Was the Carthaginian Senate for life or not?
score:18
SHORT ANSWER
Unfortunately, we can't be sure, but it is likely that the Carthaginian senate was for life at some point during its long history.
DETAILED ANSWER
The main problem in determining whether or not Carthaginian senators served for life lies in the ancient sources. The qualifications of senators and the precise functions of the senate are also far from clear, and even defining the senate itself is difficult as, in the Punic language,
....there seems not to have existed a word for the 'senate' as a whole.
Source: The Cambridge Ancient History, vol VI
Punic sources are lost so Aristotle provides the most information (in Politics, which has some of the information from his lost work on the Carthagian constitution) but, as the Cambridge Ancient History (CAH) observes,
His aim and method was to generalize not analyse. This led him to compare institutions which seem to have little in common, such as the ephors of Sparta and the Court of the Hundred at Carthage, only because both exercised essentially a right of control.
Dexter Hoyos, in ‘The Carthaginians’, points to problems with other sources:
Livy once mentions a smaller senatorial body.... Greek writers, including Polybius and Diodorus, do not help clarity by mentioning at various times a Carthaginian gerousia (‘body of elders’), synkletos (‘summoned body’) and synedrion (‘sitting body’), without explaining the distinctions.
However, the term ‘senate’ is widely used by modern academics writing about Carthage even though it cannot be clearly defined.
When considering the issue of life-membership, we need to look first at the comparisons made by ancient writers. On this, CAH says
It is certain that supreme authority lay with a senate or council, which Aristotle and Polybius compare with the Spartan gerousia and the Senate of Rome...
This comparison with the Roman senate and the Spartan gerousia is problematic as these two bodies were very different. However, there are similarities in that members of both the Roman senate (initially) and the Spartan gerousia could be broadly described as aristocratic (for Sparta, in the sense that only Spartiates, a small minority in Laconia, were eligible), and they also served for life. It would seem rash to assume that the same held true for Carthaginian senators as we cannot even be certain
how senators themselves were recruited, or even how many there were at any time, although two or even three hundred is likely
(source: Dexter Hoyos, ‘The Carthaginians’)
That said, if Carthaginian senators were from privileged backgrounds (which seems likely based on the available evidence), it would not be unreasonable to state that lifetime membership was more likely than not. The Oxford Dictionary of the Classical World goes so far as to state
There was a powerful ‘senate’ of several hundred life-members
but there are few other modern sources which make such a definite statement (here is one).
Finally, we should also not forget that there were several political upheavals in Carthage over the centuries and we certainly cannot assume that life-membership of the senate or the form and power of the senate remained unchanged during all that time.
Other sources:
Richard Miles, 'Carthage Must Be Destroyed'
M. I. Finley, 'Politics in the Ancient World
David Abulafia, 'The Great Sea'
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Carthage#Government
http://www.roman-empire.net/republic/carthage.html
More post
- 📝 World War I Britain supplies cut
- 📝 Was the option of setting up a Jewish state in defeated Nazi Germany ever considered?
- 📝 Early counterparts of scholarly journals
- 📝 Why does the US have states?
- 📝 What documentary evidence is there that Roman crucifixion victims were completely nude?
- 📝 What caused this cratering pattern at Hiroshima?
- 📝 In 19th century India, pre and post Raj, did any private British citizens actually own land in India?
- 📝 What was the area of the Mamluk Sultanate?
- 📝 The origin of symbols used for transferring information over large distances
- 📝 Why did the US getting involved in the European theater in WW2?
- 📝 Was there ever a president of the united states related to more than 1 other president?
- 📝 What would be the GDP of the Roman Empire?
- 📝 What was the wealth distribution in US antebellum North / South
- 📝 Copper and Bronze Age Burials in Western Europe
- 📝 Profit of slave labor in America
- 📝 What was German GDP in 1919 in Goldmarks?
- 📝 Why did anti-Chinese riots occur during the Indonesian Reformation of 1998?
- 📝 Did Hitler spare Dundee from bombing because it "rejected" Churchill as MP?
- 📝 What Was the State of German Tank Design In Between the World Wars?
- 📝 1950s, UK-Soviet sporting event
- 📝 How did the authorities not find the speakeasy clubs during the prohibition?
- 📝 Was the ancient Roman King ( i.e. rex) elected for eight years?
- 📝 When and why was the samurai class abolished?
- 📝 Did Pythagoras visit Judaea, Arabia, and/or India?
- 📝 Could the U.S. have used "Lend Lease" to force Germany onto the horns of a dilemma?
- 📝 Are there any reliable documented records of members or operations of the French Resistance during World War 2?
- 📝 What are some instances of professional army funding being stolen in full?
- 📝 Gregório Amúrrio: dates of birth and death
- 📝 Could h*m* erectus have migrated to North America?
- 📝 Did Hitler, or any non USSR residents in the 30s-40s know about Stalin's purges?
Source: stackoverflow.com
Search Posts
Related post
- 📝 Was the Carthaginian Senate for life or not?
- 📝 Was it militarily possible to "island hop" the Philippines if not for MacArthur?
- 📝 Is there evidence that working for the Pony Express was dangerous, or not dangerous?
- 📝 Why was the Me262 not suited for a bomber role?
- 📝 What was the typical range of travel of a Pennsylvanian resident for everyday life in the late 18th early 19th Century Pennsylvania?
- 📝 What did people used to exchange for goods during the 1920s German hyperinflation while the official currency was not trusted
- 📝 Why was the German system of interlocking plates not used after WWII for armored vehicle construction?
- 📝 What was the official reason for not invading France until the middle of 1944?
- 📝 Credible historic description of how the daily life was for the middle-class during the financial crisis of 1929
- 📝 Was the U.S. Civil War unique regarding its relation to slavery? (people fighting for the freedom of a goup they were not part of)
- 📝 What was life like for Australian convicts in the last few decades of transportation?
- 📝 What was the Carthaginian (Punic) term for elephant
- 📝 Was the 35 year age minimum chosen for US president roughly equal to the average life expectancy for a reason?
- 📝 Why did the Zimmerman telegram upset America if it was not asking for aggression against America?
- 📝 Why did archery not make a comeback when armor was phased out in the 18th century?
- 📝 During the breakup of the Soviet Union, on what basis was citizenship granted or withheld for each of the fifteen new republics?
- 📝 What was the reason for Soviet troops to withdraw from Yugoslavia in World War II?
- 📝 If the Ch’in dynasty was so short-lived, why was China named for it?
- 📝 Why was Switzerland not attacked during the two World Wars?
- 📝 Is there evidence to suggest the "war on drugs" was a cover for class warfare?
- 📝 What was the plan for an abort of the Enola Gay's mission to drop the atomic bomb?
- 📝 What was the economic basis for West Berlin?
- 📝 Was there a tax in the fifties for British citizens traveling abroad?
- 📝 Why was PTSD not written about as much before the 20th century?
- 📝 Was it ever possible to join the US military instead of going to prison for a crime?
- 📝 What is the context for Napoleon's quote "[the Austrians] did not know the value of five minutes"?
- 📝 What was the planned line of succession for the Nazi Party in the event that Hitler died?
- 📝 Was it possible for a young Japanese woman to end up enslaved in Great Britain in the mid-1600s?
- 📝 What was the 1970s name for skinny jeans?
- 📝 Who was responsible for the partition of India?