inent danger. The
citizens individually drew each his subsistence from the rents or revenues
of their lands, and the public expenses from the tribute paid by Africa.
But all this was stopped at once; and (a much worse circumstance) was
turned against them. They found themselves destitute of arms and forces,
either for sea or land; of all necessary preparations either for the
sustaining of a siege, or the equipping of a fleet; and, to complete their
misfortunes, without any hopes of foreign assistance, either from their
friends or allies.

They might, in some sense, impute to themselves the distress to which they
were reduced. During the last war, they had treated the African nations
with the utmost rigour, by imposing excessive tributes on them, in the
exaction of which no allowance was made for poverty and extreme misery;
and governors, such as Hanno, were treated with the greater respect, the
more severe they had been in levying those tributes. So that no great
efforts were necessary to prevail upon the Africans to engage in this
rebellion. At the very first signal that was made, it broke out, and in a
moment became general. The women, who had often, with the deepest
affliction, seen their husbands and fathers dragged to prison for
non-payment, were more exasperated than the men; and with pleasure gave up
all their ornaments towards the expenses of the war; so that the chiefs of
the rebels, after paying all they had promised the soldiers, found
themselves still in the midst of plenty: an instructive lesson, says
Polybius, to ministers, how a people should be treated; as it teaches them
to look, not only to the present occasion, but to extend their views to
futurity.

The Carthaginians, notwithstanding their present distress, did not
despond, but made the most extraordinary efforts. The command of the army
was given to Hanno. Troops were levied by land and sea; horse as well as
foot. All citizens, capable of bearing arms, were mustered; mercenaries
were invited from all parts; and all the ships which the republic had left
were refitted.

The rebels discovered no less ardour. We related before, that they had
formed the siege of the two only cities which refused to join them. Their
army was now increased to seventy thousand men. After detachments had been
drawn from it to carry on those sieges, they pitched their camp at Tunis;
and thereby held Carthage in a kind of blockade, filling it with perpetual
alarms, and freq