tion, _Punicum ingenium_.

An excessive thirst for amassing wealth, and an inordinate love of gain,
generally gave occasion in Carthage to the committing base and unjust
actions. One single example will prove this. During a truce, granted by
Scipio to the earnest entreaties of the Carthaginians, some Roman vessels,
being driven by a storm on the coasts of Carthage, were seized by order of
the senate and people,(562) who could not suffer so tempting a prey to
escape them. They were resolved to get money, though the manner of
acquiring it were ever so scandalous.(563) The inhabitants of Carthage,
even in St. Austin's time, (as that Father informs us,) showed on a
particular occasion, that they still retained part of this characteristic.

But these were not the only blemishes and faults of the
Carthaginians.(564) They had something austere and savage in their
disposition and genius, a haughty and imperious air, a sort of ferocity,
which, in the first transports of passion, was deaf to both reason and
remonstrances, and plunged brutally into the utmost excesses of violence.
The people, cowardly and grovelling under apprehensions, were proud and
cruel in their transports; at the same time that they trembled under their
magistrates, they were dreaded in their turn by their miserable vassals.
In this we see the difference which education makes between one nation and
another. The Athenians, whose city was always considered as the centre of
learning, were naturally jealous of their authority, and difficult to
govern; but still, a fund of good nature and humanity made them
compassionate the misfortunes of others, and be indulgent to the errors of
their leaders. Cleon one day desired the assembly, in which he presided,
to break up, because, as he told them, he had a sacrifice to offer, and
friends to entertain. The people only laughed at the request, and
immediately separated. Such a liberty, says Plutarch, at Carthage, would
have cost a man his life.

Livy makes a like reflection with regard to Terentius Varro.(565) That
general on his return to Rome after the battle of Cannae, which had been
lost by his ill conduct, was met by persons of all orders of the state, at
some distance from Rome; and thanked by them, for his not having despaired
of the commonwealth; who, says the historian, had he been a general of the
Carthaginians, must have expected the most severe punishment: _Cui, si
Carthaginensium ductor fuisset, nihil recusand