[184] Bœotum in crasso jurares aere natum. Hor. epis. 1. lib. 2. lin. 244. [185] Plut. in Vit. Pelopid. p. 287. [186] Diodor. Sicul. lib. 15. p. 470. [187] Plut. in Vit. Pelop. p. 284. et sequent. [188] Plut. in Vit. Pelop. p. 285. [189] Id. p. 286, 287. [190] Διὸ καὶ συναναγκαθεὶς ὀλίγοις πολιτικοῖς, &c. Diodor. Sicul. lib. 15. p. 477. Edit. Henr. Stephani. [191] Polyb. Comparat. Epaminond. et Hannib. lib. 9. p. 762. [192] Id. lib. 6. p. 678....79. [193] Justin. lib. 6. p. 74. [194] Plutarch, Justin, Corn. Nepos. [195] When Aristides had acquired the surname of Just he became the object of the Athenian envy, and the Ostracism was demanded against him. Whilst the people were preparing their shells, a country voter, who could neither read nor write, brought his shell to Aristides, and desired him to write the name of Aristides upon it. Aristides, not a little surprised at his request, asked him what injury that Aristides had done him. Me! none, replied the fellow, for I do not so much as know the man by sight, but it galls me to the soul to hear him every where called the Just.... Plut. in Vit. Aristid. p. 322, 323. [196] They kept the field and attacked Sparta, when the time of their office was near expired, by which means they were in office more than the regular time. CHAPTER IV. OF CARTHAGE. Of all the free states whose memory is preserved to us in history, Carthage bears the nearest resemblance to Britain, both in her commerce, opulence, sovereignty of the sea, and her method of carrying on her land wars by foreign mercenaries. If to these we add the vicinity of the Carthaginians to the Romans, the most formidable and most rapacious people at that time in Europe, and the specifick difference, as I may term it, of the respective military force of each nation, the situation of Carthage with respect to Rome, seems greatly analogous to that of Britain with respect to France, at least for this last century. Consequently, the dreadful fate of that republick, once the most flourishing state in the universe, and the most formidable rival Rome ever had to cope with, must merit our highest attention at this juncture: both as the greatness of her power arose from, and was supported by commerce, and as she owed her ruin more to her own intestine divisions, than to the arms of the Romans. We know very little of this opulent and powerful people until the time of the first Punick war. For as not one of their own historians has reached our times, we have no accounts of them but what are transmitted to us by their enemies. Such writers consequently deserve little credit, as well from their ignorance of the Carthaginian constitution, as their inveterate prejudice against that great people. Hence it is that we know so little of their laws, and have but an imperfect idea of their constitutional form of government.