Carthage functions in the book less as a fully described city than as a revealing case in the politics of conquest, military dependence, and imperial security. Its history demonstrates that territorial possession cannot be separated from the means by which power is organized: a state may survive defeat, command substantial resources, and employ capable soldiers, yet still endanger itself when armed force is not securely its own.

Setting and Political Position

Carthage appears within a Mediterranean world shaped by rivalry among Syracuse, Sicily, Rome, and the powers that competed for influence beyond their immediate territories. Its importance is measured through military reach rather than through a detailed civic portrait. In the discussion of Alexander the Great, the author contrasts centralized kingdoms with states containing powerful subordinate rulers; elsewhere, Carthage supplies a different kind of example, showing how a state can be weakened by the political consequences of its military arrangements.

The book also places Carthage within the wider history of Roman expansion. Rome’s treatment of conquered territories is repeatedly used as a standard of durable rule: it planted colonies, conciliated weaker powers without allowing them to become too strong, humbled major rivals, and refused to let a formidable outsider establish authority within a province. Carthage therefore belongs to the historical field against which Roman methods of consolidation are judged, even when the immediate subject is another conquest.

The War with Agathocles

Carthage is a direct antagonist in the account of Agathocles of Syracuse. After Agathocles had seized power by arranging the massacre of Syracuse’s senators and wealthiest citizens, he faced Carthaginian forces in Sicily. The struggle initially went against him: he was defeated twice and his city was besieged. Yet the siege did not end his rule.

Agathocles divided his forces, leaving part of them to defend Syracuse while taking the remainder across to Africa. This offensive altered the strategic balance. The pressure on Carthage became so severe that the Carthaginians were compelled to make terms, abandon Sicily to Agathocles, and confine themselves to Africa. Carthage thus appears as a powerful enemy forced onto the defensive by an audacious operation launched from a city under siege; the episode gives concrete form to the book’s distinction between mere possession of force and the bold employment of it.

The episode also qualifies any simple admiration of Agathocles. His success against Carthage is attributed neither to inherited authority nor to Fortune, but to the military experience and hazardous enterprises through which he rose. Nevertheless, his slaughter of fellow citizens, betrayal of friends, and lack of honour, pity, and religion are explicitly denied the status of genuine merit. Carthage helps expose the difference between effectiveness in acquiring power and the moral or political qualities that might confer glory.

Mercenary Arms and Internal Danger

Carthage provides the principal ancient example of the danger posed by mercenary arms. After its first war with Rome, the state was nearly ruined by its hired troops, even though those troops were commanded by Carthaginian citizens. The example supports the book’s central warning that mercenaries are unreliable instruments: if their commanders are capable, they may pursue their own advancement and threaten the ruler; if they are incapable, their incompetence may bring ruin.

The problem is not merely battlefield loyalty. Hired soldiers possess their own interests, and their power grows from the very dependence that gives them employment. A state that entrusts its security to such forces must fear both their cowardice and their ambition. The Carthaginian experience therefore illustrates how military delegation can become political vulnerability, turning an army hired for protection into an organized source of internal danger.

By contrast, the author praises rulers and republics that rely on their own arms. A prince should command personally, while a republic should appoint one of its citizens and restrain him through law if he proves capable. Rome and Sparta are cited as powers that remained armed and free for ages, while the Swiss are described as both exceptionally well armed and exceptionally free. Against these examples, Carthage represents the cost of allowing the instruments of war to stand at a dangerous distance from the political community they are supposed to defend.

Comparisons with Other Powers

Carthage’s military failure is set beside the successes and risks associated with several other powers. When the Romans entered Greece, they used the Achaeans and Aetolians without permitting those allies to increase their power, humbled the Macedonian monarchy, and drove Antiochus out. This pattern embodies a broader rule: weaker powers may be useful, but a prudent ruler must prevent them, as well as any foreign stranger, from becoming strong enough to dictate terms.

The contrast with Alexander the Great is also instructive. Alexander conquered Asia rapidly, and his successors retained the kingdom after his death because the governmental structure was centralized and the disorders that followed arose from their own ambitions and jealousies rather than from rebellion among powerful hereditary barons. Carthage is not presented as an exact parallel to that kingdom, but its appearance in the discussion of military organization reinforces the book’s comparative method: political outcomes depend not simply on the scale of a state or the courage of its soldiers, but on the institutional relationship between authority, territory, and force.

Carthage is likewise connected to the Italian examples used to expose the hazards of commissioned commanders. The Milanese hired Francesco Sforza to fight Venice; after defeating the enemy at Caravaggio, he joined with that enemy against Milan, his employers. The case makes visible the same structural danger that the Carthaginian example establishes in ancient form: an armed servant may become powerful enough to bargain with, betray, or overthrow the authority that armed him.

Narrative and Political Significance

Carthage is significant because the book uses it as evidence rather than as a narrative center. Its brief appearances carry concentrated argumentative force. In the story of Agathocles, Carthage is the besieger that is forced to negotiate when the besieged ruler carries war into Africa. In the discussion of mercenaries, it is the state nearly destroyed by the very soldiers it employed. In the larger history of Rome, it belongs to the catalogue of powers through which durable conquest and controlled expansion are judged.

Taken together, these episodes make Carthage a warning against separating military power from political command. A ruler may win through daring, and a state may extend its reach through hired force, but neither achievement guarantees security. Carthage’s place in the book lies in this irony: it is formidable enough to besiege Syracuse and to fight Rome, yet vulnerable enough for its own military system to become an instrument of near-destruction. The location therefore embodies a recurring principle of the work: power borrowed from others may produce immediate victories, but lasting authority requires forces and institutions that remain under the ruler’s own control.