Hundred and Four
The Hundred and Four, or Council of 104 (
“By the old constitution, the Senate had the right to control the magistrates; but this new body of judges controlled the Senate, and therefore, in reality, the magistrates also. Nor was it content to control the Senate; it practically superseded it... No Shofete, no Senator, no general, was exempt from their irresponsible despotism. The Shofetes presided, the senators deliberated, the generals fought, as it were, with a halter around their necks. The sentences passed by the Hundred, if they were often deserved, were often also, like those of the dreaded “Ten” at Venice, to whom they bore a striking resemblance, arbitrary and cruel.”[1]
By leading a populist reform movement—including substituting annual rotation in office for the life tenure formerly enjoyed by the 104—Hannibal managed to restore a measure of popular rule. Until
Endnotes
- , The Politics 2.11.
- ^ Justin 19.2.5 and Livy 33.46.4; Serge Lancel, Carthage: A History (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1995), pp. 114-16, 403; Gilbert & Colette Picard, The Life & Death of Carthage, tr. Dominique Collon (London: Sidgwick & Jackson, 1968), pp. 141-46; B.H. Warmington, Carthage (London: Robert Hale Limited, 1960), p. 196
References
- Warmington, B.H. Carthage, A History, Barnes and Noble Books, 1993.
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