Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography Volume I Part 1.djvu/562

 foreign service in Sicily, these mercenaries often enabled Carthage to make conquest at the cost only of her money, without any waste of the blood of her own citizens. The Carthaginian generals seem generally to have relied, like Persians, upon numbers — manifesting little or no military skill; until we come to the Punic wars with Rome, conducted under Hamilcar Barca and his illustrious son Hannibal." (Hist, of Greece, vol. x. pp. 547, 648.) Another source of danger in the system is pointed out by Heeren: — "Upon the whole, however, this system could afford the republic but little internal security. The impossibility of calling an army like this together in a short time must have made every sudden attack dreadful. Their enemies soon found this out; and repeated examples have shown that their fleets were not always sufficient to repel invasion. As often as this happened, a struggle for life or death must have ensued; and although they might easily make good the loss of a foreign defeat, yet, in every war upon their own ground, their all rested upon the cast of a die." (Heeren, African Nations, vol. i. pp. 259, 260.)

13. Financial Affairs. — One of the obscurest parts of the whole subject is the mode of raising and administering those enormous revenues, which must have been required to support the colonial and military expenses, as well as the home government of the state. (1.) Sources of Wealth in general. — It is wrong to think of Carthage as a purely commercial state. Her prosperity rested, as already intimated in speaking of her territory, on the solid basis of the land. Agriculture was the favourite pursuit of her nobles, citizens, and colonists; her immediate territory was so fertile, that the soil of Byzacium is said to have yielded a hundred-fold return (Plin. v. 4. s. 3.); and her foreign possessions, especially Sardinia and Sicily, were made to contribute large supplies of com for the consumption of the city. The devotion of her chief men to agriculture is indicated by the great work of Mago, in 28 books, which alone of all the treasures of Punic literature the Romans thought worth preserving. That the taste for agriculture declined with the growth of commerce, is affirmed by Cicero, who regards the change as a main cause of the decline of Carthage (Repub. ii. 4); but the decline was only comparative, as is shown by the great prosperity of the city in the period preceding the Third Punic War, when she was shut up to her own immediate territory. Neither were manufactures and the mechanical arts neglected; and great wealth flowed into the city by the import of the precious metals from Spain and other parts. It is true that the mines were generally reserved by the state, but that they were sometimes private property is proved by the example of Hannibal. (Plin. xxxiii. 6. s. 31: unless the passage refers to Hannibal in his public capacity.)

(2.) Expenses of the State. — The chief offices of state being held without a salary, the expenses of the home government were probably light. The great demands upon the public resources were for the maintenance of her military forces, and the expenses of her colonial and commercial expeditions; but in both cases the actual demands in money were partly lightened by payments in kind, and the use of barter in commercial intercourse with foreigners.

(3.) Revenue. — The following were the chief sources of the public revenue.

a. The Tribute paid by the subject nations andallies. In Africa the country districts paid taxes in produce, and the cities in money, the greatest contributions being derived from the rich district of Emporia. It is supposed that the amount of the assessment, in both cases, was ordinarily fixed: reference has already been made to its great increase upon emergencies. The same system appears to have been pursued in the provinces, among which Sardinia was the chief contributor. In this case we have ample proof that the tribute was raised for the most part in produce, of which a portion was retained for the maintenance and pay of the garrison, and the remainder was remitted to Carthage, where large magazines were provided for its reception.

b. Customs. — In all the ports of the colonies and provinces, as well as of the city, import duties were rigorously levied. The importance attached to this branch of revenue is attested by the existing treaties with Rome, and by those with the Tyrrhenians referred to by Aristotle. (See above.) The heavy amount of the customs is shown by the active contraband trade which was carried on across the desert frontier of Cyrenaica. (Strab. xvii. p. 836.) In the last age of the republic, and as the result of the financial reforms made by Hannibal after the Second Punic War, the customs seem to have been the principal source of revenue. (Liv. xxxiii. 47, assuming, with Heeren, that vectigalia here means customs.)

c. Mines. — A chief branch of the Punic, as of the Phoenician, trade was the import of the precious and useful metals; gold, silver, tin, &c Where they could obtain a secure footing on the soil, they worked the mines themselves, partly by the labour of the natives and partly by slaves. The Spanish mines were the great source of the precious metals; and Diodorus tells us that all of them, known in his time, had been opened by the Carthaginians during their possession of the country. (For further particulars, see .) The produce of these mines was enormous; and it sufficed to pay the military expenses of the state, probably with a large surplus. The possession of these resources dates chiefly from the conquests of the Barcine family in Spain (a certain importation, especially from Baetica, had been made from very-early times); and accordingly, while the want of money, during and after the First Punic War, forced Carthage to make terms with Rome, and involved her in the war with her mercenaries, her pecuniary resources, during the Second War, seem to have had no limit.

d. Extraordinary Resources. — Under this head, Heeren mentions an attempt to obtain a loan from Ptolemy Philadelphus, during the First Punic War, which, though unsuccessful, is worthy of notice as an early example of the financial expedient so familiar to modern states; and also a system of privateering, which seems, however, to rest on the false reading of for  in Aristotle. (Oecon. ii. 2. § 10.)

(4.) Financial Administration. — Under this head, unfortunately, there is nothing to be said but what we do not know. That the management of the finances was entrusted to one of the committees or Pentarchies, under the controul [sic] of the senate, and by means of an executive officer, whom the Romans call Quaestor, are rather conjectures from the general character of the government than facts established by evidence. "But how many questions still remain which we either cannot answer at all, or at best only by conjecture? Before whom did the managers lay their accounts? Who fixed the taxes;