The judicious Montesquieu observes, “that the Carthaginians grew rich much sooner than the Romans, and consequently sunk much sooner into corruption.” He adds too; “that whilst merit alone entitled the possessor to the great employments at Rome, every thing which the publick at Carthage had the power of bestowing, was venal.”... The former part of this assertion is too general to be admitted without proper restrictions; the latter is a plain transcript from Polybius. The Carthaginians must have been rich several ages before the Romans. For both Herodotus and Thucydides (who was but thirteen years younger) take notice of them as a very formidable maritime power, a circumstance which could only arise from their naval genius and extensive commerce. Yet we find no instance of their being corrupt, until the conclusion of the second Punick war, when Hannibal reformed those shameful abuses, which had crept into the management of the publick revenue, and restrained that power which the committee of five had usurped over the lives and fortunes of their fellow-citizens. As for the quotation out of Polybius, whose country was at that time a province to the Romans, with whom he resided only as a state prisoner; I esteem it as no more than a compliment to the Romans’ vanity at the expense of the Carthaginians, whose very name was odious to that people. Or very probably he might bring that charge against the Carthaginians, as a hint to show the consequences of the same species of corruption, which, even in his time, had found entrance amongst the Romans.