No More Learning

But the Roman government, which already in 554 had 200. held forth a direct prospect of extension of territory to their client, of course at the expense of Carthage, seemed
to have little objection that he should himself take the booty destined for him ; they moderated perhaps at times
the too great impetuosity of the Libyans, who now retaliated fully on their old tormentors for their former sufferings; but it was in reality for the very sake of inflicting this torture that the Romans had assigned Massinissa as a neighbour to Carthage. All the requests
and complaints had no result, except either that Roman commissions made their appearance in Africa and after a thorough investigation came to no decision, or that in the negotiations at Rome the envoys of Massinissa pretended a want of instructions and the matter was adjourned. Phoenician patience alone was able to submit meekly to
adjured
378
FROM THE PEACE OF HANNIBAL book ii!
such a position, and even to exhibit towards the despotic victors every attention and courtesy, solicited or unsolicited with unwearied perseverance. The Carthaginians especially courted Roman favour by sending supplies of grain.
This pliability on the part of the vanquished, however, was not mere patience and resignation. There was still in Carthage a patriotic party, and at its head stood the man, who, wherever fate placed him, was still dreaded by the Romans. It had not abandoned the idea of resuming the struggle by taking advantage of those complications that might be easily foreseen between Rome and the eastern powers; and, as the failure of the magnificent scheme of Hamilcar and his sons had been due mainly to the Cartha ginian oligarchy, the chief object was internally to rein-
Reform of vigorate the country for this new struggle. The salutary
the Car thaginian constitu tion.
1W.
influence of adversity, and the clear, noble, and commanding mind of Hannibal, effected political and financial reforms. The oligarchy, which had filled up the measure of its guilty follies by raising a criminal process against the great general, charging him with having intentionally abstained from the capture of Rome and with embezzlement of the
Italian spoil—that rotten oligarchy was, on the proposition of Hannibal, overthrown, and a democratic government was introduced such as was suited to the circumstances of the citizens (before 559). The finances were so reorganized by the collection of arrears and of embezzled moneys and by the introduction of better control, that the contribution due to Rome could be paid without burdening the citizens in any way with extraordinary taxes. The Roman government, just then on the point of beginning its critical war with the great-king of Asia, observed the progress of these events, as may easily be conceived, with apprehension ; it was no imaginary danger that the Cartha
fleet might land in Italy and a second war under Hannibal might spring up there, while the Roman legions
ginian
rapidly
chap, vii TO THE CLOSE OF THE THIRD PERIOD
were fighting in Asia Minor. We can scarcely, therefore, Hwnibal't
gt
which was presumably charged to demand the 195. surrender of Hannibal. The spiteful Carthaginian oligarchs,
who sent letter after letter to Rome to denounce to the national foe the hero who had overthrown them as having entered into secret communications with the powers unfriendly to Rome, were contemptible, but their informa
tion was probably correct ; and, true as it was that that embassy involved a humiliating confession of the dread
with which the simple shofete of Carthage inspired so powerful a people, and natural and honourable as it was
that the proud conqueror of Zama should take exception
in the senate to so humiliating a step, still that confession
was nothing but the simple truth, and Hannibal was of a genius so extraordinary, that none but sentimental politicians
in Rome could tolerate him longer at the head of the Carthaginian state. The marked recognition thus accorded
to him by the Roman government scarcely took himself by
As it was Hannibal and not Carthage that had carried on the last war, so it was he who had to bear the fate of the vanquished. The Carthaginians could do nothing but submit and be thankful that Hannibal, sparing them the greater disgrace by his speedy and prudent flight to the east, left to his ancestral city merely the lesser disgrace of having banished its greatest citizen for ever from his native land, confiscated his property, and razed his house. The profound saying that those are the favourites of the gods, on whom they lavish infinite joys and infinite sorrows, thus verified itself in full measure in the case of Hannibal.
A graver responsibility than that arising out of their pro- Contlnned ceedings against Hannibal attaches to the Roman govern- j^1^^? ment for their persistence in suspecting and tormenting the towards
censure the Romans for sending an embassy to Carthage
(m SS9)
379
surprise.
city after his removal. Parties indeed fermented there as
***
38o
FROM THE PEACE OF HANNIBAL book III
before ; but, after the withdrawal of the extraordinary man who had wellnigh changed the destinies of the world, the patriot party was not of much more importance in Carthage than in Aetolia or Achaia. The most rational of the various ideas which then agitated the unhappy city was beyond doubt that of attaching themselves to Massinissa, and of converting him from the oppressor into the protector of the Phoenicians. But neither the national section of the patriots nor the section with Libyan tendencies attained the helm ; on the contrary the government remained in the hands of the oligarchs friendly to Rome, who, so far as they did not altogether renounce thought of the future, clung to the single idea of saving the material welfare and the communal freedom of Carthage under Roman protec tion. With this state of matters the Romans might well have been content. But neither the multitude, nor even the ruling lords of the average stamp, could rid themselves of the profound alarm produced by the Hannibalic war ; and the Roman merchants with envious eyes beheld the city even now, when its political power was gone, possessed of extensive commercial dependencies and of a firmly established wealth which nothing could shake. Already in
187. 567 the Carthaginian government offered to pay up at once 201. the whole instalments stipulated in the peace of 553—an
offer which the Romans, who attached far more importance to the having Carthage tributary than to the sums of money themselves, naturally declined, and only deduced from it the conviction that, in spite of all the trouble they had taken, the city was not ruined and was not capable of ruin. Fresh reports were ever circulating through Rome as to the intrigues of the faithless Phoenicians. At one time it was alleged that Aristo of Tyre had been seen in Carthage as an emissary of Hannibal, to prepare the citizens for the
198. landing of an Asiatic war-fleet (561); at another, that the council had, in a secret nocturnal sitting in the temple of
chap, vii TO THE CLOSE OF THE THIRD PERIOD
381
the God of Healing, given audience to the envoys of Perseus (581); at another there was talk of the powerful 173. fleet which was being equipped in Carthage for the Macedonian war (583). It is probable that these and 171. similar reports were founded on nothing more than, at most, individual indiscretions ; but still they were the signal for new diplomatic ill usage on the part of Rome,
and for new aggressions on the part of Massinissa, and the
idea gained ground the more, the less sense and reason there was in that the Carthaginian question would not
be settled without third Punic war.
While the power of the Phoenicians was thus sinking
the land of their choice, just as had long ago succumbed d,lan*- in their original home, new state grew up by their side.
The northern coast of Africa has been inhabited from time immemorial, and inhabited still, the people, who themselves assume the name of Shilah or Tamazigt, whom
the Greeks and Romans call Nomades or Numidians, i. e.
the " pastoral " people, and the Arabs call Berbers, although
they also at times designate them as " shepherds " (Shawie),
and to whom we are wont to give the name of Berbers or
This people so far as its language has been hitherto investigated, related to no other known nation. In the Carthaginian period these tribes, with the exception of those dwelling immediately around Carthage or immediately on the coast, had on the whole maintained their independence, and had also substantially retained their pastoral and equestrian life, such as the inhabitants of the Atlas lead at the present day although they were not strangers to the Phoenician alphabet and Phoenician civilization generally 141), and instances occurred in which the Berber sheiks had their sons educated in
Kabyles.
and intermarried with the families of the Phoenician nobility. was not the policy of the Romans to have direct possessions of their own Africa; they
Carthage
Numi-
in
It
(p.
;
it by
is,
is
a
it, a
in
Massinissa.
Massinissa became the founder of the Numidian kingdom ; and seldom has choice or accident hit upon a man so thoroughly fitted for his post In body sound and supple up to extreme old age; temperate and sober like an Arab ; capable of enduring any fatigue, of standing on the same spot from morning to evening, and of sitting four- and-twenty hours on horseback; tried alike as a soldier
38a
FROM THE PEACE OF HANNIBAL book iii
preferred to rear a state there, which should not be of sufficient importance to be able to dispense with Roman
protection, and yet should be sufficiently strong to keep down the power of Carthage now that it was restricted to Africa, and to render all freedom of movement impossible for the tortured city. They found what they sought among the native princes. About the time of the Hannibalic war the natives of North Africa were subject to three principal kings, each of whom, according to the custom there, had a multitude of princes bound to follow his banner ; Bocchar king of the Mauri, who ruled from the Atlantic Ocean to the river Molochath (now Mluia, on the boundary between Morocco and the French territory) ; Syphax king of the
who ruled from the last-named point to the " Perforated Promontory," as it was called (Seba Rus, between Jijeli and Bona), in what are now the provinces
of Oran and Algiers ; and Massinissa king of the Massyli, who ruled from the Tretum Promontorium to the boundary of Carthage, in what is now the province of Constantine. The most powerful of these, Syphax king of Siga, had been vanquished in the last war between Rome and Carthage and carried away captive to Rome, where he died in captivity. His wide dominions were mainly given to Massinissa; although Vermina the son of Syphax by humble petition recovered a small portion of his father's territory from the
200. Romans (554), he was unable to deprive the earlier ally of the Romans of his position as the privileged oppressor of Carthage.
Massaesyli,
chap, vii TO Ttl£ CLOSE OF THE THIRD PERIOD
383
and a general amidst the romantic vicissitudes of his youth
as well as on the battle-fields of Spain, and not less master
of the more difficult art of maintaining discipline in his numerous household and order in his dominions ; with
equal unsciupulousness ready to throw himself at the feet
of his poweiiul protector, or to tread under foot his weaker neighbour; and, in addition to all this, as accurately acquainted *iui the circumstances of Carthage, where he
was educated and had been on familiar terms in the
noblest houses, as he was filled with an African bitterness
of hatred towards his own and his people's oppressors,—
this remarkable man became the soul of the revival of his
nation, which had seemed on the point of perishing, and
of whose virtues and faults ne appeared as it were a living embodiment. Fortune favoured him, as in everything, so especially in the fact, that it allowed him time for his work.
He died in the ninetieth year of his age (516-605), and in 288-149. the sixtieth year of his reign, retaining to the last the full possession of his bodily and mental powers, leaving behind
him a son one year old and the reputation ot having been the strongest man and the best and most fortunate king of his age.
We have already narrated how purposely and clearly the Extension Romans in their management of African affairs evinced j^^"^ their taking part with Massinissa, and how zealously and con- Numidia. stantly the latter availed himself of the tacit permission to
enlarge his territory at the expense of Carthage. The whole interior to the border of the desert fell to the native sove reign as it were of its own accord, and even the upper valley of the Bagradas (Mejerdah) with the rich town of Vaga became subject to the king ; on the coast also to the east of Carthage he occupied the old Sidonian city of Great Leptis and other districts, so that his kingdom stretched from the Mauretanian to the Cyrenaean frontier, enclosed the Carthaginian terri tory on every side by land, and everywhere pressed, in the
The state taSpaiaT
closest vicinity, on the Phoenicians. It admits of no doubt, that he looked on Carthage as his future capital ; the Libyan party there was significant But it was not only by the diminution of her territory that Carthage suffered injury. The roving shepherds were converted by their great king into another people. After the example of the king, who brought the fields under cultivation far and wide and be queathed to each of his sons considerable landed estates, his subjects also began to settle and to practise agriculture. As he converted his shepherds into settled citizens, he converted also his hordes of plunderers into soldiers who were deemed by Rome worthy to fight side by side with her legions ; and he bequeathed to his successors a richly-filled treasury, a well-disciplined army, and even a fleet His residence Cirta
(Constantine) became the stirring capital of a powerful state, and a chief seat of Phoenician civilization, which was zeal ously fostered at the court of the Berber king — fostered perhaps studiously with a view to the future Carthagino- Numidian kingdom. The hitherto degraded Libyan nation ality thus rose in its own estimation, and the native manners and language made their way even into the eld Phoenician towns, such as Great Leptis. The Berber began, under the aegis of Rome, to feel himself the equal or even the superior of the Phoenician; Carthaginian envoys at Rome had to submit to be told that they were aliens in Africa, and that the land belonged to the Libyans. The Phoenico-national civilization of North Africa, which still retained life and vigour
even in the levelling times of the Empire, was far more the work of Massinissa than of the Carthaginians.
In Spain the Greek and Phoenician towns along the coast, such as Emporiae, Saguntum, New Carthage, Malaca, and Gades, submitted to the Roman rule the more readily, that, left to their own resources, they would hardly have been able to protect themselves from the natives ; as for similar reasons Massilia, although far more important and more capable of
384
FROM THE PEACE OF HANNIBAL book 111
chap, Vll TO THE CLOSE OF THE THIRD PERIOD
385
self-defence than those towns, did not omit to secure a powerful support in case of need by closely attaching itself to the Romans, to whom it was in return very serviceable as an intermediate station between Italy and Spain. The natives, on the other hand, gave to the Romans endless trouble. It is true that there were not wanting the rudiments of a national Iberian civilization, although of its special character it is scarcely possible for us to acquire any clear idea. We find among the Iberians a widely diffused national writing, which divides itself into two chief kinds, that of the valley of the Ebro, and the Andalusian, and each of these was presumably subdivided into various branches : this writing seems to have originated at a very early period, and to be traceable rather to the old Greek than to the Phoenician alphabet. There is even a tradition that the Turdetani (round Seville) possessed lays from very ancient times, a metrical book of laws of 6000 verses, and even historical records ; at any rate this tribe is described as the most civilized of all the Spanish tribes, and at the same time the least warlike ; indeed, it regularly carried on its wars by means of foreign mercenaries. To the same region probably we must refer the descriptions
given by Polybius of the flourishing condition of agriculture and the rearing of cattle in Spain—so that, in the absence of opportunity of export, grain and flesh were to be had at nominal prices — and of the splendid royal palaces with golden and silver jars full of "barley wine. " At least a portion of the Spaniards, moreover, zealously embraced the elements of culture which the Romans brought along with them, so that the process of Latinizing made more rapid pro gress in Spain than anywhere else in the transmarine pro vinces. For example, warm baths after the Italian fashion came into use even at this period among the natives. Roman money, too, was to all appearance not only current in Spain far earlier than elsewhere out of Italy, but was imitated in Spanish coins; a circumstance in some measure explained by
vol. 11
57
386
FROM THE PEACE OF HANNIBAL book hi
the rich silver-mines of the country. The so-called " silver
of Osca " (now Huesca in Arragon), i. e. Spanish denarii with 165. Iberian inscriptions, is mentioned in 559 ; and the com
mencement of their coinage cannot be placed much later, because the impression is imitated from that of the oldest Roman denarii.
But, while in the southern and eastern provinces the culture of the natives may have so far prepared the way for Roman civilization and Roman rule that these en countered no serious difficulties, the west and north on the other hand, and the whole of the interior, were occupied by numerous tribes more or less barbarous, who knew little of any kind of civilization —in Intercatia, for instance, the
154. use of gold and silver was still unknown about 600—and who were on no better terms with each other than with the Romans. A characteristic trait in these free Spaniards was the chivalrous spirit of the men and, at least to an equal extent, of the women. When a mother sent forth her son to battle, she roused his spirit by the recital of the feats of his ancestors ; and the fairest maiden unasked offered her hand in marriage to the bravest man. Single combat was common, both with a view to determine the prize of valour, and for the settlement of lawsuits; even disputes among the relatives of princes as to the succession were settled in this way. It not unfrequently happened that a well-known warrior confronted the ranks of the enemy and challenged an antagonist by name; the defeated champion then surrendered his mantle and sword to his opponent, and even entered into relations of friendship and hospitality with him. Twenty years after the close of the second Punic war, the little Celtiberian community of Complega (in the neighbourhood of the sources of the Tagus) sent a
message to the Roman general, that unless he sent to them for every man that had fallen a horse, a mantle, and a sword, it would fare ill with him. Proud of their military
chap, vii TO THE CLOSE OF THE THIRD PERIOD
387
honour, so that they frequently could not bear to survive the disgrace of being disarmed, the Spaniards were never theless disposed to follow any one who should enlist their services, and to stake their lives in any foreign quarrel. The summons was characteristic, which a Roman general well acquainted with the customs of the country sent to a Celtiberian band fighting in the pay of the Turdetani against the Romans —either to return home, or to enter the Roman service with double pay, or to fix time and place for battle. If no recruiting officer made his appearance, they met of their own accord in free bands, with the view
of pillaging the more peaceful districts and even of captur ing and occupying towns, quite after the manner of the Campanians. The wildness and insecurity of the inland districts are attested by the fact that banishment into the interior westward of Cartagena was regarded by the Romans as a severe punishment, and that in periods of any excitement the Roman commandants of Further Spain took with them escorts of as many as 6000 men. They are still more clearly shown by the singular relations subsisting between the Greeks and their Spanish neighbours in the Graeco-Spanish double city of Emporiae, at the
eastern extremity of the Pyrenees. The Greek settlers, who dwelt on the point of the peninsula separated on the landward side from the Spanish part of the town by a wall, took care that this wall should be guarded every night by a third of their civic force, and that a higher official should constantly superintend the watch at the only gate; no Spaniard was allowed to set foot in the Greek city, and the Greeks conveyed their merchandise to the natives only in numerous and well-escorted companies.
These natives, full of restlessness and fond of war —full Wars be- of the spirit of the Cid and of Don Quixote —were now to jJJJJTM the be tamed and, if possible, civilized by the Romans. In a and military point of view the task was not difficult. It is true sPaniards
388
FROM THE PEACE OF HANNIBAL book ill
that the Spaniards showed themselves, not only when behind the walls of their cities or under the leadership of Hannibal, but even when left to themselves and in the open field of battle, no contemptible opponents ; with their short two-edged sword which the Romans subsequently adopted from them, and their formidable assaulting columns, they not unfrequently made even the Roman legions waver. Had they been able to submit to military discipline and to political combination, they might perhaps have shaken off the foreign yoke imposed on them. But their valour was rather that of the guerilla than of the soldier, and they were utterly void of political judgment. Thus in Spain there was no serious war, but as little was there any real peace ; the Spaniards, as Caesar afterwards very justly pointed out to them, never showed themselves quiet in peace or strenuous in war. Easy as it was for a Roman general to scatter a host of insurgents, it was difficult for the Roman statesman to devise any suitable means of really pacifying and civilizing Spain. In fact, he could only deal with it by palliative measures ; because the only really adequate expedient, a comprehensive Latin
colonization, was not accordant with the general aim of Roman policy at this period.
—
The territory which the Romans acquired in Spain in the course of the second Punic war was from the beginning
The
Romans
maintain a
standing divided into two masses the province formerly Cartha- army m
ginian, which embraced in the first instance the present districts of Andalusia, Granada, Murcia, and Valencia, and the province of the Ebro, or the modern Arragon and Catalonia, the fixed quarters of the Roman army during the last war. Out of these territories were formed the two Roman provinces of Further and Hither Spain. The Romans sought gradually to reduce to subjection the interior corresponding nearly to the two Castiles, which they comprehended under the general name of Celtiberia,
chap, vii TO THE CLOSE OF THE THIRD PERIOD
389
while they were content with checking the incursions of the inhabitants of the western provinces, more especially those of the Lusitanians in the modern Portugal and the Spanish Estremadura, into the Roman territory ; with the tribes on the north coast, the Callaecians, Asturians, and Cantabrians, they did not as yet come into contact at all. The territories thus won, however, could not be maintained and secured without a standing garrison, for the governor of Hither Spain had no small trouble every year with the chastise ment of the Celtiberians, and the governor of the more remote province found similar employment in repelling the Lusitanians. It was needful accordingly to maintain in Spain a Roman army of four strong legions, or about 40,000 men, year after year; besides which the general levy had often to be called out in the districts occupied by Rome, to reinforce the legions. This was of great importance for two reasons : it was in Spain first, at least first on any larger scale, that the military occupation of the land became continuous; and it was there consequently that the service acquired a permanent character. The old Roman custom of sending troops only where the exigencies of war at the moment required them, and of not keeping the men called to serve, except in very serious and important wars, under arms for more than a year, was found incompatible with the retention of the turbulent and remote Spanish provinces beyond the sea ; it was absolutely impossible to withdraw the troops from these, and very dangerous even to relieve them extensively. The Roman burgesses began to perceive that dominion over a foreign people is an annoyance not only to the slave, but to the master, and murmured loudly regarding the odious war- service of Spain. While the new generals with good reason refused to allow the relief of the existing corps as a whole, the men mutinied and threatened that, if they were not allowed their discharge, they would take it of their own accord.
Crtft
390
FROM THE PEACE OF HANNIBAL iook in
The wars themselves, which the Romans waged in Spain, were but of a subordinate importance. They began with the very departure of Scipio 332), and continued as long as the war under Hannibal lasted. After the peace
201- with Carthage (in 553) there was cessation of arms in the 197. peninsula but only for short time. In 557 general
195. in 559 to send the consul Marcus Cato in person to Spain. On landing at Emporiae he actually found the whole of Hither Spain overrun by the insurgents with difficulty that seaport and one or two strongholds in the interior were still held for Rome. A pitched battle took place
between the insurgents and the consular army, in which, after an obstinate conflict man against man, the Roman military skill at length decided the day with its last reserve. The whole of Hither Spain thereupon sent in its submission so little, however, was this submission meant in earnest, that on rumour of the consul having returned to Rome the insurrection immediately recom menced. But the rumour was false; and after Cato had rapidly reduced the communities which had revolted for the second time and sold them en masse into slavery, he decreed
general disarming of the Spaniards in the Hither province, and issued orders to all the towns of the natives from the Pyrenees to the Guadalquivir to pull down their walls on one and the same day. No one knew how far the command extended, and there was no time to come to any under standing most of the communities complied and of the few that were refractory not many ventured, when the Roman army soon appeared before their walls, to await its assault
insurrection broke out in both provinces the commander of the Further province was hard pressed the commander of Hither Spain was completely defeated, and was himself slain. was necessary to take up the war in earnest, and although in the meantime the able praetor
Quintus Minucius had mastered the first danger, the senate resolved
;
It
;
;
a
a
:
;
;
;
a
a
a
(p.
chap, vii TO THE CLOSE OF THE THIRD PERIOD
391
These energetic measures were certainly not without permanent effect Nevertheless the Romans had almost every year to reduce to subjection some mountain valley or mountain stronghold in the " peaceful province," and the constant incursions of the Lusitanians into the Further province led occasionally to severe defeats of the Romans.
In 563, for instance, a Roman army was obliged after 191. heavy loss to abandon its camp, and to return by forced marches into the more tranquil districts. It was not till after a victory gained by the praetor Lucius Aemilius Paullus in 565,1 and a second still more considerable 189. gained by the brave praetor Gaius Calpurnius beyond the Tagus over the Lusitanians in 569, that quiet for some 185. time prevailed. In Hither Spain the hitherto almost nominal rule of the Romans over the Celtiberian tribes was placed on a firmer basis by Quintus Fulvius Flaccus, who
after a great victory over them in 573 compelled at least 181.
the adjacent cantons to submission ; and especially by his
successor Tiberius Gracchus (575, 576), who achieved 179. 178.
results of a permanent character not only by his arms, by which he reduced three hundred Spanish townships, but still more by his adroitness in adapting himself to the views and habits of the simple and haughty nation. He induced Celtiberians of note to take service in the Roman army,
GracchnB-
1 Of this praetor there has recently come to light the following decree
on a copper tablet found in the neighbourhood of Gibraltar and now pre served in the Paris Museum : " L. Aimilius, son of Lucius, Imperator,
has ordained that the slaves of the Hastenses [of Hasta regia, not far
from Jerez de la Frontera], who dwell in the tower of Lascuta [known by means of coins and Plin. iii. 1, 15, but uncertain as to site] should be free.
The ground and the township, of which they are at the time in possession,
they shall continue to possess and hold, so long as it shall please the people and senate of the Romans. Done in camp on 12 Jan. [564 or 190. 565]. " (L. Aimilius L. f. inprirator dtertivit utei qui Hasttnsium servei 189. in turri Lascutana hatitarent, leiierei tssent. Agrum oppidumqu[e\,
quod ta tempestate posedissent, item possidere haicreque ioussit, dum poplus senalusque Roman us vellet Act in castreis a. d. XII. k, Febr. ) This is
the oldest Roman document which we possess in the original, drawn up
three years earlier than the well-known edict of the consuls of the year 568 188. in the affair of the Bacchanalia.
Adminis- bation of
and so created a class of dependents ; he assigned land to the roving tribes, and collected them in towns — the Spanish town Graccurris preserved the Roman's name—and so imposed a serious check on their freebooter habits ; he regulated the relations of the several tribes to the Romans by just and wise treaties, and so stopped, as far as possible, the springs of future rebellion. His name was held in grateful remembrance by the Spaniards, and comparative peace henceforth reigned in the land, although the Celti-
berians still from time to time winced under the yoke.
The system of administration in the two Spanish pro vinces was similar to that of the Sicilo-Sardinian province,
but not identical. The superintendence was in both instances
39a
FROM THE PEACE OF HANNIBAL book iii
vested in two auxiliary consuls, who were first nominated 197. in 557, in which year also the regulation of the boundaries
and the definitive organization of the new provinces took 181. place. The judicious enactment of the Baebian law (573), that the Spanish praetors should always be nominated for two
years, was not seriously carried out in consequence of the increasing competition for the highest magistracies, and still more in consequence of the jealous supervision exercised over the powers of the magistrates by the senate ; and in Spain also, except where deviations occurred in extraordi nary circumstances, the Romans adhered to the system of annually changing the governors — a system especially
in the case of provinces so remote and with which it was so difficult to gain an acquaintance. The
injudicious
communities were throughout tributary; but, instead of the Sicilian and Sardinian tenths and customs, in Spain fixed payments in money or other contributions were imposed by the Romans, just as formerly by the Carthaginians, on the several towns and tribes : the collec tion of these by military means was prohibited by a decree
171. of the senate in 583, in consequence of the complaints of the Spanish communities. Grain was not furnished in their
dependent
chap, vii TO THE CLOSE OF THE THIRD PERIOD
393
case except for compensation, and even then the governor might not levy more than a twentieth ; besides, conformably to the just-mentioned ordinance of the supreme authority, he was bound to adjust the compensation in an equitable manner. On the other hand, the obligation of the Spanish subjects to furnish contingents to the Roman armies had an importance very different from that which belonged to it at least in peaceful Sicily, and it was strictly regulated in the several treaties. The right, too, of coining silver money of the Roman standard appears to have been very frequently conceded to the Spanish towns, and the monopoly of coining seems to have been by no means asserted here by the Roman government with the same strictness as in Sicily. Rome had too much need of her subjects everywhere in Spain, not to proceed with all possible tenderness in the introduction and handling of the provincial constitution there. Among the communities specially favoured by Rome were the great cities along the coast of Greek, Phoenician, or Roman foundation, such as Saguntum, Gades, and Tarraco, which, as the natural pillars of the Roman rule in the peninsula, were admitted to alliance with Rome. On the whole, Spain was in a military as well as financial point of view a burden rather than a gain to the Roman commonwealth ; and the question naturally occurs, Why did the Roman
whose policy at that time evidently did not contemplate the acquisition of countries beyond the sea, not rid itself of these troublesome possessions ? The not inconsiderable commercial connections of Spain, her im portant iron-mines, and her still more important silver-mines famous from ancient times even in the far east1 — which Rome, like Carthage, took into her own hands, and the management of which was specially regulated by Marcus
1 1 Maccab. viii. 3. "And Judas heard what the Romans had done In the land of Hispania to become masters of the silver and gold mines then. "
government,
394
FROM THE PEACE OF HANNIBAL book in
105. Cato (559) —must beyond doubt have co-operated to induce its retention ; but the chief reason of the Romans for retaining the peninsula in their own immediate possession was, that there were no states in that quarter of similar character to the Massiliot republic in the land of the Celts and the Numidian kingdom in Libya, and that thus they could not abandon Spain without putting it into the power of any adventurer to revive the Spanish empire of the Barcides.
chap, VIII THE EASTERN STATES
395
CHAPTER VIII
THE EASTERN STATES AND THE SECOND MACEDONIAN WAR
The work, which Alexander king of Macedonia had begun a century before the Romans acquired their first footing in the territory which he had called his own, had in the course of time—while adhering substantially to the great funda mental idea of Hellenizing the east—changed and expanded into the construction of a system of Helleno-Asiatic states. The unconquerable propensity of the Greeks for migration and colonizing, which had formerly carried their traders to Massilia and Cyrene, to the Nile and to the Black Sea, now firmly held what the king had won ; and under the protec tion of the sarissae, Greek civilization peacefully domiciled itself everywhere throughout the ancient empire of the Achaemenidae. The officers, who divided the heritage of the great general, gradually settled their differences, and a system of equilibrium was established, of which the very oscillations manifest some sort of regularity.
Of the three states of the first rank belonging to this system —Macedonia, Asia, and Egypt —Macedonia under Philip the Fifth, who had occupied the throne since 534, was externally at least very much what it had been under Philip the Second the father of Alexander —a compact military state with its finances in good order. On its northern frontier matters had resumed their former footing,
after the waves of the Gallic inundation had rolled away ;
The ^^^^
The great
5*^ 220.
396
THE EASTERN STATES AND book ni
the guard of the frontier kept the Illyrian barbarians in check without difficulty, at least in ordinary times. In the south, not only was Greece in general dependent on Macedonia, but a large portion of it—including all Thessaly in its widest sense from Olympus to the Spercheius and the peninsula of Magnesia, the large and important island of Euboea, the provinces of Locris, Phocis, and Doris, and, lastly, a number of isolated positions in Attica and in the Peloponnesus, such as the promontory of Sunium, Corinth, Orchomenus, Heraea, the Triphylian territory — was directly subject to Macedonia and received Macedonian garrisons ; more especially the three important fortresses of Demetrias in Magnesia, Chalcis in Euboea, and Corinth, "the three fetters of the Hellenes. " But the strength of the state lay above all in its hereditary soil, the province of Macedonia. The population, indeed, of that extensive territory was remarkably scanty ; Macedonia, putting forth all her energies, was scarcely able to bring into the field as many men as were contained in an ordinary consular army of two legions; and it was unmistakeably evident that the land had not yet recovered from the depopulation occasioned by the campaigns of Alexander and by the Gallic invasion. But while in Greece proper the moral and political energy of the
people had decayed, the day of national vigour seemed to have gone by, life appeared scarce worth living for, and even of the better spirits one spent time over the wine-cup, another with the rapier, a third beside the student's lamp ; while in the east and Alexandria the Greeks were able perhaps to disseminate elements of culture among the dense native population and to diffuse among that population their language and their loquacity, their science and pseudo- science, but were barely sufficient in point of number to supply the nations with officers, statesmen, and school masters, and were far too few to form even in the cities a middle-class of the pure Greek type ; there still existed, on
chap, viii THE SECOND MACEDONIAN WAR
397
the other hand, in northern Greece a goodly portion of the old national vigour, which had produced the warriors of
Marathon. Hence arose the confidence with which the Macedonians, Aetolians, and Acarnanians, wherever they made their appearance in the east, claimed to be, and were taken as, a better race ; and hence the superior part which they played at the courts of Alexandria and Antioch. There is a characteristic story, that an Alexandrian who had lived for a considerable time in Macedonia and had adopted the manners and the dress of that country, on returning to his native city, now looked upon himself as a man and upon the Alexandrians as little better than slaves. This sturdy vigour and unimpaired national spirit were turned to peculiarly good account by the Macedonians, as the most powerful and best organized of the states of northern Greece. There, no doubt, absolutism had emerged in opposition to the old constitution, which to some extent recognized different estates ; but sovereign and subject by no means stood towards each other in Macedonia as they stood in Asia and Egypt, and the people still felt itself in dependent and free. In steadfast resistance to the public enemy under whatever name, in unshaken fidelity towards their native country and their hereditary government, and in persevering courage amidst the severest trials, no nation in ancient history bears so close a resemblance to the Roman people as the Macedonians ; and the almost miraculous regeneration of the state after the Gallic invasion redounds to the imperishable honour of its leaders and of the people whom they led.
The second of the great states, Asia, was nothing but Persia superficially remodelled and Hellenized — the empire of "the king of kings," as its master was wont to call him self in a style characteristic at once of his arrogance and of his weakness—with the same pretensions to rule from the Hellespont to the Punjab, and with the same disjointed
Asia.
Egypt.
organization ; an aggregate of dependent states in various degrees of dependence, of insubordinate satrapies, and of half-free Greek cities. In Asia Minor more especially, which was nominally included in the empire of the Seleu- cidae, the whole north coast and the greater part of the eastern interior were practically in the hands of native dynasties or of the Celtic hordes that had penetrated thither from Europe; a considerable portion of the west was in the possession of the kings of Pergamus, and the islands and coast towns were some of them Egyptian, some of them free ; so that little more was left to the great-king than the interior of Cilicia, Phrygia, and Lydia, and a great number of titular claims, not easily made good, against free cities and princes—exactly similar in character to the sovereignty of the German emperor, in his day, beyond his hereditary dominions. The strength of the empire was expended in vain endeavours to expel the Egyptians from the provinces along the coast ; in frontier strife with the eastern peoples, the Parthians and Bactrians ; in feuds with the Celts, who to the misfortune of Asia Minor had settled within its bounds ; in constant efforts to check the attempts of the eastern satraps and of the Greek cities of Asia Minor to achieve their independence ; and in family quarrels and insurrections of pretenders. None indeed of the states founded by the successors of Alexander were free from such attempts, or from the other horrors which absolute mon archy in degenerate times brings in its train ; but in the kingdom of Asia these evils were more injurious than else where, because, from the lax composition of the empire, they usually led to the severance of particular portions from it for longer or shorter periods.
In marked contrast to Asia, Egypt formed a consolidated and united state, in which the intelligent statecraft of the first Lagidae, skilfully availing itself of ancient national and religious precedent, had established a completely absolute
398
THE EASTERN STATES AND book hi
chap, viii THE SECOND MACEDONIAN WAR
399
cabinet government, and in which even the worst misrule failed to provoke any attempt either at emancipation or dis ruption. Very different from the Macedonians, whose national attachment to royalty was based upon their personal dignity and was its political expression, the rural population in Egypt was wholly passive ; the capital on the other hand was everything, and that capital was a dependency of the court The remissness and indolence of its rulers, accord ingly, paralyzed the state in Egypt still more than in Mace donia and in Asia ; while on the other hand when wielded by men, like the first Ptolemy and Ptolemy Euergetes, such a state machine proved itself extremely useful. It was one of the peculiar advantages of Egypt as compared with its two great rivals, that its policy did not grasp at shadows, but pursued clear and attainable objects. Macedonia, the
home of Alexander, and Asia, the land where he had estab lished his throne, never ceased to regard themselves as direct continuations of the Alexandrine monarchy and more or less loudly asserted their claim to represent it at least, if not to restore it The Lagidae never tried to found a universal empire, and never dreamt of conquering India ; but, by way of compensation, they drew the whole traffic between India and the Mediterranean from the Phoenician ports to Alexandria, and made Egypt the first commercial and maritime state of this epoch, and the mistress of the eastern Mediterranean and of its coasts and islands. It is a significant fact, that Ptolemy III. Euergetes voluntarily restored all his conquests to Seleucus Callinicus except the seaport of Antioch. Partly by this means, partly by its favourable geographical situation, Egypt attained, with re ference to the two continental powers, an excellent military
position either for defence or for attack.
While an oppo nent even in the full career of success was hardly in a
to threaten Egypt, which was almost inaccessible on any side to land armies, the Egyptians were
position seriously
400
THE EASTERN STATES AND book iii
able by sea to establish themselves not only in Cyrene, but also in Cyprus and the Cyclades, on the Phoenico-Syrian coast, on the whole south and west coast of Asia Minor, and even in Europe on the Thracian Chersonese. By their unexampled skill in turning to account the fertile valley of the Nile for the direct benefit of the treasury, and by a financial system —equally sagacious and unscrupulous — earnestly and adroitly calculated to foster material interests, the court of Alexandria was constantly superior to its opponents even as a moneyed power. Lastly, the intelligent munificence, with which the Lagidae welcomed the tendency of the age towards earnest inquiry in all departments of enterprise and of knowledge, and knew how to confine such
within the bounds, and entwine them with the interests, of absolute monarchy, was productive of direct advantage to the state, whose ship-building and machine- making showed traces of the beneficial influence of Alexandrian mathematics; and not only so, but also rendered this new intellectual power — the most important and the greatest, which the Hellenic nation after its political dismemberment put forth—subservient, so far as it would consent to be serviceable at all, to the Alexandrian court. Had the empire of Alexander continued to stand, Greek science and art would have found a state worthy and
capable of containing them. Now, when the nation had fallen to pieces, a learned cosmopolitanism grew up in it luxuriantly, and was very soon attracted by the magnet of Alexandria, where scientific appliances and collections were inexhaustible, where kings composed tragedies and ministers wrote commentaries on them, and where pensions and academies flourished.
The mutual relations of the three great states are evident from what has been said. The maritime power, which ruled the coasts and monopolized the sea, could not but after the first great success —the political separation of
inquiries
chap, viii THE SECOND MACEDONIAN WAR
401
the European from the Asiatic continent —direct its further efforts towards the weakening of the two great states on the mainland, and consequently towards the protection of the several minor states; whereas Macedonia and Asia, while regarding each other as rivals, recognized above all their common adversary in Egypt, and combined, or at any rate ought to have combined, against it
Among the states of the second rank, merely an indirect The importance, so far as concerned the contact of the east of^^"* with the west, attached in the first instance to that series of Minor, states which, stretching from the southern end of the
Caspian Sea to the Hellespont, occupied the interior and
the north coast of Asia Minor : Atropatene (in the modern Aderbijan, south-west of the Caspian), next to it Armenia,
in the interior of Asia Minor, Pontus on the south-east, and Bithynia on the south-west, shore of the
Black Sea. All of these were fragments of the Persian Empire, and were ruled by Oriental, mostly old Persian, dynasties —the remote mountain-land of Atropatene in particular was the true asylum of the ancient Persian system, over which even the expedition of Alexander had swept without leaving a trace—and all were in the same relation of temporary and superficial dependence on the Greek dynasty, which had taken or wished to take the place of the great-kings in Asia.
Of greater importance for the general relations was the The Celu
Cappadocia
Celtic state in the interior of Asia Minor. There,' inter- mediate between Bithynia, Paphlagonia, Cappadocia, and Phrygia, three Celtic tribes—the Tolistoagii, the Tectosages, and Trocmi—had settled, without abandoning either their native language and manners or their constitution and their trade as freebooters. The twelve tetrarchs, one of whom was appointed to preside over each of the four cantons in each of the three tribes, formed, with their council of 300
men, the supreme authority of the nation, and assembled
°[. AsM Minor.
vol. 11
58
great
40*
THE EASTERN STATES AND book m
at the " holy place " (Drunemefum), especially for the pro nouncing of capital sentences. Singular as this cantonal constitution of the Celts appeared to the Asiatics, equally strange seemed to them the adventurous and marauding habits of the northern intruders, who on the one hand furnished their unwarlike neighbours with mercenaries for every war, and on the other plundered on their own account or levied contributions from the surrounding districts. These rude but vigorous barbarians were the general terror of the effeminate surrounding nations, and even of the great-kings of Asia themselves, who, after several Asiatic armies had been destroyed by the Celts and king Antiochus I. Soter had even lost his life in conflict
261. with them (493), agreed at last to pay them tribute.
In consequence of bold and successful opposition to these Gallic hordes, Attalus, a wealthy citizen of Pergamus, received the royal title from his native city and bequeathed it to his posterity. This new court was in miniature what that of Alexandria was on a great scale. Here too the promotion of material interests and the fostering of art and literature formed the order of the day, and the government pursued a cautious and sober cabinet policy, the main objects of which were the weakening the power of its two dangerous continental neighbours, and the establishing an independent Greek state in the west of Asia Minor. A well-filled treasury contributed greatly to the importance of these rulers of Pergamus. They advanced considerable sums to the kings of Syria, the repayment of which after wards formed part of the Roman conditions of peace.
They succeeded even in acquiring territory in this way; Aegina, for instance, which the allied Romans and Aetolians had wrested in the last war from Philip's allies, the Achaeans, was sold by the Aetolians, to whom it fell in terms of the treaty, to Attalus for 30 talents (^7300). But, notwithstanding the splendour of the court and the
Pojamuj,
chap, viii THE SECOND MACEDONIAN WAR
403
royal title, the commonwealth of Pergamus always retained something of the urban character ; and in its policy it usually went along with the free cities. Attalus himself, the Lorenzo de' Medici of antiquity, remained throughout life a wealthy burgher ; and the family life of the Attalid house, from which harmony and cordiality were not banished by the royal title, formed a striking contrast to the dissolute and scandalous behaviour of more aristocratic dynasties.
In European Greece — exclusive of the Roman posses- Greece, sions on the west coast, in the most important of which, particularly Corcyra, Roman magistrates appear to have resided 218), and the territory directly subject to Macedonia —the powers more or less in position to
pursue policy of their own were the Epirots, Acarnanians,
and Aetolians in northern Greece, the Boeotians and
Athenians in central Greece, and the Achaeans, Lacedae
monians, Messenians, and Eleans in the Peloponnesus.
Among these, the republics of the Epirots, Acarnanians, Epirota,
and Boeotians were in various ways closely knit to Mace- A. cama- — * J mans,
donia the Acarnanians more especially, because was Boeotians, only Macedonian protection that enabled them to escape
the destruction with which they were threatened the Aetolians none of them were of any consequence. Their
internal condition was very various. The state of things
may to some extent be illustrated by the fact, that among
the Boeotians —where, true, matters reached their worst
—
had become customary to make over every property, which did not descend to heirs in the direct line, to the syssitia and, in the case of candidates for the public magistracies, for quarter of century the primary condi tion of election was that they should bind themselves not to allow any creditor, least of all foreign one, to sue his debtor.
The Athenians were in the habit of receiving support
a a
a
it ;
;
a
(p.
it is
by
it
a
404
THE EASTERN STATES AND BOOK III
The Athenians.
league
The power of the Aetolian confederacy manifested a greater vigour. The energy of the northern Greek character was still unbroken there, although it had degener ated into a reckless impatience of discipline and control. It was a public law in Aetolia, that an Aetolian might serve as a mercenary against any state, even against a state in alliance with his own country ; and, when the other Greeks urgently besought them to redress this scandal, the Aetolian diet declared that Aetolia might sooner be removed from its place than this principle from their national code. The Aetolians might have been of great service to the Greek nation, had they not inflicted still greater injury on it by this system of organized robbery, by their thorough hostility to the Achaean confederacy, and by their antagonism to the great state of Macedonia.
In the Peloponnesus, the Achaean league had united the best elements of Greece proper in a confederacy based on civilization, national spirit, and peaceful preparation for self-defence. But the vigour and more especially the military efficiency of the league had, notwithstanding its outward enlargement, been arrested by the selfish diplomacy of Aratus. The unfortunate variances with Sparta, and the still more lamentable invocation of Macedonian inter ference in the Peloponnesus, had so completely subjected the Achaean league to Macedonian supremacy, that the chief fortresses of the country thenceforward received Macedonian garrisons, and the oath of fidelity to Philip was annually taken there.
The policy of the weaker states in the Peloponnesus,
The Aetolians.
against Macedonia from Alexandria, and were in close
with the Aetolians. But they too were totally powerless, and hardly anything save the halo of Attic poetry and art distinguished these unworthy successors of a glorious past from a number of petty towns of the same stamp.
The Achaean
j.
unhappy
CHAr. vin THE SECOND MACEDONIAN WAR
405
Elis, Messene, and Sparta, was determined by their ancient enmity to the Achaean league—an enmity specially fostered by disputes regarding their frontiers —and their tendencies were Aetolian and anti-Macedonian, because the Achaeans took part with Philip. The only one of these states possessing any importance was the Spartan military monarchy, which after the death of Machanidas had passed into the hands of one Nabis. With ever-increasing hardi hood Nabis leaned on the support of vagabonds and itinerant mercenaries, to whom he assigned not only the houses and lands, but also the wives and children, of the citizens; and he assiduously maintained connections, and even entered into an association for the joint prosecution of piracy, with the great refuge of mercenaries and pirates, the island of Crete, where he possessed some townships. His predatory expeditions by land, and the piratical vessels which he maintained at the promon tory of Malea, were dreaded far and wide; he was personally hated for his baseness and cruelty ; but his rule was extending, and about the time of the battle of Zama he had even succeeded in gaining possession of Messene.
Lastly, the most independent position among the inter-
mediate states was held by the free Greek mercantile cities *
on the European shore of the Propontis as well as along the whole coast of Asia Minor, and on the islands of the Aegean Sea ; they formed, at the same time, the brightest elements in the confused and multifarious picture which was presented by the Hellenic state -system. Three of them, in particular, had after Alexander's death again enjoyed their full freedom, and by the activity of their maritime commerce had attained to respectable political power and even to considerable territorial possessions ; namely, Byzantium the mistress of the Bosporus, rendered wealthy and powerful by the transit dues which she levied
Sparta, 5|j
League of tS Gl*ek cities.
406
THE EASTERN STATES AND book m
and by the important corn trade carried on with the Black Sea; Cyzicus on the Asiatic side of the Propontis, the daughter and heiress of Miletus, maintaining the closest relations with the court of Pergamus ; and lastly and above
Rhodes. all, Rhodes. The Rhodians, who immediately after the
death of Alexander had expelled the Macedonian
had, by their favourable position for commerce and navi gation, secured the carrying trade of all the eastern Mediterranean ; and their well-handled fleet, as well as the
•04. tried courage of the citizens in the famous siege of 450, enabled them in that age of promiscuous and ceaseless hostilities to become the prudent and energetic representa tives and, when occasion required, champions of a neutral commercial policy. They compelled the Byzantines, for instance, by force of arms to concede to the vessels of Rhodes exemption from dues in the Bosporus ; and they did not permit the dynast of Pergamus to close the Black Sea. On the other hand they kept themselves, as far as possible, aloof from land warfare, although they had acquired no inconsiderable possessions on the opposite coast of Caria ; where war could not be avoided, carried it on by means of mercenaries. With their neigh bours on all sides they were in friendly relations—with Syracuse, Macedonia, Syria, but more especially with Egypt —and they enjoyed high consideration at these courts, so
that their mediation was not unfrequently invoked in the wars of the great states. But they interested themselves quite specially on behalf of the Greek maritime cities, which were so numerously spread along the coasts of the kingdoms of Pontus, Bithynia, and Pergamus, as well as on the coasts and islands of Asia Minor that had been wrested by Egypt from the Seleucidae; such as Sinope, Heraclea Pontica, Cius, Lampsacus, Abydos, Mitylene, Chios, Smyrna, Samos, Halicarnassus and various others. All these were in substance free and had nothing to do with
garrison,
they
chap. VIII THE SECOND MACEDONIAN WAR
407
the lords of the soil except to ask for the confirmation of their privileges and, at most, to pay a moderate tribute : such encroachments, as from time to time were threatened by the dynasts, were skilfully warded off sometimes by cringing, sometimes by strong measures. In this case the Rhodians were their chief auxiliaries; they emphatically
for instance, against Mithradates of Pontus. How firmly amidst the quarrels, and by means of
the very differences, of the monarchs the liberties of these cities of Asia Minor were established, is shown by the fact, that the dispute between Antiochus and the Romans some years after this time related not to the freedom of these cities in itself, but to the question whether they were to ask confirmation of their charters from the king or not This league of the cities was, in this peculiar attitude towards the lords of the soil as well as in other respects, a formal Hanseatic association, headed by Rhodes, which negotiated and stipulated in treaties for itself and its allies. This league upheld the freedom of the cities against monarchical interests; and while wars raged around their walls, public spirit and civic prosperity were sheltered in comparative peace within, and art and science flourished without the risk of being crushed by a dissolute soldiery or corrupted by the atmosphere of a court.
Such was the state of things in the east, at the time Philip, when the wall of political separation between the east and mJ^. the west was broken down and the eastern powers, Philip donia. of Macedonia leading the way, were induced to interfere
in the relations of the west. We have already set forth to
some extent the origin of this interference and the course
of the first Macedonian war (540-549) ; and we have 214-205. pointed out what Philip might have accomplished during
the second Punic war, and how little of all that Hannibal
was entitled to expect and to count on was really fulfilled.
A fresh illustration had been afforded of the truth, that
supported Sinope,
408
THE EASTERN STATES AND book iii
of all haphazards none is more hazardous than an ab solute hereditary monarchy. Philip was not the man whom Macedonia at that time required ; yet his gifts were far from insignificant He was a genuine king, in the best and worst sense of the term. A strong desire to rule in person and unaided was the fundamental trait of his character; he was proud of his purple, but he was no less proud of other gifts, and he had reason to be so. He not only showed the valour of a soldier and the eye of a general, but he displayed a high spirit in the conduct of public affairs, whenever his Macedonian sense of honour was offended. Full of intelligence and wit, he won the hearts of all whom he wished to gain, especially of the men who were ablest and most refined, such as Flamininus and Scipio; he was a pleasant boon companion and, not by virtue of his rank alone, a dangerous wooer. But he was at the same time one of the most arrogant and flagitious characters, which that shameless age produced. He was in the habit of saying that he feared none save the gods ; but it seemed almost as if his gods were those to whom his admiral Dicaearchus regularly offered sacrifice —Godless- ness (Asebcia) and Lawlessness (Paranomia). The lives of his advisers and of the promoters of his schemes possessed no sacredness in his eyes, nor did he disdain to pacify his indignation against the Athenians and Attalus by the de struction of venerable monuments and illustrious works of art; it is quoted as one of his maxims of state, that "whoever causes the father to be put to death must also kill the sons. " It may be that to him cruelty was not, strictly, a delight ; but he was indifferent to the lives and sufferings of others, and relenting, which alone renders men tolerable, found no place in his hard and stubborn heart. So abruptly and harshly did he proclaim the principle that no promise and no moral law are binding on an absolute king, that he thereby interposed the most serious obstacles
chap, viii THE SECOND MACEDONIAN WAR
409
to the success of his plans. No one can deny that he possessed sagacity and resolution, but these were, in a singular manner, combined with procrastination and supine- ness ; which is perhaps partly to be explained by the fact, that he was called in his eighteenth year to the position of an absolute sovereign, and that his ungovernable against every one who disturbed his autocratic course by counter-argument or counter-advice scared away from him all independent counsellors. What various causes co operated to produce the weak and disgraceful management which he showed in the first Macedonian war, we cannot tell; it may have been due perhaps to that indolent arrogance which only puts forth its full energies against danger when it becomes imminent, or perhaps to his in difference towards a plan which was not of his own devising and his jealousy of the greatness of Hannibal which put him to shame. It is certain that his subsequent conduct betrayed no further trace of the Philip, through whose negligence the plan of Hannibal suffered shipwreck.
When Philip concluded his treaty with the Aetolians Macedonia and Romans in 548-9, he seriously intended to make a [206-205. ]
lasting peace with Rome, and to devote himself exclusively ^a-jr'11 in future to the affairs of the east. It admits of no doubt Egypt
that he saw with regret the rapid subjugation of Carthage ;
and it may be, that Hannibal hoped for a second declara
tion of war from Macedonia, and that Philip secretly rein forced the last Carthaginian army with mercenaries (p. 351).
But the tedious affairs in which he had meanwhile involved himself in the east, as well as the nature of the alleged support, and especially the total silence of the Romans as
to such a breach of the peace while they were searching
for grounds of war, place it beyond doubt, that Philip was
by no means disposed in 551 to make up for what he ought 203. to have done ten years before.
He had turned his eyes to an entirely different quarter.
fury
410
THE EASTERN STATES AND book hi
206. Ptolemy Philopator of Egypt had died in 549. Philip and Antiochus, the kings of Macedonia and Asia, had combined against his successor Ptolemy Epiphanes, a child of five years old, in order completely to gratify the ancient grudge which the monarchies of the mainland entertained towards the maritime state. The Egyptian state was to be broken up ; Egypt and Cyprus were to fall to Antiochus ; Cyrene, Ionia, and the Cyclades to Philip. Thoroughly after the manner of Philip, who ridiculed such considera tions, the kings began the war not merely without cause, but even without pretext, "just as the large fishes devour the small. " The allies, moreover, had made their calcula tions correctly, especially Philip. Egypt had enough to do in defending herself against the nearer enemy in Syria, and was obliged to leave her possessions in Asia Minor and the Cyclades undefended when Philip threw himself upon these as his share of the spoil. In the year in which
201. Carthage concluded peace with Rome (553), Philip ordered a fleet equipped by the towns subject to him to take on board troops, and to sail along the coast of Thrace. There
was taken from the Aetolian garrison, and Perinthus, which stood in the relation of clientship to
was likewise occupied. Thus the peace was broken as respected the Byzantines ; and as respected the Aetolians, who had just made peace with Philip, the good understanding was at least disturbed. The crossing to Asia was attended with no difficulties, for Prusias king of Bithynia was in alliance with Macedonia. By way of recompense, Philip helped him to subdue the Greek mercantile cities in his territory. Chalcedon submitted. Cius, which resisted, was taken by storm and levelled with the ground, and its inhabitants were reduced to slavery— a meaningless barbarity, which annoyed Prusias himself who wished to get possession of the town uninjured, and which excited profound indignation throughout the
Lysimachia
Byzantium,
CHAP, vm THE SECOND MACEDONIAN WAR
411
Hellenic world. The Aetolians, whose strategus had com manded in Cius, and the Rhodians, whose attempts at mediation had been contemptuously and craftily frustrated by the king, were especially offended.
But even had this not been so, the interests of all Greek The commercial cities were at stake. They could not possibly Hansa*and allow the mild and almost purely nominal Egyptian rule to Pergamus be supplanted by the Macedonian despotism, with which phiUjT urban self-government and freedom of commercial inter
course were not at all compatible ; and the fearful treat
ment of the Cians showed that the matter at stake was not
the right of confirming the charters of the towns, but the
life or death of one and all. Lampsacus had already fallen,
and Thasos had been treated like Cius ; no time was to be
lost Theophiliscus, the vigilant strategus of Rhodes,
exhorted his citizens to meet the common danger by common
resistance, and not to suffer the towns and islands to become
one by one a prey to the enemy. Rhodes resolved on its
course, and declared war against Philip. Byzantium joined
it ; as did also the aged Attalus king of Pergamus, per
sonally and politically the enemy of Philip. While the
fleet of the allies was mustering on the Aeolian coast,
Philip directed a portion of his fleet to take Chios and
Samos. With the other portion he appeared in person
before Pergamus, which however he invested in vain; he
had to content himself with traversing the level country
and leaving the traces of Macedonian valour on the temples
which he destroyed far and wide. Suddenly he departed
and re-embarked, to unite with his squadron which was at
Samos. But the Rhodo-Pergamene fleet followed him,
and forced him to accept battle in the straits of Chios.
The number of the Macedonian decked vessels was smaller,
but the multitude of their open boats made up for this inequality, and the soldiers of Philip fought with great
courage. But he was at length defeated. Almost half of
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THE EASTERN STATES AND book hi
his decked vessels, 24 sail, were sunk or taken ; 6000 Macedonian sailors and 3000 soldiers perished, amongst whom was the admiral Democrates; 2000 were taken prisoners. The victory cost the allies no more than 800 men and six vessels. But, of the leaders of the allies, Attalus had been cut off from his fleet and compelled to let his own vessel run aground at Erythrae; and Theo- philiscus of Rhodes, whose public spirit had decided the question of war and whose valour had decided the battle, died on the day after it of his wounds. Thus while the fleet of Attalus went home and the Rhodian fleet remained temporarily at Chios, Philip, who falsely ascribed the victory to himself, was able to continue his voyage and to turn towards Samos, in order to occupy the Carian towns. On the Carian coast the Rhodians, not on this occasion supported by Attalus, gave battle for the second time to the Macedonian fleet under Heraclides, near the little island of Lade in front of the port of Miletus. The victory, claimed again by both sides, appears to have been this time gained by the Macedonians ; for while the Rhodians retreated to Myndus and thence to Cos, the Macedonians occupied Miletus, and a squadron under Dicaearchus the Aetolian occupied the Cyclades. Philip meanwhile prose cuted the conquest of the Rhodian possessions on the Carian mainland, and of the Greek cities : had he been dis posed to attack Ptolemy in person, and had he not pre ferred to confine himself to the acquisition of his own share in the spoil, he would now have been able to think even of an expedition to Egypt In Caria no army confronted the Macedonians, and Philip traversed without hindrance the country from Magnesia to Mylasa ; but every town in that country was a fortress, and the siege-warfare was protracted without yielding or promising any considerable results. Zeuxis the satrap of Lydia supported the ally of his master with the same lukewarmness as Philip had
chap, viii THE SECOND MACEDONIAN WAR
413
manifested in promoting the interests of the Syrian king, and the Greek cities gave their support only under the pressure of fear or force. The provisioning of the army became daily more difficult ; Philip was obliged to-day to plunder those who but yesterday had voluntarily supplied his wants, and then he had reluctantly to submit to beg afresh. Thus the good season of the year gradually drew to an end, and in the interval the Rhodians had reinforced their fleet and had also been rejoined by thatof Attalus, so that they were decidedly superior at sea. It seemed almost as if they might cut off the retreat of the king and compel him to take up winter quarters in Caria, while the state of affairs at home, particularly the threatened inter vention of the Aetolians and Romans, urgently demanded his return. Philip saw the danger; he left garrisons amounting together to 3000 men, partly in Myrina to keep Pergamus in check, partly in the petty towns round Mylasa — Iassus, Bargylia, Euromus and Pedasa — to secure for him the excellent harbour and a landing place in Caria ; and, owing to the negligence with which the allies guarded the sea, he succeeded in safely reaching the Thracian coast with his fleet and arriving at home before the winter of
which did not permit him to continue the plundering of mtelTJn' defenceless Egypt. The Romans, who had at length in Rome, this year concluded peace on their own terms with Carthage,
began to give serious attention to these complications in
the east It has often been affirmed, that after the con quest of the west they forthwith proceeded to the subjugation of the east ; a serious consideration will lead to a juster judgment It is only dull prejudice which fails to see that Rome at this period by no means grasped at the sovereignty of the Mediterranean states, but, on the contrary, desired nothing further than to have neighbours that should not
553-4-
201-200. In fact a storm was gathering against Philip in the west, Diplomatic
414
THE EASTERN STATES AND book hi
be dangerous in Africa and in Greece ; and Macedonia was not really dangerous to Rome. Its power certainly was far from small, and it is evident that the Roman senate only consented with reluctance to the peace of
206-205. 548-9, which left it in all its integrity; but how little any serious apprehensions of Macedonia were or could be entertained in Rome, is best shown by the small number of troops—who yet were never compelled to fight against a superior force — with which Rome carried on the next war. The senate doubtless would have gladly seen Macedonia humbled ; but that humiliation would be too (iearly purchased at the cost of a land war carried on in Mace donia with Roman troops ; and accordingly, after the with drawal of the Aetolians, the senate voluntarily concluded peace at once on the basis of the status quo. It is therefore far from made out, that the Roman government concluded this peace with the definite design of beginning the war at a more convenient season ; and it is very certain that, at the moment, from the thorough exhaustion of the state and the extreme unwillingness of the citizens to enter into a second transmarine struggle, the Macedonian war was in a high degree unwelcome to the Romans. But now it was inevitable. They might have acquiesced in the Macedonian
205. state as a neighbour, such as it stood in 549 ; but it was impossible that they could permit it to acquire the best part of Asiatic Greece and the important Cyrene, to crush the neutral commercial states, and thereby to double its
Further, the fall of Egypt and the humiliation, perhaps the subjugation, of Rhodes would have inflicted deep wounds on the trade of Sicily and Italy ; and could Rome remain a quiet spectator, while Italian commerce with the east was made dependent on the two great continental powers ? Rome had, moreover, an obligation of honour to fulfil towards Attalus her faithful ally since *be first Macedonian war, and had to prevent Philip, who
power.
chap, viii THE SECOND MACEDONIAN WAR
415.
had already besieged him in his capital, from expelling him from his dominions. Lastly, the claim of Rome to extend her protecting arm over all the Hellenes was by no means an empty phrase : the citizens of Neapolis, Rhegium, Massilia, and Emporiae could testify that that protection was meant in earnest, and there is no question at all that at this time the Romans stood in a closer relation to the Greeks than any other nation—one little more remote than that of the Hellenized Macedonians. It is strange that any should dispute the right of the Romans to feel their human, as well as their Hellenic, sympathies revolted at the outrageous treatment of the Cians and Thasians.
Thus in reality all political, commercial, and moral Prepara- motives concurred in inducing Rome to undertake the 1^^ second war against Philip —one of the most righteous, for second which the city ever waged. It greatly redounds to donian the honour of the senate, that it immediately resolved war.
on its course and did not allow itself to be deterred
from making the necessary preparations either by the exhaustion of the state or by the unpopularity of such
a declaration of war. The propraetor Marcus Valerius
Laevinus made his appearance as early as 553 with the 201. Sicilian fleet of 38 sail in the eastern waters. The government, however, were at a loss to discover an ostensible pretext for the war ; a pretext which they needed
in order to satisfy the people, even although they had not
been far too sagacious to undervalue, as was the manner
of Philip, the importance of assigning a legitimate ground
for hostilities. The support, which Philip was alleged to
have granted to the Carthaginians after the peace with
Rome, manifestly could not be proved. The Roman
subjects, indeed, in the province of Illyria had for a con
siderable time complained of the Macedonian encroach
ments. In 551 a Roman envoy at the head of the Illyrian sot.
levy had driven Philip's troops from the Illyrian territory ;
4t6
THE EASTERN STATES AND book hi
and the senate had accordingly declared to the king's 202. envoys in 552, that if he sought war, he would find it
sooner than was agreeable to him. But these encroach ments were simply the ordinary outrages which Philip practised towards his neighbours; a negotiation regarding them at the present moment would have led to his humbling himself and offering satisfaction, but not to war. With all the belligerent powers in the east the Roman community was nominally in friendly relations, and might have granted them aid in repelling Philip's attack. But Rhodes and Pergamus, which naturally did not fail to request Roman aid, were formally the aggressors ; and although Alexandrian ambassadors besought the Roman senate to undertake the guardianship of the boy king, Egypt appears to have been by no means eager to invoke the direct intervention of the Romans, which would put an end to her difficulties for the moment, but would at the same time open up the eastern sea to the great western power. Aid to Egypt, moreover, must have been in the first instance rendered in Syria, and would have entangled Rome simultaneously in a war with Asia and with Macedonia ; which the Romans were natur ally the more desirous to avoid, as they were firmly resolved not to intermeddle at least in Asiatic affairs. No course was left but to despatch in the meantime an embassy to the east for the purpose, first, of obtaining —what was not in the circumstances difficult —the sanction of Egypt to the interference of the Romans in the affairs of Greece ; secondly, of pacifying king Antiochus by abandoning Syria to him ; and, lastly, of accelerating as much as possible a breach with Philip and promoting a coalition of the minor
201. Graeco- Asiatic states against him (end of 553). At Alex andria they had no difficulty in accomplishing their object ; the court had no choice, and was obliged gratefully to receive Marcus Aemilius Lepidus, whom the senate had despatched as "guardian of the king" to uphold his
chap, viii THE SECOND MACEDONIAN WAR
417
interests, so far as that could be done without an actual intervention. Antiochus did not break off his alliance with Philip, nor did he give to the Romans the definite explanations which they desired ; in other respects, however —whether from remissness, or influenced by the declara tions of the Romans that they did not wish to interfere in Syria — he pursued his schemes in that direction and left things in Greece and Asia Minor to take their course.
Meanwhile, the spring of 554 had arrived, and the war 200. had recommenced. Philip first threw himself once more ^JT? ^1 upon Thrace, where he occupied all the places on the
coast, in particular Maronea, Aenus, Elaeus, and Sestus ;
he wished to have his European possessions secured against
the risk of a Roman landing. He then attacked Abydus
on the Asiatic coast, the acquisition of which could not
but be an object of importance to him, for the possession
of Sestus and Abydus would bring him into closer connec
tion with his ally Antiochus, and he would no longer need
to be apprehensive lest the fleet of the allies might intercept
him in crossing to or from Asia Minor. That fleet com
manded the Aegean Sea after the withdrawal of the weaker Macedonian squadron : Philip confined his operations by
sea to maintaining garrisons on three of the Cyclades,
Andros, Cythnos, and Paros, and fitting out privateers.
The Rhodians proceeded to Chios, and thence to Tenedos,
where Attalus, who had passed the winter at Aegina and
had spent his time in listening to the declamations of the Athenians, joined them with his squadron. The allies
might probably have arrived in time to help the Abydenes,
who heroically defended themselves ; but they stirred not,
and so at length the city surrendered, after almost all who
were capable of bearing arms had fallen in the struggle
before the walls. After the capitulation a large portion of
the inhabitants fell by their own hand—the mercy of the
victor consisted in allowing the Abydenes a term of three
VOL, II
SQ
418
THE EASTERN STATES AND book III
days to die voluntarily. Here, in the camp before Abydus, the Roman embassy, which after the termination of its business in Syria and Egypt had visited and dealt with the minor Greek states, met with the king, and submitted the
which it had been charged to make by the senate, viz. that the king should wage no aggressive war against any Greek state, should restore the possessions which he had wrested from Ptolemy, and should consent to an arbitration regarding the injury inflicted on the Pergamenes and Rhodians. The object of the senate, which sought to provoke the king to a formal declaration of war, was not gained; the Roman ambassador, Marcus Aemilius Lepidus, obtained from the king nothing but the polite reply that he would excuse what the envoy had said because he was young, handsome, and a Roman.
Meanwhile, however, the occasion for declaring war, which Rome desired, had been furnished from another quarter. The Athenians in their silly and cruel vanity had put to death two unfortunate Acarnanians, because these had accidentally strayed into their mysteries. When the Acarnanians, who were naturally indignant, asked Philip to procure them satisfaction, he could not refuse the just request of his most faithful allies, and he allowed them to levy men in Macedonia and, with these and their own troops, to invade Attica without a formal declaration of war. This, it is true, was no war in the proper sense of the term; and, besides, the leader of the Macedonian band, Nicanor, immediately gave orders to his troops to
retreat, when the Roman envoys, who were at Athens at 201. the time, used threatening language (in the end of 553). But it was too late. An Athenian embassy was sent to Rome to report the attack made by Philip on an ancient ally of the Romans ; and, from the way in which the senate
received Philip saw clearly what awaited him so that 200. he at once, the very spring of 554, directed Philocles,
proposals
it, in
;
chap, vin THE SECOND MACEDONIAN WAR
419
his general in Greece, to lay waste the Attic territory and to reduce the city to extremities.
The senate now had what they wanted; and in the Dectaa- summer of 554 they were able to propose to the comitia a "°n E*J^ declaration of war " on account of an attack on a state in Rome, alliance with Rome. " It was rejected on the first occasion
almost unanimously : foolish or evil-disposed tribunes of
the people complained of the senate, which would allow the
citizens no rest ; but the war was necessary and, in strict
ness, was already begun, so that the senate could not
possibly recede. The burgesses were induced to yield by representations and concessions. It is remarkable that
these concessions were made mainly at the expense of the
allies. The garrisons of Gaul, Lower Italy, Sicily, and
Sardinia, amounting in all to 20,000 men, were exclusively
taken from the allied contingents that were in active service
—quite contrary to the former principles of the Romans.
All the burgess troops, on the other hand, that had
continued under arms from the Hannibalic war, were discharged ; volunteers alone, it was alleged, were to be enrolled for the Macedonian war, but they were, as was afterwards found, for the most part forced volunteers — a
fact which in the autumn of 555 called forth a dangerous in. military revolt in the camp of Apollonia. Six legions were formed of the men newly called out ; of these two remained
in Rome and two in Etruria, and only two embarked at Brundisium for Macedonia, led by the consul Publius Sulpicius Galba.
Thus it was once more clearly demonstrated, that the sovereign burgess assemblies, with their shortsighted resolutions dependent often on mere accident, were no longer at all fitted to deal with the complicated and difficult relations into which Rome was drawn by her victories ; and that their mischievous intervention in the working of the state machine led to dangerous modifies-
The Roman
eague.
tions of the measures which in a military point of view were necessary, and to the still more dangerous course of treating the Latin allies as inferiors.
The position of Philip was very disadvantageous. The eastern states, which ought to have acted in unison against all interference of Rome and probably under other circum stances would have so acted, had been mainly by Philip's fault so incensed at each other, that they were not inclined to hinder, or were inclined even to promote, the Roman invasion. Asia, the natural and most important ally of Philip, had been neglected by him, and was moreover prevented at first from active interference by being entangled in the quarrel with Egypt and the Syrian war.
Egypt had an urgent interest in keeping the Roman fleet out of the eastern waters ; even now an Egyptian embassy intimated at Rome very plainly, that the court of Alexandria was ready to relieve the Romans from the trouble of inter vention in Attica. But the treaty for the partition of Egypt concluded between Asia and Macedonia threw that important state thoroughly into the arms of Rome, and compelled the cabinet of Alexandria to declare that it would only intermeddle in the affairs of European Greece with consent of the Romans. The Greek commercial cities, with Rhodes, Pergamus, and Byzantium at their head, were in a position similar, but of still greater perplexity. They would under other circumstances have beyond doubt done what they could to close the eastern seas against the Romans ; but the cruel and destructive policy of conquest pursued by Philip had driven them to an unequal struggle, in which for their self-preservation they were obliged to use every effort to implicate the great Italian power. In Greece proper also the Roman envoys,
who were commissioned to organize a second league against Philip there, found the way already substantially paved (01 them by the enemy. Of the anti-Macedonian party —tb*
420
THE EASTERN STATES AND book in
chap, viii THE SECOND MACEDONIAN WAR
421
Spartans, Eleans, Athenians, and Aetolians —Philip might perhaps have gained the latter, for the peace of 548 had 208. made a deep, and far from healed, breach in their friendly alliance with Rome; but apart from the old differences which subsisted between Aetolia and Macedonia regarding
the Thessalian towns withdrawn by Macedonia from the Aetolian confederacy — Echinus, Larissa Cremaste, Phar- salus, and Thebes in Phthiotis — the expulsion of the Aetolian garrisons from Lysimachia and Cius had produced fresh exasperation against Philip in the minds of the Aetolians.