THE HISTORY OF OLD ROME

III. From the Union of Italy to the Subjugation of Carthage and the Greek States

From: The History of Rome, by Theodor Mommsen
Translated with the sanction of the author by William Purdie Dickson

Chapter IV - Hamilcar and Hannibal

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Page 9

Even the choice of a successor was to be vested not in the authorities of the capital, but in the army, that is, in the Carthaginians serving in the array as gerusiasts or officers, who were named in treaties also along with the general; of course the right of confirmation was reserved to the popular assembly at home. Whether this may or may not have been a usurpation, it clearly indicates that the war party regarded and treated the army as its special domain.

The commission which Hamilcar thus received sounded but little liable to exception. Wars with the Numidian tribes on the borders never ceased; only a short time previously the "city of a hundred gates," Theveste (Tebessa), in the interior had been occupied by the Carthaginians.

The task of continuing this border warfare, which was allotted to the new commander-in-chief of Africa, was not in itself of such importance as to prevent the Carthaginian government, which was allowed to do as it liked in its own immediate sphere, from tacitly conniving at the decrees passed in reference to the matter by the popular assembly; and the Romans did not perhaps recognize its significance at all.

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