BY SAME AUTHOR CARTFIAGE, THE Byrsø I. Mission archéologique française à Çørthage. A HISTORY Raþp orts préliminair es des fouilles 1. 97 4-1 97 6, sous la direction de Serge Lancel. (Collection de l'É,cole française de Rome,41) Rome, 1,979. Serge Lancel Byrsa II. Mis.sion archéologique françøise à Carthage. Translated by Raþþorts préliminaires sur les fouilles 1977-1978: niueaux - et uestiges puniques, Antonia Neuill sous la direction de Serge Lancel. (Collection de l'É,cole française de Rome, 4L) Rome, 1.987. lntroduction à lø cennaissance de Carthage: la colline de Byrsa à I'époque-Civilisati,ons, punique. Paris:.Édition Recherches sur les 1.983. This booþ is dedicated to the mernory of those uolunteer Copyright @ Librairie Arthème Fayard,, 1992 archaeologists - especially Louis Carton, François Icard and Charles Saumagne who, in the half of tbis century, English translation @ Basil Blackwell Ltd, l99S - first laboured with sincerity, generosity and passion for greater First published as Carthage by Librairie Arthème Fayard, 1992 knowledge dnd protection of Punic Carthage. English edition first published 1995 Blackwell Publishers 108 Cowley Road Oxfo¡d OX4 UF UK 238 Main Srreet Cambridge, Massachusetts 02 142 USA e purposes d, stored in ectronic, permission of the publisher. Except in theïnired States of America, this book is sold subiect to the condition that it shall nor, by way of trade or orherwise, be lent, resold, hired out' or otherwise ci¡culated without the publisher's prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than thar in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser. British Library Cataloguittg in Publication Data A CIP catalogue record for this book is available f¡om the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Pub lication D ata A CIP catalogue entry has been requested. rsBN 1 557 86468 3 Typese¡ in 101/z on 121/z pt Sabon by Pure Tech Corporation Lrd, Pondicherr¡ India Printed,in Great Britain by TJ Press Ltd, Padstow, Cornwall This book is printed on acid-free paper The Means of Pouter \11 them to critical scrutiny, for they may be suspected of not always having been well informed or of having been mistaken about thóir 4 sources. It ìr/ill be seen that not the least of their difficulties stemmed from the fact that of necessity they used words in their own language (Greek or Latin) to speak of institutions or political The Means of Power: concepts which for the most part were deeply foreign to them. From Thalassocracy to State A precious note on the 'constitution' of Carthage, included in a chapter of to the good opinion ed through Diodorus of Sicily a as well as in Polybius, Livy and Appian. The öne can build with these membra disiecta is necessarily fragmentary. The reducing effect of passing through classical texts seems specially to apply to the names of Carthaginian protagonists in this history: from a wealth of Punic names but complicated and long ago - One of our best experts in Semitic studies warned us not so barbarian for a Greek or Latin tongue - on{ that it is impossible to retrace Carthage's internal history (Sznycer, 7978, p. 550). And even more recently an entinent specialist ex- pressed his doubts by giving the following title to his address at a large interpational congress: 'Is it possible to write a history of Carthage?' (G. C. Picard, L983, p.279). At all events, the warning FROM THE MAGONIDS TO OLIGARCHY: THE POLITICAL and the question have not deterred their authors from making HISTORY OF CARTHAGE their own attempt, in the wake of some illustrious predecessors. A history must be made, in spite of real difficulties. How, indeed, can From this historical wreckage, however, the first name to emerge, a history be written of a city whose archives have disappeared, after Dido, belongs not to a Mago but tq a Malchus. According to whose chronicles and annals have not come down to us, in Justin (XVIII, 7), this person, a general (in Latin: dux), was van- short, whose development and institutions are known to us only quished in Sardinia after achieving successes in Africa and Sicily. As through the distorting glas.s of what we are told by Greek and Latin punishment for his failure in Sardinia, Malchus was sentenced to writers?. exile, in company with the remnants of his army. Unable to obtain As we have seen in the foregoing pages, as regards the activities a pardon, the exiles one day landed in Africa and besieged anT attitudes of Carthage in the western Mediterranean basin, we Carthage. However, Malchus' son Carthalon, a priest of Melqart, can depend on the near-certainties of factual history. Nevertheless returning from Tyre, where he had been to deliver a tithe of the we realize, in the case of lbiza, that although archaeology may for booty gained in Sicil¡ was urged by his father to join the rebels. the most part confirm the data supplied by the ancient texts, it may Carthalon at first refused, so that he could go into the town to also invalidate them or at the very least cast doubt upon them. In discharge his religious duties, then, having received the people's the field of Carthage's internal histor¡ in parti permission, rejoined his father. But the latter, not forgiving his son's aspects, archaeology can offer us no help at alf first disobedience, accused him of being an insult to the wretched- ness of the exiles and had him crucified, dressed in his priestly bus one is reduced either to vestments, on a very tall cross erected opposite the town. Soon resigniñg oneself to knowing ä tely nothing about Carthage's afterwards Malchus seized Carthage, summoned the People's As- history or to agreeing to give consideration to the faint echoes sembly and, confining his vengeance to those who had advised found in the classical authors. Not, of course, without subjecting his exile, ordered the execution of ten senators. He himself was I 11.2 The Means of Pouter L73 SU was aspiring to 'royal power': adfectøt I, 18). He paid with his life for that ambition I, 19), As recounted by Justin alone - neither Herodotus nor Diodorus his successor"4ûas the 'general' Mago us the breathes a word of this strange story - the episode leaves one feeling first of those known as the Magonids, 'who by his talents enhanced uncomfortable. One thinks of Macbeth and his definition of life: 'a the power, territory and military glory of Carthage'. tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fur¡ signifying nothing'. In It happened that classical authors gave the title 'kings' (Greek order to give it some acceptable interpretation, a 'decoding' of the basileis, Latin reges), despite their collegial administration, to the account was recently proposed, throwing light on its mythical and supreme ma religious background. First, it was pointed out that the name Mal- chus - in any case fairly badly treated in Justin's manuscript tradi- tion - conceals a Latinized form of the root MLK (Phoenician milk), meaning'the king'. So Malchus is not a historical person but command. Malchus, like his successor Mago, is a war leader, and it 'the king', the king par excellence, and, the crucifixion of his son is as commanders of armies that we know Mago's descendants. One Carthalon, tortured while wearing his priestly attire, is the sacrifice of his sons or grandsons, Hamilcar, bears the title of 'king' (basi- of ìhe king or rather of the king's son. CertainlS the pyre on which leusl in Herodotus' text (vII, 165) which informs us that in 480 he Dido perished, on which the holocaust of thousands of young commanded the famous expedition to Sicily; but Herodotus adds victims was practised for centuries, and on which in the city's final (V11,166) that he had become king of the Carthaginians 'by virtue days Hasdrubal's wife cast herself, is missing here. But it is true that of his valour', thus by selection and not birth. The concept of one reads stories in the Old Testament telling of the sacrifice of 'dynasty', often used about the Magonids, must therefore be rela- royal sons".by hanging or crucifixion. The conclusion one is tempted tivized: 'The Carthaginian king is chosen for his personal qualities (G' to draw is that Trogus Pompaeus, abridged by Justin, did not use a from a family who pass on to him a hereditary charisma' C' 'historical' ¡vork for this account, but a treatise on Carthaginian Picard 1.997, p. 38S). In any case, Latin texts mentioning certain of human sacrifice (G. and C. Picard, 1.970, pp. 54-5). \Øishing to the MagonidJ sometimes describe them as imperator, dictator and turn the 'religious sociology' text he was using back into political dux (Justin, XIX, 1,3,7,8;2, 5; Pliny, NH, V 8 and VI, 200), all histor¡ he was perhaps inspired by a certain amount of knowledge terms which imply the granting of plenary powers, but t that he, like his contemporaries, possessed about the institutions of Carthage at the time of the Punic VØars. Hence the anachronisms: the mention of 'senators', the 'Peoplet Assembly', whose political role is not reliably vouchéd for until several centuries later. ' nuNIc'RoyALTy' This page of Justin, which exemplifies the difficulties of interpreta- tion raised by classical texts referring to the earliest episodes in Carthage's historS is equally revealing about the problems relating to data on the institutions. The attempt above to travel back through this text to the Semitic subsrrarum and religious back- ground rests largely on the recognition in the name Malchus of the Phoenician root of the word for king, MLK.