later authors.* Another aristocratic characteristic of this polity is that the offices of government are without salary and not drawn by lot (§ 4), as well as that all cases at law are decided by the same magistrates, and not by judges of different orders. In this polity the tendency appears towards selections for office according to a man's wealth as well as his merit. "This is a fault derived from the original fault of the legislator, who ought to have provided leisure for the citizens of greatest merit, and to have seen to it that poverty should never be disgraceful for private or public persons." Aristotle also blames that part of the polity which allows employments, even those of a king or of a general, to be purchased, for "it is absurd to suppose that, if a poor but worthy man will wish to enrich himself, a worse kind of man will not wish to pay for his expenses in buying an employment." He blames also the Carthaginians for allowing a person to hold more than one office at the same time, since one work is best done by one man. The dangers of the oligarchic polity at Carthage are avoided by sending out a part of the people into the colonies, and so giving them an opportunity to acquire riches. "But this," says he, "is a matter of chance. The lawgiver, by the polity itself, ought to prevent sedition. But now, if misfortune falls on the people, and the lower class revolts against the magistrates, there is no medicine provided by the laws for securing quiet." (§§ 5-9.)

Senate.

The most important organ of government at Carthage was the senate, from which probably the "hundred judges" ("ex numero senatorum," Justin, xix., 2) are to be distinguished, who were first created out of jealousy of the family of Mago, as has already been mentioned. I accede to the view of Heeren (Ideen, ii., 1, ch. 3), that this body is the same with the gerusia, which, in several passages, is to be distinguished from the senate properly so

*Comp. Schneider's note ii., p. 145, and Barthélemy-St.-Hilaire, in his translation. Perhaps the "hundred" chose the pentarchies. This Aristotle repeats in iii., 1, 7.

called. Thus, with the army of Mago, commander at New Carthage (B. C. 209), there were two members of the former and fifteen of the latter, taken prisoners. (Polyb., x., 18.) Again, Livy, in mentioning that a deputation of thirty principal seniores was sent to the Romans to sue for peace, says, "id erat sanctius apud illos consilium, maximaque ad ipsum senatum regendum vis" (xxx., 16). Here a board is described which could send to Rome, in order to sue for peace, thirty of its principal members (triginta seniorum principes), and which controlled the senate itself. It is called a consilium, so that either the whole thirty composed the council, or it was a deputation from a council differing from the senate itself. Mommsen thinks these seniores to be the gerusia, composed of twenty-eight annually elected members and the two kings. It is doubtful, he says, whether along with this small council there existed a larger one, at any rate it was not of much importance. (Book iii., ch. i.) Such different results do modern scholars reach, when they fill out the scanty reports of the ancients.

We have then either two or three councils or boards, one created for a particular purpose and consisting of a hundred members, originally a detachment of a senate; that senate itself, and an inner, more private body, whose conclusions generally governed those of the senate itself. The institution of the "judices" and of the gerusia may have been subsequent to the existence of the senate, and shows the desire to control affairs by some authority on which the aristocracy could more rely. The judges were created to call the military officers, with perhaps the other magistrates and public servants, to account, and had criminal jurisdiction over them. The gerusia had the origination of drafts of laws, it is probable, and the principal voice in all administrative measures. As we have seen, when the senate and the chief magistrates were agreed in their policy, the people decided without debate.

*Called syncletus or senate.

Suffetes.

The name by which the chief magistrates were known was that of suffetes or sufetes, from the Semitic root shaphat, to judge, the participle of which, Shophet, in the Hebrew scriptures, denotes those officers, ordinarily called judges, who were appointed, like the dictators of Rome and the tagi of Thessaly, on extraordinary occasions, especially when war was impending; and who both commanded in war and dispensed justice in peace for their lifetime. These suffetes are described as kings, and prætors, are compared with the Roman consuls (Livy, xxx., 7, 5), and are expressly asserted to be annual magistrates. (C. Nepos, Hannibal, § 7.) They had judicial power (Livy, xxxiv., 61), a seat probably in the council, some share in the administration, and were annually elected to their office from the principal families. They could unite with this office that of judge. They were conceived of by Aristotle as having greater authority than belongs to them in the subsequent history of Carthage. They were not peculiar to Carthage; we know that Gades had supreme magistrates with the same name, so that it is not improbable that the Phoenician colonies all had two men at the head of affairs, who were not called kings, like chief officers of state in the mother country, but judges to show their dependence on the home-government. Perhaps at first they were generals and judges alike. This is all that is known, or may be rationally conjectured, concerning the Carthaginian polity. Of the clubs and the pentarchies there is only the barest mention, as we have seen already. That offices could be purchased, as Aristotle tells us (u. s., ii., 8, § 6), is strange in an antique state, but not so strange in an aristocratic one; he can hardly intend only that the people were open to corrupting influences, that a wealthy man by spending money enough could secure to himself the election to the office of king or general.

Carthage and Venice (which we are next to consider) offer more analogies than any other two aristocratic states, but as we know much less of the ancient than of the modern commercial republic, its earlier condition must be neglected in the

comparison. The aristocratic qualities of Carthage are obvious from what has been said, and its place is among those republics, all whose institutions are intended for peace, but which betake themselves to war in order to secure commercial advantages. For the purposes of war they find it necessary to employ mercenary troops. Venice and Carthage were equally forced into this; Numidians and Iberians composed the armies of this republic, much as the soldiers gathered by condottieri composed those of Venice. Bomilcar made his mad attempt to become a tyrant in Carthage with the help of mercenaries in the time of Agathocles, and at the end of the peace of 241 B.C. (= 513 U. C.) with the Romans a most formidable war, threatening the very existence of Carthage, broke out against the hired troops and the Africans who made common cause with them. (Polyb., i., 65 onw.) The democracy neither at Carthage nor at Venice had great strength or power of combination. Yet the principal leaders in the wars with Rome, the war party, had the people as their support, while the peace or oligarchic party was strong in the council of one hundred and the senate.

People.

We may add that Aristotle seems to have estimated too highly the constitution of Carthage. But its faults, and the faults of a commercial aristocracy, such as it was, become apparent from the events of the century after that great philosopher's death.

Carthage, being a mercantile aristocracy, had the jealousies which rivals in trade call forth. The other Phenician colonies came under its control, or stood in the relation of allies whose friendship could not be trusted. Thus, Utica seems to have always been jealous or hostile toward the more powerful state, and Gades was willing to desert the Carthaginian cause by making peace with Rome. The foreign possessions of Carthage, besides those in Spain, and along the African coast, lay on the islands of Sardinia and Corsica; the Balearic islands came under its jurisdiction, and it long contended with the Greeks for the dominion of Sicily.

THE CONSTITUTION OF VENICE.

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Among all modern constitutions that of Venice offers us the Character of the most noticeable example of a close and jealous constitution. aristocracy, gaining its power by degrees, imposing checks on the government of the duke or doge lest he should found a line of hereditary princes, or become a leader of a democracy, and reducing the people in whose hands the original power of the state lay to almost complete insignificance. This aristocracy was created by commerce, although it would appear that in early times a germ of old families was transplanted from the main land, during the invasions that then desolated Italy. It placed itself at the head of affairs and managed them with singular ability, and with a practical skill, such as might proceed from the counting-house and the experience of men acquainted with various lands. This is worthy of especial mention, that the policy of the state changed as that of a merchant would, whose sources of prosperity in one branch of his business were cut off. He puts his capital in another shape, tries new modes of traffic, places obstacles in the way of competitors, and bends all his energies to the recovery of his former success. The infant colony consisted of Italians, but the influences that told on it were, for the most part, not Italian. Within the jurisdiction of the exarch of Ravenna, under the eastern empire, secluded in postion from the revolutions of Italy, these merchants, driving their trade on islands which served as walled fortresses against the continent, cared little for Lombards, Franks, or German emperors. In their religion they were more independent than any of the pope's Italian subjects. In trade they looked eastward towards Dalmatia, where they soon became predominant, towards various parts of the Levant, even towards Egypt and other Mohammedan states. When the crusades broke out they perceived the commercial advantages likely to