URIS LIBRARY CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY 3 1924 059 097 570 Cornell University Library The original of tliis book is in tine Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924059097570 THE HISTORY OF ROME THEODOR MOMMSEN TRANSLATED VriTH TH8 ATTTCOB 6 6AN0T10N ANP ADDITIONS, THE REV. WILLIAM P. DICKSON, D. D. aVblU'l PBOFBSSOB 07 BIBLICAL CRtTICl&M IN THE UKITEB8ITY OF OLASOOV LATB CLASSICAL BXAHINIK IN TIIB UKIVBRSITV OF ST. ANDBBWfl WITH A PREFACE BY DR. LEONHARD SCHMITZ NEW EDITION, IN FOUR VOLUMES TroXiTji.is: II. NEW YORK: CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS, 1885. TROWS PRIKTINQ AND BOOKBINDINQ COMPANY, NEW YORK. CONTENTS OF THE SECOND VOLUME. BOOK THIRD. FROM THE UNION OF ITALY TO THE SUBJUGATION OP CARTHAGE AND THE GREEK STATES. CHAPTEE L rial Cabihaqe ••.....» CHAPTER n. The War Betwmn Eon;i and Cakthaoe cokcekninq Italy . 88 CHAPTER m. The Extension op Italy to its Naujkal Boundakies . . 11 CHAPTER IV. IIamilcae ADD Hannibal ..... 103 CHAPTER V. The Wak todeu Hannibal to the Battle or Cansab , 13S CHAPTER VI. Toe Wab under Hannibal from Cannae to Zama . . 166 CHAPTER Vn. The Wist »eo i the Pevoe op Fannibal to the Close op the Third Pj:riod ...... 280 r) CONTENTS. CHAPTER VIII. PAOI The Eastern States and the Second Macedonian War . 254 CHAPTER IX. The War with Antioohus op Asia .... 300 CHAPTER X. The Third Macedonian War ..... 336 CHAPTER XI. The Government and the Governed . . . 372 CHAPTER XII. The Management of Land and of Capital . . . 430 CHAPTER XIII. Faith axd Manners ...... 468 CHAPTER XIV. LlTEBATUBE AND ABT ..... (gj BOOK THIRD. FROM THE UNION OF ITALY TO THB SUBJUGiTIOX OF CARTHAGE AND THE GKEEK STATFa A rdunm ret gestaa scribei-e. ■ -Salldbt. CHAPTER I. CARTIIAQE. The Semitic stock occupied a place amidst, and yet ThePhoe- aloof from, the nations of the ancient classical nicians. world. The true centre of the former lay in the East, that of the latter in the region of the Mediterra- nean ; and, however wars and migrations may have altered the line of demarcation and thrown the races across each other, a deep sencse of diversity has always severed, and still severs, the Indo-Germanic peoples from the Syrian, Israelite, and Arabic nations. This diversity was no less marked in the case of that Semitic people, which spread more than any other in the direction of the v/est — the Phoenicians. Their native seat was the narrow border of coast bounded by Asia Minor, the highlands of Syria, and Egypt, and called Canaan, that is, the " plain." This was the only name which the nation itself made use of; even in Christian times the African farmer called himself a Canaan- ite. But Canaan received from the Hellenes the name of Phoenike, the " land of purple," or " land of the red men," and the Italians also were accustomed to call the Canaanites Punians, as we are accustomed still to speak of them as the Phoenician or Punic race. The land was well adapted for agriculture ; but its ex- Thoircom- oellent harbours and the abundant supply of nierce. timber and of metals eminently favoured the growth of commerce, and it was there perhaps, where the opulent eastern continent abuts on the wide-spreading Medi- terranean so rich in harbours and islands, that commerce first dawned in all its greatness upon man. The Phoeni- wans directed all the resources of courage, acutcness, and Vol.. H.— 1* Carthage. [Book ill enthusiasm to the full development of commerce and its attendant arts of navigation, manufacturing, and coloniza- tion, and thus connected the East and the West. At an incredibly early period we find them in Cyprus and Egypt, in Greece and Sicily, in Africa and Spain, and even on the Atlantic Ocean and the North Sea. The field of their coni' flierce reached from Sierra Leone and Cornvifall in the west, eastward to the coast of Malabar. Through their hands passed the gold and pearls of the East, the purple of Tyre, slaves, ivory, lions' and panthers' skins from the interior of Africa, frankincense from Arabia, the linen of Egypt, the pottery and fine wines of Greece, the copper of Cyprus, the silver of Spain, tin from England, and iron from Elba. The Phoenician mariners supplied every nation with what- ever it needed or was likely to purchase ; and they roamed everywhere, yet always returned to the narrow home to which their affections clung. The Phoenicians are entitled to be commemorated in history by the side of' the Hellenic and Latin Tljeir Intel- " leotnai en- nations ; but their case affords a fresh proof, and owmens. perhaps the strongest proof of all, that the de- velopment of national energies in antiquity was of a one- sided character. Those noble and enduring creations in the field of intellect, which owe their origin to the Aramaean lace, did not emanate from the Phoenicians. While faith and knowledge in a certain sense were the especial property of the Aramaean nations and reached the Indo-Germans only from the East, neither the Phoenician religion nor Phoenician science and art ever, so far as we can see held an independent rank among those of the Aramaean family. The religious conceptions of the Phoenicians were rude and uncouth, and it seemed as if their worship was meant to foster rather than to restrain lust and cruelty. No trace is discernible, at least in times of clear historical light, of any special influence exercised by their religion over other na- tions. As little do we find any Phoenician architecture or plastic art at all comparable even to those of Italy, to say nothing of the lands where art was native. The most Chap. I.] Carthage. 11 ancient seat of scientific observation and of its application to practical purposes was Bab j Ion, or at any rate the region of the Euphrates. It was there probably that men first followed the course of the stars ; it was there that thej first distinguished and expressed in writing the sounds of language ; it was there that they began to reflect on time and space and on the powers at work in nature : the earli- est traces of astronomy and chronology, of the alphabet, and of weights and measures, point to that region. The Phoenicians doubtless availed themselves of the artistic and highly developed manufactures of Babylon for their indus- try, of the observation of the stars for their navigation, of the writing of sounds and the adjustment of measures for their commerce, and distributed many an important germ of civilization along with their wares ; but it cannot be demonstrated that the alphabet or any other ingenious product of the human mind belonged peculiarly to them, and such religious and scientific ideas as they were the means of conveying to the Hellenes were scattered by them more after the fashion of a bird dropping grains than of the husbandman sowing his seed. The power which the Hellenes and even the Italians possessed, of civilizing and assimilating to themselves the nations susceptible of culture with whom they came into contact, was wholly wanting in the Phoenicians. In the field of Roman conquest the Ibe- rian jmd the Celtic languages have disappeared before the Romanic tongue ; the Berbers of Africa speak at the present day the same language as they spoke in the times of the Ilannos and the Barcides. Above all, the Phoenicians, like the rest of the Ara- Their poiiti- maean nations as compared with the Indo-Ger- caiquaUties jjians, lacked the instinct of political life — the noble idea of self-governed freedom. During the most flourishing times of Sidon and Tyre the land of the Phoe- nicians was a perpetual apple of contention between the powers that ruled on the Euphrates and on the Nile, and was subject sometimes to the Assyrians, sometimes to the Egyptians. With half its power Hellenic cities ha/J 12 Carthage. [Book m. achieved their independence; but the prudent Sidonians calculated that the closing of the caravan-routes to the East or of the ports of Egypt would cobt them moie than the heaviest tribute, and so they punctually paid their taxes, a? it might happen, to Nineveh or to Memphis, and even gave their ships, when they could not avoid it, to help to fighS the battles of the kings. And, as at home the Phoenicians patiently submitted to the oppression of their masters, so also abroad they were by no means inclined to exchange the peaceful career of commerce for a policy of conquest. Their colonies were factories. It was of more moment in their view to deal in buying and selling with the natives than to acquire extensive territories in distant lands, and to carry out there the slow and difficult work of colonization. They avoided war even with their rivals ; they allowed themselves to be supplanted in Egypt, Greece, Italy, and the east of Sicily almost without resistance ; and in the great naval battles, which were fought in early times for the supremacy of the western Mediterranean, at Alalia (217) and at Cumae (280), it was the Etruscans, and not the Phoenicians, that bore the brunt of the struggle with the Greeks. If rivalry could not be avoided, they compromised the matter as best they could ; no attempt was ever made by the Phoenicians to conquer Caere or Massilia. Still less, of course, were the Phoeni- eians disposed to enter on aggressive war. On the only occasion in earlier times when they took the field on the offensive — in the great Sicilian expedition of the African Phueiatiatis which terminated in their defeat at Himera by ^ Gelo of Syracuse (274)— it was simply as duti- ful subjects of the great king and in order to avoid taking part in the campaign against the Hellenes of the east, that they entered the lists against the Hellenes of the west ; just as their Syrian kinsmen were in fact obliired in that same year to share the defeat of the Persians*" at Salamis (i. 419). This was not the result of cowardice ; navigation in un- known waters and with armed Vessels requires brave hearts, Chap. I.] Carthage. 18 and that SJich were to be found among the Phoenicians; they often showed. Still less was it the result of any lack of tenacity and idiosyncracy of national feeling ; on the contrary the Aramaeans defended their nationality with spiritual weapons as well as with their blood against all the allurements of Greek civilization and all the coercive meas- ures of eastern and western despots, and that with an obsti" nacy which no Indo-Germanic people has ever equalled, and which to us who belong to the West seems to be sometimes more sometimes less than human. It was the result of that want of political instinct, which amidst all their lively sense of the ties of race, and amidst all their faithful attach- ment to the city of their fathers, formed the most essential feature in the character of the Phoenicians. Liberty had no charms for them, and they aspired not after dominion ; " quietly they lived," says the Book of Judges, " after the manner of the Sidonians, careless and secure, and in posses- sion of riches." Of all the Phoenician settlements none attained a more rapid and secure prosperity than those which were established by the Tyrians and Sidonians on the south coast of Spain and the north coast of Africa — regions that lay beyond the reach of the arm of the great king and the dangerous rivalry of the mariners of Greece, and in which the natives held the same relation to the stran- gers as the Indians in America held to the Europeans. Among the numerous and flourishing Phoenician cities along these shores, the most prominent by far was the " new town," Karthada or, as the Occidentals called it, Kat- chcdon or Carthago. Although not the earliest settlement of the Phoenicians in this region, and originally perhaps a dependency of the adjoining Utica the oldest of the Phoeni' fian towns in Libya, it soon outstripped its neighbours and even the motherland through the incomparable advantages of its situation and the energetic activity of its inhabitants. It was situated not far from the (former) mouth of the Bagradas (Mejerda), which flows through the richest corn district of northern Africa, and -was placed on a fertile rising 14 Ca/rthage. [Book nt ground, still occupied with country houses and covered with groves of olive and orange trees, falling ofF in a gentle slope towards the plain, and terminating towards the sea it a seargirt promontory. Lying in the heart of the great North-African roadstead, the Gulf of Tunis, at the very spot where that beautiful basin affords the best anchorage for vessels of larger size, and where drinkable spring water is got close by the shore, the place proved singularly favourable for agriculture and commerce and for the ex- change of their respective commodities — so favourable, that not only was the Tyrian settlement in that quarter the first of Phoenician mercantile cities, but even in the Roman period Carthage was no sooner restored than it became the third city in the empire, and still, under circumstances far from favourable and on a site far less judiciously chosen, there exists and flourishes in that quarter a city of a hun- dred thousand inhabitants. The prosperity, agricultural, mercantile, and industrial, of a city so situated and so peopled, needs no explanation ; but the question requires an answer — In what way did this settlement come to attain such a development of political power as no other Phoeni- cian city possessed ? That the Phoenician stock did not even in Carthage cartha e renounce its passive policy, there is no lack of he.idsthe evidence to prove. Carthage paid, even down Phoenicians to the times of its prosperity, a ground-rent for in opposi- , -Til. tion to the the spacc occupied by the city to the native G enes. Berbers, the tribe of Maxitani or Maxyes ; and although the sea and the desert sufficiently protected the city fi-om any assault of the eastern powers, Carthage appears t-o have recognized — although but nominally — the suprem- acy of the great king, and to have paid tribute to him occa- sionally, in order to secure its commercial communications with Tyre and the East. But with all their disposition to be submissive and cringing, circumstances occurred which compelled these Phoenicians to adopt a more energetic policy. The stream of Hellenic migrttion was pouring ceaselessly towards the Chap. I.] Carth its^ower"m tiquity. At the time of the Peloponnesian war *^*' this Phoenician city was, according to the testi- mony of the first of Greek historians, financially superior to all the Greek states, and its revenues were compared to those of the great king ; Polybius calls it the wealthiest city in the world. The intelligent character of the Cartha- ginian husbandry — which, as was the case subsequently in Eome, generals and statesmen did, not disdain scientifically to practise and to teach — is attested by the agricultural treatise of the Carthaginian Mago, which was universally regarded by the later Greek and Roman rural authors as the fundamental code of rational husbandry, and was not only translated into Greek, but was edited also in Latin by command of the Roman senate and officially recommended 28 Carthage. [Book 111 to the Italian landholders. A characteristic feature was the close connection between this Phoenician agriculture and capital : it was quoted as a leading maxim of Phoeni- cian husbandry that one should never acquire more land than he could thoroughly manage. The rich resources of the country in horses, oxen, sheep, and goats, in which Libya by reason of its Nomad husbandry perhaps excelled at that time, as Polybius testifies, all other lands of tho earth, were of great advantage to the Carthaginians. As these were the instructors of the Eomans in the art of profitably working the soil, they were so likewise in the art of turning to good account their subjects ; by virtue of which Carthage reaped indirectly the rents of the " best part of Europe," and of the' rich — and in some portions, such as in Byzacitis and on the lesser Syrtis, surpassingly productive — region of northern Africa. Commerce, which was always regarded in Carthage as an honourable pursuit, and the shipping and manufactures which commerce ren- dered flourishing, brought even in the natural course of things golden harvests annually to the settlers there ; and we have already indicated how skilfully, by an extensive and ever-growing system of monopoly, not only all the foreign but also all the inland commerce of the western Mediterranean, and the whole carrying trade between the west and east, were more and more concentrated in that sin- gle harbour. Science fod art in Carthage, as afterwards in Rome. seem to havs Deen mainly dependent on Hellenic influences but they do r^t appear to have been neglected. There was a respectabV Phoenician literature ; and on the conquest of the city there were found rich treasures of art — not created, It is true, in Carthage, but carried off from Sicilian temples —and considerable libraries. But even intellect there was m the service of capital; the prominent features of its literature were chiefly agricultural and geographical trea tises, such as the work of Mago already mentioned and tho account by the admiral Hanno of his voyage along tha (vest coast of Africa, which was origina,lly deposited pub- Chap. L] Carthage. 29 licly in one of the Carthaginian temples, and which is still extant in a translation. Even the general diffusion of cer- tain attainments, and particularly of the knowledge of for- eign languages,* as to which the Carthage of this epoch probably stood almost on a level with Rome under the empire, forms an evidence of the thoroughly practical turn given to Hellenic culture in Carthage. It is absolutely im- possible to form an idea of the mass of capital accumu- lated in this London of antiquity, but some notion at least may be gained of the public revenues from the fact, that, in spite of the costly system on which Carthage organized its wars and in spite of the careless and faithless adminis- tration of the state property, the contributions of its sub- jects and the customs-revenue completely covered the ex- penditure, so that no direct taxes were levied from the citi- zens ; and further, that even after the second Punic war, when the power of the state was already broken, the cur- rent expenses and the payment to Rome of a yearly instal- ment of £48,000 could be met, without levying any tax, merely by a somewhat stricter management of the finances, and fourteen years after the peace the state proffered imme- diate payment of the thirty-six remaining instalments. But it was not merely the sum total of its revenues that evinced the superiority of the financial administration at Carthage, The economical principles of a later and more advanced epoch are found by us in Carthage alone of all the more considerable states of antiquity. Mention is made of for- eign state-loans, and in the monetary system we find along with gold and silver no.ention. of a token-money having no intrinsic value — a species of currency not used elsewhere in antiquity. In fact, if government had resolved itself into * The steward on a country estate, although a slave, ought, accord- ing to the precept of the Carthaginian agricultural writer Mago (op. Varro, R. R. i. 17), to be able to read, and ought to possess some cul- ture. In the prologue of the " Poeniilua " of Plautus, it is said of th| biTo of the title : — Et is omnes linffuat scit ; ttJ disiimulat seiens Setcire; Poenus plane ett ; . (494), fancied, when on the voyage, that he 52 The War hetween Rome and [Book m should be able to capture Lipara by a coup de main. But a division of the Carthaginian fleet stationed at Panormua blockaded the harbour of the island where the Eoman ves- sels rode at anchor, and captured the whole squadron along with the consul without a struggle. This, however, did not deter the main fleet from likewise sailing, as soon as its preparations were completed, for Messana. On its voyage along the Italian coast it fell in with a Carthaginian recon- noitring squadron of less strength, on which it had the good fortune to inflict a loss more than counterbalancing the first loss of the Eomans ; and thus successful and victorious it entered the port of Messana, where the second consul Gaius Duilius took the command in room of his captured col- league. At the promontory of Mylae, to the north-west of Messana, the Carthaginian fleet, that advanced from Panor- mus under the command of Hannibal, encountered the Ro- man, which here underwent its first trial on a great scale. The Carthaginians, seeing in the ill-sailing and awkward vessels of the Romans an easy prey, fell upon them in irregular order ; but the newly invented boarding-bridges proved their thorough efficiency. The Roman vessels hooked and stormed those of the enemy as they came up one by one ; they could not be approached either in front or on the sides without the dangerous bridge descending on the enemy's deck. When the battle was over, about fifty Carthaginian vessels, almost the half of the fleet, were sunk or captured by the Romans ; among the latter was the ship of the admiral Hannibal, formerly belonging to king Pyr- rhus. The gain was great ; still greater the moral effect of the victory. Rome had suddenly become a naval power, and held in her hand the means of energetically terminating a war which threatened to be endlessly prolonged and to involve the commerce of Italy in ruin. Two plans were open to the Romans. They might at- iiiewaron ''^^'^ Carthage on the Italian islands and deprive Koiiyand"' ^^^ °^ ^^^ ^oast fortresses of Sicily and Sardinia Sardinia. one after another — a scheme which was perhaps practicable through well-combined operations by land and Chap. II.] Carthage concerning Sicily. 53 sea ; and, in the event of its being accomplished, pi'ace might either be concluded with Carthage on the basis of the cession of these islands, or, should such terms not be ao cepted or prove unsatisfactory, the second stage of the -war might be transferred to Africa. Or they might neglect the islands and throw themselves at once with all their strength on Africa, not, in the adventurous style of Agathocles, burn ing their vessels behind them and staking all on the victory of a desperate band, but covering with a strong fleet the communications between the African invading army and Italy ; and in that case a peace on moderate terms might be expected from the consternation of the enemy after the first successes, or, if the Eomans chose, they might by pushing matters to an extremity compel the enemy to entirp surrender. They chose, in the first instance, the former plan of operations. In the year after the battle of My- lae (495) the consul Lucius Scipio captured the port of Aleria in Corsica — we still possess the tombstone of the general, which makes mention of this deed — and made Corsica a naval station against Sardinia., An attempt to establish a footing in Olbia on the northern coast of that island failed, because the fleet wanted troops for landing. In the succeeding year (496) it was repeated with better success, and the open villages along the coast were plundered ; but no permanent establishment of the Eomans took place. Nor was greater progress made in Sicily. Hamilcar conducted the war with energy and adroitness, not only by force of arms on sea and land, but also by political proselytism. Of the numerous small country towns some every year fell away from the Romans, and had to be laboriously reclaimed from the Phoenician grasp ; while in the coast fortresses the Carthaginians main tained themselves without challenge, particularly in theii head-quarters of Panormus and in their new stronghc^ld of Drepana, to which, on account of its easier defence by sea, Hamilcar had transferred the inhabitants of Eryx. A sec- ond great naval engagement off the promontory of T) ndarii 54 The War hetween Home and [Book m (497), in which both parties claimed the victory '' made no change in the position of affairs. In th'j way no progress was made, whether in consequence of the divided command and the rapid changes in the com- manders of the Roman troops, which rendered the concen- trated management of a series of operations on a small scale exceedingly difficult, or from the general strategical relations of the case, which certainly, as the science of war then stood, were unfavourable to the attacking party in general (i. 525), and particularly so to the Romans, who were still on the mere threshold of scientific warfare. Meanwhile, although the pillaging of the Italian coasts had ceased, the commerce of Italy suffered not much less than it had done before the fleet was built. Weary of a course of operations without results, and Attack on impatient to put an end to the war, the senate ^**°*- resolved to change its system, and to assail Car- 256. thage in Africa. In the spring of 498 a fleet of 330 ships of the line set sail for the coast of Libya : at the mouth of the river Himera on the south coast of Sicily it embarked the army for landing, consisting of four legions, under the charge of the two consuls Marcus Atilius Regulus and Lucius Manlius Volso, both experienced generals. The Carthaginian admiral suffered the embarkation of the enenay's troops to take place ; but on continuing their voy- age towards Africa the Romans found the Punic fleet drawn up in order of battle off Ecnomus to protect its native land from invasion. Seldom have greater numbers toryof fought at sea than were engaged in the battle onomus. ^^^^ ^^^ ensued. The Roman fleet of 330 sail contained at least 100,000 men in its crews, besides the landing army of about 40,000 ; the Carthaginian of 350 vessels was manned by at least an equal number ; so that wellnigh three hundred thousand men were brought into action on this day to decide the contest between the two mighty peoples. The Phoenicians were placed in a single widely-extended line, with their left wing resting on the Sieilian coast. The Romans ari-anged themselves in a tri- CnAp. II.] Carthage concerning Sicily. 5S angle, with the ships of the two consuls as admirals at the apex, the first and second squadrons drawn out in oblique line to the right and left, and a third squadron, having the vessels built for the transport of the cavalry in tow, form- ing the line which closed the triangle. They thus bore down in close .order on the enemy. A fourth squadron placed in reserve followed more slowly. The wedge-shaped attack broke without difficulty the Carthaginian line, for its centre, which was first assailed, intentionally gave way, and the battle resolved itself into three separate engagements. While the admirals with the two squadrons drawn up on the wings pursued the Carthaginian centre and were closely engaged with it, the left wing of the Carthaginians drawn up along the coast wheeled round upon the third Roman squadron, which was prevented by the vessels which it had in tow from folio w^ing the two others, and by a vehement onset in superior force drove it against the shoi'e ; at the same time the Roman reserve was turned on the open sea, and assailed from behind, by the right wing of the Carthar ginians. The first of these three engagements was soon at an end ; the ships of the Carthaginian centre, manifestly much weaker than the two Roman squadrons with which they were engaged, took to flight. Meanwhile the two other divisions of the Romans had a severe encounter with the superior enemy ; but in close fighting the dreaded boarding-bridges stood them in good stead, and by this means they succeeded in maintaining their ground till tho two admirals with their vessels could come up. By their arrival the Roman reserve was relieved, and the Cartha- ginian vessels of the right wing retired before the superior force. And now, when this conflict had been decided ir; favour of the Romans, all the Ionian vessels that still could keep the sea fell on the rear of the Carthaginian left wing which was obstinately following up its advantage, so that it was surrounded and almost all the vessels composing it were taken. The losses otherwise were nearly equal. Of the Roman fleet 24 sail were sunk ; of the Carthaginian 3f were sunk, and 64 were taken. 56 The War letween Home and [Book ill, Notwithstanding its considerable loss, the Carthaginian fleet did not give up the protection of Africa, Reijuiufto and with that view returned to the gulf of Car- thage, where it expected the descent to take place and purposed to give battle a second time. But the Romans landed, not on the western side of the peninsula which helps to form the gulf, but on the eastern side, where the bay of Clupea presented a spacious harbour affording protection from almost all winds, and the town, situated close by the sea on a shield-shaped eminence rising out of the plain, supplied an excellent defence for the harbour. They disembarked the troops without hindrance from the enemy, and established themselves on the hill ; in a short time an entrenched naval camp was constructed, and the land army was at liberty to commence operations. The Roman troops ranged over the country and levied contribu- tions : they were able to send as many as 20,000 slaves to Rome. Through the rarest good fortune the bold scheme had succeeded at the first stroke, and with but slight sacri- fices : the end seemed attained. The feeling of confidence that in this respect animated the Romans is evinced by the resolution of the senate to recall to Italy the greater poi^ tion of the fleet and half of the army ; Marcus Regulua alone remained in Africa with 40 ships, 15,000 infantry, and 500 cavalry. Their confidence, however, was seemingly not overstrained. The Carthaginian army, which was disheart- ened, did not venture forth into the plain, but waited to sustain discomfiture in the wooded defiles, in which it could make no use of its two best arms, the cavalry and the ele- phants. The towns surrendered en masse ; the Numidians rose in insurrection, and overran the open country far and wide. Regulus might hope to begin the next campaign with the siege of the capital, and with that view ne pitched his camp for the winter in its immediate vicinity at Tunes. The spirit of the Carthaginians was broken . they sued for peace. But the conditions which the consul vain nefo- , Htttionstor proposed — not merely the cession of Sicilv and D6&C6 *—* Sardinia, but the conclusion of an alliance or Chap. 11.] Carthoffe Goncernimj Sicily. ' 57 unequal terms with Rome, which would have bound the Carthaginians to renounce their own war-marine and to fur- nish vessels for the Roman wars — conditions which would have placed Carthage on a level with Neapolis and Taren turn, could not be accepted, so long as a Carthaginian armj kept the field and a Carthaginian fleet kept the sea, and the capital stood unshaken. The mighty enthusiasm, which kindles into a noble flame among Oriental nations, even the most tionsofCar- abased, on the approach of extreme peril — the ^^' energy of dire necessity — impelled the Cartha- ginians to exertions, such as were by no means expected from a nation of shopkeepers. Hamilcar, who had carried on the guerilla war against the Romans in Sicily with so much success, appeared in Libya with the flower of the Sicilian troops, who furnished an admirable nucleus for the newly levied force. The connections and gold of the Car- thaginians, moreover, brought to them troop after troop of excellent Numidian horse, and also numerous Greek merce- naries ; amongst whom was the celebrated captain Xanthip pus of Sparta, whose talent for organization and strategical skill were of great service to his new masters.* While the Carthaginians were thus making their preparations in the course of the winter, the Roman general remained inactive at Tunes. Whether it was that he did not anticipate the storm which was gathering over his head, or that a sense of military honour prohibited him from doing what his position demanded — instead of renouncing a siege which he was not in a condition even to attempt, and shutting hiin- * The statement, that the military talent of Xanthippus was the primary means of .saving Carthage, is probably coloured ; the officers of Carthiige can hardly have waited for foreigners to teach thera that the light African cavalry coald be more appropriately employed on the plain than among hiUs and forests. From such stories, the echo of the talk of Greek guard-rooms, even Polybiua is not free. Tlw statement that Xanthippus was put to death by the Carthagi- nians after the victory, is a fiction ; he departed voluntarily, perhaps t< BUter the Egyptian service. Vol, II.— 3* 58 77ij War letwcen Rome and [Boor III eelf up in the stronghold of Clupoa, he remained with a ' handful of men before the walls of the hostile capital, neg lecting even to secure his line of retreat to the nava. camp and neglecting to provide himself with — what above all ht wanted, and what might have been so easily obtained through negotiation with the revolted Numidian tribes— a good light cavalry. He thus wantonly brought himself and his army into a plight similar to that which formerly befeJ Agathocles in his desperate adventure. When spring came (499), the state of affairs had so changed, that now the Carthaginians were the *^ ■ first to take the field and to offer battle to the Defeat of Eomans. It was natural that they should do so, for everything depended on their getting quit of the army of Regulus, before reinforcements could arrive from Italy. The same reason should have led the Romans to desire delay ; but, relying on their invincible- ness in the open field, they at once accepted battle notwith- standing their inferiority of strength — for, although the numbers of the infantry on both sides were nearly the same, their 4000 cavalry and 100 elephants gave to the Carthaginians a decided superiority — and notwithstanding the unfavourable nature of the ground where the Cartha^ ginians were drawn up, a broad plain probably not far from Tunes. Xanthippus, who on this day commanded the Car- thaginians, first threw his cavalry on that of the enemy, which was stationed, as usual, on the two flanks of the line of battle ; the few squadrons of the Romans were scattered like dust in a moment before the masses of the enemy's horse, and the Roman infantry found itself outflanked by then and surrounded. The legions, unshaken by their apparent danger, advanced to attack the enemy's line ; and, although the row of elephants placed as a protection in front of it checked the right wing and centre of the Romans, the left wing at any rate, marching past the elephants, engaged the mercenary infantry on the right of the enemy, and over- threw them completely. But this very success broke uj, the Roman ranks. The main body indeed, assailed by thf Chap, ii.j Carthage concerning Sicily. 59 elephants in front and by the cavalry on the flanks and in the rear, formed square, and defended itself with heroic courage, but the close masses were at length broken and swept away. The victorious left wing encountered the still fresh Carthaginian centre, where the Libyan infantry prp pared a similar fate for it. From tne nature of the grounr, and the superior numbers of the enemy's cavalry, all the combatants in these masses were cut down or taken prison- ers ; only two thousand men, chiefly, in all probability, the light troops and horsemen who were dispersed at the com- mencement, gained — while the Roman legions stood to be slaughtered — a start sufficient to enable them with difficulty to reach Clupea. Among the few prisoners was the consul himself, who afterwards died in Carthage ; his family, under the idea that he had not been treated by the Carthaginians according to the usages of war. Wreaked a most revolting vengeance on two noble Carthaginian captives, till even the slaves were moved to pity, and on their information the tribunes put a stop to the shameful outrage.* When the terrible news reached Rome, the first care of the Romans was naturally directed to the saving tion of of the force shut up in Clupea. A Roman fleet of 350 sail immediately started, and after a noble victory at the Ilermaean promontory, in which the Carthaginians lost 1 14 ships, it reached Clupea just in time to deliver from their hard-pressed position the remains of the defeated army which were there entrenched. Had it been despatched before the catastrophe occurred, it might have converted the defeat into a victory that would proba- * Nothing further is known with certainty as to the end of Regulus; even his mission to Rome — which is sometimes placed in 503, sometimea in 513 — is very imperfectly attested. The later Komans, ' who sought in the fortunes and misfortunes of their fore fathers mere mateiials for school themes, made Regulus the type of he- roic misfortune as they made Fabricius the type of heroic poverty, and circulated a number of anecdotes, invented by way of due accompani- ment in his name — incongruous embellishments, contrasting ill with se rious and sobev history. 60 I'ke War hetween Home cmd LBook in bly ha\e put an end to the Funic wars. But so completely; had the Romans now lost their judgment, that after a suC' cessful conflict before Clupea they embarked all their troops and sailed home, voluntarily evacuating that important and easily defended position which secured to them facilities for landing in Africa, and abandoning their numerous African allies without protection to the vengeance of the Cartha- ginians. The Carthaginians did not neglect the opportunity of filling their empty treasury, and of making their subjecta clearly understand the consequences of rebellion. An extraordinary contribution of 1000 talents of silver (£244,- 000) and 20,000 oxen was levied, and the sheiks in all the communities that had revolted were crucified; it is said that there were three thousand of them, and that this revolt- ing atrocity on the part of the Carthaginian authorities really laid the foundation of the revolution which broke forth iu Africa some years later. Lastly, as if to fill up the measure of misfortune to the Romans even as their measure of success had been filled before, on the homeward voyage of the fleet three-fourths of the Roman vessels per- ished with their crews in a violent storm ; only eighty reached their port (July 499). The captains had foretold the impending mischief, but the extemporised Roman admirals had nevertheless given or- ders to sail. After successes so immense the Carthaginians were able to resume their offensive operations, which had meiicement long been in abeyance. Hasdrubal son of mSici™' Hanno landed at Lilybaeum with a strong force, which was enabled, particularly by its enormous number of elephants — amounting to 140 — to keep the field against the Romans : the last battle had shown that it was possible to make up for the want of good infantry to some extent by elephants and cavalry. The Romans also resum- ed the war in Sicily ; the annihilation of their invading ftrmy had, as the voluntary evacuation of Clupea shows, aj once restored ascendancy in the senate to the party which v^as opposed to the war in Africa and was content with th« Chap. II.] Carthage concerning Sicily 6] gradual subjjgation of the islands. Bui for :his purpose too there was need of a fleet ; and, since that which had conquered at Mylae, at Ecuomus, and at the Hermaean promontory was destroyed, they built a new one. Keela were at once laid down for 220 new vessels of war — they had never hitherto undertaken the building of so many si multaneously — and in the incredibly short space of three months they were all ready tor sea. In the spring of 500 the Roman fleet, numbering 300 vessels mostly new, appeared on the north coast of Sicily ; Panormus, the most important town in Carthaginian Sicily, was acquired through a successful attack from the seaboard, and the smaller places there, Soluntum, Cephaloedium, and Tyndaris, likewise fell into the hands of the Romans, so that along the whole north coast of the island Thermae alone was retained by the Carthaginians. Panormus be- came thenceforth one of the chief stations of the Romans in Sicily. The war by land, nevertheless, made no prog- ress ; the two armies stood face to face before Lilybaeum, but the Roman commanders, who knew not how to encoun- ter the mass of elephants, made no attempt to compel a pitched battle. In the ensuing year (501) the consuls, instead of pursu- ing sure advantages in Sicily, preferred to make an expedition to Africa, for the purpose not of landing but of plundering the coast towns. They accom- plished their object without opposition ; but, after having first run aground in the troublesome, and to their pilota unknown, waters of the Lesser Syrtis, whence they with difficulty got clear again, the fleet encountered a storm between Sicily and Italy, which cost more than 150 ships. On this occasion also the pilots, notwithstanding their repre- sentations and entreaties to be allowed to take the course along the coast, were obliged by command of the consuls to steer straight from Panormus across the open sea to Ostia. Despondency now seized the fathers of the city ; they Busien- resolved to reduce their war-fleet to sixty sai^ 62 The War between Home and [Book III Bidnot tie '*"'^ to'confine the war by sea to the defence of maritime the coasts, and to the convoy of transports. Fortunately, just at this time, the languishing war in Sicily took a more favourable turn. In the year 502, Thermae, the last point which the Cartha- ginians held on the north coast, and the impor- tant island of Lipara, had fallen into the hands of the „.j Romans, and in the following year (summer of 503) the consul Gaius Caecilius Metellus victory at achieved a brilliant victory over the army or elephants under the walls of Panormus. These aninnals, which had been imprudently brought forward, were wounded by the light troops of the Romans stationed in the moat of the town ; some of them fell into the moat, and others fell back on their own troops, who crowded in wild disorder along with the elephants towards the beach, that they might be picked up by the Phoenician ships. One hundred and twcjnty elephants were captured, and the Carthaginian army, whose strength depended on these ani- mals, was obliged once more to shut itself up in its for- tresses. Eryx soon fell into the hands of the 249. Romans (505), and the Carthaginians retained nothing in the island but Drepana and Lilybaeum. Car- thage a second time offered peace ; but the victory of Me- tellus and the exhaustion of the enemy gave to the more energetic party ascendancy in the senate. Peace was declined, and it was resolved to prosecute in earnest the siege of the two Sicilian cities and iSfbMum. for this purpose to send to sea once more a fleet of 200 sail. The siege of Lilybaeum, the first great and regular siege undertaken by Rome, and one of the most obstinate known in history, was opened ly the Romans with an important success : they succeeded in introducing their fleet into the harbour of the city, and in blockading it on the side facing the sea. The besiegera, however, were not able to close the sea completely. In spite of their sunken vessels and their palisades, and in spite of the most careful vigilance, dexterous mariners, Chap, n.] Cart/iagc tonceming Sicily. 63 accurately acquainted with the shallows and channels, main tained with swift-sailing vessels a regular communication between the besieged in the city and the Carthaginian fleet in the harbour of Drepana. In fact, after a time, a Cartha- ginian squadron of 50 sail succeeded in running into the harbour, in throwing a large quantity of provisions and a reinforcement of 10,000 men into the city, and in returning unmolested. The besieging land army was not much more fortunate. They began with a regular attack ; machines were erected, and iu a short time the batteries had demol- ished six of the towers flanking the walls, so that the breach soon appeared to be practicable. But the able Carthaginian commander Himilco parried this assault by giving orders for the erection of a second wall behind the breach. An attempt of the Romans to enter into an understanding with the garrison was likewise frustrated in proper time. And, after a first sally made for the purpose of burning the Roman set of machines, had been repulsed, the Carthagini- ans succeeded during a stormy night in effecting theii object. Upon this the Romans abandoned their prepara- tions for an assault, and contented themselves with blockad- ing the city by land and water. The prospect of success in this way was indeed very remote, so long as they were unar ble wholly to preclude the entrance of the enemy's vessels ; and the army of the besiegers was in a condition not much better than that of the besieged in the city, because their supplies were frequently cut off by the numerous and bold light cavalry of the Carthaginians, and their ranks began to be thinned by the diseases indigenous to that unwholesome region. The capture of Lilybaeum, however, was of suffi- cient importance to induce a patient perseverance in the laborious task, which promised to be crowned in time with the desired success. But the new consul Publius Claudius considered the task of maintaining the investment of Lilybaeum tte'Roman *-°o trifling : he preferred to change once more Beet before jjje plan of operations, and with his numerous newly manned vessels suddenly to surprise the 6J: The War between Borne and [Book in Carthaginian fleet which was waiting in the neighbouring narbour of Drepana. With the whole blockading squad ron, which had taken on board volunteers from the legions, he started about midnight, and sailing in good order with his right wing by the shore, and his left in the open sea, he safely reached the harbour of Drepana at ^unrise. The Phoenician admiral Atarbas commanded there. Although surprised, he did not lose his presence of mind or allnw himself to be shut up in the harbour, but as the Roman ships entered the harbour, which opens to the south in the form of a sickle, on the one side, he withdrew his vessels from it by the opposite side which was still free, and sta- tioned them in line on the outside. No other course remained to the Roman admiral but to recall as speedily as possible the foremost vessels from the harbour, and to make his arrangements for battle in like manner in front of it ; but in consequence of this retrograde movement he lost the free choice of his position, and was obliged to accept battle in a line, which on the one hand was outflanked by that of the enemy to the extent of five ships — for there was not time fully to deploy the vessels as they issued from the harbour — and on the other hand was crowded so close on the shore that his vessels could neither retreat, nor, sail be- hind the line so as to come to each other's aid. Not only was the battle lost before it began, but the Roman fleet was so completely ensnared that it fell almost wholly into the hands of the enemy. The consul indeed escaped, for he was the first who fled ; but 93 Roman vessels, more than three fourths of the blockading fleet, with the flower of the Roman legions on board, fell into the hands of the Phoeni- cians. It was the first and only great naval victory which tiie Carthaginians gained over the Romans. Lilybaeuni was practically relieved on the side towards the sea, for though the remains of the Roman fleet returned to their former position, they were much too weak seriously to blockade a harbour which had never been wholly closed, and they could only protect themselves from the attack of the Carthaginian ships with the assistance of the land army. Ohap. II.] Cirthage concerning Sicily. 68 That single imprudent act of an inexperienced and crimi- nally thoughtless officer had thrown away all that had leen with so much difficulty attained by the long and galling warfare around the fortress ; and those war-vessels of the Romans which his presumption had not forfeited were hortly afterwards destroyed by the folly of his colleagua uniiiiia- '^'^® secoud cousul, Lucius Junius Pullus, who tioiio/ihe had received the charge of lading at Syracuse transport the supplies destined for the army at Lily- baeum, and of convoying the transports along the south coast of the island with a second Roman fleet of 120 war-vessels, instead of keeping his ships together, com- mitted the error of allowing the tirst set of transports to depart unattended and of only following with the second. When the Carthaginian vice-admiral, Carthalo, who with a hundred select ships blockaded the Roman fleet in the port of Lilybaeum, received the intelligence, he proceeded to the south coast of the island, cut off the two Roman squadrons from each other by interposing between them, and com- pelled them to take shelter in two harbours of refuge on the inhospitable shores of Gela and Camarina. The attaclcs ol the Carthaginians were indeed bravely repulsed by the Ro- mans with the help of the shore batteries, which had for some time been erected there as everywhere along the coast ; but, as the Romans could not hope to effect a junc- tion and continue their voyage, Carthalo could leave the elements to finish his work. The next great storin, accord- ingly, completely annihilated the two Roman fl et . in their wretched roadsteads, while the Phoenician admiral easily weathered i' on the open sea with his light and well-man- ■agftd ships. The Romans, however, succeeded in saving the greater part of the crews and car< goes (505). The Roman senate was in perplexity. The war had now reached its sixteenth year ; and they seem- ofSeEo- ed to be farther from their object in the sixteenth *""■ than in the first. In this war four large fleets had perished, three of them with Roman armies on board • 66 The War letween Home and [Book III a fourth select land army had been destrbyed by the enemy in Libya ; to say nothing of the numerous losses which had been occasioned by the minor naval engagements, and by the battles, and still more by the guerilla warfare and the diseases, of Sicily. What a multitude of human lives the war swept away may be seen from the fact, that the bur- gess-roll from 502 to 507 alone decreased by about 40,000, a sixth part of the whole ; and this does not include the losses of the allies, who bore the whole brunt of the war by sea, and, in addition, at least an equal proportion with the Romans of the warfare by land. Of the financial loss it is not possible to form any concep- tion ; but both the direct damage sustained in ships and materiel, and the indirect injury through the paralyzing of trade, must have been immense. An evil still greater than this was the exhaustion of all the methods by which they had sought to terminate the war. They had tried a landing in Africa with their forces fresh and in the full career of vic- tory, and had totally failed. They had undertaken to storm Sicily town by town ; the lesser places had fallen, but the two mighty naval strongholds of Lilybaeum and Drepana stood more invincible than ever. What were they to do 1 In fact, there was to some extent reason for despondency. The fathers of the city became faint-hearted ; they allowed matters simply to take their course, knowing well that a war protracted without object or end was more pernicious for Italy than the straining of the last man and the last penny, but without that courage and confidence in the nation and in fortune, which could stimulate new sacrifices in addi- tion to those that had already been lavished in vain. They discarded the fleet ; at the most they encouraged privateer ing, and with that view placed the war-vessels of the state at the disposal of captains v\ho were ready to undertake a piratical warfare on their own account. The war by land was continued nominally because they could not do other, wise; but they wore content with observing the Sicilian fortresses and barely maintaining what they already poa scssed, — measures which, in the absence of a fleet, r© OHip. 11] Carthage concerning Sicily. 61 quired a \ cry numerous army and extremely costly prep arations. Now, if ever, the time had come when Carthage was in a position to humble her mighty antagonist. She, too, d course must have felt some exhaustioa of resources ; but. in the circumstances, the Phoenician finances could not pos sibly be so disorganized as to prevent the Carthaginians from continuing the war, which cost them little beyond money, offensively and with energy. The Carthaginian government, however, was not energetic, but on the con- trary weait and indolent, unless impelled to action by an easy and sure gain or by extreme necessity. Glad to be rid of the Roman fleet, they foolishly allowed their own also to fall into decay, and began after the example of the enemy to confine their operations by land and sea to the petty warfare in and around Sicily. Thus there ensued six years of uneventful warfare (506-511), the most inglorious in the history of 248-243. ^j^jg century for Eome, and inglorious also foi PoUy war the Carthaginian people. One man, however, '° ^' among the latter thought and acted differently Hamiioar , from his nation. Hamilcar, named Barak or Barca (i. e, lightning), a young officer of great prpmise, was entrusted with the supreme command in Sicily in the year 507. His army, like every Cartha^ ginian one, was defective in a trustworthy and experienced infantry ; and the government, although it was pjrhaps in a position to create such an infantry and at any rate was bound to make the attempt, contented itself with passively looking on at its defeats or at most with nailing the defeated general* to the cross. Hamilcar resolved to toke the matter into his own hands. He knew well that his mercenaries were as indifferent to Carthage as to Rome, and that he had to expect from his government not Phoeni- cian or Libyan conscripts, but at the best a permission to save his country with his troops in his own way, provided it cost nothing. But he knew himself also, and lie knew men. His mercenaries cai>ed nothing for Carthage ; but a 68 The War hetween Borne and [Book in true general is able to substitute his own person for liia country in the affections of his soldiers ; and such an one was this young commander. After he had habituated hia men to face the legionaries in the warfare of outposts before Drepana and Lilybaeum, he established himself with his force on Mount Ercte (Monte Pellegrino near Palermo), which commands like a fortress the neighbouring country ; and making them settle there with their wives and childi'en, levied contributions from the plains, while Phoenician pri- vateers plundered the Italian coast as far as Cumae. He thus provided his people with copious supplies without ask- ing money from the Carthaginians, and, keeping up the communication with Drepana by sea, he threatened to sur- prise the important town of Panormus in his immediate vicinity. Not only were the Romans unable to expel him from his stronghold, but after the struggle had lasted awhile at Ercte, Harailcar formed for himself another similar posi- tion at Eryx. This mountain, which bore half way up the city of the same name and on its summit a temple of Aphrodite, had been hitherto in the hands of the Romans, who made it a basis for annoying Drepana. Hamilcar deprived them of the town and besieged the temple, while the Romans in turn blcickaded him from the plain. The Celtic deserters from the Carthaginian army who were gta- tioned by the Romans at the forlorn post of the temple — a reckless pack of marauders, who in the course of this siege plundered the temple and perpetrated every sort of outrage — defended the summit of the rock with desperate courage; but Hamilcar did not allow himself to be again dislodged from the town, and kept his communications constantly open by sea with the fleet and the garrison of Drepana. The war in Sicily seemed to be assuming a turn more and more unfavourable to the Romans. The Roman stale was losing in that warfare its money and its men, and the Roman gene- rals their honour; it was already clear that no Itonian general was a match for Hamilcar, and the time might be calculated when even the Carthaginian mercenary would bj »ble boldly to measure himself wjgainst the legionary. The Chap. II.] CartJuige concerning Sicily. 69 privateers of Hamilcar appeared with ever-increasing auda. city on the Italian coast: already a praetor had been obliged to take the field against a band of Carthaginian rover? which had landed there. A few years more, and Harailcai might with his fleet have accomplished from Sicily what his jon subsequently undertook by the land route from Spain. The Roman senate, however, persevered in its inaction ; the desponding party for once had the majority A fleet built .^ , a . i i i f i bytheRo- tliere. At length a number of sagacious and high-spirited men determined to save the state even without the interposition of the government, and to put an end to the ruinous Sicilian war. Successful corsait expeditions, if they had not raised the courage of the nation, had aroused energy and hope in a portion of the people ; they had already joined together to form a squadron, burnt down Hippo on the African coast, and sustained a success- ful naval conflict with the Carthaginians off Panormus. By a private subscription — such us had been resorted to in Athens also, but not on so magnificent a scale — the wealthy and patriotic Romans equipped a war fleet, the nucleus of which was supplied by the ships built for privateering and the practised crews which they contained, and which alto- gether was far more carefully fitted out than had hitherto been the case in the shipbuilding of the state. This fact — that a number of citizens in the twenty-third year of a severe war voluntarily presented to the state two hundred ships of the line, manned by 60,000 sailors — stands perhaps unparalleled in the annals of history. The consul Gaius Lutatius Catulus, to whom fell the honour of conducting this fleet to the Sicilian seas, met with almost no opposi- tion : the two or three Carthaginian vessels, with which Hamilcar had made his corsair expeditions, disappeareo before the superior force, and almost without resistance the Romans occupied the harbours of Lilybaeum and Drepana, the siege of which was now undertaken with energy by water and by land. Carthage was completely taken by surprise ; even the two fortresses, weakly provisioned, were n great danger. A fleet was equipped at home; but witk 70 The War between Rome and [Cook 111 all the haste which they displayed, the year came to an end without any appearance of Carthaginian sails in the Sicilian waters ; and when at length, in the spring cf 513, the hurriedly prepared vessels appeared in the offing of Drepana, they deserved the name of a fleet (.( tiansports rather than that of a war fleet ready for action. The Phoenicians had hoped to land undisturbed, UatuiS at '-^ disembark their stores, and to be able to take ihe island qjj board the troops requisite for a naval battle : but the Roman vessels intercepted them, and forced them, when about to sail from the island of Hiera (now Maritima) for Drepana, to accept battle near the little island of Aegusa (Favignano) (10 March, 513). The issue was not for a moment doubtful ; the Roman fleet, well built and manned, and admirably handled by the able praetor Publius Valerius Falto (for a wound received before Drepana still confined the consul Catulus to his bed), defeated at the first blow the heavily laden and poorly and inadequately manned vessels of the enemy ; fifty were sunk, and with seventy prizes the victors sailed into the port of Lilybaeum. The last great effort of the Roman patriots had borne fruit ; it brought victory, and with victory peace. The Carthaginians first crucified the unfortunate admiral — a step which did not mend the matter — and ^°p°a™°" then despatched to the Sicilian general unlimited authority to conclude a peace. Hamilcar, who saw his heroic labours of seven years undone by the fault of others, magnanimously submitted to what was inevitable without on that account sacrificing either his military hon- our, or his nation, or his own designs. Sicily indeed could not be retained, seeing that the Romans had now command af the sea; and it was not to be expected that the Cartha- ginian government, which had vainly endeavoured to fill its empty treasury by a state-loan in Egypt, would make even any further attempt to vanquish the Roman fleet. He theiefore surrendered Sicily. The independence and intog rity of the Carthaginian state and territory, on the oihei Chap. II.] Carthage concerning Sicily. 71 hand, were expressly recognized in the usual form Eomo bound herself not to enter into a separate alliance with tha Carthaginian, and Carthage engaged not to enter into sepa- rate alliance with the Roman, symmachy — that is, with their respective subject or dependent communities ; neithei was to malie war, or exercise rights of sovereignty, or un- dertake recruiting within the other's dominions.* The sec- ondary stipulations included, of course, the gratuitous return of the Roman prisoners of war and the payment of a war- contribution ; but the demand gf Catulus that Hamilcar should deliver up his arms and the Roman deserters was resolutely refused by Hamilcar, and with success. Catulus desisted from his second request, and allowed the Phoeni- cians a free departure from Sicily for the moderate ransom of 18 denarii (lis. 6d,) per man. If the continuance of the war appeared to the Carthagin- ians undesirable, they had reason to be satisfied with these terms. It may be that the natural wish to bring to Rome peace as well as triumph, the recollection of Regulus and of the many vicissitudes of the war, the consideration that such a patriotic effort as had at last decided the victory could neither be enjoined nor repeated, perhaps even the personal character of Hamilcar, concurred in influencing the Roman general to yield so much as he did. It is certain •that there was dissatisfaction with the proposals of peace at Rome, and the assembly of the people, doubtless under the influence of the patriots who had effected the equipment of the last fleet, at first refused to ratify it. We do not know with what view this was done, and therefore we are unable to decide whether the opponents of the proposed peace in reality rejected it merely for the purpose of exacting some further concessions from the enemy, or whether, remember- ing that Regulus had summoned Carthage to surrender her * The statement (Zon. viii. 11) that the Carthaginians had to promiiie tliat they would not send vessels of war into the territories of the RO' man symmachy — and therefore not to Syracuse, perhaps even not to Miiasilia— sounds credible enough; but the text of the treaty says uo< tiling of it (Polyb. iii. 21). 72 Tht War heiween Rorive and [Book m political independence, they were resolved to ccntinue the war till they had gained that end — so that it was no longer a question of peace, but a question of conquest. If the refusal took place with the former view, it was probably mistaken ; compared with the gain of Sicily every other concession was of little moment, and looking to the deter- mination and the inventive genius of Hamilcar, it was very rash to stake the securing of the principal gain on the attainment of secondary objects. If on the other hand the party opposed to the peace regarded the complete political annihilation of Carthage as the only end of the struggle that would satisfy the Roman community, it showed politi- cal tact and anticipation of coming events ; but whether the resources of Rome would have sufficed to renew the expedi- tion of Regulus and to follow it up as far as might be required not merely to break the courage but to breach the walls of the mighty Phoenician city, is another question, to which no one now can venture to give either an affirmative or a negative answer. At last the settlement of the momentous question was entrusted to a commission which was to decide it upon the spot in Sicily. It confirmed the proposal in substance ; only, the sum to be paid by Carthage for the costs of the war was raised to 3,200 talents (£790,000), a third of which was to be paid down at once, and the remainder in ten annual instalments. The definitive treaty included, in addition to the surrender of Sicily, the cession also of the islands between Sicily and Italy, but this can only be regarded as an alteration of detail made on revision ; for it is self-evident that Carthage, when surrendering Sicily, could hardly desire to retain the island of Lipara which had long been occupied by the Roman fleet, and the suspicion, that an ambiguous stipulation was intentionally introduced into the treaty with reference to Sardinia and Corsica, is unworthy and improbable. Thus at length they came to terms. The unconquered general of a vanquished nation descended from the moun- tains wnich he had defended so long, and deliv(!red to the Chap. II.] Carthage concerning Sicily. 73 new masters of the island the fortresses which the Fhuer.i- cians had held in their uninterrupted possession for at least four hundred years, and from whose walls all assaults of the Hellenes had recoiled unsuccessful. The west 241. had peace (513). Let us pause for a moment over the conflict, which ex, tended the dominion of Rome beyond the cir- 011 the B,o- cling sea that encloses the peninsula. It was one Sf™e°wi°°' of the longest and most severe which the Ro- mans ever waged ; many of the soldiers who fought in the decisive battle were unborn when the contest began. Nevertheless, despite the incomparably noble inci- dents which it now and again presented, we can scarcely name any war which the Romans managed so wretchedly and with such vacillation, both in a military and in a politi- cal point of view. It could hardly be otherwise. The contest occurred amidst a transition in their political sys- tem — the transition from an Italian policy, which no longer sufficed, to the policj^ of a great state, which was not yet matured. The Roman senate and the Roman military system were excellently organized for a purely Italian policy. The wars which t.uch a policy provoked were purely continental wars, and always rested on the capital situated in the middle of the peninsula as the primary basis of operations, and on the chain of Roman fortresses as a secondary basis. The problems to be solved were mainly tactical, not strategical ; marches and operations occupied but a subordinate, battles held the first, place; siege warfare was in its infancy ; the sea and naval war hardly for a moment crossed men's thoughts. We can easily understand — especially if wo bear in mind that in the battles of that period, where the naked weapon predomi- iiated, it was really the hand-to-hand encounter that proved decisive — how a deliberative assembly might direct such operations, and how any one who was mayor of the city might command the trcops. All this was changed in a moment. The field of battle stretched away to an incalcu- lable distance, to the unknown regions of another continent, Vol. II.— 4 74: The Wa^ between Borne and [Book in. and beyond a broad expanse of sea ; every wave was a highway for the enemy, every harbour might send forth an invading fleet. The siege of strong places, particularly maritime fortresses, in which the first tacticians of Greece had failed, had now for the first time to be attempted by the Romans. A land army and the system of a civic mili- tia no longer sufficed. It was necessary to create a fleet, and, what was more difficult, to employ it ; it was necessary to find out the true points of attack and defence, to combine and to direct masses, to calculate expeditions extending over long periods and great distances, and to adjust their co-ope- ration ; if these things were not attended to, even an enemy far weaker in the tactics of the field might easily ■vanquish a stronger opponent. Is there any wonder that the rein.s of government in such an exigency slipped from the hands of a deliberative assembly and of commanding burgo- masters ? It was plain, that at the beginning of the war the Ro- mans did not know what they were undertaking ; it was only during the course of the struggle that the inadequacies of their system, one after another, forced themselves on their notice — the want of a naval power, the lack of fixed niilitaiy leadership, the incapacity of their generals, the total uselessness of their admirals. In part these evils were remedied by energy and good fortune ; as was the case with the want of a fleet. That mighty creation, however, was but a grand make-shift, and always remained so. A Roman fleet was formed, but it was rendered national only in name, and was always treated with the affection of a stepmother ; the naval service continued to be little esteemed in com- parison with the high honour of serving in the legions ; the naval officers were in great part Italian Greeks ; the crews were composed of subjects or even of slaves and outcasts. The Italian farmer was at all times distrustful of the sea; one of the three things in his life which Cato regretted was, that he had travelled by sea when he might have gone by land. This result arose partly out of the nature of tha case, for the vessels were oared galleys and the service of Chap. II.] Carthage concerning Sicily. 75 the oar can scarcely be ennobled ; but the Eomiins might at least have formed separate legions of marines and taken steps towards the rearing of a class of Eoman naval offi- cers. Taking advantage of the impulse of the nation, they should have made it their aim gradually to establish a naval force important not only in numbers but in sailing powers and practice, and for such a purpose they had a valuable nucleus in the privateering that was developed during the long war ; but nothing of the sort was done by the govern- ment. Nevertheless the Roman fleet with its unwieldy grandeur was the noblest creation of genius in this war, and, as at its beginning, so at its close it was the fleet that turned the scale in favour of Rome. Far more difficult to be overcome were those deficien- cies, which could not be remedied without an alteration of the constitution. That the senate, according to the strength of the contending parties within it, should leap from one system of conducting the war to another, and perpetrate errors so incredible as the evacuation of Clupea and the repeated discontinuance of the fleet ; that the general of one year should lay siege to Sicilian towns, and his successor, instead of urging their surrender, should pillage the African coast or think proper to risk a naval battle ; and that at any rate the supreme command should by law change hands every year — all these anomalies could not be reformed without stirring constitutional questions the solution of which was more difficult than the building of a fleet, but as little could their retention be reconciled with the requii-e- ments of such a war. Above all, moreover, neither the senate nor the generals could at once adapt themselves to the new mode of conducting ivar. The campaign of Regu- lus is an instance how singularly they adhered to the idea Shat superiority in tactics decides everything. There are few generals who have had such successes thrown as it were into their lap by fortune : in the year 498 he stood precisely where Scipio stood fifty years later, with this diflference, that he had no Hannibal and no experienced army arrayed against him. But the senate 76 TTar concerning Sicily. [Book lU. withdrew half the army, as soon as they had satisfied them- selves ot the tactical superiority of the Romans ; in blind reliance on that superiority the general remained where he was, tc be beaten in strategy, and accepted battle when it was offered to him, to be beaten also in tactics. This was the more remarkable, as Eegulus was an able and experi enced general of his kind. The rustic method of warfare, by which Etruria and Samnium had been won, was the very cause of the defeat in the plain of Tunes. The prin- ciple, quite right in its own province, that every citizen ia fit for a general, was no longer applicable ; the new system of war demanded the employment of generals who had a military training and a military eye, and every burgomaster had not those qualities. The arrangement was however still worse, by which the chief command of the fleet was treated as an appanage to the chief command of the land army, and any one who chanced to be president of the city thought himself able to act the part not of general only, but of admiral too. The worst disasters which Rome suffered in this war were due not to the storms and still less to the Carthaginians, but to the presumptuous folly of its own citizen-admirals. Rome was victorious at last. But her acquiescence in a gain far less than had at first been demanded and indeed offered, as well as the energetic opposition which the peace encountered in Rome, very clearly indicate the indecisive and superficial character of the victory and of the peace ; and if Rome was the victor, she was indebted for her vic- tory in part no doilbt to the favour of the gods and to the energy of her citizens, but still more to the errors of her enemies in the conduct of the war — errors far sui-passing even her own. CHAPTER III. tBB EXTENSION OF ITALY TO ITS NATURAL BOCNDARIEB. The Italian confederacy as it emerged from the cri&e» of the fifth century — or, in other words, the boundaries State of Italy — united the various civic and can- of Italy. ^ , ... , A tonal communities from the Apennines to the Ionian Sea under the hegemony of Rome. But before the close of the fifth century these limits were already over- passed in both directions, and Italian communities belong- ing to the confederacy had sprung up beyond the Apennines and beyond the sea. In the north the republic, in revenge 2j3_ for ancient and recent wrongs, had already in 471 annihilated the Celtic Senones ; in the south, 264-241 through the great war from 490 to 513, it had dislodged the Phoenicians from the island of Sicily. In the north there belonged to the combination headed by Rome the Latin town of Ariminum (besides the burgess-settlement of Sena), in the south the community of the Mamertines in Messana, and as both were nationally of Italian origin, so both shared in the common rights and obligations of the Italian confederacy. It was probably the pressure of events at the moment rather than any comprehensive political cal- culation, that gave rise to these extensions of the confede- racy ; but it was natural that now at least, afler the greal successes achieved against Carthage, new and wider views of policy should dawn upon the Roman government — views which even otherwise were obviously enough suggested by the physical features of the peninsula. Alike in a political and in a military point of view Rome was justified in shift- ing its northern boundary from the low and easily crossed Apennines to the mighty mountain-wall that separates 78 The Extension of Italy to [Book in northern from southern Europe, the Alps, and in combin ing with the sovereignty of Italy the sovereignty of the seas and islands on the west and east of the peninsula ; and now, when hy the expulsion of the Phoenicians from Sicily the most difficult portion of the task had been already achieved, various circumstances united to facilitate its com- pletion bj- the Roman government. In the western sea which was of far more account for Italy than the Adriatic, the most importan*: pendency^f position, the large and fertile island of Sicily ^ ^' copiously furnished with harbours, had been by the peace with Carthage transferred for the most part into the possession of the Romans. King Hiero of Syracuse indeed, who during the last twenty-two years of the war had adhered with unshaken steadfastness to the Roman alli- ance, had a fair claim to an extension of territory ; but, if Roman policy had begun the war with the resolution of tolerating only secondary states in the island, the views of the Romans at its close decidedly tended towards the seizure of Sicily for themselves. Hiero might be content that his territory — namely, in addition to the immediate district of Syracuse, the domains of Elorus, Neetum, Acrae, Leontini, Megara, and Tauromenium — and his independence in rela^ tion to foreign powers, were (for want of any pretext to curtail them) left to him in their former compass ; he might well be content that the war between the two great powers had not ended in the complete overthrow of the one or of the other, and that there consequently still remained at least a possibility of continuance for the intermediate power in Sicily. In the remaining and by far the larger portion of Sicily, at Panormus, Lilybaeum, Agrigentum, Messana, the Romans effected a permanent settlement. They only regretted that the possession of that beautiful Pardmii island was not enough to convert the western Komar. waters into a Roman inland sea, so long as Sar- dinia still remained Carthaginian. S >on, however, afler the conclusion of the peace there appeared an unexpected pros- pect of wresting from the Carthaginians the second island Chap. III.] Its Natural Boundaries. 79 The iiibyan of tlie Mediterranean. In Africa, immediately msim-ect'ion. j^fjg^ ^^^^^ },j^j j^gg^ concluded with Rome, the mercenaries and the subjects of the Phoenicians joined in a common revolt. The blame of the dangerous insurrection was mainly chargeable on the Carthaginian government. In the last years of the war Hamilear had not been able to pay his Sicilian mercenaries as formerly from his own re- sources, and he had vainly requested that money might be sent to him from home ; he might, he was told, send his forces to Africa to be paid off. He obeyed ; but as he knew the men, he prudently embarked them in small sub- divisions, that the authorities might pay them off by troops or might at least separate them, and he then laid down his command. But all his precautions were thwarted not so much by the emptiness of the exchequer, as by the bureau- cratic mode of transacting business and the folly of the government. They waited till the whole army was once more united in Libya, and then endeavoured to curtail the pay promised to the men. Of course a mutiny broke out among the troops, and the hesitating and cowardly demean- our of the authorities showed the mutineers what they might dare. Most of them were natives of the districts ruled by, or dependent on, Carthage ; they knew the feel- ings which had been provoked throughout these districts by the slaughter decreed by the government after the expedi- tion of Regulus (p. 60) and by the fearful pressure of tax- ation, and they knew also the character of their govern- ment, which never kept faith and never pardoned ; they were well aware of what awaited them, should they dis- perse to their homes with pay exacted by mutiny. Th Carthaginians had for long been digging the mine, and (hoj ■now themselves filled it with men who could not but ex- plode it. Like wildfire the revolution spread from garrison to garrison, from village to village ; the Libyan women contributed their ornaments to pay the wages of the merce- naries ; a number of Carthaginian citizens, amongst whom were some of the most distinguished officers of the Sicilian army, became the victims of the infuriated multitude ; Car 80 The Extension of Italy to [Book III thage was already besieged on two sides, and the Cartha- ginian army marching out of the city was totally routed in consequence of the blundering of its unskilful leader. When the Romans thus saw their hated and still dread- ed foe involved in a greater danger than any ever occa- sioned by the Roman wars, thev began more and more to regret the conclusion of the peace of 513 — which, if it was not in reality precipitate, now at least appeared so to all — and to forget how exhausted at that time their own state had been and how powerful had been their Carthaginian rival. Shame indeed forbade their entering into communication openly with the Carthaginian rebels ; in fact, they gave an exceptional permission to the Carthaginians to levy recruits for this war in Italy, and pro- hibited Italian mariners from dealing with the Libyans. But it may be doubted whether the government of Rome was very earnest in these acts of friendly alliance; for, in spite of them, the dealings between the African insurgents and the Roman mariners continued, and when Hamilcar, whom the extremity of the peril had recalled to the com- mand of the Carthaginian army, seized and imprisoned a number of Italian captains concerned in these dealings, the senate interceded for them with the Carthaginian govern- ment and procured their release. The insurgents them- selves appeared to recognize in the Romans their natural allies. The garrisons in Sardinia, whieh like the rest of the army had declared in favour of the insurgents, offered the possession of the island to the Romans, when they saw that they were unable to hold it against the attacks of the un- conquered mountaineers of the interior (about 515) ; and a similar offer came even from the community of Utica, which had likewise taken part in the revolt and was now hard pressed by the arms of Hamilcar. The latter offer was declined by the Romans, chiefly doubt- less because its acceptance would have carried them beyond the natural boundaries of Italy and therefore farther than the Roman government was then disposed to go; on the other hand they entertained the proposals of the Sardinian Chap. III.] lu Natural Bou'iidanes. S] mutineers, and took over from them the portion of Sardinia which had been in the hands of the Carthaginians (516). In this instance, more than in the affair of the Mamertines, the Romans were justly liable to the reproach that a great and victorious nation had not dis- dained to fraternize and share the spoil with a venal pack of mercenaries, and had not sufficient self-denial to prefer the course enjoined by justice and by honour to the gain of the moment. The Carthaginians, whose troubles reached their height just about the period of the occupation of Sar- dinia, were silent for the time being as to the unwarrantable violence ; but, after their peril had been, contrary to the expectations and probably contrary to the hopes of the Romans, averted by the genius of Ilamilcar, and Carthage had been restored to her full sovereignty in Africa (517), Carthaginian envoys immediately appeared at Rome to require the restitution of Sardinia. But the Romans, not inclined to restore their booty, replied with frivolous or at any rate irrelevant complaints as to aU sorts of injuries which they alleged that the Carthaginians had inflicted on the Roman traders, and hastened to declare war ; * the principle, that in politics power is the measure of right, appeared in its naked effrontery. Just resentrjent urged the Carthaginians to accept that offer of war ; had Catulus insisted upon the cession of Sardinia five j'j^rs before, the war would probably have pursued its co /fse. But now, when both islands were lost, when Libya w.iy. in a ferment, and when the state was weakened to the ut, oost by its twenty-four years' struggle with Rome and the dread- ful civil war that had raged for nearly five years more, they were obliged to submit. It was only after repeate J en- * That the cession of the islands lying between Sicily and Italy, which the peace of 613 prescribed to the Carthaginiai 8, did not include the cession of Sardinia, is an ascertained ttct (p. V2); but the statement, that the Romans made that a pretext for their occupation of the island three years after the peace, is ill attested. Had they done so, they would merely haye added diplomatic folly to poliu cal effrontery. Vol. II.— 4* 82 Tlie Extension of Italy to [Book iu treaties, and after the Phoenicians had bound themselves to pay to Rome a ransom of 1200 talents (£292,000) for the warlike preparations which had been wantonly begun, that the Romans reluctantly desisted from war. Thus the Romans acquired Sardinia almost without a struggle ; to which they added Corsica, the ancient possession of the Etruscans, where perhaps some detached Roman garrisons still remained over from the last war (p, 53). In Sardinia, however, and still more in the rugged Corsica, the Romans restricted themselves, just as the Phoenicians had done, to an occupation of the coasts. With the natives in the interior they were continually en- gaged in war or, to speak more correctly, in hunting them like wild beasts ; they baited them with dogs, and carried what they captured to the slave market ; but they under- took no real conquest. They had occupied the islands not on their own account, but for the security of Italy. Now that the confederacy possessed the three large islands, it might call the Tyrrhene Sea its own. The acquisition of the islands in the western sea of Italy introduced into the state administration of Method of _ ,. . . , . , „ admiuistra- Kome a Qistuiction, which to all appearance tion in the ..,-,. • -i , . /• transmarine origuiatcd m mere cor^iderations of convenience possessions. ^^^ almost accidentally, but nevertheless came to be of the deepest importance in the sequel — the distino iion between the continental and transmarine forms of ad- ministration, or to use the appellations aflerwards current, the distinction between Italy and the provinces. Hitherto the two chief magistrates of the community, the consuls, had no legally defined sphere of action ; on the contrary their field of action extended as far as the Roman aovern ment itself. Of course, however, in practice they made a division of functions between them, and of course also they were bound in every particular department of their duties by the existing enactments in regard to it ; the jurisdiction, for instance, over Roman citizens had in every case to be left to the praetor, and in the Latin or other autonomous communities the existing treaties had to be respected. The Chap, III.] Its Natural Boundaries. 83 four quaestors who had been since 487 distrib- uted throughout Italy did not, formally at least curtail the consular authority, for in Italy, just as in Kome, they were regarded simply as auxiliary magistrates de- pendent on the consuls. This mode of administration ap- pears to have been at first extended, also to the territories taken from Carthage, and Sicily and Sardinia were gov erned for some years by quaestors under the superintend ence of the consuls ; but the Romans must very soon hava become practically convinced that it was indispensable to have superior magistrates specially appointed for the trans- Provinciai marine regions. As they had been obliged to praetors. abandon the concentration of the Roman juris- diction in the person of the praetor as the community ex- tended, and to send to the more remote districts deputy judges (i. 555), so now (527) the cpncentration of administrative and military power in the person of the consuls had to be abandoned. For each of the new transmarine regions — viz., Sicily, and Sardinia with Corsica annexed to it — there was appointed a special aux- iliary consul, who was in rank and title inferior to the con- sul and equal to the praetor, but otherwise was — like the consul in earlier times before the praetorship was instituted —in his own sphere of action at once commander-in-chief, chief magistrate, and supreme judge. The direct adminis- tration of finance alone was withheld from these new chief magistrates, as from the first it had been withheld from the consuls (i. 328) ; one or more quaestors were assigned to them, who were in all respects dependent on them and were regarded officially as sons, as it were, in the household of their respective praetors, but had specially to manage the ' finances and to render account of their administration to the senate after having laid down their office. This difference in the supreme administrative power was the only legal distinction between the continen- «on'of"iuie tal and transmarine possessions. The principles provinces. j^ other respects, on which Rome had organized her dependencies in Italy, were transferred also to the extra- S4 The Extension of Italy to [Book III U„mme,- Italian districts. As a matter of course, these siura. communities without exception forfeited theil independence in external relations. As to internal inter- course, no provincial could thenceforth acquire valid prop erty in the province out of the bounds of his own com munity, or perhaps even conclude a valid marriage. On the other hand the lloman government tolerated, a least \v Sicily, the federative organization of the cities, which was fraught with little danger, and even the general Sicilian diets with their harmless right of petition and complaint.* In monetary arrangements it was not practicable at once to declare the Roman currency to be the only valid tender in the islands ; but it seems from the first to have obtained legal circulation, and in like manner, at least as a rule, the right of coining the precious metals seems to have been withdrawn from the cities in Roman Sicily. f On the other hand not only was the landed property in all Property. gj^jiy igfj untouched — the principle, that the land out of Italy fell by right of war to the Romans as their prop- erty, was still unknown in this century — but all the Sicilian and Sardinian communities retained self-administration and some sort of autonomy. The democratic con- uoDomy. stitutions were no doubt set aside in all the communities, and in every city the power was transferred * That this was the case may be gathered partly from the appear- ance of the "Siculi" against Marcellus (Lir. xxvi. 26, seq.\ partly from the "conjoint petitions of all the Sicilian communities" (Cicero, Verr. ii. 42, 102; 45, 114; 50, 146; iii. 88, 204), partly from well-known analogy (Marquardt, Handb. iii. t, 26V). Because there was no com- fne^'cinm between the different towns, it by no means follows that there was no concilium. \ The right of coining gold and silver was not monopolised by Rome in the provinces so strictly as in Italy, evidently because gold and silver money not struck after the Roman standard was of less im- portance. But in their case too the mints were doubtless, as a rule, re- stricted to the coinage of copper, or at moat silver, small money ; even the most favourably treated communities of Roman Sicily, such as the Mamertines, the Oenturipans, the Alaesines, the Segestans, .-VTid the Pa oormitans also in the main, coined only copper. Chap. III.] Hs Natural Boundaries. 85 to the hands of a council representing the civic ari- tocracy and the Sicilian ooramunities, at least, were required tt institute a general valuation corresponding to the Roman census every fifth year. But both these measures were only the necessary result of subordination to the Romac senate, which in reality could not govern with Greek eccle- iiae, or without a view of the financial and military re- sources of each dependent community ; in the various dis- tiicts of Italy also the same course was iu both respects pursued. But, side by side with this essential equality of rights, Tenths and there was established a distinction between the customs. Italian communities on the one hand, and the transmarine communities on the other — a distinction indeed only de facto, but yet ver.y important in its effects. The transmarine communities furnished no fixed contingent to the army or fleet of the Romans ; * and they lost the right of arms, at least in so far that they could not be employed otherwise than on the summons of the Roman praetor for the defence of their own homes, and that the Roman gov* ernment was at liberty to send Italian troops at its pleasure into the islands. In lieu of contingents a tenth of the field- produce of Sicily, and a tax of 5 per cent, on the value on all articles of commerce exported from or imported to the Sicilian harbours, were paid to Rome. Neither tax was in itself new. The imposts levied by the Persian great king and the Carthaginian republic were substantially of the same character with that tenth ; and in Greece also such a taxation had for long been, after Oriental precedent, asso- ciated with the tyrannis and often also with a hegemony. The Sicilians, in particular, had long paid their tenth either to Syracuse or to Carthage, and had long levied customs-dues on account of others. " We received," says Cicero, " the Sicilian communities into our clientship and protection in • This is implied in Hiero's expression (Liv. xxii. 37) : that he knew that the Romans made use of none bat Roman or Latin infantry and cavalry, and enaployed "foreigners" at most only among the light armed troops. 86 The Extension of Italy to [Book III such a way that they continued under the same law under which they had lived before, and obeyed the Eoman com iwunity in the same manner in which they had obeyed their otvii rulers." It is fair that this should not be overlooked ; but to continue an injustice is to commit injustice. Viewed in relation not to the subjects, who merely changed mas- ters, but to their new rulers, the abandonment of the equally wise and magnanimous principle of Roman statesmanship — viz., that Eome should accept from her subjects simply military aid, and never pecuniary compensation in lieu of it — was of a fatal importance, in comparison with which all alleviations in the rates and the; mode of levying them, as well as all exceptions in detail, were as nothing. Such ex- ceptions were, no doubt, made in various cases ties exempt- Messatia was directly admitted to the confede- ° ■ racy of the togati, and, lil ive craftiness, which forms one of the leading traits of th« Phoenician character; he was ford of taking singular ai:d unexpected routes ; ambushes and stratagems of all sorts were familiar to him ; and he studied the character of his antagonists with unprecedented care. By an unrivalled system of espionage — he had regular spies even in Rome — he kept himself informed of the projects of the enemy ; he himself was frequently seen wearing disguises and false hair, in order to procure information on some point or other. Every page of the history of the period attests his genius as a general ; and his gifts as a statesman were, after the peace with Rome, no less conspicuously displayed in his reform of the Carthaginian constitution, and in the unparal- elled influence which as a foreign exile he exercised in the cabinets of the Eastern powers. The power which he wielded over men is shown by his incomparable control over an army of various nations and many tongues — an army which never in the worst times mutinied against him. He was a great man ; wherever he went, he riveted the eyes (,f all. Plannibal resolved immediately after his nomination (in Eupture be- '^^ spring of 534) to commence the war. The Jrr"^S^ land of the Celts was still in a ferment, and war Carihage. seemed imminent between Rome and Mace- donia : he had good reason now to throw off the mask with- out delay and to carry the war whithersoever he pleased, before the Romans began it at their own convenience with a descent on Africa. His army was soon ready to take the field, and his exchequer was tolerably filled by means of some razzias ; but the Carthaginian government showed itself far from desirous of issuing a declaration of war against Rome. The place of Hasdrubal, the patriotio nati(jnal leader, was even more diflicult to fill in Carthag* than that of Hasdrubal the general in Spain ; the peaca party had now the ascendancy at home, and persecuted the C"hap. IV.] Hamilcar and Hannibal. li'i loaders of the war party with political indictments. The rulers who had already cut down and mutilated the plana of Hamilcar were by no means inclined to allow the unknown young man, who now commanded in Spain, to exeidse his youthful patriotism at the expense of the state : ond Hannibal hesitated personally to declare war in open opposition to the legitimate authorities. He tried to pro- voke the Saguntines to break the peace; but they contented themselves with complaining to Rome. When the Romans on receiving their complaint nominated a commission, he tried to drive it to a declaration of war by treating it rudely ; but the commissioners saw how matters stood : they kept silence in Spain, with a view to lodge complaints at Carthage, and with a view to send home the news that Hannibal was ready to strike and that war was imminent. Thus the time passed away ; accounts had already come of the death of Antigonus Doson, who had suddenly died nearly at the same time with Hasdrubal ; in Cisalpine Gaul the establishment of fortresses was carried on by the Romans with redoubled rapidity and energy ; preparations were made in Rome for putting a speedy conclusion to the insurrection in Illyria in the course of the next spring. Every day was precious ; Hannibal formed his resolution. He sent summary intimation to Carthage that the Sagun- tines were making aggressions on the Torboletes, subjects of Carthage, and he must therefore attack them ; and with- out waiting for a reply he began in the spring of 535 the , . siege of a town which was in alliance with Rome, or in other words, war against Rome. We may form some idea of the views and counsels that would prevail in Carthage from the impression produced in certain circles by York's capitulation. All " respectable men," it was said, disapproved an attack made " without orders ; " there was talk of disavowal, of surrendering the daring officer. But whether it was that dread of the army and of the multitude nearer home outweighed in the Car thaginian council the fear of Rome ; or that they perceived the impossibility of retracing such a step, now that it was ilS IlamiLcar and Hannibal. [Book hi taken ; oi' that mere inertness prtvented any definite action, they determined at length to do nothing, and to suffer tha war to go on, although not prepared to sanction it. Sagun- lum defended itself, as only Spanish towns can conduct their defence : had the Romans showed but a tithe of tha energy of their clients, and not trifled away their time dnr- ing the eight months' siege of Saguntum in the paltry war- fare with lUyrian brigands, they might, masters as they were of the sea and of places suitable for landing, have spared themselves the disgrace of failing to grant the pro- tection which they had promised, and might perhaps have given a different turn to the war. But they delayed, and the town was at length taken by storm. When Hannibal sent the spoil for distribution to Carthage, patriotism and ?oal for war were roused in the hearts of many who hai hitherto felt nothing of the kind, and the distribution cut off all prospect of coming to terms with Rome. Accordingly, when after the destruction of Saguntum a Roman embassy appeared at Carthage and demanded the surrender of the general and of the Gerusiasts present in the camp, and when the Roman spokesman, interrupting an attempt at justification, broke off the discussion and, gathering up his robe, declared that he held in it peace and war and that the Gerusia might choose between them, the Gerusiasts mus- tered courage to reply that theyleft it to the choice of the j^^ Roman ; and when he offered war, they accepted it (in the spring of 536). Hannibal, who had lost a whole year through the obsti- Prepara. "***"' resistance of the Saguntines, had as usual "tacking retired for the winter of 535-6 to Cartagena, to itaiyjg make all his preparations on the one hand for the attack of Italy, on the other for the defence of Spain and Africa ; for, as he, like his father and his brother-in-law, held the supreme command in both coun- tries, it devolved upon him to take measures also for tha protection of his native land. The whole mass of his forces amounted to about 120,000 infontry and 16,000 cavalry; he had also 58 elephants, 32 ^uinq^ueremes manned, and 1S> Chap. IV.] Eamzlco^ and Hannibal. Ij9 not manned, besides the elephants and vessels remahiing at the capital. Excepting a few Ligurians among the liiJ-ht troops, there were no mercenaries in this Carthaginian army ; the troops, with the exception of some Phoenician squadrons, consisted mainly of the Carthaginian subjects called out for service — Libyans and Spaniards. To insure the fidelity of the latter the general, who knew the men ■ivith whom he had to deal, gave them as a proof of his con fidcfflce a geaieral leave of absence for the whole winter : while, not sharing the narrow-minded exclusiveness o* Phoenician patriotism, he promised to the Libyans on hif- oath the citizenship of Carthage, should they return to Africa victorious. This mass of troops however was only destined in part for the expedition to Italy. Nearly 20,0(K men were sent to Africa, the smaller portion of them pro- ceeding to the capital and the Phoenician territory proper, the majority to the western point of Africa. For the pro- tection of Spain 12,000 infantry, 2500 cavalry, and nearly the half of the elephants were left behind, in addition to the fleet stationed there ; the chief command and the govei-n- ment of Spain were entrusted to Hannibal's younger brother Hasdrubal. The immediate territory of Carthage was comparatively weakly garrisoned, because the capital afforded in case of need sufficient resources ; in like manner a moderate number of infantry sufficed for the present in Spain, where new levies could be procured with ease, whereas a comparatively large proportion of the arms spe- cially African — horses and elephants — was retained theie. Great care was taken to secure the communications between Spain and Africa : with that view the fleet remained in Spain, and western Africa was guarded by a very strong body of troops. The fidelity of the troops was secured not only by hostages collected from the Spanish communitici and detained in the stronghold of Saguntum, out by the removal of the soldiers from the districts where they wt-re raised to other quarters : the East African militia were moved chiefly to Spain, the Spanish to Western Africa, the West African to Carthage. Adequate provision was thug 120 Hamilcar and Hannibal. [Book IIL made for defence. As to offensive measures, a squadron of 20 quinqueremes with 1000 soldiers on board was to sail from Cartilage for the west coast of Italy and to pillage it, and a second of 25 sail was, if possible, to re-establish itself at Lilybaeum ; Hannibal believed that he might count upon the government making this moderate amount of exertion. With the main army he determined in person to invade Italy ; as was beyond doubt part of the origins! plan of Hamilcar. A decisive attack on Rome was only possible in Italy, as a similar attack on Carthage was only possible in Libya ; as certainly as Rome meant to begin her next campaign with the latter, so certainly ought Cai-thage not to confine herself at the outset to any secondary object of operations, such as Sicily, or to mere defence — defeat would in any case involve equal destruction, but victory would not yield equal fruit. But how could Italy be attacked 1 He might succeed in jietiod of reaching the peninsula by sea or by land ; but attack. j£ j.j^g project was to be no mere desperate adventure, but a military expedition with a strategic aim, a nearer basis for its operations was requisite than Spain or Africa. Hannibal could not rely for support on a fleet and a fortified harbour, for Rome was now mistress of the sea. As little did the territory of the Italian confederacy present any tenable basis. If in very different times, and in spite of Hellenic sympathies, it had withstood the shock of Pyr- rhus, it was not to be expected that it would now fall to pieces on the appearance of the Phoenician general ; an invading army would without doubt be crushed between the network of Roman fortresses and the firmly consoli- dated confederacy. The land of the LigurJans and Celts alone could be to Hannibal, what Poland was to Napoleon in his very similar Russian campaigns. These tribes still smarting under their scarcely ended struggle for independ- ence, alien in race from the Italians, and feeling their very existence endangered by the chain of Roman fortresses and highways whose first coils were even now being fastened around them, could not but recognize their deliverers iii the Chap. IV.] Uaimlcar and Hannibal. 121 Phoenician army (which numbered in its ranks numerous Spanish Celts), and would serve as a support for it to fall back upon — a source whence it might draw supplies and i-ccruits. Already formal treaties were concluded with the Boii and the Insubres, by which they bound themselves to send guides to meet the Carthaginian army, to procure for it a good reception from the cognate tribes and supplies along its route, and to rise against the Romans as soon as it should set foot on Italian ground. In fine, the state of Roman relations with the East led the Carthaginians to this same quarter. Macedonia, which by the victory of Sellasia had re-established its sovereignty in the Peloponnesus, was at variance with Rome ; Demetrius of Pharos, who had exchanged the Roman alliance for that of Macedon and had been dispossessed by the Romans, lived as an exile at the Macedonian court, and the latter hud refused the demand which the Romans made for his surrender. If it was pos- sible to combine the nrrnies from the Guadalquivir and the Karasu anywhere against the common foe, it could only be done on the Po. Thus everything directed Hannibal to northern' Italy ; and that the eyes of his father had already been turned to that quarter, is shown by the reconnoitring jgg party of Carthaginians, whom the Romans to their great surprise encountered in Liguria in 524. The reason for Hannibal's preference of the land route to that by sea is less obvious ; for that neither the mari- time supremacy of the Romans nor their league with Mas- si lia could have prevented a landing at Genoa, is evident, and was shown by the sequel. Our authorities fail to fur- nish us with several of the elements, on which a satisfactory answer to this question would depend, and which cannot be supplied by conjecture. Hannibal had to choose between two evils. Instead of exposing himself to the unknown and unforeseen contingencies of a sea voyage and of naval war, it must have seemed to him the better course to accept the assurances, which beyond doubt were seriously meant, of the Boii and I subres, and the more so that, even if the army should land at Genoa, it would still have mountains Vol. II.— 6 122 Uamilcar and Hannibal. [Book iil to cross ; he could hardly know exactly, how much smaller are the difficulties presented by the Apennines at Genoa than by the main chain of the Alps. At any rate the route which he took was the primitive Celtic route, by which many much larger hordes had crossed the Alps : the allj and deliverer of the Celtic nation might without temerity venture to traverse it. So Hannibal collected the troops, destined for the grand Departure army, in Cartagena at the beginning of the fa- ofHannibaL you^j^ijie geasou ; there were 90,000 infantry and 12.000 cavalry, of whom about two-thirds were Africans and a third Spaniards. The 37 elephants which they took with them wei-e probably destined rather to make an impression on the Gauls than for serious warfare. Hannibal's infantry no longer needed, like that led by Xanthippus, to shelter itself behind a screen of elephants, and the general had too much sagacity to employ otherwise than sparingly and with caution that two-edged weapon, which had as oflen occa- sioned the defeat of its own as of the enemy's army. With this force the general set out in the spring of 536 from Car- am tagena towards the Ebro. He so far informed his soldiers as to the measures which he had taken, particularly as to the connections he had entered into with the Celts and the resources and object of the expedi- tion, that even the common soldier, whose military instinct! lengthened war had developed, felt the clear perception and the steady hand of his leader, and followed him with implicit confidence to the unknown and distant land ; and the animated address, in which he laid before them the position of their country and the demands of the Romans, the slavery certainly reserved for their dear native land, and the disgrace of the imputation that they could surren- der their beloved general and his staff, kindled a soldierly and patriotic ardour in the hearts of all. The Eoman state was in a plight, such as easily occurs Poaitionof fvcn in firmly-established and sagacious aristoc- racies. The Romans knew doubtless what they wished to accomplish, and they took various steps ; but Chap. IV.] Harnihar and Hannihal. 123 nothing was doije rightly or at the right time. They mighl long ago have been masters of the gates of the Alps and have crushed the Celts ; the latter were still formidable, and the former were open. They might either have had friend-ship with Carthage, had they honourably kept the jji_ peace of 513, or, had they not been disposed for peace, they might long ago have conquered Car- thage : the peace was practically broken by the seizure of Sardinia, and they allowed the power of Carthage to recov- er itself undisturbed for twenty years. There was no great difficulty in maintaining peace with Macedonia ; but they had forfeited her friendship for a trifling gain. There must have been a lack of some leading statesman to take a com- prehensive view of the position of affairs ; on all hands either too little was done, or too much. Now the war began at a time and at a place which they had allowed the Theirnnoer- ^"6^7 ^o determine ; and, with all their well- tainpians founded conviction of military superiority, they were perplexed as to the object to be aimed at and the course to be followed in their first operations. They had at their disposal more than half a million of ser- viceable soldiers ; the Roman cavalry alone was less good, and relatively less numerous, than the Carthaginiaii, the former constituting about a tenth, the latter an eighth, of the whole number of troops taking the field. None of the states affected by the war had any fleet corresponding to the Roman fleet of 220 quinqueremes, which had just returned from the Adriatic to the western sea. The natural and proper application of this crushing superiority of force was self-evident. It had been long settled that the war ought to be opened with a landing in Africa. The subso quent turn taken by events had compelled the Romans to embrace in their scheme of the war a simultaneous landing in Spain, chiefly to prevent the Spanish army from appear- ing before the walls of Carthage. In accordance with this plan they ought above all, when the war had been prao- tically opened by Hannibal's attack on Saguntum in th« ii9. beginning of 535, to have thrown a Romas 124 JJainilcar and Hannibal. [Boos in army into Spain before the town succumbed ; but tliej neglected the dictates of interest no less than of honour For eight months Saguntum held out in "vain : when thi" town passed into other hands, Rome had not even equipped her armament for landing in Spain. The country, however, between the Ebro and the Pyrenees was still free, and its tiibes were not only the natural allies of the Romans, but had also, like the Saguntines, received from Roman emis- saries promises of speedy assistance. Catalonia may be reached by sea from Italy in not much longer time than from Cartagena by land : had the Romans started, like the Phoenicians, in April, after the formal declaration of wai that had taken place in the interval, Hannibal might have encountered the Roman legions on the line of the Ebro. At length, certainly, the greater part of the army and „ ., , of the fleet was sot ready for the expeditiot to Hannibal on » ./ r the Ebro. Africa, and the second consul Publius Cornelius Scipio was ordered to the Ebro ; but he proceeded leis- urely, and when an insurrection broke out on the Po, he allowed the army that was ready for embarkation to be employed there, and formed new legions for the Spanish expedition. So although Hannibal encountered on the Ebro very vehement resistance, it proceeded only from the na- tives ; and, as under existing circumstances time was still more precious to him than the blood of his men, he sur- mounted the opposition after some months with the loss of a fourth part of his army, and reached the line of the Pyre- nees. That the Spanish allies of Rome would be sacrificed a second time by that delay might have been as certainly foreseen, as the delay itself might have been easily avoided ; but probably even the expedition to Italy itself, which in the spring of 536 must not have been - tachment of 600 men charged to cover the process of de- struction were, however, intercepted and made prisoners. But as the upper course of the river was in the hands of Hannibal, he could not be prevented from marching up the stream, crossing on a bridge of boats, and in a few days confronting the Roman army on the right bank. The latter The armies had taken a position in the plain in front of Pla- atPJacentia. gentia ; but the mutiny of a Celtic division in the Roman camp, and the Gallic insurrection breaking out afresh all around, compelled the consul to evacuate the plain and to post himself on the hills behind the Trebia. This was accomplished without much loss, because the Numidian horsemen sent in pursuit lost their time in plun- dering, and setting fire to, the abandoned camp. In this strong position, with his left wing resting on the Apennines, his right on the Po and the fortress of Piacentia, and cov- ered in front by the Trebia — no inconsiderable stream at that season — Scipio was unable to save the rich stores of Clastidium (Casteggio), from which in this position he was cut off by the army of the enemy ; nor was he able to avert the insurrectionary movement on the part of almost all the Gallic cantons, excepting the Cenomani who were friendly to Rome ; but he completely cheeked the progrebs of Hannibal, and compelled him to pitch his camp opposite to that of the Romans. Moreover, the position taken up by Scipio, and the circumstance of the Cenomani threaten- ing the borders of the Insubres, hindered the main body of the Gallic insurgents from directly joining the enemy, and gave to fhe second Roman array, which meanwhile had arrived at Ariminum from Lilybaeum, the opportunity of reaching Plaientia through the midst of the insurgent coun- Chap. V.J To the Battle of Cannae. 133 try without material hindrance, and of uniting itself with the army of the Po. Scipio had thus solved his difficult task brilliantly ano BattieontLe Completely. The Roman army, now close on TreLia. 40,000 strong, and though not a match for its antagonist in cavalry, at least equal in infantry, had simply to remain in its existing position, in order to compel the enemy either to attempt in the winter season the passage of the river and an attack upon the camp, or to suspend his advance and to test the fickle temper of the Gauls by the burden of winter quarters. Clear, however, as this was, it was no less clear that it was now December, and that under the course proposed the victory might perhaps be gained by Rome, but would not be gained by the consul Tiberius Sempronius, who held the sole command in consequence of Scipio's wound, and whose year of office expired in a few months. Hannibal knew the man, and neglected no means of alluring him to fight. The Celtic villages that had re- mained faithful to the Romans were cruelly laid waste, and, when this brought on a conflict between the cavalry, Hanni- bal allowed his opponents to boast of the victory. Soon thereafter on a raw rainy day a general engagement came on, unlooked for by the Romans. From the earliest hour of the morning the Roman light troops had been skirmish- ing with the light cavalry of the enemy ; the latter slowly retreated, and the Romans eagerly pursued it through the deeply swollen Trebia, so as to follow up the advantage which they had gained. Suddenly the cavalry halted ; the Roman vanguard found itself face to face with the army of Hannibal drawn up for battle on a field chosen by himself; it was lost, unless the main body should cross the stream with all speed to its support. Hungry, weary, and wet, the Romans came on and hastened to form in order of bat^ tie, the cavalry, as usual, on the wings, the infantry in the centre. The light troops, who formed the vanguard on both sides, began the combat : but the Romans had already almost exhausted their missiles against the cavalry, and im- mediately gave way. In like manner the cavalry gave way 140 The War under Hannibal [Book hi on the wings, hard pressed by the elephants in front, and outflanked right and left by the fer more numerous Cartha- ginian horse. But the Eoman infantry proved itself worthy of its name : at the beginning of the battle it fought with very decided superiority against the infantry of the enemy, and even when the repulse of the Roman horse allowed the enemy's cavalry and light-armed troops to turn their attacks against the Roman infantry, the latter, although ceasing to advance, obstinately maintained its ground. At this stage a select Carthaginian band of 2,000 men, half infantry, half cavalry, under the leadership of Mago, Hannibal's youngest brother, suddenly emerged from an ambush in the rear of the Roman army, and foil upon the densely entangled mass- es. The wings of the army and the rear ranks of the Ro- man centre were broken up and scattered by this attack, while the first division, 10,000 men strong, in compact ar- ray broke through the Carthaginian line, and made a pas- sage for itself obliquely through the midst of the enemy, inflicting great loss on the opposing infantry and more especially on the Gallic insurgents. This brave body, pur- sued but feebly, thus reached Placentia. The remaining mass was for the most part slaughtered by the elephants and light troops of the enemy in attempting to cross the river : only part of the cavalry and some divisions of in- fantry were able, by wading through the river, to gain the camp whither the Carthaginians did not follow them, and thus they too reached Placentia.* Few battles confer more * Polybius's account of the battle on the Trebia is quite clear. If Placentia lay on the light bank of the Trebia where it falls into the I'o, and if the battle was foufrht on the left bank, while the Roman encamp- ment was pitched upon the right — both of which points have been dis- puted, but are nevertheless indisputable — the Roman soldiers must cer- tainly have passed the Trebia in order to gain Placentia as well as t& gain the camp. But those who crossed to the camp must have made their way through the disorganized portions of their own army and through the corps of the enemy that had gone round to their rear, and must then have crossed the river almost in hand to hand combat with the enemy. On the other hand the passage near Placentia was accom- Dlighed after the pursuit had slackened ; the corps was several milei Chap. V.] To the Battle of Cannae. 14\ honour on the Roman suldier than this on the Tiebia, and few at the same time furnish graver impeachment of th« general in command; although the candid judge will not forget that a commander-in-chief expiring on a definite day was an unmilitary institution, and that figs cannot be reaped from thistles. The victory came to be costly even to the vietois. Although the loss in the battle fell chiefly on the Celtic iiisurgents, yet a multitude of the veteran soldiers of Hannibal died afterwards from diseases engendered by that raw and wet winter day, and all the elephants perished ex- cept one. The effect of this first victory of the invading army was, that the national insurrection now spread and master'of assumed shape without hindrance throughout ifa?:?!^™ *li® Celtic territory. The remains of the Ro- man army of the Po threw themselves into tho fortresses of Placertia and Cremona : completely cut off from home, they were obliged to procure their supplies by way of the river. The consul Tiberius Sempronius only escaped, as if by miracle, from being taken prisoner, when with a weak escort of cavalry he went to Rome on account of the elections. Hannibal, who would not hazard thy health of his troops by further marches at that inclement season, bivouacked for the winter where he was ; and, as j serious attempt on the larg(y fortresses would have led to distant from the field of battle, and had arrived within reach of a Ro- man fortress ; It may even have been the ease, although it cannot be proved, that a bridge led over the Trebia at that point, and that the teti de pont on the other bank was occupied by the garrison of Placentia. It is evident that the first passage was just as difiScult as the second was MS/, and therefore with good reason Polybius, military judge as lij was, merely says of the oorps of 10,000, that in close columns it cut its iray to Placentia (iii. 74, 6), without mentioning the passage of the rivet B'hich in this case was unattended with difficulty. The erroneonsness of the view of Livy, which transfers the Phoeni- cian camp to the right, the Roman to the left bank of the Trebia, has lately been repeatedly pointed out. We may only further mention, that the site of Clastidium, neai' the modern Casteggio, has now been "» kiblished by inscriptions (0/'«?it — Heiizeii, 5117). 142 The War v.ndcr Hannibal [Book hi. no result, contented himself with annoying the enemy hy attacks on the river-port of Placentia and other minor Ro- man positions. He employed himself mainly in organizing the Gallic insurrection : more than 60,000 foot soldiers and 4,000 horsemen from the Celts are said to have joined his army. No extraordinary exertions were made in Rome for tlw campaign of 537. The senate thought, and not Miiitary unreasonably, that, despite the lost battle, their and politi- •' ' ' ^ ... caiposition position was by no means fraught with serious of HannibaL ., n ■ n i ■ i • i danger, rsesides the coast-garrisons, which were despatched to Sardinia, Sicily, and Tarentum, and the rein^ forcements which were sent to Spain, the two new consuls Gaius Flaminius and Gnaeus Servilius obtained only as many men as were necessary to restore the four legions to their full complement ; additions were made to the strength of the cavalry alone. The consuls had to protect the north- ern frontier, and stationed themselves accordingly on the two highways which led from Rome to the north, the west- ern of which at that time terminated at Arretium, and the eastern at Ariminum ; Gaius Flarninius occupied the former, Gnaeus Servilius the latter. There they ordered the troops from the fortresses on the Po to join them, probably by water, and awaited the commencement of the favourable season, when they proposed to/OCCupy in the defensive tha passes of the Apennines, and then, resuming offensive opera- tions, to descend into the valley of the Po and effect a junc^ tion somewhere near Placentia. But Hannibal by no means intended to defend the valley of the Po. He knew Rome better perhaps than the Romans knew it themselves, and was very well a\vare how decidedly he was the weaker and 'jontinuod to be so notwithstanding the brilliant battle on the Trebia; he knew too that his ultimate object, the humiliation of Rome, was not to be wrung from the un- bending Roman pride either by terror or by surprise, but could only be gained by the complete subjugation of the haughty city. It was clearly apparent that the Italian fede- ration was in political solidity and in military resources in 3nAP.V.] To the Battle of Cannae. 143 finitely superior to an adversary, who received only precari- ous and irregular support from home, and who was in the first instance dependent for aid in Italy solely on the vacil- lating and capricious nation of the Celts; and that the Phoenician foot soldier was, notwithstanding all the pains taken by Hannibal, far inferior in point of tactics to the legionary, had been completely proved by the defensive movements of Scii)io and the brilliant retreat of the de- feated infantry on the Trebia. From this convict'on flowed the two fundamental principles which determined HannibaPs whole method of operations in Italy — viz., that the wai' should be carried on, somewhat adventurously, with con- stant changes in the plan and in the theatre of operations ; and that its favourable issue could only be looked for as the result of political and not of military successes — of the gradual loosening and final breaking up of the Italian fede- ration. This mode of carrying on the war was necessary, because the single element which Hannibal had to throw into the scale against so many disadvantages — his military genius — only told with its full weight, when he constantly foiled his opponents by unexpected combinations ; he was undone, if the war became stationary. ,This aim was the aim dictated to him by right policy, because, mighty con- queror though he was in battle, he saw very clearly that on each occasion he vanquished the generals but not the city, and that after each new battle the Romans remained just as superior to the Carthaginians as he was personally su- perior to the Roman commanders. That Hannibal even at the height of his fortune never deceived himself on this point, is :i fact more wonderful than his most wondrous battles. It M'as these motives, and not the entreaties of the Gaul? that he should spare their country — which would croBsesthe not have influenced him — that induced Hannibal Apenninea. ^^^ ^^ forsake, as it were, his newly acqu.red basis of operations against Italy, and to transfer the scene of war to Italy itself. Before doing so he gave orders *;hat all the prisoners should be brought before him. He ordered 144 The War under Hannihal [Book UI the Romans to be separated and loaded with chains as slaves — the statement that Hannibal put to death all the Romans capable of bearing arms, who here and elsewhere fell into his hands, is beyond doubt at least strongly exaggerated. On the other hand, all the Italian allies were released with- out ransom, and charged to report at home that Hannibal waged war not against Italy, but against Rome ; that he promised to every Italian community the restoration of its ancient independence and its ancient boundaries ; and that the deliverer was about to follow those whom he had set free, bringing release and revenge. So, when the winter ended, he started from the valley of the Po to search for a route through the difficult defiles of the Apennines. Gaius Flaminius, with the Etruscan army, was still for the mo- ment at Arezzo, intending to move from that point towards Lucca in order to protect the vale of the Arno and the passes of the Apennines, so soon as the season should allow. But Hannibal anticipated him. The passage of the Apen- nines was accomplished without much difficulty, at a point as far west as possible or, in other words, as distant as pos- sible from the enemy ; but the marshy low grounds be- tween the Serchio and the Arno were so flooded by the melting of the snow and the spring rains, that the army had to march four days in water, without finding any other dry spot for resting by night than was supplied by piling the baggage or by the sumpter animals that had fallen. The troops underwent unutterable sufferings, particularly the Gallic infantry, which marched behind the Carthaginians along tracks already rendered impassable : they murmured loudly and would undoubtedly have dispersed to a man, had not the Carthaginian cavalry under Mago, which brought up the rear, rendered light impossible. The horses, assailed by a distemper m their hoofs, fell in heaps ; various diseases decimated the soldiers ; Hannibal himself lost an eye in consequence of ophthalmia. But the object was attained. Hannibal encamped at . Fiesole, while Gaius Flaminius was still wait- FlaminiuB. . , mg at Arezzo until the roads should become Chap, v.] To tlie Battle of Cannae. 145 passable that he might blockade them. Aftei the Rciman defensive position had thus been turned, the best course for the consul, who might perhaps have been strong enough to defend the mountain passes but certainly was unable now to face Hannibal in the open field, would have been to wait till the second army, which had now become completely super- fluous at Ariminum, should arrive. He himself, however thought otherwise. He was a political party leader, raised to distinction by his efforts to limit the power of the sen- ate ; indignant at the government in consequence of the aristocratic intrigues concocted against him during his con- sulship ; carried away, through a doubtless justifiable oppo- sition to their beaten track of partisanship, into a scornful defiance of tradition and custom ; intoxicated by a blind affection for the common people, and by quite as bitter a hatred towards the party of the nobles ; and, in addition to all this, possessed with the fixed idea that he was a military genius. His campaign against the Insubres of 531, which to unprejudiced judges only showed that good soldiers often repair the errors of bad generals (p. 100), was regarded by him and by his adherents as an irrefragable proof that tho Ilomaus had only to put Gaius Flaminius at the head of the army in order to make a speedy end of Hannibal. Talk of this sort had procured for him his second consulship, and hopes of this sort had now brought to his camp so great a multitude of unarmed followers eager for spoil, that their number, according to the assurance of sober historians, exceeded that of the legiona- ries. Hannibal based his plan in part on this circumstance. So far from attacking him, he marched past him, and caused the country all around to be pillaged by the Celts who thoroughly understood plundering, and by his numerous cavalry. Tho complaints and indignation of the multitude which had to submit to be plundered under the eyes of the hero who had promised to enrich them, and the protestation of the enemy that they did not believe him possessed of either the power or the resolution to undertake anything before the arrival of his colleague, could not but induce Vol. II.— 7 146 ITxe War under Sannibal [Book III such a man to display his genius for strategy, and to give a sharp lesson to his inconsiderate and haughty foe. No plan was ever more successful. In haste, the consul „ ... followed the line of march of the enemy, who Battle on -^ ' the Txasi- passed by Arezzo and moved slowly through the rich valley of the Chiana towards Perugia. He overtook him in the district of Cortona, where Hannibal, accurately informed of his antagonist's march, had had fiill time to select his field of battle — a narrow defile between two steep mountain walls, closed at its outlet by a high hill, and at its entrance by the Trasimene lake. With the flower of his infantry he barred the outlet ; the light troops and the cavalry placed themselves in concealment on either side. The Roman columns advanced without hesitation into the unoccupied pass ; the thick morning mist concealed from them the position of the enemy. As the head of the Roman line approached the hill, Hannibal gave the signal for batr tie ; * the cavalry, advancing behind the heights, closed the entrance of the pass, and at the same time the mist rolling away revealed the Phoenician arms everywhere along the crests on the right and left. There was no battle ; it was a mere rout. Those that remained out of the defile were driven by the cavalry into the lake. The main body was annihilated in the pass itself almost without resistance, and most of them, including the consul himself, were cut down in the order of march. The head of the Roman column, formed of 6,000 infantry, cut their way through the infantry of the enemy, and proved once more the irresistible might of the legions ; but, cut off from the rest of the army and without knowledge of its fate, they marched on at random, were surrounded on the following day, on a hill wlrich they had occupied, by a corps of Carthaginian ea\'alry, and — aa * TKe date of the battle, 28rd June according to the uncorrected calendar, mus>, according to the rectified calendar, fall somewhere in April, since Quintus Fabius resigned uis dictatorship, after six months, in the middle of autumn (Liv. xxii. 31, 7; 32, 1), and must therefora liave entered upon it about the beginning of M;iy. The confusion of tlic calenikr (i. 587) in Rome was even at tliis period very great. Ciup v.] To the Battle of Uannae. 147 the capitulation, which jjromised them a free retreat, was rejected by Hannibal — were all treated as prisoners of war : 15,000 Romans had fallen, and as many were captured ; in other words, the army was annihilated. The slight Cartha- ginian loss — 1,500 men — again fell mainly upon the Gauls. A.nd, as if this were not enough, immediately after the battle on the Trasimene lake, the cavalrj"^ of the army of Ariminum under Gaius Centenius, 4,000 strong, which Gnaeus Servilius had sent forward to the support of his colleague while he himself advanced by slow marches, was likewise surrounded by the Phoenician army, and partly slain, partly made prisoners. All Etruria was lost, and Hannibal might without hindrance march on Rome. The Romans prepared themselves for the worst ; they broke down the bridges over the Tiber, and nominated Quintus Fabius Maximus dictator to repair the walls and conduct tho defence, for which an army of reserve was formed. At the same time two new legions were summoned under arms in the room of those annihilated, and the fleet, which might be- come of importance in the event of a siege, was put in order. But Hannibal was more farsighted than king Pyrrhus. „ ., , He did not march on Rome ; nor even against Hannibal on ' o the east Gnaeus Servilius, an able general, who had with the help of the fortresses on the northern road preserved his army hitherto uninjured, and would perhaps have kept his antagonist at bay. Once more a movement occurred which was quite unexpected. Hannibal marched past the fortress of Spoletium, which he attempted in vain to surprise, through Umbria, fearfully devastated the teni- tory of Picenum which was covered all over with Roman farmhouses, and halted on the shores of the Adriatic. The men and horses of his army had not yet recovered from the painful effects of their spring campaign ; here he rested for a considerable time to allow his army to recruit its strength in a pleasant district and at a fine season of the year, and to Eeorganiza- reorganize his Libyan infantry after the Roman Cartha^-* " mode, the means for which were furnished to Dianarmy. jjjjjj ^y ff,g mass of Roman arms among th* 148 The War under Hannibal [Book in, spoil. From this point, moreover, he resumed his long interrupted communication with his native land, sending his messages of victory by water to Carthage. At length, when his army was sufficiently restored and had been ade- quately exercised in the use of the new arms, he broke up and marched slowly along the coast into southern Italy. He had calculated correctly, when he chose this time for remodelling his infantry. The surprise of his antagonists, who were in constant expectation of an attack on the capi- tal, allowed him at least four weeks of undisturbed leisure for the execution of the unprecedentedly bold experiment of changing completely his military system in the heart of a hostile country and with an army still comparatively small, and of attempting to oppose African legions to the invinci- ble legions of Italy. But his hope that the confederacy would now begin to break up was not fulfilled. In this respect the Etruscans, who had carried on their last wars of independence mainly with Gallic mercenaries, were of less moment ; the flower of the confederacy, particularly in a military point of view, consisted — next to the Latins — of the Sabellian communities, and with good reason Hannibal had now oome into their neighbourhood. But one town after another closed its gates ; not a single Italian commu- nity entered into alliance with the Phoenicians. This result was a great, in fact an all-important, point gained fur Rome. Nevertheless it was felt in the capital that it would be imprudent to put the fidelity of their allies to such a test, WarjnLow- without a Roman army to keep the field. The cr Italy. dictator Quintus Fabius combined the two sup- plementary legions formed in Rome with the aimy of Ariminum, and when Hannibal marched past the Roman fortress of Luceria towards Arpi, the Roman standards appeared on his right flank at Aeca. Their leader, however, pursued a different course from his predecessors. Quintus Fabius was a man advanced in years, of a deliberation and firmness, which to not a few seemed pro- crastination and obstinacy. Zealous in his reverence for the good old times, for the political omnipotence of the senate, Cbap v.] To the Battle of Cannae. 149 and for the command of the burgomasters, he looked lo a methodical prosecution of the war as — next to sacrifices ami? prayer — the means of saving the state. A political antag onist of Gaius Flaminius, and summoned to the head of affairs in virtue of the reaction against his foolish war' demagogism, Fabius departed for the camp just as tirmly resolved to avoid a pitched battle at any price, as his pre- decessor had been determined at any price to fight one ; ha was without doubt convinced that the first elements of strategy would forbid Hannibal to advance so long as the Iloman army confronted him intact, and that accordingly it would not be difficult to weaken by petty conflicts and gradually to starve out the enemy's army, dependent as it was on foraging for its supplies. Hannibal, well served by his spies in Rome and in the March to Roman army, immediately learned how matters back to*""* stood, and, as usual, adjusted the plan of his cam- Apniia. paign in accordance with the individual character of the opposing leader. Passing the Roman army, he march- ed over the Apennines into the heart of Italy towards Beneven- tum, took the open town of Telesia on the boundary between Samnium and Campania, and thence turned against Capua, which was the most important of all the Italian cities depend- ent on Rome, and for that very reason had been oppressed and maltreated. in a more vexatious manner than any other com- munity had been by the Roman government. He had formed connections there, which led him to hope that the Campanians might revolt from the Roman alliance ; but in this hope he was disappointed. So, retracing his steps, he took the road to Apulia. During all this march of the Carthaginian army the dictator had followed along the heights, and had condemned his soldiers to the melancholy task of looking on with arms in their hands, while the Nuniidian cavalry plundered the faithful allies far and wide, and the villages over all the plain rose in flames. At length he opened up to the exasperated Roman army the eager] j coveted prospect of attacking the enemy. When Hannibal had begun his retreat, Fabius intercepted his route nea? 150 The War under HannihaL [Book in Casilinum (the modern Capua), by strongly ganisoning that town on the left bank of the Volturnus and occupying the hfights that secured the right bank with his main army, while a division of 4,000 men encamped on the road itself that led along by the river. But Hannibal ordered his light-armed troops to climb the heights which rose imme- diately alongside of the road, and to drive before them a number of oxen with lighted faggots on their horns, so that it seemed as if the Cartha;;inian army were thus marching off during the night by torchlight. The Roman division, which blocked up the road, imagining that they were evaded and that further covering of the road was superfluous, inarched by a side movement to the same heights. Along the road thus left free Hannibal then retreated with the bulk of his army, without encountering the enemy ; next morning he without difficulty, but with severe loss to the Eornans, disengaged and recalled his light troops. Hanni- bal then continued his march unopposed in a north-easterly direction ; and by a widely-circuitous route, after traversing and laying under contribution the lands of the Hirpinians, Campatdans, Samnites, Paelignians, and Frentanians with- out resistance, he arrived with rich booty and a full chest once more in the region of Luceria, just as the harvest there was about to begin. Nowhere in his extensive march had he met with active opposition, but nowhere had he found War in allies. Clearly perceiving that no course re- Apulia. mained for him but to take up winter quarters in the open field, he began the difficult operation of collect- ing the winter supplies requisite for the army, by means of its own agency, from the fields of the enemy. For this purpose he had selected the broad and mostly flat district of northern Apulia, which furnished grain and grass in abundance, and which could be completely commanded by his excellent cavalry. An entrenched camp was constructed at Gerunium, twenty-five miles to the north of Luceria, Two-thirds of the army were daily despatched from it to bring in the stores, while Hannibal with the remainder took up a positior to protect the camp and the detachments sent lUt. Chap, v.] To the Battle of Cannae. 151 The master of the horse, Marcus Minueius, who held Fibinsana temporary command in the Roman camp dur^ niuoius. jjjg j.j^g absence of the dictator, deemed this a suitable opportunity for approaching the enemy more close- ly, and formed a camp in the territory of the Larinates \ where on the one hand by his mere presence he checked the sending out of detachments and thereby hindered the pro- visioning of the enemy's army, and on the other hand, in the series of successful conflicts in which his troops encoun- tered isolated Phoenician divisions and even Hannibal him- self, drove the enemy from their advanced positions and compelled them to concentrate themselves at Gerunium On the news of these successes, which of course lost noth- ing in the telling, reaching the capital, the storm broke forth against Quintus Fabius. It was not altogether unwar- ranted. Prudent as it was on the part of Rome to abide by the defensive and to expect success mainly from the cut- ting off of the enemy's means of subsistence, there was yet something strange in a system of defence and of starving out, under which the enemy had laid waste all central Italy with- out opposition beneath the eyes of a Roman army of equal numbers, and had provisioned themselves sufficiently for the winter by an organized method of foraging on the great- est scale. Publius Scipio, when he commanded on the Po, had not adopted this view of a defensive attitude, and the attempt of his successor to imitate him at Casilinum had failed in such a way as to afford a copious fund of ridicule to the scoffers of the city. It was wonderful that the Italian communities had not wavered, when Hannibal so palpably showed them the superiority of the Phoenicians and the nullity of Roman aid ; but how long could they be expecteii to bear the burden of a double war, and to allow themselves to be plundered under the very eyes of the Roman troops and of their own contingents ? Finally, it could not be al- leged that the condition of the Roman army compelled the general to adopt this mode of warfare. It was ,;omposed, in- deed, in part of militia called out for the emergency, but the flower of it consisted of the legions of Ariminum ao' 152 The War under Hannibal [Book m customed to service ; and, so far from being discouraged h-^ the last defeats, it was indignant at the far from honourable task -which its general, " Hannibal's lackey," assigned to it, and it demanded with a loud voice to be led against tha enemy. In the assemblies of the people the most violent invectives were directed against the obstinate old man. His political opponents, with the former praetor Marcus Teren- tius Varro at their head, laid hold of the quarrel — for the understanding of which we must not foi;get that the dictator was practically nominated by the senate, and the office was regarded as the palladium of the conservative party — and, in concert with the discontented soldiers and the possessors of the plundered estates, they carried an unconstitutional and absurd resolution of the people conferring the dictator- ship, which was destined to obviate the evils of a divided command in times of danger, on Marcus Minucius,* who had hitherto been the lieutenant of Quintus Fabius, in the same way as on Fabius himself. Thus the Roman army, after its hazardous division into two separate corps had just been appropriately remedied, was once more divided ; and not only so, but the two sections were placed under leaders who notoriously followed quite opposite plans of war. Quintus Fabius of course adhered more than ever to his methodical inaction ; Marcus Minucius, compelled to justify in the field of battle his title of dictator, made a hasty at- tack with inadequate forces, and would have been annihi- lated had not his colleague averted greater misfortune by the seasonable interposition of a fresh corps. This last turn of matters justified in some measure the system of passive resistance. But in reality Hannibal had completely attain- ed in this campaign all that arms could attain : not a single material operation had been frustrated either by his impetu- ous or by his deliberate opponent ; and his foraging, though not unattended with difficulty, had yet been in the main so * The inscription of the gift devoted by the new dictator on accounf of his victory at Gerunium to Hercules Victor — Hercold sacrom M. JUlmuci{us) C. f. dictator vovit — was found in the year 1862 at Eomq Dear S. Lorenzo. Chai. v.] To the Battle of Cannae. 153 successful that the army passed the winter wiihout com- plaint in the camp at Geruniurn. It was not the Gunctator that saved Rome, but the compact structure of its confode. racy and, not less perhaps, the national hatred with which the Phoenician hero was regarded by the men of the West. Despite all its misfortunes, Roman pride stood no les3 Hew warlike Unshaken than the Roman symmachy. The reparations donations which were offered by king Iliero of Syracuse and the Greek cities in Italy for the next campaign — the war affected the latter less severely than the other Italian allies of Rome, for they sent no con- tingents to the land army — were declined with thanks ; the chieftains of Illyria were informed that they could not be allowed to neglect payment of their tribute; and even the king of Macedonia was once more summoned to surrender Demetrius of Pharos. The majority of the senate, not- withstanding the semblance of legitimation which recent events had given to the Fabian system of delay, had firmly resolved to depart from a mode of war that was slowly but CLTtainly ruining the state ; if the popular dic- tator had failed in his more energetic method of warfare, they laid the blame of the failure, and not without reason, on the fact that they had adopted a half-measure and had given him too few troops. This error they determined to avoid and to equip an army, such as Rome had never sent out before — eight legions, each raised a fifth above the nor- mal strength, and a corresponding number of allies — enough to crush an opponent who was not half so strong. Besides this, a legion under the praetor Lucius Postumius was des- tined for the valley of the Po, in order, if possible, to draw off the Celts serving in the army of Hannibal to their homes. These resolutions were judicious ; everything de- pended on their coming to an equally judicious decision re- specting the supreme command. The stiff carriage of Quin- tus Fabius, and the attacks of the demagogues which it pro- voked, had rendered the dictatorship and the senate generally more unpopular than ever: amongst the people, not without the connivance of their leaders, the foolish report circulated Vol. IL— 7* 154 The War under Hannibal [Book iil that the senate was intentionally prolonging the war. As_ therefore, the nomination of a dictator was not to be thought of, the senate attempted to procure the election of suitable consuls ; but this only had the effect of thoroughly PauiiTiB and Tousing Suspicion and obstinacy. With difficulty Varro ^j^g ggnate carried one of its candidates, Lucius Aerailius PauUuSj who had with judgment conducted the Illyrian war in 535 (p. 93) ; an immense major- ity of the citizens assigned to him as colleague the candidate of the popular party, Marcus Terentius Varro, an incapable man, who was known only by his bitter oppo- sition to the senate and more especially as the main author of the proposal to elect Marcus Minucius co-dictator, and who was recommended to the multitude solely by his hum- ble birth and his coarse effrontery. While these preparations for the next, campaign were Battle of making in Rome, the war had already recom- Cannae. menccd in Apulia. A s soon as the season allow- ed him to leave his winter quarters, Hannibal, determining as usual the course of the war and assuming the offensive, set out from Gerunium in a southerly direction, and march- ing past Luceria crossed the Aufidus and took the citadel of Cannae (between Canosa and Barletta) which commanded the plain of Canusium, and had hitherto served the Romans as one of their principal magazines. The Roman army which, since Fabius had conformably to the constitution resigned his dictatorship in the middle of autumn, was now commanded by Gnaeus Servilius and Marcus Regulus, first as consuls then as proconsuls, had been unable to^ avert a loss vi'hich they could not but feel. On military as well as on political grounds, it became more than ever necessary to airest the progress of Hannibal by a pitched battle. With definite orders to this effect from the senate, accordingly, the Iwo new commanders-in-chief, PauUus and Varro, arrived jjg_ in Apulia in the beginning of the summer of 538. With the four new legions and a corre- sponding contingent of Italians which tJiey brought up, the Roman army was raised to 80,000 infantry, half burgesses Cbap. v.] To the BattU of Cannae. 155 half allies, and 6,000 cavalry, of whom one-third were bur- gesses and two-thirds allies; whereas Hannibal's armj numbered 10,000 cavalry, but only about 40,000 infantry, Hannibal wished nothing so much as a battle, not merely for the general reasons which we have explained above, but specially because the wide Apulian plain allowed him to develop the whole superiority of his cavalry, and because the providing supplies for his numerous army would soon, in spite of that excellent cavalry, be rendered very difficult by the proximity of an enemy twice as strong and resting on a chain of fortresses. The leaders of the Roman forces had also, as we have said, made up their minds on the gene- ral question of giving battle, and approached the enemy with that view ; but the more sagacious of them saw the position of Hannibal, and were disposed accordingly to wait in the first instance and simply to station themselves in the vicinity of the enemy, so as to compel him to retire and accept battle on ground less favourable to him. With this view, confronting the Carthaginian position at Cannae on the right bank of the Aufidus, Paullus constructed two camps farther up the stream, the larger likewise on the right bank, the smaller, at a distance of fully a mile from it and not much more distant from the enemy's camp, on the left, so as to prevent the foraging of the enemy on both banks of the river. But such military pedantry was disap- proved by the democratic consul — so much had been said about men taking the field not to set sentinels, but to use their swords — and he gave orders accordingly to attack the enemy, wherever and whenever they found him. According to an old custom foolishly retained, the decisive voice in the council of war alternated between the commanders-in-chief ^ day by day ; it was necessary therefore to submit, and to let the hero of the pavement have his way. Only one division of 10,000 men was left in the principal Roman camp, charged to capture the Carthaginian encampment during the conflict and thus to intercept the retreat of the enemy's army across the river. The bulk of the Roman army, at early dawn on the 2nd August according to (he 156 The War under Hannibal FBook III uncorrected, probably in June according to the correct, cal endar, crossed the river which at this season was shallow and did not materially hamper tlie movements of the troops and took up a position in line near the smaller Roman camp — which lay nearest to the enemy, intermediate between the larger Roman camp and that of the Carthaginians, and which had already been the scene of outpost skirmishes — in the wide plain stretching westward from Cannae on the left bank of the river. The Carthaginian army followed and likewise crossed the stream, on which rested the right Ro- man as well as the left Carthaginian wing. The Roman cavalry was stationed on the wings : the weaker portion consisting of burgesses, led by Paullus, on the right next the river ; the stronger consisting of the allies, led by Var- ro, on the left towards the plain. In the centre was sta- tioned the infantry in unusually deep files, under the com- mand of the proconsul Gnaeus Servilius. Opposite to this centre Hannibal arranged his infantry in the form of a cres- cent, so that the Celtic and Iberian troops in their national armour formed the advanced centre, and the Libyans, armed after the Roman fashion, formed the retreating wings on either side. On the side next the river the whole heavy cavalry under Hasdrubal was stationed, on the side towards the plain the light Numidian horse. After a short skirmish between the light troops the whole line was soon engaged. Where the light cavalry of the Carthaginians fought against the heavy cavalry of Varro, the conflict was prolonged, amidst constant charges of the Numidians, without decisive result. In the centre, on the other hand, the legions com- pletely overthrew the Spanish and Gallic troops that first encountered them ; eagerly the victors pressed on and fol- lowed up their advantage. But meanwhile, on the right wirg, fortune had turned against the Romans. Hannibal had merely sought to occupy the left cavalry wing of the enemy, that he might bring Hasdrubal with the whole reg- ular caj'alry to bear against the weaker right and to over- throw it first. After a brave resistance, the Roman horse gave 'vay, and those that were not cut down were chased Chap, v.] To the Battle of Cannae. 151 across the river and scattered in the plain ; Paullus, wound- ed, rode to the centre to avert or, if not, to share the fota of the legions. These, in order the better to follow up tha victory over the advanced infantry of the enemy, had changed their front disposition into a column of attack, which, in the shape of a wedge, penetrated the enemy's cen- tre. In this position they were warmly assailed on both sides by the Libyan infantry wheeling in upon them right and left, and a portion of them vs^ere compelled to halt in order to defend themselves against the flank attack ; by thia means their advance was checked, and the mass of infantry, wh'ch was already too closely crowded, now had no longer room to develop itself at all. Meanwhile Hasdrubal, after having completed the defeat of the wing of Paullus, had collected and arranged his cavalry anew and led them be- hind the enemy's centre against the wing of Varro. Ilia Italian cavalry, already sufficiently occupied with the Numid- ians, was rapidly scattered before the double attack, and Hasdrubal, leaving the pursuit of the fugitives to the Nu. midians, rallied his squadrons for the third time, to lead them against the rear of the Roman infantry. This last charge proved decisive. Flight was impossible, and no quarter was given. Never, perhaps, was an army of such size annihilated on the field of battle so completely, and with so little loss to its antagonist, as was the Roman army at Cannae. Hannibal had lost not quite 6,000 men, and two-thirds of that loss fell upon the Celts, who sustained the first shock of the legions. On the other hand, of the 76,000 Romans who had taken their places in line of battle 70,000 covered the field, amongst whom were the consul Lucius Paullus, the proconsul Gnaeus Servilius, two-thirds of the staff-officers, and eighty men of senatorial rank. The consul Marcus Varro was saved solely by his quick resolution and his good steed, reached Venusia, and was not ashamed tr survive the disaster. The garrison also of the Romaii camp, 10,000 strong, were for the most part made prisoners of war ; only a few thousand men, partly of these troops, partly of the line, escaped to Canusium. Nay, as if in this 158 Tlie War under Hannibal [Boor hi year Rome was to be altogether ruined, before ; s close the legion sent to Gaul fell into an ambush, and was, with its general Lucius Postumius who was nominated as consul fo« the next year, totally destroyed by the Gauls. This unexampled success appeared at length to mature Conaeqnen- ^he great political combination, for the sake of bjttie!!f° which Hannibal had come to Italy. He haf.l CsiiMe. indeed based his plan primarily upon his army but with accurate knowledge of the power opposed to hitr. he designed that army to be merely the vanguard, in sup- port of which the powers of the west and east were gradu- ally to unite their forces, so as to prepare destruction for the proud city. That support however, which seemed the Preventrion most secure, namely the sending of reinforce- men1s°froS" m^nts from Spain, had been frustrated by the Spain. boldness and firmness of the Roman general sent thither. Gnaeus Scipio. After Hannibal's passage of the Rhone Scipio had sailed for. Emporiae, and had made himself master first of the coast between the Pyrenees and the Ebro, and then, after conquering Hanno, of the. interior also (536). In the following year (537) he had completely defeated the Carthaginian fleet at the mouth of the Ebro, and after his brother Publius, the brave defender of the valley of the Po, had joined him with a reinforcement of 8,000 men, he had even crossed the Ebro, and advanced as far as Saguntum. Hasdrubal had indeed in the succeeding year (538), after obtaining reinforcements from Africa, made an attempt in accordance with his broth- er's orders to conduct an army over the Pyrenees ; but the Scipios opposed his passage of the Ebro, and totally defeat- ed him, nearly at the same time that Hannibal conquered at Cannae. The powerful tribe of the Celtiberians and nume- rous other Spanish tribes had joined the Scipios ; they com- manded the sea, the passes of the Pyrenees, and, by means of the trusty Massiliots, the Gallic coast also. Now there- fore support to Hannibal was less than ever to be looked for from Spain. On the part of Carthage as much had hitherto been done Ohap. v.] To the Battle of Cannae. 15i5 Reinforce- '"^ support of her genera] in Italy as could be AWoa^"™ expected. Phoenician squadrons threatened the coasts of Italy and of the Roman islands and guarded Africa from a Roman landing, and there the matter ended. More substantial assistance was prevented not so much by the uncertainty as to where Hannibal was to be found and the want of a port of disembarkation in Italy, as by the fact that for many years the Spanish army had been accustomed to be self-sustaining, and above all by the mur- murs of the peace party. Hannibal severely felt the conse- quences of this unpardonable inaction ; in spite of all his saving of his money and of the soldiers vrhom he had brought with him, his chests were gradually emptied, the pay fell into arrear, and the ranks of his veterans began to thin. But now the news of the victory of Cannae reduced even the factious opposition at home to silence. The Car- thaginian senate resolved to place at the disposal of the general considerable assistance in money and men, partly from Africa, partly from Spain, including 4,000 Numidian horse and 40 elephants, and to prosecute the war with ener- gy in Spain as well as in Italy. The long-discussed offensive alliance between Carthage Alliance le- ^'^'^ Macedonia had been delayed, first by the th'°°and^' suddcn death of Antigonus, and then by the Macedonia, indecision of his successor Philip and the unsea- sonable war waged by him and his Hellenic allies against the Aetolians (534-537). It was only now, after the battle of Cannae, that Demetrius of Pharos found Philip disposed to listen to his proposal to cede to Macedonia his Illyrian possessions — which it was necessary, no doubt, to wrest in the first place from the Romans — and it was only now that the court of Pella came to terms with Carthage. Macedonia undertook to land an invading army on the east coast of Italy, in return for which she received an assurance that the Roman possessions in Epirus should be restored to her. In Sicily king Hiero had during the years of peace main. Alliance ho- tainei a policy of neutrality, so far as he could dc 160 The War under Hannibal [Book III , - _ so with safety, and he had shown a disposition to tiagejiud accommodate the Carthaginians during the per Syracuse. n i . i -n ilous crises after the peace with Kome, particii larly by sending supplies of corn. There is no doubt that he saw with the utmost regret a renewed breach between Carthage and Rome ; but he had no power to avert it, and whpn it occurred he adhered with well-considered fidelity t« Rome. But soon afterwards (in the autumn of 216, ^ 538) death removed the old man after a reign of fifty-four years. The grandson and successor of the pru- dent veteran, the young and incapable Hieronymus, entered at once into negotiations with the Carthaginian diplomatists ; and, as they made no difficulty in consenting to secure to him by treaty, first, Sicily as far as the old Carthagino-Sici- lian frontier, and then, when he rose in the arrogance of his demands, the possession even of the whole island, he entered into alliance with Carthage, and ordered the Syracusan fleet to unite with the Carthaginian which had come to threaten Syracuse. The position of the Roman fleet at Lilybaeum, which already had to deal with a second Carthaginian squadron stationed near the Aegates, became all at once very critical, while at the same time the force that was in readiness at Rome for embarkation to Sicily had, in conse- quence of the defeat at Cannae, to be diverted to other and more urgent objects. Above all came the decisive fact, that now at length the Capua and fabric of the Roman confederacy began to be mostoftho unhinged, after it had survived unshaken the COTnlnuui- ^ ties of Low- shocks of two sevcre years of war. There er Italy pass _ i . i cvertoHan- passed Over to the side of Hannibal Arpi in Apulia, and Uzentum in Messapia, two old towns which had been greatly injured by the Roman colo- nies of Luceria and Brundisium ; all the towns of the Brut- tii— -who took the lead — with the exception of the Petelini and the Consentini who had to be besieged before yielding ; the greater portion of the Lucanians ; the Picentes trans- planted into the region of Salernum ; the Hirpini ; tha Samnites with the exception of the Petitri ; lastly and Ohap. v.] To the Battle of Cannae. 161 chiefly, Capua the second city of Italy, which was able to bring into the field 30,000 infantry and 4,000 horse, and whose secession determined that of the neighbouring towns Atella and Calatia. The aristocratic party, indeed, attached by many ties to the interest of Rome everywhere, and more especially in Capua, very earnestly opposed this change of sides, and the obstinate internal conflicts which arose regarding it diminished not a little the advantage which Hannibal derived from these accessions. He found himself obliged, for instance, to have one of the leaders of the aristocratic party in Capua, Decius Magius, who even after the entrance of the Phoenicians obstinately contended for the Roman alliance, seized and conveyed to Carthage ; thus furnishing a demonstration, very inconvenient for him- self, of the small value of the liberty and sovereignty which had just been solemnly guaranteed to the Campanians by the Carthaginian general. On the other hand, the south Italian Greeks adhered to the Roman alliance — a result to which the Roman garrisons no doubt contributed, but which was still more due to the very decided dislike of the Hel- lenes towards the Phoenicians and towards their new Lu- canian and Bruttian allies, and their attachment on the other hand to Rome, which had zealously embraced every oppor- tunity of displaying its Hellenism, and had exhibited tow- ards the Greeks in Italy an unwonted gentleness. Thus the Campanian Greeks, particularly Neapolis, courageously withstood the attack of Hannibal in person : in Magna Graecia Rhegium, Thurii, Metapontum, and Tarentum did the same notwithstanding their very perilous position. Croton and Locri on the other hand were partly carried by storm, partly forced to capitulate, by the united Phoeni" eians and Bruttians ; and the citizens of Croton were con- ducted to Locri, while Bruttian colonists occupied that im- portant naval station. The Latin colonies in southern Italy, such as Brundisium, Venusia, Paestum, Cosa, and Cales, of course maintained unshaken fidelity to Rome. They were the strDngholds by which the conquerors held in check a foreign land, settled on the soil of the surrounding popula li)2 The War under Hannibal [Book in ti )n, and at feud with their neighbours ; they, too, would be the first to be affected, if Hannibal should keep his word and restore to every Italian community its ancient bounda- ries. This was likewise the case with all central Italy, the earliest seat of the Roman rule, where Latin manners and language already everywhere preponderated, and the people felt themselves to be the comrades rather than the subjects of their rulers. The opponents of Hannibal in the Cartha- ginian senate did not fail to appeal to the fact that not one Ron^an citizen or ore Latin community had cast itself into the arms of Carthage. This groundwork of the Roman power could only be broken up, like the Cyclopean walls, stone by stone. Such were the consequences of the day of Cannae, in Attitude of which the flower of the soldiers and officers of the Eomans. (.[jg confederacy, a seventh of the whole number of Italians capable of bearing arms, perished. It was a cruel but righteous punishment for the grave political errors with which not merely some foolish or miserable individu- als, but the Roman people themselves, were justly charge- able. A constitution adapted for a small country town was no longer suitable for a great power ; it was simply im- possible that the question as to the leadership of the armies of the city in such a war should be left year after year to be decided by the Pandora's box of the balloting-urn. As a fundamental revision of the constitution, if practicable at all, could not at any rate be undertaken now, no course was left but at once to commit the practical superintendence of the war, and in particular the bestowal and prolongation of the command, to the only authority which was in a posi- tion to undertake such a charge — the senate — and to reserve to the comitia the mere formality of confirmation. The brilliant successes of the Scipios in the difficult arena of Spanish warfare showed what might in this way be achieved. But political demagogism, which was already gnawing at the aristocratic foundations of the constitution, had seized en the management of the Italian war. The absurd accusa- tion, that the nobles were conspiring with the enemy witb Ohap. V.J To the Battle of Cannae. 163 out, had made an impression on the " people." The heroes to whom political superstition looked for deliverance, Gaius Daminius and Marcus Varro, both " new men " and friends of the people of the purest dye, had accordingly been em powered by the multitude itself to execute the plans of operations which, amidst the approbation of that multitude, they had explained in the Forum ; and the results were the battles of the Trasimene lake and of Cannae. Duty re- quired that the senate, which now of course understood its task better than when it recalled half the army of Reguliis from Africa, should take into its hands the management of affairs, and should oppose such mischievous proceedings ; but when the first of those two defeats had for the moment placed the rudder in its hands, it had hardly acted in a man- ner unbiassed by the interests of party. Little as Quintus Fabius deserves to be compared with these Roman Cleons, he too conducted the war not as a mere military leader, but adhered to his obstinate attitude of defence specially as the political opponent of Gaius Flaminius ; and in the treat- ment of the quarrel with his subordinate, he did what he could to exasperate at a time when unity was needed The consequence was, first, that the most important instrument which the wisdom of their ancestors had placed in the hands of the senate for such uses — the dictatorship — broke down in his hands ; and, secondly — at least indirectly — the battle of Cannae. But the headlong fall of the Roman power was owing not to the fault of Quintus Fabius or Marcus Varro, but to the distrust between the government and the gov- erned — to the variance between the senate and the bur- gesses. If the deliverance and revival of the state were still possible, the work had to begin with the re-establish ment of unity and of confidence at home. To have per- ceived this and, what is of more importance, to have done it, and done it with an abstinence from all recriminations however justly provoked, constitutes the glorious and im perishable honour of the Roman senate. When Varro— alone of all the generals who had command in the battle — returned to Rome, and the Roman senators met him at the 164 The War under Hannibal [Book iu gate and thanked him that he had not despaired of the sal- vation of his country, this was no empty phraseology con- cealing under sounding words their real "vexation, nor was it bitter mockery over a poor wretch ; it was the conclusion of peace between the government and the governed. In presence of the gravity of the time and the gravity of such an appeal, the chattering of demagogues was silent ; hence forth the only thought of the Romans was how they might be able jointly to avert the common peril. Quintus Fabius, whose tenacious courage at this decisive moment was of more service to the state than all his feats of war, and the other senators of note took the lead in every movement, and restored to the citizens confidence in themselves and in the future. The senate preserved its firm and unbending attitude, while messengers from all sides hastened to Rome to report the loss of battles, the secession of allies, the cap- ture of posts and magazines, and to ask reinforcements for the valley of the Po and for Sicily at a time when Italy was abandoned and Rome was almost without a garrison. Assemblages of the multitude at the gates were forbidden ; onlookers and women were sent to their houses ; the time of mourning for the fallen was restricted to thirty days that the service of the gods of joy, from which those clad in mourning attire were excluded, might not be too long in- terrupted — for so great was the number of the fallen, that there was scarcely a family which had not to lament its dead. Meanwhile the remnant saved from the field of bat- tle had been assembled by two able military tribunes, Appius Claudius and Publius Scipio the younger, at Canu- sium. The latter managed, by his spirited bearing and by the brandished swords of his faithful comrades, to change the views of those noble young lords who, in indolent des- pair of the salvation of their country, were thinking of escape beyond the sea. The consul Marcus Varro joined them with a handful of men ; about two legions were grad- ually collected there ; the senate gave orders that they should be reorganized and degraded to serve in disgrace and ithout pay. The incapable general was on a suitable pre Chap. V.] To the Battle of Cannae. IGS text recalled to Rome ; the praetor Marcus Claudius Mar- cellus, experienced in the Gallic wars, who had been des- tined to depart for Sicily with the fleet from Ostia, assumed (he chief command. The utmost exertions were made ta organize an army capable of taking the field. The Latina >vere summoned to render aid in the common peril. Rome itself set the example, and called oMt all the men above boyhood, armed the debtor-serfs and criminals, and even incorporated in the army eight thousand slaves purchased by the state. As there was a want of arms, they took the old spoils from the temples, and everywhere set the work- shops and artisans in action. The senate was completed, not as timid patriots urged, from the Latins, but from the Roman burgesses who had the best title. Hannibal oifered a release of captives at the expense of the Roman treasury ; it was declined, and the Carthaginian envoy who had arrived with the deputation of captives was not admitted into the city : nothing should look as if the senate thought of peace. Not only were the allies to be prevented from believing that Rome was disposed to enter into negotiations, bat ever the meanest citizen was to be n.ade to understand that foi him as for all there was no peace, and that safety lay onlj in victory. CHAPTER VI. »HK WAR UNDER HANNIBAL FROM CANNAE TO ZAMA, The aim of Hannibal in his expedition to Italy had been to break up the Italian confederacy : after threa e crisis. campaigns that aim had been attained, so far as .t was at all attainable. It was clear that the Greek and Latin or Latinized communities of Italy, since they had not been shaken in their allegiance by the day of Cannae, would not yield to terror, but only to force; and the desperate courage with which even in southern Italy isolated little country towns, such as the Bruttian Petelia, maintained their forlorn defence against the Phoenicians, showed very plainly what awaited them among the Marsians and Latins. K Hannibal had expected to accomplish more in this way and to lead even the Ijatins against Rome, these hopes had proved vain. But it appears as if even in other respects the Italian coalition had by no means produced the results which Hannibal hoped for. Capua had at once stipulated that Hannibal should not have the right to call Campanian citizens compulsorily to arms ; the citizens had not forgot- ten how Pyrrhus had acted in Tarentum, and they foolishly imagined that they should be able to withdraw at once from the Roman and from the Phoenician rule. Samnium and Luceria were no longer what they had been, when king Pyrrhus had thought of marching into Rome at the head of the Sabellian youth. Not only did the chain of Roman fortresses everywhere cut the nerves and sinews of the land, but the Roman rule continued for many years had rendered the inhabitants unused to arms — they furnished only a moderate contingent to the Roman armies — had appeased their ancient hatred, and had gained over a number of indi Ohap VI.] ij^e ^^^ under Hannibal. 167 viduals everywhere to the interest of the ruling Cvmmidiiity Ihey j< ined the conqueror of the Romans, indeed, after the- cause of Rome seemed fairly lost, but they felt that the question was no longer one of liberty ; it was simply the exchangj of an Italian for a Phoenician master, and it was not enthusiasm, but despair that threw the Sabellian com- munities into the arms of the victor. Under such circum- stances the war in Italy flagged. Hannibal, who com- manded the southern part of the peninsula as far up as the Volturnus and Garganus, and who could not simply aban- don these lands again as he had abandoned that of the Celts, had now a frontier to protect, which could not be left un- covered with impunity ; and for the purpose of defending the districts that he had gained against the fortresses which everywhere defied him and the armies advanchig from the north, and at the same time of resuming the difficult offen- sive against central Italy, his forces — an army of about 40,000 men, without reckoning the Italian contingents — were far from sufficient. Above all, he found that other antagonists were opposed to him. Tauffht by fearful experience, the Ro- mans adopted a more judicious system of con- ducting the war, appointed none but experienced generals to the charge of their armies, and left them, at least where it wa5 necessary, for a longer period in command. These generals were neither mere spectators of the enemy's move- ments from the mountains, nor did they throw themselves on their adversary wherever they found him ; but, keeping the true mean between inaction and precipitation, they took up their positions in entrenched camps under the walls of fortresses, and accepted battle where victory would lead to results and defeat would not be destruction. The soul of this new mode of warfare was Marcus Claudius Maroellus. Instinctively, after the disastrous day of Cannae, the senate and people had turned their eyes to this brave and experi- enced officer, and entrusted him at once with the actual su- preme commard. He had received his training in the troublesome warfare against Hamilcar in Sicily, and had 168 The War wider Hannibal IBook in given brilliaut evidence of his talents as a leader as well as of his personal valour in the last campaigns against the Celts. Although far above fifty, he still glowed with all the ardour of the most youthful soldier, and only a few years before this he had, as general, cut down the mounted general of the enemy (p. 100) — the first and only Eoman consul who achieved that feat of arms. His life was conse- crated to the two divinities, to whom he erected the splen- did double temple at the Capene Gate — to Honour and to Valour ; and, while the merit of rescuing Rome from the extremity of danger belonged to no single individual, but pertained to the Roman citizens collectively and pre-emi- nently to the senate, yet no single man contributed more towards the success of the common enterprise than Marcus Marcellus. From the field of battle Hannibal had turned his steps to Campania. He knew Rome better than the proceeds to simpletons, who in ancient and modern times ampama. ]ja,ve fancied that he might have terminated the struggle by a march on the enemy's capital. Modern war- fare, it is true, decides a war on the field of battle ; but in ancient times, when the system of attacking fortresses was far less developed than the system of defence, the most complete success in the field was on numberless occasions neutralized by the resistance of the walls of the capitals. The council and citizens of Carthage were not at all to be compared to the senate and people of Rome ; the peril of Carthage after the first campaign of Regulus was infinitely more imminent than that of Rome after the battle of Can- nae ; yet Carthage had made a stand and been completely victorious. With what colour could it be expected that ){onie wouli now deliver her keys to the victor, or even accept an equitable peace ? Instead therefore of sacrificing practicable and important successes for the sake of such empty demonstrations, or losing time in the besieging of the two thousand Roman fugitives enclosed within the walls of Canusium, Hannibal had immediately proceeded to Capua before the Romans could throw in a garrison, and CHAr.VLj From Cannae to Zama. 169 by his advance had induced this second city of Italy after long hesitation to join him. He probably hoped that, in possession of Capua, he would be able to seize one of the Campanian ports, where he might disembark the reinforce- ments which his great victories had wrung from the opposi- tion at home. When the Romans learned whither Hannibal had gone, they also left Apulia, where only a weak divi- the war in siun was retamed, and collected their remamuig ampania. strength on the right bank of the Volturnus. With the two legions saved from Cannae Marcus Marcellus marched to Teanum Sidicinum, where he was joined by such troops as were at the moment disposable from Rome and Ostia, and advanced — while the dictator Marcus Junius slowly followed with the main army which had been hastily formed — as far as the Volturnus at Casilinum, with a view if possible to save Capua. That city he found already in the power of the enemy ; but on the Qther hand the at- tempts of the enemy on Neapolis had been thwarted by the courageous resistance of the citizens, and the Romans were still in good time to throw- n garrison into that important port. With equal fidelity the two other large coast towns, Cumae and Nuceria, adhered to Rome. In Nola the strug- gle between the popular and senatorial parties as to whether they should attach themselves to the Carthaginians or to the Romans, was still undecided. Informed that the former were gaining the superiority, Marcellus crossed the river at Caiatia, and marching along the heights of Suessula so as to evade the enemy's army, he reached Nola in suEScient time to hold it against the foes without and within. In a sally he even repulsed Hannibal in person with considerable loss ; a success which, as the first defeat sustained by Han- nibal, was of far more importance from its moral effect than from its material results. In Campania indeed, Nuceria, Acerrae, and, after an obstiuate siege prolonged into tlie following year (530), Casilinum also, the key of the Volturnus, were conquered by Hannibal, and the severest punishments were inflicted on the senates Vol.. II.— 8 170 The War under Hannibal [Book in of these towns which had adhered to Eome. But terror ij a bad weapon of proselytism ; the Eomans succeeded, with comparatively trifling loss, in surmounting the perilous moment of their first weakness. The war in Campania came to a standstill ; then winter came on, and Hannibal took up his quarters in Capua, the luxury of which was by no means fraught with benefit to his troops who for three years had not been under a roof. In the next year (539) the war acquired another aspect. The tried general Marcus Marcellus, Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus who had distinguished himself in the campaign of the previous year as master of the horse to the dictator, and the veteran Quintus Fabius Maximus, tools — Marcellus as proconsul, the two others as consuls — the command of the three Roman armies which were destined to surround Capua and Hannibal ; Marcellus resting on Nola and Sues- sula, Maximus taking a position on the right bank of the Volturnus near Cales, and Gracchus on the coast near Liter- num, covering Neapolis and Cumae. The Campanians, who marched to Hamae three miles from Cumae with a view to surprise the Cumaeans, were thoroughly defeated by Gracchus ; Hannibal, who had appeared before Cumae to wipe out the stain, was himself worsted in a combat, and when the pitched battle offered by him was declined, re- treated in ill humour to Capua. While the Romans in Campania thus not only maintained what they possessed, but also recovered Compulteria and other minor places, loud complaints were heard from the eastern allies of Han- Tliowaiin nibal. A Roman army under the praetor Mar- Apulia. g^g Valerius had taken position at Luceria, part- ly that it might, in connection with the Roman fleet, watch the east coast and the movements of the Macedonians ; partly that it might, in connection with the army of Nola, levy contributions on the revolted Samnites, Lucanians and Hirpinians. To give relief to these, Hannibal turned first against his most active opponent, Marcus Marcellus but the latter achieved under the walls of Nola no incon siderable victory over the Phoenician army, and it was Chap, VI.] From (Jannae to Zama. 171 obliged to depart, without having cleared off the stain, from Campania for Arpi, in order at length to check the progress of the enemy's army in Apulia. Tiberius Gracchus fol- lowed it with his corps, while the two other Roman armies in Campania made arrangements to proceed next spring to the attack of Capja. The clear vision of Hannibal had not been dazzled by Hannibal ^'^ victories. It became every day more evi- the^efen^ dent that he was not by their means gaining his eivc. object. Those rapid marches, that adventurous shifting of the war taand fro, to which Hannibal was main- ly indebted for his successes, were at an end ; the enemy had become wiser ; further enterprises were rendereo almost impossible by the inevitable necessity of defending what had been gained. The offensive was not to be thought of; the defensive was difficult, and threatened every year to become more so. He could not conceal from himself that the second half of his great task, the subjugation of the Latins and the conquest of Rome, could not be accom- plished with his own forces and those of his Italian allies HisDroa- alone. Its accomplishment depended on the peots as to council at Carthage, on the head-quarters at Car- ceinforce- ° ' ^ menta tagena, on the courts of Pella and of Syracuse. If all the resources of Africa, Spain, Sicily, and Macedonia should now be put forth in earnest against the common enemy ; if Lower Italy should become the great rendezvous for the armies and fleets of the west, south, and east ; he might hope successfully to finish what the vanguard under his leadership had so brilliantly begun. The most natuial and easy course would have been to send to him adequate support from home ; and the Carthaginian state, which had remained almost unaffected by the war and had been raised from its deep decline and brought so close to complete vic- tory by a small band of resolute patriots acting of their own accord and at their own risk, could beyond doubt have done this. That it would have been possible for a Phoeni- cian fleet of any desired strength to effect a landing at Locri OT Croton, especially as long as the port of Syracuse re- 172 The War under Hannibal [Bomk hi main>d open to the Carthaginians and the fleet at Brun> disium was kept in check by Macedonia, is demonstrated by the unopposed disembarkation at Locri of 4,000 Africans, whom Bomilcar about this time brought over from Car- thage to Hannibal, and still more by Hannibal's undis- turbed embarkation, when all had been already lost. But after the first impression of the victory of Cannae had died away, the peace party in Carthage, which was at all times ready to purchase the downfall of its political opponents at the expense of its country, and which found faithful support in the shortsightedness and indolence of the citizens, refused the entreaties of the general for more decided support with the half simple, half malicious reply, that he in fact needed no help inasmuch as he was really victor ; and thus con- tributed not much less than the Roman senate to save Rome. Hannibal, reared in the camp and a stranger to the machinery of civic factions, found no popular leader on whose support he could rely, such as his father had found in Hasdrubal ; and he was obliged to seek abroad the means of saving his native country — means which it possessed in rich abundance at home. For this purpose he might, at least with more prospect of success, reckon on the leaders of the Spanish patriot army, on the connections which he had formed in Syracuse, and on the intervention of Philip. Everything depended on bringing now forces into the field of war against Rome from Spain, Syracuse, or Macedonia; and for the attain- ment or for the prevention of this object wars were carried on in Spain, Sicily, and Greece. All of these were but means to an end, and historians have often erred in account- ing them of greater importance. So far as the Romans were concerned, they were essentially defensive wars, the proper objects of which were to hold the passes of the Pyrenees, to detain the Macedonian army in Greece, to defend Messana and to prevent the communication between Italy and Sicily. Of course this defensive warfare was, wherever it was possible, carried on by offi'.nsive means ; and, ae circumstances favoured its expansion, it led to the Chap VI.] From Cannae to Za/ina. 17F expulsion of the Phoenicians from Spain and Sicily, and to the dissolution of Hannibal's alliances with 'Syracuse and with Philip. The Italian war in itself fell for the time being into the shade, and resolved itself into conflicts about for- tresses and razzias, which had no decisive effect on the maip issue. Nevertheless, so long as the Phoenicians retained the offensive at all, Italy always remained the central object of operations ; and all efforts were directed towards, as ali interest centred in, the removal or continuance of Hanni- bal's isolation in southern Italy. Had it been possible, immediately after the Jattle of The Bending Cannae, to bring into play all the resources on ments'tera-' '^^^"^ Hannibal thought that he might reckon, porarily he might have been tolerably certain of success. frustrated. ^^ But the position of Hasdrubal at that time in Spain after the battle on the Ebro was so critical, that the supplies of money and men, which the victory of Cannae had roused the Carthaginian citizens to furnish, were for the most part expended on Spain, without producing much improvement in the position of affairs there. The Scipios _, transferred the theatre of war in the folio wins Z15. campaign (539) from the Ebro to the Guadal- quivir ; and in Andalusia, in the very centre of the proper Carthaginian territory, they achieved at Illiturgi and Intibili two brilliant victories. In Sardinia communi- cations entered into with the natives led the Carthaginians to hope that they should be able to master the island, which would have been of importance as an intermediate station between Spain and Italy. But Titus Manlius Torqua- tus, who was sent with a Eoman army to Sardinia, complete- ly destroyed the Carthaginian landing force, and reassured to the Romans the undisputed possession of the island (539). The legions from Cannae sent to Sicily held their ground in the north and east of the island with courage and success against the Carthaginians and Hieronymus ; the latter met his death towards the end of 539 by the hand of an assassin. Even in the case of Macedonia the ratification of the alliance 174 The War under Hannibal [Be ob. ni was delayed, pi-incipally because the Macedonian envoyi sent to Hannibal were captured on their homeward journey by the Roman vessels of war. In consequence the dreaded invasion of the east coast was temporarily suspended ; and the Romans gained time to secure the very important sta^ tion of Brundisiuni first by their fleet and then by the land army which before the arrival of Gracchus was employed for the protection of Apulia, and even to make preparations for an invasion of Macedonia in the event of war being declared. While in Italy the war thus came to a stand, out of Italy nothing was done on the part of Carthage to accel- erate the movement of new armies or fleets towards the seat of war. The Romans, again, had everywhere with the greatest energy put themselves in a state of defence, and in that defensive attitude had fought for the most part with good results wherever the genius of Hannibal was absent. Thus the short-lived patriotism, which the victory of Cannae had awakened in Carthage, evaporated ; the not inconsidera- ble forces which had been organized there were, either through factious opposition or through a useless attempt to conciliate the different opinions expressed in the council, so frittered away that they were nowhere of any real service, and but a very small portion arrived at the spot where they would have been most useful. At the close of 539 the re- flecting Roman statesman might feel that the urgency of the danger, was past, and that the resistance so heroically begun had but to persevere in its exertions at all points in order to achieve its object. First of all the war in Sicily was brought to an end. It Waiin hS'd formed no part of Hannibal's original plan Bieiiy. ^^ excite a war on the island ; but partly through accident, chiefly through the boyish vanity of the imprudent Hieronymus, a land war had broken out there, which^-doubtless because Hannibal had not planned it — tho Carthaginiac council took up with especial zeal. Aft:er Hieronymus was killed at the close of 539, it seemed more than doubtful whether the citizens would persevere in the policy which he had pursued. If Chap. VI.] From Cannae to Zama. 173 Biegeof any city had reason to adhere to Rome, that city yraciiso. ^^ Syracuse ; for the victory of the Carthagiii' ians over the Romans could not but give to the former, at any rate, the sovereignty of all Sicily, and no one could seriously believe that the promises made by Carthage to cho Syracusans would be actually kept. Partly induced by this consideration, partly terrified by the threatening pre- parations of the Romans — who made every effort to bring once more under their complete control that important isl- and, the bridge between Italy and Africa, and now for the campaign of 540 sent their best general, Marcus Marcellus, to Sicily — the Syracusan citizens showed a disposition to obtain oblivion of the past by a timely return to the Roman alliance. But, amidst the dreadful confusion in the city — which after the death of Hieronymus was agitated alternately by endeavours to restore the ancient freedom of the people and by the coups de main of the numerous pretenders to the vacant throne, while the captains of the foreign mercenary troops were the real masters of the place — Hannibal's dexterous emissaries, Hippocrates and Epicydes, found opportunity to frustrate the projects of peace. They stirred up the multitude in the name of liberty ; descriptions, exaggerated beyond measure, of the fearful punishment that the Romans were said to have inflicted on the Leontines who had just been re-con- quered, awakened doubts even among the better portion of the citizens whether it was not too late to restore their old relations with Rome; while the numerous Roman deserters among the mercenaries, mostly runaway rowers from the fleet, were easily persuaded that a peace on the part of the citizens with Rome would be their death-warrant. So the chief magistrates were put to death, the armistice was broken, and Hippocrates and Epicydes undertook the gov- ernment of the city. No course was left to the consul except to undertake a siege ; but the skilful conduct of ihe defence, in which the Syracusan engineer Archimedes, cele- brated as a learned mathematician, especially distinguished himself, compelled tho Romans after besieging the city foi 176 The War under Hannibal [Book III eight months to convert the siege into a blockade by sea and land. In the meanwhile Carthage, which hitherto had onlj Carthagin- supported the Syracusans with her fleets, on ian expe- receiving news of their renewed rising in amis Sicily. > against the Eomans had despatched a strong land army under Himilco to Sicily, which landed without inter- ruption at Heraclea Minoa and immediately occupied the important town of Agrigentum. To effect a junction with Hirailco, the bold and able Hippocrates marched forth from Syracuse with an army : the position of Marcellus between the garrison of Syracuse and the two hostile armies began to be critical. With the help of some reinforcements, how ever, which arrived from Italy, he maintained his ground in the island and continued the blockade of Syracuse. On the other hand, the greater portion of the small inland towns were driven into the arms of the Carthaginians, not so much by the armies of the enemy, as by the fearful severity of the Roman proceedings in the island, more especially the slaughter of the citizens of Enna, suspected of a design to revolt, by the Roman garrison which was stationed there. In 542 the besiegers of Syracuse during a festival in the city succeeded in scaling a portion of tho extensive outer walls that had been deserted by the guard, and in penetrating into the suburbs which stretched from the " island " and the city proper on the shore (Achradina) towards the interior. The fortress of Euryalus, which, situated at the extreme western end of the suburbs, pro- tected these and the principal road leading from the interioi to Syracuse, was thus isolated and fell not long afterwards. The Cartha- When the siege of the city thus began to assume froop°de- a turn favourable to the Romans, tlie two armies Btjoyei under Himilco and Hippocrates advanced to its relief, and attempted a simultaneous attack on the Roman position, combined with an attempt at landing on the part of the Carthaginian fleet and a sally of the Syracusan garri- son ; but the attack was repulsed on all sides, and the two relieving armies were obliged to content themselves witk Chap. VI.] From Cannae to Zama. 171 encamping before the city, in the low marshy grounds along the Anapus, which in the height of summer and autumn engender pestilences fatal to those that tarry in them. These pestilences had often saved the city, oftener even than the valour of its citizens ; in the times of the first Diony- sius, two Phoenician armies in the act of besieging the citv had been in this way destroyed under its very walls. Now fate turned the special defence of the city into the means oi" its destruction ; while the army of Marcellus quartered in the suburbs suffered but little, fevers desolated the Phoe- nician and Syracusan bivouacs. Hippocrates died; Himiloo and most of the Africans died also ; the survivors of the two armies, mostly natives of Sicily, dispersed into the neighbouring cities. The Carthaginians made a further attempt to save the city from the sea side ; but the admiral Bomilcar withdrew, when the Roman fleet offered him bat- tle. Epicydes himself, who commanded in the city, now abandoned it as lost, and made his escape to Agrigentum. Syracuse would gladly have surrendered to the Romans ; negotiations had already begun. But for the second time they were thwarted by the deserters : in another mutiny of the soldiers the chief magistrates and a number of respecta- ble citizens were slain, and the government and the defence of the city were entrusted by the foreign troops to their captains. Marcellus now entered into a negotiation with one of these, which gave into his hands one of the two por- tions of the city that were still free, the " island ; " upon which the citizens voluntarily opened to him the gates of ^22 Achradina also (in the autumn of 542). If mercy Conquest of -was to be shown in any case, it might, even Syracuse, , o ' according to the far from laudable principles of Roman public law as to the treatment of perfidious com- munities, have been extended to a city which manifestly had not been at liberty to act for itself, and which had repeated- ly made the most earnest attempts to get rid of the tyranny of the foreign soldiers. Nevertheless, not only did Mar- cellus stain his military honour by permitting a general pillage of the wealthy mercantile city, in the course o' Vol. II.- -8* 178 The War under Rann-thal [Booe. in which Archimedes and many other citizens were put tc death, but the Roman senate lent a deaf ear to the com plaints which the Syracusans afterwards presented regard ing the celebrated general, and neither returned to individ uals their property nor restored to the city its freedom, Syracuse and the towns that had been previously dependent on it were classed among the communities tributary to Rome — Tauromenium and Neetum alone obtained the same privileges as Messana, while the territory of Leontini be- came Roman domain and its former proprietors Roman lessees — and no Syracusan citizen was henceforth allowed to reside in the " island," the portion of the city that com- manded the harbour. Sicily thus appeared lost to the Carthaginians ; but the Gncriiiawar genius of Hannibal exercised even from a dis- in sioUy. tance its influence there. He despatched to the Carthaginian army, which remained at Agrigentum in per- plexity and inaction under Hanno and Epicydes, a Libyan cavalry officer Mulines, who took the command of the Numidian cavalry, and with his flying squadrons, fanning into an open flame the bitter hatred which the despotic rule of the Romans had excited over all the island, commenced a guerilla warfare on the most extensive scale and with the happiest results ; so that he even, when the Carthaginian and Roman armies met on the river Himera, sustained some conflicts with Marcellus himself successfully. The relations, however, which prevailed between Hannibal and the Carthaginian council, were here repeated on a small scale. The general appointed by the council pursued with jealous envy the oflicer sent by Hannibal, and insisted upon giving battle to the proconsul without Mutines and the Numidians. The wish of Hanno was carried out, and he was completely beaten. Mutines was not induced to deviate from his course ; he maintained himself in the interior of the country, occupied several small towns, and was enabled , by the not inconsiderable reinforcements which joined him from Carthage gradually to extend his operations Ilis successes were so brilliant, that at length tlie commander -in Chap, vi.j From Cannae to Zama. 179 chief, who could not otherwise prevent the cavalry officei from eclipsing him, deprived him summarily of the com- mand of the light cavalry, and entrusted it to his own son. The Numidian, who had now for two years preserved tha island for his Phoenician masters, had the measure of his patience exhausted by this treatment. He and his horse- men who refused to follow the younger Hanno entercid into negotiations with the Roman general Marcus Valerius Lae- Agifeentum "^'""3, and delivered to him Agrigentum. Han- the"^^**^^ no escaped in a boat, and went to Carthage to report to his superiors the disgraceful high trea^ son of Hannibal's oflBicer ; the Phoenician garrison in the town was put to death by the Romans, and the citizens were jjj sold into slavery (544). To secure the island from such surprises as the landing of 540, the city received a Roman colony ; the old and glo- rious Akragas became the Roman fortress Agrigentum. Sicily tran- After the whole of Sicily was thus subdued, the 1 ^"^ Romans exerted themselves to restore some sort of tranquillity and order to the distracted island. The pack of banditti that haunted the interior were driven together en manse and conveyed to Italy, that from their head-quar- ters at Rhegium they might burn and destroy in the terri- tories of Hannibal's allies. The government did its utmost to promote the restoration of agriculture which had been totally neglected in the island. The Carthaginian council more than once talked of sending a fleet to Sicily and re- newing the war there ; but the project went no further. Macedonia might have exercised an influence over the Philip of course of events more decisive than that of Macedonia Syracuse. From the Eastern powers neither delay. g^;^ jjq^ resistance was for the moment to be expected, Antiochus the Great, the natural ally of Philip, had, after the decisive victory of the Egyptians at Raphia in 537, to deem himself fortunate in obtaining peace from the indolent Philopator on the basis of the status quo ante. The rivalry of the Lagidae and the constant apprehension of a renewed outbreak of the war on 180 The War under Hannibal [Book ni the one hand, and insurrections of pretenders in the interiof and enterprises of all sorts in Asia Minor, Bactria, and th« eastern satrapies on the other, prevented him from joining that great anti-Eoman alliance which Hannibal had in view. The Egyptian court was decidedly on the side of Rome, with which it renewed alliance in 54*4 ; but it 110. was not to be expected of Ptolemy Philopator, that he would support Rome otherwise than by cargoes of corn. Accordingly there was nothing to prevent Greece and Macedonia from throwing their decisive weight into the great Italian struggle except their own discord ; they might save the Hellenic name, if they had the self-control to stand by each other for but a few years against the common foe. Such sentiments doubtless were current in Greece. The prophetic saying of Agelaus of Naupactus, that he was afraid that the prize-fights in which the Hellenes now in- dulged at home might soon be over ; his earnest warning to direct their eyes to the west, and not to allow a stronger power to impose on all the parties now contending a peace of equal servitude — such sayings had essentially contributed to bring about the peace between Philip and the Aetolians (537), and it was a significant proof of the ten- dency of that peace, that the Aetolian league immediately nominated Agelaus as its slrategus. National patriotism was bestirring itself in Greece as in Carthage : for a moment it seemed possible to kindle a national Hellenic war against Rome. But the general in sucli a crusade could only be Philip of Macedonia ; and he lacked the enthusiasm and the faith in the nation, which alone could carry on such a war. He knew not how to solve the arduous problem of transforming himself from the oppressor into the champion of Greece. His very de- lay in the conclusion of the alliance with Ilannibal damped the first and best zeal of the patriots ; and when he did enter into the conflict with Rome, his mode of conducting war was still less fitted to awaken earnest sympathy and confidence. His first attempt, which was made in the very 816. year of the battle of Cannae (538), to obtain po9 rJiiAp. V1.J From Cannae to Zama. ISl session of the city of Apollonia, failed in a way almost ridiculous, for Philip turned back in all haste on receiviiio the totally groundless report that a Roman fleet was steer ing for the Adriatic. This took place before there was * formal breach with Rome ; when the breach at length en- sued, friend and foe expected a Macedonian landing in Lower Italy. Since 539 a Roman fleet and army had been stationed at Brundisium to meet it ; Philip, who was without vessels of war, was construct- ing a flotilla of light lUyrian barks to convey his army across. But when the endeavour had to be made in earnest, his courage failed to encounter the dreaded quinqueremes at sea ; he broke the promise which he had given to his ally Hannibal to attempt a landing, and with the view of still doing something he resolved to make an attack on his own share of the spoil, the Roman possessions in Epirus (540). Nothing would have come of this even at the best ; but the Romans, who well knew that offensive was preferable to defensive protection, were by no means content to remain — as Philip probably expected — spectators of the attack from the opposite shore. The Roman fleet conveyed a division of the army from Brun- disium to-Epirus ; Oricum was recaptured from the king, a garrison was thrown into Apollonia, and the Macedonian camp was stormed. Thereupon Philip passed from partial action to total inaction, and notwithstanding all the com- plaints of Hannibal, who vainly tried to infuse into Philip's halting and shortsighted policy the energy of his own fire and decision, he allowed some years to elapse in armed inactivity. Nor was Philip the fii-st to renew the hostilities. The 212. fall of Tarentum (542), by which Hannibal ac- aOreek'^^ quircd an excellent port on the coast which was coalition jj,g jjjost convenient for the landing of a Mace- against ^ Macedonia, donian army, induced the Romans to parry the blow at a distance and to give the Macedonians so mucli employment at home that they could not think of an at> tempt on Italy. The national enthusiasm in Greece had of 182 The War under Hannibal [Book lU course evaporated long ago. With the help of the old antagonism to Macedonia, and of the fresh acts of impru Sence and injustice of which Philip had been guilty, the Roman admiral Laevinus found no difficulty in organizing against Macedonia a coalition of the intermediate and minor powers under the protectorate of Rome. It was headed by the Aetolians, at whose diet Laevinus had personally ap- peared and had gained its support by a promise of the Acarnanian territory which the Aetolians had long coveted. They concluded with Rome a modest agreement to rob the other Greeks of men and land on the joint account, so that the land should belong to the Aetolians, the men and move- ables to the Romans. They were joined by the states of anti-Macedonian, or rather primarily of anti-Achaean, ten- dencies in Greece proper ; in Attica by Athens, in the Pe- loponnesus by Elis and Messene and especially by Sparta, the antiquated constitution of which had been just about this time overthrown by a daring soldier Machanidas, in order that he might exercise despotic power under the name of king Pelops, a minoi', and might establish a government ot military adventurers sustained by bands of mercenaries. The coalition was joined moreover by those steadfast an- tagonists of Macedonia, the chiefs of the half-barbarous Thracian and Illyrian tribes, and lastly by Attains king of Pergamus, who followed out his own interest with sagacity and energy amidst the ruin of the two great Greek states which surrounded him, and had the acuteness even now to attach himself as a client to Rome when his assistance was i>i some value. It is neither agreeable nor necessary to follow the vicis- Sus perseverance in Italy, and which fully bears comparison with the magnitude of the peril of Cannae. The joy in Rome was boundless ; business was resumed as in time of peace ; every one felt that the danger of the war was sur- mounted. Nevertheless the Romans were in no hurry to terminate the war. The state and the citizens were ex- of the war hausted by the excessive moral and material " " ^" strain on their energies ; men gladly abandoned themselves to carelessness and repose. The army and fleet were reduced ; the Roman and Latin farmers were brought back to their desolate homesteads ; the exchequer was filled by the sale of a portion of the Campanian domains. The administration of the state was regulated anew and the dis- orders which had prevailed were remedied ; the repayment of the voluntary war-loan was begun, and the Latin com- munities that remained in arrears were compelled to fulfil their neglected obligations with heavy interest. The war in Italy made no progress. It forms a brilliant proof of the strategic talent of Hannibal as well as of tlie incapacity of the Roman generals now opposed to him, that fifter this he was still able for four years to keep the field in the Bruttian country, and that all the superiority of his opponents could not compel him either to shut himself up in fortresses or to embark. It is true that he was obliged to retire farther and farther, not so much in consequence of the indecisive engagements which took place with the Ro Chap. VI.] From Ccmnae to Zama. 213 mans, as because his Bruttian allies were alw ays becoming more troublesome, and at last he could only reckon on the towns which his army garrisoned. Thus he voluntarily aband'ined Thuiii ; Loeri was, on the suggestion of Publius Scipio, recaptured by an expedition from Ehe- gium (549). As if at last his projects were to receive a brilliant justification at the hands of the very Car- thaginian authorities who had thwarted them, these now, in their apprehension as to the anticipated landing of the Ro- mans, revived of their own accord his plans 206. 20o. , ^ (548, 549), and sent reinforcements and subsidies to Hannibal in Italy, and to Mago in Spain, with orders to rekindle the war in Italy so as to achieve some further respite for the trembling possessors of the country houses of Libya and the shops of Carthage. An embassy was likewise sent to Macedonia, to induce Philip to renew the alliance and to land in Italy (549). But it was too late. Philip had made peace with Rome some months before ; the impending political annihilation of Carthage was far from agreeable to him, but he took no step openly at least against Rome. A small Macedonian corps proceeded to Africa, the expenses of which, according to the assertion of the Romans, were defrayed by Philip : this may have been the case, but the Romans had at any rate no proof of it, as the subsequent course of events showed. No Macedonian landing in Italy was thought ol". Mago, the youngest son of Hamilcar, set himself to his Mago in **®^ more earnestly. With the remains of the Italy. Spanish army, which he had conducted in the 206. first instance to Minorca, he landed in 549 at Genoa, destroyed the city, and summoned the Ligurians and Gauls to arms. Gold and the novelty of the enterprise led them now, as always, to come to him in troops ; he had formed connections even throughout Etruria, where politi- cal prosecutions never ceased. But the troops which he had brought witii him were too few for a serious enterprise against Italy proper ; and Hannibal likewise was much too weak, and his influence in Lower Italy had fallen too far, to 214 The War under Eannibal [Book III permit him to advance with any prospect of success. Th« rulers of Carthage were not willii..g to save their iiativa country, when its salvation was possible ; now. when they were willing, it was possible no longer. Nobody probably in the Eoman senate doubted either . . that the war on the part of Carthage against 'Die A fricin 111 cxpndition Rome was at an end, or that the war on the part of Scipio. ,. -r. . ^^ 1 , 11 or Kome agamst Carthage must now be begun ; but unavoidable as was the expedition to Africa, they were afraid to enter on its preparation. They required for it, above all, an able and beloved leader ; and they had none. Their best generals had either fallen in the field of battle, or they were, like Quintus Fabius and Quintus Fulvius, too old for such an entirely new and probably tedious war. The victors of Sena, Gaius Nercj and Marcus Livius, would perhaps have been equal to the task, but they were both in the highest degree unpopular aristocrats ; it was doubtful whether they would succeed in procuring the command — matters had already reached such a pass that ability, as such, determined the popular choice only in times of grave anxiety — and it was more than doubtful whether these were the men to stimulate the exhausted people to fresh exer- tions. At length Publius Scipio returned from Spain, and the favourite of the multitude, who had so brilliantly ful- filled, or at any rate seemed to have fulfilled, the task with which it had entrusted him, was immediately chosen consul for the next year. He entered on office (549) with the firm determination of now realizing that African expedition which he had projected in Spain. In the senate, however, not only was the party favourable to a methodical conduct of the war unwilling to entertain the project of an African expedition so long as Hannibal re- mained in Italy, but the majority was by no means favoui- ably disposed towards the young general himself. His Greek refinement and his modern culture and tone of thought were but little agreeable to the austere and some what boorish fathers of the city ; and serious doubts existed Doth as to his conduct of the Spanish war and as to hif Chap. VI.] From Cannae to Zama. 2ir> military discipline. How much ground tliere was for liie objectiun that he showed too great indulgence towards his officers of division, was very soon demonstrated by the dis- graceful proceedings of Gaius Flaminius at Locri, the blame of which certainly was indirectly chargeable to the scanda- lous negligence which marked Seipio's supervision. In the proceedings in the senate regarding the organization of the African expedition and the appointment of a general for it, the new consul, wherever usage or the constitution came into condict with his private views, showed no great reluc- tance to set such obstacles aside, and very clearly indicated that in case of need he was disposed to rely for support against the governing board on his fame and his popularity with the people. These things could not but annoy the senate and awaken, moreover, serious apprehension, lest in the impending decisive war and the eventual negotiations for peace with Carthage such a general would not be bound by the instructions which he received — an apprehension which his arbitrary management of the Spanish expedition was by no means fitted to allay. Both sides, however, dis- played wisdom enough not to push matters too far. The senate itself could not fail to see that the African expedition was necessary, and that it was injudicious indefinitely to postpone it; it could not fail to see that-Scipio was a very able officer and in so fur was well adapted for the leader in such a war, and that he, if any one, would be able to induce the people to protract his command as long as was neces- sary and to put forth their last energies; The majoi-ity came to the resolution not to refuse to Soipio the desired commission, after he had previously observed, at least in form, the respect due to the supreme governing board and had submitted himself beforehand to the decree of the sen- ate. Scipio was to proceed this year to Sicily to superin- tend the building of the fleet, the preparation of siege n a- terials, and the formation of the expeditionary army, and then in the following year to land in Africa. For this pur- pose the army of Sicily — still composed of those two legions that were formed from the remnant of the army < f 216 The War under Hannibal [Book in. Cannae — was placed at his disposal, because a weak garrison and the fleet were quite sufficient for the protection of the island ; and he was permitted moreover to raise volunteers in Italy. It was evident that the senate did not organize the expedition, but merely allowed it : Soipio did not obtain half the resources which had formerly been placed at ths command of Regulus, and he got that very corps which for years had been subjected by the senate to intentional degra- dation. The African army was, in the view of the majority of the senate, a forlorn hope of disrated companies and vol- unteers, the loss of whom in any event the state had no great occasion to regret. Any one else than Scipio would perhaps have declared that the African expedition must either be undertaken with other means, or not at all ; but Scipio's confidence accepted the terms such as they were solely with the view of attain- ing the eagerly coveted command. He carefully avoided, as far as possible, the imposition of direct burdens on the people, that he might not injure the popularity of the expe- dition. Its expenses, particularly those of building the fleet which were considerable, were partly procured by what was termed a voluntary contribution of the Etruscan cities — that is, by a war tribute imposed as a punishment on the Arretines and other communities disposed to favour the Phoenicians — partly kid upon the cities of Sicily. In forty days the fleet was ready for sea. The crews were reinforced by volunteers, of whom seven thousand from all parts of Italy responded to the call of the beloved oflicer. So Scipio set sail for Africa in the spring of 550 with two strong legions of veterans (about 30,000 men), 40 vessels of war, and 400 transports, and landed success- fully, without meeting the slightest resistance, at the Fair Promontory in the neighbourhood of Utica. The Carthaginians, who had long expected that the plun- Piepara- dering expeditions, which the Roman squadrons tjgis in had frequently made during the last few years to the African coast, would be followed by a more s^r'wus invasion, had not only, in order to ward it o% CuA^ Ti.] From Cannae to Zama. 217 endeavoured to bring about a revival of the Italo-Maee- donian war, but had also made armed preparation at home to receive the Romans. Of the two rival Berber Isings. Massiuissa of Cirta (Oonstantine), the ruler of the Mas- sylians, and Syphax of Siga (at the mouth of the Tafna westward from Oran), the rider of the Massaesylians, they ftad succeeded in attaching the latter, who was far the more powerful and hitherto had been friendly to the Romans, by treaty and affinity closely to Carthage, while they cast off the other, the old rival of Syphax and ally of the Cartha- ginians. Massinissa had after desperate resistance succumb- ed to the united power of the Carthaginians and of Syphax, and had been obliged to leave his territories a prey to the latter ; he himself wandered with a few horsemen in the desert. Besides the contingent to be expected from Syphax, a Carthaginian army of 20,000 foot, 6,000 cavalry, and 140 elephants — Hanno had been sent out to hunt elephants for the very purpose — was ready to fight for the protection of the capital, under tlie comraiiad of flasdrubal son of Gisgo, a general who had gained experience in Spain ; in the port there lay a strong fleet. A Macedonian corps under Sopa^ ter, and a consignment of Celtiberian mercenaries, were immediately expected. On the report of Scipio's landing, Massinissa imme- diately arrived in the camp of the general whom Soipio , ■' , ^ 111,. T driven back not long before he had confronted as an enemy in Spain ; but the landless prince brought in the first instance nothing beyond his personal ability to the aid of the Romans, and the Libyans, although heartily weary of levies and tribute, had acquired too bitter experieiice in similar cases to declare at once for the invaders. So Scipio began the campaign. So long as he was only opposed by the weaker Carthaginian army, he had the advantage, and was enabled after some successful cavalry skirmishes to proceed to the siege of Utica ; but when Syphax arrived, according to report with 50,000 infantry and 10,000 cavalry, the siege had to be raised, and a fortified naval camp had to be constructed for the winter on a promontory, which easily Vol. IL— 10 218 The War under Hannibal [Book in admitted of entrenchment, between Utica and Carthage, Here the Roman loieneral passed the winter of 204~''03. 550-1. From the disagreeable situation in which the spring found him he extricated himself by a fortunate coup de main. The Africans, lulled into secu- Surpnsa of ^ , „ i i ci • • the Oartha- rity by proposals of peace sugg(;stea by Bcipio with more artifice than honour, allowed them- selves to be surprised on one and the same night in their two camps ; the reed huts of the Numidians burst into flames, and, when the Carthaginians hastened to their help, their own camp shared the same fate ; the fugitives were slain without resistance by the Roman divisions. This noc- turnal surprise was more destructive than many a battle ; nevertheless the Carthaginians did not suffer their courage to sink, and they rejected even the advice of the timid, or rather of the judicious, to recall Mago and Hannibal. Just at this time the expected Celtiberian and Macedonian aux- iliaries arrived ; it was resolved once more to try a pitched battle on the " Great Plains," five days' march from Utica. Soipio hastened to accept it ; with little difficulty his vete- rans and volunteers disper ed the hastily collected host of Carthaginians and Numidians, and the Celtiberians, who could not reckon on any mercy from Scipio, were cut down after obstinate resistance. After this double defeat the Africans could no longer keep the field. An attack on the Roman naval camp attempted by the Carthaginian fleet, while not unsuccessful, was far from decisive, and was greatly outweighed by the capture of Syphax, which Scipio's singular good fortune threw in his way, and by which Mas- sinissa became to the Romans what Syphax had been at first to the Carthaginians. After such defeats the Carthaginian peace party, which Negotia, ^^^ he&a reduced to silence for sixteen yearSj tionsfor was able once more to raise its head and openly peace. ^ '' to rebel against the government of the Barcides and the patriots. Hasdrubal son of Gisgo was in his ab- sence condemned by the government to death, and an at- tempt was made to obtain an armistice and peace from Chap. VI.] From Cannae to Zama. 219 Scipio. He demanded the cession of their Spanish posses- sions and of the islands of the Mediterranean, the transfer- ence of the kingdom of Syphax to Massinissa, the surrender of all their vessels of war except 20, and a war contribution of 4,000 talents (nearly £1,000,000) — terms which seem sc singularly favourable to Carthage, that the question ob- tiudes itself whether they were offered by Scipio more in his own interest or in that of Rome. The Carthaginian plenipotentiaries accepted them under reservation of their being ratified by the respective authorities, and according!/ Maohina- ^ Carthaginian embassy was despatched to carthagin-^ Rome. But the patriot party in Carthage were ian patriote. not disposed to give up the struggle so cheap- ly ; faith in the nobleness of their cause, confidence in their great leader, even the example that had been set to them by Rome herself, stimulated them to persevere, apart from the fact that peace of necessity involved the return of the opposite party to the helm of affairs and their own con- sequent destruction. The patriotic party had the ascen- dancy among the citizens ; it was resolved to allow the opposition to negotiate for peace, and meanwhile to prepare for a last and decisive effort. Orders were sent to Mago and Hannibal to return with all speed to Africa. Mago, who for three years (549-551) had been labour- 205—203 ./ \ / ing to bring about a coalition in Northern Italy against Rome, had just at this time in the territory of thu Insubres (about Milan) been defeated by the far superioi double army of the Romans, The Roman cavalry had been brought to give way, and the infantry had been thrown into confusion ; victory seemed on the point of declaring for the Carthaginians, when a bold attack by a Roman troop on the enemy's elephants, and above all a serious wound received by their beloved and able commander, turned the fortune of the day. The Phoenician army was obliged to retreat to the Ligurian coast, where it received and obeyed the order to embark ; but Mago died of his wound on the voyage. Hannibal would probably have anticipated the order 220 The War under Hannibal [Kook m HaBnibai ^^^ '"'* ^^ '^^* negotiations with Pliilip pre. recalled to sented to him a renewed prospect of rendering better service to his country m Italy than m Libya ; when he received it at Croton, where he latterly had his head-quarters, he lost no time in complying with it. He caused his horses to be put to death as well as the Italian soldiers who refused to follow hin; over the sea, and embarked in the transports that had been long in readiness in the roadstead of Croton. The Roman citizens breathed freely, when the mighty Libyan lion, whose departure no one even now ventured to compel, thus voluntarily turned his back on Italian ground. On this occasion the decoration of a grass wreath was bestowed by the senate and burgesses on the only surviving Roman general who had traversed that troubled time with honour, the veteran of nearly ninety years, Quiutus Fabius. To receive this wreath — which by the custom of the Romans the army that a general had saved presented to its deliverer — at the hands of the whole, community was the highest distinction which had ever been besiowed upon a Roman citizen, and the last honour ac- corded to the old general, who died in the course of that samt year (551). Hannibal, doubtless not under tht ^'election of the armistice, but solely through his rapidity of n^v, /ement and good fortune, arrived at Lcptis without hindrance, and the last of the " lion's brood " of Hamilcar trode once more, after an absence of thirty-six years, his native soil. He had left it, when still almost a boy, to enter on that noble and yet so thoroughly fruitless career of heroism, in which he had set out towards the west to return homewards from the east, having de- scribed a wide circle of victory around the Carthaginian sea. Now, when what he had wished to prevent, and what he would have prevented had he been allowed, was done, he was summoned to help and, if possible, to save ; and he obeyed without complaint or reproach. On his arrival the patriot party came forward openly ; Recom- *^® disgraceful sentence against Hasdrubal was menoement cancelled ; new connections were formed with Chap. VI] From Cannae to Zama. 221 of hostilities, the Numidian sheiks through the dexlerity cif Hannibal ; and not only did the assembly of the people refuse to ratify the peace practically concluded, but the armistice was broken by the plundering of a Roman trans- port fleet driven ashore on the African coast, and by the seizure even of a Roman vessel of war carrying Roman envoys. In just indignaticm Scipio started from his camp ^^ at Tunes (552) and traversed the rich valley of the Bagradas (Mejerda), no longer allowing the townships to capitulate, but causing the inhabitants of the villages and towns to be seized and sold en masse. He had already penetrated far into the interior, and was at Narag- gara (to the west of Sicca, now Kaf, near Ras o Dschaber), when Hannibal, who had marched out from Hadrumetum, "fell in with him. The Carthaginian general attempted to obtain better conditions from the Roman in a personal con- ference ; but Scipio, who had already gone to the extreme verge of concession, could not possibly after the breach of the armistice agree to yield further, and it is improbable that Hannibal had any other object in this step than to show the multitude that the patriots were not absolutely opposed to peace. The conference led to no result. The two armies accordingly came to a decisive battle at Battle of Zama (probably not far from Sicca).* Hannibal Zama, arranged his infantry in three lines ; in the first division the Carthaginian hired troops, in the second the African militia and the Phoenician civic force along with the Macedonian corps, in the third the veterans who had followed him from Italy, In front of the line were placed the 80 elephants ; the cavalry were stationed on the wings, Scipio likewise disposed his legions in three divisions, as was the wont of the Romans, and so arranged them that the elephants could pass through and along the line without breaking it. Not only was this disposition completely suc- * Neither the place nor time of the battle is properly determined. The former was probably no other than the well-known Zama rogia ; th« time probably the spring of 652. The fixing of the day ps the I'.ni October, on account of the solar eclipse, is not to be depended on. 222 The War under Hannibal [Book hi cessful, but the elephants making their way to the side dis- ordered also the Carthaginian cavalry on the wings, so that Scipio's cavalry — which moreover was by the arrival of Massinissa's troops rendered far superior to the enemy- had little trouble in dispersing them, and were soon en» gaged in full pursuit. The struggle of the infantry was more severe. The conflict lasted long between the first divisions on both sides ; at length in the extremely bloody hand-to-hand encounter both parties fell into confusion, and were obliged to seek a support in the second divisions. The Romans found that support ; but the Carthaginian militia showed itself so unsteady and wavering, that the mercena- ries believed themselves betrayed and a combat arose be- tween them and the Carthaginian civic force. But Hannibal now hastily withdrew what remained of the first two lines to the flanks, and pushed forward his choice Italian troops along the whole line. Scipio, on the other hand, gathered together in the centre as many of the first line as still were able to fight, and made the second and third divisions close up on the right and left of the first. Once more on the same spot began a still more fearful conflict ; Hannibal's old soldiers never wavered in spite of the superior numbers of the enemy, till the cavalry of the Romans and of Mas- sinissa, returning from the pursuit of the beaten cavalry of the enemy, surrounded them on all sides. This not only terminated the struggle, but annihilated the Phoenician army ; the same soldiers, who fourteen years before had given way at Cannae, had retaliated on their conquerors at Zama. With a handful of men Hannibal arrived, a fugi- tive, at Hadrumetum. After this day folly alone could counsel a continuance of the war on the part of Carthage. On the other hand it was in the power of the Roman general immediately to begin the siege of the capital, which was neither protected nor provisioned, and, unless unfore- seen accidents should intervene, now to subject Carthage to the fate wMch Hannibal had wished to bring upon Rome, joi. Scipio did not do so ; he granted peace (533), jbap VI.] From Cannae to Zama. 223 but no longer upon the terms formerly exacted. Besides the concessions which had already in the last negotiations been demanded in favour of Rome and of Massinissa, an annual contribution of 200 talents (£48,000) was imposed for fifty years on the Carthaginians ; and they had to bind themselves that they would not wage war against Rome or its allies or indeed beyond the bounds of Africa at all, and that in Africa they would not wage war beyond their own territory without having sought the permission of Rome — the practical effect of which was that Carthage became tributary and lost her political independence. It even ap- pears that the Carthaginians were bound in certain cases to furnish ships of war to the Roman fleet. Scipio has been accused of granting too favourable con- ditions to the enemy, lest he might be obliged to hand over the glory of terminating the most severe war which Rome had waged, along with his command, to a successor. The charge might have had some foundation, had the first pro- posals been carried out ; it seems to have no warrant in reference to the second. His position in Rome was not such as to make the favourite of the people, after the victory of Zama, seriously apprehensive of recall — already before the victory an attempt to supersede him had been referred by the senate to the burgesses, and by them decidedly rejected. Nor do the conditions themselves warrant such a charge. The Carthaginian city never, after its hands were thus tied and a powerful neighbour was placed by its side, made even an attempt to withdraw from Roman supremacy, still less to enter into rivalry with Rome ; besides, every one who cared to know knew that the war just terminated had been undertaken much more by Hannibal than by Carthage, and that it was absolutely impossible to revive the gigantic plans of the patriot party. It might seem little in the eyes of the vengeful Italians, that only the five hundred surren dered ships of war perished in the flames, and not the hated city itself; secret spite and official pedantry might contend for the view, that an opponent is only really vanquished when he is annihilated, and might censure the man who had 224 Ths War under Hannibal [Book III disdained rigorously to punish the crime of ha\ing made Romans tremble. Scipio thought otherwise ; and we have no reason and therefore no right to assume that the Roman was in this instance influenced by vulgar motives rathe'.' than by the noble and magnanimous impulses which formed j)art of his character. It was not the consideration of his own possible recall or of the mutability of fortune, nur was it any apprehension of the outbreak of a Macedonian war at certainly no distant date, that prevented the self-reliant and confident hero, with whom everything had hitherto suc- ceeded beyond belief, from completing the destruction of the unhappy city, which fifty years afterwards his adopted grandson was commissioned to execute, and which might indeed have been equally well accomplished now. It is much more probable that the two great generals, on whom the decision of the political question now devolved, offered and accepted peace on such terms in order to set just and reasonable limits on the one hand to the furious vengeance of the victors, on the other to the obstinacy and imprudence of the vanquished. The noble-mindedness and statesmanlike gifts of the great antagonists are no less apparent in the magnanimous submission of Hannibal to what was inevita- ble, than in the wise abstinence of Scipio from an extrava- gant and insulting use of victory. Is it to be supposed that one so generous, unprejudiced, and intelligent should not have asked himself of what benefit it could be to his coun- try, now that the political power of the Carthaginian city was annihilated, utterly to destroy that ancient seat of com- merce and of agriculture, and wickedly to overthrow one of the main pillars of the then existing civilization? The time had not yet come when the first men of Rome lent themselves to destroy the civilization of their neighbours, and frivolously fancied that they could wash away from themselves the etcr« nal infamy of the nation by shedding an idle tear. Thus ended the second Punic or, as the Romans more Resnitoof correctly called it, the Hannibalic war, after i thowar. jjj^(j devastated the knds and islands from tht Hellespont to the Pillars of Hercules for seventeen yeai-s Chap. VI. | From Cannae to Zama. 225 Before this war the policy of the Romans had no higher airo than to acquire command of the mainland of the Italian peninsula within its natural boundaries, and of the Italian islands and seas ; it is clearly proved by their treatment of Africa on the conclusion of peace that they also terminated the wat with the impression, not that they had laid the foundation of sovereignty over the states of the Mediter- ranean or of the so-called universal empire, but that they had rendered a dangerous rival innocuous and had given to Italy agreeable neighbours. It is true doubtless that the results of the war, the conquest of Spain in particular, little accorded with such an idea ; but their very successes led them beyond their proper design, and it may in fact be affirmed that the Romans came into possession of Spain accidentally. The Romans achieved the sovereignty of Italy, because they sti-ove for it ; the hegemony — and the sovereignty which grew out of it — over the territories of the Mediterranean was to a certain extent thrown into the hands of the Romans by the force of circumstances without intention on their part to acquire it. The immediate results of the war out of Italy were, the conversion of Spain into two Roman provinces Ontofltaly. , . , , . , — which, however, were m perpetual msurrec- tion ; the union of the hitherto dependent kingdom of Syra- cuse with the Roman province of Sicily ; the establishment of a Roman instead of a Carthaginian protectorate over the most important Numidian chiefs ; and lastly the conversion of Carthage from a powerful commercial state into a de- fenceless mercantile town. In other words, it established the uncontested hegemony of Rome over the western region of the Mediterranean. Moreover, it brought about that de- cided contact between the state systems of the East and West which the first Punic war had only foreshadowed ; and thereby gave rise to the proximate decisive interference of Rome in theconflicts of the Alexandrine monarchies. In Italy, first of all the Celts were now doomed to des- truction, if indeed their fate had not been dei ^' cided before ; and the execution of the doom Vol. II.~10* 226 The War under Hannibal [Boos, itt was only a question of time. Within the Re mar. confed eraoy the effect of the war was to bring into more distinct prominence the ruling Latin nation, whose internal union had been tried and attested by the peril which, notwith standing isolated instances of wavering, it had surmounted on the whole in faithful fellowship , and to depress still fiirther the non-Latin or Latinized Italians, particularly the Etruscans and the Sabellians of Lower Italy. The heaviest punishment or rather vengeance was inflicted partly on the most powerful, partly on those who were at once the ear- liest and latest, allies of Hannibal — the community ot Capua, and the land of the Bruttians. The Capuan consti< tution was abolished, and Capua was reduced from the second city into the first village of Italy ; it was even pro- posed to raze the city and level it with the ground. The whole soil, with the exception of a few possessions of for- eigners or of Campanians well disposed towards Rome, was declared by the senate to be public domain, and was there- after parcelled out to small occupiers on temporary lease. The Pioentes on the Silarus were similarly treated ; their capital was razed, and the inhabitants were dispersed among the surrounding villages. The doom of the Bruttians was still more severe ; they were converted en masse into a sort of bondsmen to the Romans, and were forever excluded from the right of bearing arms. The other allies of Han- nibal also dearly expiated their offence. The Greek cities suffered severely, with the exception of the few which had steadfastly adhered to Rome, such as the Campanian Greeks and the Rhegines. Punishment not much lighter awaited the Arpanians and a multitude of other Apulian, Lucanianj and Samnite communities, most of which lost portions of their territory. On part of the lands thus acquired new colonies were settled. Thus in the year 5G0 a succession of burgess-colonies was sent to the best ports of Lower Italy, among which Sipontum (neai Manfredonia) and Croton may be named, as also Salernuni placed in the former territory of the southern Picentes and destined to hold them in check, aad above all Ptteoli, which Chap. VI.] From Cannae to Zama. 227 soon became the seat of the fashionable villa-life and of the traffic ill Asiatic and Egyptian luxuries. Thurii became a 194. Latin fortress under the new name of Copia (560), and the rich Bruttian town of Vibo under the name of Valentia (562). The veterans of the victorious army of Africa were settled singly on various patches of land in Samnium and Apulia ; the remaindei was retained as public land, and the pasture stations of the grandees of Rome replaced the gardens and arable fields of the farmers. As a matter of course, moreover, in all the communities of the peninsula the persons of note who wer« not well affected to Rome were got rid of, so far as this could be accomplished by political processes and confisca- tions of property. Everywhere in Italy the non-Latin allies felt that their name was meaningless, and that they were henceforth subjects of Rome ; the conquest of Hannibal was felt as a second subjugation of Italy, and all the exaspera- tion and all the arrogance of the victors vented themselves especially on their Italian allies who were not Latin. Even the colourless Roman comedy of this period, subjected as it was to close censorship, bears traces of this. When the subjugated towns of Capua and Atella were abandoned without restraint to the unbridled wit of the Roman farce, so that the latter town became its very stronghold, and when other writers of comedy jested over the fact that the Campanian serfs had already learned to survive amidst the deadly atmosphere in which even the hardiest race of slaves, the Syrians, pined away ; such unfeeling mockeries reSected the scorn of the victors, and re-echoed the cry of distress from the down-trodden nations. The position in which mat- ters stood is shown by the anxious carefulness, which during the ensuinff Macedonian war the senate evinced in the watch- "Mg of Italy, and by the reinforcements which were des- patched from Rome to the most important colonies, to 200 199. Venusia in 554, Narnia in 555, Cosa in 557, and 19?: 194: cales shortly before 570. What blanks were produced by war and famine in tile ranks of th« Italian population, is shown by the example o^ 228 The War under Hannibal [Book m the burgesses of Rome, whose numbers during the war had fallen almost a fourth. The statement, accordingly, that the whole number of Italians who fell in the war under Han- nibal was 300,000, seems not at all exaggerated. Of course this loss fell chiefly on the flower of the burgesses, who in fact furnished the core and mass of the combatants. Ilow fearfully the senate in particular was thixmed, is shown by the filling up of its complement after the battle of Cannae, when it had been reduced to 123 persons, and was with difl^iculty restored to its normal state by an extraordinary nomination of 177 senators. That, moreover, the seven- teen years' war, which had been carried on simultaneously in all districts of Italy and towards all the four points ol the compass abroad, must have shaken to the very heart the national economy, is abundantly evident ; but our tra- dition does not suffice to illusti-ate this in detail. The state no doubt gained by the confiscations, and the Campanian territory in particular thenceforth remained an inexhaustible source of revenue to the state ; but by this extension of the domain system the national prosperity of course lost just about as much as at other times it had gained by the break- ing up of the state lands. Numbers of flourishing town- ships — four hundred, it was reckoned — were destroyed and ruined ; the capital laboriously accumulated was consumed ; the population were demoralized by camp life ; the good old traditional habits of the burgesses and farmers were undermined from the capital down to the smallest village. Slaves and desperadoes associated themselves in robber- bands, of the dangers of which an idea may be formed from the fact that in a single year (569) 7,000 men had to be condemned for robbery in Apulia alone ; the extension of the pastures, with their half-savage slave-herdsmen, favoured this mischievous barbarizing of the land. Italian agriculture saw its very existence endan- gered by the proof, first afforded ir. this war, that the Roman people could be supported by grain from Sicily and from Egypt instead of that which they reaped them Belvcs. Chap. VI.] From Gannae lo Zama. 229 Nevertheless the Roman, whom the gods hi A allowed to survive the close of that gigantic struggle, might look with pride to the past and with confidence to the future. Many errors had been committed, but much suffering had also been endured ; the people, whose whole youth capable of armsi had for ten years hardly laid aside shield and sword, might excuse many faults. The living of different nations side by side in peace and amity upon the whole, although maintaining an attitude of mutual antagonism — which ap- pears to be the aim of the peoples of modern times — was a thing foreign to antiquity. In ancient times it was neces- sary to be either anvil or hammer ; and in the final strug- gle between the victors victory remained with the Romans. Whether they would have the judgment to use it rightly — to attach the Latin nation by still closer bonds to Rome, gradually to Latinize Italy, to rule their dependents in the provinces as subjects and not to abuse them as slaves, to reform the constitution, to reinvigorate and to enlarge the tottering middle class — remained to be seen. If they should have the skill to accomplish these results, Italy might hope to see happy times, in which prosperity based on personal exertion under favourable circumstances, and the most de- cisive political supremacy over the then civilized world, would impart a just self-reliance to every member of the great whole, furnish a worthy aim for every ambition, and open a career for every talent. It would, no doubt, be otherwise, should they fail to use aright their victory. But for the moment doubtful voices and gloomy apprehensiona were silent ; from all quarters the warriors and victors re- turned to their homes ; thanksgivings and amusements, and rewards to soldiers and burgesses were the order of the day ; the released prisoners of war were sent home from Gaul, Africa, and Greece ; and at length the youthful con- queror moved in splendid procession through the decorated streets of the capital, to deposit his laurels in the house of the god by whose direct inspiration, as the pious whispered one to another, he had been guided in counsel and in action CHAPTEK Vn. sax WEBT FBOM THE PEACE OF HANNIBAL TO THE CLOSX OF THE THIRD PERIOD. The war waged by Hannibal had interrupted Rome in Pub'nitation ^^^ extension of her dominion to the Alps or to o'tneTOiiey the boundary of Italy, as was even now the Roman phrase, and in her organization and colonizing of the Celtic territories. It was self evident that the task would now be resumed at the point where it had been broken off, and the Celts were well aware of this. In the very year of the conclusion of peace with Carthage (553) hostilities had recommenced in the territory of the Boii, who were the most immediately exposed to danger ; and a first success obtained by them over the hastily assembled Roman levy, coupled with the persuasions of a Carthaginian officer, Ilamilcar, who had been left behind from the expedition of Mago in northern Italy, produced in the following year (554) a general insurrection spreading beyond the two tribes immediately threatened, the Boii and In- subres. The Ligurians were driven to arms by the nearer approach of the danger, and even the youth of the Ceno- mani On this occasion listened less to the voice of their cautious chiefs than to the urgent appeal of their kinsmen who were in peril. Of the two fortresses constructed with a view to check the raids of the Gauls, Placentia and Cre- mona, the former was sacked — not more than 2,000 of the inhabitants of Placentia saved their lives — and the second was invested. In haste the legions advanced to save what they could. A great battle took place before Cremona, The dexterous management and the professional skill of th« Chap, vil] To ths Close of the Thi/rd Period. 231 Phoenician leader failed to make up for the deficiencies ol his troops ; the Gauls were unable to withstand the onset of the legions, and among the numerous dead who covered the field of battle was the Carthaginian officer. The Celts, nevertheless, continued the struggle ; the same Roman 199 army which had conquered at Cremona was next year (555), chiefly through the fault of its care- less leader, almost destroyed by the Insubres ; and it was jgj not till 556 that Placentia could be partially re- established. But the league of the cantons associated for the desperate struggle suflfered from intestine discord ; the Boii and Insubres quarrelled, and the Ceno- mani not only withdrew from the national league, but pur- chased their pardon from the Romans by a disgraceful be- trayal of their countrymen ; during a battle in which the Insubres engaged the Romans on the Mincius, the Cenomani attacked in rear, and helped to destroy, their allies and comrades in arms (557). Thus humbled and deserted, the Insubres, after the fall of Comum, ,gj likewise consented to conclude a separate peace (558). The conditions, which the Romans pre- scribed to the Cenomani and Insubres, were certainly harder than they had been in the habit of granting to the members of the Italian confederacy ; in particular, they were careful to confirm by law the barrier of separation between Italians and Celts, and to enact that no member of these two Celtic tribes should ever be capable of acquiring the citizenship of Rome. But these Transpadane Celtic districts were allowed to retain their existence and their national consti- tution — so that they formed not townships, but cantons of the several tribes — and no tribute, as it would seem, was imposed on them. They were intended to serve as a bul- wark for the Roman settlements south of the Po, and to ward off from Italy the incursions of the migratory north- ern tribes and the aggressions of the predatory inhabitants of the Alps, who were wont to make regular razzias in these districts. The process of Latinizing, moreover, made rapid progress in these regions ; the Celtic nationality was 232 The West fr:)m the Peace of Hannibal [Book lU evidently far from able to oppose such resistance as ths more civilized nations of Sabellians and Etruscans. The celebrated Latin comic poet Statins Caecilius, who died in 586, was a manumitted Insubrian ; and Po- lybius, who visited these districts towards the close of the sixth century, afSrms, not perhaps without some exaggeration, that in that quarter only a few villages among the Alps remained Celtic. The Veneti, on the other hand, appear to have retained their nationality longer. The chief efforts of the Eomans in these regions were naturally directed to check the immigration of Measures "^ ° adopted to the Transalpine Celts, and to make the natural chet-li the i , n . / i • i /> t immigra- Wall, which Separates the penmsula from the Transalpine interior of the continent, also its political bound- ^ "■ ary. That the terror of the Roman name had already penetrated to the adjacent Celtic cantons beyond the Alps, is shown not only by the totally passive attitude which they maintained during the annihilation or subjugar tion of their Cisalpine countrymen, but still more by the official disapproval and disavowal which the Transalpine cantons — which term we must suppose primarily to apply to the Helvetii (between the lake of Geneva and the Main) and the Carni or Taurisci (in Carinthia and Styria) — ex- pressed to the envoys from Rome, who complained of the attempts made by isolated Celtic bands to settle peacefully on the Roman side of the Alps. Not less significant was the humble spirit in which these same bands of emigrants first came to the Roman senate entreating an assignment of land, and then without remonstrance obeyed the rigorous order to return over the Alps (568-575), and allowed the town, which they had already (bund- ed not far from Aquileia, to be again destroyed. With wise severity the senate permitted no sort of exception to the principle that the gates of the Alps should be hence- forth closed against the Celtic nation, and visited with heavy penalties those Roman subjects in Italy, who had instigated any such schemes of immigration. An attempt of this kind which was made on a route hitherto little known to Chap. VII.] To the Close of th£ Third Period. 233 the Romans, in the inneimost recess of the Adriatic, and still more, as it would seem, tlie project of Philip of Mace- don for invading Italy from the east as Hannihal had dona from the west, gave occasion to the founding of a fortress in the extreme north-eastern corner of Italy — Aquileia, the iw-181 '"°®* northerly of the Italian colonies (571-573) — which was intended not only to close that route for ever against foreigners, but also to secure the command of the gulf which was specially convenient for navigation, and to check the piracy which w^ still not wholly extirpated in those waters. The establishment of Aquileia led to a war with the Istrians (576, 577), which was speedily terminated by the storming of some strongholds and the fall of the king, Aepulo, and which was remarkable for nothing except for the panic, which the news of the surprise of the Roman camp by a handful of barbarians occasioned in the fleet and throughout Italy. A different course was adopted with the region on the south of the Po, which the Roman senate had Colonizmg ' i ? mi t^ of there- determined to incorporate with Italy. The Boii, giononthe , . i. i n- t t -i ■ Bouthofthe who were immediately anected by this step, defended themselves with the resolution of des- pair. They even crossed the Po and made an attempt to rouse the Insubres once more to arms (560) ; they blockaded a consul in his camp, and he was on the point of succumbing ; Placentia maintained itself with difficulty against the constant assaults of the exaspe- rated natives. At length the last battle was fought at Mutina ; it was long and bloody, but the Romans con- quered (561) ; and thenceforth the struggle was no longer a war, but a slave hunt. The Roman camp soon was the only asylum in the Boian territory ; thither the better part of the still surviving population be- gan to take refuge ; and the victors were able, without much exaggeration, to report to Rome that nothing re- mained of the nation of the Boil but old men and children. The nation was thus obliged to resign itself to the fate ap 234 Tlie West from the Peace ofHannihcu, [Book hi pointed for it. The Romans demanded the cession of half the territory (563) ; the demand could not be refused, and even within the diminished district •which was left to the Boii, they soon disappeared, amal- gamated with their conquerors.* After the Romans had thus cleared the ground for them> selves, the fortresses of Placentia and Cremona, whose colo- nists had been mostly swept away or dispersed by the troubles of the last few years, were reorganized, and new settlers wwe sent thither. The new foundations were, in or near the former territory of the Senones, Potentia (near 184. Recanati not far from Ancona, in 570) and Pi- ig4. saurum (Pesaro, in 570), and, in the newly ac- quired district of the Boii, the fortresses of "s-jjjiss. j Bononia (565), Mutina (571), and Parma (571) , the colony of Mutina had been instituted before the war under Hannibal, but that war had interrupted the completion of the settlement. The institution of fortresses * According to the account of Strabo these Italian Boii were driven oy the Somans over the Alps, and from them proceeded that Boian set- tlement in what is now Hungary between the Neusiedlersee and the Plattensee, which was attacked and annihilated in the time of Augustus by the Getae who crossed the Danube, but which bequeathed to this district the name of the Boian desert. This account is far from agree- ing with the well-attested representation of the Komau annals, accord- ing to which the Romans were content with the cession of half the ter- ritory ; and, in order to explain the disappearance of the Italian Boii, we have really no need to assume a violent expulsion — the other Celtic peoples, although visited to a far less extent by war and colonization, dis- appeared not much less rapidly and totally from the ranks of the Italian nations. On the other hand, other accounts suggest the derivation of those Boii on the Plattensee from the main stock of the nation, which formerly had its seat in Bavaria and Bohemia before Germanic tribes pushed it towards the south. But it is altogether very doubtful whether the Boii, whom we find near Bordeaux, on the Po, and in Bohemia, were really scattered branches of one stock, or whether this is not an instance -of mere similarity of name. The hypothesis of Strabo may have rested on nothing else than an inference from the similarity of name — an in- ference such as the ancients drew, often without due reason, m the case of the Cimbri, Veneti, and others. Chap, VII.] To the Close of the Third Period. 235 was associated, as was always the case, with the construo- tion of military roads. The Flaminian way was prolonged from its northern termination at Ariminum, under the name of the Aemilian way, to Placentia (567). Moreover, the road from Rome to Arretium (it .he Cassian way, which perhaps had already been long a municipal road, was taken in charge and constructed anew 18T. by the Eoman community probably in 583 ; I'l- while in 567 the track from Arretium over the Apennines to Bononia as far as the new Aemilian road had been put in order, and furnished a shorter communication between Rome and the fortresses on the Po. By these comprehensive measures the Apennines were practically superseded as the boundary between the Celtic and Italian territories, and were replaced by the Po. South of the Po there henceforth prevailed mainly the civic constitution of the Italians, beyond it mainly the cantonal constitution of the Celts ; and, if the district between the Apennines and the Po was still designated ager Gelticus, it was but an empty name. In the north-western mountain-land of Italy, whose valleys and hills were occupied chiefly by the much-subdivided Ligurian stock, the Romans pursued a similar course. Those dwelling immediately to the north of the Arno were extirpated. This fate befel chiefly the Apuani, who dwelt on the Apennines between the Arno and the Magra, and incessantly plundered on the one side the territory of Pisae, on the other that of Bo- nonia and Mutina. Those who did not fall victims in that quarter to the sword of the Romans were transported into Lower Italy to the region of Beneventum (574) ; and by energetic measures the Ligunan nation, from which the Romans were obliged in 578 to recover the colony of Mutina which it had conquered, was completely crushed in the mountains which separate the valley of the Po from that of the Arno. The fortress of Luna (not far from Spezzia), established in 571 *"' in the former territory of the Apuani, protected 236 The West from the Peace of Hannibal [Book, in (iie frontier against the Ligurians, just as Aquileia did against the Transalpines, and gave the Eomans at the sam« time an excellent port which heijC«forth became the usual station for the passage to Massilia or to Spain. The con- struction of the coast or Aurelian road from Rome to Luna, and of the cross road carried from Luca by way of Flor- ence to Arretium between the Aurelian and Cassian ways, probably belongs to the same period. With the more western Ligurian tribes, who held the Genoese Apennines and the Maritime Alps, there were in- cessant conflicts. They were troublesome neighbours, ac- customed to pillage by land and by sea : the Pisans and Massiiiots suffered no little injury from their incursions and their piracies. But no permanent results were gained amidst these constant hostilities, or perhaps even aimed at ; except apparently that, with a view to have a communica- tion by land with Transalpine Gaul and Spain in addition to the regular route by sea, the Eomans endeavoured to clear the great coast road from Luna by way, of Massilia to Emporiae, at least as far as the Alps — beyond the Alps it devolved on the Massiiiots to keep the coast navigation open for Roman vessels and the road along the shore open for travellers by land. The interior with its impassable valleys and its rocky fastnesses, and with its poor but dex- terous and crafty inhabitants, served the Romans mainly as a school of war for the training and hardening of officers and soldiers. Wars as they are called, of a similar character with Corsica. those against the Ligurians, were waged with Sardinia. jjjg CoTsicans and to a still greater extent with the inhabitants of the interior of Sardinia, who retaliated for the predatory expeditions directed against them by sud- den attacks on the districts along the coast. The expedi- tion of Tiberius Gracchus against the Sardinians in 577 was specially held in remembrance, riot so much because it gave " peace " to the province, as be- cause he asserted that he had slain or captured as many as 80,000 of the islanders, and dragged slaves thence in such Chap. VII.] To the Close of the Third Period. 237 multitudes to Rome that " as cheap as a Sardinian " became a proverb. In Africa tht policy of Rome was substantially summed up in the one idea, as shortsighted as it was narrow-minded, that she ought to prevent the revival of the power of Carthage, and ought accordingly to keep the unhappy city constantly oppressed and apprehen sive of a declaration of war suspended over it by Rome like the sword of Damocles. The stipulation in the treaty of peace, that the Carthaginians should retain their territory undiminished, but that their neighbour Massinissa should have all those possessions guaranteed to him which he or his predecessor had possessed within the Carthaginian bounds, looks almost as if it had been inserted not to pre- vent, but to provoke disputes. The same remark applies to the obligation imposed by the treaty of peace on the Carthaginians not to make war upon the allies of Rome ; so that, according to the letter of the treaty, they were not even entitled to expel their Numidian neighbours from their own undisputed territory. With such stipulations and amidst the uncertainty of African frontier questions in general, the situation of Carthage in presence of a neigh- bour equally powerful and unscrupulous and of a liege lord who was at once umpire and party in the cause, could not but be a painful one ; but the reality was worse than the worst expectations. As early as 561 Carthage found herself suddenly assailed under frivolous pretexts, and saw the richest portion of her territory, the province of Eniporiae on the lesser Syrtis, partly plun- dered by the Numidians, partly even seized and retained by them. Encroachments of this kind were multiplied ; the level country passed into the hands of the Numidians, and the Carthaginians with difficulty maintained themselves in the larger towns. Within the last two years alone, the Carthaginians declared in 583, seventy villages had been again wrested from them in opposition to the treaty. Embassy after embassy was despatched to Rome ; the Carthaginians adjured the Roman senate eithei 238 The West from the Peace of Hannibal [Book hi, to allow them to defend themselves ty arms, or to appoint a court of arbitration with power to enforce their award, oi to regulate the frontier anew that they might at least learn once for all how much they were to lose; otherwise it were better to make them Roman subjects at once than thus gradually to deliver them over to the Libyans. But thf Roman government, which already in 554 had 200. o ' ./ held forth a direct prospect of extension of ter- ritory to their client, of course at the expense of Carthage, seemed to have little objection that he should himself tal(e the booty destined for him ; they moderated at times the too great impetuosity of the Libyans, who now retaliated fully on their old tormentors for their former sufferings ; but it was in reality for the very sake of inflicting this tor- ture that the Romans had assigned Massinissa as a neigh- bour to Carthage. All the requests and complaints had no result, except that Roman commissions made their appear- ance in Africa and after a thorough investigation came to no decision, or that in the negotiations at Rome the envoys of Massinissa pretended a want of instructions and the matter was adjourned. "Phoenician patience alone was able to submit meekly to such a position, and even to exhibit towards the despotic victors every attention and courtesy, solicited or unsolicited, with unwearied perseverance. The Carthaginians especially courted Roman favour by sending supplies of grain. This pliability on the part of the vanquished, however, „ was not mere patience and resignation. There Hannilial. -n . /-i , . . •, . was still in Carthage a patriotic party, and at its head stood the man, who, wherever fate placed him, was still dreaded by the Romans. It had not abandoned the idea of resuming the struggle by taking advantage of those complications that might be easily foreseen between Rome and the eastern powers ; and, as the failure of the magnifi- cent scheme of Hamikar and his sons had been due mainly to the Carthaginian oligarchy, the chief object was inter nally to reinvigorate the country for this new struggle. Eoform of The Salutary influence of adversity, and the Chap, vil] To the Close of the Thvrd Period. 239 ^niHn'Jon- ^'^^'^■' "oble, and commanding mind of Haiini- rtitution. bal, effected political and financial reforms. Tha oligarchy, which had filled up the measure of its guilty ful lies by raising a criminal process against the great general, charging him with having intentionally abstained from tha capture of Rome and with embezzlement of the Italian spoil — that rotten oligarchy was, on the proposition of Hanci. bal, overthrown, and a democratic government was intro- duced such as was suited to the circumstances of the citl- zens (before 559). The finances were so rapid- ly reorganized by the collection of arrears and of embezzled moneys and by the introduction of better control, that the contribution due to Rome could be paid without burdening the citizens with any extraordinary taxes. The Roman government, just then on the point of beginning its critical war with the great king of Asia, ob- served the progress of these events, as may easily be con- ceived, with apprehension ; it was no imaginary danger that the Carthaginian fleet might land in Italy and a second war under Hannibal might spring up there, while the Roman legions were fighting in Asia Minor. We can flight. scarcely, therefore, censure the Romans for send- 196. ing an embassy to Carthage (in 559) which was charged, in all probability, to demand the sur- render of Hannibal. The spiteful Carthaginian oligarchs, who sent letter after letter to Rome to denounce to the national foe the hero who had overthrown them as having entered into secret communications with the powers un- friendly to Rome, were contemptible, but their information was probably correct ; and, true as it was that that embassy involved a humiliating confession of the di'ead with which the simple shofete of Carthage inspired so powerful a peo- ple, and natural and honourable as it was that the proud conqueror of Zama should take exception in the senate to so humiliating a step, still that confession was nothing but the simple truth, and Hannibal was of a genius so extra- ordinary, that none but sentimental politicians in Rome could tolerate him longer at the head of the Carthaginian 240 The West from the Peace of Hannibal [Book hi. state. The marked recognition thus accorded to him by the Roman government scarcely took himself by surprise, A-S it was Hannibal and not Carthage that had carried on the last war, so it was he who had to bear the fate of the vanquished. The Carthaginians could do nothing but sub- mit and be thankful that Hannibal, sparing them the greater disgrace of delivering him up by a speedy and prudent flight to the East, left to his ancestral city merely the lesser disgrace of banishing its greatest citizen for ever from his native land, of confiscating his property, and of razing his house. The profound saying that those are the favourites of the gods, on whom they lavish infinite joys and infinite sorrows, thus verified itself in full measure in the case of Hannibal. A graver responsibility than that arising out of theii proceedings against Hannibal attaches to the Continued \ ^ , irritation in Koman government for their persistence in sus' Rome tow- . , .,.«,. arduCar- pecting and tormentmg the city after his re- ^^^' moval. Parties indeed fermented there as be- fore ; but, after the withdrawal of the extraordinary man who had wellnigh changed the destinies of the world, the patriot party was not of much more importance in Car- thage than in Aetolia or Achaia. The most rational of the various ideas which then agitated the unhappy city was be- yond doubt that of attaching themselves to Massinissa, and of converting him from the oppressor into the protector of the Phoeniciav.s. But neither the national section of the patriots nor the section with Libyan tendencies attained the helm ; on the contrary the government remained in the hands of the oligarchs friendly to Rome, who, so far as they did not altogether renounce thought of the future, clung to the single idea of saving the material prosperity and the communal freedom of Carthage under Roman protection. With this state of matters the Romans might well have been content. But neither the multitude, nor even the senators of the average stamp, could rid themselves of the profound alarm produced by the campaigns of Hannibal ; and 'he Roman merchants with envious eyes beheld the v.«Ai. VII.] To the Close of the Third Period. 241 city even now, when its political power was gone, possessed of extensive commercial dependencies and of a firmly cs. tabllshed wealth which nothing could yhako. Already in 567 the- Carthaginian government offered to pay up at once the whole instalments stipulated in the treaty of 553 — an offer which the Ro- mans, who attached far more importance to the having Carthage tributary than to the sums of money them- selves, naturally declined, and only deduced from it the con- viction that, in spite of all the trouble they had taken, the city was not ruined and was not capable of ruin. Fresh reports were ever circulating through Rome as to the in- trigues of the faithless Phoenicians. At one time it was alleged that Aristo of Tyre had been seen in Carthage as an emissary of Hannibal, to prepare t!ie citizens for the landing of an Asiatic war-f?eet (561); at an- other, that the council had, in a secret nocturnal sitting in the temple of the God of Healing, given audience jj„ to the envoys of Perseus (581) ; at another there was talk of the powerful fleet which was 171, being equipped in Carthage for the Macedonian war (583). It i.s probable that these and similar reports were founded on nothing more than, at most, indi- vidual indiscretions ; but still they were the signal fijr new diplomatic misrepresentations on the part of Rome, and for new aggressions on the part of Massinissa, and the idea gained ground the more, the less sense and reason there was in it, that the Carthaginian question would not be settled without a third Punic war. While the power of the Phoenicians was thus declining in the land of their adoption, iust as it had long ago sunk in their origmal home, a new state grew up by their side. The northern coast of Africa has been inhabited from time immemorial, and is inhabited still, ny a people, who themselves assume the name of Shilah or Tamazigt, whom the Greeks and Ron-ans call Nomades or Numidians, i. e. the " pastoral " people, and the Arabs call Berbers, although they also at times designate them aa Vol. II.— U 24:2 The West frointfie Peace of IIannU)al [Book ni ■* shepherds " (Shawie), and to whom we are wont to give the name of Berbers or Kahyles. This people is, so far as its language has been hitherto investigated, related to no other linown nation. In the Caithaginian period these tribes, with the exception of those dwelling immediately Around Carthage or immediately on the coast, had on the ivhole maintained their independence, and had also substan- tially retained their pastoral and equestrian life, such as the inhabitants of the Atlas lead at the present day ; although they were not strangers to the Phoenician alphabet and Phoenician civilization generally (p. 18), and instances oc- curred in which the Berber sheiks had their sons educated in Carthage and intermari'ied with the families of the Phoe- nician nobility. It was not the policy of the Romans to have direct possessions of their own in Africa ; they pre- ferred to rear a state there, which should not be of sufficient importance to dispense with Roman protection, and yet should be sufficiently strong to keep down the power of Carthage now that it was restricted to Africa, and to render all freedom of movement impossible for the tortured city. They found what they sought among the native princes. About the time of the Hannibalic war the natives of North Africa were subject to three principal kings, each of whom, according to the custom there, had a multitude of princes bound to follow his banner ; Bocchar king of the Maun, who ruled from the Atlantic Ocean to the river Molochath (now Mluia, on the boundary between Morocco and the French territory) ; Syphax king of the Massaesyli, who ruled from the last-named point to the " Perforated Pro- montory," as it was called (Seba Riis, between Djidjeli and Bona), in what are now the provinces of Oran and Algiers ; and Massinissa king of the Massyli, who ruled from the Tretum Promontorium to the boundary of Carthage, in what is now the province of Constantine. The most pow- erful of these. Syphax king of Siga, had been vanquished in the last war between Rome and Carthage and carried away captive to Rome, where he died in captivity. His wide dominions were mainly given to Massinissa; although Chap, vu.] To the Oloso of the Third Period. 243 Vermina the sen of Syphax by humble petition recovered a J small portion of his father's territory from the Romans (554), he was unable to deprive the earlier ally of the Romans of his position as the privileged oppressor of Carthage. Massinissa became the founder of the Numidian king- „ . . dom : and seldom has choice or accident hit MaBBizufida, upon a man so thoroughly fitted for his post. In body sound and supple up to extreme old age ; tern- porate and sober like an Arab ; capable of enduring any fatigue, of standing on the same spot from morning to eve- ning, and of sitting four-and-twenty hours on horseback ; tried alike as a soldier and a general amidst the romantic vicissitudes of his youth as well as on the battle-fields of Spain, and not less master of the more difficult art of main- taining discipline in his numerous household and order in his dominions ; with equal unscrupulousness ready to throw himself at the feet of his powerful protector, or to tread under foot his weaker neighbour ; and, in addition to all this, as accurately acquainted with the circumstances of Car- thage where he was educated and had been on familiar terms in the noblest houses, as he was filled with an African bitter- ness of hatred towards his own and his people's oppressors, — this remarkable man became the soul of the revival of his nation, which had seemed on the point of perishing, and of whose virtues and faults he appeared as it were a living embodiment. Fortune favoured him, as in everything, so especially in the fact, that it allowed him time for his work. He died in the ninetieth year of his age 238-149 (516-605), and in the sixtieth year of his reign, retaining to the last the full enjoyment of his bodily and mental powers, leaving behind him a son one year old, and possessing the reputation of having been the strongest man and the best and most fortunate king of his age. We have already narrated how palpably the Romans in Extension their management of African affairs displayed KltioS^of t^ieir studied leaning towards Massinissa, and Numidia. ^low zealously and constantly the latter availed 244 TheWest from the Peace of Hannibal [Boot ill himself of the tacit permission to enlarge his territory at the expense of Carthage. The whole interior to the border of the desert fell to the native sovereign as it were of its own accord, and even the upper valley of the Bagradas (Mejerda) with the rich town of Vaga became subject to the Icing; on the coast also to the east of Carthage he occupied the old Sidonian city of Great Leptis and other districts, so that his kingdom stretched from the Mauretanian to the Cyrenaean fi'ontier, enclosed the Carthaginian territory on every side by land, and everywhere pressed, in the closest vicinity, on the Phoenicians. It admits of no doubt, that he looked on Carthage as his future capital ; the Libyan party there was significant. But it was not only by the diminution of her territory that Carthage suffered injury. The roving shep- herds were converted by their great king into another peo- ple. After the example of the king, who brought the fields under cultivation far and wide and bequeathed to each of his sons considerable landed estates, his subjects also began to settle and to practise agriculture. As he converted his shepherds into settled citizens, he converted also his hordes of plunderers into soldiers who were deemed by Rome worthy to fight side by side with her legions ; and he be- queathed to his successors a richly-filled treasury, a well- disciplined army, and even a fleet. His residence Cirta (Constantine) became the stirring capital of a powerful state, and a chief seat of Phoenician civilization, which was zealously fostered at the court of the Berber king — fostered perhaps studiously with a view to the future Carthagino- Numidian kingdom. The hitherto degraded Libyan nation- ality thus rose in its own estimation, and the native manners and language made their way even into the old Phoenician towns, such as Great Leptis. The Berber began, under the aegis of Rome, to feel himself the equal or even the supe- rior of the Phoenician ; Carthaginian envoys at Rome had to submit to be told that they were aliens in Africa, and that the land belonged to the Libyans. The Phoenico- national civilization of North Africa, which still retained life and vigour even under the levelling times of the empire Cha'- VII.] To tlie Close of the Third Period. 243 was far more the work of Massinissa than of the Cartha- ginians. In Spain the Greek and Phoenician towns along the Tbesteteof coast, such as Emporiae, Saguntum, New Cai> Spato^**" thage, Malaca, and Gades, submitted to the Ro- man rule the more readily, that, left to their own resources, they would hardly have been able to protect th( mselves from the natives ; as for similar reasons Mas- silia, although far more important and more capable of self-defence than those towns, did not omit to secure a pow erful support in case of need by closely attaching itself to the Romans, to whom it was in return very serviceable as an intermediate station between Italy and Spain. The Datives, on the other hand, gave to the Romans endless trouble. It is true that there were not wanting the rudi- ments of a national Iberian civilization, although of its special character it is scarcely possible for us to acquire any clear idea. We find among the Iberians a widely diffused national writing, which divides itself into two chief kinds, that of the valley of the Ebro, and the Andalusian, and each of these was probably subdivided into various branches : this writing seems to have originated at a very early period, and to be traceable rather to the old Greek than to the Phoenician alphabet. There is a tradition that the Turde- tani (round Seville) possessed lays from very ancient times, a metrical book of laws of 6,000 verses, and even historical records ; at any rate this tribe is described as the most civilized of all the Spanish triljes, and at the same time the least warlike ; indeed, it regularly carried on its wars by means of foreign mercenaries. To the same region prob- ably we must refer Polybius' descriptions of the flourishing condition of agriculture and the rearing of cattle in Spain — so that, in the absence of opportunity of export, grain and flesh were to be had at nominal prices — and (jf the splendid royal palaces with golden and silver jars full of " barley wine." At least a portion of the Spaniards, moro over, zealously embraced the elements of culture which th« Romans brought along with them, so that the process of 246 TheWestfrom the Peace of Hannibal [Book iii Latinizing made more rapid progress in Spain than any- where else in the transmarine provinces. For examjfle, warm baths after the Italian fashion came into use even at this period among the Eatives. Homan money, too, was to all appearance not only current in Spain far earlier than elsewhere out of Italy, but was imitated in Spanish coins ; A circumstance in some measure explained by the rich silver-mines of the country. The so-called " silver of Osca" (now Huesca in Arragon), i. e. Spanish denarii with Iberian inscriptions, is mentioned in 559 ; and the com- mencement of their coinage cannot be placed much later, because the impression is imitated from that of the oldest Roman denarii. But, while in the southern and eastern provinces tha culture of the natives may have so far prepared the way for Roman civilization and Roman rule that these encoun- tered no serious difficulties, the vfest and north on the other hand, and the whole of the interior, were occupied by nume- rous tribes more or less barbarous, who knew little of any kind of civilization — in Intercatia, for instance, the use of gold and silver was still unknown about 600^ 160. ° , , , . , 1 and who were on no better terms with each other than with the Romans. A characteristic trait in these free Spaniards was the chivalrous spirit of the men and, at least to an equal extent, of the women. When a mother sent forth her son to battle, she roused his spirit by the recital of the feats of his ancestors ; and the fairest maiden unasked offered her hand in marriage to the bravest man. Single combat was common, both with a view to determine the prize of valour, and for the settlement of lawsuits ; even disputes among the relatives of princes as to the suc- cession were settled in this way. It not unfrequently hap pened that a well-known warrior confronted the ranks ol the enemy and challenged an antagonist by name ; the defeated champion then surrendered his mantle and sword to his opponent, and even entered into relations of friend^ ship and hospitality with him. Twenty years after the close of the second Punic war. the little Celtiberian (om Chap. VII.] To the Close of the T?drd P eriod 247 munity of Cumplega (in the neighbourhood of the sources of the Tagus) sent a message to the Roman genernl, that unless he sent to them for every man that had fallen a horse, a mantle, and a sword, it would fare ill with him. Proud of their military honour, so that they frequently could not bear to survive the disgrace of being disarmed, the Span- iards were nevertheless disposed to follow any one who should enlist their services, and to stake their lives in any foreign quarrel. The summons was characteristic, which a Roman general well acquainted with the customs of the country sent to a Celtiberian band fighting in the pay of the Turdetani against the Romans — either to return home, or to enter the Roman service with double pay, or to fix time and place for battle. If no recruiting officer made his appear- ance, they met of their own accord in free bands, with the view of pillaging the more peaceful districts and even of capturing and occupying towns, quite after the manner of the Campanians. The wildness and insecurity of the inland districts are attested by the fact that the being sent into the interior westward of Cartagena was regarded by the Romans as a severe punishment, and that in periods of any excitement the Roman commandants of Further Spain took with them escorts of as many as 6,000 men. They are still more clearly shown by the singular relations sub- sisting between the Greeks and their Spanish neighbours in the Graeco-Spanish double city of Emporiae, at the eastern extremity of the Pyrenees. The Greek settlers, who dwelt on a peninsula separated on the landward side from the Spanish part of the town by a wall, took care that this wall Bhould be guarded every night by a third of their civi force, and that one of the superior magistrates should coii- itantly superintend the watch at the only gate ; no Spaniard was allowed to set foot in the Greek city, and the Greeks conveyed their merchandise to the natives only in numerous and well-escorted companies. These natives, full of restlessness and fond of war — full Wars be- of the spirit of the Cid and of Don Quixote — Remans and w^ere now to be tamed and, if possible, civilized 248 TheWestfromthe Peace of Hannibal [Book lU 8paiiiard8. ' by the Romans. In a military point of view the task was not difficult. It is true that the Spaiiiardj showed themselves, not only when behind the walls of thei', cities or under the leadership of Hannibal, but even wher jeft to themselves and in the open field of battle, no eon- temptible opponents ; with their short two-edged sword which the Romans subsequently adopted from them, and their formidable assaulting coluiQns, they not unfrequently made even the Roman legions waver. Had they been able to submit to military discipline and to political combina- tion, they might perhaps have shaken off the foreign yoke imposed on them. But their valour was rather that of the guerilla than of the soldier, and they were utterly void of political judgment. Thus in Spain there was no serious war, but as little was there any real peace ; the Spaniards, as Caesar afterwards very justly pointed out to them, never showed themselves quiet in peace or strenuous in war. Easy as it was for a Roman general to scatter a host of insurgents, it was difficult for the Roman statesman to devise any suitable means of really pacifying and civilizing Spain. In fact, he could only deal with it by palliative measures ; because the only really adequate expedient, a comprehensive Latin colonization, was not accordant with the general aim of Roman policy at this period. The territory which the Romans acquired in Spain in TheEomans ^^ course of the secoud Punic war was from mnintain a the beginning divided into two masses — the prov- rtandmg . hnnym ince formerly Carthaginian, which embraced in the first instance the present districts of Anda- lusia, Granada, Murcia, and Valencia, and the province of the Ebro, or the modern Arragon and Catalonia, the head> quarters of the Roman army during the last war. Out of these territories were formed the two Roman provinces of Further and Hither Spain. The Romans sought gradually to reduce to subjection the interior corresponding nearly to the two Castiles, which they comprehended under the general name of Celtiberia, while they were content with checking the incursions of the inhabitants of the westers Chap vtil] jh the Glose of ike Third Period. 249 provinces, more especially those of the Lusitanians in tht modern Portugal and the Spanish Estrcmadura, into the Roman territory ; with the ti-ibes on the north coast, the Gallaecians, Asturians, and Cantabrians, they did not as yet come into contact at all. The territories thus won, how- ever, could not be maintained and secured without a stand- ing garrison, for the governor of Hither Spain had no small trouble every year with the chastisement of the Celtibe- rians, and the governor of the more remote province found similar employment in repelling the Lusitanians. It was needful accordingly to maintain in Spain a Eoman army of four strong legions, or about 40,000 men, year after year , besides which the general levy had often to be called out in the districts occupied by Eome, to reinforce the legions. This was of great importance for two reasons : it was in Spain that the military occupation of the land first became continuous, at least on any great scale ; and it was there consequently that the military service acquired a permanent character. The old Roman custom of sending troops only where the exigencies of war at the moment required them, and of not keeping the men called to serve, except in very serious and important wars, under arms for more than a year, was found incompatible with the retention of the tur- bulent and remote Spanish provinces beyond the sea ; it was absolutely impossible to withdraw the troops from these, and very dangerous even to relieve them extensively. The Roman burgesses began to perceive that dominion over a foreign people is an annoyance not only to the slave, but to the master, and murmured loudly regarding the odious war-service of Spain. While the new generals with good reason refused to allow the relief of the existing corps as a whole, the men mutinied and threatened that, if they were not allowed their discharge, they would take it of their own accord. The wars themselves, which the Romans waged in Spain, were but of subordinate importance. They began with the very departure of Scipio (p. 196), and continued as long as the war under Hannibal lasted. After the peace with Car- Vol. II.— 11* 250 The West from the Peace of Hannilal [Book III thage (in 553) there was a cessation of arms in the peninsula ; but only for a short tiroe. In 557 a general insurrection broke out in both provinces ; the commander of the Further province was hard pressed ; the commander of Hither Spain was com- pletely defeated, and was himself slain. It was necessary to take up the war in earnest, and although in the mean time the able praetor Quintus Minuoius had mastered the first danger, the senate resolved in 559 to send 195. the consul Marcus Cato in person to Spain. On landing at Emporiae he actually found the whole of Hither Spain overrun by the insurgents ; with difficulty that sea- port and one or two strongholds in the interior were still held for Rome. A pitched battle took place between the insurgents and the consular army, in which, after an obsti- nate conflict man against man, the Roman military skill at length decided the day with its last reserve. The whole of Hither Spain thereupon sent in its submission : so little, however, was this submission meant in earnest, that on a rumour of the consul having returned to Rome the insur- rection immediately recommenced. But the rumour was false ; and after Cato had rapidly reduced the communities which had revolted for the second time and sold them en masse into slavery, he decreed a general disarming of the Spaniards in the Hither province, and issued orders to all the towns of the natives from the Pyrenees to the Guadal- quivir to pull down their walls on one and the same day. No one knew how far the command extended, and there was no time to come to any understanding ; most of the com- munities complied ; and of the few that were refractory not many ventured, when the Roman army soon appeared be- fore their walls, to await its assault. These energetic measures were certainly not without permanent effect. Nevertheless the Romans had almost every year to reduce to subjection some mountain valley or mountain stronghold in the " peaceful province," and the constant incursions of the Lusitanians into the Further province terminated occasionally in the severe defeat of the Chap, vii.] To the Close of the Third Period. 251 19L Romans. In 563, for instance, a Roman armj was obliged after heavy loss to abandon its cainp, and to return by forced marches into the more trac^ quil districts. It was not till after a victory gained by the praetor Lucius Aemilius Paullus in 565,* and a second still more considerable gained by the brave praetor Gaius Calpurnius beyond the Tagus over the Lusita- nians in 569, that quiet for some time prevailed. In Further Spain the hitherto almost nominal rule of the Romans over the Celtiberian tribes was con- verted into something more real by Quintus Fulvius FJac- cus, who after a great victory over them in 573 compelled at least the adjacent cantons to sub- mission ; and especially by his successor Tiberius Gracchus 179. 178. (575, 576), who achieved results of a permanent Graoohus. character not only by his arms, by which he reduced three hundred Spanish townships, but still more by his adroitness in adapting himself to the views and habits of the simple and haughty nation. He induced Celtiberians of note to take service in the Roman arrny, and so created a class of dependents ; he assigned land to the roving tribes, and collected them in towns — the Spanish town Graccurris preserved the Roman's name — and so imposed a serious check on their freebooter habits ; he regulated the relations of the several tribes to the Romans by just and wise treaties, and so stopped, as far as possible, the springs of future rebellion. His name was held in * The following decree of the praetor Lucius Aemilius Paullus has recently been discovered on a copper tablet found iu the neighbourhood of Gibraltar, and now preserved in the Paris Museum : L. Atmilivs L. f. impeiraior decreivit^ utei quel Hastensium [Hasta Regia, not far fi-om Jerez de la Frontera] nervei in turri Lascutana [known from coins and Plin, iii. 1, 15, but site uncertain] habitarent^ leiberei essenf. Agrun. oppidum cipline and control. It was a public law in Aetolia, that ar. Aetolian might serve as a mercenary against any state even against a state in alliance with his own country ; and, when the other Greeks urgently besought them to redress this scandal, the Aetolian diet -declared that Aetolia might sooner be removed from its place than this principle from their national code. The Aetolians might have been of great service to the Greek nation, had they not inflicted still greater injury on it by their system of organized rob- bery, by their thorough hostility to the Achaean confede- racy, and by their unhappy antagonism to the great state if Macedonia. In the Peloponnesus, the Achaean league had united the The liest elements of Greece proper in a confederacy A-jhacans. based on civilization, national spirit, and peac& ful preparation for self defence. But the vigour and rnorf Chap, yiii.] The Second Alacedonian War. 263 especially the military efficiency of the league had, notwith- stauding its outward enlargement, been arrested by the selfish diplomacy of Aratus. The unfortunate variances with Sparta, and the still more lamentable invocation of Macedonian interference in the Peloponnesus, liad so com- pletely subjected the Achaean league to Macedonian su- premacy, that the chief fortresses of the country thence- forward received Macedonian garrisons, and the oath of fidelity to Philip was annually taken there. The policy of the weaker states in the Peloponnesus, Sparta, Eiis, Elis, Messene, and Sparta, was determined by Messene. their ancient enmity to the Achaean league — an enmity specially fostered by disputes regarding their fron- tiers — and their tendencies were Aetolian and anti-Macedo- nian, because the Achaeans took part with Philip. The only one of these states possessing any importance was the Spartan military monarchy, which after the death of Macha- aidas had passed into the hands of one Nabis. With ever- increasing hardihood Nabis leaned on the support of vaga- bonds and itinerant mercenaries, to whom he assigned not only the houses and lands, but also the wives and children, of the citizens ; and he assiduously maintained connections, and even entered into an association for the joint prosecu- tion of piracy, with the great refuge of mercenaries and pirates, the island of Crete, where he possessed some town-- ships. His predatory expeditions by land, and the piratical vessels which he maintained at the promontory of Malea, were dreaded far and wide ; he was personally hated fur his baseness and cruelty ; but his rule was extending, and abc jt the time of the battle of Zama he had even succeeded in gaining possession of Messene. Lastly, the most independent position among tiie inter- mediate states was held by the free Greek mer- the*Slo°k cantile cities on the European shore of the Pro- "*'"■ pontis, along the coast of Asia Minor, and on the islands of the Aegean Sea ; they formed, at the same time, the brightest elements in the confused and muitifari ous picture which was presented by the Ilelleuic state-svs 264 The Eastern States and [Book IH tem. Three of them, in particular, had after Alexander's death regained their full freedom, and by the activity of their maritime commerce had attained to respectable politi cal power and even to considerable territorial possessions ; namely, Byzantium the mistress of the Bosporus, rendered wealthy and powerful by the transit dues which she levied and by the important corn trade carried on with the Blacl' Sea •, Cyzicus on the Asiatic side of the Propontis, the daughter and heiress of Miletus, maintaining the closest relations with the court of Pergamus ; and lastly and above all, Ehodes. The Rhodians, who im- mediately after the death of Alexander had expelled the Macedonian garrison, had, by their favourable position for commerce and navigation, secured the carrying trade of all the eastern Mediterranean ; and their well-handled fleet, as well as the tried courage of the citizens in the famous siege of 450, enabled them in that age of promiscuous and ceaseless hostilities to become the pru- dent and energetic representatives and, when occasion re- quired, champions of a neutral commercial policy. They compelled the Byzantines, for instance, by force of arms to concede to the vessels of Rhodes exemption from the tran- sit dues of the Bosporus ; and they did not permit the dy- nast of Pergamus to close the Black Sea. On the other hand they kept themselves, as far as possible, aloof from land warfare, although they had acquired no inconsiderable possessions on the opposite coast of Caria ; where war could not be avoided, they carried it on by means of merce- naries. With their neighbours on all sides they were in friendly relations — with Syracuse, Macedonia, Syria, but more especially with Egypt — and they enjoyed high con- si lei'ation at these courts, so that their mediation was not unfrequently invoked in the wars of the great states. But they interested themselves specially on behalf of the Greek maritime cities, which were so numerously spread along the coasts of the kingdoms of Pontus, Bithynia, and Pergamus, as well as on the coasts and islands of Asia Minor that had beer: wrested by Egypt from the Seleucidac ; such as Si- Chap, viii,] Tf^ Second Macedonian War. 265 nope, Heracleia Pontica, Cius, Lampsacus, Abydos, Mity- lene, Chios, Smyrna, Samos, Halicarnassus and various others. All these were in substance free and had nothing to do with the lords of the soil except to request confirma- tion of their privileges and, at most, to pay a moderate tribute : such encroachments, as from time to time were threatened by the dynasts, they skilfully warded off some- times by cringing, sometimes by strong measures. In this case the Rbodians wore their chief auxiliaries ; they em- phatically supported Sinope, for instance, against Mithra- dates of Pontus. How firmly amidst the quarrels, and by means of the very diflferences, of the monarchs the liberties of these cities of Asia Minor were established, is shown by the fact, that the dispute between Antiochus and the Ro- mans some years after this time related not to the freedom of these cities in itself, but to the question whether they were to ask confirmation of their cliarters from the king or not. This league of the cities was, in its peculiar attitude towards the lords of ihc soil as well as in other respects, a formal Hanseatic association, headed by Rhodes, which negotiated and stipulated in tieaties for itself and its allies. This league upheld the freedom of the cities against monar- chical interests; and while wars raged around their walls, public spirit and civic prosperity were sheltered in com- parative peace within, and art and science flourished without the risk of being crushed by the tyranny of a dissolute sol- diery or of being corrupted by the atniosjjhere of a court. Such was the state of things in the East, at the time when the wall of political separation between of Maocdo- the East and the West was broken down and the Eastern powers, Philip of Macedonia lead- ing tlie way, were induced *o interfere in the relations of the West. We have already set forth to some extent the origin of this interference and the course of the fii-st Mace- donian war (540-549) ; and we have pointed out what Philip might have accomplished during the second Punic war, and how little of all that Hannibal was entitled to expect and to count on was really fulfilled. Vol. II.— 12 266 The Eastern States and rBooK la A fresh illustration had been afforded of the truth, that of all haphazards none is more hazardous than an absolute hereditary monarehj. Philip was not the man whom Macedonia at that time required ; yet his gifts were fai from insignificant. He was a genuine king, in the best and worst sense of the term. A strong desire to rule in per- son and unaided was the fundamental trait of his character , he was proud of his purple, but he was no less proud of other gifts, and he had reason to be so. He not only showed the valour of a soldier and the eye of a general but he displayed a high spirit in the conduct of public affairs, whenever his Macedonian sense of honour was offended. Full of intelligence and wit, he won the hearts of all whom he wished to gain, especially of the men who were ablest and most refined, such as Flamininus and Scipio ; he was a pleasant boon companion and, not by virtue of his rank alone, a dangerous wooer. But he was at the same time one of the most arrogant and flagitious characters, which that shameless age produced. He was in the habit of saying that he feared none save the gods ; but it seemed almost as if his gods were those to whom his admiral Dicaearchus regularly offered sacrifice — ungodliness i^Ase- beia) and lawlessness [Paranomia). The lives of his ad- visers and of the promoters of his schemes possessed no sacredness in his eyes, nor did he disdain to pacify his in- dignation against the Athenians and Attalus by the destruc- tion of venerable monuments and illustrious works of art; it is quoted as one of his maxims of state, that " whoever puts to death the father must also kill the sons." Perhaps cruelty was not, strictly, a pleasure to him ; but he was indifferent to the lives and sufferings of others, and the dis- position to relent, which alone renders men tolerable, fouiimissness, or influenced by the declarations of the Romans that they did not wish to interfere in Syria — he pursued his schemes in that direction and left things in Greece and Asia Minor to take their course. Meanwhile, the spring of 554 had arrived, and the war 200. had recommenced. Philip first threw himself tion onho once more upon Thrace, where he occupied all '"^- the places on the coast, in particular Maronea, Aenus, Elaeus, and Sestus ; he wished to have his Euro- pean possessions secured against the risk of a Roman land- ing. He then attacked Abydus on the Asiatic coast, the acquisition of \\hich was an object of great importance to him, for the possession of Sestus and Abydus would bring him into closer connection with his ally Antiochus, and he would no longer need to be apprehensive lest the fleet of the allies might intercept him in crossing to or from Asia Minor. That fleet commanded the Aegean Sea after the withdrawal of the weaker Macedonian squadron : Philip confined his operations by sea to maintaining garrisons on three of the Cyclades, Andros, Cythnos, and Paros, and fit Chap. VIII.] The Second Macedonian War. 275 ting out privateers. The Rhodians proceeded to CI., js, and thence to Tenedos, where Attalus, who had passed the winter at Aegina and had spent his time in listening to the deck mations of the Atlienians, joined them with his squadron. The allies might probably have arrived in time to help the Abydenes, who heroically defended themselves ; but they stirred not, and so at last the city surrendered, after almost all -who were capable of bearing arms had fallen in the struggle before the walls ; a large portion of the inhabitants fell by their own hand after the capitulation — the mercy of the victor consisted in allowing the Abydenes a term of three days to die voluntarily. Here, in the camp before Abydus, the Roman embassy, which after the termination of its business in Syria and Egypt had visited and dealt with the minor Greek states, met with the king, and sub- mitted the proposals which it had been charged to make by the senate, viz., that the king should wage no aggressive war against any Greek state, should restore the possessions which he had wrested from Ptolemy, and should consent to an arbitration regarding the injury inflicted on the Perga- menes and Rhodians. The object of the senate, which sought to provoke the king to a formal declaration of war, was not gained ; the Roman ambassador, Marcus Aemilius Lepidus, obtained from the king nothing but the polite re- ply, that he would excuse what the envoy had said because he was young, handsome, and a Roman. Meanwhile, however, the occasion for declaring war, which Rome desired, had been furnished from another quar- ter. The Athenians in their silly and cruel vanity had put to death two unfortunate Acarnanians, becaufe these had accidentally strayed into their mysteries. When the Acar- nanians, who were naturally indignant, asked Philip to pro- cure them satisfaction, he could not refuse the just request of his most faithful allies, and he allowed them to levy men in Macedonia and, with these and their own troops, to invade Attica without a formal declaration of war. This, it is true, was no war in the proper sense of the term ; and, besides, the leader of the Macedonian band, Nicanor, imiaft- 276 The Eastern States and [Book hi diately gave orders to his troops to retreat, when the Ro. man envoys, who were at Athens at the time, used threat- ening language (in the end of 553), But it was too late. An Athenian embassy was sent to Home to report the attaclt made by Philip on an ancient ally of the Romans ; and, from the way in which the senate received it, Philip saw clearly what awaited him ; so that he at once, in the very spring of 554, directed Philocles, his general in Greece, to lay waste the Attic territory and to reduce the city to extremities. The senate now had what they wanted ; and in the sum- 200 mer of 554 they were able to propose to the Deoiaratirai coniitia a declaration of war " on account of an 01 war by K"™«- attack on a state in alliance with Rome." It was rejected on the first occasiim almost unanimously : foolish or evil-disposed tribunes of the people complained that the senate would allow the citizens no rest ; but the war was necessary and, in strictness, was already begun, so that the senate could not possibly recede. The burgesses were induced to yield by representations and concessions. It is remarkable that these concessions were made mainly at the expense of the allies. The garrisons of Gaul, Lower Italy, Sicily, and Sardinia, amounting in all to 20,000 men, Were exclusively taken from the allied contingents that were in active service — quite contrary to the former principles of the Romans. All the burgess troops, on the other hand, that had continued under arms from the Hannibalic war, were discharged ; volunteers alone, it was alleged, were to be enrolled for the Macedonian war, but they were, as was afterwards found, for the most part forced volunteers — a fact which in the autumn of 555 gave rise to a dangerous military revolt in the camp of Apol- Ionia. Six legions were formed of the men newly called out ; of these two rcmaineil in Rome and two in Etrucia, and only two embarked at Brundisiun- for Macedonia, led by the consul Publius Sulpicius Galba. Thus it was once more clearly demonstrated, that the Eovereign burgess assemblies, with their shortsighted reso Ciu . VIII.] The Second Macedonian War 277 lutions dependent often on mere accident, were no longer at all fitted to deal with the complicated and difficult relations into which Rome was drawn by her victories ; and that their mischievous intervention in the working of the state machine led to dangerous modifications of the measures which in a niililary point of view were necessary, and to tlie still more dangerous course of treating the Latin allies as inferiors. The position of Philip was very disadvantageous. The Tho Roman eastern states, which ought to have acted in league. unison against all interference of Rome and probably under other circumstances would have done so, had been mainly by Philip's fault so incensed at each other, that they were not inclined to hinder, or were inclined even to promote, the Roman invasion. Asia, the natural and most important ally of Philip, had been neglected by him, and was moreover prevented from any immediate, active interference by being entangled in the quarrel with Egypt and the Syrian war. Egypt had an urgent interest in keep- ing the Roman fleet out of the eastern waters ; even now an Egyptian embassy intimated at Rome very plainly, that the court of Alexandria was ready to relieve the Romans from the trouble of intervention in Attica. But the treaty for the partition of Egypt concluded between Asia and Macedonia threw that important state thoroughly into the arms of Rome, and compelled the cabinet of Alexandria to declare that it would only intermeddle in the affairs of Euro- pean Greece with consent of the Romans. The Greek com- mercial cities, with Rhodes, Pergamus, and Byzantium at their head, were in a position similar, but of still greater perplexity. They would under other circumstances have beyond doubt done what they could to close the eastern seaa against the Romans ; but the cruel and destructive policy of conquest pursued by Philip had driven them to an un- equal struggle, in which for their self-preservation they wore obliged to use every effort to obtain the interference of the great Italian power. In Greece proper also the Roman envoys, who were commissioned to organize a second league against Philip there, found the way already 278 The Easiern States and [Book in substantially paved for them 1 y the enemy. Of the anti Macedonian party — the Spartans, Eleans, Athenians, and Aetolians — Philip might perhaps have gained the latter, foi the peace of 548 had made a deep, and far from healed, breach in their friendly alliance with Rome ; but apart from the old differences which subsisted oetweeu Aetolia and Macedonia regarding the Thessalian towns withdrawn by Macedonia from the Aetolian confed- eracy — Echinus, Larissa Cremaste, Pharsalus, and Thebes in Phthiotis — the expulsion of the Aetolian garrisons from Lysimachia and Cius had produced fresh exasperation against Philip in the minds of the Aetolians. If they delayed to join the league against him, the chief reason doubtless was the ill-feeling that continued to prevail be- tween them and the Romans. It was a circumstance still more ominous, that ever, among the Greek states firmly attached to the interests of Macedonia — the Epirots, Acarnanians, Boeotians, and Achae- ans — the Acarnanians and Boeotians alone stood steadfastly by Philip. With the Epirots the Roman envoys negotiated not without success ; Amynander, king of the Athamanes, in particular closely attached himself to Rome. Even among the Achaeans, Philip had offended many by the murder of Aratus ; while on the other hand he had thereby paved the way for a more free development of the confed- 252-183. eracy. Under the leadership of Philopoemen ^'''- (502-571, for the first time strategus in 546) it had reorganized its military system, recovered confidence in itself by successful conflicts with Sparta, and no longer blindly followed, as in the time of Aratus, the policy of Macedonia. The Achaean league, which had to expect neither profit nor immediate injury from the thirst of Philip for aggrandizement, alone in all Hellas looked at this war from an impartial and national Hellenic point of view. It perceived — what there was no difficulty in perceiving — that the Hellenic nation was thereby surrendering itself to the Romans even before they wished or desired its surrender, and attempted accordingly to mediate between Philip and Chap, viii.] The Second Macedonian War. 27S the Rhodians ; but it was too late. The national patriotism, which had formerly terminated the federal war and had mainly contributed to the first war between Macedonia and Rome, was extinguished ; the Achaean mediation remained fruitless, and in vain Philip visited the cities and islands to rekindle the zeal of the nation — its apathy was the Nemesis for Cius and Abydus. The Achaeans, as they could effect no change and were not disposed to render help to either party, remained neutral. In the autumn of 554 the consul, Publius Sulpicius Gal- ba, landed with his two legions and 1,000 Numi- Landing of dian cavalrv accompanied even by elephants the Eomana , . , „ , .1 ,. ^ , » i, in Mace- derived from the spoils or Carthage, at ApoUo- nia ; on receiving accounts of which the king returned in haste from the Hellespont to Thessaly. But, owing partly to the far advanced season, partly to the sick- ness of the Roman general, nothing was undertaken by land that year except a reconnaissance in force, in the course of which the places in the vicinity, and in particular the Mace- donian colony Antipatreia, were occupied by the Romans. For the next year a joint attack on Macedonia was con- certed with the northern barbarians, especially with Pleu- ratus, the then ruler of Scodra, and Bato, prince of the Dar- dani, who of course were eager to profit by the favourable opportunity. More importance attached to the enterprises of the Roman fleet, which numbered 100 decked and 80 light vessels. While the rest of the ships took their station for the winter at Corcyra, a division under Gains Claudius Cento proceeded to the Piraeeus to render assistance to the hard-pressed Athenians. But, as Cento found the Attio territory already sufficiently protected against the raids of the Corinthian garrison and the Macedonian corsairs, he sailed on and appeared suddenly before Chalcis in Eiiboea, the chief stronghold of Philip in Greece, where his maga- zines, strres of arms, and prisoners were kept, and where the commandant Sopater was far from expecting a Roman attack. The undefended walls were scaled, and the garrison 280 The Eastern States amd [Book lli was put to death ; the prisoners were liberated and the stores were burnt ; unfortunately, there was a want of troops to hold the important position. On receiving news of this invasion, Philip immediately in vehement indigna- tic.n started from Demetrias in Thessaly for Chalcis, and when he found no trace of the enemy there save the scene of ruin, he went on to Athens to retaliate. But his attempt to surprise the city was a failure, and even the assault was in vain, greatly as the king exposed his life ; the approach of Gaius Claudius from the Piraeeus, and of Attalus from Aegina, compelled him to depart. Philip still tarried for some time in Greece ; but in a political and in a military point of view his successes were equally insignificant. In vain he tried to induce the Achaeans to take up arms in hia behalf; and equally fruitless were his attacks on Eleusisand the Piraeeus, as uell as a second attempt on Athens itself. Nothing remained for him but to gratify his natural exas- peration in an unworthy manner by laying waste the coun- try and destroying the trees of Academus, and then to return to the north. Thus the winter passed away. With the spring of Mt f ^^^' ''^® proconsul Publius Sulpioius broke up theRo- from his winter camp, determined to conduct his [Qiins to invade legions from Apollonia by the shortest route Macedonia. . ■» «■ , . mi • • • i i mto Macedoma proper, ihis prmcipal attack from the west was to be supported by three subordinate attacks ; on the north by an invasion of the Dardani and lllyrians ; on the east by an attack on the part of the com- bined fleets of the Romans and allies, which assembled at Aegina ; while lastly the Athamanes, and the Aetolians also, if the attempt to induce them to share in the struggle should prove successful, were to advance from the south. After Galba had crossed the mountains intersected by the Apsus (now the Beratino), and had marched through the fertile plain of the Dassaretae, he reached the mountain range which separates Illyria from Macedonia, and crossing it, entered the proper Macedonian territory. Philip had marched to meet him ; but in the extensive and thinly peo- Chap vni.] The Second Macedonian Wa/r. 281 pled regions of Macedonia the antagonists for a time sought each other in vain ; at length they met in the province of Lyncestis, a fertile but marshy plain not fin- r.-om the north western frontier, and encamped not 1,000 paces apart. Philip's army, after he had been joined by the corps de- tiached to occupy the northern passes, numbered about 20,000 infantry and 2,000 cavalry ; the Eoman army was nearly as strong. The Macedonians however had the great advantage, that, fighting in their native land and well ao quainted with its highways and byways, they had little trouble in procuring supplies of provisions, while they had encamped so close to the Romans that the latter could not venture to disperse for any extensive foraging. The consul repeatedly offered battle, but the king persisted in declining it ; and the combats between the light troops, although the Romans gained some advantages in them, produced no material alteration. Galba was obliged to break up his camp and to pitch another eight miles off at Octolophus, where he conceived that he could more easily procure sup- plies. But here too the divisions sent out were destroyed by the light troops and cavalry of the Macedonians ; the legions were obliged to come to their help, whereupon the Macedonian vanguard, which had advanced too far, were driven back to their camp with heavy loss ; the king himself lost his horse in the action, and only saved his life through the magnanimous selMevotion of one of his troopers. From this perilous position the Romans were liberated through the better success of the subordinate attacks which Galba had directed the allies to make, or rather through the weakness of the Macedonian forces. Although Philip had instituted levies as large as possible in his own dominions, and had snlisted Roman deserters and other mercenaries, he had ncit been able to bring into the field (over and above the gar risons in Asia Minor and Thrace) more than the army, with which in person he confronted the consul ; and besides, in order to form even this, he had been obliged to leave the northern passes in the Pelagonian territory undefended. For the protectic n of the east coast he relied partly on the 282 The Eastern States and [Book ni orders -which he had given for the laying waste of the islands of Sciathus and Peparethus, which might have fur- nished a station to the enemy's fleet, partly on the garrison- ing of Thasos and on the coast and on the fleet organized al Deraetrias under Heraclides. For the south frontier he had been obliged to reckon solely upon the more than doubtful neutrality of the Aetolians. These now suddenly joined the league against Macedonia, and immediately in conjunction with the Atharaanes penetrated into Thessaly, while simulta- neously the Dardani and Illyrians overran the northern prov- inces, and the Eoman fleet under Lucius Apustius, departing from Corcyra, appeared in the eastern waters, where the ships of Attains, the Rhodians, and the Istrians joined it. Philip, on learning this, voluntarily abandoned his posi- tion and retreated in an easterly direction : whether he did so in order to repel the probably unexpected invasion of the Aetolians, or to draw the Roman army after him with a view to its destruction, or to take either of these courses according to circumstances, cannot well be determined. He managed his retreat so dexterously that Galba, who adopted the rash resolution of following him, lost his track, and Philip was enabled to reach by a flank movement, and to occupy, the narrow pass which separates the provinces of Lyncestis and Eordaea, with the view of awaiting the Ro- mans and giving them a warm reception there. A battle took place on the spot which he had selected ; but the long Macedonian spears proved unserviceable on the wooded and uneven ground. The Macedonians were partly turned, partly broken, and lost many men. But, although Philip's army was after this unfortunate Eeturn of action no longer able to prevent the advance of ik.EomanB. tj,g Romans, the latter were themselves afraid to encounter further unknown dangers in an impassable and hostile country ; and returned to ApoUonia, atter they had laid waste the fertile provinces of Upper Macedonia — Eor- daea, Elymaea, and Orestis. Celetrum, the most considera- ble town of Orestis (now Kastoria, on a peninsula in the lake of the same name), had Pirrendered to them : it waf Chap, viii.] The Second Macedonian War. 28S the only Macedonian town that opened its gates to thf Romans. In the Illyrian land Pelium, the city of the Das. saretae, on the upper confluents of the Apsus, was taken by storm and strongly garrisoned to serve as a future basis for n similar expedition. Philip did not disturb the Roman main army in ita retreat, but turned by forced marches against the Aetolians and Athamanians who, in the belief that the legions were occupying the attention of the king, were fearlessly and recklessly plundering the rich vale of the Peneius, defeated them completely, and compelled such as did not fall to make their escape singly through the well-known mountain paths. The effective strength of the confederacy was not a little diminished by this defeat, and not less by the numer- ous enlistments made in Aetolia on Egyptian account. The Dardani were chased back over the mountains by Athena^ goras, the leader of Philip's light troops, without difficulty and with severe loss. The Roman fleet also did not accom plish much ; it expelled the Macedonian garrison from Andros, visited Euboea and Sciathus, and then made at- tempts on the Chalcidian peninsula, which were, however, vigorously repulsed by the Macedonian garrison at Mende. The rest of the summer was spent in the capture of Oreus in Euboea, which was long delayed by the resolute defence of the Macedonian garrison. The weak Macedonian fleet under Heraclides remained inactive at TTeraclea, and did not venture to dispute the possession of the sea with the enemy. The latter went early to winter quarters, the Romans proceeding to the Piraeeus and Coroyra, the Rho- flians and Pergamenes going home. Philip might on the whole congratulate himself upon the results of this campaign. The Roman troops, after an extremely troublesome campaign, stood in autumn precisely on the spot whence they had started in spring; and, but for the well-timed interposition of the Aetolians and the un- expected success of the battle at the pass of Eordaea, per- haps not a man of their entire force would have again seen the Roman territory. The fourfold assault had everywhere 284 Thi Eastern States and [Book m failed in its object, and not only did Philip in ajtunin see his whole dominions cleared of the enemy, but he was able to make an attempt — which, however, miscarried — to wrest from the Aetolians the strong town of Thaumaci, situated on the Aetolo-Thessalian frontier and commanding the plain of the Peneius. If Antiochus, for whose coming Philip vainly supplicated the gods, should unite with him in the next campaign, he might anticipate great successes. Por a moment it seemed as if Antiochus was disposed to do so; his army appeared in Asia Minor, and occupied some places •belonging to king Attalus, who requested military protec- tion from the Romans. The latter, however, were not anx- ious to urge the great king at this time to a breach ; they sent envoys, who in fact obtained an evacuation of the dominions of Attalus. Prom that quarter Philip had nothing to hope for. But the fortunate issue of the last campaign had so „, ... raised the courage or the arrogance of Philip, Philip en- & & rj camps on that, after having assured himself afresh of the the Aous. ' " neutrality of the Aohaeans and the fidelity of the Macedonians by the sacrifice of some strong places and of the detested admiral Heraclides, he next 198 spring (556) assumed the offensive and advanced into the territory of the Atintanes, with a view to form a well-entrenched camp in the narrow pass, where the Aous (Viosa) winds its way between the mountains Aeropus and Asnaus. Opposite to him encamped the Roman army rein- forced by new arrivals of troops, and commanded first by the consul of the previous year, Publius Villius, and then J98 from the summer of 556 by that year's consul, Fiamininus. Tij^g Quinctius Flamininus. Plamininus, a tal- ented man just thirty years of age, belonged to the younger generation, who began to lay aside the patriotism as well as the habits of their forefathers and, though not unmindful of their fatherland, were still more mindful of themselves and of Hellenism. A skilful officer and a better diplomatist, he was in many respects admirably adapted for the manage ment of the troubled affairs of Greece. Yet it would per Chap viii,] The Second Macedonian War. 285 haps have been better both for Rome and for Greece, if the choice had fallen on one less full of Hellenic sympathies, and if the general despatched thither had been a man, who would neither have been bribed by delicate flattery nor stung by pungent sarcasm ; who would not amidst literary and artistic reminiscences have overlooked the pitiful condi- tion of the constitutions of the Hellenic states ; and who, while treating Hellas according to its deserts, would have spared the Romans the trouble of striving after unattainable ideals. The new commander-in-chief immediately had a confer- ence with the king, while the two armies lay face to face inactive. Philip made proposals of peace ; he offered to restore all his own conquests, and to submit to an equitable arbitration regarding the damage inflicted on the Greek cities ; but the negotiations broke down, when he was asked to give up ancient possessions of Macedonia and particu- larly Thessaly. For forty days the two armies lay in the narrow pass of the Aous ; Philip would not retire, and Flamininus could not make up his mind whether he should order an assault, or leave the king alone and reattempt the pj^.j. expedition of the previous year. At length the driven back Roman general was helped out of his perplexity by the treachery of some chiefs among the Epirots, who were otherwise well-disposed to Macedon, and especially of Charops. They conducted a Roman corps of 4,000 infantry and 300 cavalry by mountain paths to the heights above the Macedonian camp ; and, when the consul attacked the enemy's army in front, the advance of that Roman division, unexpectedly descending from the moun- tains commanding the position, decided the battle. Philip ost his camp and entrenchments and nearly 2,000 men, and hastily retreated to the pass of Tempe, the gate of Mace- donia proper. He gave up everything which ha the power of had held except the fortresses; the Thessalian towns, which he could not defend, he destroyed ; Pherae alone closed its gates against him and thereby es- caped destructi n. The Epirots, induced partly by those 286 The Eastern States and [Book in successes of the Eoman arms, partly Ly the judicious moderation of Flamininus, were the first to secede from the Macedonian alliance. On the first accounts of the Eoman victory the Athamanes and Aetolians immediately invaded Thessaly, and the Romans soon followed ; the open country was easily overrun, but the strong towns, which were friendly to Macedonia and received support from Philip, fell only after a brave resistance or withstood oven the superior foe — especially Atrax on the left bank of the Peneius, where the phalanx stood in the breach as a sub- stitute for the wall. Except these Thessalian fortresses and the territory of the faithful Acarnanians, all northern Greece was thus in the hands of the coalition. The south, on the ocher hand, was still in the main retained under the power of Macedonia by the fortresses of Chalcis and Corinth, which maintained communication with each other through the territory of the Boeotians who were friendly to the Macedonians, and by the Achaean neutral- ity ; and as it was too late to advance into Macedonia this year, Flamininus resolved to direct his land army and fleet in the first place against Corinth and the Achaeans. The fleet, which had again been joined by the Ehodian and Per- ganiene ships, had hitherto been employed in the capture and pillage of two of the smaller towns in Euboea, Eretria TheAohae- ^t^d Carystus ; both however, as well as Oreus, intoliiilnce w^ere thereafter abandoned, and reoccupied by with Rome. PhUocles the Macedonian commandant of Chal- cis. The united fleet proceeded thence to Cenchreae, the eastern port of Corinth, to threaten that strong fortress. On the other side Flamininus advanced into Phocis and occupied the country, in which Elatea alone sustained a somewhat protracted siege : this district and Anticyra in particular on the Corinthian gulf were chosen as winter quarters. The Achaeans, who thus saw the Eoman legions approaching and the Eoman fleet already on their own coast, abandoned their morally honourable, but politically untenable, neutrality. After the deputies from the towns most closely attached to Macedonia — Dyme, Megalopolis Chap. Till.] The Second Macedonian War. 2S7 and Argos — had left the diet, it resolved to join the coali- tion against Philip. Cycliades and other leaders of the Macedonian party went into exile ; the troops of the Achaeans immediately united with the Roman fleet and has- tened to invest Corinth by land, which city — the stronghold of Philip against the Achaeans — had been guaranteed to them on the part of Rome in return for their joining the coalition. Not only, however, did the Macedonian garrison, which was 1,300 strong and consisted chiefly of Italian deserters, defend with determination the almost impregna- ble city, but Philocles also arrived from Chalcis with a division of 1,500 men, which after relieving Corinth invaded the territories of the Achaeans and, in concert with the citizens who were favourable to Macedonia, wrested from them Argos. But the recompense of such devotedness was, that the king delivered over the faithful Argives to the reign of terror of Nabis of Sparta. Philip hoped, after the accession of the Achaeans to the Roman coalition, to gain over Nabis who had hitherto been the ally of the Romans ; fo)' his chief reason for joining the lioman alliance \vas, that he was opposed to the Achaeans and since 550 204. had been even at open war with them. But the affairs of Philip were in too desperate a condition for any one to feel satisfaction in joining him now. Nabis accepted Argos from Philip, but he betrayed the traitor and remained in alliance with Plamininus, who, in his perplex- ity at being now allied with two powers that were at war with each other, had in the mean time arranged an armistice of four months between the Spartans and Achaeans. Thus winter came on ; and Philip once more availtd Vain at- himself of it to obtain if possible an equitable arange'a peace. At a conference held at Nicaea on the peace. Maliac gulf the king appeared in person, and endeavoured to come to an understanding with Flamininus, With haughty politeness he repelled the forward arrogance of the petty chiefs, and by marked deference to the Romans, as the only antagonists on an equality with him, he sought to obtain from them tolerable terms. Flamininus was lis 5? The Eastern States and [Book III sufficiently refined to feel himself flattered by the urbanity of the vanquished prince towards himself and his haughti- ness in reference to the allies, whom the Roman as well aa the king had learned to despise ; but his powers were not ample enough to meet the king's wishes. He granted him ft two months' armistice in return for the evacuation of Fhocis and Locris, and referred him, as to the main matter to his government. The Roman senate had long been ot opinion that Macedonia must give up all her possessions abroad ; accordingly, when the ambassadors of Philip appeared in Rome, they were simply asked whether they had full powers to renounce all Greece and in particular Corinth, Chalcis, and Demetrias, and when they said that they had not, the negotiations were immediately broken off, and it was resolved that the war should be prosecuted with vigour. With the help of the tribunes of the people, the senate succeeded in preventing a change in the chief com- mand — which had often proved so injurious — and in pro- longing the command of Flamininus ; he obtained con- siderable reinforcement, and the two former commanders, Publius Galba and Publius Villius, were instructed to place themselves at his disposal. Philip resolved once more to risk a pitched battle. To secure Greece, where all the states except the Acarnanians and Boeotians were now in arms against him, the garrison of Corinth was augmented to 6,000 men, while he himself, straining the last energies of exhausted Macedonia and enrolling children and old men in the ranks of the phalanx, brought into the field an army of about 26,000 men, of whom 16,000 were Macedonian phalangitae. Thus the fourth campaign, that of 557, began. Fla- 197 mininus despatched a part of the fleet against M^dMr°" *^® Acarnanians, who were besieged in Leucas ; Thessaiy. jji Greece proper he became by stratagem mas ter of Thebes, the capital of Boeotia, in consequence of which the Boeotians were compelled to join at least nomi- nally the alliance against Macedonia. Content with having thus interrupted the communication between Corinth and Chap, viii.] The Second, Macedonian War. 289 Chalcis, he proceeded to the north, where alont; a decisive blow could be struck. The great difficulties of provision- ing the army in a hostile and for the most part desolate country, which had often hampered its operations, were now to be obviated by the fleet accompanying the army along the coast and carrying after it supplies sent from Africa,, Sicily, and Sardinia. The decisive blow came, how over, earlier than Flamininus had expected. Philip, impa- tient and confident as he was, could not endure to await the enemy on the Macedonian frontier : after assembling his army at Dium, he advanced through the pass of Tempe into Thessaly, and encountered the array of the enemy ad- vancing to meet him in the district of Scotussa. The Macedonian and Roman armies — the latter of which had been reinforced by the contingents of OynoBce- the Apolloniates and the Athamanes, by the p aae. Cretans sent by Nabis, and especially • by a strong band of Aetolians — contained nearly equal numbers of combatants, each about 26,000 men ; the Romans, how- ever, had the superiority in cavalry. In front of Scotussa, on the plateau of the Karadagh, during a gloomy day of rain, the Roman vanguard unexpectedly encountered that of the enemy, which occupied a high and steep hill named Cynoscephalae, that lay between the two camps. Driven back into the plain, the Romans were reinforced from the camp by the light troops and the excellent corps of Aetolian cavalry, and now in turn forced the Macedonian vanguard back upon and over the height. But here the Macedonians again found support in their whole cavalry and the larger portion of their light infantry ; the Romans, who had ven- tured forward imprudently, were pursued with great k)ss almost to their camp, and would have wholly taken to flight, had not the Aetolian horsemen prolonged the combat in the plain until Flamininus brought up his rapidly arranged legions. The king yielded to the impetuous cry of his victorious troops demanding the continuance of the conflict, and hastily drew up his heavy-armed soldiers for the battle, which neither general nor soldiers had expected Vol. II.— 13 290 The Eastern States and [Book ul on that day. It was important to occupy the hill, which for the moment was quite denuded of troops. The right wing of the phalanx, led by the king in person, arrived early enough to form without trouble in battle order on the height ; the left had not yet come up, when the light troops of the Macedonians, put to flight by the legions, rushed up the hill. Philip quioiily pushed the crowd of fugitives past the phalanx into thp middle division, and, without waiting till Nicanor had arrived on the left wing with the other half of the phalanx which followed more slowly, he ordered the right phalanx to couch their spears and to charge down the hill on the legions, and the rearranged light infantry simultaneously to turn them and take them in flank. The attack of the phalanx, irresistible on so favourable ground, shattered the Roman infantry, and the left wing of the Ro- mans was completely beaten. Nicanor on the other wing, when he saw the king give the attack, ordered the other half of the phalanx to advance in all haste ; by this move- ment it was thrown into confusion, and while the first ranks were already rapidly following the victorious right wing down the hill, and were still more thrown into disorder by the inequality of the ground, the last files were just gain- ing the height. The right wing of the Romans under these circumstances soon overcame the enemy's left ; the ele- phants alone, stationed upon this wing, made sad havoc in the broken Macedonian ranks. While a fearful slaughter was taking place at this point, a resolute Roman officer col- lected twenty companies, and with these threw himself on the victorious Macedonian wing, which had advanced so far in pursuit of the Roman left that the Roman right came to be in its rear. Against an attack from behind the phalanx was defenceless, and this movement ended the battle. From the complete breaking up of the two phalanxes we may well believe that the Macedonian loss amounted to 13,000, partly prisoners, partly fallen — but chiefly the latter, be- cause the Roman soldiers were not acquainted with the Macedonian sign of surrender, the raising of the sarisKae, The loss of the victors was slight. Philip escaped to La Cair. viii.] The Second Macedonian War. 2SI rissa, and, after burning all his papers that nobody might be compromised, evacuated Thessaly and returned home. Simultaneously with this great defeat, the Macedonians suffered other discomfitures at all the points which the;' still occupied ; in Caria the Rhodian mercenaries defeated the Macedonian corps stationed there and compelled it to shut itself up in Stratonicea ; the Corinthian garrison was defeated by Nicostratus and his Achaeans with severe loss, and Leucas in Acarnania was taken by assault after a heroic resistance. Philip was completely vanquished; his last allies, the Acarnanians, yielded on the news of the battle of Cynoscephalae. It was completely in the power of the Romans to dic- tate peace ; they used their power without Mriesof abusing it. The empire of Alexander might be annihilated ; at a conference of the allies this proposal was actually brought forward by the Aetolians. But what would be the effect of such a course, save to demolish the rampart protecting llLlleiiic culture from the Thracians and Celts % Already during the war just ended the flourishing Lysimachia on the Thracian Chersonese had been totally destroyed by llie Thracians — a serious warning for the future. Flamininus, who had clearly perceived the bitter animosities subsisting among the Greek states, could never consent that the great Roman power should carry into execution the spiteful projects of the Aetolian confede- racy, even if his Hellenic sympathies had not been as much won by the polished and chivalrous king as his Roman national feeling was offended by the boastings of the Aetolians, the " victors of Cynoscephalae," as they called themselves. He replied to the Aetolians that it was not the custom of Rome to annihilate the vanquished, and that, besides, they were their own masters and were at liberty to put an end to Macedonia if they could. The king was treated with all possible respect, and, on his declaring him- self ready now to entertain the demands formerly made, ar armistice for a considerable term was agreed to by Flamini- nus in return for the payment of a sum of money and th<= 292 The Eastmm States and [Book m, furnishing of hostages, among whom was the king's son Demetrius, — ati armistice which Philip greatly needed in order to expel the Dardani out of Macedonia. The final regulation of the complicated uifairs of Peace with Greece was entrusted by the senate to a corn- Macedonia, mission of ten persons, the head and soul of which was Flamininus. Philip obtained from it terms similar to those granted to Carthage. He lost all his for- eign possessions in Asia Minor, Thrace, Greece, and in the islands of the Aegean Sea ; while he retained Macedoni» proper undiminished, with the exception of some unim portant tracts on the frontier and the province of Orestis, which was declared free — a stipulation which Philip felt very keenly, but which the Romans could not avoid pre- scribing, for with his known character it was impossible to leave him free to dispose of subjects who had once revolted from their allegiance. Macedonia was further bound not to conclude any foreign alliances without the previous knowledge of Rome, and not to send garrisons abroad ; she was bound, moreover, not to make war out of Macedonia against civilized states or against any allies of Rome at all, and she was to maintain no army exceeding 5,000 men, no elephants, and not more than five decked ships ; the rest were to be given up to the Romans. Lastly, Philip en- tered into sj^machy with the Romans, which obliged him CO send a contingent when requested ; indeed, Macedonian troops immediately afterwards fought side by side with the legions. Moreover, he paid a contribution of 1,000 talents (£244,000). After Macedonia had thus been reduced to complete political nullity and was left in possession of W80«e free. ^ "^ *^ only as much power as was needful to guard the frontier of Hellas against the barbarians, the Romans pro cceded to dispose of the possessions ceded by the king The Romans, who just at that time were learning by expei'i once in Spain that transmarine provinces were a very dubi- ous gain, and who had by no means begun the war with a vie\\ to the acquisition of territory, took none of the spoil Chap, vm.j The Second Macedonian War. 293 for themselves, and thus compelled their allies also ta moderation. They resolved to declare all the states of Greece, which had previously been under Philip, free ; and riamininus was commissioned to read the decree to that . effect to the Greeks assembled at the Isthmian games (558). Thoughtful men doubtless might ask whether freedom was a blessing capable of being thus bestowed, and what was the value of freedom to a nation apart from union and unity ; but the rejoicing was great and sincere, as the intention of the senate was sincere in conferring the freedom.* The only exceptions to this general rule were, the Illy- rian provinces eastward of Epidamnus, w hich fell to Pleuratus the rul#r of Scodra, and ren- dered that state of robbers and pirates, which a century before had been humbled by the Eomans (p. 91), once more one of the most powerful of the petty principalities in those regions ; some districts in western Thessaly, which Amy- nander had occupied and was allowed to retain ; and the three islands of Faros, Scyros, and Imbros, which were presented to Athens in return for the many hardships which she had suffered, and her still more numerous addresses of thanks and courtesies of all sorts. The Rhodians, of course, retained their Carian possessions, and the Pergamenes re- tained Aegina. The remaining allies were only indirectly rewarded by the accession of the newly liberated cities to The the several confederacies. The Achaeans were ieoCTe'rai- *^® he^st treated, although they were the latest larged. ju joining the coalition against Philip ; appa^ rcntly for the honourable reason, that this federation was the best organized and most respectable of all the Greek states. All the possessions of Philip in the Peloponnesus Thg and on the Isthmus, and consequently Corinth in Aetoiiins. particular, were incorporated with their league. * There are still extant gold staters, with the head of Flamininus and the inscriptiou "T". Quincti{ug)," struck in Greece under the gofemment of the liberator of the Hellenes. The use of the Latin language is a significant complunent. 294 The Eastern States and [Bock m With the Aetolians on the other hand the Eoraans used little ceremony ; they were allowed to receive the towns of Phocis and Locris into their symmachy, but their attempts to extend it also to Acarnania and Thessaly were in part decidedly rejected, in part postponed, and the Thessalian cities were organized into four small independent confodo racies. The Rhodian city-league reaped the benefit of the liberation of Thasos, Lemnos, and the towns of Thrace and Asia Minor. The regulation of the affairs of the Greek states, as re- spected both their mutual relations and their Niibis of internal condition, was attended with difficulty, par a. rj-j^^ most Urgent matter was the war which had been carried on between the Spartans and Achaeans since 550, in which the duty of mediating necessarily fell to the Eomans. But after various attempts to induce Nabis to yield, and particularly to give up the city of Argos belonging to the Achaean league, which Philip had surrendered to him, no course at last was left to Flami- ninus but to have war declared against the obstinate petty robber-chieftain, who reckoned on tTie well-known grudge of the Aetolians against the Romans and on the advance of Antiochus into Europe, and pertinaciously refused to re- store Argos. This was done, accordingly, by all the Hel- lenes at a great diet in Corinth, and Flamininus advanced into the Peloponnesus accompanied by the fleet and the Romano-allied army, which included a contingent sent by Philip and a division of Lacedaemonian emigrants under Agesipolis, the legitimate king of Sparta (559). In order to crush his antagonist immediately by an overwhelming superiority of force, no less than 50,000 men were brought into the field, and, the other towns being disregarded, the capital itself was at once invested ; but the desired result was not attained. Nabis had sent into the field a considerable army amounting to 15,000 men, of whom 5,000 were mercenaries, and he had confirmed his rule afresh by a complete reign of terror — by the execution en masse of the officers and inhabitants of the country Chap, vni.] The Second Macedonian War. 295 whom he suspected. Even -^vhen he himself after the first successes of the Koman army and fleet resolved to yield and to accept the comparatively favourable terms of peace proposed by Flamininus, " the people," that is to say the gang of robbers whom Nabis had domiciled in Sparta, not without reason apprehensive of a reckoning after the vic- tory, and deceived by accompanying lies as to the nature of the terms of peace and as to the advance of the Aetolians and Asiatics, rejected the peace offered by the Roman gene- ral, so that the struggle began anew. A battle took place in front of the walls and an assault was made upon them ; they were already scaled by the Romans, when the setting on fire of the captured streets compelled the assailants to retire. At last the obstinate resistance came to an end. Sparta retained its independence and was neither com- Df Spartan pelled to receive back the emigrants nor to join °' *"^' the Achaean league ; even the existing mo- narchical constitution, and Nabis himself, were left intact. On the other hand Nabis had to cede his foreign posses- sions, Argos, Messene, the Cretan cities, and the whole coast besides ; to bind himself neither to conclude foreign alli- ances, nor to wage war, nor to keep any other vessels than two open boats ; and lastly to disgorge all his plunder, to give to the Romans hostages, and to pay to them a war- contribution. The towns on the Laconian coast were given to the Spartan emigrants, and this new community, who named themselves the " free Laconians," in contrast to the monarchically governed Spartans, were directed to enter the Achaean league. The emigrants did not receive back their property, as the district assigned to them was regarded as a compensation for it ; it was stipulated on the other hand, that their wives and children should not be detained in Sparta against their will. The Achaeans, although by this arrangement they gained the accession of the freo Laconians as well as Argos, were yet far from content, they had expected that the dreaded and hated Nabis would be superseded, that the emigrants would be brought back. 296 The Eastern States and [Book in and Iriat the Achaean symma/ihy would be extended to the whole Peloponnesus. Unprejudiced persons, however, will not fill to see that Flamininus managed these difficult affairs as fairly and justly as it was possible to inan?q;e them where two political parties, both chargeable with unfairnesa and injustice, stood opposed to each other. With the old and deep hostility subsisting between the Spartans and Achaeans, the incorporation of Sparta into the Achaean league would have been equivalent to placing Sparta under the Achaean yoke, a course no less contrary to equity than to prudence. The restitution of the emigrants, and the complete restoration of a government that had been set aside for twenty years, would only have substituted one reign of terror for another ; the plan adopted by Flamini- nus was the right one, just because it failed to satisfy either of the extreme parties. At length thorough provision appeared to be made that the Spartan system of robbery by sea and land should cease, and that the government there, such as it. was, should prove troublesome only to its own subjects. It is possible that Flamininus, who knew Nabis and could not but be aware how desirable it was that he should personally, be superseded, omitted to take such a step from the mere desire to have done with the matter and not to mar the fair impression of his successes by compli cations that might be prolonged beyond all calculation ; 1j is possible, moreover, that he sought to preserve Sparta a.s a counterpoise to the power of the Achaean confederacy in the Peloponnesus. But the former objection relates to a point of secondary importance ; and as to the latter view, it is far from probable that the Romans condescended to fear the Achaeans. Peace was thus established, externally at least, among the petty Greek states. But the internal con- lation of dition 01 the several communities also lurnishcd employment to the Roman arbiter. The Boeo- tians openly displayed their Macedonian tendencies, even pfter the expulsion of the Macedonians from Greece ; al 'hough Flamininus had at their request allowed the Boeo Chap, viu.] The Second Macedonian War. 207 tians who were in the service of Philip to return home Brachyllas, the most decided partisan of Macedonia, was elected to the presidency of the Boeotian confederacy, and riamininus was otherwise irritated in every way. He bore it with unpjiralleled patience ; but the Boeotians friendly tc Rome, who knew what awaited them after the departure of the Eomans, determined to put Brachyllas to death, and Flamininus, whose permission they deemed it necessary to ask, at least did not forbid them. Brachyllas was accord- ingly killed ; upon which the Boeotians were not content with prosecuting the murderers, but lay in wait fur the Ro- man soldiers passing singly or in small parties through their territories, and killed about 500 of them. This was too much to be endured ; Flamininus imposed on them a fine of a talent for every soldier ; and when they did not pay it, he collected the nearest troops and besieged Coronea (558). Now they betook themselves to en- treaty ; Flamininus in reality desisted on the intercession of the Achaeans and Athenians, exacting but a very moderate fine from those who were guilty ; and al- though the Macedonian party remained continuously at the helm in the petty province, the Romans met their puerile opposition simply with the forbearance of superior power. In the rest of Greece Flamininus contented himself with exerting his influence, so far as he could do so without vio- lence, over the internal affairs especially of the newly-freed communities ; with placing the councils and courts in the hands of the more wealthy and bringing the anti-Macedo- nian party to the helm ; and with attaching as much as possible the civic commonwealths to the Roman interest, by adding everything, which in each community should have fallen by martial law to the Romans, to the common property of the city concerned. The work was finished in the spring of 560 ; Flamininus once more as- sembled the deputies of all the Greek communi- ties at Corinth, exhorted them to a rational and moderate use of the freedom conferred on them, and requested as the onlv return for the kindness of the Romans, that they Vol. II.— 13* 298 The Eastern States and [Book iu would within thirty days send to him the Italian captives who had been sold into Greece during the Hannibalic war Then he evacuated the last fortresses in which Eoman gar. risons were stationed, Demetrias, Chalcis along with the smaller forts dependent upon it in Euboea, and Acrocorin-- thus — thus practically giving the lie to the assertion of the Aetolians that Eome had inherited from Philip the " fet- ters " of Greece — and departed homeward with all the Eo- man troops and the liberated captives. It is only contemptible disingenuousness or weakly sen- timentality, which can fail to perceive that the Results. _ •" . , . . , T, Komans were entirely in earnest m the libera- tion of Greece ; and the reason why the plan so nobly pro- jected resulted in so wretched a structure, is to be sought (inly in the complete moral and political disorganization of the Hellenic nation. It was no small matter, that u mighty nation should have suddenly with its powerful arm brought the land, which it had been accustomed to regard as its primitive home and as the shrine of its intellectual and higher interests, into the possession of full freedom, and should have conferred on every community in it deliverance from foreign taxation and foreign garrisons and the un- limited right of self-government ; it is mere paltriness that sees in this nothing save political calculation. Political cal- culation suggested to the Romans the possibility of liberat- ing Greece ; it was converted into a reality by the Hellenic sympathies that were at that time indescribably powerful in Rome, and above all in Flamininus himself. If the Ro- mans are liable to any reproach, it is that all of them, and in particular Flamininus who overcame the well-founded scruples of the senate, allowed the magic charm of the Hel- lenic name to prevent them from perceiving in all its extent the wretched character of the Greek states of that period, and from putting a stop at once to the proceedings of com- munities who, owing to the impotent antipathies that pre- vailed alike in their internal and their mutual relations, neither knew how to act nor how to keep quiet. As things stood, it was really necessary at Dnee to put an end to sucb CiiAP. VIII. j The Second Macedonian War. 29S a freedom, equally pitiful and pernicious, by means of a superior power permanently present on the spot ; the feeblt policy of sentiment, with all its apparent humanity, was far more cruel than the sternest occupation would have been, III Boeotia for instance Rome had, if not to instigate, at least to permit, a political murder because the Romans had resolved to withdraw their troops from Greece and, conse- quently, could not prevent the Greeks friendly to Rome from seeking their remedy in the usual manner of the coun- try. But Rome herself also suffered from the effects of this indecision. The war with Antiochus would not have arisen but for the political blunder of liberating Greece, and it would not have been dangerous but for the military blun- der of withdrawing the garrisons from the piir.cipal for- tresses on the European frontier. History has a Nemesis for every sin — for an impotent craving afler T?5dom, aa well as for an injudicioas generosity. oHAPTEE IX. THE WAR WITH ANTIOCHUS OF ASIA. In the kingjom of Asia the diadem of the Seleucidae had been worn since 531 by king Antiochus the Antioohus Third, the great-great-grandson of the founder of the dynasty. He had, like rhilip, begun to reign at nineteen years of age, and had displayed sufficient energy and enterprise, especially *in his first campaigns in the East, to warrant his being without ludicrous impro- priety addressed in courtly style as " the Great." ile had succeeded — more, however, through the negligence of his opponents and of the Egyptian Philopator in particular than through any ability of his own — in restoring in some degree the integrity of the monarchy, and in reuniting with his crown first the eastern satrapies of Media and Par- thyene, and then the separate state which Achaeus had founded on this side of the Taurus in Asia Minor. A first attempt to wrest fi:om the Egyptians the coast of Syria, the loss of which he sorely felt, had, in the year of the battle of the Trasimene lake, met with a bloody repulse from Philopator at Raphia ; and Antiochus had taken good care not to resume the contest with Egypt, so long as a man — even though he were but an indolent one — occupied the Egyptian throne. But, after Philppator's death (549), the right moment for crushing Egypt ap- peared to have arrived ; with that view Antiochus entered into concert with Philip, and had thrown himself upon Ooele-Syria, while Philip attacked the cities of Asia Minor, When the Romans interposed in that quarter, it seemed for a moment as if Antiochus would make common cause witli Philip against them — the course dictated by the position of Chap. IX.] The War with Antiochus of Asia. 301 affairs, as well as by the treaty of alliance. But, not far seeing enough to repel at once with all his energy any inter ference whatever by the Romans in the affairs of the East, Antiochus thought that his best course was to take advan tage of the subjugation of Philip by the Romans (which might easily be foreseen), in order to secure the kingdom *5f -Egyptj which he had previously been willing to share with Philip, for himself alone. Notwithstanding the inti- mate relations of Rome with the court of Alexandria and her royal ward, the senate by no means intended to be in reality, what it was in name, his " guardian ; " firmly resolved to give itself no concern about Asiatic affairs ex- cept in case of extreme necessity, and to limit the sphere of the Roman power by the Pillars of Hercules and the Hellespont, it allowed the great king to take his course. He himself did not probably contemplate in earnest the conquest of Egypt proper — which was more easily talked of than achieved — but he contemplated the subjugation of the foreign possessions of Egypt one after another, and at once attacked those in Cilicia as well as in Syria and Pales- tine. The great victory, which he gained in 556 over the Egyptian general Scopas at Mount Panium near the sources of the Jordan, not only gave him complete possession of that region as far as the frontier of Egypt proper, but so terrified the Egyptian guardians of the young king that, to prevent Antiochus from invading Egypt, they submitted to a peace and sealed it by the be- trothal of their ward to Cleopatra the daughter of Antio- chus. When he had thus achieved his first object, he pro- ceeded in the following year, that of the battle of Cynrh scephalae, with a strong fleet of 100 decked and 100 open vessels to Asia Minor, to take possession of the districts that formerly belonged to Egypt on the south and west coasts of Asia Minor — it is probable that the Egyptian gov- Brnment had ceded these districts, which were actually in the hands of Philip, to Antiochus under the peace, and had renounced their foreign possessions generally in Antiochus' favoui -and to recover the Greeks of Asia Minor as a whole 302 Tlie War with Antiochus of Asia. [Book ni to his empire. At the same time a strong Syrian land-armj assembled in Sardes. This enterprise had an indirect bearing on the Eomans^ Difflouities who from the first had demanded that Philip withEoma should withdraw his garrisons from Asia Minor and should leave to the Rhodians and Pergamenes their territory and to the free cities their former constitution un- impaired, and who had now to witness Antiochus taking possession of them in Philip's place. Attains and the Rho- dians found themselves now directly threatened by Antio- chus with precisely the same danger as had driven them a few years before into the war with Philip ; and they natu- rally sought to involve the Romans in this war as well as in that which had just terminated. Already in 199-198. •' ■' 555-6 Attalus had requested from the Romans military aid against Antiochus, who had occupied his terri- tory while the troops of Attalus were employed in the Ro- man war. The more energetic Rhodians even declared to king Antiochus, when in the spring of 557 his fleet appeared off the coast of Asia Minor, that they would regard its passing beyond the Chelidonian islands (off the Lycian coast) as a declaration of war ; and, when Antiochus did not regard the threat, they, emboldened by the accounts that had just arrived of the battle of Cyno- scephalae, had immediately begun the war and had actually protected against the king the most important of the Carian cities, Caunus, Halicarnassus, and Myndus, and the island of Samos. Most of the half-free cities had submitted to Antiochus, but some of them, more especially the impor tant cities of Smyrna, Alexandria Troas, and Lampsacus had, on learning the discomfiture of Philip, likewise taker, coui age to resist the Syrian ; and their urgent entreaties were combined with those of the Rhodians. It admits of no doubt, that Antiochus, so far as he was at all capable of forming a resolution and adhering to it had already made up his mind not only to attach to hia empire the Egyptian possessions in Asia, but also to make conquests on his own behalf in Europe and, if not to seek Chap, ix.j The War with Antiochus of Ada. 303 at any rate to risk on that account a war with Eome. Tha Romans had thus every reason to comply with that request of their allies, and to interfere directly in Asia ; but they showed little inclination to do so. They not only delayed as long as the Macedonian war lasted, and gave to Attains nothing but the protection of diplomacy (which, so far, proved in the first instance effective) ; but even after their victory, while they doubtless spoke as though the cities which had been in the hands of Ptolemy and Philip ought not to be taken possession of by Antiochus, and while the freedom of the Asiatic cities, Abydus, Cius, and Myrina, figured in Roman documents, they took not the smallest step to give effect to it, and allowed king Antiochus to em- ploy the favourable opportunity presented by the withdraw- al of the Macedonian garrisons to introduce his own. In fact, they even went so far as to submit to his landing in Europe in the spring of 558 and invading the Thracian Chersonese, where he occupied Sestus and Madytus and spent a considerable time in the chastise- ment of the Thracian barbarians and the restoration of the destroyed Lysimachia, which he had selected as his chief stronghold and as the capital of the newly instituted sa- trapy of Thrace. Flamininus indeed, who was entrusted with the conduct of these affairs, sent to the king at Lysi- machia envoys, who talked of the integrity of the Egyptian territory and of the freedom of all the Hellenes ; but noth- ing came of it. The king talked in reply of his undoubted legal title to the ancient kingdom of Lysimachus conquered by his ancestor Seleucus, explained that he was employed not in making territorial acquisitions but only in preserving the integrity of his hereditary dominions, and declined the intervention of the Romans in his disputes with the cities subject to him in Asia Minor. With justice he was enabled to add that peace had already been concluded with Egypt and that the Romans were thus deprived of any formal pre- text for interfering.* The sudden return of the king tc • The definite testimony of Ilieronymus, who places the betrotlia? 304 The War \c-ith Antiochus of Ada. [Book hi, Asia occasioned by a false report of the death of the young king of Egypt, and the projects which it suggested of 9 landing in Cyprus or even at Alexandria, led to the break- ing off of the conferences without coming to any conclusion, still less producing any result. In the following year, 559, Antiochus returned to Lysiniachia with his fleet and army reinforced, and employed himself in organizing the new satrapy which he destined for his son Seleucus. Hannibal, who had been obliged to flee from Car- thage, came to him at Ephesus ; and the singularly honour- able reception accorded to the exile was equivalent to a declaration of war against Rome. Nevertheless Flamininus in the spring of 560 withdrew all the Roman garrisons from Greece. This was under the ex- isting circumstances at least a mischievous error, if not a criminal acting in opposition to his own better knowledge; for we cannot dismiss the idea that Flamininus, in order to carry home with him the undiminished glory of having wholly terminated the war jnd liberated Hellas, contented himself with superficially covering up for the moment the smouldering embers of revolt and war. The Roman states- man might perhaps be right, when he pronounced any attempt to bring Greece directly under the dominion of the Romans, and any intervention of the Romans in Asiatic affairs, to be a political blunder ; but the opposition fer- menting in Greece, the feeble arrogance of the Asiatic king, the residence, at the Syrian head-quarters, of the bitter enemy of the Romans who had already raised the West in arms against Rome — all these were clear signs of the ap- proach of a fresh appeal to arms on the part of the Hellenic East, which would necessarily seek at least to transfer Greece from the clientship of Rome to that of the states of the Syrian princess Cleopatra with Ptolemy Epiphanea in B56, taken in connection with the hints in Lit. xxxiii. 40 and Apjiian. Syr. 3, and with the actual accomplishment of the marriage iu 561, puts it beyond a doubt that the interference of the Ro- mans in the affairs of Egypt was in this case formally uncalled (or. Chap. IX.] The War with Antiochus of Asia. 305 opposed to Eome, and, if this object should be attained would immediately extend the circle of its operations. It is plain that Rome could not allow this to take place. When Flamininus, ignoring all these sure indications of war, withdrew the garrisons from Greece, and yet at the same time made demands on the king of Asia which he had no intention of employing his army to support, he overdid his part in words as much as he fell short in action, and forgot his duty as a general and as a citizen in the indulgence of his personal vanity — a vanity which wished to enjoy the credit of having conferred peace on Rome and freedom on the Greeks of both continents. Antiochus employed the unexpected respite in strength- Prepara- ening his position at home and his relations with tionsof his neighbours before beginning the war — in for war which he was the more resolved to engage, the with Borne. , , & & ; more the enemy appeared to procrastmate. He now (561) gave his daughter Cleopatra, pre- viously betrothed, in marriage to the young king of Egypt. That he at the same time promised to restore the provinces wrested from his son-in-law, was afterwards affirmed on the part of Egypt, but probably without warrant ; at any rate the land remained actually attached to the Syrian kingdom.* He offered to restore to Eumenes, who had in 187. 557 succeeded his father Attalus on the throne of Pergamus, the towns taken from him, and to give him also one of his daughters in marriage, if he would abandon the Roman alliance. In like manner he bestowed a daugh- ter on Ariarathes, king of Cappadocia, and gained the Gala- tians by presents, while he reduced by arms the Pisidians * For this we have the teBtimony of Polybius (xxviii. 1), which the Bcquel of the history of Judaea completely confirms; Eusebius (p. 117, Mai) ie mistaken in making Philometor ruler of Syria. We certainly find that about 567 farmers of the Syrian taxes made their ^^' payments at Alexandria (Joseph, xii. 4, 7) ; but this doubtless took place without detriment to the rights of sovereignty, simply be- cause the dowry of Cleopatra constituted a charge on those revenues , and from this very circumstance probably arose the subsequent dispute 306 The War with Antiochus of Asia. [Book III who were constantly in revolt, and other small tribes. Ex tensive privileges were granted to the Byzantines ; respect- ing the cities in Asia Minor, the king declared that he would concede the independence of the old free cities such as Rhodes and Cyzicus, and would be content in the case of the others with a mere formal recognition of his supremacy ; he even gave them to understand that he was ready to sub- mit to the arbitration of the Rhodians. In European Greece he could safely count on the Aetolians, and he hoped tc induce Philip again to take up arms. In fact, a plan of Hannibal obtained the royal approval, according to which he was to receive from Antiochus a fleet of 100 sail and a land army of 10,000 Infantry and 1,000 cavalry, and was to employ them in kindling first a third Punic war in Car- thage, and then a second Hannibalic war in Italy ; Tyrian emissaries proceeded to Carthage to pave the way for an appeal to arms there (p. 241). Finally, good results were anticipated from the Spanish insurrection, which, at the time when Hannibal left Carthage, was at its height (p. 250). While the storm was thus gathering from far and wide Aetoiian against Rome, it was on this, as on all occasions, apd^/' the Hellenes implicated in the enterprise, who, Home. while they were of least moment, took the most important steps and acted with the utmost impatience. The exasperated and arrogant Aetolians began by degrees to persuade themselves that Philip had been vanquished by them and not by the Romans, and could not even wait till Antiochus should advance into Greece. Their policy is briefly expressed in the reply, which their strategus gave soon afterwards to Elamininus, when he requested a copy of the declaration of war against Rome : that he would deliver it to him in person, when the Aetoiian army should encamp by the Tiber. The Aetolians acted as the agents of the Syriar 'ting in Greece and deceived both parties, by representing to the king that all the Hellenes were waiting with open arms to receive him as their true deliverer, and by telling those in Greece who were disposed to listen to them that the landing of the king was nearer than it was ir Chap, rs.] The Warioiih AnUochus of Asia. 301 reality. Thus they actually succeeded in inducing the fool ish obstinacy of Nabis to break the peace and to rekindle ir, Greece the flame of war two years after Flamininus's de- parture, in the spring of 562 ; but in doing so they missed their aim. Nabis attacked Gythiuni, one of the towns of the free Laconians that by the last treaty had been annexed to the Achaean league, and took it ; but the experienced strategus of the Achaeans, Philopoemen, de- feated him at the Barbosthenian mountains, and the tyrant brought back barely a fourth part of his army to his capital, in which Philopoemen shut him up. As such a commence- ment was no sufficient inducement for Antiochus to come to Europe, the Aetolians resolved to possess themselves of Sparta, Chalcis, and Demetrias, and by gaining these impor- tant towns to prevail upon the king to embark. In the first place they thought to become masters of Sparta, by arrang- ing that the Aetolian Alexamenus should march with 1,000 men into the town under pretext of bringing a contingent in terms of the alliance, and should embrace the opportu- nity of making away with Nabis and of occupying the town. This was done, and Nabis was killed at a review of the troops; but, when the Aetolians dispersed to plimder the town, the Lacedaemonians found time to rally and slew them to a man. The city was then induced by Philopoe- men to join the Achaean league. This laudable project of the Aetolians had thus not only deservedly failed, but had precisely the opposite effect of uniting almost the whole Peloponnesus in the hands of the other party. It fared little better with them at Chalcis, for the Roman party there called in the citizens of Eretria and Carystus in Euboea, who were favourable to Rome, to render season- able aid against the Aetolians and the Chalcidian exiles. On the other hand the occupation of Demetrias was success- ■"ul, for the Magnetes to whom the city had been assigned were, not without reason, apprehensive that it had been promised by the Romans to Philip as a prize in return for his aid against Antiochus ; several squadrons of Aetolian horse moreover managed to steal into the town under the 308 The War with Antiochus of Asia. [Book in pretext of escorting Eurylochus, the recalled head of tha opposition to Rome. Thus the Magnetes passed over partly of their own accord, partly by compulsion, to the side of the Aetolians, and the latter did not fail to make good use of the fact at the court of the Seleuoid. Antiochus took his resolution. A rupture with Rome, Ru trur b - ™ Spite of endeavours to postpone it by the tweenAa- diplomatic expedient of embassies, could no tiochus and ^ i i a i • theEomans. longer be avoided. As early as the spring of 561 Flamininus, who continued to have the decisive voice in the senate as to Eastern affairs, had ex- pressed the Roman ultimatum to the envoys of the king, Menippus and Hegesianax ; viz., that he should either evar cuate Europe and dispose of Asia at his pleasure, or retain Thrace and submit to the Roman protectorate over Smyrna, Lampsacus, and Alexandria Troas. These demands had been again discussed at Ephesus, the chief stronghold and head-quarters of the king in Asia Minor, in the spring of 562, between Antiochus and the envoys of the senate, Publius Sulpicius and Publius Villius ; and they had separated with the conviction on both sides that a peaceful settlement was no longer possible. Thence- forth war was resolved on in Rome. In that very summer of 562 a ftoman fleet of 30 sail, with 3,000 192. ' soldiers on board, under Aulus Atilius Serranus appeared off Gythium, where their arrival accelerated the conclusion of the treaty between the Achaeans and Spar- tans ; the eastern coasts of Sicily and Italy were strongly garrisoned, so as to be secure against any attempts at a landing ; a land army was expected in Greece in the au- tumn. In the spring of 562 Flamininus, by direction of the senate, had visited Greece to thwart the intrigues of the opposite party, and to counteract as far as possible the evil effects of the ill-timed evacuation of the country. The Aetolians had already gone so far as formally to declare war in their diet against Rome. But Flamininus succeeded in preserving Chalcis to the Romans by throwing into it a gnrrison of 500 Achaeans and 500 Per^amenes, He made Chap. IX.] The War with Antioohus of A.sia. 309 an attempt also to recover Demetrias ; and the Magnetes wavered. Though some towns in Asia Minor, which Antio chus had proposed to subdue before beginning the great war, still held out, he could no longer delay his landing, unless he was willing to let the Romans recover all the advantages which they had surrendered two years before by withdrawing their garrisons from Greece. lie collected the vessels and troops which were at hand — he had but 40 decked vessels and 10,000 infantry, along with 500 horse and 6 elephants — and started from the Thracian Chersonese for Greece, where he landed in the autumn of 192. ' 562 at Pteleum on the Pagasaean gulf, and im mediately occupied the adjoining Demetrias. About the same time a Roman army of nearly 25,000 men under the praetor Marcus Baebius landed at Apollonia. The war was thus begun on both sides. Everything depended on the extent to which that com^ Attitude of prehensively planned coalition against Rome, powct'b!'"" of which Antiochus came forward as the head andHiuf- might be realized. As to the plan, first of all nibai. Qf stirring up enemies to the Romans in Car- thage and Italy, it was the fate of Hannibal at the court of Ephesus, as through his whole career, to have projected his noble and lofty schemes for the behoof of people narr(5w- minded and mean. Nothing was done towards their execu- tion, except that some Carthaginian patriots were compro- mised ; no choice was left to the Carthaginians but to show unconditional submission to Rome. The camarilla would have nothing to do with Hannibal — he was too inconven- iently great for court cabals ; and, after having tried all sorts of absurd expedients — such as accusing the general, with whose name the Romans frightened their children, of concert with the Roman envoys — they succeeded in per- suading Antiochus the Great, who like all insignificant mon- archs plumed himself greatly on his independence and was influenced by nothing so easily as by the fear of being ruled, into the wise belief that he ought not to allow him self to be thrown intc the shade by so illustrious a man. 310 The War with Antiochus of Asia. [Book m Accordingly it was in solemn council resolved that the Phoenician should be employed in future only for subcrdi' nate enterprises and for giving advice — ^with the reservation, of course, that that advice should never be followed. Han- nibal revenged himself on the mob of courtiers by accepting every commission and brilliantly executing all. In Asia Cappadocia adhered to the great king ; Prusiaa states of of Bithynia on the other hand took, as usual, the la Minor, ^j^j^ ^£ ^j^^ stronger. King Eumenes remained faithful to the old policy of his house, which was now at length to yield to him its true fruit. He had not only per- sisted in refusing the offers of Antiochus, but had constantly urged the Romans to a war, from which he anticipated the aggrandizement of his kingdom. The Rhodians and By- zantines likewise joined their old allies. Egypt too took the side of Rome and offered support in supplies and men ; which, however, the Romans did not accept. In Europe the result mainly depended on the position which Philip of Macedonia would lake up. True policy ouglit perhaps to have mduced him, not- withstanding all the injuries or short-comings of the past, to unite with Antiochus. But Philip was ordinarily influenced not by such considerations, but by his likings and dislik- ings ; and his hatred was naturally directed much more against the faithless ally, who had left him to contend alone with the common enemy, had sought merely to seize his own share in the spoil, and had become a burdensome neighbour to him in Thrace, than against the conqueror, who had treated hiui respectfully and honourably. Antio- chus had, moreover, given deep offence to the hot temper of Philip by the setting up of absurd pretenders to the Mace- donian crown, and by the ostentatious burial of the Mace- donian bones bleaching at Cynoscephalae. Philip therefore placed his whole force with cordial zeal at the disposal of the Romans. The second power of Greece, the Achaean league, ad- The lesser heiod no less decidedly than the first to the alli- Greekstato8. ^^^^^ ^^,■■^^^^ Tiome. Of the smaller powers, the Cu^p. IX.] The War with Antiochus of Asia. 31] Thessalians and the Athenians held by Rome ; among tha latter an Achaean garrison introduced by Flamiuinus into the citadel brought the patriotic party, which was somewhat numerous, to reason. The Epirots exerted themselves to keep on good terms, if possible, with both parties. Thus, in addition to the Aetolians and the Magnetes who were joined by a portion of the neighbouring Perrhaebians. Antiochus was supported only by Amynander, the weak king of the Athamanes, who allowed himself to be dazzled by foolish designs on the Macedonian crown ; by the Boeo- tians, among whom the party opposed to Rome was still at the helm ; and by the Eleans and Messenians in the Pelo- ponnesus, who were in the habit of taking part with the Aetolians against the Achaesms. This was indeed a hopeful beginning ; and the title of commander-in-chief with abso- lute power, which the Aetolians decreed to the great king, seemed insult added to injury. There had been, as usual, deception on both sides. Instead of the countless hordes of Asia, the king brought up a force scarcely half as strong as an oi-dinary consuLir army ; and instead of the open arms with which all the Hellenes were to welcome their deliverer from the Roman yoke, one or two bands of klephts and some dissolute bodies of citizens fraternized with the king. For the moment, indeed, Antiochus anticipated the Antiochus Roinaus in Greece proper. Chalcis was gar- lu Greece. risoncd by the Greek allies of the Romans, and refused the first summons ; but the fortress surrendered when Antiochus advanced with all his force ; and a Roman division, which arrived too late to occupy it, was annihi- lated by Antiochus at Delium. Euboea was thus lost to the Romans. Antiochus also made an attempt in winter, in concert with the Aetolians and Acarnanians, to gain Thes- saly ; Thermopylae was occupied, Pherae and other towns were taken, but Appius Claudius carae up with 2,000 mer from Apollonia, relieved Larisa, a*d took up his position there. Antiochus, tired of the winter campaign, preferred to return to his pleasant quarters at Chalcis, where the time was spent merrily, and the king even, in. spite of his fifty 8iy The W ar with Antiochus of Asia. [Book III. years and his warlike schemes, mtirried a fair Chalcidian. So the winter of 562-3 passed, witliout Antio> cnus doing muoh more than sending letters hither and thither through Greece : he waged war — a Koman officer remarlted — by means of pen and ink. In the beginning of spring 563 the Roman staff arrived I91- . at Apollonia. The commander-in-chief waa ihd Romans. Manius Acilius Glabrio, a man of humble origin, but an able general feared both by his soldiers and by the enemy ; the admiral was Gains Livius ; and among the military tribunes were Marcus Porcius Cato, the con- queror of Spain, and Lucius Valerius Flaccus, who after the old Roman wont did not disdain, although they had been consuls, to re-enter the army as simple commanders of legions. They brought with them reinforcements in ships and men, including Numidian cavalry and Libyan ele- phants sent by Massinissa, and the permission of the senate to accept auxiliary troops to the number of 5,000 from the extra-Italian allies, so that the whole number of the Roman forces were raised to about 40,000 men. The king, who in the beginning of spring had gone to the Aetolians and had thence made an aimless expedition to Acarnania, on learn ing the arrival of Glabi'io, returned to his head-quarters to begin the campaign in earnest. But through his own incon- ceivable negligence and that of his lieutenants in Asia no reinforcements reached him, so that he had nothing but the weak array — now further decimated by sickness and deser- tion in its dissolute winter-quarters — with which he had landed at Pteleum in the autumn of the previous year. The Aetolians too, who had professed to send such enor- mous numbers into the field, now, when their support was of moment, brought to their commander-in-chief no more than 4,000 men. The Roman troops had already begun operations in Thessaly, where the vanguard in concert with the Macedonian army duftve the garrisons of Antioohiis out of the Thessalian towns and occupied the territory of the Athamanes. The consul with the main army followed ; the whole force of tha Romans assembled at Larisa. CHt K.] The War with Antiochus of Asia. 31.3 Instead of returning with all speed to Asia and evacuat- Battleat '"8 '^^ Held before an enemy in every respeeb PTte™"" superior, Antiochus resolved to entrench him- self at Thermopylae, which he had occupied, and there to await the arrival of the great army from Asia. Tie himself took up a position in the principal pass, and commanded the Aetolians to occupy the mountain-path, by which Xerxes had formerly succeeded in turning the Spar- tans. But only half of the Aetolian contingent thought fit to comply with this command of the commander-in-chief; the other 2,000 men threw themselves into the neighbour- ing town of Heraclea, where they took no other part in the battle than that of attempting during its progress to sur- prise and plunder the Rooian camp. Even the^etolians posted on the heights discharged their duty of watching with remissness and rpluctanco; their post on the Calli- dromus allowed itself to be surprised by Cato, and the Asiatio phalanx, which the consul had meanwhile assailed in front, dispersed, when tli-e Romans hastening down the mountain fell upon its flank. As Antiochus had made no provision for any case and hwd not thought of retreat, the army was destroyed partly uu the field of battle, partly during its flight ; with difficulty a small band reached Demetrias, and the king himself escaped to Chalcis with 500 men. He embarked in haste for Ephesus ; Europe was lost to him all but his possessions in Thrace, and even the fortresses could be no longer defended. Chalcis surren- dered to the Romans, and Demetrias to Philip, Greece occu- . . pied by the who received permission — as a compensation for the conquest of the town of Lamia in Achaia Phthiotis which he was on the point of accomplishing and then abandoned by orders of the consul — to make himself mastei cf all the communities that had gone over to Antio- chus in Thessaly proper, and even of the territories border- ing on Aetolia, the districts of Dolopia and Aperantia. All the Greeks • that had pronounced in favour of Antiochus hastened to make their peace; the Epirots humbly besought pardon for their ambiguous conduct, the Boeotiana surren- Vol. II.— U 314 The War with Antiochu-s of Asia. [Book iil dered at discretion, the Eleans and Messenians, the lattei after some struggle, submitted to the Achaeans. The pre- diction of Hannibal to the king was fulfilled, that no depen- dence at all could be placed upon the Greeks, who would o . . submit to any conqueror. Even the Aetolians, Resistance J ^ > DftheActo- when their corps shut up in Heraclea had been compelled after obstinate resistance to capitulate, attempted to make their peace with the sorely provoked Romans ; but the stringent demands of the Roman consul, and a consignment of money seasonably arriving fronr. Antiochus, emboldened them once more to break oiF the negotiations and to sustain for two whole months a siege in Naupactus. The town was already reduced to extremities, and its capture or capitulation could not have been long delayed, when Flamininus, constantly striving to save every Hellenic community from the worst consequences of its own folly and from the severity of his ruder colleagues, interposed and arranged in the first instance an armistice on tolerable terms. This terminated, at least for the moment, all resistance in Greece. A more serious war was impending in Asia — a war „ ... which appeared of a very hazardous character on war, and account not SO much of the enemy as of the preparations '' for crossmg great distance and the insecurity of the com- to Asia. . . .11 , . 1 . 1 munications with home, while yet, owing to the short-sighted obstinacy of Antiochus, the struggle could not well be terminated otherwise than by an attack on the enemy in his own country. The first object was to secure the sea. The Roman fleet, which during the campaign in Greece was charged with the task of interrupting the com- munication between Greece and Asia Minor, and which had been successful about the time of the battle at Ther- mopylae in seizing a strong Asiatic transport fleet near Andros, wa thenceforth employed in making preparations for the crossing of the Romans to Asia ne-\t year and first of all in driving tlie enemy's fleet out of the Aegean Sea. It lay in the harbour of Cyssus on the southern shore <»f the tongue of land that projects from Ionia towards Chios ; Chip, rx.] The W ar with Antiochus of Asia. 31?. thither the Roman fleet proceeded in search of it, consisting of 75 Roman, 24 Pergamene, aTid 6 Carthaginian, decided vessels under the command of Gaius Livius. The Syrian admiral, Polyxenidas, a Rhodian emigrant, had only 70 decked vessels to oppose to it ; but, as the Roman fleet still expected the ships of Rhodes, and as Polyxenidas relied on the superior seaworthiness of his vessels, those of Tyre and Sidon in particular, he immediately accepted battle. At the outset the Asiatics succeeded in sinliing one of the Cartha- ginian vessels ; but, when they came to grapple, Roman valour prevailed, and it was owing solely to the swiftness of their rowing and sailing that the enemy lost no more than 23 ships. During the pursuit the Roman fleet was joined by 25 ships from Rhodes, and the superiority of the Romans in those waters was now doubly decisive. The Bnemy's fleet thenceforth kept the shelter of the harbour of Ephesus, and, as .it could not be induced to risk a second battle, the fleet of the Romans and allies broke up for the winter ; the Roman ships of war proceeded to the harbour of Cane in the neighbourhood of Pergamus. Both parties were busy during the winter in preparing for the next campaign. The Romans sought to gain over the Greeks of Asia Minor ; Smyrna, which had perseveringly resisted all the attempts of the king to get possession of it, received the Romans with open arms, and the Roman party gained the ascendancy in Samos, Chios, Erythrae, Clazome- nae, Phocaea, Cyme, and other places. Antiochus was resolved, if possible, to prevent the Romans from crossing to Asia, and with that view he made zealous naval prepara- tions — employing Polyxenidas to fit out and augment the fleet stationed at Ephesus, and Hannibal to equip a new fleet in Lycia, Syiia, and Phoenicia; while he further col- lected in Asia Minor a powerful land army from all regions of his extensive empire. Early next year (564) the Roman fleet resumed its operations, Gaius Livius left the Rhodian fleet — which had appeared in good time tnis year, numbering 36 sail — to observe that of the enemy in the offing of Ephesus, and went with the greater 316 The War with Antiochus of Asia. [Book iii portion of the Roman and Pergamene vessels to the Helle- spont in accordance with his instructions, to pave the way for the passage of the land army by the capture of the fortresses there. Sewtus was already occupied and Abydug reduced to extremities, when the news of the defeat of the llhodian fleet recalled him. The Rhodian admiral Pausis- tratus, lulled into security by the representations of his countryman that he wished to desert from Antiochus, had allowed himself to be surprised in the harbour of Samos ; he himself fell, and all his vessels were destroyed except five Rhodian and two Coan ships ; Samos, Phocaea, and Cyme on hearing the news went over to Seleucus, who held the chief command by land in those provinces for his father. But when the Roman fleet arrived partly from Cane, partly from the Hellespont, and was after some time joined by twenty new ships of the Rhodians at Samos, Polyxenidas was once more compelled to shut himself up in the harbour of Ephesus. As he declined the offered naval battle, and as, owing to the small numbers of the Roman force, an attack by land was out of the question, nothing remained for the Roman fleet but to take up its position in like manner at Samos. A division meanwhile proceeded to Patara on the Lycian coast, partly to relieve the Rhodians from the very troublesome attacks that were directed against them from that quarter, partly and chiefly to pre- vent the hostile fleet, which Hannibal was expected to bring up, from entering the Aegean Sea. When the squadron sent against Patara achieved nothing, the new admiral Lucius Aemilius Regillus, who had arrived with 20 war-vessels fi-om Rome and had relieved Gaius Livius at Samos, was so indignant that he proceeded thither with the whole fleet ; his officers with difficulty succeeded, while they were on their voyage, in making him understand that the primary object was not the conquest of Patara but the command of the Aegean Sea, and in inducing him to return to Samos, On the mainland of Asia Minor Seleucus had in the mean- while begun the siege of Pergamus, while Antiochus with his chief army ravaged the Pergamene territory and the poa Chap. IX.] The War with AnUochus of Asia. 311 sessions of the Mytilenaeans on the mainland ; they hoped to crush the hated Attalids, before Roman aid appeared. The Roman fleet went to Elaea and the port of Adramyt tium to help their ally ; but, as the admiral wanted troops, ho accomplished nothing. Pergamus seemed lost ; but the laxity and negligence with which the siege was conductec? allowed Eumenes to throw into the city Achaean auxiliaries under Diophanes, whose bold and successful sallies com- pelled the Gallic mercenaries, whom Antiochus had entrusted with the siege, to raise it. In the southern waters too the projects of Antiochus were frustrated. The fleet equipped and led by Hannibal, after having been long detained by the constant westerly winds, attempted at length to reach the Aegean ; but at the mouth of the Eurymedon, off Aspendus in Pamphylia, it encountered a Rhodian squadron under Eudamus ; and in the battle, which ensued between the two fleets, the excellence of the Rhodian ships and naval officers carried the victory over Hannibal's tactics and his numerical superiority. It was the first naval battle, and the last battle against Rome, fought by the great Carthagin- ian. The victorious Rhodian fleet then took its station at Patara, and there prevented the intended junction of the two Asiatic fleets. In the Aegean Sea the Roniano-Rhodian fleet at Samos, after being weakened by detaching the Per- gamene ships to the Hellespont to support the land army which had arrived there, was in its turn attacked by that of Polyxenidas, who now numbered nine sail more than his opponents. On December 23 of the uncorrected calendar, according to thi. corrected calendar about the end of August, in 564, the battle took place at the promontory of Myonnesus between Teos and Colophon ; iha Romans broke through the line of the enemy, and totally surrounded the left wing, so that they toik or sank 42 ships. An inscription in Saturnian verse over the temple (if the Lares Permarini, which was built in the Campus Martius in memory of this victory, for many centuries thereafter pro- claimed to the Romans how the fleet of the Asiatics h^id been defeated before the eyes of king Antiochus and of all 318 The War with Antiochus of As^a. [Book iii his land army, and how the Eomans thus " settled the mighty strife and subdued the kings." Thenceforth the enemy's ships no longer ventured to s\iaw themselves on the open soa, and made no further attempt to obstruct tht Dressing of the Koman land army. The oor.queror of Zania had been selected at Rome tc Bxpedition Conduct the war on the Asiatic continent ; he (0 Aaia. practically exercised the supreme command for the nominal commander-in-chief, his brother Lucius Scipio, whose intellect was insignificant, and who had no military ca- pacity. The reserve hitherto stationed in Lower Italy was destined for Greece, the army under Glabrio for Asia ■ when it became known who was to command it, 5,000 vete- rans from the Hannibalic war voluntarily enrolled, to fight once more under their beloved leader. In the Roman July, but according to the true time in March, the Scipios arrived at the army to commence the Asiatic campaign ; but they were disagreeably surprised to find themselves involved, in the first instance, in an endless struggle with the desperate Aetolians. The senate, finding that Flamininus pushed his boundless consideration for the Hellenes too far, had left the Aetolians to choose between paying an utterly exorbitant war-contri- bution and unconditional surrender, and thus had driven them anew to arms ; none could tell when this warfare among mountains and strongholds would come to an end. Scipio got rid of the inconvenient obstacle by concerting a six-months' armistice, and then entered on his march to Asia. As the one fleet of the enemy was only blockaded in the Aegean Sea, and the other, which was coming up from the south, might daily arrive there in spite of the squadron charged to inter- cept it, it seemed advisable to take the land route through Macedonia and Thrace and to cross the Hellespont. In that direction no real obstacles were to be anticipated ; foi Philip of Macedonia might be entirely depended on, Prusias king oi Bithynia was in alliance with the Romans, and the Roman fleet could easily establish itself in the straits. The long and weary march along the coast of Macedonia and Thrace was accomplished without material loss; Philip Chap. IX.] The War with Antiockiis of Asia. 319 made provision on the one hand for supplying their wants on the other for their friendly reception by the Thraciac barbarians. They had lost so much time however, partlj with the Aetolians, partly on the march, that the army onl^ reached the Thracian Chersonese about the time of the battle of Myonnesus. But the marvellous good fortune of Scipio now in Asia, as formerly in Spain and Africa, cleared hi? path of all difficulties. On the news of the battle at Myonnesus Antiochus so Paseage of Completely lost his judgment, that in Europe he pontbytto causcd the strongly-garrisoned and well-provis- Eomans. ioned fortress of Lysimachia to be evacuated by the garrison and by the inhabitants who were faithfully devoted to the restorer of their city, but forgot even to ■withdraw in like manner the garrisons or to destroy the rich magazines at Aeuus and Maronea ; and on the Asiatic coast he opposed not the slightest resistance t» the landing of the Romans, but on the contrary, while it was taking place, spent his time at Sardes in upbraiding destiny. It is scarcely doubtful that, had he but provided for the defence of Lysimachia down to the no longer distant close of the summer, and moved forward his great army to the Helles- pont, Scipio would have been compelled to take up winter quarters o'l the iuuropean shore, in a position far from being, in » militayy or political point of view, secure. While the Bomans, after disembarking on the Asiatic shore, pausftd for some days to refresh themselves and to await their leader who was detained behind by religious duties, ambassadors from the great king arrived in their camp to negotiate for peace. Antiochus offered half th expenses of the war, and the cession of his European pos sessions as well as of all the Greek cities in Asia Minor that had gone over to Rome ; but Scipio demanded the whole costs of the war and the surrender of all Asia Minor. The former terms, he declared, might have been accepted, had the army still been before Lysimachia, or even on the European side of the Hellespont ; but they did not suffice now, when the steed felt the bit an 3 knew its rider. The 320 The War with Antiochus of Asia. [Cook IIL attempts of the g:-eat king to purchase peace from hia antagonist after the Oriental manner by sums of money — he offered the half of his year's revenues ! — failed as they deserved ; the proud burgess, in return for the gratuitou? restoration of his son -who had fallen a captive, rewarded the great king with the friendly advice to make peace on any terms. This was not in reality necessary : had the king possessed the resolution to prolong the war and to draw the enemy after him by retreating into the interior, a favoura- ble issue was still by no means impossible. But Antiochus^ irritated by the probably intentional arrogance of his antagonist, and too indolent for any persevering and con- sistent warfare, hastened with the utmost eagerness to expose his unwieldy, heterogeneous, and undisciplined mass of an army to the shock of the Roman legions. In the valley of the Hermus, near Magnesia at the foot of Mount Sipylus not far from Smyrna, the Magnesia. Roman troops fell in with the enemy late in the autumn of 564. The force of Antiochus num- bered close on 80,000 men, of whom 12,000 were cavalry ; the Romans — who had along with them about 5,000 Achae- ans, Pergamenes, and Macedonian volunteers — had not nearly half that number, but they were so sure of victory that they did not wait for the recovery of their general who had remained behind sick at Elaea ; Gnaeus Domitius took the command in his stead. Antiochus, in order to be able even to place his immense mass of troops, formed two divisions. In the first were placed the mass of the light troops, the peltasts, bowmen, slingers, the mounted archers of the Mysians, Dahae, and Elymaeans, the Arabs on their ilromedaries, and the scythe-chariots. In the second division the heavy cavalry (the Cataphractae, a sort of cuirassiers) were stationed on the flanks ; next to these, in the inter- mediate division, the Gallic and Cappadocian infantry ; and in the very centre the phalanx armed after the Macedonian fashion, 16,000 strong, the flower of the army, which, how- ever, had not room in the narrow space and had to be drawn up in double files 32 deep. In the space betweeE Chap. IX] TJi'e War with Aiitiochus of AstJ,. 321 the two divisions were placed 54 elephants, distrib.ited among the companies of the phalanx and of the hea\j cavalry. The Romans stationed but a few squadrons or: the left wing, where the river gave protection ; the mass of the cavalry and all the light armed were placed on the right, which was led by Eumenes ; the legions stood in the centre. Eumenes began the battle by despatching his archers and slingers against the scythe-chariots with orders to shoot at the teams ; in a short time not only were these thrown into disorder, but the camel-riders stationed next CO them were also carried away, and even in the second line the left wing of heavy cavalry placed behind fell into con- fusion. Eumenes now threw himself with all the Roman cavalry, numbering 3,000 horse, on the mercenary infantry, which was placed in the second line between the phalanx and the left wing of heavy cavalry, and, when these gave way, the cuirassiers who had already fallen into disorder also fled. The phalanx, which had just allowed the light troops to pass through and was preparing to advance against the Roman legions, was hampered by the attack of the cavalry in flank, and compelled to stand still and to form front on both sides — a movement which the depth of its disposition favoured. Had the heavy Asiatic cavalry been at hand, the battle might have been restored ; but the left wing was shattered, and the right, led by Antiochus in person, had driven before it the little division of Roman cavalry opposed to it, and had reached the Roman camp, which was with great difficulty defended from its attack. In this way the cavalry were at the decisive moment absent from the scene of action. The Romans were careful not to assail the phalanx with their legions, but sent against it the archers and slingers, not one of whose missiles failed to take effect on the densely crowded mass. The phalanx nevertheless retired slowly and in good order, till the ele- phants stationed in the interstices became frightened and broke the ranks. Then the whole army dispersed in tumultuous flight ; an attempt to hold the camp failed, and only increased the number of the dead and the prisoners Vol. n.— 14* 322 The War with Antioohus of Asia. [Book in The estimate of the loss of Antiochus at 50,000 men is,, consideiing the infinite confusion, not incredible; the legions of the Romans had never been engaged, and the victory ■which gave them a third continent, cost them 24 horsemer and 300 foot soldiers. Asia Minor submitted ; including even Ephesus, whence the admiral hastily withdrew his fleet, and Sardes the residence of the court. The king sued for peace and consented to the terms Conclusion proposed by the Eomans, which, as usual, were of peace. j^gj. jjjg game as those offered before the battle and consequently included the cession of Asia Minor. Till they were ratified, the army remained in Asia Minor at the expense of the king ; which came to cost him not less than 3,000 talents (£730,000). Antiochus himself in his careless fashion soon got over the loss of half his kingdom ; it was in keeping with his character, that he declared himself grate- ful to the Romans for saving him the trouble of governing too large an empire. But with the day of Magnesia Asia was erased from the list of great states ; and never perhaps did a great power fall so rapidly, so thoroughly, and so ignominiously as the kingdom of the Seleucidae under this Antiochus the Great. He himself was soon afterwards (567) slain by the indignant inhabitants of Ely- mais at the head of the Persian gulf, on occa^ sion of the plundering of a temple of Bel, with the treasures of which he had sought to replenish his empty coffers. After having obtained the victory, the Roman govern- Expedition ment had to regulate the affairs of Asia Minor cfeitsof Aria ^^^ ^^ Greece. In the former Antiochus was Minor. conquered, but his allies and satraps in the inte- lior, the Phrygian, Cappadocian, and Paphlagonian dynasts, tr listing to their distance, delayed their submission, and the Celts of Asia Minor, who had not strictly been in alliance with Antiochus but had merely after their custom allowed him to raise mercenaries in their land, in like manner saw no reason why they should trouble themselves about the Romans. To the new Roman commander-in-chief, Gnaeus 189. Manlius Volso, who in the spring of 565 relievocl Chap. IX.] The War with Antwchvs of Asm. 323 Lucius Scipio in Asia Minor, this state of tilings afforded a welcome pretext for performing in his turn a service to his country and asserting the Roman protectorate over the Hellenes in Asia, just as had been done alieady in Spain and Gaul ; although the , more austere men in the senate failed to see either the ground or the object of such a war. The consul started from Ephesus, levied contributions from the cities and princes on the upper Maeander and in Pani- phylia without cause and without measure, and then turned northward against the Celts. The most westerly canton of these, the Tolistobogi, had retired with their property to Mount Olympus, and the middle canton, the Tectosages, to Mount Magaba, in the hope that they would be able to defend themselves there, till winter should compel the for- eigners to retire. But the missiles of the Roman slingers and archers — which so often turned the scale against the Celts unacquainted with such weapons, somewhat in the same way as in modern times fire-arms have turned the scale against savage tribes — forced the heights, and the Celts succumbed in a battle, such as was often paralleled both before and afterwards on the Po and on the Seine, but which in Asia appears no less singular than the whole phenomenon of this northern race emerging amidst the Greek and Phrygian nations. The number of the slain at both places was very great, and that of the prisoners still greater. The survivors escaped over the Halys to the third Celtic canton of the Trocmi, whom the consul did not dis- turb, as he did not venture to cross the frontier agreed on in the preliminaries between Scipio and Antiochus. The affairs of Asia Minor were regulated partly by the 189. peace with Antiochus (565), partly by the or- 'V^Asiatic^ dinances of a Roman commission presided over •flairs. by tjie consul Vol.so. Antiochus nad to firnish hostages, one of whom was his younger son of the same name, and to pay a war-contribution — proportional in amonnt to the treasures of Asia — of 15,000 Euboic talents (£3,600,000), a fifth of which was to be paid at once and the remainder in twelve a.,nual instalments. He was com 324 The War with Antioehus of Asia. [Book hi pelled, moreover, to cede all his possessions in Eurcpe, and all the territory in Asia Minor to the west of the river Halys throughout its course, and of the mountain-chain of the Taurus, which separates Cilicia and Lycaonia, so that hn retained nothing in the Anatolian peninsula but Cilicia. His protectorate over the kingdoms and principalities of Asia Minor of course ceased. Even beyond the Roman frontier Cappadocia assumed an independent attitude tow ards Asia or Syria, as the kingdom of the Seleucidae was now more commonly and appropriately called ; and not only so, but the satraps of the two Armenias, Artaxia? and Zariadris, became transformed, under the influence of Rome if not exactly in conformity to the Roman treaty of peace, into independent kings and founders of new dynasties. The Syrian king forfeited the right of waging aggressive war against the states of the West, and, in the event of a defensive war, of acquiring territory from them on the con- clusion of peace. He was prohibited from navigating the sea to the west of the mouth of the Calycadnus in Cilicia with ships of war, except for the conveyance of envoys, hostages, or tribute ; from keeping more than ten decked vessels, except in the event of a defensive war ; from tam- ing war-elephants ; and finally, from levying mercenaries in the western states, or receiving political refugees and de- serters from these states at his court. He gave up the ves- sels of war which he possessed beyond the prescribed num- ber, the elephants, and the political refugees who had taken shelter with him. The great king received, by way of com- pensation, the title of a friend of the Roman commonwealth. The state of Syria was thus by land and sea completely and for ever dislodged from the West ; it is a significant indica- tion of the feeble and loose organization of the kingdom of the Seleucidae, that it alone, of all the great states con- quered by Rome, never after the first conquest made a second appeal to the decision of arms. Ariarathes, king of Cappadocia, whose land lay beyono the boundary laid down by the Romans for their protecto- rate, escaped with a monev fine of 600 talents (£146,000) • Chap. IX.] The War with Antiochus if Asia. 325 which was afterwards, on the intercession of his son-in-law Eumenes, abated to half that sum. Prusias, king of Bithynia, retained his territory as i'. stood, and so did the Celts ; but they were obliged tc promise that they would no longer send armed bands be^- yond their bounds — a step which put an end to the dis graceful payments of tribute which many of the towns of Asia Minor made to them. Rome thus conferred on the Asiatic Greeks a real benefit, which they did not fail to re- pay with golden chaplets and transcendental panegyrics. In the western portion of Asia Minor the regulation of The free ^he territorial arrangements was not without Greek cities, difficulty, especially as the dynastic policy of Eumenes there came into collision with that of the Greek Hansa. At last an understanding was arrived at to the following effect. All the Greek cities, which were free and had joined the Romans on the day of the battle of Mag- nesia, had their liberties confirmed, and all of them, except- ing those previously tributary to Eumenes, were relieved from the payment of tribute to the different dynasts for the future. In this way the towns of Dardanus and Ilium, whose ancient affinity with the Romans was traced to the times of Aeneas, became free, along with Cyme, Smyrna, Clazomenae, Erythrae, Chios, Colophon, Miletus, and other names of old renown. Phocaea also, which in spite of its capitulation had been plundered by the soldiers of the Ro- man fleet — although it did not fall under the category desig- nated in the treaty — received back by way of compensation its territory and its freedom. Most of the cities of the Graeco- Asiatic Hansa acquired additions of territory and other advantages. Rhodes of course received most con- sideration ; it obtained Lycia exclusive of Telmissus, and the greater part of Caria south of the Maeander ; besides, Antiochus guaranteed the property and the claims of the Rhodians within his kingdom, as well as the exen-ption from customs-dues which they had hitherto enjoyed. All the rest, forming by far the largest share of the Extension spoil, fell to the Attalids, whose ancient fidelitj- 326 The War with Antiaohvs of Aau,. [Book iu, dom'of'pT *° Rome, as well as the hardships endured hj gamus. Eumenes in the war and his personal merit in connection with the issue of the decisive battle, were re- warded by Rome as no king ever rewarded his ally. Eu ■fiencs received, in Europe, the Chersonese with Lysi machia ; in Asia — in addition to Mysia which he alreadj possessed — the provinces of Phrygia on the Hellespont, Lydia with Ephesus and Sardes, the northern district of Caria to the Maeander with Tralles and Magnesia, Great Phrygia and Lycaonia along with a portion of Cilicia, the district of Milyas between Phrygia and Lycia, and, as a port on the southern sea, the Lyeian town Telmissus, There was a dispute afterwards between Eumenes and Antiochus regarding Pamphylia, whether it lay on this side of or beyond the Taurus, and whether accordingly it be- longed to the former or to the latter. He further acquired the protectorate over, and the right of receiving tribute from, those Greek cities which did not receive absolute freedom ; but it was stipulated in this case that the cities should retain their charters, and that the tribute should not be heightened. Moreover, Antiochus had to bind himself to pay to Eumenes the 350 talents (£85,000) which he owed to his father Attains, and likewise to pay a compensa- tion of 127 talents (£31,000) for arrears in the supplies of corn. Lastly, Eumenes obtained the royal forests and the elephants delivered up by Antiochus, but not the ships of war, which were burnt : the Romans tolerated no naval power by the side of their own. By these means the king- dom of the Attalids became in the east of Europe and Asia what Numidia was in Africa, a powerful state with an abso- lute constitution dependent on Rome, destined and able to keep in check both Macedonia and Syria without needing, except in extraordinary ctses, Roman support. With this creation dictated by policy the Romans had as far as possi- ble combined the liberation of the Asiatic Greeks, which was dictated by republican and national sympathy and by vanity. About the affairs of the mere remote East beyond the Taurus and Halys they were firmly resolved to giv« Chap IX.] The War with Antiochus of Asia. 327 themselves no concern. This is clearly shown by the terms of the peace with Antiochus, and still more decidedly by the peremptory refusal of the senate to guarantee to the town of Soli in Cilicia the freedom which the Rhodians re- quested for it. With equal fidelity they adnered to the fixed principle of acquiring no direct transmarine posses- sions. After the Roman fleet had made an expedition to Crete and had accomplished the release of the Romans sold thither into slavery, the fleet and land army left Asia tow- ards the end of the summer of 566 ; on which occasion the land army, which again marched through Thrace, in consequence of the negligence of the general suffered greatly on the route from the attacks of the barbarians. The Romans brought nothing home from the East but honour and gold, which were even at this period usually conjoined in the practical shape assumed by the address of thanks — the golden chaplet. European Greece also had been agitated by this Asiatic Battlement 'Vfa.T, and needed re-organization. The Aetolians, of Greece. ^Jjq jjg^^ jjq^ ygj learned to reconcile themselves to their insignificance, had, after the armistice concluded with Scipio in the spring of 564, rendered inter- Conflicts course between Greece and Italy difficult and with^tiw ^ unsafe by means of their Cephallenian corsairs ; Aeto US. ^^^^ ^^^ ^^^y go, but even perhaps while the armistice yet lasted, they, deceived by false reports as to the state of things in Asia, had the folly to place Amynan- der once more on his Athamanian throne, and to carry on a desultory warfare with Philip in the districts occupied by him on the borders of Aetolia and Thessaly, in the course of which Philip suffered several discomfitures. After this, as a matter of course, Rome replied to their request for peace by the landing of the consul Marcus Fulvius Nobilior. He arrived among the legions in the spring of ■ 565, and after fifteen days' siege gained posses- sion of Ambracia by a capitulation honourable for the garrison ; while simultaneously the Macedonians, lllyrians, Epirots, Acarnanians, and Achaeans fell upon the Aetolians 328 The War with Antiochus of Asia. [Book Ii4 There m as no such thing as resistance in the strict sense ; after repeated entreaties of the Aetolians for peace the Ro- mans at length desisted from the war, and granted condi tions which must be reckoned reasonable when viewed with reference to such pitiful and malicious opponents. The Aetolians lost all cities and territories which were in the hands of their adversaries, more especially Arabracia which afterwards became free and independent in consequence of a'j intrigue concocted in Rome against Marcus Fulvius, and Oenia[dae] which was given to the Acarnanians ; they like- wise ceded Cephallenia. They lost the right of making peace and war, and were in that respect dependent on the foreign relations of Rome. Lastly, they paid a large sum of money. Cephallenia opposed this treaty on its own account, and only submitted when Marcus Fulvius landed on the island. In fact, the inhabitants of Same, who feared that they would be dispossessed from their well-situated town by a Roman colony, revolted after their first sub- mission and sustained a four months' siege ; the town, how- ever, was finally taken and the whole inhabitants were sold into slavery. In this case also Rome adhered to the principle of con- fining herself to Italy and the Italian islands. She took no portion of the spoil for herself, ex- cept the two islands of Cephallenia and Zacynthus, which formed a desirable supplement to the possession of Corcyra and other naval stations in the Adriatic. The rest of the territorial gain went to the allies of Rome. But the two most important of these, Philip and the Achaeans, were by no means content with the share of the spoil granted to them. Philip felt himself aggrieved, and not without rea- son. He could safely affirm that the chief difficulties in the last war — difficulties which arose not from the character of the enemy, but from the distance and the uncertainty of the communications — had been overcome mainly by his loyal aid. The senate recognized this by remitting his arrears of tribute and sending back his hostages ; but he did not receive those additions to his territory which he expected Chap. IX.] The War with Antioohus of Asia, 329 He got the territory of t'.e Mag:ietes, with Demetrias ■which he had taken from the Aetolians ; besides, there practically remained in his hands the districts of Dolopia and Athamania and a part of Thessaly, from which also the Aetolians had been expelled by him. In Thrace the interior remained under Macedonian protection, but nothing was fixed as to the coast towns and the islands of Thasos and Lemnos which were de facto in Philip's hands, while the Chersonese was even expressly given to Eumenes ; and it was not difficult to see that Eumenes received possessions in Europe, simply that he might in case of need keep not only Asia but Macedonia in check. The exasperation of the proud and in many respects chivalrous Icing was natural ; it was not chicane, however, but an unavoidable political necessity that induced the Romans to take this course. Macedonia suffered for having once been a power of the first rank, and for having waged war on equal terms with Rome ; there was much better reason in her case than in that of Carthage for guarding against the revival of her former attitude of power. It was otherwise with the Achaeans. They had, in the The course of the war with Antiochus, gratified their AohaeanB. \cing cherished wish to include the whole Pelo- ponnesus within their confederacy ; for first Sparta, and then, after the expulsion of the Asiatics from Greece, Ells and Messene also had more or less reluctantly joined it. The Romans had allowed this to take place, and had even tolerated the intentional disregard of Rome which marked their proceedings. When Messene declared that she wished to submit to the Romans but not to enter the confederacy, and the latter thereupon employed force, Flamininus had not failed to remind the Achaeans that such separate arrangements as to the disposal of a part of the spoil were in themselves unjust, and were, in the relation in which the Achaeans stood to the Romans, more than unseemly ; and yet in his very impolitic complaisance towards the Hellenes he had substantially al-lowed the Achaeans their will. But the matter did not end there. The Achaeans, tormented 330 The War with Anhochus of Asia. [Book hi by their dwarfish thirst for aggrandizement, would not re- lax their hold on the town of Pleuron in Aetolia which they had occupied during the war, but compelled it to be- come a member of their league ; they bought Zacynthus from Amynander the lieutenant of the last possessor, and would gladly have acquired Aegina also. It was with reluctance that they gave up the former island to Eome, and they heard with great displeasure the good advice of Flamininus that they should content themselves with their Peloponnesus. The Aohaeans believed it their duty to display the inde- pendence of their state all the more, the less Achaean they really had ; they talked of the rights of patriots. ^^j.^ g^^ ^^ ^jj^ faithful aid of the Achaeans in the wars of the Komans ; they asked the Eoman envoys at the Achaean diet why Rome should concern herself about Messene when Achaia put no questions as to Capua ; and the spirited patriot, who had thus spoken, was applauded and was sure of votes at the elections. All this would have been very right and very dignified, had it not been much more ridiculous. There was a profound justice and a still more profound melancholy in the fact, that Rome, however earnestly she endeavoured to establish the freedom and to earn the thanks of the Hellenes, yet gave them noth- ing but anarchy and reaped nothing but ingratitude. Un- doubtedly very generous sentiments lay at the bottom of the Hellenic antipathy to the protecting power, and the personal bravery of some of the men who took the lead in the movement was unquestionable ; but this Achaean patriotism remained not the less a folly and a genuine his- torical caricature. With all that ambition and all that national susceptibility the whole nation was, from the high- est to the lowest, pervaded by the most thorough sense of impotence, Every one was constantly listening to learn the sentiments of Rome, the liberal man no less than the servile ; they thanked heaven, when the dreaded decree was not issued ; they were sulky, when the senate gave them tc understand that they would do well to yield voluotarily is Chap. IX.] The Wo/r with Antiochus of Asm. 331 order that they might not need to be compelled ; they did what they were obliged to do, if possible, in a way offen- sive to the Romans, " to save forms ; " they reported, ex plained, delayed, equivocated, and when all this would no longer avail yielded with a patriotic sigh. Their proceed- ings might have claimed indulgence at any rate, if not aj> proval, had their leaders been resolved to fight, and had they preferred the destruction of the nation to its bondage ; but neither Philopoemen nor Lycortas thought of any such political suicide — they wished, if possible, to be free, but they wished above all to live. Besides all this, the dreaded intervention of Rome in the internal affairs of Greece was not the arbitrary act of the Romans, but was always in- voked by the Greeks themselves, who, like boys, brought down on their own heads the rod which they feared. The reproach repeated ad nauseam by the mass of the learned in Hellenic and post-Hellenic times — that the Romans strove to stir up internal discord in Greece — is one of the most foolish absurdities which scholars dealing in politics have ever invented. It was not the Romans that carried strife to Greece — which in truth would have been " carry- ing owls to Athens " — but the Greeks that carried their dis- sensions to Rome. The Achaeans in particular, who, in their eagerness to enlarge their territory, totally failed to see how QnarrelB be- ti i j tween the much it would have been for their own good and Spar- that Flamininus had not incorporated the towns of Aetolian sympathies with their league, ac- quired in Lacedaemon and Messene a very hydra of intes- tine strife. Members of these communities were incessantly at Rome, entreating and beseeching to be released from the odious connection ; and amongst them, characteristically enough, were even those who were indebted to the Achaeans for their return to their native land. The Achaean league was incessantly occupied in the woi-k of reformation and restoration at Sparta and Messene ; the wildest refugees from these quarters dictated the measures of the diet Four years after the nominal admission of Sparta to the 332 The War with Antiochvs of Asia. [Book IE confederacy matters came to an open war and to an in- sanely thorough restoration, in which all the slaves on whom Nabis had conferred citizenship were once more sold into slavery, and a colonnade was built from the proceeds in the Achaean city of Megalopolis ; the old state of prop orty in Sparta was re-established, the laws of Lycurgus were superseded by Achaean laws, and the walls wera pulled down (566). At last the Roman senate was summoned by all parties to arbitrate in reference to the whole matter — an annoying task, which was the'righteous punishment of the sentimental policy that the senate had pursued. Far from mixing itself up too much in these affairs, the senate not only bore the sarcasms of Achaean conceit with exemplary composure, but even mani- fested a culpable indifference while the worst outrages were committed. There was cordial rejoicing in Achaia when, after that restoration, the news arrived from Rome that the senate had found fault with it, but had not annulled it. Nothing was done for the Lacedaemonians by Rome, except that the senate, shocked at the judicial murder of from sixty to eighty Spartans committed by the Achaeans, deprived the diet of criminal jurisdiction over the Spartans — truly a heinous interference with the internal affairs of an inde- pendent state ! The Roman statesmen gave themselves as little concern as possible about this tempest in a nut-shell, as is best shown by the many complaints regarding the superficial, contradictory, and obscure decisions of the sen- ate ; in fact, how could its decisions be expected to be clear, when there were four parties from Sparta simultaneously speaking against each other at its bar ? Then the personal impression, which most of these Peloponnesian statesmen produced in Rome, was not favourable ; even Flamir.inus shook, his head, when one of them showed him on the one day how to perform some dance, and on the next enter- tained him with affairs of state. Matters went so far, that the senate at last lost patience and informed the Pelopon- nesians that it could no longer listen to them, and that they 162. night do what they uhose (572). This w&s Chap IX.] The War with Aniiookus of Asia. 333 natural enough, to be sure, but it was not right ; situated as the Romans were, they were under a moral and political obligation earnestly and consistently to rectify this melan- choly state of things. Callicrates the Achaean, who went to the senate in 575 to enlighten it as to the 179. state of matters in the Peloponnesus and to de- maud a consistent and sustained intervention, may have had somewhat less worth as a man than his countryman Philopoemen who was the main founder of that patriotic policy ; but he was in the right. Thus the protectorate of the Roman community now Death of embraced all the states from the eastern to the Haimibai. western end of the Mediterranean. There no- where existed a state that the Romans would have deemed it worth while to fear. But there still lived a man to whom Rome accorded this rare honour — the homeless Cartha- ginian, who had raised in arms against Rome first all the West and then all the East, and whose schemes had buen frustrated solely perhaps by infamous aristocratic policy in the one case, and by stupid coui't policy in the other. An- tiochus had been obliged to bind himself in the treaty of peace to deliver up Hannibal ; but the latter had escaped. first to Crete, then to Bithynia,* and now lived at the court of Prusias king of Bithynia, employed in aiding the latter in his wars with Eurnenes, and victorious as ever by sea and by land. It is affirmed that he was desirous of stirring up Prusias also to make war on Rome; a folly, which, as it is told, sounds very far from credible. It is more cer- tain that, while the Roman senate deemed it beneath its dignity to have the old man hunted out in his last asylum —for the tradition which inculpates the senate appears to deserve no credit — Flamininus, whose restless vanity sought fcfler new opportunities for great achievements, undertook * The story that he went to Armenia and at the request pf king Artaiiaa built the town of Artaxata on the Araxes (Strabo, xi. p. 528 ; Plutarch, Xmc. 31), is certainly a fiction ; but it is u striking circum- stance that Hanuibal should have become mixed up, almost like Alex ander, witt Oriental fables. 334 The War with Antiochus of Asia. inooic rii on his own part to deliver Rome from ITaniiiVial as he, had delivered the Greeks from their chains, and, if not to wielc — which was not diplomatic — at any rate to whet and tc point, the dagger against the greatest man of his time Prusias, the most pitiful among the pitiful princes of Asia, was delighted to grant the little favour which the Roman envoy in ambiguous terms requested ; and, when Hannibal saw his house beset by assassins, he took poison. He had long been prepared to do so, adds a Roman, for he know the Romans and the faith of kings. The year of his death is uncertain ; probably he died in the latter half of the year 571, at the age of sixty-seven. When«he was born, Rome was contending with doubtful success for the possession of Sicily ; he had lived long enough to see the West wholly subdued, and to fight hia own last battle with the Romans against the vessels of his native city which had itself become Roman ; and he was constrained at last to remain a mere spectator while Rome overpowered the East as the tempest overpowers the ship that has no one at the helm, and to feel that he alone was the pilot that could have weathered the storm. There was left to him no further hope to be disappointed, when he died ; but he had honestly, through fifty years of struggle, kept the oath which he had sworn when a boy. About the same time, probably in the same year, died Death of ^^^ ^^^ ''^^'^ whom the Romans were wont to scipio. ^i jjjg conqueror, Publius Scipio. On him fortune had lavished all the successes which she denied to his antagonist — successes which did belong to him, and suc- cesses which did not. He had added to the empire Spain, Africa, and Asia ; and Rome, which he had found merely the first community of Italy, was at his death mistress of the civilized world. He himself had so many titles of vio- tory, that some of them were made over to his brother and his cousin.* And yet he too spent his last years in bitter vexation, and died when little more than fifty years of age * Africanus, Asiagenus, Hispallas, Chap. IX.] The War with Aniiochus of Asia. 33£ in voluntary banishment, leaving orders to his relatives not to bury his remains in the city for which he had lived and in which his ancestors reposed. It is not exactly known what drove him from the city. The charges of corruption and embezzlement, which were directed against him and still more against his brother Lucius, were beyond doul>t empty calumnies, which do not satisfactorily account for such irritation of feeling ; although it was characteristic of the man, that instead of simply vindicating himself by means of his account-books, he tore them in pieces in pres- ence of the people and of his accusers, and summoned the Romans to accompany him to the temple of Jupiter and to celebrate the anniversary of his victory at Zama. The people left the accusers on the spot, and followed Scipio to the Capitol ; but this was the last glorious day of that illustrious man. His proud spirit, his belief that he was different from,' and better than, other men, his very decided family-policy, which in the person of his brother Lucius especially brought forward a clumsy man of straw as a hero, gave offence to many, and not without reason. While genuine pride protects the heart, ari-ogance lays it open to every blow and every sarcasm, and corrodes even an origi- nally noble-minded spirit. It is throughout, moreover, the distinguishing characteristic of such natures as that of Scipio — strange mixtures of genuine gold and glittering tinsel — that they need the good fortune and the brilliance of youth in order to exercise their charm, and, when this chaim begins to fade, it is the charmer himself that is most painfully conscious of the change. CHAPTER X. THE THIRD MACEDONIAN WAR. Phimp of Macedonia was greatly annoyed by the treat- Dis6«ti8&c- ment which he met with from the Romans after PMu" with ^^^ peace with Antiochus ; and the subsequent Rome. course of events was not fitted to appease his wrath. His neighbours in Greece and Thrace, mostly com- munities that had once trembled at the Macedonian name not less than now they trembled at the Roman, made it their business, as was natural, to retaliate on the fallen great power for all the injuries whkjh since the times of Philip the Second they had received at the hands of Macedonia. The empty arrogance and venal anti-Macedonian patriotism of the Hellenes of this period found vent at the diets of the different confederacies and in ceaseless complaints addressed to the Roman senate. Philip had been allowed by the Ro- mans to retain what he had taken from the Aetolians ; but in Thessaly the confederacy of the Magnetes alone had formally joined the Aetolians, while those towns which Philip had wrested from the Aetolians in two of the other Thessalian confederacies — the Thessalian in its narrower sense, and the Perrhaebian — were demanded back by the latter on the ground that Philip had only liberated these towns, not conquered them. The Athamanes conceived that they might request their freedom ; and Eumenes demanded the maritime cities which Antiochus had possessed in Thrace prr/per, especially Aenus and Maronea, although in the peace with Antiochus the Thracian Chersor.ese alone had be(!n expressly promised to him. All these complaints and numerous minor ones from all the neighbours of Philip as to his supporting king Prusias against Eumenes, as to com- petition in trade, as to the violation of contracts and the Chap. X.] The Third Macedonian War. 337 seizing of cattle, were poured forth at Rome. The king of Macedonia had to submit to be accused by the sovereign rabble before the Roman senate, and to accept justice or injustice as the senate chose; he was compelled to witness judgment constantly going against him ; he had to submit to withdraw his garrisons from the Thracian coast and from the Thessalian and Perrhaebian to\\'ns, and courteously to receive the Roman commissioners, who came to see whether evei'ything required had been properly done. The Romans were not so indignant against Philip as they had been against Carthage ; in fact, they were in many respects even favourably disposed to the Macedonian ruler ; there was not in his case so reckless a violation of forms as in that of Libya; but the situation of Macedonia was at bottom sub- stantially the same as that of Carthage. Philip, however, was by no means the man to submit to this infliction with Phoenician patience. Passionate as he was, he had after his defeat been more indignant with his fiiithless ally than with his honourable antagonist ; and, long accustomed to pursue a policy not Macedonian but personal, he had regarded the war with Antiochus simply as an excellent oppoj-tunity of instantaneously revenging Iiiuiself on the ally who had dis- gracefully deserted and betrayed him. This object he had attained ; but the Romans, who saw very clearly that the Macedonian was influenced not by friendship for Rome, but by enmity to Antiochus, and who were by no means in the habit of regulating their policy by such feelings of liking and disliking, had carefully abstained from bestowing any material advantages on Philip, and had preferred to confer their favours on the Attalids. From their first elevation the Attalids had been at vehement feud with Macedonia, and were politically and personally the objects of Philip's bitterest hatred ; of all the Eastern powers they had con- tribute^ most to maim Macedonia and Syria, and to extend the protectorate of Rome in the East ; and in the last war, when Philip had voluntarily and loyally embraced the side of Rome, they had been obliged to take part with Rome for the sake of their very existence. The Romans had Vol. 11—15 338 Tlie Third Maadonian War. [Book hi made use of these Attalids for the purpose of reconstructing in all essential points the kingdom of Lysimachus — the destruction of which had been the most important achieve- ment of the Macedonian rulers after Alexander — and of placing alongside of Macedonia a state, which was its equal in point of power and was at the same time a client of Rome. In the special circumstances a wise sovereign, de- voted to the interests of his people, would perhaps have resolved not to resume the unequal struggle with Romej but Philip, in w hose character the sense of honour was the most powerful of all noble, and the thirst for revenge the most potent of all ignoble, motives, was deaf to the voice of timidity or of resignation, and nourished in the depths of his heart a determination once more to try the hazard of the game. When he received the report of fresh invectives, such as were wont to be launched against Macedonia at the Thessalian diets, he replied with the line of Theocritus, that his last sun had not yet set.* Philip displayed in the preparation and the concealment of his designs a calmness, earnestness, and per- The latter *,.,,,, , , . , , yeai-sof severance which, had he shown them in better ^' times, would perhaps have given a different turn to the destinies of the world. In particular the submissive- ness towards Rome, by which he purchased the time indis- pensable for his objects, formed a severe trial for the fierce and haughty man ; nevertheless he courageously endured it, although his subjects and the innocent occasions of the quar- rel, such as the unfortunate Maronea, paid severely for the suppression of his resentment. It seemed as if war could not but break out as early as 571 ; but by Phi- lip's instructions, his younger son, Demetrius, effected a reconciliation between his father and Rome, where he had lived some years as a hostage and was a great favour- ite. The senate, and particularly Flamininus who managed Greek affairs, sought to form a Roman party in Macedonia that would be able to paralyze the exertions of Philipi Chap X.] The Third Macedonicm War. 339 which of course were not unknown to the Romans ; and had selected as its head, and perhaps as the future king of Mace- donia, the younger prince who was passionately attached to Rome. With this view they gave it clearly to be under- stood that the senate forgave the father for the sake of the son ; the natural eflfect of which was, that dissensions arose in the royal household itself, and that the king's elder son, Perseus, who, although the offspring of a marriage of dis- paragement, was destined by his father for the succession, sought to ruin his brother as his future rival. It does not appear that Demetrius was a party to the Roman intrigues ; it was only when he was falsely suspected that he was forced to become guilty, and even then he intended, apparently, nothing more than flight to Rome. But Perseus took care that his father should be duly informed of this design ; an intercepted letter from Flamininus to Demetrius did the rest, and induced the father to give orders that his son should be put to death. Philip learned, when it was too late, the intrigues which Perseus had concocted ; and death overtook him, as he was meditating the punishment of the fratricide and his exclusion from the throne. He died in 575 at Demetrias, in his fifty-ninth year. He left behind him a shattered kingdom and a distracted household, and with a broken heart confessed to himself that all his toils and all his crimes had been in vain. His son Perseus then entered on the government, with- KinePer- o"* encountering opposition either in Macedonia BeuB. Qj. JQ jjje Roman senate. He was a man of stately aspect, expert in all gjmnastic exercises, reared in the camp and accustomed to command, imperious like his father and unscrupulous in the choice of his means. Wine and women, which too often led Philip to forget the duties of government, had no charm for Perseus ; he was as steady and persevering as his father had been thoughtless and im- pulsive. Philip, a king while still a boy, and attended by success during the first twenty years of his reign, had been spoiled and ruined by destiny ; Perseus ascended the throne in his thirty-first year, and, as he had while yet a boy borne 34:0 The Third Macedonian War. [Book in a part in the unhappy war with Rome and had grown uf under the pressure of humiliation and under the idea that a revival of the state was at hand, so he inherited along with the kingdom the troubles, resentments, and hopes of his fatlier. In fact he entered with the utmost determination on the continuance of his father's work, and prepared more iealously than ever for war against Rome ; he was stimu- lated, moreover, by the reflection, that he was by no means indebted to the goodwill of the Romans for his wearing the diadem of Macedonia. The proud Macedonian nation look- ed with pride upon the prince whom they had been accus- tomed to see marching and fighting at the head of their youth ; his countrymen, and many Hellenes of every varie- ty of lineage, conceived that in him they had found the proper general for the impending war of liberation. But he was not what he seemed. He wanted Philip's genius and Philip's elasticity, — those truly royal qualities, which success obscured and tarnished, but which under the purify- ing power of adversity recovered their lustre. Philip was self-indulgent, and allowed things to take their course ; but. when there was occasion, he found within himself the vigour necessary for speedy and earnest action. Perseus devised comprehensive and subtle plans, and prosecuted them with unwearied perseverance ; but, when the moment arrived for action and his plans and preparations confronted him in stern reality, he was frightened at his own work. As is the wont of narrow minds, the means became to him the end ; he heaped up treasures on treasures for war with the Romans, and, when the Romans were in the land, he was unable to part with his golden pieces. It is a significant in- dication of character that after defeat the father first has- tened to destroy the papers in his cabinet that might com- promise him, whereas the son took his treasure-chests and embarked. In ordinary times he might have made an average king, as good as or better than many others ; but he was not adapted for the conduct of an enterprise, which Was from the first a hopeless one unless some e.xtruordinary man should become the soul of the movement. Chap. X.] The Third Macedonian War. 341 The power of Macedonia was far from inconsiderable, Eesources of The devotion of the land to the house of the Macedonia. Antigonids Was unimpaired ; in this one respect the national feeling was not paralyzed by the dissensions of political parties. A monarchical constitution has the great advantage, that every change of sovereign supersedes old resentments and quarrels and introduces a new era of differ- ent men and fresh hopes. The king had judiciously availed himself of this, and had begun his reign with a general amnesty, with the recall of fugitive bankrupts, and with the remission of arrears of taxes. The hateful severity of the father thus not only yielded benefit, but conciliated aflection, to the son. Twenty -six years of peace had partly of them- selves filled up the blanks in the Macedonian population, partly given opportunity to the government to take serious steps towards rectifying this which was really the weak point of the land. Philip urged the Macedonians to marry and raise up children ; he occupied the coast towns, whose inhabitants he carried into the interior, with Thracian colo- nists of reliable valour and fidelity. He formed a barrier on the north to check once for all the desolating incursions of the Dardani, by converting the space intervening between the Macedonian frontier and the barbarian territory into a desert, and by founding new towns in the northern prov- inces. In short he took step by step the same course in Macedonia, as Augustus afterwards took when he laid afresh the foundations ?f the Eoman empire. The army was numerous — 30,000 men without reckoning contingents and hired troops — and the younger men were well exercised in the constant border warfare with the Thracian barbarians. It is strange that Philip did not try, like Hannibal, to organize his army after the Roman fashion ; but we can understand it when we recollect the value which the Mace- donians set upon their phalanx, often conquered, but still believed to be invincible. Through the new sources of reve- nue which Philip had created in mines, customs, and tenths, and through the flourishing state of agriculture and com- merce, he had succeeded ii replenishing his treasury grana 342 The Third Macedonian War. [Book hi ries, and arsenals. When the war began, tnere was in the Macedonian treasury money enough to pay the existing army and 10,000 hired troops for ten years, and there were in the public magazines stores of grain for as long a period (18,000,000 medimni or 27,000,000 bushels), and arms for an army of three times the strength of the existing one. In fact, Macedonia had become a very different state from what it was when surprised by the outbreak of the second war with Rome. The power of the kingdom was in all respects at least doubled : with a power in every point of view far inferior Hannibal had been able to shake Rome to its foun dations. Its external relations were not in so favourable a posi- Attomptcd tion. The nature of the case required that S'Sat" Macedonia should now take up the plans of Rome. Hannibal and Antiochus, and should try to place herself at the head of a coalition of all oppressed states against the supremacy of Rome ; and certainly threads of intrigue ramified in all directions from the court of Pydna. But their success was slight. It was indeed asserted that the allegiance of the Italians was wavering ; but neither friend nor foe could fail to see that an imniediate resump- tion of the Samnite wars was not at all probable. The noc- turnal conferences likewise between Macedonian deputies and the Carthaginian senate, which Massinissa denounced at Rome, could occasion no alarm to serious and sagacious men, even if they were not, as is very possible, an utter fiction. The Macedonian court sought to attach the kings of Syria and Bithynia to its interests by intermarriages ; but nothing further came of it, except that the immortal simplicity of the diplomacy which seeks to gain political ends by matrimonial means once more exposed itself to derision. Eumenes, whom it would have been ridiculous to attempt to gain, the agents of Perseus would have gladly put out of the way : he was to have been murdered at Delphi on his way homeward from Rome, where he had been active against Macedonia; but the dastardly project miscarried. Chap. X.] The Third Macedonian ^Var. 343 Of greater moment were the efforts made to stir up the northern barbarians and the Hellenes to rebel- lion against Rome. Philip had conceived the project of crushing the old enemies of Macedonia, the Dar 3ani in what is now Servia, by means of another still more barbarous horde of Germanic descent brought from the left bank of the Danube, the Bastarnae, and of then marching in person with these and with the whole avalanche of peo- ples thus set in motion by the land route to Italy and in- vading Lombardy, the Alpine passes leading to which he had already sent spies to reconnoitre — a grand project, worthy of Hannibal, and doubtless immediately suggested by Hannibal's passage of the Alps. It is more than proba- ble that this gave occasion to the founding of the Roman fortress of Aquileia (p. 233), which was formed towards the end of the reign of Philip (573), and did not harmonize with the system followed elsewhere by the Romans ia the establishment of fortresses in Italy. The plan, however, was thwarted by the desperate resist- ance of the Dardani and of the adjoining tribes concerned ; the Bastarnae were obliged to retreat, and the whole horde were drowned in returning home by the giving way of the ice on the Danube. The king then sought at Gonthius. , , , . ,. , . , , . - . least to extend his clientship among the chiertams of the Illyrian land, the modern Dalmatia and northern Albania. One of these who faithfully adhered to Rome, Arthetaurus, perished, not without the cognizance of Per- seus, by the hand of an assassin. The most considerable of the whole, Genthius the son and heir of Pleuratus, was, like his father, nominally in alliance with Rome ; but the am bassadors of Issa, a Greek town on one of the Dalmatian islands, informed the senate, that Perseus had a secret un- derstanding with the young, weak, and drunken prince, and that the envoys of Genthius served as spies for Perseus in Rome. In the regions on the east of Macedonia towards the lower Danube the most powerful of the Thra- oian chieftains, the brave and sagacious Cotya, 344 The Third Macedonian War. [Book lU prince of tlie Odrysians and ruler of all eastern Thrace from the Macedonian frontier on the Hebrus (Maritza) down to the fringe of coast covered with Greek towns, was in the closest alliance with Perseus. Of the other nniior chiefs who in that quarter took part with Rome, one, Abru- polis prince of the Sagaei, was, in consequence of a preda- tory expedition directed against Amphipolis on the Strj' mon, defeated by Perseus and driven out of the country. From these regions Philip had drawn numerous colonists, and mercenaries were to be had there at any time and in any number. Among the unhappy nation of the Hellenes Philip and Greek na- Perseus had, long before declaring war against tionai party. Rome, Carried on a double system of proselyt- izing, attempting to gain over to the side of Macedonia on the one hand the national, and on the other — if we may be permitted the expression — the communistic party. As a matter of course, the whole national party among the Asiatic as well as the European Greeks was now favourable at heart to Macedonia ; not on account of isolated unrighteous acts on the part of the Roman deliverers, but because the restoration of Hellenic nationality by a foreign power in- volved a contradiction in terms, and now, when it was in truth too late, every one perceived that the most detestable form of Macedonian rule was less fraught with evil for Greece than a free constitution originating in the noblest intentions of honourable foreigners. That the most able and upright men throughout Greece should be opposed to Rome was to be expected ; the venal aristocracy alone was favourable to the Romans, and here and there an isolated man of worth, who, unlike the great majority, was under no delusion as to the circumstances and the future of the nation. This was most painfully experienced by Eumenes of Pergamus, who was the main supporter of that extra- neous liberty among the Greeks. In vain he treated the cities subject to him with every sort of consideration , in vain he sued for the favour of the communities and diets by fair-sounding words and still better-sounding gold ; h« Chap X.] The Third Macedonian War. 345 learned with pain that his presents were declined, and that all the statues that had formerly been erected to him were broken in pieces and the honorary tablets were melted down, in accordance with a decree of the diet, simulta- neously throughout the Peloponnesus (584). The name of Perseus, again, was on every one's lips ; even the states that formerly were most decidedlj anti- Macedonian, such as the Achaeans, deliberated as to the abolition of the laws directed against Macedonia ; Byzan- tium, although situated within the kingdom of Pergamus sought and obtained protection and a garrison against the Thracians not from Eumenes, but from Perseus, and in like manner Lampsacus on the Hellespont joined the Mace- donian : the powerful and prudent Rhodians escorted the Syrian bride of king Perseus from Antioch with their whole magnificent war-fleet — for the Syrian war-vessels were not allowed to appear in the Aegean — and returned home highly honoured and furnished with rich presents, more especially with wood for ship-building ; commissioners from the Asiatic cities, and consequently subjects of Eumenes, held secret conferences with Macedonian deputies in Samo- thrace. That sending of the Rhodian war-fleet had at least the aspect of a demonstration ; and such, certainly, was the object of king Perseus, when he exhibited himself and all his army before the eyes of the Hellenes under pretext of performing a religious ceremony at Delphi. That the king should appeal to the support of this national partisanship in the impending war was natural and reasonable. But it was wrong in him to take advantage of the fearful economic disorganization of Greece for the purpose of attaching to Macedonia all those who desired a revolution in matters of property and of debt. It is difficult to form any adequate idea of the unparalleled extent to which the commonwealths as well as individuals in European Greece — excepting the Peloponnesus, which was in a somewhat better position in this respect — were involved in debt. Instances occurred of one city attacking and pillaging another merely to get money — the Athenians, for example, thus attacked Oropug Vol. IL— 15* 346 The Third Macedonian War. [Book m — and among the Aetolians, Perrhaebians, and Thessalianj formal battles took place between those that had propertj and those that had none. Under such circumstances the worst outrages were perpetrated as a matter of course ; among the Aetolians, for instance, a general amnesty was proclaimed and a new public peace was made up solely foi the purpose of entrapping and putting to death a number of emigrants. The Romans attempted to mediate; but their envoys returned without success, and announced that both parties were equally bad and that their animosities were not to be restrained. In this case there was, in fact, no other remedy than that of the officer and the executioner ; sentimental Hellenism began to be as repulsive as from the first it had been ridiculous. Yet king Perseus sought to gain the support of this party, if it deserve to be called such — of people who had nothing, and least of all an hon- ourable name, to lose — and not only issued edicts in favour of Macedonian bankrupts, but also caused placards to be put up at Larisa, Delphi, and Delos, which summoned all Greeks that were exiled on account of political or other offences or on account of their debts to come to Macedonia and to expect full restitution of their former honours and estates. As may easily be supposed, they came ; the social revolution smouldering throughout northern Greece now broke out into open flame, and the national-social party there sent to Perseus for help. If Hellenic nationality was to be saved only by such means, the question might well be Bsked, with all respect for Sophocles and Phidias, whether the object was worth the cost. The senate saw that it had delayed too long already, and Biirture ^^^ '^ ^^^ time to put an end to such proceed- Kua '"^' "^S®" ^'^® expulsion of the Thracian chieftain Abrupolis who was in alliance with the Romans, and the alliances of Macedonia with the Byzantines, AetO' Uans, and part of the Boeotian cities, were equally viola- jg^ tions of the peace of 557, and sufficed for the official war-manifesto : the real ground of wai was that Macedonia was seeking to convert her formal sov Chap, x.1 The Third Macedonian War. 341 ereignty into a real one, and to supplant Rome in the pro- tectorate of the Hellenes. As early as 581 the 173 *' Roman envoys at the Achaean diet stated pretty plainly, that an alliance with Perseus was equivalent to casting off the alliance of Rome. In 582 king Eumenes came in person to Rome with a long list of grievances and laid open to the senate the whole situation of affairs ; upon which the senate unexpectedly in a secret sitting resolved on an immediate declaration of war, and furnished the ports of Epirus with garrisons. For the sake of form an embassy was sent to Macedonia, but its message was of such a nature that Perseus, perceiving that he could not recede, replied that he was ready to conclude with Rome a new alliance on really equal terms, but that he looked upon the treaty of 557 as cancelled ; and he bade the envoys leave the kingdom within three days. Thus war was practically declared. This was in the autumn of 582. Perseus, had he 172 wished, might have occupied all Greece and brought the Macedonian party everywhere to the helm, and he might perhaps have crushed the Roman division of 5,000 men stationed under Gnaeus Sioinius at ApoUonia and op- posed the landing of the Romans. But the king, who al- ready began to tremble at the serious aspect of affairs, en- gaged in discussions with the consular Quintus Marcius Philippus, with whom he stood in relations of hospitality, as to the frivolousness of the Roman declaration of war, and allowed himself to be induced in this way to postpone the attack and once more to make an effort for peace with Rome ; to which the senate, as might have been expected, only replied by the dismissal of all Macedonians from Italy - and the embarkation of the legions. Senators of the older school no doubt censured the " new wisdom " of their col league, and his un-Roman artifice ; but the object was gained and the winter passed away without any movemen* on the part of Perseus. The Roman diplomatists made ali the more zealous use of the interval to deprive Perseus of any support in Greece. They were sure of the Achaeans 348 The Third Macedonian War. [Book hi Even the patriotic party among them — who had neithei agreed with those social niovements, nor had manifested aiight more than a longing after a prudent neutrality — had no idea of throwing themselves into the arms of Perseus; and, besides, the opposition party there had now been brought by Roman inlluenLe into power, and attached itself absolutely to Rome. The Aetolian league had doubtless asked aid from Perseus in its internal troubles ; but the new strategus, Lyciscus, chosen under the eyes of the Roman ambassadors, was more of a Roman partisan than the Romans themselves. Among the Thessalians also the Roman party retained the ascendancy. Even the Boeotians, old partisans as they were of Macedonia, and sunk in the utmost financial disorder, had not in their collective capacity declared openly for Perseus ; nevertheless at least two of their cities, Haliartus and Coronea, had of their own accord entered into engagements with him. When on the complaint of the Roman envoy the government of the Boeotian con- federacy communicated to him the position of things, he declared that it would best appear which cities adhered to Rome, and which did not, if they would severally pronounce their decision in his presence ; and thereupon the Boeotian confederacy fell at once to pieces. It is not true that the great structure of Epaminondas was destroyed by the Romans ; it actually collapsed before they touched it, and thus indeed became the prelude to the dissolution of the other still more firmly consolidated leagues of Greek cities.* With the forces of the Boeotian towns friendly to Rome the Roman envoy Publius Lentulus laid siege to Haliartus, even before the Roman fleet appeared in the Aegean. Chalcis was occupied with Achaean, and the province of Prepara- Orcstis with Epirot, forces ; the fortresses of the wa?."^"' Dassargtae and Illyrians on the west frontier of Macedonia were . ccupied by the troops of Gnaeus Sicinius ; and as soon as the navigation was re- * The legal dissolution of the Boeotian confederacy, however, tool place not at this time, but only after the destruction of Corinth (Pausan vii. 14, 4 ; xtI. 6). Ohap. X.] The Third Macedonian War. 349 sumed, Larisa received a garrison of 3,000 men. Peiseut during all this remained inactive and had not a foot's breadth of land beyond his own territory, when in the sprirg, or according to the official calendar in June, of 583, the Roman legions landed on the west 171. ° coast. It is doubtful whether Perseus would Lave found allies of any mark, even had he shown as much energy as he displayed remissness ; but, as circumstances stood, he remained of course completely isolated, and those prolonged attempts at proselytism led, for the time at least, to no result. Carthage, Genthius of lllyria, Rhodes and the free cities of Asia Minor, and even Byzantium hitherto so very friendly with Perseus, offered to the Romans vessels of war ; which they, however, declined. Eumenes put his land army and his ships on a war footing. Ariarathes king of Cappadocia sent hostages, unsolicited, to Rome. The brother-in-law of Perseus, Prusias II. king of Bithynia, remained neutral. No one stirred in all Greece. Antio- chus IV. king of Syria, designated in court style " the God, the brilliant bringer of victory," to distinguish him from his father the " Great," bestirred himself, but only to wrest the Syrian coast during this war from the impotent Egypt. But, though Perseus stood almost alone, he was no con- Eeginning temptible antagonist. His army numbered of tbewiir. 43^000 men ; of these 21,000 were phalangites, and 4,000 Macedonian and Thracian cavalry ; the rest were chiefly mercenaries. The whole force of the Romans in Greece amounted to between 30,000 and 40,000 Italian troops, besides more than 10,000 men belonging to Numid- ian, Ligurian, Greek, Cretan, and especially Pergamene con- tingents. To these vras added the fleet, which numbered only 40 decked vessels, as there was no fleet of the enemy to oppose it — Perseus, who had been prohibited from build- ing ships of war by the treaty with Rome, was just erecting docks at Thessalonica — but it had on board 10,000 troops as it was destined chiefly to co-operate in sieges. The fleet was commanded by Gains Lucretius, the land army by the tonsul Publius Licinuis Crassus. 350 The Third Macedonian TFo?-. [Book iu The consul left a strong division in Illyria to harass ^, „ Macedonia from the west, while with the mair The Komang ' Invade force he started, as usual, from Apollonia foi Thessaly. ' ' '^ Thessaly. Perseus did not think of distuibing iheir arduous march, but contented himself with advancing into Perrhaebia and occupying the nearest fortresses. Ho awaited the enemy at Ossa, and not far from Larisa the conflict took place between the cavalry and light troops on both sides. The Romans were decidedly beaten. Cotys with the Thracian horse had defeated and broken the Italian, and Perseus with his Macedonian horse the Greek, cavalry ; the Romans had 2,000 foot and 200 horsemen killed, and 600 horsemen made prisoners, and naight deem themselves fortunate in being allowed to cross the Peneius without hin- drance. Perseus employed the victory to ask peace on the same terms which Philip had obtained : he was ready even to pay the same sum. The Romans refused his request : they never concluded peace after a defeat, and in this case the conclusion of peace would certainly have been followed by the loss of Greece. The wretched Roman commander, however, knew not _,, , how or where to attack ; the army marched to and unsuc- and fro in Thessaly, without accomplishing any- cessfal man- -r. > i Bgementof thing of importance. Perseus might have as- sumed the offensive; he saw that the Romans were badly led and dilatory ; the news had passed like wild- fire through Greece, that the Greek army had been brilliant- ly victorious in the first engagement ; a second victory might lead to a general rising of the patriot party, and, by com- mencing a guerilla warfare, might produce incalculable results. But Perseus, while a good soldier, was not a gene- ral like his father; he had made preparations for a defensive war, and, when things took a different turn, he felt himself as it were paralyzed. He made an unimportant success, which the Romans obtained in a second cavalry combat neai Phalaima, a pretext for reverting, as is the habit of narrow and obstinate minds, to his first plan and evacuating Thes- saly. This was of course equivalent to renouncing all idea CnAP. X.] The Third Macedonian War. 351 of a Hellenic insurrection : what might have been attained by a different course was shown by the fact that, notwith- standing what had occurred, the Epirots changed sides. Thenceforth nothing serious was accomplished on eithei side. Perseus subdued king Genthius, chastised the Dar- dani, and, by means of Cotys, expelled from Thrace the Thracians friendly to Rome and thePergamene troops. On the other hand the western Roman army took some Illyrian towns, and the consul busied himself in clearing Thessaly of the Macedonian garrisons and making sure of the tur- bulent Aetolians and Acarnanians by occupying Ambracia. But the heroic courage of the Romans was most severely felt by the two unhappy Boeotian towns which took part with Perseus ; Haliartus was captured by the Roman admiral Gaius Lucretius, and the inhabitants were sold into slavery ; Coronea was treated in the same manner by the consul Crassus in spite of its capitulation. Never had a Roman army exhibited such wretched discipline as the force under these commanders. They had so disorganized the army that, even in the next campaign of 584, the new consul Aulus Hostilius could not think of undertaking anything serious, especially as the nevfr admiral Lucius Hortensius showed himself to be as incapa- ble and unprincipled as his predecessor. The fleet visited the towns on the Thracian coast without result. The west- ern army under Appius Claudius, whose head-quarters were at Lychnidus in the territory of the Dassaretae, sustained one defeat after another : after an expedition to Macedonia had been utterly unsuccessful, the king in turn towards the begin- ning of winter assumed the aggressive with the troops which were no longer needed on the south frontier in conse- quence of the deep snow blocking up all the passes, took from Appius numerous places and a multitude of prisoners, and entered into connections with king Genthius ; he was able in fact to attempt an invasion of Aetolia, while Appius allowed Ijimself to be once more defeated in Epirus by the garrison of a fortress which he had vainly besieged. The Roman main army made two attempts to penetrate into 352 The Third Macedonian War. [Book in Macedonia: first, over the Cambunian mountains, and ther through the Thessalian passes ; but they were negligently planned, and both were repulsed by Perseus. " The consul employed himself chiefly in the reorganizac tion of the army — a work which was above all Anuses m ^ tiioanny. things needful, but which required a sterner man and an officer of greater mark. Disohargea and furloughs might be bought, and therefore the divisions were never up to their full numbers ; the men were put into quarters in summer, and, as the officers plundered on a great, the common soldiers plundered on a small, scale. Friendly peoples were subjected to the most shameful .sus- picions : for instance, the blame of the disgraceful defeat at Larisa was imputed to the pretended treachery of the Acto- lian cavalry, and, what was hitherto unprecedented, its officers were sent to be criminally tried at Rome ; and the Molossians in Epirus were forced by false suspicions into actual revolt. The allied states had war-contributions im- posed upon them as if they had been conquered, and if they appealed to the Roman senate, their citizens were (.xecuted or sold into slavery : this was done, for instance, at Abdera, and similar outrages were committed at Chalcis. The sen- ate interfered in earnest: it enjoined the liberat.ni of the unfortunate Coroneans and Abderites, and fa- bade the Roman magistrates to ask contributions from the allies without leave of the senate. Gaius Lucretius A'as unani- mously condemned by the burgesses. But such steps could not alter the fact, that the military result of thtse first two campaigns had been null, while the political result had been a foul stain on the Romans, whose extraordinary successes in the east were based in no small degree on their reputa- tion for moral purity and soundness as compared with the scandals of Hellenic administration. Had Philip com- manded instead of Perseus, the war would probably have begun with the destruction of the Roman army and the defection of most of the Hellenes ; but Rome was fortunate snough to be constantly outstripped in her blunders by hei antagonists. Perseus was content with entrenching hinisel/ Chap. X.] The Th^rd Macedonian War. 353 in Macedonia — which towards the south and west 's a true mountain-fortress — as in a beleaguered town. The third commander-in-chief also, whom Rome sent tc jjg Macedonia in 585, Quintus Marcius Philippus, Maroras en- already mentioned as having honourable relations tsra Mace- *' ^ donia of hospitality with the king, was not at all equal P6SS ~. • to his far from easy task. He was ambitious and enterprising, but a bad officer. His hazardous scheme of crossing Olympus by the pass of Lapathus west- ward of Tempe, leaving behind one division to face the gar- rison of the pass, and making his way with his main force through impracticable defiles to Fleracleum, was not justi- fied by the fact of its success. Not only might a handful of resolute men have blocked up the route, in which case retreat was out of the question ; but even after the passage, when he stood with the Macedonian main force in front and the strongly fortified mountain-fortresses of Tempe and Lapathus behind him, wedged into a narrow plain on the sea-shore and without supplies and the possibility of forag- ing for them, his position was no less desperate than when, in his first consulate, he had allowed himself to be similarly surrounded in the Ligurian defiles which thenceforth bore his name. But as an accident saved him then, so the inca- pacity of Perseus saved him now. As if he could not cors prehend the idea of defending himself against the Romans otherwise than by the blockading of the passes, he strangely gave himself over as lost as soon as he saw the Romans on the Macedonian side of them, fled in all haste to Pydna, and ordered his ships to be burnt and his treasures to be sunk. But even this voluntary retreat of the Macedonian army did not rescue the consul from his painful position. He advanced inieed without hindrance, but he was obliged after four days' march to turn back for want of provisions ; and, when the king came to his senses and returned in all haste to resume the position which he had abandoned, the Roman army would have been in great danger, had not the impreg- nable Tempe surrendered at the right moment and handed over its rich stores to the enemy. The communication witi: 354 The Third Macedonian War. [Book III the south was by this means secured to the Roman army ; but Perseus had strongly barricaded himself in his former well-chosen position on the bank of the little river Elpius, and there checked the farther advance of the Romans. So _,, . the Roman army remained, during the rest of on the the summer and the winter, hemmed in in the Elpius. farthest corner of Thessaly ; and, while the crossing of the passes was certainly a success and the first substantial one in the war, it was due not to the ability of the Roman, but to the blundering of the Macedonian, gen- eral. The Roman fleet in vain attempted the capture of Demetrias, and performed no exploit whatever. The light ships of Perseus boldly cruised between the Cyclades, pro- tected the corn-vessels destined for Macedonia, and attacked the transports of the enemy. With the western army mat- ters were still worse : Appius Claudius could do nothing with his reduced division, and the contingent which he asked from Achaia was prevented from coming to him by the jealousy of the consul. Moreover, Genthius had allowed himself to be bribed by Perseus with the promise of a great sum of money to break with Rome, and to imprison the Roman envoys ; whereupon the frugal king deemed it superfluous to pay the money which he had promised, since Genthius was now forsooth compelled, independently of it, to substitute an attitude of decided hostility to Rome for the ambiguous position which he had hitherto maintained. Accordingly the Romans had a further petty war by the side of the great one, which had already lasted three years. In fact had Perseus been able to part with his money, ho might easily have aroused enemies still more dangerous to the Romans. A Celtic host under Clondicus — 10,000 horse- men and as many infantry — oSered to take service with him in Macedonia itself; but they could not agree as to the pay. In Hellas too there was such a ferment that a guerilla warfare might easily have been kindled with a little dexter- ity and a full exchequer ; but, as Perseus had no desire tc give and the Greeks did nothing gratuitously, the land remained quiet. CiiAP. X.] The Third Macedonian War. 355 At length the Romans resolved to send the right man tc _ ,, Greece. This was Lucius Aemilius PauUus, son of the consul of the same name that fell at Can- nae ; a man of the old nobility but of humble means, and therefore not sq successful in the comitia as on the battle- field, where he had remarkably distinguished himself in Spain and still more so in Liguria. The people elected him for the second time consul in the year 586 on account of his merits — a course which was at that time rare and exceptional. He was in all respects the fitting man : an excellent general of the old school, strict as respected both himself and his troops, and, notwithstanding his sixty years, still hale and vigorous ; an incorruptible magistrate — " one of the few Romans of that age to whom one could not offer money," as a contemporary says of him — and a man of Hellenic culture, who, when commander-in- chief, embraced the opportunity of travelling through Greece to inspect its works of art. As soon as the new general arrived in the camp at Heracleum, he gave orders for the ill-guarded Perseus is ? o o driven back pass at Pythium to be surprised by Publius Nasica, while skirmishes between the outposts occupied the attention of the Macedonians in the channel of the river Elpius ; the enemy was thus turned, and was obliged to retreat to Pydna. There, on the Pydna. Roman 4th of September, 586, or on the 22nd of June of the Julian calendar — an eclipse of the MOon, which a scientific Roman officer announced be- torehand to the army that it might not be regarded as a bad omen, affords in this case the means of determining the date — the outposts accidentally fell into conflict as they were watering their horses after midday ; and- both sides dete''- mined at once to give the battle, which it was originally intended to postpone till the following day. Passing through the ranks in persen, without helmet or shield, the grey headed Roman general arranged his men. Scarce were they in position, when the formidable phalanx assailed them ; the general himself, who had witnessed many a hard fight, aftei 356 The Third Macedonian War. [Book in wards acknowledged that he had tremtled. The Roman vanguard dispersed ; a Paelignian cohort was overthrown and almost annihilated ; the legions themselves hurriedly retreated till they reached a hill close upon the Roman camp. Here the fortune of the day changed. The uneven ground and the hurried pursuit had disordered the ranks of the phalanx ; the Romans in single cohorts entered at every gap, and attacked it on the flanks and in rear ; the Mace donian cavalry which alone could have rendered aid looked calmly on, and soon fled in a body, the king among the foremost ; and thus the fate of Macedonia was decided in less than an hour. The 3,000 select phalangites allowed themselves to be cut down to a man ; as if the phalanx, which fought its last great battle at Pydna, had itself wish- ed to perish there. The overthrow was fearful ; 20,000 Macedonians lay on the field of battle, 11,000 were prison- ers. The war was at an end, on the fifteenth day after Paullus had assumed the command ; all Macedonia submitr ted in two days. The king fled with his gold — he still had more than 6,00'0 talents (£1,460,000) in his chest — to Samo- thrace, accompanied by a few faithful attendants. But he himself put to death one of these, Evander of Crete, who was to be called to account as instigator of the attempted assassination of Eumenes ; and then his pages and remain- ing comrades also deserted him. For a moment he hoped that the right of asylum would protect him ; but he soon perceived that he was clinging to a straw. An attempt to take flight to Cotys failed. So he wrote to the consul ; but the letter was not received, because he had designated him- Poraeus ^^^^ '" ^^ ^^ '^'"g- He recognized his fate, and taken s irrendered to the Romans at discretion with prisoner. his children and his treasures, pusillanimous and weeping so as to disgust even his conquerors. With a grave satisfaction, and with thoughts turning rather on the mutability of fortune than on his own present success, the consul received the most illustrious captive whom Roman general had ever brought home. Perseus died a few years after, as a state prisoner, at Alba on the Fucim Chap.x.] The Third Maoedonian War. 357 lake ; * his son in after years earned a living in the same, Italian country town as a clerk. Thus perished the empire of Alexander the Great, which had subdued and Hellenized the East, 144 years after his death. That the tragedy, moreover, might not be without it? Defeat and accompaniment of farce, at the same time the Q nttf °^ ^^^ against " king " Genthius of Illyria was also begun and ended by the praetor Lucius Anicius within thirty days. The piratical fleet was taken, the capi tal Scodra was captured, and the two kings, the heir of Alexander the Great and the heir of Pleuratus, entered Rome side by side as prisoners. The senate had resolved that the peril, which the unseat Macedonia sonable gentleness of Flamininus had brought broken up. qj-^ j^Qj^e, should not recur. Macedonia was abolished. In the conference at Amphipolis on the Stry- mon the Roman commission ordained that the compact, thoroughly monarchical, and united state should be broken up into four republican federative leagues moulded on the system of the Greek confederacies, viz., that of Amphipolis in the eastern provinces, that of Thessalonica with the Chal- cidian peninsula, that of Pella on the frontiers of Thessaly, and that of Pelagonia in the interior. Intermarriages be- tween persons belonging to different confederacies were to be invalid, and no one might be a freeholder in more than one of them. All who had held office under the king, as well as their grown-up sons, were obliged to leave the coun- try and proceed to Italy on pain of death ; the Romans still dreaded, and with reason, the throbbings of the ancient loyalty. The law of the land and the former constitution otherwise remained in force ; the magistrates were of course nominated by election in each community, and the power in Iho communities as well as in the confederacies was placed in the hands of the upper class. The royal domains and * The Btory, that the Romans, in order at ouce to keep the promise •hich had guaranteed his life and to take Teiigeance on him, put him to death by depriving him of sleep, is certainly a fabla. 358 The Third Macedonian War. [Book hi. royalties were not granted to the confederacies, and these were specially prohibited from worliing the gold and silver mines, a chief source of the national wealth ; but 118 in 596 they were again permitted to work at least the silver-mines.* The importation of salt, and the exportation of timber for ship-building, were prohibited. The land-tax hitherto paid to the king ceased, and the con n^deracies and communities were left to tax themselves ; but these had to pay to Rome half of the former land-tax, according to a rate fixed once for all, amounting in all to 100 talents annually (£24,000).f The whole land was for ever disarmed, and the fortress of Demetrias was razed ; on the northern frontier alone a chain of posts was to be re- tained to guard against the incursions of the barbarians. Of the arms given up, the copper shields were sent to Rome, and the rest were burnt. The Romans gained their object. The Macedonian land still on two occasions took up arms at the call of princes of the old reigning house ; but otherwise from that time to the present day it has remained without a history. Illyria was treated in a similar way. The kingdom of * The statement of Cassiodonis, that the Macedonian mines were reopened in 696, receives its more exact interpretation by means of tlie coins. No gold coins of the four Macedoniaa are extant ; either therefore the gold-mines remained closed, or the gold extracted was converted into bars. On the other hand there certainly exist silver coins of Macedonia prima (AmphipoUs) in which district the silver-mines were situated. For the brief period, during which they 168-146 ™"^' ^^"^ ^'^^" "'''"* (596-608), the number of them is re- markably great, and proves citlier that the mines were very eucrgetically wrought, or that the old royal monny was recoined in larg« quantity. f The statement that the Macedonian commonwealth was "relieped of seignorial imposts and taxes " by the Romans (Polyb. xxxvii. 4) docs not necessarily require us to assume a subsequent remission of these taxes : it is sufficient, for the explanation of Polybius' word,", to asaumf that the hitherto seignorial tax now became a public one. The con- tinuance of the constitution granted to the province of Macedonia bj Paullus down to at least the Augustan age (Liv. xlv. 32 ; Justin, xxxiii, 2), would, it is true, be compatible also with the remission of the taxea Chap, s.] The Third Macedonian War. 359 tUyria Geiithius Was split up into three small frea ro enup states. There too the freeholders paid the half of the former land-tax to their new masters, with the excep- tion of the towns, which had adhered to Rome and in re- turn obtained exemption from the tax — an exception which there was no opportunity to make in the case of Macedonia. rhe Illyrian piratic fleet was confiscated, and presented to the more reputable Greek communities along that coast. The constant annoyances, which the Illyrians inflicted on their neighbours by means of their corsairs, were in this way put an end to, at least for a lengthened period. Cotys in Thrace, who was difficult to be reached and r. t_ might conveniently be used against Eumenes, obtained pardon and received back his captive son. Thus the affairs of the north were settled, and Mace- donia also was at last released from the yoke of monarchy. In fact Greece was more free than ever ; a king no longer existed anywhere. But the Romans did not confine themselves to cutting Humiliation the nerves and sinews of Macedonia. The sen- Greeks in ^^*^ resolved at once to render all the Hellenio general. states, friend and foe, for'ever incapable of harm, and to reduce all of them alike to the same humble state of dependence. The course pursued may itself admit of justi- fication ; but the mode in which it was carried out in the case of the more powerful of the Greek dependent states was unworthy of a great power, and showed that the epoch of the Fabii and the Seipios was at an end. The state most affected by this change in the position of parties was the kingdom of the Attalids, which sued with had been created and fostered by Rome to keep ergamns. Macedonia in check, and which now, after the destruction of Macedonia, was forsooth no longer needed. It was not easy to find a tolerable pretext for depriving the prudent and considerate Eumenes of his privileged position, and allowing him to fall into disgrace. AH at once, about the time when the Romans were encamped at Heraclcum, 360 The Third Macedonian War. [Book in, strange reports were cireulated regarding him — that he was in secret intercourse with Perseus ; that his fleet had been suddenly, as it were, wafted away ; that 500 talents had been offered for his non-participation in the campaign and 1500 for his mediation to procure peace, and that theagre& fnimt had only broken down through the avarice of Perseus. As to the Pergamene fleet, the king, after having paid his respects to the consul, went home with it at the same time tliat the Roman fleet went into winter quarters. The story about corruption was as certainly a fable as any newspaper canard of the present day ; for that the rich, cunning, and consistent Attalid, who had primarily occasioned the breach between Rome and Macedonia by his journey in 582 and had been on that account wellnigh as- sassinated by the banditti of Perseus, should — at the mo- ment when the real difficulties of the war were overcome and its final issue, if ever seriously doubted at all, was doubtful no longer — have sold to the instigator of his mur der his share in the spoil for a few talents, and should have perilled the work of long years for so pitiful a considera- tion, may be set down not merely as a fabrication, but as a very silly one. That no proof was found either in the pa- pers of Perseus or elsewhere, is sufficiently certain ; for even the Romans did not venture to express those suspi- cions aloud. But they gained their object. Their inten- tions were shown in the behaviour of the Roman grandees toward* Attalus, the brother of Eumenes, who had com- manded the Pergamene auxiliary troops in Greece. Their brave and faithful comrade was received in Rome with open arms and invited to ask not for his brother, but for himself — the senate would be glad to give him a kingdom of his r, m\. Attalus asked nothing but Aenus and Maronea. The Benate thought that this was only a preliminary request, and granted it with great politeness. But when he took his departure without having made any further demands, and the senate came to perceive that the reigning family in Per ganius did not live on such terms with each other as were usual in princely houses Aenus and Maronea were declared Ckap. X.] The Third Macedonian War. 361 fi ee cities. The Pergamenes obtained not a single foot o) territory out of the spoil of Macedonia ; if after the victory over Antiochus the Romans had still saved forms as re- spected Philip, they were now disposed to hurt and to humiliate. About this time the senate appears to have de- clared Painphylia, for the possession of which Eumenes and Antiochus had hitherto contended, independent. What was of more importance, the Galatians — who had been substan tially in the power of Eumenes, ever since he had expelled the king of Pontus by force of arms from Galatia and had on making peace extorted from him the promise that he would maintain no further communication with the Galatian princes — now, reckoning beyond doubt on the variance that had taken place between Eumenes and the Romans, if not directly instigated by the latter, rose against Eumenes, overran his kingdom, and brought him into great danger. Eumenes besought the mediation of the Romans ; the Ro- man, envoy declared his readiness to mediate, but thought it '"b^er that Attalus, who commanded the Pergamene army, should not accompany him lest the barbarians might be put in ill humour. Singularly enough, he accomplished noth- ing ; in fact, he told on his return that his mediation had only exasperated the barbarians. No long time elapsed before the independence of the Galatians was expressly recognized and guaranteed by the senate. Eumenes deter- mined to proceed to Rome in person, and to plead his cause in the senate. But the latter, as if troubled by an evil con- science, suddenly decreed that in future no kings should be allowed to come to Rome ; and despatched a quaestor to meet him at Brundisium, to lay before him this decree of the senate, to ask him what he wanted, and to hint to him that they would be glad to hear of his speedy departure. The king was long silent ; at length he said that he desired nothing farther, and re-embarked. He saw how matters stood . the epoch of half-powerful and half-free alliance was at an end ; that of impotent subjection began. Similar treatment befel the Rhodians. They had been HumUiation singularly favoured : their relation to Rome as. Vol. 11—16 362 The Third Macedonian War. [Book III ofEhodes. surned the form not of symmachy properly so called, but of friendship and equality ; they were not pre- vented from entering into alliances of any kind, and they were not compelled to supply the Romans with a contin- gent on demand. This very circumstance was probably the real reason why their good understanding with Rome had already for some time been impaired. The first dissension? with Rome had arisen in consequence of the rising of the Lycians, who were handed over to Rhodes after the defeat of Antiochus, against their oppressors who had (576) cruelly reduced them to slavery as revolt- ed subjects ; the Lycians, however, asserted that they were not subjects but allies of the Rhodians, and prevailed with this plea in the Roman senate, which was invited to settle the doubtful meaning of the instrument of peace. But in this result a justifiable sympathy with the victims of griev- ous oppression had perhaps the chief share ; at least noth- ing further was done on the part of the Romans, who left this as well as other Hellenic quarrels to take their course. When the war with Perseus broke out, the Rhodians, like all other sensible Greeks, viewed it with regret, and blamed Eumenes in particular as the instigator of it, so that his festal embassy was not even permitted to be present at the festival of Helios in Rhodes. But this did not prevent them from adhering to Rome and keeping the Macedonian party, which existed in Rhodes as well as everywhere else, aloof from the helm of affairs. The permission given to them in 585 to export grain from Sicily shows the continuance of the good understanding with Rome. All of a sudden, shortly before the battle of Pydna, Rhodian envoys appeared at the Roman head-quari.ers and in the Roman senate, announcing that the Rhodians would no longer tolerate this war which was injurious to their Macedonian traffic and the revenues of their ports, that they were disposed themselves to declare war against the party which should refuse to make peace, and that with this view they had already noncluded an aJiance with Crete and with the Asiatic cities. Many caprices are possible in a republic X.] The Third Macedonian War. 303 ned by popular assemblies ; but this insane intorven- n the part of a commercial city — which can (inly have resolved on after the fall of the pass of Tempo Wiis \ at Rhodes — requires special explanation. The key s furnished by the well-attested account that the con- luintus Marcius, that master of the " new-fashioned nacy," had in the camp at Heracleum (and therefore the occupation of the pass of Tempe) loaded the Rho- iuvoy Agepolis with civilities and made an underhand St to him to mediate a peace. Republican vanity and iid the rest ; the Rhodians fancied that the Romans bandoned all hope of success ; they were eager to play art of mediator among four gi'eat powers at once ; lunications were entered into with Perseus ; Rhodian s with Macedonian sympathies said more than they 1 have said ; and they were caught. The senate, which less was itself for the most part unaware of such in- ;s, heard the strange announcement with natural indig- 1, and was ^hid of the iavourable opportunity to le the haughty merchant city. A warlike praetor even so far as to propose to the people a declaration ,r against Rhodes. In viiin the Rhodian ambassadors tedly on their knees adjured the senate to think of the ship of a hundred and forty years rather than of the (Fence ; in vain they sent the heads of the Macedonian to the scaffold or to Rome ; in vain they sent a mas- creath of gold in token of their gratitude for the non- ■ation of war. The honourable Cato indeed showed strictly the Rhodians had committed no offence, and whether the Romans were desirous to undertake the iment of wishes and thoughts, and whether they could ! the nations for being apprehensive that Rome might herself all licence if she had no longer any one to His words and warnings were in vain. The senate red the Rhodians of their possessions on the mainland, yielded a yearly produce of 120 talents (£29,000). heavier were the blows aimed at the Rhod.an com- '. The prohibition of the import of salt to, and of 364 The Third Macedonian ^Var. [Book 111 the export of ship-building timbei from, Macedonia appears to have been directed against Rhodes. Ehodian commerce was still more directly affected by the erection of the fre€ port at Delos ; the Rhodian customs-dues, which hitherto had produced 1,000,000 drachmae (£41,000) annually, sank in a very brief period to 150,000 drachmae (£6,180). Generally, the Rhodians were paralyzed in their freedom of action and in their liberal and bold ccmmercial policy, and the state began to languish. Even the alliance asked for was at first refused, and was only renewed in 590 after urgent entreaties. The equally guilty but powerless Cretans escaped with a sharp rebuke. With Syria and Egypt the Romans could go to work more summarily. War had broken out be- tionintiie tween them; and Coelesyria and Palaestina E'OT'i™ formed once more the subject of dispute. Ac- ^'^^' cording to the assertion of the Egyptians, those provinces had been ceded to Egypt on the marriage of the Syrian Cleopatra : this however the court of Babylon, which was in actual possession, disputed. Apparently the charging of her dowry on the taxes of the Coelesyrian cities gave occasion to the quarrel, and the Syrian side was in the right ; the breaking out of the war was occasioned by the death of Cleopatra in 581, with which at latest the payments of revenue terminated. The war appears to have been begun by Egypt ; but king Antiochus Epiphanes gladly embraced the opportunity of once more — and for the last time — endeavouring to achieve the traditional aim of the policy of the Seleucidae, the acquisition of Egypt, while the Romans were employed in Macedonia. Fortune seemed favourable to him. The king of Egypt at that time, Ptolemy VI. Philometor, the son of Cleopatra, had hardly passed the age of boyhood and had bad advisers ; after a great victory on the Syro-Egyptian frontier Antiochus was able to advance into the territories of his nephew in the same year in which the legions landed in Greece (583), and soon had the person of the king in his power. Matters began to look as if CHAP. X.] The Third Macedonian ^ar. 36£ Antiochus wished to possess himself of all Egyp^ in Philo- inetor's name ; Alexandria accordingly closed its gates against him, deposed Philometor, and nominated as king in his stead his younger brother, Euergetes II., named the Ym. Disturbances in his own kingdom recalled the Syrian king from Egypt ; when he returned, he found that the brothers had come to an understanding during his absence ; and he then continued the war against both. Just as he lay before Alexandria, not long after the battle of Pydna (586), the Roman envoy Gaius Popillius, a harsh rude man, arrived, and intimated to him the command of the senate that he should restore all that he had conquered and should evacuate Egypt within a set term. Antiochus asked time for consideration ; but the consular drew with his staff a circle round the king, and bade him declare his intentions before he stepped beyond the circle. Antiochus replied that he would comply ; and marched off to his capital that he might there, in his character of " the god, the brilliant bringer of victory," celebrate in Roman fashion his conquest of Egypt and parody the triumph of Paullus. Egypt voluntarily submitted to the Roman protectorate; and thereupon the kings of Babylon also desisted from the last effort to maintain their independence against Rome. Like Macedonia in the war waged by Perseus, the Seleu- cidae in the war regarding Coelesyria had made a final effort to recover their earlier power ; but it is a significant indication of the difference between the two kingdoms, that in the former case the legions, in the latter the abrupt lan- guage of a diplomatist, decided the controversy. In Greece itself, as the two Boeotian cities had alrea<:ly paid more than a sufficient penalty, the Molot- •ccurityin tians alone remained to be punished as allies of ee«e. Perseus. Acting on secret orders from the sen- ate, Paullus in one day gave up seventy townships in Epirus to plunder, and sold the inhabitants, 150,000 in number, into slavery. The Aetolians lost Ainphipolis, and the Acarnanians Leucas, on account of their equivocal be- haviour ; whereas the Athenians, who continued to play the 306 The Third Macedonian War. [Boos. :n part of the begging poet in their own Aristophanes, not only obtained a gift of Delos and Lemnos, but were not ashamed even to petition for the deserted site of HaliarUis, which WHS assigned to them accordingly. Thus something was done for the Muses ; but more had to be done for justice. There was a Macedonian party in every city, and therefore trials for high treason began in all parts of Greece, Whoever had served in the army of Perseus was immedi- ately executed ; whoever was compromised by the papers of the king or the statements of political opponents who flocked to lodge informations, was despatched to Kome ; the Achaean Callicrates and the Aetolian Lyciscus distin- guished themselves in the trade of informers. In this way the more conspicuous patriots among the Thessalians, Aeto- lians, Aoarnanians, Lesbians and so forth, were removed from their native land ; and, in particular, more than a thousand Achaeans were thus disposed of — a step taken with the view not so much of prosecuting those who were carried off, as of silencing the childish opposition of the Hellenes. To the Achaeans, who, as usual, were not con- tent till they got the answer which they anticipated, the senate, wearied by constant requests for the commencement of the investigation, at length roundly declared that till further orders the persons concerned were to remain in Italy. There they were placed in country towns in the interior, and tolerably well treated ; but attempts to escape were punished with death. The position of the former officials removed from Macedonia was, in all probability, similar. This expedient, violent as it was, was still, as things stood, the most lenient, and the enraged Greeks of the Roman party were far from content with the paucity of the executions. Lyciscus had accordingly deemed it proper to have some 500 of the leading men of the Aetolian patri- otic party slain at the meeting of the diet ; the Roman commission, which had occasion for the man, suffered the deed to pass unpunished, and merely censured the employ- ment of Roman soldiers in the execution of such Hellenic justice. We may presume, however, that the Remans Chap. X.] The Third MaoedonianWar. ZQ1 instituted the system of deportation to Italy partly in ordei to prevent such horrors. As in Greece proper no powei existed even of such importance as Rhodes or Pergamus, there^'as no need in its case for any further humiliation ; the steps taken were taken only in the exercise of justice — in the Roman sense, no doubt, of that term — and for the prevention of the most scandalous and palpable outbreaks' of party discord. All th© Hellenistic states had thus been completely sub- jected to the protectorate of Rome, and the her depen- whole empire of Alexander the Great had fallen to the Roman commonwealth just as if the city had inherited it from his heirs. From all sides kings and ambassadors flocked to Rome to congratulate her ; and they showed that fawning is never more abject than when kings are in the antechamber. King Massinissa, who only desisted from presenting himself in person on being ex pressly prohibited from doing so, ordered his son to declare that he regarded himself as merely the usufructuary, and the Romans as the true proprietors, of his kingdom, and that he would always be content with what they were will- ing to leave to him. There was at least truth in this. But Prusias king of Bithynia, who had to atoue for his neutrality, bore off the palm in this contest of flattery ; he fell on his face when he was conducted into the senate, and did homage to " the delivering gods." As he was so thoroughly contemptible, Polybius tells us, they gave him a courteous reply, and presented him with the fleet of Perseus. The moment was at least well chosen for such homage Polybius dates from the battle of Pydna the full establish- ment of the universal empire of Rome. It was in fact the last battle in which a civilized state confronted Rome fn the field on a footing of equality with her as a great power ; all subsequent struggles were rebellions or wars with peo- ples beyond the pale of the Romano-Greek civilization — the barbarians, as they were called. The whole civilized world thenceforth recognized in the Roman senate the supreme 368 The Third Macedonian War. [Book in tribunal, whose commissioners decided in the last resort between kings and nations ; and to acquire its language and manners foreign princes and youths of quality resided ir Rome. A clear and earnest attempt to get rid of iier do- minion was in reality made only once — by the great Mith radates of Pontus. The battle of Pydna, moreover, marks the last occasion on which the senate still adhered to the Btate-maxim that they should, if possible, hold no posses- sions and maintain no garrisons beyond the Italian seas, but should keep the numerous states dependent on them in order by a mere political supremacy. The aim of their policy was that these states should neither decline into utter weakness and anarchy, as had nevertheless happened in Greece, nor emerge out of their half-free position into com- plete independence, as Macedonia had attempted to do not without success. No state was to be allowed utterly to perish, but no one was to be permitted to stand on its own resources. Accordingly the vanquished foe held at least an equal, often a better, position with the Roman diplomatists than the faithful ally ; and, while a defeated opponent was reinstated, those who attempted to reinstate themselves were abased — as the Aetolians, Macedonia after the Asiatic war, Rhodes, and Pergamus learned by experience. But not only did this part of protector soon prove as irksome to the masters as to the servants ; the Roman protectorate, with its ungrateful Sisyphian toil that continually needed to be begun afresh, showed itself to be intrinsically untenable. Indications of a change of system, and of an increasing dis- inclination on the part of Rome to tolerate by its side in- termediate states even in such independence as was possible for them, were very clearly given in the destruction • f the Macedonian monarchy after the battle of Pydna. The more and more frequent and more and more unavoidable inter- vention in the internal affairs of the petty Greek stales through their misgovern ment and their political and social anarchy ; the disarming of Macedonia, where the northern frontier at any rate urgently required a defence different from that of mere posts; and, lastly, the introductiop o* Chap. X] The Third Macedonian War. 369 the payment of land-tax to Rome from Macedoi. a and Illyria, were so many symptoms of the approaching con version of the client states into subjects of Rome. If, in conclusion, we glance back at the career of Rome TheitaiiaTi from the Union of Italy to the dismemberment itiian'poi- °^ Macedonia, the universal empire of Rome, icyofEome. far from appearing as a gigantic plan contrived and carried out by an insatiable thirst for territorial aggran- dizement, appears to have been a result which forced itself on the Roman government without, and even in opposition to, its wish. It is true that the former view naturally sug- gests itself Sallust is right when he makes Mithradates say that the wars of Rome with tribes, cities, and kings originated in one and the same prime cause, the insatiable longing after dominion and riches ; but it is an error to give forth this judgment — shaped thus by passion and the issue — as an historical fact. It is evident to every one whose observation is not superficial, that the Roman gov- ernment during this whole period wished and desired noth- ing but the sovereignty of Italy ; that they were simply desirous not to have too powerful neighbours alongside of them ; and that — not out of humanity towards the van- quished, but from the very sound view that they ought not to suffer the kernel of their empire to be crushed by the .shell — they earnestly opposed the introduction first of Africa, then of Greece, and lastly of Asia into the pale of the Roman protectorate, till circumstances in each case compelled, or at least suggested with irresistible force, the extension of that pale. The Romans always asserted that they did not pursue a policy of conquest, and that they were always the assailed rather than the assailants ; and this was something more, at any rate, than a mere phrase. They were in fact driven to all their great wars with the exception of that concerning Sicily — to those with Hanni- bal and Antiochus, no less than to those with Philip and Perseus — either by a direct aggression or by an unparal- leled disturbance of the existing political relations ; and hence they were ordinarily taken by surprise on their out- Vol. XL— 16* 370 The Third Macedonian War. [Book in break. That they did not after victory exhibit the modera- tion which they ought to have done in the interest more especially of Italy itself; that the retention of Spain, for instance, the undertaking of the guardianship of Africa, and above all the half-fanciful scheme of conferring liberty everywhere on the Greeks, were in the light of Italian policy grave errors, is sufficiently clear. But the causes of these errors were, on the one hand a blind dread of Car- thage, on the other a still blinder enthusiasm fur Hellenistio liberty ; so little did the Romans exhibit during this period the lust of conquest, that they, on the contrary, displayed a very judicious dread of its effects. The policy of Rome throughout was not projected by a single mighty intellect and bequeathed by tradition from generation to generation ; it was the policy of a very able but somewhat narrow- minded deliberative assembly, which had far too little power of grand combination, and far too much of an in- stinctive desire for the preservation of its own common- wealth, to devise projects in the spirit of a Caesar or a Napoleon. The universal empire of Rome had its ultimate ground in the political development of antiquity in general. The ancient world knew nothing of a balance of power among nations ; and therefore every nation which had attained internal unity strove either directly to subdue its neighbours, as did the Hellenic states, or at any rate to render them innocuous, as Rome did, — an effort, it is true, which also issued at last in subjugation. Egypt was per- haps the only great power in antiquity which seriously pur- sued the system of equilibrium : on the opposite system Seleucus and Antigonus, Hannibal and Scipio came into col- lision. And, however melancholy may seem the fact that all the other richly endowed and highly developed nations of antiquity had to perish in order to enrich a single peo- ple, as if the ultimate object of their existence had simply been to contribute to the greatness of Italy and to the decay involved in that greatness ; yet historical justice must acknowledge that this result was not produced by the mili tary superiority of the legion over the phalanx, but was the Chap. X.] The Third Macedonian War. 371 necessary consequence of the international relations of anti quity generally — so that the issue was not decided by pro- voking chance, but was the fulfilment of an unchangeable and tlierefore endurable, destiny. CHAPTER XI. THK GOVERNMENT AND THK GOVERNED. The fall of the patriciate by no means divested the Ro- man commonwealth of its aristocratic character, of new par- We have already (i. 394) indicated that tlie plebeian party carried within it that character from the first as well as, and in some sense still more decidedly than, the patriciate ; for, while in the old body of burgesses an absolute equality of rights prevailed, the new constitution set out with a distinction between the senatorial houses who were privileged in point of burgess rights and of burgess usufructs, and the mass of the other citizens. Immediately, therefore, on the abolition of the patriciate and the formal establishment of civic equality, a new aristocracy and a corresponding opposition were formed ; and we have already shown how the former en- grafted itself as it were on the fallen patriciate, and how, accordingly, the first movements of the new party of prog- ress were mixed up with the last movements of the old plebeian opposition (i. 395). The formation of these new parties began in the fifth century, but they assumed their definite shape only in the century which followed. The development of this change is, as it were, drowned amidst the noise of the great wars and victories, and the process of formation is in this case more concealed from our view than in any other in Roman history. Like a crust of ice gathering imperceptibly over the surface of a stream and imperceptibly confining it more and more, this new Roman aristocracy silently arose; and not less imperceptibly, like the concealed current slowly swelling beneath, there arose in opposition to it the new party of progress. If is very Chap. XI.] The Oovernment and tho Governed. 373 difBcult to sum up in a general historical view the several, individually insignificant, traces of these two antagonistic movements which do not for the present culminate in any distinct practical catastrophe. But the freedom hitherto enjoyed in the commonwealth was undermined, and the foundation for future revolutions was laid, during this epoch ; and the delineation of these as well as of the de- velopment of Rome in general would remain imperfect, if we should fail to give some idea of the thickness and strength of that encrusting ice, and of the fearful moaning and cracking that foretold the mighty breaking up which was at hand. The Roman nobility attached itself, in form, to earlier Germs of institutions belonging to the times of the patri- in^the'pa-*^ ciate. Persons who once had filled the highest triciate. ordinary magistracies of the state not only, as a matter of course, practically enjoyed all along a higher honour, but also had at an early period certain honorary privileges associated with their position. The most ancient of these was doubtless the permission given to the descend- ants of such magistrates to place the wax images of these illustrious ancestors after their death in the family hall, along the wall where the pedigree was painted, and to have these images carried, on occasion of the death of members of the family, in the funeral procession (i. 375). To appre- ciate the importance of this distinction, we must recollect that the honouring of images was regarded in the Italo-Hel- lenic view as unrepublican, and on that account the Roman state-police did not at all tolerate the exhibition of effigies of the living, and strictly superintended that of effigies of the dead. With this privilege were associated various ex- ternal insignia,* reserved by law or custom for such magis- * All these insignia probably belonged at first only to the nobility proper, i. c, to the agnate descendants of curule magistrates ; although, after the manner of such decorations, all of them iu course of time were extended to a wider circle. This can be distinctly proved in the ease of the gold flnger-ring, which la the fifth century was worn only by the nobility (Plin. H. N. xxxiii. 1, 18), in the sixth by every senator 374 The Government ana the Governed. [Book iij trates and their descendants ; the stripe of purple on the tunio and the golden finger-ring of the men, the silver^ mounted trappings of the youths, the purple border on the toga and the golden amulet-case of the boys — trifling matters, but still important in a community where civic equality in external appearance was so strictly adhered to (i. 393), and where, even during the second Punic war, a burgess was arrested and kept for years in prison because he had appeared in public, in a manner not sanctioned by law, with a garland of roses upon his head.* These distinctions probably already existed in the main in the time of the patrician government, and, so plebeian long as families of higher and lower rank were ' ^' distinguished within the patriciate, served as external insignia for the former. But they only acquired political importance in consequence of the change of consti- 367. tution in 387, by which the plebeian families and senator's son (Lir. xxvi. 36), in the seventh by every one of eques- trian rank, under the empire by every one who was of free birth. So also with the silver trappings, which still, in the second Punic war, formed a badge of the nobility alone (Liv. xxvi. 36); and with the pur- ple border of the toga, which at first was granted only to the sons of curule magistrates, then to the sons of equites, afterwards to those of all free-born persons, lastly — yet as early as the time of the second Punic war — even to the sons of freedmen (Macrob. Sal. i. 6). The pur- ple stripe (clavus) on the tunic can only be sliown to have been a badge of the senators (i. 86) and equites, the former wearing it broad, the latter narrow : in like manner the golden amulet-case {bulla) is only mentioned as a badge of the children of senators in the time of the second Punic war (Macrob. I. c. ; Liv. xxvi. 36), in that of Cicero as the badge of the children of the equestrian order (Cic. Verr. 1. 58, 162), whereas children of inferior rank wore the leathern amulet (lorum). But these seem to be merely accidental gaps in tradition, and the claiiM and bulla also appear at first to have been peculiar to the nobility strictly so-called alone. ♦ Plin. //. IV. xxi. 3, 6. The right to appear crowned in public was acquired by distinction in war (Polyb. vi. 39, 9 ; Liv. x. ik) ; conse- quently, the wearing a crown without warrant was an offence shnilar tc the assumption, in the present day, of the badge of a military order of merit without due title. Chap. XI.J The Government and the Governed. 375 that had attained to the consulate were placed upon a footing of equal privilege with the patrician families, all of ■whom were now probably entitled to carry images of their ancestors. Moreover, it was now settled that the offices of state to which these hereditary privileges were attached should include neither the lower nor the extraordinary magistracies nor the tribunate of the plebs, but merely the consulship, the praetorship which stood on the same level with it (i. 384), and the curule aedileship, which bore a part in the administration of public justice and consequently in the exercise of the sovereign powers of the state.* Al- though this plebeian nobility, in the strict sense of the term, could only be formed after the curule offices were opened to plebeians, yet it exhibited in a short time, if not at the very first, a certain compactness of organization — doubtless because the germs of such a nobility had long existed in the old senatorial plebeian families. The result of the Licinian laws in reality therefore amounted nearly to what we would now call the creation of a batch of peers. Now that the plebeian families ennobled by their curule ancestors were united into one body with the patrician families and acquired a distinctive position and distinguished power in the commonwealth, the Romans had again arrived at the point whence they had started ; there was once more not merely a governing aristocracy and a hereditary nobil- ity — both of which in fact had never disappeared — but there was a governing hereditary nobility, and the feud between the gentes in possession of the government and the commons rising in revolt against the gentes could not but * Thus there remaiued excluded the military tribunate with consular powers (i. 373), the proconsulship, the quaestorship, the tribunate of the people, and several others. As to the censorship, it does not appear notwithstanding the curule chair of the censors (Liv. xl. 4B ; comp xxvii. 8), to have been reckoned a curule office ; for the later period, however, when only a man of consular standing could be made censor, the question has no practical importance. The plebeian aedileship cer- tainly was not reckoned originally one of the curule magistracies (Liv. xxiii. 28) ; it may, however, have been subsequently included amongst them. 376 The Oovernment and the Governed. [Book III begin afresh. And matters very soon reached that stage, The tobility was not content with its honorary privileges which were matters of comparative indifference, but strove after exclusive and sole political power, and sought to con- vert the most important institutions of the state — the senate and the equestrian order — from organs of the common- wealth into organs of the plebeio-patrician aristocracy. The dependence de jure of the Eoman senate of the The nobility republic, more especially of the larger patricio- don°ortiie plebeian senate, on the magistracy had rapidly smate. become lax, and had in fact been converted into independence. The subordination of the public magistracies to the state-council, introduced by the revolu- tion of 244 (i. 342) ; the transference of the right of summoning men to the senate from the consul to the censor (i. 377) ; lastly, and above all, the legal recogni- tion of the right of those who had been curule magistrates to a seat and vote in the senate (i. 407), had converted the senate from a council summoned by the magistrates and in many respects dependent on them into a governing corpora- tion virtually independent, and in a certain sense filling up its own ranks ; for the two modes by which its members obtained admission — election to a curule office and sum- moning by the denser — were both virtually in the power of the governing board itself. The burgesses, no doubt, at this epoch were still too independent to allow the entire exclusion of non-nobles from the senate, and the nobility were perhaps still too prudent even to wish for this ; but, owing to the strictly aristocratic gradations in the senate itself — in which those who had been cui-ule masistrates were sharply distinguished, according to their respective classes of consulares, praetorii, and aedilicii, from the senators who had not entered the senate through a curule office and were therefore excluded from debate — the non-nobles, although th(^ probably sat' in considerable numbers in the senate, were reduced to an insignificant and comparatively uninflu- sntial position in it, and the senate became substantially s mainstay of the nobility. CuAP. XI.] The Government and the Oovemed. 377 The institution of the equites was developed into a Thonobiiiiy second, less important but yet far from unim- ^thee^^u^ portant, organ of the nobility. As the ne^< trian cen- hereditary nobility had not the power to usurp sole possession of the comitia, it necessarily be- came in the highest degree desirable that it should obtain at least a distinctive position in the representation of the com munity. In the assembly of the tribes there was no method of managing this ; but the equestrian centuries under the Servian organization seemed as it were created for the very purpose. The 1,800 horses which the community furnished * * The current bypothesig, according to which the six centuries of the nobility alone amounted to 1,200, and the whole equestrian force accordingly to 3,600 horse, is not tenable. The method of determining the number of the equites by the number of duplications specified by the annalists is mistaken: in fact, each of these statements has origi- nated and is to be explaiced by itself. But there is no evidence either for the first number, which is only found in the passage of Cicero, De Rep. ii. 20, acknowledged as erroneous even by the champions of this view, or for the second, which does not appear at all in ancient authors. In favour, on the other hand, of the hypothesis set forth in the text, we have, first of all, the number as indicated not by authorities, but by the institutions themselves ; for it is certain that the century numbered 100 men, and there were originally three (i. 107), then six (i. 124), and la.'tly after the Servian reform eighteen (i. 135), equestrian centuries. The deviations of the authorities from this view are only apparent. The one self-consistent tradition, which Becker has developed (ii. 1, 243), reckons not the eighteen patricio-plebeian, but the six patrician, centu- ries at l,8i.0 men; and this has been manifestly followed by Livy, i. 86 (according to the reading which alone has manuscript authority, and which ought not to be corrected from Livy's particular estimates), and by Cicero /. c. (according to the only reading grammatically admissible, MDCCO. ; see Becker, ii. 1, 244). But Cicero at the same time indicates very plainly, that in that statement he inj:ended to describe the then existing amount of the Roman equites in general. The number of the whole body has therefore been transferred to the most prominent por- tion of it by a prolepsis, such as is common in the case of annalists not too much given to reflection : just in the same way 300 equites instead of 100 are assigned to the parentrcommunity, including, by anticipa- tion, the contingents of the Titles and the Luceres (Becker, ii. 1, 238). Lastly, the proposition of Cato (p. 66, Jordan), to raise the number of the horses of the equites to 2,200, is as distinct a confirmation of th« 378 The, Oovernment and the Oovertied. [Book III were constitutionally disposed of likewise by the censors It was, no doubt, the duty of these to make the selection on view proposed above, as it is a distinct refutation of the cppositt v'ew. With this view what is linown of the equestrian order under tlie empire very well accords. It was divided into turmae, that is, divisiona of 30 or 33 men (Marquardt, iii. 2, 258). The slight traces of a division of the cav.\lry not merely by turmae, but at the same time also by tribes (Beclier, ii. 1, 261, note 538 ; and Zonaras, x. 35, p. 421, Bonn: W.aj/o< T^S qivXrj:; = sevir eg. ij.), cannot be satisfactorily cleared up ; the rela- tion too of the turma to the centuries is not quite clear, but cannot well be conceived otherwise than that three turmae went to the century. This would accordingly give 54 turmae, which number, as all the Eo- man equites were certainly divided into turmae:, is doubtless rather too small than too large. Moreover it is self-evident that we have here to do merely with the normal number ; by the addition of supernumeraries the number of the equites subsequently far exceeded that normal one. The whole number of the turmae is not given by tradition ; for, while inscriptions exhibit only the eailier numbers as far as the fifth or sixth, the prominence of these is to be explained simply from the special repute in which the first turmae were held — a circumstance which may be compared with the fact that in inscriptions we meet only with the tribunus a populo and latielavius, and the iudex quadnngenarius, never with the tribunus rufulus and angusticlamus, or tlie iudex d'ucenariu-f. There is no reasonable ground for assundng an aggregate number of six turmae, and the fact that it is nevertheless the usual hypothesis (Beck- er, ii. 1, 261, 288) is solely due to an inference — not at all warranted — from the name of the leaders of the turmae, the seviri equitum liomano- rum, to the number of turmMe led by them. The Roman burgess-cav- alry certainly had for a time six centuries under as many centurions or tribuni celerum (p. 107, 124); but, even if we should assume that this number was retained after the increase of the centuries from six to eighteen, the seviri eg. Rom. could not reasonably be regarded as iden- tical with these tribuni celerum, since on the monuments throughout they appear in relation not to the cavalry in general, but to the indi- vidual turmae, as seviri cq. Rom. turmae primae, and so forth, in Greek iX:tv:(Oi. (Zonaras, x. 35, p. 421 Bonn), and are therefore to be explaiuod not from the arrangement of the centuries, but fiom that of the tMrmae. In the latter accordingly we find what we are in search of: the sil commanders assigned by the military arrangement to each («?T?ia (Polyb vi. 25. 1), the decuriones and optiones of Cato {Pr. p. 39 Jordan), must just have been these seviri, and there must consequently have been «U times as many seviri us the cavalry numbered squadrons. There is nc Chap. XI.] The Government and the Governed. 379 purely military grounds and at their musters to insist that all horsemen incapacitated by age or otherwise, or at all unserviceable, should surrender their public horse ; but the very nature of the institution implied that the cavalry horses should be given especially to men of means, and it was not at all easy to hinder the censors from looking to superior birth more than to capacity, and from allowing mep of standing who were once admitted, senators particu- larly, to retain their horse beyond the proper time. Ac- cordingly it became practically the rule for the senators to vote in the eighteen equestrian centuries, and the other places in these were assigned chiefly to the younger men of the nobility. The military system, of course, suffered from this not so much through the unfitness for effective service of no small part of the legionary cavalry, as through the destruction of military equality to which the change gave rise; the young men of rank more and more withdrew from serving in the infantry, and the legionary cavalry became a close aristocratic corps. This enables us in some degiee to understand why the equites during the Sicilian war re- fused to obey the order of the consul Gaius Aurelius Cotta that they should work at the trenches with the legionaries evidence, although it is now usually assumed, that there was only one sevir in each tnrma : this hypothesis would in fact be decidedly opposed to the turmal arrangement. The objection stated by Henzen (Aniiali deir Institute, 1862, p. 142), that M. Aurelius gave the Seviral games as sevir " cum coUegis," by no moans excludes the large number of seviri which we hare assumed, for the colleagues mentioned might in fact Tery well be merely those of the same turma. It may be even reckoned probable that tlie seviri of the first turma enjoyed a special distinction, and the principes iuventutis were simply nothing else than the impeiial princes acting as seviri of the first turma ; the Seviral games, it may be conjectured, devolved exclusively on this turma. It is possible too that in later times the first turmae alone were formally organized and provided with smW, while in the ease of the other equites eguo publico this subdivision was discontinued. Leaving out of view the contingents of the Italian and extra-Italian subjects, the equites equo publico or equites legionarii alone composed the ordinary cavalry of the Roman army ; where equites equo private occur, the expression denotes bands of volunteers or of persons disrated 380 The Government and the Governed. [Bix)k m (502), and why Cato, when commander of the army iu Spain, found himself under the necessity of ad- dressing a severe reprimand to his cavalry. But this conversion of the burgess-cavalry into a mounted guard of nobles redounded not more decidedly to the injury of the commonwealth than to the advantage of the nobility, which acquired in the eighteen equestrian centuries a suffrage not merely distinct but giving the key-note to the rest. Of a kindred character was the formal separation of the Separation places assigned to the senatorial order from in the the- those occupied by the rest of the multitude as "*'*■ spectators at the national festivals. It was the great Scipio, who effected this cliange in his second consul- ship in 560. The national festival was as much an assembly of the people as were the centuries convoked for voting ; and the circumstance that the former had no decrees to issue made the official announcement of a distinction between the ruling order and the body of subjects ■ — which the separation implied — all the more significant. The innovation accordingly met with much censure even from the ruling class, because it was simply invidious and of no benefit, and because it gave a very obvious contradic- tion to the efforts of the wiser portion of the aristocracy to conceal their exclusive government under the forms of civil equality. These circumstances explain, why the censorship became The censor- the pivot of the later republican constitution ; of'the nfr? why ail office, originally unimportant and on a i'lity- level with the quaestorship, came to be invested with external insignia which did not at all naturally belong to it and with an altogether unique aristocratico-republican glory, and was viewed as the crown and completion of a well-conducted public career ; and why the government looked upon every attempt of the opposition to introduce their men into this office, or even to hold the censor respon- sible to the people for his administration during or after his term of office, as an attack on their palladium, and pre- sented a united front of resistance to every such attempt Chap. XI.] Tlie Government and ili£ Governed. 38J It is sufficient in this respect to mention the storm which the candidature of Cato for the censorship provoked, and the measures, so extraordinarily recliless and in violation of all form, by which the senate prevented the judicial pros- ecution of the two unpopular censors of the year 550, But with that enhancement of the glory of the censorship the government combined a character- istic distrust of this, their most important and for that vei'y reason most dangerous, instrument. It was thoroughly necessary to leave to the censors absolute control over the personal composition of the senate and the equites ; fur the right of exclusion could not well be separated from the right of summoning, and it was desirable to retain such a right of exclusion not so much for the purpose of removing from the senate the able men of the opposition — a course which the smooth-going government of that age prudently avoided — as for the purpose of preserving around the aris- tocracy that moral halo, without which it must have speed- ily become a prey to the opposition. The right of rejection was retained ; but what they chiefly needed was the glitter of the naked blade — the edge of it, which they feared, they look care to blunt. Besides the check involved in the nature of the office — under which the lists of the members of the aristocratic corporations were liable to revision not as formerly at any time, but only at intervals of five years — and besides the limitations resulting from the right of veto vested in the colleague and the right of cancelling vested in the successor, there was added a farther check which operated very powerfully ; a usage equivalent to law made it the duty of the censor, on erasing from the list any senator or knight, to specify in writing the grounds for his decision, and thus ordinarily to adopt what was tantamount to a judicial procedure. In this political position — mainly based on the senate, Remodelling the equites, and the censorship — the nobility Jututlonac- "o'' °"'y usurped in substance the government, cording to -[jy); gjgo remodelled the constitution according the nt'ws of o bhe nobility, to their (iwii views. It was part of their policy, 382 The Qovernmeni and the Governed. [Book ni with a view to keep up the importance of the public magis- tracies, to add to the number of these as little as possible, and to keep it far below what was required by the extension , , cf territory and the increase of business. The Inadequate '' Dimbw of most urgent exisencies were barely met by the n-agr-^trales. ^ .,.,.., ^ . ^ . , T, division of the judicial lunctions hitherto dis- charged by a single praetor between two judges — one of whom tried the lawsuits between Roman burgesses, and the other those that arose between non-bursesses or 243 between burgess and non-burgess — in 511, and by the nomination of four auxiliary consuls for the four trans- 227. marine provinces of Sicily (527), Sardinia includ- 227. ing Corsica (527), and Hither and Further Spain 197. (557). The far too summary mode of instituting processes in Rome, as well as the increasing influence of the official staff, are probably traceable in great measure to the practically inadequate numbers of the Roman magistracy. Among the innovations originated by the government — which were none the less innovationSj that in Election of i i i i officers in general they changed not the letter, but merely the comltia. , . /. ■ . . , . , , - , i the practice of the existing constitution — the most prominent were the measures by which the appoint- ment of officers as well as of civil magistrates was made to depend not, as the letter of the constitution allowed and its spirit required, simply on merit and ability, but on birth and seniority. As regards the nomination of staff"-officers this was done not in form, but in substance. It had already, during the previous period, been in great part transferre-officer, and a general. He was the same in the Furum, as in the battle-field, [lis pron\pi il4: The Government and the Ooverned. TBook HI and intrepid address, his rough but pungent rustic wit, his knowledge of Roman law and Roman affairs, his incredibla activity and his iron frame, first brought him into notice in the neighbouring towns ; and, when at length he made his appearance on the greater arena of the Forum and the senate-house in the capital, constituted him the most influen- tial pleader and political orator of his time. He took up the key-note first struck by Manius Curius, his ideal among Roman statesmen (i. 394) : throughout his long life he made it his task honestly, to the best of his judgment, to assail on all hands the prevailing declension ; and even in his eighty-fifth year he battled in the Forum with the new spirit of the times. He was anything but comely — he had green eyes, his enemies alleged, and red hair — and ho was not a great man, still less a fai'-seeing statesman. Thorough- ly narrow in his political and moral views, and having the ideal of the good old times always before his eyes and on his lips, he cherished an obstinate contempt for everything new. Deeming himself entitled by virtue of his own aus- tere life to manifest an unrelenting severity and harshness towards everything and everybody ; upright and honoura- ble, but without a glimpse of any duty beyond the sphere of police discipline and of mercantile integrity ; an enemy to all villany and vulgarity as well as to all genius and refinement, and above all things a foe to those who were his foes ; he never made an attempt to stop evils at their source, but waged war throughout life against mere symp- toms, and especially against persons. The ruling lords, no doubt, looked down with a lofty disdain on the ignoble barker, and believed, not without reason, that they were far superior ; but fashionable corruption in and out of the sen- ate secretly trembled in the presence of the old censor of morals with his proud republican bearing, of the scar-cov- ered veteran of the Hannibalic war, and of the highly in- fluential senator who was the protector of the Roman farm- ers. He publicly laid before his noble colleagues, one after another, his list of their sins ; certainly without being remarkably particular as to the proofs, and certainly alsc Chap. XI.] The Government and the Governed. 415 with a peculiar relish in the case of those who had person ally crossed or provoked him. With equal fearlessness hr reproved and publicly scolded the burgesses for every new injustice and every fresh disorder. His angry attacks pro- voked numerous enemies, and he lived in declared and irre^ concilable hostility with the most powerful aristocratic cote- ries of the time, particularly the Scipios and Flaminini ; he was publicly accused forty-four times. But the farmers — and it is a significant indication how powerful still in the Eoman middle class was the spirit which had enabled them to survive the day of Cannae — never allow^ed the unsparing champion of reform to lack the support of their votes. Indeed when in 570 Cato and his like-minded patrician colleague, Lucius Flaccus, solicited the censorship, and announced beforehand that it was their intention when in that office to undertake a thorough purifi- cation of all ranks and classes, the two men so greatly dreaded were elected by the burgesses notwithstanding all the exertions of the nobility ; and the latter were obliged to submit, while the great purgation actually took place and erased among others the brother of Africanus from the roll of the equites, and the brother of the deliverer of the Greeks from the roll of the senate. This warfare directed against individuals, and the vari- Poiice ous attempts to repress the spirit of the age by reform. means of justice and of police, however deserv- ing of respect might be the sentiments in which they origi- nated, could only at most stem the current of corruption for a short time ; and, while it is remarkable that Cato was enabled in spite of that current or rather by means of it to play his political part, it is equally significant that he was as little successful in getting rid of the leaders of the oppo- site party as they were in getthig rid of him. The pro- cesses of count and reckoning instituted by him and by those who shared his views before the burgesses uniformly remained, at least in the cases that were of political import- ance, quite as ineffectual as the counter-accusations directed against him. Nor was much more effect produced by the 4:16 The Government and the Governed. [Book m police-laws, which were issued at this period in unusual numbers, especially with a view to the restriction of luxury and the introduction of a frugal and orderly housekeeping, and some of which have still to be noticed in our view of the national economics. Far more practical and more useful were the attempts Assigna- . made to counteract the spread of decay bj tionsofiand. iinjirect means; among which, beyond doubt, the assignations of new farms out of the domain land occupy the first place. Tlfese assignations were made in great numbers and of considerable extent in the period between the first and second war with Carthage, and again from the close of the latter till towards the end of this epoch. The most important of them were the distribution of the Pioe- 232." nian possessions by Gaius Flaminius in 522 (p. 101) ; the foundation of eight new maritime colonies in 194. 560 (p. 226) ; and above all the comprehensive colonization of the district between the Apennines and the Po by the establishment of the Latin colonies of Placentia, Cremona (p. 102), Bononia (p. 234), and Aquileia (p. 233), and of the burgess-colonies, Potentia, Pisaurum, Mutina, 218. > Parma, and Luna (p. 234) in the years 536 and 189-177. } 565_577. By far the greater part of these valu- able foundations may be ascribed to the reforming party. Cato and those who shared his opinions demanded such measures, pointing, on the one hand, to the devastation of Italy by the Hannibalic war and the alarming decrease of the farms and of the free Italian population generally, and, on the other, to the widely extended possessions of the nobles — occupied along with, and similarly to, property of their own — in Cisalpine Gaul, in Samnium, and in the Apulian and Bruttian districts ; and although the rulers of Rome dio not probably comply with his demands to the extent to which they might and should have complied with them, yet they did not remain deaf to the warning voice of BO judicious a man. Of a kindred character was the proposal, which Cato Reforms in made ir. the senate, to remedy the decline of the UDAP. XI.] The Government and the Governed. 417 the military burgess Cavalry by the institution of four hun dred new equestrian stalls (p. 377). The exche- quer cannot have wanted means for the purpose ; but the proposal appears to have been defeated by the exclusive spirit of the nobility and their endeavour to expel from the burgess cavalry those who were troopers merely and not knights. On the other hand, the serious emergencies of the war, which soon induced the Roman government to make an attempt — fortunately unsuccessful — to recruit their armies after the Oriental fashion from the slave-market (p. 165, 199), compelled them to modify the qualifications hitherto required for service in the burgess army, viz., a minimum census of 11,000 asses (£43), and free birth. Apart from the fact that they took up for service in the fleet the persons of free birth rated between 4,000 asses (£17) and 1,500 asses (£6) and all the freedmen, the minimum census for the legionary was reduced to 4,000 asses (£17) ; and, in case of need, both those who were bound to serve in the fleet and the free-born rated between 1,500 asses (£6) and 375 asses (£1 10s.) were enrolled in the burgess" infantry. These innovations, which belong probably to the end of the pre- ceding or beginning of the present epoch, doubtless did not originate in party efforts any more than did the Servian military reform ; but they gave a material impulse to the democratic party, in so far as those who bore civic burdens necessarily claimed and eventually obtained equalization of civic rights. The poor and the freedmen began to be of some importance in the commonwealth from the time when they served it ; and chiefly from this cause' arose one of the most important constitutional changes of this epoch — the remodelling of the comitia centuriata, which most probably took place in the same year in which the war concerning Sicily terminated (513). According to the order of voting hitherto followed in ^ , , the centuriate comitia, the wealthy had the pre- Be&mi of 1 1 1 1 /. 1 1 theoen- ponderance, although the freeholders were no longer — as down to the reform of Appius Clau. dius (i. 397) they had been — the sole voters. The equite&. Vol. it.— 18* 418 The Gaoernment and the Ooverned. ''Book III or in other words the patricio-plebeian nobility, voted first then those of the highest rating, or in other words those who had exhibited to the censor an estate of at least 100,000 asses (£420) ; * and these two divisions, when they concurred, had decided every vote. The suffrage of those assessed under the four following classes had been of doubt- ful weight ; that of those whose valuation remained below the standard of the lowest class, 11,000 asses (£43), had been virtually illusory, and the freednnen had with few exceptions been totally destitute of the suffrage. According to the new arrangement the right of priority in voting was ■withdrawn from the equites, although they retained their separate divisions, and it was transferred to a voting divis- ion chosen from the first class by lot ; the freedman was placed on an equal footing with the free-born ; and lastly • As to the original rates of the Roman census it is difficult to lay down anything definite. Afterwards, as is well known, 100,000 aasea was regarded as the minimum census of the first class ; to which the census of the other four classes stood in the (at least approximate) ratio of^Ji 2i 41 ^- But these rates are understood already by Polybius, as by all later authors, to refer to the light as (^ of the denarius), and apparently this view must be adhered to, although in reference to the Voconian law the same sums are reckoned as heavy asses (\ of the de- narius : Geschichte des Rom. Munzwesens, p. SO'i). But Appius Clau- dius, who first in 442 expressed the censua-rates in money instead of in land (i. 897), cannot in this have made use of the light OS, which only came into existence in 485 (i. 674). Either therefore he expressed the same amounts in heavy asses, and these were at the reduction of the coinage converted into light ; or he proposed the later figures, and these remained the same notwithstanding the reduction of the coinage, which in this case would have involved a lowering of the class-rates by more than the half, (iirave doubts may be raised in opposition to either hypothesis ; but the former appears the more credible, for so exorbitant an advance in demo- cratic development is neither probable at the end of the fifth century nor as an incidental consequence of a mere administrative measure, and besides it would hardly have disappeared wholly from tradition. 100,000 light asses, or 40,000 sesterces, may, moreover, be reasonably regarded as the equivalent of the original Roman full hide of perhaps 10 iuffera (i. 140) ; so that according to this view the rates of the ceu »us as a whole l\ave changed merely in expression, and not in value. Chap. XL] The Government and the Gover led. 419 the same lumber of votes was conceded to each of the five classes,* so that, even If the burgesses were at one, it was only by the voting of the third class that the majority was decided. This reform of the centuries was the first import ant constitutional change which the new opposition won fiou) the nobility, the first victory of democracy proper. It thereby obtained on the one hand the abolition of the prior- ity of voting vested in the nobility, and on the other hand equality .of rights in the matter of election. The import- ance of that aristocratic right of prior voting cannot be estimated too highly, especially at an epoch in which prac- tically the influence of the nobility on the burgesses at large was constantly on the increase. Even the patrician order proper were still at this epoch powerful enough to fill the second consulship and the second censorship, which stood open in law alike to patricians and plebeians, solely with men of their own body, the former up to the close of this 172. period (till 582), the latter even for a generation ^^1- longer (till 623) ; and in fact, at the most peril- ous moment which the Roman republic ever experienced — in the crisis after the battle of Cannae — they cancelled the duly and legally conducted election of the officer who was in all respects the ablest — the plebeian Marcellus — to the * The adjustment of the five class-rates at 100,000, 75,000, 50,000, 26,000, 11,000 aasea (£420, £315, £210, £105, £43), in combination with the hypothesis that each class gave an equal number of votes, sug- gests the possibility that the whole number of those rated In a higher class, especially the first, exceeded the number of those entitled to vote in the next following class. But this suspicion, in itself not without giound, carries no great weight, inasmuch as the censors, in fixing the limits of the voting divisions, acted with an arbitrariness which appears , to our views astonishing ; it may be conjectured that, when this case occurred, they added those of lowest valuation in the higher class to the roll of the folio *l^g, till the number of persons wa3 at least equal, and probably this is the reason why the cerisus of the first class is stated sometimes at 100,000, sometimes at 110,000 and 125,000 ass«s. The tendency of the measure doubtless was to grant to those entitled t« vote at all, more especially the first three classes, a suflrajje oaiuJ. w Kind. 120 The Government and the Governed. [Book IH oonsulship -vacated by the death of the patrician Paullus. solely on account of his plebeian origin. At the same time it is a significant token of the nature even of this reform that the right of precedence in voting was withdrawn from the nobility alone, not from those of the highest rating ; the light withdrawn from the equestrian centuries passed not to a division chosen incidentally by lot from the whcle burgesses, but exclusively to the first class. Still more trenchant in theory at least was the equalization of the suflrage for the rich and for the poor, for the free-born and the freedmen, who were assessable, so that, instead of the half, only about a fifth of the whole number of votes re- mained in the hands of those of the highest rating. But one of the most important, perhaps practically the most important, of these innovations — the equalizing of the freedmen with the free-born — was set aside again twenty years later (534) by one of the most notable men of the reform party itself, the censor Gains Flaminius, and the freedmen were removed from the cen- turies — a measure which the censor Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus, the father of the two authors of the Eoman revo- lution, fifty years afterwards (585) renewed and enforced against the freedmen who were always intruding afresh. The abiding fruit therefore of the reform of the centuries, apart from the enactment directed against the prerogative of the equestrian order, was the political abolition of the distinction as to estate among the burgesses whose valuation exceeded the lowest rating — equality in point of suiTrago for the burgesses entitled to vote at all. Substantially in this way all freeholder burgesses of free birth had long enjoyed equality of suffrage in the eomitia tribtita, while the votes of the non-freeholders and freedmen had there been rendered almost practically worthless by being crowded into four of the thirty^ve tribea The gene- ral result accordingly was the remodelling of the eomitia ceniuriata according to the principle already recognized in the eomitia tributa ; a change which recommended itself by the circumstance, that elections, proposals of laws, crimi::aj Chap. XI.] The Government and the Governed. 42] charges, and generally all affairs requiring the co-operation of the burgesses, came to be uniformly brought before the comitia tributa, and the more unwieldy centuries were sel- dom convoked except when it was constitutionally necessary to do so for electing the censors, consuls, and praetors, o* for decreeing an aggressive war. It thus appears that this reform did not introduce a new principle into the constitu tion, but only brought into general application the principle that had long regulated the working of the practically more frequent and more important form of the burgess assem- blies. Its democratic, but by no means demagogic, ten- dency is clearly apparent in the circumstance that the proper supports of every really revolutionary party — the proletariate and the freedmen — still continued as before to hold an inferior position in the centuries as well as in the tribes. For that reason the practical significance of this alteration in the order of voting regulating the popular assemblies must not be estimated too highly. The new law of election doubtless completed in theory civil equality, but did not prevent, and perhaps did not even materially im- pede, the contemporary formation of a new politically privileged order. It is certainly not owing to the mere imperfection of tradition, defective as it undoubtedly is, that we are nowhere able to point to a practical influence exercised by this much-discussed reform on the course of political affairs. An intimate connection, we may add, subsisted between this reform which equalized the suffrages of the burgesses entitled to vote at all, and the already- mentioned abolition of the Roman burgess-communities sine suffragio which were gradually merged in the com- munity of full burgesses. The levelling spirit of the pai ty of progress suggested the abolition of distinctions within the burgess-body, while the chasm between burgesses and non-burgesses was at the same time deepened and widened. Reviewing what the reform party of this age aimed a( and obtained, we find that it undoubtedly ex Hweflforto crted itself with patriotism and energy to check ' ' ""■ and to a certain extent succeeded in checking 422 The Oovernment and the Governed. [Book \ll the spread of decay — more especially the fiilling off of the fai-mer class and the relaxation of the old strict and frugal habits — as well as the preponderating political influence of the new nobility. But we fail to discover any higher politi cal aim. The discontent of the multitude and the moral indignation of the better classes found doubtless in thij opposition their appropriate and powerful expression ; but fte do not find either a clear insight into the sources of the evil, or any definite and comprehensive plan of remedying it. A certain want of purpose pervaded all these efforts otherwise so deserving of respect, and the purely defensive attitude of the defenders foreboded little good in the issue. Whether the disease could be remedied at all by human skill, remains fairly open to question ; the Roman reform- ers of this period seem to have been good citizens rather than good statesmen, and to have conducted the great strug- gle between the old civism and the new cosmopolitanism on their part in a somewhat inadequate and narrow spirit. But, as this period witnessed the rise of a rabble by the Demagog- side of tlie burgesses, so it witnessed also the """■ emergence of a demagogism that flattered the populace alongside of the respectable and useful party of opposition. Cato was already acquainted with men who made a trade of demagogism ; who had a morbid propensity for speechifying, as others had for drinking or for sleeping; who hired listeners, if they could find no willing audience otherwise ; and whom people heard as they heard the mar- ket-crier, without attending to their words or, when needing help, entrusting themselves to their care. In his caustic fashion the old man describes these fops formed after the model of the Greek talkers of the agora, dealing in jests and witticisms, singing and dancing, ready for anything ; such an one was, in his opinion, good for nothing but to exhibit himself as harlequin in a procession and to bandy talk with the public — he would sell his talk or his silence for a bit of bread. In truth these demagogues were the worst enemies of reform. While the reformers insisted above all things and in every direction on moral amoid Chap. XI.] The Oovernment and the Governed. 423 ment, demagogism preferred to insist on the limitation of the powers of the government and the extension of those of the burgesses. Under the former head the most important innovatior. Abolition of '^^^ ^^ practical abolition of the dictatorship, ship^^'^""' '^^^ crisis occasioned by Quintus Fabius and his ^'' popular opponents in 537 (p. 152) gave the death-blow to this ail-along unpopular institution. Although the government once afterwards, in 538, under the immediate impression produced by the bat- tle of Cannae, nominated a dictator invested with active command, it could not again venture to do so in more peaceful times. On several occasions subsequently (the last in 552), sometimes after a previous indica- tion by the burgesses of the person to be nomi- nated, a dictator was appointed for urban business ; but the office, without being formally abolished, fell practically into de,^uetude. Through its abeyance the Eoman constitutional system, so artificially constructed, lost a corrective which was very desirable with reference to its peculiar feature of collegiate magistrates (i. 331) ; and the government, which was vested with the sole power of creating a dictatorship or in other words of suspending the consuls, and ordinarily designated also the person who was to be nominated as dic- tator, lost one of its most important instruments. Its place was but very imperfectly supplied by the power — which the senate thenceforward claimed — of conferring in extra- ordinary emergencies, particularly on the sudden outbreak of revolt or war, a quasi-dictatorial power on the supreme magistrates for the time being, by instructing them " to take measures for the safety of the commonwealth at their discretion," and thus creating a state of things similar to the modern martial law. Along with this change the formal powers of the people Eieirtionof i'l *he nomination of magistrates as well as in the^ccm-'' questions of government, administration, and mnuity. finance, received a hazardous extension. The priesthoods — ^particularly those politically most important, 42-4 Tlie Government and the Ooverned. [Book IIL the colleges of men of lore — according to ancient custom filled up the vacancies in their ranks, and nominated also their own presidents, where these corporations had presi- dents at all ; and in fact, for such institutions destined to transmit the knowledge of divine things from generation to generation, the only form of election in keeping with their spirit was cooptation. It was therefore — although not of great political importance — an indication of the incipient disorganization of the republican arrangements, that at this time (before 542), while election into the col- leges themselves was left on its former footing, the designation of the presidents — the curiones and pon tijices — from the ranks of those corporations was transferrea from the colleges to the community. In this case, how ever, with a pious regard for forms that is genuinely Roman, in order to avoid any error, only a minority of the tribes, and therefore not the " people," completed the act of elec- tion. Of greater importance was the growiiig interference of Interference the burgcsses in questions as to persons and munity ST" things belonging to the sphere of military ad- Snistri-^''' ministration and external policy. To this head tion. belong the transference of the nomination of the ordinary staltofficers from the general to the burgesses, ■which has been already mentioned (p. 382) ; the elections of the leaders of the opposition as commanders in chief against Hannibal (p. 145, 154) ; the unconstitutional and jj. irrational decree of the people in 537, which divided the supreme command between the un- popular generalissimo and his popular lieutenant who op- posed him in the camp as well as at home (p. 152) ; the tribunician coraphdnt laid before the burgesses, charging an ^jjj officer like Marcellus with injudicious and dis- honest management of the war (545), which even compelled him to come from the camp and to demon- strate his military capacity before the public of the capital ; the still more scandalous attempts to refuse to the victor of Pydna his triumph by a decree of the burgesses (p. 410) ; Chap. XI.] The Government and the Governed. 425 the investiture — suggested, it is true, by tlie senate — of a private man with extraorrliiiary consular author 210 ity (544 ; p. 189) ; the dangerous threat of Scipio that, if the senate should refuse him the chief com- mand in Africa, he would seek the sanction of the bur- gesses (549 ; p. 215) ; the attempt of a man half crazy with ambition to extort from the bur- gesses, against the will of the government, a declaration of war in every respect unwarranted against the Rhodians (587 ; p. 363) ; and the new constitu- tional axiom, that every state treaty acquired validity only through the ratification of the people. This joint action of the burgesses in governing and in Interference Commanding was fraught in a high degree with munUy with peril. But still more dangerous was their inter- the finances, fejence with the finances of the state ; not only because any attack on the oldest and most important right of the government — the exclusive administration of the public property — struck at the root of the power of the senate, but because the placing of the most important busi- ness of this nature — the distribution of the public domains — in the hands of the public assemblies of the burgesses necessarily dug the grave of the republic. To allow the public assembly to decree the transference of public prop- erty without limit to its own pocket was not only wrong, but was the beginning of the end ; it demoralized the best- disposed citizens, and gave to the proposer a power incom- patible with a free commonwealth. Salutary as was the distribution of the public land, and doubly blameable as was the senate accordingly for omitting to cut off this most dangerous of all weapons of agitation by voluntarily dis- tiibuting the occupied lands, yet Gains Flaminius, when he came to the burgesses in 522 with the proposal to distribute the domains of Picenum, undoubt- edly injured the commonwealth more by the means than he benefited it by the end. Cassius had doubtless two hundred and fifty years earlier proposed the same thing (i. 863) ; but the two measures, closely as they coincided in the 420 The Government aiid the Governed. [Book hi. letter, were yet wholly different, inasmuch as Cassius sub- mitted a matter affecting the community to that community while still in its vigour and conducting its own government whereas Flaminius submitted a public question to the popu- lar assembly of a great state. Not the party of the government only, but the parly of Nullity of reform also, very properly regarded the mili- tho oomitia. tary, executive, and financial government as the legitimate domain of the senate, and carefully abstained from malting full use of, to say nothing of augmenting, the formal power vested in popular assemblies that were in- wardly doomed to inevitable dissolution. Never even in the most limited monarchy was a part so completely null assigned to the monarch as was allotted to the sovereign Roman people : this was no doubt in more than one respect to be regretted, but it was, owing to the existing state of the comitial machinery, even in the view of the friends of reform a matter of necessity. For this reason Cato and those who shared his views never submitted to the bur- gesses a question, which interfered with the government strictly so called ; and never, directly or indirectly, by decree of the people extorted from the senate the political or financial measures which they wished, such as the decla- ration of war against Carthage and the assignations of land. The government of the senate might be bad ; the popular assemblies could not govern at all. Not that an evil-dis- posed majority predominated in them ; on the contrary the counsel of a mau of standing, the loud call of honour, and the louder call of necessity were still, as a rule, listened to in the comitia, and averted the most injurious and disgrace- ful results. The burgesses, before whom Marcellus pleaded his cause, ignominiously dismissed his accuser, and elected the accused as consul for the following year : they suffered themselves also to be persuaded of the necessity of the war against Philip, terminated the war against Perseus by the election of PauUus, and accorded to the latter his well- deserved triumph. But in order to such elections and suet derrees there was needed some special stimulus ; m generaJ Chap. XI J The Oovemment and the Governed. 427 the mass having no will of its own followed the first im pulse, and folly or accident dictated the decision. In the state, as in every organism, an organ which no longer discharges its functions is injurious. The Hon of gov- nullity of the sovereign assembly of the people involved no small danger. Any minority in the senate might constitutionally appeal against the majority to the comitia. To every individual who possessed the easy art of addressing untutored ears or of merely throwing away money a path was opened up for his acquiring a posi- tion or procuring a decree in his favour, to which the magis- trates and the government were formally bound to do hom- age. Hence sprang those citizen-generals, accustomed to sketch plans of battle on the tables of taverns and to look down on the regular service with compassion by virtue of their inborn genius for strategy ; hence those staff-officers, who owed their command to the canvassing intrigues of the capital and, whenever matters looked serious, had at once to get leave of absence en masse ; and hence the battles of the Trasimene lake and of Cannae, and the disgraceful man- agement of the war with Perseus. At every step the gov- ernment was thwarted and led astray by those unaccount- able decrees of the burgesses, and as was to be expected, most of all in the very cases where it was most in the right. But the weakening of the government and the weaken- ing of the community itself were among the lesser dangers that sprang from this demagogism. Still more directly the factious violence of individual ambition pushed itself for- ward under the aegis of the constitutional rights of the burgesses. That which formally issued forth as the will oif the supreme authority in the state was in reality very often the mere personal pleasure of the mover ; and what was to be the fate of a commonwealth in which war and peace, the nomination and deposition of the general and his officers, the public chest and the public property, were dependent on the caprices of the multitude and its accidental leaders 1 The thunder-storm had not yet burst ; but the clouds were gathering in denser masses, and occasional peals of thundei 428 The Government cmd the Governed. [Book HI were already rolling through the sultry air. It was a cir- cumstance, moreover, fraught with double danger, that the tendencies which were apparently most opposite met to- gether at their extremes both as regarded ends and as re- garded means. Family policy and demagogism carried on a similar and equally dangerous rivalry in patronizing and worshipping the rabble. Gaius Flaminius was regarded by the statesmen of the following generation as the initiator of that course from which proceeded the reforms of the Gracchi and — we may add — the democratico-monarchieal revolution that ensued. But Publius Scipio also, although setting the fashion to the nobility in arrogance, title-hunting, and client-making, sought support for his personal and almost dynastic policy of opposition to the senate in the multitude, which he not only charmed by the dazzling effect of his personal qualities, but also bribed by his largesses of grain ; in the legions, whose favour he courted by all means whether right or wrong ; and above all in the body of clients, high and low, that personally adhered to him. Only the dreamy mysticism, on which the charm as well as the weakness of that remarkable man so largely depended, never suffered him to awake at all or allowed him to awake but imperfectly out of the belief that he was nothing, and that he desired to be nothing, but the first burgess of Rome. To assert the possibility of a reform would be as rash as to deny it : this much is certain, that a thorough amend- ment of the state in all its departments was urgently ro quired, and that in no quarter was any serious attempt made to accomplish it. Various alterations in details, no doubt, were made on the part of the senate as well as on the part of the popular opposition. The majorities in each were still well disposed, and still frequently, notwithstanding the chasm that separated the parties, united in a common en deavour to effect the removal of the worst evils. But, while they did not stop the evil at its source, it was to little purpose that the better disposed listened with anxiety to the dull murmur of the swelling flood and worked at dikes and dams. Contenting themselves with palliatives, and Chap. XI.] The Oovernment and the Ooverned. 429 failing to apply even these — especially such as were the most important, the improvement of justice, for instcnce, and the distribution of the domains — in proper season and due measure, they helped to prepare evil days for their pos- terity. By neglecting to «break up the field at the proper time, they propagated weeds even when they had no desire to do 80. To the later generations who survived the storms of revolution the period after the Hannibalic war appeared the golden age of Rome, and Cato seemed the model of the Konian statesman. It was in reality the calm before the storm and the epoch of political mediocrities, an age like that of the government of Walpole in England ; and no Chatham was found in Rome to infuse fresh energy into the stagnant life of the nation. Wherever we cast our eyes, chinks and rents are yawning in the old building ; we see workmen busy sometimes in filling them up, sometimes in enlarging them ; but we nowhere perceive any trace of preparations for thoroughly rebuilding or renewing it, and the question is no longer whether, but simply when, the structure will fall. During no epoch did the Roman con- stitution remain formally so stable as in the period from the Sicilian to the third Macedonian war and for a genera- tion beyond it ; but the stability of the constitution was here, as every where, not a sign of the health of the state, but a token of incipient sickness and the harbinger of revo' lution. CHAPTER XII. THS MANAGEMENT OF LAND AND OF CAPITAL. It* is iu the sixth century of the city that we first find Roman materials for a history of the times exhibiting economics. jjj goj^g measure the mutual connection of events ; and it is in that century also that the economic condition of Rome emerges into view more clearly and distinctly. It was at this epoch that the wholesale system, as regards both the cultivation of land and the management of capital, became first established under the form, and on the scale, which afterwards prevailed ; although we cannot exactly discriminate how much of that system is traceable to earlier precedent, how much to an imitation of the methods of hus- bandry and of speculation among peoples that were earlier civilized, especially the Phoenicians, and how much to the growth of capital and the growth of intelligence in the nation. A summary outline of these economic relations will conduce to a more accurate understanding of the inter- nal history of Rome. Roman husbandry * applied itself either to the farmmg * In order to gain a true idea of ancient Italy, it is necessary for ua to bear in mind the great changes which have been produced there by modern cultivation. Of the cerealia, rye was not cultivated in antiquity ; and the Romans of the empire were astonished to find that oats, witli which they were well acquainted as a weed, was used by the Germans for making porridge. Eice was first cultivated in Italy at the end of the fifteenth, and maize at the beginning of the seventeenth, century. Potatoes and tomatoes were brought from America; artichokes seem lo be nothing but a cultivated variety of the cardoon which was known to the llomans, although the peculiar character superinduced by cultiva- tion appears of more recent origin. The ahnond, again, or "Greek nut," ihe peach, or " Persian nut," and also the " soft nut " (jmar md Chap, xu.] The Management of Land. 431 of estates, to the occupation of pasture lands, or to the tillage of petty holdings. A very distinct view of the first of these is presented to us in the description given by Cato. The Roman estates were, considered as larger holdings, uniformly of limited extent. That described Mtates. by Cato had an area of 240 iugera ; a very com- mon measure was the so-called centuria of 20C iugera. Where the laborious culture of the vine was pur- sued, the unit of husbandry was made still less ; Cato as- sumes in that case an area of 100 ivgera. Any one who wished to invest more capital in farming did not enlarge his estate, but acquired several estates ; accordingly the quan- tity of 500 iugera (i. 382), fixed as the maximum which it was allowable to occupy, has been conceived to represent the contents of two or three estates. Heritable leases were not recognized in law, and leases for life occurred as a substitute only in the case of communal land. Leases for shorter periods, granted either for a fixed huca), although originally foreign to Italy, are met with there at least 150 years before Christ. The date-palm, introduced into Italy from Greece as into Greece from the East, and forming a living attestation of the primitive commercial-religious intercourse between the West and the East, was already cultivated in Italy 300 years before Christ (Liv. x. 47 ; Pallad. v. 6, 2 ; xi. 12, 1) not for its fruit (Plin. H. N. xiii. 4, 26), but, just as in the present day, as a handsome plant, and Jor the sake of the leaves which were used at public festivals. The cherry, or fruit of Cerasua on the Black Sea, was later in being introduced, and only began to be planted in Italy in the time of Cicero, although the wild clierry is indigenous there; still later, perhaps, came the apricot, or "Armenian plum." The citron-tree was not cultivated in Italy till the later ages of the empire ; the orange was only introduced by the Moors in the twelfth or thirteenth, and the aloe {Agave Americana) from America only in the sixteenth, century. Cotton was first cultivated ia Europe by the Arabs. The buflfalo also and the silkworm belong only to modern, not to ancient Italy. It L? obvious that the products which Italy had not originally are for the most part those very products which seem to us truly '• Italian ; " and if modern Germany, as compared with the Germany visited by Caesar, may be culled a BOuthern land, Italy has since in no less dcTea acquired a more '' southern " aspect. 432 The Management of Land [Book 111. sum of money or on condition that the lessee mentofthe should bear all the costs of tillage and should receive in return a share, ordinarily one half, of the produce,* were not unknown, but they were exceptional and a makeshift ; so that no distinct class of tenant-farmers grew up in Italy. f Ordinarily therefore the proprietor himself superintended the cultivation of his estates ; he did net, however, manage them strictly in person, but only appeared from time to time on the property in order to settle the plan of operations, to look after its execution, and to audit the accounts of his servants. He was thus enabled on the one hand to work a number of estates at the same time, and on the other hand to devote himself, as circum- stances might require, to public affairs. The grain cultivated consisted especially of spelt and wheat, with some barley and millet ; turnips, radishes, gar- * According to Oato, de R. R. 137 (comp. 16), in the case of a lease with division of the produce the gross produce of the estate, after de- duction of the fodder necessary for the oxen that drew the plough, was divided betweeu lessor and lessee {coloniis partiarius) in the proportions agreed upon between them. That the shares were ordinarily equal may be conjectured from the analogy of the French bail d cTieptel and the similar Italian system of half-and-half leases, as well as from the ab- sence of all trace of any other scheme of partition. It is erroneous to refer to the case of the politor, who got the fifth of the grain or, if tho division took place before thrashing, from the sixth to the ninth sheaf (Cato, 136, comp. 5); he was not a leasee sharing the produce, but a labourer assumed in the harvest season, who received his daily wages according to that contract of partnership (p. 436). \ There existed no appropriate form for such a lease even in law ; for that the contract of locatio first applied to the letting of houses, and was only transferred to the leasing of land, is shown very clearly by the lule — applicable to the letting of a house, but not to the leasing of land^ that the payment of the tenant must necessarily consist in money; in consequence of which the produce-lease among the Romans comes under the category of contingencies occurring in practical life but not falling within the theory of jurisprudence. The lease first assumed real im- portance when the Roman capitalists began to acquire transmarine pos sessions on a great scale ; then indeed they knew how to value it when a temporary lease was continued through several generations (Colum L 1. 3). Chap, xn.] And oj Capital. 43? Objeoteot I'C, poppies, Were also grown, and — particular! v hasbmdry. ^g fodder for the cattle— lupines, beans, peasj vetches, and other leguminous plants. The seed was sown ordinarily in autumn, only in exceptional cases in spring Much activity was displayed in irrigation and draining ; and drainage by means of covered ditches was early in use Meadows also for supplying hay were not wanting, and even in the time of Cato they were frequently irrigated artificially. Of equal, if not of greater, economic imports ance than grain and vegetables were the olive and the vine, of which the former was planted among the crops, the latter in vineyards appropriated to itself.* Figs, apples, jJears, and other fruit trees were cultivated ; and likewise elms, poplars, and other leafy trees and shrubs, partly for the felling of the wood, partly for the sake of the leaves which were useful as litter and as fodder for cattle. The rearing of cattle, on the other hand, held a far less important place in the economy of the Italians than it holds in modern times, for vegetables formed the general fare, and animal food made its appearance at table only exceptionally ; where it did appear, it consisted almost solely of the flesh of swine or lambs. Although t!;o ancients did not fail to perceive the economic connection between agriculture and the rearing of cattle, and in particular the importance of producing manure, the modern combination of the growth of corn with the rearing of cattle was a thing foreign to antiquity. The larger cattle were kept only so far as was requisite for the tillage of the fields, and they were fed not on pasture set apart for the purpose, but, wholly during summer and mostly during winter also, in the stall. Sheep, • That the space between the vines was occupied not by grain, but only at the moat by such fodder plants as easily grew in the shade, ia evident from Cato (33, corap. IS"?), and accordingly' Columella (iii. 3) calculates on no other accessory gain in the cat=e of a vineyard except the produce of the young shoots sold. On the other hand, the orchard (arhusium) was sown like any corn field (Colum. ii. 9, 6). It was only where the vine was trained on living trees that corn was cultivated in the intervals between tlicm. Vol. II.— 19 434: The Management of Land [Boos, in again, were driven out on the stubble pasture ; Cato allows 100 head to 240 iugera, Frequently, however, the pro- prietor preferred to let his winter pasture to a large sheep- owner, or to hand over his flock of sheep to a lessee who was to share the produce, stipulating for the delivery of a certain number of lambs and of a certain quantity of cheese and milk. Swine — Cato assigns to a large estate ten sties — poultry, and pigeons were kept in the farmyard, and fed as there was need ; and, where opportunity offered, a small hare-preserve and a fish-pond were constructed — the modest commencement of that nursing and rearing of game and fish which was afterwards prosec^ited to so enormous an extent. The labours of the field were performed by means of oxen which were employed for ploughing, and huBtandry. of asses, which were used specially for the car- riage of manure and for driving the mill ; per- haps a horse also was kept, apparently for the use of the master. These animals were not reared on the estate, but were purchased ; the oxen and horses at any rate were generally castrated. Cato assigns to an estate of 100 iugera one, to one of 340 iugera three, yoke of oxen ; a later writer on agriculture, Saserna, assigns two yoke to the 200 iugera. Thj-ee asses were, according to Cato's estimate, re- quired for the smaller, and four for the larger, estate. The human labour on the farm was regularly performed Rural by slaves. At the head of the body of slaves Biaves. Qjj ^jjg estate [familia rustica) stood the steward (vilicus, from villa), who received and expended, bought and sold, went to obtain the instructions of the landloid, and in his absence issued orders and administered punish- ment. Under him were placed the stewardess (yilica), who took charge of the house, kitchen and larder, poultry-yard and dovecot ; a number of ploughmen [bubulci) and com- men serfs, an ass-driver, a swineherd, and, where a flock of sheep was kept, a shepherd. The number, of course, varied according to the method of husbandry pursued. An arable estate of 200 iugera without orchards was estimated Chap. XII.] And of Capital. 435 to require two ploughmen and six serfs ; a similar estate with orchards two ploughmen and tine serfs ; an estate ol' 240 iugera with olive plantations and sheep, three plough- men, five serfs, and three herdsmen. A vineyard naturally required a larger expenditure of labour : an estate of 100 wigera with vine-plantations was supplied with one plough- man, eleven ordinary slaves, and two herdsmen. The stew- ard of course occupied a freer position than the other slaves : the treatise of Mago advised that he should be allowed to marry, to rear children, and to have funds of his own, and Cato advises that he should be married to the stewardess; he alone had some prospect, in the event of good behaviour, of obtaining liberty from his master. In other respects all formed a common household. The slaves were, like the larger cattle, not bred on the estate, but pur- chased at an age capable of labour in the slave-market; and, when through age or infirmity they had become inca- pable of working, they were again sent with other refuse to the market.* The farm-buildings {villa rusiica) supplied at once stabling for the cattle, storehouses for the produce, and a dwelling for the steward and the slaves ; while a separate country house {villa urbana) for the master was frequently erected on the estate. Every slave, even the steward himself, had all the necessaries of life delivered to him on the master's behalf at certain times and according to fixed rates ; and upon these he had to subsist. He received * Mago, or his 1 anslator (in Varro, R. R. 1. 17, 3), advises that slaves should not ba bred, but should be purchased not under 22 yearn of "ge; and Cato must have had a similar course in view, as the pe> Boual staff of his model farm clearly shows, although he does not exactly Bay so. Cato (2) expressly counsels the sale of old ami diseased slaves. The slave-breeding describei by Columella (i. 8), under which female slaves who had three sons were exempted from labour, and the mothers of four sons were even manumitted, was doubtless an independent spec- ulation rather than =i part of the regular management of the estate — ■ similar to the trade pursued by Cato himself of purchasing slaves to ba trained and sold again (Plutarch, Oat. Mai. 21). The oharacteristie taxation mentioned in this same passage probably has reference to thi body of servants prop rly so called (familia urbaita). 436 The Management of Land [Book IU in this way clothes and shoes, wnich were purchased in th« market, and which the recipients had merely to keep in repair ; a quantity of wheat monthly, which each had to grind for himself; as also salt, olives or salted fish to form B relish to their food, wine, and oil. The quantity was regulated by the labour ; on which account the steward, who had easier work than the common slaves, got scantier measure than these. The stewardess attended to all the baking and cooking ; and all partook of the same fare. It was not the ordinary practice to place chains on the slaves ; but when any one had incurred punishment or was thought likely to attempt an escape, he was set to work in chains and was shut up during the night in the slaves' prison.* Ordinarily these slaves belonging to the estate were other sufficient ; in case of need neighbours, as a mat- labonrers, ^^^ ^^ course, helped each other with their slaves for day's wages. Otherwise labourers from without were not usually employed, except in peculiarly unhealthy dis- * In this restricted sense the chaining of slaves, and even of the sons of the family (Dionys. ii. 26), was very old ; and accordingly chained field-labourers are mentioned by Oato as exceptions, to whom, as they could not themselves grind, bread had to be supplied instead of grain (66). Even in the times of the empire the chaining of slaves uni- formly presents itself as a punishment inflicted definitively by the master, provisionally by the steward (Coliim. i. 8; Gai. i. 13; Ulp. i. 11). If, notwithstanding, the tillage of the fields by means of chained slaves appeared in subsequent times as a distinct system, and the labourers' prison {ergastulum) — an underground cellar with window-apertures numerous but narrow and not to be reached from the ground by the hand (Colum. i. 6) — became a necessary part of the farm-buildings, this state of matters was occasioned by the fact that the position of the mral serfs was harder than that of other slaves and tlierefore those ilavcs were chiefly placed in it who had, or seemed to have, committed Bome off'ence. That cruel masters, moreover, applied the chains with- out any occasion to do so, we do not mean to deny, and it is dearly in- dicated by the circumstance that the law-books do not decree the pen- alties applicable to slave transgressors against those in chains, but pre- scribe the punishment of the half-chained. It was precisely the same with branding; it was meant to be, strictly, a punishment, but th« whole flock was probably marked (Diodor. xxxv. 5 j Bemays, PAoij/ Udes, p. xxii.). Cbap. S.II.] And of Capital 4:3T tricts, where it was found advantageous to limit the amount of slaves and to employ hired persons in their room, and for the ingathering of the harvest, for which the regulai supply of labour on the farm did not suffice. At the corn and hay harvests they took in hired reapers, who often in- stead of wages received from the sixth to the ninth sheiif of the produce reaped, or, if they also thrashed, the fifth of the grain : Umbrian labourers, for instance, went annually in great numbers to the vale of Rieti, to help to gather in the harvest there. The grape and olive harvest was ordina- rily let to a contractor, who by means of his men — hired free labourers, or slaves of his own or of others — conducted the gleaning and pressing under the inspection of persons appointed by the landlord for the purpose, and delivered the produce to the master ; * very frequently the landlord sold the harvest on the tree or branch, and left the purchas- er to look after the ingathering. The whole system was pervaded by the utter unscrupu Spirit of lousness characteristic of the power of capital the system. Slaves and cattle were placed on the same level a good watchdog, it is said in a Roman writer on agricul ture, must not be on too friendly terms with his " felloW' slaves;" The slave and the ox were fed properly so long tts they could work, because it would not have been good economy to let them starve ; and they were sold like a worn-out ploughshare when they became unable to work, because in like manner it would not have been good economy to retain them longer. In earlier times religious considej-a- tions had exercised an alleviating influence, and had released the slave and the plough-ox fj-om labour on the days en» joined for festivals and for rest.f Nothing is more charac- * Cato does not expressly say this as to the Tintage, but Varro does JO (i. 17), and it is implied in the nature of the case. It would have been economically an error to fix the number of the slaves on a pro. perty by the standard of the labours of harvest ; and least of all, had such been the i-i se, would the grapes have been sold on the tree, which yet was frequently done (Cato, 147). f Colume a (ii. 12, 9) reckons to the year on an average 45 rainy 438 The Management of Land [Bock III teristic of the spirit of Cato and those who shared his seiiti merits than the way in which they inculcated the observance of the holiday in the letter, and evaded it in reality, by advising that, while the plough should certainly be allowed to rest on these days, the slaves should even then be inces' santly occupied with other labours not expressly prohibited. On principle no freedom of movement whatever was allow- ed to them — a slave, so runs one of Cato's maxims, must either woric or sleep — and no attempt was ever made to attach the slaves to the estate or to their master by ;my bond of human sympathy. The letter of the law in all its naked hideousness regulated the relation, and the Romans indulged no illusions as to the consequences. " So many slaves, so many foes," said a Roman proverb. It was an economic maxim, that dissensions among the slaves ought rather to be fostered than suppressed. In the same spirit Plato and -Aristotle, and no less strongly the oracle of the landlords, the Carthaginian Mago, caution masters against bringing together slaves of the same nationality, lest they should originate combinations and perhaps conspiracies of their fellow-countrymen. The landlord, as we have already said, governed his slaves exactly in the same way as the Roman community governed its subjects in the " country estates of the Roman people," the provinces ; and the world learned by experience, that the ruling state had modelled its new system of government on that of the slaveholder. If, moreover, we have risen to that little-to-be envied elevap tion of thought which values no feature of an economy save diye and holidays ; TrHh which accords the statement of Tertullian (Z)« Jdolol. 14), that the number of the heathen festival days did not coma up to the fifty days of the Cliristian festal season from Easter to Whit- Bunday. To these fell to be added the time of rest in the middle of irinter after the completion of the autumnal sowing, which Columella estimates at thirty days. Within this time, doubtless, the moveable "festival of seed-sowing" (feriae sementivae; comp. i. 254 and Ovid. Fast, i 661) uniformly occurred. This month of rest must not be con- founded with the holidays for holding courts in the season of tlie harvcai (Flin. Ep viii. 21, 2 ei al.) and vintage. Chap. XII.] And of Cwpitol. 439 the capital invested in it, we cannot deny to the manage ment of the Roman estates the praise of consistency, ener gy, punctuality, frugality, and solidity. The sound practical husbandman is reflected in Cato's description of the steward, as he ought to be. He is the first on the farm to rise and the last to go to bed ; he is strict in dealing with himself as ■well as with those under him, and knows more especially how to keep the stewardess in order, but is also careful of his labourers and his cattle, and in particular of the ox that draws the plough ; he puts his hand frequently to work and to every kind of it, but never works himself weary like a slave ; he is always at home, never borrows nor lends, gives no entertainments, troubles himself about no other worship than that of the gods of the hearth and the field, and like a true slave leaves all dealings with the gods as well as with men to his master ; lastly and above all, he modestly meets that master and faithfully and simply, with- out carelessness and without excess of care, conforms to the instructions which that master has given. He is a bad hus- bandman, it is elsewhere said, who buys what he can raise on his own land ; a bad father of a household, who takes in hand during the day what can be ^one by candle-light, unless the weather be bad ; a still worse, who does on a working- day what might be done on a holiday ; but worst of all is he, who in good weather allows work to go on within doors instead of in the open air. The characteristic enthusiasm too of high farming is not wanting ; and the golden rules are laid down, that the soil was given to the husbandman not to be scoured and swept but to be sown and reaped, and that the fermer therefore ought first to plant vines and olives and only thereafter, and that not too early in life, to build himself a villa. A certain boorishness marks the system, and, instead of the rational investigation of cause.*; and effects, the well-known rules of rustic experience are uniformly brought forward ; yet there is an evident endeav- our to appropriate the experience of others and the products of foreign lands : in Cato's list of the sorts of fruit trees, for instance, Greek, African, and Spanish species appear. 440 The Management of Land [Book n The husbandry of the petty farmer differed from tha« „ , , of the estate-holder only or chiefly in its beina Husbandry mi i • ii« of the petty on a smaller scale. The owner hmiself and his children in this case laboured along with the slaves or in their room. The quantity of cattle was reduc- ed, and, where an estate no longer covered the expenses of the plough and of the yoke that drew it, the hoe formed the substitute. The culture of the olive and the vine was less prominent, or was entirely wanting. In the vicinity of Rome and of other large seats of consumption there existed also carefully irrigated gardens for flowers and vegetables, somewhat similar to those which one now sees around Naples ; and these yielded a very abundant return. Pastoral husbandry was practised on a far greater scale Pastoral 'Co&Vi agriculture. An estate in pasture land husbandry. (Bolius) had of necessity in every case an area considerably greater than an arable estate — the least allow- ance was 800 iugera — and it might with advantage to the business be almost indefinitely extended. Italy is so situa- ted in respect of climate that the summer pasture in the mountains and the winter pasture in the plains supplement each other : already at that period, just as at the present day, and for the most part probably along the same paths, the flocks and herds were driven in spring from Apulia to Samnium, and in autumn back again from Samnium to Apulia. The winter pasturage, however, as has been al- ready observed, did not consist entirely of ground kept for the purpose, but was partly the grazing of the stubbles, Horses, oxen, asses, and mules were reared, chiefly to sup- ply the animals required by the landowners, carriers, sol- diers, and so forth ; herds of swine and of goats also were not neglected. But the almost universal habit of wearing woollen stuffs gave a far greater independence and far higlh- er development to the breeding of sheep. The management was in the hands of slaves, and was on the whole similar tc the management of the arable estate, the cattle- master {rna^ gister pecoris) coming in room of the steward. Througho i\ Chap. XII] And of Capital. 441 the summer the shepherd-slaves lived for the most part not under a roof, but, often miles remote from human habita- tions, under sheds and sheepfolds ; it was necessary there- fere that the strongest men should be selected for this employment, that they should be provided with horses and arms, and that they should be allowed far greater freedom of movement than was granted to the slaves on arable estates, In order to form some estimate of the economic results Eesuits. of this system of husbandry, we must consider of Ksm»? the state of prices, and particularly the prices rine com. ^^ grain at this period. On an average these were alarmingly low ; and that in great measure through the fault of the Roman government, which in this import- ant question was led into the most fearful blunders not so much by its short-sightedness, as by an unpardonable dis- position to favour the proletariate of the capital at the ex- pense of the farmers of Italy. The main question here was that of the competition between transmarine and Italian corn. The grain which was delivered by the provincials to the Roman government, sometimes gratuitously, sometimes for a moderate compensation, was in part applied by the government to the maintenance of the Roman official staff and of the Roman armies on the spot, partly given up to the lessees of the decvmae on condition of their either pay- ing a sum of money for it or of their underkating to deliver certain quantities of grain at Rome or wherever else it should be required. From the time of the second Macedonian war the Roman armies were uniformly sup- ported by transmarine corn, and, though this tended to the benefit of the Roman exchequer, it cut oiT the Italian farmer from an important field of consumption for his produce. This however was the least part of the mischief. The gov- ernment had long, as was reasonable, kept a watchful eye on the price of grain, and, when there was a threatening of dearth, had interfered by well-timed purchases abroad ; ana now, when the corn -deliveries of its subjects brought intt 'ts hands every year large quantities of grain — larger proba Vol. n— 19* 442 The Management of Land [Book ill bly than were needed in times of peace — and when, more- over, opportunities were presented to it of acquiring foreign grain in almost unlimited quantity at moderate prices, there was a natural temptation to glut the markets of the capital with such grain, and to dispose of it at rates which either ir. themselves or as compared with the Italian rates were rui'i- ously low. Already in the years 551-554, and 203-200 %) ti ^ in the first instance apparently at the suggestion of ScipiO; 6 modii (\\ bush.) of Spanish and African wheat were sold on public account to the citizens of Eome at 24 and even at 12 asses (Is. M. or lOi.). Some years after- wards (558), more than 240,000 bushels of Sicilian grain were distributed at the latter illu- sory price in the capital. In vain Cato inveighed against this short-sighted policy : the rise of demagogism had a part in it, and these extraordinary, but probably very fre- quent, distributions of grain under the market price by the government or individual magistrates became the germs of the subsequent corn-laws. But, even where the transma- rine corn did not reach the cons.umers in this extraordinary mode, it injuriously affected Italian agriculture. Not only were the masses of grain which the state sold off to the lessees of the tenths beyond doubt acquired under ordinary circumstances by these so cheaply that, when re-sold, it could be disposed of under the price of production ; but it is probable that in the provinces, particularly in Sicily — m consequence partly of the favourable nature of the soil, partly of the extent to which wholesale farming and slave- holding were pursued on the Carthaginian system (p. 16) — the price of production was in general considerably lower than in Italy, while the transport of Sicilian and Sardinian corn to Latium was at least as cheap as, if not cheaper than, its transport thither from Etruria, Campania, or even north- ern Italy. In the natural course of things therefore trans- marine corn could not but flow to the peninsula, and lower the price of the grain produced there. Under the unnatural dfsturbance of relations occasioned by the lamentable sys- tem of slave-labour, it would perhaps have been justifiable Chap, xn.j And of Capital. 443 to impose a duty on transmarine corn for the protection of the Italian fai-mer ; but the very opposite course sjems to have been pursued, and with a view to favour the import of transmarine corn to Italy, a prohibitive system seems to have been applied in the provinces — for though the Rho- dians were allowed to export a quantity of corn from Sicily by way of special favour, the exportation of grain from the provinces must probably, as a rule, have been free only as regarded Italy, and the transmarine corn must thus have been monopolized for the benefit of the mother-country. The effects of this system are clearly evident, A year J of extraordinary fertility like 504 — when the Prices of people of the capital paid for 6 Roman modii Italian com. ,,,, ,\^ . (Is bush.) of spelt not more than | of a dena- rius (about 5c?.), and at the same price there were sold 180 Roman pounds (a pounds 11 oz.) of dried figs, 60 pounds of oil, 72 pounds of meat, and 6 congii (=4J- gallons) of wine — is scarcely by reason of its very singularity to be taken into account ; but other facts speak more distinctly. Even in Cato's time Sicily was called the granary of Rome. In productive years Sicilian and Sardinian corn was disposed of in the Italian ports for the freight. In the richest corn districts of the peninsula — the modern Romagna and Lorn- bardy — during the time of Polybius victuals and lodgings in an inn cost on an average half an as (^f?.) per day ; a bushel and a half of wheat was there worth half a denarius (4 cumstances did not well admit of his enlarging such an estate or of his multiplying his possessions except within narrow limits ; whereas an estate under pasture admitted of unlimited enlargement, and claimed little of the owner's attention. For this reason men already began to convert good arable land into pasture even at an economic loss — a practice which was prohibited by legislation (we know not when, perhaps about this period) but hardly with success. The growth of pastoral husbandry was favoured also by the occupation of the domain land. As the portions so occu- pied were ordinarily large, the system gave rise almost ex- clusively to great estates ; and not only so, but the occu- piers of these possessions, which might be resumed by the state at pleasure and were in law always insecure, were afraid to invest any considerable amount in their cultivation — by planting vines for instance, or olives. The conse- quence was, that these lands were mainly turned to account as pasture. We are prevented from giving a similar comprehensiva view of the moneyed economy of Rome, partly m,3iitof by the want of special treatises descending from ^^^' Roman antiquity on the subject, partly by its very nature which was far more complex and varied tlian that of the Roman husbandry. So far as can be ascertained, its principles were, still less perhaps than those of hus- bandry, the peculiar property of the Romans ; on the con- trary, they were the common heritage of all ancient civili- zation, under which, as under that of modern times, the operations on a great scale naturally were everywhere much alilte. The system of mercantile and moneyed speculation appears to have been established in the first instance by the ChAp. XII.] And of Capital. i49 Greeks, and to have been simply adopted by the Romans. Yet the precision with which it was carried out and the magnitude of the scale on which its operations were con. ducted were so peculiarly Roman, that the spirit of thslaves ; every one who undertook to provide spectacles or gladia- torial games on behalf of those to whom that duty per- tained purchased or trained a company of slaves skilled ic acting, or a band of serfs expert in the trade of fighting, The merchant imported his wares in vessels of his own under the charge. of slaves or freedmen, and disposed of them by the same means in wholesale or retail. We need hardly add that the working of mines and manufactories was conducted entirely by slaves. The situation of these slaves was, no doubt, far from enviable, and was through- out less favourable than that of slaves in Greece ; but, if we leave out of account the classes last mentioned, the in- dustrial slavec found their position on the whole more tolerable than the rural serfs. They had more frequently a family and a practically independent household, with nc remote prospect of obtaining their freedom and property »f their own. Hence such positions formed the true train- 4:52 The Ma/nagcmunt of Land [Book m ing school of those upstarts from the servile class, who by menial virtues and often by menial vices rose to the rank of Roman citizens and not unfrequently attained great prosperity, and who morally, economically, and politically contributed at least as much as the slaves themselves to the ruin of the Roman commonwealth. The Roman mercantile transactions of this period fully _ . . kept pace with the contemporary development Roman mer- of political powcr, and were no less grand of tiansao- their kind. In order to gain a clear idea of the activity of the traffic with other lands, we have only to look into the literature, more especially into the comedies of this period, in which the Phoenician merchant is brought on the stage speaking Phoenician, and the dia- logue swarms with Greek and half Greek words and phra- ses. Coins and But the extent and energy of the Roman moneys. traffic may be traced most distinctly by means of coins and monetary relations. The Roman denarius kept pace with the Roman legions. We have already men- tioned (p. 84) that the Sicilian mints — last of all that of Syracuse in 542 — were closed or at any rate restricted to small money in consequence of the Roman conquest, and that in Sicily and Sardinia the denor rius obtained legal circulation at least side by side with the older silver currency and probably very soon became the exclusive legal tender. With equal it' not greater rapidity the Roman silver coinage penetrated into Spain, where the great silver-mines existed and there was virtually no earliei national coinage ; at a very early period the Spanish towns even began to coin after the Roman standard (p. 253). On the whole, as Carthage coined only to a very limited extent (p. 20), there existed not a single important mint in addition to that of Rome in the region of the western Mediterrar nean, with the exception of the mint of Massilia and per- haps also those of the lllyrian Greeks at Apollonia and Dyrrhaehium. Accordingly, when the Romans begaL tc establish themselves in the region of the Po, these mints Chap, xii.] And of Capital. 453 ^^ were about 225 subjected to the Roman standard in such a way, that, while they retained the right of coining silver, they uniformly — and the Massiliots in particular — were led to adjust their drachma to the weight of the Roman three-quarter denarius, which the Roman go^ ^rnment on its part began to coin, primarily for the use of Upper Italy, under the name of the " coin of victory " (vicioriatus). This new system, based on the Roman, pi'e- vailed throughout the Massiliot, Upper Italian, and Illyrian territories ; and these coins even penetrated into the bar- baiian lands on the north, those of Massilia, for instance, into the Alpine districts along the whole basin of the Rhone, and those of lUyria as far as the modern Transyl- vania. The eastern half of the Mediterranean was not yet reached, by the Roman money, as it had not yet fallen under the direct sovereignty of Rome ; but its place was filled by gold, the true and natural medium for international and transmarine commerce. It is true that the Roman govern- ment, in conformity with its strictly conservative character, adhered — with the exception of a temporary coinage of gold occasioned by the financial embarrassment during the Hannibalic war (p. 206) — steadfastly to the rule of coining silver only in addition to the national-Italian copper ; but commerce had already assumed such dimensions, that it was able in the absence of money to conduct its transac- tions with gold by weight. Of the sum in cash, which lay in the Roman treasury in 597, scarcely a sixth was coined or uncoined silver, five-sixths con- sisted of gold in bars,* and beyond doubt the precious metals were found in all the chests of the larger Roman capitalists in substantially similar portions. Already there- fore gold held the first place in great transactions ; and, aa may be inferred from this flict, the preponderance of traffic was maintained with foreign lands, and particularly with • There were iu the tieasury 17,410 Roman pounds of gold, 22,070 pounds of uncoined, and 18,280 pounds of coined, silver. The legal ratio pf gold to silver was: 1 pound of gold=4,000 sesterces, or 1 : U'91, i54 Thb Management of Land [Book ai tne East, which since the times of Philip and Alexander the Great had adopted a gold currency. The whole gain from these immense transactions ol tne Roman Roman capitalists flowed in the long run to wealth. Rome ; for, much as they went abroad, the.) were not easily induced to settle permanently, there, but Booner or later returned to Rome, either realizing their gains and investing them in Italy, or continuing to carry on business from Rome as a centre by means of the capital and connections ■which they had acquired. The moneyed superiority of Rome as compared with the rest of the civilized world was, accordingly, quite as decided as its political and military ascendancy. Rome in this respect stood towards other countries somewhat as the England of the present day stands towards the Continent — a Greek, for instance, observes of the younger Scipio Africanus, that he •was not rich " for a Roman." We may form some idea of what was considered as riches in the Rome of those days from the fact, that Lucius Paullus with an estate of 60 tal- ents (£14,000) was not reckoned a wealthy senator, and that a dowry — such as each of the daughters of the elder Scipio Africanus received — of 50 talents (£12,000) was regarded as a suitable portion for a maiden of quality, while the estate of the wealthiest Greek of this century was not more than 300 talents (£72,000). It was no wonder, accordingly, that the mercantile spirit MeroantUe took possession of the nation, or rather — for ^^'"'' that was no new thing in Rome — that the spirit of the capitalist now penetrated and pervaded all aspects and stations of life, and agriculture as well as the govern- ment of the state began to become enterprises of capital- ists. The preservation and increase of wealth positively formed a part of public and private morality. " A widow's estate may diminish ; " Cato wrote in the practical instruc- tions which he composed for his son, "a man must augment his substance, and he is deserving of praise and full of a divine spirit, whose account-books at his death show that he has gained more than he has inherited." Wherever Chap. Xli.j And of Capital. 45fl therefore, there was giving and counter-giving, every trans- action although concluded vi-ithout any sort of formality ■was held as valid, and in case of necessity the right of ■ action was accorded to the party aggrieved if not by the law, at any rate by mercantile custom and judicial usage ; • but the promise of a gift without due form was null alike u legal theory and in practice. In Rome, Polybius tells us, nobody gives to any one unless he must do so, and no one pays a penny before It falls due, even among near rehv lives. The very legislation yielded to this mercantile morality, which regarded all giving away without recom- pense as squandering ; the giving of presents and bequests and the undertaking of sureties were subjected to restriction at this period by decree of the people, and heritages which did not fall to the nearest relatives were at any rate taxed. In the closest connection with such views mercantile punc- tuality, honour, and respectability pervaded the whole of Roman life. Every ordinary man was morally bound to keep an account-book of his income and expenditure — in every well-arranged house, accordingly, there was a separate record-chamber {tablinuni) — and every one took care that he should not leave the world without having made his will : it was one of the thi-ee matters in his life which Cato declares that he regretted, that he had been a single day without a testament. Those household books were univer- sally by Roman usage admitted as valid evidence in a court of justice, nearly in the same way as we admit the evidence of a merchant's ledger. The word of a man of unstained repute was admissible not merely against himself, but in his own favour ; nothing was more common than to settle differences between persons of integrity by means of an oath demanded by the one party and given by the othe) —a mode of settlement which was reckoned valid even in law ; and a traditional rule enjoined the jury, in the absence of evidence, to give their verdict in favour of the man of * On this was based the actionable character of contracta of baying, hiring, and partnership, and, in general, the who e system of non-forma) actionable contracts. 456 2%e Management of La/na [U^ojl III unstained character when opposed to one who was less reputable, and only in the event of both parties being of equal repute to give it iu favour of the defendant.* The conventional respectability of the Romans was especially apparent in the more and more strict enforcement of the rule, that no respectable man should allow himself to bo paid for the performance of personal services. Accordingly magistrates, officers, jurymen, guardians, and generally all respectable men entrusted with public functions, received no recompense for the services which they rendered, except, at most, a compensation for their bare outlay ; and not only so, but the services which intimate acquaintances {amid) rendered to each other — such as giving security, representar tion in law-suits, custody (deposiium), lending of objects not intended to be let on hire (commodatwni), the managing and attending to business in general (procuratio) — were treated according to the same principle, so that it was improper to receive any compensation for them and an action was not allowable even where a compensation had been promised. How entirely the man was merged in the merchant, appears most distinctly perhaps in the substitu- tion of a money-payment and an action at law for the duel — even for the political duel — in the Roman life of this period. The usual form of settling questions of personal honour was this : a wager was laid between the offender and the party offended as to the truth or falsehood of the offensive assertion, and under the shape of an action for the stake the question of fact was submitted with all the forms of law to a jury ; the acceptance of such a wager when offered by the offended or offending party was, just like the * The chief passage as to this point is the fragment of Cato in Gel- liua, xiv. 2. In the ease of the obligatio Utteris also, i. e., a claim based . solely on the entry of a debt in the account-book of the creditor, this legal recognition of the personal credibility of the party, even where his testimony in his own cause is concerned, affords the key of explanation j and hence it happened that in later times, when this mercantile honour had vanished from Roman life, the oblignik litteru, while not exactly abolished, fell of itself into desuetude. CiiAP. xn.] And of Capital. 45? acceptance of a challenge to a duel at the present flay, left open in law, but in point of honoui- it could seldom be refused. One of the n»ost important consequences of this mei- AsBooia- cantile spirit, which displayed itself with an *^™^" intensity hardly conceivable by those i ot en- gaged in business, was the exti aordinary impulse gi^en to the formation of associations. In Rome this was especially fostered by the system already often mentioned as adopted by the government in the transaction of its business — the system of middlemen : for from the extent of the trans- actions it was natural, and it was probably often required by the state for the sake of greater security, that capitalists should undertake such leases and contracts not individually, but in partnership. All great transactions were organized on the model of these state^contracts. Indications are even found of the occurrence among the Romans of that feature so characteristic of the system of association — a coalition of rival companies in order jointly to establish monopolist prices.* In transmarine transactions more especially and such as were otherwise attended with considerable risk, the system of partnership was so extensively adopted, that it practically took the place of insurances, which were un- known to antiquity. Nothing was more common than the nautical loan, as it was called — the modern " bottomry " — by which the risk and gain of transmarine traffic were pro- portionally distributed among the owners of the vessel and * 111 the remarkable model contract given by Cato (141) for the let- ting of the olive-harvest, there is the following paragraph ; — " None [of the persons desirous to contract on the occasion of letting] ehall withdraw, for the sake of causing the gathering and pressing of the olives to be let at a dearer rate ; except when [the joint bidder] im- mediately names [the other bidder] as his partner. If this rule shall appear to have been infringed, all the partners [of the company with which the contract has been concluded] shall, if desired by the landlord or the overseer appointed by him, take an oath [that they have not con- spired in this way to prevent competition]. If they do not take the oath, the stipulated price is not to be paid." It is tacitly assumed that the contract is taken by a company, not by an individual capitalist. Vol. II.— 20 458 The Management of Land [Book iil cargo and all the capitalists who had advanced money for the 'voyage. It was, however, a general rule of Eomou econoiay that one should rather talte small shares in man; speculations than speculate independently ; Cato advised the capitalist not to fit out a single ship with his money bui to enter into concert with forty-nine other capitalists so as 10 send out fifty ships and to take an interest in each, to the extent of a fiftieth share. The greater conjplication thus introduced into business was overcome by the Roman merchant through his punctual laboriousness and his sys- tem of management by slaves and freedmen, which, re- garded from the point of view of the pure capitalist, was far preferable to our counting-house system. Thus these mercantile companies, with their hundred ramifications, largely influenced the economy of every Romar of note. There was, according to the testimony of Polybius, hardly a man of means in Rome who had not been concerned as an avowed or silent partner in leasing the public revenues ; and much more must each liave invested on an average a considerable portion of his capital in mercantile associations generally. All this laid the foundation for that endurance of Roman wealth, which was perhaps still more remarkable than its magnitude. The phenomenon, unique perhaps of its kind, to which we have already called attention (p. 384) — that the condition of the great houses remained almost the same for several centuries — finds its explanation in the somewhat narrow but solid principles on which they managed their mercantile property. In consequence of the one-sided prominence assigned to Moneyed capital in the Roman economy, the evils insepara- craoy. ^j^ from a pure capitalist system could not fail to appear. Civil equality, which had already received a fatal wound through the rise of the ruling order of lords, suffered an equally severe blow in consequence of the line of social demarcation becoming more and more distinctly drawn between the rich and the poor. Nothing more effectually Chap. XU.] And of Capital. 459 promoted this separation in a downward direction than the already-mentioned rule — apparently a matter of indifFer ence, but in reality involving the deepest arrogance and Insolence on the part of the capitalists — that it wa^ dis- graceful to take money for work ; a wall of partition was thus raised not merely between the common day-labourer or ai tisan and the respectable landlord or manufacturer, but also between the soldier or subaltern and the military tri- bune, and between the clerk or messenger and the magistrate. In an upward direction a similar barrier was raised by the Claudian law suggested by Gaius Flaminius (shortly before 536), which prohibited senators and senators' sons from possessing sea-going vessels except for the transport of the produce of their estates, and proba^ bly also from participating in public contracts — forbidding them generally from carrying on whatever the Romans included under the head of " speculation " (quaestus).* It is true that this enactment was not called for by the sena- tors ; it was on the contrary a work of the democratic opposition, which perhaps desired in the first instance mere- ly to prevent the evil of members of the governing class personally entering into dealings with the government. It may be, moreover, that the capitalists in this instance, as so often afterwards, made common cause with the democratic party, and seized the opportunity of diminishing competi- tion by the exclusion of the senators. The former object was, of course, only very imperfectly attained, for the sys» tern of partnership opened up to the senators ample facili- ties for continuing to speculate in secret ; but this decree of the people drew a legal line of demarcation between those men of quality who did not speculate at all or at any rate not openly and those who did, and it placed alongside of * Livy J^xi. 63 ; oomp. Cic. Vei-r. v, 18, 46) mentions only the enactment as to the sea-going vessels ; but Asconius {in Or. de Toga Oand. p. 94. Orett.) and Dio (Iv. 10, 5) state that the senator was also forbidden by law to undertake state-contracts {redemptiones) ; and, ae according to Livy " all speculation was considered indecorous in a senO' lor," the Claudian law probably went further than he states. 460 The Management of Lwnd [Book 111 the aristocracy which was primarily political an aristocracy which was purely moneyed — the equestrian order, as it waj afterwards called, whose rivalries with the senatorial ordei fill the history of the following century. A further consequence of the one-sided power of capita sto-iiit f ^^^ *^® disproportionate prominence of thosp tho capital- branches of business which were the most sterile iBt system. and the least productive to the national economy as a whole. Industrial art, which ought to have held the highest place, in fact occupied the lowest. Commerce flour- ished ; but it was universally non-reciprocal. Even on the northern frontier the Eomans do not seem to have been able to give merchandise in exchange for the slaves who were brought in numbers from the Celtic and probably even from the Germanic territories to Ariminum and the other markets of northern Italy ; at least as early as 523 the export of silver money to the Celtic territory was prohibited by the Roman government. In the intercourse with Greece, Syria, Egypt, Cyrene, and Carthage, the balance of trade was necessarily unfavourable to Italy. Rome began to become the capital of th^Medi- terranean states, and Italy to become the suburbs of Rome; the Romans had no wish to be anything more, and in their opulent indifference were satisfied with a non-reciprocal commerce, such as every city which is nothing more than a capital necessarily carries on — they possessed, forsooth, money enough to pay for everything which they needed or did not need. On the other hand the most unproductive of all sorts of business, the traffic in money and the farming of the revenue, formed the true mainstay and stronghold of the Roman economy. And, lastly, whatever elements that economy had contained for the production of a prosperous middle class and of a lower one provided with sufficient subsistence were extinguished by the unhappy system of employing slaves, or, at the best, contributed to the multi- plication of the troublesome order of freedmen. But above all the deep-rooted immorality, which is The capital, inherent in an economy of pure capital, ate into Chap, xuj And of Capital. 461 istsandjjub- the heart of society and of the commcnwealthj 10 opinion. ^^^ substituted an absolute selfishness for hu- manity and patriotism. The better portion of the nation were very clearly aware of the seeds of corruption which lurked in that pursuit of speculation ; and the instinctira hatred of the great multitude, as well as the displeasure of the well-disposed statesman, was especially directed against the trade of the professional money-lender, which for long had been subjected to penal laws and still continued under the letter of the law amenable to punishment. In a comedy of this period the money-lender is told that the class to which he belongs is on a parallel with the lenones — Eodem hercle vos pono et paro ; parissumi estis ihus. Hi saltern in occuHis Incis prostant : vos in foro ipso : Vos fenore, hi male suadendo et lustris lacerant homines, Rogitationes plurimas propter vos populus scivii, Quas vos rogaias rumpitis ; aliquam reperiiis rimam. Quasi aquam fervenicm frigidam ease, ita vos putatis lege*. Cato the leader of the reform party expresses himself still more emphatically than the comedian. " Lending money at interest," he says in the preface to his treatise on agricul- ture, " has various advantages ; but it is not honourable. Our forefathers accordingly ordained, and inscribed it among their laws, that the thief should be bound to pay two-fold, but the man who takes interest four-fold, compen- sation ; whence we may infer how much worse a citizen they deemed the usurer than the thief." There is no great difference, he elsewhere considers, between a money-lender and a murderer ; and it must be allowed that his acts did not fall short of his words — when governor of Sardinia, by his rigorous administration of the law he drove the Eoman bankers to their wits' end. The great majority of the ruling senatorial order regarded the system of the specu- lators with dislike, and not only conducted themselves in the provinces on the whole with more integrity and honour than these moneyed men, but frequently acted as a check Dn them. The frequent changes of the supreme magis- i62 The Mcmagement of Land [Book m trates, however, and the inevitable inequality in their mode of handling the laws, necessarily rendered the effort tc cheek such proceedings in great measure ineffectual. The Komans perceived moreover — as it was not difficult Koaotionof to perceive — that it was of far more conse- ist^eyXmon ^uence to give a different direction to the whole agriculture, national economy than to exercise a police con- trol over speculation ; it was such views mainly that men like Cato enforced by precept and example on the Roman agriculturist. " When our forefathers," continues Cato in the preface just quoted, " pronounced the eulogy of a worthy man, they praised him as a worthy farmer and a worthy landlord ; one who was thus commended was thought to have received the highest praise. The merchant I deem energetic and diligent in the pursuit of gain ; but his calling is too much exposed to perils and mischances. On the other hand farmers furnish the bravest men and the ablest soldiers ; no calling is so honourable, safe, and in- offensive as theirs, and those who occupy themselves with it are least liable to evil thoughts." He was wont to say of himself, that his property was derived solely from two sources — agriculture and frugality ; and, though this was neither very logically expressed nor strictly conformable to the truth,* yet Cato was not unjustly regarded by his con- temporaries and by posterity as the model of a Roman landlord. Unhappily it is a truth as remarkable as it is painful, that this husbandry, commended so much and cer- tainly with so entire good faith as a remedy, was itself per- vaded by the poison of the capitalist system. In the case * Cato, like every other Roman, invested a,part of Ms means in the breeding of cattle, and in commercial and other undertakings. But il was not his habit directly to violate the laws ; he neither speculated in etate-leases — which as a senator he was not allowed to do — nor prac- tised usury. It is an injustice to charge him with a practice in the lat- ter respect at variance with his theory ; the fenus nauticnm, in which he certainly engaged, was not a branch of usury prohibited by the law ; it really formed an essential part of the business of chartering and frcig;hliiig vessels. Chap. XII] And of Ca^pital. 463 of pastoral husbandry this was obvious ; for that reason it was most in favour with the public and least in favour with the party desirous of moral reform. But how stood the case with agriculture itself? The warfare, which from the third to the fifth century u.c. capital had waged against labour, by withdrawing under the form of interest on debt the revenues of the soil from the working farmers and bringing them into the hands of the idly consuming fund- holder, had been settled chiefly by the extension of the Roman economy and the transference of the capital which existed in Latium to the field of mercantile activity opened up throughout the range of the Mediterranean. Now even the extended field of business was no longer able to contain the increased mass of capital ; and an insane legislation laboured simultaneously to compel the investment of sena- torial capital by artificial means in Italian estates, and sys- tematically to depreciate the arable land of Italy by inter- ference with the prices of grain. Thus there began a second campaign of capital against free labour or — what was sub- stantially the same thing in antiquity — against the small farmer system ; and, if the first had been bad, it yet seemed mild and humane as compared with the second. The capi- talists no longer lent to the farmer at interest — a course which in itself was not now practicable because the petty landholder no longer produced any surplus of consequence, and was moreover not sufficiently simple and radical — but they bought up the farms and converted them, at the best, into estates managed by stewards and wrought by slaves. This also was called agriculture ; it was in reality the appli- cation of the capitalist system to the produce of the soil. The description of the husbandmen, which Cato gives, is excellent and quite just ; but how does it correspond to the system itself which he portrays and recommends ? If a Roman senator, as must not unfrequently have been the case, possessed four such estates as that described by Cato, the same space, which in the olden time when small hold ings prevailed had supported from 100 to -150 farmers' families, was now occupied by one family of free person? 464: The Management of Land [Book ill and about 50, for the most part unmarried, slaves. If this was the remedy by which the decaying national economy was to be restored to vigour, it bore, unhappily, an aspect of extreme resemblance to the disease. The general result of this system is only too clearly obvious in the changed proportions of the popu- mentof latiou. It is true that the condition of the ttLily. various distilcts of Italy was very unequal, and some were even prosperous. The farms, instituted in great numbers in the region between the Apennines and the Po at the time of its colonization, did not so speedily disappear. Polybius, who visited that quarter not long after the close of the present period, commends its numerous, handsome, and vigorous population : with a just legislation as to corn it would doubtless have been possible to make the basin of the Po, and not Sicily, the granary of the capital. In like manner Picenum and the so-called ager Gallicus acquired a numerous body of farmers through the distributions of do- main-land consequent on the Flaminian law of 522 — a body, however, which was sadly reduced in the Hannibalic war. Jn Etruria, and perhaps also in Umhria, the internal condition of the subject communities was unfavourable to the flourishing of a class of free farm- ers. Matters were better in Latium — which could not be entirely deprived of the advantages of the market of the capital, and which had on the whole been spared by the Hannibalic war — as well as in the secluded mountain-valleys of the Marsians and Sabellians. On the other hand the Hannibalic war had fearfully devastated southern Italy and had ruined, in addition to a number of smaller places, its two largest cities, Capua and Tarentum, both once able to send into the field armies of 30,000 men. Samnium had recovered from the severe wars of the fifth century : accord- „ ing to the census of 529 it was in a position to furnish as many men capable of arms as all the Latin towns, and it was probably at that time, next to the ager Romarms, the most flourishing region of the peninsula. But the Hannibalic war had desolated the land afresh, and CHAf. XII.] And of Capital. 465 th« assignations of land in that quarter to the soldiers of Scipio's army, although considerable, probably did not cov- er the loss. Campania and Apulia, both hitherto well-peo- pled regions, were still worse treated in the same war by friend and foe. In Apulia, no doubt, assignations of land •s'ere made afterwards, but the colonies instituted there were not successful. The beautiful plain of Campania remained better peopled ; but the territory of Capua and of the other communities broken up in the Hannibalic war became pub- lic property, and the occupants of it were uniformly not proprietors, but petty temporary lessees. Lastly, in the wide Lucanian and Bruttian territories the population, which was already very thin before the war, was visited by the whole severity of the war itself and of the penal execu- tions that followed in its train ; nor was much done on the part of Rome to revive the agricultui'e there — with the ex- ception perhaps of Valentia (Vibo, now Monteleone), none of the colonies established there attained any real prosperity. With every allowance for the inequality in the political and economic circumstances of the different dis- Fallmg off in the tricts and for the comparatively flourishing con- population. . T /- , 1 • • dition oi several oi them, the retrogression is yet on the whole unmistakeable, and it is confirmed by the most indisputable testimonies as to the general condition of Italy. Cato and Polybius agree in stating that Italy was at the end of the sixth century far weaker in population than at the end of the fifth, and was no longer able to furnish ar-mies so large as in the first Punic war. The increasing difficulty of the levy, the necessity of lowering the qualifi- Qition for service in the legions, and the complaints of the Pi! lies as to the magnitude of the contingents to be furnished by them, confirm these statements ; and, in the case of the Roman burgesses, the numbers tell the same tale. In 502, shortly after the expedition of Regulus to Africa, they amounted to 298,000 men capable of bearing arms ; thirty years later, shortly *efore the commencement of the Hannibalic war (534), **^ they had fallen oflT to 270,000, or by a tenth, Vol. II.— 20* i66 The Managemeni of Zand iBook in and again twenty years after that, shortly before the end of the same war (550), to 214,000, or by a fourth 3 and a generation afterwards — during which no extraordinary losses ocourred, but the institution of the great burgess-colonies in the plain of northern Italy in par- ticular occasioned a perceptible and exceptional increase — the numbers of the burgesses had hardly again reached the point at which they stood at the commencement of thia period. If we had similar statements regarding the Italian population generally, they would beyond all doubt exhibit a deficit relatively still more considerable. The decline of the national vigour less admits of proof ; but it is stated by the writers on agriculture that flesh and milk disappeared more and more from the diet of the common people. At the same time the slave population increased, as the free population declined. In Apulia, Lucania, and the Bruttian land, pastoral husbandry must even in the time of Cato have prepondei-ated over agriculture ; the half-savage slave- herdsmen had in reality the command of the country. Apulia was rendered so insecure by them that a strong force had to be stationed there : in 569 a slave- Io5. conspiracy planned on the largest scale, and mixed up with the proceedings of the Bacchanalia, was dis- covered there, and nearly 7,000 men were judicially con- demned. In Etruria also Roman troops were obliged to j^^ take the field against a band of slaves (558), and even in Latium there were instances in which towns like Setia and Praeneste were in danger of being 198 surprised by a band of runaway serfs (556). The nation was visibly diminishing, and the community of free burgesses was resolving itself into a body composed of masters and slaves ; and, although it was in the first instance the two long wars with Carthage which decimated and ruined both the burgesses and the allies, the Roman capitalists beyond doubt contributed quite as much a» Hamiloar and Hannibal to the decline in the vigour and the numbers of the Italian people. No one cac say whether the government could have rendered help ; but Chap XII.] And of Capital. 46*( it was an alarming and discreditable fact, that the circl 3s of the Roman aristocracy, well-meaning and energetic as foi the most part they were, never once showed any insight into the real gravity of the situation or any foreboding of the full magnitude of the danger. When a Roman lady belonging to the high nobility, the sister of one of the nu- merous citizen-admirals who in the first Punic war had rumed the fleets of the state, one day got among a crowd in the Roman Forum, she said aloud in the hearing of those around, that it was high time to place her brother once more at the head of the fleet and to relieve the pressure in the maricet-place by bleeding the citizens afresh (508). Those who thus thought and spoke were, no doubt, a small minority ; nevertheless this outrageous speech was simply a forcible expression of the criminal indifference with which the whole noble and rich world looked down on the com- mon citizens and farmers. They did not exactly desire their destruction, but they allowed it to run its course ; and so desolation advanced with gigantic steps over tha flourish- ing land of Italy, where countless numbers of free men had lately rejoiced in moderate and merited prosperity, CHAPTER XllL FAITH AND MANNERS. Life in the case of the Roman was spent under concli< Eoman t'ons of austere restraint, and, the nobler he and Komi 1 was, the less he was a free man. All-powerful pride. custom restricted him to a narrow range of thought and action ; and to have led a serious and strict or, CO use the characteristic Latin expressions, a grave and severe life, was his glory. Nothing more or less was ex- pected of him than that he should keep his household in good I rder and unflinchingly bear his part of counsel and action in public affairs. But, while the individual had neither the wish nor the power to be aught else than a member of the community, the glory and the might of that community were felt by every individual burgess as a per- sonal possession to be transmitted along with his name and his homestead to his posterity ; and thus, as one generation after another was laid in the tomb and each in succession added its fresh contribution to the stock of ancient honours, the collective sense of dignity in the noble families of Rome swelled into that mighty pride of Roman citizenship, to which the earth has never perhaps witnessed a parallel, and the traces of which, as strange as they are grand, seem to us whenever we meet them to belong as it were to another world. It was one of the characteristic peculiarities of this powerful pride of citizenship, that, while not suppressed, it was yet compelled by the rigid simplicity and equality that prevailed among the citizens to remain locked up within the breast during life, and was only allowed to find expression af^er death ; but it was displayed in the funeral of the !nan of distinetion so conspicuously and intensely, that fhis Chap, xiii] Faith and Manners. 469 ceremonial is better fitted than any other phenomenon of Roman life to give to us who live in other times a glimpse of that wonderful spirit of the Romans. It was a singular procession, at which the citizens were A Roman invited to be present by the summons of the fimcrai. public crier : " Yonder warrior is dead ; who- ever can, let him come to escort Lucius Aemilius ; he is borne forth from his house." It was opened by bands of wailing women, musicians, and dancers ; one of the latter was dressed out and furnished with a mask in imitation of the deceased, and by gesture doubtless and action recalled once more to the multitude the appearance of the well- known man. Then followed the most magnificent and peculiar part of the solemnity — the procession of ancestors — before which all the rest of the pageant so faded in com- parison, that men of rank of the true Roman type enjoined their heirs to restrict the funeral pomp to that procession alone. We have already mentioned that tlie face-masks of those ancestors who had filled the curule aedileship or any higher ordinary magistracy, wrought in wax and painted — • modelled as far as possible after life, but not wanting even for the earlier ages up to and beyond the time of the kings — were wont to be placed in wooden niches along the walls of the family hall, and were regarded as the chief ornament of the house. When a death occurred in the family, suita/- ble persons, chiefly actors, were dressed up with these face- masks and the corresponding official costume to take part in the funeral ceremony, so that the ancestors — each in the principal dress worn by him in his lifetime, the triumphator in his gold-embroidered, the censor in his purple, and the consul in his purple-bordered, robe, with their lictors and ihe other insignia of office — all in chariots gave the final escort to the dead Or. the biei overspread with massive purple and gold-embroidered coverlets and fine linen cloths lay the deceased himself, likewise in the full costume of the highest office which he had filled, and surrounded by the armour of the enemies whom he had slain and by the chap- lets which in jest or earnest he had won. Behind the bier 470 Faith and Manners. [Book xll camt' the mourners, all dressed in black and wivhout orna- ment the sons of the deceased with their heads veiled, the daughters without veil, the relatives and clansmen, the .friends, the clients and freedmen. Thus the procession passed on to the Forum. There the corpse was placed in an erect position ; the ancestors descended from their cha fiots and seated themselves in the curule chairs ; and the son oi nearest gentile kinsman of the deceased ascended the rostra, in order to announce to the assemhled multitude in simple recital the names and deeds of each of the men sit- ting in a circle around him and, last of all, those of him who had recently died. This may be called a barbarous custom, and a nation of artistic feelings would certainly not have tolerated the con- tinuance of this odd resurrection of the dead down to an epoch of fully developed civilization ; but even Greeks who were very dispassionate and but little disposed to reverence, such as Polybius, acknowledged the imposing effect pro- duced by the naive pomp of this funeral ceremony. It was a conception essentially in keeping with the grave solemnity, the uniform movement, and the proud dignity of Roman life, that departed generations should continue to walk, as it were, corporeally among the living, and that, when a bur- gess weary of labours and of honours was gathered to his fathers, these fathers themselves should appear in the Fo- rum to receive him among their number. But the Romans had now reached a crisis of transition. The new Now that the power of Rome was no longer Hellenism. confined to Italy but had spread far and wide to the west and to the east, the days of the old home life of Italy were over, and a Hellenizing civilization came in its room. I', is true that Italy had been subject to the influence of Greece, ever since it had a history at all. We have formerly shown how the youthful Greece and the youthful Italy — both of them with some measure of simplicity and originality — gave and received intellectual impulses ; and iiow at a later period Rome endeavoured after a more ex- ternal manner to appropriate to practical use the language Chap, xiii.] Faitli and Manners. 471 and Inventions of the Greeks. But the Hellenism of the Romans of the present period was, in its causes as well as its consequences, something essentially new. The Romans began to feel the lack of a richer intellectual life, and to be startled as it were at their own utter want of mental cul- ture ; and, if even nations of artistic gifts, such as the Eng- lish and Germans, have not disdained in the pauses of their own productiveness to avail themselves of the miserable French culture for filling up the gap, it need excite no sur- prise that the Italian nation now flung itself with eager zeal on the glorious treasures as well as on the dissolute filth of the intellectual development of Hellas. But it was an impulse still more profound and deep-rooted, which carried the Romans irresistibly into the Hellenic vortex. Hellenic civilization still doubtless assumed that name, but it was Hellenic no longer ; it \vas, in fact, humanistic and cosmo- politan. It had solved the problem of moulding a mass of different nations into one whole completely in the field of intellect, and to a certain extent also in that of politics ; and, now when the same task on a wider scale devoUxd on Rome, she entered on the possession of Hellenism along with the rest of the inheritance of Alexander the Great. Hellenism therefore was no longer a mere stimulus or ac- cessory influence ; it penetrated the Italian nation to the very core. Of course, the vigorous home life of Italy strove against the foreign element. It was only after a most vehement struggle that the Italian farmer abandoned the field to the cosmopolite of the capital ; and, as in Gei-- many the French coat called forth the national Germanic frock, so the reaction against Hellenism aroused in Rome a tendency which opposed the influence of Greece on princi- ple, in a fashion altogether foreign to the earlier centuries, end in doing so fell pretty frequently into downright follies and absurdities. No department of human action or thought remained Hrfieniem unaffected by this struggle between the old fash- in politics. Jqjj ^ncL the new. Even political relations were largely influenced by it. The whimsical project of emanci' 472 Faith and Manners. [Book in pating the Hellenes, the well-deserved failure of which has already been described, the kindred, likewise Hellenic, idea of a combination of republics in opposition to kings, and the desire of propagating Hellenic polity at the expense of eastern despotism — which were the two principles that regulated, for instance, the treatment of Macedonia — were fixed ideas of the new school, just as dread of the Cartha« ginians was the fixed idea of the old ; and, if Cato pushed the latter to a ridiculous excess, Philhellenism now and then indulged iu extravagances at least as foolish. For example, the conqueror of king Antiochus not only had a statue of himself in Greek costume erected on the Capitol, but also, instead of calling himself in good Latin Asiaticus, assumed the unmeaning and anomalous, but yet magnificent and almost Greek, surname of Asiagenus* A more important consequence of this attitude of the ruling nation towards Hellenism was, that the process of Latinizing gained ground everywhere in Italy except where it encountered the Hel- lenes. The cities of the Greeks in Italy, so far as the war had not destroyed them, remained Greek. Apulia, about which, it is true, the Eomans gave themselves little con- cern, appears at this very epoch to have been thoroughly pervaded by Hellenism, and the local civilization there seems to have attained the level of the decaying Hellenic culture by its side. Tradition is silent on the matter ; but the numerous coins of cities, uniformly furnished with Greek inscriptions, and the manufacture of painted vases after the Greek style, which was carried on alone in that part of Italy with more ambition and gaudiness than taste, show that Apulia had completely adopted Greek habits and Greek art. • That Aslagenus was the original title of the hero of Magnesia ani? of his descendants, is established by coins and inscriptions ; the fact that the Capitoline Fasti call him Asiatinis is one of several traces indi- cating that these have undergone a non-contemporaneous reviaion. The former surname can only be a corruption of 'Aaiayivtjq — the form wlich later authors substituted for it — which fignifies not a conqueror of Asia, bnt an Asiatic by birth. Ohap. XIII.] Faith and Manners. 473 But the real straggle between Hellenism and its na^ tional antagonists during the present period was carried on in the field of faith, of manners, and of art and literature ; and we must not omit to attempt some delineation of this great strife of principles, however difficult it may be to pre> cent a summary view of the myriad forms and aspects which the conflict assumed. The extent to which the old simple faith still retained a The nation- Hving hold on the Italians is shown very clearly an™unbe" ^7 *^® admiration or astonishment which this Uef. problem of Italian piety excited among the con- temporary Greeks. On occasion of the quarrel with the Aetolians it was reported of the Roman commander-in- chief that during battle he was solely occupied in praying and sacrificing like a priest ; whereas Polybius with his somewhat stale moralizing calls the attention of his coun- trymen to the political usefulness of this piety, and ad- monishes them that a state cannot consist of wise men alone, and that such ceremonies are very convenient for the sake of the multitude. But if Italy still possessed — what had long been a mere fieiigioua antiquarian curiosity in Hellas — a national reli- economy. gion, it was already visibly beginning to be ossified into theology. The torpor creeping over faith is nowhere perhaps so distinctly apparent as in the alterations in the economy of divine service and of the priesthood. The public service of the gods became not only more te- dious, but above all more and more costly. In 558 there was added to the three old colleges of the augurs, pontifices, and keepers of oracles, a fourth con- sisting of three " banquet-masters " (tres viri epulones), solely for the important purpose of superintending the ban- quets of the gods. The .priests, as well as the gods, were in fairness entitled to feast ; new institutions, however, were not needed with that view, as every college applied itself with zeal and devotion to its convivial affairs. The clerical banquets were accompanied by the claim of clerical immunities. The priests even in times of grave embarrass. 474 Faith and Manners. [Book m ment claimed the right of exemption from public burdens^ and only after very troublesome controversy submitted to make payment of the taxes in arrear (558). "*■ To the individual, as well as to the community, piety became a more and more costly article. The custom of instituting endowments, and generally of undertaking permanent pecuniary obligations, for religious objects pre- vailed among the Romans in a manner similar to its preva- lence in Eoman Catholic countries at the present day. These endowments — particularly after they came to be re- garded by the supreme spiritual and at the same time the supreme juristic authority in the state, the pontifices, as a real burden devolving de jure on every heir or other per- son acquiring the estate — began to form an extremely op- pressive charge on property ; " inheritance without sacrifi- cial obligation " was a proverbial saying among the Eo- mans somewhat similar to our " rose without a thorn." The dedication of a tenth of their substance became so common, that twice every month a public entertainment was given from the proceeds in the Forum Boarium at Rome. With the Oriental worship of the Mother of the Gods there was imported to Rome among other pious nuisances the practice, annually recurring on certain fixed days, of demanding penny-collections from house to house (stipem cog ere). Lastly, the subordinate class of priests and soothsayers, as was reasonable, rendered no service without being paid for it ; and beyond doubt the Roman dramatist sketched from life, when in the curtain-conversa- tion between husband and wife he represents the account for pious ser\ices as ra;iking with the accounts for the cook, the nurse, and other customary presents : — Da mild, vir, -^— guod dem Quinguatribus Praecantrici, conjeetnci, hariolae atque haruspicae; Turn piatricem clementer non potest qiiiii mwnerem. Flagitium est, si nil mittetur, quo supercilio spicit. The Romans did not create a god of Gold, as they had for. merly created one of Silver (i. 557) ; nevertheless he Chap. XIII.] Fcdth and Manners. 475 reigned in reality alike over the highest and lowest spheres of religious life. The old pride of the Latin national reli- gion — the moderation of its economic demands — was irre- vocably gone. At the same time its ancient simplicity also departed Theology, the spurious offspring of reason and Theology. e -^x. ^ A ■ a ■ ■ , a ■ faith, was already occupied m introducing its own tedious prolixity and solemn inanity into the old homely national faith, and thereby expelling the true spirit of that faith. The catalogue of the duties and privileges of the priest of Jupiter, for instance, might well have a place in the Talmud. They pushed the natural rule — that no religious service can be acceptable to the gods unless it is free from flaw — to such an extent in practice, that a single sacrifice had to be repeated thirty times in succession on account of mistakes again and again committed, and that the games, which also formed a part of divine service, were regarded as undone if the presiding magistrate had commit- ted any slip in word or deed or if the music even had paused at a wrong time, and so had to be begun afresh, fre- quently for several, even as many as seven, times in suc- cession. This exaggeration of conscientiousness was already a ,. . symptom of its incipient torpor ; and the reac- Bpirit tion against it — indifference and unbelief — ap- peared without delay. Even in the first Punic ^^^' war (505) an instance occurred in which the consul himself made an open jest of consulting the auspices before battle — a consul, it is true, belonging to the peculiar clan of the Claudii, which alike in good and evil was ahead of its age. Towards the end of this epoch complaints were loudly made that the lore of the augurs was neglected, and that, to use the language of Cato, a number of ancient auguries and auspices were falling into oblivion through tha indolence of the college. An augur like Lucius Paullus, who regarded the priesthood as a science and not as a mere title, was already a rare exception, and could not but be so, when the government more and more openly and unhesi- 476 Faith and Manners. [Book in tatingly ejnployed the auspices for the accomplishment of its political designs, or, in other words, treated the national religion in accordance with the view of Polybius as a super- stition useful for imposing on the public at large. Where the way was thus paved, the Hellenistic irreligious spirit found free course. In connection with the incipient taste for art the sacred images of the gods began as early as the time of Cato to be employed, like other furniture, in adorn- ing the apartments of the rich. More dangerous wounds were inflicted on religion by the rising literature. It could not indeed venture on open attacks, and such direct addi- tions as were made by its means to religious ideas — e. g., the Pater Caelus formed by Ennius from the Roman Satur- nus in imitation of the Greek Uranos — were, while Hellen- istic, of no great importance. But the diffusion of the doc- trines of Epieharmus and Euhemerus in Rome was fraught with momentous consequences. The poetical philosophy, which the later Pythagoreans had extracted from the writ- ings of the old Sicilian comedian Epieharmus of Megara (about 280), or rather had, at least for the most part, circulated under cover of his name, re- garded the Greek gods as natural substances, Zeus as the atmosphere, the soul as a particle of sun-dust, and so forth. This philosophy of nature, like the Stoic doctrine in later times, had in its most general outlines a certain affinity with the Roman religion, and was, in so far, calculated to under- mine the national religion by resolving it into allegory. A historical analysis of religion was given in the "Sacred Memoirs " of Euhemerus of Messene (about 450), which, under the form of a narrative of the travels of the author among the marvels of foreign lands, subjected to a thorough and searching investigation the accounts current as to the so-called gods, and resulted in the conclusion that there neither were nor are gods at all. To indicate the character of the book, it may suffice to mention the one fact, that the story of Kronos devouring Ills children is explained as arising out of the existence of cannibalism in the earliest times and its abolition by king CHiP. Sin.] Faith and Mam/ners. 47'! Zeus. Notwithstanding, or even by virtue of, its insipidity and destructisre tendency the production had an undeserved success in Greece, and helped, in concert with the current philosophies there, to bury the dead religion. It is a re- markable indication of the expressed and conscious antago- nism between religion and the new philosophy that Ennius already translated into Latin those notoriously destructive writings of Epicharmus and Euhemerus. The translators may have justified themselves at the bar of Roman police by pleading that the attacks were directed only against the Greek, and not against the Latin, gods ; but the evasion was tolerably transparent, Cato was, from his own point of view, quite right in assailing these tendencies indiscrimi- nately, wherever they met him, with his own peculiar bit- terness, and in calling even Socrates a corrupter of morals and offender against religion. Thus the old national religion was visibly on the de- cline ; and, as the great trees of the primeval foreign su- forest were uprooted, the soil became covered pere i ion. -^vith a rank growth of thorns and briars and with weeds that had never been seen before. Native super stitions and foreign impostures of the most various hues mingled, competed, and conflicted with each other. No Italian stock remained exempt from this transmuting of old faith into new superstition. As the lore of entrails and of lightning was cultivated among the Etruscans, so the liberal art of observing birds and conjuring serpents flourished luxuriantly among the Sabellians and more particularly the Marsians. Even among the Latin nation, and in fact in Rome itself, we meet with similar phenomena, although they are, comparatively speaking, less conspicuous. Such for instance were the lots of Praeneste and the remarkable discovery at Rome in 573 of the tomb and post- humous writings of king Numa. These were alleged to prescribe religious rites altogether strange and unheard of; but the credulous were to their regret not per- mitted to learn more than this, coupled with the fact that the books looked very new ; for the senate laid hands on 478 Faith and Manners. [Book in the treasure and ordered the rolls to be summarily thrown into the fire„ The home manufacture was quite sufficient tc meet such demands of folly as might reasonably he expect- ed ; but the Romans were far from being content with it The Hellenism of that epoch, already denationalized and pervaded by Oriental mysticism, introduced not only unbc" lief but also superstition in its most offensive and danger- ous forms to Italy ; and these vagaries moreover had a special charm, precisely because they were foreign. Chaldaean astrologers and casters of nativities were Worship of already in the sixth century spread throughout Cybcie. Italy ; but a still more important event — one making in fact an epoch in history — was the reception of the Phrygian Mother of the Gods among the publicly recog- nized divinities of the Koman state, to which the govern- ment had been obliged to give their consent during the last weary years of the Hannibalic war (550). A special embassy was sent for the purpose to Pessinus, a city in the territory of the Celts of Asia Minor ; and the rough field-stone, which the priests of the place liberally presented to the foreigners as the real Mother Cybele, was received by the community with unparalleled pomp. Indeed, by way of perpetually commemorating the joyful event, clubs in which the members entertained each other in rotation were instituted among the higher classes, and seem to have materially stimulated the rising tendency to the formation of cliques. With the permission thus granted for the cultus of Cybele the worship of the Orien- tals gained a footing officially in Rome; and, though the government strictly insisted that the emasculate priests of the new gods should remain Celts {Qalli) as they were called, and that no Roman burgess should devote himself to this pious eunuchism, yet the barbaric pomp of the " Great Mother " — her priests clad in Oriental costume with the chief eunuch at their head, marching in procession through the streets to the foreign music of fifes and Icettle- drums, and begging from house to house — and the whole character of the system, half sensuous, half monastic, must Chap. XIII.] Faith and Manners. 479 have exercised a most material influence over the senti" ments and views of the people. The effect was only too rapidly and fearfully apparent. A few years later (568) rites of the most abomi- ■woishipof nable character came to the knowledge of the Roman authorities : a secret nocturnal festival n honour of the god Bacchus had been first introduced into Etruria through a Greek priest, and, spreading like a cancer, had rapidly reached Rome and propagated itself over all Italy, everywhere corrupting families and giving rise to the most heinous crimes, unparalleled unehastity, falsifying of testaments, and murdering by poison. More than 7,000 men were sentenced to punishment, most of ihem to death, on this account, and rigorous enactments were issued as to the futui'e ; yet they did not succeed in repressing the sys- tern, and six years later (574) the magistrate to whom the matter fell complained that 3,000 men njore had been condemned and still there appeared no end of the evil. Of course all rational men were agreed in the condem- ReproBBive nation of these spurious forms of religion — as measures. absurd as they were injurious to the common- wealth : the pious adherents of the olden faith and the parti- sans of Hellenic enlightenment concurred in their ridicule of, and indignation at, this superstition. Cato made it an instruction to his steward, " that he was not to present any offering, or to allow any offering to be presented on his be- half, without the knowledge and orders of his master, ex- cept at the domestic hearth and on the wayside-altar at the Compitalia, and that he should consult no haruspex, hari- olus, or Ckaldaeus.'" The well-known question as to how a priest could contrive to suppress laughter when he met his cclleague originated with Cato, and was primarily applied to the Etruscan haruspex. Much in the same spirit Ennius censures in true Euripidean style the mendicant soothsayers and their adherents : Sed smperalitiosi vaiea impudentesque arioli, Aui inertes aut imani aut quihus egestas imperat, 480 Faith and Manners. [Book El, Qui sibi somitam non sapiunt, alteri nwnsirant viam, Quibus divitias pollicentur , ab eis drachumam ipsi peiunl. But in such times reason from the first plays a losing game against unreason. The government, no dou'bt, interfered ; the pious impostors were punished and expelled by the |!olice ; every foreign worship not specially sanctioned was fui bidden ; even the consulting of the comparatively inno- cent lot-oracle of Praeneste was officially pro- hibited in 512 ; and, as we have already said, those who took part in the Bacchanalia were rigorously prosecuted. But, when once men's heads are thoroughly turned, no command of the higher authorities avails to set them right again. How much the government was obliged to concede, or at any rate did concede, is obvious from what has been stated. The Roman custom under which the state consulted Etruscan sages in certain emergencies — and the government accordingly took steps to secure the traditional transmission of Etruscan lore in the noble families of Etru- ria — as well as the permission of the secret worship of Demeter which was not immoral and was restricted to women, may probably be ranked with the earlier innocent and comparatively indifferent adoption of foreign rites. But the admission of the worship of the Magna Dea was a bad sign of the weakness which the government felt in pres- ence of the new superstition, perhaps even of the extent to which it was itself pervaded by it ; and it showed in like manner either an unpardonable negligence or something still worse, that the authorities only took steps against such proceedings as the Bacchanalia at so late a stage, and even then on an accidental information. The picture, which has been handed down to us of the Aostorityof life of Cato the Elder, enables us in substance nj.tiiflGre. j^j perceive how, according to the ideas of the respectable Roman citizens of that period, the private life of the Roman should be spent. Active as Cato was as a statesman, pleader, author, and mercantile speculator, family life always formed with him the central object of existence ; t was better, he thought, to be a good husband than a great Chap. XIII.] Faith and Manners. 481 senator. His domestic discipline was strict. The servants were not allowed to leave the house without orders, nor to talk of whaf occurred in the household to strangers. The more severe punishments were not inflicted capriciously, but sentence was pronounced and executed after a quas'- judicial procedure : the strictness with which offences were punished may be inferred from the fact, that one of his slaves who had concluded a purchase without orders from his master hanged. himself on the matter coming to Cato's ears. For slight offences, such as mistakes committed in waiting at table, the consular was wont after dinner to administer to the culprit the proper number of lashes with a thong wielded by his own hand. He kept his wife and children in order no less strictly, but by other means ; for he declared it sinful to lay hands on a wife or grown-up children in the same way as on slaves. In the choice of a wife he disapproved marrying for money, and recommended men to look to good descent ; but he himself married in old age the daughter of one of his poor clients. Moreover he adopted views in regard to continence on the part of the husband similar to those which everywhere prevail in slave countries ; a wife was throughout regarded by him as sim- ply a necessary evil. His writings abound in invectives against the chattering, finery-loving, ungovernable fair sex ; it was the opinion of the old lord that " all women are plaguy and proud," and that, " were men quit of women, their life would probably be less godless." On the other hand the rearing of his children born in wedlock was a matter which touched his heart and his honour, and the wife in his eyes existed strictly and solely for the children's sake. She nursed them ordinarily herself, or, if she allowed her children to be suckled by female slaves, she also allowed th?ir children in return to draw nourishment from her own breast ; one of the few traits, which indicate an endeavour to mitigate the institution of slavery by ties of human sym- pathy — the common impulses of maternity and the bond of fostei'-brotherhood. The old general was present in per- son, whenever it was possible, at the washing and swaddling Vol. n.— 2j 482 Faith and Manners. [Book ill of his children. He watched with reverential care ovei their childlike innocence ; he assures us that he was as care- ful lest he should utter an unbecoming word in'presence of his children as if he had been in presence of the Vesta' Virgins, and that he never before the eyes of his daughters smbraced their mother, except when she had become alarmed during a thunder 'Storm. The education of his son was perhaps the noblest portion of his varied and variously honourable activity. True to his maxim, that a ruddj*- cheeked boy was worth more than a pale one, the old sol- dier in person initiated his son into all bodily exercises, and taught him to wrestle, to ride, to swim, to box, and to endure heat and cold. But he felt very justly, that the time had gone by when it sufficed for a Roman to be a good farmer and soldier ; and he felt also that it could not but have an injurious influence on the mind of his boy, if he should subsequently learn that the teacher, who had re- buked and punished him and had won his reverence, was a mere slave. Therefore he in person taught the boy what a Roman was wont to laarn, to read and write and know the law of the land ; and even in his later years he worked his way so far into the general culture of the Hellenes, that he was able to deliver to his son in his native tongue whatevei in that culture he deemed to be of use to a Roman. All his writings were primarily intended for his son, and he wrote his historical work for that son's use with large dis- tinct letters in his own hand. He lived in a homely and frugal style. His strict parsimony tolerated no expendi- tures on luxuries. He allowed no slave to cost him more than 1500 denarii (£65) and no dress more than 100 denarii (£4 6s.) ; no carpet was to be seen in his house, and for a long time there was no whitewash on the walls of the rooms. Ordinarily he partook of the same fare with his servants, and did not suffer his outlay in cash for the meal to exceed 30 asses (2s.) ; in time of war even wine was uniformly banished from his table, and he drank water or, according to circumstances, water mixed with vinegar. On the other hand, he was no enemy to hospitality ; he was Ohap xni.i Faith and Manners. 485 fond of associating both with his club in town and with tlie neighbouring landlords in the country ; he sat long at table and, as his varied experience and his shrewd and ready wil made him a pleasant companion, he disdained neither the dice nor the wine-flask : among other receipts in his book on husbandry he even gives a tried recipe for the case of a too hearty meal and too- deep potations. His life up to extreme old age was one of ceaseless activity. Every moment was apportioned and occupied ; and every evening he was in the habit of turning over in his mind what he had heard, said, or done during the day. Thus he found time for his own affairs as well as for those of his friends and of the state, and time also for conversation and pleas- ure ; everything was done quickly and without many words, and his genuine spirit of activity hated nothing so much as bustle or a great ado about trifles. So lived the man who was regarded by his contempo- raries and by posterity as the true model of a Roman bur- gess, and who appeared as it were the living embodiment of the — certainly somewhat coarse-grained — energy and honesty of Rome as opposed to Greek indolence and Greek immorality ; as a later Roman poet says : Speme mores transmarinos, mille habent offucias. Give Romano per orbem nemo vivit rectius. Quippe malim unum Catonem, guam trecentos Socratas, Such judgments will not be absolutely adopted by his- tory ; but every one who carefully considers the revolution which the degenerate Hellenism of this age accomplished in the modes of life and thought among the Romans, will be inclined to deepen rather than to modify that condemnation of the foreign manners. The ties of family life became relaxed with fearful New man- rapidity. The evil of grisettes and boy-favour- °-^^^' ites spread like a pestilence, and, as matters stood, it was not possible to take any material steps in the way of legislation against it. The high tax, which Cato as 181. censor (570) laid on this most abominable spe^ i84 Faith and Manners. [Book lii, cies of slaves kept for censurable luxury, would not bo of much moment, and besides fell practically into disuse a year or two afterwards along with the property-tax gener- ally Celibacy — as to which grave complaints were made as early as 520 — and divorces naturally increased in proportion. Horrible crimes were perpe- trated in the bosom of families of the highest rank ; for instance, the consul Gaius Calpurnius Piso was poisoned by his wife and his stepson, in order to occasion a supplemen- tary election to the consulship and so to procure the su- preme magistracy for the latter — a plot which was success- ful (574). Moreover the emancipation of wom- en began. According to old custom the married woman was subject in law to the marital power which was parallel with the paternal, and the unmarried woman to the guardianship of her nearest male agnati which fell little short of the paternal power ; the wife had no property of her own, the virgin and widow had at any rate no right of management. But now women began to aspire to inde- pendence in respect to property, and, getting quit of the guardianship of their agnati by evasive lawyers' expedients — particularly through mock marriages — they took the management of their property into their own hands, or, in the event of being married, sought by means not much better to withdraw themselves from the marital power, which under the strict letter of the law was necessary. The mass of capital which was collected in the hands of women appeared to the statesmen of the time so dangerous, that they resorted to the extravagant expedient of prohibiting by law the testamentary nomination of women as heirs 169 (585), and even sought by a highly arbitrary practice to deprive women for the most part of ihose collateral inheritances which fell to them without testament. In like manner the family jurisdiction over women, which was connected with that marital and tutorial power, became practically more and more antiquated. Even in public matters women already began to ha\e a will of their own and occasionally, as Cato thought, " tc Chap, XIII.] Faith and Manners. 185 rule the rulez's of the world ; " tlieir influence might be traced in the comitia, and already statues were erected in the provinces to Eoman ladies. Luxury prevailed more and more in dress, ornaments, C/imiry. and furniture, in buildings and at table. Espc- '^- cially after the expedition to Asia Minor in 501 Asiatico-Hellenic luxury, such as prevailed at Ephesus and A lexandria, transferred its empty refinement and its petty trifling, destructive alike of money, time, and pleasure, to Home. Here too women took the lead : in spite of the zealous invective of Cato they managed to procure the 195. abolition, after the peace with Carthage (559), of the decree of the people passed soon after ^^* the battle of Cannae (539), which forbade them to use gold ornaments, variegated dresses, or chariots ; no course was left to their zealous antagonist but to impose a high tax on those articles (570). A multitude of new and for the most part frivolous articles — silver plate elegantly figured, table-couches with bronze mounting, Attalic dresses as they were called, and carpets of rich gold brocade — now found their way to Rome. Above all, this new luxury appeared in the appliances of the table. Hitherto without exception the Romans had only partaken of hot dishes once a day ; now hot dishes were not unfrequently produced at the second meal [pran- dium), and for the principal meal the two courses formerly in use no longer suflSced. Hitherto the women of the household had themselves attended to the baking of bread and cooking ; and it was only on occasion of entertainments that a professional cook was specially hired, who in that case superintended alike the cooking and the baking. Now, on the other hand, a scientific cookery began to prevail. In the better houses a special cook was kept. A division of labour became necessary, and the trade of baking bread and cakes branched off from that of cooking — the first bakers' shops in Rome appeared about 583. Poems on the art of good eating, with long lists of the most palatable fishes and other marine products, found their 4:86 Faith and Manners. [Book III readers . and the theory was reduced to practice. Foreign delicacies — anchovies from Pontus, wine from Greece — began to be esteemed in Eome, and Cato's receipt forgiving to the ordinary wine of the country the flavour of Coan by means of brine would hardly inflict any considerable injury oa the Eoman wine-merchants. The old decorous singing and reciting of the guests and their boys were supplanted by Asiatic sambucistriae. Hitherto the Romans had perhaps drunk pretty deeply at supper, but drinking-banquets in the strict sense were unknown ; now formal revels came into vogue, on which occasions the wine was little or not at all diluted and was drunk out of large cups, and the drinking of healths, in which each was bound to follow his neighbour in regular succession, formed the leading feature — " drinking after the Greek style " ( Oraeco more bibere) or " playing the Greek " [pergraecari, congraecare) as the Romans called it. In consequence of this debauchery dice-playing, which had long been in use among the Romans, reached such a height that it was necessary for legislation to interfere. The aversion to labour and the habit of idle lounging were visi- bly on the increase.* Cato proposed to have the market * A sort of parahasis in the Curculio of Plautus describea what went on in the leading thoroughfares of the capital, with little humour per- haps, but with life-like distinctness. Commonstrabo, quo in quemque hominem facUe m»CT»t.v> hco, Ne nimio opere sumat operam, si quern conventum velit, Vel miiosum vel sine vitio, vel probum ml improbum. Qui perjurum convenire volt hominem, mitto in comihuiti Qui mendacem et gloiiosum, apud Oloacinae sacrum. \_Ditis dumnosoR maritos sub Basilica quaerito. Ibidem erunt scoria exoleta, quique stipulari solent.'\ Symbolarum collalores apud forum piscai-ium. Jnforo infimo boni liomines alque dites omlytlant. In medio propter Canalem, ibi ostcntatores meH. Conjidentes garrulique et malevoli supra Locum, Qui alteri de nihilo audacter dicunt coniumeaamt. Et qui ipsi sat habeiit quod ipsis vere possit diner. Sub Veteribus, ibi suiU, qui dant qtUque accipiunt fottmn. Pone aedem Castoris, ibi sunt, subito quibus credas malt. Chap, xm.] Faith and Manners. 487 paved with pointed stones, in order to put a stop to the habit of idling ; the Eomans laughed at the jest and went on to enjoy the pleasure of loitering and gazing around them. We have already noticed the alarming increase of the inseaoeof popular amusements during this epoch. At the B^Sto" beginning of it, apart from some unimportant foot and chariot races which should rather be ranked with religious ceremonies, only a single general festival was held in the month of September, lasting four days and having a definitely fixed maximum of cost (i. 583). At the close of the epoch, this popular festival had a duration of at least six days ; and besides this there were celebrated at the beginning of April the festival of the Mother of the Gods or the so-called Megalensia, towards the end of April that of Ceres and that of Flora., in June that of Apollo, in November the Plebeian games — all of them probably occupying already more days than one. To these fell to be added the numerous cases where the games were celebrated afresh — in which pious scruples probably often served as a mere pretext — and the incessant extraordinary festivals. Among these the already-mentioned banquets furnished from the dedicated tenths (p. 474), the feasts of the gods, the triumphal and funeral festivities, were con spicuous ; and above all the festal games which were cele- brated — for the first time in 505 — at the close 249. of one of those longer periods which were In Tusco VKO^ ibi sunt homiTies^ qui ipsi sese vendUani, In Velabro vel jmtorem, vel lanium, vel hanispUem, Vel qui ipsi vorsanty vel, qui aliis subvommiury praebeant, Ditis damnosos marilos apud Leucadiam Oppiam. The verses in brackets are a subsequent addition, inserted after the building of the first Roman bazaar (570). The business of the baiter {pistor, literally miller) embraced at this time the lale of delicacies and the providing accommodation for revellers (Festus, Ep. V. alicariae, p. 7, Miill. ; Plantus, Capi. 160 ; Poen. i. 2, 54 ; Tnn. 407). The same was the case with the butchers. Leucadia Oppia probably kept a house of bad fame. 4:88 Fa/ith and Manners. [Book m marked off in the Etrusco-Roman religion, the saecula, aa they were called. At the same time domestic festivals were multiplied. During the second Punic war there were introduced among people of quality, the already-mentioned banquetings on the anniversary of the entrance of the 204. Mother of the Gods (after 550), and, among the 2"- lower orders, the similar Saturnalia (after 537), both under the influence of the powers henceforth closely allied — the foreign priest and the foreign cook. A very near approach was made to that ideal condition in which every idler should know where he might kill the time every day ; and this in a commonwealth where formerly action had been with all and sundry the very object of existence, and idle enjoyment had been proscribed by custom as well as by law ! The bad and demoralizing elements in these festal observances, moreover, daily acquired greater ascendancy. It is true that still as formerly the chariot races formed the brilliant finale of the national festivals ; and a poet of this period describes very vividly the straining expectancy with which the eyes of the multitude were fastened on the con- sul, when he was on the point of giving the signal for the chariots to start. But the former amusements no longer sufficed ; there was a craving for new and more varied spec- tacles. Greek athletes now made their appearance (for the first time in 568) alongside of the native wres- tiers and boxers. Of the dramatic exhibitions we shall speak hereafter: the introduction of Greek comedy and tragedy to Rome was a gain perhaps of doubtful value ; but it formed at any rate the best of their acquiiiiions at this time. The Romans had probably long indidged in the sport of coursing hares and hunting foxes in presence of the public ; now these innocent hunts were converted into fijrnial baitings of wild animals, and the wild beasts of Africa — lions and panthers — were (first so far as can be j^^ proved in 568) transported at great cost to Rome, in order that by killing or being killed they might serve to glut the eyes of the gazers of the cajiital. The still more revolting gladintorial games, wliicli Chap. X'.ii. Faith and Manners. 489 prevailed in Campania and Etruria, now ga.-ied admission to Rome ; human blood was first shed for sport in the jg^ Roman Forum in 490. Of course these demor« alizing amusements encountered severe censure : the consul of 486, Publius Sempronius Sophus, sent a divorce to his wife, because she had attended funeral games ; the government managed to procure a decree of the people prohibiting the importation of wild beasts to Rome, and strictly insisted that no gladiators should appear at the public festivals. But here too it wanted either the proper power or proper energy : it succeeded, apparently, in check- ing the practice of baiting animals, but the appearance of sets of gladiators at private festivals, particularly at funeral celebrations, was not suppressed. Still less could the pub- lic be prevented from preferring the gladiator to the rope- dancer, the rope-dancer to the comedian, the comedian to the tragedian ; or the stage be prevented from revelling by choice amidst the pollution of Hellenic life. Whatever elements of culture were contained in the scenic and artistic entertainments were from the first thrown aside ; it was by no means the object of the givers of the Roman festivals to elevate — though it should be but temporarily — the whole body of spectators through the power of poetry to the level of feeling of the best, as the Greek stage did in the period of its prime, or to prepare an artistic treat for a select circle, as our theatres endeavour to do. The character of the managers and spectators in Rome is illustrated by a scene at the triumphal games in 587, where the first Greek flute-players, on their melodies fail- ing to please, were instructed by the director to box with one another instead of playing, upon which the delight knew nc bounds. Nor was the evil ..onfined to the corruption of Roman manners by Hellenic contagion ; conversely the scholars becran to demoralize their instructors. Gladiatorial games, which were unknown in Greece, were first introduced by king Antiochus Epiphanes (575-590), a professed imitator of the Romans, at the Syrian court, Vol. n.— 21* 490 Faith and Manners. [Book III and, although they excited at first greater liorror than pleas- ure in the Greek public, which was more humane and had more of a taste for art than the Eomans, they yet held then ground and gradually came more and more into vogue. As a matter of course, this revolution in life and man- ners brought an economic revolution in its train. Eesi- denoe in the capital became more and more coveted as well fls more costly. Rents rose to an unexampled height. Ex tiavagant prices were paid for the new articles of luxury ; a barrel of anchovies from the Black Sea cost 1,600 ses- terces (i!16) — more than the price of a rural slave ; a beau- tiful boy cost 24,000 sesterces (£240) — more than many a farmer's homestead. Money therefore, and nothing but money, became the watchword with high and low. In Greece it had long been the case that nobody did anything without being paid for it, as the Greeks themselves with discreditable candour allowed : after the second Macedonian war the Romans began in this respect also to imitate the Greeks. Respectability had to pi-ovide itself with legal buttresses ; pleaders, for instance, had to be prohibited by decree of the people from taking money for their services ; the jurisconsults alone formed a noble exception, and needed no decree of the people to compel their adherence to the honourable custom of giving their good advice gratu- itously. Men did not, if possible, steal outright; but all shifts seemed allowable in order to attain rapidly to riches — plundering and begging, cheating on the part of contract- ors and swindling on the part of speculators, usurious trad- ing in money and in grain, even the turning of purely moral relations such as friendship and marriage to economic account. Marriage especially became on both sides a maty- ter of mercantile speculation ; marriages for money were common, and it appeared necessary to refuse legal validity to the presents which the spouses made to each other. That, under such a state of things, plans for setting fire on all sides to the capital came to the knowledge of the authori- ties, need excite no surprise. When man no longer finds enjoyment in work, and works merely in order to attain as Ohap. XIII.] Faith and Manners. 491 quickly as possible to enjoyment, it is a mere accident that he does not become a criminal. Destiny lavished all the glories of power and riches with liberal hand on the Ro. mans ; but, in truth, the Pandora's box was a gift of doubt fvl value. CHAPTEE XIV. LITERATURE AND AST, The influences which stimulated the growth of Roman literature were of a character altogether peculiar and hardly paralleled in any other nation. To estimate them correctly, it is necessary in the first place that we should glance at the national education and national recreations of this period. Language lies at the root of all mental culture ; and this was especially the case in Rome. In a of Ian- community where so much importance was at- ^^^'"' taohed to speeches and documents, and where the citizen, at an age which is still according to modern ideas regarded as boyhood, was already entrusted with the uncontrolled management of his property and might find himself under the necessity of formally addressing the pub- lic assembly, not only was great value set all along on the fluent and polished use of the mother-tongue, but efforts were early made to acquire a command of it in the years of boyhood. The Greek language also was already gene- rally diffused in Italy in the time of Hannibal. In the higher circles a linowledge of that language, which was the general medium of intercourse for ancient civilization, had long been a far from uncommon accomplishment ; and now, when the change in the position of Rome had so enormously- increased the intercourse with foreigners and the foreign traffic, such a knowledge was, if not necessary, yet in all pi obability of very material importance to the mercisd-^t as well as tiie statesman. By means of the Italian slaves and freedmen, a very large portion of whom were Greek or half-Greek by birth, the Greek language and Greek knowl- edge to a certain extent reached even the lower ranks of the population, especially in the capital. The co'nedies of tlii? Chap. XIV.] Liter atv^6 and Art. 493 period indicate that even the humbler classes of the capital were familiar with a soi-t of Latin, which could no moie be properly understood without a knowledge of Greek than the English of Sterne or the German of Wieland without a knowledge of French.* Men of senatorial families, how- ever, not only addressed a Greek audience in Greek, but even published their speeches — Tiberius Gracchus (consul in 577 and 591) so published a speech which he had given at Rhodes — and in the time of Han- nibal wrote their chronicles in Greek, as we shall have occasion to mention more particularly in the sequel. Indi- viduals went still farther. The Greeks honoured Flamini- nus by complimentary demonstrations in the Roman lan- guage (p. 293), and he returned the compliment ; the " great general of the Aeneiades " dedicated his votive gifts to the Greek gods after the Greek fashion in Greek dis- tichs.f Cato reproached another senator with the fact, that * A distinct set of Greek expressions, such as siratioticus, machaera, rumclerus, trapezita, dcmrnta, drapeta, oenopoliimi, bolus, mcdacus, morue, graphicus, logus, apologus, techna, schema, forms quite u special feature in the language of Plautus. Translations are seldom attached, and that only in the case of words not included in the circle of ideas to which those which we have cited belong; for instance, in the Trucu- lentiis — in a verse, however, that is perhaps a later addition (i. 1, 60)— we find the explanation : qiqovrjaii; est eapientia. Fragments of Greek also are common, as in the Caeina (iii. 6, 9) : Jl^dyftard fiot' Tza^t/iu; — Daho fiiya jcaxor, ui opinor. Greek puns Ukewise occur, as in the Satchides (240) : opus est chryso Chrysalo. Ennius in the same way takes for granted that the etymological meaning of Alexandres and Andromache is known to the spectators (Varro, di L.L. vii. 82). Most characteristic of all are the half-Greek formations, juch aa/emtribax, plagipatida, piigilice, or in the Miles Gloriosus (213) ; Suge i euscheme hercle astitU i^ic dulice et commoedice 1 \ One of these, composed in the name of Flamininus, runs th'ia : Ztjvb^ lifi xQaiTivaXfji yfyaOorit; iTZTZOirvvaf^at' Kov^Oi, i(J> Sna^rcu; TvvSaqidai /iaaUiu;, jiivictSai; Tlxoq v^^uv vTrifjrarov MTtace SSi^ov i9i Literature mid Art. [Book in. he had the effrontery to deliver Greek recitations with the due modulation at Greek revels. Under the influence of such circumstances Eoman educa tion developed itself. It is a mistaken opinion, that anti quity was materially inferior to our own times in tli(* general diffusion of elementary attainments. Even among tlie lower classes and slaves there was considerable knowl- edge of reading, writing, and counting : in the case of a slave steward, for instance, Cato, following the example of Mago, takes for granted the ability to read and write. Elementary instruction, as well as instruction in Greek, must have been long before this period imparted to a very considerable extent in Rome. But the epoch now before us initiated an education, the aim of which was to communi- cate not merely an outward expertness, but a real mental culture. Hitherto a knowledge of Greek had conferred on its possessor as little superiority in civil or social life, as a knowledge of French perhaps confei's at the present day in a hamlet of German Switzerland ; and the earliest writers of Greek chronicles probably held a position among the senators similar to that of the farmer in the fens of Hol- stein who has been a student and in the evening, when he comes home from the plough, takes down his Virgil from the shelf. A man who assumed airs of greater importance by reason of his Greek, was reckoned a bad patriot and a fool ; and certainly even in Cato's time one who spoke Greek ill or not at all might still be a leading man and be- come senator and consul. But a change was already taking place. The internal decomposition of Italian nationality liad already, particularly in the aristocracy, advanced so far lis to render the substitution of a broader human culture for I hat nationality inevitable: and the craving after a more advanced civilization was already powerfully stirring the minds of men. Instruction in the Greek language as it were spontaneously met this craving. The classical litera- ture of Greece, the Iliad and still more the Odyssey, had all along formed the basis of that instruction ; the overflowing treaiuros of Hellenic art and science were already by this Osiv. XIV.] Literature and Art. 495 means spread before the eyes of the Italians. Without anj outward revolution, strictly speaking, in the character of the instruction the natural result was, that the empirical Btudy of the language became converted into a higher study of the literature ; that the general culture connected with such literary studies was communicated in increased meas- ure to the scholars ; and that these availed themselves of the knowledge thus acquired to dive into that Greek litera- ture which most powerfully influenced the spirit of the age — the tragedies of Euripides and the comedies of Menander. In a similar way greater importance came to be attached to the study of Latin. The higher society of Rome began to feel the need, if not of exchanging their mother-tongue for Greek, at least of refining it and adapting it to the changed state of culture; and for this purpose too they found themselves in every respect dependent on the Greeks. The economic arrangements of the Romans placed the work of elementary instruction in the mother-tongue — like every other work held in little estimation and performed for hire — chiefly in the hands of slaves, freedmen, or foreigner-s, or in other words chiefly in the hands of Greeks or half- Greeks ; * which was attended with the less difficulty, be- cause the Latin alphabet was almost identical with the Greek and the two languages possessed a close and striking aflSnity. But this was the least part of the matter ; the importance of the study of Greek in a formal point of view exercised a far deeper influence over the study of Latin, Any one who knows how singularly difficult it is to find suitable matter and suitable forms for the higher intellectual culture of youth, and how much more difficult it is to set aside the matter and forms once found, will understand how it was that the Romans knew no mode of supplying the want of a more advanced Latin instruction except that uf simply transferring the solution of this problem, which * Such, e. g., was Chilo, the slave of Cato the Elder, who earned money on his master's behalf as a teacher of children (Plutarch, Ca* Mai. 20). 4-96 Literature and Art. [Book IH. die study ot the Greek language and literature furnished, to the study of Latin. In the present day a process entirely analogous goes on undei- our own eyes in the transference of the methods of instruction from the dead to the living languages. But unfortunately the chief requisite for such a transfer- ence was wanting. The Romans could, no doubt, learn to read and write Latin by means of the Twelve Tables ; but a Latin culture presupposed a literature, and no such litera- ture existed in Rome. To this want there was added another. We have already described the multiplication of the amusements tmder Greek of the Roman people. The stage had long play- tafluence. , . . , .^, ed an important part m these recreations ; the chariot-races formed strictly the principal amusement in all of them, but these races uniformly took place only on one, viz., the concluding, day, while the earlier days were sub- stantially devoted to stage-entertainments. But for long these stage-representations consisted chiefly of dances and iugglers' feats ; the improvised chants, which were pio- duced on these occasions, had neither dialogue nor plot (i. 584). It was only now that the Romans looked around them for a real drama. The Roman popular festivals were throughout under the influence of the Greeks, whose talent for amusing and for killing time naturally rendered them the purveyors of pleasure to the Romans. Now no nation- al amusement was a greater favourite in Greece, and none was more varied, than the theatre ; it could not but speedily attract the attention of those who provided the Roman fes- tivals and their staff of assistants. The earlier Roman stage-chant contained within it a dramatic germ capable perhaps of development ; but to develop the drama froin that germ required on the part of the poet and the public a genial power of imparting and receiving, such as was not to be found among the Romans at all, and least of all at this period ; and, had it been possible to find it, the impatience of those entrusted with the amusement of the multitude would, hardly have allowed to the noble fruit peace and Ohap. xrv.] Literature and Art. 49'< leisure to ripen. In this case too there was an outward want, which the nation was unable to satisfy ; the Romans desired a theatre, but the pieces were wanting. On these elements Roman literature was based ; and its Eiseofii defective character was from the first and ncces- Boman sarilv the result of such an Origin. All real ail has Its root in individual freedom and a cheerful 3;ijoyment of life, and the germs of such an art were not wanting in Italy ; but, when Roman life substituted bi freedom and joyousness the sense of public obligation and the consciousness of duty, art was arrested and, instead of growing, necessarily pined away. The culminating point of Roman development was the period which had no litera- ture. It was not till Roman nationality began to give way and Hellenico-cosmopolite tendencies began to prevail, that literature made its appearance at Rome in their train. Ac- cordingly from the beginning, and by stringent internal necessity, it took its stand on Greek ground and in broad antagonism to the distinctively Roman national spirit. Roman poetry in particular had its immediate origin not in the inward impulse of the poet, but in the outward demands of the school, which needed Latin manuals, and of the stace, which needed Latin dramas. Now both institutions ^the school and the stage — were thoroughly anti-Roman and revolutionary. The gaping and staring idleness of the theatre was utterly offensive to the sober earnestness and the spirit of activity which animated the Romans of the olden type ; and — inasmuch as it was the deepest and noblest conception lying at the root of the Roman common- wealth, that within the circle of Roman burgesses there should be neither master nor slave, neither millionnaire nor beggar, but that above all a like faith and a like culture ahoidd signalize all Romans — the school and the necessarily exclusive school-culture were far more dangerous still, and were in fact utterly destructive of the sense of equality. The school and the theatre became the most effective levera in the hands of the new spirit of the age, and all the more 80 that they used the Litin tongue. Men might perhaps 498 Literature and Art. [Book m speak and write Greek and yet not cease to be Romans ; but in this case they were in the habit of speaking in the Roman language, while the whole inward being and life were Greek. It is not one of the most pleasing, but it is one of the most remarkable and in a historical point of 7 lew most instructive, facts in this brilliant era of Roman conservatism, that during its course Hellenism struck root in the whole field of intellect not immediately political, and that the schoolmaster and the maitre de plaisir of the great public in close illliance created a Roman literature. In the very earliest Roman author the later develop- ment appears, as it were, in embryo. The dronicus. Greek Andronikos (born before 482, and lived 272 ''07 till after 547), afterwards as a Roman burgess called Lucius * Livius Andronicus, came to Rome at an early age in 482 among the other captives taken at Tarentum (i. 525) and passed into the posses- sion of the conqueror of Sena (p. 211) Marcus Livius Sali- nator (consul 535, 547). He was employed as a slave, partly in acting and copying texts, part- ly in giving instruction in the Latin and Greek Languages, which he taught both to the children of his master and to other boys of wealthy parents in and out of the house. He distinguished himself so much in this way that his mas- ter gave him freedom, and even the authorities, who not unfrequently availed themselves of his services — commis- sioning him, for instance, to prepare a thanksgiving-chant after the fortunate turn taken by the Hannibalio 207. "^ war m 547 — out of regard for him conceded to the guild of poets and actors a place for their common wor- ship in the temple of Mi)ierva on the Aventine. Ilia authorship arose out of his double occupation. As school- master he translated the Odyssey into Latin, in order that the Latin text might form the basis of his Latin, as the Greek text, was the basis of his Greek, instruction ; and * The later rule, by which the freedman necessarily bore the pra^ nomen of his patron, was not yet applied in republican Borne. Okap. XIV.] Literature and Art. 499 this earliest of Roman school-books maintained its place in education for centuries. As an actor, he not only like every other wrote the texts themselves for his own use, but he also published them as books, that is, he read them in public and diffused them by copies. What was still more important, he substituted the Greek drama for the old essentially lyrical stage poetry. It was in 5 14, a year after the close of the first Punic war, that the first play was exhibited on the Roman stage, Thia creation of an epos, a tragedy, and a comedy in the Roman language, and that by a man who was more Roman than Greek, was historically a remarkable event ; but we cannot speak of his labours as having any artistic value. They make no sort of claim to originality ; viewed as transla- tions, they are characterized by a barbarism which is all the more conspicuous, that his poetry does not naively display its own native simplicity, but pedantically labours to imi- tate the high artistic culture of the neighbouring people. The wide deviations from the original are due not to the freedom, but to the rudeness of the imitation ; the treat- ment is sometimes insipid, sometimes turgid, the language harsh and quaint.* We have no difficulty in believicg tho * One of the tragedies of Liviua presented the line — Qaem ego likfrendtm ahii Idcteam immulffSris opem. The verse3 of Homer {Odyssey, xii. 16): a 'Aidim H&ovtk; ilrjS nuiv, aU.a naX oixa ^/Ifl-' iinvvafilvij' cifia (J' Aftqiinoloiy (pegnv (twTj ffiror Ml r.Qia, nokXa nal cu&ona oivov igv&qov. ve thus interpreted : Tdpper citi ad aedis — venimus Circae Simul diiona coram t^)—p6rtant ad ndvk, Milia dlia in isdem — imeriniiniur. The most remarkable feature is not so much the barbarism aa tha thoughtlessness of the translator, who, instead of sending Circe to Ulysses, sends Ulysses to Circe. Another siill more ridiculous mistake is the translation of alSolouj^ tSiana (Odyss. xv. STS) by Imi (Festus 500 Literature, and Art. [Boot in. statement of the old critics of art, that, apart from the compulsory perusal in school, none of the poems of Livius were taken up a second time. Yet- these labours were in various respects models for succeeding times. They formed the commencement of the Roman translation-literature, ai.d naturalized the Greek metres in Latium. The reason \rh} these were adopted only in the dramas, while the Odyssey of Livius was written in the national Saturnian measure, evidently was that the iambuses and trochees of tragedy and comedy far more easily admitted of imitation in Latin than the epic d ictyls. But this preliminary stage of literary development was soon passed. The epics and dramas of Livius were regard- ed by posterity, and undoubtedly with perfect justice, as resembling the rigid statues of Daedalus destitute of emo- tion or expression — curiosities rather than works of art. But in the following generation, now that the foundations were once laid, there arose a lyi'io, epic, and dramatic art ; and it is of great importance, even in a historical point of view, to trace this poetical growth. Both as respects extent of production and influence over Drama. the public, the drama stood at the head of the Theatre. poetry thus developed in Rome. In antiquity there was no permanent theatre with fixed charges for ad- mission ; in Greece as in Rome dramas made their appear- ance only as an element in the annually recurring or extra- ordinary amusfements of the citizens. Among the meas- ures by which the government counteracted or imagined that they counteracted that extension of the popular festi vals which they justly regarded with anxiety, they refused to permit the erection of a stone building for a theatre.* Mp. V. affatim, p. 11, Mvdler). Such traits are not in a historical point of view matters of indifference; we recognize in them the level of intel- lectual culture which marked these earliest Roman verse-making school- masters, and we at the same time perceive that, although Andronicus was bom in Tarentum, Greek cannot have been properly his mothe^ tongue. • Such a building was, no doubt, construotei for the Apollinaiiar Chap. XIV.] Literature and Art. 501 Instead of this there was erected for each festival a scaffold- ing of boards with a stage for the actors (proscaenium, puU piium) and a decorated background (scaena) ; and a semi circle in front of it was staked off the space for the specta- ttirs {cavea), which was merely sloped without steps oi seats, so that, if the spectators had not chairs brought along with them, they squatted, reclined, or stood.* The women were probably separated at an early period, and were re- stricted to the upper and worst places ; otherwise there was no distinction of places in law till 560, after which, as already mentioned (p. 380), the low- est and best positions were reserved for the senators. The audience was anything but genteel. The better classes, it is true, did not keep aloof from the Andicnoe. . /. i , i /. i general recreations oi the people ; the lathers of the city seem even to have been bound for decorum's sake to appear on these occasions. But the very nature of a burgess festival implied that, while slaves and probably foreigners also were excluded, admittance free of charge was given to every burgess with his wife and children ; f and accordingly the body of spectators cannot have differed much from what one sees in the present day at public fire- games in the Flatninian circus in 676 (Liv. xl. 51; Becker, Top. p. 605) ; but it was probably soon afterwards pulled down again (TertuU. de Sped. 10). * In 699 there were still no seiita in the theatre (Ritschl. Parerg. i. p. xviii XX. 214; conip. Ribbeck, Trag. p. 285); but, as not only the authors of the Plautine prologues, but Plautus him- self on various occasions, make allusions to a sitting audience (Mii. Slur. 82, 83 ; Aulul. iv. 9, 6 ; Trucul. ap. Jin. ; Epid. ap. fin.), most of the spectators must have brought stools with them or nave seattd taemsalves on the ground. f Women and children appear to have been at all times admitted U. the Roman theatre (Val. Max. vi. 3, 12 ; Plutarch, Quaest. Rom. U ; Cicero, de Har. Resp. 12, 24 ; Vitruv. v. 3, 1 ; Suetonius, Aug. 44, &c.) , but slaves were dejure excluded (Cicero, de Har. Resp. 12, 26; Ritschl, Parerg. i. p. xix. 223), and the same must doubtless have been the caso with foreigners, excepting of course the guests of tie commimity, who took their places among or by the side of the senators (Varro, v. 156 ; Justin, xliii. 6, 10 ; Sueton. Aug. 44) 502 Literature and Art. [Book III. wcirka and gratis exhibitions. Naturally, therefore, the proceedings were not of the most orderly character ; chil- dren cried, women talked and shrieked, now and then a wench prepared to make her way to the stage ; the attend- ants whose duty it was to keep order had on these festivals anything but a holiday, and found frequent occasion tc OOH' fiscate a mantle or to ply the rod. The introduction of the Greek drama increased the de- mands on the dramatic staff, and there seems to have been no redundance in the supply of capable actors : on one occar sion for want of actors a piece of Naevius had to be per- formed by amateurs. But this produced no change in the position of the artist ; the poet or, as he was at this time called, the " writer," the actor, and the composer not only belonged still, as formerly, to the despised class of labour- ers for hire (p. 456), but were still, as formerly, placed in the most marked way under the ban of public opinion, and subjected to police maltreatment (i. 585). Of course all reputable persons kept aloof from such an occupation. The manager of the company (dominus gre.gis, factionis, also choragus), who was ordinarily also the chief actor, was generally a freedman, and its members were ordinarily his slaves ; the composers, whose names have reached us, were all of them non-free. The remuneration was not merely small — a honorarium of 8,000 sesterces (£80) given to a dramatist is described shortly after the close of this period as unusually high — but was, moreover, only paid by the magistrates providing the festival, if the piece was not a failure. With the payment the matter ended ; dramatic competitions and honorary prizes, such as took place in Attica, were not yet heard of in Rome — the Romans at this time appear to have simply applauded or hissed as we now do, and to have brought forward only a single piece for exhibition each day.* Under such circumstances, where * It is not necessary to infer from the prologues of Plautus {Cos. 17; Amph. 65) that there was a distribution of prizes (Ritschl, Pararg. i. 229) ; even the passage Trin. 706, may very well belong to the Gre^ original, not to the translator ; and the total silence of the didascalicu Chap. XIV.] Literature and Art. 503 art went for days' wages and the artist instead of receiving due honour was subjected to disgrace, the new national theatre of the Romans could exhibit no original or at all artistic development ; and, while the noble rivalry of the noblest Athenians had called into life the Attic drama, the Roman drama taken as a whole could be nothing but a spoiled copy of its predecessor, in which the only wonder is that it has been able to display so much grace and wit in the details. In the dramatic world comedy greatly preponderated over tragedy : the spectators knit their brows, when instead of the expected comedy a tragedy began. Thus it happened that, while this period exhibits poets who devoted themselves specially to comedy, such as Plautus and Caecilius, it presents none who cultivated tragedy alone ; and among the dramas of this epoch known to us by name there occur three comedies for one tragedy. Of course the Roman comic poets, or rather translators, laid hands in the first instance on the pieces which had pos- session of the Hellenic stage at the time; and thus they found themselves exclusively * confined to the range of the and prologues, as well as of all tradition, on the point of prize adjudi cations and prizes is decisiye. That only one piece was produced each day we infer from the fact, that the spectators come from home at the beginning of the piece [Poen. 10), and retuin home after its close {Epid. Pseud. Rud. Stick. True, ap.fin.). They went, as these passages show, to the theatre after the second breakfast, and were at home again for the midday meal ; the performance thus lasted, according to our reckoning, from about noon till half-past two o'clock, and a piece of Plautus, with music in the in- tervals between the acts, would probably occupy nearly that length of time (comp. Horat. Ep. ii. 1, 189). The passage in which Tacitus {Ann liv. 20) makes the spectators spend " whole days " in the theatre refera to the state of matters at a later period. * The scanty use made of what is called the middle Attic comedy docs not require notice in a historical point of view, since it was noth- ing but the Menandrian comedy in a less developed form. There is no trace of any employment of the older comedy. The Koman tragi- comedy — after the type of the Amphitruo of Plautus — was no doubt styled by the Roman literary historians fabula Rhinthonica ; but the 504 Literalture and Art. [Bock in newer Attic comedy, and chiefly to its best-known poets^ 360-262. Philemon of Soli in Cilida (394 ?-492) and Me- 812-292. nander of Athens (412-462). This comedy came to be of so great importance as regards the develop- ment not only of Roman literature, but even of the nation at largo, that history has reason to pause and consider it. The pieces are of tiresome monotony. Almost without Character exception the plot turns on helping a young Attic" °'^''^'' man, at the expense either of his father or of comedy. some leno, to obtain possession of a sweetheart of undoubted charms and of very doubtful morals. The path to success in love regularly lies through some sort of pecuniary fraud ; and the crafty servant, who provides tho needful sum and performs the requisite swindling while the lover is mourning over his amatory and pecuniary dis- tresses, is the real mainspring of the piece. There is no want of befitting reflections on the joys and sorrows of love, of tearful parting-scenes, of lovers who in the anguish of their hearts threaten to do themselves a mischief; love or rather amorous intrigue was, as the old critics of art say, the very life-breath of the Menandrian poetry. Marriage forms, at least with Menander, the inevitable finale ; on which occasion, for the greater edification and satisfaction of the spectators, the virtue of the heroine usually comes forth almost if not wholly untarnished, and the heroine her- self proves to be the lost daughter of some rich man and so in every respect an eligible match. Along with these love-pieces we find others of a pathetic kind. Among the comedies of Plautus, for instance, the Hudens turns on a shipwreck and the right of asylum ; while the Trinummus and the Captivi contain no amatory intrigue, but depict the generous devotedness of the friend to his friend and of tho slave to his master. Persons and situations recur down to the very details like patterns on a carpet ; we never get rid newer Attic comedians also composed such parodies, and it is difficult to Bee why the Romans should have resorted for their translations to Rhinthon and the older writers rather than to those who were nearer to their own times. Chap. XIV.] Literature and Art. 505 of the asides of unseen listeners, of knocking at the house- doors, and of slaves scouring the streets on some errand or other. The standing masks, of which there was a certain fixed number — e. g., eight masks for old men, and seven for sei'vants — from which alone in ordinary cases at least the poet had to make his choice, further favoured a stock-model treatment. Such a comedy almost of necessity rejected the lyrical element in the older comedy — the chorus — and con- fined itself from the first to conversation, or at most recita- tion ; it was devoid not of the political element only, but of all true passion and of all poetical elevation. The pieces judiciously made no pretension to any grand or really poetical effect ; their charm resided primarily in furnishing occupation for the intellect, not only through their subject- matter — in which respect the newer comedy was distin- guished from the old as much by the greater intrinsic emptiness as by the greater outward complication of the plot — but more especially through their execution in detail, in which the point and polish of the dialogue more particu- larly formed the triumph of the poet and the delight of the audience. Complications and confusions of one person with another, which very readily allowed scope for extravagant, often licentious, practical jokes — as in the Casina, which winds up with the retiring of the two bridegrooms and of the soldier dressed up as bride in the genuine Falstaffian style — ^jests, drolleries, and riddles, which in fact for want of real conversation furnished the staple materials of enter- tainment at the Attic table of the period, fill up a large portion of these comedies. The authors of them wrote not like Eupolis and Aristophanes for a great nation, but rather for a cultivated society which, like other circles whose inge- nuity finds no more fitting field for its exercise, spent its time in guessing riddles and playing at charades. They give us, therefore, no picture of their times ; of the great historical and intellectual movements of the age no trace appears in these comedies, and we need to recall, in order to realize, the fact that Philemon and Menander were really contemporaries of Alexander and Aristotle. But they give Vol. 11—32 506 Literature and Art. [Book iil us a picture equally elegant and faithful, of that refined Attic society beyond the circles of which coniedy nevei travels. Even in the dim Latin copy, through which we chiefly know it, the grace of the original is not wholly ob- literated ; and more especially in the pieces which arc imi- tated from Menander, the most taler red of these poets, the life which the poet beheld and shared is delicately reflected not so much in its aberrations and distortions as in it3 amiable every-day course. The friendly domestic relations between father and daughter, husband and wife, master and servant, with their love-affairs and other little interesting incidents, are portrayed with so broad a truthfulness, that even now they do not miss their effect : the servants' feast, for instance, with which the Siichus concludes is, in the cir- cumscribed character of its relations and the harmony of the two lovers and the one sweetheart, of unsurpassed gracefulness in its kind. The elegant grisettes, who make their appearance perfumed and adorned, with their hair fashionably dressed and in variegated, gold-embroidered, sweeping robes, or even perform their toilette on the stage, are -v&ry effective. In their train come the procuresses, sometimes of the most vulgar sort, such as one who appears in the Curculio, sometimes duennas like Goethe's old Bar- bara, such as Seapha in the Mostellaria ; ^ and there is no lack of brothers and comrades ready with their help. There is great abundance and variety of parts representing the old : there appear in turn the austere and avaricious, the fond and tender-hearted, and the indulgent accommo- dating, papas, the amorous old man, the easy old bachelor, tlie jealous aged matron with her old maid-servant who takes part with her mistress against her master ; whereas the young men's parts are less prominent, and neither the first lover, nor the virtuous model son who here and there occurs, claim any great significance. The servant-world — the crafty valet, the stern house-steward, the old vigilant tutor, the rural slave redolent of garlic, the impertinent page — forms a transition to the very numerous professional characters. A standing figure among these is the jestei Chap. XIV.] Literature and Art. 507 (jparasitus) who, in return for permission to feast at the table of the rich, has to entertain the guests with drolleries and charades, or, according to circumstances, to submit to have the potsherds flung at his head. This was at that time a formal trade in Athens; and it is certainly no mere poetical fiction which represents such a parasite as expressly preparing himself for his work by means of his books of witticisms and anecdotes. Favourite characters, moreover, are those of the cook, who understands not only how to bully in an unrivalled style, but also how to pilfer like a professional thief; the shameless hno, complacently con- fessing to the practice of every vice, of whom Ballio in the Pseudolus is a model specimen ; the military braggadocio, in whom we trace a very distinct embodiment of the free- lance habits that prevailed under Alexander's successors ; the professional sharper or sycophant, the stiiagy money changer, the solemnly silly physician, the priest, mariner, fisherman, and the like. To these fall to be added, lastly, the parts delineative of character in the strict sense, such as the superstitious man of Menander and the miser in the Aulularia of Plautus. The national-Hellenic poetry has preserved, even in this its last creation, its indestructible plastic vigour ; but the delineation of character is here copied from without rather than reproduced from inward experience, and the more so, the more the task approaches to the really poetical. It is a significant circumstance that, In the parts illustrative of character to which we have just referred, the psychological truth is for the most part repre- sented by its logical embodiment ; the miser here collects the parings of his nails and laments the tears which he sheds as a waste of water. But the blame of this want of depth in the portraying of character, and generally of the whole poetical and moral hollowness of this newer comedy, lay less with the comic writers than with the nation as a whole. Everything distinctively Greek was expiring : fath- erland, national faith, domestic life, all nobleness of action and sentiment were gone ; poetry, history, and philosophy were inwardly exhausted ; and nothing remained to the 508 Literature and Art. [Book hi Athenian save the school, the fish-market, ;ind the brothel It is no matter of wonder and hardly a matter of blame that poetry, which is destined to shed a glory over human existence, could make nothing more out of such a life than the Menandrian comedy presents to us. It is at the same time very remarkable that the poetry of this period, wherever it was able to turn away in some degree from the corrupt Attic life 'without falling into schoolboy imita- tion, immediately gathers strength and freshness from the ideal. In the only remnant of the mock-heroic comedy of this period — the Amphitrvo of Plautus — there breathes throughout a purer and more poetical air than in all the other remains of the contemporary stage. The good- natured gods treated with gentle irony, the noble forms from the heroic world, and the ludicrously cowardly slaves present the most wonderful mutual contrasts ; and, after the comical course of the plot, the birth of the son of the gods amidst thunder and lightning forms an almost grand concluding effect. But this task of turning the myths into irony was innocent and poetical, as compared with that of the ordinary comedy depicting the Attic life of the period. No special accusation may be brought from a historico- moral point of view against poets in general, nor ought it to be made matter of individual reproach to the particular poet that he occupies the level of his epoch : comedy was not the cause, but the effect of the corruption that prevailed in the national life. But it is necessary, more especially with a view to estimate correctly the influence of these comedies on the life of the Roman people, to point out the abyss which yawned beneath all that polish and elegance. The coarsenesses and obscenities, which Menander indeed hi some measure avoided, but of which there is no lack in the other poets, are the least part of the evil. Features fa" worse are, the dreadful aspect of life as a desert in which the only oases are lovemaking and intoxication ; the fear- fully prosaic monotony, in which anything resembling enthusiasm is to be found only among the sharpers whose beads have been turned by their own swindling, and whc Chap. XIV.] Literature and AH. 50fl prosecute the trade of cheating with some sort of zeal ; and above all that immoral morality, with which the pieces of Menander in particular are garnished. Vice is chastised, virtue is rewarded, and any peccadilloes are covered by con- version at or after marriage. There are pieces, such as the Trinummus of Plautus and several of Terence, in which all the characters down to the slaves possess some admixture of virtue ; all swarm with honest men who allow deception on their behalf, with maidenly virtue wherever possible, with lovers equally favoured and making love in company ; moral commonplaces and well-turned ethical maxims abound. A finale of reconciliation such as that of the Bacchides, where the swindling sons and the swindled fath- ers by way of a good conclusion all go to carouse together in the brothel, presents a corruption of morals thoroughly worthy of Kotzebue. Such were the foundations, and such the elements which Koman shaped the growth, of Roman comedy. Origi- coraedy. nality was in its case excluded not merely by want of aesthetic freedom, but still more directly, it is itsHeiien- probable, by virtue of its liability to police con- ^^resulf ' ''^ol- Among the considerable number of Latin of the law. comedies of this sort which are known to us, there is not one that did not announce itself as an imitation of a definite Greek model ; the title was only complete when the names of the Greek piece and of its author were also given, and if, as occasionally happened, the " novelty " of a piece was disputed, the point in dispute was merely whether it had been previously translated. Comedy laid the scene of its plot abroad not only frequently, but regu- larly and under the pressure of necessity ; and the special name of that form of art {fabula palliata) was derived from the fact, that the scene was laid out of Rome, usually in Athens, and that the dramatis personae were Greeks or at any rate not Romans. The foreign costume is strictly carried out even in detail, especially in those things In which the uncultivated Roman was distinctly sensible of the con. trast. Thus the names of Rome and the Romans are 610 Lit&ratwre and Art. [Book m avoided, and, where they are referred to, they are called in good Greek " foreigners " (barbari) ; in like manner among the appellations of moneys and coins that so frequently occur there does not once appear a Eoman coin. We form a strange idea of men of so great and so versatile talent as Naevius and Plautus, if we refer such caprices to their free choice : this strange and clumsy outlandish aspect of the Roman comedy was undoubtedly occasioned by causes very different from aesthetic considerations. The transference of such a state of social matters as is uniformly delineated in the new Attic comedy to the Eome of the Hannibalio period would have been a direct outrage on its civil order and morality. But, as the dramatic spectacles at this period were regularly given by the aediles and praetors who were entirely dependent on the senate, and even extraordinary festivals, funeral games for instance, could not take place without permission of the government ; and as the Eoman police, moreover, was not in the habit of standing on cer^ mony in any case, and least of all in dealing with comedies ; the reason is self evident why this comedy, even after it was admitted as one of the Eoman national amusements, still was not allowed to bring forward a Eoman on the stage, and remained as it were relegated to foreign lands. The compilers were still more decidedly prohibited Political from naming any living person in terms either neutiahty. ^£ praise Or censure, as well as from any cap- tious allusion to the circumstances of the times. In the whole range of the Plautine and post-Plautine comedy, there is not, so far as we know, matter for a single action of damages. In like manner — if we leave out of view some wholly harmless jests — we meet hardly any trace of invectives levelled at communities (invectives which, owing to the lively municipal spirit of the Italians, would have been specially dangerous),* except the significant scoff at the • Bacch. 24 ; Ti-in. 609 ; True. iii. 2, 23, Naevius also, who in fact was generally less scrupulous, ridicules the Praencstines and Lanuvini (Com. 21, Ribh.). Tliere arc indications more than once of a eertaii «:!iiAp. XIV.] Literature and Art. 611 unfortunate Capuans and Atellans (p. 227) and, what is remarkable, various sarcasms on the arrogance and the had Latin of the Praenestines. In general no references to the events or circumstances of the present occur in the pieces of Plautus. The only exceptions are, good wishes for the progress of the war * or for peaceful times ; general sallies directed against usurious dealings in grain or money, against extravagance, against bribery by candidates, against the frequency of triumphs, against those who made a trade of collecting forfeited fines, against farmers of the revenue distraining for payment, against the dear prices of the oil- dealers ; and once — in the Curculio — a more lengthened diatribe as to the doings in the Roman market, resembling the parabases of the older Attic comedy, and but little likely to cause offence (p. 486). But even in the midst of such patriotic endeavours, which from a police point of view were entirely in order, the poet interrupts himself; Sed sumne ego stultus, qui rem euro publicam Ubl sunt magistratus, guos curare oporteat ? and taken as a whole, we can hardly imagine a comedy politically tamer than the comedy of Rome in the sixth century.f The oldest Roman comic writer of note, Gnaeus variance between the Praenestines and Romans (Liv. xxiii. 20, slii. 1) ; and the exeontions in the time of Pyrrhus (i. S07) as well as the catas- trophe in that of Sulla, were certainly connected with this variance.— Innocent jokes, such as Capt. 160, 881, of course passed uncensured.— The compliment paid to Massilia in Cos. v. 4, 1, deserves notice. * Thus the prologue of the Cistellaria concludes with the following trorde, which may have a place here as the only contemporary mention af the Hannibalic war in the literature that has come down to us : — Haec res sic gesta est. Bene valete, et vincite Viriute vera^ quod fecisfis anfidhac ; Servate vostros sodos, veteres ec novos ; Augete auxilia vostris justis legibus ; Perdite perduelles : parite lavdem et lauream Ut vobis victi Poeni poenas sufferant. f For this reason we can hardly be too cautious in assuming alia •ions on the part of Plautus to the events of the times. Recent invea 512 Literature and Art. [Book III Naevius, alone forms a remarkable exception. Although he did not write exactly original Eoman comedies, the few fragments of his, which we possess, are full of references to eii'cumstances and persons in Eome. Among other liber- ties he not only ridiculed one Theodotus a painter by name, bizt even directed against the victor of Zama the following verses, of which Aristophanes need not have been ashamed : Etiam qui res mag7ias wanu saepe gessit gloriose, Gufus facta viva nunc vigentj qui apud genLes solus praestaty Eum suus pater cum pallio uno ab arnica abduxit. As he himself says, lAbera lingua loquemur ludis Liberalibus, he probably often wrote offensively and put dangerous questions, such as : Cedo qui veatram rem puhlicam tantam amimtia tarn cUo ? which he answered by an enumeration of political sins, such as : Proveniebant oratores novi^ stulti adulescentuli. But the Roman police was not disposed like the Attic to hold stage-invectives and political diatribes as privileged, or even to tolerate them at all. Naevius was put in prison for these and similar sallies, and was obliged to remain there, till he had publicly made amends and recantation in other comedies. These quarrels, apparently, drove him from his native land ; but his successors took warning from his example — one of them indicates very plainly, that he has no desire whatever to incur an involuntary gagging like his solleague Naevius. Thus the result was accomplished— not ligation has set aside many instances of mistaken acutenesa of thi* sort ; but miglit not the reference to the Bacchanalia, which is found in Caa. V. 4, 11 (Ritschl, Farerg. i. 192), have been expected to incur ecu. sure ? We may perhaps reverse the case and infer from the notices of the festival of Bacchus in the Gasina and some other pieces (Amph. V03; Aul. in. 1, S ; Bacch. 53, 371 ; Mil. Olor. 1016 ; and especiaUj Men. 8SG), that these were written at a time when it waa not yet dan gerous to speak of the Bacchanalia. Cf ip. XIV.] Literature and Art. 513 much less unique of its kind than the conquest of Hannibal — that, during an epoch of the most feverish national excitement, there arose a national stage utterly destitute of political tinge. But the restrictions thus stringently and laboriously Oharacter of imposed by custom and police on Roman poet- of'^R^oman* ry stifled its very breath. Not without reason somedy. niight Nacvius declare the position of the poet under the sceptre of the Lagidae and Seleucidae enviable as compared with his position in free Rome.* The degree of success in individual instances was of course determined by the quality of the original which was followed, and by the talent of the individual editor ; but amidst all their individ- ual variety the whole range of translations must have agreed in certain leading features, inasmuch as all the come- dies were adapted to similar conditions of exhibition and a Persons and similar audience. The treatment of the whole ona. ^g ^g22 ^g ^|. ^^ details was uniformly in the highest degree free ; and it was necessary that it should be so. While the original pieces were performed in presence of that society which they copied, and in this very fact lay their principal charm, the Roman audience of this period was so different from the Attic, that it was not even able properly to understand that foreign world. The Roman comprehended neither the grace and courtesy, nor the senti- mentalism and the whitened emptiness of the domestic life of the Hellenes. The slave-world was utterly different ; the Roman slave was a piece of household furniture, the Attic slave was a servant. Where marriages of slaves occur or a master carries on a kindly conversation with his slave,* the Roman translators ask their audience not to take * The remarkable passage in the Tarentilla can have no othej moaning :— Quae ego in theatro hie meis probavi plausibus, Ea non audere quemguam regem rumpere : Quanta lihertalem hanc hie mperat servitus ! f The ideas of the modern Hellas on the point of slavery are illus trated by the passage in Euripides {Ion, 854 ; eomp, Relena, 728) : — Voi, II.— 22* 514 Literature and Art. [Book IIL offence at such things which are usual in Athens ; and, when at a later period comedies began to be written in Roman costume, the part of the crafty servant had to be rejected, because the Roman public did not tolerate slaves of this sort overlooking and controlling their masters. Ths professional figures and those illustrative of character, which were sketched more broadly and farcically, bore the process of transference better than the polished figures of every-day life ; but even of those delineations the Roman editor had to lay aside several — and these probably the very finest and most original, such as the Thais, the match-maker, the moon-eonjuress, and the mendicant priest of Menander — and to keep chiefly to those foreign trades, with which the Greek luxury of the table, already very generally diflTused in Rome, had made his audience familiar. The delineatipn of the professional cook and the parasite in the comedy of Plautus with so striking a vividness and relish finds its explanation in tlie fact, that Greek cooks at that time daily offered their services in the Roman market, and that Cato found it necessary to give orders even to his steward not to keep a parasite. In like manner the translator could make no use of a very large portion of the elegant Attic conver- sation in his originals. The Roman citizen or farmer stood in much the same relation to the refined revelry and de- bauchery of Athens, as the German of a provincial town to the mysteries of the Palais Royal. A science of cookery, in the strict sense, never entered into his thoughts ; the dinner-parties no doubt continued to be very numerous in the Roman imitation, but everywhere the plain Roman roast pork predominated over the variety of baked meats and the refined sauces and dishes of fish. Of the riddles and drinking-songs, of the Greek rhetoric and philosophy, which played so great a part in the originals, we meet only a stray trace now and then in the Roman adaptation. Ev yoij Tt Toiq Soii/.Ui.avv ala/vvriv gilQn, To'i'n'Ofia' Tci f the formulae of action, on the contrary, was based on the older collection of Appius (i. 598) and on the general system ■ of procedure as developed by national usage and precedent. The state of science generally at this epoch is very dis- cato's eney- tiuctly exhibited in the collection of manuals ciopaedia. composed by Cato for his son which, as a sort of encyclopaedia, were designed to set forth in short max- ims what a "proper man '' {yir bonus) ought to be as orar tor, physician, husbandman, warrior, and jurist. No dis- tinction was yet drawn between an elementary and a special study of the sciences ; but so much of science generally as seemed necessary oi useful was required of every true Ro- man. The work did not include Latin grammar, which consequently cannot as yet have attained that formal de- velopment which is implied in a properly scientific instruc- tion in language; and it excluded music and the whole cycle of the mathematical and physical sciences. Throughout it was the directly practical element in science which alone was to be handled, and that with as much brevity and sim- plicity as possible. The Greek literature was doubtless made use of, but only to furnish some serviceable maxims of experience culled from the mass of chaff and rubbish : it was a favourite saying of Cato, that " Greek literature must be looked into, but not thoroughly studied." Thus arose those household manuals of necessary information, which, while rejecting Greek subtlety and obscurity, ban- ished also Greek acuteness and depth, but through that very peculiarity moulded the position of the Eomans tow- ards Greek science for all ages. Thus poetry and literature canre to Rome along with WstoricX™. tlie sovereignty of the world, or, to use the Ian- li^atiS'.'"''" Suage of a poet of the age of Cicero : Chap. XIV.] Literature and Art. 557 Poenico hello secwndo Muaa pennato gradu Intulit se bellicosam Romuli in genlem feram, 111 the districts using the Sabellian and Etruscan dialects also there must have been at the same period no want of intellectual movement. Tragedies in the Etruscan language are mentioned, and vases with Oscan inscriptions show thai the makers were acquainted with Greek comedy. The question accordingly presents itself, whether, contemporarily witli Naevius and Cato, a Hellenizing literature like the Ho- man may not have been in course of formation on the Arnus and Volturnus. But all information on the point is lost, and history can in such circumstances only indicate the blank. The Roman literature is the only one as to which we Hellenizing Can Still form aa opinion ; and, however prob- hterature. lematical its absolute worth may appear to the aesthetic judge, for those who wish to apprehend the history of Rome it remains of unique value as the reflection of the inner mental life of Italy in that sixth century — so full of the din of arms and so pregnant with the destinies of the future — during which the distinctive development of Italian life closed, and the land began to enter into the broader career of ancient civilization. In it too there prevailed that antagonism, which everywhere during this epoch pervaded the life of the nation and characterized the age of transition. No one of unprejudiced mind, and who is not misled by the venerable rust of two thousand years, can be deceived as to the defectiveness of the Helleuistico-Roman literature. Roman literature by the side of that of Greece resembles a German orangery by the side of a grove of Sicilian orange-trees ; both may give us pleasure, but it is impossi- ble even to conceive them as parallel. This holds true of the literature in the mother-tongue of the Latins still more decidedly, if possible, than of the Roman literature in a foreign tongue ; to a very great extent the former was not the work of Romans at all, but of foreigners, of half- Greeks, Celts, and ere long even Africans, whose knowledge of Latin was only acquired by study. Among those who in this age came before the public as poets, none, as W8 558 Literature and Art. [Book III. have already said, can be shown to have been persons of rank ; and not only so, but none can be shown to have been natives of Latium proper. The very name given to the poet was foreign ; even Ennius emphatically calls himself upoeta* But not cnly was this poetry foreign; it was bIso liable to all those defects which are found to occui 'jthere schoolmasters become authors and the great multi- tude forms the public. We have shown how comedy was artistically debased out of regard to the multitude, and ir fact sanlc into vulgar coarseness ; we have further shown that two of the most influential Roman authors were school" masters in the first instance and only became poets in the sequel, and that, while the Greek philology which only sprang up after the decline of the national literature experi- , mented merely on the dead body, in Latium grammar and literature had their foundations laid simultaneously and went hand in hand, almost as in the case of modern mis> sions to the heathen. In fact, if we view with an unpreju- diced eye this Hellenistic literature of the sixth century — that mechanical poetry destitute of all productive power of its own, thdt uniform imitation of the very shallowest forms of foreign art, that stock of translations, that changeling of an epos — we are tempted to reckon it simply one of the diseased symptoms of the epoch before us. But such a judgment, if not unjust, would yet be just only in a very partial sense. We must first of all consider tliat this artificial literature sprang up in a nation which not only did not possess any national poetic art, but could never attain any such art. In antiquity, which knew nothing of the modern poetry of individual life, creative poetical ac- tivity fell mainly within the mysterious period when a na- tion was experiencing the fears and pleasures of growth : * See the lines already quoted at p. 538. The formation of the name jmeta from the vulgar Greek noijTijq in- atead of TroiijTijt; — as fTroi/aiv was in use among the Attic potteis — ia otiaiacteriatic. We may add that jwcta technically denotes only the author of epic or recitative poems, not the composer for the stage, whc &t this time was styled sciiba (p. 502. Festua, s. v., p. 333 M.), Chap Xiv.J Literature and Art. 559 ■witliDut prejudice to the greatness of the Greek epic aii^ tragic poets we may assert that their poetry mainly con- sisted in reproducing the primitive stories of human gods and divine men. This basis of ancient poetry was totally wanting in Latium : where the world of gods remained shapeless and legend remained barren, the golden apples of poetry could not voluntarily ripen. To this falls to be added a second and more important consideration. The inward mental development and the outward political evo- lution of Italy had equally reached a point at which it was no longer possible to retain the Roman nationality based on the exclusion of all higher and individual mental culture, and to repel the encroachments of Hellenism. The propa- gation of Hellenism in Italy had certainly a revolutionary and a denationalizing tendency, but it was indispensable for the necessary intellectual equalization of the nations ; and this primarily constitutes the historical and even the poeti- cal justificalioii of the Romano-Hellenistic literature. Not a single new and genuine work of art issued from its work- shop, but it brought Italy within the intellectual horizon of Hellas. Viewed even in its mere outward aspect, Greek poetry presumes in the hearer a certain amount of positive knowledge. That self-contained completeness, which is one of the most essential peculiarities of the dramas of Shake- speare for instance, was foreign to ancient poetry ; a person unacquainted with the cycle of Greek legend would fail to discover the background and often even the ordinary mean- ing of every rhapsody and every tragedy. If the Roman public of this period was in some degree familiar, as the comedies of Plautus show, with the Homeric poems and the legends of Herakles, and was acquainted with at least the more generally current of the other myths,* this knowl- * Even subordinate figures from the legends of Troy and of Hera- kles make their appearance, e. g,, Talthybius [Stick. 305), Autolycus 'JBacch. 275), Parthaon (Men. 745). Moreover the most general outlines must have been known in the case of the Thoban and the Argonautio legends, and the stories of Bellerophon {Bacch. 810), Pentheus {Merc 467), Proone and Philomela {Rud. 604), Sappho and Phaon [Mil. 1247). &60 Literature and Art. [Book m, edge must have found its way to the public primarilj through the stage and the school, and thus have formed at least a first step tovrards the understanding of the Hellenic poetry. But still deeper was the effect — on which the most ingenious literary critics of antiquity justly laid emphasis- produced by the naturalization of the Greek poetic language and the Greek metres in Latium. If " conquered Greece vanquished her rude conqueror by art," the victory was primarily accomplished by elaborating from the unpliant Latin idiom a cultivated and elevated poetical language, so that instead of the monotonous and hackneyed Saturnian the senarius flowed and the hexameter rushed, and the mighty tetrameters, the jubilant anapaests, and the artfully intermingled lyrical rhythms fell on the Latin ear in the mother-tongue. Poetical language is the key to the ideal world of poetry, poetic measure the key to poetical feeling ; for the man, to whom the eloquent epithet is dumb and the living image is dead, and in whom the times of dactyls and iambuses awaken no inward echo, Homer and Sophocles have composed in vain. Let it not be said that poetical and rhythmical feeling comes spontaneously. The ideal feelings are no doubt implanted by nature in the human breast, but they need favourable sunshine in order to ger- minate ; and especially in the Latin nation, which was but little susceptible of poetic impulses, they needed external nurture. Nor let it be said, that, by virtue of the widely diffused acquaintance with the Greek language, its literature might have sufficed for the susceptible Roman public. The mysterious charm which language exercises over man, and which poetical language and rhythm only exercise in a higher degree, attaches not to any tongue learnt accident- ally, but only to the mother-tongue. From this point of vicMc we shall fdrm a juster judgment of the Hellenistia literature, and particularly of the poetry, of the Romans of this period. If it was the tendency of that literature to transplant the radicalism of Euripides to Rome, to resolve the gods either into deceased men or into mental concep- tions, to place a denationalized Latium by the side of a Chap. XIV.] Lit&ratv/re and Art. 561 denationalized Hellas, and to merge all purely and distincN ly developed national peculiarities into the questionable idea of general civilization, every one is at liberty to ap- prove or disapprove this tendency, but none can doubt its historical necessity. From this point of view the very defectiveness of the Roman poetry, -which cannot be denied, may be explained and so may in some degree be justified It is no doubt pervaded by a disproportion between the trivial and often mutilated contents and the comparatively finished form ; but the real significance of this poetry lay precisely in its formal features, especially those of language and metre. It was not seemly that poetry in Eome was principally in the hands of schoolmasters and foreigners and was chiefly translation or imitation ; but, if the primary object of poetry was simply to form a bridge from Latium to Hellas, Livius and Ennius had certainly a vocation to the poetical pontificate in Rome, and a translated literature was the simplest means to the end. It was still less seem- ly that Roman poetry preferred to lay its hands on the most prolix and trivial originals ; but in this view it was appropriate. No one will desire to place the poetry of Euripides on a level with that of Homer ; but, historically viewed, Euripides and Menander were quite as much the oracles of cosmopolitan Hellenism as the Iliad and Odyssey were the oracles of national Hellenism, and in so far th« representatives of the new school had good reason for intro- ducing their audience especially to this cycle of literature. The instinctive consciousness also of their limited poetical powers may partly have induced the Roman composers to keep mainly by Euripides and Menander and to leave Sophocles and even Aristophanes untouched ; for, while poetry is essentially national and difficult to transplant, inlelloct and wit, on which the poetry of Euripides as welj as of Menander is based, are in their nature cosmopolitan, Mon^over the fact always deserves to be honourably ao knowledged, that the Roman poets of the sixth century did not attach themselves to the Hellenic literature of the day or what is called Alcxandrinisn, but sought their models Vol. II.— 24* 562 Literaturt and Art. [Book III solely in the older classical liteiature, although not exactly in its richest or purest fields. On the whole, however in- numerable may be the false accommodations and sin^ against the rules of art which we can point out in them, these were just the offences which were by stringent neces sity attendart on the far from scrupulous efforts of the mis- sionaries of Hellenism ; and they are, in a historical an.l evpn aesthetical point of view, outweighed in some measure by the zeal of faith equally inseparable from propagandism., We may fjrm a different ophiion from Ennius as to tho value of his new gospel ; but, if in the case of faith it does not matter so much what, as how, men believe, we cannot refuse recognition and admiration to the Roman poets of the sixth century. A fresh and strong sense of the power of the Hellenic world-literature, a sacred longing to transplant the marvellous tree to the foreign land, pervaded the whole poetry of the sixth century, and coincided in a peculiar manner with the thoroughly elevated spirit of that great age. The later refined Hellenism looked down on the poetical performances of this period with some degree of contempt ; it Should rather perhaps have looked up to the poets, who with all their imperfections yet stood in an inti- mate relation to Greek poetry, and approached nearer to genuine poetical art than their more cultivated successors. In the bold emulation, in the soundiijg rhythms, even in the mighty professional pride of the poets of this age there is, more than in any other epoch of Roman literature, an im- posing grandeur ; and even those who are under no illusion as to the weak points of this poetry may apply to it the proud language in which Ennius celebrates its praise : Unni poeta, salve, qui morialihus Versus propinas jlammeos meditllitus. As the Hellenico-Roman literature of this period was National essentially marked by a dominant tendency, so opposition. ^gg ^|g^ j(.g antithesis, the contemporary national authorship. While the former aimed at neither more nor less than the annihilation of Latin nationality by the crea CaAF. XIV.] Literatv/re and Art. 563 tion of a poetry Latin in language but Hellenic in form and spirit, the best and purest part of the Latin nation was driven to reject and place under the ban of outlawry the literature of Hellenism along ^vith Hellenism itself. The ilomans in the time of Cato stood opposed to Greek litera- ture, very much as in the time of the Caesars they stood opposed to Christianity ; freedmen and foreigners formed the main body of the poetical, as they afterwards formed the main body of the Christian, conamunity ; the nobility of the nation and above all the government s&vi in poetry as in Christianity an absolutely hostile power ; Plautus and Ennius were ranlied with the rabble by the Roman aristoc racy for reasons nearly the same as those for which the apostles and bishops were put to death by the Roman gov- ernment. In this field too it was Cato, of course, who took the lead as the vigorous champion of his native country against the foreigners. The Greek literati and physicians were in his view the most dangerous scum of the radically corrupt Greek people,* and the Roman " ballad-singers " are treated by him with ineffable contempt (i. 584). He and those who shaied his sentiments have been often and harshly censured on this account, and certainly the expres- sions of his displeasure are not unfrequently characterized by the bluntness and narrowness peculiar to him ; but on * " As to these Greeks," he says to his son Marcus, " I shall tell at the proper place, what I came to learn regarding them at Athens ; and shall show that it is useful to look Into their writings, but not to study them thoroughly. They are an utterly corrupt and ungovernable race — believe me, this is true as an oracle ; if that people bring hither its culture, it will ruin everything, and roost especially if it send hither Its physicians. They have conspired to despatch all barbariiins by their physicking, nevertheless they get themselves paid for it, that people may trust them and that they may the more easily bring us to ruin. They call us also barbarians, and indeed revile us by the still more vulvar name of Opicans. I interdict thee, therefore, from all dealings with the practitioners of the healing art." — Cato in his zeal was not awara that the name of Opicans, which had in Latin an objectionable sense, was in Greek quite free from this, and that the Greeks had in the mosi Innocent way come to designate the Italians by that term (i. 183). 564 Literature and Art. [b-wK ill a closer consideration we must not only confuss him to ha\fl been in individual pdnts substantially right, but we mu&< also acknowledge that the national opposition in this field, more than anywhere else, abandoned the manifestly inade- quate line of mere negative defence. When his younger contemporary, Aulus Postumius Albinus, who was an ob- ject of ridicule to the Hellenes themselves by his offensive lielienizing, and who even manufactured Greek verses — when this Albinus in the preface to his historical treatise pleaded in excuse for his defective Greek that he was by birth a Roman — was not the question quite in place, whether he had been condemned by legal authority to meddle with things which he did not understand ? Were the trades of the professional translator of comedies and of the poet celebrating heroes for bread and protection more honourable, perhaps, two thousand years ago than they are now? Had Cato not reason to make it a reproach against Nobilior, that he took Ennius — ivho, we may add, glorified in his verses the Roman potentates without respect of per- sons, and overloaded Cato himself with praise — along with him to Ambracia as the celebrator of his future achieve- ments ? Had he not reason to revile the Greeks, with whom he had become acquainted in Rome and Athens, as an incorrigibly wretched pack ? This opposition to the culture of the age and the Hellenism of the day was well warranted ; but Cato was by no means chargeable with an opposition to culture and to Hellenism in general. On the contrary it is the highest merit of the national party, that they comprehended very clearly the necessity of creating a Latiu literature and of bringing the stimulating influences of Hellenism to bear on it ; only their intention was, tliat Latin literature should not be a mere copy taken from tlie .'jreek and intruded on the national feelings of Rome, but should, while quickened by Greek influences, be developed in a manner conformable to Italian nationality. With « genial instinct, which attests not so much the sagacity of individuals as the general elevation of the epoch, they pep .jeived that in the case of Rome, owing to the total want oi CflAp. XIV.] Literature and Art. 56a earlier poetical productiveness, history furnished the only materiiils for the development of a distinctive intellectual life. Rome was, what Greece was not, a state ; and the mighty consciousness of this truth lay at the root both of the bold attempt which Naevius made to form by means of history a Roman epos and a Roman drama, and of the crea- tion of Latin prose by Cato. It is true that the endeavour to replace the gods and heroes of legend by the kings and consuls of Rome resembles the attempt of the giants to storm heaven by means of mountains piled one above another : without a mythologic world there is no ancient epos and no ancient drama, and poetry knows no substi- tutes. With greater moderation and good sense Cato left poetry proper, as a thing irremediably lost, to the party opposed to him ; although his attempt to create a didactic poetry in national measure after the model of the earlier Roman productions — the Appian poem on Morals and the poem on Agriculture — remains significant and deserving of respect, if not in point of success, yet in point of intention. Prose afforded him a more favourable field, and accordingly he applied the whole varied power and energy peculiar to him to the creation of a prose literature in his native tongue. This effort was all the more Roman and all the more de- serving of respect, that the public which he primarily ad- dressed was the family circle, and that in such an effort he stood almost alone in his time. Thus arose his " Origines," his remarkable state-speeches, his treatises on special branches of science. They are certainly pervaded by a national spirit, and turn on national subjects ; but they are far from anti-Hellenic : in fact they originated essentially under Greek influence, although in a different sense from that in which the writings of the opposite party so origi- nated. The idea and even the title of his chief work were borrowed from the Greek " foundation-histories " {HtiaEis). The same is true of his oratorical authorship ; he ridiculed Isocrates, but he tried to learn from Thucydides and De- mosthenes. His encyclopaedia is substantially the result of his st'idy of Greek literature. Of all the uudertakin^j 506 Literature and Art, [Book lU. of that, active and patriotic man none was more fruitful of results and none more useful to his country than this lite- rary activity, little esteemed in comparison as it probably was by himself. He found numerous and worthy success- ors in oratorical and scientific authorship ; and though his original historical treatise, which of its kind may be com- pared with the Greek logography, was followed by no Herodotus or Thucydides, yet he was the means of estab- lishing the principle that literary occupation in connection with the useful sciences as well as with history was not merely becoming but honourable in a Eoman. Let us glance, in conclusion, at the state of the arts of Arciiitec- architecture, sculpture, and painting. So far as ^' concerns the former, the traces of growing lux- ury were less observable in public than in private buildings. It was not till towards the close of this period, and espe- cially from the time of the censorship of Cato (570), that the Romans began in the case of the former to have respect to public convenience as well as to public exigency ; to line with stone the basins (lacus) sup- 184. plied from the aqueducts (570) ; to erect colon- 179. 1T4. nades (575, 580) ; and above all to transfer to Rome tlie Attic halls for courts and business — the basilicae as they were called. The first of these buildings, somewhat corresponding to our modern bazaars — the Porcian or sil- versmiths' hall — was erected by Cato in 570 184. alongside of the senate-house ; others were soon associated with it, till gradually along the sides of the Forum the private shops were replaced by these splendid columnar halls. Every-day life, however, was more deeply inlluenced by the revolution in domestic architecture which must, at latest, be placed in this period. The dwelling- room (atrium), court [cavum aedium), garden and garden colonnade {peristyliiim), the record-chamber [tablinum), chapel, kitchen, and bedrooms were by degrees severally provided for ; and, as to the internal fittings, the column began to be applied both in the court and in the dwelling r(X)in for the support of the open roof and also for t Chap, xtv.] Literature and Art 567 garden colonnades : throughout these arrangements it is probable that Greek models weiv, copied or at any rate made use of. Yet the materials used in building remained simple ; " our ancest(jrs," says Varro, " dwelt in houses of brick, and laid merely a moderate foundation of stone to keep away damp." Of Roman plastic art we scarcely encounter any other PI f t ^^^'^^ than, perhaps, the embossing in wax of the ai.d paint- images of ancestors. Painters and painting are mentioned somewhat more frequently. Manius Valerius caused the victory which he obtained over the Car- ^j thaginians and Hiero in 491 off Messana (p. 47) to be depicted on the side wall of the senate- house — the first historical frescoes in Rome, which were followed by many of similar character, and which were in the domain of the arts of design what the national epos and the national drama became not much later in the do- main of poetry. We find named as painters, one Theodotus who, as Naevius scoffingly said, Sedem in cella circumtectus iegetibut Lares ludentis peni pinxU bubulo ; Marcus Pacuvius of Brundisium, who painted in the temple of Hercules in the Forum Boarium — the same who, when more advanced in life, made himself a name as an editor of Greek tragedies ; and Marcus Plautius Lyco, a native of Asia Minor, whose beautiful paintings in the temple of Juno at Ardea procured for him the freedom of that city.* But these very facts clearly indicate, not only that the exer- cise of art in Rome was altogether of subordinate import- ance and more of a manual occupation than an art, but also that it fell, probably still more exclusively than poetry, into the hands of Greeks and half Greeks. * Plautius belongs to this or to the beginning of the following pe- riod, for the inseriptiou on his pictures (Plin. H. N. xxxv. 10, 115), being hexametrical, cannot well be older than Eunius, and the bestowal of the citizenship Oi Ardea must have taken place before the Social War throiigli which Ardea lost its independence. 668 Literature and Art. [Boos m On the other hand there appeared in genteel circles the first traces of the tastes subsequently displayed by the dilettante and the collector. They admired the magnificenct of the Corinthian and Athenian temples, and regarded with contempt the old-fashioned terra-cotta figures on the roofs of those of Rome : even a man like Lucius Paullus, who ishared the feelings of Cato rather than of Scipio, viewed and judged the Zeus of Phidias with the eye of a connois- seur. The custom of carrying off the treasures of art from the conquered Greek cities was first introduced on a large ' scale by Marcus Marcellus after the capture of Syracuse (542). The practice met with severe reprobation from men of the old school of training, and the stern veteran Quintus Fabius, for instance, on the capture of Tarentum (545) gave orders that the statues 209. in the temples should not be touched, but that the Tarentines should be allowed to retain their indignant gods. Yet the plundering of temples in this way became of more and more frequent occurrence. Titus Flamininus in particular (560) and Marcus Fulvius Nobilior ibt! (567), two leading champions of Roman Ilellen ^^^' ism, and Lucius Paullus (587) were the means of filling the public buildings of Rome with the master- pieces of the Greek chisel. In taking such steps the Ro- mans had a dawning consciousness of the truth that an In- terest in art as well as an interest in poetry formed an essential part of Hellenic culture or, in other words, of modern civilization ; but, while the appropriation of Greek poetry was impossible without some sort of poetical activ- ity, in the case of art the mere beholding and procuring of its productions seemed to suffice, and therefore, while a native literature was formed in an artificial way in Roxne^ !io attempt oven was made to develop a native art. EHD OF THE SECOND V0LT7]K& \ $