'here assembled, not even on the best preserved manors of 'England.'*

On one point of vital importance to the spirit and character of a nation, the Carthaginians were separated by an abyss from their more polished and fortunate neighbours in the ancient world. Their idolatry was in its essence a cruel one. Human sacrifices, which as a rule, were an abomination to the Greeks of the historical age, and, except in the shape of gladiatorial shows, a rare event in the annals of Rome, continued to imbrue the Punic altars even after the close of the Carthaginian dominion; and the darkest form of superstition attained there the most absolute sway. In the inscriptions which have been from time to time brought to light, three principal deities appear, all of which, however, are plainly of a composite character; that is, they embody, in the shape in which they appear in the historical times, rituals derived from different localities, and ideas belonging to different cycles of thought. The religions of pagan antiquity possessed in every case a germinative power and a faculty of assimilation, which rendered easy the combination of two cognate cults, and the developement of the new compound by means of a fresh myth. Thus it was that the principal Carthaginian deity, Bal-Samon, or Melkareth, became in his several relations the equivalent of the Sun-god of Mesopotamia, of the Moloch of Syria, of the Heracles (in his early shape) of Asiatic Greece, of the Kronus of Crete, and of the Poseidon of Achaia. The second, Tanath, was in like manner identical with the Selenè of Greece, the Juno of Latium, the Artemis of Ephesus, the Aphroditè Urania of Cyprus, and the Atergatis or Derceto of Syria. The third, Ashmon or Esmun, is the Esculapius of classical antiquity, with some analogy also to the Faunus of Latium and the Trophonius of Bootia. But the ritual which seems especially to have harmonised with the fierce and gloomy temperament that belongs, even at the present day, to the natives of Barbary, was that of the Syrian Moloch. As the bitterest penance is most ardently thirsted for by the penitent who has given himself up in the days of his sin to the most unstinted self-indulgence; so, perhaps, we may account for the morbid passion for a mode of sacrifice, the most horrible that history records, prevailing so as to be almost ineradicable, in a thoroughly sensual and luxurious people. The more ample the blessings showered down by the Deity, it perhaps was said, the more anxiously was his wrath to be feared, his envy propitiated. What offer

Excursions in the Mediterranean, vol. ii. p. 90.

ing was sufficient to purchase peace? Thousands of rams andrivers of oil' were sacrifices which cost the Punic magnate nothing; for him only one sacrifice really deserved the name, to give his firstborn for his transgression; the fruit of his body for the sin of his soul.' And this accordingly became an institution. A brazen image of the god stood over a pit filled with burning charcoal, with hands held out to receive the horrible offering,― children of the noblest of the citizens selected by lot. The infant was placed upon them, and as it rolled off into its fiery bed, its cries were drowned by a burst of wild music from fifes and drums. A perverted imagination once set to work in pursuit of horrors, soon invented a refinement even upon this cruelty, in assigning to the mother of the child the post of executioner. She stood by, with dry eyes and without a groan-else were the offering not meritorious caressing the helpless infant, lest its instinctive fear should produce a gesture implying unwillingness, or a cry of grief to mar the sacrifice.* It was impossible but that human nature should assert its claims even under the most frightful perversion of sentiment, and accordingly the richer Carthaginians in many cases resorted to the expedient of substituting for their own offspring children purchased from the poor. But for this sacrilegious fraud, national calamity was regarded as the penalty; and on one such occasion an investigation was set on foot, the secret sin brought to light, and atoned for by the public sacrifice of no less than two hundred children from the most distinguished houses, and an even greater number of adults, who, conscience-stricken, offered themselves as voluntary victims.

This is not the place to follow the romantic fortunes of Agathocles during his four years' stay in Africa, from which, after all but complete success, he finally stole away to Syracuse, as Napoleon did from Egypt in later days, leaving his army to the mercy of the victorious enemy. But it is important to our purpose to notice, that he stormed Utica, (which had at first adhered to his cause and afterwards revolted), plundered the city and massacred the inhabitants; that both at Clypea and Hippo Zarytus (Benzert) he built a new city, fortified it, and settled a fresh population there, and that the nature of his operations revolutionised the whole Carthaginian territory. In the course of

Osculo comprimente vagitum ne flebilis hostia immolaretur,' is the expression of Minucius Felix, § 30. The importance attached by the ancients to the apparent consent even of an animal led as a victim to the altar, is well known.

the war, all the provincial towns had passed through the invader's hands; some had been stormed, some had capitulated, some had voluntarily joined his standard. We may reasonably infer, therefore, that at its conclusion the relations of the dominant city to her African possessions became much more simplified than was the case when the second treaty with Rome, which has been noticed above, was made. There can no longer have been any pretence to equality of rights, nothing like a confederacy of several states. At the end of such a conflict Carthage must have stood to all the rest distinctly in the position of sovereign to vassals; for everything had been lost, and everything recovered. And this view is confirmed by the altered form of the third treaty between Carthage and Rome, preserved by Polybius, which took place about the year 278 B.C., at the time when Pyrrhus was invading the South of Italy. In this the principal contracting powers are alone mentioned, without any reference to their allies by name. Rome, in fact, had by the Samnite and Lucanian wars, centralised and consolidated her own power in Italy, as Carthage had hers in Africa, in the sequel of the campaigns with Agathocles. It is also confirmed by the fact, that the maritime power of the African state-that sole anchor which held through the storm-had risen to such a height as to be recognised in the provisions of the new treaty. After stipulating that in the event of a convention being agreed upon with Pyrrhus by either party, the other should be included, so far as to secure mutual assistance in case of war with a third power, the treaty goes on to provide that in all contingencies the means of transport either for offensive or defensive purposes shall be furnished by the Carthaginians, both parties paying their own contingent, and also that the Carthaginians, in case of necessity, should assist the Romans with a naval force; but that the crews should not be compelled to land. This period is perhaps the one when the power of Carthage was at its zenith. Nearly the whole of Sicily was under her sway, and the remainder, weakened by the long-continued wars of the Greek and Italian dynasts, appeared likely to fall a prey at no long distance of time. Sardinia, Corsica, and the Balearic Islands were indisputably hers; Port Mahon even to this day preserves in its name the memory of its founder, the suffete Mago. So was Malta, and the Lipari Islands. The valley of the Lower Rhone was occupied by Greek traders, the descendants of the Phocæans; but from the mouth of the Ebro all along the coast of Spain as far, at least, as Cadiz, and for the whole length of the Northern and Northwestern shore of Africa, with the exception of the Riff, there

was a series of Punic towns or factories, extending nearly as far as the Gold Coast.

Only fourteen years after the conclusion of the third treaty, 1 the first Punic War broke out. The fortunes of Carthage | during the hundred and eighteen years which intervened between that event and her entire destruction, are familiar to every one as a part of the history of Rome. But there is one special point to which attention must be called, bearing upon the topographical questions on which we now proceed to enter. It is well known that the introduction of elephants into warfare followed the experience gained by the generals of Alexander in the Indian campaign. Their value was fully recognised in the wars which took place between the Syrian and Egyptian kings, in the accounts of which they never fail to be mentioned. In Italy they appear for the first time in the wars with Pyrrhus: and that they were unknown to the Carthaginians at the time of the invasion of Agathocles, is evident, not merely from the absence of all mention of them, but from the fact of warchariots, which they superseded, constituting at the opening of that campaign a most important arm of the Punic force which took the field. But in the first years of the war which broke out in 264 B.C., Hanno transported an army which included fifty elephants, from Carthage to Sicily. It is difficult to suppose that these animals were derived from any other quarter of the globe than Africa, and it seems a legitimate conclusion that their domestication and training was introduced at Carthage, and became systematic, between the conclusion of the war with Agathocles and the commencement of that with Rome. If so, it is to this epoch we must refer the building of the enormous fortification in advance of the Byrsa, which contained stabling for so many of them according to the account of Appian, the primary authority for the topographer of Carthage. The passage in which this author speaks of it is so entirely the foundation upon which all further investigation of topographical details rests, that it is well to translate it by way of supplement to the quotation given above from Polybius.

From the isthmus' which connects the city of Carthage with the main 'a narrow oblong fillet, about half a stade in breadth, stretched westward, between a salt marsh and the sea.' ... [The greater part of the city was enclosed] 'with a single wall, being very steep; but the southern portion, looking towards the main, where also the Byrsa stood, upon the isthmus, — with a triple wall. Each one of the three was thirty cubits in height, independently of breastwork and towers, the latter of which (four stories high) were placed at intervals of 200 feet throughout. The breadth was 20 cubits. Each wall was two-storied, and within it, it being hollow and closed

in, there were stalls below for 300 elephants, with magazines for their food beside them. Above was stabling for 4000 horses, and stores of fodder and barley; likewise barracks for men, to the number of 20,000 infantry and 4000 cavalry. For such an immense military force were quarters provided in the walls alone. The angle which ran round from this fortification to the ports, was [at the time of the siege] alone weak and low, and had from the first been neglected.'

The boss of hills to which we have above adverted as being the site of ancient Carthage, is about ten miles from Tunis, the road to it running along the plain which represents the ancient isthmus. The head of the peninsula spreads out into a triangle, of which the three corners are-the Hill of St. Louis (so called from a chapel built by the French on its summit in honour of the pious crusading king), the Hill of Sidi Bou Said, which runs out into Cape Carthage, and the hill called Jebel Khawi, or Gomart, where was the ancient necropolis. Between this last and the other two the ground falls into a plain, which is probably the site of what was called the Magaria, a quarter within the walls of Carthage forming a kind of park. The Hill of St. Louis, which is the southernmost and the nearest to Tunis, is said by M. Falbe to be 188 French feet above the level of the sea. It is upon these low hills that Agathocles formed a fortified camp in his campaign adverted to above; and what is now marsh having then been sea, it becomes easy to conceive how the Carthaginians would be effectually cut off from all communication with the continent so long as he maintained his position. The same tactics were afterwards practised by the revolted mercenaries in the sequel of the first Punic War, and at the outbreak of the last the position was occupied in force by the Carthaginians themselves, the command of the sea having been lost, in order to prevent the town from being starved out by the Romans.

The triple wall, therefore, it is plain from the words of Appian, must have been near the Hill of St. Louis, and advanced in the direction of Tunis. But it is possible to approximate yet more nearly to its position. A line drawn from the angle of the Hill of St. Louis to the west, for about two miles and a half, will reach that part of the isthmus which exhibits the narrowest breadth of solid ground, a breadth, even at this day, little exceeding 5000 yards. It is evident that whatever changes in the locality may have taken place from the deposit of alluvium, here must always have been the most defensible portion of the plain, and some kind of line of defence will naturally have been thrown up there. Now when the Roman consuls marched upon Carthage in the last siege, expecting to

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