reedom of trade. Rome, as a rule, did not wholly take away
independence even from the subject communities, and imposed a fixed
tribute on none; Carthage despatched her overseers everywhere, and
loaded even the old-Phoenician cities with a heavy tribute, while her
subject tribes were practically treated as state-slaves. In this way
there was not in the compass of the Carthagino-African state a single
community, with the exception of Utica, that would not have been
politically and materially benefited by the fall of Carthage; in the
Romano-Italic there was not one that had not much more to lose than
to gain in rebelling against a government, which was careful to avoid
injuring material interests, and which never at least by extreme
measures challenged political opposition to conflict. If Carthaginian
statesmen believed that they had attached to the interests of Carthage
her Phoenician subjects by their greater dread of a Libyan revolt
and all the landholders by means of token-money, they transferred
mercantile calculation to a sphere to which it did not apply.
Experience proved that the Roman symmachy, notwithstanding its
seemingly looser bond of connection, kept together against Pyrrhus
like a wall of rock, whereas the Carthaginian fell to pieces like a
gossamer web as soon as a hostile army set foot on African soil. It
was so on the landing of Agathocles and of Regulus, and likewise in
the mercenary war; the spirit that prevailed in Africa is illustrated
by the fact, that the Libyan women voluntarily contributed their
ornaments to the mercenaries for their war against Carthage. In
Sicily alone the Carthaginians appear to have exercised a milder rule,
and to have attained on that account better results. They granted to
their subjects in that quarter comparative freedom in foreign trade,
and allowed them to conduct their internal commerce, probably from the
outset and exclusively, with a metallic currency; far greater freedom
of movement generally was allowed to them than was permitted to the
Sardinians and Libyans. Had Syracuse fallen into Carthaginian hands,
their policy would doubtless soon have changed. But that result did
not take place; and so, owing to the well-calculated mildness of the
Carthaginian government and the unhappy distractions of the Sicilian
Greeks, there actually existed in Sicily a party really friendly to
the Phoenicians; for example, even after the island had passed to the
Romans, Philinus