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The Legacy of Carthage
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Part I of an on-going series I am authoring for the Mesopotamia section of the Acta Diurna, to be featured in the January, 2006 issue.
Carthage was initially founded sometime in the 8th or 9th century BCE, as a trading outpost of the sea-faring Phoenician culture based in Tyre and Sidon. Such outposts, which were as far flung as Spain and the south of France, were traditionally governed by two local ‘suffetes’, or petty kings. When the Phoenician trading empire fell, many of these outposts disappeared as well, or reverted into tyranny. Carthage, however, flourished under a new constitution. The suffetes were now elected from among a Supreme Council of 100, the elders of the city state, and held control in much the same way as the dual kings of Sparta. Beneath the Suffetes were the Magistrates of Five, a small body of elders elected to oversee all legal disputes.
The unique feature of the Carthaginian system, the feature that differentiated it from those in Sparta and Crete, was the lack of corruption. As Aristotle wrote in c. 340 BCE, the Carthaginian people elected only those elders who were already rich, and had no need of more money. They placed a high value on honor, and virtue, and in this way the Carthaginian constitution excelled where others fell. The people of Carthage were treated well by the leaders of their burgeoning empire, and so remained intensely loyal to their capital throughout the Punic wars, which eventually brought about the destruction of the heir to the Phoenician trading empire founded many centuries before. |
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