number of 300 were kept in the barracks, also 20,000 infantry, 4,000 cavalry horses, and very many war-chariots. There was an outer and an inner harbor. The outer was for merchant ships, the inner for war-boats. The entrance, 70 feet wide, was closed with iron chains. The city was heavily fortified; and from his castle on the inner island, the admiral looked far seaward, to detect the approach of an enemy. He then gave the signal, and 220 war-boats, always in readiness, were manned by rowers, chains let down, and defense prepared.

The famous war-elephants of Carthage frightened the Romans almost into spasms. It was a long time before the Roman veterans could train themselves to stand against these elephants; the first impulse of the Romans was to run, to escape death by being trampled under the feet of the infuriated war-elephants. In this, we see a situation repeated centuries later in France; the so-called tanks slowly rolled toward the German trenches, the German veterans fled in disorder; also, in Greece, attacking armies frequently made use of a protective covering called the turtoise; it was made of bull's hide extended over a wagon.

The slaves of Carthage, as usual, were half-starved and lived in mud huts. In case of revolt, the policy was to ship the offending slaves, utilizing the malcontents to plant slave-colonies in Spain and elsewhere. We read that on one occasion, 30,000 rebellious slaves of Carthage, were deported.

However, the policy of seeking trade in far places, demanded that mechanics and small merchants be encouraged to develop craftsmanlike skill, in order that goods of Carthage would come highly recommended against all outside competition. In special cases, these diligent mechanics grew rich and were in turn elected to the people's council, or Gemsia. Only a practical race would be wise enough to offer opportunities for humble workers to rise in life and enter politics. We are told that on one occasion even the Roman senate ordered translated a book by a farmer of Carthage, and the sen

ate undertook to distribute copies in Italy, in the interest of improvement in agricultural methods.

The fall of the city has often been told in song and story. Centuries before the destruction, Rome and Carthage had been bitter commercial rivals, the enmity often attended with wholesale butcheries on land, drownings at sea. Here let us cut in by saying that Cato's parrot-like "Carthage must be destroyed!" (Delenda est Carthage), a phrase that apropos or not, the stubborn Roman used in his every political speech, is a most excellent illustration of that type of social evolutionary force that the present writer calls Principle of Affirmation. This principle is occasionally cited with illustrations, in this book on the rise of the masses; for stout affirmation, whether intelligent or otherwise, always carries an immense weight: changing the customary outlook, breaking down fossilized ideas and preparing the way for new social experiments on the ruins of the old. Cato the Censor, jealous of Carthaginian commercial success, kept shouting "Carthage must be destroyed!" until at last every Roman believed the cry to embody an important truth. In modern life makers of public opinion are not always more concerned with the moral intent of their demands than was Cato the Censor; but the peculiarity is that when the modern molder of public opinion wishes to withdraw from his radical position, he not infrequently finds that the public took his ravings seriously, and now insist that the demagogue shall live up to his former demands. This in turn is not always desirable. Thus public opinion in the end becomes stronger than the individual shouter, and looking backward to what he advocated when he was poor and friendless, many an editor, orator or politician has fondly wished that his old orations had been written with an ink that would fade, and after a year or two have left no trace behind. For, he has now become rich and conservative, alters his tone, deserts the cause of the masses, moves off the East Side and buys a big house on Fifth Avenue. Such are some of the obvious vagaries in the use and the abuse of Af

firmation—one of the most powerful social forces in the hands of writers and orators.

Carthage, at the time of its destruction (146 B. C.), was 700 years old and had 700,000 inhabitants. On slight pretext war had been declared and Publius Scipio Amalianus (the Younger, or Scipio Africanus Minor) was in command. The Carthaginians at first submitted abjectly, gave up 300 hostages and all the city's arms and ammunition; but when told to make ready, that the city would be razed to the ground, frightful hatred of Rome and Romans suddenly aroused the doomed citizens to make a last heroic stand. They cut off the roofs of their houses (Lhomond, Viri Romæ, p. 103), for materials to build a new fleet; gold and silver were melted down to replace bronzes and iron; old men, women and boys did most of the labor, the women even sacrificing their hair to make strings for the archers' bows, as well as ropes to haul wagons. The city, though defended with the greatest bravery, was at last taken by storm, set on fire, burned, and the ruins sown with salt. Carthage was destroyed by Roman commercial jealousy. And in the words of Mommsen: "Where the industrious Phonecians bustled and trafficked for 500 years, Roman slaves henceforth pastured the herds of their distant masters.'

So ended another of the earliest experiments in semiDemocracy.

CHAPTER IX

MENTAL DEVELOPMENT OF PRIMITIVE MAN

We have talked much about the Common
Man's body, which was whipped, branded
and maimed; let us now peer into his dark-
ened mind and try to understand his hopes
and fears.

For untold centuries running into the fathomless abyss of time, fire has played an exceptional part in the history of human culture; and although once regarded as an evil spirit, fire was gradually transformed into a kind friend, helping mankind upward and on.

In the period of which we write, even the wisest men of the Ancient world, were still very much afraid of fire. Our race is old, very old; yet much that passes as Ancient knowledge is of yesterday. So simple a fact as striking a match; the world, our race, men have waited for the realization of that fact for thousands of years. Today when one strikes a match, a tiny flame leaps at his bidding, cooking his breakfast, lighting his cigar, or driving our immense locomotives. Yet commercial-matches are as recent as the first half of the 19th Century; that is to say, of yesterday.

For thousands of years, our ancestors' relations to fire were those of superstitious awe. Men were afraid of the lightning flashing around the mountain top; and when it thundered, your ancestor hid himself in a cave and fell on his face, in terror.

There are many queer things hidden in our remote ancestors' minds. In this book, we have more than once referred to these hidden things in our ancestors' minds, as bats. We use the word bats because the bat is a queer little creature, afraid of the light, huddling in a hole in a tree during the day, and coming forth by night to hunt his food.

The bat's unexpected appearance, the singular way in which he wheels through the night, and his repulsive appearance, when you look at him intently, should he chance to be lying dead in your hand, all these details offer a fair parallel to the condition of our ancestors' thoughts, especially the mental life of the downtrodden Common Man in Antiquity whose pathetic yet glorious history we are attempting to trace. Our efforts are no doubt dull and stupid enough; but the subject is difficult and a few grains of knowledge are all one can winnow in a field of original effort so vast and obscure.

At the period we are now examining, old tribal tales of fire-bringing and fire-kindling will inform us to an extent about the bats in the Common Man's mind. To this very day, for that matter, the Russian peasant of Tamboff takes a few live coals from the old house to the new, or should the distance be too far he substitutes ashes when he cannot carry the actual coals. We find fire-worshippers in ancient Egypt, and we meet them again in India, Persia, Chaldea, Phoenicia, Rome, Greece and elsewhere. Even the modern Japanese have a curious New Year's ceremony of rubbing two sticks; on that day, it is important to start a new fire in the house.

In the National Museum the visitor sees many curious fire-striking and fire-bringing relics of prehistoric nations. Medicine men of the American Indian tribes kept perpetual fires burning in the headquarters of the tribal religion. The gods would not eat food unless the sacred fire-sticks were used to light the fire. Of course, this is only another way of understanding how a privileged class kept its power; that is to say, the medicine man and his pals acted as a go-between for the gods. Fire was the message sent, and fire was the reply that came back from the skies.

As time passed, man's ingenuity helped out the situation. Flint and steel, twisting a hardwood stick for hours against a softer piece of wood, helped the Ancient fire-bringers; these methods of fire-making doubtless succeeding still others so remote that no man knows what they were. But for thousands of years our ancestors had