Dayton daily empire. [volume] (Dayton [Ohio]) 1850-1865, 1864-04-06
9ailg Gmpire.
A ouestlOn in EthnoIogy.

The National Inteidgencer in replying to q
correspondent says the question whether Han
nibal was negro or NOS, Is purely modern in
it's origin and local in its prevalence, being
confined to the United States Ia no other
age or land than ours would it be possible
perhaps for such an inquiry to have been
started-betraying as Il does rare degree Of
Ignorance in conjunction with that philan'
thropic fauAticism which feels itself called TO
exalt the negro race in proportion to the vul
gar contempt IN which II is held by another
species Of fanaticsm.
IL is true that an officer Of the Government
Mr. William Whiting, the Solicitor Of the
War Department, has made himself rosponsi.
BILE for the modern statement with regard to
the negro extraction Of Hannibal but Mr.
Whiting, we fear, is not much stronger in his
tory than he is in constitutional law. We
have no doubt that the Solicitor fully believes
Hannibal was a negro because born in Africa,
and, as II appears from the suggestion of our
correspondent that there are others who labor
under the same chronological delusion, we may
be permitted TO state the facts in the case
far enough /, correct such misapprehension.
We may say, then, that Carthage was found
ed by the Phmneians, and unless people
change their color and extraction by the mere
fact of changing their sky, we must suppose
that Phunician born in Carthage would not
differ much from Phpnician born in Tyre,
And. as we have never heard it asserted that
the Tyrians we're negroes, we know OF no pos.
sible ground on which it can be supposed that
their descendants became negroes in Carthage,
merely because they lived in a country where
negroes are the Aborgnes
We suppose that even Mr. Whiting would
not contend that General Butler, the renown-
ed military commander Of the Department Of
Virginia and North Carolina, is Pequod or
Narragansett Indian, simply because his Eng
ish ancestors may have originally settled
among one Of the Indian tribes inhabtiug
New England But we submit that it would
be quite as rational to predicate such an eth.
nooScal statement of our Happy Warrior
as to affirm that Hannibal was o negro be-
cause he was born in country where negroes
we're a part of the native population.
According to Appisn, Carthage was settled
by the Phmnicians about 4s0 years before
Rome was founded A little more than two
centuries after the first settlement was made
on the African coast, the city had extended
her sway over Africa from the pillars of Her
cules to the frontiers of Pentapolis while to-
wards the south, among the Moors and Ly-
bians, her boundaries we're defined, because
they we're limited only by her desire OF con
quest in that direction. Justin informs us that
she treated the native populations OF Africa
whether Moorish or Numidian, with great Wig
or. She used them precisely as Great Britain
uses the natives of Fast India, and it would
be as reasonable to call British subject born
on the Ganges a Hindoo as to call Hannibal a
negro because he was born in northern Afri-
ca SO little is il true that the Carthaginians
we're negroes, and so strong was the old
Pheuician pride of caste in Carthage such
the pre- .eminence OF the sdngre dzul that the
"halfbreeds' springng from the union OF Car
thaginians with the native Lybian or Moorish
races were not admitted to terms OF political
or social equality in the city. (Aud these ra-
ces, be II understood were very far from being
negroes at was q usual practice, says
DR.. Arnold, "for the mother city to send out
colonies of these halfbreeds to the Atlantic
coasts of Africa, and probably of Spain, also,
beyond the pillars Of Hercules IL appears,
indeed, if the Greek version Of the PeriptuS
ofHanno may be trusted, that the creumnav
igatory voyage, so named, was undertaken
mainly for the settling Of thirty thousand 'o
these Airo-Phmnicans on the African coas
south. Of the Straits OF Gibraltar,
The classical reader is aware that the pool
Terrence was Carthaginnn by birth
About twenty years before Carthage fell unde
the blows Of Scipio AfricAnus 1--WE beg to sug
pest to the uuolassical reader that Scipio wa
not negro although surnamed the African
he was carried TO Rome as Punic prisoner o
war, and was there sold in slavery TO the Sen
ator Toreutus Lucanns, whose uams b
adopted II has never been supposed tha
Terrence was a negso nor is the ouly extan
literary fragment Of the Punie tongue, as pre-
served in the Paeaalas, q, e. "liltle CaFthag
nianf ) one.oftha plays Of Plantus, wher,
Hauno Is Introduced. supposed by any bod
that we ever heard of TO belong to
native dialect Of Africa. We know from Ap
pian aud from other sources that Roma
colony was founded on Or near the remain
OF Pnnie Carthage in the time of c. Graz
chus and +. Fntvius We have never rea
that these Romans became negroes BY bein
transplanted 70 Africa, as must have. been th
case Il the Ph@niciaus suffered such tran
formation ia passing from one shore Of ID
Mediterranean TO another
How sednlously the Phenicau colony I
Carthage preserved the religious rites an
traditions of the mother country in the Eai
may be read in the pages Of Justin, Of Heroi
otus, Of Josephus, and of Pliny. The onl
trace in literature of the PhRnician mytholog
aud cOsmogony are preserved In the fraG
ment Of Transformation, Ia PhGnician authC
who nonrished few years before the Troja
war; as handed down 10 ne in the writings
Eusebius Of Cgeaarea Within the ast fe
years an English explorer Of the ruins
Carthage, Dr. N. Davis, f. Il, G. s., &c hr
dtaeoverAd in the course Of his eNcRvation