She wrung exorbitant taxes from them, and arrears or even murmurings were punished with fetters, the axe, or the cross.

It was necessary to cultivate whatever suited the Republic, and to furnish what she demanded; no one had the right of possessing a weapon; when villages rebelled the inhabitants were sold; governors were esteemed like wine-presses, according to the quantity which they succeeded in extracting.

Then beyond the regions immediately subject to Carthage extended the allies roamed the Nomads, who might be let loose upon them.

By this system the crops were always abundant, the studs skilfully managed, and the plantations superb.
The elder Cato, a master in the matters of tillage and slaves, was amazed at it ninety-two years later, and the death-cry which he repeated continually at Rome was but the exclamation of jealous greed.
During the last war the exactions had been increased, so that nearly all the towns of Libya had surrendered to Regulus.

To punish them, a thousand talents, twenty thousand oxen, three hundred bags of gold dust, and considerable advances of grain had been exacted from them, and the chiefs of the tribes had been crucified or thrown to the lions.
Tunis especially execrated Carthage! Older than the metropolis, it could not forgive her her greatness, and it fronted her walls crouching in the mire on the water's edge like a venomous beast watching her.
Transportation, massacres, and epidemics did not weaken it.