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.