It was an ideal spot for a commercial centre. Almost too ideal.
It grew too fast and became too rich. When in the sixth century
before our era, Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon destroyed
Tyre, Carthage broke off all further relations with the Mother
Country and became an independent state--the great western
advance-post of the Semitic races.
Unfortunately the city had inherited many of the traits
which for a thousand years had been characteristic of the
Phoenicians. It was a vast business-house, protected by a
strong navy, indifferent to most of the finer aspects of life.
The city and the surrounding country and the distant colonies
were all ruled by a small but exceedingly powerful group of
rich men, The Greek word for rich is ``ploutos'' and the Greeks
called such a government by ``rich men'' a ``Plutocracy.'' Carthage
was a plutocracy and the real power of the state lay in
the hands of a dozen big ship-owners and mine-owners and
merchants who met in the back room of an office and regarded
their common Fatherland as a business enterprise which ought
to yield them a decent profit. They were however wide awake
and full of energy and worked very hard.
As the years went by the influence of Carthage upon her
neighbours increased until the greater part of the African
coast, Spain and certain regions of France were Carthaginian
possessions, and paid tribute, taxes and dividends to the mighty
city on the African Sea.
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