Roman generals in the time of Jugurtha. Hence we may, I think, assign the true reason, why the greatest families in Carthage (as we are informed by historians) thought it no way derogatory to their honour to engage in commerce. For as this is most probably to be understood of the younger sons of their nobility, the true motive seems to arise, not from avarice, as their enemies object, but from a view of raising such a fortune, as might qualify them for admission into the senate, or any of the great employments. Hence too it is evident, that a regulation which might be highly useful and salutary in an opulent commercial republick, would be greatly injurious to such military republicks as Rome and Sparta, by corrupting their manners. We need no other proof than the fate of those two republicks, who both owed their ruin to the introduction of that wealth, which was unknown to their virtuous ancestors. The Carthaginian senate seems to have been much more numerous than the Roman. For at Carthage there was a select standing committee established, of one hundred and four of the most respectable members, to keep a watchful eye over the great families, and repress any attempts which their ambition might make to subvert the constitution.[334] To this committee all their commanding officers by sea and land, without exception, were obliged to give a strict account of their conduct at the end of every campaign. We may therefore properly term it the Carthaginian court-martial. Out of this venerable body another select committee was formed of five members only, who were most conspicuous for their probity, ability, and experience. These served without fee or salary; as glory, and the love of their country, were esteemed motives sufficient to engage men of their superior rank and character, to serve the publick with zeal and fidelity.[335] For which reason they were not chosen by lot, but elected by merit. Their power was very extensive. Their office was for life, and they filled up any vacancy in their own body, out of the one hundred and four, and all vacancies in that grand committee, out of the rest of the senate, by their own authority and at their own discretion.[336] They were the supreme judges besides in all causes whatsoever without appeal. The institution of this grand committee, in my opinion, exceeded every thing in the Roman policy. For it preserved their state from all those violent concussions, which so frequently shook, and at last totally subverted the Roman republick.[337] But the power of the committee of five was exorbitant, and dangerous to the lives and fortunes of their fellow-citizens. The proof is from fact. For at the conclusion of the second Punick war, they had made so arbitrary an use of their power, and were grown so odious to the people, that the great Hannibal regulated that amongst other abuses, and procured a law, which made that office annual and elective, with a clause forbidding any future alteration.