The council of a hundred was divided into twenty subcommittees, each
containing five members. Each of these committees was charged with
the control of a department -- the army, the navy, the finances, the
roads and communications, agriculture, religion, and the relations
with the various subject tribes, the more important departments
being entirely in the hands of the members of the inner council of
thirty.

The judges were a hundred in number. These were appointed by the
council, and were ever ready to carry out their behest, consequently
justice in Carthage was a mockery. Interest and intrigue were
paramount in the law courts, as in every department of state.
Every prominent citizen, every successful general, every man who
seemed likely, by his ability or his wealth, to become a popular
personage with the masses, fell under the ban of the council,
and sooner or later was certain to be disgraced. The resources
of the state were devoted not to the needs of the country but to
aggrandizement and enriching of the members of the committee.

Heavy as were the imposts which were laid upon the tributary peoples
of Africa for the purposes of the state, enormous burdens were
added by the tax gatherers to satisfy the cupidity of their patrons
in the council. Under such circumstances it was not to be wondered
at that Carthage, decaying, corrupt, ill governed, had suffered
terrible reverses at the hands of her young and energetic rival
Rome, who was herself some day, when she attained the apex of her
power, to suffer from abuses no less flagrant and general than
those which had sapped the strength of Carthage.

With the impetuosity of youth Malchus naturally inclined rather