No More Learning

[499] These
pirates belonged to the Illyrian nation. The Greeks considered them as
barbarians, which meant foreigners to the Hellenic race; it is probable,
nevertheless, that they had a certain affinity with it. Inconvenient
allies of the kings of Macedonia, they often took arms either for or
against them; intrepid and fierce hordes, they were ready to sell their
services and blood to any one who would pay them, resembling, in this
respect, the Albanians of the present day, believed by some to be their
descendants driven into the mountains by the invasions of the
Slaves. [500]

The king of the Illyrians was a child, and his mother, Teuta, exercised
the regency. This fact alone reveals manners absolutely foreign to
Hellenic and Roman civilisation. A chieftain of Pharos (_Lesina_), named
Demetrius, in the pay of Teuta, occupied as a fief the island of Corcyra
Nigra (now _Curzola_), and exercised the functions of prime minister.
The Romans had no difficulty in gaining him; moreover, the Illyrians
furnished a legitimate cause of war by assassinating an ambassador of
the Republic. [501] The Senate immediately dispatched an army and a fleet
to reduce them (525). Demetrius surrendered his island, which served as
a basis against Apollonia, Dyrrhachium, Nutria, and a great part of the
coast. After a resistance of some months, the Illyrians submitted,
entered into an engagement to renounce piracy, surrendered several
ports, and agreed to choose Demetrius, the ally of the Romans, for the
guardian of their king. [502]

By this expedition, the Republic gained great popularity throughout
Greece; the Athenians and the Achaian league especially were lavish of
thanks, and began from that time to consider the Romans as their
protectors against their dangerous neighbours, the kings of Macedonia.
As to the Illyrians, the lesson they had received was not sufficient to
correct them of their piratical habits. Ten years later another
expedition was sent to chastise the Istrians at the head of the
Adriatic,[503] and soon afterwards the disobedience of Demetrius to the
orders of the Senate brought war again upon Illyria. He was compelled to
take refuge with Philip of Macedon, while the young king became the ally
or subject of the Republic. [504] In the mean time a new war attracted
the attention of the Romans.


[Sidenote: Invasion of the Cisalpines (528). ]

IV. The idea of the Senate was evidently to push its domination towards
the north of Italy, and thus to preserve it from the invasion of the
Gauls. In 522, at the proposal of the tribune Flaminius, the Senones had
been expelled from Picenum, and their lands, declared public domain,
were distributed among the plebeians. This measure, a presage to the
neighbouring Gaulish tribes of the lot reserved for them, excited among
them great uneasiness, and they began to prepare for a formidable
invasion. In 528, they called from the other side of the Alps a mass of
barbarians of the warlike race of the Gesatæ. [505] The terror at Rome
was great. The same interests animated the peoples of Italy, and the
fear of a danger equally threatening for all began to inspire them with
the same spirit. [506] They rushed to arms; an army of 150,000 infantry
and 6,000 cavalry was sent into the field, and the census of men capable
of bearing arms amounted to nearly 800,000. The enumeration of the
contingents of each country[507] furnishes valuable information on the
general population of Italy, which appears, at this period, to have
been, without reckoning the slaves, about the same as at the present
day, yet with this difference, that the men capable of bearing arms were
then in a much greater proportion. [508] These documents also give rise
to the remark that the Samnites, only forty years recovered from the
disasters of their sanguinary struggles, could still furnish 77,000 men.

The Gauls penetrated to the centre of Tuscany, and at Fesulæ defeated a
Roman army; but, intimidated by the unexpected arrival of the consul L.
Æmilius coming from Rimini, they retired, when, meeting the other
consul, Caius Atilius, who, returning from Sardinia, had landed at Pisa,
they were enclosed between two armies, and were annihilated. In the
following year, the Gaulish tribes, successively driven back to the
other side of the Po, were defeated again on the banks of the Adda; the
coalition of the Cisalpine peoples was dissolved, without leading to the
complete submission of the country. The colonies of Cremona and
Placentia contributed, nevertheless, to hold it in check.

While the north of Italy seemed sufficient to absorb the attention of
the Romans, great events were passing in Spain.


[Sidenote: Second Punic War (536-552). ]

V. Carthage, humiliated, had lost the empire of the sea, with Sicily and
Sardinia. Rome, on the contrary, had strengthened herself by her
conquests in the Mediterranean, in Illyria, and in the Cisalpine.
Suddenly the scene changes: the dangers which threatened the African
town disappear, Carthage rises from her abasement, and Rome, which had
lately been able to count 800,000 men in condition to carry arms, will
soon tremble for her own existence. A change so unforeseen is brought
about by the mere appearance in the ranks of the Carthaginian army of a
man of genius, Hannibal.

His father, Hamilcar, chief of the powerful faction of the Barcas, had
saved Carthage by suppressing the insurrection of the mercenaries.
Charged afterwards with the war in Spain, he had vanquished the most
warlike peoples of that country, and formed in silence a formidable
array. Having discovered early the merit of a young man named Hasdrubal,
he took him into his favour with the intention of making him his
successor. In taking him for his son-in-law, he entrusted to him the
education of Hannibal, on whom rested his dearest hopes. Hamilcar having
been slain in 526, Hasdrubal had taken his place at the head of the
army.

The progress of the Carthaginians in Spain, and the state of their
forces in that country, had alarmed the Senate, which, in 526, obliged
the government of Carthage to subscribe to a new treaty, prohibiting the
Punic army from passing the Ebro, and attacking the allies of the
Republic. [509] This last article referred to the Saguntines, who had
already had some disputes with the Carthaginians. The Romans affected
not to consider them as aborigines, and founded their plea on a legend
which represented this people as a colony from Ardea, contemporary with
the Trojan war. [510] By a similar conduct Rome created allies in Spain
to watch her old adversaries, and this time, as in the case of the
Mamertines, she showed an interested sympathy in favour of a weak nation
exposed to frequent collisions with the Carthaginians. Hasdrubal had
received the order to carry into execution the new treaty; but he was
assassinated by a Gaul, in 534, and the army, without waiting for orders
from Carthage, chose by acclamation for its chief Hannibal, then
twenty-nine years of age. In spite of the rival factions, this choice
was ratified, and perhaps any hesitation on the part of the council in
Carthage would only have led to the revolt of the troops. The party of
the Barcas carried the question against the government, and confirmed
the power of the young general. Adored by the soldiers, who saw in him
their own pupil, Hannibal exercised over them an absolute authority, and
believed that with their old band he could venture upon anything.

The Saguntines were at war with the Turbuletæ,[511] allies or subjects
of Carthage. In contempt of the treaty of 256, Hannibal laid siege to
Saguntum, and took it after a siege of several months. He pretended
that, in attacking his own allies, the Saguntines had been the
aggressors. The people of Saguntum hastened to implore the succour of
Rome. The Senate confined itself to despatching commissioners, some to
Hannibal, who gave them no attention, and others to Carthage, where they
arrived only when Saguntum had ceased to exist. An immense booty, sent
by the conqueror, had silenced the faction opposed to the Barcas, and
the people, as well as the soldiers, elevated by success, breathed
nothing but war. The Roman ambassadors, sent to require indemnities, and
even to demand the head of Hannibal, were ill received, and returned
declaring hostilities unavoidable.

Rome prepared for war with her usual firmness and energy. One of the
consuls was ordered to pass into Sicily, and thence into Africa; the
other to lead an army by sea to Spain, and expel the Carthaginians from
that country. But, without waiting the issue of negotiations, Hannibal
was in full march to transfer the war into Italy. Sometimes treating
with the Celtiberian or Gaulish hordes to obtain a passage through their
territory, sometimes intimidating them by his arms, he had reached the
banks of the Rhone, when the consul charged with the conquest of Spain,
P. Cornelius Scipio, landing at the eastern mouth of that river, learnt
that Hannibal had already entered the Alps. He then leaves his army to
his brother Cneius, returns promptly to Pisa, places himself at the head
of the troops destined to fight the Boii, crosses the Po with them,
hoping by this rapid movement to surprise the Carthaginian general at
the moment when, fatigued and weakened, he entered the plains of Italy.

The two armies met on the banks of the Tessino (536). Scipio, defeated
and wounded, fell back on the colony of Placentia. Rejoined in the
neighbourhood of that town by his colleague Tib. Sempronius Longus, he
again, on the Trebia, offered battle to the Carthaginians. A brilliant
victory placed Hannibal in possession of a great part of Liguria and
Cisalpine Gaul, the warlike hordes of which received him with enthusiasm
and reinforced his army, reduced, after the passage of the mountains, to
less than 30,000 men. Flattered by the reception of the Gauls, the
Carthaginian general tried also to gain the Italiots, and, announcing
himself as the liberator of oppressed peoples, he took care, after the
victory, to set at liberty all the prisoners taken from the allies. He
hoped that these liberated captives would become for him useful
emissaries. In the spring of 537 he entered Etruria, crossed the marshes
of the Val di Chiana, and, drawing the Roman army to the neighbourhood
of the Lake Trasimenus, into an unfavourable locality, destroyed it
almost totally.

The terror was great at Rome; yet the conqueror, after devastating
Etruria, and attacking Spoletum in vain, crossed the Apennines, threw
himself into Umbria and Picenum, and thence directed his march through
Samnium towards the coast of Apulia. In fact, having reached the centre
of Italy, deprived of all communication with the mother country, without
the engines necessary for a siege, with no assured line of retreat,
having behind him the army of Sempronius, what must Hannibal do? --Place
the Apennines between himself and Rome, draw nearer to the populations
more disposed in his favour, and then, by the conquest of the southern
provinces, establish a solid basis of operation, in direct communication
with Carthage. In spite of the victory of Trasimenus, his position was
critical, for, except the Cisalpine Gauls, all the Italiot peoples
remained faithful to Rome, and so far no one had come to increase his
army. [512] Thus Hannibal remained several months between Casilinum and
Arpi, where Fabius, by his skilful movements, would have succeeded in
starving the Carthaginian army, if the term of his command had not
expired. Moreover, the popular party, irritated at a system of
temporising which it accused of cowardice, raised to the consulship, as
the colleague of Æmilius Paulus, Varro, a man of no capacity. Obliged to
remain in Apulia, to procure subsistence for his troops, Hannibal, being
attacked imprudently, entirely defeated, near Cannæ, two consular armies
composed of eight legions and of an equal number of allies, amounting to
87,000 men (538). [513] One of the consuls perished, the other escaped,
followed only by a few horsemen. 40,000 Romans had been killed or taken,
and Hannibal sent to Carthage a bushel of gold rings taken from the
fingers of knights who lay on the field of battle. [514] From that moment
part of Samnium, Apulia, Lucania, and Bruttium declared for the
Carthaginians, while the Greek towns of the south of the peninsula
remained favourable to the Romans. [515] About the same time, as an
increase of ill fortune, L. Postumus, sent against the Gauls, was
defeated, and his army cut to pieces.

The Romans always showed themselves admirable in adversity; and thus the
Senate, by a skilful policy, went to meet the consul Varro, and thank
him for not having despaired of the Republic; it would, however, no
longer employ the troops which had retreated from the battle, but sent
them into Sicily with a prohibition to return into Italy until the enemy
had been driven out of it. They refused to ransom the prisoners in
Hannibal’s hands. The fatherland, they said, had no need of men who
allowed themselves to be taken arms in hand. [516] This reply made people
report at Rome that the man who possessed power was treated very
differently from the humble citizen. [517]

The idea of asking for peace presented itself to nobody. Each rivalled
the other in sacrifices and devotion. New legions were raised, and there
were enrolled 8,000 slaves, who were restored to freedom after the first
combat. [518] The treasury being empty, all the private fortunes were
brought to its aid. The proprietors of slaves taken for the army, the
farmers of the revenue charged with the furnishing of provisions,
consented to be repaid only at the end of the war. Everybody, according
to his means, maintained at his own expense freedmen to serve on the
galleys. After the example of the Senate, widows and minors carried
their gold and silver to the public treasury. It was forbidden for
anybody to keep at home either jewels, plate, silver or copper money,
above a certain value, and, by the law Oppia, even the toilette of the
ladies was limited. [519] Lastly, the duration of family mourning for
relatives slain before the enemy was restricted to thirty days. [520]

After the victory of Cannæ it would have been more easy for Hannibal to
march straight upon Rome than after Trasimenus; yet, since so great a
captain did not think this possible to attempt, it is not uninteresting
to inquire into his motives. In the first place, his principal force was
in Numidian cavalry, which would have been useless in a siege;[521]
then, he had generally the inferiority in attacking fortresses. Thus,
after Trebia, he could not reduce Placentia;[522] after Trasimenus, he
failed before Spoletum; three times he marched upon Naples, without
venturing to attack it; later still, he was obliged to abandon the
sieges of Nola, Cumæ, and Casilinum. [523] What, then, could be more
natural than his hesitation to attack Rome, defended by a numerous
population, accustomed to the use of arms?

The most striking proof of the genius of Hannibal is the fact of his
having remained sixteen years in Italy, left almost to his own forces,
reduced to the necessity of recruiting his army solely among his new
allies, and of subsisting at their expense, ill seconded by the Senate
of his own country, having always to face at least two consular armies,
and, lastly, shut up in the peninsula by the Roman fleets, which guarded
its coasts to intercept reinforcements from Carthage. His constant
thought, therefore, was to make himself master of some important points
of the coast in order to open a communication with Africa. After Cannæ,
he occupies Capua, seeks to gain the sea by Naples,[524] Cumæ, Puteoli;
unable to effect these objects, he seizes upon Arpi and Salapia, on the
eastern coast, where he hopes to meet the ambassadors of the King of
Macedonia. He next makes Bruttium his base of operation, and his
attempts are directed against the maritime places, now against
Brundusium and Tarentum, now against Locri and Rhegium.

All the defeats sustained by the generals of the Republic had been
caused, first, by the superiority of the Numidian cavalry, and the
inferiority of the hastily levied Latin soldiers,[525] opposed to old
veteran troops; and, next, by excessive rashness in face of an able
captain, who drew his adversaries to the position which he had chosen.
Nevertheless, Hannibal, considerably weakened by his victories,
exclaimed, after Cannæ, as Pyrrhus had done after Heraclea, that such
another success would be his ruin. [526] Q. Fabius Maximus, recalled to
power (539), continued a system of methodical war; while Marcellus, his
colleague, bolder,[527] assumed the offensive, and arrested the progress
of the enemy, by obliging him to shut himself up in a trapezium, formed
on the north by Capua and Arpi, on the south by Rhegium and Tarentum. In
543 the war was entirely concentrated round two places; the citadel of
Tarentum, blockaded by the Carthaginians, and Capua, besieged by the two
consuls. These had surrounded themselves with lines of countervallation
against the place, and of circumvallation against the attacks from
without. Hannibal, having failed in his attempt to force these latter,
marched upon Rome, in the hope of causing the siege of Capua to be
raised, and by separating the two consular armies, defeating them one
after the other in the plain country. Having arrived under the walls of
the capital, and foreseeing too many difficulties in the way of making
himself master of so large a town, he abandoned his plan of attack, and
fell back to the environs of Rhegium. His abode there was prolonged
during several years, with alternations of reverse and success, in the
south of Italy, the populations of which were favourable to him;
avoiding engagements, keeping near the sea, and not going beyond the
southern extremity of the territory of Samnium.

In 547, a great army, which had left Spain under the command of one of
his brothers, Hasdrubal, had crossed the Alps, and was advancing to
unite with him, marching along the coast of the Adriatic. Two consular
armies were charged with the war against the Carthaginians: one, under
the command of the consul M. Livius Salinator, in Umbria; the other,
having at its head the consul C. Claudius Nero, held Hannibal in check
in Lucania, and had even obtained an advantage over him at Grumentum.
Hannibal had advanced as far as Canusium, when the consul Claudius Nero,
informed of the numerical superiority of the army of succour, leaves his
camp under the guard of Q. Cassius, his lieutenant, conceals his
departure, effects his junction with his colleague, and defeats, near
the Metaurus, Hasdrubal, who perished in the battle with all his
army. [528] From that moment Hannibal foresees the fate of Carthage; he
abandons Apulia, and even Lucania, and retires into the only country
which had remained faithful, Bruttium. He remains shut up there five
years more, in continual expectation of reinforcements,[529] and only
quits Italy when his country, threatened by the Roman legions, already
on the African soil, calls him home to her defence.

In this war the marine of the two nations performed an important part.
The Romans strained every nerve to remain masters of the sea; their
fleets, stationed at Ostia, Brundusium, and Lilybæum, kept incessantly
the most active watch upon the coasts of Italy; they even made cruises
to the neighbourhood of Carthage and as far as Greece. [530] The
difficulty of the direct communications induced the Carthaginians to
send their troops by way of Spain and the Alps, where their armies
recruited on the road, rather than dispatch them to the southern coast
of Italy. Hannibal received but feeble reinforcements;[531] Livy
mentions two only: the first of 4,000 Numidians and 40 elephants; and
the second, brought by Bomilcar to the coast of the Ionian Gulf, near
Locri. [532] All the other convoys appear to have been intercepted, and
one of the most considerable, laden with stores and troops, was
destroyed on the coast of Sicily. [533]

We cannot but admire the constancy of the Romans in face of enemies who
threatened them on all sides. During the same period they repressed the
Cisalpine Gauls and the Etruscans, combated the King of Macedonia, the
ally of Hannibal, sustained a fierce war in Spain, and resisted in
Sicily the attacks of the Syracusans, who, after the death of Hiero, had
declared against the Republic. It took three years to reduce Syracuse,
defended by Archimedes. Rome kept on foot, as long as the Second Punic
war lasted, from sixteen to twenty-four legions,[534] recruited only in
the town and in Latium. [535] These twenty-three legions represented an
effective force of about 100,000 men, a number which will not appear
exaggerated if we compare it with the census of 534, which gave 270,213
men, and only comprised persons in a condition to bear arms.

In the thirteenth year of the war the chances seemed in favour of the
Republic. P. Cornelius Scipio, the son of the consul defeated at Trebia,
had just expelled the Carthaginians from Spain. The people, recognising
his genius, had conferred upon him, six years before, the powers of
proconsul, though he was only twenty-four years of age. On his return to
Rome, Scipio, elected consul (549), passed into Sicily, and from thence
to Africa, where, after a campaign of two years, he defeated Hannibal in
the plains of Zama, and compelled the rival of Rome to sue for peace
(552). The Senate accorded to the conqueror the greatest honour which a
Republic can confer upon one of her citizens--she left it to him to
dictate terms to the vanquished. Carthage was compelled to give up her
ships and her elephants, to pay 10,000 talents (58,000,000 francs
[£2,320,000]), and, finally, to enter into the humiliating engagement
not to make war in future without the authorisation of Rome.


[Sidenote: Results of the Second Punic War. ]

VI. The second Punic war ended in the submission of Carthage and Spain,
but it was at the price of painful sacrifices. During this struggle of
sixteen years, a great number of the most distinguished citizens had
perished; at Cannæ alone two thousand seven hundred knights, two
questors, twenty-one tribunes of the soldiers, and many old consuls,
prætors, and ediles were slain; and so many senators had fallen, that it
was necessary to name a hundred and seventy-seven new ones, taken from
among those who had occupied the magistracies. [536] But such hard trials
had tempered anew the national character. [537] The Republic felt her
strength and her resources unfold themselves; she rejoiced in her
victories with a just pride, without yet experiencing the intoxication
of a too great fortune, and new bonds were formed between the different
peoples of Italy. War against a foreign invasion, in fact, has always
the immense advantage of putting an end to internal dissensions, and
unites the citizens against the common enemy. The greater part of the
allies gave unequivocable proofs of their devotion. The Republic owed
its safety, after the defeat of Cannæ, to the assistance of eighteen
colonies, which furnished men and money. [538] The fear of Hannibal had
fortunately given strength to concord, both in Rome and in Italy: no
more quarrels between the two orders,[539] no more divisions between the
governing and the governed. Sometimes the Senate refers to the people
the most serious questions; sometimes the people, full of trust in the
Senate, submits beforehand to its decision. [540]

It was especially during the struggle against Hannibal that the
inconvenience of the duality and of the annual change of the consular
powers became evident;[541] but this never-ceasing cause of weakness
was, as we have seen before, compensated by the spirit of patriotism.
Here is a striking example: while Fabius was pro-dictator, Minucius,
chief of the cavalry, was, contrary to the usual custom, invested with
the same powers. Hurried on by his temper, he compromised the army,
which was saved by Fabius. He acknowledged his error, submitted
willingly to the orders of his colleague, and thus restored, by his own
voluntary act, the unity of the command. [542] As to the continual change
of the military chiefs, the force of circumstances rendered it necessary
to break through this custom. The two Scipios remained seven years at
the head of the army of Spain; Scipio Africanus succeeded them for
almost as long a period. The Senate and the people had decided that,
during the war of Italy, the powers of the proconsuls and prætors might
be prorogued, and that the same consuls might be re-elected as often as
might be thought fit. [543] And subsequently, in the campaign against
Philip, the tribunes pointed out in the following terms the disadvantage
of such frequent changes: “During the four years that the war of
Macedonia lasted, Sulpicius had passed the greater part of his
consulship in seeking Philip and his army; Villius had overtaken the
enemy, but had been recalled before giving battle; Quinctius, retained
the greater part of the year at Rome by religious cares, would have
pushed the war with sufficient vigour to have entirely terminated it, if
he could have arrived at his destination before the season was so far
advanced. He had hardly entered his winter quarters, when he made
preparations for recommencing the campaign with the spring, with a view
of finishing it successfully, provided no successor came to snatch
victory from him. ”[544] These arguments prevailed, and the consul was
prorogued in his command.

Thus continual wars tended to introduce the stability of military powers
and the permanence of armies. The same legions had passed ten years in
Spain; others had been nearly as long in Sicily; and though, at the
expiration of their service, the old soldiers were dismissed, the
legions remained always under arms. Hence arose the necessity of giving
lands to the soldiers who had finished their time of service; and, in
552, there were assigned to Scipio’s veterans, for each year of service
in Africa and Spain, two acres of the lands confiscated from the
Samnites and Apulians. [545]

It was the first time that Rome took foreign troops into her pay,
sometimes Celtiberians, at others Cretans sent by Hiero of
Syracuse,[546] in fact, mercenaries, and a body of discontented Gauls
who had abandoned the Carthaginian army. [547]

Many of the inhabitants of the allied towns were drawn to Rome,[548]
where, in spite of the sacrifices imposed by the wars, commerce and
luxury increased. The spoils which Marcellus brought from Sicily, and
especially from Syracuse, had given development to the taste for the
arts, and this consul boasted of having been the first who caused his
countrymen to appreciate and admire the masterpieces of Greece. [549] The
games of the circus, in the middle of the sixth century, began to be
more in favour. Junius and Decius Brutus had, in 490, exhibited for the
first time the combats of gladiators, the number of which was soon
increased to twenty-two pairs. [550] Towards this period, also (559),
theatrical representations were first given by the ediles. [551] The
spirit of speculation had taken possession of the high classes, as
appears by the law forbidding the senators (law Claudia, 536) to
maintain at sea ships of a tonnage of more than three hundred amphoræ;
as the public wealth increased, the knights, composed of the class who
paid most taxes, increased also, and tended to separate into two
categories, some serving in the cavalry, and possessing the horse
furnished by the State (_equus publicus_),[552] the others devoting
themselves to commerce and financial operations. The knights had long
been employed in civil commissions,[553] and were often called to the
high magistracies; and therefore Perseus justly called them “the nursery
of the Senate, and the young nobility out of which issued consuls and
generals (_imperatores_). ”[554] During the Punic wars they had rendered
great services by making large advances for the provisioning of the
armies;[555] and if some, as undertakers of transports, had enriched
themselves at the expense of the State, the Senate hesitated in
punishing their embezzlements, for fear of alienating this class,
already powerful. [556] The territorial wealth was partly in the hands of
the great proprietors; this appears from several facts, and, among
others, from the hospitality given by a lady of Apulia to 10,000 Roman
soldiers, who had escaped from the battle of Cannæ, whom she entertained
at her own private cost on her own lands. [557]

Respect for the higher classes had been somewhat shaken, as we learn
from the adoption of a measure of apparently little importance. Since
the fall of the kingly power, there had been established in the public
games no distinction between the spectators. Deference for authority
rendered all classification superfluous, and “never would a plebeian,”
says Valerius Maximus,[558] “have ventured to place himself before a
senator. ” But, towards 560, a law was passed for assigning to the
members of the Senate reserved places. It is necessary, for the good
order of society, to increase the severity of the laws as the feeling of
the social hierarchy becomes weakened.

Circumstances had brought other changes; the tribuneship, without being
abolished, had become an auxiliary of the aristocracy. The tribunes no
longer exclusively represented the plebeian order; they were admitted
into the Senate; they formed part of the government, and employed their
authority in the interest of justice and the fatherland. [559] The three
kinds of comitia still remained,[560] but some modifications had been
introduced into them. The assembly of the curiæ[561] consisted now only
of useless formalities. Their attributes, more limited every day, were
reduced to the conferring of the _imperium_, and the deciding of certain
questions about auspices and religion. The comitia by centuries, which
in their origin were the assembly of the people in arms, voting in the
Campus Martius, and nominating their military chiefs, retained the same
privileges; only, the century had become a subdivision of the tribe. All
the citizens inscribed in each of the thirty-five tribes were separated
into five classes, according to their fortune; each class was divided
into two centuries, the one of the young men (_juniores_) the other of
the older men (_seniores_).

As to the comitia by tribes, in which each voted without distinction of
rank or fortune, their legislative power continued to increase as that
of the comitia by centuries diminished.

Thus the Roman institutions, while appearing to remain the same, were
incessantly changing. The political assemblies, the laws of the Twelve
Tables, the classes established by Servius Tullius, the yearly election
to offices, the military services, the tribuneship, the edileship, all
seemed to remain as in the past, and in reality all had changed through
the force of circumstances. Nevertheless, this appearance of immobility
in the midst of progressing society was one advantage of Roman manners.
Religious observers of tradition and ancient customs, the Romans did not
appear to destroy what they displaced; they applied ancient forms to new
principles, and thus introduced innovations without disturbance, and
without weakening the prestige of institutions consecrated by time.


[Sidenote: The Macedonian War (554). ]

VII. During the second Punic war, Philip III. , king of Macedonia, had
attacked the Roman settlements in Illyria, invaded several provinces of
Greece, and made an alliance with Hannibal. Obliged to check these
dangerous aggressions, the Senate, from 540 to 548, maintained large
forces on the coasts of Epirus and Macedonia; and, united with the
Ætolian league, and with Attalus, king of Pergamus, had forced Philip to
conclude peace. But in 553, after the victory of Zama, when this prince
again attacked the free cities of Greece and Asia allied to Rome, war
was declared against him. The Senate could not forget that at this last
battle a Macedonian contingent was found among the Carthaginian troops,
and that still there remained in Greece a large number of Roman citizens
sold for slaves after the battle of Cannæ. [562] Thus from each war was
born a new war, and every success was destined to force the Republic
into the pursuit of others. Now the Adriatic was to be passed, first, to
curb the power of the Macedonians, and then to call to liberty those
famous towns, the cradles of civilisation. The destinies of Greece could
not be a matter of indifference to the Romans, who had borrowed her
laws, her science, her literature, and her arts.

Sulpicius, appointed to combat Philip, landed on the coast of Epirus,
and penetrated into Macedonia, where he gained a succession of
victories, while one of his lieutenants, sent to Greece with the fleet,
caused the siege of Athens to be raised.
During two years the war
languished, but the Roman fleet, combined with that of Attalus and the
Rhodians, remained master of the sea (555). T. Quinctius Flamininus,
raised to the consulship while still young, justified, by his
intelligence and energy, the confidence of his fellow-citizens. He
detached the Achaians and Bœtians from their alliance with the King
of Macedonia, and, with the aid of the Ætolians, gained the battle of
Cynoscephalæ in Thessaly (557), where the legion routed the celebrated
phalanx of Philip II. and Alexander the Great. Philip III. , compelled to
make peace, was fain to accept hard conditions; the first of which was
the obligation to withdraw his garrisons from the towns of Greece and
Asia, and the prohibition to make war without the permission of the
Senate.

The recital of Livy, which speaks of the decree proclaiming liberty to
Greece, deserves to be quoted. We see there what value the Senate then
attached to moral influence, and to that true popularity which the glory
of having freed a people gives:--

“The epoch of the celebration of the Isthmian games generally attracted
a great concourse of spectators, either because of the natural taste of
the Greeks for all sorts of games, or because of the situation of
Corinth, which, seated on two seas, offered easy access to the curious.
But on this occasion an immense multitude flocked thither from all
parts, in expectation of the future fate of Greece in general, and of
each people in particular: this was the only subject of thought and
conversation. The Romans take their place, and the herald, according to
custom, advances into the middle of the arena, whence the games are
announced according to a solemn form. The trumpet sounds, silence is
proclaimed, and the herald pronounces these words: ‘The Roman Senate,
and S. T. Quinctius, imperator, conquerors of Philip and the Macedonians,
re-establish in the enjoyment of liberty, their laws, and privileges,
the Corinthians, the Phocians, the Locrians, the island of Eubœa, the
Magnetes, the Thessalians, the Perrhœbi, and the Achæans of
Phthiotis. ’ These were the names of all the nations which had been under
the dominion of Philip. At this proclamation, the assembly was overcome
with excess of joy. Hardly anybody could believe what he heard. The
Greeks looked at each other as if they were still in the illusions of a
pleasant dream, to be dissipated on awakening, and, distrusting the
evidence of their ears, they asked their neighbours if they were not
deceived. The herald is recalled, each man burning, not only to hear,
but to see the messenger of such good news; he reads the decree a second
time. Then, no longer able to doubt their happiness, they uttered cries
of joy, and bestowed on their liberator such loud and repeated applause
as make it easy to see that, of all good, liberty is that which has most
charm for the multitude. Then the games were celebrated, but hastily,
and without attracting the looks or the attention of the spectators. One
interest alone absorbed their souls, and took from them the feeling of
every other pleasure.

“The games ended, the people rush towards the Roman general; everybody
is anxious to greet him, to take his hand, to cast before him crowns of
flowers and of ribbons, and the crowd was so great that he was almost
suffocated. He was but thirty-three years of age, and the vigour of
life, joined with the intoxication of a glory so dazzling, gave him
strength to bear up against such a trial. The joy of the peoples was not
confined to the enthusiasm of the moment: the impression was kept up
long afterwards in their thoughts and speech. ‘There was then,’ they
said, ‘one nation upon earth, which, at its own cost, at the price of
fatigues and perils, made war for the liberty of peoples even though
removed from their frontiers and continent: this nation crossed the
seas, in order that there should not be in the whole world one single
unjust government, and that right, equity, and law should be everywhere
dominant. The voice of a herald had been sufficient to restore freedom
to all the cities of Greece and Asia. The idea alone of such a design
supposed a rare greatness of soul; but to execute it needed as much
courage as fortune. ’”[563]

There was, however, a shadow on the picture. All Peloponnesus was not
freed, and Flamininus, after having taken several of his possessions
from Nabis, king of Sparta, had concluded peace with him, without
continuing the siege of Lacedæmon, of which he dreaded the length. He
feared also the arrival of a more dangerous enemy, Antiochus III. , who
had already reached Thrace, and threatened to go over into Greece with a
considerable army. For this the allied Greeks, occupied only with their
own interests, reproached the Roman consul with having concluded peace
too hastily with Philip, whom, in their opinion, he could have
annihilated. [564] But Flamininus replied that he was not commissioned to
dethrone Philip, and that the existence of the kingdom of Macedonia was
necessary as a barrier against the barbarians of Thrace, Illyria, and
Gaul. [565] Meanwhile, accompanied even to their ships by the
acclamations of the people, the Roman troops evacuated the cities
restored to liberty (560), and Flamininus returned to a triumph at Rome,
bringing with him that glorious protectorate of Greece, so long an
object of envy to the successors of Alexander.


[Sidenote: War against Antiochus (563). ]

VIII. The policy of the Senate had been to make Macedonia a rampart
against the Thracians, and Greece herself a rampart against Macedonia.
But, though the Romans had freed the Achæan league, they did not intend
to create a formidable power or confederation. Then, as formerly, the
Athenians, the Spartans, the Bœotians, the Ætolians, and, finally,
the Achæans, each endeavoured to constitute an Hellenic league for their
own advantage; and each aspiring to dominate over the others, turned
alternately to those from whom it hoped the most efficient support at
the time. In the Hellenic peninsula, properly so called, the Ætolians,
to whose territory the Senate had promised to join Phocis and Locris,
coveted the cities of Thessaly, which the Romans obstinately refused
them.

Thus, although reinstated in the possession of their independence,
neither the Ætolians, the Achæans, nor yet the Spartans, were satisfied:
they all dreamt of aggrandisement. The Ætolians, more impatient, made,
in 562, three simultaneous attempts against Thessaly, the island of
Eubœa, and Peloponnesus. Having only succeeded in seizing Demetrias,
they called Antiochus III. to Greece, that they might place him at the
head of the hegemony, which they sought in vain to obtain from the
Romans.

The better part of the immense heritage left by Alexander the Great had
fallen to this prince. Already, some years before, Flamininus had given
him notice that it belonged to the honour of the Republic not to
abandon Greece, of which the Roman people had loudly proclaimed itself
the liberator; and that after having delivered it from the yoke of
Philip, the Senate now wished to free from the dominion of Antiochus all
the Asian cities of Hellenic origin. [566] Hannibal, who had taken refuge
with the King of Syria, encouraged him to resist, by engaging him to
carry the struggle into Italy, as he himself had done. War was then
declared by the Romans. To maintain the independence of Greece against
an Asiatic prince was at once to fulfil treaties and undertake the
defence of civilisation against barbarism. Thus, in proclaiming the most
generous ideas, the Republic justified its ambition.

The services rendered by Rome were already forgotten. [567] Antiochus
thus found numerous allies in Greece, secret or declared. He organised a
formidable confederacy, into which entered the Ætolians, the Athamanes,
the Elians, and the Bœotians, and, having landed at Chalcis,
conquered Eubœa and Thessaly. The Romans opposed to him the King of
Macedonia and the Achæans. Beaten at Thermopylæ, in 563, by the consul
Acilius Glabrio, aided by Philip, the King of Syria withdrew to Asia,
and the Ætolians, left to themselves, demanded peace, which was granted
them in 563.

It was not enough to have compelled Antiochus to abandon Greece. L.
Scipio, having his brother, the vanquisher of Carthage, for his
lieutenant, went in 564 to seek him out in his own territory. Philip
favoured the passage of the Roman army, which crossed Macedonia, Thrace,
and the Hellespont without difficulty. The victories gained at Myonnesus
by sea, and at Magnesia by land, terminated the campaign, and compelled
Antiochus to yield up all his provinces on this side Mount Taurus, and
pay 15,000 talents--a third more than the tax imposed on Carthage after
the second Punic war. The Senate, far from reducing Asia then to a
province, exacted only just and moderate conditions. [568] All the Greek
towns of that country were declared free, and the Romans only occupied
certain important points, and enriched their allies at the expense of
Syria. The King of Pergamus and the Rhodian fleet had seconded the Roman
army. Eumenes II. , the successor of Attalus I. , saw his kingdom
increased; Rhodes obtained Lycia and Caria; Ariarathes, king of
Cappadocia, who had given aid to Antiochus, paid two hundred
talents. [569]


[Sidenote: The War in the Cisalpine (558-579). ]

IX. The prompt submission of the East was a fortunate occurrence for the
Republic, for near at home, enemies, always eager and watchful, might at
any moment, supported or excited by their brethren on the other side of
the Alps, attack her in the very centre of her empire.

Indeed, since the time of Hannibal, war had been perpetuated in the
Cisalpine, the bellicose tribes of which, though often beaten, engaged
continually in new insurrections. The settlement of the affairs of
Macedonia left the Senate free to act with more vigour, and in 558 the
defeat of the Ligures, of the Boii, of the Insubres, and of the
Cenomani, damped the ardour of these barbarous peoples. The Ligures and
the Boii, however, continued the strife; but the bloody battle of 561,
fought near Modena, and, later, the ravages committed by L. Flamininus,
brother of the conqueror of Cynoscephalæ, and Scipio Nasica, during the
following years, obliged the Boii to treat. Compelled to yield the half
of their territory, they retired towards the Danube in 564, and three
years afterwards Cisalpine Gaul was formed into a Roman province.

As to the Ligures, they maintained a war of desperation to the end of
the century. Their resistance was such that Rome was obliged to meet it
with measures of excessive rigour; and in 574, more than 47,000 Ligures
were transported into a part of Samnium which had been left almost
without inhabitants since the war with Hannibal. In 581, lands beyond
the Po were distributed to other Ligures. [570] Every year the frontiers
receded more towards the north, and military roads,[571] the foundation
of important colonies, secured the march of the armies--a system which
had been interrupted during the second Punic war, but was afterwards
adopted, and especially applied to the south of Italy and the
Cisalpine. [572]

In achieving the submission of this last province, Rome had put an end
to other less important wars. In 577 she reduced the Istrians; in 579,
the Sardinians and the Corsicans; finally, from 569 to 573, she extended
her conquests into Spain, where she met the same enemies as Carthage had
encountered.


[Sidenote: War against Persia (583). ]

X. For twenty-six years had peace been maintained with Philip, the
Ætolians vanquished, the peoples of Asia subdued, and the greater part
of Greece restored to liberty. Profiting by its co-operation with the
Romans against Antiochus, the Achæan league had largely increased, and
Philopœmen had brought into it Sparta, Messene, and the island of
Zacynthus; but these countries, impatient of the Achæan rule, soon
sought to free themselves from it. Thus was realised the prediction of
Philip, who told the Thessalian envoys, after the battle of
Cynoscephalæ, that the Romans would soon repent of having given liberty
to peoples incapable of enjoying it, and whose dissensions and
jealousies would always keep up a dangerous agitation. [573] In fact,
Sparta and Messene rebelled, and sued for help from Rome. Philopœmen,
after having cruelly punished the first of these cities, perished in his
struggle with the second. Thessaly and Ætolia were torn by anarchy and
civil war.

Whilst the Republic was occupied in restoring tranquillity to these
countries, a new adversary came to imprudently attract its wrath. One
would say that Fortune, while raising up so many enemies against Rome,
took pleasure in delivering them, one after the other, into her hands.
The old legend of Horatius killing the three Curiatii in succession was
a lesson which the Senate had never forgotten.

Perseus, heir to his father’s crown and enmities, had taken advantage of
the peace to increase his army and his resources, to make allies, and to
rouse up the kings and peoples of the East against Rome. Besides the
warlike population of his own country, he had at his beck barbarous
peoples like the Illyrians, the Thracians, and the Bastarnæ, dwelling
not far from the Danube. Notwithstanding the treaty, which forbad
Macedonia to make war without the consent of the Senate, Perseus had
silently aggrandised himself on the side of Thrace; he had placed
garrisons in the maritime cities of Oenoe and Maronia, excited the
Dardanians[574] to war, brought under subjection the Dolopes, and
advanced as far as Delphi. [575] He endeavored to draw the Achæans into
an alliance, and skilfully obtained the good-will of the Greeks. Eumenes
II. , king of Pergamus, who, like his father Attalus I. , feared the
encroachments of Macedonia, denounced at Rome this infraction of the old
treaties. The fear with which a powerful prince inspired him, and the
gratitude which he owed to the Republic for the aggrandisement of his
kingdom after the Asian war, obliged him to cultivate the friendship of
the Roman people. In 582 he came to Rome, and, honourably received by
the Senate, forgot nothing which might excite it against Perseus, whom
he accused of ambitious designs hostile to the Republic. This
denunciation raised violent enmities against Eumenes. On his way back to
his kingdom, he was attacked by assassins, and dangerously wounded.
Suspicion fell on the Macedonian monarch, not without show of reason,
and was taken by the Republic as sufficient ground for declaring war on
a prince whose power began to offend it.

Bold in planning, Perseus displayed cowardice when it was necessary to
act. After having from the first haughtily rejected the Roman claims, he
waited in Thessaly for their army, which, ill-commanded and
ill-organised, was beaten by his lieutenants and repulsed into mountain
gorges, where it might have been easily destroyed. He then offered peace
to P. Licinius Crassus; but, notwithstanding his check, the consul
replied, with all the firmness of the Roman character, that peace was
only possible if Perseus would abandon his person and his kingdom to the
discretion of the Senate. [576] Struck by so much assurance, the king
recalled his troops, and suffered the enemy to effect his retreat
undisturbed. The incapacity of the Roman generals, however, their
violences, and the want of discipline among the soldiers, had alienated
the Greeks, who naturally preferred a prince of their own race to a
foreign captain; moreover, they did not see the Macedonians get the
better of the Romans without a certain satisfaction. In their eyes, it
was the Hellenic civilisation overthrowing the presumption of the
Western barbarians.

The campaigns of 584 and 585 were not more fortunate for the Roman arms.
A consul had the rash idea of invading Macedonia by the passes of
Callipeuce, where his army would have been annihilated if the king had
had the courage to defend himself. At the approach of the legions he
took to flight, and the Romans escaped from their perilous position
without loss. [577] At length, the people, feeling the necessity of
having an eminent man at the head of the army, nominated Paulus Æmilius
consul, who had given many proofs of his military talents in the
Cisalpine. Already the greater part of the Gallo-græci were in treaty
with Perseus. The Illyrians and the people of the Danube offered to
second him. The Rhodians, and the King of Pergamus himself, persuaded
that Fortune was going to declare herself for the King of Macedonia,
made him offers of alliance; he chaffered with them with the most
inexplicable levity. In the mean time, the Roman army, ably conducted,
advanced by forced marches. One single combat terminated the war; and
the battle of Pydna, in 586, once more proved the superiority of the
Roman legion over the phalanx. This, however, did not yield
ingloriously; and, though abandoned by their king, who fled, the
Macedonian hoplites died at their post.

When they heard of this defeat, Eumenes and the Rhodians hastened to
wipe out the remembrance of their ever having doubted the fortune of
Rome[578] by the swiftness of their repentance. At the same time, L.
Anicius conquered Illyria and seized the person of Gentius. Macedonia
was divided into four states called _free_, that is to say, presided
over by magistrates chosen by themselves, but under the protectorate of
the Republic. By the law imposed on these new provinces, all marriages,
and all exchange of immovable property, were interdicted between the
citizens of different states,[579] and the imports reduced one-half. As
we see, the Republic applied the system practised in 416 to dissolve the
Latin confederacy, and later, in 449, that of the Hernici. Illyria was
also divided into three parts. The towns which had first yielded were
exempt from all tribute, and the taxes of the others reduced to
half. [580]

It is not uninteresting to recall to mind how Livy appreciates the
institutions which Macedonia and Illyria received at this epoch. “It was
decreed,” he says, “that liberty should be given to the Macedonians and
Illyrians, to prove to the whole universe that, in carrying their arms
so far, the object of the Romans was to deliver the enslaved peoples,
not to enslave the free peoples; to guarantee to these last their
independence, to the nations subject to kings a milder and more just
government; and to convince them that, in the wars which might break out
between the Republic and their sovereigns, the result would be the
liberty of the peoples: Rome reserving to herself only the honour of
victory. ”[581]

Greece, and above all Epirus, sacked by Paulus Æmilius, underwent the
penalty of defection. As to the Achæan league, the fidelity of which had
appeared doubtful, nearly a thousand of the principal citizens, guilty
or suspected of having favoured the Macedonians, were sent as hostages
to Rome. [582]


[Sidenote: Modification of Roman policy. ]

XI. In carrying her victorious arms through almost all the borders of
the Mediterranean, the Republic had hitherto obeyed either legitimate
needs or generous inspirations. Care for her future greatness, for her
existence even, made it absolute on her to dispute the empire of the sea
with Carthage. Hence the wars, of which Sicily, Sardinia, Spain, Italy,
and Africa, by turns, became the theatre. It was also her duty to combat
the warlike peoples of the Cisalpine, that she might ensure the safety
of her frontiers. As to the expeditions of Macedonia and Asia, Rome had
been drawn into them by the conduct of foreign kings, their violation of
treaties, their guilty plottings, and their attacks on her allies.

To conquer thus became to her an obligation, under pain of seeing fall
to ruin the edifice which she had built up at the price of so many
sacrifices; and, what is remarkable, she showed herself after victory
magnificent towards her allies, clement to the vanquished, and moderate
in her pretensions. Leaving to the kings all the glory of the throne,
and to the nations their laws and liberties, she had reduced to Roman
provinces only a part of Spain, Sicily, Sardinia, and Cisalpine Gaul. In
Sicily she preserved the most intimate alliance with Hiero, tyrant of
Syracuse, for fifty years. The constant support of this prince must have
shown the Senate how much such alliances were preferable to direct
dominion. In Spain she augmented the territory of all the chiefs who
consented to become her allies. After the battle of Cynoscephalæ, as
after that of Magnesia, she maintained on their thrones Philip and
Antiochus, and imposed on this last only the same conditions as those
offered before the victory. If, after the battle of Pydna, she overthrew
Perseus, it was because he had openly violated his engagements; but she
gave equitable laws to Macedonia. Justice then ruled her conduct, even
towards her oldest rival; for when Masinissa asked the help of the
Senate in his quarrels with Carthage, he received for answer that, even
in his favour, justice could not be sacrificed. [583]

In Egypt her protection preserved the crown on the head of Ptolemy
Philometor and of his sister Cleopatra. [584] Finally, when all the kings
came after the victory of Pydna to offer their congratulations to the
Roman people, and to implore their protection, the Senate regulated
their demands with extreme justice. Eumenes, himself an object of
suspicion, sent his brother Attalus to Rome; and he, willing to profit
by the favourable impression he had made, thought to ask for him a part
of the kingdom of Pergamus. He was recommended to give up the design.
The Senate restored his son to Cotys, king of Thrace, without ransom,
saying that the Roman people did not make a traffic of their
benefits. [585] Finally, in the disputes between Prusias, king of
Bithynia, and the Gallo-græcians, it declared that justice alone could
dictate its decision. [586]

How, then, did so much nobleness of views, so much magnanimity in
success, so much prudence in conduct seem to be belied, dating from that
period of twenty-two years which divides the war against Persia from the
third Punic war? Because too much success dazzles nations as well as
kings. When the Romans began to think that nothing could resist them in
the future because nothing had resisted them in the past, they believed
that all was permitted them. They no longer made war to protect their
allies, defend their frontiers, or destroy coalitions, but to crush the
weak, and use nations for their own profit. We must also acknowledge
that the inconstancy of the peoples, faithful in appearance, but always
plotting some defection, and the hatred of the kings, concealing their
resentment under a show of abasement, concurred to render the Republic
more suspicious and more exacting, and caused it to count from
henceforth rather on its subjects than on its allies. Vainly did the
Senate seek to follow the grand traditions of the past; it was no longer
strong enough to curb individual ambitions; and the same institutions
which formerly brought forth the virtues, now only protected the vices
of aggrandised Rome. The generals dared no longer to obey; thus, the
consul Cn. Manlius attacks the Gallo-græcians in Asia without the orders
of the Senate;[587] A. Manlius takes on himself to make an expedition
into Istria;[588] the consul C. Cassius abandons the Cisalpine, his
province, and attempts of his own accord to penetrate into Macedonia by
Illyria;[589] the prætor Furius, on his own authority, disarms one of
the peoples of Cisalpine Gaul, the Cenomani, at peace with Rome;[590]
Popilius Lænas attacks the Statiellates without cause, and sells ten
thousand of them; others also oppress the peoples of Spain. [591] All
these things doubtless incur the blame of the Senate; the consuls and
prætors are disavowed, even accused, but their disobedience none the
less remain unpunished, and the accusations without result. In 599, it
is true, L. Lentulus, consul in the preceding year, underwent
condemnation for exaction, but that did not prevent him from being
raised again to the chief honours. [592]

As long as the object was only to form men destined for a modest part on
a narrow theatre, nothing was better than the annual election of the
consuls and prætors, by which, in a certain space of time, a great
number of the principal citizens of both the patrician and plebeian
nobility participated in the highest offices. Powers thus exercised
under the eyes of their fellow-citizens, rather for honour than
interest, obliged them to be worthy of their trust; but when, leading
their legions into the most remote countries, the generals, far from all
control, and invested with absolute power, enriched themselves by the
spoils of the vanquished, dignities were sought merely to furnish them
with wealth during their short continuance. The frequent re-election of
the magistrates, in multiplying the contests of candidates, multiplied
the ambitious, who scrupled at nothing to attain their object. Thus
Montesquieu justly observes, that “good laws which have made a small
republic great, become a burden to it when it has increased, because
their natural effect was to create a grand people, and not to govern
it. ”[593]

The remedy for this overflowing of unruly passions would have been, on
the one hand, to moderate the desire for conquest; on the other, to
diminish the number of aspirants to power, by giving them a longer term
of duration. But then, the people alone, guided by its instincts, felt
the need of remedying this defect in the institution, by retaining in
authority those who had their confidence. Thus, they wished to appoint
Scipio Africanus perpetual dictator;[594] while pretended reformers,
such as Portius Cato, enslaved to old customs, and in a spirit of
exaggerated rigorism, made laws to interdict the same man from aspiring
twice to the consulship, and to advance the age at which it was lawful
to try for this high office.

All these measures were contrary to the object at which they aimed. In
maintaining annual elections, the way was left free to vulgar
covetousness; in excluding youth from high functions, they repressed the
impulses of those choice natures which early reveal themselves, and the
exceptional elevation of which had so often saved Rome from the greatest
disasters. Have we not seen, for example, in 406, Marcus Valerius
Corvus, raised to the consulate at twenty-three years of age, gain the
battle of Mount Gaurus against the Samnites; Scipio Africanus, nominated
proconsul at twenty-four, conquer Spain and humiliate Carthage; the
consul Quinctius Flamininus, at thirty, carry off from Philip the
victory of Cynoscephalæ? Finally, Scipio Æmilianus, who is to destroy
Carthage, will be elected consul, even before the age fixed by the law
of Cato.

No doubt, Cato the Censor, honest and incorruptible, had the laudable
design of arresting the decline of morals. But, instead of attacking the
cause, he only attacked the effect; instead of strengthening authority,
he tended to weaken it; instead of leaving the nations a certain
independence, he urged the Senate to bring them all under its absolute
dominion; instead of adopting what came from Greece with an enlightened
discernment, he indiscriminately condemned all that was of foreign
origin. [595] There was in Cato’s austerity more ostentation than real
virtue. Thus, during his censorship, he expelled Manlius from the Senate
for having kissed his wife before his daughter in open daylight; he took
pleasure in regulating the toilette and extravagance of the Roman
ladies; and, by an exaggerated disinterestedness, he sold his horse
when he quitted Spain, to save the Republic the cost of transport. [596]

But the Senate contained men less absolute, and wiser appreciators of
the needs of the age; they desired to repress abuses, to carry out a
policy of moderation, to curb the spirit of conquest, and to accept from
Greece all that she had of good. Scipio Nasica and Scipio Æmilianus
figured among the most important. [597] One did not reject whatever might
soften manners and increase human knowledge; the other cultivated the
new muses, and was even said to have assisted Terence.

The irresistible inclination of the people towards all that elevates the
soul and ennobles existence was not to be arrested. Greece had brought
to Italy her literature, her arts, her science, her eloquence; and when,
in 597, there came to Rome three celebrated philosophers--Carneades the
Academician, Diogenes the Stoic, and Critolaus the Peripatetic--as
ambassadors from Athens, they produced an immense sensation. The young
men flocked in crowds to see and hear them; the Senate itself approved
this homage paid to men whose talent must polish, by the culture of
letters, minds still rude and unformed. [598] Cato alone, inexorable,
pretended that these arts would soon corrupt the Roman youth, and
destroy its taste for arms; and he caused these philosophers to be
dismissed.

Sent to Africa as arbiter to appease the struggle between Masinissa and
Carthage, he only embittered it. Jealous at seeing this ancient rival
still great and prosperous, he did not cease pronouncing against her
that famous decree of death: _Delenda est Carthago_. Scipio Nasica, on
the contrary, opposed the destruction of Carthage, which he considered
too weak to do injury, yet strong enough to keep up a salutary fear,
which might prevent the people from casting themselves into all those
excesses which are the inevitable consequences of the unbounded increase
of empires. [599] Unhappily, the opinion of Cato triumphed.

As one of our first writers says, it must be “that truth is a divine
thing, since the errors of good men are as fatal to humanity as vice,
which is the error of the wicked. ”

Cato, by persecuting with his accusations the principal citizens, and,
among others, Scipio Africanus, taught the Romans to doubt virtue. [600]
By exaggeration in his attacks, and by delivering his judgments with
passion, he caused his justice to be suspected. [601] By condemning the
vices from which he himself was not exempt, he deprived his
remonstrances of all moral force. [602] When he scourged the people as
accuser and judge, without seeking to raise them by education and laws,
he resembled, says a learned German, that Persian king who whipped the
sea with rods to make the tempest cease. [603] His influence, though
powerless to arrest the movement of one civilisation taking the place of
another, failed not to produce a fatal effect on the policy of that
period. [604] The Senate, renouncing the moderation and justice which
hitherto had stamped all its deeds, adopted in their stead a crafty and
arrogant line of action, and a system of extermination.

Towards the beginning of the seventh century, everything disappears
before the Roman power.