I. the Hundred, which had at first been renewed by the CHAP. yearly choice of new members, assumed gradually a more permanent character by the re-election of the same men, and this may have led to their separating themselves as a distinct branch of the government from the rest of the senate.-A second division of the great council is mentioned, under the name of select council.' This numbered thirty members, and seems to have been a supreme board of administration. No information has come down to us with respect to the choice of members, the duration of their office, or their special functions. Our knowledge, therefore, of the organisation of the Carthaginian senate taken altogether is very imperfect, though there can be little doubt about its general character and its power in the state. 2 The influence of the people seems to have been of little The moment. It is reported that they had only to give their people. votes where a difference of opinion arose between the senate and the suffetes. The assembly of the people had the right of electing the magistrates. But that was a privilege of small importance in a state where birth and wealth decided the election. The highest offices of state were, if not exactly purchasable, as Aristotle declares,3 still easily attained by the rich and influential, as in all countries where public offices conferring interest and profit are obtained by popular election. In the Greek republics the people exercised their sove- Criminal jurisdicreignty in the popular tribunals still more than in the tion. election of magistrates. The choice of the magistrates could, in a fully developed democracy, be effected by lot, but only the well-considered verdict of the citizens could give a decision affecting the life and freedom of a fellowcitizen. These popular tribunals, which, as being guided and influenced by caprice, prejudice, and political passions, caused unspeakable mischief among the Greek states, 1 Sanctius concilium.-Livy, xxx. 16. The yepovoia as distinct from the σÚYKANTOS.—Polybius, x. 18, § 1. 2 Aristotle, Polit. ii. 8, § 3. Polit. ii. 8, § 6. BOOK IV. Carthaginian aristocracy. were unknown in Carthage. The firmness and steadiness of the Carthaginian constitution was no doubt in a great measure owing to the circumstance that the judicial Board of the Hundred (or Hundred-and-four) had in their own hands the administration of criminal justice. The Carthaginian state had in truth, as Polybius states, a mixed constitution like Rome. In other words, it was neither a pure monarchy nor an exclusive aristocracy nor yet a perfect democracy; but all three elements were combined in it. Yet it is clear that one of these elements, the aristocracy, greatly preponderated. The nobility of Carthage were not a nobility of blood, like the Roman patricians; but this honour appears, like the later nobility in Rome, to have been open to merit and riches, as was to be expected in a commercial city. The tendency towards plutocracy draws down the greatest censure which Aristotle passes upon Carthage. Some families were conspicuous. by their hereditary and almost regal influence. But, in spite of this, monarchy was never established in Carthage, though the attempt is said to have been made twice. No complete revolution ever took place, and there was no breach with the past. Political life there was in all its fulness, and consequently also there were political conflicts; but these never resulted in revolutions stained with blood and atrocities, such as took place in most of the Greek cities, and in none more often than in the unhappy city of Syracuse. In this respect, therefore, Carthage may be compared with Rome; in both alike the internal development of the state advanced slowly without any violent reaction, and on this account Aristotle bestows on her deserved praise. This steadiness of her constitution, which lasted for more than 600 years, was due, according to Aristotle,3 to the extent of the Cartha Aristotle, Polit. iii. 1, § 7. 2 Polit. ii. 8, § 1: σημεῖον δὲ πολιτείας συντεταγμένης τὸ τὸν δῆμον ἔχουσαν διαμένειν ἐν τῇ τάξει τῆς πολιτείας καὶ μήτε στάσιν ὅ τε καὶ ἄξιον εἰπεῖν, γεγενῆσθαι μήτε τύραννον. Polit. ii. 8, § 9. ginian dominion over subject territories, whereby the state was enabled to get rid of malcontent citizens and to send them as colonists elsewhere.' But it is mainly due, after all, to the firm and wise government of the Carthaginian aristocracy. 1 The same advantage is enjoyed at the present time by the United States, and the Puritan emigrations from England had the same tendency of removing the elements of discontent away from home. CHAP. I. BOOK Historical CHAPTER II. SICILY. THE island of Sicily seems destined by its position to form the connecting link between Europe and Africa. Whilst almost touching Italy in the north-east, it stretches geography itself westwards towards the great African continent, of Sicily. which appears to approach it from the south with an outstretched arm. Thus this large island divides the whole basin of the Mediterranean sea into an eastern and a western, a Greek and a barbarian half. Few Greek settlers ventured westward beyond the narrow straits between Italy and Sicily. Etruscans and Carthaginians were the exclusive masters of the western sea, and in those parts where their power was supreme they allowed no Greek settlement or Greek commerce. The triangular island had one of her sides turned towards the country of the Greeks in the east; while the other two coasts, converging in a western direction, extended into the sea of the barbarians, and almost reached the very centre of Carthaginian power. Thus it happened that the east coast of the island and the nearest portions of the other two coasts were filled with Greek colonies; while the western part, with the adjacent islands, remained in possession of the Phoenicians, who, it seems, before the time of the Greek immigration, had settlements all round the coast. The greater energy of the Greeks seemed destined to Hellenise the whole island. No native people could obstruct their progress. The aborigines of Sicily, the Sikeli or Sikani,1 no 1 The supposed difference between Sikeli and Sikani, assumed by Thucydides (vi. 2), Strabo (vi. 2, 4), and Dionysius (i. 22), is not real. They are clearly doubt a people of the same race as the oldest population of Italy, were cut off by the sea from their natural allies in a struggle with foreign intruders, and, being confined to their own strength alone, they could never become dangerous, as the Lucanian and Bruttian barbarians were to the Greeks in Italy. Only once there arose among them a native leader, called Duketius, who had the ambition, but not the ability, to found a national kingdom of Sicily. On the whole, Sicily was destined, from the beginning of history to modern times, to be the battle-field and the prize of victory for foreign nations. The origin and the development of the Greek towns in Sicily belong, properly speaking, to the history of Greece. Their wars also with Carthage, for the possession of the island, have only an indirect relation with the history of Rome. We cast on them, therefore, only a passing glance. It will suffice for us to see how, in consequence of the unsteady policy of the quarrelsome Greeks and the aimless, fitful exertions of the Carthaginians, neither the one nor the other attained a complete and undisputed sovereignty over the island, and how each successively had to succumb to the judicious policy and the persevering energy of the Romans. CHAP. II Greek and Carthaginian power in Sicily. Defeat of the Cartha ginians at In the west of the island the Carthaginians had ancient Phoenician colonies in their possession, of which Motye, Panormus, and Solus were the most important. The Himera. Greeks had ventured on the south side as far as Selinus, and on the north as far as Himera, and it seemed that, in course of time, the last remaining Punic fortresses must fall into their hands. Carthage desired a peaceful possession for the purposes of trade and commerce, and until the fifth century before our era had not entered upon any great warlike enterprise. At the time of the Persian war, however, a great change took place in the policy of Carthage. Taking advantage of the internal dissensions of either one people, or branches of one people, as Sabini and Sabelli, and the difference in the names is dialectic or accidental. See Forbiger in Pauly's RealEncyclopädie, vi. 1159. Lewis, Credibility of Early Roman History, i. 273. |