Plutarch, that the great end which Lycurgus proposed by his laws, was not to increase the wealth or power of his countrymen, but to preserve the purity of their manners; as his military regulations, according to the same authors, were not calculated for making conquests and serving the purposes of ambition, but for the defence and security of his republick. I observe too in proof of my opinion, that the Spartans gradually lost their virtue, and afterwards their liberty, only so far as they deviated from the institutions of their legislator.... But I return from the digression into which this subject unavoidably led me. In our researches back into the remote times of antiquity, we must lay hold of whatever helps we are able to meet with. If Justin therefore is to be credited, Dido not only received considerable assistance from a colony of Tyrians which she found settled in Utica, but admitted great numbers of the natives who settled with her in the new city, and consequently became Carthaginians.[330] I may add too in proof of this account, that unless the Carthaginians had long pursued this wise policy, it is scarce possible by the course of nature, that the Tyrians alone could have multiplied by propagation to so prodigious a degree, as to be able to furnish men sufficient to raise and carry on that extensive commerce, and plant those numerous colonies which we meet with in the earlier ages of their history. As to their constitution, Rome and Carthage were both republicks, both free, and their form of government nearly similar, as far as we can collect from history. Two supreme magistrates,[331] annually elected, the senate, and the people, formed the body politick in each republick. The annual elections of their chief magistrates were a permanent source of division and faction alike in both; a defect which Lycurgus guarded against in the Spartan government, where the chief magistracy was perpetual and hereditary. The senate in both nations was composed out of the most respectable and greatest men in each republick. At Rome the consuls chose the senators with the approbation of the people, but at last the censors arrogated that power to themselves. At Carthage, as Aristotle informs us, the senators were elected; but as he has no where told us who were the electors, it is most probable, that the right of election was the inherent privilege of the people, since he censures that republick as too much leaning towards democracy. At Rome, in the virtuous times of that republick, birth and merit alone entitled the possessor to a place in the senate, as well as the chief offices in the state. At Carthage, though birth and merit seem to have been qualifications indispensably necessary, yet even these could not succeed,[332] unless the candidate was at the same time master of such a fortune as would enable him to support his dignity with lustre.[333] This Aristotle censures as a defect. For he looks upon all that merit,