Destroy Carthage Page 9

  When historians turned to 3rd century Carthage, the term 'king' disappeared and heads of state were referred to as magistrates or sufets (a Roman corruption of the Hebrew shophet = judge). Elected annually, at least two in number, the Carthaginian sufets presided over the senate and controlled the civil administration as well as functioning in a judicial role.

  According to Aristotle, officers of state were unpaid at Carthage. Men of wealth, they seem hardly to have grown poor in service. The lucrative opportunities open to the govern­ing class, leading at length to its decadence, were reflected in the scandals denounced by Hannibal Barca. But, until grossly abused, the system flourished.

  Affluent families, filling the 300-strong senate, exercised control over all public affairs, legislating, deciding on peace and war, providing an inner council which guided the sufets. The senate also nominated a panel of inquiry - the so-called court of a hundred judges - to which state officials, particularly generals, were accountable. An important check on the power of the military, this court was said by Justinus to have orig­inated in the $th century due to fear of the Magonid com­manders.

  When the power of the house of Mago endangered public freedom, a court of a hundred judges was formed among the senators. Generals returning from war were obliged to account to the court for their actions so that, being kept in awe of the state's authority, they might bear themselves in military command with due regard to the laws of Carthage. The device was effective. Though command of hired armies without deep loyalty to Carthage offered obvious temptation to generals with political ambition, only one, Bomilcar, is known to have used troops in an attempted coup. In fact, despite the harsh treatment of unsuccessful commanders - some were exiled or even executed - Carthaginian generals showed notable devotion to the state, often through service of many years.

  Senators held office for life, seemingly co-opting new mem­bers when places fell vacant. The consistency of the body and its performance was accordant with a self-renewing system capable of reconciling internal discord; a close-knit establish­ment bound by class interests and social codes. Livy indicated that political affairs at Carthage were debated at society meet­ings and banquets before formal resolution in the senate.

  The powers of the popular assembly are uncertain. Probably, it ratified the election of sufets, provided a third opinion when senate and sufets (or kings) disagreed, and was lobbied to bolster support for risky ventures. While conditional on pro­perty ownership, membership of the popular assembly re­presented modest wealth against the riches of the senate. Opposition between the groups was recurrent, but not critical so long as most citizens prospered.

  Aristotle noted that the oligarchy at Carthage allowed the masses a liberal share of profits. Among a people more attached to commerce than politics - moreover, spared the social up­heavals of war service - there was much to be said for the status quo. In contrast to the Siceliots, the Carthaginians seem never to have supported an aspiring dictator in any numbers. It was to take a rare combination of economic distress and

  corruption to alter things.

  * * *

  Not the least part of Carthaginian solidarity was the city's spiritual character. Religious intensity, linked with a disposi­tion to honour one god above others, made for unity. In the early period, the supreme male deity Baal Hammon, sometimes wrongly called Moloch (a sacrificed offering, not a god), held sway with formidable compulsion. Then came something of a revolution. From the 5th century, a virgin goddess, Tanit, became the centre of popular worship. Softer and more approachable than the awesome Baal, her appeal blossomed beside the orchards and fields of the newly acquired African territories. Though commonly associated with the Phoenician goddess Asherat (Astarte), Tanit may have owed her name, as well as some­thing of her nature, to the Libyans.

  There were other cults. Above a flock of minor deities (ialonim and baalim) stood the Tyrian Melkart, identified by the Greeks with Hercules; Eshmoun, identified with Aesculapius the healer; and a sea-god associated with Poseidon, or Neptune. Also connected with seafaring was Patechus, or Pygmaeus, a grotesque monster like the Egyptian Ptah, whose image was placed on the prows of ships to frighten enemies.

  Despite vocational priests and priestesses, and probably priestly schools, the supervision of religious matters in Carth­age was entrusted to a council of ten senators. The merchant families of the governing class were too practical, it seems, to allow the growth of a despotic priesthood.

  The outside praise bestowed on the constitution of Carthage did not extend to her religious observances, which the Greeks and Romans condemned for embracing human sacrifice. Though largely replaced by animal sacrifice in the later cen­turies, there is no doubt that the practice occurred on a large scale later at Carthage than in Greece or Roman Italy. Diodorus described the sacrifice of 500 children from leading families at the end of the 4th century.

  That such holocausts actually took place was put beyond doubt by the modern discovery in the Sanctuary of Tanit of thousands of urns containing the charred bones of children. Tophets with similar urns witnessed sacrifices at Hadrumetum, Motya, Sulcis, and other Phoenician foundations. Centuries after the Canaanites had felt obliged to offer 'first-fruits' to their gods, their descendants could still believe that the suc­cess of Agathocles in Africa was divine punishment for their avoidance of sacrifice. At the same time, it should be said that Greek and Roman denunciations, inspired as much by political hostility as moral fervour, strike a note of hypocrisy. The Greeks left more children to perish of exposure and starvation than the Carthag­inians burnt, while the Roman taste for slaughter, eventually indulged for sheer pleasure, scarcely needs comment.

  Nevertheless, the topic raises a distinction in racial psyche.

  The only mortals the Carthaginians accorded divine status were those, such as Dido, who destroyed themselves. Not sur­prisingly, a people who considered mystic suicide the most deserving of all acts was prepared on occasion to sacrifice them­selves, or their own, for the national good. Their moral code is a lost book. Yet, while love and compassion are universal, these seem not to have received the higher endorsement of religion at Carthage.

  The concept of an ethically demanding divinity never il­luminated worship there. The sins of which the Carthaginians accused themselves were ritual, not moral ones; the response expiatory rather than renunciatory. Thus, the gods remained, on the whole, an oppressive force.

  Remarkably, considering the martyrological element in the society, its people appear to have attached little importance to the notion of an afterlife. Existence was earthbound; self- sacrifice consoled wholly by devotion to the state itself.

  15: Carthaginians

  To the east, the establishment of the great dynasties which emerged when Alexander died - the Antigonids, Seleucids and Ptolemies - , brought a period of stability in which Carthagin­ian commerce spread quickly to the Aegean and Nile ports. Imposing Phoenician money and measures on his empire, the first Macedonian king of Egypt, Ptolemy-son-of-Lagos, provided a strong inducement to Punic trade.

  Hitherto, Carthaginian coinage, minted specifically to pay mercenaries, had conformed to Greek standards. Now, switch­ing to the Phoenician standard, Carthage adopted money for general use, availing herself of the experience and good offices of Egyptian financiers, the most expert in the ancient world. Increasingly, Punic merchantmen plied the eastern Mediter­ranean.

  Carthaginians were everywhere. Inscriptions record their presence at Athens and Delos. They did business at Thebes. They carved their names in the sepulchre of sacred bulls at Memphis. As the foremost brokers and carriers of the day, they served clients as diverse as their commodities.

  Apart from corn from the African granaries and metals from Iberia, Carthage dealt in resin from Lipara and other islands off the toe of Italy; sulphur from Acragas (collected in the region of Etna); wax, honey and slaves from Corsica; cattle from the Balearics; wine from many shores to suit many tastes; dyes, perfumes, dates, animal skins,
and so on. In Europe, as in Africa, trade was established not only with coastal populations but with inland communities.

  Thus, the scope and complexity of Carthaginian experience mounted. To oriental traditions, African environment and Greek influence were added the impressions of citizens who had explored the Niger, crossed the Sahara, felt the swell of Biscay, sailed the Nile, engaged in business from the English Channel to the Dardanelles. What had they become, these in­veterate travellers, since Dido first landed in Africa ? How did they appear to others in the years that remained of Punic history ?

  In many respects they still displayed their eastern origin, a source of unease among their western neighbours, whose sus­picions at length gave teeth to Cato's prejudice. Wrote Plutarch : The Carthaginians are hard and gloomy, submissive to their rulers and hard on their subjects, cowardly in fear, cruel in anger, stubborn in decision and austere, caring little for amusement or life's graces.'

  But Plutarch, born too late to know the people of whom he wrote, merely echoed the aversion of a bygone age. His charge of cowardice, palpably unjustified, casts doubt on the rest of his summary. Austere and gloomy ? There is a note of melan­cholia in Punic fatalism, as in the nature of most passionate peoples. Yet Plautus, writing while Carthage was still alive, portrayed the Carthaginian Hanno as a colourful, by no means depressing rogue.

  Nor did the showy trappings of the Sacred Guard, the gold drinking cups of its warriors, reflect austerity. It was certainly true that the Carthaginians were not besotted by lives of idle luxury. Rich merchants turned a hand, it seems, on the farms they bought with their profits, and were not afraid of hazard­ous voyages. Neither theatres nor public games were known at Carthage. But if the hard-headed merchants who ran the city placed a lower value on the arts than their competitors, they were not blind to fine craftsmanship.

  Greek artisans lived and worked at Carthage, whose wealthier homes were embellished with Hellenic vases, lamps, mosaics, bronze and ivory statuettes, even bathroom suites identical to those found in Greece.

  Carthaginian craftsmen, catering for the masses, and for the backward people of other lands who received their cruder artefacts in exchange for valuables, admittedly were inferior in technique and artistry to the Greeks. That the aesthetic standards of much at Carthage grated on the Greeks and Romans is without doubt. On the other hand, the portrayal of gods with dulcimers and zithers, and their association with various forms of dancing, suggests a chord with which the critics might have harmonized.

  They might also have felt at home among the ample feasts and banquets staged by the wealthy to win political support or entertain friends. Though Plautus poked fun at African 'porridge eaters,' and Plato asserted that alcohol was widely forbidden in Carthage (including, he believed, before sexual intercourse), Punic cooks were in fact renowned for the ex­cellence of their sweet and spiced dishes; wines a favourite drink. A Carthaginian recipe has survived for a type of local sherry the Romans knew as passum.

  Cato's brooding scrutiny of the metropolis would have been returned by citizens of varying appearance. The city was a melting pot, its relics revealing skeletal similarity in some instances with remains at Tyre (perhaps true Phoenicians) but a predominance in the main of African, not excluding Negro, blood.

  The somewhat slender frames of the skeletons, considered with the known physical endurance of the populace, hint at a wiry people of strong constitution, traits possessed by the Barbary nomads. Unlike many orientals in urban societies, the Carthaginian merchant class seems to have avoided becoming soft - perhaps thanks to its close connections with seafaring and agriculture, and the admixture of Libyan stock.

  At the same time, the cult of physique never appealed to the society. While the Greeks admired the naked bodies of strong youths and lithe girls, the Carthaginians preserved an oriental disdain for such exhibition, wearing long clothes and seldom appearing even bare-headed. The traditional male garb was a straight, ankle-length robe, worn loose in the fashion of the Egyptian galabieh.

  'Hey, you without a belt!' the Carthaginian was hailed in the Toenulus, his Greek accoster inquiring if he was wearing his bathrobe. Actually, though a source of amusement to the foreigner, the costume was a useful protection against heat and dust-storms.

  Most Carthaginian men grew beards and covered their hair, often tightly curled, with a conical hat resembling the Muslim fez, or tarboosh. They also kept off the sun with a cloth, secured round the skull, which fell to the shoulders like a modern Arab headdress.

  Female costume was closer to the Greek style. From an early period, Carthaginian women wore embroidered robes resem­bling those favoured by Ionian matrons, simple garments gathered at the waist and with a decorative band (the Greek paryphe) rising vertically from the hem. Feminine hair-styles kept pace with Hellenic trends. The tresses, invariably grown long, were variously straight or curled, pulled back or fringed, and worn with headband or chignon. At one period, coils over the ears were fashionable.

  Both sexes wore perfume, seemingly liberally, and earrings. They were also tattooed. Carthaginian fondness for ostenta­tious jewelry offended Greek taste. Those who could afford it smothered themselves in expensive ornaments. Intricate pendants hung from the ears; throats were adorned with necklaces of turquoise, jacinth and gold; women of no partic­ular distinction wore diadems.

  Often, jewelry incorporated such astral symbols as crescents and pointed stars, or represented sacred animals, including snakes. Finger-rings were commonplace, at an early period containing seals of jasper or cornelian; later, intaglios. Both sexes sported bracelets, in addition to which the women wore massive anklets as familiar in Bedouin society.

  If much of this was strange to European cultures, Punic man­ners were equally alien. Carthaginian courtesy, orientally de­monstrative, was mistaken by Greeks and Romans for obsequiousness, a quality they despised. The Africans saw no indignity in prostrating themselves and kissing the feet of those they honoured. To the Roman, such behaviour was cringing servility, the more perplexing since its perpetrators were just as capable of fiery passion. Sensual by nature, the Carthaginians observed social re­straints of some sobriety. Wanton resort to carnal pleasure was strictly curbed. Monogamy was the general rule in sex re­lationships, husbands and wives not uncommonly being buried beside each other at life's end. No evidence exists of harims or extensive concubinage. Indeed, the status of women, at least among the upper class, discouraged male licence. Many possessed considerable political influence. Others, as priestesses, exercised direct authority over men.

  Apart from the abnormal circumstance of child sacrifice, the Carthaginians appear to have cherished their offspring no less than did other people. There was a goddess (Vininam) to watch over infants, and one of the most remarkable relics found of the city was a set of doll's crockery: tiny cups, plates, jugs, jars and clay lamps.

  So far as can be told, Punic education was largely practical. The emperor Julian said that Carthaginian children were ap­prenticed to the world at an early age, encouraged to work diligently and live a blameless life. Found among commercial families throughout history, this approach to the building of initiative and character is consistent with the prospects open to youths in Carthaginian trade.

  All the same, formal tutorship certainly existed, and not entirely theological. Hannibal Barca was said to have studied strategy in text-books; the ladylike Sophonisba allegedly was accomplished in the humanities; one Hasdrubal, also known by the Greek name Cleitomachus, became head of the Academy at Athens. In the last century of Carthage there was a school of later Pythagoreans in the city, which also possessed libraries, probably of Greek as well as Carthaginian works.

  The only Punic books now known are the writings of the agriculturist, Mago. Since they contained, among much else, veterinary prescriptions, probably there was a medical litera­ture at Carthage. The presence of doctors is attested by in­scriptions. At summer's height, when the marshes of the nearby lake stank like rotten eggs, disease was
a serious prob­lem in Carthage, as in Tunis through history. Against trachoma and many other infirmities hailed by the sirocco, the people appealed not only to medicine but the healing gods Eshmoun and Shadrapa.

  Shadrapa's assistance was invoked also in cases of poisoning by the snakes and scorpions of the region.

  BOOK TWO

  16: The Fatal Enemy

  Watching the Tunisian farmer hoeing the dry soil on the prosaic site that today marks the home of ancient Carthage, it seems incredible that marbled temples, pillars of porphyry, great halls of state once towered on that spot within the mightiest battlements of Africa. Not even Cato can have im­agined the complete and utter oblivion that was to befall the city following his fiat - an extinction so complete that the ex­act location of the metropolis, the heart of the Punic empire, was rediscovered with certainty only last century.

  The fate of Carthage was finally sealed in 149 b.c. By then her forces, restricted by treaty after Zama, had been shattered by Masinissa of Numidia. Everything favoured a Roman inter­vention in Africa. Those, such as Scipio Nasica, who opposed the policy had lost ground. An immense Italian army was available: 80,000 infantry and 4,000 cavalry. Young men who had painstakingly dodged service in Spain now flocked to join an expedition which promised the spoils of the richest city in the world for slight effort. With them assembled shady dealers and camp followers of every kind.