to work to strike terror among their opponents. Their modes of
procedure were similar to those which afterwards made Venice
execrable in the height of her power. Arrests were made secretly
in the dead of night. Men were missing from their families, and
none knew what had become of them.

Dead bodies bearing signs of strangulation were found floating in
the shallow lakes around Carthage; and yet, so great was the dread
inspired by the terrible power of the judges, that the friends and
relations of those who were missing dared make neither complaint
nor inquiry. It was not against the leaders of the Barcine party
that such measures were taken. Had one of these been missing the
whole would have flown to arms. The dungeons would have been
broken open, and not only the captives liberated, but their arrest
might have been made the pretext for an attack upon the whole system
under which such a state of things could exist.

It was chiefly among the lower classes that the agents of Hanno'
s vengeance operated. Among these the disappearance of so many
men who were regarded as leaders among the rest spread a deep and
mysterious fear. Although none dared to complain openly, the news
of these mysterious disappearances was not long in reaching the
leaders of the Barcine party.

These, however, were for the time powerless to act. Certain as they
might be of the source whence these unseen blows descended, they
had no evidence on which to assail so formidable a body as the
judges. It would be a rash act indeed to accuse such important
functionaries of the state, belonging, with scarcely an exception,
to powerful families, of arbitrary and cruel measures against