Republican command and Carthaginian constraints

Rome and Carthage both had senates and paired chief magistrates, but they assigned military command differently. Roman consuls combined civil and military authority, backed by the senatorial and popular support needed to obtain office. Carthaginian generals could serve through a war while remaining dependent on their senate and separate from the chief civil magistracies. In this interpretation, an able Carthaginian commander could lack the political backing available to a Roman counterpart. Rome checked concentrated power through paired offices and treated dictatorship as an exceptional response to an emergency.