No More Learning

So long as he
was only opposed by the weaker Carthaginian army, he had
the advantage, and was enabled after some successful cavalry skirmishes to proceed to the siege of Utica; but when Syphax
arrived, according to report with 50,000 infantry and 10,000
cavalry, the siege had to be raised, and a fortified naval camp
had to be constructed for the winter on a promontory, which
easily admitted of entrenchment, between Utica and Carthage.
Here the Roman general passed the winter of 550-1. From 204-208. the disagreeable situation in which the spring found him he
extricated himself by a fortunate coup de main. The Africans,
lulled into security by proposals of peace suggested by Scipio
Surprise
with more artifice than honour, allowed themselves to be
Carthagi-
356
THE WAR UNDER HANNIBAL look in
surprised on one and the same night in their two camps ; the man camP- reed huts of the Numidians burst into flames, and, when the Carthaginians hastened to their help, their own camp shared the same fate ; the fugitives were slain without resistance by
Negotia- peace;
the Roman divisions. This nocturnal surprise was more destructive than many a battle ; nevertheless the Carthagi nians did not suffer their courage to sink, and they rejected even the advice of the timid, or rather of the judicious, to recall Mago and Hannibal. Just at this time the expected Celtiberian and Macedonian auxiliaries arrived ; it was re solved once more to try a pitched battle on the "Great Plains," five days' march from Utica. Scipio hastened to accept it ; with little difficulty his veterans and volunteers dispersed the hastily -collected host of Carthaginians and Numidians, and the Celtiberians, who could not reckon on any mercy from Scipio, were cut down after obstinate resist ance. After this double defeat the Africans could no longer keep the field. An attack on the Roman naval camp attempted by the Carthaginian fleet, while not unsuccessful, was far from decisive, and was greatly outweighed by the capture of Syphax, which Scipio's singular good fortune threw in his way, and by which Massinissa became to the Romans what Syphax had been at first to the Carthaginians.
After such defeats the Carthaginian peace party, which had been reduced to silence for sixteen years, was able once more to raise its head and openly to rebel against the government of the Barcides and the patriots. Hasdrubal son of Gisgo was in his absence condemned by the
government to death, and an attempt was made to obtain an armistice and peace from Scipio. He demanded the cession of their Spanish possessions and of the islands of the Mediterranean, the transference of the kingdom of Syphax to Massinissa, the surrender of all their vessels of war except 20, and a war contribution of 4000 talents
chap, VI FROM CANNAE TO ZAMA
357
(nearly j£i, 000,000) —terms which seemed so singularly favourable to Carthage, that the question obtrudes itself
whether they were offered by Scipio more in his own
interest or in that of Rome. The Carthaginian plenipoten
tiaries accepted them under reservation of their being
ratified by the respective authorities, and accordingly a Carthaginian embassy was despatched to Rome. But Machina- the patriot party in Carthage were not disposed to give up jj^"^. the struggle so cheaply; faith in the nobleness of their thaginian
Patnotl
cause, confidence in their great leader, even the example
that had been set to them by Rome herself, stimulated
them to persevere, apart from the fact that peace of ne
cessity involved the return of the opposite party to the
helm of affairs and their own consequent destruction. The patriotic party had the ascendency among the citizens ; it
was resolved to allow the opposition to negotiate for peace,
and meanwhile to prepare for a last and decisive effort-
Orders were sent to Mago and Hannibal to return with all
speed to Africa. Mago, who for three years (549-551) 205-208. had been labouring to bring about a coalition in Northern
Italy against Rome, had just at this time in the territory of the Insubres (about Milan) been defeated by the far superior double army of the Romans. The Roman cavalry had been brought to give way, and the infantry had been thrown into confusion ; victory seemed on the point of declaring for the Carthaginians, when a bold attack by a Roman troop on the enemy's elephants, and above all a serious wound received by their beloved and able com mander, turned the fortune of the battle. The Phoenician army was obliged to retreat to the Ligurian coast, where it received and obeyed the order to embark ; but Mago died of his wound on the voyage.
Hannibal would probably have anticipated the order, Hannibal had not the last negotiations with Philip presented to him ^^d t0 a renewed prospect of rendering better service to his
358
THE WAR UNDER HANNIBAL ' book in
country in Italy than in Libya ; when he received it at Croton, where he latterly had his head-quarters, he lost no time in complying with it He caused his horses to be put to death as well as the Italian soldiers who refused to follow him over the sea, and embarked in the transports that had been long in readiness in the roadstead of Croton. The Roman citizens breathed freely, when the mighty
Libyan lion, whose departure no one even now ventured to compel, thus voluntarily turned his back on Italian ground. On this occasion the decoration of a grass wreath was bestowed by the senate and burgesses on the only survivor of the Roman generals who had traversed that troubled time with honour, the veteran of nearly
ninety years, Quintus Fabius. To receive this wreath — which by the custom of the Romans the army that a general had saved presented to its deliverer—at the hands of the whole community was the highest distinction which had ever been
bestowed upon a Roman citizen, and the last honorary
decoration accorded to the old general, who died in the 108. course of that same year (551). Hannibal, doubtless not under the protection of the armistice, but solely through his rapidity of movement and good fortune, arrived at
Leptis without hindrance, and the last of the " lion's brood " of Hamilcar trode once more, after an absence of thirty-six years, his native soil. He had left when still almost boy, to enter on that noble and yet so thoroughly fruitless career of heroism, in which he had set out towards the west to return homewards from the east, having described
wide circle of victory around the Carthaginian sea. Now, when what he had wished to prevent, and what he would have prevented had he been allowed, was done, he was summoned to help and possible, to save and he obeyed without complaint or reproach.
On his arrival the patriot party came forward openly the disgraceful sentence against Hasdrubal was cancelled
;;
a
if
;
a
it,
chap, vi FROM CANNAE TO ZAMA
359
new connections were formed with the Numidian sheiks Recom- through the dexterity of Hannibal ; and not only did the TMencement assembly of the people refuse to ratify the peace practically hostilities, concluded, but the armistice was broken by the plundering
of a Roman transport fleet driven ashore on the African coast, and by the seizure even of a Roman vessel of war carrying Roman envoys. In just indignation Scipio started from his camp at Tunes (552) and traversed the rich 202. valley of the Bagradas (Mejerdah), no longer allowing the townships to capitulate, but causing the inhabitants of the villages and towns to be seized en masse and sold. He
had already penetrated far into the interior, and was at Naraggara (to the west of Sicca, now El Kef, on the frontier between Tunis and Algiers), when Hannibal, who had marched out from Hadrumetum, fell in with him. The Carthaginian general attempted to obtain better conditions from the Roman in a personal conference ; but Scipio, who
had already gone to the extreme verge of concession, could not possibly after the breach of the armistice agree to yield further, and it is not credible that Hannibal had any other object in this step than to show to the multitude that the patriots were not absolutely opposed to peace. The conference led to no result
The two armies accordingly came to a decisive battle at Battle of Zama (presumably not far from Sicca). 1 Hannibal arranged Zama- bis infantry in three lines; in the first rank the Cartha
ginian hired troops, in the second the African militia and
the Phoenician civic force along with the Macedonian
corps, in the third the veterans who had followed him from
Italy. In front of the line were placed the 80 elephants;
the cavalry were stationed on the wings. Scipio likewise
1 Of the two places bearing this name, the more westerly, situated
about 60 miles west of Hadrumetum, was probably the scene of the battle (comp. Hermes, xx. 144, 318). The time was the spring or summer of
the year 55a ; the fixing of the day as the 19th October, on account of 302. the alleged solar eclipse, is of no account.
360
THE WAR UNDER HANNIBAL book hi
disposed his legions in three ranks, as was the wont of the Romans, and so arranged them that the elephants could pass through and alongside of the line without breaking it Not only was this disposition completely successful, but the elephants making their way to the side disordered also
the Carthaginian cavalry on the wings, so that Scipio's cavalry—which moreover was by the arrival of Massinissa's troops rendered far superior to the enemy — had little trouble in dispersing them, and were soon engaged in full
The struggle of the infantry was more severe. The conflict lasted long between the first ranks on either side; at length in the extremely bloody hand-to-hand encounter both parties fell into confusion, and were obliged to seek a support in the second ranks. The Romans found that support; but the Carthaginian militia showed itself so unsteady and wavering, that the mercenaries believed themselves betrayed and a hand-to-hand combat arose between them and the Carthaginian civic force. But Hannibal now hastily withdrew what remained of the first two lines to the flanks, and pushed forward his choice Italian troops along the whole line. Scipio, on the other hand, gathered together in the centre as many of the first
line as still were able to fight, and made the second and third ranks close up on the right and left of the first. Once more on the same spot began a still more fearful conflict ; Hannibal's old soldiers never wavered in spite of the superior numbers of the enemy, till the cavalry of the Romans and of Massinissa, returning from the pursuit of the beaten cavalry of the enemy, surrounded them on all sides. This not only terminated the struggle, but anni hilated the Phoenician army; the same soldiers, who fourteen years before had given way at Cannae, had re taliated on their conquerors at Zama. With a handful of men Hannibal arrived, a fugitive, at Hadrumetum.
After this day folly alone could counsel a continuance
pursuit.
Peace.
chap, VI FROM CANNAE TO ZAMA
361
of the war on the part of Carthage. On the other hand it was in the power of the Roman general immediately to
begin the siege of the capital, which was neither protected
nor provisioned, and, unless unforeseen accidents should intervene, now to subject Carthage to the fate which Hannibal had wished to bring upon Rome. Scipio did
not do so; he granted peace (553), but no longer upon 201. the former terms. Besides the concessions which had already in the last negotiations been demanded in favour
of Rome and of Massinissa, an annual contribution of 200 talents (^48,000) was imposed for fifty years on the
Carthaginians ; and they had to bind themselves that they would not wage war against Rome or its allies or indeed beyond the bounds of Africa at all, and that in Africa they would not wage war beyond their own territory without having sought the permission of Rome — the practical effect of which was that Carthage became tributary and lost her political independence. It even appears that the Cartha ginians were bound in certain cases to furnish ships of war to the Roman fleet
Scipio has been accused of granting too favourable conditions to the enemy, lest he might be obliged to hand over the glory of terminating the most severe war which Rome had waged, along with his command, to a successor. The charge might have had some foundation, had the first proposals been carried out ; it seems to have no warrant in reference to the second. His position in Rome was
not such as to make the favourite of the people, after the victory of Zama, seriously apprehensive of recall—already
before the victory an attempt to supersede him had been referred by the senate to the burgesses, and by them decidedly rejected. Nor do the conditions themselves warrant such a charge. The Carthaginian city never, after its hands were thus tied and a powerful neighbour was placed by its side, made even an attempt to withdraw from
36a
THE WAR UNDER HANNIBAL book HI
Roman supremacy, still less to enter into rivalry with Rome; besides, every one who cared to know knew that the war just terminated had been undertaken much more by Hannibal than by Carthage, and that it was absolutely impossible to revive the gigantic plan of the patriot party. It might seem little in the eyes of the vengeful Italians, that only the five hundred surrendered ships of war perished in the flames, and not the hated city itself; spite and pedantry might contend for the view that an opponent is only really vanquished when he is annihilated, and might censure the man who had disdained to punish more
thoroughly the crime of having made Romans tremble. Scipio thought otherwise; and we have no reason and therefore no right to assume that the Roman was in this instance influenced by vulgar motives rather than by the noble and magnanimous impulses which formed part of his character. It was not the consideration of his own possible recall or of the mutability of fortune, nor was it any apprehension of the outbreak of a Macedonian war at certainly no distant date, that prevented the self-reliant and confident hero, with whom everything had hitherto succeeded beyond belief, from accomplishing the destruction of the unhappy city, which fifty years afterwards his adopted grandson was commissioned to execute, and which might indeed have been equally well accomplished now. It is much more probable that the two great generals, on whom the decision of the political question now devolved, offered and accepted peace on such terms in order to set just and reasonable limits on the one hand to the furious venge ance of the victors, on the other to the obstinacy and imprudence of the vanquished. The noble-mindedness and statesmanlike gifts of the great antagonists are no less apparent in the magnanimous submission of Hannibal to what was inevitable, than in the wise abstinence of Scipio from an extravagant and insulting use of victory. Is it to
chaf. VI FROM CANNAE TO ZAMA
363
be supposed that one so generous, unprejudiced, and intelligent should not have asked himself of what benefit it could be to his country, now that the political power of the Carthaginian city was annihilated, utterly to destroy that ancient seat of commerce and of agriculture, and wickedly to overthrow one of the main pillars of the then existing civilization? The time had not yet come when the first men of Rome lent themselves to destroy the civilization of their neighbours, and frivolously fancied that they could wash away from themselves the eternal infamy of the nation by shedding an idle tear.
Thus ended the second Punic or, as the Romans more
called the Hannibalic war, after had devastated the lands and islands from the Hellespont to the Pillars of Hercules for seventeen years. Before this war the policy of the Romans had no higher aim than to acquire command of the mainland of the Italian peninsula within its natural boundaries, and of the Italian islands and seas clearly proved by their treatment of Africa on the conclusion of peace that they also terminated the war with the impression, not that they had laid the foundation of sovereignty over the states of the Mediterranean or of the so-called universal empire, but that they had rendered
dangerous rival innocuous and had given to Italy agreeable neighbours. true doubtless that other results of the war, the conquest of Spain in particular, little accorded with such an idea but their very successes led them beyond their proper design, and may in fact be affirmed that the Romans came into possession of Spain accidentally. The Romans achieved the sovereignty of Italy, because they strove for it; the hegemony — and the sovereignty which grew out of —over the territories of the Mediterranean was to certain extent thrown into the hands of the Romans by the force of circumstances without intention on their part to acquire it
Results of ewar-
correctly
a
It
it
it
is ;
a
; it is
it,
it
Out of *"'"
The immediate results of the war out of Italy were, the conversion of Spain into two Roman provinces—which, however, were in perpetual insurrection ; the union of the hitherto dependent kingdom of Syracuse with the Roman province of Sicily ; the establishment of a Roman instead of a Carthaginian protectorate over the most important Numidian chiefs ; and lastly the conversion of Carthage from a powerful commercial state into a defenceless mer cantile town. In other words, it established the uncon tested hegemony of Rome over the western region of the Mediterranean. Moreover, in its further development, it led to that necessary contact and interaction between the state systems of the east and the west, which the first Punic war had only foreshadowed ; and thereby gave rise to the proximate decisive interference of Rome in the conflicts of the Alexandrine monarchies.
As to its results in Italy, first of all the Celts were now certainly, if they had not been already beforehand, destined to destruction ; and the execution of the doom was only a
of time. Within the Roman confederacy the effect of the war was to bring into more distinct prominence the ruling Latin nation, whose internal union had been tried and attested by the peril which, notwithstanding isolated instances of wavering, it had surmounted on the whole in faithful fellowship; and to depress still further the non- Latin or non-Latinized Italians, particularly the Etruscans and the Sabellians of Lower Italy. The heaviest punish ment or rather vengeance was inflicted partly on the most powerful, partly on those who were at once the earliest and latest, allies of Hannibal — the community of Capua, and the land of the Bruttians. The Capuan constitution was abolished, and Capua was reduced from the second city into the first village of Italy ; it was even proposed to raze the city and level it with the ground. The whole soil, with the exception of a few possessions of foreigners or of
In Italy.
364
THE WAR UNDER HANNIBAL book hi
question
chap, vi FROM CANNAE TO ZAMA
365
Campanians well disposed towards Rome, was declared by the senate to be public domain, and was thereafter parcelled out to small occupiers on temporary lease. The Picentes on the Silarus were similarly treated; their capital was razed, and the inhabitants were dispersed among the sur rounding villages. The doom of the Bruttians was still more severe ; they were converted en masse into a sort of bondsmen to the Romans, and were for ever excluded from the right of bearing arms. The other allies of Han nibal also dearly expiated their offence. The Greek cities suffered severely, with the exception of the few which had steadfastly adhered to Rome, such as the Campanian Greeks and the Rhegines. Punishment not much lighter awaited the Arpanians and a number of other Apulian, Lucanian, and Samnite communities, most of which lost portions of their territory. On a part of the lands thus
acquired new colonies were settled. Thus in the year 560 194. a succession of burgess-colonies was sent to the best ports
of Lower Italy, among which Sipontum (near Manfredonia)
and Croton may be named, as also Salernum placed in the former territory of the southern Picentes and destined to
hold them in check, and above all Puteoli, which soon became the seat of the genteel villeggiatura and of the traffic in Asiatic and Egyptian luxuries. Thurii became a Latin fortress under the new name of Copia (560), and the 191 rich Bruttian town of Vibo under the name of Valentia
The veterans of the victorious army of Africa were 192. settled singly on various patches of land in Samnium and Apulia ; the remainder was retained as public land, and the pasture stations of the grandees of Rome replaced the gardens and arable fields of the farmers. As a matter of
course, moreover, in all the communities of the peninsula the persons of note who were not well affected to Rome were got rid of, so far as this could be accomplished by political processes and confiscations of property. Every-
(562).
366
THE WAR UNDER HANNIBAL book hi
where in Italy the non-Latin allies felt that their name was meaningless, and that they were thenceforth subjects of Rome ; the vanquishing of Hannibal was felt as a second subjugation of Italy, and all the exasperation and all the arrogance of the victor vented themselves especially on the Italian allies who were not Latin. Even the colourless Roman comedy of this period, well subjected as it was to police control, bears traces of this. When the subjugated towns of Capua and Atella were abandoned without restraint to the unbridled wit of the Roman farce, so that the latter town became its very stronghold, and when other writers of comedy jested over the fact that the Campanian serfs had already learned to survive amidst the deadly atmosphere in which even the hardiest race of slaves, the Syrians, pined away; such unfeeling mockeries re-echoed the scorn of the victors, but not less the cry of distress from the down-trodden nations. The position in which matters stood is shown by the anxious carefulness, which during the ensuing Macedonian war the senate evinced in the watching of Italy, and by the reinforcements which were despatched from Rome to the most important colonies, to
200. 199. Venusia in 554, Narnia in 555, Cosa in 557, and Cales
197. 184. shortly before 570.
What blanks were produced by war and famine in the
ranks of the Italian population, is shown by the example of the burgesses of Rome, whose numbers during the war had fallen almost a fourth. The statement, accordingly, which puts the whole number of Italians who fell in the war under Hannibal at 300,000, seems not at all exaggerated. Of course this loss fell chiefly on the flower of the burgesses, who in fact furnished the tlitc as well as the mass of the combatants. How fearfully the senate in particular was thinned, is shown by the filling up of its complement after the battle of Cannae, when it had been reduced to 123 persons, and was with difficulty restored to its normal state
chap, vi FROM CANNAE TO ZAMA
367
by an extraordinary nomination of 177 senators. That, moreover, the seventeen years' war, which had been carried on simultaneously in all districts of Italy and towards all the four points of the compass abroad, must have shaken to the very heart the national economy, as general position, clear; but our tradition does not suffice to illustrate in detail. The state no doubt gained the confiscations, and the Campanian territory in particular thenceforth remained an inexhaustible source of revenue to the state but by this extension of the domain system the national prosperity of course lost just about as much as at other times had gained the breaking up of the state lands. Numbers of flourishing townships —four hundred,
was reckoned — were destroyed and ruined; the capital laboriously accumulated was consumed; the population
were demoralized camp life; the good old traditional habits of the burgesses and farmers were undermined from
the capital down to the smallest village. Slaves and des peradoes associated themselves robber- bands, of the dangers of which an idea may be formed from the fact that in single year (569) 7000 men had to be condemned 185. for highway robbery in Apulia alone the extension of the
with their half- savage slave -herdsmen, favoured this mischievous barbarizing of the land. Italian agricul ture saw its very existence endangered by the proof, first afforded in this war, that the Roman people could be supported grain from Sicily and from Egypt instead of that which they reaped themselves.
Nevertheless the Roman, whom the gods had allowed to survive the close of that gigantic struggle, might look with pride to the past and with confidence to the future. Many errors had been committed, but much suffering had also been endured the people, whose whole youth capable of arms had for ten years hardly laid aside shield or sword, might excuse many faults. The living of
pastures,
;
by
a
; it
in ;
by
it
by
it
a by
is,
J68
THE WAR UNDER HANNIBAL book ill
different nations side by side in peace and amity upon the whole — although maintaining an attitude of mutual antagonism — which appears to be the aim of modern phases of national life, was a thing foreign to antiquity. In ancient times it was necessary to be either anvil or hammer; and in the final struggle between the victors victory remained with the Romans. Whether they would have the judgment to use it rightly —to attach the Latin nation by still closer bonds to Rome, gradually to Latinize Italy, to rule their dependents in the provinces as subjects
and not to abuse them as slaves, to reform the constitution, to reinvigorate and to enlarge the tottering middle class — many a one might ask. If they should know how to use
Italy might hope to see happy times, which prosperity based on personal exertion under favourable circumstances, and the most decisive political supremacy over the then civilized world, would impart a just self-reliance to every member of the great whole, furnish worthy aim for every ambition, and open career for every talent. would, no doubt, be otherwise, should they fail to use aright their victory. But for the moment doubtful voices and gloomy
were silent, when from all quarters the warriors and victors returned to their homes; thanks
givings and amusements, and rewards to the soldiers and burgesses were the order of the day the released prisoners of war were sent home from Gaul, Africa, and Greece; and at length the youthful conqueror moved in splendid procession through the decorated streets of the capital, to deposit his laurels in the house of the god by whose direct inspiration, as the pious whispered one to another, he had been guided in counsel and in action.
apprehensions
;
a
a
It
it,
in
chap, vil FROM THE PEACE OF HANNIBAL
369
CHAPTER VII
THE WEST FROM THE PEACE OF HANNIBAL TO THE CLOSE OF THE THIRD PERIOD
The war waged by Hannibal had interrupted Rome in Subjuga- the extension of her dominion to the Alps or to the ^°ofe boundary of Italy, as was even now the Roman phrase, and the Po.
in the organization and colonizing of the Celtic territories.
It was self-evident that the task would now be resumed Celtic at the point where it had been broken off, and the Celts wm" were well aware of this. In the very year of the conclusion
of peace with Carthage (553) hostilities had recommenced 20L in the territory of the Boii, who were the most immediately exposed to danger ; and a first success obtained by them
over the hastily-assembled Roman levy, coupled with the persuasions of a Carthaginian officer, Hamilcar, who had been left behind from the expedition of Mago in northern Italy, produced in the following year (554) a general 200. insurrection spreading beyond the two tribes immediately threatened, the Boii and Insubres. The Ligurians were driven to arms by the nearer approach of the danger, and even the youth of the Cenomani on this occasion listened
less to the voice of their cautious chiefs than to the urgent appeal of their kinsmen who were in peril. Of " the two barriers against the raids of the Gauls," Placentia and Cremona, the former was sacked—not more than 2000 of the inhabitants of Placentia saved their lives — and
VOL. II
56
370
FROM THE PEACE OF HANNIBAL book hi
the second was invested. In haste the legions advanced to save what they could. A great battle took place before Cremona. The dexterous management and the professional skill of the Phoenician leader failed to make up for the deficiencies of his troops ; the Gauls were unable to with stand the onset of the legions, and among the numerous dead who covered the field of battle was the Cartha ginian officer. The Celts, nevertheless, continued the struggle ; the same Roman army which had conquered at
199. Cremona was next year (555), chiefly through the fault of its careless leader, almost destroyed by the Insubres ;
198. and it was not till 556 that Placentia could be partially re-established. But the league of the cantons associated for the desperate struggle suffered from intestine discord ; the Boii and Insubres quarrelled, and the Cenomani not only withdrew from the national league, but purchased their pardon from the Romans by a disgraceful betrayal of their countrymen ; during a battle in which the Insubres engaged the Romans on the Mincius, the Cenomani attacked in rear, and helped to destroy, their allies and
197. comrades in arms (557). Thus humbled and left in the lurch, the Insubres, after the fall of Comum, likewise 196. consented to conclude a separate peace (558). The
conditions, which the Romans prescribed to the Cenomani and Insubres, were certainly harder than they had been in the habit of granting to the members of the Italian confederacy ; in particular, they were careful to confirm by law the barrier of separation between Italians and Celts, and to enact that never should a member of these two Celtic tribes be capable of acquiring the citizenship of Rome. But these Transpadane Celtic districts were allowed to retain their existence and their national constitution —so that they formed not town -domains, but tribal cantons—and no tribute, as it would seem, was imposed on them. They were intended to serve as a
chap, vii TO THE CLOSE OF THE THIRD PERIOD
371
bulwark for the Roman settlements south of the Po, and to ward off from Italy the incursions of the migratory northern tribes and the aggressions of the predatory inhabitants of the Alps, who were wont to make regular razzias in these districts. The process of Latinizing, moreover, made rapid progress in these regions ; the Celtic nationality was evidently far from able to oppose such resistance as the more civilized nations of Sabellians and Etruscans. The celebrated Latin comic poet Statius Caecilius, who died in 586, was a manumitted Insubrian ; and Polybius, who visited these districts towards the close of the sixth century, affirms, not perhaps without some
168.
Measura
^^J^° immigra-
^^, alpine
that in that quarter only a few villages among the Alps remained Celtic. The Veneti, on the
other hand, appear to have retained their nationality longer.
The chief efforts of the Romans in these regions were naturally directed to check the immigration of the Trans- alpine Celts, and to make the natural wall, which separates the peninsula from the interior of the continent, also its
exaggeration,
That the terror of the Roman name had already penetrated to the adjacent Celtic cantons beyond the Alps, is shown not only by the totally passive attitude which they maintained during the annihilation or
subjugation of their Cisalpine countrymen, but still more by the official disapproval and disavowal which the Trans alpine cantons — we shall have to think primarily of the Helvetii (between the lake of Geneva and the Main) and the Carni or Taurisci (in Carinthia and Styria)—expressed to the envoys from Rome, who complained of the attempts made by isolated Celtic bands to settle peacefully on the Roman side of the Alps. Not less significant was the humble spirit in which these same bands of emigrants first came to the Roman senate entreating an assignment of land, and then without remonstrance obeyed the rigorous
political boundary.
183-181.
178. 177.
Colonizing
JLLt ~, region on
the south °"
A different course was adopted with the region on the south of the Po,' which the Roman senate had determined to incorporate with Italy. The Boii, who were immediately affected by this step, defended themselves with the resolu tion of despair. They even crossed the Po and made an
37a
FROM THE PEACE OF HANNIBAL book hi
186-179. order to return over the Alps (568-575), and allowed the town, which they had already founded not far from the later Aquileia, to be again destroyed. With wise severity the senate permitted no sort of exception to the principle that the gates of the Alps should be henceforth closed for the Celtic nation, and visited with heavy penalties those Roman subjects in Italy, who had instigated any such schemes of immigration. An attempt of this kind which was made on a route hitherto little known to the Romans, in the innermost recess of the Adriatic, and still more, as it would seem, the project of Philip of Macedonia for in vading Italy from the east as Hannibal had done from the west, gave occasion to the founding of a fortress in the extreme north-eastern corner of Italy — Aquileia, the most northerly of the Italian colonies (571—573) —which was intended not only to close that route for ever against foreigners, but also to secure the command of the gulf which was specially convenient for navigation, and to check the piracy which was still not wholly extirpated in those waters. The establishment of Aquileia led to a war with the Istrians (576, 577), which was speedily terminated by the storming of some strongholds and the fall of the king, Aepulo, and which was remarkable for nothing except for the panic, which the news of the surprise of the Roman camp by a handful of barbarians called forth in the fleet and throughout Italy.
194. attempt to rouse the Insubres once more to arms (560); they blockaded a consul in his camp, and he was on the point of succumbing ; Placentia maintained itself with difficulty against the constant assaults of the exasperated
chap, vii TO THE CLOSE OF THE THIRD PERIOD
373
natives. At length the last battle was fought at Mutina ;
it was long and bloody, but the Romans conquered (561) ; 193. and thenceforth the struggle was no longer a war, but a slave-hunt The Roman camp soon was the only asylum
in the Boian territory ; thither the better part of the still surviving population began to take refuge ; and the victors
were able, without much exaggeration, to report to Rome that nothing remained of the nation of the Boii but
old men and children. The nation was thus obliged to resign itself to the fate appointed for it The Romans demanded the cession of half the territory (563) ; the 191. demand could not be refused, and even within the diminished district which was left to the Boii, they soon dis appeared, and amalgamated with their conquerors. 1
After the Romans had thus cleared the ground for themselves, the fortresses of Placentia and Cremona, whose colonists had been in great part swept away or dispersed by the troubles of the last few years, were reorganized, and new settlers were sent thither. The new foundations were, in or near the former territory of the Senones, Potentia
1 According to the account of Strabo these Italian Boii were driven by the Romans over the Alps, and from them proceeded that Boian settle ment in what is now Hungary about Stein am Anger and Oedenburg, which was attacked and annihilated in the time of Augustus by the Getae who crossed the Danube, but which bequeathed to this district the name of the Boian desert. This account is far from agreeing with the well-attested representation of the Roman annals, according to which the Romans were content with the cession of half the territory ; and, in order to explain the disappearance of the Italian Boii, we have really no need to assume a violent expulsion —the other Celtic peoples, although visited to a far less extent by war and colonization, disappeared not much less rapidly and totally from the ranks of the Italian nations. On the other hand, other accounts suggest the derivation of those Boii on the Neusiedler See from the main stock of the nation, which formerly had its seat in Bavaria and Bohemia before Germanic tribes pushed it towards the south. But it is altogether very doubtful whether the Boii, whom we find near Bordeaux, on the Po, and in Bohemia, were really scattered branches of one stock, or whether this is not an instance of mere similarity of name. The hypo thesis of Strabo may have rested on nothing else than an inference from the similarity of name—an inference such as the ancients drew, often with out due reason, in the case of the Cimbri, Veneti, and others.
374
FROM THE PEACE OF HANNIBAL book iii
184. (near Recanati not far from Ancona : in 570) and Pisaurum
184. (Pesaro : in 570), and, in the newly acquired district of the 189. 188. Boii, the fortresses of Bononia (565), Mutina (571), and 183. Parma (571); the colony of Mutina had been already
instituted before the war under Hannibal, but that war had interrupted the completion of the settlement The con struction of fortresses was associated, as was always the case, with the formation of military roads. The Flaminian
was prolonged from its northern termination at Ariminum, under the name of the Aemilian way, to 187. Placentia (567). Moreover, the road from Rome to
Liguria.
171. 187.
way
Arretium or the Cassian way, which perhaps had already been long a municipal road, was taken in charge and con-
structed anew by the Roman community probably in 583 ; while in 567 the track from Arretium over the Apennines to Bononia as far as the new Aemilian road had been put in order, and furnished a shorter communication between Rome and the fortresses on the Po. By these comprehen sive measures the Apennines were practically superseded as the boundary between the Celtic and Italian territories, and were replaced by the Po. South of the Po there henceforth prevailed mainly the urban constitution of the Italians, beyond it mainly the cantonal constitution of the Celts ; and, if the district between the Apennines and the Po was still reckoned Celtic land, it was but an empty name.
in the north -western mountain -land of Italy, whose valleys and hills were occupied chiefly by the much-sub divided Ligurian stock, the Romans pursued a similar course. Those dwelling immediately to the north of the Arno were extirpated. This fate befell chiefly the Apuani, who dwelt on the Apennines between the Arno and the Magra, and incessantly plundered on the one side the territory of Pisae, on the other that of Bononia and Mutina. Those who did not fall victims in that quarter to the sword
chap, vii TO THE CLOSE OF THE THIRD PERIOD
375
of the Romans were transported into Lower Italy to the region of Beneventum (574); and by energetic measures 180. the Ligurian nation, from which the Romans were obliged
in 578 to recover the colony of Mutina which it had con- 176. quered, was completely crushed in the mountains which separate the valley of the Po from that of the Arno. The fortress of Luna (not far from Spezzia), established in 577 177. in the former territory of the Apuani, protected the frontier against the Ligurians just as Aquileia did against the Transalpines, and gave the Romans at the same time an excellent port which henceforth became the usual station
for the passage to Massilia and to Spain. The construction
of the coast or Aurelian road from Rome to Luna, and of
the cross road carried from Luca by way of Florence to Arretium between the Aurelian and Cassian ways, probably belongs to the same period.
With the more western Ligurian tribes, who held the Genoese Apennines and the Maritime Alps, there were incessant conflicts. They were troublesome neighbours, accustomed to pillage by land and by sea : the Pisans and Massiliots suffered no little injury from their incursions and their piracies. But no permanent results were gained amidst these constant hostilities, or perhaps even aimed at; except apparently that, with a view to have a com. munication by land with Transalpine Gaul and Spain in addition to the regular route by sea, the Romans en deavoured to clear the great coast road from Luna by way of Massilia to Emporiae, at least as far as the Alps—beyond the Alps it devolved on the Massiliots to keep the coast navigation open for Roman vessels and the road along the shore open for travellers by land. The interior with its impassable valleys and its rocky fastnesses, and with its poor but dexterous and crafty inhabitants, served the Romans mainly as a school of war for the training and hardening of soldiers and officers.
Corsica. Sardinia,
Wars as they are called, of a similar character with those against the Ligurians, were waged with the Corsicans and to a still greater extent with the inhabitants of the interior of Sardinia, who retaliated for the predatory ex peditions directed against them by sudden attacks on the districts along the coast. The expedition of
Carthage.
dragged slaves thence in such multitudes to Rome that " cheap as a Sardinian " became a proverb.
In Africa the policy of Rome was substantially summed up in the one idea, as short-sighted as it was narrow- minded, that she ought to prevent the revival of the power of Carthage, and ought accordingly to keep the unhappy city constantly oppressed and apprehensive of a declaration of war suspended over it by Rome like the sword of Damocles. The stipulation in the treaty of peace, that the Carthaginians should retain their territory undiminished, but that their neighbour Massinissa should have all those
possessions guaranteed to him which he or his predecessor had possessed within the Carthaginian bounds, looks almost as if it had been inserted not to obviate, but to provoke disputes. The same remark applies to the obligation imposed by the Roman treaty of peace on the Carthaginians not to make war upon the allies of Rome; so that, according to the letter of the treaty, they were not even entitled to expel their Numidian neighbours from their own undisputed territory. With such
376
FROM THE PEACE OF HANNIBAL
book III
Tiberius 177. Gracchus against the Sardinians in 577 was specially held in remembrance, not so much because it gave "peace" to the province, as because he asserted that he had slain or captured as many as 80,000 of the islanders, and
stipulations and amidst the uncertainty of African frontier questions
in general, the situation of Carthage in presence of a neighbour equally powerful and unscrupulous and of a liege lord who was at once umpire and party in the cause, could not but be a painful one ; but the reality was worse
chap, vii TO THE CLOSE OF THE THIRD PERIOD
377
than the worst expectations. As early as 561 Carthage 191. found herself suddenly assailed under frivolous pretexts,
and saw the richest portion of her territory, the province of Emporiae on the Lesser Syrtis, partly plundered by the Numidians, partly even seized and retained by them. Encroachments of this kind were multiplied; the level country passed into the hands of the Numidians, and the Carthaginians with difficulty maintained themselves in the larger places. Within the last two years alone, the Cartha ginians declared in 582, seventy villages had been again 172. wrested from them in opposition to the treaty. Embassy
after embassy was despatched to Rome ; the Carthaginians
the Roman senate either to allow them to defend themselves by arms, or to appoint a court of arbitration with power to enforce their award, or to regulate the frontier anew that they might at least learn once for all how much they were to lose; otherwise
it were better to make them Roman subjects at once than thus gradually to deliver them over to the Libyans.
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.