, at the expense alike of foreigners and of their own
subjects; and it was not the wont of the Carthaginians to recoil from
any violence that might help forward their purpose. A contemporary
of the Punic wars, Eratosthenes, the father of geography (479-560),
affirms that every foreign mariner sailing towards Sardinia or towards
the Straits of Gades, who fell into the hands of the Carthaginians,
was thrown by them into the sea; and with this statement the fact
completely accords, that Carthage by the treaty of 406 (6) declared
the Spanish, Sardinian, and Libyan ports open to Roman trading
vessels, whereas by that of 448,(7) it totally closed them, with
the exception of the port of Carthage itself, against the same.

Constitution of Carthage
Council
Magistrates

Aristotle, who died about fifty years before the commencement of the
first Punic war, describes the constitution of Carthage as having
changed from a monarchy to an aristocracy, or to a democracy inclining
towards oligarchy, for he designates it by both names. The conduct
of affairs was immediately vested in the hands of the Council of
Ancients, which, like the Spartan gerusia, consisted of the two kings
nominated annually by the citizens, and of twenty-eight gerusiasts,
who were also, as it appears, chosen annually by the citizens. It was
this council which mainly transacted the business of the state-making,
for instance, the preliminary arrangements for war, appointing levies
and enlistments, nominating the general, and associating with him a
number of gerusiasts from whom the sub-commanders were regularly
taken; and to it despatches were addressed. It is doubtful whether by
the side of this small council there existed a larger one; at any rate
it was not of much importance. As little does any special influence
seem to have belonged to the kings; they acted chiefly as supreme
judges, and they were frequently so named (shofetes, -praetores-).
The power of the general was greater. Isocrates, the senior
contemporary of Aristotle, says that the Carthaginians had an
oligarchical government at home, but a monarchical government in
the field; and thus the office of the Carthaginian general may be
correctly described by Roman writers as a dictatorship, although the
gerusiasts attached to him must have practically at least restricted
his power and, after he had laid down his office, a regular official
reckoning--unknown among the Romans--awaited him. There exis