ted no
fixed term of office for the general, and for this very reason he was
doubtless different from the annual king, from whom Aristotle also
expressly distinguishes him. The combination however of several
offices in one person was not unusual among the Carthaginians, and it
is not therefore surprising that often the same person appears as at
once general and shofete.

Judges

But the gerusia and the magistrates were subordinate to the
corporation of the Hundred and Four (in round numbers the Hundred),
or the Judges, the main bulwark of the Carthaginian oligarchy.
It had no place in the original constitution of Carthage, but, like
the Spartan ephorate, it originated in an aristocratic opposition to
the monarchical elements of that constitution. As public offices were
purchasable and the number of members forming the supreme board was
small, a single Carthaginian family, eminent above all others in
wealth and military renown, the clan of Mago,(8) threatened to unite
in its own hands the management of the state in peace and war and the
administration of justice. This led, nearly 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 a