Carthage Heads the Western Phoenicians in Opposition to the Hellenes

That the Phoenician stock did not even in Carthage renounce its policy of passiveness, there is no lack of evidence to prove.  Carthage paid, even down to the times of its prosperity, a ground-rent for the space occupied by the city to the native Berbers, the tribe of the Maxyes or Maxitani; and although the sea and the desert sufficiently protected the city from any assault of the eastern powers, Carthage appears to have recognized—­although but nominally—­the supremacy of the great-king, and to have paid tribute to him occasionally, in order to secure its commercial communications with Tyre and the East.

But with all their disposition to be submissive and cringing, circumstances occurred which compelled these Phoenicians to adopt a more energetic policy.  The stream of Hellenic migration was pouring ceaselessly towards the west:  it had already dislodged the Phoenicians from Greece proper and Italy, and it was preparing to supplant them also in Sicily, in Spain, and even in Libya itself.  The Phoenicians had to make a stand somewhere, if they were not willing to be totally crushed.  In this case, where they had to deal with Greek traders and not with the great-king, submission did not suffice to secure the continuance of their commerce and industry on its former footing, liable merely to tax and tribute.  Massilia and Cyrene were already founded; the whole east of Sicily was already in the hands of the Greeks; it was full time for the Phoenicians to think of serious resistance.  The Carthaginians undertook the task; after long and obstinate wars they set a limit to the advance of the Cyrenaeans, and Hellenism was unable to establish itself to the west of the desert of Tripolis.  With Carthaginian aid, moreover, the Phoenician settlers on the western point of Sicily defended themselves against the Greeks, and readily and gladly submitted to the protection of the powerful cognate city.(2) These important successes, which occurred in the second century of Rome, and which saved for the Phoenicians the south-western portion of the Mediterranean, served of themselves to give to the city which had achieved them the hegemony of the nation, and to alter at the same time its political position.  Carthage was no longer a mere mercantile city:  it aimed at the dominion of Libya and of a part of the Mediterranean, because it could not avoid doing so.  It is probable that the custom of employing mercenaries contributed materially to these successes.  That custom came into vogue in Greece somewhere about the middle of the fourth century of Rome, but among the Orientals and the Carians more especially it was far older, and it was perhaps the Phoenicians themselves that began it.  By the system of foreign recruiting war was converted into a vast pecuniary speculation, which was quite in keeping with the character and habits of the Phoenicians.

The Carthaginian Dominion in Africa