Part 26

We have now reviewed the main points of the system, which was the ultimate result of the principles of Descartes. The importance of this first movement of modern philosophy lies in its assertion and exhibition of the unity of the intelligible world with itself and with the mind of man. In this point of view, it was the philosophical counterpart of Protestantism; but, like Protestantism in its earliest phase, it passed rapidly from the doctrine that God is, without priest or authority, present to man's spirit, to the doctrine that man's spirit is as nothing before God. The object was too powerful for the subject, who effaced himself before God that he might be strong towards men. But in this natural movement of feeling and thought it was forgotten that God who effaced the world and the finite spirit by his presence could not be a living God. Spinoza gives the ultimate expression to this tendency, and at the same time marks its limit, when he says that whatever reality is in the finite is of the infinite. But he is unsuccessful in showing that, on the principles on which he starts, there can be any reality in the finite at all. Yet even if the finite be an illusion, still more if it be better than an illusion, it requires to be accounted for. Spinoza accounts for it neither as illusory nor as real. It was reserved for the following generation of philosophers to assert, in different ways, the reality of the finite, the value of experience and the futility of abstractions. Spinoza had declared that true knowledge consists in seeing things under the form of eternity, but it is impossible that things can be seen under the form of eternity unless they have been first seen under the form of time. The one-sided assertion of individuality and difference in the schools of Locke and Leibnitz was the natural complement of the one-sided assertion of universality and unity in the Cartesian school. But when the individualistic tendency of the 18th century had exhausted itself, and produced its own refutation in the works of Kant, it was inevitable that the minds of men should again turn to the great philosopher, who, with almost perfect insight working through imperfect logic, first formulated the idea of a unity presupposed in and transcending the difference of matter and mind, subject and object.

See the Histories of Philosophy, especially those by Hegel, Feuerbach, Erdmann and Fischer; F. Bouillier, _Histoire de la philosophie cartesienne_ (1854); Olle-Laprune, _Philosophie de Malebranche_; E. Saisset, _Precurseurs et disciples de Descartes_ (1862). The German treatises on Spinoza are too numerous to mention. Jacobi's _Letters on Spinoza_, which were the beginning of a true interpretation of his philosophy, are still worth reading. We may also mention C. Schaarschmidt, _Descartes und Spinoza_ (1850); C. Sigwart, _Spinozas neuentdeckter Tractat von Gott, dem Menschen, und dessen Gluckseligkeit_ (1866). Both these writers have published German translations of the _Tractatus de Deo. _See also Trendelenburg, _Historische Beitrage zur Philosophie_ (1867); R. Avenarius, _Uber die beiden ersten Phasen des spinozischen Pantheismus_ (1868); M. Joel, _Zur Genesis der Lehre Spinozas_ (1871); R. Willis, _Benedict de Spinoza: his Ethics, Life and Influence on Modern Religious Thought_ (1870); F. Pollock, _Spinoza, his Life and Philosophy_ (1880); J. Martineau, _Types of Ethical Theory_ (1885); J. Caird, _Spinoza_ (in Blackwood's Philosophical Series); H.H. Joachim, _A Study of the Ethics of Spinoza_ (1901); R. Adamson, _The Development of Modern Philosophy_ (1903); also articles DESCARTES, MALEBRANCHE, and SPINOZA. (E. C.)

FOOTNOTES:

[1] For biographical details see DESCARTES; MALEBRANCHE; SPINOZA.

[2] _Resp. ad secundas objectiones_, p. 74,--quoting from the Elzevir edition.

[3] _Resp. ad tertias object_, p. 94.

[4] _Meditatio tertia_, p. 21.

[5] _Resp. quartae_, p. 234.

[6] _Meditatio quarta_, p. 26.

[7] _Resp. ad sec. object._ p. 75.

[8] _Resp. ad sec. object._ pp. 72-73.

[9] _Resp. Sextae_, 160-163.

[10] _Principia_, i. 35.

[11] _Notae in Programma_, p. 184.

[12] _Epistolae_, i. 110.

[13] _Resp. Sextae_, pp. 165-166.

[14] _Epist_. i. 66, 67.

[15] _Princ._ i. 60.

[16] _Morale_, i. I, S 2.

[17] _Recherche_, iii. pt. ii. ch. vi.

[18] _Recherche_, ch. vii.

[19] _Recherche_, ch. i.

[20] _Morale_, i. 2, S 5.

[21] _Entretien_. i. S 5.

[22] _Recherche_, iii. pt. ii ch. vii., S 4.

[23] _Recherche_, ch. ix.

[24] _Recherche_, i. pt. i. ch. i.

[25] _Recherche_, i. pt. i. ch. iv.

[26] _Recherche_, iv. ch. i.

[27] _Entretien_, iv.

[28] _Recherche_, v. ch. iv.

[29] _Recherche_, iv. ch. i.

[30] _Morale_, pt. i. ch. i. S 9.

[31] _Recherche_, iv. ch. v.

[32] _Eth._ ii. schol. 7.

[33] _Eth._ i. schol. 29.

[34] _De Emend._ viii. S 38.

[35] _Eth._ ii. lemma, 7 schol.

[36] _Eth._ iv. 3.

[37] _Eth._ ii. 40, schol. 2.

[38] _De Emend._ vii. S 42.

[39] _Eth._ ii. schol. 10.

[40] _Epist._ 32.

[41] _Epist._ 27.

[42] _Eth._ ii. 7.

[43] _Epist._ 27.

[44] _Eth._ i. schol. 17.

[45] _Tractatus de Deo et homine._ ii. 19.

[46] _Epist._ 29, 70.

[47] _Eth._ i. schol. 17.

[48] _Eth._ iv. schol. 22.

[49] _Eth._ iii. 6, 7.

[50] _Eth._ iii. 9.

[51] _Eth._ iii. Def. Affect. 1.

[52] _Eth._ ii. 49.

[53] _Eth._ ii. 45.

[54] _Eth._ iv. 1.

[55] _Eth._ iv. schol. 45.

[56] _Eth._ iv. 67.

[57] _Epist._ 57.

[58] _Epist._ 21.

[59] _Eth._ v. 36.

CARTHAGE (Phoenician _Kart-hadshat_, "New City"; Gr. [Greek: Karchedon], Lat. _Carthago_ or _Carchedon_), one of the most famous cities of antiquity, on the north coast of Africa; it was founded about 822 B.C. by the Phoenicians, destroyed for the first time by the Romans in 146 B.C., rebuilt by the Romans, and finally destroyed by the Arabs in A.D. 698. It was situated in the heart of the Sinus Uticensis (mod. Gulf of Tunis), which is protected on the west by the promontory of Apollo (mod. Ras Ali el Mekki), and on the east by the promontory of Mercury or Cape Bon (mod. Ras Addar). Its position naturally formed a sort of bastion on the inner curve of the bay between the Lake of Tunis on the south and the marshy plain of Utica (Sukhara) on the north. Cape Gamart, the Arab village of Sidi-bu-Said and the small harbour of Goletta (La Goulette, Halk el Wad) form a triangle which represents the area of Carthage at its greatest, including its extramural suburbs. Of this area the highest point is Sidi-bu-Said, which stands on a lofty cliff about 490 ft. high. On Cape Gamart (Kamart) was the chief cemetery; the citadel, Byrsa, was on the hill on which to-day stand the convent of Les Peres Blancs (White Fathers) and the cathedral of St Louis. The harbours lay about three-fifths of a mile south of Byrsa, near the modern hospital of the Khram, at Cartagenna. The tongue of land, which runs from the harbours as far as Goletta, to the mouth of the Catadas which connects the Lake of Tunis with the sea, was known as _taenia_ (ribbon, band) or _ligula_ (diminutive of _lingua_, tongue). The isthmus connecting the peninsula of Carthage with the mainland was roughly estimated by Polybius as 25 stades (about 15,000 ft.); the peninsula itself, according to Strabo, had a circumference of 360 stades (41 m.). The distance between Gamart and Goletta is about 6 m.

From Byrsa, which is only 195 ft. above the sea, there is a fine view; thence it is possible to see how Carthage was able at once to dominate the sea and the gently undulating plains which stretch westward as far as Tunis and the line of the river Bagradas (mod. Mejerda). On the horizon, on the other side of the Gulf of Tunis, rise the chief heights of the mountain-chain which was the scene of so many fierce struggles between Carthage and Rome, between Rome and the Vandals:--the Bu-Kornain ("Two-Horned Mountain"), crowned by the ruins of the temple of Saturn Balcaranensis; Jebel Ressas, behind which lie the ruins of Neferis; Zaghwan, the highest point in Zeugitana; Hammam-Lif, Rades (Ghades, Gades, the ancient Maxula) on the coast, and 10 m. to the south-west the "white" Tunis ([Greek: Leukos Tunes] of Diodorus) and the fertile hills of Ariana. All round Byrsa, alike on the plain and on the slopes, are fields of barley, vineyards and patches of cactus, interrupted only by huge heaps of rubbish and excavation-mounds, the haunts of green lizards, and by houses and villages built of materials drawn for many a century from the ancient ruins.

The ancient harbours were distinguished as the military and the commercial. The remains of the latter are to be seen in a partially ruined artificial lagoon which originally, according to Beule, had an area of nearly 60 acres; there were, however, in addition a large quay for unloading freight along the shore, and huge basins or outer harbours protected by jetties, the remains of which are still visible at the water-level. The military harbour, known as Cothon, communicated with the commercial by means of a canal now partially ruined; it was circular in shape, surrounded by large docks 16-1/4 ft. wide, and capable of holding 220 vessels, though its area was only some 22 acres. In the centre was an islet from which the admiral could inspect the whole fleet.[1]

Among the other ruins which have been identified are the circus or hippodrome, traversed by the railway at the north of the village of Duar-es-Shat; the forum, between Cothon and Byrsa, where stood the Curia, the regular place of assembly of the senate, and near which were the moneychangers' shops, the tribunal, the temple of Apollo, and in the Byzantine period the baths of Theodora. Three main streets led from the forum to Byrsa.

The hill of St Louis, the ancient citadel of Byrsa, has a circuit of 4525 ft. It appears to have been surrounded at least at certain points by several lines of fortifications. It was, however, dismantled by P. Scipio Africanus the younger, in 146 B.C., and was only refortified by Theodosius II. in A.D. 424; subsequently its walls were again renewed by Belisarius in 553. On the plateau of Byrsa have been found the most ancient of the Punic tombs, huge cisterns in the eastern part, and near the chapel of St Louis the foundations of the famous temple of Eshmun (see below), and the palace of the Roman proconsul.

About 325 ft. from the railway station of La Malga are the still imposing ruins of the amphitheatre. Near by, at the spot called Bir el Jebana, Pere Delattre has discovered four cemeteries, one of which contains the tombs of state officials or servants of the imperial government. Rather more than half a mile north-west of Byrsa are the huge cisterns of La Malga, which, at the time of the Arab geographer, Idrisi, still comprised twenty-four parallel covered reservoirs, 325 ft. by 71-1/2 ft.; of these fourteen only remain.

On the hill of the Petit Seminaire, which is separated from Byrsa by a valley, Pere Delattre has discovered a Christian basilica, the baths of Gargilius, large graves with several levels of tombs, and much debris of sculpture, which, however, is insufficient to enable us to say that this is the site of the temple of Tanit or Juno Caelestis. The quarter of Dermeche, near the sea, whose name recalls the Latin _Thermis_ or _Thermas_, is remarkable for the imposing remains of the baths (_thermae_) of Antoninus. In one place called Douimes was the Ceramicus where excavation has discovered a graceful basilica, proto-Punic tombs, potters' ovens with numerous terra-cotta moulds which were abandoned after the siege in 146 B.C., and finally a Roman palace with superb marble statues. Farther on are huge reservoirs of Borj-Jedid which are sufficiently well-preserved to be used again.

Behind the small fort of Borj-Jedid is the plateau of the Odeum where the theatre and fine marble statues of the Roman period have been laid bare; beyond is the great Christian basilica of Damus-el-Karita (perhaps a corruption of _Domus Caritatis_); in the direction of Sidi-bu-Said is the _platea nova_, the huge stairway of which, like so many other Carthaginian buildings, has of late years been destroyed by the Arabs for use as building material; on the coast near St Monica is the necropolis of Rabs where Delattre dug up fine anthropoid sarcophagi of the Punic period.

In the quarter of Megara (Magaria, mod. La Marsa) it would seem that there never were more than isolated buildings, villas in the midst of gardens. At Jebel Khaui (Cape Kamart) there is a great necropolis, the sepulchral chambers of which were long ago rifled by Arabs and Vandals. This cemetery had a Jewish quarter.

We must mention finally the gigantic remains in the western plain of the Roman aqueduct which carried water from Jebel Zaghwan (_Mons Zeugitanus_) and Juggar (Zucchara) to the cisterns of La Malga. From the _nymphaeum_ of Zaghwan to Carthage this aqueduct is 61 Roman miles (about 56 English miles) long; in the plain of Manuba its arches are nearly 49 ft. high.

Though several famous travellers visited and described the ruins of Carthage during the first thirty years of the 19th century, such as Major Humbert, Chateaubriand, Estrup, no scientific investigations took place till 1833. In that year Captain Falbe, Danish consul at Tunis, made a plan of the ruins so far as they were visible. In 1837 there was formed in Paris, on the initiative of Dureau de la Malle, a _Societe pour les fouilles de Carthage_; under the auspices of this body Falbe and Sir Grenville Temple undertook researches, and a little later Sir Thomas Read, English consul, following the example of the Genoese and the Pisans, carried away to England the mosaics, columns and statues of the baths of Antoninus. The Abbe Bourgade, chaplain of the church of St Louis erected in 1841, collected together Punic stelae and other antiquities from the surrounding plain; these formed the nucleus of the magnificent museum subsequently formed by Pere Delattre at the instigation of Cardinal Lavigerie. Between 1856 and 1858 Nathan Davis made excavations on the supposed site of the Odeum, and in 1859 Beule undertook his celebrated investigations on Byrsa. Among other explorers were A. Daux in 1866; von Maltzan in 1870; E. de Sainte-Marie in 1874; Ch. d'Herisson in 1883; E. Babelon and S. Reinach in 1884; Vernaz in 1885; Gauckler in 1903. Of these the majority were sent officially by the French government. But their attempts were partial, disjointed and without any systematic plan; they were entirely superseded by the brilliant and persevering work of R.P. Delattre. The Musee Lavigerie, the result of his labours, contains a vast archaeological treasure, the interest of which is doubled by the fact that it stands in the very midst of the ancient site. Unfortunately Delattre's work suffered too often from the absence of a cordial understanding with the directors of the antiquities department, La Blanchere and P. Gauckler, who, having themselves undertaken excavations, transported their finds to the Bardo museum, by the help of the public funds at their disposal.

The main authority for the topography and the history of the excavations is Aug. Audollent's _Carthage romaine_ (Paris, 1901). A topographical and archaeological map of the site was published under the direction of Colonel Dolot and with the assistance of Delattre and Gauckler by the Ministere de l'Instruction Publique in 1907.

_History._--The history of Carthage falls into four periods: (1) from the foundation to the beginning of the wars with the Sicilian Greeks in 550 B.C.; (2) from 550 to 265, the first year of the Punic Wars; (3) the Punic Wars to the fall of Carthage in 146 B.C.; (4) the periods of Roman and Byzantine rule down to the destruction of the city by the Arabs in A.D. 698.

(1) _Foundation to 550 B.C._--From an extremely remote period Phoenician sailors had visited the African coast and had had commercial relations with the Libyan tribes who inhabited the district which forms the modern Tunis. In the 16th century B.C. the Sidonians already had trading stations on the coast; with the object of competing with the Tyrian colony at Utica they established a trading station called Cambe or Caccabe on the very site afterwards occupied by Carthage. Near Borj-Jedid unmistakable traces of this early settlement have been found, though nothing is known of its history. According to the classical tradition Carthage was founded about 850 B.C. by Tyrian emigrants led by Elissa or Elissar, the daughter of the Tyrian king Mutton I., fleeing from the tyranny of her brother Pygmalion. According to the story, Elissa subsequently received the name of Dido, i.e. "the fugitive." Cambe welcomed the new arrivals, who bought from the mixed Libyo-Phoenician peoples of the neighbourhood, tributaries of the Libyan king Japon, a piece of land on which to build a "new city," _Kart-hadshat_, the Greek and Roman forms of the name. The story goes that Dido, having obtained "as much land as could be contained by the skin of an ox," proceeded to cut the skin of a slain ox into strips narrow enough to extend round the whole of the hill, which afterwards from this episode gained the name of _Byrsa_. This last detail obviously arose from a mere play on words by which [Greek: Bursa] "hide," "skin," is confused with the Phoenician _bosra, borsa_, "citadel," "fortress." In memory of its Tyrian origin, Carthage paid an annual tribute to the temple of Melkarth at Tyr, and under the Roman empire coins were struck showing Dido fleeing in a galley, or presiding over the building of Byrsa. On the Vatican _Virgil_ there is a representation in miniature of workmen shaping marble blocks and columns for Dido's palace.

The early history of Carthage is very obscure. It is only in the 6th century that real history begins. By this time the city is unquestionably a considerable capital with a domain divided into the three districts of Zeugitana (the environs of Carthage and the peninsula of C. Bon), Byzacium (the shore of the Syrtes), and the third comprising the emporia which stretch in the form of a crescent to the centre of the Great Syrtis as far as Cyrenaica. The first contest against the Greeks arose from a boundary question between the settlements of Carthage and those of the Greeks of Cyrene. The limits were eventually fixed and marked by a monument known as the "Altar of Philenae." The destruction of Tyre by Nebuchadrezzar (q.v.), in the first half of the 6th century, enabled Carthage to take its place as mistress of the Mediterranean. The Phoenician colonies founded by Tyre and Sidon in Sicily and Spain, threatened by the Greeks, sought help from Carthage, and from this period dates the Punic[2] supremacy in the western Mediterranean. The Greek colonization of Sicily was checked, while Carthage established herself on all the Sicilian coast and the neighbouring islands as far as the Balearic Islands and the coast of Spain. The inevitable conflict between Greece and Carthage broke out about 550.

(2) _Wars with the Greeks._--In 550, the Carthaginians, led by the suffetes Malchus, conquered almost all Sicily and expelled the Greeks. In 536 they defeated the Phocaeans and the Massaliotes before Alalia on the Corsican coast. But Malchus, having failed in Sardinia, was banished by the stern Carthaginian senate and swore to avenge himself. He laid siege to Carthage itself, and, after having sacrificed his son Carthalo to his lust for vengeance, entered the city as a victor. He ruled until he was put to death by the party which had supported him. Mago, son of Hanno, succeeded Malchus, as suffetes and general-in-chief. He was the true founder of the Carthaginian military power. He conquered Sardinia and the Balearic Islands, where he founded Port Mahon (Portus Magonis), and so increased the power of Carthage that he was able to force commercial treaties upon the Etruscans, and the Greeks of both Sicily and Italy. The first agreement between Carthage and Rome was made in 509, one year after the expulsion of the Tarquins, in the consulship of Junius Brutus and Marcus Horatius. The text is preserved by Polybius (_Hist._ iii. 22-23). It assigned Italy to the Romans and the African waters to Carthage, but left Sicily as a dangerous neutral zone.

Mago was succeeded as commander-in-chief by his elder son Hasdrubal (c. 500), who was thrice chosen suffetes; he died in Sardinia about 485. His brother Hamilcar, having collected a fleet of 200 galleys for the conquest of Sicily, was defeated by the combined forces of Gelo of Syracuse and Theron of Agrigentum under the walls of Himera in 480, the year in which the Persian fleet was defeated at Salamis (some say the two battles were simultaneous); it is said that 150,000 Carthaginians were taken prisoners. The victory is celebrated by Pindar (_Pyth._ i.).

These two leaders of the powerful house of the Barcidae each left three sons. Those of Hasdrubal were Hannibal, Hasdrubal and Sapho; those of Hamilcar, Himilco, Hanno and Gisco. All, under various titles, succeeded to the authority which it had already enjoyed. About 460 Hanno,[3] passing beyond the Pillars of Hercules (Straits of Gibraltar), founded settlements along the West African coast in the modern Senegal and Guinea, and even in Madeira and the Canary Islands.

In Sicily the war lasted for a century with varying success. In 406 Hannibal and Himilco destroyed Agrigentum and threatened Gela, but the Carthaginians were forced back on their strongholds in the south-west by Dionysius the Elder, Dionysius the Younger, Timoleon and Agathocles successively, whose cause was aided by a terrible plague and civil troubles in Carthage itself, A certain Hanno, unquestionably of the Barcide house, attempted to seize the supreme power, but his partisans were overwhelmed and he himself suffered the most cruel punishment. Profiting by these troubles, Timoleon defeated the Carthaginians at Crimissus in 340, and compelled them to sue for peace. This peace was not of long duration; Agathocles crossed to Africa and besieged Carthage, which was then handicapped by the conspiracy of Bomilcar. Bomilcar was crucified, and Agathocles having been obliged to return to Sicily, his general Eumarcus was compelled to carry his army out of Africa, where it had maintained itself for three years (August 310 to October 307). After the death of Agathocles, the Carthaginians re-established their supremacy in Sicily, and Mago even offered assistance to Rome against the invasion of Pyrrhus (480). Pyrrhus crossed to Sicily in 277, and was preparing to emulate Agathocles by sailing to Africa when he was compelled to return to Italy (see SICILY: _History_).

Delivered from these dangers and more arrogant than before, Carthage claimed the monopoly of Mediterranean waters, and seized every foreign ship found between Sardinia and the Pillars of Hercules. "At Carthage," said Polybius, "no one is blamed, however he may have acquired his wealth." The sailors took the utmost care to conceal the routes which they followed; there is a story that a Carthaginian ship, pursued by a Roman galley as far as the Atlantic, preferred to be driven out of her course and sunk rather than reveal the course to the Cassiterides, whither she was bound in quest of tin. The owner being saved, the senate made good his losses from the public treasury (Strabo, iii. 5. 11).