Besides her fleets, her caravans gave her a large and lucrative
trade with the native Africans; nor must we limit our belief of the
extent of the Carthaginian trade with the tribes of Central and Western
Africa by the narrowness of the commercial intercourse which civilized
nations of modern times have been able to create in those regions.
Although essentially a mercantile and seafaring people, the
Carthaginians by no means neglected agriculture. On the contrary, the
whole of their territory was cultivated like a garden. The fertility of
the soil repaid the skill and toil bestowed on it; and every invader,
from Agathocles to Scipio AEmilianus, was struck with admiration at the
rich pasture lands carefully irrigated, the abundant harvests, the
luxuriant vineyards, the plantations of fig and olive trees, the
thriving villages, the populous towns, and the splendid villas of the
wealthy Carthaginians, through which his march lay, as long as he was on
Carthaginian ground.
Although the Carthaginians abandoned the AEgean and the Pontus to the
Greek, they were by no means disposed to relinquish to those rivals the
commerce and the dominion of the coasts of the Mediterranean westward of
Italy.
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