No More Learning

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. The senate declared that the excuse of the Carthaginians was found insufficient; to the question, what in that case would suffice, the reply was given that the Carthaginians knew that themselves. They might, no doubt, have known what the Romans wished; but yet it seemed impossible to believe that the last hour of their loved native city had really come. Once more Carthaginian envoys — on this occasion thirty in number and with unlimited powers — were sent to Rome. When
149. they arrived, war was already declared (beginning of 605), and the double consular army had embarked. Yet they even now attempted to dispel the storm by complete submission. The senate replied that Rome was ready to guarantee to the Carthaginian community its territory, its municipal freedom and its laws, its public and private property, provided that it would furnish to the consuls who had just departed for Sicily within the space of a month at Lilybaeum 300 hostages from the children of the leading families, and would fulfil the further orders which the consuls in con formity with their instructions should issue to them. The reply has been called ambiguous ; but very erroneously, as even at the time clearsighted men among the Carthaginians themselves pointed out. The circumstance that everything which they could ask was guaranteed with the single ex ception of the city, and that nothing was said as to stopping the embarkation of the troops for Africa, showed very clearly what the Roman intentions were ; the senate acted
with fearful harshness, but it did not assume the semblance
chap, I THE SUBJECT COUNTRIES 243
of concession. The Carthaginians, however, would not open their eyes ; there was no statesman found, who had the power to move the unstable multitude of the city either to thorough resistance or to thorough resignation. When they heard at the same time of the horrible decree of wai and of the endurable demand for hostages, they complied immediately with the latter, and still clung to hope, because they had not the courage fully to realize the import of surrendering themselves beforehand to the arbitrary will of a mortal foe. The consuls sent back the hostages from Lilybaeum to Rome, and informed the Carthaginian envoys that they would learn further particulars in Africa. The landing was accomplished without resistance, and the provisions demanded were supplied. When the gerusia of Carthage appeared in a body at the head-quarters in Utica to receive the further orders, the consuls required in the first instance the disarming of the city. To the question of the Carthaginians, who was in that case to protect them even against their own emigrants — against the army, which had swelled to 20,000 men, under the command of Husdrubal who had saved himself from the sentence of death by flight—it was replied, that this would be the con cern of the Romans. Accordingly the council of the city obsequiously appeared before the consuls with all their fleet- material, all the military stores of the public magazines, all the arms that were found in the possession of private persons—to the number of 3000 catapults and 200,000 sets of armour — and inquired whether anything more was desired. Then the consul Lucius Marcius Censorinus rose and announced to the council, that in accordance with the
instructions given by the senate the existing city was to be destroyed, but that the inhabitants were at liberty to settle anew in their territory wherever they chose, provided it were at a distance of at least ten miles from the sea.
This fearful command aroused in the Phoenicians all
144 THE SUBJECT COUNTRIES book IV
Resistance the —shall we say magnanimous or frenzied ? —enthusiasm,
ancestral city and their venerated and dear home beside the sea. Hope and deliverance were out of the question ; political discretion enjoined even now an unconditional submissioa But the voice of the few who counselled the acceptance of what was inevitable was, like the call of the pilot during a hurricane, drowned amidst the furious yells of the multitude ; which, in its frantic rage, laid hands on the magistrates of the city who had counselled the sur render of the hostages and arms, made such of the inno cent bearers of the news as had ventured at all to return home expiate their terrible tidings, and tore in pieces the Italians who chanced to be sojourning in the city by way of avenging beforehand, at least on them, the destruction of its native home. No resolution was passed to defend themselves; unarmed as they were, this was a matter of course. The gates were closed; stones were carried to the battlements of the walls that had been stripped of the catapults ; the chief command was entrusted to Has- drubal, the grandson of Massinissa ; the slaves in a body were declared free. The army of refugees under the fugitive Hasdrubal — which was in possession of the whole Carthaginian territory with the exception of the towns on the east coast occupied by the Romans, viz. Had- rumetum, Little Leptis, Thapsus and Achulla, and ^the city of Utica, and offered an invaluable support for the defence — was entreated not to refuse its aid to the commonwealth in this dire emergency. At the same
ihagtohn*. which was
displayed previously by the Tyrians against Alexander, and subsequently by the Jews against Ves pasian. Unparalleled as was the patience with which this nation could endure bondage and oppression, as un paralleled was now the furious rising of that mercantile and seafaring population, when the things at stake were not the state and freedom, but the beloved soil of their
chap, I THE SUBJECT COUNTRIES «45
time, concealing in true Phoenician style the most un bounded resentment under the cloak of humility, they attempted to deceive the enemy. A message was sent to the consuls to request a thirty days' armistice for the despatch of an embassy to Rome. The Carthaginians were well aware that the generals neither would nor could grant this request, which had been refused once already ; but the consuls were confirmed by it in the natural supposition that after the first outbreak of despair the utterly defenceless city would submit, and accordingly postponed the attack. The precious interval was employed in preparing catapults and armour ; day and night all, with out distinction of age or sex, were occupied in constructing machines and forging arms ; the public buildings were torn down to procure timber and metal ; women cut off their hair to furnish the strings indispensable for the catapults ; in an incredibly short time the walls and the men were once more armed. That all this could be done without the consuls, who were but a few miles off, learning any
of not the least marvellous feature in this marvellous movement sustained by truly enthusiastic, and in fact superhuman, national hatred. When at length the consuls, weary of waiting, broke up from their camp at Utica, and thought that they should be able to scale the bare walls with ladders, they found to their surprise and horror the battlements crowned anew with catapults, and the large populous city which they had hoped to occupy like an open village, able and ready to defend itself to the last man.
Carthage was rendered very strong both by the nature of its situation and by the art of its inhabitants, who had
The line of the coast has been in the course of centuries so much changed that the former local relations are but imperfectly recognizable on the ancient site. The name of the city preserved by Cape Carta gena—also called from the saint's tomb found there Ras Sidi bu Said
thing
situation of c*rth*8B.
is
1
1
it, is
a
246 THE SUBJECT COUNTRIES book iv
very often to depend on the protection of its walls. Into the broad gulf of Tunis, which is bounded on the west
Farina and on the east by Cape Bon, there projects in a direction from west to east a promontory, which is encompassed on three sides by the sea and is connected with the mainland only towards the west This
at its narrowest part only about two miles broad and on the whole flat, again expands towards the gulf, and terminates there in the two heights of Jebel- Khawi and Sidi bu Said, between which extends the plain of El Mersa. On its southern portion which ends in the height of Sidi bu Said lay the city of Carthage. The pretty steep declivity of that height towards the gulf and its numerous rocks and shallows gave natural strength to the side of the city next to the gulf, and a simple circumvallation was sufficient there. On the wall along the west or landward side, on the other hand, where nature afforded no protection, every appliance within the power of the art of fortification in those times was ex
It consisted, as its recently discovered remains exactly tallying with the description of Polybius have shown, of an outer wall 6\ feet thick and immense casemates attached to it behind, probably along its whole extent ; these were separated from the outer wall by a covered way 6 feet broad, and had a depth of 14 feet, exclusive of the front and back walls, each of which was fully 3 feet broad. 1
—the eastern headland of the peninsula, projecting into the gulf with its highest point rising to 393 feet above the level of the sea.
1 The dimensions given by Beule (Fouilles a Carthage, 1861) are as follows in metres and in Greek feet (1=0*309 metre) :
Outer wall a metres = 61 feet. Corridor 1-9 ,, = 6 „
,, a* ,,
by Cape
promontory,
pended.
Front wall of casemates .
. 1
3$
Casemate rooms
Back wall of casemates . .
42 ,,
=14
•■
. 1 . . . . —
Whole breadth of the walls . . 10 1 metres =33 feet
Of, as Diodorus (p. 522) states 22 cubits Greek cubit = feet),
„ m ,, 3$
it,
(1
ij
:hap. i THE SUBJECT COUNTRIES 047
This enormous wall, composed throughout of large hewn blocks, rose in two stories, exclusive of the battlements and the huge towers four stories high, to a height of 45 feet,1 and furnished in the lower range of the casemates stables and provender-stores for 300 elephants, in the upper range stalls for horses, magazines, and barracks. 2 The citadel-hill, the Byrsa (Syriac, btrtha = citadel), a compara
while Llvy (ap. Oros. It. as) and Appian (Pun. 95), who seem to have had before them another less accurate passage of Polybius, state the breadth of the walls at 30 feet. The triple wall of Appian—as to which a false idea has hitherto been diffused by Floras 31) — denotes the outer wall, and the front and back walls of the casemates. That this coincidence not accidental, and that we have here in reality the remains of the famed walls of Carthage before us, will be evident to every one the objections of Davis (Carthage and her Remains, p. 370 et sea. ) only show how little even the utmost zeal can adduce in opposition to the main results of Reute. Only we must maintain that all the ancient authorities give the statements of which we are now speaking with reference not to the citadel-wall, but to the city-wall on the landward side, of which the wall along the south side of the citadel-hill was an integral part (Oros. iv.
In accordance with this view, the excavations at the citadel-hill on the east, north, and west, have shown no traces of fortifications, whereas on the south side they have brought to light the very remains of this great wall. There is no reason for regarding these as the remains of a separate fortification of the citadel distinct from the city wall may be presumed that further excavations at corresponding depth —the foundation of the city wall discovered at the Byrsa lies fly-six feet beneath the present surface — will bring to light like, or at any rate analogous, foundations along the whole landward side, although probable that at the point where the walled suburb of Magalia rested on the main wall the fortification was either weaker from the first or was early neglected. The length of the wall as a whole cannot be stated with precision but must have been very considerable, for three hundred elephants were stabled there, and the stores for their fodder and perhaps other spaces also as well as the gates are to be taken into account It easy to conceive how the inner city, within the walls of which the Byrsa was included, should, especially by way of contrast to the suburb of Magalia which had its separate circum- vallation, be sometimes itself called Byrsa (App. Pun. 117; Nepos, ap. Serv. Aen.
aa).
368).
Such the height given by Appian, e. Diodorus gives the height,
probably inclusive of the battlements, at 40 cubits or 60 feet. The remnant preserved still from 13 to 16 feet (4-5 metres) high.
The rooms of a horse-shoe shape brought to light in excavation have a depth of 14, and a breadth of 11, Greek feet the width of the entrances not specified. Whether these dimensions and the proportions of the corridor suffice for our recognizing them as elephants' stalls, remains to
be settled by a more accurate investigation. The partition-walls, which separate the apartments, have a thickness of metre = feet
J3
it
1 1
;
is
*1
is i. is
is
is
a
A
; is
fi
;
it
; it
:
(i.
248 THE SUBJECT COUNTRIES book iv
tively considerable rock having a height of 188 feet and at its base a circumference of fully 2000 double paces,1 was joined to this wall at its southern end, just as the rock-wall of the Capitol was joined to the city-wall of Rome. Its summit bore the huge temple of the God of Healing, resting on a basement of sixty steps. The south side of the city was washed partly by the shallow lake of Tunes towards the south-west, which was separated almost wholly from the gulf by a narrow and low tongue of land running southwards from the Carthaginian peninsula,2 partly by the open gulf towards the south-east. At this last spot was situated the double harbour of the city, a work of human hands ; the outer or commercial harbour, a longish rect angle with the narrow end turned to the sea, from whose entrance, only 70 feet wide, broad quays stretched along the water on both sides, and the inner circular war-
harbour, the Cothon,8 with the island containing the admiral's house in the middle, which was approached
the outer harbour. Between the two passed the city wall, which turning eastward from the Byrsa excluded the tongue of land and the outer harbour, but included the war-harbour, so that the entrance to the latter must be conceived as capable of being closed like a gate. Not far from the war-harbour lay the market place, which was connected by three narrow streets with, the citadel open on the side towards the town. To the
1 Oros. iv. a3. Fully 3000 paces, or—as Polybius must have said— 16 stadia, are = about 3000 mitres. The citadel-hill, on which the church of St. Louis now stands, measures at the top about 1400, half-way up about 3600, metres in circumference (Beulg, p. 33) ; for the circumference at the base that estimate will very well suffice.
through
* It now bears the fort Goletta.
' That this Phoenician word signifies a basin excavated in a circular shape, is shown both by Diodorus (iii. 44), and by its being employed by the Greeks to denote a "cup. " It thus suits only the inner harbour of Carthage, and in that sense it is used by Strabo (xvii. a, 14, where it is strictly applied to the admiral's island) and Fest. Ef. v. cothones, p. 37. Appian (Pun. 137) is not quite accurate in describing the rectangular harbour in front of the Cothon as part of it.
chap, I THE SUBJECT COUNTRIES 249
north of, and beyond, the city proper, the pretty con siderable space of the modern El Mersa, even at that time occupied in great part by villas and well- watered gardens, and then called Magalia, had a circumvallation of its own joining on to the city wall. On the opposite point of the peninsula, the Jebel-Khawi near the modem village of Ghamart, lay the necropolis. These three— the old city, the suburb, and the necropolis —together filled the whole breadth of the promontory on its side next the gulf, and were only accessible by the two highways leading to Utica and Tunes along that narrow tongue of land, which, although not closed by a wall, yet afforded a most advantageous position for the armies taking their stand under the protection of the capital with the view of protecting it in return.
The difficult task of reducing so well fortified a city was rendered still more difficult by the fact, that the resources of the capital itself and of its territory which still included 800 townships and was mostly under the power of the emi grant party on the one hand, and the numerous tribes of the free or half-free Libyans hostile to Massinissa on the other, enabled the Carthaginians simultaneously with their defence of the city to keep a numerous army in the field — an army which, from the desperate temper of the emigrants and the serviceableness of the light Numidian cavalry, the besiegers could not afford to disregard.
The consuls accordingly had by no means an easy task The siege to perform, when they now found themselves compelled to commence a regular siege. Manius Manilius, who com
manded the land army, pitched his camp opposite the wall
of the citadel, while Lucius Censorinus stationed himself with the fleet on the lake and there began operations on
the tongue of land. The Carthaginian army, under Has- drubal, encamped on the other side of the lake near the fortress of Nepheris, whence it obstructed the labours of
aso THE SUBJECT COUNTRIES book it
the Roman soldiers despatched to cut timber for con structing machines, and the able cavalry-leader in parti cular, Himilco Phameas, slew many of the Romans. Censorinus fitted up two large battering-rams on the tongue, and made a breach with them at this weakest place of the wall ; but, as evening had set in, the assault had to be postponed. During the night the besieged succeeded in filling up a great part of the breach, and in so damaging the Roman machines by a sortie that they could not work next day. Nevertheless the Romans ventured on the assault ; but they found the breach and the portions of the wall and houses in the neighbourhood so strongly occupied, and advanced with such imprudence, that they were repulsed with severe loss and would have suffered still greater damage, had not the military tribune
Aemilianus, foreseeing the issue of the foolhardy attack, kept together his men in front of the walls and with them intercepted the fugitives. Manilius accomplished still less against the impregnable wall of the citadel. The siege thus lingered on. The diseases engendered in the camp by the heat of summer, the departure of Censorinus the abler general, the ill-humour and inaction of Massinissa who was naturally far from pleased to see the Romans taking for themselves the booty which he had long coveted, and the death of the king at the age of ninety which ensued
149. soon after (end of 605), utterly arrested the offensive opera tions of the Romans. They had enough to do in pro tecting their ships against the Carthaginian incendiaries and their camp against nocturnal surprises, and in securing food for their men and horses by the construction of a harbour-fort and by forays in the neighbourhood. Two expeditions directed against Hasdrubal remained without success ; and in fact the first, badly led over difficult ground, had almost terminated in a formal defeat But, while the course of the war was inglorious for the general
Scipio
chap, I THE SUBJECT COUNTRIES 251
and the army, the military tribune Scipio achieved in it brilliant distinction. It was he who, on occasion of a nocturnal attack by the enemy on the Roman camp, starting with some squadrons of horse and taking the enemy in rear, compelled him to retreat. On the first expedition to Nepheris, when the passage of the river had taken place in opposition to his advice and had almost occasioned the destruction of the army, by a bold attack in flank he relieved the pressure on the retreating troops, and by his devoted and heroic courage rescued a division which had been given up as lost While the other officers, and the consul in
particular, by their perfidy deterred the towns and party-leaders that were inclined to negotiate, Scipio succeeded in in
ducing one of the ablest of the latter, Himilco Phameas, to pass over to the Romans with 2200 cavalry. Lastly, after he had in fulfilment of the charge of the dying Massinissa divided his kingdom among his three sons, Micipsa, Gulussa, and Mastanabal, he brought to the Roman army in Gulussa a cavalry-leader worthy of his father, and thereby remedied the want, which had hitherto been seriously felt, of light cavalry. His refined and yet simple demeanour, which recalled rather his own father than him whose name he bore, overcame even envy, and in the camp as in the capital the name of Scipio was on the lips of all. Even Cato, who was not liberal with his
a few months before his death —he died at the
end of 605 without having seen the wish of his life, the 149. destruction of Carthage, accomplished —applied to the young officer and to his incapable comrades the Homeric
line • —
He only is a living man, the rest are gliding shades. 1
While these events were passing, the close of the year 1 0&>I rfwrvrtu, ~ol Si aiuai Uattwa.
praise,
Sdpto lianai
15» THE SUBJECT COUNTRIES book iv
had come and with it a change of commanders ; the consul 148. Lucius Piso (606) was somewhat late in appearing and took the command of the land army, while Lucius Mancinus
took charge of the fleet. But, if their predecessors had done little, these did nothing at all. Instead of prosecuting the siege of Carthage or subduing the army of Hasdrubal,
Piso employed himself in attacking the small maritime towns of the Phoenicians, and that mostly without success. Clupea, for example, repulsed him, and he was obliged to retire in disgrace from Hippo Diarrhytus, after having lost the whole summer in front of it and having had his besieg ing apparatus twice burnt Neapolis was no doubt taken ; but the pillage of the town in opposition to his pledged word of honour was not specially favourable to the progress of the Roman arms.
The courage of the Carthaginians rose. Bithyas, a Numidian sheik, passed over to them with 800 horse; Carthaginian envoys were enabled to attempt negotiations with the kings of Numidia and Maure- tania and even with Philip the Macedonian pretender. It was perhaps internal intrigues —Hasdrubal the emigrant brought the general of the same name, who commanded in the city, into suspicion on account of his relationship with
Massinissa, and caused him to be put to death in the senate- house — rather than the activity of the Romans, that prevented things from assuming a turn still more favourable for Carthage.
With the view of producing a change in the state of African affairs, which excited uneasiness, the Romans re sorted to the extraordinary measure of entrusting the conduct of the war to the only man who had as yet brought home honour from the Libyan plains, and who was recom mended for this war by his very name. Instead of calling Scipio to the aedileship for which he was a candidate, they gave to him the consulship before the usual time, setting aside the laws to the contrary effect, and committed to him
chap. I THE SUBJECT COUNTRIES 153
by special decree the conduct of the African war. He arrived (607) in Utica at a moment when much was at stake. 147. The Roman admiral Mancinus, charged by Piso with the nominal continuance of the siege of the capital, had occupied
a steep cliff, far remote from the inhabited district and scarcely defended, on the almost inaccessible seaward side
of the suburb of Magalia, and had united nearly his whole
not very numerous force there, in the hope of being able to penetrate thence into the outer town. In fact the assailants
had been for a moment within its gates and the camp- followers had flocked forward in a body in the hope of spoil, when they were again driven back to the cliff and, being without supplies and almost cut off, were in the great
est danger. Scipio found matters in that position. He
had hardly arrived when he despatched the troops which
he had brought with him and the militia of Utica by sea to
the threatened point, and succeeded in saving its garrison
and holding the cliff itself. After this danger was averted,
the general proceeded to the camp of Piso to take over the
army and bring it back to Carthage. Hasdrubal and Bithyas availed themselves of his absence to move their camp immediately up to the city, and to renew the attack on the garrison of the cliff before Magalia; but even now Scipio appeared with the vanguard of the main army in sufficient time to afford assistance to the post Then the siege began afresh and more earnestly. First of all Scipio cleared the camp of the mass of camp-followers and sutlers and once more tightened the relaxed reins of discipline. Military operations were soon resumed with increased vigour. In an attack by night on the suburb the Romans succeeded in passing from a tower—placed in front of the walls and equal to them in height—on to the battlements, and opened a little gate through which the whole army entered. The Carthaginians abandoned the suburb and their camp before the gates, and gave the chief command
»54 THE SUBJECT COUNTRIES book it
of the garrison of the city, amounting to 30,000 men, to Hasdrubal. The new commander displayed his energy in the first instance by giving orders that all the Roman pri soners should be brought to the battlements and, after undergoing cruel tortures, should be thrown over before the eyes of the besieging army ; and, when voices were raised in disapproval of the act, a reign of terror was introduced with reference to the citizens also.
Scipio, meanwhile, after having confined the besieged to the city itself, sought totally to cut off their intercourse with the outer world. He took
up his head-quarters on the ridge by which the Carthaginian peninsula was connected with the mainland, and, notwith standing the various attempts of the Carthaginians to disturb his operations, constructed a great camp across the whole breadth of the isthmus, which completely blockaded the city from the landward side. Nevertheless ships with pro visions still ran into the harbour, partly bold merchantmen allured by the great gain, partly vessels of Bithyas, who availed himself of every favourable wind to convey supplies to the city from Nepheris at the end of the lake of Tunes ; whatever might now be the sufferings of the citizens, the garrison was still sufficiently provided for. Scipio therefore constructed a stone mole, 96 feet broad, running from the tongue of land between the lake and gulf into the latter, so as thus to close the mouth of the harbour. The city seemed lost, when the success of this undertaking, which was at first ridiculed by the Carthaginians as impracticable, became evident. But one surprise was balanced by another. While the Roman labourers were constructing the mole, work was going forward night and day for two months in the Carthaginian harbour, without even the deserters
being able to tell what were the designs of the besieged. All of a sudden, just as the Romans had completed the bar across
the entrance to the harbour, fifty Carthaginian triremes and a number of boats and skiffs sailed forth from that same
chap. I THE SUBJECT COUNTRIES 255
harbour into the gulf—while the enemy were closing the old mouth of the harbour towards the south, the Cartha ginians had by means of a canal formed in an easterly direction procured for themselves a new outlet, which owing to the depth of the sea at that spot could not possibly be closed. Had the Carthaginians, instead of resting content with a mere demonstration, thrown themselves at once and resolutely on the half-dismantled and wholly unprepared Roman fleet, it must have been lost ; when they returned on the third day to give the naval battle, they found the Romans in readiness. The conflict came off without deci sive result ; but on their return the Carthaginian vessels so ran foul of each other in and before the entrance of the harbour, that the damage thus occasioned was equivalent to a defeat Scipio now directed his attacks against the outer quay, which lay outside of the city walls and was only protected for the exigency by an earthen rampart of recent construction. The machines were stationed on the tongue of land, and a breach was easily made ; but with unexam pled intrepidity the Carthaginians, wading through the shallows, assailed the besieging implements, chased away the covering force which ran off in such a manner that Scipio was obliged to make his own troopers cut them down, and destroyed the machines. In this way they gained time to close the breach. Scipio, however, again established the machines and set on fire the wooden towers of the enemy ; by which means he obtained possession of the quay and of the outer harbour along with A rampart equal ling the city wall in height was here constructed, and the town was now at length completely blockaded land and sea, for the inner harbour could only be reached through the outer. To ensure the completeness of the blockade, Scipio ordered Gaius Laelius to attack the camp at Nepheris, where Diogenes now held the command was captured
fortunate stratagem, and the whole countless multitude
by a
; it
by
it.
Capture of *'
a56 THE SUBJECT COUNTRIES book iv
assembled there were put to death or taken prisoners. Winter had now arrived and Scipio suspended his opera tions, leaving famine and pestilence to complete what he had begun.
How fearfully these mighty agencies had laboured in the work of destruction during the interval while Hasdrubal continued to vaunt and to gormandize, appeared so soon as
146. the Roman army proceeded in the spring of 608 to attack the inner towa Hasdrubal gave orders to set fire to the outer harbour and made himself ready to repel the ex pected assault on the Cothon ; but Laelius succeeded in scaling the wall, hardly longer defended by the famished garrison, at a point farther up and thus penetrated into the inner harbour. The city was captured, but the struggle was still by no means at an end. The assailants occupied the market-place contiguous to the small harbour, and slowly pushed their way along the three narrow streets leading from this to the citadel — slowly, for the huge
houses of six stories in height had to be taken one by one ; on the roofs or on beams laid over the street the soldiers penetrated from one of these fortress-like buildings to that which was adjoining or opposite, and cut down whatever they encountered there. Thus six days elapsed, terrible for the inhabitants of the city and full of difficulty and danger also for the assailants ; at length they arrived in front of the steep citadel-rock, whither Hasdrubal and the force still surviving had retreated. To procure a wider approach, Scipio gave orders to set fire to the captured streets and to level the ruins ; on which occasion a number
of persons unable to fight, who were concealed in the houses, miserably perished. Then at last the remnant of the population, crowded together in the citadel, besought for mercy. Bare life was conceded to them, and they appeared before the victor, 30,000 men and 25,000 women, not the tenth part of the former population. The Roman
chap, 1 THE SUBJECT COUNTRIES »57
deserters alone, 900 in number, and the general Hasdrubal with his wife and his two children had thrown themselves into the temple of the God of Healing ; for them — for soldiers who had deserted their posts, and for the murderer of the Roman prisoners — there were no terms. But when, yielding to famine, the most resolute of them set fire to the temple, Hasdrubal could not endure to face death; alone he ran forth to the victor and falling upon his knees pleaded for his life. It was granted ; but, when his wife who with her children was among the rest on the roof of the temple saw him at the feet of Scipio, her proud heart swelled at this disgrace brought on her dear perishing home, and, with bitter words bidding her husband be careful to save his life, she plunged first her sons and then herself into the flames. The struggle was at an end. The joy in the camp and at Rome was boundless ; the noblest of the people alone were in secret ashamed of the most recent grand achievement of the nation. The prisoners were mostly sold as slaves ; several were allowed to languish in prison ; the most notable, Hasdrubal and Bithyas, were sent to the interior of Italy as Roman state-prisoners and tolerably treated. The moveable property, with the excep tion of gold, silver, and votive gifts, was abandoned to the pillage of the soldiers. As to the temple treasures, the booty that had been in better times carried off by the Carthaginians from the Sicilian towns was restored to them ; the bull of Phalaris, for example, was returned to the Agrigentines ; the rest fell to the Roman state.
But by far the larger portion of the city still remained Destruc-
standing. We may believe that Scipio desired its preserva- tion ; at least he addressed a special inquiry to the senate on the subject Scipio Nasica once more attempted to gain a hearing for the demands of reason and honour ; but in vain. The senate ordered the general to level the city of Carthage and the suburb of Magalia with the ground,
VOL III 82
c^L_
Province of Africa.
358 THE SUBJECT COUNTRIES book iv
and to do the same with all the townships which had held by Carthage to the last ; and thereafter to pass the plough over the site of Carthage so as to put an end in legal form to the existence of the city, and to cur. se the soil and site for ever, that neither house nor cornfield might ever re appear on the spot. The command was punctually obeyed. The ruins burned for seventeen days : recently, when the remains of the Carthaginian city wall were excavated, they were found to be covered with a layer of ashes from four to five feet deep, filled with half-charred pieces of wood, fragments of iron, and projectiles. Where the industrious Phoenicians had bustled and trafficked for five hundred years, Roman slaves henceforth pastured the herds of their distant masters. Scipio, however, whom nature had destined for a nobler part than that of an executioner, gazed with horror on his own work ; and, instead of the joy of victory, the victor himself was haunted by a presentiment of the retribution that would inevitably follow such a
misdeed.
There remained the work of arranging the future
organization of the country. The earlier plan of investing the allies of Rome with the transmarine possessions that she acquired was no longer viewed with favour. Micipsa and Ins brothers retained in substance their former territory, including the districts recently wrested from the Cartha ginians on the Bagradas and in Emporia ; their long- cherished hope of obtaining Carthage as a capital was for ever frustrated ; the senate presented them instead with the Carthaginian libraries. The Carthaginian territory as possessed by the city in its last days — viz. the narrow border of the African coast lying immediately opposite to Sicily, from the river Tusca (near Thabraca) to Thaenae (opposite to the island of Karkenah) — became a Roman
In the interior, where the constant encroach ments of Massinissa had more and more narrowed the
province.
chap, I THE SUBJECT COUNTRIES a59
Carthaginian dominions and Bulla, Zama, and Aquae already belonged to the kings, the Numidians retained what they possessed. But the careful regulation of the boundary between the Roman province and the Numidian kingdom, which enclosed it on three sides, showed that Rome would by no means tolerate in reference to herself what she had permitted in reference to Carthage ; while the name of the new province, Africa, on the other hand appeared to indicate that Rome did not at all regard the boundary now marked off as a definitive one. The supreme administra tion of the new province was entrusted to a Roman governor, who had his seat at Utica. Its frontier did not need any regular defence, as the allied Numidian kingdom everywhere separated it from the inhabitants of the desert. In the matter of taxes Rome dealt on the whole with moderation. Those communities which from the beginning of the war had taken part with Rome —viz. only the maritime towns of Utica, Hadrumetum, Little Leptis, Thapsus, Achulla, and Usalis, and the inland town of Theudalis — retained their territory and became free cities ; which was also the case with the newly-founded community of deserters. The territory of the city of Carthage —with the exception of a tract presented to Utica—and that of the other destroyed townships became Roman domain-land, which was let on lease. The remaining townships likewise forfeited in law their property in the soil and their municipal liberties; but their land and their constitution were for the time being, and until further orders from the Roman government, left to them as a possession liable to be recalled, and the communities paid annually to Rome for the use of their soil which had become Roman a once- for-all fixed tribute (slipendium), which they in their turn collected by means of a property-tax levied from the in dividuals liable. The real gainers, however, by this destruction of the first commercial city of the west were
Philip,
26o THE SUBJECT COUNTRIES book iv
( the Roman merchants, who, as soon as Carthage lay in ) ashes, flocked in troops to Utica, and from this as their , head-quarters began to turn to profitable account not only
the Roman province, but also the Numidian and Gaetulian regions which had hitherto been closed to them.
Macedonia also disappeared about the same time as Carthage from the ranks of the nations. The four small confederacies, into which the wisdom of the Roman senate had parcelled out the ancient kingdom, could not live at peace either internally or one with another. How matters stood in the country appears from a single accidentally mentioned occurrence at Phacus, where the whole govern ing council of one of these confederacies were murdered on the instigation of one Damasippus. Neither the com-
184. missions sent by the senate (590), nor the foreign arbiters, 151. such as Scipio Aemilianus (603) called in after the Greek
fashion by the Macedonians, were able to establish tolerable order. Suddenly there appeared in Thrace a young man, who called himself Philip the son of king Perseus, whom he strikingly resembled, and of the Syrian Laodice. He had passed his youth in the Mysian town of Adramytium ; there he asserted that he had preserved the sure proofs of his illustrious descent. With these he had, after a vain attempt to obtain recognition in his native country, resorted to Demetrius Soter, king of Syria, his mother's brother. There were in fact some who believed the Adramytene or professed to believe him, and urged the king either to reinstate the prince in his hereditary kingdom or to cede to him the crown of Syria ; whereupon Demetrius, to put an end to the foolish proceedings,
/ arrested the pretender and sent him to the Romans. But the senate attached so little importance to the man, that it confined him in an Italian town without taking steps to have him even seriously guarded. Thus he had escaped to Miletus, where the civic authorities once more seized
any
chap, I THE SUBJECT COUNTRIES a6i
him and asked the Roman commissioners what they should do with the prisoner. The latter advised them to let him go ; and they did so. He now tried his fortune further in Thrace; and, singularly enough, he obtained recognition and support there not only from Teres the chief of the Thracian barbarians, the husband of his father's sister, and Barsabas, but also from the prudent Byzantines. With Thracian support the so-called Philip invaded Macedonia, and, although he was defeated at first, he soon gained one victory over the Macedonian militia in the district of Odomantice beyond the Strymon, followed by a second on the west side of the river, which gave him possession of all Macedonia. Apocryphal as his story sounded, and
as it was established that the real Philip, the son of Perseus, had died when eighteen years of age at Alba, and that this man, so far from being a Macedonian
was Andriscus a fuller of Adramytium, yet the Macedonians were too much accustomed to the rule of a king not to be readily satisfied on the point of legitimacy
and to return with pleasure into the old track. Messengers arrived from the Thessalians, announcing that the pretender
had advanced into their territory; the Roman commis sioner Nasica, who, in the expectation that a word of earnest remonstrance would put an end to the foolish enterprise, had been sent by the senate to Macedonia without soldiers, was obliged to call out the Achaean and Pergamene troops and to protect Thessaly against the superior force by means of the Achaeans, as far as was practicable, till (605 ? ) the praetor Juventius appeared with 149. a legion. The latter attacked the Macedonians with his small force; but he himself fell, his army was almost wholly destroyed, and the greater part of Thessaly fell into
the power of the pseudo-Philip, who conducted his govern ment there and in Macedonia with cruelty and arrogance.
At length a stronger Roman army under Quintus Caecilius
decidedly
prince,
262 THE SUBJECT COUNTRIES book it victory of Metellus appeared on the scene of conflict, and, supported
MetenB*'
by the Pergamene fleet, advanced into Macedonia. In the first cavalry combat the Macedonians retained the superiority; but soon dissensions and desertions occurred in the Macedonian army, and the blunder of the pretender in dividing his army and detaching half of it to Thessaly procured for the Romans an easy and decisive victory
148. (606). Philip fled to the chieftain Byzes in Thrace, whither Metellus followed him and after a second victory obtained his surrender.
Province donia.
The four Macedonian confederacies had not voluntarily submitted to the pretender, but had simply yielded to force. According to the policy hitherto pursued there was therefore no reason for depriving the Macedonians of the shadow of independence which the battle of Pydna had still left to them; nevertheless the kingdom of Alex ander was now, by order of the senate, converted Metellus into a Roman province. This case
by clearly showed that the Roman government had changed its
system, and had resolved to substitute for the relation of clientship that of simple subjects ; and accordingly the suppression of the four Macedonian confederacies was felt throughout the whole range of the client-states as a blow directed against all. The possessions in Epirus which were formerly after the first Roman victories de tached from Macedonia —the Ionian islands and the ports of Apollonia and Epidamnus 218, 477), that had hitherto been under the jurisdiction of the Italian magistrates — were now reunited with Macedonia, so that the latter, probably as early as this period, reached on the north-west to point beyond Scodra, where Illyria began. The pro tectorate which Rome claimed over Greece proper like wise devolved, of itself, on the new governor of Macedonia. Thus Macedonia recovered its unity and nearly the same limits which had in its most flourishing times. had
it
It
a
(iL
chap, I THE SUBJECT COUNTRIES 363
no longer, however, the unity of a kingdom, but that of a province, retaining its communal and even, as it would seem, its district organization, but placed under an Italian governor and quaestor, whose names make their appear ance on the native coins along with the name of the country. As tribute, there was retained the old moderate land-tax, as Paullus had arranged it (ii. 509) —a sum of 100 talents (^24,000) which was allocated in fixed pro portions on the several communities. Yet the land could not forget its old glorious dynasty. A few years after the subjugation of the pseudo- Philip another pretended son of Perseus, Alexander, raised the banner of insurrection on the Nestus (Karasu), and had in a short time collected 1600 men; but the quaestor Lucius Tremellius mastered the insurrection without difficulty and pursued the fugitive
as far as Dardania (612). This was the last 143. movement of the proud national spirit of Macedonia, which two hundred years before had accomplished so great things in Hellas and Asia. Henceforward there is scarcely anything else to be told of the Macedonians, save that they continued to reckon their inglorious years from the date at which the country received its definitive provincial organization (608). 148,
Thenceforth the defence of the northern and eastern frontiers of Macedonia or, in other words, of the frontier of Hellenic civilization against the barbarians devolved on the Romans. It was conducted by them with inadequate forces and not, on the whole, with befitting energy; but with a primary view to this military object the great Egnatian highway was constructed, which as early as the time of Polybius ran from Apollonia and
the two chief ports on the west coast, across the interior to Thessalonica, and was afterwards prolonged to the Hebrus
pretender
The new province became the natural basis, 1 This road was known already by the author of the pseudo-Aristotelian
(Maritza). 1
Dyrrhachium,
Breeeo.
364 THE SUBJECT COUNTRIES book it
on the one hand for the movements against the turbulent Dalmatians, and on the other hand for the numerous ex peditions against the Illyrian, Celtic, and Thracian tribes settled to the north of the Grecian peninsula, which we shall afterwards have to exhibit in their historical con nection.
Greece proper had greater occasion than Macedonia to congratulate herself on the favour of the ruling power; and the Philhellenes of Rome might well be of opinion that the calamitous effects of the war with Perseus were disappearing, and that the state of things in general was improving there. The bitterest abettors of the now domi nant party, Lyciscus the Aetolian, Mnasippus the Boeotian, Chrematas the Acarnanian, the infamous Epirot Charops whom honourable Romans forbade even to enter their houses, descended one after another to the grave ; another generation grew up, in which the old recollections and the old antagonisms had faded. The Roman senate thought that the time for general forgiveness and oblivion had
160. come, and in 604 released the survivors of those Achaean
who had been confined for seventeen years in Italy, and whose liberation the Achaean diet had never ceased to demand. Nevertheless they were mistaken. How little the Romans with all their Philhellenism had been successful in heartily conciliating Hellenic patriotism, was nowhere more clearly apparent than in the attitude of the Greeks towards the Attalids. King Eumenes IL had been, as a friend of the Romans, extremely hated in Greece 494) but scarcely had coldness arisen between him and the Romans, when he became suddenly popular
treatise De Miraiilibus as commercial route between the Adriatic and Black seas, viz. as that along which the wine jars from Corcyra met half way those from Thasos and Lesbos. Even now runs substantially in the same direction from Durazzo, cutting through the mountains of Ba gora (Candavian chain) near the lake of Ochrida (Lychnitis), by way of Monastir to Salonica.
patriots
it
a
(ii. ;
a
CHAP. I THE SUBJECT COUNTRIES 265
in Greece, and the Hellenic hopefuls expected the deliverer from a foreign yoke to come now from Pergamus as formerly from Macedonia. Social disorganization more especially was visibly on the increase among the petty states of Hellas now left to themselves. The country became desolate not through war and pestilence, but through the daily increasing disinclination of the higher classes to trouble themselves with wife and children; on the other hand the criminal or the thoughtless flocked as hitherto chiefly to Greece, there to await the recruiting officer. The communities sank into daily deeper debt, and into financial dishonour and a corresponding want of credit : some cities, more especially Athens and Thebes, resorted in their financial distress to direct robbery, and plundered the neighbouring communities. The internal dissensions in the leagues also — e. g. between the voluntary and the compulsory members of the Achaean confederacy — were by no means composed. If the Romans, as seems to have been the case, believed what they wished and con fided in the calm which for the moment prevailed, they were soon to learn that the younger generation in Hellas was in no respect better or wiser than the older. The
Greeks directly sought an opportunity of picking a quarrel with the Romans.
In order to screen a foul transaction, Diaeus, the president of the Achaean league for the time being, about 605 threw out in the diet the assertion that the special privileges con ceded by the Achaean league to the Lacedaemonians as members—viz. their exemption from the Achaean criminal jurisdiction, and the right to send separate embassies to Rome—were not at all guaranteed to them by the Romans. It was an audacious falsehood ; but the diet naturally believed what it wished, and, when the Achaeans showed themselves ready to make good their assertions with arms in hand, the weaker Spartans yielded for the time, or, to
Achaean ""' t149,
266 THE SUBJECT COUNTRIES book nr
speak more correctly, those whose surrender was demanded
by the Achaeans left the city to appear as complainants before the Roman senate. The senate answered as usual that it would send a commission to investigate the matter ; but instead of reporting this reply the envoys stated in Achaia as well as in Sparta, and in both cases falsely, that the senate had decided in their favour. The Achaeans, who felt more than ever their equality with Rome as allies and their political importance on account of the aid which the league had just rendered in Thessaly against the pseudo-
148. Philip, advanced in 606 under their strategus Damocritus into Laconia : in vain a Roman embassy on its way to Asia, at the suggestion of Metellus, admonished them to keep the peace and to await the commissioners of the senate. A battle took place, in which nearly 1000 Spartans fell, and Sparta might have been taken if Damocritus had not been
equally incapable as an officer and as a statesman. He was superseded, and his successor Diaeus, the instigator of all this mischief, zealously continued the war, while at the same time he gave to the dreaded commandant of Macedonia assurances of the full loyalty of the Achaean league. There upon the long-expected Roman commission made its appear ance, with Aurelius Orestes at its head ; hostilities were now suspended, and the Achaean diet assembled at Corinth to receive its communications. They were of an unexpected and far from agreeable character. The Romans had resolved to cancel the unnatural and forced 478) inclusion of Sparta among the Achaean states, and generally to act with vigour
168. against the Achaeans. Some years before (591) these had been obliged to release from their league the Aetolian town of Pleuron 478) now they were directed to renounce all the acquisitions which they had made since the second Macedonian war—viz. Corinth, Orchomenus, Argos, Sparta in the Peloponnesus, and Heraclea near to Oeta — and to reduce their league to the condition in which stood at the
it
(ii. ;
(il
chap. I THE SUBJECT COUNTRIES 167
end of the Hannibalic war. When the Achaean deputies learned this, they rushed immediately to the market-place without even hearing the Romans to an end, and communi
cated the Roman demands to the multitude ; whereupon the governing and the governed rabble with one voice resolved
to arrest at once the whole Lacedaemonians present in Corinth, because Sparta forsooth had brought on them this misfortune. The arrest accordingly took place in the most tumultuary fashion, so that the possession of Laconian names
or Laconian shoes appeared sufficient ground for imprison
ment : in fact they even entered the dwellings of the Roman envoys to seize the Lacedaemonians who had taken shelter there, and hard words were uttered against the Romans, although they did not lay hands on their persons. The envoys returned home in indignation, and made bitter and even exaggerated complaints in the senate ; but the latter,
with the same moderation which marked all its measures against the Greeks, confined itself at first to representations.
In the mildest form, and hardly mentioning satisfaction for
the insults which they had endured, Sextus Julius Caesar repeated the commands of the Romans at the diet in Aegium (spring of 607). But the leaders of affairs in Achaia with 147. the new strategus Critolaus at their head (strategus from
May 607 to May 608), as men versed in state affairs and 147-148. familiar with political arts, merely drew from that fact the inference that the position of Rome with reference to Car
thage and Viriathus could not but be very unfavourable,
and continued at once to cheat and to affront the Romans. Caesar was requested to arrange a conference of deputies of the contending parties at Tegea for the settlement of the
He did so ; but, after Caesar and the Lacedae monian envoys had waited there long in vain for the Achaeans, Critolaus at last appeared alone and informed them that the general assembly of the Achaeans was solely competent in this matter, and that it could only be settled
question.
968 THE SUBJECT COUNTRIES book it
at the diet or, in other words, in six months. Caesar there upon returned to Rome ; and the next national assembly of the Achaeans on the proposal of Critolaus formally declared war against Sparta. Even now Metellus made an attempt amicably to settle the quarrel, and sent envoys to Corinth ; but the noisy ecclesia, consisting mostly of the populace of that wealthy commercial and manufacturing city, drowned the voice of the Roman envoys and compelled them to leave the platform. The declaration of Critolaus, that they wished the Romans to be their friends but not their masters, was received with inexpressible delight ; and, when the members of the diet wished to interpose, the mob protected the man after its own heart, and applauded the sarcasms as to the high treason of the rich and the need of a military dictator ship as well as the mysterious hints regarding an impending insurrection of countless peoples and kings against Rome.
The spirit animating the movement is shown by the two resolutions, that all clubs should be permanent and all actions for debt should be suspended till the restoration of peace.
The Achaeans thus had war; and they had even actual allies, namely the Thebans and Boeotians and also the 148. Chalcidians. At the beginning of 608 the Achaeans
advanced into Thessaly to reduce to obedience Heraclea near to Oeta, which, in accordance with the decree of the senate, had detached itself from the Achaean league. The consul Lucius Mummius, whom the senate had resolved to send to Greece, had not yet arrived ; accordingly Metellus undertook to protect Heraclea with the Macedonian legions. When the advance of the Romans was announced to the Achaeo-Theban army, there was no more talk of fighting ; they deliberated only how they might best succeed in reach ing once more the secure Peloponnesus ; in all haste the army made off, and did not even attempt to hold the
at Thermopylae. But Metellus quickened the
position
chap, I THE SUBJECT COUNTRIES 369
pursuit, and overtook and defeated the Greek army near Scarpheia in Locris. The loss in prisoners and dead was considerable ; Critolaus was never heard of after the battle. The remains of the defeated army wandered about Greece in single troops, and everywhere sought admission in vain ; the division of Patrae was destroyed in Phocis, the Arcadian select corps at Chaeronea ; all northern Greece was evacuated, and only a small portion of the Achaean army and of the citizens of Thebes, who fled in a body, reached the Peloponnesus. Metellus sought by the utmost modera tion to induce the Greeks to abandon their senseless resistance, and gave orders, for example, that all the Thebans with a single exception, should be allowed their liberty; his well-meant endeavours were thwarted not by the energy
of the people, but by the desperation of the leaders apprehensive for their own safety. Diaeus, who after the fall of Critolaus had resumed the chief command, summoned all men capable of bearing arms to the isthmus, and ordered
12,000 slaves, natives of Greece, to be enrolled in the army ; the rich were applied to for advances, and the ranks of the friends of peace, so far as they did not purchase their lives by bribing the ruling agents in this reign of terror, were thinned by bloody prosecutions. The war accordingly was continued, and after the same style. The Achaean vanguard, which, 4000 strong, was stationed under Alcamenes at Megara, dispersed as soon as it saw the Roman standards. Metellus was just about to order an attack upon the main force on the isthmus, when the consul Lucius Mummius with a few attendants arrived at the Roman head-quarters and took the command. Meanwhile the Achaeans, emboldened by a successful attack on the too incautious Roman outposts, offered battle to the Roman army, which was about twice as strong, at Leucopetra on the isthmus. The Romans were not slow to accept At the very first
the Achaean horsemen broke off en masse before the Roman
it.
Province of *'
a-jo THE SUBJECT COUNTRIES book iv
cavalry of six times their strength ; the hoplites withstood the enemy till a flank attack by the Roman select corps brought confusion also into their ranks. This terminated the resistance. Diaeus fled to his home, put his wife to death, and took poison himself. All the cities submitted without opposition ; and even the impregnable Corinth, into which Mummius for three days hesitated to enter because he feared an ambush, was occupied by the Romans without a blow.
The renewed regulation of the affairs of Greece was entrusted to a commission of ten senators in concert with the consul Mummius, who left behind him on the whole a blessed memory in the conquered country. Doubtless it was, to say the least, a foolish thing in him to assume the name of " Achaicus " on account of his feats of war and victory, and to build in the fulness of his gratitude a temple to Hercules Victor; but, as he had not been reared in aristocratic luxury and aristocratic corruption but was a " new man " and comparatively without means, he showed himself an upright and indulgent adminis trator. The statement, that none of the Achaeans per ished but Diaeus and none of the Boeotians but Pytheas, is a rhetorical exaggeration : in Chalcis especially sad outrages occurred; but yet on the whole modera tion was observed in the infliction of penalties. Mum mius rejected the proposal to throw down the statues of Philopoemen, the founder of the Achaean patriotic party; the fines imposed on the communities were destined not for the Roman exchequer, but for the in jured Greek cities, and were mostly remitted afterwards ; and the property of those traitors who had parents or children was not sold on public account, but handed over to their relatives. The works of art alone were carried away from Corinth, Thespiae, and other cities and
erected partly in the capital, partly in the country
chap, I THE SUBJECT COUNTRIES *Jl
towns of Italy : * several pieces were also presented to the Isthmian, Delphic, and Olympic temples. In the definitive organization of the country also moderation was in general displayed. It is true that, as was implied in the very intro duction of the provincial constitution 210), the special confederacies, and the Achaean in particular, were as such dissolved the communities were isolated and intercourse between them was hampered the rule that no one might acquire landed property simultaneously in two communities. Moreover, as Flamininus had already attempted (ii. 441), the democratic constitutions of the towns were altogether set aside, and the government in each community was placed in the hands of council composed of the wealthy. A fixed land-tax to be paid to Rome was imposed on each community and they were all subordinated to the governor of Macedonia in such a manner that the latter, as supreme military chief, exercised superintendence over administra tion and justice, and could, for example, personally assume the decision of the more important " criminal processes. Yet the Greek communities retained freedom," that formal sovereignty —reduced, doubtless, by the Roman hegemony to name—which involved the property of the soil and the right to distinct administration and jurisdic tion of their own. * Some years later not only were the old
At Sabine townships, at Parma, and even at Italica in Spain (p. 214), several pediments marked with the name of Mummius have been brought to light, which once supported gifts forming part of the spoil.
The question whether Greece did or did not become a Roman
province in 608, virtually runs into dispute about words.