and that savage and destructive war with their own mercenaries, which followed immediately after. They ought therefore, in true policy, to have turned their whole attention, during the interval between the first and second Punick wars, to the re-establishment of their marine; but the conquest of Spain was their favourite object, and their finances were too much reduced to be sufficient for both. Thus they expended that money in carrying on a continental war, which would have put their marine on so formidable a footing, as to have enabled them to regain once more the dominion of the sea; and the fatal event of the second Punick war convinced them of the false step they had taken, when it was too late to retrieve it.

I have here pointed out one capital error of the Carthaginians as a maritime power, I mean their engaging in too frequent, and too extensive wars on the continent of Europe, and their neglect of their marine. I shall now mention another, which more than once brought them to the very brink of destruction. This was ... their constantly employing such a vast number of foreign mercenary troops, and not trusting the defence of their country, nay not even Carthage itself wholly, to their own native subjects.

The Carthaginians were so entirely devoted to commerce, that they seem to have looked upon every native employed in their armies as a member lost to the community; and their wealth enabled them to buy whatever number of soldiers they pleased from their neighbouring states in Greece and Africa, who traded (as I may term it) in war as much as the Swiss and Germans do now, and were equally ready to sell the blood and lives of their subjects to the best bidder. From hence they drew such inexhaustible supplies of men, both to form and recruit their armies, whilst their own natives were at leisure to follow the more lucrative occupations of navigation, husbandry, and mechanick trades. For the number of native Carthaginians, which we read of, in any of their armies, was so extremely small as to bear no proportion to that of their foreign mercenaries. This kind of policy, which prevails so generally in all mercantile states, does, I confess, at first sight appear extremely plausible. The Carthaginians, by this method, spared their own people, and purchased all their conquests by the venal blood of foreigners: and, in case of a defeat, they could with great ease and expedition recruit their broken armies with any number of good troops, ready trained up to their hands in military discipline. But alas, these advantages were greatly over-balanced by very fatal inconveniences. The foreign troops were attached to the Carthaginians by no tie, but that of their pay. Upon the least failure of that, or if they were not humoured in all their licentious demands, they were just as ready to turn their arms against the throats of their masters. Strangers to that heartfelt affection, that enthusiastick love of their country which warms the hearts of free citizens, and fires them with the glorious emulation of fighting to the last drop of blood in defence of their common mother; these sordid hirelings were always ripe for mutiny and sedition, and ever ready to revolt and change sides upon the least prospect of greater advantages.

But a short detail of the calamities, which they drew upon themselves by this mistaken policy, will better show the dangers which attend the admission of foreign mercenaries into any country, where the natives are unaccustomed to the use of arms. A practice which is too apt to prevail in commercial nations.

At the conclusion of the first Punick war the Carthaginians were compelled, by their treaty with the Romans, to evacuate Sicily. Gesco therefore, who then commanded in that island, to prevent the disorders which might be committed by such a multitude of desperate fellows, composed of so many different nations, and so long inured to blood and rapine, sent them over gradually in small bodies, that his countrymen might have time to pay off their arrears, and send them home to their respective countries. But either the lowness of their finances, or the ill timed parsimony of the Carthaginians totally defeated this salutary measure,[206] though the wisest that, as their affairs were at that time circumstanced, could possibly have been taken. The Carthaginians deferred their payment until the arrival of the whole body, in hopes of obtaining some abatement in their demands by fairly laying before them the necessities of the publick. But the mercenaries were deaf to every representation and proposal of that nature. They felt their own strength, and saw too plainly the weakness of their masters. As fast as one demand was agreed to, a more unreasonable one was started; and they threatened to do themselves justice by military execution if their exorbitant demands were not immediately complied with. At last, when they were just at the point of an accommodation with their masters, by the mediation and address of Gesco, two desperate ruffians, named Speudius and Mathos,[207] raised such a flame amongst this unruly multitude as broke out instantly into the most bloody, and destructive war ever yet recorded in history. The account we have of it from the Greek historians must strike the most callous breast with horror; and though it was at last happily terminated by the superior conduct of Hamilcar Barcas, the father of the great Hannibal, yet it continued near four years, and left the territories around Carthage a most shocking scene of blood and devastation. Such was, and ever will be the consequence, when a large body of mercenary troops is admitted into the heart of a rich and fertile country, where the bulk of the people are denied the use of arms by the mistaken policy of their governors. For this was actually the case with the Carthaginians, where the total disuse of arms amongst the lower class of people, laid that opulent country open, an easy and tempting prey to every invader. This was another capital error, and consequently another cause which contributed to their ruin.

How must any nation but our own, which with respect to the bulk of the people, lies in the same defenceless situation; how, I say, must they censure the mighty state of Carthage, spreading terror, and giving law to the most distant nations by her powerful fleets, when they see her at the same time trembling, and giving herself up for lost at the landing of any invader in her own territories?

The conduct of that petty prince Agathocles, affords us a striking instance of the defenceless state of the territories of Carthage. The Carthaginians were at that very time masters of all Sicily, except the single city of Syracuse, in which they had cooped up that tyrant both by land and sea. Agathocles, reduced to the last extremity, struck perhaps the boldest stroke ever yet met with in history.[208] He was perfectly well acquainted with the weak side of Carthage, and knew that he could meet with little opposition from a people who were strangers to the use of arms, and enervated by a life of ease and plenty. On this defect of their policy he founded his hopes; and the event proved that he was not mistaken in his judgment. He embarked with only thirteen thousand men on board the few ships he had remaining, eluded the vigilance of the Carthaginian fleet by stratagem, landed safely in Africa, plundered and ravaged that rich country up to the very gates of Carthage, which he closely blocked up, and reduced nearly to the situation in which he had left his own Syracuse. Nothing could equal the terror into which the city of Carthage was thrown at that time, but the panick which, in the late rebellion, struck the much larger, and more populous city of London, at the approach of a poor handful of Highlanders, as much inferior even to the small army of Agathocles in number, as they were in arms and discipline. The success of that able leader compelled the Carthaginians to recall part of their forces out of Sicily to the immediate defence of Carthage itself; and this occasioned the raising of the siege of Syracuse, and ended in the total defeat of their army, and death of their general in that country. Thus Agathocles, by this daring measure, saved his own petty state, and, after a variety of good and ill fortune, concluded a treaty with the Carthaginians, and died at Syracuse at a time when, from a thorough experience of their defenceless state at home, he was preparing for a fresh invasion.

Livy informs us, that this very measure of Agathocles set the precedent which Scipio followed with so much success in the second Punick war, when that able general, by a similar descent in Africa, compelled the Carthaginians to recall Hannibal out of Italy to their immediate assistance, and reduced them to that impotent state, from which they never afterwards were able to recover.[209] How successfully the French played the same game upon us, when they obliged us to recall our forces out of Flanders to crush the rebellion, which they had spirited up with that very view, is a fact too recent to need any mention of particulars. How lately did they drive us to the expense, and I may say the ignominy, of fetching over a large body of foreign mercenaries for the immediate defence of this nation, which plumes herself so much upon her power and bravery? How greatly did they cramp all our measures, how much did they confine all our military operations to our own immediate self-defence, and prevent us from sending sufficient succours to our colonies by the perpetual alarm of an invasion?

Though we may in part truly ascribe the ruin of Carthage to the two above-mentioned errors in their policy, yet the cause which was productive of the greatest evils, and consequently the more immediate object of our attention at this dangerous juncture, was party disunion; that bane of every free state, from which our own country has equal reason to apprehend the same direful effects, as the republicks of Greece, Rome, and Carthage experienced formerly.

By all the lights, which we receive from history, the state of Carthage was divided into two opposite factions; the Hannonian and the Barcan, so denominated from the respective leaders, who were heads of the two most powerful families in Carthage. The Hannonian family seems to have made the greatest figure in the senate; the Barcan in the field. Both were strongly actuated by ambition, but ambition of a different kind. The Barcan family seems to have had no other object in view but the glory of their country, and were always ready to give up their private animosities, and even their passion for military glory to the publick good. The Hannonian family acted from quite opposite principles, constantly aiming at one point; the supporting themselves in power, and that only. Ever jealous of the glory acquired by the Barcan family, they perpetually thwarted every measure proposed from that quarter, and were equally ready to sacrifice the honour and real interest of their country to that selfish view. In short, the one family seems to have produced a race of heroes, the other of ambitious statesmen.

The chiefs of these two jarring families, best known to us in history, were Hanno and Hamilcar Barcas, who was succeeded by his son Hannibal, that terror of the Romans. The opposition between these two parties was so flagrant, that Appian does not scruple to call the party of Hanno, the Roman faction;[210] and that of Barcas, the popular, or the Carthaginian, from the different interests which each party espoused.

The first instance, which we meet with in history, of the enmity subsisting between the heads of these factions, was in that destructive war with the Mercenaries, from which I have made this explanatory digression.

Hanno was first sent with a powerful, and well provided army against these mutinous desperadoes; but he knew little of his trade, and made perpetual blunders. Polybius,[211] who treats his character, as a soldier, with the utmost contempt, informs us, that he suffered himself to be surprised, a great part of his fine army to be cut to pieces, and his camp taken, with all the military stores, engines, and all the other apparatus of war.

The Carthaginians, terrified and distressed by the bad conduct of their general, were now compelled, by the necessity of their affairs, to restore Hamilcar to the chief command of their forces, from which he must have been excluded before by the influence of the Hannonian faction. That able commander with his small army (for his whole force amounted to no more than ten thousand men) quickly changed the face of the war, defeated Spendius in two pitched battles, and pushed every advantage to the utmost, which the incapacity of the rebel-generals threw in his way. Sensible that he was too weak alone to cope with the united forces of the rebels (which amounted to seventy thousand men) he ordered Hanno (who had still influence enough to procure himself to be continued in the command of a separate body) to join him, that they might finish this execrable war by one decisive action.[212] After they were joined, the Carthaginians soon felt the fatal effects of disunion between their generals. No plan could now be followed, no measure could be agreed on;[213] and the disagreement between these two leading men arose to such a height at last, that they not only let slip every opportunity of annoying the enemy, but gave them many advantages against themselves, which they could not otherwise have hoped for. The Carthaginians,[214] sensible of their error, and knowing the very different abilities of the two generals, yet willing to avoid the imputation of partiality, empowered the army to decide which of the two they judged most proper for their general, as they were determined to continue only one of them in the command. The decision of the army was,[215] that Hamilcar should take the supreme command, and that Hanno should depart the camp. A convincing proof that they threw the whole blame of that disunion, and the ill-success, which was the consequence of it, entirely upon the envy and jealousy of Hanno. One Hannibal, a man more tractable, and more agreeable to Hamilcar, was sent in his room. Union was restored, and the happy effects which attended it were quickly visible. Hamilcar now pushed on the war with his usual vigilance and activity, and soon convinced the generals of the rebels how greatly he was their master in the art of war. He harrassed them perpetually, and, like a skilful gamester,[216] (as Polybius terms him) drew them artfully every day into his snares, and obliged them to raise the siege of Carthage. At last he cooped up Spendius with his army in so disadvantageous a place, that he reduced them to such an extremity of famine as to devour one another, and compelled them to surrender at discretion, though they were upwards of forty thousand effective men.... The army of Hamilcar, which was much inferior to that of Spendius in number, was composed partly of mercenaries and deserters, partly of the city militia, both horse and foot (troops which the enemies to the militia-bill would have called raw and undisciplined, and treated as useless) of which the major part of his army consisted.[217] The rebel army was composed chiefly of brave and experienced veterans, trained up by Hamilcar himself in Sicily during the late war with the Romans, whose courage was heightened by despair. It is worthy of our observation therefore, that these very men who, under the conduct of Hamilcar, had been a terror to the Romans, and given them so many blows in Sicily towards the latter end of the first Punick war, should yet be so little able to cope with an army so much inferior in number, and composed in a great measure of city militia only, when commanded by the same general. Polybius,[218] who esteems Hamilcar by far the greatest captain of that age, observes, that though the rebels were by no means inferior to the Carthaginian troops in resolution and bravery, yet they were frequently beaten by Hamilcar by mere dint of generalship. Upon this occasion he cannot help remarking the vast superiority which judicious skill and ability of generalship has over long military practice,[219] where this so essentially necessary skill and judgement is wanting. It might have been thought unpardonable in me, if I had omitted this just remark of Polybius, since it has been so lately verified by his Prussian majesty in those masterly strokes of generalship, which are the present admiration of Europe. Hamilcar, after the destruction of Spendius and his army, immediately blocked up Mathos, with the remaining corps of the rebels, in the city of Tunes. Hannibal, with the forces under his command, took post on that side of the city which looked towards Carthage. Hamilcar prepared to make his attack on the side which was directly opposite; but the conduct of Hannibal, when left to himself, was the direct contrast to that of Hamilcar, and proves undeniably, that the whole merit of their former success was entirely owing to that abler general. Hannibal, who seems to have been little acquainted with the true genius of those daring veterans, lay secure, and careless in his camp, neglected his out-guards, and treated the enemy with contempt, as a people already conquered. But Mathos observing the negligence and security of Hannibal,[220] and well knowing that he had not Hamilcar to deal with, made a sudden and resolute sally, forced Hannibal’s intrenchments, put great numbers of his men to the sword, took Hannibal himself, with several other persons of distinction prisoners, and pillaged his camp. This daring measure was so well concerted, and executed with so much rapidity, that Mathos, who made good use of his time, had done his business before Hamilcar, who lay encamped at some distance, was in the least apprized of his colleague’s misfortune. Mathos fastened Hannibal, whilst alive, on the same gibbet to which Hamilcar had lately nailed the body of Spendius: A terrible, but just reward for the shameful carelessness in a commanding officer, who had sacrificed the lives of such a number of his fellow citizens by his own indolence and presumptuous folly. For Mathos crucified thirty of the first nobility of Carthage, who attended Hannibal in this expedition. A commander who is surprised in the night-time, though guilty of an egregious fault, may yet plead something in excuse; but, in point of discipline, for a general to be surprised by an enemy just under his nose in open daylight, and caught in a state of wanton security, from an over-weening presumption on his own strength, is a crime of so capital a nature as to admit neither of alleviation nor pardon. This dreadful and unexpected blow threw Carthage into the utmost consternation, and obliged Hamilcar to draw off his part of the army to a considerable distance from Tunes. Hanno had again influence enough to procure the command, which he was compelled before by the army to give up to Hamilcar. But the Carthaginians, sensible of the fatal consequences of disunion between the two generals, especially at such a desperate crisis, sent thirty of the most respectable amongst the senators to procure a thorough reconciliation between Hamilcar and Hanno before they proceeded upon any operation;[221] which they effected at last, though not without difficulty. Pleased with this happy event, the Carthaginians (as their last, and utmost effort) sent every man in Carthage,[222] who was able to bear arms, to re-enforce Hamilcar, on whose superior abilities they placed their whole dependance. Hamilcar now resumed his operations, and, as he was no longer thwarted by Hanno, soon reduced Mathos to the necessity of putting the whole issue of the war upon one decisive action, in which the Carthaginians were most completely victors by the exquisite disposition and conduct of Hamilcar.

I hope the enemies to a militia will at least allow these new levies, who composed by far the greatest part of Hamilcar’s army upon this occasion, to be raw, undisciplined, and ignorant of the use of arms; epithets which they bestow so plentifully upon a militia. Yet that able commander, with an army consisting chiefly of this kind of men, totally destroyed an army of desperate veterans, took their general, and all who escaped the slaughter prisoners, and put an end to the most ruinous, and most inhuman war ever yet mentioned in history. These new levies had courage (a quality never yet, I believe, disputed to the British commonality) and were to fight _pro aris et focis_, for whatever was dear and valuable to a people; and Hamilcar, who well knew how to make the proper use of these dispositions of his countrymen, was master of those abilities which Mathos wanted. Of such infinite advantage is it to an army to have a commander superior to the enemy in the art of generalship; an advantage which frequently supplies a deficiency even in the goodness of troops, as well as in numbers.

The enmity of Hanno did not expire with Hamilcar, who fell gloriously in the service of his country, in Spain some years after. Hannibal the eldest son, and a son worthy of so heroick a father, immediately became the object of his jealousy and hatred. For when Asdrubal (son-in-law to Hamilcar) had been appointed to the command of the army in Spain, after the death of that general, he desired that Hannibal, at that time but twenty-two years of age, might be sent to Spain to be trained up under him in the art of war. Hanno opposed this with the utmost virulence in a rancorous speech (made for him by Livy) fraught with the most infamous insinuations against Asdrubal, and a strong charge of ambition against the Barcan family. But his malice, and the true reason of his opposition, varnished over with a specious concern for the publick welfare, were so easily seen through, that he was not able to carry a point which he so much wished for.

Asdrubal not long after being assassinated by a Gaul,[223] in revenge for some injury he had received, the army immediately appointed Hannibal to the command; and sending advice to Carthage of what they had done, the senate was assembled, who unanimously confirmed the election then made by the soldiers.[224] Hannibal in a short time reduced all that part of Spain which lay between New Carthage and the river Iberus, except the city of Saguntum, which was in alliance with the Romans. But as he inherited his father’s hatred to the Romans, for their infamous behaviour to his country at the conclusion of the war with the mercenaries,[225] he made great preparations for the siege of Saguntum. The Romans (according to Polybius) receiving intelligence of his design,[226] sent ambassadors to him at New Carthage, who warned him of the consequences of either attacking the Saguntines, or crossing the Iberus, which, by the treaty with Asdrubal, had been made the boundary of the Carthaginian and Roman dominions in that country. Hannibal acknowledged his resolution to proceed against Saguntum, but the reasons he assigned for his conduct were so unsatisfactory to the ambassadors, that they crossed over to Carthage to know the resolution of their senate upon that subject. Hannibal in the mean time, according to the same author,[227] sent advice to Carthage of this embassy, and desired instructions how to act, complaining heavily that the Saguntines depending upon their alliance with the Romans, committed frequent depredations upon the Carthaginian subjects.

We may conclude that the ambassadors met with as disagreeable a reception from the Carthaginian senate as they had done from Hannibal, and that he received orders from Carthage to proceed in his intended expedition. For Polybius,[228] reflecting upon some writers, who pretended to relate what passed in the Roman senate when the news arrived of the capture of Saguntum, and even inserted the debates which arose when the question was put, whether, or no, war should be declared against Carthage, treats their whole accounts as absurd and fictitious. “For how, says he, with indignation, could it possibly be, that the Romans, who had denounced war the year before at Carthage, if Hannibal should invade the Saguntine territories, should now after that city was taken by storm assemble to deliberate, whether war should be commenced against the Carthaginians or not.” Now as this declaration of war was conditional, and not to take place unless Hannibal should attack the Saguntines, it must have been made before that event happened, and consequently must be referred to the embassy above-mentioned. And as Hannibal undertook the siege of Saguntum notwithstanding the Roman menaces, he undoubtedly acted by orders from the Carthaginian senate.

When the Romans received the news of the destruction of Saguntum, they dispatched another embassy to Carthage (as Polybius relates) with the utmost expedition;[229] their orders were to insist that Hannibal and all who advised him to commit hostilities against the Saguntines should be delivered up to the Romans, and in case of a refusal, to declare immediate war. Their demand was received by the Carthaginian senate with the utmost indignation, and one of the senators, who was appointed to speak in the name of the rest, begun in an artful speech to recriminate upon the Romans, and offered to prove, that the Saguntines were not allied to the Romans when the peace was made between the two nations, and consequently could not be included in the treaty. But the Romans cut the affair short, and told them that they did not come there to dispute, but only to insist upon a categorical answer to this plain question: whether they would give up the authors of the hostilities, which would convince the world that they had no share in the destruction of Saguntum, but that Hannibal had done it without their authority; or, whether by protecting them, they chose to confirm the Romans in the belief, that Hannibal had acted with their approbation? As their demand of Hannibal was refused, war was declared by the Romans,[230] and accepted with equal alacrity and fierceness by the majority of the Carthaginian senate.

Livy affirms that the first embassy was decreed by the Roman senate,[231] but not sent until Hannibal had actually invested Saguntum, and varies from Polybius in his relation of the particulars. For according to Livy,[232] Hannibal received intelligence of the Roman embassy, but he sent them word, that he had other business upon his hands at that time than to give audience to ambassadors, and that he wrote at the same time to his friends of the Barcan faction to exert themselves, and prevent the other party from carrying any point in favour of the Romans.

The ambassadors, thus denied admittance by Hannibal, repaired to Carthage and laid their demands before the senate. Upon this occasion Livy introduces Hanno inveighing bitterly in a formal harangue against the sending Hannibal into Spain, a measure which he foretells, must terminate in the utter destruction of Carthage.[233] And after testifying his joy for the death of his father Hamilcar, whom he acknowledges he most cordially hated, as he did the whole Barcan family, whom he terms the fire-brands of the state, he advises them to give up Hannibal, and make full satisfaction for the injury then done to the Saguntines. When Hanno had done speaking, there was no occasion, as Livy observes, for a reply.[234] For almost all the senate were so entirely in the interest of Hannibal, that they accused Hanno of declaiming against him, with more bitterness and rancour than even the Roman ambassadors, who were dismissed with this short answer, “that not Hannibal, but the Saguntines, were the authors of the war, and that the Romans treated them with great injustice, if they preferred the friendship of the Saguntines before that of their most ancient allies the Carthaginians.” Livy’s account of the second embassy, which followed the destruction of Saguntum, differs so very little from that of Polybius, both as to the question put by the Romans, the answer given by the Carthaginian senate, and the declaration of war which was the consequence, that it is needless to repeat it.[235]

If what Hanno said in the speech above-mentioned, had been his real sentiments from any consciousness of the superior power of the Romans, and the imprudence of engaging in a war of that consequence before his country had recovered her former strength, he would have acted upon principles worthy of an honest and prudent patriot. For Polybius,[236] after enumerating the superior excellencies of Hannibal as a general, is strongly of opinion, that if he had begun with other nations, and left the Romans for his last enterprise, he would certainly have succeeded in whatever he had attempted against them, but he miscarried by attacking those first, whom he ought to have reserved for his last enterprise. The subsequent behaviour of Hanno, during the whole time that Italy was the seat of war, evidently proves, that his opposition to this war proceeded entirely from party motives, and his personal hatred to the Barcan family, consequently is by no means to be ascribed to any regard for the true interest of his country. Appian informs us,[237] that when Fabius had greatly streightened Hannibal by his cautious conduct, the Carthaginian general sent a pressing message to Carthage for a supply both of men and money. But according to that author, he was flatly refused, and could obtain neither, by the influence of his enemies, who were averse to that war, and cavilled perpetually at every enterprise which Hannibal undertook. Livy,[238] in his relation of the account, which Hannibal sent to the Carthaginian senate of his glorious victory at Cannæ by his brother Mago, with the demand for a large re-enforcement of men as well as money, introduces Hanno (in a speech of his own which he gives us on that occasion) strongly opposing that motion, and persisting still in his former sentiments in respect both to the war and to Hannibal. But the Carthaginians, elated with that victory, which was the greatest blow the Romans ever received in the field since the foundation of their republick, and thoroughly sensible (as Livy informs us) of the enmity which Hanno and his faction bore to the Barcan family, immediately decreed a supply of forty thousand Numidians, and twenty-four thousand foot and horse to be immediately levied in Spain, besides elephants, and a very large sum of money. Though Hanno at that time had not weight enough in the senate to prevent that decree, yet he had influence enough by his intrigues to retard the supply then voted, and not only to get it reduced to twelve thousand foot and twenty-five hundred horse, but even to procure that small number to be sent to Spain upon a different service. That Hanno was the true cause of this cruel disappointment, and the fatal consequences which attended it, is equally evident from the same historian. For Livy tells us,[239] “that when orders were sent to him by the Carthaginian senate to quit Italy, and hasten to the immediate defence of his own country, Hannibal inveighed bitterly against the malice of his enemies, who now openly and avowedly recalled him from Italy, out of which they had long before endeavoured to drag him, when they tied up his hands by constantly refusing him any supply either of men or money. That Hannibal affirmed he was not conquered by the Romans, whom he had so often defeated, but by the calumny and envy of the opposite faction in the senate. That Scipio would not have so much reason to plume himself upon the ignominy of his return, as his enemy Hanno, who was so implacably bent upon the destruction of the Barcan family, that since he was not able to crush it by any other means, he had at last accomplished it, though by the ruin of Carthage itself.”

Had that large supply been sent to Hannibal with the same unanimity and despatch with which it was voted, it is more than probable, that so consummate a general would have soon been master of Rome, and transferred the empire of the world to Carthage. For the Romans were so exhausted after the terrible defeat at Cannæ, that Livy is of opinion, that Hannibal would have given the finishing blow to that republick, if he had marched directly to Rome from the field of battle, as he was advised to do by his general of horse Maherbal.[240] That many of the nobility upon the first news of this fatal event, were in actual consultation about the means of quitting Italy, and looking out for a settlement in some other part of the world, and he affirms, that the safety both of the city and empire of Rome must be attributed (as it was then firmly believed at Rome) to the delay of that single day only, on which Maherbal gave that advice to Hannibal. Appian confirms the distressful situation of the Roman affairs at that juncture, and informs us, that including the slaughter at Cannæ, in which the Romans had lost most of their ablest officers, Hannibal had put to the sword two hundred and fifty thousand of their best troops in the space of two years only, from the beginning of the second Punick war inclusive.[241] It is easy, therefore, to imagine how little able the Roman armies, consisting chiefly of new levies, would have been to face such a commander as Hannibal, when supported by the promised re-enforcement of sixty-four thousand fresh men, besides money and elephants in proportion. For Hannibal, though deprived of all supplies from Carthage by the malice of the Hannonian faction, maintained his ground above fourteen years more after his victory at Cannæ, in spite of the utmost efforts of the Romans. A truth which Livy himself acknowledges with admiration and astonishment at his superior military capacity. From that period therefore, after the battle of Cannæ, when Hannibal was first disappointed of the promised supplies from Carthage, we ought properly to date the fall of that republick, which must be wholly imputed to the inveterate malice of the profligate Hanno and his impious faction, who were determined, as Hannibal observed before, to ruin the contrary party, though by means which must be inevitably attended with the destruction of their country. Appian insinuates,[242] that Hannibal first engaged in this war more from the importunity of his friends, than even his own passion for military glory and hereditary hatred to the Romans. For Hanno and his faction (as Appian tells us) no longer dreading the power of Hamilcar and Asdrubal his son-in-law,[243] and holding Hannibal extremely cheap upon account of his youth, began to persecute and oppress the Barcan party with so much rage and hatred, that the latter were obliged by letter to implore assistance from Hannibal, and to assure him that his own interest and safety was inseparable from theirs. Hannibal (as Appian adds) was conscious of the truth of this remark, and well knew that the blows, which seemed directed at his friends, were levelled in reality at his own head, and judged that a war with the Romans, which would be highly agreeable to the generality of his countrymen, might prove the surest means of counter-working his enemies, and preserving himself and his friends from the fury of a pliant and fickle populace, already inflamed against his party by the intrigues of Hanno. He concluded therefore, according to Appian, that a war with so formidable and dangerous a power, would divert the Carthaginians from all inquiries relative to his friends, and oblige them to attend wholly to an affair, which was of the last importance to their country. Should Appian’s account of the cause of this war be admitted as true, it would be a yet stronger proof of the calamitous effects of party disunion; though it would by no means excuse Hannibal. For Hanno and his party would be equally culpable for driving a man of Hannibal’s abilities to such a desperate measure, purely to screen himself and his party from their malice and power. But the blame for not supporting Hannibal after the battle of Cannæ, when such support would have enabled him to crush that power, which by their means recovered strength sufficient to subvert their own country, must be thrown entirely upon Hanno and his party. It was a crime of the blackest dye, and an act of the highest treason against their country, and another terrible proof of the fatal effects of party disunion. Nor was this evil peculiar to Carthage only, but was equally common in the Roman and Grecian republicks. Nay, could we trace all our publick measures up to their first secret springs of action, I do not doubt (notwithstanding the plausible reasons which might have been given to the publick to palliate such measures) but we should find our own country rashly engaged in wars detrimental to her true interests, or obliged to submit to a disadvantageous peace, just as either was conducive to the private interest of the prevailing party. Will not our own annals furnish us with some memorable instances of the truth of this assertion too recent to be denied? was not the treatment which the great duke of Marlborough received from Bolingbroke, the English Hanno, parallel to that which the victorious Hannibal met with from the Carthaginian, after the battle of Cannæ? did not Bolingbroke, from the worst of party motives, displace that ever victorious general, desert our allies, and sacrifice the brave and faithful Catalans, and the city of Barcelona, in at least as shameful a manner as the Romans did their unhappy friends at Saguntum? did not the same minister by the fatal treaty of Utrecht, rob the nation of all those advantages, which she had reason to hope for from a long and successful war? did he not by the same treaty, give our mortal enemy France time to retrieve her affairs, and recover from that low state to which the duke of Marlborough had reduced her, and even to arrive at that power, at present so terrible to us and to all Europe?

To what can we attribute the late ill conducted war with Spain, but to the ambition of party. How was the nation stunned with the noise of Spanish depredations from the press! how loudly did the same outcry resound in parliament! yet when the leaders of that powerful opposition had carried their point by their popular clamours; when they had pushed the nation into that war; when they had drove an overgrown minister from the helm, and nestled themselves in power, how quickly did they turn their backs upon the honest men of their party, who refused to concur in their measures! how soon did they convince the nation, by screening that very minister who had been so many years the object of their resentment, and by carrying on their own war (as I may term it) with the same or greater lukewarmness than what they had so lately exclaimed against in the same minister. They convinced, I say, the whole nation, that the welfare of the publick, and the protection of our trade, had not the least share in the real motives of their conduct.

But as the Carthaginian history, during this period, is intimately blended with the Roman, to avoid repetition, I am obliged to defer my farther remarks upon the conduct of this people, until I speak of the difference between the civil and military polity, and manners of both those nations.

[197] Arist. de Republ. lib. 2. cap. 9. lit. 4.

[198] Polyb. lib. 6. p. 692.

[199] Id. ibid.

[200] Ibid.

[201] Polyb. lib 6. p. 681.

[202] Excerpt. ex Polyb. de virtutibus et vitiis, p. 1426.

[203] Perses, &c.

[204] Varro.

[205]

Excudent alii spirantia mollius æra: Credo equidem, vivos ducent de marmore vultus.

Virg. Æneid. lib. 6.

Tu regere imperio populos, Romane, memento (Hæ tibi erunt artes) pacique imponere morem Parcere subjectis, &c. Ibid.

[206] Polyb. lib. 1. p. 92...3.

[207] Polyb. p. 98...9.

[208] Diodor. Sicul. lib. 20. p. 735...36.

[209] Livy. lib. 28. p. 58...9.

[210] Appian, de Bell. Punick. p. 36.

[211] Polyb. lib. 1. p. 104....5.

[212] Polyb. lib. 1. p. 115.

[213] Ibid. lib. 1. p. 115.

[214] Polyb. lib. 1. p. 115.

[215] Idem. ibid. 117.

[216] Polyb. Ἀγαθὸς πεττευτὴς ibid. p. 119.

[217] Id. ibid. Πολιτικοὺς ἱππεῖς καὶ πεζοὺς p. 120.

[218] Polyb. lib. 1. p. 119.

[219] Polyb. lib. 1. p. 119.

[220] Polyb. Id. ibid. p. 121.

[221] Polyb. lib. 1. p. 122.

[222] Τοὺς ὑπολοίπους τῶν ἐν ταῖς ἡλικίαις καθοπλίσαντες (οἷον ἐσχάτην τρέχοντες ταύτην) ἐξαπέστελλον πρὸς τὸν Βάρκαν Polyb. lib. 1. p. 122.

[223] Polyb. lib. 2. p. 172.

[224] Μιᾷ γνώμῃ. Polyb. lib. 3. p. 234.

[225] This will be explained in another place.

[226] Lib. 3. p. 236.

[227] Id. ibid. p. 237.

[228] Polyb. lib. 3. 243....44.

[229] Polyb. id. ibid.

[230] Polyb. lib. 3. p. 259.

[231] Livy, lib. 21. p. 132.

[232] Ib. p. 135.

[233] Liv. lib. 21. p. 135. 36.

[234] Id. ibid.

[235] Liv. lib. 3. p. 142....43.

[236] Polyb. lib. 11. p. 888....89.

[237] Appian. de Bell. Annib. 323. Edit. Hen. Steph.

[238] Lib. 23 p. 265....66.

[239] Liv. lib. 30. p. 135.

[240] Lib. 22, p. 240.

[241] Appian. de Bell. Hannib. p. 328.

[242] Iberic. p. 259.

[243] Appian. id. ibid.