to officer the vast bodies of men raised from the tributary nations, and to command the armies of the country, entered one or other of these bodies.  The cavalry was the arm chosen by the richer classes.  It was seldom that it numbered more than a thousand strong.  The splendour of their armour and appointments, the beauty of their horses, the richness of the garments of the cavaliers, and the trappings of their steeds, caused this body to be the admiration and envy of Carthage.  Every man in it was a member of one of the upper ranks of the aristocracy; all were nearly related to members of the senate, and it was considered the highest honour that a young Carthaginian could receive to be admitted into it.

Each man wore on his wrist a gold band for each campaign which he had undertaken.  There was no attempt at uniformity as to their appointments.  Their helmets and shields were of gold or silver, surmounted with plumes or feathers, or with tufts of white horsehair.  Their breastplates were adorned with arabesques or repousse work of the highest art.  Their belts were covered with gold and studded with gems.  Their short kilted skirts were of rich Tyrian purple embroidered with gold.

The infantry were composed of men of good but less exalted families.  They wore a red tunic without a belt.  They carried a great circular buckler of more than a yard in diameter, formed of the tough hide of the river horse, brought down from the upper Nile, with a central boss of metal with a point projecting nearly a foot in front of the shield, enabling it to be used as an offensive weapon in a close fight.  They carried short heavy swords similar to those of the Romans, and went barefooted.  Their total strength seldom exceeded two thousand.

These two bodies constituted the Carthaginian legion, and formed but a small proportion indeed of her armies, the rest of her forces being entirely drawn from the tributary states.  The fact that Carthage, with her seven hundred thousand inhabitants, furnished so small a contingent of the fighting force of the republic, was in itself a proof of the weakness of the state.  A country which relies entirely for its defence upon mercenaries is rapidly approaching decay.

She may for a time repress one tributary with the soldiers of the others; but when disaster befalls her she is without cohesion and falls to pieces at once.  As the Roman orator well said of Carthage:  “She was a figure of brass with feet of clay” —­ a noble and imposing object to the eye, but whom a vigourous push would level in the dust.  Rome, on the contrary, young and vigourous, was a people of warriors.  Every one of her citizens who was capable of bearing arms was a soldier.  The manly virtues were held in the highest esteem, and the sordid love of wealth had not as yet enfeebled her strength or sapped her powers.  Her citizens were men, indeed, ready to make any sacrifice for their country; and such being the case, her final victory over Carthage was a matter of certainty.