And since from this point the Punic Wars now follow, the matter itself requires that at least a few things be related about Carthage — which is found to have been founded by Elissa seventy-two years before the city of Rome — and about its disasters and domestic evils, as Pompeius Trogus and Justin set them out.
1 Et quoniam ex hoc iam Punica bella succedunt, res ipsa exigit, ut de Carthagine, quae ante urbem Romam duo et septuaginta annos ab Helissa condita inuenitur, eiusque cladibus ac domesticis malis, sicut Pompeius Trogus et Iustinus exprimunt, uel pauca referantur.
The Carthaginians always had among themselves a homegrown and internal evil, discord; and under its unhappy agitation they never passed any season either prosperous abroad or quiet at home.
2 Carthaginienses uernaculum atque intestinum semper inter se malum habuere discordiam, qua infeliciter exagitante nulla umquam tempora uel foris prospera uel domi quieta duxerunt.
But when, among their other evils, they were also suffering from a pestilence, they used murders as remedies: for they sacrificed human beings as victims, and brought to the altars children not yet grown, an age that would move the pity even of enemies.
3 sed cum inter cetera mala etiam pestilentia laborarent, homicidiis pro remediis usi sunt: quippe homines ut uictimas inmolabant aetatemque inpuberem, quae etiam hostium misericordiam prouocaret, aris admouebant.
Concerning this kind of sacred rite — or rather of sacrilege — I cannot find what most deserves discussion. For if certain demons dared to prescribe rites of this sort, so that the deaths of men should be atoned for by the slaughter of men, it ought to have been understood that they themselves were being hired as workmen and helpers of the pestilence, to kill those whom it had not seized:
4 De quo sacrorum immo sacrilegiorum genere quid potissime discutiendum sit non inuenio. si enim huiusmodi ritus aliqui daemones praecipere ausi sunt, ut mortibus hominum occisione hominum satisfieret, intellegendum fuit se operarios atque adiutores pestilentiae conduci, ut ipsi quos illa non corripuisset occiderent:
for it is the custom to offer victims that are sound and unblemished, so that these men were not allaying the diseases but anticipating them.
5 sanas enim atque incorruptas offerri hostias mos est, ita ut illi non sedarent morbos sed praeuenirent.
And so the Carthaginians, the gods having turned away from them because of rites of this kind — as Pompeius Trogus and Justin acknowledge; but, as is settled among us, because God was angered by their presumption and impiety —
6 Itaque Carthaginienses auersis dis propter istius modi sacra - sicut Pompeius Trogus et Iustinus fatentur, sicut autem apud nos constat, propter praesumptionem impietatemque ipsorum irato Deo -
after they had long fought unsuccessfully in Sicily, transferred the war to Sardinia and were again, still more unsuccessfully, defeated. For this reason they ordered their general Mazeus and the few soldiers who had survived to go into exile. The exiles sought pardon through envoys and, being rebuffed, encircled their fatherland with war and siege.1
7 cum in Sicilia diu infeliciter dimicassent, translato in Sardiniam bello iterum infelicius uicti sunt. propter quod ducem suum Mazeum et paucos qui superfuerant milites exulare iusserunt. exules ueniam per legatos petentes repulsi patriam bello et obsidione cinxerunt.
1Justin, Orosius’s source for this Carthaginian history, calls the general Malchus.
There and then Mazeus, the leader of the exiles, hung his son Carthalo, a priest of Hercules, on a cross before the eyes of his fatherland, just as he was, in his purple and his sacred fillets, because he had come out to meet him clad in purple, as though to insult him.
8 ibi tunc Mazeus dux exulum Carthalonem filium suum, sacerdotem Herculis, cur sibi uelut insultans purpuratus occurreret, in crucem sub oculis patriae ita ut erat cum purpuris infulisque suspendit.
A few days later he captured the city itself; and when, after killing very many of the senators, he was ruling with bloodshed, he was killed. These things took place in the times of Cyrus, king of the Persians.
9 post paucos dies urbem ipsam cepit; qui cum, interfectis plurimis senatorum, cruente dominaretur, occisus est. haec temporibus Cyri Persarum regis gesta sunt.
After this Himilco, king of the Carthaginians, while he was waging war in Sicily, suddenly lost his army to a horrible plague.
10 Post haec uero Himelcho rex Carthaginiensium cum in Sicilia bellum gereret, repente horribili peste exercitum amisit.
Nor was there any delay: as the people fell in droves from the disease, each was quickly seized, soon dead, and no longer even buried. When the news of this calamity had filled Carthage, stunned with sudden grief, the city was thrown into turmoil no differently than if it had been captured.
11 nec mora: morbis, populo cateruatim cadente, cito quisque correptus, mox mortuus, iam nec sepeliebatur: cuius mali nuntius cum attonitam repentino luctu Carthaginem repleuisset, non secus ac si capta esset turbata ciuitas fuit.
Everything resounded with wailing; doors were shut everywhere; all public and private business was abandoned; all ran down to the harbour, and as the few who had survived the disaster came off the ships, they questioned them about their own kin.
12 omnia ululatibus personabant, clausae ubique ianuae, cuncta publica priuataque officia damnata, uniuersi ad portum decurrunt egredientesque de nauibus paucos, qui cladi superfuerant, de suis percontantur.
After the wretched people learned of the destruction of their kin, as those men stayed silent or groaned, then along the whole shore were heard the cries of mourners beating their breasts, then the wailing of unhappy mothers and their tearful laments.
13 postquam de clade suorum, tacentibus illis uel gementibus, miseri intellegunt, tunc toto litore plangentium voces, tunc infelicium matrum ululatus et flebiles querellae audiebantur.
Amid all this the commander himself came forth from his ship, ungirt, in a soiled and slavish tunic; at the sight of him the mourning crowds joined together; and he too, stretching his hands to heaven, accused and bewailed now his own misfortune, now the public one.
14 inter haec procedit et ipse de naui sua imperator sordida seruilique tunica discinctus; ad cuius conspectum plangentia iunguntur agmina; ipse quoque manus ad caelum tendens nunc suam nunc publicam infelicitatem accusat et deflet;
At last, crying aloud through the city, he finally entered his house, dismissed with a last address all who had followed him weeping, and then, with the doors barred and even his sons shut out, he ended his grief and his life with the sword. These things took place in the times of Darius.2
15 ad postremum uociferans per urbem, tandem ingressus domum, cunctos, qui lacrimantes prosequebantur, ultimo dimisit adloquio ac deinde obseratis ianuis exclusisque etiam filiis gladio dolorem uitamque finiuit. haec Darii temporibus gesta sunt.
2The plague destroyed Himilco’s army before Syracuse in 396 BC, in the reign of the Persian king Artaxerxes II, not of any Darius. Himilco was a general, though Orosius calls him king (4.6.10).
After this Hanno, a certain Carthaginian who surpassed the strength of the commonwealth with his private wealth, drank in the desire of seizing domination. For this purpose he thought it a useful plan, under pretence of the marriage of his only daughter, to kill with poison over the cups all the senators whose rank he judged would stand in the way of his undertakings.
16 Post haec Hanno, uir quidam Carthaginiensis priuatis opibus reipublicae uires superans, inuadendae dominationis hausit cupiditatem. cui rei consilium utile ratus est, ut simulatis unicae filiae nuptiis omnes senatores, quorum dignitatem obstaturam inceptis suis arbitrabatur, inter pocula ueneno necaret.
The affair was betrayed by the servants and averted without vengeance, lest, in the case of a powerful man, the thing’s being known should cause more trouble than its having been plotted. Foiled in this plan, Hanno prepared to attempt the crime by another contrivance: he stirred up the slaves, with whom he might suddenly overwhelm the unsuspecting city.
17 quae res per ministros prodita sine ultione uitata est, ne in uiro potenti plus negotii faceret res cognita quam cogitata. hoc consilio elusus Hanno alio machinamento facinus adgredi parat: seruitia concitat, quibus repente incautam urbem opprimeret.
But when, before the day appointed for the slaughter, he understood that he had been betrayed and forestalled, he seized a certain fortress with twenty thousand armed slaves.
18 sed cum ante statutam caedibus diem proditum se praeuentumque intellexisset, castellum quoddam cum uiginti milibus seruorum armatis occupauit.
There, while he was stirring up the Africans and the king of the Moors, he was captured; and he was first beaten with rods, then, with his eyes gouged out and his hands and legs broken, as though punishment were being exacted from each limb in turn, he was put to death in the sight of the people.
19 ibi dum Afros regemque Maurorum concitat, captus est ac primo uirgis caesus, deinde effossis oculis et manibus cruribusque fractis, uelut a singulis membris poena exigeretur, in conspectu populi necatus est.
His body, torn by the scourges, was fixed to a cross; his sons and all his kinsmen were handed over to execution, lest anyone of the same family should ever think either to imitate or to avenge him. These things took place in the times of Philip.
20 corpus uerberibus lacerum cruci suffixum, filii cognatique omnes supplicio traditi, ne quis eum eiusdem familiae umquam aut imitari aut ulcisci meditaretur. haec temporibus Philippi gesta sunt.
After this, when the Carthaginians learned that the city of Tyre, the source of their origin, had been captured and overthrown by Alexander the Great, fearing that he would cross into Africa, they sent a certain Hamilcar, surnamed Rhodanus, a man outstanding in eloquence and shrewdness, to search out Alexander’s doings.
21 Post haec Carthaginienses cum Tyrum urbem, auctorem originis suae, ab Alexandro Magno captam euersamque didicissent, timentes transitum eius in Africam futurum, Hamilcarem quendam cognomento Rhodanum, uirum facundia sollertiaque praecipuum, ad perscrutandos Alexandri actus direxerunt.
He was received through Parmenion as though he were a deserter, and was then admitted into the king’s service; and he reported everything to his fellow citizens on tablets which he wrote and afterwards overlaid with wax. When he returned to Carthage after Alexander’s death, they put him to death, as though he had sold the city to the king, not merely with an ungrateful spirit but with cruel envy.
22 qui per Parmenionem quasi transfuga exceptus, dehinc in militiam regis admissus omnia ciuibus suis per tabellas scriptas et post cera superlitas enuntiabat. hunc mortuo Alexandro Carthaginem reuersum, quasi urbem regi uenditasset, non ingrato tantum animo uerum etiam crudeli inuidia necauerunt.
Then, when they were waging constant wars, never sufficiently successful, against the Sicilians, and had encircled with a siege Syracuse, then the most flourishing city of Sicily, they were outwitted by the remarkable ingenuity of Agathocles, king of Sicily, and brought to the very extremes of despair.
23 deinde cum adsidua nec umquam satis prospera aduersus Siculos bella gererent et Syracusas urbem Siciliae tunc florentissimam obsidione cinxissent, per Agathoclen Siciliae regem miro circumuenti ingenio usque ad extrema desperationis adducti sunt.
For Agathocles, when he was besieged at Syracuse by the Carthaginians and saw that he was neither a match for them in war in the equipment of his forces nor able to endure a siege for want of sufficient pay, crossed into Africa with his army by a plan well foreseen and still better concealed. There he disclosed to his men what he was undertaking, and then taught them what needed to be done.
24 namque Agathocles cum apud Syracusas a Carthaginiensibus obsideretur ac se neque bello parem instructu copiarum neque obsidionis patientem stipendiorum sufficientia uideret, bene prouiso ac melius dissimulato consilio in Africam cum exercitu transiit. ibi suis quid moliatur aperit, deinde quid facto opus sit docet.
At once, with one mind, they first burned the ships in which they had come, so that there should be no hope of retreat; then, as he was laying low everything towards which he turned and burning country houses and fortresses, he met a certain Hanno with thirty thousand Carthaginians. He killed him along with two thousand of his men, while he himself lost only two in that battle.
25 ilico unanimiter naues primum in quibus uenere succendunt, ne qua spes refugiendi foret; dein cum omnia in quae direxisset prosterneret, uillas castellaque incenderet, Hannonem quendam cum triginta milibus Poenorum obuiam habuit. quem cum duobus milibus suorum interfecit; ipse autem duos tantum in eo bello perdidit.
Through this battle, the spirits of the Africans being incredibly broken and those of his own men immeasurably increased, he stormed cities and fortresses, drove off enormous plunder, and slaughtered many thousands of the enemy.
26 qua pugna et Afrorum animis incredibiliter fractis et suorum in inmensum auctis urbes castellaque expugnat, praedas ingentes agit, hostium multa milia trucidat.
Then he pitched camp at the fifth milestone from Carthage, so that they might watch from the walls of the city itself the loss of their most opulent possessions, the devastation of their fields, and the burning of their country houses.
27 castra deinde ad quintum lapidem a Carthagine statuit, ut damna rerum opulentissimarum uastationemque agrorum et incendia uillarum de muris ipsius urbis specularentur.
To the present evils a sadder report was added. For it was announced that in Sicily too the army of the Africans had been destroyed together with its commander — an army which Andro, the brother of Agathocles, had in fact crushed while it was off its guard and almost idle.3
28 adicitur praesentibus malis tristior fama. nam et apud Siciliam deletus cum imperatore Afrorum exercitus nuntiatur, quem reuera incautum ac paene otiosum Andro Agathoclis frater oppresserat.
3Agathocles’ brother was Antander; Orosius writes Andro.
When this rumour had spread through all Africa, not only the tributary cities but even the allied kings began to fall away from them. Among these, Ophellas too, king of Cyrene, made a pact with Agathocles for partnership in the war, since he ardently coveted the kingdom of Africa.
29 hoc per totam Africam rumore disperso non tributariae tantum urbes ab his, uerum etiam socii reges deficiebant. inter quos rex quoque Cyrenarum Afellas pactus est cum Agathocle communionem belli, dum regnum Africae ardenter adfectat.
But after they had joined their armies and camps into one, he was ensnared by Agathocles with flatteries and treachery, and killed.
30 sed postquam in unum exercitus et castra iunxerunt, per Agathoclen blandimentis et insidiis circumuentus occisus est.
The Carthaginians, having gathered forces from every side, blazed up into war. Agathocles, having with him the forces of Ophellas, engaged them, and overcame them in a severe battle, with great bloodshed in both armies.
31 Carthaginienses contractis undique copiis in bellum exarsere. quibus Agathocles habens secum Afellae copias congreditur, eosque magno utriusque exercitus sanguine et graui proelio superat.
By the crisis of this contest such despair was brought upon the Carthaginians that, had not a mutiny arisen in the army of Agathocles, Hamilcar, the general of the Carthaginians, would have deserted to him with his army. For this offence he was fastened to a gibbet in the middle of the forum by order of the Carthaginians, and furnished a cruel spectacle to his countrymen.
32 hoc certaminis discrimine tanta desperatio inlata Poenis est, ut, nisi in exercitu Agathoclis orta seditio fuisset, transfugiturus ad eum Hamilcar dux Poenorum cum exercitu fuerit. ob quam noxam in medio foro iussu Carthaginiensium patibulo suffixus crudele spectaculum suis praebuit.
Then, when after the death of Agathocles the Carthaginians were ravaging Sicily with a fleet they had equipped, they were often defeated in battles by land and sea by Pyrrhus, king of Epirus, who had been summoned from Italy; and finally they turned to the wars with Rome.
33 deinde cum post mortem Agathoclis Carthaginienses Siciliam instructa classe uastarent, a Pyrrho rege Epiri ab Italia arcessito terrestri naualique certamine saepe superati, nouissime ad Romana bella conuersi sunt.
Alas! Do those who complain about recent things read these things about the ancients? Indeed they read them, and construe them not with fairness but in a spirit of rivalry.
34 Pro dolor, leguntne ista de ueteribus, qui de recentibus conqueruntur? immo legunt et ea non aequitate sed aemulatione coniciunt.
For they are pricked by that greatest and unspeakable goad, which they themselves do not discern, not on account of bad times but on account of the Christian times; and it is the discharge of an envious sore, that whatever is done under what they detest should seem more dreadful:
35 maximo enim illo et ineffabili quem nec ipsi discernunt stimulo conpunguntur non propter tempora mala sed propter tempora Christiana, et deriuatio est inuidi ulceris, ut, quidquid sub exsecrabili agitur, atrocius esse uideatur:
just as among ourselves too it commonly seems to the eyes of enemies that those whom they detest do nothing, in word or deed, that is not crooked, nothing that is not underhand, nothing that is not aimed at wounding them — and this, nonetheless, in all sincerity; for envy so twists the heart it has captured that it does not see what is straight by nature.
36 sicut etiam inter nos saepe inimicorum oculis uideri solet, eos, quos exsecrantur, nihil non prauum, nihil non subsiciuum, nihil non in uulnus suum dicto factoue agere, et hoc tamen plane simpliciter, in tantum enim captum cor obliquat inuidia, ut rectum natura non uideat.
Of this number are these men, but much more wretched, since they are enemies of God and therefore enemies of the truth — men of whom we say these things weeping, and whom we reprove in compassion, if they will bear it, so that we may heal them —
37 de quorum numero sunt isti, sed multo miseriores quia inimici Dei ac perinde inimici ueritatis - de quibus flentes haec dicimus et quos misericorditer, si patiantur, arguimus, ut sanemus, -
who see these things with a diseased eye, and therefore what they see appears double to them; and, confounded by the darkness of their wickedness, they fall into this: that by seeing less they see more, while yet they cannot see what is as it is;
38 qui uitioso oculo haec uident atque ideo duplicia illis uidentur quae uident et confusi caligine nequitiae in id cadunt, ut minus uidendo plus uideant, cum tamen id quod est ita ut est uidere non possint;
who judge the scourges of a father heavier than the burnings of an enemy; who call God, when he coaxes, admonishes and redeems, harsher than the devil when he persecutes, lords it over them and slaughters them;
39 qui grauiora arbitrantur flagella patris, quam hostis incendia; qui acerbiorem uocant blandientem admonentem et redimentem Deum quam persequentem dominantem trucidantemque diabolum;
although, if they understood that it came from a father, they would rejoice in the chastisement; and if the fruit of the instruction were foreseen, the discipline would be bearable; and because of the hope which has now been given to the nations, but had not existed before, they would reckon their sufferings lighter, even if they suffered heavier ones.
40 quamquam, si de patre intellegerent, de castigatione gauderent et, si praeuideretur fructus eruditionis, esset disciplina tolerabilis ac propter spem, quae nunc gentibus data est, antea uero non fuerat, leuiora ducerent, etsi grauiora paterentur.
And yet they can learn contempt of miseries even from their own people, among whom the greatest evils were esteemed the greatest goods, if only they might attain a renowned and illustrious glory of fame:
41 quamquam contemptus miseriarum possunt etiam a suis discere, apud quos summa mala pro summis bonis aestimata sunt, tantum ut gloriam famae celebrem atque inlustrem consequerentur:
from whom we may gather how much we, to whom a blessed eternity is promised, ought to endure for the sake of life, when they were able to endure so much for the sake of fame.
42 per quos colligi datur, quanta nobis, quibus aeternitas beata promittitur, sint toleranda pro uita, cum illi tanta potuerint tolerare pro fama.