The fall of
Carthagian empire is not a matter for regret. Outside of the walls of city
existed hopeless on the part of subjects, shameless extortion on the part oft
the officials. Throunghout Africa Carthage was never named without a curse. In
the time of mercenary war, the Moorish women, taking oath to keep nothing back,
strippet of their gold ornament, and brought them all to the men who were
resisting their oppressors. That city, that Carthage, fed like a vulure upon
the land. A corrupt and grasping aristocracy ,
corupt and turbulent populace, divided between them the prey. The
Carthtaginian costom were barbarouse in extreme . When a batle had been won
they sacrifficed their handsomest prisoner to the gods.; when a battle ha sbeen
lost, the children of their nobless families were cast int he furnace. Their
Asiatic character was strongly market. Their were a people false and
sweet-worded, effeminate and cruel, tyranical an servile, devour and
licentious, merciless in triuph, fait- hertead in anger, divinely heroic in
despair.
Let us therefor admit that, as an emperial
city, Carthage merited her fate. But henceforth we must regard her from
differnt poitnt of view. In order to obtain peace she had given up her colonie
broad, her province at home, her vessels and elephant of war. The empire was reduce to a municipality .Nothing was left
but the city and a piece of ground.
The merchant
princes took off their crowns and went back into te glass and purple business.
It was only as a town of manufakture and trade that Carthage continue to exist,
and as such her existence was of unmixed service to the world.
Hannibal was made prime minister, and at
once set to work to reform the constitution. The aristocratic party inform the
Romans there h was secretly stiring up
the people to war. The Roman demanded that he should be surendered; He escape
to the court of Antiochus, the Greek king in Asia minor, an there he did attemp
to rise the war against Rome. The senate
were justified expelling him from Carthage,
for he was a really dangerous man. But the persecusion to which he was afteward
subjected was not very credible to their good fame. Driven from place to place,
he at last too refuge in Bitynia, on the dezolate shore of the Black sea; anda
Roman consul,who wished to obtain some noriety by takim him the great
Carthegian as a show, command the princ, under whos protection he was living,
to give him up. When Hanibal herd this, e took poison, and sayng“Let me deliver
the Romans from thei cares and anxities, since they think it too tedious and too dangerosus to wait for
the death of a poor, hated old man. The
news of this accurrence exite anger in
Rome ; but it was the pressage of wich was soon to be committed in the Roman
name.
There was a Berber chief named Masinissa who
had been deprived of his estates, and
who, during the war, had rendered important services to Rome. He was named King
of Numidia, and it was stipulated in the treaty that the Carthagians should restore
the lands and cities which had belonged to him and to his ancestors. The land wich they had taken from him were
accordingly surrendered, and then Mesinissa sent in a claim for certain land which he said had been taken from his
ancestors. The wording of the treaty was anbigouos. He might easily declare that
the whole of the sea cost; and who could disprove the evidence of a tradition ?
He made no secret of his desing; it was to drive the Fenician stranger aut of
Africa, and to reing at Carthage in their stead. He soon shoved that he was
worthy to be called the King of Numidia and the Friend od Rome He drilled his
bandits into soldiers; he tought his wandering shepheards to til the ground. He
made his capital, Constantine,a great city, He opened schools in which the son of
native chief were taugth to reade and write in the Punic tongue. He allied
himself with the powers of Marocco and the Atlas. He reminded the Barbers thet it was to them the
soil belonged; that Phenician were intruders who had with presents in their
hands and with the premise sin their mouths, declaring that they had met in
trouble in their own coutry, and preying for a place where they might repose from the weary sea.
Theirfathers had trusted them ; their fathers had been bitterly deceived. By
force and by fraud the Carthegian had taken all the lands which they possesed; they had stolen
the ground on which their city stood.
In the meantime Rome advanced into the Easth.
As soon as the battle of Zama had been
fought , Alexandria demanden her protection. This brought the Romans into
contact with the Greco-Asiatic world; they found it in much the same codition as the English
found Hindustan, and they conquered it in the much same manner.
Time went on. The generation of Hanibal had
almost become extinet. In Carthage war had become a tradition of the past. The
businesss of that city was again flourishing a sit had ever been, Again ship sailed to the coasts of Cronwall and
Guineia; again the steet were lined with the workshop of industrious artizan.
Such is the vis medicatrix, the restoring power of a widely extended commerce,
combined with active manufacture ad the skillful menagement of soil, that
the city soon regained it ancien wealth.
The Roman had imposed an enormus indemnity, which was to be paid off by
installments exdending ower a series of years. The Crathagian paid it off at
once.
But in midst of all their prosperity and
hapiness there were grave and anxious hearts. They saw ever before them the
menacing figure of Masinassa.The very slowness of his movements was
portentous. He was in all things
delierate, gradual calm. From time to time he demand a tract of land. If it was
not givenup at once, he tooked it by force. Then,waiting as to digesting it, he
leftet for a while in peace.
They were bound by treaty not to make a war
again the friends of Rome. Their therefor petitioned the Senate that commissioner
should be sent, and the boudary definitly settlet. But the Senate has no desire
that Carthage sould be lefted in peace, The commissiner were instructed to
report in such a manner that Masinassa might be encouraged to continue his
epredations. They brought back astonishing account of the magnificence and
activity of the African metropolis,
and among theses commissioners there was
one man who never ceaset to declare that the country was in danger, and who
never rose to speak in the House without saying befor he sat down: „And it is
my opinion, fathers, that Carthage must be destroyed.“
Cato the censor has been called the last of
old Romans. That class of patriot farmer has been extinguished by Hannibal's
invasion. In order to live during the long war they had be obliged to borrow
money on their lands. When the war was over, the prices of everything rose to unnatural
hights ; the farmer could not recover theselves, and the Roman law of debt was
severe. They were ejected by thousands,
it was the favorite method to tourn the women and children out doors
while the poor man was working in the fields.
Italy was converted into a plantation. Slave in chains tilled the land.
No change was made in the letter of constitution, but the commonweath cease to
exist.
Society was now compsed of the nobles, the
money –merchants or city man, and mob like of that of Carthage, which lived on salable votes, some
time raging for agrian law., and which was afterard fed by governmament
expences,like a wild beast, every day.
At tis time
a few refined an intellectual men began cultivate a tast for the arts of Greece
and the riches of Asia adorned the
triuph of thei generals , and the ring of taste and luxury commenced.A race of dandies
apeared, who wore semi-,and transparent robes, and who were always passing
their hand in a affected manner trung their hair; who lounged with the lanquor of
the Sybarite, and who spok with the lips of Alcibiads. Te wives of senators and
banker became genteel. Keep a heard o ladies' maids, passed hours before
their full-lenght silve mirrors,bathed
in esses' milk, ruoged their cheeks and dyed their hair, never vent out exept
in palanquins, gabbled Greek names,even when they happened to be of Latin birth. The honcs oft he great
were paved with mosaic floors, and the paited walls ere work of art…
Hapily for
Gato's peace of mind, he died before the casino,with its cachuca,or cancan, or
wathever it might have been , was introduced,and before the fashion of Asia had been added to thos of Greece. But he leved log eunugh to see the Greeco-maniacs
triunphant.In earlie and happier days he had bee able to expel two philosophers
from Rome; but now he wav them swarming i the streets with teir ragge cloaks and
reasy beards, and everywhere obtainihg seat as domestic chaplain sat the table of
the rich. He could now do no more tha protest n his bitter and extravagant
style aginst the coruption on the age. He prophesied that as soo Rome has
thourunghly imbibed the Greek philosophy she would lose the empire of the world, he declared that Socrates
was a prating, sedition fellow, who well
deserved his fate; and he warne his son to
beware of the Greek phisician, for the Greeks had laid a plot to kill all the Romans,
and the doctors had been deputet to pute it to execution with their
medicine Gato was a man of an iron
body, which was covered wth honorable scars ;
a loud, harsh voice,
greenish-gray eyes, fixi hair, nd enormous teeth, resembling thusks. His face
was so hideous and forbidding that, according to one of the hundred epigrams that
were composed agais him , he wowuld wannder forever on the banks oft he styx,
for hell itself would be afraid to let him in. Hi was distingiushed as general,
as an actor, and as author, but he pretended thet it was hic chief ambition to
be considered a goog farmer. He lived in litle cottage on his Sabine estate ,
and went in the morning to practis as anadvocate in the neighboring town. Wen he
come home he spripped to the skin, and worked int he fields with his slave,
drinking, as they did, the winegar-water, or
the thin sour wine. In the evening he used to boil the turnips for his supper
while his wife made the bread. Althouugh he care no little about external
tings, if he gave entertainment, and the slave had no cocked it or to waited to
his liking, he used to chatise them with teather thongs. It was one of his
maxims to sel his slave when they growe old- the worst cruelity that the salve
ownwer can commit.
„For my part“,
says Plutarch, I should never have the heart to sell an ox that had growe old
in my service, still less my aged slave“…..
THE MARTYRDOM
OF MAN, WINWOOD READE
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