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 396 HISTORY OF GREECE. ual cultivators of the soil, that the Carthaginians dug a long line of ditch to keep thsm off. 1 But these barbarians did not acquire sufficient organization to act for permanent objects, until the reign of Masinissa and the second Punic war with Rome. During tha fifth and fourth centuries B. c., therefore (prior to the invasion of Agathokles), the warfare carried on by the Carthaginians was con- stantly aggressive and in foreign parts. For these purposes they chiefly employed foreign mercenaries, hired for the occasion from Italy, Gaul, Spain, and the islands of the "Western Mediterranean, together with conscripts from their Libyan dependencies. The native Carthaginians, 2 though encouraged by honorary marks to undertake this military service, were generally averse to it, and sparingly employed. But these citizens, though not often sent on foreign service, constituted a most formidable force when called upon. No less then forty thousand hoplites went forth from the gates of Carthage to resist Agathokles, together with one thousand cavalry, and two thousand war-chariots. 3 An immense public mag- azine, of arms, muniments of war of all kinds, and provisions, appears to have been kept in the walls of Byrsa, the citadel of Carthage. 4 A chosen division of two thousand five hundred citi- 1 Appian, viii, 32, 54, 59 ; Phlegon, Trail, de Mirabilibus, c. 1 8. E de (j>rfaiv tv TLepir/yTiaei, Kapxridoviovs irepiTa^pevovraf TT/V Idiav eTrapxiav, evpsiv bpvaaovraf 6vo tr/ce/lerot)f kv copy Kei(ievov$, etc. The line of trench however was dug apparently at an early stage of the Carthaginian dominion ; for the Carthaginians afterwards, as they grew more powerful, extended their possessions beyond the trench ; as we see by the passages of Appian above referred to. Movers (Gesch. der Phoeniz. ii, 2, p. 457) identifies this trench with tha one which Pliny names near Thenae on the Lesser Syrtis, as having been dug by order of the second Africanus to form a boundary between the Ro- man province of Africa, and the dominion of the native kings (Pliny, H. N. v, 3). But I greatly doubt such identity. It appears tome that thia last is distinct from the Carthaginian trench. (Aristotel. Politic, vii, 2, 6). 8 Diodor. xx, 10. mense stock of weapons and engines of siege, were delivered up to tha perfidious manoeuvres of the Romans, a little before the last fiege of Cap thagc. See Eotticher, Geschichte der Carthager, p. 20-25.
 * A Carthaginian citizen wore as many rings as he had served campaigns
 * Appian, viii, 80. Twenty thousand panoplies, together with an im-