No More Learning

We may form a different opinion from Ennius as to the value of his new gospel ; but, if in the case of faith it does not matter so much what, as how, men believe, we cannot refuse recognition and admiration to the Roman poets of the sixth century. A fresh and strong sense of the power of the Hellenic world-literature, a sacred longing to trans plant the marvellous tree to the foreign land, pervaded the whole poetry of the sixth century, and coincided in a
manner with the thoroughly elevated spirit of that great age. The later refined Hellenism looked down on the poetical performances of this period with some degree of contempt ; it should rather perhaps have looked up to the poets, who with all their imperfection yet stood in a more intimate relation to Greek poetry, and approached nearer to genuine poetical art, than their more cultivated successors. In the bold emulation, in the sounding rhythms, even in the mighty professional pride of the poets of this age there more than in any other epoch of Roman literature, an imposing grandeur; and even those who are under no illusion as to the weak points of this poetry may apply to the proud language, already quoted, in which Ennius celebrates its praise
Enni porta, salve, qui mortalibus Versus propinas Jlammeos medullitus.
As the Hellenico-Roman literature of this period was jssgntjjjly marke(i by dominant tendency, so was also its
peculiar
a
:
it
is,
chap. JOT LITERATURE AND ART
303
antithesis, the contemporary national authorship. While the former aimed at neither more nor less than the anni hilation of Latin nationality by the creation of a poetry Latin in language but Hellenic in form and spirit, the best and purest part of the Latin nation was driven to reject and place under the ban of outlawry the literature of Hellenism along with Hellenism itself. The Romans in the time of Cato stood opposed to Greek literature, very much as in the time of the Caesars they stood opposed to Christianity; freedmen and foreigners formed the main body of the poetical, as they afterwards formed the main body of the Christian, community ; the nobility of the nation and above all the government saw in poetry as in Christianity an absolutely hostile power ; Plautus and Ennius were ranked with the rabble by the Roman aristocracy for reasons nearly the same as those for which the apostles and bishops were put to death by the Roman government In this field too it was Cato, of course, who took the lead as the vigorous champion of his native country against the
The Greek literati and physicians were in his view the most dangerous scum of the radically corrupt Greek people,1 and the Roman "ballad -singers" are treated by him with ineffable contempt 98). He and those who shared his sentiments have been often and
" As to these Greeks, " he says to his son Marcus, shall tell at the proper place, what came to learn regarding them at Athens and shall
foreigners.
show that
thoroughly.
me, this
will ruin everything, and most especially send hither its physicians. They have conspired to despatch all barbarians by their physicking, but they get themselves paid for it, that people may trust them and that they may the more easily bring us to ruin. They call us also barbarians, and indeed revile us by the still more vulgar name of Opicans. interdict thee, therefore, from all dealings with the practitioners of the healing art. "
Cato in his zeal was not aware that the name of Opicans, which had in Latin an obnoxious meaning, was in Greek quite unobjectionable, and that the Greeks had in the most innocent way come to designate the Italians by that term
useful to look into their writings, but not to study them They are an utterly corrupt and ungovernable race — believe
true as an oracle that people bring hither its culture,
168).
(i.
I
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is
is
; if
it
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(ii. ;
304
LITERATURE AND ART book ill
harshly censured on this account, and certainly the ex pressions of his displeasure are not unfrequently character ized by the bluntness and narrowness peculiar to him ; on a closer consideration, however, we must not only confess him to have been in individual instances
substantially right, but we must also acknowledge that the national
opposition in this field, more than anywhere else, went beyond the manifestly inadequate line of mere negative defence. When his younger contemporary, Aulus Postu- mius Albinus, who was an object of ridicule to the Hellenes themselves by his offensive Hellenizing, and who, for example, even manufactured Greek verses—when this Albinus in the preface to his historical treatise pleaded in excuse for his defective Greek that he was by birth a Roman — was not the question quite in place, whether he had been doomed by authority of law to meddle with matters which he did not understand ? Were the trades of the professional translator of comedies and of the poet
celebrating heroes for bread and protection more honour able, perhaps, two thousand years ago than they are now ? Had Cato not reason to make it a reproach against Nobilior, that he took Ennius—who, we may add, glorified in his verses the Roman potentates without respect of persons, and overloaded Cato himself with praise—along with him to Ambracia as the celebrator of his future achievements ? Had he not reason to revile the Greeks, with whom he had become acquainted in Rome and
Athens, as an incorrigibly wretched pack? This opposition to the culture of the age and the Hellenism of the day was well warranted ; but Cato was by no means chargeable with an opposition to culture and to Hellenism in general. On the contrary it is the highest merit of the national party, that they comprehended very clearly the necessity of creating a Latin literature and of bringing the stimulating influences of Hellenism to bear on it ; only their intention
chap, xiv LITERATURE AND ART
aos
was, that Latin literature should not be a mere copy taken from the Greek and intruded on the national feelings of Rome, but should, while fertilized by Greek influences, be developed in accordance with Italian nationality. With a genial instinct, which attests not so much the sagacity of individuals as the elevation of the epoch, they perceived that in the case of Rome, owing to the total want of earlier poetical productiveness, history furnished the only subject- matter for the development of an intellectual life of their own. Rome was, what Greece was not, a state; and the mighty consciousness of this truth lay at the root both of the bold attempt which Naevius made to attain by means of history a Roman epos and a Roman drama, and of the creation of Latin prose by Cato. It is true that the endeavour to replace the gods and heroes of legend by the
kings and consuls of Rome resembles the attempt of the giants to storm heaven by means of mountains piled one above another : without a world of gods there is no ancient epos and no ancient drama, and poetry knows no sub stitutes. With greater moderation and good sense Cato left poetry proper, as a thing irremediably lost, to the party opposed to him ; although his attempt to create a didactic poetry in national measure after the model of the earlier
Roman productions —the Appian poem on Morals and the poem on Agriculture—remains significant and deserving of respect, in point if not of success, at least of intention. Prose afforded him a more favourable field, and accordingly he applied the whole varied power and energy peculiar to him to the creation of a prose literature in his native
This effort was all the more Roman and all the more deserving of respect, that the public which he prima rily addressed was the family circle, and that in such an effort he stood almost alone in his time. Thus arose his "Origines," his remarkable state-speeches, his treatises on special branches of science. They are certainly pervaded
tongue.
Architec- tm"
184. 179.
J06
LITERATURE AND ART BOOK ill
by a national spirit, and turn on national subjects; but they are far from anti-Hellenic: in fact they originated essen tially under Greek influence, although in a different sense from that in which the writings of the opposite party so originated. The idea and even the title of his chief work were borrowed from the Greek "foundation-histories"
The same is true of his oratorical authorship; he ridiculed Isocrates, but he tried to learn from Thucy- dides and Demosthenes. His encyclopaedia is essentially the result of his study of Greek literature. Of all the undertakings of that active and patriotic man none was more fruitful of results and none more useful to his country than this literary activity, little esteemed in com parison as it probably was by himself. He found numerous and worthy successors in oratorical and scientific author ship; and though his original historical treatise, which of its kind may be compared with the Greek logography, was not followed by any Herodotus or Thucydides, yet by and through him the principle was established that literary occupation in connection with the useful sciences as well as with history was not merely becoming but honourable in a Roman.
Let us glance, in conclusion, at the state of the arts of architecture, sculpture, and painting. So far as concerns the former, the traces of incipient luxury were less observ able in public than in private buildings. It was not till towards the close of this period, and especially from the
(icrtb-eis).
184. time of the censorship of Cato (570), that the Romans began in the case of the former to have respect to the convenience as well as to the bare wants of the public ; to line with stone the basins (lacus) supplied from the aqueducts (570); to erect colonnades (575, 580); and above all to transfer to Rome the Attic halls for courts and business—the basilicae as they were called. The first of these buildings, somewhat corresponding to our modern
chap. XIY LITERATURE AND ART
*o/
bazaars —the Porcian or silversmiths' hall —was erected by Cato in 570 alongside of the senate-house; others were 184. soon associated with till gradually along the sides of the Forum the private shops were replaced these splendid columnar halls. Every-day life, however, was more deeply influenced by the revolution in domestic architecture which must, at latest, be placed in this period. The hall of the house (atrium), court (cavum aedium), garden and garden colonnade (peristylium), the record -chamber (tablinum), chapel, kitchen, and bedrooms were degrees severally provided for; and, as to the internal fittings, the column began to be applied both in the court and in the hall
for the support of the open roof and also for the garden colonnades throughout these arrangements probable
that Greek models were copied or at any rate made use of.
Yet the materials used in building remained simple " our ancestors," says Varro, "dwelt in houses of brick, and
laid merely moderate foundation of stone to keep away damp. "
Of Roman plastic art we scarcely encounter any other Plastic an trace than, perhaps, the embossing in wax of the images of ■"? . ancestors. Painters and painting are mentioned somewhat
more frequently. Manius Valerius caused the
victory which he obtained over the Carthaginians and Hiero 49 263.
>ff Messana (ii. 170) to be depicted on the side wall of the senate-house—the first historical frescoes in Rome, which were followed many of similar character, and which were in the domain of the arts of design what the national epos and the national drama became not much later in the domain of poetry. We find named as painters, one Theodotus who, as Naevius scoffingly said,
Sedeiu in cella cimmtatus ttgetibut Lares htdentis ptni pinxit bubulo
Marcus Pacuvius of Brundisium, who painted in the templt of Hercules in the Forum Boarium —the same who, when
;
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it is
by
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208 LITERATURE AND ART book ill
more advanced in life, made himself a name as an editor of Greek tragedies; and Marcus Plautius Lyco, a native of Asia Minor, whose beautiful paintings in the temple of Juno at Ardea procured for him the freedom of that city. 1 But these very facts clearly indicate, not only that the exercise of art in Rome was altogether of subordinate importance and more of a manual occupation than an art, but also that it fell, probably still more exclusively than poetry, into the hands of Greeks and half Greeks.
On the other hand there appeared in genteel circles the first traces of the tastes subsequently displayed by the dilettante and the collector. They admired the magnifi cence of the Corinthian and Athenian temples, and re garded with contempt the old-fashioned terra-cotta figures on the roofs of those of Rome : even a man like Lucius Paullus, who shared the feelings of Cato rather than of Scipio, viewed and judged the Zeus of Phidias with the eye of a connoisseur. Tne custom of carrying off the treasures of art from the conquered Greek cities was first
introduced on a large scale by Marcus Marcellus after the SIS. capture of Syracuse (542). The practice met with severe
reprobation from men of the old school of training, and the
stern veteran Quintus Fabius Maximus, for instance, on the 209. capture of Tarentum (545) gave orders that the statues in
the temples should not be touched, but that the Tarentines should be allowed to retain their indignant gods. Yet the
of temples in this way became of more and more frequent occurrence. Titus Flamininus in particular 164. 187. (560) and Marcus Fulvius Nobilior (567X two leading champions of Roman Hellenism, as well as Lucius Paullus
167. (587), were the means of filling the public buildings of
1 Plautius belongs to this or to the beginning of the following period, for the inscription on his pictures (Plin. H. N. xxxv. io, 115), being hexametrical, cannot well be older than Ennius, and the bestowal of the citizenship of Ardea must have taken place before the Social War, through which Ardea lost its independence.
plundering
chap, xiv LITERATURE AND ART
309
Rome with the masterpieces of the Greek chisel. Here too the Romans had a dawning consciousness of the truth that an interest in art as well as an interest in poetry forma': an essential part of Hellenic culture or, in other words, of modern civilization ; but, while the appropriation of Greek poetry was impossible without some sort of poetical activity, in the case of art the mere beholding and procuring of its productions seemed to suffice, and therefore, while a native literature was formed in an artificial way in Rome, 00 attempt even was made to develop a native art
tot. in
FOURTH THE REVOLUTION
" Aber sie treiben's toll ; Ich furcht', es breche. "
Nicht jeden Wochenschluss Macht Gott die Zeche.
Goethe.
BOOK
CHAPTER I
THE SUBJECT COUNTRIES DOWN TO THE TIMES OF THE GRACCHI
With the abolition of the Macedonian monarchy the The supremacy of Rome not only became an established fact m J from the Pillars of Hercules to the mouths of the Nile and
the Orontes, but, as if it were the final decree of fate, it weighed on the nations with all the pressure of an inevitable necessity, and seemed to leave them merely the choice of perishing in hopeless resistance or in hopeless endurance.
If history were not entitled to insist that the earnest reader should accompany her through good and evil days, through landscapes of winter as well as of spring, the historian might be tempted to shun the cheerless task of tracing the manifold and yet monotonous turns of this struggle between superior power and utter weakness, both in the Spanish provinces already annexed to the Roman empire and in the African, Hellenic, and Asiatic territories which were still treated as clients of Rome. But, however unimportant and subordinate the individual conflicts may appear, they have collectively a deep historical significance; and, in particular, the state of things in Italy at this period only becomes intelligible in the light of the reaction which the provinces exercised over the mother-country.
Except in the territories which may be regarded as Spain.
ai4 THE SUBJECT COUNTRIES book iv
natural appendages of Italy—in which, however, the natives were still far from being completely subdued, and, not greatly to the credit of Rome, Ligurians, Sardinians, and Corsicans were continually furnishing occasion for "village triumphs "—the formal sovereignty of Rome at the com mencement of this period was established only in the two Spanish provinces, which embraced the larger eastern and southern portions of the peninsula beyond the Pyrenees. We have already 384 ff. ) attempted to describe the state of matters in ihe peninsula. Iberians and Celts, Phoenicians, Hellenes, and Romans were there confusedly intermingled. The most diverse kinds and stages of civilization subsisted there simultaneously and at various points crossed each other, the ancient Iberian culture side by side with utter barbarism, the civilized relations of Phoenician and Greek mercantile cities side side with an incipient process of Latinizing, which was especially pro moted by the numerous Italians employed in the silver mines and the large standing garrison. In this respect
the Roman township of Italica (near Seville) and the Latin colony of Carteia (on the bay of Gibraltar) deserve mention —the latter being the first transmarine urban community of Latin tongue and Italian constitution. Italica was
106. founded by the elder Scipio, before he left Spain (548), for his veterans who were inclined to remain in the penin sula—probably, however, not as burgess-community, but
171. merely as market-place. 1 Carteia was founded in 583 and owed its existence to the multitude of camp-children — the offspring of Roman soldiers and Spanish slaves —who grew up as slaves de jure but as free Italians de facto, and
Italica most have been intended by Scipio to be what was called in Italy forum et conciliabvlum civium Romanorum Aquae Seztiae in Gaul had a similar origin afterwards. The formation of transmarine burgess- communities only began at a later date with Carthage and Narbo yet
remarkable that Scipio already made first step, in a certain sense, in that direction.
is
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chap. I THE SUBJECT COUNTRIES atj
were now manumitted on behalf of the state and constituted,
along with the old inhabitants of Carteia, into a Latin
colony. For nearly thirty years after the organizing of the
province of the Ebro by Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus
(575, 576; 391) the Spanish provinces, on the whole, 179. 17& enjoyed the blessings of peace undisturbed, although
mention made of one or two expeditions against the Celtiberians and Lusitanians.
But more serious events occurred in 600. The Lusi- Lusi-[164.
tanianw*-.
and the Upper Douro) were thereby induced to make common cause with the Lusitanians and these, thus reinforced, were enabled to extend their excursions as far
as the Mediterranean, and to pillage even the territory of
the Bastulo-Phoenicians not far from the Roman capital New Carthage (Cartagena). The Romans at home took the matter seriously enough to resolve on sending consul to Spain, step which had not been taken since 559 and, 195. order to accelerate the despatch of aid, they even made the
new consuls enter on office two months and half before the legal time. For this reason the day for the consuls enter
ing on office was shifted from the 15th of March to the
1st of January and thus was established the beginning of the year, which we still make use of at the present day. But, before the consul Quintus Fulvius Nobilior with his army arrived, very serious encounter took place on the right bank of the Tagus between the praetor Lucius Mummius, governor of Further Spain, and the Lusitanians, now led after the fall of Punicus his successor Caesarus
tanians, under the leadership of chief called Punicus, invaded the Roman territory, defeated the two Roman governors who had united to oppose them, and slew great number of their troops. The Vettones (between the
Tagus
Fortune was at first favourable to the Romans; 1M. the Lusitanian army was broken and their camp was taken.
But the Romans, partly already fatigued their march
(601).
by
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ai6 THE SUBJECT COUNTRIES book rv
and partly broken up in the disorder of the pursuit, were at length completely beaten by their already vanquished antagonists, and lost their own camp in addition to that of the enemy, as well as 9000 dead.
The flame of war now blazed up far and wide. The Lusitanians on the left bank of the Tagus, led by Caucaenus, threw themselves on the Celtici subject to the Romans (in Alentejo), and took away their town Conistorgis.
The Lusitanians sent the standards taken from Mummius to the Celtiberians at once as an announcement of victory and as a warning ; and among these, too, there was no want of ferment. Two small Celtiberian tribes in the neighbourhood of the powerful Arevacae (about the sources of the Douro and Tagus), the Belli and the Titthi, had resolved to settle together in Segeda, one of their towns. While they were occupied in building the walls, the Romans ordered them to desist, because the Sempronian regulations prohibited the subject communities from found ing towns at their own discretion ; and they at the same time required the contribution of money and men which was due by treaty but for a considerable period had not been demanded. The Spaniards refused to obey either command, alleging that they were engaged merely in en larging, not in founding, a city, and that the contribution had not been merely suspended, but remitted by the Romans. Thereupon Nobilior appeared in Hither Spain with an army of nearly 30,000 men, including some Numidian horsemen and ten elephants. The walls of the new town of Segeda still stood unfinished : most of the inhabitants submitted. But the most resolute men fled with their wives and children to the powerful Arevacae, and summoned these to make common cause with them against the Romans. The Arevacae, emboldened by the victory of the Lusitanians over Mummius, consented, and chose Carus, one of the Segedan refugees, as their general.
chap, I THE SUBJECT COUNTRIES 217
On the third day after his election the valiant leader had fallen, but the Roman army was defeated and nearly 6000 Roman burgesses were slain ; the 2 3rd day of August, the festival of the Volcanalia, was thenceforth held in sad remembrance by the Romans. The fall of their general, however, induced the Arevacae to retreat into their strongest town Numantia (Guarray, a Spanish league to the north of Soria on the Douro), whither Nobilior followed them. Under the walls of the town a second engagement took place, in which the Romans at first by means of their elephants drove the Spaniards back into the town ; but while doing so they were thrown into confusion in consequence of one of the animals being wounded, and sustained a second defeat at the hands of the enemy again issuing from the walls. This and other misfortunes — such as the destruc tion of a corps of Roman cavalry despatched to call forth the contingents —imparted to the affairs of the Romans in the Hither province so unfavourable an aspect that the fortress of Ocilis, where the Romans had their chest and their stores, passed over to the enemy, and the Arevacae were in a position to think, although without success, of dictating peace to the Romans. These disadvantages, however, were in some measure counterbalanced by the successes which Mummius achieved in the southern pro vince. Weakened though his army was by the disaster which it had suffered, he yet succeeded with it in defeating
the Lusitanians who had imprudently dispersed themselves on the right bank of the Tagus ; and passing over to the left bank, where the Lusitanians had overrun the whole Roman territory, and had even made a foray into Africa, he cleared the southern province of the enemy.
To the northern province in the following year (602) 152.
the senate sent considerable reinforcements and a new Marcenus- commander-in-chief in the place of the incapable Nobilior,
the consul Marcus Claudius Marcellus, who had already,
ai8 THE SUBJECT COUNTRIES book rr
168. when praetor in 586, distinguished himself in Spain, and had since that time given proof of his talents as a general in two consulships. His skilful leadership, and still more his clemency, speedily changed the position of affairs : Ocilis at once surrendered to him ; and even the Arevacae, confirmed by Marcellus in the hope that peace would be granted to them on payment of a moderate fine, concluded an armistice and sent envoys to Rome. Marcellus could thus proceed to the southern province, where the Vettones and Lusitanians had professed submission to the praetor Marcus Atilius so long as he remained within their bounds, but after his departure had immediately revolted afresh and chastised the allies of Rome. The arrival of the consul restored tranquillity, and, while he spent the winter in Corduba, hostilities were suspended throughout the peninsula. Meanwhile the question of peace with the Arevacae was discussed at Rome. It is a significant indication of the relations subsisting among the Spaniards themselves, that the emissaries of the Roman party subsisting among the Arevacae were the chief occasion of the rejection of the proposals of peace at Rome, by representing that, if the Romans were not willing to sacrifice the Spaniards friendly to their interests, they had no alternative save either to send a consul with a corresponding army every year to the peninsula or to make an emphatic example now. In consequence of this, the ambassadors of the Arevacae were dismissed without a decisive answer, and it was resolved that the war should be prosecuted with vigour. Marcellus accordingly found himself compelled in the following spring
151. (603) to resume the war against the Arevacae. But— either, as was asserted, from his unwillingness to leave to his successor, who was to be expected soon, the glory of terminating the war, or, as is perhaps more probable, from his believing like Gracchus that a humane treatment of the Spaniards was the first thing requisite for a lasting peace —
chap, l THE SUBJECT COUNTRIES 219
the Roman general after holding a secret conference with the most influential men of the Arevacae concluded a treaty under the walls of Numantia, by which the Arevacae surrendered to the Romans at discretion, but were rein stated in their former rights according to treaty on their undertaking to pay money and furnish hostages.
When the new commander-in-chief, the consul Lucius Lucullus, arrived at head-quarters, he found the war which he had come to conduct already terminated by a formally concluded peace, and his hopes of bringing home honour and more especially money from Spain were apparently frustrated. But there was a means of surmounting this
Lucullus of his own accord attacked the western neighbours of the Arevacae, the Vaccaei, a Celtiberian. nation still independent which was living on the best understanding with the Romans. The question of the Spaniards as to what fault they had committed was answered by a sudden attack on the town of Cauca (Coca, eight Spanish leagues to the west of Segovia) ; and, while the terrified town believed that it had purchased a capitulation by heavy sacrifices of money, Roman troops marched in and enslaved or slaughtered the inhabitants without any pretext at all. After this heroic feat, which is said to have cost the lives of some 20,000 defenceless men, the army proceeded on its march. Far and wide the villages and townships were abandoned or, as in the case of the strong Intercatia and Pallantia (Palencia) the capital of the Vaccaei, closed their gates against the Roman Covetousness was caught in its own net ; there was no community that would venture to conclude a capitulation with the perfidious commander, and the general flight of the inhabitants not only rendered booty scarce, but made it almost impossible for him to remain for any length of
time in these inhospitable regions. In front of Intercatia, Scipio Aemilianus, an esteemed military tribune, the son of
difficulty.
<
army.
/ /
VWathus.
better settlements ; whereupon the barbarians, who to the number of 7000 came to him for the sake of the expected lands, were separated into three divisions, disarmed, and partly carried off into slavery, partly massacred. War has hardly ever been waged with so much perfidy, cruelty, and avarice as by these two generals ; who yet by means of their criminally acquired treasures escaped the one from condemnation, and the other even from impeachment. The veteran Cato in his eighty-fifth year, a few months before his death, attempted to bring Galba to account before the burgesses ; but the weeping children of the general, and the gold which he had brought home with him, proved to the Roman people his innocence.
It was not so much the inglorious successes which Lucullus and Galba had attained in Spain, as the outbreak
220 THE SUBJECT COUNTRIES book iv
the victor of Pydna and the adopted grandson of the victor of Zama, succeeded, by pledging his word of honour when that of the general no longer availed, in inducing the in habitants to conclude an agreement by virtue of which the Roman army departed on receiving a supply of cattle and clothing. But the siege of Pallantia had to be raised for want of provisions, and the Roman army in its retreat was pursued by the Vaccaei as far as the Douro. Lucullus thereupon proceeded to the southern province, where in the same year the praetor, Servius Sulpicius Galba, had allowed himself to be defeated by the Lusitanians. They spent the winter not far from each other — Lucullus in the terri tory of the Turdetani, Galba at Conistorgis —and in the
180. following year (604) jointly attacked the Lusitanians. Lucullus gained some advantages over them near the straits / of Gades. Galba performed a greater achievement, for he concluded a treaty with three Lusitanian tribes on the right Bank of the Tagus and promised to transfer them to
149. of the fourth Macedonian and of the third Carthaginian war in 605, which induced the Romans again to leave
chap, I THE SUBJECT COUNTRIES
an
Spanish affairs in the first instance to the ordinary governors. Accordingly the Lusitanians, exasperated rather than humbled by the perfidy of Galba, immediately overran
afresh the rich territory of the Turdetani. The Roman governor Gaius Vetilius (607-8 P1) marched against them, 147-6. and not only defeated them, but drove the whole host towards a hill where it seemed lost irretrievably. The
was virtually concluded, when Viriathus — a man of humble origin, who formerly, when a youth, had bravely defended his flock from wild beasts and robbers and was now in more serious conflicts a dreaded guerilla chief, and who was one of the few that had accidentally escaped from the perfidious onslaught of Galba — warned his countrymen against relying on the Roman word of honour, and promised them deliverance if they would follow him. His language and his example produced a deep effect : the army entrusted him with the supreme command. Viriathus gave orders to the mass of his men to proceed in detached parties, by different routes, to the appointed rendezvous ; he himself formed the best mounted and most trustworthy into a corps of 1000 horse, with which he covered the departure of his men. The Romans, who wanted light cavalry, did not venture to disperse for the pursuit under the eyes of the enemy's horsemen. After Viriathus and his band had for two whole days held in check the entire
1 The chronology of the war with Viriathus is far from being precisely settled. It is certain that the appearance of Viriathus dates from the con flict with Vetilius (Appian, Hist. 61 ; Liv. lii. ; Oros. v. 4), and that he perished in 615 (Diod. Vat. p. no, eta) ; the duration of his rule is reckoned at eight (Appian, llisp. 63), ten (Justin, xliv. 3), eleven (Diodorus, p. 597), 6fteen (Liv. liv. ; Eulrop. iv. 16 ; Oros. v. 4 ; Flor. i. 33), and twenty years (Vellei. ii. 90). The first estimate possesses some probability, because the appearance of Viriathus is connected both in Diodorus (p. 591 ; Vat. p. 107, 108) and in Orosius with the destruction of Corinth. Of the Roman governors, with whom Viriathus fought, several undoubtedly belong to the northern province for though Viriathus was at work chiefly in the southern, he was not exclusively so (Liv. lii. conse quently we must not calculate the number of the years of his generalship by the numbet *. * these names.
capitulation
j S
I
188;
) ;
;
(v. 4)
His
221 THE SUBJECT COUNTRIES book iv
Roman army he suddenly disappeared during the night and hastened to the general rendezvous. The Roman general followed him, but fell into an adroitly -laid ambush, in which he lost the half of his army and was himself captured and slain ; with difficulty the rest of the troops escaped to the colony of Carteia on the Straits.
In all haste 5000 men of the Spanish militia were despatched from the Ebro to reinforce the defeated Romans ; but Viriathus destroyed the corps while still on its march, and commanded so absolutely the whole interior of Carpetania that the Romans did not even venture to seek him there. Viriathus, now recognized as lord and king of all the Lusitanians, knew how to combine the full dignity of his princely position with the homely habits of a shepherd. No badge distinguished him from the common soldier : he rose from the richly adorned marriage-table of his father-in-law, the prince Astolpa in Roman Spain, without having touched the golden plate and the sumptuous fare, lifted his bride on horseback, and rode back with her to his mountains. He never took more of the spoil than the share which he allotted to each of his comrades. The soldier recognized the general simply by his tall figure, by his striking sallies of wit, and above all by the fact that he surpassed every one of his men in temperance as well as in toil, sleeping always in full armour and fighting in front of all in battle. It seemed as if in that thoroughly prosaic
age one of the Homeric heroes had reappeared : the name of Viriathus resounded far and wide through Spain ; and the brave nation conceived that in him it had at length found the man who was destined to break the fetters of alien domination.
Extraordinary successes in northern and in southern Spain marked the next years of his generalship. After destroying the vanguard of the praetor Gaius Plautius
146. (608-9), Viriathus had the skill to lure him over to the
chap. I THE SUBJECT COUNTRIES a»3
right bank of the Tagus, and there to defeat him so emphatically that the Roman general went into winter quarters in the middle of summer—on which account he
was afterwards charged before the people with
disgraced the Roman community, and was compelled to
live in exile. In like manner the army of the governor — apparently of the Hither province —Claudius Unimanus
was destroyed, that of Gaius Negidius was vanquished,
and the level country was pillaged far and wide. Trophies of victory, decorated with the insignia of the Roman governors
and the arms of the legions, were erected on the Spanish mountains; people at Rome heard with shame and con sternation of the victories of the barbarian king. The conduct of the Spanish war was now committed to a trust worthy officer, the consul Quintus Fabius Maximus Aemilianus, the second son of the victor of Pydna (609). 14fc But the Romans no longer ventured to send the experienced veterans, who had just returned from Macedonia and Asia,
forth anew to the detested Spanish war; the two legions, which Maximus brought with him, were new levies and scarcely more to be trusted than the old utterly demoralized Spanish army. After the first conflicts had again issued favourably for the Lusitanians, the prudent general kept together his troops for the remainder of the year in the camp at Urso (Osuna, south-east from Seville) without accepting the enemy's offer of battle, and only took the
field afresh in the following year (610), after his troops had 144. by petty warfare become qualified for fighting ; he was then enabled to maintain the superiority, and after successful
feats of arms went into winter quarters at Corduba. But when the cowardly and incapable praetor Quinctius took
the command in room of Maximus, the Romans again suffered defeat after defeat, and their general in the middle
of summer shut himself up in Corduba, while the bands of Viriathus overran the southern province (611). 14&
having
334 THE SUBJECT COUNTRIES book iv
His successor, Quintus Fabius Maximus Servilianus, the adopted brother of Maximus Aemilianus, sent to the peninsula with two fresh legions and ten elephants, en deavoured to penetrate into the Lusitanian country, but after a series of indecisive conflicts and an assault on the Roman camp, which was with difficulty repulsed, found himself compelled to retreat to the Roman
territory. Viriathus followed him into the province, but as his troops
after the wont of Spanish insurrectionary armies suddenly 142. melted away, he was obliged to return to Lusitania (612). 141. Next year (6 1 3) Servilianus resumed the offensive, traversed
the districts on the Baetis and Anas, and then advancing into Lusitania occupied a number of townships. A large number of the insurgents fell into his hands ; the leaders— of whom there were about 500—were executed; those who had gone over from Roman territory to the enemy had their hands cut off; the remaining mass were sold into slavery. But on this occasion also the Spanish war proved true to its fickle and capricious character. After all these successes the Roman army was attacked by Viriathus while it was besieging Erisane, defeated, and driven to a rock where it was wholly in the power of the enemy. Viriathus, however, was content, like the Samnite general formerly at the Caudine passes, to conclude a peace with Servilianus, in which the community of the Lusitanians was recognized
as sovereign and Viriathus acknowledged as its king. The power of the Romans had not risen more than the national sense of honour had sunk ; in the capital men were glad to be rid of the irksome war, and the senate and people ratified the treaty. But Quintus Servilius Caepio, the full brother of Servilianus and his successor in office, was far from satisfied with this complaisance ; and the senate was weak enough at first to authorize the consul to undertake secret machinations against Viriathus, and then to view at least with indulgence the open breach of his pledged word,
chap, i THE SUBJECT COUNTRIES *2$
for which there was no palliation. So Caepio invaded
Lusitania, and traversed the land as far as the territories of
the Vettones and Callaeci ; Viriathus declined a conflict
with the superior force, and by dexterous movements evaded
his antagonist (614). But when in the ensuing year (615) 140. 189. Caepio renewed the attack, and in addition the army, which
had in the meantime become available in the northern province, made its appearance under Marcus Popillius in Lusitania, Viriathus sued for peace on any terms. He was required to give up to the Romans all who had passed over to him from the Roman territory, amongst whom was his own father-in-law; he did so, and the Romans ordered them to be executed or to have their hands cut off. But this was not sufficient ; the Romans were not in the habit of announcing to the vanquished all at once their destined fate.
One behest after another was issued to the Lusitanians, Hii< each successive demand more intolerable than its predeces
sors ; and at length they were required even to surrender
their arms. Then Viriathus recollected the fate of his countrymen whom Galba had caused to be disarmed, and
his sword afresh. But it was too late. His wavering had sown the seeds of treachery among those who were immediately around him; three of his confidants, Audas, Ditalco, and Minucius from Urso, despairing of the possibility of renewed victory, procured from the king permission once more to enter into negotiations for peace with Caepio, and employed it for the purpose of selling the life of the Lusitanian hero to the foreigners in return for the assurance of personal amnesty and further rewards. On their return to the camp they assured the king of the favourable issue of their negotiations, and in the following night stabbed him while asleep in his tent. The Lusita nians honoured the illustrious chief by an unparalleled funeral solemnity at which two hundred pairs of champions
VOL. lit 80
grasped
/ Numantia.
military skill of his predecessor. The expedition utterly broke down, and the army on its return was attacked in crossing the Baetis and compelled to surrender uncondition- ally. Thus was Lusitania subdued, far more by treachery and assassination on the part of foreigners and natives than by honourable war.
While the southern province was scourged by Viriathus and the Lusitanians, a second and not less serious war had, not without their help, broken out in the northern province among the Celtiberian nations. The brilliant successes of
326 THE SUBJECT COUNTRIES book W
fought in the funeral games ; and still more highly by the fact, that they did not renounce the straggle, but nominated Tautamus as their commander-in-chief in room of the fallen hero. The plan projected by the latter for
wresting Saguntum from the Romans was sufficiently bold ; but the new general possessed neither the wise moderation nor the
144. Viriathus induced the Arevacae likewise in 610 to rise against the Romans; and for this reason the consul
Caecilius Metellus, who was sent to Spain to relieve Maximus Aemilianus, did not proceed to the southern province, but turned against the Celtiberians. In the contest with them, and more especially during the siege of the town of Contrebia which was deemed impreg nable, he showed the same ability which he had displayed in vanquishing the Macedonian pretender; after his two
148, 142. years' administration (6n, 612) the northern province was reduced to obedience. The two towns of Termantia and Numantia alone had not yet opened their gates to the Romans ; but in their case also a capitulation had been almost concluded, and the greater part of the conditions had been fulfilled by the Spaniards. When required, how ever, to deliver up their arms, they were restrained like Viriathus by their genuine Spanish pride in the possession of a well-wielded sword, and they resolved to continue the war under the daring Megaravicus. It seemed folly : the
Quintus
chap, I THE SUBJECT COUNTRIES a*f
consular army, the command of which was taken up in
613 by the consul Quintus Pompeius, was four times as 141.
numerous as the whole population capable of bearing arms
in Numantia. But the general, who was wholly unac
quainted with war, sustained defeats so severe under the
walls of the two cities (613, 614), that he preferred at 141, 140, length to procure by means of negotiations the peace which
he could not compel. With Termantia a definitive agree
ment must have taken place. In the case of the Numan-
tines the Roman general liberated their captives, and summoned the community under the secret promise of favourable treatment to surrender to him at discretion.
The Numantines, weary of the war, consented, and the general actually limited his demands to the smallest possible measure. Prisoners of war, deserters, and hostages
were delivered up, and the stipulated sum of money was mostly paid, when in 615 the new general Marcus Popillius 189. Laenas arrived in the camp. As soon as Pompeius saw
the burden of command devolve on other shoulders, he, with a view to escape from the reckoning that awaited him at Rome for a peace which was according to Roman ideas disgraceful, lighted on the expedient of not merely breaking, but of disowning his word ; and when the Numantines came to make their last payment, in the presence of their officers and his own he flatly denied the conclusion of the agreement. The matter was referred for judicial decision to the senate at Rome. While it was discussed there, the war before Numantia was suspended, and Laenas occupied himself with an expedition to Lusitania where he helped to accelerate the catastrophe of Viriathus, and with a foray against the Lusones, neighbours of the Numantines. When at length the decision of the senate arrived, its purport was that the war should be continued —the state became thus a
party to the knavery of Pompeius.
With unimpaired courage and increased resentment the Mandnot
m8 THE SUBJECT COUNTRIES book it
Numantines resumed the struggle; Laenas fought against
them unsuccessfully, nor was his successor Gaius Hostilius IMflJ Mancinus more fortunate (617). But the catastrophe was
brought about not so much by the arms of the Numantines, as by the lax and wretched military discipline of the Roman generals and by—what was its natural consequence—the annually - increasing dissoluteness, insubordination, and cowardice of the Roman soldiers. The mere rumour, which moreover was false, that the Cantabri and Vaccaei were advancing to the relief of Numantia, induced the Roman army to evacuate the camp by night without orders, and to seek shelter in the entrenchments con structed sixteen years before by Nobilior 216). The Numantines, informed of their sudden departure, hotly pursued the fugitive army, and surrounded it: there remained to no choice save to fight its way with sword
hand through the enemy, or to conclude peace on the terms laid down by the Numantines. Although the consul was personally man of honour, he was weak and little known. Tiberius Gracchus, who served in the army as quaestor, had more influence with the Celtiberians from the hereditary respect in which he was held on account of his father who had so wisely organized the province of the Ebro, and induced the Numantines to be content with an equitable treaty of peace sworn to by all the staff-officers. But the senate not only recalled the general immediately, but after long deliberation caused proposal to be sub mitted to the burgesses that the convention should be treated as they had formerly treated that of Caudium, in other words, that they should refuse to ratify and should devolve the responsibility for on those by whom had been concluded. By right this category ought to have included all the officers who had sworn to the treaty but Gracchus and the others were saved by their connections. Mancinus alone, who did not belong to the circles of the
;
it
a
it it
(p.
a
in
it
chap, I THE SUBJECT COUNTRIES 339
highest aristocracy, was destined to pay the penalty for his own and others' guilt. Stripped of his insignia, the Roman consular was conducted to the enemy's outposts, and, when the Numantines refused to receive him that they might not on their part acknowledge the treaty as null, the late commander-in-chief stood in his shirt and with his hands tied behind his back for a whole day before the gates of Numantia, a pitiful spectacle to friend and foe. Yet the bitter lesson seemed utterly lost on the successor of Mancinus, his colleague in the consulship, Marcus Aemilius
While the discussions as to the treaty with \ Mancinus were pending in Rome, he attacked the free ( people of the Vaccaei under frivolous pretexts just as \ Lucullus had done sixteen years before, and began in / concert with the general of the Further province to besiege Pallantia (618). A decree of the senate enjoined him to 188. desist from the war; nevertheless, under the pretext that
the circumstances had meanwhile changed, he continued
the siege. In doing so he showed himself as bad a soldier \
as he was a bad citizen. After lying so long before the
large and strong city that his supplies in that rugged and / hostile country failed, he was obliged to leave behind all I the sick and wounded and to undertake a retreat, in which
the pursuing Pallantines destroyed half of his soldiers, and,
if they had not broken off the pursuit too early, would probably have utterly annihilated the Roman army, which
was already in full course of dissolution. For this conduct
a fine was imposed on the high-born general at his return.
His successors Lucius Furius Philus (618) and Gaius 136. Calpurnius Piso (619) had again to wage war against the 135. Numantines; and, inasmuch as they did nothing at all,
they fortunately came home without defeat.
Even the Roman government began at length to perceive Sdpto that matters could no longer continue on this footing ; they A '" resolved to entrust the subjugation of the small Spanish
Lepidus.
a3o THE SUBJECT COUNTRIES BOOK iv
as an extraordinary measure, to the first general of Rome, Scipio Aemilianus. The pecuniary means
for carrying on the war were indeed doled out to him with preposterous parsimony, and the permission to levy soldiers, which he asked, was even directly refused — a result towards which coterie-intrigues and the fear of being burdensome to the sovereign people may have co-operated. But a great number of friends and clients voluntarily accompanied him ; among them was his brother Maximus Aemilianus, who some years before had commanded with distinction against Viriathus. Supported by this trusty band, which was formed into a guard for the general, Scipio began to reorganize the
184. deeply disordered army (620). First of all, the camp- followers had to take their departure — there were found as many as 2000 courtesans, and an endless number of sooth sayers and priests of all sorts —and, if the soldier was not
available for fighting, he had at least to work in the trenches and to march. During the first summer the general avoided any conflict with the Numantines; he contented himself with destroying the stores in the surrounding country, and with chastising the Vaccaei who sold corn to the Numantines, and compelling them to acknowledge the supremacy of Rome. It was only towards winter that Scipio drew together his army round Numantia. Besides the Numidian contingent of horsemen, infantry, and twelve elephants led by the prince Jugurtha, and the numerous Spanish con tingents, there were four legions, in all a force of 60,000 men investing a city whose citizens capable of bearing arms did not exceed 8000 at the most Nevertheless the besieged frequently offered battle ; but Scipio, perceiving clearly that the disorganization of many years was not to be repaired all at once, refused to accept and, when conflicts did occur in connection with the sallies of the besieged, the cowardly flight of the legionaries, checked with difficulty
the appearance of the general in person, justified such tactics
country-town,
by
it,
chap, I THE SUBJECT COUNTRIES «31
only too forcibly. Never did a general treat his soldiers more contemptuously than Scipio treated the Numantine army ; and he showed his opinion of it not only by bitter speeches, but above all by his course of action. For the first time the Romans waged war by means of mattock and spade, where it depended on themselves alone whether they should use the sword. Around the whole circuit of the city wall, which was nearly three miles in length, there was con structed a double line of circumvallation of twice that extent, provided with walls, towers, and ditches ; and the river Douro, by which at first some supplies had reached the besieged through the efforts of bold boatmen and divers, was at length closed. Thus the town, which they did not venture to assault, could not well fail to be reduced through famine ; the more so, as it had not been possible for the citizens to lay in provisions during the last summer. The Numantines soon suffered from want of everything. One of their boldest men, Retogenes, cut his way with a few companions through the lines of the enemy, and his touching entreaty that kinsmen should not be allowed to perish without
help pro duced a great effect in Lutia at least, one of the towns of
the Arevacae. But before the citizens of Lutia had come to a decision, Scipio, having received information from the partisans of Rome in the town, appeared with a superior force before its walls, and compelled the authorities to deliver up to him the leaders of the movement, 400 of the flower of the youth, whose hands were all cut off by order of the Roman general. The Numantines, thus deprived of their last hope, sent to Scipio to negotiate as to their submission and called on the brave man to spare the brave ; but when the envoys on their return announced that Scipio required unconditional surrender, they were torn in pieces by the furious multitude, and a fresh term elapsed before famine and pestilence had completed their work. At length a second message was sent to the Roman head-quarters, that
The
138. I
232 THE SUBJECT COUNTRIES book iv
the town was now ready to submit at discretion. When the citizens were accordingly instructed to appear on the following day before the gates, they asked for some days' delay, to allow those of their number who had determined not to survive the loss of liberty time to die. It was granted, and not a few took advantage of it. At last the miserable remnant appeared before the gates. Scipio chose fifty of the most eminent to form part of his triumphal procession ; the rest were sold into slavery, the city was levelled with the ground, and its territory was distributed among the neigh- bouring towns. This occurred in the autumn of 62 1, fifteen months after Scipio had assumed the chief command.
The fall of Numantia struck at the root of the opposition that was still here and there stirring against Rome ; military demonstrations and the imposition of fines sufficed to secure the acknowledgment of the Roman supremacy in all Hither Spain.
In Further Spain the Roman dominion was confirmed c*n*e°. and extended by the subjugation of the Lusitanians. The consul Decimus Junius Brutus, who came in Caepio's room,
settled the Lusitanian war-captives in the neighbourhood of
Saguntum, and gave to their new town Valentia (Valencia), 188. like Carteia, a Latin constitution (616); he moreover (616-
188-186. 618) traversed the Iberian west coast in various directions, and was the first of the Romans to reach the shore of the
Atlantic Ocean. The towns of the Lusitanians
there, which were obstinately defended by their inhabitants, both men and women, were subdued by him; and the hitherto independent Callaeci were united with the Roman province after a great battle, in which 50,000 of them are said to have fallen. After the subjugation of the Vaccaei, Lusitanians, and Callaeci, the whole peninsula, with the exception of the north coast, was now at least nominally subject to the Romans.
A senatorial commission was sent to Spain in order to
dwelling
chap, I THE SUBJECT COUNTRIES 233
organize, in concert with Scipio, the newly-won provincial New org*, territory after the Roman method; and Scipio did what he^s^On. "0 could to obviate the effects of the infamous and stupid]
policy of his predecessors. The Caucani for instance, whose / shameful maltreatment by Lucullus he had been obliged to I
witness nineteen years before when a military tribune, were ') invited by him to return to their town and to rebuild it. Spain began again to experience more tolerable times. The suppression of piracy, which found dangerous lurking-places
in the Baleares, through the occupation of these islands by Quintus Caecilius Metellus in 631, was singularly conducive. 128. to the prosperity of Spanish commerce ; and in other respects
also the fertile islands, inhabited by a dense population which was unsurpassed in the use of the sling, were a valu
able possession. How numerous the Latin-speaking popula
tion in the peninsula was even then, is shown by the settlement of 3000 Spanish Latins in the towns of Falma
and Pollentia (Pollenza) in the newly-acquired islands. In spite of various grave evils the Roman administration of Spain preserved on the whole the stamp which the Catonian period, and primarily Tiberius Gracchus, had impressed on
true that the Roman frontier territory had not little to suffer from the inroads of the tribes, but half sub dued or not subdued at all, on the north and west. Among the Lusitanians in particular the poorer youths regularly con gregated as banditti, and large gangs levied contributions from their countrymen or their neighbours, for which reason, even at much later period, the isolated homesteads in this region were constructed in the style of fortresses, and were, in case of need, capable of defence nor did the Romans succeed in putting an end to these predatory habits in the inhospitable and almost inaccessible Lusitanian mountains. But what had previously been wars assumed more and more the character of brigandage, which every tolerably efficient governor was able to repress with his ordinary resources
j
a
;
It a is
in
it.
The states!
834 THE SUBJECT COUNTRIES book iv
and in spite of such inflictions on the border districts Spain was the most flourishing and best-organized country in all
the Roman dominions ; the system of tenths and the middle men were there unknown ; the population was numerous, and the country was rich in corn and cattle. —
Far more insupportable was the condition intermediate between formal sovereignty and actual subjection —of the African, Greek, and Asiatic states which were brought within the sphere of Roman hegemony through the wars of Rome with Carthage, Macedonia, and Syria, and their conse quences. An independent state does not pay too dear a
for its independence in accepting the sufferings of war when it cannot avoid them ; a state which has lost its independence may find at least some compensation in the fact that its protector procures for it peace with its
But these client states of Rome had neither independence nor peace. In Africa there practically sub sisted a perpetual border-war between Carthage and Numidia. In Egypt Roman arbitration had settled the dispute as to the succession between the two brothers Ptolemy Philometor and Ptolemy the Fat; nevertheless the new rulers of Egypt and Cyrene waged war for the possession of Cyprus. In Asia not only were most of the kingdoms — Bithynia, Cappadocia, Syria — likewise torn by internal quarrels as to the succession and by the inter ventions of neighbouring states to which these quarrels gave rise, but various and severe wars were carried on
between the Attalids and the Galatians, between the Attalids and the kings of Bithynia, and even between Rhodes and Crete. In Hellas proper, in like manner, the pigmy feuds which were customary there continued to smoulder; and even Macedonia, formerly so tranquil, consumed its strength in the intestine strife that arose out of its new democratic constitutions. It was the fault of the rulers as well as the ruled, that the last vital energies
price
neighbours.
chap. I THE SUBJECT COUNTRIES a3J
and the last prosperity of the nations were expended in these aimless feuds. The client states ought to have perceived that a state which cannot wage war against every
one cannot wage war at all, and that, as the possessions
and power enjoyed by all these states were practically under Roman guarantee, they had in the event of any difference no alternative but to settle the matter amicably
with their neighbours or to call in the Romans as arbiters. When the Achaean diet was urged by the Rhodians and Cretans to grant them the aid of the league, and seriously deliberated as to sending it (601), it was simply a political 168 farce ; the principle which the leader of the party friendly
to Rome then laid down — that the Achaeans were no longer at liberty to wage war without the permission of the Romans —expressed, doubtless with disagreeable precision, the simple truth that the sovereignty of the dependent states was merely a formal one, and that any attempt to give life to the shadow must necessarily lead to the destruc tion of the shadow itself. But the ruling community deserves a censure more severe than that directed against the ruled. It is no easy task for a man — any more than for a state —to own to insignificance ; it is the duty and right of the ruler either to renounce his authority, or by the display of an imposing material superiority to compel the ruled to resignation. The Roman senate did neither. Invoked and importuned on all hands, the senate interfered incessantly in the course of African, Hellenic, Asiatic, and Egyptian affairs; but it did so after so inconstant and loose a fashion, that its attempts to settle matters usually only rendered the confusion worse. It was the epoch of commissions. Commissioners of the senate were constantly going to Carthage and Alexandria, to the Achaean diet, and to the courts of the rulers of western Asia; they investigated, inhibited, reported, and yet decisive steps were not unfrequently taken in the most important matters
»36 THE SUBJECT COUNTRIES lOOK rv
without the knowledge, or against the wishes, of the senate. It might happen that Cyprus, for instance, which the senate had assigned to the kingdom of Cyrene, was nevertheless retained by Egypt; that a Syrian prince ascended the throne of his ancestors under the pretext that he had ob tained a promise of it from the Romans, while the senate had in fact expressly refused to give it to him, and he himself had only escaped from Rome by breaking their interdict ; that even the open murder of a Roman commis sioner, who under the orders of the senate administered as
the government of Syria, passed totally unpun ished. The Asiatics were very well aware that they were not in a position to resist the Roman legions ; but they were no less aware that the senate was but little inclined to give the burgesses orders to march for the Euphrates or the Nile. Thus the state of these remote countries re sembled that of the schoolroom when the teacher is absent or lax ; and the government of Rome deprived the nations at once of the blessings of freedom and of the blessings of order. For the Romans themselves, moreover, this state of matters was so far perilous that it to a certain extent left their northern and eastern frontier exposed. In these quarters kingdoms might be formed by the aid of the inland countries situated beyond the limits of the Roman hegemony and in antagonism to the weak states under Roman protection, without Rome being able directly or speedily to interfere, and might develop a power dangerous to, and entering sooner or later into rivalry with, Rome. No doubt the condition of the bordering nations —every where split into fragments and nowhere favourable to political development on a great scale —formed some sort
of protection against this danger; yet we very clearly perceive in the history of the east, that at this period the Euphrates was no longer guarded by the phalanx of Seleu cus and was not yet watched by the legions of Augustus.
guardian
chap, I THE SUBJECT COUNTRIES 337
It was high time to put an end to this state of indecision. But the only possible way of ending it was by converting the client states into Roman provinces. This could be done all the more easily, that the Roman provincial consti tution in substance only concentrated military power in the hands of the Roman governor, while administration and
jurisdiction in the main were, or at any rate were intended to be, retained by the communities, so that as much of the
old political independence as was at all capable of life might be preserved in the form of communal freedom. The necessity for this administrative reform could not well be mistaken ; the only question was, whether the senate would delay and mar or whether would have the courage and the power clearly to discern and energetically to execute what was needful.
Let us first glance at Africa. The order of things estab- Carthage
lished by the Romans in Libya rested in substance on balance of power between the Nomad kingdom of Massi- nissa and the city of Carthage. While the former was enlarged, confirmed, and civilized under the vigorous and sagacious government of Massinissa 382), Carthage consequence simply of state of peace became once more,v at least in wealth and population, what had been at the height of its political power. The Romans saw with ill- concealed and envious fear the apparently indestructible prosperity of their old rival; while hitherto they had re fused to grant to any real protection against the constantly continued encroachments of Massinissa, they now began openly to interfere in favour of the neighbouring prince. The dispute which had been pending for more than thirty years between the city and the king as to the possession of the province of Emporia on the Lesser Syrtis, one of the most fertile in the Carthaginian territory, was at length
decided by Roman commissioners to the Mfc effect that the Carthaginians should evacuate those towns
(about 594)
^
jfuinldia.
'
it
it
(ii.
it
a
it,
in a
The do-
^^j^0
**
had been the old Marcus Cato, at that time perhaps the most influential man in the senate, and, as a veteran sur vivor from the Hannibalic war, still filled with thorough hatred and thorough dread of the Phoenicians. With surprise and jealousy Cato had seen with his own eyes the flourishing state of the hereditary foes of Rome, the luxuriant country and the crowded streets, the immense stores of arms in the magazines and the rich materials for
J a fleet; already he in spirit beheld a second Hannibal ) wielding all these resources against Rome. In his honest i and manly, but thoroughly narrow-minded, fashion, he
came to the conclusion that Rome could not be secure \ until Carthage had disappeared from the face of the earth, and immediately after his return set forth this view in the senate. Those of the aristocracy whose ideas were more enlarged, and especially Scipio Nasica, opposed this paltry
»3* THE SUBJECT COUNTRIES book it
of Emporia which still remained in their possession, and should pay 500 talents (,£120,000) to the king as compen sation for the illegal enjoyment of the territory. The con sequence was, that Massinissa immediately seized another Carthaginian district on the western frontier of their territory, the town of Tusca and the great plains near the Bagradas ; no course was left to the Carthaginians but to commence another hopeless process at Rome. After long and, beyond doubt, intentional delay a second commission
157. appeared in Africa (597); but, when the Carthaginians were unwilling to commit themselves unconditionally to a decision to be pronounced by it as arbiter without an exact preliminary investigation into the question of legal right, and insisted on a thorough discussion of the latter question, the commissioners without further ceremony returned to Rome.
The question of right between Carthage and Massinissa thus remained unsettled ; but the mission gave rise to a
rooivcd on more important decision. The head of this commission
chap, I THE SUBJECT COUNTRIES 239
policy with great earnestness ; and showed how blind were the fears entertained regarding a mercantile city whose Phoenician inhabitants were becoming more and more disused to warlike arts and ideas, and how the existence of that rich commercial city was quite compatible with the political supremacy of Rome. Even the conversion of Carthage into a Roman provincial town would have been practicable, and indeed, compared with the present con dition of the Phoenicians, perhaps even not unwelcome. Cato, however, desired not the submission, but the destruc tion of the hated city. His policy, as it would seem, found allies partly in the statesmen who were inclined to bring the transmarine territories into immediate dependence on Rome, partly and especially in the mighty influence of the Roman bankers and great capitalists on whom, after the destruction of the rich moneyed and mercantile city, its inheritance would necessarily devolve. The majority re solved at the first fitting opportunity —respect for public opinion required that they should wait for such — to bring about war with Carthage, or rather the destruction of the city.
The desired occasion was soon found. The provoking War violations of right on the part of Massinissa and the JSV^ Romans brought to the helm in Carthage Hasdrubal and and Carthalo, the leaders of the patriotic party, which was Cartlia'*' not indeed, like the Achaean, disposed to revolt against
the Roman supremacy, but was at least resolved to defend,
if necessary, by arms against Massinissa the rights belonging
by treaty to the Carthaginians. The patriots ordered forty
of the most decided partisans of Massinissa to be banished
from the city, and made the people swear that they would
on no accoifht ever permit their return ; at the same time,
in order to repel the attacks that might be expected from Mas
sinissa, they formed out of the free Numidians a numerous
army under Arcobarzanes, the grandson of Syphax (about
*iO
THE SUBJECT COUNTRIES book iv
154. 600). Massinissa, however, was prudent enough not to take arms now, but to submit himself unconditionally to the decision of the Romans respecting the disputed territory on the Bagradas ; and thus the Romans could assert with some plausibility that the Carthaginian preparations must have been directed against them, and could insist on the immediate dismissal of the army and destruction of the naval stores. The Carthaginian senate was disposed to consent, but the multitude prevented the execution of the decree, and the Roman envoys, who had brought this order to Carthage, were in peril of their lives. Massinissa sent his son Gulussa to Rome to report the continuance of the Carthaginian warlike preparations by land and sea, and to hasten the declaration of war. After a further embassy of ten men had confirmed the statement that Carthage was in
U2. reality arming (602), the senate rejected the demand of Cato for an absolute declaration of war, but resolved in a secret sitting that war should be declared if the Carthagi nians would not consent to dismiss their army and to burn their materials for a fleet. Meanwhile the conflict had already begun in Africa. Massinissa had sent back the men whom the Carthaginians had banished, under the escort of his son Gulussa, to the city. When the Car thaginians closed their gates against them and killed also some of the Numidians returning home, Massinissa put his troops in motion, and the patriot party in Carthage also prepared for the struggle. But Hasdrubal, who was placed at the head of their army, was one of the usual army-destroyers whom the Carthaginians were in the habit of employing as generals ; strutting about in his general's purple like a theatrical king, and pampering his portly person even in the camp, that vain and unwieldy man was little fitted to render help in an exigency which perhaps even the genius of Hamilcar and the arm of Hannibal could have no longer averted. Before the eyes of Scipio Aemi
chap, I THE SUBJECT COUNTRIES 341
lianus, who at that time a military tribune in the Spanish army, had been sent to Massinissa to bring over African elephants for his commander, and who on this occasion looked down on the conflict from a mountain "like Zeus from Ida," the Carthaginians and Numidians fought a great battle, in which the former, though reinforced by 6000 Numidian horsemen brought to them by discontented captains of Massinissa, and superior in number to the enemy, were worsted. After this defeat the Carthaginians offered to make cessions of territory and payments of money to Massinissa, and Scipio at their solicitation attempted to bring about an agreement; but the project of peace was frustrated by the refusal of the Carthaginian patriots to surrender the deserters. Hasdrubal, however, closely hemmed in by the troops of his antagonist, was com pelled to grant to the latter all that he demanded —the surrender of the deserters, the return of the exiles, the delivery of arms, the marching off under the yoke, the payment of 100 talents (,£24,000) annually for the next fifty years. But even this agreement was not kept by the Numidians ; on the contrary the disarmed remnant of the Carthaginian army was cut to pieces by them on the way home.
The Romans, who had carefully abstained from prevent-
Ing the war itself by seasonable interposition, had now what tionof war they wished : namely, a serviceable pretext for war—for the by Rome. Carthaginians had certainly now transgressed the stipulations
of the treaty, that they should not wage war against the
allies of Rome or beyond their own bounds (ii. 361, 376)
—and an antagonist already beaten beforehand. The
Italian contingents were already summoned to Rome, and
the ships were assembled ; the declaration of war might
Issue at any moment. The Carthaginians made every
effort to avert the impending blow. Hasdrubal and Car-
thalo, the leaders of the patriot party, were condemned to
vol. in 81
Declare
14* THE SUBJECT COUNTRIES book i»
death, and an embassy was sent to Rome to throw the responsibility on them. But at the same time envoys from Utica, the second city of the Libyan Phoenicians, arrived there with full powers to surrender their community wholly to the Romans —compared with such obliging submissive- ness, it seemed almost an insolence that the Carthaginians had rested content with ordering, unbidden, the execution of their most eminent men.