Tyrian cities would offer
no resistance, and they would return against Carthage. Already there was
a considerable army attacking it from the base of the isthmus, and it
would soon perish from famine, for it was impossible to live without the
aid of the provinces, the citizens not paying contributions as they did
at Rome. Carthage was wanting in political genius. Her eternal anxiety
for gain prevented her from having the prudence which results from
loftier ambitions. A galley anchored on the Libyan sands, it was with
toil that she maintained her position. The nations roared like billows
around her, and the slightest storm shook this formidable machine.

The treasury was exhausted by the Roman war and by all that had been
squandered and lost in the bargaining with the Barbarians. Nevertheless
soldiers must be had, and not a government would trust the Republic!
Ptolemaeus had lately refused it two thousand talents. Moreover the rape
of the veil disheartened them. Spendius had clearly foreseen this.

But the nation, feeling that it was hated, clasped its money and
its gods to its heart, and its patriotism was sustained by the very
constitution of its government.

First, the power rested with all, without any one being strong enough
to engross it. Private debts were considered as public debts, men of
Chanaanitish race had a monopoly of commerce, and by multiplying the
profits of piracy with those of usury, by hard dealings in lands and
slaves and with the poor, fortunes were sometimes made. These alone
opened up all the magistracies, and although authority and money were
perpetuated in the same families, people tolerated the oligarchy because
they hoped ultimately to share in it.

The societies of merchants, in which the laws were elaborated, chose the
inspectors of the exchequer, who on leaving office nominated the hundred
members of the Council of the Ancients, themselves dependent on the
Grand Assembly, or general gathering of all the rich. As to the two
Suffets, the relics of the monarchy and the less than consuls, they were
taken from distinct families on the same day. All kinds of enmities were
contrived between them, so that they might mutually weaken each other.
They could not deliberate concerning war, and when they were vanquished
the Great Council crucified them.

The power of Carthage emanated, therefore, from the Syssitia, that is
to say, from a large court in the centre of Malqua, at the place, it was
said