y about the time of the
decemvirs, to an alteration of the constitution and to the appointment
of this new board. We know that the holding of the quaestorship gave
a title to admission into the body of judges, but that the candidate
had nevertheless to be elected by certain self-electing Boards of Five
(Pentarchies); and that the judges, although presumably by law chosen
from year to year, practically remained in office for a longer
period or indeed for life, for which reason they are usually called
"senators" by the Greeks and Romans. Obscure as are the details, we
recognize clearly the nature of the body as an oligarchical board
constituted by aristocratic cooptation; an isolated but characteristic
indication of which is found in the fact that there were in Carthage
special baths for the judges over and above the common baths for the
citizens. They were primarily intended to act as political jurymen,
who summoned the generals in particular, but beyond doubt the shofetes
and gerusiasts also when circumstances required, to a reckoning on
resigning office, and inflicted even capital punishment at pleasure,
often with the most reckless cruelty. Of course in this as in every
instance, where administrative functionaries are subjected to the
control of another body, the real centre of power passed over from
the controlled to the controlling authority; and it is easy to
understand on the one hand how the latter came to interfere in all
matters of administration--the gerusia for instance submitted
important despatches first to the judges, and then to the people
--and on the other hand how fear of the control at home, which
regularly meted out its award according to success, hampered the
Carthaginian statesman and general in council and action.

Citizens

The body of citizens in Carthage, though not expressly restricted, as
in Sparta, to the attitude of passive bystanders in the business of
the state, appears to have had but a very slight amount of practical
influence on it In the elections to the gerusia a system of open
corruption was the rule; in the nomination of a general the people
were consulted, but only after the nomination had really been made by
proposal on the part of the gerusia; and other questions only went to
the people when the gerusia thought fit or could not otherwise agree.
Assemblies of the people with judicial functions were unknown in
Carthage. The powerlessness of the citizens probably in the main