As to religion, both nations were equally superstitious. If many of the religious ceremonies amongst the Romans were absurd and childish, it must be owned that the Carthaginian worship, like that of their ancestors the Canaanites, from whom they received it, was truly diabolical.[339] But it is by no means candid to judge of the natural bent and temper of a people, from effects produced in their minds by superstition. For the same superstition which enjoins such horrid rites, will naturally place the chief efficacy of the sacrifice in the zeal and sincerity of the offerer. Consequently the highest degree of merit in such oblations, will consist in stifling every human affection, and over-ruling nature. Thus in the Carthaginian idolatry, the softer sex, as more susceptible of tenderness for their offspring, were required to attend in person. They were even compelled,[340] upon this dreadful occasion, to affect all the joy and cheerfulness of festivity, because, as Plutarch informs us, if a sigh or a tear escaped them, the merit of the offering would be absolutely lost, and themselves liable to a fine. That the Carthaginians were no more void of parental affection than other nations, is evident from that pious fraud they had so long practised,[341] of secretly buying up poor children, whom they substituted as victims to their bloody deity instead of their own. But after a great defeat which they received from Agathocles, they attributed their ill fortune to the resentment of their god for their repeated sacrilege. They sacrificed two hundred children of the first families in Carthage,[342] and three hundred other persons offered themselves as voluntary victims to atone for a crime, to which the highest degree of guilt was affixed by their impious religion. The Roman superstition must in general be acquitted of the charge of inhumanity. The only tendency towards it, was in the custom of inhuming alive such of the vestal virgins, as had violated their vow of chastity.[343] But the bloody and frequent shows of the gladiators, which were the delight of the Romans, fix an indelible blot on the character of a brave people.[344] Historians in general brand the Carthaginians with cruelty and inhumanity. If the charge is just, it must be chiefly attributed to that execrable custom of human sacrifices, which always prevailed amongst that people. Nor do I in the least doubt, but that savage ferocity, which the Romans were so guilty of in war, was in a great measure owing to those barbarous spectacles, where wounds, and murder in cold blood, made the most agreeable part of the entertainment.