Below them was the senate, a very numerous body, comprising all the aristocracy of Carthage.

Below this was the democracy, the great mass of the people, whose vote was necessary to ratify any law passed by the senate.
In time, however, all authority passed from the suffetes, the general body of the senate and the democracy, into the hands of a committee of the senate, one hundred in number, who were called the council, the real power being invested in the hands of an inner council, consisting of from twenty to thirty of the members.

The deliberations of this body were secret, their power absolute.

They were masters of the life and property of every man in Carthage, as afterwards were the council of ten in the republic of Venice.

For a man to be denounced by his secret enemy to them as being hostile to their authority was to ensure his destruction and the confiscation of his property.
The council of a hundred was divided into twenty subcommittees, each containing five members.