to perceive an advantage in having their power balanced by an active rival, whose ambition would never permit the vigilance of their government to sleep, nor their citizens to sink into a supine security, the parent of luxury and weakness. But the elder Cato, with a republican severity which made little allowance for the rights of other states, represented the destruction of Carthage as essential to the permanence and greatness of the Roman power and his inveterate hatred at length proved triumphant. War was accordingly declared, on grounds which had in them more of personal enmity than of public wisdom; and the last struggle with the people of Dido, the noblest colony of Tyre, was forthwith begun. The success which attended the soldiers of Italy on this occasion, indicated not so much their own advancement in the military art, as the failure of energy and national strength on the side of their opponents. The Carthaginians were divided by factions and paralyzed by domestic broils; their allies became faithless, their fleets were not properly equipped, and their land-forces reposed no confidence in their leaders: nor was it until they discovered that the most consummate perfidy was practised against them, that they would consent to act with unanimity for the preservation of their honour, property, and life. The consuls Marcius and Manilius, who appeared under their walls, were vigorously repulsed; and the genius of Hannibal seemed to revive in the besieged city. The women are described as having cut off their hair and twisted it into ropes for the military engines-a degree of zeal which was rewarded with the postponement of their overthrow for several months. Emilianus Scipio, the second Africanus, served at that time in the Roman army as a tribune; and as Masinissa was still alive, he is feigned by Cicero to have invited the youthful hero to his court, when that scene is supposed to have occurred which is so beautifully unfolded by the great orator in his " Scipio's Dream.” At a somewhat later period, this rising soldier, appointed to the consulship through the favour of the people, received orders to continue the siege of Carthage. He began by surprising the lower town, usually called Magara, and then attempted to block up the outer port by means of a mole; but the garrison opened another entrance to the harbour, and appeared at sea, to the great amazement of the enemy. It is asserted that, had not confusion pervaded the councils of D the city, they might on this occasion have burnt the Roman fleet, and reduced the assailants to the greatest distress. Asdrubal, who conducted the defence, at the head of 30,000 mercenaries, was a man of a severe temper, and treated the citizens with unnecessary harshness. Submitting, however, to an authority which it would have been hazardous to oppose, they continued their efforts throughout the winter, and prepared for the more formidable attack that awaited them in the spring. The enemy, as it was apprehended, renewed his operations against the harbour, being aware that, as long as the Carthaginians could find access to the ocean, his utmost endeavours would be defeated. Having made himself master of the inner port, he pushed forward into the great square, and thence to the citadel, into which a large body of the troops had retreated. Resistance, though now unavailing, was continued seven days, when terms were solicited from the conqueror, who freely allowed all to depart except the deserters who had passed from his standard to that of the enemy. These last, amounting to 900, shut themselves up in the temple of Esculapius; and, choosing to perish by their own hands rather than submit to the punishment of traitors, they set fire to the building, and died amid the flames. Scipio is reported to have shed tears for the fate of the city which he himself had destroyed, and upon the ruin of which he knew that his glory as a warrior was to be founded. Looking upon a capital, once so flourishing, sacked and burnt by furious soldiers, he reflected on the revolutions of empires, and recited some verses from Homer in allusion to the future destinies of Rome, to which they were so easily adapted : "Yet come it will, the day decreed by fates: (How my heart trembles while my tongue relates!) Corinth was demolished in the same year as Carthage; *Iliad, lib. vi., v. 447. Εἰ μὲν γὰρ τόδε διδα κατα φρένα και κατα θυμὸν Και πριαμος, καὶ λαὸς ἐϋμελιω πριαμοιο and we are told that a youth of the former city repeated a similar passage from the Greek poet when he beheld his native town reduced to ashes-a fine tribute to the genius of the immortal bard, whose sentiments were thus ingrafted upon the serious thoughts of all contemplative spirits throughout the civilized world. It would appear that the greater number of the Carthaginians who survived the fall of the metropolis repaired to Tunis, situated at the distance of about twelve miles, and added at once to its population and its commerce. Some, indeed, are said to have withdrawn into Egypt, and even into the nearest of the Asiatic provinces; while others, incorporating with the mixed race of Liby-Phoenicians, fell back into the countries which acknowledged the sway of the Numidian princes. In this manner the whole of maritime Barbary, from Alexandria to Algiers, became subject to the Romans; for the Cy renaica, as belonging to the kingdom of the Ptolemies, had previously fallen into their hands. The territory of Masinissa was relinquished to his sons, who seem to have exercised joint sovereignty, under the protection of their august allies until, upon the death of two of his brothers, the sceptre was assumed by Micipsa as his undivided right. In these circumstances, and as the senate abstained from every attempt to extend their conquests in Africa, peace continued many years uninterrupted under the proconsular government, to which the states of Carthage were now committed. The tranquillity of the province was first disturbed by the ambition of Jugurtha, a nephew of the Numidian king, being a natural son of Manastabal, one of the children of the celebrated Masinissa. Micipsa, whose accession has just been described, had two sons, Adherbal and Hiempsal, who being still very young when he felt himself approaching his end, he intrusted the care of their education and interests to their cousin, now arrived at maturer years. The youths, as they approached manhood, bore with impatience the ascendency to which their relative had attained, and did not take any care to conceal their contempt for his origin, or their neglect of his counsels. Yielding to the strong feeling of resentment which had been thus unwisely excited, Jugurtha had recourse to arms; and as he possessed military talents far superior to those of the legitimate princes, his success in the field of battle soon compelled them to make known their cause at Rome, and entreat the aid or interposition of the senate.* The administration of the two brothers appears to have experienced opposition from other quarters, before they came to blows with the son of Manastabal. A sheik or petty chief in Numidia, whose name was Jarbas, had risen in actual reDellion, and was not completely subdued until Pompey led against him a detachment of regular troops. Another pretender to the throne appeared in the person of Masintha, who could boast of a royal extraction, and, which was of much more value in his circumstances, the powerful patronage of Julius Cæsar. This claimant presented himself before the Roman senate, where he was met by Juba, the son of Hiempsal, in whose favour a decision was pronounced by the voice of the commonwealth. But Jugurtha, who was in arms against the same monarch, was better acquainted than Masintha with the means of influencing the judgment of that supreme council which now directed the affairs of Europe, Asia Minor, and a large portion of Africa. He had discovered, that neither the general in the camp nor the senator in the hall of justice was inaccessible to a bribe; and as he had an ample treasury, he never found himself destitute of friends, even among the stern advocates of republican purity. "O venal city!" he exclaimed, as he turned his back upon the towers of Romulus, "O city, ready for sale and destruction, shouldst thou meet a purchaser !"'+ Jugurtha, pursuing the wily system which he had thought proper to adopt, found a complete recompense in a victory gained over a consular army, whom he compelled to pass under the yoke within sight of the ruins of Carthage; thereby gratifying the revenge of his country, and inflicting upon his proud conquerors an indelible disgrace. The defeated general bound himself to evacuate Numidia, with his whole forces, within ten days.‡ *Sallusti Jugurtha, cap. xiii. + "Urbem venalem et mature perituram, si emptorem invenerit !"-Sallusti Jugurtha, cap. xxxv. The vanquished chief was Aulus Albinus, the brother of the consul, who had been left in the temporary command of the army. Sall. Jugurth., c. xxviii. "Quæ, quanquam gravia et flagitii plena erant; tamen quia mortis metu mutabant, secuti Regi libuerat, pax convenit." Rage and shame filled the breasts of the senators when they heard of this miserable catastrophe. Metellus, a brave soldier, who by his triumphs over this rebellious prince earned the distinction of Numidicus, was sent into Africa to recover the honour of Rome, and to secure the sovereignty for the descendants of Masinissa. The celebrated Marius, about two years afterward, routed him completely in a sanguinary engagement; and finally, through the treachery of Bocchus, the father-in-law of the usurper, obtained possession of his person, and condemned him to make part of the spectacle in his triumph. It is said that Jugurtha, amid the pomp of his victor's entry into the capital, lost his reason, or at least his presence of mind; that the lictors stripped him; took the jewels from his ears; and threw him into a dungeon, where he justified to the last moment of his life all that he had averred concerning the rapacity of the Romans.* After these events, the crown of Numidia was given to Juba, the son of Hiempsal; the enjoyment of which was cut short by the troubles which distracted Rome itself, and put a period to the republican government. There is, indeed, much apparent truth in the observation, that Carthage was no sooner levelled with the ground than an avenging deity seemed to rise from its ruins. The Roman manners became depraved; the commonwealth began to be distracted by civil wars; and these evils had their commencement upon the African shores. Scipio himself, the destroyer of that capital, died by the hands of his relations; the children of Masinissa, who contributed to the success of the invaders, slaughtered one another in the very scene of their triumphs; and the possessions of Syphax enabled Jugurtha to seduce and vanquish the countrymen of Regulus. Again, the victory obtained over this politic usurper occasioned that jealousy between Marius and Sylla which soon plunged all Rome into mourning. Vanquished by his rival, the former of these *Plutarch, in his Life of Marius, says that Jugurtha, as he walked in the procession, ran distracted. Eutropius (lib. iv., c. 28) remarks, that he was led before the chariot of Marius, bound with chains, and accompanied by his two sons. currum," &c. "Nôsse cupis vulgo non cognita fata Jugurthæ "Ante |