The Carthaginians

by B D Hoyos

  Disappointingly, political life at Carthage falls into virtual darkness for most of the next six decades, as our already limited Greek and Latin sources turn their attention to other states. It can be surmised that powerful families – including ones newly risen to prominence – and their circles of supporters continued competing for office at every level. If, as suggested earlier, the supposed nickname magnus or megas misunderstands some kind of Punic family epithet, then Hanno the Great’s family was not obliterated or barred forever from public life, for during the 240s one of the city’s leading figures was another Hanno the Great, according to Appian. All the same, the lengthy parade of Carthaginian generals and admirals again recorded from the 280s to the early 240s – bearing the usual handful of personal names – are bereft of known political links. It is more likely than not that by the time of the first war with Rome, the ruling élite included not only long-established factional groups but more recently-arrived ones. In the politics of the years that followed, while the second Hanno the Great would play a major part, at some stage before 250 the family of another Hamilcar, nicknamed Barca, came to prominence too.

  THE LIBYANS AND NUMIDIANS

  In the 4th and early 3rd Centuries Carthaginian rule over inland Libya extended a good distance up the Bagradas valley, to judge from the invading Greeks’ capture of Thugga in 307 (‘Tocae’ in Diodorus), a hundred and twenty kilometres west of Carthage. Diodorus names quite a number of towns in the hinterlands of Libya and Numidia affected by the operations of Agathocles and his lieutenants in 309–307, but in contrast to identifiable places on the coast – like Utica, Hippacra and Hadrumetum – all except Thugga are in Greek forms otherwise unknown: Phelline, Meschela, Miltine, Acris and a few others. It is pretty certain, though, that the lands lying between the Bagradas and Byzacium were equally under Carthage’s power, and so too the territory north of the Bagradas: the highlands of the Monts de la Méjerda (or Kroumirie) and of Mogod near Hippacra. On the other hand, Sicca 175 kilometres south-west of Carthage, Theveste south-west of Sicca and 260 kilometres from Carthage, and districts in between like the territories of Mactar and Zama, were not brought under her hegemony, it seems, until the mid-3rd Century (Chapter X).

  There was little if any ethnic difference between the Libyans, meaning the communities ruled by Carthage, and the Numidians to their west. The Greek notion that Numidians were so named because they were nomads was a fancy, for the name was indigenous (a community called the Nemadi still lives in Mauritania). Both Libyans and Numidians were a mixture of small settled communities and pastoral rural dwellers, though pastoral and semi-nomadic life was more prevalent than the settled form the farther west one travelled from Carthage. Libya was dotted with villages and rather larger fortified centres separated by pastures, cultivated tracts and woodlands which spread across hills, plateaux, valleys and the Méjerda range, the Téboursouk range (the southern side of the Bagradas valley) and the Zaghouan range (separating the gulf of Hammamet from the interior). From the edges of Libya to the river Muluccha (today the Moulouya, just east of the port of Melilla) were the Numidian lands, with Mauretania beyond them. The Libyan mountains are spurs of the great Atlas complex that extends westwards across Numidia and Mauretania, forming a series of parallel ranges separated by high plateaux and valleys, while the Sahara lies to their south.

  Carthage’s Libyan territories were not much larger than the island of Sicily and, it seems, were equally well populated. The Libyans were hard-working and productive, while the Carthaginians’ intermittent practice of settling citizens in the countryside with substantial land grants probably furthered the territories’ economic development (and perhaps population). It seems that they consisted of a number of regions, each termed an (approximately pronounced ereset). A Neo-Punic inscription of 128 BC near Mactar, a region seized by the Numidian king Masinissa before 150, commemorates a kinsman of his, who was ‘governor (or administrator: ’š ‘l) of the of Tšk‘t ’ or Thusca, while Appian mentions that this region covered fifty towns. Thusca and some other Libyan areas in Roman times were termed pagi (‘rural districts’ in Latin), for a dedication in the 50s bc at Utica mentions three named Muxsi, Gususi and Zeugei, while in ad 113 the emperor Trajan was honoured by ‘the 64 communities of pagus Thusca and Gunzuzi [no doubt another spelling of Gususi]’. As it happens, some Carthaginian coins struck for use in Sicily during the First Punic War bear the legend ‘for the region’ or, on another view, ‘for the lands’, meaning the Sicilian territories dominated by Carthage.

  Thusca’s region, Gunzuzi’s, and the others mentioned are usually seen as the main administrative subdivisions of Carthaginian-ruled Libya, along with the Cape Bon peninsula, Byzacium, and sometimes the ‘Great Plains’ around Bulla in the west, even though these are not recorded as or pagi. On the other hand, still more pagi are found in Libya and Numidia in Roman times, including much smaller ones. There were, for example, ‘the pagus and civitas [district and civic community] of Thugga’; one at Uchi, 10 kilometres from Thugga; a pagus Gurzensis in 12 bc with many civitates near Hadrumetum and thus within Byzacium; a pagus Minervius near Hippacra, and others in the territory of Sicca far to the west of Carthage.

  The of Thusca, Gunzuzi, Muxsi and Zeugei were perhaps traditional Libyan regions, and so too pagus Gurzensis. Not all the names can be explained, though ‘Gurzensis’ was named from a town called Gurza near Hadrumetum, and Zeugei possibly from the town of Ziqua (Zaghouan). In Roman times, at least, their communities could act together for ceremonial purposes. They perhaps shared local religious rites and events. But that they were administrative units, even if just for tax purposes, should be doubted. A Numidian royal could be appointed to govern one (hardly anything less would suit his rank) without this offering firm evidence for Carthaginian practice. Nor does a Roman law of 111 BC, regulating among other things the tax and other financial arrangements for the recently-annexed provincia Africa, mention any large administrative units. Once Libya became a province, however, followed a century later by Numidia, the Latin pagus could come into use for a wide range of territorial districts, large and small, in both.

  Carthage’s administrative districts in Libya were more likely smaller, with several in each of the to judge from the Thusca--Gunzuzi and pagus Gurzensis inscriptions. Each district would embrace various towns and villages and each, perhaps, had an administrator called an ’š ‘l or ishal – a Phoenician term, though not found in Carthaginian documents. These officials need not always have been Carthaginians, for as time passed there would be a growing élite of Punicised Libyans too. They would report to the treasurers at Carthage, or to a general commanding in Libya when there was one. Carthaginian tax-collecting was often harsh: the 3rd-Century Hanno the Great earned a grim reputation for his methods, no doubt loyally imitated by the putative ’š ‘l in every Libyan district.72

  By the mid-3rd Century, as mentioned earlier on Polybius’ evidence, Libyan taxes and produce enabled the city to maintain her armaments and wage wars. The Libyans also furnished recruits, willing or conscripted, for Carthage’s armies. Herodotus includes Libyan troops, presumably paid recruits, as early as 480 in the army defeated at Himera, while by the Barcid Hannibal’s time Libyan conscripts formed one of the most reliable corps in his army. The one indicator of what Libya paid in taxes is that, as the stressful First Punic War of 264–241 wore on, the Carthaginians took half of all rural produce and doubled the money taxes of the towns. If the agricultural tribute too was doubled over its pre-war level, that earlier level would have been one-quarter, but this is not certain. A widespread level of taxation on produce in ancient and later times was the tithe, a 10 per cent levy: this was applied in the territories of Syracuse in the 3rd Century, was extended to the rest of Sicily by the island’s Roman rulers, and was generally viewed as a fair level which did not obstruct prosperity. The normal tax on Libyan agriculture must have been higher, since it aroused so much repeated resentment – Diodorus writes that Agathocles in 310 expected supp
ort from the Libyans for this reason – and may be estimated at around 15 per cent. No doubt it rose further whenever Carthage needed more revenues, nor would the first war with Rome be the sole, or the earliest, time that it rose to fully half the yearly output.

  It need not follow, either, that the towns’ pre-war taxes had been a quarter of townsmen’s overall incomes, for it is very unlikely that these now had to give up half their entire income. Such a proportion in the ancient world (and of course even today) would be an unsustainable burden on most of the population. The taxes levied on towns could range between 10 and 15 per cent without wrecking their local economies – but could rocket to twice that when their overlord was hard pressed for funds.

  The Carthaginians’ often high-handed treatment of their Libyan subjects repeatedly provoked rebellion. It happened in 396 after the disastrous campaign in Sicily, when much of the army perished from plague and its commander Himilco abandoned the rest to bring home his surviving citizen soldiers. A fresh rebellion followed in the 370s, again a time when the Carthaginians were weakened by a severe epidemic. Two generations later Agathocles’ invasion of North Africa from 309 to 307 encouraged a new revolt (just as he hoped) because, as Diodorus puts it, the Libyans ‘hated the Carthaginians with a special bitterness because of the weight of their overlordship’.

  Libya did grow in prosperity in spite of this treatment. The other major factor enticing Agathocles to invade North Africa was the wealth of its countryside: a feature confirmed by the amount of plunder garnered both near the coast and in the interior. Sixty-six years later, when the Libyans rebelled yet one more time against the extortionate treatment meted out to them in the First Punic War, enthusiasm was so great (writes Polybius) that women too contributed all that they could, even their jewellery. Jewellery would come only from more affluent levels of Libyan society. There is no way of reckoning what that proportion of the population was, but all the Libyans’ contributions together put enough funds into the rebel leaders’ hands for them to finance a major war against Carthage.

  After putting down this revolt (it took three harrowing years: Chapter X), the Carthaginians seem at last to have improved their relations with their subjects. When the Romans invaded Libyan territory three and a half decades later, plundering and ravaging much in the style of Agathocles, no defections to them are reported. Similarly, Carthage’s sister colony Utica joined the great rebellion in 238, yet remained stubbornly loyal under a long Roman siege from 204 to 202. If the tax regime and conscription burden was now lighter, one reason could be that the Carthaginians realised they needed to conciliate their Libyphoenician allies and Libyan subjects. Another would be the conquest of southern Spain from 237 on, which created a new and rich source of revenues – rich enough to sustain Carthage’s great-power ambitions and a new war with Rome without a renewed crushing burden on Libya. In 149 too, when the Romans went to war to destroy Carthage, most Libyans were more loyal than some of the Libyphoenicians like Utica, Hadrumetum and certain other coastal towns, which defected to the invaders. The rest of the Libyans and Libyphoenicians surrendered only three years later, when the city faced the final Roman assault (Chapter XII).73

  Over the centuries, Carthaginian influences did leave an imprint on Libya. No doubt too there were Libyan influences on Carthaginian culture, even if the evidence is now sparse. The Carthaginians who periodically settled among them, the Libyans’ own dealings with the city and – no doubt another important factor – so many Libyan soldiers’ service with Carthaginian armies over three centuries, would all contribute to these outcomes.

  The evidence for Carthage’s impact dates mostly from after the fall of the city. For example, Neo-Punic and Latin inscriptions commmemorate local sufetes at many places in both Libya and eastern Numidia. At Carthage herself, votive inscriptions were set up by sufetes from unknown towns called Glmt and (one of them Kerkouane, perhaps?). An inscription of 139 at Thugga, honouring the late Numidian king Masinissa, terms his Numidian grandfather Zilalsan ‘the sufete’: so if Zilalsan had been elected – maybe as an honour – to the sufeteship there, Thugga must have adopted the Carthaginian magistracy for itself by the mid-3rd Century at latest. This is only a possibility, all the same, for the grandee Zilalsan may (just possibly) have been accorded a sufeteship or its honorary title at Carthage herself, rather than at up-country Thugga. Sufetes are, however, attested after the fall of Carthage at quite a number of places, such as Thinissut, Curubis and Siagu in or near the Cape Bon region. The citizens, b‘lm, of towns sometimes earn mention too. The inscription at Thugga, for example, records a temple being set up by them to Masinissa, who had annexed the region decades earlier and whose son Micipsa now ruled them. To a degree, therefore, official institutions from Carthage were imitated at many centres across Libya and, in time, further west too.74

  Carthaginian names became common among Libyans and Numidians: one of Masinissa’s sons was named Mastanabal (he was father of Rome’s later enemy Jugurtha), one of Micipsa’s an Adherbal, while the officials of pagus Gurzensis in Byzacium all bear Carthaginian names – Hamilcar son of Milkyaton, ‘Boncar’ (Bomilcar) son of Hasdrubal, Muttunbal son of Safon. Carthaginian gods and goddesses, notably Baal Hammon, Tanit (often with her visual ‘sign’), Astarte and also Isis, Demeter and Kore, had numerous shrines and offerings. Most strikingly of all, the Punic language flourished in both Libya and Numidia for centuries after 146, with St Augustine mentioning its use among rural folk even in the last half-century of Roman Africa.

  Numidia’s many peoples had had dealings with the Phoenicians and Carthaginians from very old times. Carthaginian trade-settlements like Hippo Regius, Rusicade, Icosium and Iol dotted the coast not only as entrepôts for Numidian trade but as way-stations for ships en route to or from the far west. The Numidian people formed two broad tribal groups, the Masaesyli dwelling in the west and centre, the Massyli in the east, each with district and clan sub-groups. Until the 4th or even 3rd Century, most Numidians lived in rural settlements and were proverbial for their itinerant way of life, with movable huts (Latinised as mapalia) of brushwood, twigs and leaves. They pastured flocks, and also their famous small horses which made Numidian cavalry the best in the western Mediterranean. A few more substantial centres came into being perhaps in the 4th Century: notably Cirta in a commanding position over a deep gorge of the river Ampsaga, which became the Massylians’ capital, and Siga the Masaesylians’, just inland from the coast 900 kilometres to the west.

  Carthage never subdued the Numidians, despite fighting plenty of wars against them as well as regularly recruiting them for overseas campaigns. Carthaginian culture, on the other hand, began to exert influence there in the 3rd Century at latest, most notably on Numidian chieftains and their retinues. Not only did the Massylian prince Zilalsan bear the title of sufete, in whatever connection, but his grandson Masinissa spent his boyhood being educated at Carthage. During his fifty-five-year reign, from 203 to 148, Masinissa made Punic the language of government, introduced Carthaginian methods of administration, gave some of his sons Carthaginian names as just noted, and adopted features of Carthaginian religion – one of his great-grandsons is found with the priestly title of ‘awakener of the god’ (of Melqart, that is) in a late-2nd-Century Neo-Punic inscription. As we have seen, more than one marriage between Numidian princes and the daughters of aristocratic Carthaginians is known. Indeed even one of the city’s last generals, Hasdrubal, was a grandson on his mother’s side of the prolific Masinissa. It has already been noted, too, that the Numidian royal family were given Carthage’s libraries by Scipio Aemilianus. Ironically enough, the expanded Numidian kingdom after 146 inherited, and propagated, the culture of the city whose destruction Masinissa played a major part in procuring.

  IX

  CARTHAGE AT WAR: SICILY

  THE CARTHAGINIAN WAR MACHINE: THE NAVY

  It was firmly held by Greeks and Romans, and is still widely believed, that throughout her military history Carthage focused her own en
ergies on seamanship and hired foreign professionals to man her armies. Polybius reflects this conviction when comparing Carthaginian and Roman war-making:

  Whereas for a naval expedition the Carthaginians are the better trained and prepared – as it is only natural with a people with whom it has been hereditary for many generations to practise this craft, and to follow the seaman’s trade above all nations in the world – yet, in regard to military service on land, the Romans train themselves to a much higher pitch than the Carthaginians. The former bestow their whole attention upon this department: whereas the Carthaginians wholly neglect their infantry, though they do take some slight interest in the cavalry. The reason of this is that they employ foreign mercenaries, the Romans native and citizen levies. […] The result is that even if the Romans have suffered a defeat at first, they renew the war to the fullest, which the Carthaginians cannot do.

  This is Greek generalised theorising and nothing more. Polybius’ own narrative of the First Punic War proves that the Carthaginians were as tenacious as the Romans; and since he was interested in Agathocles, he should have known something of their earlier wars in Sicily, in which they showed the same qualities, and deployed citizen troops as well as others.75