But these were not the only blemishes and faults of the Carthaginians.(564) They had something austere and savage in their disposition and genius, a haughty and imperious air, a sort of ferocity, which, in the first transports of passion, was deaf to both reason and remonstrances, and plunged brutally into the utmost excesses of violence. The people, cowardly and grovelling under apprehensions, were proud and cruel in their transports; at the same time that they trembled under their magistrates, they were dreaded in their turn by their miserable vassals. In this we see the difference which education makes between one nation and another. The Athenians, whose city was always considered as the centre of learning, were naturally jealous of their authority, and difficult to govern; but still, a fund of good nature and humanity made them compassionate the misfortunes of others, and be indulgent to the errors of their leaders. Cleon one day desired the assembly, in which he presided, to break up, because, as he told them, he had a sacrifice to offer, and friends to entertain. The people only laughed at the request, and immediately separated. Such a liberty, says Plutarch, at Carthage, would have cost a man his life. Livy makes a like reflection with regard to Terentius Varro.(565) That general on his return to Rome after the battle of Cannæ, which had been lost by his ill conduct, was met by persons of all orders of the state, at some distance from Rome; and thanked by them, for his not having despaired of the commonwealth; who, says the historian, had he been a general of the Carthaginians, must have expected the most severe punishment: _Cui, si Carthaginensium ductor fuisset, nihil recusandum supplicii foret._ Indeed, a court was established at Carthage, where the generals were obliged to give an account of their conduct; and they all were made responsible for the events of the war. Ill success was punished there as a crime against the state; and whenever a general lost a battle, he was almost sure, at his return, of ending his life upon a gibbet. Such was the furious, cruel, and barbarous disposition of the Carthaginians, who were always ready to shed the blood of their citizens as well as of foreigners. The unheard-of tortures which they made Regulus suffer, are a manifest proof of this assertion; and their history will furnish us with such instances of it, as are not to be read without horror. Part The Second. The History of the Carthaginians. The interval of time between the foundation of Carthage and its ruin, included seven hundred years, and may be divided into two parts. The first, which is much the longest and the least known, (as is ordinary with the beginnings of all states,) extends to the first Punic war, and takes up five hundred and eighty-two years. The second, which ends at the destruction of Carthage, contains but a hundred and eighteen years.