Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography Volume I Part 1.djvu/553

 uneasiness under this heavy yoke is shown by the ardour with which they joined the mercenary soldiers in their revolt from Carthage. (Polyb. i 72.)

This relation is continually dwelt upon, not only as the main cause of the ruin of Carthage, but as a decided proof of her short-sighted policy. On this point Arnold has the following excellent remarks (History of Rome, vol i. pp. 480, foll.}: — "The contrast between Carthage exercising absolute dominion over her African subjects, and Rome surrounded by her Latin and Italian allies, and gradually communicating more widely the rights of citizenship, so as to change alliance into union, has been often noticed, and is indeed quite sufficient to account for the issue of the Punic Wars. But this difference was owing rather to the good fortune of Rome and to the ill fortune of Carthage, than to the wisdom and liberality of the one and the narrow-mindedness of the other. Rome was placed in the midst of people akin to herself both in race and language; Carthage was a solitary settlement in a foreign land. The Carthaginian language nearly resembled the Hebrew; it belonged to the Semitic or Aramaic family. Who the native Africans were, and to what family their language belonged, are among the most obscure questions of ancient history... But whatever may be discovered as to the African subjects of Carthage, they were become so distinct from their masters, even if they were originally sprung from a kindred race, that the two people (peoples) were not likely to be melted together into one state, and thus they remained always in the unhappy and suspicious relation of masters and of slaves, rather than in that of fellow-citizens or even of allies."

b. The Libyphoenicians. — Besides these pure native Libyans, another race grew up in the land round Carthage (in Zeugitana and perhaps on the coast of Byzacium), from the mixture of the natives with the Phoenician settlers, or, as Mövers supposes, with a Canaanitish population, akin in race to the Phoenicians, but of still earlier settlement in the country. (Diod. xx. 55; Mövers, Gesch. d. Phoenisier, vol. ii. pt ii. pp. 435—455, ap. Grote, vol. x. p. 543.) Of these half-caste people, called Libyphoenicians, our information is but scanty. They seem to have been the chief occupiers and cultivators of the rich land in the immediate vicinity of the city, especially in the valley of the Bagradas; while the Libyans in the S. towards the lake Triton, remained so free from Phoenician or Punic blood, that they did not even understand the Phoenician language. (Polyb. iii. 33.) Like all half-castes, however, the Libyphoenicians seem to have been regarded with suspicion as well as favour: and means were devised to dispose of their growing numbers with advantage to the state as well as to themselves, by sending them out as the settlers of distant colonies, in Spain, for instance, and the W. coast of Africa, beyond the Straits. (Scymn. 195, 196.) The voyage of Hanno, of which we still possess the record, had for its object the establishment of 30,000 Libyphoenician colonists on the last-named coast (Hanno, Peripl. p. 1; comp. .)

The region occupied by the people thus described, and entirely subject to Cartilage, never extended further than the lake of Triton on the S., nor than Hippo Regius (if so far) on the W.; and this district may therefore be considered as the territory of Carthage, properly so called, the of the city, as a Greek would say. It included at first thedistrict of Zeugitana, and afterwards Byzacium also, and corresponded very nearly to the present Regency of Tunis. (Respecting the precise boundaries, see further under, p. 68.) Its inhabitants were, as we have seen, the people of Carthage herself and the other Phoenician colonies, the native Libyans who were not nomads, the mixed race of Libyphoenicians, and further, the people of colonial settlements which the Carthaginians established from time to time on the lands of the district, as a means of providing for her poorer citizens, to whom the Libyan cultivators were assigned with their lands. (Arist. Polit. ii. 8. § 9, vi. 3. § 5.) "This provision for poor citizens as emigrants (mainly analogous to the Roman colonies), was a standing feature in the Carthaginian political system, serving the double purpose of obviating discontent among their town population at home, and of keeping watch over their dependencies abroad." (Grote, Hist. of Greece, vol. x. p. 545.) All these, except the Phoenician cities, were in absolute subjection to Carthage. The marvellous density of the population within these limits is shown by the statement that, even in the last period of her decline, just before the third Punic War, when she had been stripped of all her possessions W. of the Tusca and E. of the Triton, Carthage still possessed 300 tributary cities in Libya. (Strab. xvii. p.833.)

c. The Nomads. — Beyond these limits, along the coast to the E. and to the W., in the valleys of the Atlas, and in the oases of the half- desert country behind the sea-board, from the Pillars of Hercules and the W. coast to the frontier of Cyrenaica, the land was possessed (except where Phoenician and Carthaginian colonies were founded, and even in such cases up to their very walls) by the Nomad tribes, whom Carthage never attempted to subdue, but who were generally kept, by money and other influences, in a sort of rude and loose alliance. They were of service to Carthage in three ways: they furnished her army with mercenary soldiers, especially with the splendid irregular cavalry of whose exploits we read so much in the Punic Wars: they formed, on the E., a bulwark against Cyrene: and they carried on the important land traffic with the countries on the Niger and the Nile, which was a chief source of Carthaginian wealth. The nomad tribes of the country between the Syrtes were those most intimately connected with Cartilage. It may be added that Diodorus expressly divides the inhabitants of Libya (meaning the part about Carthage) into four races, namely, the Phoenicians who inhabited Carthage; the Libyphoenicians, of whom his account is unsatisfactory; the Libyans, or ancient inhabitants, who still (in the time of Agathocles) formed a majority of the population, and who bore the greatest hatred to Carthage for the severity of her rule; and lastly the Nomads, who inhabited the great extent of Libya, as far as the deserts. (Diod. xx. 55.)

5. Colonies of Carthage in Africa. — It is evident that the rule of Carthage over the settled Libyans, and her influence over the Nomads, would have been confined within the limits of her immediate neighbourhood, but for the system of colonization, which gave her at least the appearance of imperial authority over the whole N. coast of Africa, W. of Cyrenaica. The original purpose of her colonies, as of every other part of her proceedings, was commercial; and accordingly, with the exception of those already referred to as established in her immediate territory