know that the holding of the quaestorship gave a title to admission into the body of judges, but that the candidate had nevertheless to be elected by certain self-electing Boards of Five (Pentarchies); and that the judges, although presumably by law chosen from year to year, practically remained in office for a longer period or indeed for life, for which reason they are usually called “senators” by the Greeks and Romans.  Obscure as are the details, we recognize clearly the nature of the body as an oligarchical board constituted by aristocratic cooptation; an isolated but characteristic indication of which is found in the fact that there were in Carthage special baths for the judges over and above the common baths for the citizens.  They were primarily intended to act as political jurymen, who summoned the generals in particular, but beyond doubt the shofetes and gerusiasts also when circumstances required, to a reckoning on resigning office, and inflicted even capital punishment at pleasure, often with the most reckless cruelty.  Of course in this as in every instance, where administrative functionaries are subjected to the control of another body, the real centre of power passed over from the controlled to the controlling authority; and it is easy to understand on the one hand how the latter came to interfere in all matters of administration—­the gerusia for instance submitted important despatches first to the judges, and then to the people —­and on the other hand how fear of the control at home, which regularly meted out its award according to success, hampered the Carthaginian statesman and general in council and action.

Citizens

The body of citizens in Carthage, though not expressly restricted, as in Sparta, to the attitude of passive bystanders in the business of the state, appears to have had but a very slight amount of practical influence on it In the elections to the gerusia a system of open corruption was the rule; in the nomination of a general the people were consulted, but only after the nomination had really been made by proposal on the part of the gerusia; and other questions only went to the people when the gerusia thought fit or could not otherwise agree.  Assemblies of the people with judicial functions were unknown in Carthage.  The powerlessness of the citizens probably in the main resulted from their political organization; the Carthaginian mess-associations, which are mentioned in this connection and compared with the Spartan Pheiditia, were probably guilds under oligarchical management.  Mention is made even of a distinction between “burgesses of the city” and “manual labourers,” which leads us to infer that the latter held a very inferior position, perhaps beyond the pale of law.

Character of the Government