8. II. IV. Etrusco-Carthaginian Maritime Supremacy

9. The steward on a country estate, although a slave, ought, according
to the precept of the Carthaginian agronome Mago (ap. Varro, R. R. i.
17), to be able to read, and ought to possess some culture. In the
prologue of the "Poenulus" of Plautus, it is said of the hero of
the title:-

-Et is omnes linguas scit; sed dissimulat sciens
Se scire; Poenus plane est; quid verbit opus't-?

10. Doubts have been expressed as to the correctness of this number,
and the highest possible number of inhabitants, taking into account
the available space, has been reckoned at 250,000. Apart from the
uncertainty of such calculations, especially as to a commercial city
with houses of six stories, we must remember that the numbering is
doubtless to be understood in a political, not in an urban, sense,
just like the numbers in the Roman census, and that thus all
Carthaginians would be included in it, whether dwelling in the city
or its neighbourhood, or resident in its subject territory or in other
lands. There would, of course, be a large number of such absentees in
the case of Carthage; indeed it is expressly stated that in Gades, for
the same reason, the burgess-roll always showed a far higher number
than that of the citizens who had their fixed residence there.

11. II. VII. System of Government, note