Vanquished at Tifernum by Fabius, at
Maleventum
by Decius, the
Samnites witness the devastation of their whole country.
Samnites witness the devastation of their whole country.
Napoleon - History of Julius Caesar - a
On the eastern
side the principal are--the Rubicon, the Pisaurus (_Foglia_), the
Metaurus (_Metauro_), the Æsis (_Esino_), the Truentus (_Tronto_), the
Aternus (_Pescara_), the Sangrus (_Sangro_), the Trinius (_Trigno_), the
Frento (_Fortore_), and the Aufidus (_Ofanto_), which follow generally a
direction perpendicular to the chain of mountains. On the western side,
the Arnus (_Arno_), the Ombrus (_Ombrone_), the Tiber, the Amasenus
(_Amaseno_), the Liris (_Garigliano_), the Vulturnus (_Volturno_), and
the Silarus (_Silaro_ or _Sile_), run parallel to the Apennines; but
towards their mouths they take a direction nearly perpendicular to the
coast. The Bradanus (_Bradano_), the Casuentus (_Basiento_), and the
Aciris (_Agri_), flow into the Gulf of Tarentum.
We may admit into ancient Italy the following great divisions and
subdivisions:--
To the north, the Senones, a people of Gallic origin, occupying the
shores of the Adriatic Sea, from the Rubicon to the neighbourhood of
Ancona; Umbria, situated between the Senones and the course of the
Tiber; Etruria, between the Tiber and the Mediterranean Sea.
In the centre the territory of Picenum, between Ancona and Hadria, in
the Abruzzo Ulteriore; Latium, in the part between the Apennines and the
Mediterranean, from the Tiber to the Liris; to the south of Latium, the
Volsci, and the Aurunci, the _débris_ of the ancient Ausones, retired
between the Liris and the Amasenus, and bordering upon another people of
the same race, the Sidicines, established between the Liris and the
Vulturnus; the country of the Sabines, between Picenum and Latium; to
the east of Latium, in the mountains, the Æqui; the Hernici, backed by
the populations of Sabellian stock, namely, the Marsi, the Peligni, the
Vestini, the Marrucini, and the Frentani, distributed in the valleys
through which run the rivers received by the Adriatic from the extremity
of Picenum to the River Fortore.
The territory of Samnium, answering to the great part of the Abruzzi and
the province of Molisa, advanced towards the west as far as the upper
arm of the Vulturnus, on the north to the banks of the Fortore, and to
the south to Mount Vultur. Beyond the Vulturnus extended Campania
(_Terra di Lavoro and part of the principality of Salerno_), from
Sinuessa to the Gulf of Pæstum.
Southern Italy, or Magna Græcia, comprised on the Adriatic: first,
Apulia (the _Capitanata_ and _Terra di Bari_) and Messapia (_Terra di
Otranto_); this last terminated in the Iapygian Promontory, and its
central part was occupied by the Salentini and divers other Messapian
populations, while there existed on the seaboard a great number of Greek
colonies; secondly, Lucania, which answered nearly to the modern
province of Basilicata, and was washed by the waters of the Gulf of
Tarentum; thirdly, Bruttium (now the _Calabrias_), forming the most
advanced point of Italy, and terminating in the Promontory of Hercules.
[Sidenote: Dispositions of the People of Italy in regard to Rome. ]
II. In 416, Rome had finally subdued the Latins, and possessed part of
Campania. Her supremacy extended from the present territory of Viterbo
to the Gulf of Naples, from Antium (_Porto di Anzo_) to Sora.
The frontiers of the Republic were difficult to defend, her limits ill
determined, and her neighbours the most warlike people of the peninsula.
To the north only, the mountains of Viterbo, covered with a thick forest
(_silva Ciminia_), formed a rampart against Etruria. The southern part
of this country had been long half Roman; the Latin colonies of Sutrium
(_Sutri_) and Nepete (_Nepi_) served as posts of observation. But the
Etruscans, animated for ages with hostile feeling towards Rome,
attempted continually to recover the lost territory. The Gaulish
Senones, who, in 364, had taken and burnt Rome, and often renewed their
invasions, had come again to try their fortune. In spite of their
defeats in 404 and 405, they were always ready to join the Umbrians and
Etruscans in attacking the Republic.
The Sabines, though entertaining from time immemorial tolerably amicable
relations with the Romans, offered but a doubtful alliance. Picenum, a
fertile and populous country, was peaceful, and the greater part of the
mountain tribes of Sabellic race, in spite of their bravery and energy,
inspired as yet no fear. Nearer Rome, the Æqui and the Hernici had been
reduced to inaction; but the Senate kept in mind their hostilities and
nourished projects of vengeance.
On the southern coast, among the Greek towns devoted to commerce,
Tarentum passed for the most powerful; but these colonies, already in
decline, were obliged to have recourse to mercenary troops, to resist
the native inhabitants. They disputed with the Samnites and the Romans
the preponderance over the people of Magna Græcia. The Samnites, indeed,
a manly and independent race, aimed at seizing the whole of Southern
Italy; their cities formed a confederacy, redoubtable on account of its
close union in time of war. The mountain tribes gave themselves up to
brigandage, and it is worthy of attention that recent events show that
in our days manners have not much changed in that country. The Samnites
had amassed considerable riches; their arms displayed excessive
extravagance, and, if we believe Cæsar,[163] they served as models for
those of the Romans.
A jealous rivalry had long prevailed between the Romans and the
Samnites. The moment these two peoples found themselves in presence of
each other, it was evident that they would be at war; the struggle was
long and terrible, and, during the fifth century, it was round Samnium
that they disputed the empire of Italy. The position of the Samnites was
very advantageous. Entrenched in their mountains, they could, at their
will, either descend into the valley of the Liris, thence reach the
country of the Aurunci, always ready to revolt, and cut off the
communications of Rome with Campania; or follow the course of the upper
Liris into the country of the Marsi, raise these latter, and hold out
the hand to the Etruscans, turning Rome; or, lastly, penetrate into
Campania by the valley of the Vulturnus, and fall upon the Sidicini,
whose territory they coveted.
In the midst of so many hostile peoples, for a little state to succeed
in raising itself above the others, and in subjugating them, it must
have possessed peculiar elements of superiority. The peoples who
surrounded Rome, warlike and proud of their independence, had neither
the same unity, nor the same incentives to action, nor the same powerful
aristocratic organisation, nor the same blind confidence in their
destinies. They displayed more selfishness than ambition. When they
fought, it was much more to increase their riches by pillage than to
augment the number of their subjects. Rome triumphed, because alone, in
prospect of a future, she made war not to destroy, but to conserve, and,
after the material conquest, always set herself to accomplish the moral
conquest of the vanquished.
During four hundred years her institutions had formed a race animated
with the love of country and with the sentiment of duty; but, in their
turn, the men, incessantly re-tempered in intestine struggles, had
successively introduced manners and traditions stronger even than the
institutions themselves. During three centuries, in fact, Rome
presented, in spite of the annual renewal of powers, such a perseverance
in the same policy, such a practice of the same virtues, that it might
have been supposed that the government had but a single head, a single
thought, and one might have believed that all its generals were great
warriors, all its senators experienced statesmen, and all its citizens
valiant soldiers.
The geographical position of Rome contributed no less to the rapid
increase of its power. Situated in the middle of the only great fertile
plain of Latium, on the banks of the only important river of Central
Italy, which united it with the sea, it could be at the same time
agricultural and maritime, conditions then indispensable for the capital
of a new empire. The rich countries which bordered the coasts of the
Mediterranean were sure to fall easily under her dominion; and as for
the countries which surrounded her, it was possible to become mistress
of them by occupying gradually the openings from all the valleys. The
town of the seven hills, favoured by her natural situation as well as by
her political constitution, carried thus in herself the germs of her
future greatness.
[Sidenote: Treatment of the Vanquished Peoples. ]
III. From the commencement of the fifth century Rome prepares with
energy to subject and assimilate to herself the peoples who dwelt from
the Rubicon to the Strait of Messina. Nothing will prevent her from
surmounting all obstacles, neither the coalition of her neighbours
conspiring against her, nor the new incursions of the Gauls, nor the
invasion of Pyrrhus. She will know how to raise herself from her partial
defeats, and establish the unity of Italy, not by subduing at once all
these peoples to the same laws and the same rule, but by causing them
to enter, by little and little and in different degrees, into the great
Roman family. “Of one city she makes her ally; on another she confers
the honour of living under the Quiritary law, to this one with the right
of suffrage, to that with the permission to retain its own government.
Municipia of different degrees, maritime colonies, Latin colonies, Roman
colonies, prefectures, allied towns, free towns, all isolated by the
difference of their condition, all united by their equal dependence on
the Senate, they will form, as it were, a vast network which will
entangle the Italian peoples, until the day when, without new struggles,
they will awake subjects of Rome. ”[164]
Let us examine the conditions of these various categories:
The right of city, in its plenitude (_jus civitatis optimo jure_),
comprised the political privileges peculiar to the Romans, and assured
for civil life certain advantages, of which the concession might be made
separately and by degrees. First came the _commercium_, that is, the
right of possessing and transmitting according to the Roman law; next
the _connubium_, or the right of contracting marriage with the
advantages established by Roman legislation. [165] The _commercium_ and
_connubium_ united formed the Quiritary law (_jus quiritium_).
There were three sorts of municipia:[166] first, the municipia of which
the inhabitants, inscribed in the tribes, exercised all the rights and
were subjected to all the obligations of the Roman citizens; secondly,
the municipia _sine suffragio_, the inhabitants of which enjoyed in
totality or in part the Quiritary law, and might obtain the complete
right of Roman citizens on certain conditions;[167] it is what
constituted the _jus Latii_; these first two categories preserved their
autonomy and their magistrates; third, the towns which had lost all
independence in exchange for the civil laws of Rome, but without
enjoyment, for the inhabitants, of the most important political rights;
it was the law of the _Cærites_, because Cære was the first town which
had been thus treated. [168]
Below the municipia, which had their own magistrates, came, in this
social hierarchy, the prefectures,[169] so called because a prefect was
sent there every year to administer justice.
The _dediticii_ were still worse treated. Delivered by victory to the
discretion of the Senate, they had been obliged to surrender their arms
and give hostages, to throw down their walls or receive a garrison
within them, to pay a tax, and to furnish a determinate contingent. With
the exclusion of these last, the towns which had not obtained for their
inhabitants the complete rights of Roman citizens belonged to the class
of allies (_fœderati socii_). Their condition differed according to
the nature of their engagements. Simple treaties of friendship,[170] or
of commerce,[171] or of offensive alliance, or offensive and
defensive,[172] concluded on the footing of equality, were called
_fœdera æqua_. On the contrary, when one of the contracting parties
(and it was never the Romans) submitted to onerous obligations from
which the other was exempted, these treaties were called _fœdera non
æqua_. They consisted almost always in the cession of a part of the
territory of the vanquished, and in the obligation to undertake no war
of their own. A certain independence, it is true, was left to them; they
received the right of exchange and free establishment in the capital,
but they were bound to the interests of Rome by an alliance offensive
and defensive. The only clause establishing the preponderance of Rome
was conceived in these terms: _Majestatem populi Romani comiter
conservanto_;[173] that is, “They shall loyally acknowledge the
supremacy of the Roman people. ” It is a remarkable circumstance that,
dating from the reign of Augustus, the freedmen were divided in
categories similar to those which existed for the inhabitants of
Italy. [174]
As to the colonies, they were established for the purpose of preserving
the possessions acquired, of securing the new frontiers, and of guarding
the important passes; and even for the sake of getting rid of the
turbulent class. [175] They were of two sorts: the Roman colonies and the
Latin colonies. The former differed little from the municipia of the
first degree, the others from the municipia of the second degree. The
first were formed of Roman citizens, taken with their families from the
classes subjected to military service, and even, in their origin, solely
among the patricians. The _coloni_ preserved the privileges attached to
the title of citizen,[176] and were bound by the same obligations, and
the interior administration of the colony was an image of that of
Rome. [177]
The Latin colonies differed from the others in having been founded by
the confederacy of the Latins on different points of Latium. Emanating
from a league of independent cities, they were not, like the Roman
colonies, tied by close bonds to the metropolis. [178] But the
confederacy once dissolved, these colonies were placed in the rank of
allied towns (_socii Latini_). The act (_formula_) which instituted them
was a sort of _treaty_ guaranteeing their franchise. [179]
Peopled at first by Latins, it was not long before these colonies
received Roman citizens who were induced by their poverty to exchange
their title and rights for the advantages assured to the colonists.
These did not figure on the lists of the censors. The _formula_ fixed
simply the tribute to pay and the number of soldiers to furnish. What
the colony lost in privileges it gained in independence. [180]
The isolation of the Latin colonies, placed in the middle of the enemy’s
territory, obliged them to remain faithful to Rome, and to keep watch on
the neighbouring peoples. Their military importance was at least equal
to that of the Roman colonies; they merited as well as these latter the
name of _propugnacula imperii_ and of _specula_,[181] that is, bulwarks
and watch-towers of the conquest. In a political point of view they
rendered services of a similar kind. If the Roman colonies announced to
the conquered people the majesty of the Roman name, their Latin sisters
gave an ever-increasing extension to the _nomen Latinum_,[182] that is,
to the language, manners, and whole civilisation of that race of which
Rome was but the first representative. The Latin colonies were
ordinarily founded to economise the colonies of Roman citizens, which
were charged principally with the defence of the coasts and the
maintenance of commercial relations with foreign people.
In making the privileges of the Roman citizen an advantage which every
one was happy and proud to acquire, the Senate held out a bait to all
ambitions; and this general desire, not to destroy the privilege, but to
gain a place among the privileged, is a characteristic trait of the
manners of antiquity. In the city not less than in the State, the
insurgents or discontented did not seek, as in our modern societies, to
overthrow, but to attain to. So every one, according to his position,
aspired to a legitimate object: the plebeians to enter into the
aristocracy, not to destroy it; the Italic peoples, to have a part in
the sovereignty of Rome, not to contest it; the Roman provinces to be
declared allies and friends of Rome, and not to recover their
independence.
The peoples could judge, according to their conduct, what lot was
reserved for them. The paltry interests of city were replaced by an
effectual protection, and by new rights often more precious, in the eyes
of the vanquished, than independence itself. This explains the facility
with which the Roman domination was established. In fact, that only is
destroyed entirely which may be replaced advantageously.
A rapid glance at the wars which effected the conquest of Italy will
show how the Senate made application of the principles stated above; how
it was skilful in profiting by the divisions of its adversaries, in
collecting its whole strength to overwhelm one of them; after the
victory in making it an ally; in using the aims and resources of that
ally to subjugate another people; in crushing the confederacies which
united the vanquished against it; in attaching them to Rome by new
bonds; in establishing military posts on all the points of strategic
importance; and, lastly, in spreading everywhere the Latin race by
distributing to Roman citizens a part of the lands taken from the enemy.
But, before entering upon the recital of events, we must cast a glance
upon the years which immediately preceded the pacification of Latium.
[Sidenote: Submission of Latium after the first Samnite War. ]
IV. During a hundred and sixty-seven years, Rome had been satisfied with
struggling against her neighbours to re-conquer a supremacy lost since
the fall of her kings. She held herself almost always on the defensive;
but, with the fifth century, she took the offensive, and inaugurated the
system of conquests continued to the moment when she herself succumbed.
In 411, she had, in concert with the Latins, combated the Samnites for
the first time, and commenced against that redoubtable people a
struggle which lasted seventy-two years, and which brought twenty-four
triumphs to the Roman generals. [183] Proud of having contributed to the
two great victories of Mount Gaurus and Suessula, the Latins, with an
exaggerated belief in their own strength and a pretension to equality
with Rome, went so far as to require that one of the two consuls, and
half of the senators, should be chosen from their nation. War was
immediately declared. The Senate was willing enough to have allies and
subjects, but it could not suffer equals; it accepted without scruple
the services of those who had just been enemies, and the Romans, united
with the Samnites, the Hernici, and the Sabellian peoples, were seen in
the fields of the Veseris and Trifanum, fighting against the Latins and
Volsci. Latium once reduced, it remained to determine the lot of the
vanquished. Livy reports a speech of Camillus which explains clearly the
policy recommended by that great citizen. “Will you,” he exclaims,
addressing the members of the assembly, “use the utmost rigour of the
rights of victory? You are masters to destroy all Latium, and to make a
vast desert of it, after having often drawn from it powerful succours.
Will you, on the contrary, after the example of your fathers, augment
the resources of Rome? Admit the vanquished among the number of your
citizens; it is a fruitful means of increasing at the same time your
power and your glory. ”[184] This last counsel prevailed.
The first step was to break the bonds which made of the Latin people a
sort of confederacy. All political communalty, all war on their own
account, all rights of _commercium_ and _connubium_, between the
different cities, were taken from them. [185]
The towns nearest Rome received the rights of city and suffrage. [186]
Others received the title of allies and the privilege of preserving
their own institutions, but they lost a part of their territory. [187] As
to the Latin colonies founded before in the old country of the Volsci,
they formed the nucleus of the Latin allies (_socii nominis Latini_).
Velitræ, alone, having already revolted several times, was treated with
great rigour; Antium was compelled to surrender its ships, and become a
maritime colony.
These severe, but equitable measures, had pacified Latium; applied to
the rest of Italy, and even to foreign countries, they will facilitate
everywhere the progress of Roman domination.
The momentary alliance with the Samnites had permitted Rome to reduce
the Latins; nevertheless the Senate, without hesitation, turned against
the former again as soon as the moment appeared convenient. It
concluded, in 422, a treaty with the Gauls and Alexander Molossus, who,
having landed near Pæstum, attacked the Lucanians and the Samnites. This
King of Epirus, the uncle of Alexander the Great, had been called into
Italy by the Tarentines; but his premature death disappointed the hopes
to which his co-operation had given rise, and the Samnites recommenced
their incursions on the lands of their neighbours. The intervention of
Rome put a stop to the war. All the forces of the Republic were employed
in reducing the revolt of the Volscian towns of Fundi and
Privernum. [188] In 425, Anxur (_Terracina_) was declared a Roman colony,
and, in 426, Fregellæ (_Ceprano? _), a Latin colony.
The establishment of these fortresses, and of those of Cales and Antium,
secured the communications with Campania; the Liris and the Vulturnus
became in that direction the principal lines of defence of the Romans.
The cities situated on the shores of that magnificent gulf called
_Crater_ by the ancients, and in our days the _Gulf of Naples_,
perceived then the dangers which threatened them. They turned their eyes
towards the population of the interior, who were no less alarmed for
their independence.
[Sidenote: Second Samnite War. ]
V. The fertile countries which bordered the western shore of the
peninsula were destined to excite the covetousness of the Romans and the
Samnites, and become the prey of the conqueror. “Campania, indeed,” says
Florus,[189] “is the finest country of Italy, and even of the whole
world. There is nothing milder than its climate. Spring flourishes there
twice every year. There can be nothing more fertile than its soil. It is
called the garden of Ceres and Bacchus. There is not a more hospitable
sea than that which bathes its shores. ” In 427, the two peoples
disputed the possession of it, as they had done in 411. The inhabitants
of Palæopolis having attacked the Roman colonists of the _ager
Campanus_, the consuls marched against that place, which soon received
succour from the Samnites and the inhabitants of Nola, while Rome formed
an alliance with the Apulians and the Lucanians. The siege dragged on,
and the necessity of continuing the campaign beyond the ordinary limit
led to the prolongation of the command of Publilius Philo with the title
of proconsul, which appeared for the first time in the military annals.
The Samnites were soon driven from Campania; the Palæopolitans
submitted; their town was demolished; but they formed close to it a new
establishment, at Naples (_Neapolis_), where a new treaty guaranteed
them an almost absolute independence, on the condition of furnishing a
certain number of vessels to Rome. After that, nearly all the Greek
towns, reduced one after another, obtained the same favourable
conditions, and formed the class of the _socii navales_. [190]
Yet the war was protracted in the mountains of the Apennine. Tarentum
united with the Samnites, the only people who were still to be
feared,[191] and the Lucanians abandoned the alliance of the Romans;
but, in 429, the two most celebrated captains of the time, Q. Fabius
Rullianus and Papirius Cursor, penetrated into the country of Samnium,
and compelled the enemy to pay an indemnity for the war and accept a
year’s truce.
At this epoch, an unforeseen event, which changed the destinies of the
world, came to demonstrate the difference between the rapid creation of
a man of genius and the patient work of an intelligent aristocracy.
Alexander the Great, after having shone like a meteor, and brought into
subjection the most powerful kingdoms of Asia, died at Babylon. His
fruitful and decisive influence, which carried the civilization of
Greece into the East, survived him, but at his death, the empire he
founded became in a few years dismembered (431); the Roman aristocracy,
on the contrary, perpetuating itself from age to age, pursued more
slowly, but without interruption, the system which, binding again the
peoples about a common centre, was destined by little and little to
secure her domination over Italy first, and then over the universe.
The defection of a part of the Apulians, in 431, encouraged the Samnites
to take arms again; defeated in the following years, they asked for the
restoration of friendly relations, but the haughty refusal of Rome led,
in 433, to the famous defeat of the Furcæ Caudinæ. The generosity of the
Samnite general, Pontus Herennius, who granted their lives to so many
thousands of prisoners on condition of restoring to force the old
treaties, had no effect upon the Senate. Four legions had passed under
the yoke--a circumstance in which the Senate only saw a new affront to
revenge. The treaty of Caudium was not ratified, and subterfuges little
excusable, although approved at a later period by Cicero,[192] gave to
the refusal an appearance of justice.
Meanwhile the Senate exerted itself vigorously to repair this check, and
soon Publilius Philo defeated the enemies in Samnium, and, in Apulia,
Papirius, in his turn, caused seven thousand Samnites to pass under the
yoke. The vanquished solicited peace, but in vain; they only obtained a
truce for two years (436), and it had hardly expired, when, penetrating
into the country of the Volsci, as far as the neighbourhood of
Terracina, and taking a position at Lautulæ, they defeated a Roman army
raised hastily and commanded by Q. Fabius (439). Capua deserted, and
Nola, Nuceria, the Aurunci, and the Volsci of the Liris took part openly
with the Samnites. The spirit of rebellion spread as far as Præneste.
Rome was in danger. The Senate required its utmost energy to restrain
populations whose fidelity was always doubtful. Fortune seconded its
efforts, and the allies, who had proved traitors, received a cruel
chastisement, explained by the terror they had inspired. In 440,[193]
not far from Caudium, a numerous army encountered the Samnites, who lost
30,000 men, and were driven back into the Apennine territory. The Roman
legions proceeded to encamp before their capital, Bovianum, and there
took up their winter quarters.
The year following (441), Rome, less occupied in fighting, profited by
this circumstance to seize upon advantageous positions, establishing in
Campania and Apulia colonies which surrounded the territory of Samnium.
At the same epoch, Appius Claudius transformed into a regular causeway
the road which has preserved his name. [194] The Romans turned their
attention to the defence of the coasts and communication by sea; a
colony was sent to the isle of Pontia,[195] opposite Tarracina, and the
armament of a fleet was commenced, which was placed under the command of
_duumviri navales_. [196] The war had lasted fifteen years, and, although
Rome had only succeeded in driving back the Samnites into their own
territory, she had conquered two provinces, Apulia and Campania.
[Sidenote: Third Samnite war. Coalition of Samnites, Etruscans,
Umbrians, and Hernici (443-449). ]
VI. A struggle so desperate had produced its effect even in Etruria, and
the old league was formed again. Inured to war by their daily combats
with the Gauls, and emboldened by the reports of the defeat of Lautulæ,
the Etruscans believed that the moment had arrived for recovering their
ancient territory to the south of the Ciminian forest; they were further
encouraged by the attitude of the peoples of Central Italy, who were
weary of the continual passing of legions. From 443 to 449, the armies
of the Republic were obliged to face different enemies at the same time.
In Etruria, Fabius Rullianus relieved Sutrium, a rampart of Rome on the
north;[197] he passed through the Ciminian forest, and by the victories
of Lake Vadimo (445)[198] and Perusia compelled all the Etruscan towns
to ask for peace. At the same time, an army laid waste the country of
the Samnites; and a Roman fleet, composed of vessels furnished by the
maritime allies, took the offensive for the first time. Its attempt near
Nuceria Alfaterna (_Nocera_, a town of Campania) was unfortunate.
War next breaks out again in Apulia, Samnium, and Etruria, where the
aged Papirius Cursor, named dictator anew, gains a brilliant victory at
Langula (445). The year following Fabius penetrates again into Samnium,
and the other consul, Decius, maintains Etruria. Suddenly the Umbrians
conceive the project of seizing Rome by surprise. The consuls are
recalled for the defence of the town. Fabius meets the Etruscans at
Mevania (on the confines of Etruria and Umbria), and, the year
following, at Allifæ (447). Among the prisoners were some Æqui and
Hernici. Their towns, feeling themselves thus compromised, declared open
war against the Romans (448). The Samnites recovered courage; but the
prompt reduction of the Hernici allowed the Senate to concentrate its
forces. Two armies, penetrating into Samnium by way of Apulia and
Campania, re-established the old frontiers. Bovianum was taken for the
third time, and during six months the country was delivered up to
devastation. In vain Tarentum tried to raise new quarrels for the
Republic, and to force the Lucanians to embrace the cause of the
Samnites. The successes of the Roman arms led to the conclusion of
treaties of peace with all the peoples of Southern Italy, constrained
thenceforward to acknowledge the _majesty_ of the Roman people. The Æqui
remained alone exposed to the wrath of Rome; the Senate did not forget
that at Allifæ they had fought in the ranks of the enemy, and, once
freed from its more serious embarrassments, it inflicted on this people
a terrible chastisement: forty-one places were taken and burnt in fifty
days. This period of six years thus terminated with the submission of
the Hernici and Æqui.
Five years less agitated left Rome time to regulate the position of its
new subjects, and to establish colonies and ways of communication.
The Hernici were treated in the same manner as the Latins, in 416, and
deprived of _commercium_ and _connubium_. Prefects and the law of the
Cærites were imposed on Anagnia, Frusino, and other towns guilty of
desertion. The cities which had remained faithful preserved their
independence and the title of allies (448);[199] the Æqui lost a part of
their territory and received the right of city without suffrage (450).
The Samnites, sufficiently humiliated, obtained at last the renewal of
their ancient conventions (450). [200] _Fœdera non æqua_ were
concluded with the Marsi, the Peligni, the Marrucini, the Frentani
(450), the Vestini (452), and the Picentini (455). [201] Rome treated
with Tarentum on a footing of equality, and engaged not to let her fleet
pass the Lacinian Promontory to the south of the Gulf of Tarentum. [202]
Thus, on the one hand, the territories shared among the Roman citizens;
on the other, the number of the municipia were considerably augmented.
Further, the Republic had acquired new allies; she possessed at length
the passages of the Apennines and commanded both seas. [203] A girdle of
Latin fortresses protected Rome and broke the communications between the
north and south of Italy; among the Marsi and the Æqui, there were Alba
and Carseoli; Sora, towards the sources of the Liris; and Narnia, in
Umbria. Military roads connected the colonies with the metropolis.
[Sidenote: Fourth Samnite War. Second coalition of the Samnites,
Etruscans, Umbrians, and Gauls (456-464). ]
VII. Peace could not last long: between Rome and the Samnites it was a
duel to death. In 456, these latter had already sufficiently recovered
from their disasters to attempt once more the fortune of arms. [204] Rome
sends to the succour of the Lucanians, suddenly attacked, two consular
armies.
Vanquished at Tifernum by Fabius, at Maleventum by Decius, the
Samnites witness the devastation of their whole country. Still they do
not lose courage; their chief, Gellius Egnatius, conceives a plan which
places Rome in great danger. He divides the Samnite army into three
bodies: the first remains to defend the country; the second takes the
offensive in Campania; the third, which he commands in person, throws
itself into Etruria, and, increased by the junction of the Etruscans,
the Gauls, and the Umbrians, soon forms a numerous army. [205] The storm
roared on all sides, and, while the Roman generals were occupied some
in Samnium and others in Campania, despatches arrived from Appius,
placed at the head of the army of Etruria, announcing a terrible
coalition formed in silence by the peoples of the north, who were
concentrating all their forces in Umbria for the purpose of marching
upon Rome.
The terror was extreme, but the energy of the Romans was equal to the
danger. All able men, even to the freedmen, were enrolled, and ninety
thousand soldiers were raised. Under these grave circumstances (458),
Fabius and Decius were, once again, raised to the supreme magistracy,
and gained, under the walls of Sentinum, a brilliant victory, long
disputed. During the battle, Decius devoted himself, as his father had
done before. The coalition once dissolved, Fabius defeated another army
which had issued from Perusia, and then came to receive the honour of a
triumph in Rome. Etruria was subdued (460), and obtained a truce of
forty years. [206]
The Samnites still maintained an obstinate struggle of mingled successes
and reverses. In 461, after having taken an oath to conquer or die,
thirty thousand of them were left on the field of battle of Aquilonia. A
few months later, the celebrated Pontius, the hero of Furcæ Caudinæ,
re-appeared, at the end of twenty-nine years, at the head of his
fellow-citizens, and inflicted upon the son of Fabius a check, which the
latter soon retrieved with the assistance of his father. [207] Finally,
in 464, two Roman armies re-commenced, in Samnium, a war of
extermination, which led for the fourth time to the renewal of the
ancient treaties and the cession of a certain extent of territory. At
the same epoch, an insurrection which broke out in the Sabine territory
was put down by Curius Dentatus. Central Italy was conquered.
The peace with the Samnites lasted five years (464-469). Rome extended
her frontiers, and fortified those of the peoples placed under her
protectorate; and at the same time established new military forts.
The right of city without suffrage was accorded to the Sabines, and
prefects were given to some of the towns of the valley of the Vulturnus
(_Venafrum_ and _Allifæ_). [208] A Latin colony, of twenty thousand men,
was sent to Venusia to watch over Southern Italy. [209] It commanded at
the same time Samnium, Apulia, and Lucania. If, owing to the treaty
concluded with the Greek towns, the Roman supremacy extended over the
south of the peninsula, to the north the Etruscans could not be reckoned
as allies, since nothing more than truces had been concluded with them.
In Umbria, the small tribe of the Sarsinates remained independent, and
all the coast district from the Rubicon to the Æsis was in the power of
the Senones; on their southern frontier the Roman colony of Sena Gallica
(_Sinigaglia_) was founded; the coast of Picenum was watched by that of
Castrum Novum and by the Latin fortress of Hatria (465). [210]
[Sidenote: Third coalition of the Etruscans, Gauls, Lucanians, and
Tarentines (469-474). ]
VIII. The power of Rome had increased considerably. The Samnites, who
hitherto had played the first part, were no longer in a condition to
plan further coalitions, and one people alone could hardly be rash
enough to provoke the Republic. Yet the Lucanians, always hesitating,
gave this time the signal for a general revolt.
The attack on Thurium, by the Lucanians and Bruttians, became the
occasion of a new league, into which entered successively the
Tarentines, the Samnites, the Etruscans, and even the Gauls. The north
was soon in flames, and Etruria again became the battle-field. A Roman
army, which had hastened to relieve Arretium, was put to rout by the
Etruscans united with Gaulish mercenaries. The Senones, to whom these
belonged, having massacred the Roman ambassadors sent to expostulate on
their violation of the treaty with the Republic, the Senate sent against
them two legions who drove them back beyond the Rubicon. The Gaulish
tribe of the Boians, alarmed by the fate of the Senones, descended
immediately into Umbria, and, rallying the Etruscans, prepared to march
to renew the sack of Rome; but their march was arrested, and two
successive victories, at Lake Vadimo, (471) and Populonia (472), enabled
the Senate to conclude a convention which drove back the Boians into
their old territory. Hostilities continued with the Etruscans during two
years, after which their submission completed the conquest of Northern
Italy.
[Sidenote: Pyrrhus in Italy. Submission of Tarentum (474-488). ]
IX. Free to the north, the Romans turned their efforts against the
south of Italy; war was declared against Tarentum, the people of which
had attacked a Roman flotilla. While the consul Æmilius invested the
town, the first troops of Pyrrhus, called in by the Tarentines,
disembarked in the port (474).
This epoch marks a new phase in the destinies of Rome, who is going, for
the first time, to measure herself with Greece. Hitherto the legions
have never had to combat really regular armies, but they have become
disciplined in war by incessant struggles in the mountains of Samnium
and Etruria; henceforth they will have to face old soldiers disciplined
in skilful tactics and commanded by an experienced warrior. The King of
Epirus, after having already twice lost and recovered his kingdom, and
invaded and abandoned Macedonia, dreamt of conquering the West. On the
news of his arrival at the head of twenty-five thousand soldiers and
twenty elephants,[211] the Romans enrolled all citizens capable of
bearing arms, even the proletaries; but, admirable example of courage!
they rejected the support of the Carthaginian fleet with this proud
declaration: “The Republic only entertains wars which it can sustain
with its own forces. ”[212] While fifty thousand men, under the orders of
the consul Lævinus, march against the King of Epirus, to prevent his
junction with the Samnites, another army enters Lucania. The consul
Tiberius Coruncanius holds Etruria, again in agitation. Lastly, an army
of reserve guards the capital.
Lævinus encountered the King of Epirus near Heraclea, a colony of
Tarentum (474). Seven times in succession the legions charged the
phalanx, which was on the point of giving way, when the elephants,
animals unknown to the Romans, decided the victory in favour of the
enemy. A single battle had delivered to Pyrrhus all the south of the
Peninsula, where the Greek towns received him with enthusiasm.
But, though victor, he had sustained considerable losses, and learned at
the same time the effeminacy of the Greeks of Italy, and the energy of a
people of soldiers. He offered peace, and asked of the Senate liberty
for the Samnites, the Lucanians, and especially for the Greek towns. Old
Appius Claudius declared it impossible so long as Pyrrhus occupied
Italian soil, and peace was refused. The king then resolved to march
upon Rome through Campania, where his troops made great booty.
Lævinus, made prudent by his defeat, satisfied himself with watching the
enemy’s army, and succeeded in covering Capua; whence he followed
Pyrrhus from place to place, looking out for a favourable opportunity.
This prince, advancing by the Latin Way, had reached Præneste without
obstacle,[213] when, surrounded by three Roman armies, he found himself
under the necessity of falling back and retiring into Lucania. Next
year, reckoning on finding new auxiliaries among the peoples of the
east, he attacked Apulia; but the fidelity of the allies in Central
Italy was not shaken. Victorious at Asculum (_Ascoli di Satriano_)
(475), but without a decisive success, and encountering always the same
resistance, he seized the first opportunity of quitting Italy to conquer
Sicily (476-78). During this time, the Senate re-established the Roman
domination in Southern Italy, and even seized upon some of the Greek
towns, among the rest Locri and Heraclea. [214] Samnium, Lucania, and
Bruttium were again given up to the power of the legions, and forced to
surrender lands and renew treaties of alliance; on the coast, Tarentum
and Rhegium alone remained independent. The Samnites still resisted, and
the Roman army encamped in their country in 478 and 479. Meanwhile
Pyrrhus returns to Italy, reckoning on arriving in time to deliver
Samnium; but he is defeated at Beneventum by Curius Dentatus, and
returns to his country. The invasion of Pyrrhus, cousin of Alexander the
Great; and one of his successors, appears as one of the last efforts of
Grecian civilisation expiring at the feet of the rising grandeur of
Roman civilisation.
The war against the King of Epirus produced two remarkable results: it
improved the Romans in military tactics, and introduced between the
combatants those mutual regards of civilised nations which teach men to
honour their adversaries, to spare the vanquished, and to lay aside
wrath when the struggle is ended. The King of Epirus treated his Roman
prisoners with great generosity. Cineas, sent to the Senate at Rome, and
Fabricius, envoy to Pyrrhus, carried back from their mission a profound
respect for those whom they had combated.
In the following years Rome took Tarentum (482),[215] finally pacified
Samnium, and took possession of Rhegium (483-485). Since the battle of
Mount Gaurus, seventy-two years had passed, and several generations had
succeeded each other, without seeing the end of this long and sanguinary
quarrel. The Samnites had been nearly exterminated, and yet the spirit
of independence and liberty remained deeply rooted in their mountains.
When, at the end of two centuries and a half, the war of the allies
shall come, it is there still that the cause of equality of rights will
find its strongest support.
The other peoples underwent quickly the laws of the conqueror. The
inhabitants of Picenum, as a punishment for their revolt, were despoiled
of a part of their territory, and a certain number among them received
new lands in the south of Campania, near the Gulf of Salernum
(_Picentini_)(486). In 487, the submission of the Salentines allowed the
Romans to seize Brundusium, the most important port of the
Adriatic. [216] The Sarsinates were reduced the years following. [217]
Finally, Volsinium, a town of Etruria, was again numbered among the
allies of the Republic. The Sabines received the right of suffrage.
Italy, become henceforth Roman, extended from the Rubicon to the Straits
of Messina.
[Sidenote: Preponderance of Rome. ]
X. During this period, the conquest of the subjugated countries was
ensured by the foundation of colonies. Rome became thus encircled by a
girdle of fortresses commanding all the passages which led to Latium,
and closing the roads to Campania, Samnium, Etruria, and Gaul. [218]
At the opening of the struggle which ended in the conquest of Italy,
there were only twenty-seven tribes of Roman citizens; the creation of
eight new tribes (the two last in 513) raised finally the number to
thirty-five, of which twenty-one were reserved to the old Roman people
and fourteen to the new citizens. Of these the Etruscans had four; the
Latins, the Volsci, the Ausones, the Æqui, and the Sabines, each two;
but, these tribes being at a considerable distance from the capital, the
new citizens could hardly take part in the comitia, and the majority,
with its influence, remained with those who dwelt at Rome. [219] After
513, no more tribes were created; those who received the rights of
citizens were only placed in the previously existing tribes; so that the
members of one individual tribe were scattered in the provinces, and the
number of those inscribed went on increasing continually by individual
additions, and by the tendency more and more apparent to raise the
municipia of the second order to the rank of the first order. Thus,
towards the middle of the sixth century, the towns of the Æqui, the
Hernici, the Volsci, and a part of those of Campania, including the
ancient Samnite cities of Venafrum and Allifæ, obtained the right of
city with suffrage.
Rome, towards the end of the fifth century, thus ruled, though in
different degrees, the peoples of Italy proper. The Italian State, if we
may give it that name, was composed of a reigning class, the citizens;
of a class protected, or held in guardianship, the allies; and of a
third class, the subjects. Allies or subjects were all obliged to
furnish military contingents. The maritime Greek towns furnished sailors
to the fleet. Even the cities, which preserved their independence for
their interior affairs, obeyed, so far as the military administration
was concerned, special functionaries appointed by the metropolis. [220]
The consuls had the right of raising in the countries bordering on the
theatre of war all men capable of bearing arms. The equipment and pay of
the troops remained at the charge of the cities; Rome provided for their
maintenance during war. The auxiliary infantry was ordinarily equal in
number to that of the Romans, the cavalry double or triple.
In exchange for this military assistance, the allies had a right to a
part of the conquered territory, and, in return for an annual rent, to
the usufruct of the domains of the State. These domains, considerable in
the peninsula,[221] formed the sole source of income which the treasury
derived from the allies, free in other respects from tribute. Four
questors (_quæstores classici_) were established to watch over the
execution of the orders of the Senate, the equipment of the fleet, and
the collection of the farm-rents.
Rome reserved to herself exclusively the direction of the affairs of the
exterior, and presided alone over the destinies of the Republic. The
allies never interfered in the decisions of the Forum, and each town
kept within the narrow limits of its communal administration. The
Italian nationality was thus gradually constituted by means of this
political centralisation, without which the different peoples would have
mutually weakened each other by intestine wars, more ruinous than
foreign wars, and Italy would not have been in a condition to resist the
double pressure of the Gauls and the Carthaginians.
The form adopted by Rome to rule Italy was the best possible, but only
as a transition form. The object to be aimed at was, in fact, the
complete assimilation of all the inhabitants of the peninsula, and this
was evidently the aim of the wise policy of the Camilli and the Fabii.
When we consider that the colonies of citizens presented the faithful
image of Rome; that the Latin colonies had analogous institutions and
laws; and that a great number of Roman citizens and Latin allies were
dispersed, in the different countries of the peninsula, over the vast
territories ceded as the consequence of war, we may judge how rapid must
have been the diffusion of Roman manners and the Latin language.
If Rome, in later times, had not the wisdom to seize the favourable
moment in which assimilation, already effected in people’s minds, might
have passed into the domain of facts, the reason of it was the
abandonment of the principles of equity which had guided the Senate in
the first ages of the Republic, and, above all, the corruption of the
magnates, interested in maintaining the inferior condition of the
allies. The right of city extended to all the peoples of Italy, time
enough to be useful, would have given to the Republic a new force; but
an obstinate refusal became the cause of the revolution commenced by the
Gracchi, continued by Marius, extinguished for a moment by Sylla, and
completed by Cæsar.
[Sidenote: Strength of the Institutions. ]
XI. At the epoch with which we are occupied, the Republic is in all its
splendour.
The institutions form remarkable men; the annual elections carry into
power those who are most worthy, and recall them to it after a short
interval. The sphere of action for the military chiefs does not extend
beyond the natural frontiers of the peninsula, and their ambition,
restrained in their duty by public opinion, does not exceed a legitimate
object, the union of all Italy under one dominion. The members of the
aristocracy seem to inherit the exploits as well as the virtues of their
ancestors, and neither poverty nor obscurity of birth prevent merit from
reaching it. Curius Dentatus, Fabricius, and Coruncanius, can show
neither riches nor the images of their ancestors, and yet they attain to
the highest dignities; in fact, the plebeian nobility walks on a footing
of equality with the patrician. Both, in separating from the multitude,
tend more and more to amalgamate together;[222] but they remain rivals
in patriotism and disinterestedness.
In spite of the taste for riches introduced by the war of the
Sabines,[223] the magistrates maintained their simplicity of manners,
and protected the public domain against the encroachments of the rich by
the rigorous execution of the law, which limited to five hundred acres
the property which an individual was allowed to possess. [224]
The first citizens presented the most remarkable examples of integrity
and self-denial. Marcus Valerius Corvus, after occupying twenty-one
curule offices, returns to his fields without fortune, though not
without glory (419). Fabius Rullianus, in the midst of his victories and
triumphs, forgets his resentment towards Papirius Cursor, and names him
dictator, sacrificing thus his private feelings to the interests of his
country (429). Marcus Curius Dentatus keeps for himself no part of the
rich spoils taken from the Sabines, and, after having vanquished
Pyrrhus, resumes the simplicity of country life (479). [225] Fabricius
rejects the money which the Samnites offer him for his generous
behaviour towards them, and disdains the presents of Pyrrhus (476).
Coruncanius furnishes an example of all the virtues. [226] Fabius Gurges,
Fabius Pictor, and Ogulnius, pour into the treasury the magnificent
gifts they had brought back from their embassy to Alexandria. [227] M.
Rutilius Censorinus, struck with the danger of entrusting twice in
succession the censorship in the same hands, refuses to be re-elected to
that office (488).
The names of many others might be cited, who, then and in later ages,
did honour to the Roman Republic; but let us add, that if the ruling
class knew how to call to it all the men of eminence, it forgot not to
recompense brilliantly those especially who favoured its interests:
Fabius Rullianus, for instance, the victor in so many battles, received
the name of “most great” (_Maximus_) only for having, at the time of his
censorship, annulled in the comitia the influence of the poor class,
composed of freedmen, whom he distributed among the urban tribes (454),
where their votes were lost in the multitude of others. [228]
The popular party, on its own side, ceased not to demand new
concessions, or to claim the revival of those which had fallen out of
use. Thus, it obtained, in 428, the re-establishment of the law of
Servius Tullius, which decided that the goods only of the debtor, and
not his body, should be responsible for his debt. [229] In 450, Flavius,
the son of a freedman, made public the calendar and the formulæ of
proceedings, which deprived the patricians of the exclusive knowledge of
civil and religious law. [230] But the lawyers found means of weakening
the effects of the measure of Flavius by inventing new formulæ, which
were almost unintelligible to the public. [231] The plebeians, in 454,
were admitted into the college of the pontiffs, and into that of the
augurs; the same year, it was found necessary to renew for the third
time the law Valeria, _de provocatione_.
In 468, the people again withdrew to the Janiculum, demanding the
remission of debts, and crying out against usury. [232] Concord was
restored only when they had obtained, first, by the law Hortensia, that
the plebiscita should be obligatory on all; and next, by the law Marcia,
that the orders obtained through Publilius Philo in 415 should be
restored to vigour. These orders, as we have seen above, obliged the
Senate to declare in advance whether or not the laws presented to the
comitia were contrary to public and religious law. [233]
The ambition of Rome seemed to be without bounds; yet all her wars had
for reason or pretext the defence of the weak and the protection of her
allies. Indeed, the cause of the wars against the Samnites was sometimes
the defence of the inhabitants of Capua, sometimes that of the
inhabitants of Palæopolis, sometimes that of the Lucanians. The war
against Pyrrhus had its origin in the assistance claimed by the
inhabitants of Thurium; and the support claimed by the Mamertines will
soon lead to the first Punic war.
The Senate, we have seen, put in practice the principles which found
empires and the virtues to which war gives birth. Thus, for all the
citizens, equality of rights; in face of danger to their country,
equality of duties and even suspension of liberty. To the most worthy,
honours and the command. No magisterial charge for him who has not
served in the ranks of the army. The example is furnished by the most
illustrious and richest families: at the battle of Lake Regillus (258),
the principal senators were mingled in the ranks of the legions;[234] at
the combat near the Cremera, the three hundred and six Fabii, who all,
according to Titus Livius, were capable of filling the highest offices,
perished fighting. Later, at Cannæ, eighty senators, who had enrolled
themselves as mere soldiers, fell on the field of battle. [235] The
triumph is accorded for victories which enlarged the territory, but not
for those which only recovered lost ground. No triumph in civil
wars:[236] in such case, success, be what it may, is always a subject
for public mourning. The consuls or proconsuls seek to be useful to
their country without false susceptibility; to-day in the first rank,
to-morrow in the second, they serve with the same devotion under the
orders of him whom they commanded the previous day. Servilius, consul in
281, becomes, the year following, the lieutenant of Valerius. Fabius,
after so many triumphs, consents to be only lieutenant to his son. At a
later period, Flamininus, who had vanquished the King of Macedonia,
descends again through patriotism, after the victory of Cynoscephalæ,
to the grade of tribune of the soldiers;[237] the great Scipio himself,
after the defeat of Hannibal, serves as lieutenant under his brother in
the war against Antiochus.
To sacrifice everything to patriotism is the first duty. By devoting
themselves to the gods of Hades, like Curtius and the two Decii, people
believed they bought, at the price of their lives, the safety of the
others or victory. [238] Discipline is enforced even to cruelty: Manlius
Torquatus, after the example of Postumius Tubertus, punishes with death
the disobedience of his son, though he had gained a victory. The
soldiers who have fled are decimated; those who abandon their ranks or
the field of battle are devoted, some to execution, others to dishonour;
and those who have allowed themselves to be made prisoners by the enemy
are disdained as unworthy of the price of freedom. [239]
Surrounded by warlike neighbours, Rome must either triumph or cease to
exist; hence her superiority in the art of war, for, as Montesquieu
says, in transient wars most of the examples are lost; peace brings
other ideas, and its faults and even its virtues are forgotten; hence
that contempt of treason and that disdain for the advantages it
promises: Camillus sends home to their parents the children of the first
families of Falerii, delivered up to him by their schoolmaster; the
Senate rejects with indignation the offer of the physician of Pyrrhus,
who proposes to poison that prince;--hence that religious observance of
oaths and that respect for engagements which have been contracted: the
Roman prisoners to whom Pyrrhus had given permission to repair to Rome
for the festival of Saturn, all return to him faithful to their word;
and Regulus leaves the most memorable example of faithfulness to his
oath! --hence that skilful and inflexible policy which refuses peace
after a defeat, or a treaty with the enemy so long as he is on the soil
of their country; which makes use of war to divert people from domestic
troubles;[240] gains the vanquished by benefits if they submit, and
admits them by degrees into the great Roman family; and, if they resist,
strikes them without pity and reduces them to slavery;[241]--hence that
anxious provision for multiplying upon the conquered territories the
race of agriculturists and soldiers;--hence, lastly, the improving
spectacle of a town which becomes a people, and of a people which
embraces the world.
CHAPTER IV.
PROSPERITY OF THE BASIN OF THE MEDITERRANEAN BEFORE THE PUNIC WARS.
[Sidenote: Commerce of the Mediterranean. ]
I. Rome had required two hundred and forty-four years to form her
constitution under the kings, a hundred and seventy-two to establish and
consolidate the consular Republic, seventy-two to complete the conquest
of Italy, and now it will cost her nearly a century and a half to obtain
the domination of the world--that is, of Northern Africa, Spain, the
south of Gaul, Illyria, Epirus, Greece, Macedonia, Asia Minor, Syria,
and Egypt. Before undertaking the recital of these conquests, let us
halt an instant to consider the condition of the basin of the
Mediterranean at this period, of that sea round which were successively
unfolded all the great dramas of ancient history. In this examination we
shall see, not without a feeling of regret, vast countries where
formerly produce, monuments, riches, numerous armies and fleets--all,
indeed, revealed an advanced state of civilisation--now deserts or in a
state of barbarism.
The Mediterranean had seen grow and prosper in turn on its coasts Sidon,
and Tyre, and then Greece.
[Illustration: MAP OF THE BASIN OF THE MEDITERRANEAN. ]
Sidon, already a flourishing city before the time of Homer, is soon
eclipsed by the supremacy of Tyre; then Greece comes to carry on, in
competition with her, the commerce of the interior sea; an age of
pacific greatness and fruitful rivalries. To the Phœnicians
chiefly, the South, the East, Africa, Asia beyond Mount Taurus, the
Erythrean Sea (_the Red Sea_ and _the Persian Gulf_), the ocean, and the
distant voyages. To the Greeks, all the northern coasts, which they
covered with their thousand settlements. Phœnicia devotes herself to
adventurous enterprises and lucrative speculations. Greece, artistic
before becoming a trader, propagates by her colonies her mind and her
ideas.
This fortunate emulation soon disappears before the creation of two new
colonies sprung from their bosom. The splendour of Carthage replaces
that of Tyre. Alexandria is substituted for Greece. Thus a Western or
Spanish Phœnicia shares the commerce of the world with an Eastern and
Egyptian Greece, the fruit of the intellectual conquests of Alexander.
[Sidenote: Northern Africa. ]
II. Rich in the spoils of twenty different peoples, Carthage was the
proud capital of a vast empire. Its ports, hollowed out by the hand of
man, were capable of containing a great number of ships. [242] Her
citadel, Byrsa, was two miles in circuit. On the land side the town was
defended by a triple enclosure twenty-five stadia in length, thirty
cubits high, and supported by towers of four storeys, capable of giving
shelter to 4,000 horse, 300 elephants, and 20,000 foot soldiers;[243] it
enclosed an immense population, since, in the last years of its
resistance, after a struggle of a century, it still counted 700,000
inhabitants. [244] Its monuments were worthy of its greatness: among its
remarkable buildings was the temple of the god Aschmoun, assimilated by
the Greeks to Æsculapius;[245] that of the sun, covered with plates of
gold valued at a thousand talents;[246] and the mantle or _peplum_,
destined for the image of their great goddess, which cost a hundred and
twenty. [247] The empire of Carthage extended from the frontiers of
Cyrenaica (the country of _Barca_, in the regency of Tripoli) into
Spain; she was the metropolis of all the north of Africa, and, in Libya
alone, possessed three hundred towns. [248] Nearly all the isles of the
Mediterranean, to the west and south of Italy, had received her
factories. Carthage had imposed her sovereignty upon all the ancient
Phœnician establishments in this part of the world, and had levied
upon them an annual contingent of soldiers and tribute. In the interior
of Africa, she sent caravans to seek elephants, ivory, gold, and black
slaves, which she afterwards exported[249] to the trading places on the
Mediterranean. In Sicily, she gathered oil and wine; in the isle of
Elba, she mined for iron; from Malta, she drew valuable tissues; from
Corsica, wax and honey; from Sardinia, corn, metals, and slaves; from
the Baleares, mules and fruits; from Spain, gold, silver, and lead; from
Mauritania, the hides of animals; she sent as far as the extremity of
Britain, to the Cassiterides (_the Scilly Islands_), ships to purchase
tin. [250] Within her walls industry flourished greatly, and tissues of
great celebrity were fabricated. [251]
No market of the ancient world could be compared with that of Carthage,
to which men of all nations crowded. Greeks, Gauls, Ligurians,
Spaniards, Libyans, came in multitudes to serve under her standard;[252]
the Numidians lent her a redoubtable cavalry. [253] Her fleet was
formidable; it amounted at this epoch to five hundred vessels. Carthage
possessed a considerable arsenal;[254] we may appreciate its importance
from the fact, that, after her conquest by Scipio, she delivered to him
two hundred thousand suits of armour, and three thousand machines of
war. [255] So many troops and stores imply immense revenues. Even after
the battle of Zama, Polybius could still call her the richest town in
the world. Yet she had already paid heavy contributions to the
Romans. [256] An excellent system of agriculture contributed no less than
her commerce to her prosperity. A great number of agricultural
colonies[257] had been established, which, in the time of Agathocles,
amounted to more than two hundred. They were ruined by the war (440 of
Rome). [258] Byzacena (_the southern part of the regency of Tunis_) was
the granary of Carthage. [259]
This province, surnamed _Emporia_, as being the trading country _par
excellence_, vaunted by the geographer Scylax[260] as the most
magnificent and fertile part of Libya. It had, in the time of Strabo,
numerous towns, so many magazines of the merchandise of the interior of
Africa. Polybius[261] speaks of its horses, oxen, sheep, and goats, as
forming innumerable herds, such as he had never seen elsewhere. The
small town of Leptis alone paid to the Carthaginians the enormous
contribution of a talent a day (5,821 francs [£232 16s. ]). [262]
This fertility of Africa explains the importance of the towns on the
coast of the Syrtes, an importance, it is true, revealed by later
testimonies, because they date from the decline of Carthage, but which
must apply still more forcibly to the flourishing condition which
preceded it. In 537, the vast port of the isle Cercina (Kirkeni, in the
regency of Tunis, opposite Sfax) had paid ten talents to Servilius.
side the principal are--the Rubicon, the Pisaurus (_Foglia_), the
Metaurus (_Metauro_), the Æsis (_Esino_), the Truentus (_Tronto_), the
Aternus (_Pescara_), the Sangrus (_Sangro_), the Trinius (_Trigno_), the
Frento (_Fortore_), and the Aufidus (_Ofanto_), which follow generally a
direction perpendicular to the chain of mountains. On the western side,
the Arnus (_Arno_), the Ombrus (_Ombrone_), the Tiber, the Amasenus
(_Amaseno_), the Liris (_Garigliano_), the Vulturnus (_Volturno_), and
the Silarus (_Silaro_ or _Sile_), run parallel to the Apennines; but
towards their mouths they take a direction nearly perpendicular to the
coast. The Bradanus (_Bradano_), the Casuentus (_Basiento_), and the
Aciris (_Agri_), flow into the Gulf of Tarentum.
We may admit into ancient Italy the following great divisions and
subdivisions:--
To the north, the Senones, a people of Gallic origin, occupying the
shores of the Adriatic Sea, from the Rubicon to the neighbourhood of
Ancona; Umbria, situated between the Senones and the course of the
Tiber; Etruria, between the Tiber and the Mediterranean Sea.
In the centre the territory of Picenum, between Ancona and Hadria, in
the Abruzzo Ulteriore; Latium, in the part between the Apennines and the
Mediterranean, from the Tiber to the Liris; to the south of Latium, the
Volsci, and the Aurunci, the _débris_ of the ancient Ausones, retired
between the Liris and the Amasenus, and bordering upon another people of
the same race, the Sidicines, established between the Liris and the
Vulturnus; the country of the Sabines, between Picenum and Latium; to
the east of Latium, in the mountains, the Æqui; the Hernici, backed by
the populations of Sabellian stock, namely, the Marsi, the Peligni, the
Vestini, the Marrucini, and the Frentani, distributed in the valleys
through which run the rivers received by the Adriatic from the extremity
of Picenum to the River Fortore.
The territory of Samnium, answering to the great part of the Abruzzi and
the province of Molisa, advanced towards the west as far as the upper
arm of the Vulturnus, on the north to the banks of the Fortore, and to
the south to Mount Vultur. Beyond the Vulturnus extended Campania
(_Terra di Lavoro and part of the principality of Salerno_), from
Sinuessa to the Gulf of Pæstum.
Southern Italy, or Magna Græcia, comprised on the Adriatic: first,
Apulia (the _Capitanata_ and _Terra di Bari_) and Messapia (_Terra di
Otranto_); this last terminated in the Iapygian Promontory, and its
central part was occupied by the Salentini and divers other Messapian
populations, while there existed on the seaboard a great number of Greek
colonies; secondly, Lucania, which answered nearly to the modern
province of Basilicata, and was washed by the waters of the Gulf of
Tarentum; thirdly, Bruttium (now the _Calabrias_), forming the most
advanced point of Italy, and terminating in the Promontory of Hercules.
[Sidenote: Dispositions of the People of Italy in regard to Rome. ]
II. In 416, Rome had finally subdued the Latins, and possessed part of
Campania. Her supremacy extended from the present territory of Viterbo
to the Gulf of Naples, from Antium (_Porto di Anzo_) to Sora.
The frontiers of the Republic were difficult to defend, her limits ill
determined, and her neighbours the most warlike people of the peninsula.
To the north only, the mountains of Viterbo, covered with a thick forest
(_silva Ciminia_), formed a rampart against Etruria. The southern part
of this country had been long half Roman; the Latin colonies of Sutrium
(_Sutri_) and Nepete (_Nepi_) served as posts of observation. But the
Etruscans, animated for ages with hostile feeling towards Rome,
attempted continually to recover the lost territory. The Gaulish
Senones, who, in 364, had taken and burnt Rome, and often renewed their
invasions, had come again to try their fortune. In spite of their
defeats in 404 and 405, they were always ready to join the Umbrians and
Etruscans in attacking the Republic.
The Sabines, though entertaining from time immemorial tolerably amicable
relations with the Romans, offered but a doubtful alliance. Picenum, a
fertile and populous country, was peaceful, and the greater part of the
mountain tribes of Sabellic race, in spite of their bravery and energy,
inspired as yet no fear. Nearer Rome, the Æqui and the Hernici had been
reduced to inaction; but the Senate kept in mind their hostilities and
nourished projects of vengeance.
On the southern coast, among the Greek towns devoted to commerce,
Tarentum passed for the most powerful; but these colonies, already in
decline, were obliged to have recourse to mercenary troops, to resist
the native inhabitants. They disputed with the Samnites and the Romans
the preponderance over the people of Magna Græcia. The Samnites, indeed,
a manly and independent race, aimed at seizing the whole of Southern
Italy; their cities formed a confederacy, redoubtable on account of its
close union in time of war. The mountain tribes gave themselves up to
brigandage, and it is worthy of attention that recent events show that
in our days manners have not much changed in that country. The Samnites
had amassed considerable riches; their arms displayed excessive
extravagance, and, if we believe Cæsar,[163] they served as models for
those of the Romans.
A jealous rivalry had long prevailed between the Romans and the
Samnites. The moment these two peoples found themselves in presence of
each other, it was evident that they would be at war; the struggle was
long and terrible, and, during the fifth century, it was round Samnium
that they disputed the empire of Italy. The position of the Samnites was
very advantageous. Entrenched in their mountains, they could, at their
will, either descend into the valley of the Liris, thence reach the
country of the Aurunci, always ready to revolt, and cut off the
communications of Rome with Campania; or follow the course of the upper
Liris into the country of the Marsi, raise these latter, and hold out
the hand to the Etruscans, turning Rome; or, lastly, penetrate into
Campania by the valley of the Vulturnus, and fall upon the Sidicini,
whose territory they coveted.
In the midst of so many hostile peoples, for a little state to succeed
in raising itself above the others, and in subjugating them, it must
have possessed peculiar elements of superiority. The peoples who
surrounded Rome, warlike and proud of their independence, had neither
the same unity, nor the same incentives to action, nor the same powerful
aristocratic organisation, nor the same blind confidence in their
destinies. They displayed more selfishness than ambition. When they
fought, it was much more to increase their riches by pillage than to
augment the number of their subjects. Rome triumphed, because alone, in
prospect of a future, she made war not to destroy, but to conserve, and,
after the material conquest, always set herself to accomplish the moral
conquest of the vanquished.
During four hundred years her institutions had formed a race animated
with the love of country and with the sentiment of duty; but, in their
turn, the men, incessantly re-tempered in intestine struggles, had
successively introduced manners and traditions stronger even than the
institutions themselves. During three centuries, in fact, Rome
presented, in spite of the annual renewal of powers, such a perseverance
in the same policy, such a practice of the same virtues, that it might
have been supposed that the government had but a single head, a single
thought, and one might have believed that all its generals were great
warriors, all its senators experienced statesmen, and all its citizens
valiant soldiers.
The geographical position of Rome contributed no less to the rapid
increase of its power. Situated in the middle of the only great fertile
plain of Latium, on the banks of the only important river of Central
Italy, which united it with the sea, it could be at the same time
agricultural and maritime, conditions then indispensable for the capital
of a new empire. The rich countries which bordered the coasts of the
Mediterranean were sure to fall easily under her dominion; and as for
the countries which surrounded her, it was possible to become mistress
of them by occupying gradually the openings from all the valleys. The
town of the seven hills, favoured by her natural situation as well as by
her political constitution, carried thus in herself the germs of her
future greatness.
[Sidenote: Treatment of the Vanquished Peoples. ]
III. From the commencement of the fifth century Rome prepares with
energy to subject and assimilate to herself the peoples who dwelt from
the Rubicon to the Strait of Messina. Nothing will prevent her from
surmounting all obstacles, neither the coalition of her neighbours
conspiring against her, nor the new incursions of the Gauls, nor the
invasion of Pyrrhus. She will know how to raise herself from her partial
defeats, and establish the unity of Italy, not by subduing at once all
these peoples to the same laws and the same rule, but by causing them
to enter, by little and little and in different degrees, into the great
Roman family. “Of one city she makes her ally; on another she confers
the honour of living under the Quiritary law, to this one with the right
of suffrage, to that with the permission to retain its own government.
Municipia of different degrees, maritime colonies, Latin colonies, Roman
colonies, prefectures, allied towns, free towns, all isolated by the
difference of their condition, all united by their equal dependence on
the Senate, they will form, as it were, a vast network which will
entangle the Italian peoples, until the day when, without new struggles,
they will awake subjects of Rome. ”[164]
Let us examine the conditions of these various categories:
The right of city, in its plenitude (_jus civitatis optimo jure_),
comprised the political privileges peculiar to the Romans, and assured
for civil life certain advantages, of which the concession might be made
separately and by degrees. First came the _commercium_, that is, the
right of possessing and transmitting according to the Roman law; next
the _connubium_, or the right of contracting marriage with the
advantages established by Roman legislation. [165] The _commercium_ and
_connubium_ united formed the Quiritary law (_jus quiritium_).
There were three sorts of municipia:[166] first, the municipia of which
the inhabitants, inscribed in the tribes, exercised all the rights and
were subjected to all the obligations of the Roman citizens; secondly,
the municipia _sine suffragio_, the inhabitants of which enjoyed in
totality or in part the Quiritary law, and might obtain the complete
right of Roman citizens on certain conditions;[167] it is what
constituted the _jus Latii_; these first two categories preserved their
autonomy and their magistrates; third, the towns which had lost all
independence in exchange for the civil laws of Rome, but without
enjoyment, for the inhabitants, of the most important political rights;
it was the law of the _Cærites_, because Cære was the first town which
had been thus treated. [168]
Below the municipia, which had their own magistrates, came, in this
social hierarchy, the prefectures,[169] so called because a prefect was
sent there every year to administer justice.
The _dediticii_ were still worse treated. Delivered by victory to the
discretion of the Senate, they had been obliged to surrender their arms
and give hostages, to throw down their walls or receive a garrison
within them, to pay a tax, and to furnish a determinate contingent. With
the exclusion of these last, the towns which had not obtained for their
inhabitants the complete rights of Roman citizens belonged to the class
of allies (_fœderati socii_). Their condition differed according to
the nature of their engagements. Simple treaties of friendship,[170] or
of commerce,[171] or of offensive alliance, or offensive and
defensive,[172] concluded on the footing of equality, were called
_fœdera æqua_. On the contrary, when one of the contracting parties
(and it was never the Romans) submitted to onerous obligations from
which the other was exempted, these treaties were called _fœdera non
æqua_. They consisted almost always in the cession of a part of the
territory of the vanquished, and in the obligation to undertake no war
of their own. A certain independence, it is true, was left to them; they
received the right of exchange and free establishment in the capital,
but they were bound to the interests of Rome by an alliance offensive
and defensive. The only clause establishing the preponderance of Rome
was conceived in these terms: _Majestatem populi Romani comiter
conservanto_;[173] that is, “They shall loyally acknowledge the
supremacy of the Roman people. ” It is a remarkable circumstance that,
dating from the reign of Augustus, the freedmen were divided in
categories similar to those which existed for the inhabitants of
Italy. [174]
As to the colonies, they were established for the purpose of preserving
the possessions acquired, of securing the new frontiers, and of guarding
the important passes; and even for the sake of getting rid of the
turbulent class. [175] They were of two sorts: the Roman colonies and the
Latin colonies. The former differed little from the municipia of the
first degree, the others from the municipia of the second degree. The
first were formed of Roman citizens, taken with their families from the
classes subjected to military service, and even, in their origin, solely
among the patricians. The _coloni_ preserved the privileges attached to
the title of citizen,[176] and were bound by the same obligations, and
the interior administration of the colony was an image of that of
Rome. [177]
The Latin colonies differed from the others in having been founded by
the confederacy of the Latins on different points of Latium. Emanating
from a league of independent cities, they were not, like the Roman
colonies, tied by close bonds to the metropolis. [178] But the
confederacy once dissolved, these colonies were placed in the rank of
allied towns (_socii Latini_). The act (_formula_) which instituted them
was a sort of _treaty_ guaranteeing their franchise. [179]
Peopled at first by Latins, it was not long before these colonies
received Roman citizens who were induced by their poverty to exchange
their title and rights for the advantages assured to the colonists.
These did not figure on the lists of the censors. The _formula_ fixed
simply the tribute to pay and the number of soldiers to furnish. What
the colony lost in privileges it gained in independence. [180]
The isolation of the Latin colonies, placed in the middle of the enemy’s
territory, obliged them to remain faithful to Rome, and to keep watch on
the neighbouring peoples. Their military importance was at least equal
to that of the Roman colonies; they merited as well as these latter the
name of _propugnacula imperii_ and of _specula_,[181] that is, bulwarks
and watch-towers of the conquest. In a political point of view they
rendered services of a similar kind. If the Roman colonies announced to
the conquered people the majesty of the Roman name, their Latin sisters
gave an ever-increasing extension to the _nomen Latinum_,[182] that is,
to the language, manners, and whole civilisation of that race of which
Rome was but the first representative. The Latin colonies were
ordinarily founded to economise the colonies of Roman citizens, which
were charged principally with the defence of the coasts and the
maintenance of commercial relations with foreign people.
In making the privileges of the Roman citizen an advantage which every
one was happy and proud to acquire, the Senate held out a bait to all
ambitions; and this general desire, not to destroy the privilege, but to
gain a place among the privileged, is a characteristic trait of the
manners of antiquity. In the city not less than in the State, the
insurgents or discontented did not seek, as in our modern societies, to
overthrow, but to attain to. So every one, according to his position,
aspired to a legitimate object: the plebeians to enter into the
aristocracy, not to destroy it; the Italic peoples, to have a part in
the sovereignty of Rome, not to contest it; the Roman provinces to be
declared allies and friends of Rome, and not to recover their
independence.
The peoples could judge, according to their conduct, what lot was
reserved for them. The paltry interests of city were replaced by an
effectual protection, and by new rights often more precious, in the eyes
of the vanquished, than independence itself. This explains the facility
with which the Roman domination was established. In fact, that only is
destroyed entirely which may be replaced advantageously.
A rapid glance at the wars which effected the conquest of Italy will
show how the Senate made application of the principles stated above; how
it was skilful in profiting by the divisions of its adversaries, in
collecting its whole strength to overwhelm one of them; after the
victory in making it an ally; in using the aims and resources of that
ally to subjugate another people; in crushing the confederacies which
united the vanquished against it; in attaching them to Rome by new
bonds; in establishing military posts on all the points of strategic
importance; and, lastly, in spreading everywhere the Latin race by
distributing to Roman citizens a part of the lands taken from the enemy.
But, before entering upon the recital of events, we must cast a glance
upon the years which immediately preceded the pacification of Latium.
[Sidenote: Submission of Latium after the first Samnite War. ]
IV. During a hundred and sixty-seven years, Rome had been satisfied with
struggling against her neighbours to re-conquer a supremacy lost since
the fall of her kings. She held herself almost always on the defensive;
but, with the fifth century, she took the offensive, and inaugurated the
system of conquests continued to the moment when she herself succumbed.
In 411, she had, in concert with the Latins, combated the Samnites for
the first time, and commenced against that redoubtable people a
struggle which lasted seventy-two years, and which brought twenty-four
triumphs to the Roman generals. [183] Proud of having contributed to the
two great victories of Mount Gaurus and Suessula, the Latins, with an
exaggerated belief in their own strength and a pretension to equality
with Rome, went so far as to require that one of the two consuls, and
half of the senators, should be chosen from their nation. War was
immediately declared. The Senate was willing enough to have allies and
subjects, but it could not suffer equals; it accepted without scruple
the services of those who had just been enemies, and the Romans, united
with the Samnites, the Hernici, and the Sabellian peoples, were seen in
the fields of the Veseris and Trifanum, fighting against the Latins and
Volsci. Latium once reduced, it remained to determine the lot of the
vanquished. Livy reports a speech of Camillus which explains clearly the
policy recommended by that great citizen. “Will you,” he exclaims,
addressing the members of the assembly, “use the utmost rigour of the
rights of victory? You are masters to destroy all Latium, and to make a
vast desert of it, after having often drawn from it powerful succours.
Will you, on the contrary, after the example of your fathers, augment
the resources of Rome? Admit the vanquished among the number of your
citizens; it is a fruitful means of increasing at the same time your
power and your glory. ”[184] This last counsel prevailed.
The first step was to break the bonds which made of the Latin people a
sort of confederacy. All political communalty, all war on their own
account, all rights of _commercium_ and _connubium_, between the
different cities, were taken from them. [185]
The towns nearest Rome received the rights of city and suffrage. [186]
Others received the title of allies and the privilege of preserving
their own institutions, but they lost a part of their territory. [187] As
to the Latin colonies founded before in the old country of the Volsci,
they formed the nucleus of the Latin allies (_socii nominis Latini_).
Velitræ, alone, having already revolted several times, was treated with
great rigour; Antium was compelled to surrender its ships, and become a
maritime colony.
These severe, but equitable measures, had pacified Latium; applied to
the rest of Italy, and even to foreign countries, they will facilitate
everywhere the progress of Roman domination.
The momentary alliance with the Samnites had permitted Rome to reduce
the Latins; nevertheless the Senate, without hesitation, turned against
the former again as soon as the moment appeared convenient. It
concluded, in 422, a treaty with the Gauls and Alexander Molossus, who,
having landed near Pæstum, attacked the Lucanians and the Samnites. This
King of Epirus, the uncle of Alexander the Great, had been called into
Italy by the Tarentines; but his premature death disappointed the hopes
to which his co-operation had given rise, and the Samnites recommenced
their incursions on the lands of their neighbours. The intervention of
Rome put a stop to the war. All the forces of the Republic were employed
in reducing the revolt of the Volscian towns of Fundi and
Privernum. [188] In 425, Anxur (_Terracina_) was declared a Roman colony,
and, in 426, Fregellæ (_Ceprano? _), a Latin colony.
The establishment of these fortresses, and of those of Cales and Antium,
secured the communications with Campania; the Liris and the Vulturnus
became in that direction the principal lines of defence of the Romans.
The cities situated on the shores of that magnificent gulf called
_Crater_ by the ancients, and in our days the _Gulf of Naples_,
perceived then the dangers which threatened them. They turned their eyes
towards the population of the interior, who were no less alarmed for
their independence.
[Sidenote: Second Samnite War. ]
V. The fertile countries which bordered the western shore of the
peninsula were destined to excite the covetousness of the Romans and the
Samnites, and become the prey of the conqueror. “Campania, indeed,” says
Florus,[189] “is the finest country of Italy, and even of the whole
world. There is nothing milder than its climate. Spring flourishes there
twice every year. There can be nothing more fertile than its soil. It is
called the garden of Ceres and Bacchus. There is not a more hospitable
sea than that which bathes its shores. ” In 427, the two peoples
disputed the possession of it, as they had done in 411. The inhabitants
of Palæopolis having attacked the Roman colonists of the _ager
Campanus_, the consuls marched against that place, which soon received
succour from the Samnites and the inhabitants of Nola, while Rome formed
an alliance with the Apulians and the Lucanians. The siege dragged on,
and the necessity of continuing the campaign beyond the ordinary limit
led to the prolongation of the command of Publilius Philo with the title
of proconsul, which appeared for the first time in the military annals.
The Samnites were soon driven from Campania; the Palæopolitans
submitted; their town was demolished; but they formed close to it a new
establishment, at Naples (_Neapolis_), where a new treaty guaranteed
them an almost absolute independence, on the condition of furnishing a
certain number of vessels to Rome. After that, nearly all the Greek
towns, reduced one after another, obtained the same favourable
conditions, and formed the class of the _socii navales_. [190]
Yet the war was protracted in the mountains of the Apennine. Tarentum
united with the Samnites, the only people who were still to be
feared,[191] and the Lucanians abandoned the alliance of the Romans;
but, in 429, the two most celebrated captains of the time, Q. Fabius
Rullianus and Papirius Cursor, penetrated into the country of Samnium,
and compelled the enemy to pay an indemnity for the war and accept a
year’s truce.
At this epoch, an unforeseen event, which changed the destinies of the
world, came to demonstrate the difference between the rapid creation of
a man of genius and the patient work of an intelligent aristocracy.
Alexander the Great, after having shone like a meteor, and brought into
subjection the most powerful kingdoms of Asia, died at Babylon. His
fruitful and decisive influence, which carried the civilization of
Greece into the East, survived him, but at his death, the empire he
founded became in a few years dismembered (431); the Roman aristocracy,
on the contrary, perpetuating itself from age to age, pursued more
slowly, but without interruption, the system which, binding again the
peoples about a common centre, was destined by little and little to
secure her domination over Italy first, and then over the universe.
The defection of a part of the Apulians, in 431, encouraged the Samnites
to take arms again; defeated in the following years, they asked for the
restoration of friendly relations, but the haughty refusal of Rome led,
in 433, to the famous defeat of the Furcæ Caudinæ. The generosity of the
Samnite general, Pontus Herennius, who granted their lives to so many
thousands of prisoners on condition of restoring to force the old
treaties, had no effect upon the Senate. Four legions had passed under
the yoke--a circumstance in which the Senate only saw a new affront to
revenge. The treaty of Caudium was not ratified, and subterfuges little
excusable, although approved at a later period by Cicero,[192] gave to
the refusal an appearance of justice.
Meanwhile the Senate exerted itself vigorously to repair this check, and
soon Publilius Philo defeated the enemies in Samnium, and, in Apulia,
Papirius, in his turn, caused seven thousand Samnites to pass under the
yoke. The vanquished solicited peace, but in vain; they only obtained a
truce for two years (436), and it had hardly expired, when, penetrating
into the country of the Volsci, as far as the neighbourhood of
Terracina, and taking a position at Lautulæ, they defeated a Roman army
raised hastily and commanded by Q. Fabius (439). Capua deserted, and
Nola, Nuceria, the Aurunci, and the Volsci of the Liris took part openly
with the Samnites. The spirit of rebellion spread as far as Præneste.
Rome was in danger. The Senate required its utmost energy to restrain
populations whose fidelity was always doubtful. Fortune seconded its
efforts, and the allies, who had proved traitors, received a cruel
chastisement, explained by the terror they had inspired. In 440,[193]
not far from Caudium, a numerous army encountered the Samnites, who lost
30,000 men, and were driven back into the Apennine territory. The Roman
legions proceeded to encamp before their capital, Bovianum, and there
took up their winter quarters.
The year following (441), Rome, less occupied in fighting, profited by
this circumstance to seize upon advantageous positions, establishing in
Campania and Apulia colonies which surrounded the territory of Samnium.
At the same epoch, Appius Claudius transformed into a regular causeway
the road which has preserved his name. [194] The Romans turned their
attention to the defence of the coasts and communication by sea; a
colony was sent to the isle of Pontia,[195] opposite Tarracina, and the
armament of a fleet was commenced, which was placed under the command of
_duumviri navales_. [196] The war had lasted fifteen years, and, although
Rome had only succeeded in driving back the Samnites into their own
territory, she had conquered two provinces, Apulia and Campania.
[Sidenote: Third Samnite war. Coalition of Samnites, Etruscans,
Umbrians, and Hernici (443-449). ]
VI. A struggle so desperate had produced its effect even in Etruria, and
the old league was formed again. Inured to war by their daily combats
with the Gauls, and emboldened by the reports of the defeat of Lautulæ,
the Etruscans believed that the moment had arrived for recovering their
ancient territory to the south of the Ciminian forest; they were further
encouraged by the attitude of the peoples of Central Italy, who were
weary of the continual passing of legions. From 443 to 449, the armies
of the Republic were obliged to face different enemies at the same time.
In Etruria, Fabius Rullianus relieved Sutrium, a rampart of Rome on the
north;[197] he passed through the Ciminian forest, and by the victories
of Lake Vadimo (445)[198] and Perusia compelled all the Etruscan towns
to ask for peace. At the same time, an army laid waste the country of
the Samnites; and a Roman fleet, composed of vessels furnished by the
maritime allies, took the offensive for the first time. Its attempt near
Nuceria Alfaterna (_Nocera_, a town of Campania) was unfortunate.
War next breaks out again in Apulia, Samnium, and Etruria, where the
aged Papirius Cursor, named dictator anew, gains a brilliant victory at
Langula (445). The year following Fabius penetrates again into Samnium,
and the other consul, Decius, maintains Etruria. Suddenly the Umbrians
conceive the project of seizing Rome by surprise. The consuls are
recalled for the defence of the town. Fabius meets the Etruscans at
Mevania (on the confines of Etruria and Umbria), and, the year
following, at Allifæ (447). Among the prisoners were some Æqui and
Hernici. Their towns, feeling themselves thus compromised, declared open
war against the Romans (448). The Samnites recovered courage; but the
prompt reduction of the Hernici allowed the Senate to concentrate its
forces. Two armies, penetrating into Samnium by way of Apulia and
Campania, re-established the old frontiers. Bovianum was taken for the
third time, and during six months the country was delivered up to
devastation. In vain Tarentum tried to raise new quarrels for the
Republic, and to force the Lucanians to embrace the cause of the
Samnites. The successes of the Roman arms led to the conclusion of
treaties of peace with all the peoples of Southern Italy, constrained
thenceforward to acknowledge the _majesty_ of the Roman people. The Æqui
remained alone exposed to the wrath of Rome; the Senate did not forget
that at Allifæ they had fought in the ranks of the enemy, and, once
freed from its more serious embarrassments, it inflicted on this people
a terrible chastisement: forty-one places were taken and burnt in fifty
days. This period of six years thus terminated with the submission of
the Hernici and Æqui.
Five years less agitated left Rome time to regulate the position of its
new subjects, and to establish colonies and ways of communication.
The Hernici were treated in the same manner as the Latins, in 416, and
deprived of _commercium_ and _connubium_. Prefects and the law of the
Cærites were imposed on Anagnia, Frusino, and other towns guilty of
desertion. The cities which had remained faithful preserved their
independence and the title of allies (448);[199] the Æqui lost a part of
their territory and received the right of city without suffrage (450).
The Samnites, sufficiently humiliated, obtained at last the renewal of
their ancient conventions (450). [200] _Fœdera non æqua_ were
concluded with the Marsi, the Peligni, the Marrucini, the Frentani
(450), the Vestini (452), and the Picentini (455). [201] Rome treated
with Tarentum on a footing of equality, and engaged not to let her fleet
pass the Lacinian Promontory to the south of the Gulf of Tarentum. [202]
Thus, on the one hand, the territories shared among the Roman citizens;
on the other, the number of the municipia were considerably augmented.
Further, the Republic had acquired new allies; she possessed at length
the passages of the Apennines and commanded both seas. [203] A girdle of
Latin fortresses protected Rome and broke the communications between the
north and south of Italy; among the Marsi and the Æqui, there were Alba
and Carseoli; Sora, towards the sources of the Liris; and Narnia, in
Umbria. Military roads connected the colonies with the metropolis.
[Sidenote: Fourth Samnite War. Second coalition of the Samnites,
Etruscans, Umbrians, and Gauls (456-464). ]
VII. Peace could not last long: between Rome and the Samnites it was a
duel to death. In 456, these latter had already sufficiently recovered
from their disasters to attempt once more the fortune of arms. [204] Rome
sends to the succour of the Lucanians, suddenly attacked, two consular
armies.
Vanquished at Tifernum by Fabius, at Maleventum by Decius, the
Samnites witness the devastation of their whole country. Still they do
not lose courage; their chief, Gellius Egnatius, conceives a plan which
places Rome in great danger. He divides the Samnite army into three
bodies: the first remains to defend the country; the second takes the
offensive in Campania; the third, which he commands in person, throws
itself into Etruria, and, increased by the junction of the Etruscans,
the Gauls, and the Umbrians, soon forms a numerous army. [205] The storm
roared on all sides, and, while the Roman generals were occupied some
in Samnium and others in Campania, despatches arrived from Appius,
placed at the head of the army of Etruria, announcing a terrible
coalition formed in silence by the peoples of the north, who were
concentrating all their forces in Umbria for the purpose of marching
upon Rome.
The terror was extreme, but the energy of the Romans was equal to the
danger. All able men, even to the freedmen, were enrolled, and ninety
thousand soldiers were raised. Under these grave circumstances (458),
Fabius and Decius were, once again, raised to the supreme magistracy,
and gained, under the walls of Sentinum, a brilliant victory, long
disputed. During the battle, Decius devoted himself, as his father had
done before. The coalition once dissolved, Fabius defeated another army
which had issued from Perusia, and then came to receive the honour of a
triumph in Rome. Etruria was subdued (460), and obtained a truce of
forty years. [206]
The Samnites still maintained an obstinate struggle of mingled successes
and reverses. In 461, after having taken an oath to conquer or die,
thirty thousand of them were left on the field of battle of Aquilonia. A
few months later, the celebrated Pontius, the hero of Furcæ Caudinæ,
re-appeared, at the end of twenty-nine years, at the head of his
fellow-citizens, and inflicted upon the son of Fabius a check, which the
latter soon retrieved with the assistance of his father. [207] Finally,
in 464, two Roman armies re-commenced, in Samnium, a war of
extermination, which led for the fourth time to the renewal of the
ancient treaties and the cession of a certain extent of territory. At
the same epoch, an insurrection which broke out in the Sabine territory
was put down by Curius Dentatus. Central Italy was conquered.
The peace with the Samnites lasted five years (464-469). Rome extended
her frontiers, and fortified those of the peoples placed under her
protectorate; and at the same time established new military forts.
The right of city without suffrage was accorded to the Sabines, and
prefects were given to some of the towns of the valley of the Vulturnus
(_Venafrum_ and _Allifæ_). [208] A Latin colony, of twenty thousand men,
was sent to Venusia to watch over Southern Italy. [209] It commanded at
the same time Samnium, Apulia, and Lucania. If, owing to the treaty
concluded with the Greek towns, the Roman supremacy extended over the
south of the peninsula, to the north the Etruscans could not be reckoned
as allies, since nothing more than truces had been concluded with them.
In Umbria, the small tribe of the Sarsinates remained independent, and
all the coast district from the Rubicon to the Æsis was in the power of
the Senones; on their southern frontier the Roman colony of Sena Gallica
(_Sinigaglia_) was founded; the coast of Picenum was watched by that of
Castrum Novum and by the Latin fortress of Hatria (465). [210]
[Sidenote: Third coalition of the Etruscans, Gauls, Lucanians, and
Tarentines (469-474). ]
VIII. The power of Rome had increased considerably. The Samnites, who
hitherto had played the first part, were no longer in a condition to
plan further coalitions, and one people alone could hardly be rash
enough to provoke the Republic. Yet the Lucanians, always hesitating,
gave this time the signal for a general revolt.
The attack on Thurium, by the Lucanians and Bruttians, became the
occasion of a new league, into which entered successively the
Tarentines, the Samnites, the Etruscans, and even the Gauls. The north
was soon in flames, and Etruria again became the battle-field. A Roman
army, which had hastened to relieve Arretium, was put to rout by the
Etruscans united with Gaulish mercenaries. The Senones, to whom these
belonged, having massacred the Roman ambassadors sent to expostulate on
their violation of the treaty with the Republic, the Senate sent against
them two legions who drove them back beyond the Rubicon. The Gaulish
tribe of the Boians, alarmed by the fate of the Senones, descended
immediately into Umbria, and, rallying the Etruscans, prepared to march
to renew the sack of Rome; but their march was arrested, and two
successive victories, at Lake Vadimo, (471) and Populonia (472), enabled
the Senate to conclude a convention which drove back the Boians into
their old territory. Hostilities continued with the Etruscans during two
years, after which their submission completed the conquest of Northern
Italy.
[Sidenote: Pyrrhus in Italy. Submission of Tarentum (474-488). ]
IX. Free to the north, the Romans turned their efforts against the
south of Italy; war was declared against Tarentum, the people of which
had attacked a Roman flotilla. While the consul Æmilius invested the
town, the first troops of Pyrrhus, called in by the Tarentines,
disembarked in the port (474).
This epoch marks a new phase in the destinies of Rome, who is going, for
the first time, to measure herself with Greece. Hitherto the legions
have never had to combat really regular armies, but they have become
disciplined in war by incessant struggles in the mountains of Samnium
and Etruria; henceforth they will have to face old soldiers disciplined
in skilful tactics and commanded by an experienced warrior. The King of
Epirus, after having already twice lost and recovered his kingdom, and
invaded and abandoned Macedonia, dreamt of conquering the West. On the
news of his arrival at the head of twenty-five thousand soldiers and
twenty elephants,[211] the Romans enrolled all citizens capable of
bearing arms, even the proletaries; but, admirable example of courage!
they rejected the support of the Carthaginian fleet with this proud
declaration: “The Republic only entertains wars which it can sustain
with its own forces. ”[212] While fifty thousand men, under the orders of
the consul Lævinus, march against the King of Epirus, to prevent his
junction with the Samnites, another army enters Lucania. The consul
Tiberius Coruncanius holds Etruria, again in agitation. Lastly, an army
of reserve guards the capital.
Lævinus encountered the King of Epirus near Heraclea, a colony of
Tarentum (474). Seven times in succession the legions charged the
phalanx, which was on the point of giving way, when the elephants,
animals unknown to the Romans, decided the victory in favour of the
enemy. A single battle had delivered to Pyrrhus all the south of the
Peninsula, where the Greek towns received him with enthusiasm.
But, though victor, he had sustained considerable losses, and learned at
the same time the effeminacy of the Greeks of Italy, and the energy of a
people of soldiers. He offered peace, and asked of the Senate liberty
for the Samnites, the Lucanians, and especially for the Greek towns. Old
Appius Claudius declared it impossible so long as Pyrrhus occupied
Italian soil, and peace was refused. The king then resolved to march
upon Rome through Campania, where his troops made great booty.
Lævinus, made prudent by his defeat, satisfied himself with watching the
enemy’s army, and succeeded in covering Capua; whence he followed
Pyrrhus from place to place, looking out for a favourable opportunity.
This prince, advancing by the Latin Way, had reached Præneste without
obstacle,[213] when, surrounded by three Roman armies, he found himself
under the necessity of falling back and retiring into Lucania. Next
year, reckoning on finding new auxiliaries among the peoples of the
east, he attacked Apulia; but the fidelity of the allies in Central
Italy was not shaken. Victorious at Asculum (_Ascoli di Satriano_)
(475), but without a decisive success, and encountering always the same
resistance, he seized the first opportunity of quitting Italy to conquer
Sicily (476-78). During this time, the Senate re-established the Roman
domination in Southern Italy, and even seized upon some of the Greek
towns, among the rest Locri and Heraclea. [214] Samnium, Lucania, and
Bruttium were again given up to the power of the legions, and forced to
surrender lands and renew treaties of alliance; on the coast, Tarentum
and Rhegium alone remained independent. The Samnites still resisted, and
the Roman army encamped in their country in 478 and 479. Meanwhile
Pyrrhus returns to Italy, reckoning on arriving in time to deliver
Samnium; but he is defeated at Beneventum by Curius Dentatus, and
returns to his country. The invasion of Pyrrhus, cousin of Alexander the
Great; and one of his successors, appears as one of the last efforts of
Grecian civilisation expiring at the feet of the rising grandeur of
Roman civilisation.
The war against the King of Epirus produced two remarkable results: it
improved the Romans in military tactics, and introduced between the
combatants those mutual regards of civilised nations which teach men to
honour their adversaries, to spare the vanquished, and to lay aside
wrath when the struggle is ended. The King of Epirus treated his Roman
prisoners with great generosity. Cineas, sent to the Senate at Rome, and
Fabricius, envoy to Pyrrhus, carried back from their mission a profound
respect for those whom they had combated.
In the following years Rome took Tarentum (482),[215] finally pacified
Samnium, and took possession of Rhegium (483-485). Since the battle of
Mount Gaurus, seventy-two years had passed, and several generations had
succeeded each other, without seeing the end of this long and sanguinary
quarrel. The Samnites had been nearly exterminated, and yet the spirit
of independence and liberty remained deeply rooted in their mountains.
When, at the end of two centuries and a half, the war of the allies
shall come, it is there still that the cause of equality of rights will
find its strongest support.
The other peoples underwent quickly the laws of the conqueror. The
inhabitants of Picenum, as a punishment for their revolt, were despoiled
of a part of their territory, and a certain number among them received
new lands in the south of Campania, near the Gulf of Salernum
(_Picentini_)(486). In 487, the submission of the Salentines allowed the
Romans to seize Brundusium, the most important port of the
Adriatic. [216] The Sarsinates were reduced the years following. [217]
Finally, Volsinium, a town of Etruria, was again numbered among the
allies of the Republic. The Sabines received the right of suffrage.
Italy, become henceforth Roman, extended from the Rubicon to the Straits
of Messina.
[Sidenote: Preponderance of Rome. ]
X. During this period, the conquest of the subjugated countries was
ensured by the foundation of colonies. Rome became thus encircled by a
girdle of fortresses commanding all the passages which led to Latium,
and closing the roads to Campania, Samnium, Etruria, and Gaul. [218]
At the opening of the struggle which ended in the conquest of Italy,
there were only twenty-seven tribes of Roman citizens; the creation of
eight new tribes (the two last in 513) raised finally the number to
thirty-five, of which twenty-one were reserved to the old Roman people
and fourteen to the new citizens. Of these the Etruscans had four; the
Latins, the Volsci, the Ausones, the Æqui, and the Sabines, each two;
but, these tribes being at a considerable distance from the capital, the
new citizens could hardly take part in the comitia, and the majority,
with its influence, remained with those who dwelt at Rome. [219] After
513, no more tribes were created; those who received the rights of
citizens were only placed in the previously existing tribes; so that the
members of one individual tribe were scattered in the provinces, and the
number of those inscribed went on increasing continually by individual
additions, and by the tendency more and more apparent to raise the
municipia of the second order to the rank of the first order. Thus,
towards the middle of the sixth century, the towns of the Æqui, the
Hernici, the Volsci, and a part of those of Campania, including the
ancient Samnite cities of Venafrum and Allifæ, obtained the right of
city with suffrage.
Rome, towards the end of the fifth century, thus ruled, though in
different degrees, the peoples of Italy proper. The Italian State, if we
may give it that name, was composed of a reigning class, the citizens;
of a class protected, or held in guardianship, the allies; and of a
third class, the subjects. Allies or subjects were all obliged to
furnish military contingents. The maritime Greek towns furnished sailors
to the fleet. Even the cities, which preserved their independence for
their interior affairs, obeyed, so far as the military administration
was concerned, special functionaries appointed by the metropolis. [220]
The consuls had the right of raising in the countries bordering on the
theatre of war all men capable of bearing arms. The equipment and pay of
the troops remained at the charge of the cities; Rome provided for their
maintenance during war. The auxiliary infantry was ordinarily equal in
number to that of the Romans, the cavalry double or triple.
In exchange for this military assistance, the allies had a right to a
part of the conquered territory, and, in return for an annual rent, to
the usufruct of the domains of the State. These domains, considerable in
the peninsula,[221] formed the sole source of income which the treasury
derived from the allies, free in other respects from tribute. Four
questors (_quæstores classici_) were established to watch over the
execution of the orders of the Senate, the equipment of the fleet, and
the collection of the farm-rents.
Rome reserved to herself exclusively the direction of the affairs of the
exterior, and presided alone over the destinies of the Republic. The
allies never interfered in the decisions of the Forum, and each town
kept within the narrow limits of its communal administration. The
Italian nationality was thus gradually constituted by means of this
political centralisation, without which the different peoples would have
mutually weakened each other by intestine wars, more ruinous than
foreign wars, and Italy would not have been in a condition to resist the
double pressure of the Gauls and the Carthaginians.
The form adopted by Rome to rule Italy was the best possible, but only
as a transition form. The object to be aimed at was, in fact, the
complete assimilation of all the inhabitants of the peninsula, and this
was evidently the aim of the wise policy of the Camilli and the Fabii.
When we consider that the colonies of citizens presented the faithful
image of Rome; that the Latin colonies had analogous institutions and
laws; and that a great number of Roman citizens and Latin allies were
dispersed, in the different countries of the peninsula, over the vast
territories ceded as the consequence of war, we may judge how rapid must
have been the diffusion of Roman manners and the Latin language.
If Rome, in later times, had not the wisdom to seize the favourable
moment in which assimilation, already effected in people’s minds, might
have passed into the domain of facts, the reason of it was the
abandonment of the principles of equity which had guided the Senate in
the first ages of the Republic, and, above all, the corruption of the
magnates, interested in maintaining the inferior condition of the
allies. The right of city extended to all the peoples of Italy, time
enough to be useful, would have given to the Republic a new force; but
an obstinate refusal became the cause of the revolution commenced by the
Gracchi, continued by Marius, extinguished for a moment by Sylla, and
completed by Cæsar.
[Sidenote: Strength of the Institutions. ]
XI. At the epoch with which we are occupied, the Republic is in all its
splendour.
The institutions form remarkable men; the annual elections carry into
power those who are most worthy, and recall them to it after a short
interval. The sphere of action for the military chiefs does not extend
beyond the natural frontiers of the peninsula, and their ambition,
restrained in their duty by public opinion, does not exceed a legitimate
object, the union of all Italy under one dominion. The members of the
aristocracy seem to inherit the exploits as well as the virtues of their
ancestors, and neither poverty nor obscurity of birth prevent merit from
reaching it. Curius Dentatus, Fabricius, and Coruncanius, can show
neither riches nor the images of their ancestors, and yet they attain to
the highest dignities; in fact, the plebeian nobility walks on a footing
of equality with the patrician. Both, in separating from the multitude,
tend more and more to amalgamate together;[222] but they remain rivals
in patriotism and disinterestedness.
In spite of the taste for riches introduced by the war of the
Sabines,[223] the magistrates maintained their simplicity of manners,
and protected the public domain against the encroachments of the rich by
the rigorous execution of the law, which limited to five hundred acres
the property which an individual was allowed to possess. [224]
The first citizens presented the most remarkable examples of integrity
and self-denial. Marcus Valerius Corvus, after occupying twenty-one
curule offices, returns to his fields without fortune, though not
without glory (419). Fabius Rullianus, in the midst of his victories and
triumphs, forgets his resentment towards Papirius Cursor, and names him
dictator, sacrificing thus his private feelings to the interests of his
country (429). Marcus Curius Dentatus keeps for himself no part of the
rich spoils taken from the Sabines, and, after having vanquished
Pyrrhus, resumes the simplicity of country life (479). [225] Fabricius
rejects the money which the Samnites offer him for his generous
behaviour towards them, and disdains the presents of Pyrrhus (476).
Coruncanius furnishes an example of all the virtues. [226] Fabius Gurges,
Fabius Pictor, and Ogulnius, pour into the treasury the magnificent
gifts they had brought back from their embassy to Alexandria. [227] M.
Rutilius Censorinus, struck with the danger of entrusting twice in
succession the censorship in the same hands, refuses to be re-elected to
that office (488).
The names of many others might be cited, who, then and in later ages,
did honour to the Roman Republic; but let us add, that if the ruling
class knew how to call to it all the men of eminence, it forgot not to
recompense brilliantly those especially who favoured its interests:
Fabius Rullianus, for instance, the victor in so many battles, received
the name of “most great” (_Maximus_) only for having, at the time of his
censorship, annulled in the comitia the influence of the poor class,
composed of freedmen, whom he distributed among the urban tribes (454),
where their votes were lost in the multitude of others. [228]
The popular party, on its own side, ceased not to demand new
concessions, or to claim the revival of those which had fallen out of
use. Thus, it obtained, in 428, the re-establishment of the law of
Servius Tullius, which decided that the goods only of the debtor, and
not his body, should be responsible for his debt. [229] In 450, Flavius,
the son of a freedman, made public the calendar and the formulæ of
proceedings, which deprived the patricians of the exclusive knowledge of
civil and religious law. [230] But the lawyers found means of weakening
the effects of the measure of Flavius by inventing new formulæ, which
were almost unintelligible to the public. [231] The plebeians, in 454,
were admitted into the college of the pontiffs, and into that of the
augurs; the same year, it was found necessary to renew for the third
time the law Valeria, _de provocatione_.
In 468, the people again withdrew to the Janiculum, demanding the
remission of debts, and crying out against usury. [232] Concord was
restored only when they had obtained, first, by the law Hortensia, that
the plebiscita should be obligatory on all; and next, by the law Marcia,
that the orders obtained through Publilius Philo in 415 should be
restored to vigour. These orders, as we have seen above, obliged the
Senate to declare in advance whether or not the laws presented to the
comitia were contrary to public and religious law. [233]
The ambition of Rome seemed to be without bounds; yet all her wars had
for reason or pretext the defence of the weak and the protection of her
allies. Indeed, the cause of the wars against the Samnites was sometimes
the defence of the inhabitants of Capua, sometimes that of the
inhabitants of Palæopolis, sometimes that of the Lucanians. The war
against Pyrrhus had its origin in the assistance claimed by the
inhabitants of Thurium; and the support claimed by the Mamertines will
soon lead to the first Punic war.
The Senate, we have seen, put in practice the principles which found
empires and the virtues to which war gives birth. Thus, for all the
citizens, equality of rights; in face of danger to their country,
equality of duties and even suspension of liberty. To the most worthy,
honours and the command. No magisterial charge for him who has not
served in the ranks of the army. The example is furnished by the most
illustrious and richest families: at the battle of Lake Regillus (258),
the principal senators were mingled in the ranks of the legions;[234] at
the combat near the Cremera, the three hundred and six Fabii, who all,
according to Titus Livius, were capable of filling the highest offices,
perished fighting. Later, at Cannæ, eighty senators, who had enrolled
themselves as mere soldiers, fell on the field of battle. [235] The
triumph is accorded for victories which enlarged the territory, but not
for those which only recovered lost ground. No triumph in civil
wars:[236] in such case, success, be what it may, is always a subject
for public mourning. The consuls or proconsuls seek to be useful to
their country without false susceptibility; to-day in the first rank,
to-morrow in the second, they serve with the same devotion under the
orders of him whom they commanded the previous day. Servilius, consul in
281, becomes, the year following, the lieutenant of Valerius. Fabius,
after so many triumphs, consents to be only lieutenant to his son. At a
later period, Flamininus, who had vanquished the King of Macedonia,
descends again through patriotism, after the victory of Cynoscephalæ,
to the grade of tribune of the soldiers;[237] the great Scipio himself,
after the defeat of Hannibal, serves as lieutenant under his brother in
the war against Antiochus.
To sacrifice everything to patriotism is the first duty. By devoting
themselves to the gods of Hades, like Curtius and the two Decii, people
believed they bought, at the price of their lives, the safety of the
others or victory. [238] Discipline is enforced even to cruelty: Manlius
Torquatus, after the example of Postumius Tubertus, punishes with death
the disobedience of his son, though he had gained a victory. The
soldiers who have fled are decimated; those who abandon their ranks or
the field of battle are devoted, some to execution, others to dishonour;
and those who have allowed themselves to be made prisoners by the enemy
are disdained as unworthy of the price of freedom. [239]
Surrounded by warlike neighbours, Rome must either triumph or cease to
exist; hence her superiority in the art of war, for, as Montesquieu
says, in transient wars most of the examples are lost; peace brings
other ideas, and its faults and even its virtues are forgotten; hence
that contempt of treason and that disdain for the advantages it
promises: Camillus sends home to their parents the children of the first
families of Falerii, delivered up to him by their schoolmaster; the
Senate rejects with indignation the offer of the physician of Pyrrhus,
who proposes to poison that prince;--hence that religious observance of
oaths and that respect for engagements which have been contracted: the
Roman prisoners to whom Pyrrhus had given permission to repair to Rome
for the festival of Saturn, all return to him faithful to their word;
and Regulus leaves the most memorable example of faithfulness to his
oath! --hence that skilful and inflexible policy which refuses peace
after a defeat, or a treaty with the enemy so long as he is on the soil
of their country; which makes use of war to divert people from domestic
troubles;[240] gains the vanquished by benefits if they submit, and
admits them by degrees into the great Roman family; and, if they resist,
strikes them without pity and reduces them to slavery;[241]--hence that
anxious provision for multiplying upon the conquered territories the
race of agriculturists and soldiers;--hence, lastly, the improving
spectacle of a town which becomes a people, and of a people which
embraces the world.
CHAPTER IV.
PROSPERITY OF THE BASIN OF THE MEDITERRANEAN BEFORE THE PUNIC WARS.
[Sidenote: Commerce of the Mediterranean. ]
I. Rome had required two hundred and forty-four years to form her
constitution under the kings, a hundred and seventy-two to establish and
consolidate the consular Republic, seventy-two to complete the conquest
of Italy, and now it will cost her nearly a century and a half to obtain
the domination of the world--that is, of Northern Africa, Spain, the
south of Gaul, Illyria, Epirus, Greece, Macedonia, Asia Minor, Syria,
and Egypt. Before undertaking the recital of these conquests, let us
halt an instant to consider the condition of the basin of the
Mediterranean at this period, of that sea round which were successively
unfolded all the great dramas of ancient history. In this examination we
shall see, not without a feeling of regret, vast countries where
formerly produce, monuments, riches, numerous armies and fleets--all,
indeed, revealed an advanced state of civilisation--now deserts or in a
state of barbarism.
The Mediterranean had seen grow and prosper in turn on its coasts Sidon,
and Tyre, and then Greece.
[Illustration: MAP OF THE BASIN OF THE MEDITERRANEAN. ]
Sidon, already a flourishing city before the time of Homer, is soon
eclipsed by the supremacy of Tyre; then Greece comes to carry on, in
competition with her, the commerce of the interior sea; an age of
pacific greatness and fruitful rivalries. To the Phœnicians
chiefly, the South, the East, Africa, Asia beyond Mount Taurus, the
Erythrean Sea (_the Red Sea_ and _the Persian Gulf_), the ocean, and the
distant voyages. To the Greeks, all the northern coasts, which they
covered with their thousand settlements. Phœnicia devotes herself to
adventurous enterprises and lucrative speculations. Greece, artistic
before becoming a trader, propagates by her colonies her mind and her
ideas.
This fortunate emulation soon disappears before the creation of two new
colonies sprung from their bosom. The splendour of Carthage replaces
that of Tyre. Alexandria is substituted for Greece. Thus a Western or
Spanish Phœnicia shares the commerce of the world with an Eastern and
Egyptian Greece, the fruit of the intellectual conquests of Alexander.
[Sidenote: Northern Africa. ]
II. Rich in the spoils of twenty different peoples, Carthage was the
proud capital of a vast empire. Its ports, hollowed out by the hand of
man, were capable of containing a great number of ships. [242] Her
citadel, Byrsa, was two miles in circuit. On the land side the town was
defended by a triple enclosure twenty-five stadia in length, thirty
cubits high, and supported by towers of four storeys, capable of giving
shelter to 4,000 horse, 300 elephants, and 20,000 foot soldiers;[243] it
enclosed an immense population, since, in the last years of its
resistance, after a struggle of a century, it still counted 700,000
inhabitants. [244] Its monuments were worthy of its greatness: among its
remarkable buildings was the temple of the god Aschmoun, assimilated by
the Greeks to Æsculapius;[245] that of the sun, covered with plates of
gold valued at a thousand talents;[246] and the mantle or _peplum_,
destined for the image of their great goddess, which cost a hundred and
twenty. [247] The empire of Carthage extended from the frontiers of
Cyrenaica (the country of _Barca_, in the regency of Tripoli) into
Spain; she was the metropolis of all the north of Africa, and, in Libya
alone, possessed three hundred towns. [248] Nearly all the isles of the
Mediterranean, to the west and south of Italy, had received her
factories. Carthage had imposed her sovereignty upon all the ancient
Phœnician establishments in this part of the world, and had levied
upon them an annual contingent of soldiers and tribute. In the interior
of Africa, she sent caravans to seek elephants, ivory, gold, and black
slaves, which she afterwards exported[249] to the trading places on the
Mediterranean. In Sicily, she gathered oil and wine; in the isle of
Elba, she mined for iron; from Malta, she drew valuable tissues; from
Corsica, wax and honey; from Sardinia, corn, metals, and slaves; from
the Baleares, mules and fruits; from Spain, gold, silver, and lead; from
Mauritania, the hides of animals; she sent as far as the extremity of
Britain, to the Cassiterides (_the Scilly Islands_), ships to purchase
tin. [250] Within her walls industry flourished greatly, and tissues of
great celebrity were fabricated. [251]
No market of the ancient world could be compared with that of Carthage,
to which men of all nations crowded. Greeks, Gauls, Ligurians,
Spaniards, Libyans, came in multitudes to serve under her standard;[252]
the Numidians lent her a redoubtable cavalry. [253] Her fleet was
formidable; it amounted at this epoch to five hundred vessels. Carthage
possessed a considerable arsenal;[254] we may appreciate its importance
from the fact, that, after her conquest by Scipio, she delivered to him
two hundred thousand suits of armour, and three thousand machines of
war. [255] So many troops and stores imply immense revenues. Even after
the battle of Zama, Polybius could still call her the richest town in
the world. Yet she had already paid heavy contributions to the
Romans. [256] An excellent system of agriculture contributed no less than
her commerce to her prosperity. A great number of agricultural
colonies[257] had been established, which, in the time of Agathocles,
amounted to more than two hundred. They were ruined by the war (440 of
Rome). [258] Byzacena (_the southern part of the regency of Tunis_) was
the granary of Carthage. [259]
This province, surnamed _Emporia_, as being the trading country _par
excellence_, vaunted by the geographer Scylax[260] as the most
magnificent and fertile part of Libya. It had, in the time of Strabo,
numerous towns, so many magazines of the merchandise of the interior of
Africa. Polybius[261] speaks of its horses, oxen, sheep, and goats, as
forming innumerable herds, such as he had never seen elsewhere. The
small town of Leptis alone paid to the Carthaginians the enormous
contribution of a talent a day (5,821 francs [£232 16s. ]). [262]
This fertility of Africa explains the importance of the towns on the
coast of the Syrtes, an importance, it is true, revealed by later
testimonies, because they date from the decline of Carthage, but which
must apply still more forcibly to the flourishing condition which
preceded it. In 537, the vast port of the isle Cercina (Kirkeni, in the
regency of Tunis, opposite Sfax) had paid ten talents to Servilius.
