on the borders; but a chain of fortified posts secured the territory
enclosed by them, and the Nomades were slowly driven back into the
deserts and mountains, or were compelled to recognize Carthaginian
supremacy, to pay tribute, and to furnish contingents. About the
period of the first Punic war their great town Theveste (Tebessa, at
the sources of the Mejerda) was conquered by the Carthaginians. These
formed the "towns and tribes (--ethne--) of subjects," which appear in
the Carthaginian state-treaties; the former being the non-free Libyan
villages, the latter the subject Nomades.

Libyphoenicians

To this fell to be added the sovereignty of Carthage over the other
Phoenicians in Africa, or the so-called Liby-phoenicians. These
included, on the one hand, the smaller settlements sent forth from
Carthage along the whole northern and part of the north-western coast
of Africa--which cannot have been unimportant, for on the Atlantic
seaboard alone there were settled at one time 30,000 such colonists
--and, on the other hand, the old Phoenician settlements especially
numerous along the coast of the present province of Constantine
and Beylik of Tunis, such as Hippo afterwards called Regius (Bona),
Hadrumetum (Susa), Little Leptis (to the south of Susa)--the second
city of the Phoenicians in Africa--Thapsus (in the same quarter), and
Great Leptis (Lebda to the west of Tripoli). In what way all these
cities came to be subject to Carthage--whether voluntarily, for their
protection perhaps from the attacks of the Cyrenaeans and Numidians,
or by constraint--can no longer be ascertained; but it is certain that
they are designated as subjects of the Carthaginians even in official
documents, that they had to pull down their walls, and that they had
to pay tribute and furnish contingents to Carthage. They were