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Epochs of Ancient History 
 
 EDITED BY 
 
 Rev. sir G. W. COX, Bart., M.A. and C. SANKEY, M.A. 
 
 ROME and CARTHAGE 
 
 R. BOSWORTH SMITH, M.A. 
 
EPOCHS OF ANCIENT HISTORY. 
 
 Edited by Eev. G. W. Cox and Charles Sankey, M.A. 
 Eleven volumes, 16nio, with 41 Maps and Plans. Price per 
 vol., $1.00. The set, Roxburgh style.gilt top, in box, §11.00. 
 
 Troy — Its Legend, History, and Literature. By S. G. W. 
 Benjamin. 
 
 The Greeks and the Persians. By G. W. Cox. 
 
 •The Athenian Empire. By G. W. Cox. 
 
 The Spartan and Theban Supremacies. By Charles Sankey. 
 
 The Macedonian Empire. By A. M. Curteis. 
 
 Early Rome. By W. Ihne. 
 
 Rome and Carthage. By R. Bosworth Smith. 
 
 The Gracchi, Marius and Sulla. By A. H. Beesley. 
 
 The Roman Triumvirates By Charles Merivale. 
 
 The Early Empire. By W. Wolfe Capes. 
 
 The Age of the Antonines. By W. Wolfe Capes. 
 
 EPOCHS OF MODERN HISTORY. 
 
 Edited by Edward E. Morris. Eighteen volumes, 16mo, 
 with 77 Maps, Plans, and Tables. Price per vol., $1.00. 
 The set, Roxburgh style, gilt top, in box, $18.00. 
 
 The Beginning of the Middle Ages. By R. W. Church. 
 
 The Normans in Europe. By A. H. Johnson. 
 
 The Crusades. By G. W. Cox. 
 
 The Early Plantagenets. By Wm. Stubbs. 
 
 Edward III. By W. Warburton. 
 
 The Houses of Lancaster and York. By James Gairdner. 
 
 The Era of the Protestant Revolution . By Frederic Seebohm. 
 
 The Early Tudors. By C. E. Moberly. 
 
 The Age of Elizabeth. By M. Creighton. 
 
 The Thirty Years' War, 1618-1648. By S. R. Gardiner. 
 
 The Puritan Revolution. By S. R. Gardiner. 
 
 The Fall of the Stuarts. By Edward Hale. 
 
 The English Restoration and Louis XIV. By Osmund Airy. 
 
 The Age of Anne. By Edward E. Morris. 
 
 The Early Hanoverians. By Edward E. Morris. 
 
 Frederick the Great. By F. W. Longman. 
 
 The French Revolution and First Empire. By W. O'Connor 
 Morris. Appendix by Andrew D. White. 
 
 The Epoch of Reform, 1830-1850. By Justin Macarthy. 
 
EPOCHS OF ANCIENT HISTORY 
 
 ROME AND CARTHAGE 
 
 M>5S»»«Sl<V'«i»^« 
 
 THE PUNIC WARS 
 
 BY 
 
 r: bosworth smith, ma. 
 
 Assistant- Master in Harrow School : formerly Fellow of Trinity College, Oxford. 
 
 Author of" Mohamjned and 3foha7nmedanisfft," and 
 
 *' Carthage and the Carthaginians." 
 
 NEW YORK: 
 
 CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS, 
 
 1889. 
 
m 27 
 
 mi 
 
 
 9D5 
 
MATRI MEJE 
 
 CUJUS NOMEN YIY JE 
 
 HUIC OPUSCULO PR^TEXI DEBUERAT 
 
 QUOD MATERNO AMORE INCEPTUM FOVEBAT 
 
 MORTU^ PERACTUM 
 
 AMANTISSIMUS DEDICO 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 The pages which follow are an abbreviation, spe- 
 cially authorized by me for Messrs. Scribner, of my 
 larger work on *' Carthage and the Carthaginians." 
 I have made no attempt to alter the language of the 
 larger work, except where it appeared to me that I 
 could alter it for the better. Indeed, any attempt 
 to write down to the capacities of younger readers 
 seems to me quite unnecessary in dealing with an 
 *' epoch of history" which, in the unique interest 
 and importance of its subject, and in the simple 
 grandeur of its leading characters, appeals with 
 almost equal force to young and old. And if I 
 have been led to dwell at greater length, and with 
 apparently more genuine enthusiasm, on the ele- 
 ments of greatness which are to be found in Car- 
 thage, and on the genius of her two greatest sons, 
 than on the qualities of her successful rival, it is not 
 
 vii 
 
viii Preface. 
 
 because I would suggest any doubt that Rome was 
 the fitter of the two for empire, or that her victory 
 was on the whole the victory of progress and of civili- 
 zation ; but because, owing to the conditions under 
 which the history of Carthage has come down to us, 
 and the distorted medium through which we must 
 needs view it, it is, in my judgment, the proper 
 business of the historian, so far as in him lies, to 
 restore the balance Multitudinous voices of the 
 past, of the present, and in a sense, even of the 
 future, attest, in language that cannot be mistaken 
 by anyone, the greatness of the "Eternal City;" 
 but the mournful and solitary silence which weighs 
 upon the traveller as he stands upon the deserted 
 site of Carthage, while it attests how thoroughly the 
 Romans carried out their hateful work of oblitera- 
 tion, calls upon him in tones which to him, at least, 
 are equally unmistakable, to lay stress on what may 
 be fairly said for the city and the civilization which 
 have never spoken, and can now, unfortunately, 
 no longer speak for themselves. 
 
 One chapter only of this volume seems to require 
 special comment here. In the spring of 1877, afLer 
 I had finished the first draft of my larger work, I 
 was enabled to pay a visit to the site of Carthage 
 and its neighbourhood. It was a short visit, but 
 
Preface, ix 
 
 was full of deep and varied interest. It was my first 
 sight of an eastern city, and it brought me for the 
 first time into direct personal contact with that vast 
 religious system which is one of the greatest facts 
 of human history, and which from causes deep as 
 human nature itself, seems destined, whatever the 
 upshot of the present Eastern difficulties always to 
 maintain its hold on the Eastern world. I was able 
 several times to visit the site of the Phoenician city, 
 and to study, as far as my limited time would permit 
 me, on the spot those questions of its topography 
 and history with the general bearings of which I had 
 been so long familiar in books. I walked round the 
 harbours of Carthage, bathed in water which half 
 preserves and half conceals its ruins, explored the 
 Byrsa and the cisterns, traced for many miles the 
 course of the aqueduct, crossed the river Bagradas, 
 and examined, amongst other spots renowned in 
 ancient story, the site of the still more ancient city, 
 the parent city of Utica. In the concluding chapter 
 of this volume, I have endeavoured to gather up 
 some of the impressions which I derived from these 
 varied sights and scenes ; and I hope I have been 
 able by these means, as well as by various touches 
 which I have inserted subsequently in other portions 
 of the book, to communicate to my readers in 
 
X Preface. 
 
 America, what I think I gained for myself, a more 
 '' vivid " mental picture of that ancient city whose 
 chequered fortunes in connection with her great 
 antagonist, I have endeavoured to relate. 
 
 The Knoll, Harrow, 
 
 December, 1880. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 CARTHAGE, 
 
 FAGS 
 
 Characteristics of Phoenicians — Their defects — Size of their 
 territory — Their relations to Israelites — Early commerce in 
 Mediterranean — Pre eminence of Phoenicians — Origin of 
 Carthage — its position and population — its relation to 
 Sicily — Our knowledge of Carthage, whence derived — its 
 early history — Rapid growth of its empire — Its dealings 
 with the Native Africans — with the Phcenician cities in 
 Africa — with Tyre — with Sicilian Greeks — Constitution of 
 Carthage — The Suffetes — The Senate — Deterioration of 
 constitution — The ''Hundred" Judges — Close oligarchy — ■ 
 General contentment — Social life of Carthaginians — Their 
 commercial principles — Their agriculture — Merits of 
 Mago's work on Agriculture — Carthaginian religion — 
 Worship of Baal-Moloch — of Tanith or Astarte — Inferior 
 divinities — Worship of Melcarth — Carthaginian literature 
 — The Army — The mercenaries and the Numidian Ca- 
 valry — Condition of the masses — Colonization — Periplus 
 of Hanno — Disaffection of subject races — Was Rome or 
 Carthage best fitted for empire ?.....! 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 CARTHAGE AND ROME. 
 
 Rome and Carthage compared — Contrasted— Origin and 
 growth of Rome — Constitutional progress — Military pro- 
 gress—Conquest of Etruscans - of Gauls — of Latins, B.C. 
 390 — of Samnites — Roman methods in war — War with 
 Pyrrhus — Rome brought face to face with Carthage . 23 
 
 xi 
 
xii Co7ite7its. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 FIRST PUNIC WAR. 
 
 MESS AN A AND AGRIGENTUM, 
 
 (264-262 B. C.) 
 
 PAGB 
 
 Relations of Sicily to Carthage and Rome — Appeal of Ma- 
 mertines for aid — The question at issue — Importance of 
 the decision — Romans occupy Messana — They attack 
 Syracuse — Results of first campaign — Romans ally them- 
 selves with Hiero — Carthaginians unprepared for war — 
 Agrigentum — Its siege — Its fate .... 30 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 FIRST ROMAN FLEET. BATTLES OF MYL.^ AND ECNOMUS. 
 
 (262-256 B.C.) 
 
 Carthaginian naval supremacy — Roman naval affairs — Com- 
 mercial treaties with Carthage — Difficulties of Romans — 
 Want of ships of war — ^Want of sailors — The new fleet — 
 Its first ventures — Naval science and tactics of the An- 
 cients — The Corvus — Batde of Mylaa — Honours paid to 
 Duillius — Egesta — The Romans attack Sardinia and Cor- 
 sica — Energy of Carthaginians — Romans resolve to in- 
 vade Africa — Enormous naval armaments — Route taken 
 by the Romans — order of battle — Battle of Ecnomus . 39 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 INVASION OF AFRICA. REGULUS AND XANTHIPPUS. 
 (256-250 B.C.) 
 
 Invasion of Africa — Romans overrun Carthaginian territory — 
 Shortsightedness of Carthaginians — Changes necessary in 
 Roman military system — Recall of Manlius — Victory of 
 Regulus — Desperate plight of Carthaginians — Terms of 
 
Contents. xiii 
 
 PAQff 
 
 peace rejected — Arrival of Xanthippus — He is given the 
 command — His great victory near Adis — Joy of Cartha- 
 ginians — Thank-offerings to Moloch — Departure of Xan- 
 thippus — The survivors at Clypea — Roman fleet destroyed 
 in a storm — Carthaginian reinforcements for Sicily — Ro- 
 mans build a new fleet — Take Panormus — Second Roman 
 fleet destroyed in a storm — Carthaginians threaten Pa- 
 normus — Romans build a third fleet— Battle of Panormus 
 — Part played by elephants in first Punic War Story of 
 embassy and death of Regulus — How far true ? , .54 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 HAMILCAR BARCA AND THE SIEGE OF LILYB^UM. 
 (250-241 B.C.) 
 
 Fortresses remaining to Carthaginians in Sicily - Siege of Lily- 
 baeum — Its origin and situation — Early siege operations — 
 Carthaginians run the blockade — Hannibal the Rhodian — 
 Carthaginian sortie — Distress of Romans — The Consul 
 Claudius— Battle of Drepanum - Claudian family — Ro- 
 man reinforcements for siege of Lilybaeum lost at sea — 
 Romans seize Eryx — Hamilcar Barca — He occupies 
 Mount Ercte — Exhaustion of Romans — Culpable conduct 
 of Carthaginians — Genius of Hamilcar — His plans — His 
 enterprises — He transfers his camp from Ercte to Eryx — 
 Romans build one more fleet — Lutatius Catulus — The 
 Carthaginian plan — Battle of ^gatian Isles — Magnanimity 
 of Hamilcar — Terms of peace — Roman gains and losses 
 — Carthaginian losses and prospects — Contests only de- 
 ferred 74 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 HAMILCAR BARCA AND THE MERCENARY WAR. 
 (241-238 B.C.) 
 
 Events between First and Second Punic War -Significance of 
 Mercenary War — Weakness of Carthaginian Government 
 
xiv Contents. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 — Symptoms of mutiny — Revolt of mercenaries and native 
 AMcans — Hanno and Hamilcar Barca — The Truceless 
 War — Its atrocities and termination , . , ,96 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 HAMILCAR BARCA IN AFRICA AND SPAIN. 
 
 (238-219 B. C.) 
 
 Conduct of Romans during Mercenary War — They appro- 
 priate Sardinia and Corsica — Peace and war parties at 
 Carthage — Hamilcar's command — He crosses to Spain — 
 Advantages of his position there —His administration and 
 death— His character — Administration of Hasdrubal— 
 New Carthage founded — Early career of Hannibal — Re- 
 missness of Romans — Rising of Gauls in Italy — Its sup- 
 pression — Hannibal besieges Saguntum — War declared 
 between Rome and Carthage 102 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 SECOND PUNIC WAR. 
 
 (218-201 B.C.) 
 
 PASSAGE OF THE RHONE AND THE ALPS, b. c. 218 
 
 Preparations of Hannibal — He determines to go by land — 
 Numbers of his army — His march through Gaul — His 
 passage of the Rhone — Vagueness of ancient writers in 
 geographical matters — Passage over Alps selected by Han- 
 nibal — Route by which he approached it — The first ascent 
 — Valley of the Is^re — The main ascent — The summit 
 — Hannibal addresses his troops — The descent — Interest 
 attaching to the passage of the Alps — Its cost and results 
 —The " War of Hannibal" 114 
 
Contents, xv 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 BATTLES OF TREBIA AND TRASIMENE. 
 
 (218-217 B. C ) 
 
 PAGE 
 
 P. Scipio returns from Italy to Gaul — Sempronius recalled 
 from Sicily — Battle of the Ticinus — Hannibal crosses the 
 Po — He is joined by the Gauls — Retreat of Scipio to the 
 Trebia — Hannibal selects his ground and time — Battle of 
 the Trebia- -Results of the victory — Hannibal crosses the 
 Apennines — The marshes of the Arno — Position of the 
 Roman armies — Flaminius and his antecedents — Des- 
 pondency at Rome — Resolution of Flaminius — He fol- 
 lows Hannibal from Arretium — Livy and Polybius com- 
 pared — Position chosen by Hannibal — Battle of the 
 Trasimene lake —Death of Flaminius 126 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 HANNIBAL OVERRUNS CENTRAL ITALY. 
 
 (217-216 B. C.) 
 
 News of the Trasimene defeat reaches Rome — Measures of 
 the Roman Senate — Hannibal marches into Picenum — 
 Sends despatches to Carthage — He arms his troops in 
 the Roman fashion — Advance of the Dictator Fabius — 
 His policy — Discontent of his troops — Hannibal ravages 
 Samnium and Campania — Beauty and wealth of Cam- 
 pania — Continued inaction of Fabius — He tries to entrap 
 Hannibal but fails — Minucius left in command — Is raised 
 to equal rank with Fabius — Is saved from disaster by 
 him — Services of Fabius to Rome. .... 142 
 
xyi Contents. 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 . BATTLE OF CANN^, CHARACTER OF HANNIBAL. 
 
 (216 B. C.) 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Energy and spirit of the Romans — The rival armies face each 
 other at Cannae — Nature of the ground — The double 
 command of ^milius Paullus and Varro — Anxiety at 
 Rome — Dispositions of Hannibal for the battle — Battle 
 of Cannae —Number of the slain — Panic at Rome — Mea- 
 sures of the Senate — Course of the war — Was Hannibal 
 right or wrong in not advancing on Rome now ? — Great- 
 ness of Hannibal and of Rome — Character and genius of 
 Hannibal — His ascending series of successes — His in- 
 fluence over men — Sources of our knowledge of him — 
 Charges against him— Roman feeling towards him — 
 Change in character of war after Cannae. . 152 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 REVOLT OF CAPUA. SIEGE OF SYRACUSE. 
 
 (216-212 B. C.) 
 
 Capua revolts — Marcellus — Hannibal winters at Capua — 
 Latin colonies still true to Rome — Great exertions of 
 Rome —Hannibal negotiates with Syracuse, Sardinia, and 
 Macedon — His position at Tifata — Fabius and Marcellus 
 Consuls — The tide turns against Hannibal — He gains 
 possession of Tarentum — The war in Sicily — Importance 
 of Syracuse— Its siege and capture — Its fate. . . 171 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 SIEGE OF CAPUA AND HANNIBALS MARCH ON ROME. 
 
 (212-208 B. C.) 
 
 Importance of war in Spain— Successes and death of the two 
 Scipios — Renewed activity of Hannibal —Siege of Capua 
 — Hannibal attempts to relieve it — His march on Rome — 
 
Contents. xvii 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Fate of Capua — Continued superiority of Hannibal in the 
 field — Death of Marcellus — Influence of family traditions 
 at Rome — Patriotism of Romans — Latin colonies show 
 symptoms of exhaustion, 182 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 BATTLE OF THE METAURUS. 
 
 (207 B.C.) 
 
 The approach of Hasdrubal from Spain — His messengers fail 
 to find Hannibal — Brilliant march of Nero— Battle of the 
 Metaurus — Triumph and brutality of Nero . . . 193 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 P. CORNELIUS SCIPIO. 
 (210-206 B.C.) 
 
 Scipio in Spain — His early history — His character and influ- 
 ence — Made proconsul -Takes New Carthage Cartha- 
 ginians finally driven out of Spain 199 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 THE WAR IN AFRICA; BATTLE OF ZAMA. 
 (206-202 B.C.) 
 
 Scipio returns to Rome and is elected Consul — Receives leave 
 to invade Africa — Goes to Sicily— His doings and diffi- 
 culties there — Sails for Africa — Massinissa and Syphax — 
 Roman ignorance of Carthage — The fall of Carthage, how 
 far a matter of regret — Siege of Utica— Scipio's command 
 longed — He burns the Carthaginian camps- — Sophonisba 
 — The Carthaginian peace party — Sons of Hamilcar re- 
 called to Africa — Mago obeys the summons — Hannibal 
 obeys it — Joy in Italy — First operations of Hannibal in 
 Africa — Battle of Zama — Dignity of Hannibal — Terms of 
 peace-- Results of the war — Alternative policies open to 
 
 Rome • . . . 207 
 
 B 
 
xviii Contents. 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 CARTHAGE AT THE MERCY OF ROME. 
 
 (201-150 B.C.) 
 
 PAQB 
 
 Deterioration of Roman character — Condition of Italy — Con- 
 dition of Rome— Condition of Roman provinces — Rapid 
 conquest of the East — Reforms introduced by Hannibal 
 at Carthage — Romans demand his surrender — His exile 
 and wanderings — His schemes, his sufferings, and his 
 death — Death of Scipio — Treatment of Carthage by Ro- 
 mans and Massinissa 229 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 DESTRUCTION OF CARTHAGE. 
 (149-146 B.C.) 
 
 Topography of Carthage — Causes of its obscurity — Changes 
 made by nature and man —The peninsula — The fortifica- 
 tions — The Taenia — The harbours — Resolve of Rome 
 respecting Carthage — Treachery of Romans— Scene at 
 Utica — Scene at Carthage — The Roman attack fails — Re- 
 peated failures and losses— Scipio ^milianus — His cha- 
 racter and connections — He takes the Megara — Siege of 
 the city proper — Scipio's mole and the new outlet — Con- 
 tradictions in Carthaginian character — Scipio attacks the 
 harbour quarter — He takes Nepheris — The final assault — 
 The three streets — The Byrsa — Fate of the city and its 
 inhabitants — Curse of Scipio — Unique character of the 
 fall of Carthage — Its consequences — Subsequent cities on 
 its site — Final destruction by the Arabs .... 239 
 
Contents. 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 CARTHAGE AS IT IS. 
 
 FAGB 
 
 Interest of a visit to Carthage — Nature of impressions thence 
 derived — Its topography — The Goletta and the Taenia — 
 Djebel Khawi and the Necropohs — Sanctity of burying- 
 place among Semitic races — Ras Sidi Bu Said and its 
 sanctity — Scene of misadventure of Mancinus — Hill of 
 St. Louis the ancient Byrsa — Gulf of Tunis and Peninsula 
 of the Dakhla — Lake of Tunis and plain of Carthage — ■ 
 The aqueduct — Utica — Obliteration of Punic City — The 
 "smaller cisterns" — The larger cisterns — Excavations of 
 Dr. Davis —Excavations of M. Beule — Remains of ancient 
 harbours — Buildings beneath the sea — Oriental character 
 of Tunis — The neighbourhood of Tunis — Characteristics 
 of the Arab — Conclusion 263 
 
MAPS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 ^ The Carthaginian Empire and Dependencies . . 9 
 Sicily, to illustrate the First Punic War . . 30 
 
 Battle of Ecxomus . . 51 
 
 Italy, TO illustrate THE Second Punic War . . 114 
 
 Battle of Trebia 131 
 
 Battle of Trasimene 139 
 
 Battle of Cann^ 159 
 
 Carthage and its Neighbourhood .... 239 
 Plan of Harbours at Carthage 243 
 
ROME AND CARTHAGE: 
 THE PUNIC WARS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 CARTHAGE. 
 
 It was well for the development and civilization of the 
 ancient world that the Hebrew fugitives from Egypt were 
 not able to drive at once from the whole ^, 
 
 Characteris- 
 
 coast of Syria its old inhabitants ; for the tics of the 
 
 , /• .1 /- -J. -u r Phoenicians. 
 
 accursed race of the Canaanites whom, tor 
 their licentious worship and cruel rites, they were bidden 
 to extirpate from Palestine itself, were no other than 
 those enterprizing mariners and those dauntless colo- 
 nists who, sallying from their narrow roadsteads, com- 
 mitted their fragile barks to the mercy of unknown seas, 
 and, under their Greek name of Phoenicians, explored 
 island and promonotory, creek and bay, from the coast 
 of Malabar even to the lagunes of the Baltic. From 
 Tyre and Sidon issued those busy merchants who car- 
 ried, with their wares, to distant shores the rudiments of 
 science and of many practical arts which they had ob- 
 
2 Rome and Carthage. 
 
 tained from the far East, and which, probably, they but 
 half understood themselves. It was they who, at a 
 period antecedent to all contemporary historical records, 
 introduced written characters, the foundation of all high 
 intellectual development, into that country which was 
 destined to carry intellectual and artistic culture to the 
 highest point which humanity has yet reached. It was 
 they who learned to steer their ships by the sure help of 
 the Polar Star, while the Greeks still depended on the 
 Great Bear ; it was they who rounded the Cape of 
 Storms, and earned the best right to call it the Cape of 
 Good Hope, 2,000 years before Vasco de Gama. Their 
 ships returned to their native shores bringing with them 
 sandal wood from Malabar, spices from Arabia, fine 
 linen from Egypt, ostrich plumes from the Sahara. 
 Cyprus gave them its copper, Elba its iron, the coast of 
 the Black Sea its manufactured steel. Silver they 
 brought from Spain, gold from the Niger, tin from the 
 Sicily Isles, and amber from the Baltic. Where they 
 sailed, there they planted factories which opened a cara- 
 van trade with the interior of vast continents hitherto 
 regarded as inaccessible, and which became inaccessible 
 for centuries again when the Phoenicians disappeared 
 from history. They were as famous for their artistic 
 skill as for their enterprize and energy. Did the great- 
 est of the Jewish kings desire to adorn the Temple 
 which he had erected to the Most High in the manner 
 least unworthy of Him ? A Phoenician king must sup- 
 ply him with the well-hewn cedars of his stately Leb- 
 anon, and the cunning hand of a Phoenician artisan 
 must shape the pillars and the lavers, the oxen and the 
 lions of brass, which decorated the shrine. Did the 
 King of Persia himself, in the intoxication of his pride, 
 command miracles to be performed, boisterous straits to 
 
The Phoenicians and their Territory, 3 
 
 be bridged, or a peninsula to become an island ? It was 
 Phoenician architects who lashed together the boats that 
 were to connect Asia with Europe, and it was Phoenician 
 workmen who knew best how to economize their toil in 
 digging the canal that was to transport the fleet of 
 Xerxes through dry land, and save it from the winds 
 and waves of Mount Athos. The merchants of Tyre 
 were, in truth, the princes, and her traffickers the hon- 
 ourable men, of the earth. Wherever a ship could pen- 
 etrate, a factory be planted, a trade developed or created, 
 there we find these ubiquitous, these irrepressible Phoe- 
 nicians. 
 
 We know well what the tiny territory of Palestine has 
 done for the religion of the world, and what the tiny 
 Greece has done for its intellect and its art ; 
 but we are apt to forget that what the Phoeni- Size of their 
 
 ^ ° territory. 
 
 cians did for the development and inter- 
 communication of the world was achieved by a state 
 confined within narrower boundaries still. In the days 
 of their greatest prosperity, when their ships were to be 
 found on every known and on many unknown seas, the 
 Phoenicians proper of the Syrian coast remained content 
 with a narrow strip of fertile territory, squeezed in be- 
 tween the mountains and the sea, of the length of some 
 thirty and of the average breadth of only a single mile ! 
 And if the existence of a few settlements beyond these 
 limits entitles us to extend the name of Phoenicia to 
 some 120 miles of coast, with a plain behind it which 
 sometimes broadened out into a sweep of a dozen miles, 
 was it not sound policy, even in a community so en- 
 larged, to keep for themselves the gold they had so 
 hardly won, rather than lavish it on foreign mercenaries 
 in the hope of extending their sway inland, or in the 
 vain attempt to resist by force of arms the mighty mon- 
 
4 Rome and Carthage. 
 
 archs of Egypt, of Assyria, or of Babylon ? Their 
 strength was to sit still, to acknowledge the titular su- 
 premacy of anyone who chose to claim it, and then, when 
 the time came, to buy the intruder off. 
 
 The land-locked sea, the eastern extremity of which 
 
 washes the shores of Phoenicia proper, connecting as it 
 
 does three continents, and abounding in 
 
 Extent of their , ,- . _ , , , . ^ ., 
 
 commerce and deep guiis, m fine harbours, and m fertile 
 colonization, jgiands, sccms to have been intended by 
 Nature for the early development of commerce and col- 
 onization. By robbing the ocean of half its mystery 
 and of more than half its terrors, it allured the timid 
 mariner, even as the eagle does its young, from head- 
 land on to headland, or from islet to islet, till it became 
 the highway of the nations of the ancient world ; and 
 the products of each of the countries whose shores it 
 laves became the common property of all. 
 
 But in this general race of enterprise and commerce 
 among the nations which bordered on the Mediterra- 
 nean, it is to the Phoenicians that unquestionably belongs 
 the foremost place. In the dimmest dawn of history, 
 many centuries before the Greeks had set foot in Asia 
 Minor or in Italy, before even they had settled down in 
 secure possession of their own territories, we hear of 
 Phoenician settlements in Asia Minor and in Greece it- 
 self, in Africa, in Macedon, and in Spain. There is 
 hardly an island in the Mediterranean which has not 
 preserved some traces of these early visitors : Cyprus, 
 Rhodes, and Crete in the Levant ; Malta, Sicily, and the 
 Balearic Isles in the middle passage ; Sardinia and Cor- 
 sica in the Tyrrhenian Sea ; the Cyclades, as Thucydides 
 tells us in the mid-^gean ; and even Samothrace and 
 Thasos at its northern extremity, where Herodotus, to 
 use his own forcible expression, himself saw a whole 
 
Rise of Carthage. 5 
 
 mountain " turned upside down " by their mining energy ; 
 all have either yielded Phoenician coins and inscrip- 
 tions, have retained Phoenician proper names and le- 
 gends, or possess mines, long, perhaps, disused, but 
 which were worked as none but Phoenicians ever worked 
 them. 
 
 And among the Phoenician factories which dotted the 
 whole southern shore of the Mediterranean, from the east 
 end of the greater Syrtis even to the Pillars 
 of Hercules, there was one which, from a They found 
 
 ' Carthage. 
 
 concurrence of circumstances, was destined 
 rapidly to outstrip all the others, to make herself their 
 acknowledged head, to become the Queen of the Medi- 
 terranean, and, in some sense, of the Ocean beyond, and, 
 for a space of over a hundred years, to maintain a deadly 
 and not unequal contest with the future mistress of the 
 world. The history of that great drama, its antecedents, 
 and its consequences, forms the subject of this volume. 
 
 The rising African factory was known to its inhabitants 
 by the name of Kirjath-Hadeschath, or New Town, to 
 distinguish it from the much older settle- 
 
 r TT • r 1 • 1 • Position, t< po- 
 
 ment of Utica, of which it may have been, graphy, and 
 to some extent, an offshoot. The Greeks, p°P"^^"°"- 
 when they came to know of its existence, called it Kar- 
 chedon, and the Romans, Carthago. The date of its 
 foundation is uncertain ; but the current tradition refers 
 it to a period about a hundred years before the founding 
 of Rome. The fortress that was to protect the young 
 settlement was built upon a peninsula projecting east- 
 wards from the inner corner of what is now called the 
 Gulf of Tunis, the largest and most beautiful roadstead 
 of the North African coast. The topography of Carthage 
 will be described in detail at a later period of this history. 
 At present it will be sufficient to remark that the city 
 
Rome and Cariha^g. 
 
 d>" 
 
 proper, at the time at which it is best known to us, the 
 period of the Punic wars, consisted of the Byrsa or Cita- 
 del quarter, a Greek word corrupted from the Canaanitish 
 Bozra, or Bostra, that is, a fort, and of the Cothon, or 
 harbour quarter, so important in the history of the final 
 siege. To the north and west of these, and occupying 
 all the vast space between them and the isthmus behind, 
 were the Megara (Hebrew, Magurim), that is, the 
 suburbs and gardens of Carthage, which, with the city 
 proper, covered an area twenty-three miles in circumfer- 
 ence. Its population must have been fully proportionate 
 to its size. Just before the third Punic war, when its 
 strength had been drained by the two long wars with 
 Rome and by the incessant depredations of that chartered 
 brigand Massinissa, it contained 700,000 inhabitants, and 
 towards the close of the final siege the Byrsa alone was 
 able to give shelter to a motley multitude of 50,000 men, 
 women, and children. 
 
 Facing the Hermaean promontory (Cape Bon), the 
 north-eastern horn of the Gulf of Tunis, at a distance of 
 
 only ninety miles, was the Island of Sicily, 
 Its relation which, as a glance at the map, and as the 
 
 sunken ridge extending from one to the 
 other still clearly show, must have once actually united 
 Europe to Africa. This fair island it was which, crowded, 
 even in those early days, with Phoenician factories, 
 seemed to beckon the chief of Phoenician cities onwards 
 towards an easy and a natural field of foreign conquest. 
 This it was which proved to be the apple of fierce dis- 
 cord for centuries between Carthage and the Greek 
 colonies, which soon disputed its possession with her. 
 This, in an ever chequered warfare, and at the cost of 
 torrents of the blood of her mercenaries, and of untold 
 treasures of her citizens, enriched Carthage with the 
 
Few Records of Carthage. , 7 
 
 most splendid trophies — stolen trophies though they 
 were — of Greek art. ThiSj^finally, was the chief battle- 
 field of the contending forces during the whole of the 
 first Punic war — in the beginning that is, of her fierce 
 struggle for existence with all the power of Rome. 
 
 Such, very briefly, was the city, and such the race 
 whose varied fortunes, so far as our fragmentary materials 
 allow us, we are about to trace. What were the causes 
 of the rapid rise of Carthage ; what was the extent of 
 her African and her foreign dominions, and the nature 
 of her hold upon them ; what were the pe- 
 culiar excellences and defects of her internal of^Caitha-^ 
 constitution, and what the principles on fo^ds" '^^' 
 which she traded and colonized, conquered 
 and ruled ; — to these and other questions some answer 
 must be given, as a necessary preliminary to that part 
 of her history which alone we can trace consecutively. 
 Some answer we must give; but how are we to give it.'' 
 No native poet, whose writings have come down to us, 
 has sung of the origin of Carthage, or of her romantic 
 voyages ; no native orator has described, in glowing 
 periods which we can still read, the splendour of her 
 buildings and the opulence of her merchant princes. 
 No native annalist has preserved the story of her long 
 rivalry with Greeks and Etruscans, and no African phi- 
 losopher has moralized upon the stability of her institu- 
 tions or the causes of her fall. All have perished. The 
 text of three treaties with Rome, made in the days of her 
 prosperity ; the log-book of an adventurous Carthaginian 
 admiral, dedicated on his return from the Senegal or 
 the Niger as a votive offering in the temple of Baal ; 
 some fragments of the practical precepts of a Carthagi- 
 nian agriculturist, translated by the order of the utili- 
 tarian Roman Senate ; a speech or two of a vagaboiid 
 
8 Rome and Carthage. 
 
 Carthaginian in the Paenulus of Plautus, which has been 
 grievously mutilated in the process of transcribing it into 
 Roman letters ; a few Punic inscriptions buried twenty- 
 feet below the surface of the ground, entombed and 
 preserved by successive Roman, and Vandal, and 
 Arab devastations, and now at length revealed and de- 
 ciphered by the efforts of French and English archaeol- 
 ogists ; the massive substructions of ancient temples ; 
 the enormous reservoirs of water ; and the majestic pro- 
 cession of stately aqueducts which no barbarism has 
 been able to destroy — these are the only native or semi- 
 native sources from which we can draw the outlines of 
 our picture, and we must eke out our narrative of Car- 
 thage in the days of her prosperity, as best we may, 
 from a few chapters of reflections by the greatest of the 
 Greek philosophers, from the late Roman annalists who 
 saw everything with Roman eyes, and from a few but 
 precious antiquarian remarks in the narrative of the 
 great Greek historian, Polybius, who, with all his love of 
 truth and love of justice, saw Carthage only at the mo- 
 ment of her fall, and was the bosom friend of her de- 
 stroyer. 
 
 In her origin, at least, Carthage seems to have been 
 like other Phoenician settlements, a mere commercial 
 factory. Her inhabitants cultivated friendly 
 Carthaginian relations with the natives, looked upon 
 the'weT-''' themselves as tenants at will rather than as 
 tern Medi- owncrs of the soil, and, as such, cheerfully 
 
 terranean. ^ 
 
 paid a rent to the African Berbers for the 
 ground covered by their dwellings. It was the instinct 
 of self-preservation alone which dictated a change of 
 policy, and transformed this peace-loving mercantile 
 community into the warlike and conquering state, of 
 which the whole of the Western Mediterranean was so 
 
Growth of Carthage. 9 
 
 soon to feel the power. The result of this change of 
 poHcy was that the western half of the Mediterranean 
 became — what, at one time, the whole of it had bidden 
 fair to be — a Phoenician lake, in which no foreign mer- 
 chantmen dared to show themselves. It was a vast 
 preserve, to be caught trespassing upon which, so 
 Strabo tells us, on the authority of Eratosthenes, en- 
 sured the punishment of instant death by drowning. No 
 promontory was so barren, no islet so insignificant, as 
 to escape the jealous and ever-watchful eye of the Car- 
 thaginians. In Corsica, if they could not get any firm 
 or extensive foothold themselves, they at least pre- 
 vented any other state from doing the like. Into their 
 hands fell, in spite of the ambitious dreams of Persian 
 kings and the aspirations of patriot Greeks, that "great- 
 est of all islands," the island of Sardinia ; theirs were the 
 vEgatian and the Liparaean, the Balearic and the Pityu- 
 sian Isles ; theirs the tiny Elba, with its inexhaustible 
 supply of metals ; theirs, too, Malta still remained, an 
 outpost pushed far into the domain of their advancing 
 enemies, a memorial of what once had been, and, per- 
 haps, to the sanguine Carthaginian temperament, an 
 earnest of what might be again hereafter. Above all, 
 the Phoenician settlements in Spain, at the innermost 
 corner of the great preserve, with the adjacent silver 
 mines which gave to these settlements their peculiar 
 value, were now trebly safe from all intruders. 
 
 Elated, as it would seem, by their naval successes, 
 which were hardly of their own seeking, the Carthagin- 
 ians thought that they might now at last become the 
 owners of the small strip of African territory 
 which they had hitherto seemed to occupy 
 on sufferance only, and they refused the ground-rent 
 which, up till now, they had paid to the adjoining tribes. 
 
lo Rome and Carthage. 
 
 Step by step they .enlarged their territories at the ex- 
 pense of the natives, till the whole of the rich territory 
 watered by the Eagradas became theirs. The nomadic 
 tribes were beaten back beyond the river Triton into the 
 country named, from the roving habits of its inhabitants, 
 Numidia, or into the desert of Tripolis. The agricul- 
 tural tribes were forced to pay tribute to the conquerors 
 for the right of cultivating their own soil, or to shed 
 their blood on the field of battle in the prosecution of 
 further conquests from the tribes beyond. Nor did the 
 kindred Phoenician settlements in the adjoining parts of 
 Africa escape unscathed, Utica alone, owing probably 
 to her antiquity and to the semi-parental relation in 
 which she stood to Carthage, was allowed to retain her 
 walls and full equality of rights with the rising power; 
 but Hippo Zarytus, and Adrumetum, the greater and the 
 lesser Leptis, were compelled to pull down their walls 
 and acknowledge the supremacy of the Carthaginian 
 city. All along the northern coast of Africa the original 
 Phoenician settlers, and probably to some extent, the 
 Carthaginians themselves, had intermarried with the 
 natives. The product of these marriages was that nu- 
 merous class of Liby-Phoenicians which proved to be 
 .so important in the history of Carthaginian colonization 
 and conquest ; a class which, equi-distant from the Ber- 
 bers on the one hand and from the Carthaginians proper 
 on the other, and composed of those who were neither 
 wholly citizens nor yet wholly aliens, experienced the 
 lot of most half-castes, and were alternately trusted and 
 feared, pampered and oppressed, loved and hated by 
 the ruling state. 
 
 One enterprize which was undertaken by the Car- 
 thaginians in obedience to the fiat of the king of Persia, 
 to the lasting good of humanity, fiiiled of its object. 
 
Constitution of Carthage. 1 1 
 
 Xerxes (b. c. 480), advancing with his millions of bar^ 
 barians upon Athens from the east, bade, so it is said, 
 Hamilcar advance with his 300,000 merce- 
 naries upon Syracuse from the west. The Greeks in 
 torch of Greek learning and civilization was ^ 
 
 to be extinguished at the most opposite ends of the Greek 
 world at one and the same moment ; but, happily for 
 mankind at large, both attempts were foiled. The 
 efforts of Xerxes ended in the destruction of the Persian 
 fleet at Salamis, and the disgraceful flight of the king to 
 Asia ; the efforts of Hamilcar ended in his defeat and 
 death at Himera, and in the destruction of 150,000 of his 
 army ; and by a dramatic propriety which is not com- 
 mon in history, whatever it may be in fiction, this double 
 victory of Greek civilization is said to have taken place 
 in the same year and on the very same day. 
 
 Let us now turn to the political organization of the 
 city which achieved so rapid and marvellous a develop- 
 ment, and inquire how far it was the effect 
 and how far the cause of her prosperity. Constitution 
 The constitution of Carthage was not the 
 work of a single legislator, as that of Sparta is said to 
 have been, nor of a series of legislators like that of 
 Athens ; it was rather, like that of England, the growth 
 of circumstances and of centuries. It obtained the 
 praise of Aristotle for its judicious admixture of the mon- 
 archical, the oligarchical, and the democratical ele- 
 ments. The original monarchical constitution — doubt- 
 less inherited from Tyre — was represented by two 
 supreme magistrates called by the Romans Suffetes. 
 Their name is the same as the Hebrew Shofetim, mis- 
 translated in our Bible, Judges. The Hamilcars and 
 Hannos of Carthage were, like their prototypes, the 
 Gideons and the Samsons of the Book of Judges, not so 
 
12 Rome and Carthage. 
 
 .5' 
 
 much the judges, as the protectors and the rulers of 
 their respective states. They are compared by Greek 
 writers to the two kings of Sparta, and by the Romans 
 to their own consuls. Beneath these kings came, in the 
 older constitution, a council, called by the Greeks the 
 Gerusia, or Council of Ancients, consisting of twenty- 
 eight members, over which the Suffetes presided. This 
 council declared war, ordered levies of troops, appointed 
 generals, sent out colonies. If the council and Suffetes 
 agreed, their decision was final ; if they disagreed, the 
 matter was referred to the people at large. In this and 
 in other ways each element of the body politic had its 
 share in the administration of the State. 
 
 But the Carthaginian constitution described and 
 praised by Aristotle is not the same as that of the Punic 
 wars. In the interval which separates the two epochs, 
 short as it is, a great change which must have been long 
 preparing, had been completed. The Suffetes had 
 gradually become little more than an hon- 
 The growth orary magistracy. The Senate over which 
 
 or power of . 
 
 the Hundred they presided had allowed the main part of 
 
 Judges. , . T ^ , . , , . 
 
 their power to slip out of their hands into 
 those of another body, called the Judges, or " The Hun- 
 dred," which, if it seemed to be more liberal in point of 
 numbers and in conformation, was much more exclusive 
 in policy and in spirit. The appeal to the people was only 
 now resorted to in times of public excitement, when the 
 rulers, by appearing to share power, tried to lessen 
 envy, and allowed the citizens to go through the form of 
 registering what, practically, they had already decreed. 
 The result was an oligarchy, like that of ^''enice, clear- 
 sighted and consistent, moderate, nay, often wise in its 
 policy, but narrow in its views, and often suspicious alike 
 of its opponents and of its friends. By the old constitu- 
 
Carthaginian Oligarchy. 13 
 
 tion the Senate had the right to control the magistrates ; 
 but this new body of Judges controlled the Senate, and 
 therefore, in reality, the magistrates also. Nor was it 
 content to control the Senate ; it practically superseded 
 it. Its members did not, as a rule, appropriate the 
 offices of State to themselves ; but they could summon 
 their holders before them, and so draw their teeth. No 
 Shofete, no senator, no general, was exempt from their 
 irresponsible despotism. The Shofetes presided, the 
 senators deliberated, the generals fought, as it were, 
 with a halter round their necks. The sentences passed 
 by the Hundred, if they were often deserved, were often 
 also, like those of the dreaded "Ten" at Venice, to 
 whom they bore a striking resemblance, arbitrary and 
 cruel. The unsuccessful general, whether his ill-success 
 was the result of uncontrollable circumstances or of cul- 
 Dable neglect, might be condemned to crucifixion ; in- 
 deed, he often wisely anticipated his sentence by com- 
 mitting suicide. 
 
 Within the ranks of this close oligarchy first-rate 
 ability would seem to have been at a discount. Indeed, 
 the exact equality of all within the privi- 
 leged ranks is as much a principle of oli- Narrowness 
 
 ° _ . O' oligarchy. 
 
 garchy as is the equal suppression of all that 
 is outside of It. Language bears testimony to this in the 
 name given alike to the Homoioi of Sparta and the 
 " Peers '* of England. It was jealousy, for instance, of 
 the superior abilities of the family of Mago, and their 
 prolonged pre-eminence in the Carthaginian State, 
 which had in the fifth century B. c. cemented the al- 
 liance between other and less able families of the aris- 
 tocracy, and so had first given rise to this very institu- 
 tion of the Hundred Judges ; and it was the same mean 
 jealousy of all that is above itself, which, afterwards, in 
 
14 Ro7ne and Carthage. 
 
 the time of the Punic wars, united, as one man, a large 
 part of the ruling oligarchs in the vain effort to control 
 and to thwart, and to annoy with a thousand petty an- 
 noyances, the one family of consummate ability which 
 Carthage then possessed, that noble-minded Barcine 
 gens, that " lion's brood," who were brought to the front 
 in those troublous times by the sheer force of their 
 genius, and who, for three generations, ruled by the best 
 of all rights— the right Divine — that of unswerving de- 
 votion to their country, of the ability to rule, and the 
 will to use that ability well. 
 
 If we try, as we cannot help trying, to picture to our- 
 selves the daily life and personal characteristics of the 
 people whose political organization we have 
 Cartha 'e^ ^' J^^^ described, and to ask, not what the Car- 
 thaginians did — for that we know — but what 
 they were, we are confronted by the provoking blank in 
 the national history which has been already noticed. 
 Such few indications as we have are in thorough keep- 
 ing with the view we have taken of the political exclu- 
 siveness of the ruling clique. There were public baths ; 
 but since no member of the Senate would bathe where the 
 people bathed, a special class of baths were set apart for 
 their use. There were public messes, as they were called ; 
 but these were not, as Aristotle supposed, analogous 
 to the Spartan Syssitia, an institution intended to foster 
 manliness and simplicity of life. The black broth of the 
 heroes of Sparta would not have suited the Carthaginian 
 nobles, who, clad in their famous cloth, dyed twice over 
 with the purple dye of their African, their Spanish, or 
 their Tyrian fisheries, and decorated with the finely-cut 
 glass beads, the invention of their Phoenician fore- 
 fathers, fared sumptuously on their abounding flocks 
 and herds, or on such delicious fruits as those with which 
 
Life at Carthage, 15 
 
 Cato movedthe astonishment and the envy of the senators 
 of Rome. The Carthaginian Syssitia were incentives to 
 luxury, not checks upon it ; they were clubs formed ori- 
 ginally for social gatherings, and afterwards applied to 
 the purposes of political gossip or corruption. Dining- 
 tables of the costly citron wood, a single specimen of 
 which, Pliny tells us, in the time of the Roman Empire 
 cost as much as a broad estate, must have been common 
 amongst those who monopolized the commerce of the 
 countries where alone the citron-tree grows. Gold and 
 silver plate cannot have been rare amongst those who 
 controlled the rich mines of Spain, and to whom their 
 ambassadors reported, with a touch of scorn, upon their 
 return from Rome, that they had been hospitably enter- 
 tained by senator after senator, but that one service of 
 plate had done duty for all. Objects of fine art — 
 statues, and paintings, and embroideries — there were in 
 abundance at Carthage ; but they were the work of 
 Greek, not of Phoenician artists, and their abundance 
 indicated not so much the genius, critical or creative, of 
 the Carthaginian community, as the number of Greek 
 towns — Selinus and Himera, Gela and Agrigentum — 
 sacked in the Sicilian wars. 
 
 Carthage was, beyond doubt, the richest city of anti- 
 quity. Her ships were to be' found on all known seas, 
 and there was probably no important pro- 
 duct, animal, vegetable, or mineral, of the Wealth and 
 
 ' , . . agriculture . 
 
 ancient world, which did not find its way 
 into her harbours and pass through the hands of her cit- 
 izens. But it is remarkable, that while in no city then 
 known did commerce rank so high, the noblest citizens 
 even of Carthage seem to have left commercial enter- 
 prize to those who came next below them in the social 
 scale. They preferred to live on their estates as agri- 
 
1 6 Rome and Carthage. 
 
 culturists or country gentlemen, -^nd derived their 
 princely revenues from their farms or their mines, which 
 were worked by prodigious gangs of slaves. The culti- 
 vation of the soil was, probably, nowhere carried on 
 with siich astonishing results as in the smihng country 
 which surrounded Carthage. 
 
 Those members of the Carthaginian aristocracy who 
 did not find a sufficient field for their ability in agricul- 
 ture or in politics, in literature or in commerce, took re- 
 fuge in the profession of arms, and formed 
 And military always the chief ornament, and often the 
 
 spirit. ■' 
 
 chief strength of the Punic armies. At one 
 period, at least, of the history of the state, they formed 
 a so-called " Sacred Band,'' consisting of 2,500 citizens, 
 who, clad in resplendent armour, fought around the 
 person of their general-in-chief, and, feasting from 
 dishes of the costliest gold and silver plate, commem- 
 orated in their pride the number of their campaigns by 
 the number of rings on their fingers. 
 
 But the most important factor in the history of a peo- 
 ple — especially if it be a Semitic people — is its religion. 
 The religion of the Carthaginians was what their race, 
 their language, and their history would lead us to ex- 
 pect. It was, with slight modifications, the religion of 
 
 the Canaanites, the religion, that is, which, 
 Cartha'"e°^ in spite of the purer monotheism of the 
 
 Hebrews and the higher teachings of their 
 prophets, so long exercised a fatal fascination over the 
 great bulk of the Hebrew race. Baal-Moloch was a 
 malignant deity ; he was the fire-god, rejoicing in "hu- 
 man sacrifices and in parents' tears." His worshippers 
 gashed and mutilated themselves in their religious 
 frenzy. Like Kronos or Saturn — to whom the Greeks 
 and Romans aptly enough compared him — he was the 
 
Carthaginian Religio?i> 1 7 
 
 devourer of his own children. In times of unbroken 
 security the Carthaginians neglected or forgot him ; but 
 when they were elated by an unlooked-for victory, or 
 depressed by a sudden reverse, that fanaticism which is 
 often dormant but never altogether absent from the 
 Semitic breast, burst forth into a devouring flame, which 
 gratified to the full his thirst for human blood. Tanith 
 or Astarte, in the nobler aspects which she sometimes 
 presented, as the goddess of wedded love or war, of 
 the chase or of peaceful husbandry, was identified by 
 the Romans, now with Juno, now with Diana, and now 
 again with Ceres ; but, unfortunately, it was when they 
 identified her with their Venus Ccelestis that they came 
 nearest to the truth. Her worship, like that of the 
 'Babylonian Mylitta, required immorality, nay, conse- 
 crated it. The " abomination of the Sidonians " was 
 also-the abomination of the Carthaginians. 
 
 But there was one god who stood in such a peculiar 
 relation to Carthage, and whose worship seems to have 
 been so much more genial and so much 
 more spiritual than the rest, that we are Meic^arth°^ 
 fain to dwell upon it as a foil to what has 
 preceded. This god was Melcarth, that is Melech-Kir- 
 jath, or the king of the city; he is called by the Greeks 
 "the Phoenician Hercules," and his name itself has 
 passed, with a slight alteration, into Greek mythology as 
 Melicertes. The city of which he was pre-eminently 
 the god was Tyre. There he had a magnificent temple 
 which was visited for antiquarian purposes by Herodo- 
 tus. It contained two splendid pillars, one of pure gold, 
 the other, as Herodotus believed, of emerald, which 
 shone brilliantly at night, but there was no image of the 
 god to be seen. The same was the case in his famous 
 temple at Thasos, and the still more famous one at 
 
1 8 Rome and Carthage. 
 
 Gades, which contained an oracle, a hierarchy of priests, 
 and a mysterious spring which rose and fell inversely 
 with the tide, but still no image. At Carthage, Melcarth 
 had not even a temple. The whole of the city was his 
 temple, and he refused to be localized in any particular 
 part of it. He received, there is reason to believe, no 
 sacrifices of blood ; and it was his comparatively pure 
 and spiritual worship which, as we see repeatedly in 
 Carthaginian history, formed a chief link in the chain 
 that bound the parent to the various daughter-cities 
 scattered over the coasts and islands of the Mediterra- 
 nean. 
 
 The Carthaginian proper names which have come 
 down to us form one among many proofs of the depth 
 of their religious feelings ; for they are all, 
 roper names. ^^ nearly all, Compounded with the name 
 of one or other of their chief gods. Hamilcar is he 
 whom Melcarth protects ; Hasdrubal is he whose help is 
 in Baal ; Hannibal, the Hanniel of the Bible, is the 
 grace of Baal ; and so on with Bomilcar, Himilco, Eth- 
 baal, Maherbal, Adherbal, and IMastanabal. 
 
 A considerable native literature there must have been 
 at Carthage, for Mago, a Carthaginian Shofete, did not 
 disdain to write a treatise of twenty-eight 
 books upon the agricultural pursuits which 
 formed the mainstay of his order ; and when the Roman 
 Senate, in their fatuous disregard for intellect, gave over 
 with careless profusion to their friends, the Berber chiefs, 
 the contents of all the libraries they had found in Car- 
 thage, they reserved for this work the especial honour 
 of an authorized translation into Latin, and of a formal 
 recommendation of its practical maxims to the thrifty 
 husbandmen of Rome. 
 
 It was the one fatal weakness of the Carthaginian 
 
Numidian Cavalry. 19 
 
 State for military purposes that the bulk of their vast 
 armies consisted not of their own citizens, 
 nor even of attached and obedient subjects, 
 but of foreign mercenaries. There were few countries 
 and few tribes in the western world which were not rep- 
 resented in a Carthaginian army. Money or superior 
 force brought to Carthage samples of every nation 
 which her fleets could reach. Native Libyan and Liby- 
 Phoenicians, Gauls and Spaniards, slingers from the 
 far-famed Balearic Isles, Greeks and Ligurians, Vol- 
 scians and Campanians, were all to be found within its 
 ranks. 
 
 But it was the squadrons of light horsemen drawn 
 from all the nomad tribes lying between the Altars of 
 the Phileni on the east and the Pillars of 
 Hercules on the west, which formed its Numidian 
 
 ' cavalry. 
 
 heart. Mounted on their famous barbs, 
 with a shield of elephant's hide on their arm and a 
 lion's skin thrown over their shoulders, the only rai- 
 ment they ever wore by day and the only couch they 
 ever cared to sleep on at night ; without a saddle and 
 without a bridle, or with a bridle only of twisted reeds 
 which they rarely needed to touch ; equally remarkable 
 for their fearlessness, their agility, and their cunning ; 
 equally formidable, whether they charged or made be- 
 lieve to fly ; they were, at once, the strength and the 
 weakness, the delight and the despair of the Carthagin- 
 ian State. Under the mighty military genius of Hanni- 
 bal — with the ardour which he breathed into the feeblest 
 and the discipline which he enforced on the most undis- 
 ciplined of his army— they faced without shrinking the 
 terrors of the Alps and the malaria of the mar.'^hes, and 
 they proved invincible against all the power of Rome, 
 at the Ticinus and the Trebia, at Thrasimene and at 
 
20 Ro7ne and Carthage, 
 
 Cannae ; but, as more often happened, led by an incom- 
 petent general, treated by him, as not even Napoleon 
 treated his troops, like so many beasts for the slaughter, 
 and sometimes even basely deserted or betrayed into 
 the enemies' hand, they naturally proved a two-edged 
 weapon, piercing the hand that leaned upon it, faithless 
 and revengeful, learning nothing and forgetting nothing, 
 finding once and again in the direst extremity of Car- 
 thage their own deadliest opportunity. 
 
 But if the life of the great capitalists of Carthage was 
 
 as brilliant as we have described it, how did it fare with 
 
 the poorer citizens, with those whom we call 
 
 Condition of ^^ masses, till we sometimes forget that 
 
 the poor. ' ^ 
 
 they are made up of individual units ? If we 
 know little of the rich, how much less do we know of the 
 poor of Carthage and her dependencies. The city pop- 
 ulation, with the exception — a large exception doubtless 
 — of those engaged in commerce, well contented, as it 
 would seem, like the Romans under the Empire, if 
 nothing deprived them of their bread and of their 
 amusements, went on eating and marrying and multi- 
 plying till their numbers became excessive, and then 
 they were shipped off by the prudence of their rulers to 
 found colonies in other parts of Africa or in Spain. 
 Their natural leaders, or, as, probably, more often hap- 
 pened, the bankrupt members of the aristocracy, would 
 take the command of the colony, and obtain free leave, 
 in return for their services, to enrich themselves by the 
 plunder of the adjoining tribes. To so vast an extent 
 did Carthage carry out the modern principle of relieving 
 herself of a superfluous population, and at the same 
 time of extending her empire, by colonization, that, on 
 one occasion, the admiral, Hanno, whose " Periplus " 
 still remains, was despatched with sixty ships of war of 
 
Weakness of Carthage. 21 
 
 fifty oars each, and with a total of not less than 30,000 
 half-caste emigrants on board, for the purpose of found- 
 ing colonies on the shores of the ocean beyond the Pil- 
 lars of Hercules. 
 
 To defray the expenses of this vast system of explora- 
 tion and colonization, as well as of their enormous 
 armies, the most ruinous tribute was im- 
 posed and exacted with unsparing rig-our Sources of 
 
 * . X o o weakness. 
 
 from the subject native states, and no slight 
 one from the cognate Phoenician cities. The taxes paid 
 by the natives sometimes amounted to a half of their 
 whole produce, and among the Phoenician dependent 
 cities themselves we know that the lesser Leptis alone 
 paid into the Carthaginian treasury the sum of a talent 
 daily. The tribute levied on the conquered Africans 
 was paid in kind, as is the case with the Rayahs of Tur- 
 key to the present day, and its apportionment and col- 
 lection were doubtless liable to the same abuses and 
 gave rise to the same enormities as those of which 
 Europe has lately heard so much. Hence arose that 
 universal disaffection, or rather that deadly hatred, on 
 the part of her foreign subjects, and even of the Phoe- 
 nician dependencies, towards Carthage, on which every 
 invader of Africa could safely count as his surest sup- 
 port. Hence the ease with which Agathocles, with his 
 small army of 15,000 men, could overrun the open 
 country, and the monotonous uniformity with which he 
 entered, one after another, two hundred towns, which 
 Carthaginian jealousy had deprived of their walls, 
 hardly needing to strike a blow. Hence, too, the hor- 
 rors of the revolt of the outraged Libyan mercenaries, 
 supported as it was by the free-will contributions of their 
 golden ornaments by the Libyan women, who hated 
 their oppressors as perhaps women only can, and which 
 
22 Rome and Carthage. 
 
 is known in history by the name of the " War without 
 Truce," or the " Inexpiable War." 
 
 It must, however, be borne in mind that the inherent 
 
 differences of manners, language and race between the 
 
 native of Africa and the Phoenician incomer 
 
 ol^Canh^ge were so great; the African was so unim- 
 
 best fitted pressible, and the Phoenician was so httle 
 
 for empire? ^ ' 
 
 disposed to understand, or to assimilate 
 himself to his surroundings, that, even if the Carthaginian 
 government had been conducted with an equity, and 
 the taxes levied with a moderation which we know v/As 
 far from being the case, a gulf profound and impassable 
 must probably have always separated the two peoples. 
 This was the fundamental, the ineradicable weakness of 
 the Carthaginian Empire, and in the long run outbal- 
 anced all the advantages obtained for her by her navies, 
 her ports, and her well-stocked treasury ; by the ener- 
 gies and the valour of her citizens ; and by the consum- 
 mate genius of three, at least, of her generals. It is this, 
 and this alone, which in some measure reconciles us to 
 the melancholy, nay the hateful termination of the strug- 
 gle, on the history of which we are about to enter. But 
 if, under the conditions of ancient society, and the sav- 
 agery of the warfare which it tolerated, there was an 
 unavoidable necessity for either Rome or Carthage to 
 perish utterly, we must admit, in spite of the sympathy 
 which the brilliancy of the Carthaginian civilization, the 
 heroism of Hamilcar and Hannibal, and the tragic ca- 
 tastrophe itself, call forth, that it was well for the human 
 race that the blow fell on Carthage rather than on Rome. 
 A universal Carthaginian Empire could have done for 
 the world, as far as we can see, nothing comparable to 
 that which the Roman universal Empire did for it. It 
 would not have melted down national antipathies ; it 
 
Greatness of Rome. 23 
 
 would not have given a common literature or language ; 
 it would not have prepared the way for a higher civiliza- 
 tion and an infinitely purer religion. Still less would it 
 have built up that majestic fabric of law which forms the 
 basis of the legislation of all the states of modern Europe 
 and America. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 ROME. 
 
 It is time now to take a glance at the origin and rise of 
 the younger city on the banks of the Tiber, whose pro- 
 gress towards the dominion of the world 
 
 ° Rome and 
 
 Carthage, and Carthage alone of the states Canhsge 
 of antiquity, was able seriously to delay. compare 
 The history of Rome is like, and yet unlike, that of Car- 
 thage. It is like it, for we see in each the growth of a 
 civic community which, from very small beginnings, 
 under an aristocratic form of government, and with 
 slight literary or artistic tastes, acquired first, by the 
 force of circumstances, the leadership of the adjoining 
 cities, which were akin to her in blood, and subsequently, 
 by a far-sighted policy, or by a strong arm, became mis- 
 tress, not only of them, but, by their aid, of all the tribes 
 whom Nature had not cut off from them by the sea, the 
 mountains, or the desert. 
 
 But Roman history is intrinsically unlike the Cartha- 
 ginian, for the greatness of Rome rested not, as did the 
 greatness of Carthage, on her wealth, or her 
 
 1 I . , Contrasted. 
 
 commerce, or her colonies, or her narrow 
 oligarchy, but on the constitutional progress which, after 
 a long struggle, obliterated the mischievous privileges 
 of an aristocracy of birth, and raised the commonalty to 
 a complete social and political equality with their former 
 
&4 Rome and Carthage, 
 
 lords. It rested on the grand moral qualities which 
 formed the ground-work of the Roman character in its 
 best times, earnestness and simplicity of life, reverence 
 for the sanctities of the family relations, reverence for 
 the law, reverence for the gods. It rested on the extra- 
 ordinary concentration of all these qualities, together 
 with the soundest practical ability which the state con- 
 tained, in the Senate, perhaps when taken at its best, the 
 noblest deliberative assembly which the world has ever 
 y seen. And when the two orders in the State bad 
 become united, and Rome was fairly launched in 
 her career as a conquering power her greatness rested 
 (how unlike to Carthage!) on the real community 
 of interest and of blood which united her to the greater 
 number of the Italian tribes that she absorbed; on 
 the self-sacrifice which bade her then, and for a long 
 time to come, tax not her subjects but herself; on the 
 wise precautions which she took to secure their perma- 
 nent allegiance, partly by isolating them from one 
 another, partly by leaving them in some sense to govern 
 themselves, or by admitting them to a share, actual or 
 prospective, in the Roman citizenship. 
 
 It belongs not to our purpose here to trace the vicissi- 
 tudes of the long and eventful struggle between the 
 privileged Patricians and the unenfranchised Plebs. It 
 is incumbent upon us only to note the result of that long 
 constitutional conflict ; and that grand result was that 
 the two orders became indissolubly united, socially and 
 politically, into one nation, and were thus prepared, 
 whether for good or for evil, to assert their natural su- 
 premacy over the rest of Italy, and then to conquer the 
 world. Nor, again, does it fall within our scope to fol- 
 low with any degree of minuteness the early progress of 
 the Roman arms. It must suffice to trace only so much of 
 
Character of Roman History. 25 
 
 its outline as may enable us to judge of the true position 
 of the conquering city, where a wider field opened 
 before her, and she had to face, no longer the petty 
 warfare of bordering townships, nor even the collective 
 strength of Samnite and Etruscan confederations, but 
 Carthage, Macedon, and the East. 
 
 The expulsion of the kings left Rome still a prey to 
 internal discord, a circumstance of which her nearest 
 neighbours, the Etruscans, wholly alien as 
 
 . Conquest of 
 
 they were to her m race, were not slow to Etruscans. 
 avail themselves. The Etruscan nation, ^' ' ^°^' 
 with its gloomy and mysterious religion, the solemn 
 trifling of its augural science, and the cruelty of its 
 gladiatorial games, was just then at the height of its 
 power by land and sea. Now was its opportunity ; the 
 fond but soul-stirring romances of the ballad singers and 
 annalists of early Rome have not been able wholly to 
 disguise the fact that the city itself fell before the arms 
 of Porsena. But the triumph of Etruria was not long 
 lived. A protracted warfare of 150 years succeeded, in 
 which the star of Rome came gradually into the ascend- 
 ant, and the fall of Veil after a ten years' siege, and 
 still more perhaps, the hurricane of Northern barbarians, 
 which just then burst over the fairest plains of Italy, set 
 Rome forever free from danger on the side of Etruria. 
 But Rome was delivered from the Etruscans only 
 (b. c. 390) to find that the Gaul was thundering at her 
 gates. The city was burned to the ground, 
 her temples desecrated, her historical records 
 destroyed, her inhabitants dispersed or slain ; but no 
 such ephemeral calamity could shatter the traditions or 
 shake the resolution of the Roman people. Rome rose, 
 like the phoenix, from her ashes, and started afresh on 
 her career of conquest. Her ancient enemies, the 
 
26 Rome and Carthage. 
 
 ^quians and Volscians, who, according to the patriotic 
 narrative of Livy, had for so many years in the early 
 history of the Republic been annually exterminated, and 
 had annually revived to be exterminated again, had 
 long since died their last death as independent nations. 
 The Etruscans were now powerless. The last despe- 
 rate effort of the Latins to restore, when it was too late 
 (b. c. 340-338), the equality of their ancient league, 
 was crushed in two campaigns, and Rome now found 
 herself face to face with the worthiest antagonists she 
 had yet met, the brave and hardy Sabellian race, which 
 was akin to herself in blood, which had lately almost 
 annexed Campania, and which clung with desperate 
 tenacity and with manners that never changed to the 
 rugged mountains and the inaccessible defiles of the 
 Central and Southern Apennines. The struggle is 
 memorable for the deeds of heroism which mark its 
 course on either side, for the stubborn resistance and 
 chivalrous bravery of the weaker, and, on more than 
 one occasion, for the perfidy and the meanness of the 
 stronger combatant. But it is yet more remarkable, in 
 the eye of him who would read the story of the Punic 
 Wars aright, for the light it throws upon the true secret 
 of the Roman strength in war. 
 
 Never did the iron resolution and devotion of her 
 citizens, never did the unbending consistency of purpose 
 . . „ , and the marvellous self-restraint of the Sen- 
 
 Jrvesistible 
 
 advance of ate, display itself more brilliantly. Without 
 haste, but without a pause, never elated by 
 ^victory, never depressed by defeat, not caring to overrun 
 what they could not hold by force of arms, or to obtain 
 by treaty what they could not take without it, willing to 
 employ years instead of months, and to conquer by 
 inches where they might have conquered by leagues, 
 
Character of Roma?i History. 27 
 
 the Roman Senate, slow but sure, held on the even 
 tenour of their course, determined only that where the 
 Roman eagles had once set down their talons, there they 
 should remain, till the time came to plunge them more 
 deeply into the vitals of the foe. Did Samnium at the 
 close of the great twenty-two years' struggle lie, to all 
 appearance, prostrate at the feet of Rome, the last of 
 her fortresses, Bovianum, in the grasp of the conqueror? 
 That conqueror concluded an equitable peace, on terms 
 of all but equal alliance, not because she liked to spare 
 the conquered — that maxim is to be found only in the 
 patriotic imagination of the author of the " ^neid " — 
 but simply because she did not choose to be brought 
 face to face with Southern Italy before she had made 
 quite sure of Central. To build a new fortress, to found 
 a new military colony, to complete a stage or two more 
 of a great military road — if only it could better secure 
 what lay behind, and give a vantage ground for future 
 operations whenever the time should come — this was 
 the strictly practical object of Rome when she took up 
 arms ; this she kept in view when smarting under a de- 
 feat ; and what is more remarkable, with this she rested 
 content even when flushed with victory. In this way, 
 always aiming only at what was feasible, making sure 
 of every inch of her way, drawing her iron network of 
 colonies and military roads over every district which 
 she professed to claim, Rome found herself at length 
 (B.C. 293) with not a single danger behind her, and with 
 nothing in front save some luxurious Greek cities, and 
 some insignificant tribes of Italian aborigines, to sepa- 
 rate her from that which was at once the object of her 
 highest hopes and of her most practical and stern re- 
 solves, the union of the whole of Italy beneath her sway. 
 We have said that there was but one obstacle to the 
 
28 Rome and Carthage, 
 
 realization of the aim of Rome ; but one other there 
 
 shortly appeared, which, as it had been be- 
 
 War with yond the visible, so was it necessarily be- 
 
 Pyrrhus. •' , , . . 
 
 yond the mental horizon of so matter-of-fact 
 a body as the Roman Senate. The adventurous king 
 of Epirus, whose erratic course it would have required a 
 genius like his own to have anticipated, shot down like 
 
 a meteor on the scene. Fired with the am- 
 B. c. 2 o. -^ition of emulating his great relative Alex- 
 ander, and of founding a vast Greek empire in the west 
 on the ruins of Italy and Carthage, as Alexander had 
 founded his on the ruins of Persia and of Egypt, he 
 eagerly seized the opportunity afforded him by the ap- 
 peal of the frivolous Tarentines, and offered to lead the 
 Greek cities of Italy in their opposition to Rome. 
 
 The struggle is rich, above most of those in which 
 Rome engaged, in the play of individual character and in 
 
 the traits of knightly chivalry and generosi- 
 Its charac- |-y vvhich lend to it a charm which is alto- 
 
 ter. -^ 
 
 gether its own. Even his sober-minded and 
 severely practical enemies could scarcely come into 
 contact with so high-bred and chivalrous a foe as Pyr- 
 rhus without catching some sparks of his courtesy and 
 his enthusiasm ; but the struggle is also memorable as 
 the first occasion in which Greece and Rome met in 
 the shock of battle. Here for the first time might be seen 
 the Roman legion meeting the phalanx of Macedon ; a 
 national militia arrayed against highly trained and vet- 
 eran mercenaries ; individual military genius against 
 collective mediocrity. For a moment fortune seemed to 
 waver, or even to incline in favour of the adventurer ; 
 but she could not waver long. The victories of Heraclea 
 and Asculum must have made the name of Pyrrhus a 
 name to be spoken with bated breath even in the Roman 
 
Discomfiture of Pyrrhus. 29 
 
 Senate ; and the lightning rapidity with which he swept 
 Sicily from end to end, cooping the Mamertines in Mes- 
 sana on the extreme east, and the Phoenicians in Lily- 
 baeum in the extreme west, must have made his name a 
 name of terror even among the burghers of Carthage. 
 But the proud answer returned by the Roman Senate to 
 the embassy of Pyrrhus after his first victory, that Rome 
 never negotiated so long as an enemy was on Italian 
 soil, must have at once opened the eyes of the Epirot 
 king to the hopeless nature of the enterprise he had un- 
 dertaken, and marked triumphantly the goal to which 
 centuries of tempered aspiration and of impetuous resolve 
 had raised the Latin city. To the Roman mind an ideal 
 which could not be realized was no ideal at all, and the 
 Romans had now realized their highest ideal to an extent 
 which entitled them to take a wholly new point of de- 
 parture. 
 
 Pyrrhus disappeared from the western world almost 
 as rapidly as he had descended on it, crying with his last 
 breath, half in pity, half in envy, *' How fair 
 a battle-field we are leaving to the Romans Rome and 
 and Carthaginians!" He spoke too truly. £06*^^0 face 
 The arena was already cleared of its lesser 
 combatants, and for some few years there was, as it were, 
 the hush of expectation, the audible silence of suspense, 
 while mightier combatants were arming for the fray, and 
 the great duel was pieparing of which a hundred years 
 would hardly see the termination. 
 
JO Rome and Carthage, 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 FIRST PUNIC WAR. 
 (264-262 B.C.) 
 
 Hardly had Pyrrhus turned his back for the last time 
 on Italy when the first note of war between the Romans 
 
 and the Carthaginians, who had so recently 
 battle-field of formed an alliance against him, was sound- 
 Greek and g(j_ j^ came, as was to be expected, from 
 
 that fair island which, by its position, seemed 
 to belong half to Europe, half to Africa, and from that 
 point in it which lay actually within sight of Rhegium, 
 the town which was, as yet, the farthest outpost of the 
 Roman alliance. For more than a century past Greeks 
 and Carthaginians had been contending, with varying 
 success, for the possession of the island. Few towns of 
 any importance within its limits had escaped destruction, 
 fewer still had escaped a ^iege, and many had been 
 taken and retaken almost as many times as there had 
 been campaigns. On the whole, in spite of the efforts 
 of able leaders like Dionysius the Tyrant, Timoleon, and 
 Agathocles, fortune had favored the Carthaginians ; and 
 the power of Syracuse, the head of the Greek states, was 
 now confined to the south-eastern corner of the island. 
 
 But there was one town in the island, and that an all- 
 important one from its geographical position, which had 
 by a strange destiny ceased to be Greek without becom- 
 ing Carthaginian, and, after outraging Greek and Car- 
 thaginian alike, and rousing their active hostility, had 
 now, to make matters better, appealed for aid to a third 
 power which was destined to prove mightier than either. 
 
^ 
 
 ^ 
 
 ^^ 
 
 
 ^ 
 
 "S <^ 
 
 H 
 
 i^ ^ 
 
 •2 ■=>■« 
 
 U 
 
 ^a. 
 
 •s s .§ 
 
 M 
 
 
 3 1^ t 
 
 r/? 
 
 o ."- 
 
 
 
 y-'*- 
 
 
' History and Importance of Sicily. 31 
 
 When Agathocles, tyrant of Syracuse, died, his mer- 
 cenary troops were disbanded, and a body of them, on 
 their way back to Campania, their native 
 
 , , • J TVT Mamertines 
 
 country, treacherously seized Messana, at Messana 
 which had entertained them hospitably. ^- ^* ^^9' 
 They expelled or slew the male inhabitants, divided 
 their wives and children, and, calling themselves the 
 children of Mamers, or Mars, proceeded to justify their 
 name by plundering or harrying all the surrounding 
 country. Such outrages could not be overlooked by the 
 Carthaginians. Still less could they pass unnoticed by 
 the young king Hiero, who had lately obtained the va- 
 cant throne of Syracuse by the best of titles, the free 
 choice alike of his comrades in arms and of his fellow- 
 citizens ; and he proceeded to lay siege to the town. 
 The Mamertine councils were divided. It was clear that 
 without allies they would not long hold out against the 
 powerful foes whose deadly hostility they had provoked. 
 One party among them was for surrendering the place 
 to the Carthaginians to keep out the Syracusans ; the 
 other was for invoking the Romans to keep out both 
 alike. 
 
 Never was a question fraught with more important is- 
 sues, moral and political, brought before the Roman 
 Senate ; and never did they shirk their re- 
 
 •1 -T r 11 T • Moral ques- 
 
 sponsibility more shamefully. It is not per- tions in- 
 haps so easy to see what was the right appeal of 
 thing to do as it is to see that what the Ro- Mamertines. 
 man Senate did was the very worst thing that they 
 could do. Were they, on the one hand, to refuse to 
 protect Italians who appealed to them avowedly as the 
 head of the Italian confederation for aid against the 
 Greeks and Carthaginians, and to look calmly on while 
 the city of Messana fell into the hands of the Cartha- 
 
32 Rome and Carthage. 
 
 ginians to be used by them as a standing menace to 
 their power and a vantage ground in the great conflict 
 which could not now be far distant ? Or were they, on 
 the other hand, to lull their consciences to sleep, to turn 
 round upon Hiero, their ally, who had recently lent 
 them his aid in getting rid of, the lawless banditti who 
 had seized Rhegium as the Mamertines had seized Mes- 
 sana, and to take under their special protection a band 
 of cutthroats on one side of the straits, while they had 
 just scourged and beheaded every member of a similar, 
 and perhaps a less guilty band, on the other ? It was a 
 question beset with difficulties. National honour and 
 common gratitude pointed clearly in one direction ; 
 ambition and immediate interest pointed as clearly in 
 another, and the Roman Senate took the most ignoble 
 course of all open to it, that of shifting the responsibility 
 from their own shoulders to that of the people assembled 
 in their Comitia. The consuls Appius Claudius Caudex 
 and M. Fulvius Flaccus were ambitious men, eager for 
 war at any price. It was easy for them to raise a patri- 
 otic cry of Italians against foreigners, and to hold out 
 visions of assignations of public land amongst the rich 
 fields of Sicily to the multitude whose appetite for such 
 booty had been recently whetted by the large distribu- 
 tions of land in Italy. The decision of the people was 
 not doubtful ; and the most momentous resolution ever 
 arrived at by the Romans was taken without either the 
 definite sanction or the explicit disapproval of the Sen- 
 ate (b. c. 264). It was possible for the Senate, perhaps, 
 by such paltry conduct to deprive themselves of some of 
 the credit which might ultimately be won by the war. 
 It was not possible to relieve themselves of the shame 
 of its commencement. 
 
 Nor was the step now taken less serious from a poll- 
 
Question of Peace or War, 33 
 
 tical than from a moral point of view, for, in truth, upon 
 
 the passing of the narrow arm of sea which 
 
 rages between Italy and Sicily hinged the Political 
 
 ° ^ y o questions. 
 
 future destinies of both countries ; and not 
 of these alone, but of the ancient civilized world. Hith- 
 erto the policy of the Roman Senate had been definite 
 and strictly practical, and had not carried them beyond 
 the horizon of Italy proper. If they had owned ships of 
 war at all, they had been of a small size and built upon 
 an antique model. Now, for the first time, they were 
 about to set foot beyond the seas, to embark upon a pol- 
 icy the course of which it would no longer rest with them 
 to determine ; to claim, without ships of their own, from 
 the greatest of naval powers, a portion of the island 
 which had for centuries been looked upon as her pecu- 
 liar appanage. Some clear-sighted men there must have 
 been among the Roman senators who recoiled from the 
 results of what they had done, or rather from the results 
 of what they had refrained, through moral cowardice, 
 from doing ; but their voices were not heard, and active 
 operations began. War, indeed, against Carthage was 
 not formally declared, for the diplomatists of either na- 
 tion had yet to go through the solemn farce which usually 
 precedes such a declaration by raking up forgotten 
 grievances or inventing new ones to justi/y the resolution 
 which had already been taken ; but orders were given at 
 once to relieve Messana. 
 
 The command was committed to Appius Claudius 
 (b. c. 264), more easy work being found for his colleague, 
 Flaccus, nearer home. The want of ships 
 of war, and even of transports — for, by a J^°™^.^^ ^''^^^ 
 strange short-sightedness, the Romans had 
 allowed such ships as they had to fall into decay at the 
 very time when they most needed them — was met by 
 
34 Rome and Carthage, 
 
 borrowing them from the Greek cities of Italy, Tarentum, 
 Locri, Velia, and Neapolis ; but a more serious difficulty 
 occurred when Claudius, the legate of the consuls and 
 forerunner of the Roman army, appeared at Rhegium. 
 Things had taken an unexpected turn at Messana. The 
 party favourable to Carthage had got the upper hand, 
 and the Carthaginian fleet was riding at anchor in the 
 harbour, while a Carthaginian garrison was in possession 
 of the citadel. Here was an awkward predicament for 
 the Romans ; but C. Claudius was, like most of his family, 
 a man of energy and audacity. He crossed the straits at 
 the peril of his life, invited the admiral, Hanno, to a con- 
 ference, and then, in defiance of the law of nations and 
 of honour, took him prisoner, and allowed him to purchase 
 his liberty and life only by the surrender of the citadel. 
 The Mamertines, who were equally ready to follow any- 
 one who seemed able to promise them the lives which 
 by their crimes they had so justly forfeited, were now 
 besieged in Messana from the north side of the city by a 
 second Hanno, whom the Carthaginians had sent out 
 to replace the first, while Hiero attacked it from the 
 south. 
 
 Such was the condition of affairs when Appius Clau- 
 dius himself appeared with his army upon the scene. 
 How he managed to cross the straits with 
 ^^"■^•^ . 20,000 men in the face of an enemy whose 
 
 campaign. \ 
 
 proud boast it was that without their leave 
 no Roman could even bathe his hands in the sea, we do 
 not know. But cross them he did, and by a double vic- 
 tory on two successive days he succeeded in raising the 
 siege, and, after ravaging the country in every direction, 
 pitched his camp under the walls of Syracuse and pre- 
 pared to besiege Hiero in his own capital. Here he 
 suffered far more from the malaria of the marshes of the 
 
The Second Campaign. 35 
 
 Anapus than from any active hostility of Hiero ; and 
 when the Romans thought fit to retreat towards Messana 
 from so unhealthy a region, and were followed closely 
 by the Syracusans, Hiero found that the troops of the 
 rival armies were more disposed to meet in friendly 
 gatherings at the outposts than in hostile array in the 
 battle-field. 
 
 So ended the first campaign. With one small army 
 the Romans had already attained the ostensible objects 
 of the war. The Mamertines had been re- 
 lieved, the protectorate of Rome over them cam"^gn 
 asserted, much booty had been gained, the 
 Carthaginians had been driven back towards the north- 
 west, and the Syracusans towards the south-east, of the 
 island. But Rome was not content to stop here.. The 
 horizon of the Senate had once more expanded with 
 their achievements ; and, no longer content with secur- 
 ing the corner of Sicily nearest to themselves, they had 
 conceived the design of stripping Carthage and Syra- 
 cuse alike of so much of their Sicilian possessions as 
 would render them for ever innocuous neighbours. The 
 second campaign was not less successful than the first. 
 There was now no rumour of disturbance in the neigh- 
 bourhood of Rome ; and the two consuls, M. Octacilius 
 and M. Valerius, were able to cross together into Sicily 
 with their united armies amounting to 35,000 men. 
 They met no serious resistance ; fifty towns belonging to 
 Hiero or the Carthaginians submitted to them ; and 
 Hiero himself, consulting, partly, no doubt, the wishes 
 of his subjects, partly his own feelings of hatred towards 
 the hereditary oppressors of his country, turned from the 
 setting to the rising sun and made overtures of peace to 
 Rome. The Romans were keenly alive to the advan- 
 tages which an alliance with Syracuse would bring them 
 
36 Rome and Carthage. 
 
 while they were waging war in the interior of the island, 
 and Hiero agreed to pay a w^ar contribution of 200 talents 
 and to surrender several of his towns. He became 
 henceforward to the end of his long life and reign, to 
 all appearance, the grateful, and certainly the faithful 
 and the trusted ally of Rome. Under his wise and 
 beneficent rule, Syracuse, though war was surging round 
 her by land and sea, enjoyed a degree of prosperity and 
 of internal quiet to which, it may perhaps be said, she 
 had been a stranger for two centuries before, and which 
 she has never enjoyed since. 
 
 But where were the Carthaginians all this time ? Two 
 campaigns had been fought and won, and they had no- 
 where yet shown themselves in force. They 
 ne^ss of^Car- had allowed themselves, with hardly a 
 thaginians. struggle, to be swept from the larger half of 
 the island. Would they allow themselves to be swept 
 without resistance from the remainder ? The truth is 
 that they were neither inactive nor cowardly. They 
 were simply, owing to the defects of their military sys- 
 tem, unprepared ; and they were all this time straining 
 every nerve to raise a force in Africa, in Liguria, in 
 Spain, and in Gaul, which they hoped might eventually 
 be able to strike a vigorous blow and to retrieve their 
 fortunes. 
 
 About half way between the promontories of Lilybasum 
 
 and Pachynus, and drawn back a mile or so from the 
 
 southern coast, was the important city of Agrigentum. 
 
 It had once boasted a population of 200,000 souls — a 
 
 fact to which the size and extent of its ma- 
 
 grigen urn. jgg^j^ ruins Still bear witness — and though 
 its ruthless destruction by the Carthaginians (b. c. 405), 
 and the misgovernment of domestic tyrants had shorn 
 it of much of its grandeur and prosperity, it had been 
 
Siege of Agrigentum, 37 
 
 refounded by Timoleon, and was still at the time of the 
 First Punic War the second Greek city in Sicily, and 
 was able to give shelter to a garrison of 50,000 men. 
 Here Hannibal, son of Cisco, concentrated the forces 
 which had been gathered from such distant countries ; 
 here he determined to make a stand in the field, and 
 behind its bulwarks, after collecting vast stores of pro- 
 visions and of materials for war, he was prepared, if 
 need be, to stand a siege. Hither also came all the 
 forces which the Roman Senate thought necessary to 
 deal with a foe who during two campaigns had seemed 
 anxious only to keep himself out of sight — a small army, 
 so it is said, of two legions only ! 
 
 The consuls of the year, L. Postumius and Q. Mami- 
 lius (B.C. 262), pitched their camp eight stadia from the 
 town, and imprudently sent out their troops 
 in large numbers to forage in the surround- 
 ing country. Hannibal seized the opportunity, and only 
 the heroism of some Roman pickets who, to allow time 
 for the foragers to get back into the camp, died to a 
 man, fighting bravely at their posts, saved the Romans 
 from disaster. Both sides now displayed greater cau- 
 tion. The Carthaginians contented themselves with 
 harassing the Romans with missiles from a distance, 
 while the Romans broke up their army into two separate 
 camps, connected by a double line of entrenchments — 
 the one to protect them against the sallies of the besieged, 
 the other to guard against possible dangers from the 
 rear. The town of Erbessus, a few miles to the north, 
 supplied them with abundant provisions, and seemed to 
 remove famine, at all events, from the lists of contin- 
 gencies to which they might be exposed. In this state 
 of things five months passed away, and to all appear- 
 ance the siege was no nearer a successful termination 
 
38 Rome and Carthage. 
 
 than at the beginning ; but provisions had begun to fail 
 in the closely-packed quarters of the defenders, and in 
 deference to the urgent solicitations of Hannibal, Hanno 
 was sent to Sicily with a new army, and with oiders, if 
 possible, to compel the Romans to raise the siege. 
 Making Heraclea his headquarters, Hanno managed to 
 surprise Erbessus, and so cut off the supplies of the ene- 
 my. The Romans now found themselves in the position 
 of besieged rather than besiegers, and pestilence as well 
 as famine was at work in their lines. 
 
 Decisive operations could not now be long delayed. 
 In a preliminary engagement the Roman horse expe- 
 rienced, for the first time, the superiority of 
 s cap ure. ^^ famous Numidian light cavalry ; but in 
 the battle which ensued, the motley Carthaginian infan- 
 try found that they were, as yet, no match for the sol- 
 diers of the legion. Fifty elephants — wild beasts Poly- 
 bius, with an air of horror, still calls them — fought on 
 the side of the Carthaginians, a number many times as 
 great as that which a few years before, in the time of 
 Pyrrhus, had carried dismay and confusion into the 
 Roman ranks; but on this occasion, as often afterwards, 
 elephants were found to be a two-edged weapon, which 
 might be fatal to the hand that wielded it. Thirty of the 
 fifty were killed, and eleven remained alive in the hands 
 of the Romans, as vast moving trophies of the victory 
 that had been won. Hanno saved a remnant of his 
 army by his hasty flight to Heraclea, and Hannibal, 
 whom the Romans looked upon as already within their 
 grasp, sheltered by the darkness of a winter's night, and 
 helped by the energy of despair, made a last effort to 
 break through the lines of his victorious foe. The Ro- 
 mans, overcome with fatigue, or giving the reins to their 
 joy, had relaxed their vigilance. With bags stuffed with 
 
Fall of Agrigentum, 39 
 
 straw, Hannibal filled up the deep trenches, scaled the 
 ramparts, and managed with the effective part of his 
 army to pass through the Roman lines unobserved. In 
 the morning the enemy, discovering what had happened, 
 went through the form of pursuing the retreating Han- 
 nibal ; but they were more eager to fall on the unhappy 
 town which he had abandoned to their mercy. The in- 
 habitants surrendered at discretion ; but they had to 
 undergo all the horrors of a place taken by storm. The 
 town was given up to plunder, and 25,000 freemen were 
 sold into slavery. Nothing throughout the whole of 
 Sicily now remained in the hands of the Carthaginians 
 save a few fortresses on its western coasts ; and this was 
 the precise moment at which, according to the explicit 
 statement of Polybius, it first dawned upon the Romans 
 that they had embarked upon a war the true and only 
 object of which must be to eject the Carthaginians alto- 
 gether from the island. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 FIRST ROMAN FLEET. BATTLES OF MYLiE AND ECNOMUS. 
 
 (262-256 B.C.) 
 
 If the resolution now come to by Rome was to be carried 
 out, it was clear that a complete change in the conduct 
 of the war would be necessary. The Car- 
 
 ...,,, - - ^ , Carthaginian 
 
 thagmians had at length begun to put forth naval supre- 
 their real strength, and to assert the supre- "^^*^^* 
 macy over the seas, which had, in fact, never ceased to 
 belong to them. With a fleet of sixty ships they coasted 
 round Sicily, and by sheer terror, without striking a blow, 
 brought back to their allegiance many towns which had 
 
40 Rome and Carthage. 
 
 gone over to Rome. The Romans might retain their 
 grip on the interior of the island, but the coasts, it was 
 clear, would belong to Carthage so long as she remained 
 mistress of the seas. Nor was this all. By making fre- 
 quent descents at distant points on the Italian coast, the 
 Carthaginian fleet kept the inhabitants of the seaboard 
 in a state of constant alarm, which it was quite beyond 
 the power of any land forces raised by the Italians them- 
 selves to allay ; for by the nature of the case the Cartha- 
 ginians, choosing like the Northmen centuries after- 
 wards, their own place and time, were able to destroy a 
 town, or to harry a district, before alarm could be given 
 to the nearest military station. It was apparent that the 
 war might go on for ever, each of the combatants being 
 able to annoy and injure, but not to paralyze or destroy 
 the other, unless something should occur to change 
 the conditions under which it was being carried on. The 
 Carthaginians wanted only, what they had not yet suc- 
 ceeded in finding, a first-rate general, to enable them to 
 make a descent in force in Italy, and so make Rome trem- 
 ble for her own safety. The Romans wanted only an 
 efficient fleet to enable them to meet Carthage on her 
 own element, and then to transfer the contest to Africa. 
 The all-important question was which would be found 
 first. A life-and-death struggle generally finds out, and 
 brings to the front, in spite of all artificial obstacles, a 
 true military genius, even amongst a people whose col- 
 lective genius is not military ; but it has very rarely been 
 known to change the whole character of a people at once, 
 to transform land-lubbers into seamen, and what is more 
 extraordinary still, to enable them to cope on equal 
 terms with the greatest naval power of the time. The 
 chances therefore were, so far, not in favour of Rome. 
 But sve must beware of indulging in the exaggerations 
 
Roman Naval Affairs. 41 
 
 in which it was natural enough for Polybius and other 
 historians of the time to indulge, in their ad- 
 miration of the energy of Rome. What the ^^varaffairs 
 Romans did was wonderful enough without 
 the addition of a single fictitious detail to make it more 
 so. It may be true, as Polybius says, that at the outbreak 
 of the war Rome had no decked ships, no ships of war, 
 no, not even a lembus — a small ship's boat with a sharp 
 prow — which they could call their own. But that the 
 Romans were not so wholly ignorant of naval affairs as 
 the ludicrous picture of a hundred batches of would-be 
 sailors, training themselves to row on the sand, from 
 scaffolds, would at first suggest, is clear from the fact 
 that Rome had in the early days of the Republic fitted 
 out ships with three banks of oars to keep in order 
 piratical neighbours like the Antiates or the Etruscans ; 
 that there were magistrates, called Duumviri navaJes, 
 who, from time to time, were appointed for the express 
 purpose of repairing the fleet ; and that the Carthaginians 
 themselves had thought it worth their while repeatedly 
 to form a commercial treaty with the Romans, restricting 
 carefully their mutual rights and duties. Still the Romans 
 had never been a really maritime or commercial people ; 
 they did not love the sea, much less had they been a 
 naval power ; and how were they to become so all at 
 once ? 
 
 The question was beset with difficulties. Triremes 
 no doubt they might borrow from the Greek cities of 
 Italy, as they had done once before; but 
 these would no more face the bulky mon- ^ef,^nlfjf|eet_ 
 sters, called quinqueremes, which now 
 formed the Carthaginian ships of the line, than an Eng- 
 lish revenue cutter could board a frigate. The Romans 
 must have felt all the needs, upon a vaster scale, which 
 
42 Rome and Carthage. 
 
 dawned upon a people as land-loving and as exclusive 
 as themselves, when the conquest of Ezion Geber 
 opened to the untravelled Israelites the navigation of the 
 Red Sea, and the unknown possibilities of the East be- 
 yond it. But to the Hebrew subjects of King Solomon 
 a way out of the difficulty was open which was not avail- 
 able to the Romans now. The gold of Solomon was 
 able to procure Phoenician shipwrights who could con- 
 struct, and Phoenician mariners who could navigate and 
 steer, his vessels among the dangerous waters of the 
 Red Sea and the Indian Ocean. The descendants of 
 these selfsame Phoenicians, the heirs of their traditions 
 and of a double portion of their maritime genius, were 
 the deadly enemies of Rome ; and the Roman landsmen 
 must face the dangers of the sea, not with their aid, but 
 against their rhost strenuous opposition. Again, the 
 quinquereme was not merely twice as large as a trireme, 
 but was of a different build and construction. It was 
 necessary, therefore, to obtain either shipwrights or a 
 model from some nation to which such moving castles 
 had been long familiar. Here chance was on the side 
 of the Romans. A Carthaginian quinquereme had run 
 ashore on the coast of Bruttium two or three years before, 
 and had fallen into the hands of the Romans. This 
 served as the wished-for model ; and it is asserted by 
 more than one writer, that within sixty days a growing 
 wood was felled and transformed into a fleet of a hun- 
 dred ships of the line and twenty triremes. The next 
 diffi.:ulty was to find men for the fleet, and when they 
 had been found, to train them for their duties. How 
 the large number of 30,000 rowers necessary to propel 
 the ships, and of 12,000 marines necessary to fight on 
 board of them, were raised, in so short a time, from a 
 people that was not a seafaring people, we have no pre- 
 
The New Fleet. 43 
 
 cise information ; but as soon as they had been got to- 
 gether, and while the building of the ships was still in 
 progress, they went, if we may believe the well-known 
 story, through a course of training for the most impor- 
 tant of their functions, that of rowing in time at the 
 voice of the Keleustes, by taking their seats on tiers of 
 stages, and by making believe to go through the va- 
 rious evolutions which would be expected of them. 
 
 Probably never did a fleet set sail under greater diffi- 
 culties of every kind than did this. The starting timbers 
 of the unseasoned wood of which the ships 
 were built, and the distressing maladies sails. 
 which would assuredly befall a herd of 
 landsmen who had gone through only the mechanical 
 preparation for the sea which we have described, might 
 well have made men doubt whether either ships or 
 crews would ever live to experience the shock of the 
 Carthaginian battle. But we hear nothing of this. Per- 
 haps after all, the ships were manned in part not by 
 Romans, but by Greek and Etruscan mariners ; and we 
 know only that hardly were the ships launched when 
 they fearlessly set sail (b. c. 261). 
 
 But the skill in naval warfare which the Carthagi- 
 nians had acquired in centuries could not be learnt by 
 Rome in a day. There are many points con- 
 nected with the equipment and manage- tacUcs of 
 ment of an ancient trireme which have not ancients. 
 been cleared up ; but it is certain that even for the sim- 
 ple manoeuvres practised by the ancients —the embole, or 
 charge on the side, and \he prosbole, or charge beak to 
 beak, the periplus, and the diecplus — there was an in- 
 calculable difference between trained and untrained row- 
 ers. It must also be borne in mind that the ancient row- 
 ers had often to contend in battle against wind and tide 
 
44 Rofne and Carthage, 
 
 as well as against the foe — for the sails and masts were 
 always cleared away as a preparation for action — and if 
 the sea was running high, the utmost nicety in steering 
 and the most perfect time and skill in rowing would be 
 essential to the success of even the simplest manoeuvre. 
 There was nothing but the voice of the Keletistes to keep 
 the three tiers of rowers, ranged one above the other, 
 with their oars of different weights and different lengths, 
 in time, and that voice would necessarily be drowned by 
 the least excitement or confusion amongst the crews. If 
 such careful training was found to be essential for the 
 management of the trireme, what must it not have been 
 for the quinquereme, a ship nearly twice the size, with 
 five banks of oars instead of three ? 
 
 The immediate problem, therefore, for the Romans to 
 solve was not how best to train their crews to charge with 
 ™ ^ the beak— for no training would have fitted 
 
 The Corvus. ° 
 
 them for that task before the engagement 
 which was imminent — ^but how best to parry the charge 
 and then to convert the naval into a land battle, leaving 
 as little opportunity as possible for subsequent ma- 
 noeuvring, and as much as possible for hand-to-hand 
 conflict. The device which the Romans adopted to 
 secure these ends was clumsy, but it was effectual. On 
 the fore part of each vessel was erected an additional 
 mast, and lashed to it by a powerful hinge was a species 
 of drawbridge. On the end of this last and standing 
 out from it at right angles was a sharp spike of the 
 strongest iron, which, from its resemblance, when in this 
 position, to the bill of the raven, gave the name of Cor- 
 vus to the whole construction. When an enemy's vessel 
 was seen approaching for the purpose either of charging 
 directly beak to beak, or of striking obliquely the tiers 
 of oars and so of incapacitating them for further use, the 
 
Battle of My Ice. 45 
 
 drawbridge by an ingenious contrivance, could be swung 
 round the mast towards the point where the danger 
 threatened ; and the moment the enemy came within 
 reach, it could be let fall from its commanding height, 
 and with its heavy weight upon the deck of the attack- 
 ing ship. The iron beak would pierce through the 
 planking of the deck and hold it fast in a death-grapple, 
 and in a very few moments from the time the Corvus 
 fell, the whole body of the Roman mariners would find 
 themselves on board the enemy's deck. The sea fight 
 would be practically over, and the land fight would begin, 
 and the issue of this conflict between the " mere rabble 
 of an African crew " and picked Roman legionaries, 
 could not be for a moment doubtful. 
 
 Duillius, consul and admiral of the fleet, finding that 
 the enemy were engaged in ravaging Mylae, a peninsula 
 and town on the north-west of the island, 
 not far from Messana, sailed fearlessly m^S^'^ °^ 
 towards them. The Carthaginians, when 
 with 130 well-built and well-manned ships they saw the 
 100 ungainly Roman hulks, the timbers of which ought 
 still to have been seasoning in the timber yard, and 
 their landsmen sailors, drawn from they knew not where, 
 must have felt something of the thrill of long-deferred 
 delight which forced from Napoleon the exclamation, 
 "At last I have them, those English, in my grasp,'' as, 
 assuredly, they must have felt something of the keen- 
 ness of his disappointment at the still more unlooked-for 
 result. Not caring in their confidence and joy even to 
 form in line of battle, they bore down at once upon the 
 Romans as on an easy prey. When they drew near, 
 they were for the moment taken aback by the strange 
 appearance of vessels coming into battle with their 
 masts left standing— masts, too, with such uncouth and 
 B 
 
46 Rome and Carthage, 
 
 extraordinary appendages attached to them. But their 
 hesitation was only for a moment. Evidently these raw 
 enemies of theirs did not even know how to clear their 
 decks for action. With redoubled confidence thirty of 
 the Carthaginian vessels charged beak to beak on as 
 many of the Roman vessels, and each- immediately 
 found itself a prisoner, held fast by the grappling iron 
 which had so excited their surprise and their contempt. 
 Others of the Carthaginian ships, thinking to escape the 
 fall of the drawbridge which had caught their comrades, 
 charged sideways against other parts of the Roman 
 ships ; but round swung the fatal Raven, as though it 
 were a thing of life, and descended upon them, pinning 
 the vessels tight alongside of each other, and enabling the 
 Roman legionaries to dispense with the bridge and to leap 
 at once from every part of their vessel into that of the 
 enemy. After fifty of their ships of war had been locked 
 in this deadly embrace, the remainder, declining to fight 
 at all with foes who were ill-bred enough to fight and con- 
 quer against all the rules of naval warfare, took to flight. 
 The Romans were overjoyed, as well they might be, 
 at their success. It was their first naval battle, and their 
 first great naval victory over the greatest 
 joy a ome, j^a.val power which the world had seen. Its 
 importance was not to be measured by its immediate re- 
 sults, but rather by the omen it gave for the future. 
 Honours, till then unexampled, were freely bestowed 
 upon the plebeian Duillius. When he went out to sup- 
 per it was to the sound of music ; when he returned 
 home it was with an escort of torch-bearers. A pillar 
 was erected to his honour in the Forum, called the Co- 
 lumna Rostrata, for it was adorned with the brazen beaks 
 of the vessels which his wise ignorance and his clumsy 
 skill had enabled him to capture. 
 
Sardinia and Corsica. 47 
 
 The great battle of Mylas was fought in the year b. c. 
 260, and the Roman army improved the victory of their 
 fleet by at once marching to Egesta, a town 
 which claimed relationship to Rome by and Corsica 
 reason of their supposed common descent attacked, 
 from Troy, and which was situated in a part of Sicily 
 considerably beyond any in which we have as yet seen 
 the Romans. The Roman fleet, too, now no longer 
 confined its aims to the narrow Sicilian waters, but, 
 striking boldly across the open sea, threatened the em- 
 pire of Carthage in the rich Island of Sardinia also. In 
 the savage mountains of the interior the natives still 
 managed to maintain something of their independence 
 and of their barbarism ; but the coasts had been for 
 centuries in the possession of the Carthaginians. Thither 
 the unfortunate Hannibal, son of Gisco, had withdrawn 
 shortly after his defeat at Mylas, thinking doubtless that 
 there, at least, he would be safe from Roman molesta- 
 tion ; but even there the Romans, in the exultation of 
 their first victory, pursued him. Penned within the 
 harbour in which he had taken refuge, he lost several 
 of his ships in an engagement, and on his escape to land 
 was apprehended by his own men and crucified. They 
 took the law into their own hands ; but, doubtless, they 
 only anticipated the sentence which would have been 
 passed by the inexorable Hundred on an unlucky ad- 
 miral who should have returned to Carthage after sur- 
 viving so many and such unprecedented reverses. The 
 Romans followed up their success by an attack on Olbia, 
 the capital of the island. The expedition failed. But an 
 attempt upon Aleria, formerly a Phocean colony, and 
 now the capital of Corsica, was more successful. Cor- 
 sica had probably never belonged outright to Carthage ; 
 but it had, at least, acknowledged her maritime su- 
 
48 Rome and Carthage, 
 
 premacy, and the second treaty between Rome and 
 Carthage seems to have recognized it as a kind of neu- 
 tral territory between the two. The epitaph of L. 
 Cornehus Scipio, which is still preserved, tells us how he 
 took Corsica and Aleria, and how on his return to Rome 
 he dedicated a well-deserved temple to the tempest which 
 had almost overwhelmed him in the Corsican waters. 
 
 But the absence of the Roman fleet in Corsica and 
 
 Sardinia proved a serious, if only a temporary, drawback 
 
 to the progress of the Roman arms in Sicily, 
 
 Energy of Rome could not yet afford so to dissipate 
 
 both sides. ^ . ^ . 
 
 her energy, and Hamilcar, commander-in- 
 chief at Panormus, now gave evidence of a vigour and 
 capacity such as had hitherto not been witnessed among 
 either of the contending parties. Hearing that the 
 Romans and their allies, on their return from Egesta, 
 were at discord amongst themselves, he surprised and 
 cut to pieces 4,000 of the enemy in their camp near 
 Himera. He destroyed the town of Eryx and transferred 
 its inhabitants in a body to the neighbouring fortress of 
 Drepanum ; and it was doubtless the bold front he showed 
 which, in the following year, compelled the Romans to re- 
 tire from before Panormus, after merely convincing them- 
 selves of the strength of its fortifications. Meanwhile 
 both sides were straining every nerve to raise such a 
 navy as should be able by sheer strength to bear down 
 all opposition to it — the Romans with the avowed inten- 
 tion of fighting their way into Africa, and so compelling 
 Carthage to submit to the terms of peace which they 
 might be willing to offer her ; the Carthaginians with the 
 hope of recovering the empire of the seas which had 
 now been half torn from her, and of excluding the 
 Romans, if not from the whole of her dependencies, at 
 all events from her home domain in Africa. 
 
Huge Naval Armaments. 49 
 
 The material results in the way of shipping obtained 
 by either side were not disproportionate to the efforts that 
 had been made. Probably never, either be- 
 fore or after, did such vast naval armaments ^"s^ "^'^^^ 
 
 ' armaments. 
 
 put to sea. The most important naval com- 
 bats of ancient and of modern times-the battle of Artemi- 
 sium, Salamis, and Naulochus, of Lepanto, Trafalgar, 
 and Navarino — sink into insignificance, as far as mere 
 numbers go, when compared with that of Ecnomus. Other 
 battles, doubtless, enlist the sympathies more fully on one 
 side or the other, or interest more keenly those who care 
 for war merely as war. The stake fought for at Salamis 
 was an infinitely higher stake, and was fraught with vastly 
 more momentous issues for the whole human race ; for 
 it was the cause of Greek freedom and civilization against 
 Asiatic slavery and barbarism. At Trafalgar the darling 
 scheme of the heartless oppressor of all Europe was for 
 ever frustrated by the crowning naval victory of a war 
 which, the worst calumniators of England must admit, 
 was not a selfish war. In all these points — in the motives 
 of the combatants, in its purely military or scientific in- 
 terest, and in its results — the battle of Ecnomus is not 
 specially remarkable. It is imposible to give our un- 
 divided sympathies to either side. It was a battle, in the 
 main, of brute force and not of consummate skill ; it was 
 not decisive even of the results of the war of which it 
 formed so bulky a part. Still less can it attract those 
 who look upon all wars except those waged in self-de- 
 fence or for purely moral ends — all wars, that is, except 
 those waged ultimately in the interests of peace — with 
 horror and condemnation. Yet men are men, and even 
 the Carthaginian mercenaries, though their employers 
 did not think so, were worth something more than the 
 pay they earned by their services ; and size is size, and 
 
50 Rome and Carthage. 
 
 will always, apart from everything else, and whether it 
 ought to or not, attract to itself the attention of mankind. 
 And from the point of view of mere size — the nmnber, 
 that is, of its shi^s and the crews who fought in them — 
 the battle of Ecnomus is certainly entitled to a conspicu- 
 ous place in history. The vicissitudes of the battle are 
 somewhat complicated ; but it is necessary for one who 
 would understand aright the First Punic War to dwell 
 awhile upon a conflict which is so eminently characteris- 
 tic of it. 
 
 The Romans set sail from Messana (b. c. 256) with 
 
 330 ships, while the Carthaginians mustered the still 
 
 more portentous number of 350 ships in their 
 
 Battle of famous port of Lilybseum: so that, if we are to 
 
 t,cnomus. ^ j } ' 
 
 accept the deliberate calculation of Polybius, 
 who assigns 300 rowers and 120 mariners to each ship of 
 war, nearly 300,000 men must have met in the battle 
 which ensued. The Carthaginians, who knew too well 
 what an invasion of Africa meant, and who felt that the 
 ravages of the Roman army would not be the worst of 
 evils that it would involve, moved slowly forward to 
 Heraclea Minoa, determined to crush the invaders before 
 they could leave the Sicilian coast. 
 
 The Romans, having taken on board their legions at 
 Phintias, divided their immense fleet into four squadrons. 
 The two first squadrons formed two sides of 
 battfe °^ ^^ equilateral triangle, while the third, hav- 
 
 ing behind them the transports laden with 
 cavalry, formed its base. To the rear of these again, 
 and forming at once a rear guard and a reserve, came 
 the fourth squadron, which Polybius calls, from the im- 
 portant function allotted to it, the Triarii. At the apex 
 of the triangle, their prows standing out to sea, and point- 
 ing the rest of the fleet the way to Africa, sailed abreast 
 
Plan of Ecnomua. 
 
 51 
 
52 Rome and Carthage. 
 
 the two monster hexiremes — ships as large probably as 
 our ships of the line — of the consuls and admirals in one, 
 M. Atihus Regulus and L. Manlius, The whole Roman 
 fleet together thus formed the figure called in nautical 
 manoeuvring an e7nbolo7i, or wedge, a figure said by Po- 
 lybius to be suited to energetic action and very difficult 
 to break through. On the other hand, it postulated a 
 skill in seamanship, and a confidence in their own 
 powers both of attack and of defence, very different 
 from that which marked the Roman fleet at their victory 
 at Mylae, only three years before. The Carthaginians, 
 reminded by their admirals — Hanrjo, who had in vain 
 attempted to raise the siege of Agrigentum, and Hamil- 
 car, who had lately fought, not without credit to himself, 
 at Tyndaris — of the momentous issues that were at stake, 
 and asked to choose whether they would henceforward 
 fight for the possession of Sicily or in defence of their 
 own hearths and homes, moved westward along the 
 shore in good spirits and order. They hove in sight of 
 the enemy, as it would seem, to the west of the promon- 
 tory of Ecnomus, and, observing the four-fold division 
 of the Roman armaments, they divided their own fleet 
 into a similar number of squadrons. 
 
 The Carthaginian admirals, in order to detach the first 
 
 two squadrons of the Roman fleet from the third, which 
 
 was retarded by the transports, arranged 
 
 Victory of that the part of their line which should be 
 
 Romans. ^ . , 
 
 first attacked by the thin end of the Roman 
 wedge should give way before it and feign a flight. The 
 stratagem was partially successful, for the flying Cartha- 
 ginian ships, wheeling round suddenly, closed in upon 
 the sides of the Roman triangle, Avhich had pursued them 
 too far, and by their superior rapidity and skill seriously 
 threatened its safety. But the knowledge that they were 
 
Roman Victory, 53 
 
 fighting under the immediate eye of the consuls, and the 
 confidence inspired in them by the possession of the 
 Raven, enabled the Romans to hold their own, till 
 Hamilcar, in sheer exhaustion, was compelled to save 
 himself by flight. Meanwhile a fierce double combat 
 had been raging elsewhere. Hanno, who was on the 
 Carthaginian right, had forborne to take any part in the 
 first onset, but, keeping out to sea, as soon as the three 
 first Roman squadrons, had got well past him, had fallen 
 upon the rear guard. " Ventum erat ad Triarios,'' and, 
 for a time, it seemed as if even the Triarii would give 
 way. The Carthaginian left, which had hitherto hugged 
 the shore in a long line at right angles to the rest of the 
 fleet, as soon as they had got well behind the 
 Roman position, attacked the third squadron, which was 
 impeded by the transports. These, however, slipped the 
 ropes, and did battle with their assailants. There were 
 thus three distinct sea-fights, simultaneous and well 
 maintained. Hamilcar, as has been said, was the first 
 to give way, and his fight practically decided the battle. 
 Hanno followed his example, and Manhus just then com- 
 ing up, both consuls bore down together on the left wing 
 of the enemy, which, had they only been less afraid of 
 the boarding-bridges, must ere this have been victorious. 
 A few only of the Carthaginian ships escaped. The 
 Roman victory was complete, and there was now nothing 
 left to bar the conquerors from Africa. 
 
54 Rome and Carthage, 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 INVASION OF AFRICA. REGULUS AND XANTHIPPUS. 
 (256-250 B.C.) 
 
 The resolution of the Roman Senate had been long 
 since taken. But it is hardly to be wondered at that 
 when the hour had come for carrying it out, 
 Invasion of |-]^g hearts of some among the Roman sol- 
 diers should have been filled with misgiv- 
 ings, and that these should have found expression in the 
 mutinous language of a tribune. Xenophon has told us 
 how anxiously Cyrus the Younger concealed from the 
 Ten Thousand Greeks the real nature of the perilous 
 adventure he had undertaken ; and how, before he re- 
 vealed to them the fatal secret, he took care so far to 
 commit them to the enterprise that a retreat would be 
 then not less dangerous than an advance. The Romans 
 were now entering on a phase of the great contest which 
 to them must have seemed hardly less perilous than the 
 Anabasis to the Greeks. They had to cross a sea which 
 to them was as unknown and, under existing circum- 
 stances, as fraught with the possibilities of mischief as 
 the trackless deserts of Mesopotamia. They were to 
 enter a new continent, peopled not by the wild ass and 
 the antelope and the scudding ostrich which had amused 
 the Ten Thousand Greeks, but, as popular imagination 
 would have it, and as a grave historian had related, 
 " by lions and by dog-headed monsters, and by creatures 
 with no heads and with eyes in their breasts." However, 
 threats of a more summary kind used by Regulus over- 
 powered these forebodings of distant disaster and crushed 
 the rising mutiny, and the Roman fleet, after it had been 
 
Carthaginian Territory ravaged. 55 
 
 revictualled and repaired, stood right across the Mediter- 
 ranean to the nearest point of Africa, a distance of only 
 ninety miles. 
 
 The Hermean Promontory is the north-eastern horn 
 of the Bay of Carthage. Here the Romans waited 
 awhile to muster their forces. It was the 
 pr^ecise point beyond which — as treaty after andThon^ 
 treaty, made with the jealous commercial sightedness 
 state, had stipulated — no Roman ship should 
 dare to pass, whether to trade, to plunder, or to colonize ; 
 and it must have been with feelings, not of satisfaction 
 or of curiosity alone, that, after a short pause, the Roman 
 fleet began to penetrate deeper into the mysteries of that 
 great Carthaginian preserve by coasting along till they 
 reached a town which, from the shield-shaped eminence 
 on which it stood, they called Clypea, as the Greeks had 
 already named it Aspis. They set foot without opposi- 
 tion on African soil, and when the town refused to sur- 
 render they besieged and took it. Meanwhile the Car- 
 thaginians had been forewarned of the coming danger. 
 Hanno, after his defeat at Ecnomus, had made straight 
 across for Carthage, and, though he must have risked 
 his life in so doing, had bidden the citizens prepare for 
 the worst. But to be forewarned was with the Cartha- 
 ginians, at this period of their history, not necessarily to 
 be forearmed ; their best armies were absent in Sicily ; 
 their navy was demoralized and half destroyed, and the 
 native Libyans were in a state of chronic disaffection. 
 Had the Romans marched at once upon the capital — 
 without an adequate army or a competent general as it 
 then was— it is just possible that it might have fallen. 
 But this was not to be. The rich territory which lay 
 between Clypea and Carthage was too tempting and too 
 easy a prey for the needy Roman soldiery. It had now 
 
56 Rome and Carthage. 
 
 quite recovered from the devastations of Agathocles, 
 and the Romans, strangers as yet, happily for them- 
 selves, to luxury, contemplated with amazement and 
 delight the pleasant gardens and the opulent palaces of 
 the merchant princes of Carthage, which had sated the 
 greed of the mercenaries of Agathocles fifty years before. 
 Nor did their hands spare what their eyes admired. 
 The palaces were ransacked of their valuables, and then 
 ruthlessly set on fire; the cattle were driven in vast 
 herds towards the Roman camp ; and 20,000 of the inha- 
 bitants of the surrounding country found themselves 
 collected in the Roman ships to be sold into slavery. 
 Nor had the Carthaginians, in the interval which had 
 elapsed since the invasion of Agathocles, grown less 
 fatally distrustful of their own subjects. They still for- 
 bade the subject cities to surround themselves with walls, 
 not because, like the Spartans, they thought a living 
 rampart of men was a better protection than any ma- 
 sonry, but because they had good reason to suspect that 
 such defence might be turned against themselves. Ac- 
 cordingly, Regulus passed with facility from village to 
 village, or from town to town, till, as the Romans boasted, 
 he had nearly doubled the number of 200 townships 
 which Agathocles had conquered before him. 
 
 But just now came from Rome the astounding order, 
 
 which may well have aroused the misgivings even of 
 
 the triumphant Roman army, that one of 
 
 Recall of ^]^g j-^q consuls was to return home at once 
 
 Manlius. 
 
 with his troops and his ships, leaving the 
 other in Africa with what Polybius calls — one would 
 think with a touch of irony — a " sufficient force " to bring 
 the war to a conclusion. It was not so much that the 
 Roman Senate actually underestimated the difficulty of 
 conquering Carthage, as that it did not occur to a body 
 
Victory of Reguius. 57 
 
 of so conservative a frame of mind, that, now that the 
 scale of their warfare had been so enlarged, it might be 
 advisable to make a corresponding alteration in all the 
 conditions under which they carried it on. The princi- 
 ple that every soldier is, above all and before all things, 
 a citizen, and that he ought not to forego any of his civil 
 rights or duties for a longer time. than is absolutely ne- 
 cessary, is in itself a noble principle, and one which 
 modern states, with their overgrown and ' appalling 
 standing armies, would do well to remember. But the 
 rule that an army should always return to Rome, either 
 to go into winter quarters or to be disbanded, was a 
 practical application of the principle which, though it 
 had its advantages, must have been inconvenient even 
 in the early struggles of the Roman republic ; while the 
 maxim of state policy that the commander-in-chief, 
 whatever his talents and whatever the complication of 
 his military plans, should, as soon as a particular day of 
 the year came round, be superseded by a civil magis- 
 trate, whatever his military incapacity, was a maxim 
 which, though it may have acted well enough in a border 
 warfare against a discontented Latin or Etruscan town, 
 had broken down completely in the Samnite wars, and 
 would be absolutely fatal in the far more gigantic strug- 
 gle against Carthage. 
 
 But the Roman Senate, whatever its practical ability 
 and courage in carrying out the current business of the 
 state, was not more foresighted than other 
 deliberative assemblies, and needed the bit- Victory of 
 
 ' Kegulus. 
 
 ter teaching of experience to bring home to 
 them what seems to us so obvious a truth. Its orders 
 were obeyed without a murmur, and Manlius set off for 
 Rome, with his prisoners, his army, and his fleet, leav- 
 ing Reguius behind him, the heir to that strange inher- 
 
58 Rome and Carthage. 
 
 itance of a reputation for military rashness and disaster 
 on the one hand, and for disinterested patriotism on the 
 other, which, immortahzed as it has been by Horace, has 
 gone the round of the world, and will doubtless survive 
 the most convincing demonstration of its groundlessness 
 by pitiless critics. The army with which he was expected, 
 as it would seem, to complete the conquest of Africa 
 amounted only to 15,000 infantry and 500 cavalry. He 
 immediately threatened Adis, a town of some impor- 
 tance ; and to raise its siege the Carthaginians occupied 
 a hilly district where they could make but little use of the 
 arm in which they were really strong, their elephants and 
 cavalry. The Romans were not slow to perceive this 
 mistake, and, in spite of the strenuous resistance of 
 some of the mercenaries, assaulted and carried the posi- 
 tion, while the Carthaginian cavalry and elephants ex- 
 tricated themselves, as best they could, from the broken 
 ground, and as soon as they reached the plain saved 
 themselves by flight. The Romans now fell to devasta- 
 ting the country with redoubled energy and with even 
 less of caution than before. Tunis, an important town 
 in sight of the capital, fell into their hands, and Regu- 
 lus encamped on the banks of the Bagradas in the 
 heart of what was then the most fertile country in the 
 world. 
 
 The prospects of the Carthaginians looked desperate 
 indeed. Their only available army had been defeated, 
 and what the Romans had spared in their 
 plfghro^Car- devastations, the Numidians, a people al- 
 thaginians. "ways ou the move and always eager for 
 plunder, carried off. If the Romans had chastised the 
 country districts with whips, the Numidians, maddened 
 with oppression as well as thirsting for booty, now chas- 
 tised them with scorpions. All the inhabitants who 
 
Conduct of Regulus. 5 9 
 
 could flee took refuge in the capital, and the vast in- 
 crease of population was already threatening the city 
 with the famine and the pestilence which are usually the 
 last outcome and not the forerunners of a siege. 
 
 Regulus seeing their miserable plight, and anxious lest 
 his successor, who, according to Roman custom, might 
 be soon expected, should reap the glory of 
 the war which he had so far conducted peace 
 prosperously, offered to negotiate for peace. rejected. 
 The proposal was joyfully accepted ; but Regulus, intox- 
 icated with success, offered the Carthaginians terms 
 which could scarcely have been harder if the Romans 
 had been within their walls. The conquered people 
 were to acknowledge the supremacy of Rome, to form 
 an offensive and defensive alliance with her, to give up 
 all their ships of war but one, to cede, not Sicily only — 
 for that the Carthaginians, acknowledging the fortune of 
 war, would have been glad to do— but Corsica and Sar- 
 dinia and the Lipari Islands also, to surrender the Ro- 
 man deserters, to ransom their own prisoners, to pay all 
 that it had cost the Romans to bring them to their knees, 
 and a heavy tribute besides ! Terms intolerable in 
 themselves were made still more intolerable by the in- 
 solent bearing of the Plebeian consul towards those 
 whom he looked upon as prostrate before him. He had 
 already written to Rome that he had " sealed up the 
 gates of Carthage with terror," and now he told the 
 ambassadors roughly that " men who were good for 
 anything should either conquer or submit to their 
 betters." The Romans, when after the battle of the 
 ^gatian Isles they had to recoup themselves, as best 
 they could, for fifteen more years of tedious warfare, for 
 the loss of four fleets, and for the humiliation which 
 befell this very Regulus so soon afterwards in Africa, 
 
6o Rome and Carthage. 
 
 did not propose such ruinous conditions as these ; 
 and Scipio himself, after Zama, if only because so 
 many of the tiger's teeth had been already drawn, did 
 not think it necessary to clip its claws as well. It argues 
 an insensate ignorance on the part of the Romans 
 of what was truly great in their antagonists, if they 
 thought that they would accept such terms. The spirit 
 of the ambassadors rose with their adversity. They 
 refused even to discuss the conditions offered them, and 
 the Carthaginian Senate determined to die, fighting 
 bravely with arms in their hands, rather than sign vol- 
 untarily their own death-warrant. Be the story of the 
 subsequent heroism and self-sacrifice of Regulus ever 
 so true, a serious abatement must be made in estimating 
 his qualities both of head and heart, for the insolence 
 and infatuation which he displayed on this critical 
 occasion. 
 
 The moment at which the Carthaginians w^ere obliged 
 to give up all hopes of peace was also, luckily for them, 
 the precise moment at which a recruiting 
 ip us. QfQcer happened to return from Greece with 
 a band of soldiers of fortune whom he had induced to 
 place their ewords at the disposal of the rich republic. 
 Among these was Xanthippus, a Lacedaemonian of infe- 
 rior grade, but one who had been well schooled in war by 
 the admirable training which the Spartan discipline still 
 gave, and by the troublous times in which the whole of 
 Greece was involved. Observing the excellence of the 
 Carthaginian cavalry and the number of the Cartha- 
 ginian elephants, and hearing also the story of the 
 recent defeat, he remarked casually, as the story goes, to 
 his friends, that the Carthaginians had been conquered 
 not so much by the enemy as by themselves, or by the 
 blunders of their generals. The words were caught up 
 
Great Victory of Xanthippus. 6i 
 
 And ran from mouth to mouth in the eager and anxious 
 city. Before long they reached the ears of the govern- 
 ment, probably of the dreaded Hundred themselves. 
 The Hundred, seldom backward, if our accounts are 
 trustworthy, to listen to anything to the prejudice of the 
 instruments they employed, summoned Xanthippus before 
 them. He justified what he had said by argument, and 
 pledged his word that if only the Carthaginians would 
 keep to the plains and utilize that in which their real 
 strength lay, they would be victorious. It is little credit- 
 able to the insight either of the Carthaginian government 
 or the generals that they should have required a Greek 
 soldier of fortune to apprise them of the mistake they 
 had made ; but there seems to be no reason to doubt the 
 plain statement of Polybius. 
 
 The command, but not, as yet, the sole command, 
 was entrusted to Xanthippus. His confidence was 
 contagious, and there ran through the city 
 the joyful news that now the hour had come commlndS*^ 
 and the man. Confi.dence grew into enthu- 
 siasm when men saw the way in which Xanthippus 
 handled his troops, and contrasted it with the sorry 
 performances of the other generals. A cry was raised 
 for instant battle ; for all were convinced that no evil 
 could befall them under such a leader as Xanthippus. 
 A council of war was held, but the popular enthusiasm 
 carried everything before it; and the other generals, 
 pocketing their pride, or sharing, as it would seem, in 
 the general enthusiasm, handed over the undivided 
 responsibility to Xanthippus. 
 
 ' The Carthaginian army, reinforced by the addition of 
 the recruits from Greece, numbered 12,000 infantry, with 
 4,000 cavalry, and a formidable array of 100 elephants. 
 Regulus, surprised at the novel sight of a Carthaginian 
 
 F 
 
62 Rome and Carthage. 
 
 army encamping on the plains, hesitated a moment, as 
 though there was something more in this 
 ^ctofy^near change of tactics than met the eye, and 
 Adis. pitched his own camp at a distance of a mile 
 
 from them. But finding that the Carthaginians meant 
 to fight, and flushed with his hitherto unbroken success, 
 he drew up his army in order of battle. His small body 
 of cavalry he placed, as usual, on the wings ; but his in- 
 fantry he massed much more closely together and in 
 much deeper formations than was common among the 
 Romans, thinking that they could thus be better able to 
 resist the onset of the elephants. At last Xanthippus 
 ordered the elephants, to charge, while the cavalry were 
 to attack and then to close in on the wings of the enemy. 
 The Roman horse, outnumbered in the proportion of 
 four to one, took to flight without striking a blow, and 
 the elephants rushing wildly into the foremost ranks of 
 the Roman infantry, laid them low in every direction, 
 and trampled them to death by scores. The main body, 
 however, stood firm, and when the elephants turned 
 aside towards the flanks, it found itself face to face with 
 the Carthaginian centre, which had not yet drawn the 
 sword. Attacked in front by the infantry, on the flanks, 
 which the flight of their own cavalry had left unprotected, 
 by the Numidian cavalry and on the rear by the elephants, 
 themajority of the Roman legionaries stood their ground 
 nobly, as they did under similar circumstances at the 
 Trebia forty years later, and died where they were stand- 
 ing. A few took to flight ; but the flight of foot soldiers, 
 from Numidian cavalry over level ground only meant a 
 slight prolongation of the miserable struggle for life. 
 Regulus himself, at the head of six hundred men, sur- 
 rendered to the conquerors, and of the whole army 
 2,ocx> only, who had at the first onset defeated the mer- 
 
Thank offerings to Moloch. d^ 
 
 cenaries, and after pursuing them to their camp had 
 taken no other part in the battle, escaped to Clypea with 
 the news of the disaster. 
 
 Clypea was the only spot in the whole of the country 
 which the Romans had so easily overrun that they could 
 now call their own. The Carthaginians first 
 spoiled the slain, and then leading the Ro- ^ctory. °^ 
 man consul himself and the other survivors 
 in chains, returned in triumph to the capital. It was 
 the first pitched battle which they had fairly won ; but 
 that one battle had reversed the whole fortune of the 
 war. The Roman army had been all but annihilated, 
 and its miserable remnant was besieged upon the spot 
 where they had first landed. The inhabitants of the 
 country districts could now return to their homes and 
 rebuild their shattered homesteads ; and the richness of 
 the incomparable soil, with its abundant irrigation, 
 would soon efface all traces of the invaders. The citi- 
 zens themselves once again breathed freely, for they 
 were delivered from the prospect of an immediate siege, 
 the last horrors of which, in the shape of sickness and 
 starvation, they had already begun to taste. What 
 wonder, as Polybius says, if, in the exuberance of their 
 joy, all ranks alike gave themselves up to feasting and 
 thanksgivings to their gods ? 
 
 But what kind of thanksgiving did the Carthaginian 
 deities delight to receive and the Carthaginian worship- 
 per bring himself to give ? We know from 
 Diodorus that when Agathocles was threat- ing to 
 ening Carthage fifty years before, 200 chil- Moloch. 
 dren of the noblest Carthaginian families had been offer- 
 ed alive to appease the angry Moloch, and 300 men had 
 willingly devoted themselves for the same purpose, if 
 haply they so might save the city from the impending 
 
64 Rome and Carthage. 
 
 siege. Nor can we doubt that the greater agony through 
 which the Carthaginians had now passed, and the still 
 more unlooked-for triumph by which they had issued 
 from it, were marked by the same horrible offerings on a 
 more imposing scale, There stood the huge brazen god 
 with arms outstretched to receive his offerings, as though 
 a father to clasp his children to his breast. But the arms 
 sloped treacherously down towards the ground, and the 
 victim placed upon them rolled off into a seething caul- 
 dron of fire below, his cries drowned, as in the vale of 
 Hinnom, by the rolling of drums and the blare of trum- 
 pets. This was the end, no doubt, of some of the 
 noblest among the Roman captives. For Moloch was a 
 jealous god. No alien children, bought with money and 
 reared up for human sacrifice, would he accept. He 
 allowed no substitutes, nor would he take from his wor- 
 shipper that which cost him nothing or cost him money 
 only. An only child, a first-born child, a child remark- 
 able for its beauty, its wealth, or its noble birth, this was 
 the offering which touched the fire-god's heart ; and the 
 parents, who had sacrificed their own children to avert 
 the siege, would now, not unnaturally, come forward to 
 give the noblest among the Roman captives as thank- 
 offerings to the god who had heard their prayer and, as 
 they believed, delivered them from their distress. 
 
 The Romans, when they heard of the disaster which 
 had befallen Regulus, fitted out a large fleet for the res- 
 cue of the survivors (b. c. 255) ; while the 
 Efforts of Carthaginians, rightly judging that the res- 
 
 olution of Rome would not be broken by 
 any one calamity, however great, also set to'workto build 
 a new fleet which should protect them from a second in- 
 vasion. But in vain did they endeavour to reduce Clypea 
 before the Romans could reach it. The desperate cour- 
 
Destruction of Roman fleet. 65 
 
 age of the small garrison repelled all assaults, and en- 
 abled it to hold out till the ensuing summer, when the 
 Roman fleet arrived. A naval battle took place off the 
 Hermsean promontory. The Romans gained the day, 
 and took on board, at their leisure, the defenders of 
 Clypea who had so well earned their lives. 
 
 They had well earned their lives, but they were not 
 long to enjoy them; they turned their backs with joy 
 upon Africa, but they were not to see Italy. 
 The armament had reached Camarina in ofiioman 
 safety, and was about to round Pachynus, ^^*^" 
 and to sail home through the Straits of Messana, when a 
 terrific storm, such as is common in those parts and at 
 that time of the year, broke upon them. Some of the 
 Roman ships foundered in the open sea ; more were 
 dashed to pieces against the sharp rocks and numerous 
 promontories of that iron-bound coast, and the shore was 
 strewed for miles with wrecks and corpses. Out of 340 
 ships it was said that only eight escaped ; and what must 
 have given an additional sting to the calamity was the 
 consciousness that it might have been avoided. The 
 pilots, probably the only persons on board who had had 
 real experience of the sea, or who knew what ugly 
 weather was, had warned the admirals of the dangerous 
 storms to which the south of Sicily was exposed after the 
 rising of the tempestuous Orion. Along the northern 
 shore they would be in calm water. But the maritime 
 experience acquired in five years wherein nothing had 
 gone wrong with them had taught the Romans, as they 
 fondly thought, that there was nothing in the terrors of 
 the sea with which Roman courage could not cope ; and 
 the admirals were deaf to the voice of the weather-wise 
 pilots, who shook their heads at dangers which could 
 neither be seen nor handled. Moreover, they wished to 
 
66 Rome and Carthage. 
 
 make the most of their recent victory, and by its prestige 
 to bring over to themselves a few small towns on the 
 south coast of Sicily which still wavered in their alle- 
 giance. The prize was small, as Polybius significantly 
 remarks, and the stake large ; but they staked, and lost 
 it. 
 
 Elated as they were by the rapid departure of the Ro- 
 man fleet from Africa, the spirit of the Carthaginians 
 must have risen higher still when they heard 
 Fresh efforts Qf j|-g suddcn and complete destruction. 
 
 on both sides. ^ 
 
 Like Athens or like Venice, Carthage might 
 well call herself by the proud title of" Bride of the Sea," 
 and her citizens, like the Vikings of after times, might 
 well boast that they were " friends of the sea and ene- 
 mies of all that sailed upon it." The war might now be 
 once more transferred to Sicily, and thither Hannibal 
 was sent with all the available land forces, with 140 ele- 
 phants, and with a fleet which was to co-operate with 
 the army. He made straight for Lilybaeum, and taking 
 the field, prepared to ravage the open country. With 
 unconquerable resolution, however, the Romans deter- 
 mined to fit out a new fleet to replace the one that had 
 been destroyed ; and the miracle of speed which we 
 have noticed before is said to have been repeated again. 
 Within three months 220 vessels were built from the 
 keel, and were ready for action. 
 
 The two consuls, A, Atilius and Cn. Cornelius Scipio 
 Asina, who had been released from his captivity, pick- 
 ing up on their way the few vessels which 
 ParK>rmus^^* had escaped to Messana from the general 
 wreck, made for Panormus (b. c. 254), and 
 in the hour of their humiliation hazarded an attack upon 
 its strong fortifications, which they had shrunk from 
 even after their victory at Mylae ; and, what is more 
 
Destruction of second Roman fleet. 6 7 
 
 surprising, they took it with ease. A tower which com- 
 manded the fortifications towards the sea was first de- 
 stroyed. This disaster put the new city into the hands 
 of the Romans, and the old at once surrendered. 
 Never was a war more fertile in vicissitudes and sur- 
 prises than had been the first nine years of this. Here 
 were the Romans stronger and more energetic after a 
 defeat than after a victory ; taking by a sudden on- 
 slaught an almost virgin fortress, which had never yet 
 been taken but by Pyrrhus ; baffling all the calculations 
 of a not inexperienced foe, and then sailing back to 
 Rome as though nothing extraordinary had happened, 
 leaving only a small garrison in what had been the Car- 
 thaginian capital of the island, the head-quarters of its 
 armies and its fleets. 
 
 In the following year (b. c. 253), the Romans tempted 
 fortune again by reconnoitring the African coast. They 
 landed here and there, and ravaged the 
 surrounding country, but with no result of second 
 proportionate to the danger they ran ; and ^°"^^" A^^*- 
 they ended, owing to their want of maritime experience, 
 by falling into the Syrtis, whose name expresses the 
 power with which an unlucky vessel coming within its 
 reach is sucked into its deadly embraces. The vessels 
 ran aground, and were rescued only by a sudden rise of 
 the sea, which the crews helped by throwing overboard 
 their valuables. The moment they were extricated from 
 their danger, like animals that have been in the toils, 
 they made their way back to Panormus, only too thank- 
 ful if they could escape the pursuit of the enemy. But 
 the worst was still to come. In crossing from Panormus 
 to Italy they were overtaken, off the promontory of 
 Palinurus, by another storm, which, as it must have 
 seemed, could not now let even the seas to the north of 
 
68 Rome and Carthage. 
 
 Sicily alone if Romans were to be found in it. Never 
 since the tempest had raged day after day on the south- 
 ern coast of Magnesia, and strewn the coasts of Thes- 
 saly and Euboea with the wrecks of the vast Persian 
 fleet, had the god of the sea shown himself so decided 
 a partizan in a naval contest, or demanded so costly a 
 series of sacrifices. The Roman spirit at length began 
 to show some symptoms of giving way. At all events 
 the Senate determined not again at present to tempt the 
 sea, but to depend upon their land forces ; and for the 
 next two years the war was carried on under conditions 
 not very dissimilar to those under which it had been 
 begun. 
 
 The Carthaginians were now once more able to carry 
 the war into Sicily, and the large army which they sent 
 ^ , under Hasdrubal to Lilybseuln had that 
 
 Carthaginians . , , , . , 
 
 threaten withm it which sccmcd able, for the time at 
 
 anormus, \q2jsX, to demoralize, nay, even to paralyze, 
 their foes. The havoc wrought by the elephants amongst 
 the troops of Regulus in the battle near Carthage had 
 been duly reported to the Roman armies in Sicily, and 
 it had lost nothing in the transmission. To be knocked 
 down, and then trampled to pieces by a furious beast 
 against which neither fraud nor force could avail aught, 
 would be terrible enough to any well-regulated mind ; 
 but the fear which it seems to have inspired completely 
 unnerved the Romans. It was not death itself — for that 
 they would have faced gladly in a hundred fair battle- 
 fields or forlorn hopes ; it was the instrument and the 
 manner of death that they feared. They refused to face 
 the elephants, much as the bravest troops now-a-days 
 might refuse to measure their collective strength against 
 the brute power of a steam-engine, or as men armed 
 with muzzle-loaders might demur, however great their 
 
Battle of Panormus. 69 
 
 valour, to stand up against the cold and cruel mechan- 
 ism of a mitrailleuse. Once again did the two armies 
 face one another at a few furlongs distance, in the terri- 
 tory of Selinus, and once again did they part company 
 without coming to blows. It takes two to make a quar- 
 rel, and the Romans clung steadfastly to the hills where 
 their experience in Africa had taught them that the one 
 hundred and forty elephants would be useless, and 
 where the Carthaginians therefore could not attack them 
 with any hope of success. There were symptoms, too, 
 of serious disaffection and discontent among the Roman 
 officers, and once again it was clear to the Roman Sen- 
 ate that the sea itself would be less terrible than such an 
 indefinite and purposeless prolongation of the war. 
 They accordingly reconsidered their resolution, and 
 began to build a third fleet. 
 
 Hasdrubal meanwhile, encouraged by what he thought 
 the cowardice of the Romans, issued from Selinus, and 
 proceeded to carry off the rich harvests, just 
 then ripe, from under the eyes of the Roman Battle of 
 army at Panormus. Ca;ciHus Metellus was 
 in command there, a man of prudence and self-restraint, 
 but able to strike a vigorous blow when there was occa- 
 sion for it. When Hasdrubal and his elephants had 
 crossed the river near the city — a step for which he had 
 been anxiously waiting — he sent forth his light troops in 
 such numbers as to induce the Carthaginians to draw 
 up in line of battle. In front of the city wall ran a broad 
 and deep ditch, within which the light troops were warned 
 to take shelter, if, after they had provoked an attack 
 from Hasdrubal, they should find themselves hard 
 pressed. Here they would find fresh weapons awaiting 
 them, thrown down by the townsmen from the walls 
 above, and, safe under their protection, would be able 
 
70 Rome and Carthage, 
 
 to shower missiles upon the advancing elephants. The 
 order of Metellus was carried out to the letter, and the 
 result answered his expectations. The elephant-drivers 
 — Indians, Polybius here and elsewhere calls them — 
 eager to assert their independence of Hasdrubal, or to 
 win special credit for themselves, advanced to close 
 quarters before the word of command was given. The 
 light troops gave way, and, leaping down into the ditch, 
 received the unwieldy monsters, w*hich came blundering 
 on to its very edge, with showers of darts and burning 
 arrows. Unable to vent their rage on their assailants in 
 the ditch, the elephants rushed wildly back on the Car- 
 thaginian army, and wrought amongst them the havoc 
 which the Romans had feared for themselves. Now 
 was the moment for Metellus. Unobserved by the ene- 
 my, he had massed the main body of his army close 
 behind the gate of the town. He sallied out in force, 
 charged the enemy, who were already in confusion, on 
 the flank, and, routing them completely, drove them 
 headlong back towards Selinus. It was the greatest 
 pitched battle of the war, and restored confidence to the 
 Romans at the time when they needed it most sorely. 
 
 But we must dwell a moment on the fate of the ele- 
 phants who had played so important a part in the battle 
 itself, and whose terrors exercised so critical 
 Fate of the j^^d SO characteristic an influence on this part 
 
 elephants. . _ . ,,_ _, . , , 
 
 of the Fn-st Punic War. Ten of the ele- 
 phants had been taken prisoners during the battle, with 
 their drivers. The drivers of the remainder had been 
 either thrown to the ground by the elephants themselves 
 or killed by the weapons of the Romans, and the crea- 
 tures were still, after the battle, rushing wildly about, no 
 Roman daring to lay hands upon them. The promise 
 of their lives to the captured drivers induced some 
 
Story of Regulus. 71 
 
 among them to exercise their moral control when physi- 
 cal force was out of the question, and in time the panic- 
 stricken monsters, 120 in number, were reduced to order. 
 It was determined to send them to Rome to grace the 
 well-deserved triumph of Metellus ; but it was no easy 
 matter to convey them across the stormy Straits of Mes- 
 sana. Huge rafts were lashed together, earth and herb- 
 age were scattered over the planks, and high bulwarks 
 carried round the whole ; and the animals allowed them- 
 selves to be ferried quietly across the straits under a total 
 misconception as to the operation which they were under- 
 going. They marched in stately procession up the Sacred 
 Way and were drawn thence, like so many captured kings 
 or generals before and after them, to the place of execu- 
 tion, the Roman Circus. There, after being baited with 
 " arms of courtesy," to famiharize the people and the 
 soldiers that were to be, with their formidable appear- 
 ance, they received the coup de grace with amies a out- 
 rance ; and the fatal appetite for blood which was then 
 just beginning to show itself among the Roman popu- 
 lace must have been sated to the full by so gigantic 
 and horrible a sacrifice. The noble family of the Me- 
 telli always cherished, as well they might, the memory 
 of the great battle of Panormus among their most pre- 
 cious heirlooms, and coins of theirs are still extant re- 
 presenting the formidable beast which their ancestor 
 had, by his victory at this critical point of the war, robbed 
 of half its terrors. 
 
 It was, probably, about this time that an embassy ap- 
 peared at Rome from Carthage to negotiate, if possible, 
 a peace, but anyhow an exchange of pri- ^ 
 soners. It was accompanied by Regulus, embassy of 
 who had been languishing for five years in ^^" "^' 
 a Carthaginian prison, and who came upon his parole to 
 
72 Rome and Carthage. 
 
 return to Carthage if his mission should prove unsuc- 
 cessful. Everyone knows the beautiful touches with 
 which the story of what follows has been filled in by the 
 genius of Horace and of other late poets and orators ; 
 how Regulus refused to enter the city as a citizen, or the 
 Senate house as a senator, since he had lost his right to 
 both on the day when he became a captive ; how, when 
 at length he brought himself to speak before the Senate, 
 he spoke in terms such as no Roman had ever heard 
 before. " Let those who had surrendered when they 
 ought to have died, die in the land which had witnessed 
 their disgrace ; let not the Senate establish a precedent 
 fraught with disaster to ages yet unborn, or buy with 
 their gold what ought only to be won back by arms. 
 He was old, and in the short time of life that still re- 
 mained to him could do no good service to his country, 
 while the generals who would be exchanged for him 
 were still hale and vigorous ; " how, when he saw the 
 Senate still wavering between pity for him and their 
 sense of duty to their country, he nailed them to their 
 purpose by telling them he had taken a slow poison 
 which was even then coursing through his veins ; and 
 how, last of all, he strode off, with his eyes indeed fixed 
 upon the ground, lest he should look upon his sorrowing 
 wife and children, but with a step as light and a heart as 
 free as though he were going for a holiday to his country 
 estate. It is an ideal picture of a brave man bearing up 
 under a great misfortune, and striving, as best he could, 
 to wipe out disgrace ; and as an ideal picture we are con- 
 tent to let it pass. 
 
 But it is otherwise with the sequel to the 
 Story of his story, with that which not only idealizes the 
 Roman character, but sets it off by blacken- 
 ing that of its rivals, as if it was the Carthaginians who 
 
Story of Regulus. 73 
 
 enjoyed a monopoly of cruelty, and as if the Romans 
 themselves had always behaved with ordinary humanity 
 to a conquered foe, a foe like C. Pontius for instance, far 
 more generous and high-spirited than Regulus himself. 
 This we are bound to scrutinize carefully and to mete out 
 stern justice to those who seem to deserve it. We could 
 hardly wonder if, under the circumstances, Regulus had 
 been put to death as soon as he was taken prisoner by a 
 nation which must have been stung to the quick by his 
 insolent bearing in the hour of his success, and which 
 showed so little mercy to its own defeated generals ; but 
 it is so far from being true that Regulus was put to death 
 with horrible tortures by the Carthaginians that there is 
 reason to believe that he died a natural death, and that 
 the story of the tortures was invented to cover those 
 which had been really inflicted on two noble Carthagin- 
 ian prisoners by a Roman matron. No writer before the 
 time of Cato knows anything of the cruel death of Regu- 
 lus, and when once the legend had been set going, we 
 find that there are almost as many different versions as 
 there are authors who refer to it. Moreover, the silence 
 of Polybius, the most trustworthy of historians, who re- 
 lates the exploits of Regulus in detail, and whose chief 
 fault it is that he is too didactic — seldom adorning a tale, 
 but always ready to point a moral — is in itself sufficient 
 to outweigh the vague rhetoric and the impassioned 
 poetry of the late Republic. 
 
 On the other hand, as has been already hinted, we 
 have the authority of a fragment of Diodorus Siculus for 
 a story, which, when we remember his anti- 
 Carthaginian bias, we can scarcely suppose Examination 
 that he invented, of the shocking cruelties 
 inflicted on Bostar and Hamilcar, two Carthaginians 
 given over by the Roman Senate to the wife of Regulus, 
 
74 Rome and Carthage. 
 
 as hostages for the safety of her husband. Regulus died 
 — so clearly implies Diodorus — a natural death ; but 
 his widow thinking, in her vexation, that there had been 
 neglect or cruelty on the part of the Carthaginians, 
 ordered her sons to fasten the two captives into a cask 
 of the smallest possible dimensions, and kept them there 
 five days and nights without food or water, till Bostar, 
 happily for himself, died of the torture and the starva- 
 tion. In that same cask she kept the living and the dead 
 for five more days, by a cruel kindness supplying Ham- 
 ilcar with just so much food as might serve to keep life 
 in him and enable him to realize the horrors of the situ- 
 ation. At last the advanced putrefaction of the body 
 roused the pity of even the servants of the Atilii. They 
 brought the matter before the tribunes of the people, 
 and Hamilcar came forth from his living death and was 
 protected from further violence by the more merciful 
 people. To palliate the story of the foul cruelty of the 
 widow of Regulus, for which the Romans at large were 
 certainly not responsible, was invented, as seems likely, 
 the story of the cruel death of Regulus himself. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 HAMILCAR BARCA AND THE SIEGE OF LILYB^EUM. 
 (B.C. 250-241.) 
 
 The victory which the Romans had won before Panor- 
 mus nerved them to make a strenuous effort for the 
 expulsion of their enemies from Sicily. The 
 ginViJTVor- Carthaginians were now hemmed up in the 
 tresses in north-western corner of the island ; and of 
 
 Sicily. 
 
 all their former possessions, the three for- 
 
Siege of Lilybceum. 75 
 
 tresses of Lilybgeum, Eryx, and Drepanum alone re- 
 mained to them. If the first of these could by any 
 means be taken, the other two would not offer any pro- 
 longed resistance. The war might then, once again, be 
 transferred to Africa, and the Romans, whose proud 
 boast it was that they first learned from their enemies 
 and then surpassed them, would be able to prove to the 
 Carthaginians that this war was no exception to the rule. 
 Fourteen years had passed since the war had broken 
 out, and both sides were fully alive to the vital impor- 
 tance of the crisis at which it had arrived. 
 
 With the siege of Lilybgeum, B. c. 250, opens the last 
 scene of the First Punic War. It is the last scene, but a 
 long and tedious one. The siege is one of 
 the longest known in history. Strictly his- LU^b^um 
 torical as it is, it equals in length the mythi- 
 cal siege of Troy, and the semi-mythical siege of Veii. 
 The Romans distinguished themselves in it by their he- 
 roic perseverance, and by little else ; but it was that kind 
 of heroic perseverance which lay at the root of most of 
 what they achieved, and is not, after all, so far removed 
 from genius. The Carthaginian defence was marked by 
 all the versatility and inventiveness, the prudence and 
 the daring which characterize the Phoenician race ; 
 above all it was marked by the appearance on the scene 
 of at least one real military genius, the great Hamilcar 
 Barca. 
 
 Lilybgeum was built upon the promontory which 
 formed the extreme western point of Sicily. It was the 
 point nearest to Africa and directly fronted 
 
 •I TT . T. .1 Its position 
 
 the Hermaean promontory. It was there- and impor- 
 fore, so long as it remained in the hands of tance. 
 the Carthaginians, the most important support to their 
 power in Sicily. It would be a standing menace even to 
 
y6 Rome and Carthage. 
 
 their home rule in Africa as soon as it should pass into 
 the hands of their enemies. It possessed a fine harbour, 
 to the capabilities of which the name given to it by the 
 Arabs in mediaeval times of Marsa Allah, or the Har- 
 bour of God, still bears witness (Marsala). But the en- 
 trance to it was rendered difficult by the constant winds 
 that blew off the headland, and by the treacherous sand- 
 banks and sunken reefs which lay off the shores ; and 
 these, if they were dangerous to the inhabitants who knew 
 them well, would be doubly dangerous to an enemy who 
 did not. Pyrrhus, a few years before, had overrun all 
 the rest of Sicily with ease ; but the impetuosity of his 
 assault had been beaten back by the sohd walls of Lily- 
 bseum. Would the Romans succeed where Pyrrhus had 
 tailed ? They saw that a place so situated and so defend- 
 ed could only be attacked with any hope of success by a 
 strong army and a strong fleet at once, and they supplied 
 them ungrudgingly. 
 
 Two consular armies, consisting of five legions and 
 
 two hundred vessels, appeared before the place. The 
 
 first attack was directed against the wall 
 
 Opening of which strctchcd from sea to sea right across 
 
 siege. . . 
 
 the peninsula on which the city was built, 
 and the immediate success obtained by the Romans w^as 
 such as appeared to promise an early termination of the 
 siege. By regular approaches the Romans worked their 
 way up to the city wall, undermined some of its towers, 
 and when these had fallen, brought up their battering- 
 rams to threaten the whole line of defence. But Hi- 
 milco, the commander of the garrison, was a man of 
 energy and of fertility of resource. By building a sec- 
 ond wall behind the first, he made the weakening of the 
 first to be of small importance. He met the mining 
 operations of the enemy by countermines, and he 
 
Efforts to relieve Lilybceum. 77 
 
 quelled, by his address and personal influence over the 
 better disposed of the mercenaries, a formidable con- 
 spiracy which had broken out among them to betray the 
 town to the Romans. 
 
 Meanwhile the Carthaginians, knowing the weakness 
 of their naval force off Lilybaeum, and fully conscious 
 that the place could not hold out unless re- 
 lieved from home, made vigorous eftbrts to Efforts to 
 
 ° . relieve it. 
 
 throw succour into it. Hannibal, son of 
 Hamilcar, was despatched with all haste to Sicily, with 
 fifty ships and 10,000 troops. He moored his fleet 
 among the ^gatian Isles opposite to Lilybaeum, waiting 
 for the moment when he should be able to face, with 
 some slight chance of success, the double dangers of 
 the Roman squadron, and the rocks and reefs that girt 
 in the harbour. A favouring, although a violent, wind 
 sprang up. He spread every inch of his canvas, and 
 massing his troops on deck to be ready for an engage- 
 ment, with that happy rashness which is the truest pru- 
 dence, he made his way in safety through the narrow 
 entrance, while the Roman guardships remained at 
 anchor close by, the sailors stupidly looking on, aghast 
 at his rashness, and expecting to see him dashed to 
 pieces upon the rocks. The sea walls of the city were 
 thronged with the eager inhabitants, hoping, as it 
 seemed, against hope, that some few of the ships might, 
 by a lucky chance, pass safely through ; and amid their 
 loud cheers Hannibal rode into the harbour under full 
 sail, without losing a single vessel, and deposited in 
 safety his 10,000 troops and his stores of provisions. 
 
 His example was contagious. A Rhodian mercenary, 
 of the same name, volunteered with a single vessel to 
 do as he had done. Again and again he ran the block- 
 ade, and found his way out in safety, as though he bore 
 
78 Rome and Carthage. 
 
 a charmed life, through the midst of the Roman ves- 
 sels which were drawn up at the entrance 
 Hannibal the Qf ^h^ harbour for the very purpose of 
 
 Rhodian. 
 
 preventing his escape. Doubtless he held 
 the clue to the dangerous navigation of the straits, which, 
 now that the buoys were removed, no enemy could dis- 
 cover. Each venturesome visit breathed fresh courage 
 into the garrison, and spread fresh despondency in the 
 blockading fleet, while it enabled the Rhodian to com- 
 municate to the Carthaginian government the wants and 
 wishes of their beleaguered subjects. The Romans tried 
 to block up the entrance to the harbour by sinking ships 
 fil ed with stones in its narrowest part ; but the depth of 
 the sea and the violence of the current, helped by op- 
 portune tempests, carried them away and opened the 
 passage again. It seemed that the sea was never going 
 to desert its favourites, when, in an unlucky moment, a 
 Carthaginian quadrireme ran ashore upon a part of the 
 mole which the Romans had just sunk, and fell into 
 their hands. They immediately manned it with their 
 own men, and lay in wait for the return of the Rhodian. 
 He had run the blockade once too often ; and in trying 
 to force his way out he was followed by a vessel whose 
 speed and build convinced him that she must be of 
 Carthaginian workmanship, though the rowers who 
 propelled her were clearly Romans. Finding that he 
 could not escape by flight, he turned boldly round and 
 charged the enemy. But a trireme had no chance 
 against a quadrireme. It was taken prisoner, and the 
 adventurous Rhodian's vessel henceforward formed part 
 of the blockading squadron of the very fortress which 
 it had done so much to relieve. 
 
 The condition of the Roman army was not an enviable 
 one. A plague had broken out in their camp, occasioned 
 
Character of Claudius, 79 
 
 partly by the unhealthy climate, partly by the want of 
 bread — a want which all the efforts of their Arrival and 
 zealous ally, Hiero of Syracuse, could character of 
 
 ■' Claudius. 
 
 not meet. The Romans were ordinarily 
 vegetarians, and the abundant supply of meat which they 
 had till very recently received from the Sicilian flocks and 
 herds had not mended matters. And now to complete 
 the tale of their misfortunes, P. Claudius was sent out to 
 take the command (b. c. 249), a man who proved to be 
 as incompetent as he was arrogant, and who mistook, if 
 our accounts do not do him injustice, severity for disci- 
 pline, violence for strength, and childish weakness for 
 manly courage. Despising alike the consuls who had 
 preceded him and the officers who served under him, 
 he first renewed the attempt to block up the mouth of 
 the harbour, as though a Claudius must succeed where 
 others had failed ; and when the waves showed that they 
 had no more respect for patrician than for plebeian blood, 
 he determined, as though the siege of Lilybseum was 
 not enough to occupy his energies, to attack Drepanum, 
 fifteen miles away, in hopes of taking Adherbal and his 
 fleet there by surprise ! His generals remonstrated, and 
 the sacred chickens — so the augurs reported — refused to 
 eat. *' If they will not eat, they shall drink," said he, 
 and ordered them to be flung into the sea. It is possible 
 that this story may have been invented to account for 
 the calamity that followed ; but the words attributed to 
 Publius have a genuine Claudian ring about them. 
 " Neither gods nor men should stay a Claudius from 
 his purpose !" The generals were browbeaten into 
 compliance. Ten thousand troops had just arrived 
 from Rome. Claudius put the best of them on board 
 his vessels to serve as marines, and there was no lack 
 of volunteers for the enterprise, not probably because 
 
8o Rome and Carthage. 
 
 they trusted the abilities of the consul, but because any- 
 thing seemed better than a blockade which was no 
 blockade at all. 
 
 The fleet set out at midnight, and by daybreak its 
 
 foremost ship had reached the entrance of the harbour 
 
 of Drepanum. The surprise was complete. 
 
 Battle of Adherbal, knowing how hard pressed the 
 
 Drepanum. " 
 
 Romans were at Lilybaeum, ignorant that 
 they had been reinforced, and ignorant also of the 
 character of the new consul, had never dreamed that 
 they would molest him at Drepanum. He who would 
 attempt it must be either a fool or a mihtary genius, and 
 Rome, in this war at all events, had not been fertile of 
 either. A respectable mediocrity had hitherto been the 
 order of the day alike among the Romans and the 
 Carthaginians. But Adherbal was not disconcerted. 
 Determined not to be besieged, like Himilco at Lily- 
 baeum, he set his rowers to their work, and summoning 
 by the sound of the trumpet the mercenaries from the 
 city to the beach, he addressed them in a few stirring 
 words, and then, distributing them over his ships, he led 
 the way in his own ship out of one side of the sickle- 
 shaped harbour of Drepanum, while Claudius was still 
 hovering near the entrance of the other. Surprised at 
 this, and fearing in his turn to be enclosed between a 
 hostile navy and a hostile town, Claudius turned round, 
 hoping to make his way out of the harbour by the way 
 he had entered it. But the signal could not. reach the 
 whole of the long column round the headland at once, 
 and it was with difficulty that the consul got all his ships 
 out of the trap into which he had drawn them, and 
 arranged them in line of battle close along the coast, 
 their prows pointing towards the fleet of Adherbal, which 
 was already in line, and ready, with superior forces, to 
 
Battle of Drepanum. 8i 
 
 bear down upon them. In the battle which ensued we 
 hear nothing of the Ravens of Duillius. When the ships 
 did close with one another there was hard and free 
 fighting, for the decks carried the pick of either army ; 
 but in every other respect — the build, the number, and 
 the speed of their ships, the experience of their rowers, 
 and the space for manoeuvring — the advantage was 
 with the Carthaginians. The Roman ships, when hard 
 pressed, could not retire behind the line, for there was 
 no room left between it and the shore ; and for the same 
 reason they could not give help to one another in their 
 distress. The consul, as he was the first to get into the 
 mess, was also the first to get out of it. He took to 
 flight, and his example was followed by the thirty ships 
 nearest to him. It was well, perhaps, that he did so ; 
 for the whole of the remainder, ninety-three in number, 
 fell into the hands of the Carthaginians, who, it is said, 
 did not lose a single vessel. 
 
 Whether Publius cared aught for the lives he had 
 thus thrown away we are not told ; but probably his 
 sister, some years afterwards, expressed pretty accurately 
 the family feeling for the loss of the mere rabble of the 
 fleet. She was taking part as a Vestal Virgin in a pro- 
 cession, and when the crowd pressed upon her more 
 closely than she liked, she was heard to exclaim that she 
 wished her brother were alive to get rid of some more 
 of them at sea. Loud must have been the curses of 
 the Roman army at Lilybseum when the consul brought 
 back the news of his own defeat and flight ; and deep, 
 certainly, was the resentment of the Roman Senate at 
 his reckless incapacity. He was recalled ; and, being 
 ordered to nominate a Dictator in his stead, he named, 
 with true Claudian effrontery, a freedman of his family, 
 M. Claudius Glycia ; but he was shortly after put on 
 
82 Rome and Carthage. 
 
 his trial, and met with the punishment which he de* 
 served. 
 
 The blockade of Lilybaeum, such as it was, was for 
 the time practically at an end, and the Romans were 
 more anxious to keep the troops who were 
 of third already there from starving than to supple- 
 
 Roman fleet. nient their number or to make the blockade 
 effective. A fleet of 800 merchant vessels, laden with 
 supplies of every kind, and convoyed by 120 ships of war, 
 was despatched from Rome, and reached Syracuse in 
 safety. Anxious to take on board the provisions offered 
 him by the ever-zealous Hiero, the consul, L. Junius 
 Pullus, lingered awhile at Syracuse with half his fleet, 
 while he sent forward the other half towards its destina- 
 tion. But the Carthaginians were on the look-out for 
 them. Adherbal, admiral at Drepanum, was determined 
 to push his victory to the utmost. After sending as tro- 
 phies to Carthage the ships which he had taken, he 
 despatched his vice-admiral Carthalo first to Lilybaeum, 
 to attack the remainder of the Roman fleet which had 
 taken refuge there, and thence to Heraclea, to await the 
 arrival of the provision ships. The advanced portion of 
 the Roman convoy, hearing of the approach of Carthalo, 
 and unable to offer battle or to take to flight, ran into the 
 nearest roadstead on that inhospitable coast, and pro- 
 tected themselves, as best they could, by the military 
 engines planted on the cliffs above. Carthalo, not caring 
 to run unnecessary risk, and sure now of his game, kept 
 watch at the mouth of a river hard by till they should be 
 obliged to move. Meanwhile the other portion of the 
 Roman fleet had left Syracuse, had rounded Pachynus, 
 and was sailing quietly along the coast in ignorance of 
 the close proximity of their own and of the enemies' ships. 
 To prevent the junction of the two fleets Carthalo ad- 
 
Mount Eryx. 83 
 
 vanced to meet them, and they too, knowing their weak- 
 ness, made for the nearest shore, a spot which, unfortu- 
 nately for them, had neither harbour nor roadstead, and 
 was exposed to every wind that blew. Carthalo, sure of 
 his game, now lay-to in the offing, half way between 
 them, pinning with his small fleet the two much larger 
 ones to the shore ; but the weather-wise Carthaginian 
 pilots saw the signs of a coming storm, and warned the 
 admiral, while there was yet time, to make for shelter. 
 He sailed round Pachynus eastward and was in calm 
 water, leaving the storm to take care of the Romans ; and 
 the storm did take care of them. Some of the crews, in- 
 deed, escaped to land, but the 800 ships were broken into 
 fragments, " not a plank of them remaining," says Poly- 
 bius, " which could be used again," and for miles along 
 the coast the hungry foam was discoloured by the corn in- 
 tended for the famishing Roman army before Lilybaeum. 
 When this sad news reached Rome — the destruction 
 of a third fleet by the waves and the undisputed mastery 
 of the sea won back by the Carthaginians 
 in the fifteenth year of the war (b.c. 249) — Mount 
 there were symptoms of despondency even 
 in the Roman Senate ; but the consul Junius was among 
 tho-se who had escaped from the wreck, and he made his 
 way to Lilybaeum, burning by some signal achievement 
 to wipe out the blame which he felt might be thrown 
 upon him. Nor was he disappointed. A few miles to 
 the north of Drepanum, between it and Panormus, and 
 standing back a little from the coast, rises a mountain 
 then called Eryx, and now known by the name of St. 
 Giuliano. It stands by itself and, rising to a height of 
 some 2,000 feet in solitary grandeur, is so imposing an 
 object that ancient geographers and historians mention 
 it in the same breath as ^tna, which is really four times 
 
84 Roine and Carthage. 
 
 its height. Right on its summit stood a temple of im- 
 memorial antiquity, dedicated to Venus, and celebrated 
 for the wealth which it had amassed and had managed 
 to retain amidst the vicissitudes of all the conflicts that 
 had raged around it. It had been taken and retaken 
 many times in the long contest between Dionysius 
 of Syracuse and Carthage, and more recently it had 
 fallen before the assault of Pyrrhus ; but, revered alike 
 by Sicilians and Phoenicians, by Greeks and Romans, 
 it had escaped plunder even at the hands of the adven- 
 turous prince who did not spare the wealthy sanctuary 
 of Proserpine at Locri. Half-way up the m.ountain was 
 a city which was not so proof against all the storms that 
 blew as was the temple on its top, for it had been par- 
 tially destroyed by the Carthaginians in this war, and its 
 inhabitants transferred to Drepanum ; but heaps of its 
 buildings must have still remained, and it was evidently 
 still an important position for defence. Of this natural 
 stronghold — mountain, fallen city and temple, one of 
 the only three strongholds that still remained to the Car- 
 thaginians in Sicily, the consul Junius managed to get 
 possession by a sudden attack, and held it firmly against 
 any similar surprise from the enemy in the closely ad- 
 joining Drepanum. 
 
 Such was the general condition of affairs (b. c. 247) 
 when the great Hamilcar, " the man whom Melcarth 
 protects," appeared upon the scene. Hamil- 
 Hamilcar q^j- Barca was the head of the great family 
 
 named after him the Barcine — the word 
 Barca is the same as the Hebrew Barak — and well did 
 Hamilcar justify the name which succeeding ages have 
 always coupled with his and his alone of his family, by 
 the " lightning'' rapidity with which, in this the sixteenth 
 year of the war, he would now sweep the Italian coast 
 
Mount Ercte. 85 
 
 with his privateers, now swoop down and carry off a 
 Roman outpost, and anon would seize a stronghold, 
 which the terror of his name alone rendered impregna- 
 ble, under the very eyes of an opposing army. Equally 
 great as an admiral and a general, after ravaging the 
 Roman coasts from Locri to Cumaj, he landed suddenly 
 in the neighborhood of Panormus and seized the com- 
 manding elevation called Ercte (now Monte Pellegrino). 
 This hill, like Eryx, rises to a height of about 2,000 feet, 
 but, unlike it, on two of its sides rises sheer from the sea ; 
 a third side rises equally perpendicular from the plain, 
 while on the fourth alone, which directly faces Panormus, 
 at the distance of a mile and a half, is the plateau at all 
 accessible. This stronghold Hamilcar seized, and this 
 he held for three years in sight of the Roman garrison at 
 Panormus, and in the near view of a fortified camp 
 placed almost at its base, in spite of all the efforts of the 
 Romans to dislodge him, and, when he left it, he left it 
 only of his own free will to occupy a similar, though a 
 less advantageous, position elsewhere. 
 
 The place was admirably adapted for his purpose. 
 At its base was a little cove into which his light ships 
 might run laden with the spoils of Italian 
 or Sicilian towns, accessible from the high Ercte. 
 
 ground occupied by his troops, but not ac- 
 cessible from any place on shore. There was an abun- 
 dant spring of water on the very summit, and above the 
 precipitous cliffs that underpinned the mountain was a 
 broad plateau which in that dehcious climate Hamil- 
 car found that, even at such an elevation, he could cul- 
 tivate with success. A rounded top which crowned the 
 whole as a post of observation commanding the country 
 round, and, in case of need, would serve as an acropolis 
 where no one of the defenders need die unavenged. 
 
86 Rome and Carthage. 
 
 But neither the success of the consul Junius at Eryx, 
 
 nor the presence of a master spirit among the enemies — 
 
 which the Romans could not fail to see — 
 
 Exhaustion could now rouse the Senate to take the 
 
 of Romans. 
 
 active measures which the times required. 
 The drain upon the resources of the State had been too 
 enormous. The muster-roll of the citizens had fallen in 
 the last five years from 297,000 to 251,000 — a sixth part 
 of the whole. The As, the unit of value among the 
 Romans, which had originally weighed twelve ounces of 
 copper, had now fallen, as Pliny tells us, to two ounces, 
 to one-sixth, that is, of its former value. The State was 
 bankrupt, and the Senate could neither make up their 
 minds to withdraw altogether from the war, nor yet to 
 prosecute it with the necessary vigour. They still made 
 believe to continue the blockade of Lilybaeum ; but the 
 seas were open to the Carthaginians, and every one 
 knew that as long as the seas were open to them they 
 might laugh at all the efforts of the Roman armies. 
 
 Nor were the Carthaginians on their part more self- 
 sacrificing or more far-sighted. Finding that the Ro- 
 mans had retired from the sea they cut 
 Caftha- down their navy by a wretched economy 
 
 ginians. ^^ ^^ narrowest possible dimensions, and 
 
 were quite content if only they could supply with food 
 their heroic garrisons at Lilybaeum and at Drepanum, 
 not to make an effort to reconquer any of the places 
 which had so recently belonged to them. Having light- 
 ed at last upon an able general, they would not, indeed, 
 interfere with his making the best use he could of the 
 small band of mercenaries whom they had given him at 
 so much a head, and, so far as they were concerned, he 
 might utilize his few ships to collect supplies; but not to 
 them must he look henceforward for more ships or men. 
 
Greatness of Hamilcar. 87 
 
 The war, or his part of the war at all events, must hence- 
 forward support itself. If Hamilcar, they argued, was 
 successful in his venturous enterprises, so much the bet- 
 ter for them ; if unsuccessful, he and not they lost. 
 
 Hence the five or six long and listless years of war 
 which followed the appointment of Hamilcar ; discred- 
 itable enough to the governments of the 
 contending states, but redounding to the HTmiJS? °^ 
 honour of that one heroic soul who, learning 
 from the past the lesson which no Carthaginian general 
 had yet been able to learn, applied it to the exigencies 
 of the moment with a patience, a perseverance, and an 
 energy which seemed more than human ; and conscious 
 all the time, as it would seem, that his efforts were, for 
 the present at least, foredoomed to failure, was yet con- 
 tent to sacrifice himself if only he might prepare the 
 way for vengeance in the remoter future. What mat- 
 tered it if Sicily was lost ? A greater Sicily might be 
 found beyond the seas in Spain ; a new world might be 
 called into existence to redress the balance of the old. 
 In that great coming struggle Africa should turn back 
 the tide of aggression upon Europe, and Rome, not 
 Carthage, should tremble for her safety. Hamilcar 
 Barca was not far wrong. The genius of the son carried 
 out what the father had planned and had prepared. 
 The army of Hannibal, welded by the spark of his 
 genius out of the most unpromising materials into one 
 homogeneous and indissoluble whole, was the legitimate 
 counterpart of the small band of mercenaries trained 
 so painfully by Hamilcar. The ultimate result of 
 Hamilcar's patient struggles on Mount Ercte was the 
 victorious march of Hannibal on Rome. 
 
 To explain a little. Ham'lcar saw that the real defect 
 under which the Carthaginians had laboured all along 
 
SS Rome and Carthage. 
 
 had been the want of a trustworthy infantry. Their 
 cavalry was excellent ; their elephants more 
 IS p ans. than once had borne down all before them ; 
 their ships had been beaten, not by skill, but by brute 
 force. But as long as they were without a body of in- 
 fantry who, man for man, could stand up against the 
 Roman legionaries, so long it was impossible that they 
 could beat their enemies. The mercenaries who formed 
 the bulk of the Carthaginian armies had sold their ser- 
 vices to Carthage for gold ; what wonder if they trans- 
 ferred their services at the critical moment to those who 
 would appraise them more highly ? What wonder that 
 Lilybaeum had been all but betrayed, and that the tem- 
 ple of Eryx itself was on the point of being seized by 
 Gallic deserters from the Carthaginian army ? To the 
 task of remedying these defects Hamilrar addressed 
 himself with a patience and a self-restraint which is the 
 more surprising the more conscious he must have been 
 of his own superlative talents for aggressive war upon a 
 mighty scale. By enforcing strict discipline at any 
 price ; by never fighting a battle, and therefore never 
 risking a defeat; by maintaining a daily and hourly 
 warfare with the Roman outposts, he gradually trained 
 his troops to face the terrors of the Roman presence, as 
 the Romans on their part had at last trained themselves 
 to face the terrors of the elephants. Knowing that he 
 could expect no efficient aid from Carthage, he deter- 
 mined, if possible, to save her in spite of herself. To 
 attach the mercenaries to Carthage by ties of gratitude 
 or respect or patriotism was impossible ; but it might 
 not be impossible to attach them to himself by that close 
 tie which always binds soldiers to a general whom they 
 can alike fear and trust and love, and then to utilize that 
 attachment not for his own but for his country's good. 
 
Mou7it Eryx, 8g 
 
 How nobly Hamilcar carried out his resolve every 
 action of his life proves. Day after day he would sally 
 from his mountain fastness, like a lion from 
 its den, on the fair plains of Sicily. Unob- His achieve- 
 
 ' '^ •' ments. 
 
 served or unattacked, he would pass by the 
 Roman camp placed at the foot of the mountain, and 
 return with the supplies necessary to keep his small 
 force from starving. Once we hear of him even at Ca- 
 tana, on the east coast of the island. His galleys, in 
 the same way, would harry or alarm the coast of Italy 
 even as far as Cumas. Never was a more harassing 
 warfare waged, and yet there is little to record. Poly- 
 bius remarks, that it is as impossible for the historian 
 to do more than state these general facts, as it is for the 
 spectator at a prize-fight either to see or to describe the 
 blows rained by practised pugilists on one another when 
 the contest is nearing its end. They know, perhaps, 
 the strength and the skill of the combatants ; they hear 
 the heavy thud, and they see the lightning lunge ; they 
 note the result, but they cannot accurately observe or 
 recount the process. So was it with Hamilcar ; and yet 
 it must be remembered that the struggle was hardly at 
 present a life-and-death struggle, for the Romans seem 
 never to have tried seriously to beard the lion in his den, 
 and Hamilcar, with his handful of troops, can hardly 
 have hoped to raise the siege of Lilybasum. At most he 
 might distract the attention of the Romans and impede 
 their progress. 
 
 So things might have gone on forever, when Hamilcar 
 (b. c. 244) surprised even the Romans — though by this 
 time they could hardly have been surprised 
 at anything Hamilcar did — ^by voluntarily He seizes 
 abandoning the stronghold endeared to him 
 by three years of hair-breadth escapes and romantic 
 
go Rome and Carthage, 
 
 adventures, and attacking Mount Eryx, a stronghold 
 which lay nearer indeed to the beleaguered Carthaginian 
 cities of Drepanum and Lilybceum, but in all other re- 
 spects was less advantageous, and at that very time was 
 held in force by the Romans. He managed to dislodge the 
 garrison from the ruined city half way up the mountain ; 
 but he failed in all his efforts to take the temple on the 
 summit, occupied as it then was by a band of Gallic de- 
 serters, who had been taken into their pay by the Ro- 
 mans, and who, since they carried their lives in their 
 hands, were prepared to sell them as dearly as possible. 
 Here, then, once more, was Hamilcar on an isolated hill, 
 two miles from the coast, and therefore beyond the reach 
 of immediate succours from his galleys, with a band of 
 desperate enemies above him, and a Roman army en- 
 camped below ! Well might it seem that a single stre- 
 nuous and united effort on the part of the Romans might 
 bring Hamilcar to his knees, or that at all events he 
 might be starved into a surrender. But this was not to 
 be. For two more years did Hamilcar hold out in this 
 most impossible of situations, fighting, says Polybius, 
 like a royal eagle, which, grappling with another eagle 
 as noble as himself, stops only to take breath from sheer 
 exhaustion, or to gather fresh strength for the next at- 
 tack. The war was fought out elsewhere, and its issue 
 was decided by men of other mould and making than 
 the royal soul of Hamilcar. 
 
 It must have long since been apparent to the Roman 
 
 Senate that unless they could fit out a fleet more effective 
 
 than any that had preceded it, Drepanum 
 
 Supreme , _ ., , .1111 e j 
 
 effort of and Lilybseum might hold out forever, ana 
 
 Romans. ^^^ \v\{^& they held out, their own hold on 
 
 the rest of Sicily must be precarious. They had built 
 four fleets since the war began, and all had been utterly 
 
Last Efforts on both Sides, 91 
 
 destroyed ; with what conscience could they now propose 
 to throw more public money into the gulf, and to com- 
 mit themselves to the mercies of the hostile and insatia- 
 ble sea ? Even if they should decree a property tax, it 
 was doubtful — such was the general distress — whether it 
 could be levied. But where public enterprise failed, it 
 should be recorded to the eternal credit of the Romans 
 that private citizens were forthcoming who volunteered, 
 either singly or in combination, to furnish ships of war 
 to make up another fleet. If the venture should prove 
 successful, the State might repay them, should it like to 
 do so, at its own time. If it failed, as every fleet had 
 failed before, they would have done nothing more than 
 their duty, and duty must be its own reward. A good 
 model was found in the Rhodian's vessel which had 
 been captured off Lilybaeum ; and, as if to complete the 
 dramatic history of this unlucky craft, the very trireme 
 which had performed such prodigies of speed and daring 
 for the Carthaginians in the siege of Lilybaeum was now 
 to reproduce itself in the shape of two hundred Roman 
 vessels, which should raise the siege of theit very town, 
 and bring the war to its conclusion. 
 
 The consul, C. Lutatius Catulus, took the command 
 of this pre-eminently patriotic armament early in the 
 year B.C. 242 ; and once again Roman ships 
 of war were to be seen riding in the har- Supreme 
 
 ° effort of 
 
 hours of Drepanum and Lilybaeum. Hamil- Cartha- 
 
 u 1 • V T, ginians. 
 
 car could now no longer receive supplies by 
 sea, and unless he could break out in force, his surren- 
 der was, as it seemed, only a question of time ; but the 
 Carthaginians, hearing of the danger, and finding to 
 their surprise that a Roman navy was again in Sicilian 
 waters, made for the first time a serious effort to sup- 
 port him. For four long years Hamilcar had borne the 
 
92 Rome and Carthage. 
 
 brunt of the conflict, without receiving supplies of men 
 or money from home, and, now that they were about to 
 lose him, the Carthaginians awoke to a consciousness of 
 his true value. But a fleet could not be built in a day, even 
 by the Carthaginians; and by the time the transports — 
 for they were transports rather than ships of war — reached 
 Sicily, Catulus had, by dint of constant training, trans- 
 formed his landsmen into tolerably experienced sailors. 
 In March of the following year (b. c 241), Hanno, 
 the Carthaginian admiral, made for Hiera, one of the 
 iEgatian Isles, in hopes of being able from 
 yEgatian thcHCc to communicate with Mount Eryx. 
 
 Islands. jjjg pia,n was to land his heavy cargo of 
 
 corn there, to take on board instead the pick of Hamil- 
 car's men, and above all the great Hamilcar himself, 
 and then, and not till then, to fight a d(,cisive action. 
 Catulus had already selected the best from among the 
 Roman troops before Lilybaeum to serve the same pur- 
 pose on board his ships ; and he now made for ^gusa, 
 the principal of the ^gatian Isles, with the intention of 
 cutting off Hanno from the shore, and bringing on a 
 general action. On the morning of his intended attack 
 a strong wind sprang up from the west, the very thing 
 which the Carthaginians needed to carry them rapidly 
 into Drepanum. To intercept them the Romans would 
 have to contend against wind and tide as well, and from 
 this even the bravest mariners might shrink. Catulus, 
 or rather the Prsetor Q. Valerius — for Catulus was laid 
 up by a wound — knew the odds against him, and hesi- 
 tated for a moment to face the risk ; but reflecting that 
 if he did not strike a blow, the enemy would be able to 
 take Hamilcar on board, and that Hamilcar was more 
 formidable than any storm, he determined to close with 
 the lesser of two dangers. Down came the Carthaginian 
 
Battle of ^gatian Isles. .93 
 
 ships, heavy with their cargo of corn, but flying before 
 the wind with all their sails spread, and the rowers using 
 their oars as well. When they saw the Romans ventur- 
 ing out on such a sea to intercept them, they struck sails 
 and prepared for action. But the battle was over almost 
 as soon as it began. After the first shock, the well-made, 
 slightly-built Roman ships, with their practised crews 
 and their veteran soldiers, obtained an easy victory over 
 the awkward and heavily-laden Carthaginian vessels, 
 with their inexperienced rowers and their raw recruits. 
 Fifty of the Carthaginian ships were sunk and se*^enty 
 taken, the remainder escaping with the help of an oppor- 
 tune wind to Hiera. 
 
 This great victory, the victory of the ^Egatian Isles, 
 ended the war. Both sides had played their last card, 
 and the Carthaginians had lost. Their spirit 
 was not altogether broken ; but it was im- Magnanimity 
 
 ° of Hamilcar. 
 
 possible to fit out a new fleet in time to re- 
 lieve Hamilcar, and they wisely resolved, by utilizing 
 his great name and the indefinite possibilities of his 
 future when driven to stand at bay, to obtain more fa- 
 vourable terms than would otherwise have been offered 
 them. We could hardly wonder if Hamilcar had de- 
 clined the thankless duty, and had left the task of sur- 
 rendering Sicily to those who far more than himself were 
 responsible for it. But no thought of self seems ever 
 to have entered his great soul. For his faithful band of 
 followers and their honour he was jealous ; but of his own 
 feelings of outraged pride and righteous indignation we 
 hear nothing. He rejected with scorn the ungenerous 
 proposal of Catulus that his troops should give up their 
 arms and pass under the yoke ; and it was arranged 
 that when peace should have been concluded, they 
 should depart with all the honours of war. 
 H 
 
94 Rome and Carthage. 
 
 The terms of peace were then agreed upon by Catu- 
 
 lus and Hamilcar, subject to the subsequent ratification 
 
 by the Roman people. The Carthaginians 
 
 Terms of were to surrender Sicily to the Romans, and 
 
 peace. •' ' 
 
 to bind themselves not to wage war on Hiero 
 or his allies ; they were to restore the prisoners they had 
 taken without ransom, and to pay within the next twenty 
 years a war indemnity of 2,200 talents. The Roman 
 people were not satisfied with these conditions ; but the 
 plenipotentiaries who were sent out to the spot contented 
 themselves with raising the indemnity by half as much 
 again, while they halved the time in which it was to be 
 paid. The easy terms thus granted — so far easier than 
 those demanded by Regulus fifteen years before in the 
 hey-day of his success — are to be explained partly, no 
 doubt, by the exhaustion of the Romans themselves, but 
 partly also by the dread they felt as to what Hamilcar 
 might still dare, if driven to desperation. As such it is 
 the noblest homage paid by the conquerors to the mili- 
 tary genius of the " unconquered general of the con- 
 quered nation." Two individuals, and two only in the 
 whole course of Roman history, seem by the mere fact 
 of their existence to have inspired real terror into the 
 Roman heart. The one was Hamilcar Barca, the other 
 his, perhaps, still greater son. 
 
 So ended the First Punic War ; the longest war, says 
 
 Polybius, the most continuous, and the greatest which 
 
 the world had then seen; and it may be 
 
 Gains and questioned, even now, whether there has 
 
 losses. 
 
 ever been a war in which the losses were so 
 frightful, and the immediate gain to either party so small. 
 The Romans had indeed gained Sicily ; but Sicily with 
 the exception of the dominions of Hiero, which were 
 still to belong to him and not to the Romans, was then 
 
End of First Pmiic War. 95 
 
 drained of everything which made it worth having. Its 
 territories had been ravaged, its population swept away, 
 its towns destroyed one after the other. Greek as well 
 as Phoenician enterprise and civilization had been al- 
 most blotted out. The island has never entirely recov- 
 ered its prosperity. Its soil is still in great part unculti- 
 vated, its population is one of the most degraded in 
 Europe. To set against this equivocal gain, the Romans 
 had lost 700 ships of the line, containing not less than 
 70,000 men, and army after army had fallen victims to 
 starvation, to pestilence or the sword. The Carthagin- 
 ians, on their part, had lost 500 ships of war, but the 
 crews which manned them, and the soldiers who formed 
 the staple of their armies, were such as, in their callous 
 indifference, they could bear to part with ; for more were 
 to be had for money from their still vast recruiting ground. 
 The richness of their soil, and the abundance of their 
 irrigation had already repaired the injury done by Reg- 
 ulus. They had been driven indeed from Sicily ; but 
 had not the Phoenicians been driven before, in like 
 manner, from Crete, from Cyprus, and from Asia Minor ? 
 What mattered it if, with the enterprise and buoyancy 
 of their race, they could still found new colonies, and 
 build up a new empire in countries whither the Romans 
 had never penetrated, and of which they had hardly yet 
 heard the names ? 
 
 Everything portended an early renewal of the con- 
 flict on a more gigantic scale. Rome by crossing the 
 narrow straits of Messana had entered on her career, 
 for good or evil, of universal conquest and aggression. 
 Carthage was still mistress of the western half of the 
 Mediterranean, and had no intention of voluntarily re- 
 tiring from it. More than this : Hamilcar Barca was 
 still alive — Hamilcar Barca, with his patience and his 
 
96 Rome and Carthage. 
 
 genius, with his burning patriotism and his thirst for re- 
 venge ; above all, with his infant son. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 HAMILCAR BARCA AND THE MERCENARY WAR. 
 (B.C. 241-238.) 
 
 The twenty -two years which separated the First from 
 
 the Second Punic War were not years of rest to either 
 
 Rome or Carthage. The Carthaginians had 
 
 Events be- barely concluded peace when they found 
 
 tween nrst •' * ■' 
 
 and second that they had to face dangers far more terri- 
 
 Punic wars. , , , ^ ^ • i 1 1 , 
 
 ble, and foes far more miplacable than any 
 they had met with in the twenty-three years' war from 
 which they had just emerged. The Romans, on their 
 part, busied themselves in organizing their newly con- 
 quered province ; in appropriating to themselves, with 
 shameless meanness and injustice, the island of Sardinia, 
 the oldest foreign possession of the Carthaginians, and 
 that which, next after Sicily, had been the object of her 
 most jealous precautions ; in suppressing lUyrian piracy 
 and extending their northern frontier from the Apen- 
 nines to the Alps. Let us bridge over the interval be- 
 tween the war of Hamilcar and the war of Hannibal, 
 not by describing these events in detail ; but by touch- 
 ing on them just so far as they bring into clear light the 
 dealings of either nation with their dependencies, or as 
 they directly influenced the mightier struggle which was 
 looming in the distance. 
 The great Hamilcar, during his three years of war- 
 
Revolt of Mercenaries. 97 
 
 fare at Mount Ercte, had managed to make the war sup- 
 port itself; but during the last two years at 
 Eryx, when he was cut off from the sea, and Treatment of 
 
 mercenaries. 
 
 was hard pressed by enemies alike on the 
 peaks above and in the plains below him, he had found 
 it difficult enough to procure the bare necessaries of life 
 for his troops, and he had been able to pay them by 
 promises, and by promises only. That he was able to 
 keep his band of fickle barbarian followers in so dan- 
 gerous a position for a couple of years without remuner- 
 ating them for their services, and yet without any symp- 
 tom of mutiny or insubordination on their part, is not 
 the least striking testimony to his commanding personal 
 qualities. When the war was finished he handed them 
 over, with spirits still unbroken, to Gescon, the Cartha- 
 ginian commander at Lilyb^um, and to Gescon fell the 
 disagreeable duty of transporting them to Africa, and of 
 informing the home government of their obligations to- 
 wards them. But the party then in power at Carthage 
 were at once short-sighted and unscrupulous. They 
 neither paid the mercenaries their arrears of pay, nor 
 told them boldly that they could not do so. 
 
 Things soon assumed a threatening aspect. The muti- 
 neers to the number of 20,000 marched for Carthage and 
 pitched their camp near Tunis ; and the gov- 
 ernment, thoroughly frightened, began to Revolt of 
 
 ' o ./ o » o mercenaries. 
 
 cringe when they could no longer threaten, 
 and sent out provisions to be sold at a nominal price in 
 the hostile camp. This only made the mutineers despise 
 them the more. New promises and new concessions 
 v/ere met by new p^nd more exorbitant demands. The 
 mutiny had come to a head. It had found leaders in 
 Spendius, a runaway Campanian slave, in Matho, an 
 African, who had served with distinction in Sicily, and 
 
98 Ro7ne and Carthage. 
 
 in Autaritus, a Gaul. Gescon, who, in a fit of impatience 
 at the insolence of their demands, had let slip the wish 
 that the malcontents would lay their demands before 
 Spendius and not before him, was taken at his word. 
 He was thrown into chains ; the money he had brought 
 with him was seized, and the war began. Messengers 
 were at once despatched by Spendius and Matho to the 
 peoples of Africa summoning them to liberty ; the joyful 
 news spread from village to village, and was enthusiasti- 
 cally responded to by the natives. 
 
 Men flowed in so plentifully that the rebel generals 
 
 were able at once to begin the siege of Utica and Hippo 
 
 Zarytus, the two places which, alone of the 
 
 Rising of surrounding African and Phoenician cities, 
 
 natives. " 
 
 had hitherto signalized themselves by their 
 attachment to the oppressor. Money was so abundant 
 that Spendius was able not only at once to discharge all 
 the arrears of pay to his troops, but also to meet all the 
 immediate expenses of the war. The Carthaginian gov- 
 ernment had never yet been in such sore distress. In a 
 moment they had been cut off from the rich districts 
 which supplied them with food, which filled their treasury 
 with money, and their armies with their best troops. 
 They had no ships, for their last fleet had just been 
 destroyed in Sicily, and they had no independent allies, 
 for it was the fate of Carthage — the fate, it must be added, 
 she too well deserved — never to possess any. It was 
 useless to treat for peace with men who were loaded with 
 the accumulated wrongs of centuries, and were burning 
 for revenge. The natives remembered the crucifixion of 
 3,000 of their countrymen, the finale of their partial and 
 unsuccessful attempt at revolt during the invasion of 
 Regulus a few years before ; and they were determined 
 that this revolt should be neither partial nor unsuccess- 
 
Hanno and Hamilcar. 99 
 
 ful. Bitterly must the Carthaginians have rued their 
 cruelty when they reaped its natural consequences, when 
 they found that the proverb '* as many slaves, so many 
 enemies," was in their case no figure of rhetoric, but the 
 stern and simple truth. 
 
 Among the magistrates who had acquired the special 
 confidence of the governing clique at Carthage by the 
 amount of money which they had squeezed 
 out of the subject communities, no one was 5^""° ^""^ 
 
 _ ■* ' ^ Hamilcar. 
 
 more conspicuous than Hanno, and he it 
 was whom they now selected for the chief command in 
 the Libyan war, a sad omen of the character which it 
 was likely to assume. Hanno was the personal enemy of 
 Hamilcar, and was as incapable as he was self-confident. 
 If he won a partial success he failed to follow it up, and 
 after having won, as he thought, a complete victory, he 
 allowed his camp to be surprised and taken. The gov- 
 ernment in its distress was obliged to apply to Hamilcar, 
 the man whom they had treated so ill in Sicily, and whom 
 they had treated worse still in the persons of his trusted 
 veterans when the war was over. But Hamilcar, still 
 placing his country before all else, consented to serve the 
 government which had betrayed him. He induced or 
 compelled the easy-going citizens to enlist, and having 
 got together a force of seventy elephants and 10,000 men, 
 he managed to slip through the armies, which, stationed 
 as they were, one at Utica and the other at Tunis, had 
 almost cut Carthage off from Africa ; and then, by his 
 strict discipline, by his energy, and by his influence with 
 the Numidian chiefs, he defeated the enemy in a pitched 
 battle and, over-running the country, recovered several 
 towns which had revolted, and saved others which were 
 being besieged. Deserters, some of them, doubtless, 
 veterans of his own, came over to his side ; and Spendius 
 
 LofC. 
 
TOO Rome and Carthage. 
 
 'e»" 
 
 and Matho, fearing wholesale desertions, determined to 
 cut down their bridges and burn their boats, by involving 
 the whole force in an act of atrocity which not even 
 Hamilcar could forgive. 
 
 Panic is always cruel, and the panic of barbarians, if 
 
 less culpable, is far more uncontrollable than the panic of 
 
 civilized men. By a well-laid plan Spendius 
 
 The truce- ^^^ Matlio contrived to create such a panic. 
 
 less war. _ '- 
 
 Those who counselled moderation were 
 greeted with the cry of "Treason, treason!" or "Smite him, 
 smite him ! " and when in this way a reign of terror had 
 been established, the Irreconcilables carried everything 
 their own w^ay. Gescon, "the soldier's friend," lay 
 ready to their hand. He and his company of 700 men 
 were led out to execution, and, having been cruelly 
 mutilated, were thrown, still living, into a ditch to perish, 
 and from that day forw^ard the war deserved the name 
 by which it is known in history, the " war without truce," 
 or the " Inexpiable War." 
 
 Upon its horrors w^e need not here dwell. Suffice it to 
 say that Hamilcar w^as driven to make reprisals for the 
 
 barbarities of the Libyans by throwing his 
 Its horror prisoners to be trampled to death by the 
 
 and end. ^ i r j 
 
 elephants, and the war w^as henceforward 
 in the literal sense of the word, internecine The Car- 
 thaginian government managed, even in this supreme 
 hour to thwart Hamilcar by allowing his inveterate 
 enemy Hanno, discredited as he was, to share the com- 
 mand with him. Nor was it till after the quarrels which 
 ensued had led to many reverses ; till the news arrived 
 of the total destruction of their own ships in a storm, of 
 the revolt of Hippo and of Utica, the towns which alone 
 had been faithful to Carthage in the invasions of Aga- 
 thocles and Regulus ; above all, till the news had come 
 
End of Truceless War. loi 
 
 of the insurrection of the mercenaries in Sardinia, and 
 the probable loss of that fair island, that the Carthagi- 
 nians allowed the voice of the army to be heard, and 
 committed to Hamilcar once again the sole command. 
 Hamilcar soon penned the Libyans in their fortified 
 camp near Tunis, and so effectually cut them off from 
 all supplies that they were driven to eat first their pri- 
 soners and then their slaves ; and it was not till they had 
 begun to look wistfully upon one another that some of 
 the chiefs, with Spendius at their head, came forth to 
 ask for the parley which they had themselves forbidden. 
 Hamilcar demanded that ten of the mercenaries, to be 
 named by himself, should be given up, while the rest of 
 the army should be allowed to depart unarmed with one 
 garment each. This having been agreed upon, Hamil- 
 car immediately named Spendius and his fellow legates, 
 and threw them into chains. The rebel army, thinking, as 
 well they might, that Hamilcar had been guilty of sharp 
 practice, flew to arms. They were still 40,000 in number, 
 but they were without leaders, and they were extermi- 
 nated almost to a man. Matho still held out at Tunis, 
 and when Spendius was crucified by Hamilcar in front 
 of its walls, Matho, by a sudden sally on the other side 
 of the town, took a Carthaginan general prisoner, and 
 shortly afterwards crucified him with fifty others on the 
 very spot which had witnessed the last agonies of Spen- 
 dius. A horrible interchange of barbarities ! The army 
 of Matho was soon afterwards cut to pieces. The rebel 
 chief himself was taken prisoner, and, after being led in 
 triumph through the streets of the capital, was put to 
 death with terrible tortures (b.c. 241-238). So ended 
 the Truceless War, after a duration of thtee years and 
 four months, with the total extermination of those who 
 had made it truceless; "a war," says Polybius, and he 
 
I02 Rome and Carthage. 
 
 says truly, '•' by far the most cruel and inhuman of which 
 we had ever heard." 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 hamilcar barca in africa and spain. 
 
 (b. c. 258-219.) 
 
 During the desperate struggle for life on the part of the 
 Carthaginians which has just been related, the Romans 
 had, on the whole, behaved with moderation, or even 
 with generosity, to their conquered foe. Had it pleased 
 them to make one more effort and once 
 
 Rome during . . , _, . ^ . 
 
 Mercenary agam to risk a Roman army upon Airi- 
 '^' can soil, when they were invited to do so by 
 
 the revolted Uticans and by the mercenaries themselves, 
 there can be little doubt that Carthage would have fallen, 
 and that there would have been no Second and no Third 
 Punic War to relate ; and had they dreamed of what lay 
 deep hidden in Hamilcar's breast, or of the vast mili- 
 tary genius which was being reared amidst those stormy 
 scenes in his infant son, no exertion would have appeared 
 too great to make, and no danger too desperate to dare, 
 even to the cautious Roman Senate. 
 
 But when the genius of Harailcar had saved Carthage 
 and an expedition was being fitted out by the government 
 to recover Sardinia which had revolted, the 
 sica and Romans, professing to believe that the arma- 
 
 Sardinia. rnent was intended to act against them- 
 
 selves, and hatching up various fictitious grievances, 
 threatened the Carthaginians with instant war if they 
 dared to molest those who had thrown themselves on 
 their protection. It was an act of unblushing and yet, at 
 the same time, hypocritical effrontery on the part of the 
 
Peace and War Parties at Carthage. 103 
 
 Romans, hardly less base, and certainly more inexcus- 
 able, than had been their support of the Mamertines. 
 But the Carthaginians had no choice but to submit to the 
 right of the strongest, and they gave up not Sardinia 
 onjy, but such parts of Corsica as they had ever claimed, 
 and were compelled also to atone for their warlike in- 
 tentions by paying an indemnity of 1,200 talents to the 
 outraged and peace-loving Romans. Hamilcar once 
 more showed his greatness by submitting to the in- 
 evitable ; but the iron must have entered into his soul 
 more deeply than ever, and he must have bound himself 
 by still more binding oaths, if such could be found, to 
 drink the cup of vengeance to the dregs when the time 
 should come, or to perish in the attempt. 
 
 It might have been thought that the incapacity of the 
 governing classes at Carthage and the double disasters 
 which they had brought upon the country 
 would have so seriously discredited them war parties 
 that Hamilcar Barca and his Patriotic Party ^^ Carthage. 
 would for a time, at all events, have been supreme in the 
 State; but so far was this from being the case that, while 
 Hamilcar was returning redhanded from the desperate 
 victory which had saved the State, the party of Han no 
 was strong enough and impudent enough to place the 
 deliverer upon his trial. He had been —they did not 
 scruple to assert — the cause of the Mercenary War, for 
 he had made promises of pay to his troops which he had 
 not been able to perform ! But it was beyond the power 
 or the impudence even of the Carthaginian Peace Party 
 to find him guilty, and the indictment seems to have 
 fallen by its own weight or its own absurdity. There 
 had been sharp conflicts for some time past between the 
 War and the Peace Party, between the reformers and 
 the reactionaries, at Carthage ; and the events of the 
 
104 Rome and Carthage. 
 
 last few years had made the distinction between them 
 sharper still. Around Hanno— called, one would think in 
 irony, Hanno the great— gathered all that was ease-loving, 
 all that was short- sighted, all that was selfish in the great 
 repubhc. The commercial, the capitalist, the aristocrat- 
 ical interests seem, on the whole, to have followed his 
 lead. Around Hamilcar Barca, on the other hand, 
 gathered all that was generous and far-sighted ; all, in 
 fact, who were not content to live in peace, knowing 
 that after them would come the deluge. Jewish kings, 
 and those by no means the worst of their race, were 
 often consoled when they heard on their repentance 
 that the evil should come not in their own but in their 
 sons' days. Not so was Hamilcar Barca and not such 
 were his followers. But he was the head of a minority 
 only, and finding that it was impossible to bring the 
 majority over to his way of thinking, or to reform them 
 by pressure from without, he determined to accept, or, 
 it may be, to demand, a post in which he could serve 
 his country more effectually. He obtained from the 
 fears, the hatred, or the hopes of those opposed to him, 
 the command of the army, an appointment which, for 
 different reasons, must have been equally acceptable to 
 his friends and his enemies. He first stamped out the 
 embers of the Libyan revolt which were still smoulder- 
 ing in the country to the west of Carthage, and then, 
 accompanied by the fleet, made his way slowly along 
 the Mauritanian coast towards the immediate goal of 
 his long-cherished schemes. When he reached the 
 Pillars of Hercules (b. c. 237), on his own undivided re- 
 sponsibility, he crossed the straits and set foot in anoth- 
 er country and another continent. 
 
 It was a bold step, but it was a wise one. If Carthage 
 was to be saved at all from the ruin which Hamilcar and 
 
Hainilcar crosses to Spain, 1 05 
 
 all keen-sighted men saw impending over it, it must be 
 by Hamilcar and Hamilcar's army. But 
 where in Africa could he raise an army ? crosses^to 
 and how, when it was raised, could he have Spam. 
 fed it there ? The merchant princes of the city who, 
 under the pressure of necessity, had enrolled themselves 
 in his ranks to defend their all, had returned to their 
 businesses or their pleasures as soon as the immediate 
 danger was over. His own veterans, and thousands of 
 other Libyans who under his training might have be- 
 come as valuable as they, had been, by the most tragic of 
 necessities exterminated by Hamilcar himself in the late 
 war; and he could hardly hope just then to enlist 
 others who could serve him as their predecessors might 
 have done. A few of his Sicilian officers indeed, still 
 followed the banner of their chief, and a few devoted 
 friends and members of his family were left behind at 
 Carthage, and these last, if they held no office in the 
 State, showed that they could do more. If they were 
 not allowed to govern, their ability and their patriotism 
 yet gave them the divine right to rule. Of this nothing 
 could deprive them ; and, like the Medici at Florence, 
 or the Dukes of Orange in the Netherlands, this half- 
 outlawed Barcine family actually received foreign em- 
 bassies and concluded foreign treaties, as an independ- 
 ent body, co-ordinate with the Senate itself ! But offi- 
 cers alone cannot make an army, and the Barcine fami- 
 ly, powerful as it was, could not induce the money-loving 
 Carthaginian merchants to untie their purse-strings in 
 support of the distant and chimerical projects of Hamil- 
 car. Nothing could be done at Carthage without mon- 
 ey ; and it was necesary for Hamilcar, if he would hold 
 his own, not only to pay his troops but to remit large 
 sums to Carthage in order to keep his supporters there 
 together and to maintain his influence. 
 
io6 Ro77ie and Carthage. 
 
 Now it must have seemed to the eager eye of the Car- 
 thaginian patriot as though Spain had been created for 
 the very purpose of supplying all these various and con- 
 flicting wants. It was from Spain, if from anywhere, 
 and by Hamilcar, if by anyone, that Carthage might be 
 saved. The previous history of the Spanish peninsula, 
 and its immemorial connection with the Phoenicians, the 
 fathers of the Carthaginian race, were all in favor of his 
 projects. It was from Tarshish, or Tartessus, the dis- 
 trict abutting on the very straits which he had to cross, 
 that, as far back as the time of Solomon, had come the 
 strange animals and the rich minerals which were land- 
 ed in the harbours of Phoenicia proper, and which had so 
 enlarged the ideas and transformed the instincts of the 
 untravelled and exclusive Israelites. In more recent 
 times Gades (Gaddir), on almost the same spot, itself a 
 Phoenician colony, and boasting of a splendid temple to 
 Melcarth, the patron god of both Tyre and Carthage, 
 had served as an emporium for the products alike of the 
 Scilly Isles and the Niger. For centuries Phoenicians 
 had thus found in Spain what, centuries after, Spain 
 herself was destined to find in Mexico and Peru ; and it 
 was principally to maintain her connection with this 
 Eldorado that that long line of factories, known in later 
 time as the Aktagonitcc Urbes, had been planted at equal 
 distances on the most suitable points of the barren Mau- 
 ritanian coast. It was no slight advantage, too, for Ha- 
 milcar's purposes, that the connection of Spain with Car- 
 thage had hitherto been commercial only and not impe- 
 rial ; otherwise the deadly hatred which accompanied 
 the spread of the Carthaginian rule in Africa must have 
 sprung up in Spain as well, and Hamilcar would have 
 had as much to do in pulling down as in building up, 
 and his great constructive genius would not have had 
 free play. 
 
Death of Hmnilcar. 107 
 
 It was into such a land of promise that Hamilcar now 
 passed. Its gold and silver mines, worked hencefor- 
 ward by Phoenician enterprise and skill, 
 yielded many times as much as they had and death of 
 ever yielded before. With part of the pro- Hamilcar. 
 duce Hamilcar paid the Spaniards themselves who had 
 flocked to his standard ; but, as with his Libyan followers 
 at Ercte and at Eryx, it was the spell of his personal in- 
 fluence, far more than the gold he was now able to pro- 
 mise, and to give them, which kept them ever afterwards 
 indissolubly attached to him. Part he remitted annually 
 to Carthage, as the price he paid to her for being allowed 
 to carry out his schemes for her safety and her empire. 
 His soldiers, his generals, his own son-in-law, Hasdrubal, 
 intermarried with the natives and made their interests 
 one with their own. For nine long years —years to which 
 Polybius, unfortunately, has devoted scarcely as many 
 lines — Hamilcar worked steadily on, with his eyes, in- 
 deed, fixed upon the distant goal, but using no unworthy 
 means in order to reach it ; and when the end was al- 
 most in view, when it seemed that he might himself car- 
 ry out his magnificent schemes, he died a soldier's death, 
 fighting sword in hand, and left to the "lion's brood," 
 as he loved to call — and well might he call — his sons, 
 the rich but the dangerous heritage of his genius, his va- 
 lour, and his undying hatred to Rome. We know all 
 too little of Hamilcar's heroic struggles in Sicily, of his 
 death-grapple with the revolted Libyans, and of the 
 achievements of the last nine years of his life, alike in 
 peace and war, in Spain. Did we know more, the world 
 would, in all probability, admit that, in capacity if not in 
 performance, in desert if not in fortune, he was the equal 
 of his wonderful son. But we know at least enough to 
 justify the judgment passed half a century later by one 
 
io8 Rome and Carthage. 
 
 who was, assuredly, no friend to Carthage, and yet who, 
 in spite of his narrow Roman prejudices, and his " De- 
 lenda est Carthago,'' judging solely by the traces he saw 
 in Spain of what the great man had done pronounced 
 emphatically that there was " no king like Hamilcar." 
 
 Hamilcar died in battle in the year B. c. 228. His 
 son, Hannibal, was then not quite nineteen years of age, 
 
 and was too young at once to succeed his 
 Hasdrubal father ; but the command did not pass out 
 
 of the family. It devolved on Hasdrubal, 
 the son-in-law and faithful companion of Hamilcar, one 
 who was endowed with something of his military talents 
 and with no small part of his influence over men. The 
 empire which Hamilcar had founded in Spain Hasdru- 
 bal organized and enlarged. Above all, he gave it a 
 capital in New Carthage, a town which, from its admi- 
 rable situation on the south-east coast, from its con- 
 venient harbour, and from its proximity to some rich 
 silver mines which were just then discovered, seemed 
 destined to be all that its proud name implied, and to 
 spread the Phoenician arts and empire in Europe and 
 the ocean beyond, even as the old Carthage had spread 
 them over the Mediterranean and in Africa. Tribe after 
 tribe of Iberians solicited the honour of enrolhng them- 
 selves as subjects of a power which knew how to 
 develop their resources in the interest of the natives 
 as much as in its own ; which found them work to 
 do and paid them well for doing it ; and when Hasdru- 
 bal, B. c. 221, in the eighth year of his command, fell 
 by the hand of a Celtic assassin, he had extended, in 
 the main by peaceful means, the rule of the Barricades 
 from the Baetis to the Tagus. 
 
 Hannibal was now in his twenty-sixth year. The 
 soldiers unanimously proclaimed him commander-in- 
 
Hannibar s Vow. 109 
 
 chief, and their choice was ratified by the Carthaginian 
 government. He was still young for the herculean 
 task which lay before him ; but he was 
 strong in the blood of Hamilcar which was Hannibal's 
 
 ° vow. 
 
 flowing in his veins, strong in the training 
 which he had received, strong above all in the con- 
 sciousness of his religious mission ; none the less so that 
 the secret of it remained locked in his own breast till all 
 chance of fulfilling it in its entirety had passed away for- 
 ever. It was not till he was an old man, living in exile at 
 the court of King Antiochus, but, even so, an object of 
 suspicion and of terror alike to the Syrian King and to 
 the Roman Senate, that he told the simple story of that 
 which, far more than military ambition, more even than 
 the love of country and the consciousness of his su- 
 preme ability, had been the ruling motive of his life. 
 In his ninth year, so he told Antiochus, when his father, 
 Hamilcar, was about to set out for his command in Spain, 
 and was sacrificing to the supreme god of his country, he 
 bade the attendants withdraw, and asked the little Hanni- 
 bal if he would like to go with him to the wars. The boy 
 eagerly assented. " Lay your hand then," said Hamilcar, 
 " on the sacrifice and swear eternal enmity to the Ro- 
 mans." Hannibal swore, and well did he keep his oath. 
 It suits the purposes of Livy to say that Hannibal was a 
 man " of worse than Punic faith, with no reverence for 
 what was true or sacred, serving no god and keeping no 
 oath." The accusation is untrue in every point ; but 
 even Livy must have himself admitted that to this oath, at 
 least, he was true, that this God at least he reverenced, 
 and that this religious mission he kept before his mind 
 and carried out to the best of his superlative ability, from 
 that day even to the day of his death. From the age of 
 nine to eighteen he had watched in silence the patient 
 
no Rome and Carthage, 
 
 development of his father's far-sighted designs. From 
 eighteen to twenty-five his had been in the main, the 
 hand to strike and the will to carry out, while Hasdru- 
 bal's had been the mind to plan and the right to com- 
 mand ; and now in his twenty-sixth year he was called 
 upon to stand alone, to enter upon his great inheritance 
 of obligation, and by his patience and his impetuosity, 
 by his powers of persuasion and of command, by his 
 energy, and his inventiveness, by his arts and by his arms 
 to redeem his early pledge. 
 
 But why had the Romans been looking calmly on 
 while the Barcine family were winning back for them- 
 selves, and for the State at large in Spain, 
 Gallic war g^n ^nd more than all, that they had lost in 
 
 in Italy. ' , , /- r ■ ^ ^ ^ 
 
 Sicily ? They had to face a formidable 
 enemy nearer Rome. The whole of the region to the 
 north of the Apennines and the Rubicon still belonged 
 to the Gauls, and one of their tribes, the Boii, who dwelt 
 between the Apennines and the Po, frightened at the 
 work of the popular champion Flaminius — the division 
 of the lands which had once belonged to their Senonian 
 brethren amongst the poorer citizens of Rome — and 
 fearing that their own turn would come next, determined 
 to anticipate the evil day. A movement amongst the 
 Gauls was known by a name of terror [tumultus] even 
 in the later days of the Republic, and at this time the 
 memories of the Allia and of the burning of Rome were 
 too fresh to allow the Roman Senate to take any half- 
 measures. A Gallic man and woman were buried alive 
 by order of the Senate in the Ox market, in hopes of 
 thus fulfilling the dread oracle which promised a share 
 of Roman soil to the Gauls. A levee en masse of the 
 military resources of the confederation was decreed ; 
 and those actually under arms in various parts of the 
 
Battle of Telamon. 1 1 1 
 
 Roman dominions are said by Polybius to have reached 
 the astonishing number of 170,000 men. " Against such a 
 nation under arms," as Polybius significantly adds, Han- 
 nibal was on the point of marching with 20,000 men ! 
 
 But the terrors of the Gauls were destined, on this oc- 
 casion (b. c. 225), soon to pass away. The Transalpine 
 barbarians, who fought, many of them, 
 stark naked, with two javelins [^goesa) in ,?Y''^ °^ 
 their hands, or with swords that bent at the 
 first blow, fell an easy prey to the skilful dispositions of 
 the Roman armies. Surrounded by the two consuls 
 near Telamon in Etruria, they were almost exterminated, 
 and the Roman Capitol was filled with the standards 
 and the golden necklaces and the bracelets which were 
 the trophies of the victory. The Romans followed up 
 their success with vigour, and transferred the war into 
 the enemy's country. The Boians suffered the fate 
 which they had anticipated and which they had in vain 
 tried to avert, and the name of Italy might be now ex- 
 tended, on the east of the peninsula at all events, to the 
 line of the Po. In the following year, C. Flaminius, a 
 man whose name has been already mentioned, and of 
 whom we shall hear again at a critical point in the Sec- 
 end Punic War, led a Roman army, for the first time in 
 their history, across that river and, attacking the Insu- 
 brians, took their capital city, Mediolanum (Milan) ; 
 while Marcellus, the consul of the year b. c. 223, was 
 able to dedicate, in the temple of Jupiter Feretrius, the 
 spolia opima which he had taken in single combat from 
 the Gallic chieftain. The Romans riveted their grasp 
 on their new conquests by founding, more suo, two new 
 colonies, Placentia and Cremona, on either side of the 
 Po, and by completing that imperishable monument of 
 their organizing and constructive genius, the Flaminia 
 
112 Rome a?id Carthas-e 
 
 Via, the great military road of Northern Italy, from 
 Rome to Ariminum. Nor were these precautions taken 
 a moment too soon ; for before the Romans had estab- 
 lished themselves firmly on the line of the Po, Hannibal 
 was on the Ebro ; and to the surprise of the Roman 
 Senate, and the terror of not a few among the Roman 
 citizens, it was now apparent for the first time that the 
 approaching contest might possibly be waged, not in 
 Africa for the possession of Carthage, but in Italy for 
 the possession of Rome. 
 
 But we must now return to Hannibal. During the 
 first two years of his command (b. c. 221-219) the young 
 
 general had crossed the Tagus, and had re- 
 Hannibal 1 1 /■ r- • 1 1 / 
 
 besieges duced the whole of Spam to the south 01 
 
 Saguntum. ^^ -^^^^ ^^ submission. But there was one 
 
 exception. The town of Saguntum, a Greek colony — 
 so the inhabitants boasted — from Zacynthus, and near 
 the site of the modern Murviedro (Muriveteres), though 
 far to the south of the Ebro, the stipulated boundary line 
 between the two powers, had formed an alliance with 
 Rome ; and Hasdrubal, nay Hannibal himself, had up 
 to this time forborne to attack it. Hannibal knew that 
 he could choose his own time for picking a quarrel, and 
 now the ground seemed clear before him. To the Ro- 
 man ambassadors who came to warn him not to attack 
 any ally of theirs, he gave an evasive answer, and re- 
 ferred them to the Carthaginian Senate, while he prose- 
 cuted the preparations for the siege with redoubled 
 vigour. For eight months the Saguntines held out, and 
 when they could hold out no longer, the chiefs kindled 
 a fire in the market-place, and threw into it first their 
 valuables, and then themselves. Hannibal, who had 
 been wounded in the course of the siege, divided a part 
 of the booty amongst his troops ; a part he dispatched 
 
War declared. 113 
 
 to Carthage, in hopes of committing those who received 
 it beyond the hope of recall to his great enterprise. He 
 then retreated into winter quarters at New Carthage, 
 and, dismissing his Spanish troops to the enjoyments of 
 their homes for the winter, bade them return to the camp 
 at the approach of spring, prepared for whatever it might 
 bring forth. 
 
 The Romans had by their dilatoriness allowed Sagun- 
 tum to fall; but they were now not slow in demanding 
 satisfaction for it. An embassy was sent 
 direct to Carthage demanding- the surrender ^^5 , 
 
 * ° declared. 
 
 of Hannibal, the author of the outrage, on 
 pain of instant war. The Romans fondly hoped that 
 the Carthaginian peace party would seize the opportu- 
 nity of compassing their chief end at the easy price of 
 the surrender of so troublesome a servant, or master, as 
 was Hannibal. But the gold of Hannibal had done its 
 work, and was more potent than Hanno's honeyed 
 tongue. The peace party dared hardly to mutter their 
 half-hearted counsels ; and when Q. Fabius, the chief of 
 the embassy, held up his toga, saying, "I carry here 
 peace and war; choose ye which ye will have;" — "Give 
 us whichever you please," replied the Carthaginians. 
 "War, then," said Fabius; and the decision was greeted 
 as is usual in times of such excitement, by the short- 
 sighted acclamations of the masses. They feel the en- 
 thusiasm of the moment; they do not realize its tremen- 
 dous responsibility. They see with their mind's eye the 
 pomp and pride and circumstance of war; they do not 
 see its horrors and devastations. They hear the din of 
 preparation ; they are deaf, till it is too late, to the cry 
 of agony or to the wail of the bereaved ; else war would 
 never, as experience proves it so often is, be welcomed 
 as a boon ; it would be submitted to only as the most 
 dire necessity. 
 
114 Rome and Carthage. 
 
 The die was now cast, and the arena was cleared for 
 the foremost man of his race and his time, perhaps the 
 mightiest military genius of any race and of any time- 
 one with whom, in this particular, it were scant justice to 
 compare either Alexander, or Caesar, or Marlborough, 
 and who, immeasurably above him as he is in all moral 
 qualities, may, on the score of military greatness, be 
 named without injustice in the same breath with Napo- 
 leon, and Napoleon alone. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 second punic war. 
 
 (b. c. 218-201.) 
 
 passage of the rhone and the alps. 
 
 B. C. 218. 
 
 There was still a brief interval of preparation before the 
 rival nations could meet in battle array, and Hannibal 
 
 utilized it to the utmost. He took measures 
 o/Hannibal^ ^°^ '^^ Safety of Spain during his absence 
 
 by garrisoning it with 15,000 trusty Lybians, 
 while Lybia he garrisoned with as many trusty Spaniards, 
 thus making, in a certain sense, each country a security 
 for the good behaviour of the other. The supreme com- 
 mand in Spain he committed to his younger brother, 
 Hasdrubal, and during the winter friendly messages 
 passed and repassed between New Carthage and the 
 chieftains of Transalpine and Cisalpine Gaul. It is said 
 that negotiations were carried on even with Antigonus, 
 king of Macedonia, to arrange for a combined attack on 
 Italy from east and west at once. 
 
 But was Italy to be reached by land or sea ? The 
 
Hannibal determines to go by Land. 115 
 
 Phoenicians had not yet lost their maritime skill ; the sea 
 was their home , and, had the Carthaginians 
 so willed it, a fleet might have been col- mfnesto^go 
 lected in the harbour of New Carthage which ^^ '^"^• 
 probably could have bidden defiance to any that the 
 Romans could have raised against it. Why, then, did 
 Hannibal, the greatest product of the Phoenician race, 
 perhaps of all the Semitic races — and certainly the no- 
 blest embodiment of the national spirit and will of Car- 
 thage — prefer a land journey which involved the cross- 
 ing of broad and rapid rivers, of lofty and unknown 
 mountain chains, amidst races proverbial for their fickle- 
 ness and faithlessness ; a journey which would take 
 months instead of days, and which, if it failed at all, 
 must fail altogether ? Was it that the Carthaginian go- 
 vernment was backward or unable to supply the ships ? 
 or was it that Hannibal miscalculated the distance and 
 under-estimated the dangers of the route which he chose ? 
 Perhaps both in part. It is no slur upon the military 
 qualities of the great Carthaginian to suppose that he did 
 not fully realize the difficulties of the task he was under- 
 taking, a task which no description given by interested 
 and friendly mountaineers could have brought adequate- 
 ly home to him. But what, no doubt, especially deter- 
 mined him to make the attempt was the alliance which 
 he had already concluded with the formidable tribes of 
 Gaul itself and of Northern Italy. Swooping down from 
 the Alps on the rich fields of Italy, his numbers swelled 
 by the reinforcements he would have gathered in his 
 course from Farther Gaul, he would, by a first success, 
 rally all their brethren in Hither Gaul to his standard. 
 The basis of his operations for the Italian war would 
 then be no longer Spain or Gaul, but Italy itself; and it 
 would be strange indeed if the Samnites and the Etrus- 
 
ii6 Rome and Carthage. 
 
 cans, the Umbrians and the Lucanians, whom Rome 
 had so recently and so hardly conquered, did not flock 
 to his standard as he swept victoriously on towards the 
 South to wreak condign vengeance on the common op- 
 pressor of them all. Such were the hopes, not altogether 
 ill-founded, with which Hannibal undertook the gigantic 
 enterprise which astonished and still astonishes the 
 world. 
 
 The army with which he set out from New Carthage 
 
 early in the summer of B. c. 218, consisted of 90,000 foot, 
 
 of 12,000 horse, and of thirty-seven elephants; a force 
 
 far smaller than that which the Carthagi- 
 
 Size of his grinians had often employed before in their 
 
 army. ° ... 
 
 petty conflicts with the Sicilian Greeks. He 
 crossed the Ebro, and, not without heavy loss to himself, 
 subdued the hostile Spanish tribes beyond that river who, 
 so far as a treaty could make them so, were already the 
 allies of Rome and, as the Romans believed, a firm bul- 
 wark against Carthaginian encroachments. Leaving 
 Hanno with 10,000 foot and 10,000 horse to hold the coun- 
 try which he had conquered, he actually sent back to their 
 homes 10,000 more of his already much-thinned army, 
 men whom, like Gideon at the Well of Trembling, he saw 
 to be faint-hearted and therefore cared not to retain in his 
 service. Then, confident in those that remained, and in 
 the future, he crossed the Pyrenees and, without opposi- 
 tion from the Gallic tribes, reached the Rhone in safety. 
 The Romans, as behind hand in their arms as in their 
 diplomacy, still, it would seem, believed that the con- 
 test which was beginning would be fought out at a 
 distance from their own shores. Scipio, as 
 
 Hannibal s , - ^. 
 
 passage of had been arranged, started from Pisa and, 
 coasting leisurely along to Alarsalia (Mar- 
 seilles) learned to his extreme surprise that Hannibal 
 
Pass selected by Hanfiibal. 117 
 
 had already crossed the Ebro and the Pyrenees, and 
 was in full march through Gaul. 
 
 Well knowing that a prolonged delay might render 
 the Alps impassable for that year, and, if for that year, 
 perhaps forever, Hannibal, when he found that the 
 Gauls were disposed to dispute his passage, had sent 
 Hanno with a considerable force two short days' march 
 up the river to a point whence he could cross unopposed. 
 After a brief pause to refresh his men, Hanno moved 
 down the left of the stream and kindled the beacon fires 
 for which Hannibal was anxiously waiting. He had 
 already laden with his light-armed horsemen the boats 
 which he had hired from the natives, while the canoes 
 which he had extemporized were filled with the most 
 active of his infantry, and he now gave the order to put 
 across. The signal was obeyed with alacrity ; and the 
 horses swam the stream, attached by ropes to the boats 
 which carried their riders. Down poured the barbarians 
 in disorder from their fortified camp, fully confident that 
 they could bar the passage ; but the flaming camp be- 
 hind them, and the fierce onset of Hanno's force upon 
 their rear, showed them that they had been out- 
 generalled, and they fled in confusion, leaving Plannibal 
 to transport the rest of his army in peace. The army 
 rested that night on the Italian side of the river, and on 
 the following day the most unwieldy, and not the least 
 sagacious part of his force, the thirty-seven elephants, 
 were cajoled, as at Messana, in the First Punic War, 
 after the battle of Panormus, into entrusting themselves to 
 a raft. Some, in their blind panic, leapt into the mid 
 river, drowning their drivers ; but raising instinctively 
 their trunks above their heads, they reached the oppo- 
 site bank in safety. 
 
 But the real difficulties of the undertaking were only 
 
1 1 8 Rome and Carthage, 
 
 now beginning. How little accuratQ knowledge of the 
 localities through which he had to pass 
 ASTeiected!^ Hannibal can have glined even by the 
 most careful inquiries, i^ evident from the 
 obscurity which has always hung over his march itself. 
 That march riveted tlie attention of the world ; it was 
 described by eye-witnesses, and one great historian, at 
 least, who lived v/ithin fifty years of the events he was 
 recording, took the trouble to go over the ground and 
 verify for himself the reports which had reached him. 
 Yet many of its details and even its general direction 
 are still matters of dispute. The fact is that the an- 
 cients, even the most observant of them, had no eye for 
 the minute observation of nature, and no wish to de- 
 scribe its phenomena in detail. Accordingly there is 
 hardly a pass in the whole Western Alps which has not 
 been made — as though they were cities contending for 
 the honour of a Homer's birth — to lay claim, with some 
 show of reason, to be the scene of Hannibal's march. 
 Yet broad geographical facts, and the few data of time 
 and place given by Polybius, enable us, in the light of 
 recent researches, to restrict the choice to two, if not to 
 one, of the total number. These passes are the Little 
 Mont Cenis, to the north of the Cottian, and the Little 
 St. Bernard to the north of the Graian Alps. Mont 
 Cenis appears to have been unknown to the ancients as 
 a practicable passage ; moreover it would have brought 
 Hannibal down among hostile Ligurian tribes. The 
 Little St. Bernard, on the other hand, was not only the 
 easiest of approach and one of the lowest available 
 passes, being only 7,000 feet high, but once and again 
 in history, it had already poured down the Celts of the 
 north upon the plains of Italy. It was in fact the high- 
 way between Transalpine and Cisalpine Gaul. Where 
 
Valley of the here. 119 
 
 Celtic tribes had passed before, the expected ally and 
 deliverer of the Celts might well pass now, and with this 
 hypothesis nearly all the facts given by Polybius will be 
 found to agree. On the Italian side of the pass lay the 
 Salassians, the hereditary friends of the Insubrians, who 
 would give their messengers, as they passed to and fro, 
 a safe-conduct, and would secure to Hannibal himself 
 the rest and refreshment which after his own passage he 
 would so sorely need. 
 
 He had crossed the Rhone at a spot " nearly four 
 days' journey from the sea," probably the reach above 
 Roquemaure. He marched thence, we are 
 told, four days up the river to the spot ^g^"^*^^ 
 where the Isere joins the Rhone, the apex 
 of the triangle, afterwards called the " Island of the 
 Allobroges." It was then, as now, populous and well- 
 cultivated, and Hannibal, it would seem, preferred to 
 continue his march northward through its champaign 
 country rather than to take the shorter route eastward 
 by following at once the mountain valley of the Isere. 
 There would be enough of mountain climbing later on. 
 Accordingly he followed the course of "the river" 
 northward, as far probably as Vienne ; then, turning 
 eastward, he took the part of one of two rival brothers 
 whom he found contending for the throne, and so ob- 
 tained from him supphes of food and clothing and 
 trusty guides. Then, once more striking the Rhone 
 where it leaves the frontiers of Savoy, he reached the 
 first outwork of the Alps, probably the Mont du Chat, a 
 chain 4,000 feet high. 
 
 Hannibal had taken ten days to cross the Island of 
 the Allobroges, and had hitherto met with no difficulty 
 or mishap of any kind ; but here, where the great phy- 
 sical difficulties began, the first symptoms of open hos- 
 
I20 Rotne and Carthaze, 
 
 '<^' 
 
 tility appeared also. The native guides had returned to 
 
 their master, and amidst the precipitous 
 
 The first ravines the Numidian cavalry were no Ion- 
 
 ascent. ^ 
 
 ger formidable. The one track over the 
 mountains, the Chevelu Pass, was occupied by the moun- 
 taineers in force ; but Hannibal, learning that it was their 
 practice to return to their homes for the night, hghted his 
 camp fires, as usual, at nightfall, and, leaving the bulk 
 of his army behind, climbed the steep in the darkness 
 with the most active of his troops, and occupied the posi- 
 tion which had been just vacated by the natives. Slowly 
 and toilfully on the following day his army wound up the 
 pass, aware that Hannibal was waiting to receive them 
 at its head, but exposed to loss and to annoyance at 
 every step from the attacks of the enemy who moved 
 along the heights above. The path was rough and nar- 
 row, and the horses and the sumpter animals, unused to 
 such ground and scared by the confusion, lost their foot- 
 ing, and either rolled headlong down the precipices 
 themselves or, jostling against their fellows in the agony 
 of their wounds, rolled them down with the baggage 
 which they carried. To an army crossing a lofty moun- 
 tain, baggage and provisions are a matter of life and 
 death, and Hannibal risked his own life and those of his 
 few brave followers to save the rest. Charging along the 
 heights, he put the enemy to flight, and the immediate 
 peril was surmounted. 
 
 For the next three days Hannibal followed the 
 Tarentaise, or the rich valley of the Isere, which he had 
 
 struck on his descent from the pass, and 
 The main there was now no svmptom of hostility or 
 
 ascent. - • •' 
 
 opposition. On the fourth day, the people 
 whose homesteadjj he was passing, presented themselves 
 to him, bearing garlands and branches of trees, the signs 
 
The White Rock. 121 
 
 of goodwill, and proffering provisions, nay, even host- 
 ages, as pledges of their sincerity. But the wary Cartha- 
 ginian was not to be deceived by a foe who offered him 
 gifts. He received them kindly, accepted their provisions 
 and their hostages, but pursued his march as one pre- 
 pared for treachery. The cavalry and beasts of burden 
 led the way, and at some distance behind came Hannibal 
 himself with his infantry. They were now entering the 
 defile which leads up to the main mountain wall of the 
 Alps, the one barrier which still separated Hannibal from 
 the land of his hopes, and the cliffs rose more precipi- 
 tously above, and the torrent (the Reclus) foamed more 
 angrily below, as they neared the spot where both would 
 be left behind. 
 
 Hardly were the infantry well entangled in the defile, 
 when the stones which came thundering down from the 
 heights above showed that the barbarians 
 had at length thrown off the mask. The ^ck."^^'^^ 
 destruction of the whole army seemed immi- 
 nent ; but Hannibal drew up, or rather drew back, his 
 part of it to an escarpment of white rock, which rose in 
 a strong position facing the entrance of the gorge, far 
 enough back, it- would seem, to be out of the reach of the 
 descending stones, but not so far as that he could not 
 keep the attention of the enemy concentrated on himself. 
 The cavalry at the head of the column pressed on almost 
 unmolested till they emerged into more open and there- 
 fore safer ground. The white gypsum rock— Z^ roche 
 blanche— 2.S it is called by the natives, still stands con- 
 spicuous in front of the grey hmestone mountain which 
 towers above it ; and here, if at no earUer point in the 
 route, the traveller may well feel that he is treading the 
 very ground which Hannibal trod, and looking upon the 
 solemn assemblage of peaks and pinnacles, of mountain 
 
122 Rome and Carthage. 
 
 torrent and of mountain valley, on which his eager eye 
 must have rested in this supreme moment of anxiety 
 and peril. Here Hannibal stood to arms, with half his 
 forces, the whole night through ; and the following morn- 
 ing everything like organized resistance had disappeared 
 from the cliffs which flanked the pass. And on the ninth 
 day the whole cavalcade reached the summit in safety. 
 
 It was only nine days since Hannibal had begun the 
 
 first ascent of the Alps ; but they were days of hard work 
 
 and danger, and he now rested for a time to 
 
 e summi . j-^Qj-^it his troops, and to allow stragglers 
 to rejoin him. But no stragglers came. Those who had 
 dropped behind from exhaustion or from their wounds, 
 on such a route, were not likely to be heard of more. 
 Only some beasts of burden which had lagged behind, 
 or had slipped down the rocks, had in the struggle for 
 bare life managed to regain their feet, and, following in- 
 stinctively in the footprints of the army, now came strag- 
 gling in one after the other, half dead from starvation ahd 
 fatigue. It was a sorry spot on which to recruit. It was 
 late in October ; the snows were gathering thick on the 
 peaks above the Col ; and the troops who had been drawn 
 from burning Africa or from sunny Spain shivered in the 
 mountain air, which is keen and frosty even in the height 
 of summer. Rest only gave them tim.e to recollect the dif- 
 ficulties through which they had so hardly passed, and to 
 picture, perhaps to magnify, perils which were still to come. 
 
 Symptoms of despondency appeared ; but Hannibal, 
 
 seizing the opportunity, called his troops together and 
 
 addressed them in a few stirring words. 
 
 Hannibal's There was one topic of consolation, and 
 
 speech. ^ ' 
 
 only one. Below their feet lay one of the 
 Italian valleys, and winding far away among its narrow 
 lawns and humble homesteads could be seen the silver 
 
Descent of the Alps, 123 
 
 thread of one of the feeders of the Baltea torrent which 
 leaped forth from where they stood. It seemed in the 
 clear atmosphere, which Alpine climbers know so well, 
 that they had but to take a step or two down, and to be 
 in possession. " The people who dwell along that river," 
 cried Hannibal in the inspiration of the moment, "are 
 your sworn friends. Ye are standing already, as ye see, 
 on the Acropolis of Italy ; yonder" — and he pointed to 
 the spot in the far horizon where, with his mind's eye, 
 he could see the goal of all his hopes, and the object of 
 his inextinguishable and majestic hate — "yonder lies 
 Rome." The spirits of his men rose at his words, and 
 on the morrow the descent began. 
 
 After a toilsome climb, the first steps of a descent are 
 always pleasantly deceptive, and there was now no sign 
 of an enemy, unless indeed a few skulking 
 marauders might be so called. But the de- Dangers of 
 
 ° the descer.t. 
 
 scent was not less dangerous, and perhaps 
 still more destructive, than the ascent. The Alps rise 
 more sheer from the plain on the Italian than on the 
 French side, and the slope is almost everywhere steeper. 
 The snow too began to fall, hiding dangers which would 
 otherwise have stared them iji the face. A false step on 
 such a gradient would have been fatal anyhow, and the 
 curtain of snow made false- steps to be both numerous 
 and inevitable. The army had to cross what seems to 
 have been, in the greater cold which was then prevalent 
 throughout Europe, a glacier or an ice-slope covered 
 with a thin coating of newly-fallen snow. This was soon 
 trampled into a solid sheet of ice, on which the men 
 kept sliding and rolling down, while the beasts of bur- 
 den, breaking through the bridges of frozen snow which 
 concealed crevasses beneath, stuck fast and were frozen 
 to death. At last, the head of the column reached a 
 
124 Ro7iie a7id Carthage. 
 
 projecting crag round which neither man nor beast could 
 creep. An avalanche or a landslip had carried away 
 some three hundred yards of the track, and even the 
 eye of Hannibal failed to discover a practicable route 
 elsewhere. Destruction stared the army in the face ; 
 but Hannibal drew them off to a kind of hog's back, 
 from which the snow had been just shovelled, and, 
 pitching his camp there, directed his men with such en- 
 gineering skill, and with such implements as they could 
 muster, to repair the broken passage. Never was an 
 Alpine road made under greater difficulties ; but the 
 men worked for their lives, and by the following day the 
 horses were able to creep round the dangerous spot, and 
 to descend till they found a scanty herbage. The ele- 
 phants, owing to their uncouth appearance, had hitherto 
 enjoyed immunity from the attacks of the natives ; but 
 they too now had their share of suffering. It was three 
 whole days before the roadway was sufficiently wide 
 and strong for them to pass. On the high Alps on which 
 they then were, neither tree nor pasture could be found, 
 and from regions of Arctic rigour these inhabitants of 
 the torrid zone made their way down, half dead with 
 cold and hunger. After the great danger had been sur- 
 mounted, the descent became more practicable. The 
 eyes of the perishing soldiers were soon gladdened with 
 the sight of umbrageous trees, of upland lawns, and 
 even of human habitations, and three days saw them 
 safe in the valley of Aosta below. 
 
 The passage — 1,200 stadia of mountain climbing — had 
 
 been accomplished ; but was it worth the price which 
 
 had been paid for it ? Of the army which 
 
 The passage ^^^^ crossed the Pyrenees scarcely half had 
 
 accomplished. ■' •' 
 
 lived to cross the Alps. Without provisions, 
 without a commissariat, without even an assured base ot 
 
Descent of the Alps. 125 
 
 operations, or the certainty of reinforcements, Hannibal 
 was about to enter on a war which stands forth without 
 a parallel in ancient history. With 20,000 foot and 
 6,000 horse he was about to attack a power which had 
 only lately put into the field to serve against the Gauls 
 an army of 170,000 men. And in what condition was 
 this handful, this forlorn hope, of soldiers ? The cold 
 and hunger, and exposure and fatigue, of fifteen days 
 of mountaineering had done their work with them. 
 "They had been reduced to the condition of beasts," 
 says the accurate and unimaginative Greek historian ; 
 " they looked not like men but like their phantoms or 
 their shadows," said the Roman general who was about 
 to meet them in the field, and, as he thought, like 
 shadows to sweep them away. Under any general but 
 Hannibal, and, it may also be added, with any enemy 
 who were not so dilatory as the Romans, the remnant of 
 the Carthaginian army would have conquered the Alps 
 only to perish in the plains of the Po. That Hannibal 
 crossed the Alps is a marvel ; but that with troops so 
 weakened he was able after a few days' delay to chas- 
 tise the hostile barbarians, to take from them their, city 
 of Turin, to force some of them to join his army, and 
 then to face all the power of Rome, is a greater marvel 
 still. 
 
 It is difficult throughout this period of the war, and, 
 indeed, throughout the whole of it, to withdraw the at- 
 tention even for a moment from its presiding genius. 
 With sound judgment did the Romans, who calumniated 
 his character and tried sometimes to make light even of 
 his abilities, call the war which was now beginning, 
 not the Second Punic War, but the War of Hannibal. 
 His form it was which haunted their imagination and 
 their memories ; his name was for centuries the terror 
 
 K 
 
126 Rome and Carthage. 
 
 of old and of young alike. Nearly two hundred years 
 later the frivolous and the pleasure-loving Horace pays 
 Hannibal the homage of a mention which is always se- 
 rious and often awe-stricken. Once in his Odes he is 
 " the perfidious," but three times over he is " the dread 
 Hannibal ;'' and rising, with a thrill of horror, into epic 
 dignity, he compares the march of the Carthaginian 
 through Italy to the careering of the east wind over those 
 Sicilian waters which had engulfed so many Roman 
 fleets, or to that most terrible and magnificent of sights, 
 the rush of the flames through a blazing forest of pines. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 battles of trebia and trasimene. 
 
 (b. c. 218-217.) 
 
 It is time now to ask what the Romans were doing to 
 meet the storm, Publius Scipio, after his encounter with 
 the enemy's cavalry on the Rhone, had 
 of R^^an marched up the river to the camp which 
 
 Senate, Hannibal had just left, and discovering that 
 
 he was already off for Italy had flattered his soldiers and, 
 perhaps, himself, by representing his march as a flight. 
 He showed, however, that he was himself alive to the 
 gravity of the occasion by returning at once to Italy, wh'V 
 he sent his brother Cneius with the bulk of his army on to 
 Spain. As for the Senate, the last message that h&yi 
 reached them from that country had told them of the tak- 
 ing of Saguntum, and they had accordingly despatched 
 troops who were to stop Hannibal at the Ebro, The news 
 they now received was to the effect that Hannibal had 
 crossed, not the Ebro only, but the Pyrenees, the Rhone, 
 
Battle of Ticinus, 127 
 
 and the Alps, and he might be expected at any monn«nt 
 across the Po. They now awoke — they could not help 
 waking — to the character of the war. Orders were sent 
 to Sempronius to return at once from Sicily for the pro- 
 tection of Italy. He obeyed with a heavy heart, and 
 sending his troops some by land and some by sea, bade 
 them rejoin him at Ariminum, an important town on the 
 Adriatic, situated just where the great Flaminian road 
 ends and the plain of the Po begins. 
 
 But meanwhile Scipio and Hannibal had come into 
 collision, and the first Roman blood in the great duel 
 had been shed. From the valley of the 
 Dora Baltea Hannibal had advanced to- S?^'^'^ °^ 
 
 iicinus. 
 
 wards the Po ; but by turning aside west- 
 ward to chastise the Taurini, he had given Scipio time 
 to cross that river near Placentia, and to throw a bridge 
 over the Ticinus, a stream which, issuing from the Lake 
 Verbanus (Maggiore), flows southwards into the Po near 
 Pavia. Not far from this stream the armies, or rather a 
 part of them, met in battle. Both generals had led out 
 their cavalry in person to make a reconnaissance in force. 
 Scipio, to compensate, as he hoped, for his inferiority in 
 that arm, had also taken some light infantry with him ; 
 but these proved one of the causes of his defeat. Fear- 
 ing to be trampled under foot by the cavalry, they retired 
 behind their supports. The Gallic horse, who formed 
 his centre, gallantly withstood the charge of the bridled 
 Spanish cavalry of Hannibal. But the bridleless Nu- 
 midian cavalry, on which he most relied, and which he 
 had placed upon his wings, outflanking the enemy, and 
 riding round towards their rear, first fell on the retreating 
 infantry, and dealt them the very death which they had 
 tried to avoid ; then, charging in their peculiar fashion, 
 sometimes in twos and threes, sometimes in a compact 
 
128 Rome and Carthage. 
 
 mass, they fell on the Roman centre. This decided the 
 conflict. Scipio received a dangerous wound, and was 
 only, as it is said, rescued by his son, a youth of seven- 
 teen, who risked his own to save his father's life, and 
 lived to conquer Hannibal at Zama, to finish the war, and 
 to win the proud name of Africanus. 
 
 The retreat of the Romans, though a hasty retreat, 
 
 was not a rout ; but it was ominous of what was to follow. 
 
 It proved the superiority of the Numidian 
 
 Hannibal's cavalrv to any which the Romans could 
 
 advance. •' •' 
 
 bring against them ; and, seeing that the 
 plains of Lombardy would always give them the advan- 
 tage, Scipio determined to place the Po between himself 
 and the enemy. He crossed in safety ; but a party of 
 600 men, who were left behind to cover the retreat and to 
 cut down the bridge, fell into Hannibal's hands. Unable 
 to cross the river there, Hannibal marched up its right 
 bank till he found a convenient place. He there threw a 
 bridge of boats across, and then marching down on the left 
 side of the Po crossed, as it would seem, the Trebia, and 
 pitched his camp six miles to the south of Placentia, under 
 the strong walls of which Scipio's army lay entrenched. 
 The whole country to the north of the Po, with the 
 exception of the recently planted colony of Cremona, 
 
 Hannibal ^^^ ^°^ ^°^^ ^° ^^ Romans. Already, be- 
 
 seiects his fore the battle of the Ticinus, the Ligurians 
 
 ground for j ^.i. /^ n- -i , -i t-. 
 
 another and the Gallic tribes along the upper Po 
 
 had joined Hannibal; and now embassies 
 flowed in from almost all the remaining tribes of 
 Cisalpine Gaul, ofl"ering their alliance. Scipio was now 
 alarmed for his safety ; better, he thought, the exposed 
 hill-sides than the fortified camp before Placentia, if only 
 he could quit himself of these Gauls, so formidable as 
 enemies, so doubly formidable as allies. Accordingly he 
 
Selection of Battle- field. . 129 
 
 broke up his camp by night, put, as it would seem, the 
 Trebia between himself and Hannibal, and, marching 
 southward, took posession of some high ground formed 
 by a spur of the Northern Apennines. It was a perilous 
 operation, for his line of retreat took him near to Han- 
 nibal, who discovered the movement before it was com- 
 pleted ; and had not the Numidian horsemen sent in 
 pursuit turned aside to plunder the deserted camp, it 
 might have fared ill with the whole Roman army. But 
 the hills to the west of the Trebia, on which Scipio's 
 camp now lay, protected him at all events from the 
 dreaded cavalry, and he could afford to wait patiently 
 for the arrival of Sempronius from Sicily. Why Han- 
 nibal did not seize what seems to have been a golden 
 opportunity, and, thrusting himself between the two 
 armies, crush Sempronius as he crossed the level coun- 
 try, so favourable for cavalry, between Ariminum and 
 the Trebia, must remain a mystery. But the junction 
 was effected without any opposition from him, and he 
 now found himself confronted by two consular armies of 
 40,000 men. Scipio, impeded by his wound, and appre- 
 hensive of the result, as one who had already felt the 
 weight of Hannibal's arm, was for delay. Sempronius, 
 on the contrary, was eager to fight, for if Rome could 
 not be defended by two consular armies, it might well 
 seem that she could not be defended at all. A petty 
 success won by his cavalry over some squadrons of 
 Numidian horse, who were harrying the country, made 
 him doubly confident. Hannibal knew his man, and 
 knew also that the consular elections at Rome were not 
 far off. If a battle was not fought in the next few days, 
 it would be fought not by Sempronius, but by his suc- 
 cessor. Accordingly he laid all his plans for the battle 
 which he knew he could at any moment force on. 
 
130 Rome and Carthage. 
 
 In the plain of the Trebia, and on the eastern side of 
 
 it where Hannibal still lay, was a water-course over-, 
 
 o;rown with bulrushes and brambles, and 
 
 Plan of deep enoucrh with its steep banks to hide 
 
 battle. ^ ^ , 1 i- 
 
 even cavalry. It was the very place for an 
 ambuscade, for no one would expect an ambush in a 
 country which seemed to the ordinary glance so level 
 and unbroken. Hannibal saw his chance, and here, 
 during the night, he placed his brother Mago, with two 
 thousand horse and foot whom he had picked out for the 
 purpose. Mago was young and adventurous, and sprang 
 at the task assigned him. At dawn of day Hannibal 
 sent his Numidian horse across the river, with orders to 
 ride up to the enemy's camp and draw them out. 
 Sempronius was ready to be caught ; and the Numidian 
 horse faUing back, as they had been instructed, across 
 the river, drew the Roman horse and foot, flushed with 
 their apparent success, after them. 
 
 It was mid-winter. Heavy rain had fallen on the 
 
 previous night, and the swollen waters of the Trebia 
 
 rose to the breasts of the soldiers as they 
 
 Battle of made their way across. When they reached 
 
 the Trebia. . , , , r i / 1 
 
 the opposite bank they found themselves 
 face to face with Hannibal's army. Sleet was falling 
 fast, and the wind blew icily cold over the plains which 
 lay between the eternal snows of the Alps and those 
 which had lately fallen on the Apennines. In the hurry 
 of the call to arms the Romans had taken no breakfast ; 
 and now, faint with hunger and numbed with the cold, 
 they stood on the river's bank with the day's work still 
 all before them. Hannibal, on the contrary, had or- 
 dered his men to take their breakfasts by their firesides, 
 and then, buckhng on their armour and saddling their 
 horses, to remain in the shelter of their tents till the sig- 
 
Plan of Trehia. 
 
 '^31 
 
 Carthaginian Camp 
 
 Carthaginian Infantry 
 
 Homan 
 Cavalry 
 
 (Betreating) 
 
 BATTLE 
 
 OF THE 
 
 TREBIA 
 
 V B.C.2I8. / 
 
 Roma^Camp 
 
 •'^^ 
 
 S^^i*^ 
 
 mmw 
 
 '^^•'■'W 
 
1^2 Rome and Carthage. 
 
 '<5' 
 
 nal should be given. Hastily throwing forward his 
 
 light-armed troops and sharpshooters, to occupy the 
 
 ^ attention of the enemy, he now drew up his main line 
 
 ■ of battle immediately behind them ; his Gallic, Spanish, 
 
 ; and African troops in the centie, and his cavalry and 
 
 elephants on the wings. The light-armed troops, having 
 
 ; played with the Romans for a time, fell back between the 
 
 : intervals of the maniples behind, and the 4,000 Roman 
 
 \ cavalry, finding themselves suddenly exposed to the 
 
 attacks of more than double their number, broke and 
 
 fled, leaving the dreaded Numidians to attack the in- 
 
 : fantry on their now unprotected flanks. Many of the 
 
 Roman infantry stood their ground nobly, and for a 
 
 short time kept the conflict doubtful ; but then Mago, 
 
 starting up from his ambuscade, fell upon their rear. 
 
 . Surrounded as they were on every side, one body of 
 
 10,000 men yet fought their way, with the courage of 
 
 despair, through the Carthaginian ranks in front, and 
 
 managed by a circuitous route to make their way to 
 
 ; Placentia ; but the rout of the remainder was complete. 
 
 , In vain they tried to reach the river which they had 
 
 crossed so imprudently in the morning, for they were 
 
 ridden down as they fled by the Numidian cavalry, who 
 
 seemed to be everywhere amongst them, or were 
 
 trampled to death by the elephants. A mere remnant 
 
 escaped across the river, and were saved from further 
 
 pursuit by the violence of the storm. 
 
 Well might Hannibal rejoice at the victory which he 
 had won. He had beaten two Roman armies ; the diffi- 
 culties and the dangers and the disasters of 
 bauie*^^ °^ his march from Spain had been crowned by 
 
 a triumphant success ; and it was doubtful 
 whether any force remained to bar his march upon Rome. 
 In vain did Sempronius try to disguise the magnitude of 
 
Passage of the Marshes. 133 
 
 the disaster which had overtaken him. He had fought a 
 battle, so he sent word to Rome, and it was only the 
 storm which had prevented him from winning a decisive 
 victory. How came it then, people asked — and well they 
 might ask — that Hannibal was in possession of the field 
 of battle, that the Gauls had joined him to a man, that 
 the Roman camp had been broken up, and that the Ro- 
 man armies — all that remained of them — were cowering 
 in the fortified camp before Placentia or behind the walls 
 of Cremona, while Hannibal's cavalry were scouring the 
 fair plains of Lombardy ? The truth was too clear ; but 
 the spirit of the Roman Senate showed no signs of 
 breaking. They prepared even now to take the offensive. 
 Armaments were despatched to the remotest corners of 
 their dominions, — to Tarentum, for instance, to Sicily and 
 to Sardinia ; a new navy was fitted out, the consular 
 elections held, and four more legions levied ; "for," says 
 Poly bins emphatically, "the Romans are never so terrible 
 as when real terrors gird them in on every side." 
 
 At the first approach of spring Hannibal attempted 
 to cross the Apennines ; but a storm more terrible even 
 than those of the Alps drove him back to his 
 
 . . Passage 
 
 wmter quarters. When the sprmg began m of the 
 earnest, Hannibal made a second, and this pennmes. 
 time a successful, attempt to cross the mountains, which 
 lay immediately to the south of his position. Two routes 
 alone seem to have been deemed practicable by the 
 newly elected consuls for his advance into Central Italy. 
 The one was by the Central Apennines in the direction 
 of Faesul^ ; the other along the coast of the Adriatic. 
 Cn. Servilius lay at Ariminum, prepared to block the one 
 against his passage ; Flaminius at Arretium, in the heart 
 of Etruria, to block the other. But Hannibal did not 
 confine himself to any authorized routes, nor did he care 
 
134 Rome and Carthage. 
 
 to strike only when he could do so by the recognized 
 laws of war. His genius could dispense with both. Ac- 
 cordingly he crossed the Apennines where they approach 
 the western coast of Italy, near the head waters of the 
 Marca, and reached, without serious difficulty, the plains 
 of the Arno near Lucca. 
 
 The region which lies between Lucca and Fsesulae is 
 
 intersected by lakes, and the melting of the snow on the 
 
 hills had then caused the Arno to overflow 
 
 Passage of j{_s banks, making the whole one vast morass. 
 
 the marshes. , ° 
 
 How would his army stand this renewal of 
 horrors in the very land of promise ? Of the fidelity and 
 courage of his Libyan and Spanish veterans Hannibal 
 was well assured, but as regards the Gauls, his newly 
 formed allies, it was far otherwise. He placed them, 
 therefore, in the middle of his line of march, that they 
 might be encouraged by the troops who led the van, or 
 be driven back to their duty, if they tried to turn home- 
 ward, by Mago and his cavalry who were to bring up the 
 rear. For four days and three nights the army went 
 toihng: on through the water or the mud, unable to find a 
 dry spot on which they could either sit down or sleep. 
 The Gauls, driven forward by Mago's cavalry over ground 
 which was all the more difficult to pass from the trampling 
 it had already undergone, and unused to fatigue, stum- 
 bled amidst the deep morasses, and fell to rise no more. 
 Disease attacked the horses and carried away their hoofs. 
 Hannibal himself, tortured with ophthalmia, rode on the 
 one elephant which had survived the last year's cam- 
 paign, and escaped only with the loss of an eye. 
 
 At last the invading army reached the 
 Character of j^jp.^ crround of Fsesulae, and there Hanni- 
 
 Flaminms. & t> ' . , 
 
 bal learned, one would thmk with sur- 
 prise, that the consuls were still at their respective sta- 
 
Hostility of Patricians to Flaininius. 135 
 
 tions some fifty miles apart, and with the Apennines be- 
 tween them. Servihus, it would seem, was still expecting 
 the attack of Hannibal on his front at Ariminum when 
 the Carthaginians had already crossed the mountains 
 and had shown themselves in his rear at Faesulse. The 
 other consul, Flaminius, was at Arretium, to the south 
 of the central chain of the Apennines, and, lying as he 
 did between Hannibal and the probable line of his ad- 
 vance on Rome, was likely to bear the brunt of his as- 
 sault. Flaminius was a marked man in more ways than 
 one. Of a plebeian family, he had long since incurred 
 the deadly hatred of the patricians by preferring the in- 
 terests of the citizens at large to those of their order ; a 
 senator, he was hated by the Senate because he had 
 supported a law which forbade senators to amass large 
 sums by trading with merchant vessels. Sixteen years 
 before, as tribune of the people, he had carried, in spite 
 of the interested opposition of the aristocracy, a law for 
 the division of the conquered Gallic territory in Umbria 
 amongst the poorer citizens. Such a man the Senate 
 might fear as well as hate, and envy as well as fear. 
 But no efforts and no malice of theirs could blot out 
 those splendid monuments of his recent censorship, the 
 Circus and the great military road which, to this day, 
 bear his name. And now, in the year 217 — a year so 
 big with the destinies of Rome — the popular favour se- 
 cured for him, in spite of all the old opposition, a sec- 
 ond consulship. If the wave of destruction which was 
 breaking over Italy was to be driven back at all, his, 
 the people were determined, should be the hand to 
 do it. 
 
 The winter at Rome had passed amidst pa°ricians°to 
 gloom and doubt ; the augurs and the priests Flammms. 
 alone had a good time of it, and their hands were 
 
136 Rome and Carthage. 
 
 full enough. The general anxiety gave birth to por- 
 tents, and was, in its turn, increased by them. 
 When Flaminius was elected consul, the omens in- 
 creased in number and in horror. In the vegetable 
 market an infant six months old shouted "Triumph!" 
 In the cattle market an ox rushed up the stairs of a 
 house to the third story and threw itself out of the win- 
 dow ; fiery ships were seen in the heavens ; and from 
 all parts of Italy stories of terrible appearances came 
 dropping in, which lost nothing as they passed from 
 mouth to mouth. Once previously the Senate had at- 
 tempted to annul the appointment of their enemy to the 
 mastership of the horse, because a mouse had been 
 heard to squeak during the election ; and now, when the 
 very atmosphere seemed charged with portents, when 
 showers of stones were falling, bucklers gleaming in 
 the heavens, the statues of the god of war perspiring, 
 and strange and unheard of creatures coming to the birth, 
 it needed no prophetic insight to foresee that the proper 
 obstacle would be forthcoming on the day of Flaminius' 
 entry on his office, and that if religious awe could avail 
 aught, the consul-elect would never become consul in 
 reality. Impatient of such chicaneries, Flaminius took 
 the law into his own hands, and, making light of the 
 sacred rites which he would have to perform on his entry 
 into office, went off" to the camp at Ariminum before the 
 Ides of March came. Legates were sent to recall him, 
 but he heeded them not. Evil omens, so the Senate 
 said, pursued him even now. When he offered his first 
 sacrifice as consul the victim escaped from the altar and 
 sprinkled the bystanders with its blood. When he had 
 fallen back to Arretium, and the time came for him to 
 break up his camp there, and to follow Hannibal on his 
 march to Rome, as he was in duty bound to do, even 
 
HannibaV s March through Etruria. 137 
 
 then the malice of the Senate, or the folly of the annal- 
 ists, represents the gods as still taking part against him. 
 It was clear that the man whom the gods intended to 
 destroy they first drove mad. Flaminius ordered the 
 standard-bearer to advance ; but the standard, it was 
 said, stuck fast in the ground. He mounted his horse, 
 and it straightway threw him. The annalists forgot, or 
 they did not know, that the greater the terrors which the 
 science of the augurs put in his way, the greater was the 
 credit due to him for despising them when duty called. 
 It is difficult to say how far this army of angry portents 
 may have paralyzed the Roman legionaries when they 
 found themselves surrounded in the defiles of Lake 
 Trasimene. It is not difficult to see that, if it did so, it 
 was the aristocracy, and not the legionaries, who were to 
 blame ; for it was the aristocracy who, for their own 
 selfish ends, had long been working on popular super- 
 stition to crush the true friend of the people. 
 
 Hannibal had advanced from Faesulae, laying waste 
 with fire and sword the rich plains of Etruria. The 
 plunder, and the slaughter, and the smoke 
 of burning homesteads, with which he at- march through 
 tempted to draw the consul from the shelter *'^"^'^- 
 of his camp to risk a battle, might have roused a man 
 who was less hot-headed than his enemies represent 
 Flaminius to have been. But it was not till Hannibal 
 had marched leisurely by his camp, and went devastating 
 on towards Rome, that Flaminius left his position and 
 followed him. It was not, as Polybius imagined, morti- 
 fied pride at the fancied slight which Hannibal had 
 shown him ; still less was it^ as the annalists tell us, 
 and as the circle of the Scipios perhaps believed, the 
 selfish desire to win the credit of a victory, before his 
 colleague could come up, which made Flaminius follow 
 
138 Rome and Carthage. 
 
 so closely on Hannibal's steps. Hannibal knew better 
 than the detractors of Flaminius what Flaminius was 
 bound to do. He knew that he could do nothing else 
 but follow him closely, and he laid his plans and chose 
 his ground with his own consummate skill. He had vio- 
 lated all the rules of war by leaving a hostile force of 
 60,000 men in his rear and upon his line of communica- 
 tions. It remained for him now to justify his temerity 
 by success, and the greatest sticklers for the rules of war 
 will admit that he did it with a vengeance. 
 
 Hannibal had reached the shores of Lake Trasimene. 
 
 Near its northern margin ran the high road from Cortona 
 
 to Perugia, and above the road rose aline of 
 
 LakeTrasi- undulating hills which at two points, the one 
 
 mene. ° ^ ' 
 
 near the tower now called Borghetto, and 
 the other near the small town of Passignano, approach 
 the lake so closely as to cut off what lies between them 
 from the outer world. Between these two points the hills 
 retreat from the lake in-the form of a semicircle, leaving 
 between themselves and it a plain which seems broad by 
 contrast to its narrow entrance and outlet. Along these 
 retreating hills Hannibal placed the main part of his 
 army, and the plain which they enfold was the scene of 
 the terrible catastrophe which followed. On the spur 
 near Passignano and the hills behind it he stationed, in a 
 conspicuous position, his Gallic cavalry and his veteran 
 Libyans and Spaniards. Near Borghetto, and on either 
 side of the road which descends into the plain, but care- 
 fully concealed from those who might pass along it by 
 some broken ground, were his Gallic infantry and his 
 ^umidian cavalry. On the hills to the north of the plain, 
 or rather behind their crests, were placed the light-armed 
 troops and the Balearic slingers. Flaminius reached the 
 hills which shut in the lake late in the evening, too late. 
 
Sdttle of Trnsimene. 
 
 139 
 
 Jtf 
 
 ^^ 
 
 ^ BATTLE ^ 
 
 OF 
 
 LAKE TEASmENE 
 
 \ B.C. 217. ^ 
 
 
 W^m^^m.^'^. 
 
 
 I I Carthaginians . 
 
 A INumidian Cavali-y and 
 
 Gallic Infantry. 
 B XzgrTit Troops andJSaJeares. 
 C Spanish andl,ibyan 
 Infantry (Hannibal). 
 
I40 Rome and Carthage. 
 
 it would seem, to attempt to pass thfem then ; but next 
 morning, before it was broad daylight, and without 
 sending scouts forward to see that the further end of the 
 pass was clear, he continued the pursuit. 
 
 It was a fatal mistake. In heavy marching order, and 
 
 without a thought of danger, the Roman army entered 
 
 the valley of death and moved along the 
 
 Battle of Lake j-Qg^j tj^^^t skirted the margin of the lake. 
 
 Trasimene. ° 
 
 A thick curtain of mist hung over the low- 
 lands which the army was crossing, and hid from view 
 the base of the adjoining hills, while their tops were 
 catching the first rays of the rising sun. With grim de- 
 light, and in a fever of expectation, must the soldiers of 
 Hannibal, as they saw above the mist the whole crest of 
 the hills and each glen and hollow which lay between 
 their folds crowded with their brothers in arms, have 
 listened to the tramp of the 30,000 men whom they 
 could hear but could not see, as they passed along a 
 few hundred yards below, each step making the destruc- 
 tion of the whole more sure. As soon as the rear of the 
 Roman army had got well within the passage, Hannibal 
 gave the signal. The Gauls and the Numidian cavalry 
 hastened down and closed up the entrance, while the 
 passage out was already blocked by the Gallic cavalry 
 and the veterans. And now from all sides, from above 
 and from below, from the front and from the rear, the 
 battle-cry arose, and the enemy were upon the Romans. 
 It was a carnage, and a carnage only. There was no 
 time or space to form in order of battle ; orders could 
 neither be given nor heard ; the men had hardly time 
 to adjust their armour or to draw their swords. The 
 majority stood where they were, and were cut down. 
 Six thousand who led the van fought their way, sword 
 in hand, in a compact mass, throuj^h the troops that 
 
Battle of Trasimene. 141 
 
 blocked the outlet, and reached a hillock, where they 
 halted. The mist still hung heavy on the ground be- 
 low, and half ignorant of what was going on behind 
 them, they waited in dread suspense, unable to help 
 their comrades, yet unable also to tear themselves away 
 from the scene of the conflict. It was their turn now to 
 hear and not to see. At last, as the sun rose higher in 
 the heavens, the mist lifted and revealed the extent of 
 the butchery below. For three hours the slaughter had 
 gone on, and 15,000 Roman corpses covered the ground, 
 or were floating on the waters. Some in their terror had 
 tried to swim across the lake, but were drowned by their 
 heavy armour ; others who had waded into the water 
 might be seen standing in it up to their necks, and beg- 
 ging for their lives, till the cavalry rode in and struck 
 off their heads. Of the conquering army barely 1,500 
 had fallen, and these were chiefly Gauls, the troops 
 whom Hannibal could best afford to lose. 
 
 The Roman army was annihilated. To make the 
 disaster more complete, the six thousand infantry who 
 had so gallantly fought their way out of the 
 pass were overtaken on the following day filmhii'us 
 by Maherbal and forced to surrender ; while 
 four thousand cavalry, who had been sent forward by 
 Servilius as his forerunners to co-operate with Flaminius, 
 fell also into Hannibal's hands. Flaminius himself, 
 after in vain trying to play the general's part amidst the 
 blind panic and confusion, had died a soldier's death, 
 fighting bravely. A Gallic Insubrian recognizing him, 
 cried aloud, " Yonder is the consul who has slain our 
 legions and ravaged our territory," and rushing at him, 
 ran him through with his spear. In vain did Hannibal 
 search for his body to give him the honourable funeral 
 which he never refused to a worthy foe. Flaminius 
 
142 Rome and Carthage. 
 
 may not have been a great general, he may have been 
 impetuous and headstrong, and he certainly made one 
 fatal mistake ; but amidst the calumnies heaped on him 
 by the Senate, and the gloom which always gathers 
 round defeat, we can safely say that he was the worthiest 
 and least self-seeking Roman of his time. 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 HANNIBAL OVERRUNS CENTRAL ITALY. 
 (B.C. 217-216.) 
 
 At Rome no effort was made to disguise the extent of 
 the calamity which had overtaken the State. The at- 
 tempt had been made after the Trebia, and 
 Tr^asfmene had not succeeded then ; still less could it 
 reaches Rome, succeed now. The Only man who might 
 have had anything to gain by hiding the naked truth 
 lay unrecognized amidst the heaps of slain in the fatal 
 valley. It was the interest of the survivors to blacken 
 his memory, not to strew flowers upon his grave ; and 
 they succeeded in the attempt. Roman senators even 
 then consoled themselves for the defeat by the reflec- 
 tion that it was the presumptuous folly of their private 
 foe which was responsible for it; and Roman orators 
 and historians, for centuries afterwards, pointed their 
 morals or adorned their tales by a reference to the well- 
 deserved fate of the man who had withstood the patri- 
 cian order and had despised the gods. When the first 
 vague rumour of the disaster reached the city, an 
 anxious crowd gathered in the Forum. Towards sunset 
 the praetor mounted the rostrum, and simply said, " We 
 have been defeated in a great battle." The scene of 
 
Fabius made Dictator. 143 
 
 consternation which ensued brought home to the few 
 survivors who had managed to reach the city, more viv- 
 idly than the scene of slaughter itself, the full reality of 
 what had happened. The Senate alone preserved its 
 dignity and its self-restraint. Thinking not of the past, 
 but of the present and the immediate future, they sat, 
 day after day, from sunrise to sunset, concerting 
 measures for the defence of the city. To remedy the 
 evils of a divided command, they determined to revive 
 the office of Dictator, an office unused for thirty-nine 
 years past, and therefore nearly unknown to that genera- 
 tion. Their choice fell on the most prudent and re- 
 spected, if not the ablest, of the patricians, Quintus 
 Fabius Maximus, Marcus Minucius being selected as 
 his master of the horse. The Dictator first made his 
 peace by vows and offerings with the angry gods, and 
 then took more practical steps for the defence. By his 
 order the walls were repaired and manned, the bridges 
 over the rivers were broken down, the country through 
 which Hannibal's advance was likely to take place was 
 turned into a desert, and everything prepared to with- 
 stand an immediate attack. 
 
 Why did not Hannibal at once advance on Rome, as 
 the most cool-headed of his opponents expected that he 
 would ? The answer is the same that must 
 
 , . . •.•!•• News of 
 
 be given on a yet more critical occasion in victory sent 
 the following year. He knew, what the to Canhage. 
 Romans themselves hardly yet fully knew, that every 
 Roman citizen could, when occasion required, become 
 a soldier ; he knew also that amid a hostile population — 
 for no Italian town had as yet come over to him — ^his 
 attack, however impetuous, must break upon the walls of 
 the city. If he delayed a little longer, and allowed his 
 victories to produce their natural result, he would be borne 
 
i44 Rome and Carthage. 
 
 back, he hoped, upon a wave of Itahaii national enthu- 
 siasm, and, bearing the banner of Italian independence, 
 would strike down at his leisure the common oppressor. 
 Accordingly, when the cup which he had so eagerly de- 
 sired to drain seemed to be at his lips, he wisely dashed 
 it from them. Crossing the Tiber, with stern resolve he 
 crossed also the Flaminian Road, which must have 
 seemed to his victorious army as if it were there for the 
 express purpose of inviting an immediate march on the 
 capital; and, hazarding an attack upon the adjoining 
 Latin colony of Spoletium, he proved to demonstration 
 the soundness of the judgment he had formed as to the 
 courage of the Italians behind stone walls, and the im- 
 possibility, with so small a force as his own, of coping 
 adequately with it. After traversing Umbria, he crossed 
 the Apennines a second time, and at last laden with the 
 plunder of Central Italy, he entered the territory of Pice- 
 num. Here the Carthaginians caught sight, for the first 
 time since many months, of their native element, the 
 sea; and Hannibal dispatched his first messenger with 
 tidings of what he had done, to the Carthaginian Senate. 
 Never probably, before or since, did a general send des- 
 patches to his government weighted with such brilliant 
 achievements. From New Carthage to the Adriatic, 
 what a catalogue of dangers met and overcome, and 
 what crowning victories ! The Ebro, the Rhone, and 
 the Po ; the Pyrenees, the Alps, and the Apennines ; 
 the Ticinus, the Trebia, and the Trasimene ! Well can 
 we believe, what we are expressly told, that such news dis- 
 armed all opposition to the lion's brood at Carthage, and 
 closed the mouths of even the peace party. In the enthu- 
 siasm of the moment all parties determined to send rein- 
 forcements (why had they not taken steps to do so before ?) 
 alike to Hasdrubalin Spain and to Hannibal in Italy. 
 
Policy of Fabius. 1 45 
 
 Meanwhile the Phoenician hero rested his troops, 
 fatigued with all that they had undergone, in the plains 
 of Picenum. They lived on the fat of the 
 land, and the Numidian horses, diseased as Hannibal in 
 
 ' x^icenum. 
 
 they were from their bad or their scanty 
 food, soon recovered their condition when they were 
 groomed day by day with the old wine of Italian vin- 
 tages. Here, too, Hannibal took the opportunity — a 
 hazardous one even for him in the midst of a campaign 
 — of arming his Libyan and, perhaps, some of his 
 Spanish troops in the Roman fashion. The victor of the 
 Trasimene could be in no want of Roman suits of 
 armour. When the troops had been sufficiently re- 
 cruited, and were again eager to advance, he marched 
 at his leisure through the territories of the Marrucini 
 and Frentani, the Marsi and Peligni, ravaging them as he 
 went, and at length pitched his tent near Argyrippa, or 
 Arpi, in Apulia. 
 
 Fabius, on his part, after levying four new legions led 
 them off in pursuit of Hannibal. He came up with him 
 at Arpi, and Hannibal immediately offered 
 the battle which it might be presumed that Fabms°^ 
 
 a pursuing army, under a successor of Fla- 
 minius, would at once accept. But Fabius had made up 
 his mind to a policy ; a policy inevitable if Rome was to 
 be saved, but requiring no ordinary firmness and cour- 
 age to carry out. The policy was to commit nothing to 
 fortune, to follow Hannibal wherever he went, dogging 
 his footsteps constantly, but never risking a battle, and 
 never, so far as human foresight could prevent it, giving 
 the enemy a chance of taking him at a disadvantage. 
 In vain did Hannibal order the richest country to be 
 devastated before the Dictator's eyes ; in vain did he 
 shift his camp from place to place, in hopes that his 
 
146 Rome and Carthage. 
 
 rapidity might wrest from the old man what insults and 
 annoyances could not. Never close to Hannibal, but 
 never far behind him, with admirable resolution, and 
 with still more admirable self-restraint, did Fabius follow 
 his foe from place to place, always clinging to the hills, 
 occasionally cutting off stragglers, or intercepting the 
 booty which the flying Numidian squadrons had cap- 
 tured, but giving no chance of a general engagement. 
 
 It was not in flesh and blood — certainly not in the 
 
 flesh and blood of the hot-headed master of the horse — 
 
 „ ,. to submit patiently to this for ever. The 
 
 HanniDars . ». /■ 
 
 march into name of " Lingerer (Cunctator) — given to 
 ampama. Fabius, at first as a mark of approval by 
 those who blamed Flaminius for his rashness — became 
 for the time a term of bitterest reproach. The lingerer 
 was called a do-nothing, and his caution was put down 
 to cowardice or even to treachery. ** Hannibal's 
 lackey," so the soldiers, aptly enough from their point 
 of view, nick-named their general, would go anywhere 
 if his master gave him the lead ; without it he would go 
 nowhere. But the old Dictator was as proof against the 
 murmurings of his soldiers and mutinous speeches of 
 his own master of the horse, Minucius, as he was against 
 all the devices of Hannibal. At last, wearied out by 
 his delay, Hannibal determined that Fabius, if he would 
 not tire himself out by hard fighting, should at least do 
 so by hard marching; and leaving Apulia behind, where 
 he had already taken the strongly fortified town of 
 Venusia, he marched into Samnium, the most inaccessible 
 and mountainous part of Italy, ravaged the territory of Be- 
 neventum, in its very centre, took Telesia by assault, and 
 then passed straight on out of Samnium into Campania. 
 The plains of Campania were certainly the most fer- 
 tile and beautiful plains in ancient Italy; the Italians 
 
Hannibal in Campania. 147 
 
 thought them the most beautiful and fertile in the world. 
 "Campania the blessed, where all human delights meet 
 and vie with each other," says Pliny of it. One of two 
 things was evident. In defence of all this 
 wealth and beauty, either Fabius must at inaction of 
 length risk a battle, or it would be clear to '"^* 
 
 all Italians that the whole of Italy was at Hannibal's 
 mercy, and its towns would, if from the instinct of self- 
 preservation alone, at length join the conquering side. 
 Fabius had followed Hannibal more quickly than was 
 his wont, and his troops were in high spirits, for they 
 thought that their general was at length in earnest, and 
 would strike a blow rather than leave Campania to fall 
 into the enemy's hands. But they were disappointed. 
 They reached the ridge of the Calliculan hill which 
 overlooked the plain, and then they sat down to enjoy, or 
 to endure, as best they could, the now well-known sight 
 of devastated fields and burning homesteads. Their dis- 
 content broke out with two-fold force, and it was evident 
 from the reception which they gave to a mutinous speech 
 of Minucius, that the soldiers thought the master of the 
 horse would make a better commander than the Dictator ; 
 an opinion in which it was also evident that the master 
 of the horse himself fully coincided. Aware that the dis- 
 content of the army had spread to Rome, and even to the 
 aristocracy whose representative he was, Fabius yet held 
 on steadfastly to his purpose. He knew that Northern 
 Campania, with all its riches, could not support the Car- 
 thaginian army through the winter, and that Hannibal 
 must attempt to retreat by the pass through which he had 
 advanced. He therefore flattered himself that he had 
 caught his enemy as in a trap, and placing 4,000 men at 
 Iheheadof the pass by which Hannibal must needs retreat, 
 drew up his main army on the hills near its entrance. 
 
14$ Rome and Carthage, 
 
 Laden with booty, the spoils of Campania, Hannibal 
 halted just below him, while Fabius made all his dispo- 
 sitions to repel the attempt to force a passage which 
 would, doubtless, be made on the following day. But 
 Hannibal had no intention of fighting at a 
 foti?r'ap'^' disadvantage, or indeed of forcing the pass 
 Hannibal. ^^ ^ jj^ intended to march quietly through 
 
 it. Accordingly, he selected from the vast herds of oxen 
 which he was driving towards his winter quarters, two 
 thousand of the strongest, and bidding his sutlers cut as 
 many faggots of dry brushwood, and fasten them to 
 their horns, he ordered that when the night was well 
 advanced, the faggots should be kindled, and the oxen, 
 with their horns ablaze, be driven up the hills which 
 hung over the pass. Maddened with fear and pain, the 
 affrighted beasts ran wildly up the steep sides of the 
 valley, and Fabius himself, as well as the 4,000 men 
 upon the col, imagined that Hannibal was escaping that 
 way over the hills. But, true to his character, the Dic- 
 tator would not venture out of his camp till he could see 
 clearly what lay before him ; and meantime Hannibal 
 led his army, which had been refreshed by half a night's 
 sleep, quietly up the unguarded pass, and reached AUifae 
 in safety. Fabius found himself outwitted, and it was 
 natural in the keenness of their vexation, that his men 
 should accuse him of having purposely allowed Hanni- 
 bal to escape ; an accusation which shortly afterwards 
 seemed triumphantly brought home to him, when the 
 crafty Phoenician took occasion to spare his private pro- 
 perty, while he wasted all around with fire and sword. 
 
 Still Fabius clung steadfastly to his purpose. He fol- 
 lowed Hannibal northwards to the Peligni, and when 
 his enemy turned southwards again, towards his pro- 
 posed winter quarters in Apulia, and he himself was 
 
Minucius co- Dictator. 149 
 
 called off to Rome to perform some sacrifices incident 
 to his office, he straitly charged Minucius 
 
 r 11 1 • T J Success of 
 
 to lollow his pohcy, and on no account to Minucius. 
 risk a battle in his absence. 
 
 Hannibal had long since formed his estimate of 
 Minucius, and when he threw forward a portion of his 
 forces to a hill still nearer to the enemy, a sharp skirmish 
 took place, which ended in the Romans occupying the 
 disputed position. Encouraged by this first success, 
 Minucius made a descent in force upon Hannibal's 
 foragers, and cut many of them to pieces. Hannibal 
 found himself for the first time in his life in the midst of 
 the enemy, yet unable to take the field. He was, so at 
 least his enemies thought, penned within his own camp, 
 and on the morrow he made a hasty retreat to his old 
 position at Geronium, fearing lest Minucius, whose 
 qualities he had apparently underrated, should take it 
 by a coup de main, and thus the provisions he had so 
 laboriously got together should fall into the enemy's 
 hands. 
 
 It is not to be wondered at, that when the news of this 
 success reached Rome the delight was great, and out 
 of all proportion to its immediate cause. 
 It was the first success which the Roman ^o-i)ictator 
 arms had won in the war, and it seemed to 
 indicate that the tide had at length begun to turn. The 
 fame of Minucius was in everybody's mouth, and as he 
 rose in popular estimation, so did the Dictator fall. One 
 stroke of good luck had turned the heads of the Romans 
 more completely than had all their previous misfortunes, 
 and they took one of the most incredibly foolish steps 
 recorded in their history They did not try to depose 
 Fabius from the command for which they deemed him 
 unfitted, but they raised Minucius to an equal command 
 
150 Rome and Carthage. 
 
 with him. For the first time in Roman histor}- were to 
 be seen two co-Dictators, differing alike in temperament 
 and in policy, and the one raised to an equality with the 
 other simply because of the difference ! It has been said 
 by a high military authority that one bad general is 
 better than two good ones ; and it was apparent to those 
 who had eyes to see that the sword of Hannibal would 
 soon arbitrate between such conflicting claims. 
 
 Fabius returned to the army as convinced as ever of 
 the soundness of his policy, and prepared to press upon 
 his colleague by his personal influence what 
 ^'^F^b^^^'"^ he could no longer enforce upon him by supe- 
 rior power. Seeing that Minucius was bent 
 on fighting, he proposed either that they should take the 
 command of the whole army on alternate days, or that 
 each should have the continuous and unfettered control 
 over his own half of it. Minucius, possibly with a slight 
 distrust of himself, under the new responsibilities of 
 command, chose the latter alternative, and Fabius, 
 doubtless thinking it better to risk the safety of two than 
 of four legions on a single cast, was of the same mind. 
 Hannibal, duly informed by his prisoners or his spies of 
 the arrangement which had been made, directed his 
 attention exclusively to Minucius. Near the camp of 
 the new dictator was a hill with ground below it which 
 presented the appearance of a general level, bare of 
 trees ; but in it, as in the level ground near the Trebia, 
 Hannibal's experienced eye had discovered hollows and 
 equalities which might hide a considerable force. Here 
 by night he concealed some 5,000 foot and 500 horse, and 
 at dawn of day he sent a small body of active troops to 
 seize the hill in full view of the Romans. Minucius took 
 the bait. In the engagement which ensued the ambus- 
 cade did its duty well ; and it would have fared ill with 
 
Services of Fabius. 151 
 
 the army of the new dictator, had not Fabius, observing 
 from his own camp, at a distance of a mile, what was 
 going on, come up at the right moment and prevented 
 its retreat from being turned into a total rout. Minucius, 
 it is said, frankly acknowledged his error, joined his 
 camp to that of the old Dictator, and descended grace- 
 fully once more into his proper post of master of the 
 horse. 
 
 The tables were now completely turned. Fabius was 
 the hero alike of the camp and of the city. But his six 
 months of office were drawing to a close, and it remain- 
 ed to be seen whether his mantle would descend on 
 those who were to succeed him. He had done great 
 things in those six months. If he had not, as his ad- 
 mirers said, altogether saved Rome by his delay, he had 
 at least given her a brief breathing space. He had 
 trained raw levies to look the warriors of Hannibal in 
 the face — a feat to which they were quite unequal on the 
 morrow of the Trasimene ; and by allowing Hannibal 
 to devastate at his pleasure the Apulian and Campanian 
 plains, he had unintentionally elicited the most conclu- 
 sive proof of the hopelessness of Hannibal's enterprise. 
 For even now no Italian city had revolted ; the serried 
 ranks of the Itahan Confederation remained unbroken, 
 and it was clear to the keen-sighted Phoenician that he 
 was still as far as ever from the goal of his hopes. The 
 services, therefore, rendered by the Cunctator to Rome 
 were very real services, even if they were not quite what 
 his admirers represented them. To have escaped from 
 Hannibal without a crushing defeat was in those times, 
 as Livy truly remarks, a victory in itself. 
 
152 Rome and Carthage. 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 BATTLE OF CANN.E. CHARACTER OF HANNIBAL. 
 (B.C. 2l6.) 
 
 The Roman Senate, during the winter which followed, 
 gave new and striking proofs of their confidence in their 
 own future by sending legates to expostulate with the 
 Ligurians for having taken the part of Hannibal, and 
 to watch the ever-fickle Gauls. Nor was 
 
 Great exer- ■> • ^ 
 
 tions of their horizon bounded by the limits of Italy, 
 
 ome. With the truest wisdom they despatched re- 
 
 inforcements to their army in Spain ; they demanded the 
 arrears of tribute from Illyria, and they sent even to 
 Philip, King of Macedon, ordering him to surrender the 
 intriguer Demetrius of Pharos, who had taken refuge in 
 his court. But party spirit still ran high in the city. In 
 the election for the consulship which had just taken 
 place, other qualifications had been thought of than 
 those which were essential in this supreme hour ; per- 
 haps for the simple reason that the Romans did not yet 
 realize that it might be supreme. L. ^Emilius Paullus, 
 who had distinguished himself in the Illyrian war, was 
 the successful candidate on the patrican side, but he re- 
 ceived as his colleague P. Terentius Varro, the cham- 
 pion of the Plebeians, a man who, if the patrician annal- 
 ists can be believed, was not only of humble origin, the 
 son of a butcher, but had himself worked in his father's 
 business, and was recommended to the suffrages of 
 the people by nothing but a bullying manner and 
 a vulgar impudence. Varro does not seem, it is 
 true, to have been more of a military genius than 
 Flaminius, or Sempronius, or Fabius ; but that most of 
 
Rival Armies at Cannes. 153 
 
 the accusations laid to his charge are unjust is proved by 
 the fact that he had held high offices before, that he was 
 elected now in what no one could refuse to recognize as 
 a time of danger, and that he was employed in the pub- 
 lic service even after the disastrous name of Cannae had 
 been indissolubly connected with his own. 
 
 The spring found the hostile armies still facing each 
 other near Geronium ; but Hannibal's provisions were 
 nearly exhausted. Not enough for ten days 
 remained, and the wasted country could face each other 
 yield no more. He began to look out for ^^ Cannse. 
 another Roman magazine which he might convert to his 
 own use ; nor had he far to go. The Roman supplies 
 and munitions of war for Apulia were collected in large 
 quantities at Cannse, a town to the south of the Aufidus, 
 about half way between Canusium and the sea. With 
 strange short-sightedness the Roman generals of the 
 preceding year had neglected to garrison it strongly ; 
 and while the consuls of the new year were levying 
 fresh legions at Rome, Hannibal, by one of his rapid 
 marches, seized and appropriated it to his own use, as 
 he had seized and appropriated Geronium before it. 
 When at length ^milius and Varro assumed the com- 
 mand of the army, they did so under definite instruc- 
 tions from the authorities at home to force on a battle. 
 The Fabian method, they thought, had been tried long 
 enough : it had done all that it could do ; and it was ap- 
 parent that the Italian allies could not stand much 
 longer the strain to which it had exposed them. Every 
 precaution was taken, so far as numbers went, to ensure 
 a victory. A Roman army ordinarily consisted of but 
 two legions, each containing 4,200 infantry and 200 cav- 
 alry. The army which was now raised consisted, not of 
 two, but of eight legions, and each legion contained 5,000 
 
154 Rome and Carthage. 
 
 infantry and 3CX) cavalry. The Romans, therefore, could 
 hardly now be accused of under-estimating, so far as 
 mere numbers went, the gravity of the occasion. The 
 consuls were to act together, and those of the previous 
 year were retained as proconsuls to assist in handling 
 the vast host. Never before had the Romans sent so 
 large an army, at one time and place, into the field, and 
 the contingent furnished by the allies was, according to 
 precedent, equal to that of the Romans. The grand 
 total, therefore, of the force on which the safety of Rome 
 might seem to depend consisted of over 80,000 men. 
 They found Hannibal encamped near Cannae, on the 
 south side of the Aufidus, and they selected a spot for 
 their own camp on the same side of the river, but six 
 miles higher up its course. 
 
 The surrounding country was level and suitable to 
 the evolutions of cavalry, and without doubt had for 
 
 this reason been selected by Hannibal. 
 Paullus and Paullus, Seeing this, is said to have been 
 
 anxious to postpone the battle till he should 
 have drawn Hannibal into ground of his own choosing. 
 The historians who have bepraised Paullus for this forgot, 
 in their eagerness to throw all the blame for what hap- 
 pened afterwards on the butcher's son, that the orders 
 of the authorities to fight a battle at once were stringent, 
 and that it was not likely that Hannibal would, by any 
 artifices of the Roman consuls, be drawn off from a po- 
 sition selected by himself, well fortified and well sup- 
 plied. It was impossible for an army of 80,000 men to 
 linger long in so exhausted a country without striking a 
 blow ; and to linger there, or to retreat without fighting, 
 would have been alike fatal to the Roman cause in 
 Apulia. The evils of a divided command were great 
 enough, but they were not created by Varro. They 
 
Anxiety at Rome. 155 
 
 were even diminished, to a certain extent, in this case 
 by the arrangement that the consuls should take the su- 
 preme command on alternate days ; and when Varro, 
 on his day, pushed his camp nearer to the foe he was 
 encouraged in his resolve to force on a battle by a suc- 
 cess which he won over some skirmishers and light cav- 
 alry who had been sent to bar his progress. Minucius 
 had met with a like first success near Geronium, and 
 Sempronius had done the same at the Trebia. Was it 
 not possible that like effects might be produced by like 
 causes, and that a deep-laid design of Hannibal might 
 have had more to do with each than the prowess of the 
 Romans ? But this did not strike — so remarked the 
 Patrician annalists, wise after the event — the mind of 
 Varro. The next day belonged to Paullus, and he sig- 
 nalized his command by throwing a third of his army 
 to the north side of the Aufidus, and by forming a sec- 
 ond camp there, some miles nearer to the Carthaginians. 
 By this step he hoped at once to protect his own foraging 
 parties and to annoy those of the enemy. Eager for the 
 conflict, Hannibal, two days after, drew out his forces in 
 battle array on the south side of the river. The offer 
 was declined by the prudent Paullus ; and Hannibal, to 
 bring matters to a crisis, sent his Numidians across the 
 river with orders to cut off the Romans, who were en- 
 camped on its northern side, from all access to it. It 
 was the middle of June ; the country was parched and 
 thirsty, and a dry wind, the Vulturnus, which blows at 
 that time of year, raising clouds of dust, would make a 
 scanty supply of water an intolerable hardship. Even 
 if he had been disposed to postpone fighting, Varro 
 could hardly now have done so. 
 
 The delay of the last few days seemed irksome enough 
 to the rural armies ; but what must it have seemed to 
 
156 Rome and Carthage, 
 
 the citizens at home ? News had reached the city that 
 the armies were facing each other, and that everything 
 was prepared for a decisive conflict. They had ventured 
 their all, or nearly their all, on this one throw. The 
 stake was laid down, and the throw must be made, but it 
 was hard to have so much time to ask themselves what 
 if they should lose ? Omens and portents seemed to fill 
 the air, as before the Trasimene Lake, and busy-tongued 
 rumour passed from mouth to mouth, sending the citizens 
 in crowds to the temples to seek from the gods by sup- 
 plications what they could no longer gain or lose by any 
 exertions of their own. It was the resource of the 
 destitute, and they knew it, but it helped them to kill 
 the period of suspense. 
 
 Once more it was Varro's turn for the command, and 
 as the sun rose he began to transfer his army to the 
 northern side of the river, and, after joining the contin- 
 gent in the smaller camp there, drew the 
 Order of whole out in battle array, facing the south. 
 
 Nearly opposite Cannae the Aufidus, whose 
 general course is north-east, takes a sharp bend to the 
 south. Afterwards for some distance it runs east, and 
 then, once more turning northward, reaches the line of 
 its former course. The loop or link thus formed Hanni- 
 bal marked out as the grave of the Roman army, the 
 grave of 50,000 men ; and into it, as a preparatory step, 
 he now threw his own small force, while Varro was 
 crossing the stream higher up. His infantry did not 
 number half that of the Romans ; but they were many of 
 them veterans, and all of them men on whom he knew 
 by experience that he could rely. His cavalry were only 
 slightly superior in numbers to the enemy, but how 
 vastly superior in every military quality the result was 
 to prove. In the centre of his line of battle were 
 
Order of Battle. 157 
 
 Ae Spaniards clothed in white tunics edged with 
 purple, and armed with swords equally suited for 
 thrusting and for striking. Next them were the Gauls 
 who, naked to the waist, and armed with long swords, 
 suited to their gigantic stature, seemed as though they 
 were the warriors of Brennus come to life again with 
 one more terrible than many Brennuses to lead them. 
 This part of his force Hannibal threw forward in the 
 form of a semicircle or a wedge, while on their flanks 
 and some way to the rear he placed the best part of his 
 infantry, the heavy-armed Africans, eager doubtless, 
 many of them to flesh for the first time in Roman hearts 
 the Roman weapons which they bore. Beyond these 
 again and forming the left wing of the whole army were 
 the heavy Gallic and African cavalry, 8,000 strong. On 
 the right wing he posted his light-armed Numidians, 
 reduced by the waste of life attending such campaigns as 
 Hannibal's to 2,000 men all told, but with spirit and 
 fidelity enough to their great leader to fight on to their 
 very last man and last horse. Hasdrubal led the heavy 
 cavalry on the left, and Maherbal the Numidians on the 
 right, while Hannibal,, with his brother Mago near him, 
 stationed himself in the centre to direct the general 
 operations of the battle. He had been obliged to leave 
 ten thousand men on the other side of the river to guard 
 his camp against surprise, and was able therefore to put 
 only thirty thousand men into hne of battle; thirty 
 thousand against the Roman eighty thousand ! The 
 odds were heavy indeed against him in point of num- 
 bers ; but it must be remembered that his wings rested 
 on the sides of the loop which he had himself selected, 
 and could not be outflanked by the enemy. Varro, 
 whether because he distrusted his raw levies, or because 
 he saw, when it was too late to remedy it, that unless he 
 
 M 
 
158 Rome and Carthage. 
 
 massed his troops together, half of his whole army would 
 be outside the fray, increased the depth of his maniples 
 from ten to sixteen, hoping by sheer weight to bear 
 down all resistance and drive the Carthaginians into the 
 river. He was, in fact, only penning his sheep more 
 closely for the slaughter. 
 
 After the usual preliminary skirmish of the light-armed 
 troops, the 8,000 heavy cavalry on Hannibal's left 
 
 charged the 2,400 Roman cavalry opposed 
 Battle of ^Q them. These last were picked men, be- 
 
 longing, most of them, to the best Roman 
 families, men of Equestrian and Senatorial rank. They 
 withstood the charge bravely for a time, and grappled 
 horse to horse and man to man with the barbarians. 
 But they were overpowered by numbers, and only a 
 small remnant escaped from the field. Unhke Rupert 
 at Naseby, Hasdrubal held his eager cavalry well in 
 hand. He forbade them to pursue those who were al- 
 ready routed, and passing behind the whole RomaTi line 
 fell on the rear of the Italian cavalry, who were stationed 
 on the other wing, and who had hitherto been held in 
 check by the skilful evolutions of the mere handful of 
 Numidians. Those admirable horsemen had avoided 
 coming to close quarters, in which they must have been 
 crushed by numbers, but had managed to keep their 
 vastly more numerous enemy employed till Hasdrubal 
 came thundering on their rear. Attacked now by the 
 uninjured Numidians in front and by Hasdrubal's cav- 
 alry, flushed with success, behind, the Italian cavalry 
 broke and fled. Hasdrubal, not yet sated with victory, 
 left the Numidians to render an account of their flying 
 foes, and turned his attention to the Roman centre. 
 Here, so far, matters had gone well for the Romans ; 
 but it was so far only. The semi-circle of Gauls and 
 
Battle of CanncE. 
 
 159 
 
 Spaniards, whom Hannibal had pushed forward in his 
 centre, had been gradually forced back, or rather had 
 fallen back in accordance with his plan, first to a level 
 with, and then rijht past, the heavy Africans on their 
 
 / BATTLE 
 
 OF 
 
 CANNAE 
 
 V B.C.2I6. 
 
 
 '^^^^--.^ ^^^<\:>l 
 
 
 1 — I Carfhaginians 30,000 
 ■i Homans 80,000 
 
 Camp 
 
 flanks. The convex line of battle had thus become con- 
 cave, and it seemed .that the whole would be driven 
 headlong into the river by the overwhelming masses of 
 the Romans, who, as they yielded, kept pressing on, or 
 were themselves pressed on by those behind and at their 
 flanks, into every inch of ground left- vacant for them. 
 
i6o Rome and Carthage. 
 
 But just at the critical moment Hasdrubal fell upon their 
 rear, and the heavy Libyan infantry, who had hardly 
 yet taken part in the battle, wheeling inward at the same 
 time from right and left, attacked them on both flanks. 
 Denser and denser grew the mass of terrified Romans, 
 pressed on all four sides at once. Huddled together 
 without room to draw, much less to wield, their swords, 
 they stood or struggled in helpless imbecility, seeing 
 their comrades on the circumference of the fatal circle 
 cut down, one after the other, and doomed to wait in 
 patience till their own turn should come. The question 
 was no longer whether, but simply when, the stroke 
 would fall on each. Few Romans indeed within that 
 fatal ring were destined to escape. As at the Trasimene, 
 it was a simple butchery ; but it was a butchery which 
 required treble the number of victims. The Romans 
 were never cowards ; but those who stood near the cen- 
 tre of that seething mass must needs have died, like 
 cowards, many times before their death. " The thicker 
 the hay," said Alaric long afterwards, in an outburst of 
 brutality, "the easier it is mown." But not even Alaric's 
 imagination could have pictured such a harvest of death 
 as this of Cannae, and even the muscles of his brawny 
 Visigoths would have been wearied out before they had 
 slain, as the Carthaginians did on this fatal day, a num- 
 ber of the enemy which, man for man, vastly exceeded 
 their own. 
 
 For eight hours the work of destruction went on, 
 and at the end 50,000 men lay dead upon the ground. 
 
 vEmilius PauUus, the Illyrian hero, who, 
 Results of though wounded by a sling early in the day, 
 
 had clung to his horse, heartening on his 
 men, till he dropped exhausted from his saddle; the pro- 
 consul Servilius ; the late high-spirited master of the 
 
Results of the Battle. 1 6 1 
 
 horse Minucius ; both quaestors, twenty-one military tri- 
 bunes, sixty senators, and an unknown number of 
 knights were among the slain. Nearly 20,000 Roman 
 prisoners were taken, whether on the field itself in the 
 pursuit, or in the two camps which were among the 
 prizes of Hannibal's gigantic victory. Of the rest Varro, 
 with a few horsemen only, had the good or ill fortune to 
 escape to Venusia ; and it was with difficulty that after 
 some days he managed to rally a few thousand stragglers 
 or malingerers at Canusium — all that now remained of 
 the Roman army. Amidst all this slaughter, the con- 
 queror had lost only 5,500 of his infantry, and but 200 of 
 that matchless cavalry to whom the victory was mainly 
 due. " Send me on with the cavalry," said Maherbal to 
 Hannibal, in the exultation of the moment, "do thou 
 follow behind, and in five days thou shalt sup in the 
 Capitol." He might well think so at the time, for the 
 worst fears of the Romans, the highest hopes of Hanni- 
 bal, had been more than realized ; the double stake had 
 been played and had been lost, lost, it would seem then, 
 irretrievably. So many knights lay dead that, as the 
 story goes, Mago, when sent some time afterwards by 
 Hannibal to Carthage with the tidings of his victory, 
 emptied on the floor of the Senate House three bushels 
 of golden rings taken from Equestrian fingers. It was 
 a trophy of victory which the Carthaginian aristocracy 
 — who, as has been already pointed out, commemorated 
 the number of their campaigns by that of their rings, 
 and who had, many of them, joined the opposition to 
 the noble Barcine gens— could not fail to appreciate. 
 
 The news, which was necessarily slow in reaching 
 Carthage, reached Rome apace. It was, as the saying 
 is, " in the air " even before the first courier with his dis- 
 astrous tidings appeared at the Appian gate, and rumour, 
 
x62 Rome and Carthage, 
 
 as was natural, went even beyond the truth. It was 
 believed that both consuls were dead, and 
 of news'at that no portion of the army had survived. 
 
 Rome. Livy, the most graphic of historians or of 
 
 romancers, fairly shrinks from the attempt to picture the 
 scene of horror which followed. Each flying messen- 
 ger, as he reached the walls, fancied himself, or was 
 fancied by the Romans, to be but the forerunner of the 
 dread Hannibal himself. He knew not, indeed, as he 
 drew near the city, whether the Numidian cavalry were 
 not even then before him, as their own messengers. A 
 panic-stricken multitude, thinking that all save their 
 lives was lost, made for the gates, and for a moment it 
 seemed likely that Hannibal when he came would find 
 Rome indeed, but no Roman citizens within her. 
 
 Any other state must have succumbed to such a blow ; 
 
 but now, as after the Trasimene, it was the Senate, or 
 
 what remained of it, who saved the city 
 
 Panic from bcingr abandoned by her own children. 
 
 checked. ° 
 
 They alone preserved their presence of 
 mind ; and it was the old ex-Dictator, Fabius, who was, 
 once more, the soul of their deliberations. By his ad- 
 vice the gates were closed to prevent the exodus of the 
 inhabitants. The citizens should not be saved, so he 
 willed it, unless the city was saved with them. Messen- 
 gers were sent along the southern military road to see, 
 as Livy pathetically expresses it, " if the gods, touched 
 by one pang of pity, had left aught remaining to the Ro- 
 man name," and to bring the first tidings of the expected 
 advance of Hannibal. It was difficult for the Senate to 
 deliberate at all ; for the cries of thousands of women 
 outside the Senate House, who were bewailing their ab- 
 sent husbands, or fathers, or sons, as though they were 
 all dead, drowned the voice of those who spoke. Orders 
 
Hannibal does not Advance. 163 
 
 were issued that the women, if wail they must, should 
 wail within their own houses, and henceforward silence, 
 mournful indeed but dignified, was observed in the pub- 
 lic streets. All assemblies of the people were prohib- 
 ited. M. Junius Pera was named Dictator ; the city 
 legions were called out ; the whole male population — 
 some eight thousand slaves and criminals among them 
 — were armed, and the angry gods were propitiated, as 
 best they might, by the punishment of guilty Vestals, and 
 by the burying alive of Greek and Gallic men and 
 women in the Roman Forum. 
 
 After a few days more hopeful news came. A de- 
 spatch arrived from Varro himself, saying that he had 
 escaped from the carnage, and was doing his best to re- 
 organize and to rally the ten thousand demoralized 
 fugitives who had at last found their way to Canusium. 
 More important still, Hannibal was not on his way to 
 Rome, but was still encamped on the field of Cannae. 
 The Romans breathed more freely ; but from other parts 
 of the Roman world tidings of fresh danger, fresh disas- 
 ter, or fresh shame, came pouring in. One Carthaginian 
 fleet was threatening Lilybaeum, another Syracuse. The 
 force sent northwards to watch the Gauls had fallen into 
 an ambuscade and had been cut off to a man. Worse 
 still, a body of Roman nobles who had escaped from 
 Cannae, thinking that all was lost save their honour, 
 had determined, regardless even of their honour, to fly 
 beyond the seas, and would have carried their purpose 
 out had not the young Scipio rushed in amongst them, 
 sword in hand, and sworn that he would slay anyone 
 who would not bind himself never to desert his coun- 
 try. 
 
 And why did not Hannibal march at once on the 
 panic-stricken city ? Roman historians and Roman 
 
164 Rome and Carthage, 
 
 generals could not refrain from expressing their thank- 
 fulness and their surprise at his dilatoriness 
 iJaiXiibai o^ his blindness. In Juvenal's time Roman 
 
 Sn'^RomT?^^ schoolboys declaimed upon it in their weekly- 
 themes. Maherbal, the master of the 
 Numidian cavalry — if indeed the story be true, and not 
 what the Romans imagined ought to have been true — 
 exclaimed, in an outburst of vexation at the chance 
 which was thrown away, that the gods had taught Han- 
 nibal how to win, but not how to use, a victory ; and the 
 greatest master of modern warfare. Napoleon himself, 
 has joined in the general chorus of condemnation. But 
 perhaps the best and the all-but-sufficing answer to those 
 who say that Hannibal ought to have advanced on Rome, 
 is the simple fact that Hannibal himself, the foremost 
 general of all time, and statesman as well as general, did 
 not attempt it. Moreover, all the arguments which we 
 have seen held good after Trasimene against such an 
 advance, held equally good now. There were still the 
 stone walls of the city. There was still the population of 
 Latium and of the surrounding country, as yet untouched 
 by the war, hostile to him to a man ; still — after the first 
 few days of panic, of which Hannibal, laden with booty 
 and with half Italy between him and Rome, could hardly 
 have taken advantage — the unbroken resolution of the 
 citizens themselves. Hannibal never liked sieges, and 
 was seldom successful in those he undertook ; he forbore 
 at this moment to besiege even Canusium with its feeble 
 and panic-stricken defenders. Finally, his long-cherished 
 hope of the defection of the Italian allies seemed now at 
 length to be not only within his sight, but, if only he was 
 patient or prudent, already almost within his grasp. The 
 battle of Cannae had been too much for the resolution of 
 Apulia ; Samnium had already in part joined him ; Lu- 
 
Greatness of Rome. 165 
 
 cania and Briittium rose in revolt. The Greek cities in 
 the south were prepared to hail him as their deliverer ! 
 Campania, it was whispered, was wavering in the balance, 
 and ready at the sight of the conqueror to go over to 
 Carthage. Thus deprived of her allies, Rome, he hoped, 
 would fall almost by her own weight. 
 
 Never did the self-control and the true nobility of 
 soul of Hannibal, never did the unbending resolution of 
 the Roman Senate, display itself more con- 
 spicuously than at this moment. Never, in Greatness 
 the very moment of victory, did Hannibal 
 lose his head. The good of his country was even now 
 nearer to his heart — and doubtless it was the only thing 
 that was nearer to his heart — than his hatred to Rome. 
 Thinking that it might be advantageous to Carthage to 
 conclude peace, and that she might now do so almost on 
 her own terms, he called the Roman prisoners together 
 — almost the only occasion in his life on which he brought 
 himself to speak a friendly word to any Roman — and 
 told them that he did not wish that the strife which he 
 was waging should be internecine ; he was willing to take 
 a ransom for them, and some of their number might go 
 on their parole to Rome to negotiate the matter. Even 
 in the first flush of his victory he bade Carthalo offer 
 terms of peace, if he saw that the Roman wishes turned 
 in that direction. But the Romans also rose to the 
 emergency. Fifty years before, as has been already 
 related, they had told the victorious Epirot that Rome 
 never negotiated with an enemy so long as he was on 
 Italian soil ; and the answer which they had given to 
 Pyrrhus then in words they gave now to a general greater 
 than Pyrrhus, and crowned with a far more overwhelming 
 victory, by their deeds. They spoke no word and thought 
 no thought of peace. Their want of troops was urgent, 
 
i66 Rome and Carthage. 
 
 but they refused, as the story goes, to buy with money 
 men who had disgraced themselves by surrender ; and 
 when Varro neared the city, obnoxious though he was to 
 the aristocracy on account of his low birth and of his 
 career, and branded with the defeat of Cannae, not one 
 word of reproach was uttered against him. His efforts 
 only, not his failures or his mistakes, were remembered, 
 and the citizens went forth in a body to meet him, and 
 thanked him, in words that are ever memorable, for not 
 having despaired of the republic. The Roman historians 
 have a right, here at least, to congratulate themselves 
 that they were not as were the Carthaginians. The de- 
 feated Roman general received a vote of thanks for his 
 unsuccessful efforts : a defeated Carthaginian would have 
 been nailed to a cross. 
 
 After the battle of Cannae the character of the war is 
 changed, and it loses something of the intensity of the 
 ^^ , , interest attached to it. Hitherto the tide of 
 
 Unbroken i i i • t 
 
 success of invasion has run, as Dr. Arnold has pomted 
 
 Hannibal. ^ . -, ^ ■ • i 
 
 out m an eloquent passage, m one smgle 
 current and that current so magnificent and so resistless, 
 that it rivets the attention of even the most careless 
 spectators. There has been no reverse, hardly even a 
 check, from the moment when Hannibal left his winter 
 quarters at New Carthage, till he stood victorious on the 
 field of Cannae. The most vivid of historians can do 
 little by description to make Hannibal's achievements 
 stand out in more startling relief than they do already 
 by their bare recital. The dullest annalist, if only he 
 record them truly, cannot make them seem common- 
 place. The eye can hardly wander as it sees the great 
 drama develop itself step by step, and sweep irresistibly 
 on towards what seems its legitimate and necessary 
 conclusion. The obstacles interposed by Nature herself 
 
Mag7ianimity of Romans. 167 
 
 — rivers and marshes and mountain chains — seemed 
 interposed only to stimulate the energies and to heighten 
 the glory of him who could surmount them all. Each 
 difficulty overcome is an earnest to Hannibal of his 
 power to grapple with the next, and is used by him as a 
 stepping-stone towards it. That they had crossed the 
 Pyrenees, he told his soldiers when they hesitated on 
 the Rhone, was a proof that they could pass the Alps. 
 When they had reached the summit of the Alps, he told 
 them they had already seized the citadel of Italy, and 
 had only to walk down and take possession of the city. 
 Four times over he had now measured his sword with 
 the future conquerors of the world, and each time he 
 had been victorious in an ever ascending series of suc- 
 cesses. At the Ticinus he first met the Roman cavalry, 
 and it was their hasty retreat from the field of battle 
 which alone saved them from a rout. At the Trebia, 
 however the consul might try to disguise it, it was no 
 retreat at all, it was a total rout. At the Trasimene it 
 was neither retreat nor rout, it was the extermination of 
 an army. At Cannae it was the extermination, not of 
 one but of two armies, and each of them twice its usual 
 size. This was the pinnacle of Hannibal's success, and 
 a pinnacle indeed it was. 
 
 Almost as wonderful as Hannibal's victories over 
 Nature or his enemies, were his victories over his own 
 followers. Under the spell of his genius, 
 the discordant members of a motley Car- f^^^''^.?^^,'' °^ 
 
 -' Hannibal. 
 
 thaginian army — disaffected Libyans and 
 Numidians, barbarous and lethargic Spaniards, fierce 
 and fickle Gauls — were welded into a homogeneous 
 whole, which combined the utmost play of individual 
 prowess with all the precision of a machine. No whis- 
 per of disaffection or of mutiny was ever heard in Han- 
 
1 68 Rome and Carthage. 
 
 nibal's camp. Italians deserted by thousands to Han- 
 nibal ; but no Hannibalian veteran, even when his star 
 was on its wane, ever deserted to Rome. Politic as he 
 was brave, and generous as he was far-sighted, Hanni- 
 bal could arouse alike the love and the fear, the calm 
 confidence and the passionate enthusiasm of all the 
 various races who served under his standard. The best 
 general, a high authority has said, is he who makes the 
 fewest mistakes ; but what single mistake can the keen- 
 est critic point out which marred the progress or 
 chequered the success of these three first extraordinary 
 years ? They are years, moreover, any one of which 
 might have made or marred the reputation of any lesser 
 general. Unfortunately we know Hannibal only through 
 his enemies. They have done their best to malign his 
 character ; they have called him cruel, and, happily, al- 
 most every specific charge of cruelty supplies us, even 
 with our imperfect knowledge, with the materials for its 
 own refutation. They talked of " Fimic ill faith'' till 
 they came themselves to believe in its existence, or to 
 think that the name proved itself. But what people or 
 what town, it may well be asked, which Hannibal had 
 ever promised to support, did he voluntarily abandon, 
 or of what single act of treachery can it be proved that 
 he was guilty ? They made as light as they could even 
 of his achievements, by attributing to Phoenician cun- 
 ning, or to the blind forces of Nature, the severity of 
 defeats which no patriotic Roman could believe were 
 due to his individual genius alone, for it was an indi- 
 vidual genius such as they had never seen or imagined. 
 A storm of sleet at Trebia, the mist at the Trasimene, 
 the wind and clouds of dust or a ruse de guerre of some 
 deserters at Cannae — such were the transparent fictions 
 by which the Romans attempted to disguise from others, 
 
Genius of Hannibal. 169 
 
 and perhaps even from themselves, that they had found 
 their master. We know Hannibal, let us repeat it once 
 more, only from his enemies ; but in what character, 
 even as painted by his friends, can we discern such vivid 
 and such unmistakable marks of greatness ? The out- 
 line is commanding, imperial, heroic ; and there is no 
 detail with which our materials enable us to fill it in at 
 all, which is not in perfect harmony with the whole. 
 
 After Cannse the tide of invasion ceases to flow on- 
 ward in one irrepressible sweep. It is broken up into a 
 number of smaller currents, which, though 
 they are doubtless each planned by the Hannfbaf 
 ruling mind, and conducted by the master 
 hand, are often in the nature of by-play rather than 
 have any direct bearing on the main issues of the war. 
 They are, moreover, always difficult and often impossi- 
 ble to follow. The Romans, taught by the experience 
 which they had bought so bitterly on four battlefields, 
 decline any longer to trust themselves within the reach 
 of Hannibal's arm, or to stake their safety on any single 
 blow ; while Hannibal, lacking the reinforcements which 
 he had a right to expect, and which it is impossible to 
 believe that the Carthaginian government, had they 
 been animated by a tithe of the spirit of their general, 
 could not have despatched to him before this, has to 
 adapt the plan of his campaign to his altered circum- 
 stances and his ever-straitening means. The Numidian 
 cavalry, as they die off, have to be replaced by Gauls, 
 and the Libyan and Spanish veterans by Samnites or 
 Lucanians, who had long since bowed their necks to 
 the Roman yoke. Isolated sieges, embassies to distant 
 potentates, pressing messages to Carthage, rapid 
 marches and countermarches, ambuscades and sur- 
 prises, the sudden swoop on Rome, and the doom 
 
I yo Rome and Carthage. 
 
 of Carthage, recognized by Hannibal in the ghastly- 
 head of his brother Hasdrubal, thrown with Roman 
 brutality into his camp — these still lend life and variety 
 and a deadly interest to the struggle such as we find 
 in few other wars ; but we feel all the time that the 
 war is not what it was. It is not that Hannibal's eye 
 has grown dim or his natural force abated. His right 
 hand never lost its cunning. Invincible as ever in the 
 field,, we shall see Hannibal, for years to come, march- 
 ing wherever he likes, no Roman general — and there 
 were sometimes half a dozen of them round him — daring 
 to say him nay. Following the example of Fabius, they 
 dogged his footsteps, or hung upon the hills above him, 
 while he encamped fearlessly in the plain below; but 
 when he turned his face towards one and the other, 
 they scattered before him in all directions as the jackals 
 before a lion. Yet we feel throughout, what Hannibal 
 must soon have come to feel himself, that fate had at 
 length declared against him. It is a noble, but a hope- 
 less struggle ; and we are fain to turn away from the 
 spectacle of so heroic a soul struggling against what it 
 knows to be inevitable. It is indeed a psychological 
 puzzle how any one man — even though he were the 
 greatest product of the Phoenician race — can have com- 
 bined such opposite, nay such contradictory qualities as 
 must have met in the man who, like one of the world- 
 stormers of more modern times, Attila or Zinghis Khan 
 or Tamerlane, could carry everything before him in one 
 impetuous and overwhelming sweep of conquest, from 
 Saguntum to Cannae in the three first years of the war, 
 and then for its twelve remaining years could maintain 
 the struggle by a warfare which was, in the main, defen- 
 sive, hoping against hope, and each year confined to 
 narrower limits with an ever-decreasing force against an 
 
Revolt of Capua. 171 
 
 ever-increasing foe. It would be well worth the while 
 of the military student to trace, if it were possible with 
 accuracy, the means by which the genius of Hannibal, 
 as great in defence as in attack, and in patience as in 
 impetuosity, prolonged for thirteen years a warfare, 
 which, if only the Romans had been led by a Hannibal, 
 or the Carthaginians by any one but him, must, in one 
 way or the other, have been brought to a close almost 
 at once. But we cannot do so ; for at the very time 
 that the war undergoes the change which has been just 
 described, we lose also the guidance of the historian 
 Polybius, who, if any one, could have enabled us to fol- 
 low closely its vicissitudes. 
 
 Although, therefore, we have dwelt at length upon 
 the first three years of the war, wherein victories and 
 defeats are on so gigantic a scale, and where each step 
 can be traced with accuracy, or has a direct bearing on 
 the main result, it seems consistent alike with the scope 
 and object of this book, and with our own views of what 
 is desirable, or even possible, to pass more lightly over 
 its remaining thirteen years, endeavouring mainly to 
 bring into relief those incidents which appeal to the 
 imagination, which are characteristic of the rival nations 
 or of their leaders, and which are of universal or of last- 
 ing significance. 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 REVOLT OF CAPUA. SIEGE OF SYRACUSE. 
 (B.C. 216-212.) 
 
 The victory of Cannae led almost immediately to the 
 
 revolt of Capua, a city second only to Rome in wealth 
 
 and power, and able to put into the field, 
 
 when disposed to do so, a force of thirty Revolt of 
 
 thousand men. But this acquisition was 
 
 ghcrn of half its value by the stipulation made by the 
 
172 Rome and Carthage. 
 
 ease loving inhabitants and granted by Hannibal, that 
 no Capuan citizen should be required to serve in his 
 army. It was an arrangement which cost him dear ; but 
 cost him what it might, it was ever afterwards religiously 
 observed by him. Naples Hannibal had already tried 
 to capture by a cotip de jnain, but, failing in the attempt, 
 he had not cared to besiege it in form ; nor was he 
 more successful at Nola, which was prevented from 
 revolting by the energy and skill of M. Claudius Mar- 
 cellus, the ablest general whom the agony of the last 
 three years had brought to the front ; perhaps as able as 
 any whom the Second Punic War produced for Rome 
 at all. 
 
 As consul, six years before, Marcellus had slain with 
 his own hand the huge Gallic chieftain Viridomarus, 
 and had, for the third and last time in Ro- 
 man history, dedicated the spolia ophna 
 in the temple of Jupiter Feretrius. When, after the 
 battle of Cannae, Varro was recalled to Rome, it was 
 Marcellus who had taken the command of the 10,000 
 Roman survivors at Canusium. Like Fabius, Marcellus 
 knew how to avoid defeat, but he knew better than 
 Fabius how and when to strike a vigorous blow. If 
 Fabius deserved to be called the shield of Rome, Mar- 
 cellus might with equal right be called its sword. He 
 was a rough soldier, uncultured as Marius, and hardly 
 less cruel ; but during the next eight eventful years 
 Rome could hardly have done without him. The dread 
 of Hannibal had, at length, taught the city to know a 
 good general, and to keep him when she had found him, 
 and she showed her appreciation of Marcellus by 
 breaking through forever the insane tradition which 
 brought a military command to an end on a predeter- 
 mined day. For the next eight years his is the name 
 
Hannibal winters at Capua. 173 
 
 in the Roman annals which we hear most often, and 
 that on all the most critical occasions. He served, 
 in fact, as consul and proconsul in alternate years in 
 almost continuous succession ; and when, at last, he fell 
 in an ambuscade, his body was treated with marked 
 honour by the great Hannibal himself. 
 
 Foiled at Nola, Hannibal turned his attention to 
 Casilinum, a town situated on the Vulturnus, and then 
 containing a mixed garrison of Praenestines 
 and Perusians who had taken shelter within winters at 
 its walls, when they heard of the disaster of ^^^^' 
 Cannae. Leaving a sufficient force to blockade the 
 place, he went with the remainder into winter quarters 
 at Capua, a few miles to the south. It has been re- 
 marked by many writers, modern as well as ancient, 
 that Capua proved a Cannae to Hannibal. Given over to 
 luxury and to Greek vices, it was certainly not the place 
 best suited for the winter retirement of an overstrained 
 army ; and doubtless the troops, who had ere now 
 wintered amongst the snows of the Apennines or in the 
 open plains of Apulia, must have luxuriated in the 
 easeful quarters which Hannibal's sword had opened for 
 them. It is true also, as has already been pointed out, 
 that this year was a turning point in the war ; but that it 
 was so is due to other causes than the luxury of Capua, 
 and it would not seem to be true that the troops were in 
 any way demoralized by their winter's comfort. They 
 were irresistible as ever in the field. The real difference 
 was that the Roman generals had learned in the school 
 of adversity not to trust themselves within the reach of 
 Hannibal's arm, and from this time to the end of the 
 war in Italy they acted on the Fabian maxim, and never 
 gave him an opportunity of fighting a pitched battle, or, 
 what was the same thing, of giving them a crushing defeat. 
 
 N 
 
174 Rome and Carthage. 
 
 The consuls for the year 215 were the old Dictator 
 Fabius and Tib. Sempronius Gracchus. Incredible ex- 
 ertions were made by Rome to bear the 
 Great exer- strain which was put upon her. Double 
 
 tionsoiRome, -"^ ^ 
 
 taxes were imposed and paid, and freewill 
 contributions were offered by the citizens, which it was 
 understood were not to be repaid till the treasury was 
 full; in other words, not till the war was over. The 
 year, therefore, which followed the butchery of eight 
 legions at Cannae saw fourteen new ones raised to tak(7 
 their place, six of them in other parts of the Roman 
 world, and the remaining eight in Italy itself. On his 
 side, Hannibal can hardly have mustered more than 
 40,000 men, even if we include his recent levies in 
 Samnium. It must be remembered that till towards the 
 close of 216, after fighting four pitched battles, and 
 marching and countermarching through the whole of 
 Italy, Hannibal had received no single soldier and 
 drawn not a single penny from the home government 
 of Carthage. Never before or after was war so made to 
 support itself, and never, even in the hands of the au- 
 thor of that sinister maxim, was it waged with such as- 
 tonishing results. 
 
 But if Hannibal's victories had not yet done for him 
 all that he had hoped in Italy itself, might it not be pos- 
 sible to gain his object by taking a wider 
 Hannibal's sweep ? If Italy could not be armed against 
 
 wide projects. ^ ^ ^ 
 
 Rome, might not the surrounding countries, 
 whose existence was already threatened, be armed 
 against Italy and Rome alike ? Circumstances, at the 
 moment, seemed to smile on the project ; for Hiero, 
 the ancient and faithful ally of Rome, was just dead, 
 and Hieronymus, his grandson and successor, straight- 
 way joined the Carthaginians. Sardinia, too, was plan- 
 
Hannibal at Tifata. 175 
 
 ning a revolt from the city which had stolen her with 
 such infamous bad faith from Carthaginian rule ; and 
 about the same time ambassadors arrived in Hannibal's 
 camp from Philip, king of Macedon, offering to conclude 
 with him an alliance offensive and defensive. But the 
 bright vision rose before his eyes only to vanish away. 
 The revolt of Sardinia was stamped out before it came 
 to a head. Hieronymus was weak and foolish, and, 
 setting himself to imitate the able Dionysius who had 
 once ruled Syracuse, showed that he was able to imi- 
 tate him only in his arrogance and his vices, and was 
 soon despatched by the well-deserved dagger of the as- 
 sassin. Finally, the Macedonian ambassadors, when 
 returning with the treaty which had just been concluded 
 between Hannibal and Philip, fell, as ill-luck would 
 have it, into the hands of the Romans, and so gave them 
 a timely warning to prepare for what might otherwise 
 have burst upon them like a thunder-clap. 
 
 Amidst such hopes and such disappointments the 
 year passed away. Throughout its course Hannibal had 
 retained Tifata, a hill above Capua, as his 
 headquarters. No better place could have T^a^*^^' ^^ 
 been chosen. Here he could wait in safety 
 the results, if any, of the alliances he was planning ; 
 here receive the long-expected reinforcements from Car- 
 thage if ever they should come. Here he could protect 
 Capua, his latest and his most important acquisition ; 
 here with his one small army he could keep three sepa- 
 rate armies, headed by no meaner generals than Fabius, 
 Gracchus, and Marcellus, at bay, and, dealing his blows 
 upon them in rapid succession, could threaten now 
 Cumae, now Naples, and now Nola ; till at last the ap- 
 proach of winter warned him to transfer his troops to 
 his former quarters at Arpi in Apulia. 
 
176 Rome a7id Carthage. 
 
 The elections for the year 214 b, c. — after the consul 
 Fabius had given a solemn warning to the electors to 
 let military considerations alone influence them at such 
 a time of need — ended, as was to be expected, and as 
 Fabius had himself intended, in the re-election of the 
 Mentor himself, Marcellus being chosen as his colleague. 
 Seldom in Roman history had two such men held office 
 at the same time, and the memories of the older citizens 
 had to travel back to the days of Decius Mus, or even 
 of Papirius Cursor, till they found, or thought they 
 found, a parallel to it. In this year, indeed, and for 
 some years to come, Rome was likely enough to need 
 her shield as well as her sword. The fourteen legions 
 which had been thought sufficient in the previous year, 
 were raised now to the still more astonishing number of 
 eighteen ; and the wealthier citizens contributed from 
 their private means the sums which were necessary to 
 raise the payment of the sailors of the fleet. 
 
 Capua had already begun to tremble for her safety ; 
 but she was reassured when the movement of Hannibal 
 showed that it was his intention not only to 
 agaLs""^" keep what he had already won in Campania, 
 
 Hannibal. -[^^^^ jf possible, to win the whole. In vain, 
 
 however, did he attempt to surprise or to bring over 
 Cumse, Naples, and Puteoli, seaport towns which w^ould 
 have done good service by opening direct communication 
 with Carthage. Hanno, moreover, on coming to co- 
 operate with him, with the numerous Lucanian and Brut- 
 tian levies which he had raised, was intercepted by Grac- 
 chus in the heart of Samnium. Gracchus promised free- 
 dom, in the event of victory, to the armed slaves of whom 
 his force consisted ; and in the battle which ensued, 
 conscious that they were carrying their liberty as well as 
 their lives in their hands, they cut to pieces Hanno's 
 
Hannibal gains Tarentum. 177 
 
 army, and received their reward. The word of a Gracchus, 
 in this as in other epochs of Roman history, was his 
 bond ; and a bond which was a first-rate security. These 
 reverses brought Hannibal's plans of Campanian con- 
 quest to an abrupt conclusion, and when he received a 
 friendly message from Tarentum, a place more important 
 to him, just then, even than the Campanian towns, from 
 its proximity to Macedon, he paid it a flying visit. But 
 here, too, the Romans had anticipated him, and Fabius, 
 taking advantage of his absence, besieged and recap- 
 tured Casilinum. When Hannibal went into his next 
 winter quarters at Salapia in Apulia, the tide of victory 
 had clearly turned against him. He was already waging 
 a warfare which was mainly defensive, and it might have 
 seemed to anyone who had not felt the terrors of his 
 spring, that if only the three armies which lay watching 
 him during the winter had ventured to beard the lion 
 which lay crouching in his den, they would have had a 
 chance of bringing the Second Punic War to a conclusion 
 then. 
 
 During the next two years the interest of the war is 
 for the first time, in some measure, diverted from Hanni- 
 bal. The great Carthaginian, though he had 
 
 . Hannibal 
 
 not yet spoken aloud the word impossible, gains 
 must have occasionally whispered it to him- ^'^^^ """' 
 self. He was still without adequate reinforcements from 
 home ; for the considerable armament, which the news 
 of Hannibal's triumphant progress through Italy had at 
 last shamed the Carthaginians into raising for him, had, 
 when they were on the point of embarkation, been di- 
 verted to Sardinia and Spain. In this last country the 
 star of Carthage was not just then in the ascendant, and 
 Hannibal, who had received only a paltry force of some 
 forty elephants and some 4,000 Numidian cavalry from 
 
178 Rome and Carthage. 
 
 his countrymen at home, was compelled, partly from ne- 
 cessity, and partly, it would seem, from lassitude, to spend 
 the greater part of the summer of 213 in the neighbour- 
 hood of Tarentum, without attempting any active opera- 
 tions. With admirable policy, he had, even in the mo- 
 ment of disappointment in the preceding year, abstained 
 from ravaging the Tarentine lands while he harried those 
 of the surrounding towns, and now he reaped the result. 
 In the course of the winter he was half offered, and he 
 half forced for himself, an entrance into the city, though 
 he was unable to eject the recently arrived Roman garri- 
 son from the citadel. Other and lesser Greek towns in 
 the south followed the example of this, the greatest of 
 them all ; and Hannibal, compelled to relax his grasp 
 upon Campania, made up for its loss by appropriating to 
 himself a large part of Magna Grcecia. 
 
 Meanwhile the war, which seemed for the moment to 
 have spent its force in Italy, had broken out with fresh 
 fury in Sicily. Marcellus, the best general 
 Warm whom the Romans possessed, was des- 
 
 patched to quell the revolt. The whole 
 island, with few exceptions, had declared for Carthage ; 
 and the active emissaries of Hannibal, the desperation 
 of the soldiers who had deserted from Rome, and the 
 cruelties of the Romans in the first towns which they re- 
 captured, cut off all hopes of a reconciliation. The Car- 
 thaginian government too, from some unexplained rea- 
 son, now woke from its sleep, and sent Himilco with 
 considerable reinforcements to Sicily. Had they only 
 sent half the force to Italy in 216 which they sent in 214 
 to Sicily, the war might have had a different course. 
 They were willing and able, it seemed, to send rein- 
 forcements at a time and to a place where they were not 
 much needed ; they would not send them at the time 
 
Siege of Syracuse. 179 
 
 and to the place where they would have been all-impor- 
 tant. 
 
 After massacring the inhabitants of several towns, 
 Marcellus laid siege to Syracuse ; but all his efforts were 
 frustrated by the science and by the engines of the 
 famous mathematician Archimedes, and after eight 
 months of chequered warfare, he was obliged to convert 
 the siege into a blockade. 
 
 Syracuse was the greatest Greek city in Sicily, possibly 
 the greatest of all Greek cities. It contained within its 
 walls four distinct towns — the island of Ortygia, the old- 
 est and the strongest part of the city ; Achradina, or the 
 city proper, crowded with magnificent build- 
 ings ; and the two suburbs of Tycha and i'^^^ °^ 
 
 , ^ byracuse. 
 
 Neapolis. The whole had been recently 
 surrounded by a wall eighteen miles in circumference, 
 which in part abutted on the sea, but was in part carried 
 over rugged hills or low-lying marshes, defensible in 
 themselves, and now rendered doubly strong by art. 
 The city possessed two harbours, in the larger of which 
 the Carthaginian fleet, under Bomilcar, was riding at 
 anchor, while a Carthaginian army, under Himilco, 
 hovered near the walls, or made flying expeditions to 
 Other parts of Sicily, thus distracting the attention of the 
 besiegers. The blockade, therefore, was never effective 
 or complete, and it is not to be wondered at that it was 
 nearly three years before the city fell. 
 
 It was indeed treachery from within rather than force 
 from without, which ultimately enabled Marcellus, in 
 the year 212, to gain possession of the 
 heights of Epipolae to the rear of the city, Taking of 
 
 . , byracuse. 
 
 and, making these his basis, to conquer in 
 
 succession its different portions. The two suburbs fell 
 
 first, apd the plunder which they yielded whetted the 
 
i8o Rome arid Carthage. 
 
 appetites of the soldiery for the still richer stores which 
 lay behind the walls of Achradina and Ortygia. It was 
 now too late for Bomilcar or Himilco to save the city. 
 Bomilcar sailed away without striking a blow, and the 
 army of Himilco, which lay encamped on the low grounds 
 of the Anapus, fell victims to the fever which had so 
 often before saved 'Syracuse from a besieging force. 
 By a curious caprice of fortune, the best defence of the 
 city was now turned against its defenders, while it left 
 its assailants on the higher ground unscathed. The 
 Roman deserters and the mercenaries had long estab- 
 lished a reign of terror within the city. Having nothing 
 to hope, and little therefore to fear, they were bent on 
 holding the place to the bitter end. But when Marcellus 
 had been admitted by some of his partisans into the 
 island of Ortygia, Achradina could no longer offer re- 
 sistance. The deserters and the mercenaries, the only 
 portion of the inhabitants who deserved punishment, 
 managed to escape by night, and the remainder threw 
 themselves on the mercy of Marcellus. They might 
 well expect to receive it, for they had been involved in 
 hostilities which were not of their own seeking, and it 
 would be hard if the short-lived folly of Hieronymus 
 should be held by Marcellus to have effaced the recollec- 
 tion of the fifty years' fidelity of Hiero his grandfather. 
 But it seldom suited the Romans to remember past ser- 
 vices or extenuating circumstances when they had any- 
 thing to gain by forgetting them. Marcellus, as Livy 
 tells us, had burst into tears when he first stood on 
 Epipolse and saw Syracuse, as he fancied, in his power 
 beneath him. But these were not tears of compassion, 
 or, if they were, they were not forthcoming now when 
 they were most' needed. The city was given over to 
 plunder, and the death of Archimedes while intent upon 
 
Fate of Syracuse. i8i 
 
 a problem, a man whom — just as Alexander bade his 
 troops spare the house of Pindar in the sack of Thebes 
 — even the rough Marcellus had wished to save, gave 
 proof that plunder was not the only aim of the infu- 
 riated soldiery. 
 
 So fell Syracuse, the virgin city, which had seen two 
 Athenian armaments perish beneath its walls ; which 
 had for centuries saved Sicily from becom- 
 ing altogether, what its greater part then fjj^ °^ ^^''^' 
 was, a Carthaginian appanage ; which had 
 once and again, when its turn came, under Dionysius or 
 Timoleon, almost driven those same Carthaginians from 
 the island ; and once, under Agathocles, had threatened 
 the existence of Carthage herself. It fell to rise no 
 more, at least to its former opulence. Its temples 
 were left standing, because they would not pay 
 for moving; and they belonged to the conqueror as 
 much where they were as if they had been transferred 
 to Rome ; but the choicest works of art — vases and 
 columns, paintings and statues — were swept off to 
 adorn the imperial city. In so doing Marcellus set an 
 example only too fatally followed by the conquerors 
 who succeeded him. It was a practice new in Roman 
 warfare then, and to be condemned at all times and 
 under all circumstances : a practice cruel and destruc- 
 tive to the states despoiled, and useless for all moral or 
 high artistic purposes to the despoiler. 
 
1 82 Rome and Carthage. 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 SIEGE OF CAPUA AND HANNIBAL'S MARCH ON ROME. 
 (212-208 B. C.) 
 
 We have hitherto concentrated our attention as much 
 
 as possible on the main current of the war in Italy ; but 
 
 it must not be forgotten that throue^hout 
 
 Importance 
 
 of war in thesc first six years which we have de- 
 
 ^^'°' scribed in detail, a side conflict was raging 
 
 in Spain, the result of which might go far to decide that 
 in Italy. To the importance of the Spanish contest the 
 Romans and the Carthaginians were equally alive. It 
 was from Spain, if from any country, that Hannibal 
 must draw his reinforcements ; and it was in Spain, if 
 anywhere, that those reinforcements must be intercepted 
 and cut down. The Romans saw that if a second army 
 crossed the Alps and swooped down upon the north of 
 Italy, while Hannibal was at his pleasure overrunning 
 the south, the city would be taken between two fires, and 
 could not long resist. To Hannibal, on the other hand, 
 Spain was the new world which the genius of his family 
 had called into existence. The names of his father, 
 Hamilcar, and of his brother-in-law the elder Hasdrubal, 
 were still names of power among the Spanish tribes 
 whom they had conquered or conciliated, and the 
 younger Hasdrubal, a worthy member of the same 
 family, had been left in Spain by Hannibal when he 
 started on his great expedition, to preserve the family 
 traditions there, and to raise fresh levies for the Italian 
 war 
 
The Scipios in Spain. 183 
 
 P. Scipio, as we have seen, instead of returning in the 
 autumn of b. c. 218 with all speed and with all his forces 
 from Massilia to Italy, where he might pos- 
 sibly have met and crushed the worn-out Successes of 
 
 ■' . bcipios. 
 
 troops of Hannibal as they descended from 
 the Alps, had sent the bulk of his army straight to their 
 Spanish destination, while he himself returned to Italy 
 with only a few followers. After his defeats at the Tici- 
 nus and the Trebia, and while the memories of the 
 Trasimene Lake were still fresh in the Roman minds, 
 he was sent off to Spain with a naval and military force, 
 which a less courageous and self-reliant people would 
 have been unwilling to spare. There he joined Cnaeus, 
 and henceforward the two brothers carried on the war 
 in common, bringing over Spanish tribes as much by 
 their address as by their arms, and winning, if the ac- 
 counts they sent home were true, an almost unbroken 
 series of successes. After making sure of the country 
 to the north of the Ebro, the Scipios crossed that 
 boundary river, sent to their homes the Spanish hos- 
 tages which, having been deposited by Hannibal in 
 Saguntum, fell by the caprice of a Saguntine citizen 
 into their hands, and in the autumn of the year 216 — 
 the year, it should be remembered, of the battle of Can- 
 nae — defeated Hasdrubal in a pitched battle near a town 
 called Ibera, when he was on the eve of starting for Italy 
 with the large army he had recently raised in Spain or 
 had received from Carthage. Rightly viewed, there- 
 fore, the battle of Ibera, though the place at which it 
 was fought is quite unknown, was one of the most de- 
 cisive in the whole of the war, for it prevented the de- 
 spatch of reinforcements to Hannibal in the year when 
 they would have made him wholly irresistible. 
 
 The two brothers made the most of their success. 
 
184 Rome and Carthage. 
 
 They enrolled Celtiberian mercenaries — the first in- 
 stance of such a practice on a large scale in 
 Roman history ; they won victories which, 
 if they were not half what their despatches represented 
 them to be, were yet signal victories ; they formed an 
 alliance with Syphax, a Numidian prince, and seemed 
 in B. c. 212 to be on the point of ejecting the Cartha- 
 ginians from Spain, when, in the mid career of their 
 success, they inadvertently separated from each other. 
 They were then attacked by Hasdrubal and by Mago, 
 who had been recently sent thither from Carthage, in 
 detail, their armies were defeated and dispersed, and 
 themselves slain. It seemed for the moment as if the 
 Romans would be driven from Spain in the very year 
 in which they had confidently counted on driving out 
 the Carthaginians. But the death of the elder Scipios, 
 as we shall see, opened a free field for a younger and 
 still abler member of the family, and one whose high 
 destiny was to accomplish in Spain what his father and 
 uncle had been compelled to leave unfinished. 
 
 While these events were taking place in Spain, the 
 flame of war had burst out afresh in Italy. Early, it would 
 seem, in the winter of b. c 212, Taren- 
 successes of tum had fallen into Hannibal's hands, and 
 Hannibal. -j^ ^^ Campaign thus begun the hero seemed 
 
 to awake, like a giant refreshed, from his year-long re- 
 pose. He was needed each moment at Tarentum, where 
 the citadel still held out ; he was needed yet more at 
 Capua, round which the Roman armies, like vultures 
 scenting their prey afar, seemed to be gathering for the 
 last time. The home government of Carthage itself 
 needed his controlling mind, the war in Sicily needed 
 it, the war in Spain, and the war in Greece. His spirit 
 and his influence, if not his bodily presence, were needed 
 
Siege of Capua. 185 
 
 everywhere, and everywhere once again they seemed to 
 be. Six Roman armies were in the field against him. 
 By a searching inquisition every free-born citizen — many 
 of them below the age of seventeen — had been swept 
 into the ranks, which were intended not, indeed, to face 
 him, for that they never dared to do, but to harass his 
 movements ; yet he managed, in spite of them all, to 
 push the siege of the Tarentine citadel on the one hand, 
 and, on the other, to show himself for a moment when 
 required on the hills above Capua, where his mere ap- 
 pearance caused the two consular armies which were 
 threatening it to vanish away before him. One Roman 
 army of irregulars he annihilated in Lucania ; another of 
 regular troops, under the praetor Fulvius, he annihilated 
 in Apulia ; while a third, consisting of the slaves liber- 
 ated by Gracchus, as soon as their liberator had fallen 
 in an ambuscade, dispersed in all directions, thinking 
 that they had done enough for their step-mother Italy. 
 
 But amidst all these brilliant achievements and these 
 romantic shiftings of the war, the one point of fixed and 
 central interest was the city of Capua. That 
 guilty city had long felt that her turn must ^'^^e of 
 
 soon come ; she had gone now unpunished 
 for nearly four years, and the safety and the honour of 
 the Roman state alike demanded that the day of reckon- 
 ing should be no longer postponed. The mere presence 
 of two large armies in her neighbourhood during so con- 
 siderable a part of these four years had caused a scarcity 
 within her walls before even a sod was turned of 
 the Roman lines of circumvallation. But Hannibal, 
 appearing at Capua while his enemies thought he was 
 in lapygia, put the two armies which were threatening 
 it to flight, and, as it would seem, revictualled it for the 
 coming blockade. It was not till he had gone far to the 
 
1 86 Rome and Carthage. 
 
 south again, and was scattering the smaller Roman ar- 
 mies there in the manner which has just been described, 
 that they ventured to close in once more around the 
 place, and began the siege in earnest. News of every 
 fresh disaster reached Rome from the track of Hanni- 
 bal's flying squadrons, and the Senate could only con- 
 sole itself by the reflection that the consular armies of 
 Fulvius and Appius, which had fled before Hannibal's 
 advance, were as yet intact, and were free during his 
 absence, at all events, to prosecute the object which 
 they had most at heart — the punishment of the guilty 
 Capua. 
 
 Caius Nero, the praetor, was ordered to co-operate 
 with the consuls, Q. Fulvius Flaccus and App, Claudius 
 Pulcher ; and the three armies in their sev- 
 Attemptof gj-g^i camps, each with a large magazine 
 relieve established in a town to its rear, settled 
 
 apua. down before the devoted city. A double 
 
 line of circumvallation was soon completed, the one to 
 guard the besiegers from the sorties of the besieged, the 
 other to repel the expected attack of Hannibal from 
 without (b. c. 2ii). The days of Capua were clearly 
 numbered unless help came from him. An adventurous 
 Numidian from the garrison m.ade his way unobserved 
 through the double lines of the Romans and informed 
 Hannibal of the danger of the city. Taking a select 
 band of horsemen and light-armed troops, the Phoeni- 
 cian hero started from Tarentum, and before the enemy 
 dreamed of his approach he appeared on Mount Tifata. 
 According to the plan which had been pre-arranged, a 
 simultaneous attack was made on the Roman lines by 
 the beleaguered garrison and by Hannibal. Some of 
 the elephants, whose bulky frames had been with diffi- 
 culty forced to keep pace with his cross-country march, 
 
HannibaV s March on Rome. 187 
 
 were killed in the attack. Hannibal threw their bodies 
 into_the ditch, and a few of his troops crossing over on 
 the bridge thus formed found themselves within the 
 Roman lines. But it was only for a moment. They 
 were outnumbered and driven back, and Hannibal gave 
 up all hope of thus raising the siege. 
 
 One plan alone remained. He might advance on the 
 capital ; and the terror of the citizens when the danger 
 which had so often approached them, and 
 had so often been withdrawn, had at last on Rome, 
 really come, might drive them to recall for 
 the defence of Rome the armies which were besieging 
 Capua. Once more a Numidian messenger made his 
 way through the Roman lines round Capua, and bade 
 the citizens hold out bravely, for Hannibal's departure 
 did not mean that he had deserted them. It rather 
 meant that he was making one more effort for their 
 deliverance, and then he was off for Rome. The news 
 of what was coming reached the city long before 
 Hannibal reached it himself, perhaps before he wished 
 to reach it. A few days* delay would, he knew well, 
 only increase the panic of the citizens. Slowly he 
 advanced along the Latin road, passing each day some 
 Latin fortress, and devastating the country right up to 
 its walls beneath the eyes of its affrighted garrison. 
 Before him fled a panic-stricken throng — women and 
 children, and aged men — leaving their homes hke 
 animals when the prairie is on fire, a prey to the de- 
 stroyer. On he went, through Latium, through the only 
 district of Italy which had not yet felt his dreaded 
 presence, no one daring to say him nay, till he pitched 
 his tent upon the Anio, only three miles from Rome, 
 and the flaming villages announced in language that 
 could not be mistaken that he was really there. He 
 
1 88 Rome and Carthas:e. 
 
 '^' 
 
 was there in fulfilment of his life-long vow ; the hater 
 face to face, at last, with the object of his deadly hate. 
 He was there, the destroyer of every Roman army 
 which had ventured to meet him, to destroy the city 
 which had sent them forth. So thought at least the 
 flying rustics and the mass of the Roman citizens. But 
 so did not think the calm and clear-sighted Hannibal 
 himself; nor yet, after the first days of panic had passed 
 by, so thought the Roman Senate. The imagination, 
 indeed, of the citizens pictured to themselves the total 
 destruction of their armies at Capua. The air was filled 
 with cries of women who ran wildly about the streets, 
 or flocked to the temples of the gods, and, throwing 
 themselves on their knees, raised their suppliant hands 
 to heaven, or swept the altars with their long dis- 
 hevelled hair. 
 
 But the Roman Senate, as after Trasimene and after 
 Cannae, was once more worthy of itself. When the 
 
 terrible news of Hannibal's first approach 
 before Rome. Came, they had been disposed to recall the 
 
 whole of their armies to the defence of the 
 capital ; a measure of precaution which would have ful- 
 filled Hannibal's highest hopes and saved the be- 
 leaguered Capua. But fresh confidence came. They 
 recalled only Fulvius, who, marching by inner lines, 
 amidst a population who bade him God-speed, managed 
 to reach Rome by the Appian, just before Hannibal 
 reached the Anio by the Latin Way. Two legions 
 which had lately been got together in the country 
 around Rome, when they were joined by the army 
 which had just arrived, gave the city a respectable 
 garrison, and Hannibal made no attack — he probably 
 never intended to make one — on the city itself. Un- 
 molested by the Romans and almost within their view, 
 
HannibaV s March on Rome. ■ 189 
 
 he ravaged the whole country round, destroying the 
 gardens and the villages, and carrying off into his cainp, 
 with stern delight, the crops and the cattle, and the 
 booty of every kind on which he could lay his hand. 
 Then with a body of two thousand horsemen he rode 
 right up to the CoUine gate, and passed leisurely along 
 the walls to the temple of Hercules, gazing wistfully at 
 the cruel stones which alone stood between him and his 
 hopes, and alone saved the inhabitants, Romans though 
 they were, from his avenging sword. The fates were 
 against him, but he must have felt that he had nobly 
 kept his vow. 
 
 Little wonder is it, when the facts themselves are so 
 dramatic, and when the chief character is so heroic, that 
 the imagination of those who recorded the scene ran 
 riot in the process and filled in the details with what 
 they thought ought to have happened. They pointed, 
 for instance, their eulogies on the faith of the Romans in 
 their own future, by telling us how they put up to auction 
 the ground on which Hannibal's camp was pitched, and 
 how it was bought at its full value ; while Hannibal, by 
 way of reprisals, offered for sale to his troops the silver- 
 smiths' shops in the Roman Forum, and flung his spear 
 over the walls in token of his contempt and hate. But 
 Hannibal was great enough to know when he had de- 
 livered his blow, and he wasted no time in lamenting 
 that it had failed. Accordingly he marched off north- 
 ward into the Sabine country, which he had only skirted 
 in his first campaign, and then sweeping round to the 
 south he turned fiercely upon the Romans who were 
 making believe to follow him, and after taking one 
 distant look at the unbroken and impenetrable girdle of 
 men, and earth, and iron, which girt Capua in, he left 
 her to her inevitable fate. 
 
 o 
 
190 Rome and Carthage. 
 
 Inevitable indeed it was ; for the Romans knew no 
 pity, and the citizens themselves must have felt that the 
 murder of all the Romans residing in the city at the time 
 of their revolt would have steeled even those who were 
 naturally pitiful against them. The senators, 
 Fate of abandoned to despair, shut themselves within 
 
 Capua. '^ 
 
 their own houses, and left the responsibilities 
 of the defence to the Numidian leaders. At last, when 
 the surrender of the city was only a question of hours, 
 they met at the house of one Vibius Virrius, the author 
 of the revolt, and after holding high festival on such fare 
 as the besieged city could supply, and could lend them 
 courage for what they were about to do, they passed 
 round the poisoned cup, and, to the number of twenty- 
 seven, balked their Roman conquerors of their long- 
 expected revenge. Of the remaining senators, when, 
 next day, the gates were opened, twenty-five were sent 
 by the orders of the consuls to Cales, and twenty-eight 
 to Teanum ; but close behind them followed the victor 
 Fulvius, and by his command they were scourged and 
 beheaded, one by one, before his eyes. When the 
 bloody work was only half finished a despatch from the 
 Senate arrived bidding him reserve for their decision the 
 question of the punishment ; but the butcher thrust it into 
 his bosom, and it was not till the last head had fallen 
 that he read the letter which might have postponed, but 
 would hardly have averted, their fate. Three hundred 
 noble Campanian youths were thrown into prison to 
 perish, many of them, later, on a trumped-up charge. 
 The bulk of the citizens were dispersed among the Latin 
 colonies, or were sold into slavery. The city itself was 
 spared, a signal instance, remarks Livy — is he speaking 
 in irony or in earnest ? — of Roman clemency. But it was 
 no longer to have citizens or any form of civic life. 
 
Hannibal never Beaten in Battle. 191 
 
 Without magistrates, and without a senate, it was to re- 
 ceive year by year a prefect from Rome, who should deal 
 out Roman justice to such waifs and strays of population 
 as might be drawn thither by the incomparable beauty of 
 the situation, or by the fertility of the soil. It was a 
 warning also, Livy remarks — and here he is on safer 
 ground — to any other city which had revolted, or might 
 yet be disposed to revolt, of the amount of protection she 
 might expect henceforward from Hannibal, and of the 
 vengeance which would surely fall upon her from Rome. 
 In vain did Hannibal endeavour by some brilliant 
 stroke to counteract the fatal impression which the sur- 
 render of Capua must produce on his 
 
 , ,. ,,. , . , Hannibal's 
 
 Italian allies. An attempt to surprise Rhe- superiority 
 gium failed, and all his efforts to capture ^"^ ^^^ ^^^^• 
 the citadel of Tarentum failed also. Just now too Mar- 
 cellus, his worthiest antagonist, returned from Sicily 
 flushed with victory, and eager, so the Romans thought, 
 at last to measure his sword with his ancient foe. Now 
 also an alliance was formed by Rome with the brigands 
 of i^tolia, which cut off Hannibal's last hope that 
 Philip of Macedon would ever be able to join him in 
 Italy. Everything, in fact, seemed to betoken that the 
 end was near ; but those who thought so reckoned pre- 
 maturely. In the year which followed the fall of Capua, 
 the year b. c. 210, Hannibal surprised and slew the 
 Praetor, Cn. Fulvius, before Herdonea. Herdonea it- 
 self, which was meditating revolt, he burned to the 
 ground after transferring its inhabitants to Metapontum 
 and Thurii, two of the few towns which were still faith- 
 ful to him. In b. c. 209, when Samnium and Lucania 
 had already submitted to the Romans, and while one 
 consul, Fulvius, was threatening Metapontum, and the 
 other consul, Fabius, was pressing the siege of Taren- 
 
192 Rome and Carthage. 
 
 turn in his rear, he fought two brilliant actions in Apu- 
 lia, which drove his third antagonist, the sword of Rome, 
 himself, to take refuge in Venusia, and to adopt the 
 more cautious tactics of its shield. 
 
 In B. c. 208 and 207 his superiority in the field was as 
 incontestable as ever. Tarentum, indeed, which it had 
 
 cost him so much to win and so much to 
 Death of keep, had been betrayed by the commander 
 
 of its garrison into the hands of the Ro- 
 mans, and suffered the fate, or worse even than the fate, 
 of Syracuse and Capua. All the Bruttians found within 
 it were put to death ; thirty thousand of its Greek inhab- 
 itants were sold as slaves, and all the works of art it 
 contained, except its " angry gods,'' were carried off to 
 Rome. Yet Hannibal encamped beneath its walls as 
 though the place still belonged to him, and in vain of- 
 fered battle to its new possessors. When he moved 
 northwards into Apulia and found himself with his ever- 
 diminishing force face to face with two consular armies, 
 there he yet ventured to detach a flying squadron, which 
 cut to pieces a Roman legion on a spot some fifty miles to 
 his rear ; and he held his own in the open field, waiting 
 patiently till the moment should come for striking a 
 blow. At last the moment came, and the blow which he 
 struck was a heavy one. The consuls, Crispinus and 
 Marcellus, as fate would have it, had left their camps, 
 each with a small band of followers, and had ridden in 
 company to the top of a wooded hill which lay between 
 their two armies. They were observed by the Numidian 
 cavalry, ready as ever for a surprise or a deed of da- 
 ring. There was a sudden charge, and Crispinus 
 wounded to the death, staggered back to his camp, while 
 the body of the other consul, the bravest of the brave, 
 was found by Hannibal himself where it had fallen. 
 
Latin Colonies Waver. 193 
 
 The Phoenician gazed on it for a while in silence, and 
 then remarking, "There lies a good soldier but a bad 
 general," ordered it to be honourably burned and the 
 ashes to be sent to his son. 
 
 But dangers greater even than the loss of Marcellus 
 were now threatening the Romans. For in the year 209 
 symptoms of exhaustion, if not of disaffec- 
 
 , , , 1 ,, , Exhaustion 
 
 tion had begun to show themselves even of Latin 
 within the bounds of the Confederation, colonies. 
 amongst the Latin colonies themselves. Twelve of 
 the thirty colonies, and those some of the oldest and 
 the most important, in the most widely scattered parts 
 of Italy, declared that the Romans must look for no 
 more men and money from them, for they had neither 
 men nor money to give. The news fell like a thunderbolt 
 upon the consuls who were the first to hear it, and the 
 Roman Senate knew that if the example spread all was 
 lost ; but they were prudent enough, or generous enough, 
 to require no forced service. Accordingly, throwing 
 themselves on the fidelity and devotion of the remaining 
 eighteen, they prepared to face their redoubtable antag- 
 onist with such help as they alone could give her. 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 BATTLE OF THE METAURUS. 
 (207 B, C.) 
 
 It seemed to augur ill for Rome that the stress of the 
 war had at length begun to tell on the spirit and the 
 fidelity of the Latin colonies themselves. . , ^ 
 
 . Approach of 
 
 But, more ommous still, news reached the Hasdmbai 
 city in b. c. 208 that after the vicissitudes of "^""^ ^^'"" 
 the ten years' struggle in Spain, Hasdrubal had at length 
 
194 Roi7ie and Carthage. 
 
 eluded Scipio, had entered Gaul by the passes of the 
 Western Pyrenees, was raising fresh levies there, and 
 early in the following summer might be expected in 
 Italy. Rome had been in no such peril since the mor- 
 row of the battle of Cannae ; for the approach of Has- 
 drubal indicated that the great Spanish struggle, to 
 support which Rome had sent out some of her best 
 troops and generals, even when Hannibal was threaten- 
 ing her existence, had at last been played out, and had 
 ended in favour of Carthage. It seemed, indeed, that 
 Carthage by conquering in Spain had assured her vic- 
 tory in Italy also. For the last two years one son of 
 Hamilcar had been overrunning Italy from end to end, 
 and had more than once brought Rome to the brink of 
 destruction ; and now with her resources diminished, her 
 population halved, and her allies wavering, she had to 
 face the onset of a second son of the same dreaded chief- 
 tain, who would sweep down with new swarms of Gauls 
 and Spaniards from the north, while his brother, for the 
 last time, moved up for her destruction from his retreat 
 in Bruttium in the south. A bitter comment this on the 
 brilliant victory which Scipio was reported to have just 
 won at Baecula in Spain ! For Hasdrubal, his defeated 
 adversary, was not penned, as he should have been, 
 within the walls of Gades, but was collecting allies at 
 his leisure in the heart of Gaul, 
 
 A few precious months of winter remained to prepare 
 
 for the double danger which the spring would bring. C. 
 
 Claudius Nero, a man who had done fair 
 
 Preparations service before Capua and in Spain, was one 
 
 of Romans. ^ *■ , 
 
 of the consuls selected for the year of peril. 
 His plebeian colleague, M. Livius, was one of the few 
 Romans then living who had enjoyed a triumph ; but 
 his temper had been soured by an unjust charge of 
 
Has drubalin Italy. 195 
 
 peculation, and he was personally hostile to Nero. 
 However, in the face of public danger, he was brought 
 to forget his grievances and to act in concert with his 
 colleague for the public good. Livius, so the Senate 
 arranged, was to await the approach of Hasdrubal near 
 the frontiers of Hither Gaul, while Nero was to impede, 
 as best he could, the movements of Hannibal in the 
 south. Seventy thousand Romans and as many allies 
 were put into the field for this, the supreme effort, as it 
 seemed, of the republic. 
 
 As soon as the weather permitted, Hasdrubal started 
 from Auvergne. Everything was in his favour. The 
 mountaineers were friendly, the mountain 
 
 c r 1 • Hasdrubal 
 
 passes were free from snow, his army ;„ itaiy. 
 gathered strength and bulk as it advanced, 
 and was in a more effective condition when it entered 
 the plains of Italy than when it had crossed the 
 Pyrenees. What a contrast to his brother's advance 
 ten years before ! Less prudent than his brother, how- 
 ever, Hasdrubal sat down to besiege Placentia when he 
 should have been pressing on towards his destination. 
 When at last he moved forward, the Roman army 
 retreated before him till it reached the small town of 
 Sena to the south of the Metaurus. From this place 
 Hasdrubal sent messengers who were to bid Hannibal 
 meet him at Narnia, only some thirty miles from Rome. 
 But Hannibal the messengers failed to find, and, falling 
 into the hands of the Romans, their despatches were 
 read not by the Carthaginian, but by the Roman 
 general. Since the beginning of the campaign Hanni- 
 bal had been rapidly shifting his quarters backwards 
 and forwards between Bruttium and Apulia amidst a net- 
 work of Roman fortresses and armies, always followed 
 and never opposed by his vastly more numerous foe. 
 
196 Rome and Carthage. 
 
 The victories attributed by Livy and others to Nero dur- 
 ing this period are purely fictitious, and are explicitly 
 contradicted by Polybius himself. Hannibal, as fate 
 would have it, must have gone southwards just before 
 his brother's messengers were despatched to find him. 
 Had it been otherwise, they must have reached him in 
 safety ; and in that case we can hardly doubt that the 
 brilliant march northward would have been not Nero's 
 but Hannibal's, and that the Metaurus would have seen 
 the collapse of the fortunes not of Carthage but of 
 Rome. 
 
 Nero formed a bold resolution — one almost without 
 precedent at this period of Roman history — to desert 
 the province and even a portion of the 
 ^f^N^ troops confided to his keeping by the Sen- 
 
 ate ; with the remainder to march rapidly 
 northward, a distance of 200 miles, to join Livius, to 
 crush Hasdrubal by a combined assault, and then to 
 return again before Hannibal should have discovered 
 -his absence. It was a bold step, but hardly bolder than 
 the extremity of the danger required ; above all, it was 
 justified by the event. Nero took care not to inform the 
 Senate of what he proposed to do till he was already 
 doing it, thus putting it in their power to co-operate with 
 his later movements, but not giving them the chance of 
 impeding the decisive blow. He had already sent 
 messengers to the friendly cities near liis line of march 
 bidding them help, as best they could, the progress of 
 their deliverers. The 6,000 infantry and the 1,000 
 cavalry selected for the enterprise started, like the 10,000 
 Greeks before them, in total ignorance of their desti- 
 nation. They believed that they were about to surprise 
 some petty Carthaginian garrison near at home in 
 Lucania ; and their enthusiasm, when the momentous 
 
Battle, of the Metaurus. 197 
 
 secret was communicated to them, was only equalled by 
 that of the Italian provincials who thronged the roadside 
 with provisions, vehicles, and beasts of burden, and ac- 
 companied the army with their blessings and their 
 prayers. The soldiers declined everything that was not 
 necessary for their immediate support ; and pausing, we 
 are told, neither to eat nor to drink, hardly even to 
 sleep, in a few days they neared the camp of the other 
 consul. Nero entered it at night and distributed his 
 wearied troops among the tents which were already 
 occupied, so as to avoid exciting the suspicions of 
 Hasdrubal till he should meet them in the field. But 
 next morning the quick ear of the Carthaginian noticed 
 that the trumpet sounded twice instead of once within 
 the enemy's camp, and when the Romans offered battle 
 his quick eye rested with suspicion on the travel-stained 
 troops and the draggled horses of a portion of the army. 
 Concluding that the other consul had arrived and that 
 his brother's army must have been dispersed or annihi- 
 lated, he remained within his camp throughout that day, 
 and at nightfall began to retreat towards the friendly 
 Gaul. He reached the Metaurus in safety, but here his 
 guides played him false, and instead of crossing at once 
 by the ford, he wandered hither and thither on the 
 nearer side, vainly searching for it in the darkness. 
 
 Morning light brought the Romans, and Hasdrubal 
 had now no choice but to draw up his army where it 
 was, with a rapid and dangerous river in 
 his rear. The Spanish veterans, his main ^!^"'^ °^ ^^^ 
 
 ^ _ \ Metaurus. 
 
 strength, he placed on the right, intending 
 to lead them in person against Livius. The Ligurians, 
 with the elephants in their front, formed the centre, 
 while the Gauls, untrustworthy as ever — except when led 
 by Hannibal — were drawn up on a hill to the left, which. 
 
198 Rome and Carthage. 
 
 by the mere advantage of position, they could hardly 
 fail to hold against Nero. The Spaniards, under Has- 
 drubal's own eye, fought nobly and with every prospect 
 of success, till Nero, unable to dislodge the Gauls, left 
 them to themselves, and by a brilliant manoeuvre, pass- 
 ing behind the whole length of the Roman army, fell at 
 once on the Spanish flank and rear. Thus surrounded 
 they were cut to pieces where they stood, and Hasdrubal 
 after doing all that a general could do to save the for- 
 tunes of the day, rushed into the midst of the enemy's cav- 
 alry, and died as became the son of Hamilcar and the bro- 
 ther of Hannibal. The greater part of the elephants, when 
 they became unmanageable, were killed by their own 
 drivers, who were furnished with weapons for the purpose, 
 and who knew how and where to strike the fatal blow. 
 The Gauls were slaughtered as they lay on the ground, 
 heavy with wine or wearied out by their night's march. 
 The victory of Rome was not bloodless but it was 
 complete. Hasdrubal's army, whatever its size was 
 annihilated, and some of the Roman an- 
 Barbarism nalists, rcgardlcss alike of truth and pro- 
 bability, strove to make out that the 
 slaughter of Metaurus equalled that of Cannae. From the 
 agonies of suspense the Romans passed at once into the 
 exuberant enthusiasm of victory. They had been rudely 
 awakened to the consciousness that there were two Han- 
 nibals in Italy. They forgot now that there was still one. 
 That THE Hannibal was still in Italy, still unconquered, 
 and, as far as they knew, unconquerable. A well- de- 
 served triumph was granted the victorious generals. It 
 was the first which the Sacred Way had seen ever since 
 Hannibal had entered Italy, for it was the first time, by 
 the confession of theRomans themselves, that victory had 
 smiled on their arms. The consuls triumphed in com- 
 
Scipio in Spain. 199 
 
 mon ; but Nero was the hero of the day. To him was due 
 ahke the strategy of the northward march — a mar \ per- 
 haps only equalled in history by the advance of Marl- 
 borough from Belgium to the Danube in the campaign 
 of Blenheim — and the brilliant stroke which decided the 
 battle. To Nero, however, also belongs the act of revolt- 
 ing barbarism which wound up his achievements and 
 must for ever detract from his fair fame. Returning 
 to his army in Apulia as quickly as he had left it, he 
 carried with him the head of Hasdrubal which he had 
 caused to be severed from his body, and, with true 
 Roman brutality ordered this ghastly trophy of victory 
 to be flung into the camp of Hannibal, who, it is said, 
 was still ignorant that the general opposed to him had 
 ever left his quarters. Hannibal recognised the fea- 
 tures of the brother whom he had so long and eagerly 
 expected, and in them sadly saw the doom of Car- 
 thage, 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 p. CORNELIUS SCIPIO. 
 (210-206 B.C.) 
 
 It is necessary, now that we have reached this, the de- 
 cisive point of the war, to direct our attention once 
 more to Spain ; for it was on the Metaurus that Spain as 
 well as Italy was lost to the Carthaginians, 
 and it was in Spain, at this very time, that, Scipio in 
 moving in an atmosphere of mingled war 
 and love, amidst romantic expeditions and hair-breadth 
 escapes, fortunate in what he did, and perhaps more 
 fortunate in what he failed to do, surrounded by devoted 
 friends like Laelius, or by court annalists, who saw all 
 his doings through the bright halo which he or they 
 
200 Rome and Carthaze. 
 
 'ii' 
 
 diffused around them, the young general was being 
 nursed by Fortune into fame who was soon to drive the 
 Carthaginians from Spain, then, without striking a blow, 
 was to compel Hannibal to withdraw from Italy, was 
 next to crush that greatest of all heroes in Africa, and, 
 finally, to bring to a conclusion there the long agony of 
 the Second Punic War. P. Cornelius Scipio is one of 
 the central figures of Roman history. His presence and 
 his bearing exercised a strange fascination over all who 
 came within its influence, and his name, with the ro- 
 mances that began to cluster round it even in his life- 
 time, was a yet more living power with posterity. It 
 turned the head of even the sober-minded Polybius, and 
 has given an air of unreality and of poetry to such 
 fragments of his history of this portion of the war as 
 have, unfortunately, alone come down to us. Let us pause 
 for a while on the antecedents and the surroundings, the 
 virtues and the failings, of so important and conspicu- 
 ous a personage. 
 
 Scipio was the son of that Publius who, by an un- 
 looked-for reverse of fortune, had just been defeated 
 and killed in the field of his numerous vic- 
 His early torics and in the full tide of his success. 
 
 history. 
 
 But Fortune, so capricious towards the 
 father, was unswerving in her devotion to the son. He 
 was then only twenty-four years of age ; but, young as 
 he was, he was already known to fame by his conduct 
 on three critical occasions. As a mere stripling of sev- 
 enteen he had saved, or it was believed that he had 
 saved, his father's life at the battle of Ticinus at the risk 
 of his own ; after Cannae it was his resolute bearing 
 which had shamed or frightened the recreant nobles of 
 Rome from deserting the fast sinking ship of the state ; 
 at the age of twenty-three he had been candidate for the 
 
Characteristics of Scipio. 201 
 
 Curule aedileship, and when the magistrate objected that 
 he was not yet of legal age, he replied that if all the 
 Quirites wished to make him aedile he was old enough. 
 It was a characteristic reply, a sample of that contempt 
 for the forms of law, and that mingled respect and con- 
 tempt for popular opinion, which marked his conduct 
 on several occasions of his life, and goes some way to 
 explain alike what he did and what he failed to do ; and 
 now, when his father and uncle had fallen in Spain, 
 and the comitia were being held for the election of some 
 one to fill their place, and, as the story goes, peo- 
 ple were looking anxiously one upon the other to see 
 who would offer himself for a task wherein two Scipios 
 had failed, it was the young Publius himself who, with 
 mingled modesty and self-reliance, came forward, and 
 was straightway chosen proconsul amidst the exclama- 
 tions of all present. 
 
 A second secret of Scipio's influence was the popular 
 belief, in part, at least, shared by himself, that he was 
 the special favourite of the gods and inspired 
 by them in all he did. Stories were in the ^'j character 
 
 ■' _ and iiinuence. 
 
 air of his divine descent, and even of his 
 miraculous birth, which he had too much prudence 
 either to affirm or to contradict. Why should the fa- 
 vourite of the gods refuse to avail himself of any help 
 they offered him ? In the existence of the gods and in 
 their special help to him Scipio doubtless implicitly be- 
 lieved ; but the ostentatious secrecy of his visits to the 
 Capitol before undertaking any work of importance 
 must have been suggested by the credulity of the mul- 
 titude rather than his own. At all events, his interviews 
 with Jupiter there never ended in any other way than a 
 careful consideration of the circumstances of the case 
 in the privacy of his own study would have been likely 
 
202 Rome and Carthage, 
 
 to suggest. He was not, therefore, as has sometimes 
 been said, " a real enthusiast," nor was his a "genuinely 
 prophetic nature ;" on the other hand, he was no mere 
 vulgar impostor. He had enough of enthusiasm himself 
 to evoke it towards himself in others, not enough to 
 allow himself, under any circumstances, to be hurried 
 away by it. One of the greatest of Roman heroes, he 
 was himself only three parts a Roman. He was fond 
 of hterary men, and was himself not destitute of Greek 
 culture ; a weakness which certainly could not be charged 
 against any genuine Roman of the old school. By turns 
 the hero and the enemy of the populace, he knew how 
 to win yet how to despise, how to use yet sometimes 
 how to abuse, popular favour. In Spain, with the air 
 and the surroundings of a king, he had enough Roman 
 feeling to reject the regal gewgaws and the regal title 
 which the Spaniards pressed upon him ; at Rome, after 
 his victory at Zama, he showed that he still retained 
 enough of the genuine republican spirit to refuse the 
 invidious honours — the dictatorship for life and the 
 statue in the Capitol — which the citizens in the ecstasy 
 of their joy would fain have given him. But he had not 
 that inborn reverence for law and for authority which 
 had made the Romans what they were, and which would 
 have bidden him cheerfully remain in Italy, even when 
 he knew he had it in him to finish the war in Africa, 
 rather than resist the powers that be. A Roman of the 
 old type would have submitted to an accusation or to a 
 punishment which he knew to be unjust rather than 
 involve himself in the semblance of illegality ; but 
 Scipio, when his brother Lucius was called to give an 
 account of the moneys which he had received from King 
 Antiochus, and was about to present to the Senate the 
 document which would have cleared or condemned him, 
 
Charm': of Scipio. 203 
 
 proudly snatched it from his hands and tore it to pieces 
 before their eyes. So again, in his last appearance in 
 public life, when it was his own turn to have his conduct 
 called in question, he reminded his accusers, by a happy 
 stroke of audacity which was akin to genius, that this 
 was the day on which he had defeated Hannibal at 
 Zama, and called upon them to follow him to the Capitol 
 that they might there return thanks to the gods who had 
 given them the victory, and pray that the Roman state 
 might have other citizens like himself. The appeal was 
 irresistible, and the Romans once more showed that 
 they could not judge a Manlius in sight of the Capitol. 
 These incidents have a grandeur peculiarly their own ; 
 but it is hardly a Roman grandeur. As a young man 
 Scipio was fond of romantic situations, and fortune 
 showered them upon him. The charms of his personal 
 presence, and the moral and material victories which 
 they won, his adventurous interviews with Spanish or 
 Berber princes, or with hostile generals, his chivalrous 
 treatment of captive maidens and their bridegrooms or 
 their suitors, fill a large part in the histories which 
 remain to us of his Spanish and his African campaigns. 
 Much of the setting of these stories may be imaginary; 
 but the stories themselves doubtless rest on a substratum 
 of fact, and they reveal to us, however dimly, a union of 
 gallantry and generosity, of prudence and of passion, of 
 sensibility to the charms of beauty, and yet of resistance 
 to their power, which enable us to feel something of the 
 fascination which made Scipio the idol of his soldiers, 
 of the natives of Spain and Africa, and of the great 
 body, and those the more generous, of his fellow-citizens. 
 Above all, if Scipio had not all the most characteristic 
 Roman virtues, he was free from the worst Roman vices. 
 He was not cruel, not faithless, not indifferent to human 
 
204 Rome and Carthage. 
 
 life ; as times went, he was not self-seeking. He could 
 appreciate virtue in an enemy, he could be generous to 
 a fallen foe. He could observe the terms of a capitu- 
 lation, he could suppress a mutiny without promiscuous 
 massacre, and could sometimes take a town without 
 slaughtering the inhabitants in cold blood. He could 
 even enter into the peculiarities and characteristics of 
 nations other than his own, and, unlike his younger 
 namesake, could shrink from obliterating a seat of an- 
 cient, civilization and commerce at one fell blow. In 
 fine, if he was not a worthy antagonist to Hannibal, he 
 was the least unworthy that Rome, the nurse of heroes, 
 could in this sixteen years' war produce ; and if he was 
 the favourite of Fortune, it must be admitted that that 
 capricious goddess has seldom conferred her favours on 
 one who did so much to deserve them. 
 
 Scipio crossed to Spain with ii,ooo men towards the 
 close of the year B.C. 210, and early in the spring of the 
 following year he struck a blow which showed that a 
 general of a new stamp had appeared upon the scene. 
 Finding that the three Carthaginian generals, Hasdrubal 
 and Mago, sons of Hamilcar, and Hasdrubal, son of 
 Gisco, were passing the winter in widely different parts 
 of Spain each more distant from New Carthage than he 
 was himself, and hearing also that the garrison had been 
 reduced to 1,000 men, he determined to make a rapid 
 descent upon that city, the head-quarters of the Cartha- 
 ginian government and the key to their position in Spain. 
 
 New Carthage was a noble city situated on a land- 
 locked harbour, the only good harbour on the south-east 
 coast of Spain. It was surrounded on all 
 
 Capture O' . , 
 
 New Car- sides by water, save where an isthmus only 
 ' ^^^' 250 yards wide connected it with the main- 
 
 land. Its fortifications, strong everywhere, were doubly 
 
Capture of New Carthage. 205 
 
 strong here ; but there was one weak spot which fortune 
 or the gods were preparing to reveal to their favourite. 
 The object of the enterprise was entrusted to Laelius, 
 Scipio's Hfelong friend, alone ; and it was arranged that 
 he should enter the harbour with the fleet just when 
 Scipio with his land force appeared before its walls. Not 
 a whisper of what was coming reached the city till it was 
 already come ; and not a misadventure or a hitch oc- 
 curred from the moment when the adventurous Scipio 
 left Tarraco to the time when New Carthage was in his 
 power. The assault indeed of the Romans on the forti- 
 fications of the isthmus was repelled ; but Scipio intend- 
 ed it to be so, for it was not the real point of his attack. 
 Taking advantage of the ebb tide which left the waters 
 of the lagoon on the western side so low that they could 
 easily be forded — a fact known to few but himself — and, 
 by a happy inspiration, bidding his soldiers follow him 
 boldly where Neptune himself pointed out the way, 
 Scipio led a select body of his troops to the attack, 
 through waters which besiegers and besieged might well 
 have thought would submerge them all. The walls here 
 proved to be accessible, and they were quite undefended. 
 The attention of the garrison had been called elsewhere, 
 and with the help of scaling ladders and the god of the 
 sea the small band soon found themselves masters of 
 New Carthage. New Carthage — with its mines of gold 
 and silver, its arsenal and its dockyards, its merchant 
 vessels and its stores of corn, its stands of arms and its 
 engines of war, its skilled workmen and its hostages 
 drawn by the suspicious Carthaginians from all the 
 Spanish tribes — all belonged to Rome. The work of 
 slaughter over — and terrible work it was — Scipio ad- 
 dressed himself to the distribution of the booty. If the 
 stories that have come down to us may be trusted, the 
 
2o6 Rome and Carthage. 
 
 survivors of the massacre had reason to admire the skill 
 with which their conqueror managed to turn foes into 
 friends, and so, as it were, to arm Carthage against her- 
 self. Under promise of their freedom the Punic ship- 
 wrights cheerfully transferred their services to Rome. 
 Captive princesses, who might have been given up to 
 the Roman soldiery, or reserved by the young general 
 for himself, were restored to their parents or their be- 
 trothed lovers ; and the hostages, those standing monu- 
 ments of Carthaginian mistrust, were dismissed to their 
 homes and converted into so many pledges of Roman 
 moderation and good will. 
 
 It seemed once more as if the Spanish war was over ; 
 
 and L^lius was dispatched to Rome to report to the 
 
 Senate, perhaps to magnify, the achieve- 
 
 gin^ans' ments of his friend. We are surprised in- 
 
 driven out deed, after so brilliant a beginning, to find 
 
 of Spam. ' . . 
 
 that the young general, instead of pressing 
 on at once to Gades, fell back on Tarraco whence he 
 had started, and that Hasdrubal, after he had been con- 
 quered by him in a decisive battle at Bsecula, was yet 
 able, as has been already related, to give him the slip 
 and to go off with a considerable force to Italy, thus to 
 all appearance accomplishing the object of the long 
 Spanish struggle. It was not till Hasdrubal had spent 
 the winter months in Gaul, had invaded Italy, and had 
 fallen on the Metaurus, that Scipio ventured to advance 
 into Baetica, and tlien, step by step, after a decisive vic- 
 tory at Elinga or Silpia, drove the Carthaginians into 
 Gades, " their first and their last possession " in Spain. 
 Nor was it till the year B. c. 20$ that Mago, the last of 
 the brood of Hamilcar, passed over into the Balearic 
 Islands, leaving to Rome, or rather to two centuries of 
 half-suppressed revolts against her cruel and treacherous 
 
Scipio Elected Consul. 207 
 
 rule, the empire which his family had founded and built 
 up, and of which they had so long postponed the fall. 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 THE WAR IN AFRICA. BATTLE OF ZAMA. 
 (206-202 B.C.) 
 
 On his return to Rome towards the close of the year b. c. 
 206, Scipio enumerated to the Senate, which had been 
 assembled for that purpose in the Temple of 
 Bellona outside the walls, the long roll of Scipio elect- 
 
 ° ed consul. 
 
 the actions which he had fought, the towns 
 which he had taken, and the cities which he had sub- 
 dued. Not a Carthaginian, he proudly told them, was 
 left alive in Spain. He expected to receive a triumph ; 
 and, truly, in view of his successes, if not of his intrinsic 
 merits, he deserved it as few Roman generals had done 
 before him. But the Senate, half envious and half dis- 
 trustful of the young general, determined to abide by 
 precedent where, as in this case, precedent fell in with 
 their own inclinations ; and refused an honour which 
 had never yet been granted except to a regularly com- 
 missioned officer of the state. Scipio, who had con- 
 quered as a mere proconsul, could console himself only 
 with the conquests he had yet in view, when perhaps 
 there might be no such artificial obstacle to the reward 
 which they merited. He had not long to wait ; for at 
 the Comitia, to which the people flocked as much to 
 see as to vote for the conqueror of Spain, he was unani- 
 mously chosen Consul — ^though he had not yet filled the 
 office of Prsetor, and was still only thirty years of age — 
 and with the purpose clearly understood, even if it v/as 
 
2o8 Rome and Carthage. 
 
 not expressed in words, that he should transfer the war 
 to Africa. 
 
 But the fathers of the city were full of misgivings. 
 They remembered Regulus. They reflected that Han- 
 nibal was still in Italy, that there might be 
 Proposes to j^fg ^^ the old lion yet, and that even in his 
 
 invade Africa. ^ , , 
 
 death-grapple, he might, like the blind and 
 captive Samson, slay and scatter his foes once more as 
 he had done scores of times in the heyday of his 
 strength. The old Fabius, true to his policy to the end, 
 advised Scipio to reckon with Hannibal and his few sol- 
 diers in Italy rather than attempt to draw him off to 
 Africa, where he would have the whole power of Car- 
 thage at his back. But Scipio showed clearly enough 
 that, if the Senate refused the leave he sought, he would 
 seek it from the people ; and if he failed to get it from 
 them, he would still take it for himself. The Senate, 
 therefore, were glad to save their dignity and to shift a 
 portion of their responsibility from their own shoulders, 
 by assigning the province of Sicily to the newly elected 
 consul, at the same time giving him permission to cross 
 thence into Africa, "if he should judge it to be advan- 
 tageous to the state." They declined, however, to vote 
 him a sufficient army, and would hardly even allow him 
 to Accept the services of those who came to him as vol- 
 unteers. The army assigned to him consisted of but 
 two legions, and those the two which had survived the 
 defeat at Cannae, and which had been kept on duty in 
 Sicily, as in a kind of penal settlement, ever since. But 
 the warlike nations of Italy supplied him with seven 
 thousand trusty volunteers ; and the Etruscans, those 
 ancient mariners of the Italian waters, eagerly furnished 
 him with the rough materials for a fleet. Once more the 
 fairy tale of the First Punic War is repeated in honour 
 
Scipio in Sicily. 209 
 
 of the favourite of the gods, and a growing wood was 
 transformed in forty-five days into a fleet of ten quadri- 
 r^mes and twenty quinqueremes. 
 
 With this meagre provision for what he was medita- 
 ting, Scipio landed in his province. There he furnished 
 three hundred of his army with horses 
 which he had taken from the Sicihans ; a i?P'° ^" 
 
 Sicily. 
 
 dehcate operation, but so adroitly man- 
 aged that we are asked to believe that the despoiled pro- 
 vincials, instead of resenting it as an injury, thanked 
 him as for a benefit. Discharged veterans of the army 
 of Marcellus came and enrolled themselves amongst his 
 followers, and supplies of provisions came flowing in 
 from all the corn-growing lands of Sicily. The ships 
 which he knew to be seaworthy he sent under the com- 
 mand of Lselius to devastate the African coast ; those 
 which were newly built he laid up for the winter in dry 
 docks at Panormus, that their unseasoned timbers might 
 warp or leak in a place where a warp or a leak would 
 not be fatal to them. He then went into winter quarters 
 in the pleasant town — too pleasant his critics at Rome 
 deemed it — of Syracuse. But the inactivity which was 
 thus forced or seemed to be forced upon him in his own 
 province he turned to good account by the blow he man- 
 aged to strike in the province of his colleague. He 
 threw a small force across the straits of Messana, and 
 by an arrangement with a party within the town, he 
 got possession of Locri, an important place near the 
 southernmost point of Italy. Hannibal thus found him- 
 self deprived for the moment of his base of operations in 
 Bruttium. But the gain was a doubtful one for the 
 reputation alike of Scipio and of Rome ; for the capture 
 of the town was followed by a series of terrible atrocities 
 which Scipio, if he did not actually authorize them, took 
 
2IO Rome and Carthage 
 
 i>' 
 
 no measures either to prevent or adequately to punisn, 
 and which reflected seriously on the state in whose 
 service the Avorst offenders were. 
 
 Early in 204 B. c., the armament which Scipio had 
 collected in face of the lukewarmness or the opposition 
 
 of the Senate sailed, amidst all the pomp 
 vades° Africa. ^^^ circumstance of war, from Lilybaium, 
 
 that ancient stronghold of the Phoenician 
 race. Accounts differ as to its size. Some of our au- 
 thorities — they can perhaps in this instance hardly be 
 called authorities at all — place the number of men on 
 board as low as 12,000, while others make it as high as 
 36,000, But if we take the higher, and perhaps the 
 more likely estimate, we still cannot fail to observe how 
 vastly inferior in numbers this expedition was to those 
 which were again and again despatched against Car- 
 thage, or her maritime dependencies, in the course of 
 the First Punic War. Even if the Senate had taken up 
 the project warmly, as a more far-sighted body would 
 probably have done, the waste of life and property oc- 
 casioned by Hannibal's fourteen years' war in Italy 
 must have made any armament which they were able 
 to raise look small in comparison with that of Regulus ; 
 and we are surprised to find that the Carthaginians, who 
 still claimed, in a measure, the empire of the seas, who 
 knew what an invasion of Africa meant, and who had 
 long seen that it was coming, yet offered no opposition 
 by their fleet to Scipio's approach. The small force that 
 was for ever to deprive Carthage of her proudest title, 
 and to make her a mere dependency of Rome, landed 
 on the third day, without seeing a vestige of the foe, 
 near the " Fair Promontory ;" and Scipio, according to 
 his went, drew a not ill-grounded omen of success from 
 the name of the spot to which the gods, or his own care- 
 
Massinissa and Syphax. 211 
 
 fully considered plans, had guided him. Fortune, how- 
 ever, did not smile on his first attempt. Already while 
 in Spain he had prepared the way for his invasion of 
 Africa by opening friendly communications with the two 
 Numidian chieftains from whom, in such a contingency, 
 he might have most to hope or fear. These two chief- 
 tains were Massinissa, head of the Massylians, a tribe 
 which dwelt immediately to the westward of the domain 
 of Carthage, and Syphax, who ruled the Masssesylians, 
 a much more important tribe, occupying the region of 
 the modern Algeria. Before we enter on those final 
 operations of the war in which they play so important a 
 part, it is necessary to give a brief account of the antece- 
 dents of each of these barbarian princes. 
 
 Massinissa had, during many years, fought against 
 the Romans in the Spanish war, and had done good 
 service to Carthage ; but, even there, seeing 
 which way fortune was turning, he had, with and^Syphax. 
 the astute fickleness of a barbarian, come 
 to a secret understanding with Scipio. Syphax was also 
 bound by treaty to Carthage. But it was a treaty which 
 the Carthaginians well knew that he would break as 
 soon as he should deem it to his advantage to do so ; 
 and Scipio flattered himself that by a romantic visit, 
 which, amidst great dangers, he had paid to his court 
 in the midst of the Spanish war, he had secured alike the 
 support of the Berber chieftain and the admiration of 
 Hasdrubal, his Carthaginian antagonist. It was by a 
 strange coincidence indeed that the rival generals, un- 
 known to each other, had abandoned their respective 
 armies in Spain, and, crossing over into Africa, had met 
 with antagonistic objects, but in no unfriendly inter- 
 course, at the court of an African prince. Fascinated 
 by Scipio's address and bearing, Syphax readily pro- 
 
212 Rome and Carthage. 
 
 mised the alliance which he asked. But the surpassing 
 beauty of Sophonisba, the daughter of his other guest, 
 made a more permanent impression on the amorous 
 barbarian ; and on the promise of a marriage with her, 
 Syphax was induced to throw up his newly formed 
 friendship with Rome, and to renew his old one with 
 Carthage. He forthwith drove his nephew Massinissa 
 out of his hereditary kingdom ; and when that chieftain, 
 after innumerable adventures and escapes, now pre- 
 sented himself in Scipio's camp near the Fair Promon- 
 tory, it was only as an outlaw at the head of a few 
 horsemen, whose aid might cost the Romans more than 
 it was worth. This was a keen disappointment to 
 Scipio, and, so far, seemed to augur ill for his African 
 campaign. 
 
 It might have been expected that in this, the last 
 period of the war, waged as it was almost under the 
 walls of Carthage, some clear rays of light would have 
 been thrown on the internal state of the city itself. But 
 in this, as in other parts of the long struggle, we look in 
 vain for such a clear and truthful narrative of events as 
 would have enabled us to picture to ourselves the won- 
 derful city from which Hannibal, one of the greatest 
 wonders of all times, came. Here, if anywhere, and 
 now, if anywhen, we might have expected that the Ro- 
 mans would have taken the pains to explain to them- 
 selves, if not to others, the condition and the constitu- 
 tion, the fears and the hopes, the strength and the weak- 
 ness of that great city which had so long contended with 
 them on equal or even superior terms. What a price- 
 less boon, for instance, would Scipio himself, with that 
 taste for literature with which the unlettered Roman 
 senators twitted him, and with his power of understand- 
 ing, or at least of influencing, nations less civilized than 
 
Historical Possibilities. 213 
 
 his own, have conferred on all future times, had he 
 cared to tell us exactly what he saw, and what he in- 
 ferred, about his great antagonists ! The facts of these 
 last few years cannot, we should think, have been less 
 instructive, less thrilling, or less strange, than those fic- 
 tions in which the Scipionic circle appear habitually to 
 have indulged. The glory of Rome would not have les- 
 sened, it might even have been increased, had she given 
 her adversaries, now at any rate, that credit which was 
 their due. We might then have been able to judge, on 
 better grounds than those on which most historians have 
 passed so ready and so easy a judgment, as to what ele- 
 ments of civilization and of progress, along with those 
 other elements of weakness, which are admitted on all 
 hands, Carthage might have transported into Europe, 
 had the result of the war been different. We should 
 then have had more data for determining the question, as 
 to what would have been the gain and what the loss to 
 the world at large had the Mediterranean continued, 
 what Nature seems to have intended it to be, the high- 
 way of independent nations, each perhaps endeavour- 
 ing, but, happily, each failing, to conquer its neigh- 
 bours ; instead of becoming a Roman lake, connecting 
 nations whose separate existence had been stamped out 
 of them, and all of them controlled, assimilated, civil- 
 ized—if we like to call it so — by the all-levelling power 
 of Rome. 
 
 The services rendered to civilization by Rome are 
 clear enough ; but is not so clear what services might 
 hereafter have been rendered to it by a free Athens and 
 a free Corinth, by the inexhaustible energy of the Greek 
 colonies in Sicily, by a possibly resuscitated Tyre or by 
 the new-born Alexandria ; last, not least, by a Carthage 
 freed, as Hannibal was able for a short time at least to 
 
214 Rome and Carthage. 
 
 free it from its narrow oligarchy, and by a Rome which 
 would have been content with her natural boundaries, 
 content, that is, to assimilate, and to weld into one, the 
 various tribes which were most of them cognate to her- 
 self, from the straits of Messana to the Alps. He is 
 certainly a bold historian who with these — so large a 
 part of the conditions of the problem — not before him, 
 will pronounce dogmatically that it was in all respects 
 Avell for the world that Rome was able utterly to destroy 
 her ancient ri^al. The phrase, " it would have been," is 
 a dangerous phrase to use in the study of history. It is 
 difficult to avoid using it altogether ; but it must always 
 be remembered on what slender grounds we can use it at 
 all, and how infinite are the possibilities of which no 
 account is taken. If it be presumptuous to say, as 
 Napoleon did, that God is always on the side of the big 
 battalions, it is hardly less presumptuous to say dog- 
 matically that in this or that instance He was on the side 
 of the weaker ones. It surely savours of presumption 
 to maintain, as one historian, never to be mentioned 
 without high honour, has, throughout this portion of his 
 noble history, maintained, that Providence must surely 
 have been plotting against Carthage, and watching over 
 Rome, because when Hannibal advanced on the city, 
 two legions which had been raised for the Spanish war 
 happened to be still lingering there and could be utilized 
 for her defence ; or again, because the great Cartha- 
 ginian happened to have turned southwards to Brut- 
 tium instead of northwards to Lucania, at the moment 
 when the messengers of his long-looked-for brother 
 were despatched to find him. We know all too little of 
 the nation which produced Hamilcar, Barca, and Han- 
 nibal to say what that nation might have done in 
 happier times under the guidance of such commanding 
 
Campaign in Africa. 215 
 
 geniuses. The Second Punic War ends as it was begun. 
 It is recorded from first to last only by Hannibal's 
 enemies, who neither understood, nor cared to under- 
 stand, what made him, and what made his city, great. 
 Yet it is the old story. It is the man who paints the 
 prostrate lion. But it is the lion, and not the man ; it is 
 Hannibal, and not his conquerors, who, in spite of the 
 painter's intention, rivets all eyes and stands forth alone 
 from the canvas, alike in his military genius and in his 
 patriotism, in his hundred victories and in his one 
 defeat, without a parallel in history. 
 
 But the Carthaginians were not more ready to meet 
 Scipio by land than they had been by sea. They were 
 without a sufficient army, and Hasdrubal, 
 the son of Cisco, their best available gene- The campaign 
 
 ' _ ° m Africa. 
 
 ral was just then at a distance. For nearly 
 fifty years Africa had been free from invasion ; and the 
 soldiers of Scipio found the same unwalled towns and 
 villages and the same fruitful and well-watered estates 
 which the followers of Agathocles and Regulus had 
 found before them. From this rich and prosperous 
 country a motley and panic-stricken multitude flocked 
 towards Carthage, driving their flocks and herds before 
 them ; and the gates of the capital were shut and the 
 walls manned, as though for an immediate attack. 
 Pressing messages for aid were sent to Hasdrubal and 
 Syphax ; and the sense of relief was great when Scipio, 
 instead of advancing on the capital, showed that he 
 intended first to secure Utica. Frequent skirmishes with 
 the Numidian cavalry took place, in which Massinissa, 
 availing himself to the utmost of his knowledge of the 
 Numidian tactics, did good service to the Romans. The 
 ships which Scipio had sent back to Sicily, returned 
 laden with provisions and with his siege train ; but 
 
2i6 Rome and Carthaze. 
 
 A" 
 
 for forty days the oldest Phoenician colony in Africa 
 resisted, with true Phoenician endurance, all his asaults. 
 Two large armies under Hasdrubal and Syphax ad- 
 vanced to its relief, and on the approach of winter Scipio 
 was obliged, without having won any decisive success, to 
 abandon the blockade, and to transfer his camp to an 
 adjoining tongue of land, which was known for centuries 
 afterwards as the Castra Cornelia. 
 
 So ended the year 204. Neither the hopes nor the 
 fears which Scipio's invasion of Africa had called forth 
 Scipio's ^^*i ^s yet been fulfilled ; and so far did the 
 
 command ^^j- gtiH seem from its termination, that the 
 
 prolonged. _ ' 
 
 Italians were not yet able to look upon them- 
 selves as secure from invasion. They even thought it 
 prudent to build ships for the special purpose of protect- 
 ing their coasts from possible attacks on the part of the 
 Carthaginian navy. Twenty legions were put into the 
 field for the year 203, and the command of Scipio was 
 prolonged, not, as on previous occasions, for a fixed 
 period, but till such time as the war should be brought 
 to a conclusion. From the military point of view this 
 was a step in the right direction. It had already been 
 tried in Spain in the persons of two members of the same 
 illustrious family ; but it was also the first step towards 
 the establishment of the military dictatorship, which was 
 destined, after a long agony of civil wars, to overthrow 
 the liberties of Rome. 
 
 Fortune or fraud soon gave Scipio the chance of deal- 
 ing a decisive blow. In sight of his winter quarters was 
 
 the camp of the Carthaginians, under Has- 
 Cariha? ° drubal, son of Cisco, and at some distance 
 
 g'"'-'" farther lay that of the Numidians under Sy- 
 
 camps. ^ ^ •' 
 
 phax. The Carthaginian huts were built of 
 dry wood which had been collected from the fields, while 
 
Story of Sophonisba, 217 
 
 those of the Numidians, as their custom was, were made 
 of wattled reeds thatched with straw. Such materials 
 suggested to Scipio the way in which they might best be 
 destroyed. Opening or pretending to open negotiations 
 for peace, he sent messengers backwards and forwards 
 with orders to note the shape and the arrangements, the 
 exits and the entrances, of the hostile camps. This 
 information obtained, he suddenly broke off the negotia- 
 tions, and then, with an easy conscience as it would 
 seem, set out on his night errand. The wily Numidian 
 chief was told off to the task which seemed appropriate 
 to him, and which he had perhaps been the first to sug- 
 gest, the burning of the Numidian camp. The flames 
 spread with the rapidity of lightning, and when the 
 Carthaginians hastened to the help of their allies, their 
 own camp was set on fire by Scipio behind them. The 
 panic was sudden and universal, and what the flames 
 spared, the swords of the Romans, who had been sta- 
 tioned at all the outlets, cut down. Forty thousand 
 Africans fell the victims of this not very glorious exploit. 
 It was with difficulty that the two generals, Hasdrubal 
 and Syphax, escaped, the one to Carthage, to keep alive 
 the spirit of the " Barcine faction " against the faint- 
 hearted counsels of the peace-party, which now, perhaps 
 with reason, might make themselves heard ; the other, 
 to rally the survivors of the slaughter, and to collect new 
 forces for the defence of the capital. 
 
 Another victory of Scipio followed in the so-called 
 " Great Plains," and on the exiled Massinissa was im- 
 posed the congenial task of following up his 
 rival Syphax, who had deprived him of his 
 hereditary kingdom. Massinissa's pursuit was as rapid 
 as it was successful. The Massaesylians were defeated, 
 and Syphax himself, together with his beautiful wife 
 
2i8 Rome and Carthage. 
 
 Sophonisba, and his capital, Cirta (the modern Constan- 
 tine), which had been built in the most romantic and 
 impregnable of situations, fell into the conqueror's hands. 
 In times long gone by, so the story went, Massinissa's 
 heart had been touched by the charms of the Carthagi- 
 nian maiden. Fortune had then thrown her into the 
 hands of his rival, but now his own turn was come. He 
 married her on the spot, and when Scipio, alive to the 
 complications which might follow from such a marriage, 
 and perhaps jealous of his own superior rights, bade 
 him dismiss a wife who might compromise his fidelity to 
 the Romans, he sent her a cup of poison, "the only 
 present which the bridegroom could offer to his bride." 
 Let her see to it that she did nothing unworthy of the 
 daughter of a Carthaginian general and the wife of two 
 Numidian kings. Sophonisba drank off the poison, only 
 remarking that her death would have been more oppor- 
 tune had it not followed so immediately upon her mar- 
 riage. Massinissa, so the chroniclers rounded off the 
 tragic story, was gently rebuked by his Roman Mentor 
 for having atoned for one rash act by another ; but he 
 was consoled for the loss of his bride by the royal title, 
 and by the Roman garments which Scipio solemnly be- 
 stowed upon him. 
 
 It was an honour never before granted by the proud 
 republic to one who was not a Roman citizen ; but Mas- 
 sinissa lived long enough abundantly to jus- 
 Subsequent . r •, • • -1 T-IT1 TT- 1 11 
 
 history of tify his privileges. What Hiero had been to 
 Massinissa. ^^ Romans throughout the First Punic War 
 and during the early years of the Second, that Massinissa 
 was to them during its closing years, throughout the long 
 agony of the peace which followed it, and in the short 
 and sharp struggle of the Third. When the "War of 
 Hannibal '' was over, Massinissa was planted, as we 
 
Negotiations for Peace. 219 
 
 shall hereafter see, by the Romans as a thorn in the side 
 of the city with which they professed to have made 
 peace. He was encouraged to make aggressions on her 
 mutilated territory, and then to complain to the Romans 
 if she ventured to defend herself. Carthage was ihe 
 lamb in the fable. Whatever excesses she might allege, 
 or whatever the provocation or the injury she might re- 
 ceive, she knew that the case was prejudged against her 
 by the wolf, and that she must meet the lamb's fate. 
 
 The fall of Syphax was a great blow to Carthage. 
 Her most powerful friend was gone, and his place was 
 taken by her deadliest foe. Indeed the whole 
 power of Numidia was now arrayed against Negotiations 
 
 •^ , ^ o jq^ peace. 
 
 her. In spite of a naval success obtained by 
 the Carthaginians over Scipio's fleet, and the consequent 
 raising of the siege of Utica, the peace party now came 
 to the front at Carthage. The able Hasdrubal, the son 
 of Cisco, they condemned to death in his absence — a 
 sentence passed, ostensibly, no doubt, as a punishment 
 for his recent failure, but really, as seems probable, for 
 his previous energy ; and they then opened negotiations 
 for peace with Scipio. The terms offered by him were 
 lenient ; more lenient, as has been already pointed out, 
 than those offered by Regulus fifty years before. He 
 knew that there was a strong party opposed to him at 
 Rome, and he knew also that an army which had failed 
 to reduce Utica would not be likely to capture Carthage 
 by a coup-de-main. Ambassadors were sent to Rome 
 to get the terms to which both parties had agreed in 
 Africa confirmed by the Roman Senate ; and if Livy 
 may be believed — and he is to a certain extent borne 
 out by what we know of the state of parties at Carthage 
 —those who were now in power had the baseness as 
 well as the folly to try to throw the blame of the war on 
 
220 Rome and Carthage. 
 
 Hannibal. Anyhow the proposals were summarily re- 
 jected, the ambassadors were dismissed without an 
 answer, and Scipio was instructed to press the war to its 
 natural conclusion. 
 
 But for Carthage one chance still remained. The 
 
 sons of Hamilcar might be recalled to help in the hour 
 
 of her extremity the state which had done 
 
 Last chance gQ little to help them, and which now, by 
 
 of Carthage. ^ ... 
 
 the mouths of one party within it, professed 
 to be ashamed of having done even that little. And 
 whether it was the work of the peace party, in the hope 
 that peace might thereby be made more possible, or of 
 the war party, who hoped that Hannibal, the genius of 
 war, might yet strike a blow which would reverse its for- 
 tunes, the order was sent to the two sons of Hamilcar to 
 return to Africa (205 b. c). 
 
 Driven out of Spain by Scipio, Mago, as we have 
 seen, had crossed to the Balearic Islands, and passing 
 
 thence from the harbour which still bears 
 Ma^^^^°^ his name. Port Mahon, into Northern Italy, 
 
 had taken Genoa, and during the last two 
 years had been labouring to organize among the unsub- 
 dued and ever-savage Ligurians an active coalition 
 against Rome. But it was too late. In the territory of 
 the Insubrian Gauls, he at last measured his sword with 
 the Romans. The battle was well contested, but it was 
 decisive; and Mago, who had received a dangerous 
 wound in his thigh, staggered back by night, as best he 
 could, through that rugged country, to the seacoast. 
 Here he found the message of recall awaiting him. He 
 set sail at once, as became a true son of Hamilcar ; but 
 worn out with anxiety of mind and with agony of body, 
 he died, perhaps happily for himself, before he hove in 
 sight of the African shore. 
 
Recall of Hannibal. 221 
 
 A different, but hardly a less tragic fate awaited his 
 
 elder and more famous brother. For four years past, 
 
 ever since the battle of Metaurus had shown 
 
 Recall of \{v[^ that ultimate success was not to be 
 
 llannibal. 
 
 looked for, Hannibal had been compelled 
 to act simply on the defensive. With his sadly thinned 
 army of veterans, and his Campanian and Bruttian re- 
 cruits, he had withdrawn into the neck of land to the 
 south of Italy which seemed as if it had been made for 
 his purpose. If it prepared the way for his future 
 retreat to Africa, it was Italy still, and it still for four 
 years enabled him to keep his vow, and to make Rome 
 uneasy. He had withdrawn to the " Land's End," but 
 he lay there with his face to the foe, gathering up his 
 strength, and ever ready to spring upon anyone who 
 should venture to molest him. The Roman vultures 
 gathered indeed around the dying lion ; but each, as in 
 the heyday of his strength, demurred to being the first 
 to approach him. Invincible as ever in the field — for 
 Polybius tells us expressly that he was " never beaten in 
 a battle so long as he remained in Italy" — Hannibal 
 had been condemned to see province after province, and 
 fortress after fortress— Consentia and Metapontum, 
 Locri and Pandosia — torn from him, till at last there 
 was nothing left in Italy but the southern corner of 
 Bruttium and the one fortress of Croton which he could 
 call his own. Yet all this time, when he must have been 
 in sore want of provisions, when reinforcements from 
 Carthage were no longer to be thought of, when it be- 
 came more and more clear that no help could be ex- 
 pected from Philip of Macedon, or from his own heroic 
 brother Mago ; when he had already seen the result of 
 the war registered in the ghastly head of his other brother 
 Hasdrubal, there had been no thought of surrender and 
 
 Q 
 
2 22 Rome and Carthage. 
 
 no whisper of mutiny in his camp. Without hope, but 
 without fear, he had held on there in his sohtary 
 strength ; and now when the order came to leave the 
 land of his fifteen years' struggle and of his astonishing 
 victories, he, like his father and like his brother, mas- 
 tered his feelings and obeyed. 
 
 " Leaving the country of his enemies with more re- 
 gret," says Livy, " than many an exile has left his own," 
 Hannibal made for the smaller Leptis, a place far to the 
 southeast of Carthage. The news of his 
 land°in^ arrival there at once brought back the war 
 
 Africa. party in the capital to power. Some Ro- 
 
 man transports which had been driven ashore in a 
 storm were seized by the excited populace, and hostili- 
 ties broke out amidst homilies on the part of the Ro- 
 mans against Carthaginian ill-faith, which, owing to the 
 circumstances under which they have come down to us, 
 we can neither refute nor believe. The Romans knew 
 well that the scourge which had been withdrawn from 
 themselves in Italy would fall with redoubled vigour on 
 their countrymen in Africa, and it is all the more to be 
 wondered at that they did not think it worth while to 
 leave to posterity a trustworthy account of the steps 
 which led up to the final catastrophe. Hannibal passed 
 the winter at Adrumetum, the modern Susa, a town 
 nearer to Carthage than Leptis, but still considerably to 
 the southeast of it, and then, instead of advancing on 
 the capital — which he must have yearned to visit, for he 
 had not seen it since he was nine years old — he struck 
 across the southern part of the Carthaginian dominions 
 into Numidia. There he won some successes over 
 Massinissa, he formed an alliance with some Numidian 
 chiefs, and there finally he met or was overtaken by 
 Scipio, who had moved forward from his head-quarters 
 at Tunis, plundering and enslaving as he went. 
 
Hannibal lands in Africa. 223 
 
 After an abortive negotiation for peace, in the year B.C. 
 202, and probably in the month of October, but on a day 
 and at a place, which, strange to say, are 
 unknown, the two great generals met for the Batde°^ 
 
 first and last time in the battle which was to 
 decide for centuries the fate of the civilized world. The 
 battle of Zama, like many other battles in history — 
 Arbela, Hastings, and Blenheim — was fought at some 
 distance from the place whose name has been united 
 with it. The battle-field lay probably much to the west 
 of Zama, near the upper Bagradas, and not far from a 
 town called by Livy Naraggara. Hannibal drew up his 
 army in three lines. In the first were his Ligurian, Gal- 
 lic, and Moorish mercenaries and the slingers from the 
 Balearic Isles. In the second stood the native Cartha- 
 ginians and their African subjects, with some troops 
 which had recently arrived from Macedon. In the third 
 line were drawn up the tried soldiers of Hannibal's own 
 army, on whom, if on no others, he could rely. These 
 last consisted chiefly of Bruttians. The sixteen years' 
 war had done its work with the veterans who had crossed 
 the Alps, and who had fought at Trasimene and at 
 Cannse. But the Italians, who had known Hannibal 
 only in the days of his comparative adversity, seem to 
 have been as devoted to him as if they had had a share 
 in winning all his laurels. The cavalry, as usual, were 
 placed upon the wings, and, in front of the whole, 
 marched a magnificent array of eighty elephants. Scipio, 
 as every Roman general did, drew up his army in the 
 three lines of hastati, principes, and triarii. But, ob- 
 serving the number of the enemy's elephants — by a 
 happy thought which alone would distinguish him from 
 the majority of Roman generals, who would have pre- 
 ferred to be conquered by rule rather than try to con- 
 
224 Rome and Carthage. 
 
 quer without it —he placed the maniples of the second 
 and third lines immediately behind those of the first. 
 Thus, instead of covering his ground chequer-wise, he 
 left broad lanes through the whole depth of his army, of 
 which the sagacious elephants, when they found them- 
 selves goaded by the Roman lances, would be likely to 
 avail themselves for their escape. 
 
 The plan succeeded ; and the whole array of elephants, 
 
 frightened by the blare of the trumpets, made the best 
 
 of their way through these open lanes, some 
 
 Rattle of ^Q <^^ flanks of their own, and others to the 
 
 Zama. 
 
 rear of the Roman army, without trampling 
 the legionaries to death or even breaking their line of 
 battle. Those which escaped to the flanks of the army 
 threw into confusion their own cavalry, who were al- 
 ready outnumbered by the Numidians opposed to them. 
 Hannibal thus found on this fatal day that his two most 
 formidable weapons — his elephants and his cavalry — 
 had been turned against himself. Lselius and Massi- 
 nissa soon drove the disordered Carthaginian horsemen 
 from the field ; but the conflict in the centre was much 
 more stubborn. When Hannibal's first line gave way, 
 the second tried by blows to drive them back to the bat- 
 tle. There had not been time for Hannibal to throw 
 over these raw mercenaries that commanding spell 
 which, during his long campaigns in Italy, and under 
 circumstances which looked even more desperate than 
 these, had made desertion or mutiny, or half-hearted- 
 ness among their Gallic or Ligurian countrymen alike 
 impossible. Some of them, to the number of eleven 
 hundred, now went over to the enemy ; but the veterans 
 did their duty well, and withstood the combined attack 
 of Scipio's second and third lines. They stood and fought 
 without flinching, till L^elius and Massinissa, returning 
 
Battle of Zama. 225 
 
 from the pursuit of the cavalry, closed in upon their 
 flanks and rear, and then, like Napoleon's Old Guard at 
 Waterloo, still without flinching, they fought and fell. 
 
 Twenty thousand of the Carthaginian army had fallen 
 in the battle. Twenty thousand more had been taken 
 prisoners, and Hannibal himself escaped, 
 with a few survivors only, to Adrumetum. after"defeat. 
 He fled, not because he wished to prolong 
 the campaign, for he had the magnanimity to confess 
 that he was conquered not only in the battle but in the 
 war ; still less because he cared for any personal reason 
 to save his own life, but because he felt that the terrror 
 of his name and the undefined possibilities which, as in 
 the case of his father at the close of the First Punic War, 
 the Romans still attached to it, might enable him to pro- 
 cure better terms for his unfortunate countrymen. Never 
 did a general return to his native country, after a long 
 absence, under a fate more cruel. The hero of a hun- 
 dred victories saw his native city for the first time after 
 his one defeat, but that one a defeat so crushing that it 
 could not but, for the moment, obliterate the memory of 
 all that had preceded it. But with true dignity and self- 
 respect, he set himself to accept the inevitable, and to 
 make what he could of it. Scipio prepared as though 
 he would besiege the city, but his heart also inclined to 
 peace. He knew that the consul was already on his 
 way who might rob him of much of his well-earned 
 glory, and with that prudence or that moderation which 
 was habitual to him, he forbore to push his victory to the 
 bitter end. 
 
 The terms which he offered were severe enough, and 
 had the Carthaginians only realized what they involved, 
 they would surely have asked to be allowed to meet their 
 fate at once. They were to retain indeed their own 
 
2 26 Roint ami Carthage. 
 
 laws and their home domain in Africa ; but they were 
 to give up all the deserters and prisoners of war, all their 
 
 elephants, and all their ships of the line but 
 p^aS! ° ten. They were not to wage war, either in 
 
 Africa or outside of it, without the sanc- 
 tion of the Roman Senate. They were to recognize 
 Massinissa as the king of Numidia, and, with it, the 
 prescriptive right which he would enjoy of plundering 
 and annoying them at his pleasure, while they looked 
 on with their hands tied, not daring to make reprisals. 
 Finally, they were to give up all claim to the rich islands 
 of the Mediterranean and to the Spanish kingdom, the 
 creation of the Barcides, of which the fortune of war had 
 already robbed them ; and thus shorn of the sources of 
 their wealth, they were to pay within a given term of 
 seven years a crushing war contribution ! Henceforward, 
 in fact, they would exist on sufferance only, and that 
 the sufferance of the Romans. Still the terms of peace, 
 heavy though they were, were as light under the circum- 
 stances as they could expect ; and Hannibal dragged 
 down with his own hands from the rostrum an ill- 
 judging orator who was recommending a continuance of 
 the struggle. The people gave vent to their indignation 
 at this infringement of their liberty of speech ; but Han- 
 nibal pertinently replied that they must forgive him if, 
 after thirty-six years' service in the camp, he had forgot- 
 ten the manners of the forum. 
 
 The terms which had been agreed upon by Scipio and 
 the Carthaginian government were referred to the Roman 
 Senate for their approval ; and ambassadors were sent 
 from Carthage, with Hasdrubal, surnamed the Kid, the 
 leader of the peace party, and the bitter opponent of 
 the Barcine family, as their spokesman, to plead the 
 cause of the conquered. The Romans accepted the 
 
Burning of Carthaginia7i fleet. 227 
 
 conditions, for they felt that this time the Carthaginians 
 were in earnest, and they felt also that Hannibal was 
 still at large, and it might not be well, even then, to 
 drive him to despair. 
 
 The conclusion of the peace was celebrated at Car- 
 thage by a cruel sight, the most cruel which the citizens 
 could have beheld, except the destruction „ 
 
 • • 1 r 1 1 • ,-1 Burning of 
 
 of the city itself — the destruction of their Carthaginian 
 fleet. Five hundred vessels, the pride and ^^ ' 
 glory of the Phoenician race, the symbol and the seal 
 of the commerce, the colonization, and the conquests of 
 this most imperial of Phoenician cities, were towed out 
 of the harbour and were deliberately burned in the sight 
 of the citizens. In the days of the greatest prosperity 
 of Carthage if any signal reverse happened to her — if, 
 for instance, a storm at sea destroyed a portion of her 
 navy, and so touched her in that on which she most 
 prided herself, the command of the seas — the whole 
 state would go into mourning, and the huge walls of the 
 city would themselves be draped in black. It is a 
 strange and touching custom, and the mention of it here 
 may, perhaps, better enable us to picture to ourselves 
 the feelings of the discrowned queen of the seas. Scipio 
 now set sail for Italy, and, landing at Lilybaeum, made 
 his way leisurely towards Rome through the cities and 
 the provinces which he had freed from the invader, 
 and which fondly hailed him as their deliverer. 
 
 He had delivered them, but from v/hat and to what 
 end ? He had delivered them from the immediate 
 scourge of foreign war ; but it remained to 
 be seen how far they would be gainers '^^'i H^^ 
 
 '^ would Rome 
 
 thereby. It remained to be seen, now that make of her 
 their great rival in the western Mediterra- ^^^ °^^ ' 
 nean was put out of the way, whether Rome would 
 
2 28 Ro?ne and Carthage. 
 
 visit the Greek and the Sicihan, the Apuhan and the 
 Campanian towns, which had been guiky of coquetting 
 with the invader, with that condign vengeance which 
 she had already wreaked on the unhappy Capua and 
 Tarentum ; whether she would hand them over to the 
 more lingering oppression of Roman magistrates and 
 tax-gatherers ; or whether, throwing off the narrow mu- 
 nicipal conceptions in which she had grown up, she 
 would rise to the imperial dignity which circumstances 
 had forced upon her. In other words, it remained to be 
 seen whether Rome would govern the states which were 
 already, or were hereafter to be, enrolled in her vast 
 empire, in their own interests, encouraging, as far as was 
 consistent with her own safety, their national life, de- 
 veloping their resources, giving them a liberty which 
 was not a license, and. a security which was not a soli- 
 tude. If Rome rose to this, her true dignity, we can 
 hardly regret in the interests of humanity that Hanni- 
 bal's enterprise ended as it did. But if her conduct was 
 the reverse, or nearly the reverse, of all this, we may at 
 least be allowed to question, as we have already hinted, 
 what most historians have laid down as an axiom too self- 
 evident to be worth discussing, whether it was for the good 
 of the human race that Rome should not only out-top, but 
 should utterly extirpate, her ancient rival. We may 
 believe, on the whole, in the survival of the fittest, and 
 that arms generally come to him who can best handle 
 them ; but it is open to us to regret that even the less fit 
 were not allowed to survive as well. There was surely 
 room on the shores of the Mediterranean and on the 
 Ocean beyond for the Phoenician as well as the Roman 
 civilization ; and the worst excesses of the Romans, the 
 perfidy and the brutality of their wars in Spain, their 
 grinding and oppressive system of taxation, the de- 
 
Last Rival of Rome removed. 229 
 
 struction of Corinth the eye of Greece, their civil wars 
 themselves, might have been mitigated or postponed, if 
 they could not have been altogether prevented by the 
 salutary knowledge that they had powerful rivals on the 
 other side of the Mediterranean who would not allow 
 them to be judge and jury, council, criminal, and exe- 
 cutioner all in one. 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 CARTHAGE AT THE MERCY OF ROME. 
 (201-150 B.C ) 
 
 The fifty years which passed between the end of the Se- 
 cond and the outbreak of the Third Punic War were 
 years in which Rome advanced with extraor- ^ 
 
 •' . Deterioration 
 
 dinarily rapid strides towards the empire of of Roman 
 the world ; but they witnessed also the inci- 
 pient decay of all that was best in the Roman character. 
 Already in the Second Punic War we have seen indica- 
 tions that the Golden Age of Rome was passing away. 
 Whatever the heroic qualities which the long struggle 
 called forth, we feel that the stern simplicity, the simple 
 faith, the submission to law which formed the ground- 
 work of the Roman character, and had marked, at all 
 events, the dealings of Romans with each other, are not 
 what they have been ; and now, when the strain of the 
 war is over, and the victorious city has to meet new pro- 
 blems and to face new dangers, we find that except in the 
 one point of her material strength, and her appliances for 
 further conquest, she is unequal to the emergency. 
 An emergency indeed it was ! Three hundred 
 
2 -JO Rome and Carthaze. 
 
 '<b' 
 
 thousand Italians had fallen in the field ; three hundred 
 towns had been destroyed ; to the North the 
 ?f*lSr°" Gauls and the Ligurians were still unsub- 
 
 dued ; in Central Italy, the Campanians, the 
 Apulians, and the Samnites, who had long daUied with 
 Hannibal, were awaiting their future in ill-concealed 
 anxiety ; while in the extreme South, the Bruttians, who 
 had clung to him to the last, abandoned themselves to 
 their fate in dull despair. The Italian yeomen, who had 
 never wavered in their attachment to Rome, torn from 
 their homes for years, and demoralized by the camp, 
 were unable or unwilling to settle down into the quiet 
 routine of agricultural life. They went as settlers to 
 those disaffected towns which Rome, according to her 
 practice, selected as new military colonies, or were con- 
 tent to swell the city rabble, which now began to rise 
 into importance and was kept in good humour by largesses 
 of corn, or by cruel and degrading public spectacles. 
 Their farms passed into the hands of capitalists, and 
 were cultivated by foreign slaves whom the frequent wars 
 with the half-subdued provinces brought in shoals to 
 Rome. " Sardinians for sale," was the sorry jest which 
 rose to people's lips when they saw a batch of these 
 wretched creatures landed at Ostia, or exposed for what 
 little they could fetch in the Roman Forum. " The more 
 slaves, the more enemies," was the grim proverb which 
 forced itself on their minds in all its stern reality, when 
 they awoke to the danger, which it was then too late 
 either to prevent or to cure. The rich arable lands of 
 Italy fell back, as might be expected under such keeping, 
 into pasture ; and half-naked slaves tended herds of 
 cattle where Roman consuls or dictators had been con- 
 tent to plough and dig before them, When the slaves 
 asked their masters for clothes to cover them, they were 
 
Condition of Roman Empire. 231 
 
 met by the suggestion, half question and half answer, 
 whether the travellers who passed through their solitudes 
 were wont to pass naked ? 
 
 In Rome itself the old aristocracy, which, it must be 
 admitted, with all its faults, had been, on the whole, an 
 aristocracy of merit, had given place to a 
 new nobility of wealth, who were as exclu- Condition of 
 
 Rome. 
 
 sive, and certainly were not more far- 
 sighted or more public-spirited, than their predecessors. 
 Rule was no longer looked upon as its own reward. It 
 was valued for what it brought, and high office lost half 
 its dignity when it was won by a reckless display of 
 wealth, or was used as a means of acquiring more. 
 Religion was no longer the simple and childlike faith of 
 the early commonwealth, but tended to become an affair 
 of titles and of priests, of auguries and of ceremonies — 
 of ceremonies which became more stringent and more 
 vexatious exactly in proportion as they were felt to be 
 less real. 
 
 Beyond the confines of Italy Proper, Rome was mis- 
 tress indeed of the four provinces which she had torn 
 from Carthage in her fifty years' war, of 
 Hither and F^urther Spain, of Sicily and Of Roman 
 
 ^ _ "' provinces. 
 
 Sardinia. But of these, Sicily alone was 
 unlikely to give her further trouble ; and that, not be- 
 cause she was well-affected, but simply because she was 
 exhausted. Sardinia supplied Rome with the living 
 chattels which were to be so perilous a property ; while 
 Spain entailed upon her a yet more disastrous heritage 
 of petty wars — wars incessantly ended and incessantly 
 renewed ; wars waged on the part of the Romans with 
 a baseness and a cruelty such as have characterized few 
 wars before or since. The wholesale murder of a tribe 
 which had submitted, and the assassination of a for- 
 
232 Rome and Carthage. 
 
 midable but honourable foe, were the weapons with 
 which the Roman generals managed to retain their hold 
 over their Spanish provinces. 
 
 It does not fall within the scope of this work to trace 
 in detail the steps by which, in the interval between the 
 First and the Second Punic Wars Rome ac- 
 quests"in*the quired a universal supremacy as undisputed 
 ^^^'- in the East as in the West ; to show how 
 
 Philip, who had scornfully remarked that the Roman 
 general " thought he might do anything with Macedon 
 because he was a Roman, and that if war was what he 
 wanted, war he should have," found in a few short 
 years, when the Macedonian phalanx first measured its 
 strength with the Roman legion in the open field at 
 Cynoscephalae, that the Roman general was not far 
 wrong, and, being thus driven to sue for peace, was able, 
 out of all his conquests or dependencies, to retain only 
 his hereditary kingdom ; how the Greeks, delivered from 
 the Macedonians, received at the hands of the Romans 
 their nominal liberty, and greeted with short-sighted ac- 
 clamations the Phil-hellenic Flamininus who was in fact 
 giving them only a change of masters ; how " the fetters 
 of Greece," first adjusted by Philip, were now riveted on 
 that unhappy country by a firmer hand, and how its 
 petty cities and blustering confederations, the degen- 
 erate representatives of those states to whom the world 
 owes Hellenic art and culture, after being allowed for a 
 brief space to air their importance and their imbecility, 
 settled down peaceably under the Roman protectorate, 
 and avenged themselves by corrupting by their man- 
 ners, or subduing by their arts, those whom they could 
 not meet in arms ; how Antiochus the Seleucid, the suc- 
 cessor, as he fondly thought, of the king of kings who 
 rejoiced in the self-assumed name of the Great, was 
 
Roman Conquests in the East. 233 
 
 driven by the Romans first out of Greece and then out 
 of Asia Minor, eighty thousand of his Asiatic troops 
 flying like chaff before the onset of less than half that 
 number of Roman legionaries at Magnesia; how the 
 Asia Minor that he had overrun gradually passed under 
 the control of Rome while the puppet monarchs of its 
 various portions humbly registered her decrees, and 
 even the hordes of Gallic invaders learned to stop their 
 ravages, or at least to keep at a respectful distance from 
 her all-powerful arm ; how the grand schemes of a 
 greater than Antiochus the "Great," now a friendless 
 exile at his court, were crushed, not so much by the 
 wisdom or courage as by the good fortune of Rome 
 which found her best ally in the jealousy and the inca- 
 pacity of the empty-headed monarch who flattered him- 
 self that he was Hannibal's protector; how the Egyp- 
 tian Ptolemy himself became the ward of Rome, and 
 the chief naval power of the Eastern Mediterranean 
 was saved from the ambitious schemes of Macedon and 
 Syria only by the upstart naval power of Rome in the 
 West ; how, lastly, by the defeat of Perseus at Pydna, 
 and the taking of Corinth by Mummius, Macedon and 
 Greece disappeared for ever as independent powers from 
 history, and became part and parcel of the Roman Em- 
 pire. All these events, and many more, are crowded 
 into the fifty years of existence which it still suited 
 Rome by a cruel kindness to allow to her Carthaginian 
 rival. But they belong to the general current of Ro- 
 man history, rather than to that special episode of which 
 this book treats. 
 
 The year b. c. 146, which witnessed the fall of Corinth, 
 witnessed also, by a strange coincidence, the destruction 
 of Carthage ; and to the chain of events which led di- 
 rectly up to that catastrophe we now turn. 
 
234 Rome and Carthage. 
 
 Beaten in the war by his cruel destiny, Hannibal 
 made the best of his altered circumstances. He had 
 lived many lives in what he had achieved 
 a statesman and Suffered ; but he was still comparatively 
 at Carthage. ^ young man, and he set himself, as though 
 he had been born to be a statesman, to reform those 
 abuses in the state which had done so much to mar his 
 patriotic aims. His apology for his ignorance of the 
 manners of the forum was hardly needed. He tri- 
 umphantly refuted the accusations which the peace 
 party were impudent enough, or base enough, to bring 
 against him, that he had spared Rome, and had appro- 
 priated to his own use the public money ! Whether by 
 the help of his veterans, or by the voice of the citizens, 
 he was appointed Shofete, or chief magistrate ; and he 
 used his power to overthrow the narrow and selfish oli- 
 garchy whose strength lay in the council of " the Hun- 
 dred Judges." Henceforward this council was to be 
 filled up, not, as heretofore, by co-optation, but, in part 
 at least, by free annual election. Lastly, Hannibal re- 
 formed the financial system, made those who had 
 thriven on the plunder of the treasury disgorge their 
 ill-gotten gains, and applied the proceeds to the pay- 
 ment of the war indemnity. So admirable were his 
 measures, that at the end of thirteen years his suc- 
 cessors were able to offer to pay up the whole of the 
 instalments of the forty millions due to Rome, and that 
 without imposing any additional taxes on the subjects 
 of Carthage, 
 
 These reforms stirred up a nest of hornets round the 
 ears of their great author, and his new enemies joined 
 his old ones in denouncing his projects to the Romans. 
 Rome, indeed, hardly needed such an invitation ; she 
 had made peace with Carthage, but not with Hannibal. 
 
J^xile of Hannibal. 235 
 
 If she no longer feared the city, she feared one of its 
 simple citizens ; and in spite of the protest 
 of Scipio Africanus, Hannibal's noble- driven into 
 minded foe, an embassy was sent to de- ^ 
 mand the surrender of the man whose bare existence 
 disturbed her equanimity. From the crowning disgrace 
 of complying with this demand, Hannibal saved his fel- 
 low-citizens by going into voluntary exile. The greatest 
 of the Phcenicians first visited Tyre, the cradle of his 
 race, and passed thence to Ephesus, whither, as chance 
 would have it, Antiochus had gone before him, that he 
 might prepare for war with Rome. He was received 
 with the highest honours ; and, striking while the iron 
 was hot, he asked the great king to place at his disposal 
 a small fleet and army. If this boon were granted him, 
 he undertook to sail to Carthage ; to renew the struggle 
 with Rome in Africa ; thence once more to cross to Italy, 
 and there meeting Antiochus himself — who was to ad- 
 vance overland and draw fresh contingents as he ad- 
 vanced from Macedon and Greece — to bear down with 
 him on their common enemy. 
 
 It was a magnificent scheme, and one which did not 
 seem altogether impossible of realization, for just then 
 a general rising in Spain gave the Romans 
 
 . Wanderings 
 
 enough to do m the West alone. But it was and death of 
 proposed to deaf ears. In vain did Hannibal ^""' ^ ' 
 reveal, perhaps for the first time in his life, the secret 
 which had been the mainspring of his achievements, the 
 story of his early vow. The courtiers were jealous of 
 the lonely exile, and the great king himself had no mind 
 to be told by a suppliant and a refugee what his interests 
 or his duty called for, or, if he was told, to do it. Against 
 his own urgent entreaties, Hannibal was carried into 
 Greece, in the wake of the Syrian army, there to be 
 
<i^6 Rome and Carthage. 
 
 asked for fresh advice, which Antiochus took care again 
 ostentatiously to reject. When his warnings turned out 
 true, he was carried back into Asia, and Antiochus 
 having, as it would seem, nothing for the greatest soldier 
 of his age to do by land, sent him off to sea to escort 
 some ships from Phoenicia. The small armament was 
 met, as might have been expected, by the large Rhodian 
 navy, and was overpowered in an engagement which 
 took place off Side. Hannibal himself fought well and 
 escaped to Ephesus just in time to see the huge force 
 which, as Antiochus imagined, was to sweep the Romans 
 out of Asia. This force was itself annihilated at Mag- 
 nesia, and the conquerors demanded, as one of the 
 conditions of peace, that Hannibal should be surrendered 
 to them. Once more he anticipated the demand. He 
 fled to Crete, and thence returning to Asia, wandered 
 from land to land, till at last he found refuge with 
 Prusias, the petty king of Bithynia. There he lived for 
 some years ; but even there the Roman fear, or hatred, 
 pursued him ; and at last, at a place called Libyssa, the 
 Phoenician hero disappointed his implacable enemies — 
 who were headed, it is sad to say, by no less a person 
 than Flamininus, the conqueror of Macedon — in the only 
 way which was now left to him, by taking the poison 
 which, as the story goes, he used to carry about with him 
 concealed in a ring. The oracle which had foretold that 
 " Libyssian soil should one day give shelter to Hannibal," 
 ) was fulfilled, not by his return in his old age to his native 
 [ country, but by his death in this remote corner of the 
 Sea of Marmora, and for centuries afterwards a huge 
 mound of earth was shown to travellers which was called 
 " the tomb of Hannibal." 
 
 So died the last and the greatest of Hamilcar's sons ; 
 and it may be doubted — or may we not rather say, after 
 
Death of Hajuiibal. 237 
 
 such study as we have been able to give to their lives 
 and actions, that it hardly admits of doubt — whether the 
 whole of history can furnish another example of a father 
 and a son, each cast in so truly heroic a mould, each so 
 worthy of the other, and each proving so brilliantly, in 
 his own person, through a lifelong struggle with fate, that 
 success is in no way necessary to greatness ? 
 
 In the same year with Hannibal died his great rival, 
 Scipio Africanus, the victim of a like reverse of fortune. 
 Like Hannibal, the victor of Zama had tried 
 his hand at politics, but, like many other YX^ °^ 
 great generals who have followed his ex- 
 ample, in politics he does not seem to have been at home. 
 He longed for literary repose, and when the tide of pop- 
 ular favour turned against him, he retired into a kind of 
 voluntary exile at Liternum. "Ungrateful country," he 
 cried, with his last breath, "thou shalt not have my 
 ashes." 
 
 The great Carthaginian leader was gone, but some- 
 thing of his handiwork still remained in the prosperity 
 which his reforms had secured for his native 
 city, in spite of the ever-increasing depreda- Delenda est 
 tions of Massinissa. The Second Punic War 
 had hardly been concluded, and the terms of peace 
 agreed to, when that wily Numidian, lord, by the favour 
 of Rome, of the dominions of Syphax as well as of his 
 own, began to justify his position by encroaching on the 
 Emporia to the south-east of Carthage. This was the 
 richest part of the Phoenician territory in Africa ; it con- 
 tained the oldest Phoenician colonies, and had belonged 
 to Carthage by a prescription of at least 300 years. The 
 Carthaginians, as by treaty bound, appealed to Rome for 
 protection ; and Scipio, the best judge of its provisions, 
 as well as one of the most honourable of Roman citizens, 
 
 R 
 
238 Rome and Carthage. 
 
 went over to Africa to decide the matter. But he decided 
 nothing, and Massinissa was left in possession of his 
 plunder. This led to fresh encroachments on the other 
 side of the Carthaginian territory along the river Bagra- 
 das, and these again to fresh commissions from Rome, 
 which always ended in the same way. At last the 
 trampled worm turned on its oppressor ; but fortune was 
 on the side of the chartered brigandage of Massinissa. 
 Hasdrubal, at the head of the patriotic party, was com- 
 pletely defeated, and Carthage itself was in danger. The 
 Carthaginians, by neglecting to ask leave of Rome to 
 defend themselves, had at length given the Romans the 
 very pretext which they wanted for interfering actively 
 and giving them the coup de grace. Already before this 
 a new commission had been sent out with old Marcus 
 Cato at its head. It proved to be an evil day for Car- 
 thage. The Censor had passed through the rich districts 
 which still remained to her. He had been amazed at 
 the wealth, the population, aAd the resources of the 
 city, which he had believed was crushed ; and he returned 
 home with his narrow mind thoroughly impressed with 
 the belief that if Rome was to be saved, Carthage must 
 be destroyed, Cato brought to the consideration of every 
 subject a mind thoroughly made up upon it. No one 
 ever reasoned him out of an opinion he had formed. 
 He exhibited in the Senate some figs as remarkable for 
 their freshness as their size ; and telUng the admiring 
 senators that they grew in Carthaginian territory only 
 three days' sail from Rome, he ended his speech that 
 day, and everv speech which he delivered in the Senate 
 afterwards, whatever the subject under debate, with the 
 memorable words — Carthage must be blotted out. 
 
RUSSELL i. STKUTHERS, ENG'S, N. Y. 
 
Topography of Carthage. 239 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 DESTRUCTION OF CARTHAGE. 
 (149-146 B.C.) 
 
 Our knowledge of the Third Punic War is derived al- 
 most exclusively from Appian, a mere compiler, who 
 did not live till the time of the Emperor 
 Hadrian, and whose accuracy, where he ^°^°f[ha^J 
 draws upon his own resources, may be 
 judged from the fact that he places Saguntum to the 
 north of the Ebro, and makes Britain only half a day's 
 sail from Spain. Fortunately for us, however, there is 
 good reason to believe that his account of the fall of 
 Carthage is drawn directly from Polybius, who not only 
 stands in the highest rank as an historian, but was him- 
 self present and bore a part in the scenes which he de- 
 scribed, and here, perhaps, before we look upon the 
 last scene of all, will be the place to describe, as c'early 
 as we can, the position, the fortifications, and the ap- 
 pearance of the imperial city. We noticed, at the out- 
 set, the strange obscurity which hangs over the origin, 
 the rise, and the internal life of a city whose influence 
 was for centuries so wide-spread and so commanding. 
 The same obscurity unfortunately extends also to its 
 topography. The blind forces of Nature, and the ruth- 
 less hand of Man, have conspired to efface even its 
 ruins. It is not merely the identification in detail of its 
 walls, its temples, and its streets, for these might have 
 been expected to disappear ; but it is those more perma- 
 nent features of its citadel and its harbours, nay, it is 
 the position of the city itself, which is in some points 
 
240 ~ Rome and Carthage. 
 
 open to dispute. How this has come about requires ex- 
 planation. 
 
 To the north of the city the tempests of two thousand 
 years, and the alluvial deposits of the river Bagradas, 
 which now enters the sea several miles to 
 by namre"^ the north of its former mouth, have turned 
 and man. much which, in the palmy days of Car- 
 
 thage, was open sea into dry land or into land-locked 
 lagunes ; while along the whole west and north front of 
 the city the sea has revenged itself by encroaching on 
 the land, and the massive substructions of fortifications 
 which, perhaps, turned Agathocles aside and long baf- 
 fled even Scipio, may still be seen engulfed beneath the 
 waters at the distance of a furlong or more from the 
 present coast. Nor has man been less destructive than 
 Nature. On the same or nearly the same spot have 
 risen successively a Phoenician, a Roman, a Vandal, and 
 a Byzantine capital. Each was destroyed in whole or 
 in part by that which was to take its place, and each 
 successive city found ample materials for its own rise in 
 the ruins which it had itself occasioned. The Byzan- 
 tine city was finally destroyed in 698 a. d. Since that 
 time its site has been almost uninhabited, and Berbers 
 and Bedouins, Fatimite Kalifs and Italian Republics, 
 German Emperors and French Kings, have all had a 
 share in the work of obliteration. The debris of so 
 many cities have formed a vast quarry out of which 
 neighbouring hamlets and towns have been built and 
 rebuilt, and, if we except the aqueducts and reservoirs, 
 which, even to the most cursory observer, tell the tale 
 of its former population and prosperity, he who would 
 see any remains of the once imperial city must dig deep 
 down through fathoms of crumbling masonry, or 
 through mosaic pavement laid above mosaic pavement. 
 
Fortifications of Carthage. 241 
 
 sometimes three in number, till, perchance, he lights 
 upon a votive tablet covered with Punic characters and 
 scored with rude figures of a triangle and an uplifted 
 hand, or, it may be, with the two horns of the Moon- 
 goddess, Astarte ; or brings to view the basement of the 
 mighty temple which witnessed the bloody offerings to 
 Baal-Moloch. 
 
 The isthmus connecting the peninsula on which Car- 
 thage was built with the mainland was three miles across, 
 and the whole of the widening ground to 
 the east of it, embracing a circuit of about p ^^^^ 
 twenty-three miles, would seem, at one time, 
 to have been covered by the city proper, its suburbs, 
 its gardens, and its burying-ground. The penin- 
 sula terminates towards the north and east in two 
 bluff headlands, now called Cape Ghamart and Cape 
 Carthage. Whether these were included in the city 
 fortifications or were left to defend themselves as out- 
 lying forts by their own inherent strength, is not quite 
 clear. 
 
 The city proper was adequately defended on the three 
 
 sides which touched the water by ordinary sea-walls; 
 
 but on the side towards the land, the side 
 
 from which alone the mistress of the seas ^^ fortifica- 
 tions. 
 and islands could dream of serious danger, 
 
 ran a triple line of fortifications, of which the remains 
 
 have only very recently been brought to light. The 
 
 outer wall which would have to bear the brunt of an 
 
 attack, was six or seven feet thick and forty-five feet 
 
 high, and it was flanked throughout its length by towers 
 
 at equal distances of two hundred feet. Between this 
 
 and the two similar walls which rose behind it, and 
 
 somehow forming part of them so as to make the whole 
 
 one compact mass of masonry were casemates capable 
 
242 Rome and Carthage. 
 
 of containing three hundred elephants, with their vast 
 stores of food. Above these rose another story with 
 stabhng for four thousand horses. In close proximity 
 there were barracks for their riders, as well as for twenty 
 thousand infantry. These magnificent fortifications ran 
 up from near the lake of Tunis to the hill on which the 
 citadel was built, and here were dovetailed into the wall 
 of the citadel itself, but, it would seem, were not con- 
 tinued on the same scale to the sea to the north of it. 
 The nature of the ground appears to have made the 
 prolongation of such elaborate defences unnecessary, 
 and the only point which was really weak in the whole 
 line of defence was the bit of wall at the south angle of 
 the town, just where a narrow tongue of land, called the 
 Taenia, which plays an important part in the siege, cut 
 off the open gulf from the lake which lay within it. 
 This spot, lying as it were between land and water, was 
 especially open to attacks from both, but seems never to 
 have been sufficiently protected against either. 
 
 Besides the Lake of Tunis there were two landlocked 
 docks or harbours, opening the one into the other, and 
 both, it would seem, the work of human 
 hands. Hie partus alii effodiiint, says 
 Virgil, and in this instance, at least, he speaks historical 
 truth. The outer harbour was rectangular, about four- 
 teen hundred feet long and eleven hundred broad, and 
 was appropriated to merchant vessels ; the inner was 
 circular like a drinking cup, whence it was called the 
 Cothon, and was reserved for ships of war. It could 
 not be approached except through the merchant har- 
 bour, and the entrance to this last was only seventy feet 
 wide, and could be closed at any time by chains. The 
 war harbour was entirely surrounded by quays, contain- 
 ing separate docks for 220 ships. In front of each dock 
 
Harbours of Carthape 
 
 24; 
 
 PLAN OF HARBOURS AT CARTHAGE 
 
244 Rome and Carthage. 
 
 were two Ionic pillars of marble, so that the whole must 
 have presented the appearance of a splendid circular 
 colonnade. Right in the centre of the harbour was an 
 island, the headquarters of the admiral. Here he could 
 superintend all the operations of that thriving and 
 industrious population ; here his orders were proclaimed 
 by the voice of the trumpet, and from its most elevated 
 point he could oversee the intervening strip of land, and 
 keep himself informed of all that was going on in the open 
 sea beyond. In time of war he could view a hostile 
 fleet approaching and watch all its movements, while 
 the enemy could know nothing of what was being done 
 inside. We have no full description of the merchants* 
 harbour ; but in time of pcaco the spacious Lake of 
 Tunis, which was much deeper then than now, would 
 afford safe anchorage to the myriads of merchant ves- 
 sels which no artificial harbour could contain, and which, 
 sweeping the whole of the Western Mediterranean, were 
 not afraid in very early times to tempt the dangers of 
 even the Ocean beyond. Such was the general aspect 
 and position of the city whose last struggle we have now 
 to relate. That struggle was heroic, desperate, and 
 superhuman, but the conclusion was foregone ; and he 
 who gazed on the free and the imperial, may well be 
 excused from dwelling at length on the agonies of the 
 doomed city. 
 
 The resolution of Rome was taken. The question of 
 time was the only one that remained, and the straits to 
 which Carthage had been already reduced 
 ec are . ^^ Massinissa demonstrated to the few dis- 
 sentients alike the guilt of the city and the fitness of the 
 present moment. In vain did P. Cornelius Scipio Nas- 
 ica, a man worthy of his name, protest against the idea 
 that it was necessary, in order that Rome might be 
 
Perfidia plusquam Punka. 245 
 
 strong, that her rival must be destroyed ; and point out 
 what a useful check upon the growing tide of luxury 
 and corruption the bare existence of her ancient foe 
 might prove. In vain did the Carthaginians condemn 
 Hasdrubal and Carthalo, the leaders of the patriotic 
 party, to death. In vain did they send embassy after 
 embassy to Rome, proffering the amplest compensation 
 and the most unlimited submission. The Romans re- 
 plied that they wanted only " satisfaction ; " to the nat- 
 ural question as to what " satisfaction" meant, they re- 
 joined that the Carthaginians knew that best themselves. 
 Just then too the rats began to leave the sinking vessel ; 
 for there arrived an embassy from Utica, the mother- 
 city of Carthage herself, surrendering the city absolutely 
 to the Romans. This was just what the Romans wanted, 
 for it gave them an unimpeded landing, and a second 
 base of operations in Africa, only ten miles from Car- 
 thage. An armament of eighty thousand men had al- 
 ready been raised, and it was at once despatched under 
 the Consuls, Manilius and Censorinus, to Lilybasum, on 
 its way to Africa. War was thus declared and begun 
 on the very same day. 
 
 To a final embassy which, even after this, was sent to 
 Rome, and was instructed to avert the invasion by any 
 and by every means, the Romans replied, 
 that the Carthaginians had now at lensrth Perfidia plus- 
 
 ° * quam rumca. 
 
 done well, and that Rome would guarantee 
 to Carthage " her territory, her sacred rites, her tombs, 
 her liberty, and her possessions," if three hundred hos- 
 tages, drawn from the noblest families, were delivered to 
 the consuls at Lilybasum within thirty days. Long be- 
 fore the thirty days were out the demand was complied 
 with, by the obsequious zeal of the Carthaginians, who 
 were then told that the further demands of the Romans 
 
246 Rome and Carthage. 
 
 would be made known in Africa. This secured the Ro- 
 mans from all opposition in crossing or in landing ; and 
 when the ambassadors again presented themselves in 
 Utica, they were told that, as Carthage was hencefor- 
 ward to be under the protection of Rome, they would 
 need no other protection at all. All arms and all en- 
 gines of war were therefore to be given up. After some 
 remonstrances this demand too was complied with, and 
 long lines of wagons brought to the consuls two thou- 
 sand catapults and two hundred thousand stands of 
 arms. Then Censorinus rose, and all possibility of re- 
 sistance having, as he thought, been taken away, re- 
 vealed the final orders of Rome — the orders which, it 
 must be remembered, had been secretly committed to 
 him and his brother-consul from the very beginning — 
 that Carthage was to be destroyed, but that the citizens 
 might build a new city in any part of their territory 
 they pleased, provided only it was ten miles from the 
 coast. 
 
 The Consul was interrupted in the few words he had 
 
 to say by an outburst of grief and indignation on the 
 
 part of the assembled senators and ambas- 
 
 Scene in sadors. They beat their breasts, thev tore 
 
 Roman camp. _ ^ ' " 
 
 their hair and clothes, they threw themselves 
 on the ground in their agony. The Romans were pre- 
 pared for this, and kindly allowed their grief to have its 
 way. When the first outburst was over, and the ambas- 
 sadors found that all their appeals to the treaty and to 
 the recent understanding with Rome were alike un- 
 availing, they begged, in the extremity of their distress, 
 that the Roman fleet might appear before the walls of Car- 
 thage at the same time with themselves ; a step which 
 they deemed would make resistance seem doubly hope- 
 less, and would save the lives which, in the paroxysm 
 
Scene at Carthage. 247 
 
 of their fury, the inhabitants would otherwise be hkely 
 to throw away. Many of them, even so, were afraid to 
 face the reception which awaited them in the city, and 
 remained behind in the Roman camp. Those who had 
 the courage to bear the fatal message gave no answer to 
 the citizens who thronged out to meet them as they 
 neared the city walls ; but, keeping their eyes on the 
 ground, made their way, as best they could, in imminent 
 danger of their lives, to the council chamber. 
 
 The cry which burst from the assembled senators 
 when they learned the Roman ultimatum was taken up 
 by the multitude outside ; and then was seen a sublime 
 outburst of frenzy and despair, to which history affords 
 no parallel. The multitude wreaked their 
 fury on the senators who had counselled sub- carAa^e 
 mission, on the ambassadors who had 
 brought back the message, on the gods who had forsaken 
 them. All the Italians found within the walls were put to 
 death with torture. There was a rush of the infuriated citi- 
 zens to the armoury ; but they found there only the empty 
 stands, which a few days before had been laden with 
 arms. They adjourned to the harbour, but the docks 
 were empty; there were only vast supplies of timber 
 there, which, but for their blind fidelity to the very treaty 
 which the Romans had set at nought, might ere now 
 have been converted into ships-of-war. They called by 
 name on the elephants whose horse-shoe stalls still stood 
 beneath the shelter of the huge triple wall, and whose 
 deeds of prowess in the last war were still remembered, 
 but alas! were matters of remembrance only. The 
 matrons whose sons had been taken to serve as hostages 
 rushed about like furies, upbraiding the magistrates who 
 had disregarded their remonstrances, and the gods who 
 could look on unmoved at their grief. Meanwhile the 
 
248 Rome and Carthage. 
 
 Senate, or what remained of it, declared war; the gates 
 were closed; stones were carried to the walls; all the 
 slaves in the city were set free ; messages were sent to 
 the outlawed Hasdrubal, who was at large at the head of 
 twenty thousand men, begging him to forgive and for- 
 get, and to save the city, which, in his just indignation, 
 he was even then preparing to attack. A second Has- 
 drubal, the grandson of Massinissa, was made com- 
 mander-in-chief; and while leave was being humbly 
 asked, and refused, to send once more to Rome, before 
 the irrevocable deed was done, the whole city was turned 
 into one vast workshop. Its buildings — public and 
 private, sacred and profane alike — resounded with the 
 workman's hammer and anvil. Lead was stripped off 
 from the roofs and iron torn out of the walls. Men and 
 women worked day and night, taking neither rest nor 
 sleep ; the matrons cut off" their long hair and twisted it 
 into ropes for the catapults; and while the Romans were 
 hesitating, partly perhaps from pity to their victims, 
 partly from the belief that a few days would demonstrate 
 even to these frenzied Phoenicians the hopelessness of 
 resistance, arms were extemporized for an adequate 
 number of the citizens, and the city was somehow put 
 into a position to stand a siege. 
 
 When at last the executioners approached to receive 
 
 its submission, they found, to their surprise, that the gates 
 
 were closed, and that the walls were fully 
 
 Failure of nianned and armed with all the engines of 
 
 Romans. o 
 
 war. There was nothing for it but to try force. 
 But force they tried in vain. Manilius attacked the city 
 on the land side where it was strongest, for a wall and 
 ditch ran right across the isthmus from sea to sea ; Cen- 
 sorinus from the side of the Taenia, between land and 
 water, where it was weakest. To their dismav both at- 
 
Death of Massinissa. 249 
 
 tempts failed ; and each had to go through the humihat- 
 ing process of fortifying his camp. Censorinus now 
 proceeded to bring up wood and woodcutters from the 
 other side of the lake of Tunis, and filled in with stones 
 and soil that portion of it which lay behind the Taenia, 
 so that he might bring his battering rams to bear upon 
 the weakest part of the wall. A portion of it fell beneath 
 a gigantic ram, propelled by 6,000 soldiers. But the 
 damage was partially repaired during the night, and the 
 besieging engines themselves were disabled by a sudden 
 sortie. On the following day the Romans ventured 
 through the part of the breach which was still open ; but 
 they were glad enough to make their way out again 
 under the protection of the young Scipio, who was then 
 serving in their army as a simple military tribune. With 
 the rising of the dogstar pestilence broke out in the ranks 
 of the besiegers, and when Censorinus transferred his 
 ships from the fetid waters of the lake to the open sea, 
 they narrowly escaped being destroyed by the Cartha- 
 ginian fire-ships. 
 
 The year B.C. 149 drew towards its close, and when 
 Censorinus returned to Rome to hold the elections for the 
 ensuing year, he had no progress to report. 
 Operations were not suspended during the SajJnisL. 
 winter, and once and again, if our authorities 
 are to be trusted, it would have fared ill with the other 
 consul if Scipio had not come to the rescue. Hasdrubal 
 and Himilco Phameas, who were in command of the 
 Carthaginian army outside the city, showed themselves 
 to be skilful generals ; and Massinissa himself, not liking 
 to see the game taken out of his hands, when he thought 
 it was his own, dechned to supply the Romans with the 
 aid which they asked. A rupture seemed imminent, but 
 the wily old Numidian was spared the humiliation of 
 
250 Rome and Carthage. 
 
 seeing what he looked upon as his predestined booty 
 appropriated by the Romans. It must have been a drop 
 of consolation, the only drop of consolation in the cup 
 of misery which the Carthaginians had now to drain 
 that neither the honest Roman Censor nor the grasping 
 Numidian king lived to see the deed for which they had 
 so long worked and plotted. Cato and Massinissa died 
 in the same year, after the destruction of Carthage had 
 been finally resolved on, but, thanks to the heroism of 
 the inhabitants, before it had been fully carried out. 
 
 The generals of the year B.C. 148, the Consul Calpurnius 
 Piso and his legate Mancinus, were not more successful 
 and were less energetic even than their predecessors. 
 The siege of Carthage was practically raised, and their 
 term of office was frittered away in aimless and desultory 
 attacks upon smaller places — such as Clypea and Hippo 
 Zarytus — wherein success could have done them little 
 service, and defeat, which was the more common result, 
 entailed much discouragement and disorganization. 
 
 So things might have gone on for years, and the 
 Romans, by their unprovoked aggression, well deserved 
 
 that it should be so. But one man there 
 ^'p!° was serving in a humble capacity in the 
 
 Roman army, whom his exploits and his 
 parentage, alike lineal and adoptive, marked out even 
 then from his professional superiors. Even Cato, who 
 was opposed on principle to his family and his mode of 
 life, had applied to him what Homer says of the Seer 
 Teiresias, amidst the airy phantoms of the netherworld, 
 " He alone is flesh and blood, the rest are fleeting 
 shades." P. Cornelius Scipio was the youngest son of 
 /Emilius Paullus, the conqueror of Macedonia. When 
 quite a youth he had fought by his father's side at Pydna, 
 and he was afterwards adopted into a still more illustrious 
 
Scipio JEmilianus. 251 
 
 family, that of the Scipios. Like his grandfather, the 
 great Africanus, he had early shown a taste for other arts 
 than that of war; and his fondness for literature was 
 cemented by the friendship which he formed, while still 
 a youth, with the more distinguished of the Achaean exiles, 
 above all with the historian Polybius. Not that he was, 
 in any sense of the word, as Polybius himself and his 
 contemporaries generally, not unnaturally, thought him, 
 a man of genius. He was inferior in all respects to his 
 grandfather by adoption, the elder Scipio. Yet his 
 friendship with the best men of his time was a pure and 
 noble friendship, and was worthy of being immortalized 
 by the song of Horace and by the De Amicitia of Cicero. 
 It was well for Rome that to a man so born and bred, 
 and so richly endowed amidst the blunders and the in- 
 capacity of his nominal superiors, the eyes of the Roman 
 soldiers, and the Roman citizens alike, were now in- 
 stinctively turning for safety. Three times over, so it 
 was said, during the absence of Censorinus, by his ad- 
 dress or valour, had Scipio saved the army of the other 
 consul, Manilius, from destruction. He had even induced 
 the ablest of the Carthaginian generals, Himilco Pha- 
 meas, to cross over to the Romans with 2,500 cavalry. 
 But the most that he could do in his capacity of mere 
 military tribune was to anticipate or undo the blunders of 
 his superiors ; and it seemed more and more possible that 
 Carthage might yet weather the storm, when, fortunately 
 for himself and for Rome, Scipio left the army to stand 
 for the ^dileship. He was accompanied to the ship by 
 the soldiers, who did not conceal their hope that he 
 would soon return as their commander-in-chief; and as 
 their commander-in-chief he soon did return. Now as 
 on one or two other occasions in their history, notably 
 as when the elder Scipio had volunteered to take the 
 
252 Rome arid Carthage. 
 
 command in Spain, the Romans, wedded though they 
 were to constitutional forms, saw that there was some- 
 thing more important even than those forms, the safety 
 of the state itself ; and in spite of his age, which was still 
 six years below the legal age, and of his not having ftlled 
 any other curule office, the young Scipio was elected not 
 to the yEdileship, but to the Consulship, with the implied 
 understanding, as in the case of the elder Scipio, that 
 his command was not to come to an end except with the 
 end of the war. 
 
 The new consul arrived in Africa at a critical moment. 
 He first rescued from imminent destruction Mancinus, 
 one of the outgoing generals, who had al- 
 sicms of" ^^' lowed himself to be cut off from all sup- 
 Scipio. plies and reinforcements on a high cliff" in 
 
 the suburbs, and then brought back the other army of 
 the consul Piso which was still carrying on a make-be- 
 lieve warfare amidst the inland towns, to its proper 
 work, the siege of the capital. Having restored disci- 
 pline by clearing his camp of the ineffectives and of 
 the birds of prey of various species which had accumu- 
 lated in it with amazing rapidity, during the exploits of 
 the last two years, he managed to take the vast suburbs 
 of Megara by surprise, and thus compelled Hasdrubal 
 to abandon his open camp and to take refuge in the 
 Byrsa. The siege of the city proper now began in ear- 
 nest, and now also began, if we may believe our au- 
 thorities, a reign of terror for the unhappy Carthaginians 
 who were pent up within it. Having got rid of his 
 namesake, the commander of the garrison, by false 
 charges, Hasdrubal installed himself as commander-in- 
 chief. But he proved to be as vain as he was cruel, and 
 as weak as he was pretentious. His first act was to 
 bring all the Roman prisoners to the battlements, and, 
 
The Mole and the New Outlet. 253 
 
 after torturing them cruelly, to throw them over the wall 
 in sight of the Roman army. When expostulations were 
 addressed to him by some of the citizens, he vented his 
 rage on them in a similar manner. 
 
 Scipio bridled his indignation, caring little if his re- 
 venge were slow provided only it w':;re sure. He carried 
 a double line of fortifications right across the 
 isthmus within a bowshot of the city walls. ^"p'°'' "°^«- 
 thus at once prote^^iiing himself from a surprise and ef- 
 fectually cutting off the Carthaginians from all succor 
 on the land side. But tKe sea was still open to its own 
 children, and fearless blockade-runners kept entering 
 the narrow mouth of the merchant harbour right under 
 the eyes of the Romans. Scipio therefore began to con- 
 struct a mole of huge stones, which, starting from the 
 Taenia, should block up for ever the mouth of the har- 
 bour. This operation, if it was feasible, would make 
 the surrender only a question of time. At first the Car- 
 thaginians thought it was not feasible. But it progressed 
 rapidly, and in two months it was all but completed, 
 when, to the infinite surprise and chagrin of the Romans, 
 a fleet of fifty triremes, hastily built of materials which 
 had been accumulated before the war began, sailed out, 
 as it were, through dry land, into the open sea, and that 
 at a point where the waters were so deep and the surf 
 so angry that it was hopeless to think of closing the exit 
 by any further prolongation of the mole. 
 
 How so gigantic a work can have been accomplished 
 — new ships built, and a new passage opened — without 
 even a suspicion being roused in the minds 
 of the Romans as to what was going- on, it The new 
 
 ° ° ' outlet. 
 
 is difficult to say. Deserters, indeed, had 
 reported that the workman's pickaxe and hammer were 
 to be heard day and night within the harbour quarter, 
 s 
 
254 Rome and Carthage. 
 
 which was itself surrounded by a wall. But the secret 
 had been kept ; and kept, it would seem, not merely from 
 the Romans, but from the mass of the citizens them- 
 selves. It is another illustration of that suspicious 
 shrewdness which marked the policy of the ruling Car- 
 thaginian oligarchy throughout its history — a shrewdness 
 which often, indeed, outwitted itself, but sometimes, as 
 in this supreme crisis of their fate, did good service, and 
 which explains in part what is otherwise so inexplicable 
 — that alternation of caution and of rashness, of ebullient 
 enthusiasm and ~of much enduring patience, of long- 
 sighted provision and of short-sighted laissez faire, of 
 sordid selfishness and of sublime self-abnegation, which 
 baffles calculation and defies analysis, refusing to be 
 accounted for by any ordinary combination of motives 
 or to be tested by any of the received maxims of mo- 
 rality. The Romans found that all their labour had 
 been thrown away ; and if only the newly-fledged ves- 
 sels had joined battle with them at once, instead of 
 airing in childish but natural glee their untried powers 
 of flight in the open gulf, they must have surprised and 
 overpowered them. But this was not to be ; and after 
 an evolution or two, they returned into the harbour 
 through the passage by which they had left it. Three 
 days after they sailed out again, and this time they 
 offered battle. But the Romans had recovered from 
 their dismay. The conflict was waged on equal terms, 
 and on returning at nightfall to their harbour, the Car- 
 thaginian ships, josthng against one another at its nar- 
 row entrance, were exposed to the attacks of the enemy 
 and suffered much loss. 
 
 Baffled in his attempt to block up the harbour by sea, 
 Scipio now attacked its fortifications by land from the 
 side of the Taenia and from the newly constructed mole. 
 
The Final Struggle. 255 
 
 A part of its walls fell ; but the Carthaginians, wading 
 or swimming through the water by night, made an attack 
 on the besieging hnes, and then, suddenly kindling the 
 torches which they carried, withstood, with the fury of 
 maniacs or of wild beasts at bay, the darts which were 
 rained on their naked bodies till they had effected their 
 object, the destruction of the engines by fire, and had 
 scattered panic throughout the Roman army. In the 
 morning they repaired the breach in the fortifications at 
 their leisure, and raised lofty towers along the harbour 
 wall, to face the lines of circumvallation and the 
 mounds with which the Romans were endeavouring to 
 approach it. So the summer passed away and still 
 Carthage stood. 
 
 During the winter months Scipio attacked Nepheris, 
 a town on the other side of the lake, the head-quarters 
 of a relieving army, and the place from which provisions 
 and supplies had been most systematically forwarded to 
 the beleaguered Carthaginians ever since the siege 
 began. Laelius, having received the chief command of 
 the expedition, took the large fortified camp outside the 
 town, and put to the sword a mixed multitude of seventy 
 thousand soldiers and peasants. Soon afterwards the 
 town itself fell into Scipio's hands ; and all the isolated 
 garrisons which had hitherto remained true to Carthage, 
 together with the country which they commanded sub- 
 mitted to Rome. And so one more winter passed away, 
 and still — without a foot of ground which she could now 
 call her own except that which her buildings covered, 
 and without a soldier or a citizen save those who were 
 penned within her walls — the grand old city held bravely 
 out. 
 
 But now her hour had come. At the beginning of 
 the spring Scipio delivered his final attack. He first 
 
256 Rome and Carthage. 
 
 took by storm the quarter of the merchants' harbour ; 
 
 then, with the help of a surprise planned 
 
 The final ^cci^ carried out by Laelius, the war harbour . 
 
 assault. -^ . • » 
 
 and thence he passed without opposition 
 into the adjacent market-place. 
 
 The city might now have been thought to be in his 
 
 hands. Three streets led up from the market-place to 
 
 the citadel, and the citadel alone, it might 
 
 Desperate have been anticipated, would now give any 
 
 resistance. ^ o ^ 
 
 further trouble. But those three streets 
 meant six days of fighting and of massacre. They were 
 held by frenzied and despairing Phoenicians, and were 
 well adapted for such a defence as frenzied and despair- 
 ing Phoenicians alone could make. They were narrow, 
 and above them rose houses six stories high with over- 
 hano-ing- eaves ; and from these such darts and missiles 
 as came to hand would be hurled down in one continu- 
 ous shower on the advancing foe. From such a down- 
 pour even the Romans shrank. They hesitated for a mo- 
 ment ; but it was for a moment only. Storming the 
 first house to which they came, they put its inhabitants 
 to the sword, and then, passing step by step, and inch 
 by inch, from building to building, or from roof-top to 
 roof-top by planks laid across the intervals, they massa- 
 cred every living thing they met. Each house was a 
 castle, and a castle defended by its garrison to the last 
 extremity. The battle raged on the housetops, within 
 the houses themselves, and in the streets below. Many 
 of the inmates were hurled down from the windows or 
 the roofs and caught on the pikes of the assailants. 
 
 At last the citadel was reached and the fighting was 
 at an end. But the most piteous scene of all was still 
 to come. Scipio gave the order to fire the streets which 
 it had cost the Romans so much to gain, to level the 
 
The Byrsa. 25 7 
 
 ruins, and so to open the approaches to the Byrsa which 
 still frowned in front. It was a natural order, and one 
 which did not appear to imply unneces- 
 sary cruelty or loss of life. But, unknown ^I^eet?*^^^ 
 to Scipio, a number of old men and 
 women and children had concealed themselves only too 
 skilfully in the cupboards or the cellars of the houses in 
 which the fighting had been going on, and these were 
 now burned alive, or fell with the falling buildings ; 
 while others, half roasted or half suffocated, flung them- 
 selves headlong from the windows into the streets. 
 There they lay, and thence they were shovelled, dead 
 and dying alike, amidst charred beams and crumbling 
 masonry, into any hollows which required filling up. 
 Heads or legs might be seen protruding from the reek- 
 ing and the smouldering mass till they were trampled 
 into nothing by the oncoming cavalry. This fearful 
 scene Polybius himself witnessed and recorded. 
 
 The six days of the struggle and the massacre were 
 at last over. The Roman troops had frequently re- 
 lieved each other during its progress, but 
 Scipio had allowed himself to take no rest. andHasdm- 
 He snatched his food only in the intervals ^ ^^ ^' 
 
 of giving orders, and he now at last sat down on an 
 " elevated place '' to see what had been done and what 
 yet remained to do. The Byrsa was not so much a cita- 
 del or any single building, as that quarter of the city 
 which was on the highest ground and was most strongly 
 fortified. Within that quarter all who had escaped the 
 starvation of the siege, and the tyranny of Hasdrubal, 
 and the sword and fire of the Romans, were now hud- 
 dled together ; and on the following day a deputation 
 came forth, with suppliant branches and fillets taken 
 from the temple of ^sculapius in their hands, begging 
 
258 Rome and Carthage . 
 
 Scipio to spare their lives. Their lives, but nothing 
 else, the conqueror spared them, and fifty thousand 
 men, women, and children came forth through the gate 
 of the citadel. The nine hundred deserters from the 
 Romans remained behind with Hasdrubal and his wife 
 and children. For them no mercy was either asked or 
 granted. They withdrew, first from the sixty steps which 
 led up towards the citadel, to the level ground at the 
 top ; thence into the temple of ^sculapius itself, and 
 thence, once more, to its roof, determined to sell their 
 lives as dearly as possible. But there was, it is said, one 
 coward soul even amongst them. Alone and trembling, 
 Hasdrubal, the commander-in-chief, the murderer of his 
 predecessor, the man who had tortured and massacred 
 the Roman prisoners, who, if our reports speak true, 
 had starved the citizens while he himself feasted and 
 drank — the Marat and the Robespierre in one of the 
 reign of terror which he had established — crept forth in 
 suppliant guise, and threw himself at Scipio's feet beg- 
 ging for his dear life. It was contemptuously granted 
 him amidst the curses, loud and long, of the deserters 
 who were crowded together on the roof, and who saw 
 the dastardly deed. Worn out with fatigue they now set 
 fire to the temple, and Hasdrubal's wife, arraying her- 
 self, like her majestic compatriot Jezebel, in her best at- 
 tire, came forth, it is said, upon the roof with her two 
 sons, and after complimenting Scipio as a noble foe, 
 and heaping reproaches on her recreant husband, she 
 first slew her sons with the sword, and then, flinging 
 herself and them together into the flames, died as be- 
 came, not indeed the wife of Hasdrubal, but as became 
 the wife of the last commander-in-chief of Carthage and 
 the last of the free Phoenician race. 
 
 All resistance was now over, and Scipio was master 
 
Fate of Carthage, 259 
 
 of a heap of smouldering ruins. But to him, at all 
 
 events, the victory did not seem, even in 
 
 the exuberance of the moment, to be mat- E^'^^°^ 
 
 Carthage. 
 
 ter for unmixed congratulation. He burst 
 into tears, and was overheard by his faithful friend 
 Polybius repeating to himself in ominous tones the 
 words of Homer, " The day will come when sacred 
 Troy shall fall, and Priam and Priam's people too." 
 The work of butchery over, it was time for that of plun- 
 der to begin. The gold and silver and temple orna- 
 ments were reserved to grace Scipio's triumph ; but the 
 sculptures and the paintings and other works of art 
 which had been stolen from the Sicilian cities were freely 
 restored to them ; an act of grace and moderation oth- 
 erwise unknown in the Roman annals, and, doubtless, 
 due to the refined soul and Hellenic sympathies of the 
 general himself. Many of these works of art were un- 
 fortunately, as Cicero remarks, restoTed to the Sicilians 
 by Scipio only that they might be taken from them by 
 Verres ; but for this the Roman people at large are, 
 happily, not responsible. The joy at Rome when 
 Scipio's galley, laden with the trophies of his victory, 
 arrived, was boundless ; and it was some time before 
 the citizens could fully realize the fact that their ancient 
 rival, the rival which had once and again brought them 
 to the brink of destruction, was no more. 
 
 Much of the city still remained standing, and it was 
 the wish of Scipio and of a small minority of the noblest 
 Romans that that part should still be spared. But what 
 had been granted even to the hated Capua was denied 
 to Carthage. The spirit of old Cato seemed even from 
 his tomb to rule the day, and the orders of the Senate 
 were peremptory that every vestige of their hereditary 
 foe was to be effaced. When every building had been 
 
26o Rome and Carthage. 
 
 levelled with the ground, the plough was driven over its 
 remains, and a solemn curse was pronounced by Scipio 
 on anyone who should attempt to rebuild the city, or 
 even to dwell upon its site. The rest of the inhabitants 
 were, with few exceptions, sold as slaves. The one Car- 
 thaginian who, if the tales told of him are to be trusted, 
 was least worthy of his liberty and life, the miserable 
 Hasdrubal himself, was — perhaps, by an act of cruel 
 kindness on the part of the Romans — allowed to retain 
 them both, and after adorning Scipio's triumph, to end 
 his days in peace in Italy. Utica was rewarded for her 
 desertion by an addition to her territory ; while all the 
 towns which had remained faithful to Carthage were 
 condemned to share her fate. 
 
 Thus happened what, happily, has rarely happened in 
 history before or since. An ancient seat of civilization, 
 together with the race which inhabited it, with its arts 
 and its sciences, its laws, its literature, and its religion, 
 was swept away at a single stroke, leaving hardly a 
 wrack behind ; and with it vanished the last rival whom 
 R6me had to fear, the one state which ever met her on 
 equal terms, and therefore alone stood between her and 
 universal empire; the one possible check upon the evils 
 which the decay of the republican spirit, the increase of 
 wealth, the abuse of conquest, and the temptations of 
 absolute power were sure to bring in their train. It is a 
 thrice melancholy picture. It is the second book of the 
 ^neid in stern and simple fact. The great Roman poet 
 needed not to draw upon his imagination for a single 
 detail of his splendid picture of the fall of Troy. The 
 burning and the slaughter, the crash of falling houses, 
 the obliteration of a wealthy and an ancient city which 
 had held imperial sway for many, nay, for seven hundred 
 years — it was all there, written in letters of blood and 
 
The Site of Carthage. 261 
 
 fire, in the record of his own country's most signal 
 achievement! It was a loss not to be replaced. The 
 territory of Carthage, indeed, for the century or two that 
 the republic was yet to last, supplied Rome with corn for 
 her markets, and with wild beasts and gladiators for her 
 arena. It gave, in fact, to the populace their bread and 
 their Circensian games, all that when the republic had 
 fallen they would ever want, and all that they would 
 ever have. A poor equivalent this for the mighty city, 
 the queen of the Mediterranean and its islands, the 
 explorer of the Ocean beyond, the nurse of commerce 
 and colonization, the mother of Hamilcar Barca and 
 Mago, of Hasdrubal and Hannibal! 
 
 The curse of Scipio rested upon its site. Yet not many 
 years afterwards Caius Gracchus, unmindful or, perhaps, 
 resentful of it, and moved doubtless by the noblest 
 motives, proposed to relieve the wants of the poorer 
 Roman citizens by planting six thousand of them on the 
 spot. But African hyenas, it was said, tore up and scat- 
 tered the boundary marks which had been laid down, 
 thus demonstrating to the hostile Senate alike the efficacy 
 of the curse and the guilt of the people's friend who had 
 set it at naught. The proposed colony of Junonia cost 
 its originator his noble life before he had done more for 
 it than give it its name. It was reserved for the greatest 
 of the Romans, for Julius Caesar himself, some forty 
 years after Caius Marius had so theatrically taken his 
 seat amidst its ruins, to revive the project of Caius Grac- 
 chus. His death anticipated this, as it anticipated other 
 cosmopoHtan projects of his imperial and ultra-Roman 
 mind. But Augustus carried out with filial reverence 
 this and other provisions of his uncle's will, only attempt- 
 ing, it is said, to evade the letter of Scipio's curse by 
 building his town not on, but near, the site of the Phoe- 
 
262 Rome and Carthage. 
 
 nician city. He must have failed in this, for, as we have 
 seen, the whole of the peninsula had been more or less 
 covered by the original Carthage, its suburbs, its gardens, 
 and its burial ground. Anyhow, the natural advantages 
 of the spot overcame the curse and soon made the new 
 city the capital of Northern Africa and the headquarters 
 alike of Roman civilization and of African Christianity. 
 After connecting itself with the great names of Augustine 
 and Tertullian and Cyprian — names and characters 
 different indeed from those of their Phoenician prede- 
 cessors — and passing through the hands of the Vandals, 
 it fell under the sway of the new Rome, and "shed or 
 received a last ray of lustre'' from the great name of 
 Belisarius. 
 
 Finally, by a destiny stranger still, it was destroyed 
 by the Arabs, a race nearly akin to its first founders. 
 The hurricane of their invasion swept away all that 
 remained of the city, and though the Arabs founded or 
 developed at various times in other parts of Africa rich 
 commercial or literary capitals, such as Cairo and Cair- 
 wan, Fez, Tangiers, and Morocco, they did nothing for 
 Carthage. A straggling village, indeed, sprang up later 
 on its site and dragged on a wretched existence for some 
 centuries, and at the present moment, by another caprice 
 of fortune, the citadel of Carthage is occupied by a 
 chapel dedicated to a French crusader, king and saint 
 in one. But ever since the Arab chief Hassan gave, in 
 A. D. 689, the Byzantine city to the flames, the memorable 
 words in which the author of the "Dechne and Fall'' 
 has described Palestine as it has been ever since the 
 Crusades, may, with at least equal truth, be applied to 
 Carthage: **A mournful and a solitary silence has pre- 
 vailed along the coast which had so long resounded 
 with the world's debate." 
 
Interest of a visit to Carthage, 263 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 CARTHAGE AS IT IS. 
 
 It was early on the morning of April i, 1877, that we 
 cast anchor off the Goletta, a tumble-down fort which 
 commands, or does not command, the nar- 
 
 . Interest of 
 
 row entrance to the Lake of Tunis, and found a visit to 
 ourselves in full view of the bold promontory ^^ ^^^' 
 and the low coast-line, the undulating hills and the fer- 
 tile plain, which mark the site of ancient Carthage. It 
 was a moment not easily to be forgotten, a moment into 
 which the interests of half a lifetime — of half my lifetime 
 at all events — seemed to be compressed. There was 
 that tumult of feelings, that mixture of satisfaction and 
 of unrest, of melancholy and delight, of enthusiasm and 
 of disappointment, which it is, perhaps, not easy ade- 
 quately to explain, but which needs, I imagine, no ex- 
 planation at all to anyone who has seen for the first time 
 in his life a spot which has long filled a large place in 
 his imagination ; to the poet or the scholar who has seen 
 for the first time the Acropolis of Athens ; to the historian 
 who has at last set foot in Rome ; to the pilgrim who, 
 after traversing, perhaps half a continent, amidst burning 
 deserts or eternal snows, has caught sight — his whole 
 nature strung to the highest pitch of tension - of some 
 storied mountain or some holy city, the goal of all his 
 aspirations and his passionate religious yearnings, Mount 
 Sinai or Mount Elburz, Kapalivastu or Benares, Mecca 
 or Jerusalem. It is more, perhaps, than he has hoped 
 for, but it is also less. 
 
 Qusesivit cselo lucem ingemuitque repertii. 
 
264 Rome and Carthage. 
 
 In a work of this kind, anything in the shape of a 
 
 journal, even though it be a journal of a visit to the city 
 
 of which it treats, would be obviously out of place. But 
 
 it may not be out of place' to gather up 
 
 impressions within the compass of a single chapter some 
 
 thence derived. r .^ • • i -11 
 
 of the impressions made upon my mind, by 
 what I saw of the site of Carthage, of its remains, and of 
 its present inhabitants. First impressions of a place, it 
 has been often said, may make up their freshness for 
 what they lack in point of accuracy and completeness ; 
 but I am not sure that my own record can lay claim to 
 even this merit. If, in one sense, they are my first im- 
 pressions, in another they are my ultimate conclusions ; 
 and it may well be, therefore, that they may lack the 
 freshness of the one without possessing the value or 
 solidity of the other. Deep and varied though the inter- 
 ests of my visit were, it seemed to me throughout as though 
 I was taking a last rather than a first view of the site of 
 the city, and was driving home impressions which had 
 been made long before rather than forming new ones. 
 Be that as it may, I will endeavour to record some of 
 them here, for what they may be worth. 
 
 Everyone who has given even the most cursory atten- 
 tion to the topography of Carthage knows what diametri- 
 cally opposite views have been held re- 
 opograp y. specking it ; and it was with a feeling of 
 interest not unmixed with anxiety, that I took that first 
 glance at the general outline of the place, which, if it 
 proves nothing at all, may yet seem ominous or suggestive 
 of the result. It might well be that on a personal 
 inspection of the spot I might come to conclusions very 
 different from those which I had drawn from books and 
 maps, and which had hitherto seemed to harmonize best 
 with the history of the final siege. I might be driven by 
 
Topography. 265 
 
 the evidence of my own eyes to agree with those who put 
 the Byrsa where I had imagined the Megara, and the 
 Megara where I had imagined the Byrsa, and transfer 
 the harbours, the Taenia, the Forum, and all the thrilling 
 operations of which they were the scene, from the south 
 to the north of the city. Tic7n labor effustis : much at 
 least of my labour would have been thrown away, and 
 it would only have remained for me to beat a retreat 
 while it was still possible, and to make my views bend 
 to the facts, since the facts would not bend to them. 
 The critical moment came and it passed. Feeling that 
 I could not be an altogether disinterested witness in the 
 matter, I believe I put considerable strain upon myself 
 to see if I could fall in with the views expresssed by Dr. 
 Davis, the energetic excavator and explorer, as regards 
 the position of the Byrsa, and the triple wall, and of 
 Ritter or Mannert, as regards the position of the ports. ^ 
 But I came to the conclusion that, on these particular 
 points, the balance of the evidence lay strongly in other 
 directions, and that the inferences on which I had based 
 my account of Carthage were, on the whole, correct. 
 
 But if the first view of the place, as seen from the 
 deck of a steamer, is so far satisfactory, it must be ad- 
 
 ■*Dr. Davis places the Byrsa on Burj Jedeed, a hill near the sea, 
 considerably to the S. E. of the hill of St. Louis, while he throws 
 back the triple walls to the isthmus behind the Megara. Ritter 
 identifies the Byrsa with Djebel Khawi or the Catacomb Hill on 
 the N. W, of the city, and necessarily therefore also places the 
 Taenia and the artificial harbours in the same locality on the ground 
 now. occupied by the Salt Marsh. Mannert places the harbours 
 much in the position which I have indicated in the accompanying 
 plan of Carthage, but conceives the entrance to them and therefore 
 also Scipio's Mole to have been inside the Taenia ; that is, not in 
 the open gulf, but in the Lake of Tunis. 
 
266 Rome and Carthage. 
 
 mitted that in other respects it is somewhat disappoint- 
 ing. There is nothing, at first sight, to delight or to 
 charm ; there are no bold outlines, nothing, in fact, in 
 the physical features of the spot to suggest the mighty- 
 part which it played in ancient history. The Byrsa is 
 an ordinary-looking hill, scarped, it is true^ in some 
 portions, but anything but commanding in itself. There 
 is no frowning rock — such as you cannot help picturing 
 to yourself beforehand — like the Acropolis or the Acro- 
 Corinthus, like Edinburgh or Stirling Castle ; nothing, in 
 fact, which could put to shame even the supposed Tar- 
 peian rock at Rome. Rough grass, acres of beans and 
 barley, and ploughed fields do not delight the eye ; 
 they are not naturally suggestive of anything beyond 
 themselves ; moreover the whole thing lies or appears to 
 lie within so small a compass. There does not seem 
 room at first sight for the vast operations of the siege, 
 for the myriad merchantmen and ships of war, for the 
 teeming population who, we are told, and truly told, 
 throve and trafficked here for centuries. A partial ex- 
 planation of this, no doubt, lies in the fact that the 
 distances are altogether foreshortened, and it is not till 
 you begin to walk over the ground from the Goletta to 
 the Byrsa, from the Byrsa to Cape Carthage, from Cape 
 Carthage to the Necropolis, and so round the whole cir- 
 cuit of twenty-three miles, that the first impression of 
 want of space and want of dignity is even partially 
 removed. 
 
 Let mc now, without attempting to adhere to any de- 
 finite order of place or time, say a word or two on some 
 of the spots which interested me most. I 
 Goletta and j^g^j fgjt somewhat sceptical beforehand as 
 
 the Isenia. '^ 
 
 to the existence of that extraordinarily 
 shaped neck of laud wb'ch 1 had seen in thclarger maps 
 
Djebel Khawi and the Necropolis. 267 
 
 of Carthage, with its tiny opening now called the Goletta 
 or gullet. My doubts on that score were set at rest at 
 once, for, as I have said, we dropped anchor off it, and 
 were rowed up the channel along which only a few 
 boats could pass abreast. This was a good omen for 
 what was to follow, and by walking some half mile to the 
 westward along the narrow bar of sand which cuts off 
 the Lake of Tunis from the outer sea, we found ourselves 
 standing on the broadening ground whence Censorinus, 
 as I believe, delivered his first, and Scipio his last attack 
 on the doomed city. On one side of us was the land 
 which owed its very existence to the operations of the 
 siege, for it must have been from this point that Censori- 
 nus threw those vast masses of soil and ballast into the 
 lake which gave him standing room for his forces, and 
 so enabled him to bring his gigantic battering rams to 
 bear on the weak angle of the wall. On the other side 
 of the bar was the spot from near to which Scipio must 
 have begun to carry that cruel mole which was to cut 
 off from the beleaguered citizens their last hope of relief 
 from without. 
 
 To the extreme north-west of the ground once occu- 
 pied by the Phoenician city, is the promontory of Ras 
 Ghamart, 200 feet high, and the line of rounded hills, 
 called Djebel Khawi, which runs thence in _. , , ,,, 
 
 -^ , . Djebel Khawi 
 
 a southerly direction for the distance of a and the Ne- 
 mile or so, is " one vast Necropolis." Every- *^'^°^° '^' 
 where, a few feet beneath the surface of the ground are 
 labyrinths of low vaulted chambers, often communi- 
 cating with each other or separated only by narrow walls 
 of rock; perhaps the quarries from which the Punic city 
 was originally hewn, certainly used afterwards as sepul- 
 chres for its dead. They are now, for the most part, 
 hidden from view or filled with rubbish ; and wild fig 
 
268 Rome and Carthage. 
 
 tree which, as the Roman poet remarked, was able to 
 cleave the costly marble sepulchres of Messala, pushes 
 its sturdy roots in every direction through these humble 
 tenements of the Phoenicians. 
 
 All traces of the original occupants have long since 
 disappeared, and the vacant space is often tenanted by 
 the jackal and the hyena.- When the Romans had ex- 
 hausted their fury on the city of the living, they turned 
 their attention, as it would seem, even to this city of the 
 dead. It was their practice not to bury but to burn 
 their dead, and it is not likely that they used at first the 
 vast Necropolis which they had rifled of its contents, for 
 their own small cinerary urns. But when the Roman 
 Carthage became the metropolis of Africa, and the 
 head-quarters of African Christianit)'-, the Pagan prac- 
 tice of cremation was replaced by Christian burial, and 
 the ancient mortuary chambers were filled, after the 
 lapse of centuries, by new occupants. These, when the 
 impetuous flood of Arab invasion had spread over the 
 country, were, in their turn, dispossessed by marauding 
 Bedouins. For centuries the Bedouins have ransacked 
 them for any treasures to be found within them, and 
 they visit them to this day for the chalk which they con- 
 tain. Accordingly we are not surprised to hear that out 
 of some hundred sepulchres, examined by Dr. Davis 
 and M. Beule, only one contained a skeleton. In an- 
 other was found a relic of even greater interest, though 
 it belongs to the Vandal or the Byzantine rather than 
 the Roman era, a representation on the rock of the 
 seven-branched candlestick. f The seven-branched can- 
 dlestick, carried off by Titus from Jerusalem to Rome, 
 was, in the strange vicissitudes of human fortune, Z2iX^ 
 
 * Davis, Carthage, p, 472. t Ibid. p. 486. 
 
Sanctity of Semitic burying-places, 269 
 
 ried off again from Rome to Carthage by the terrible 
 Genseric, the lame Vandal king ; and so, probably, it 
 comes about that the sacred ornament of the Jewish 
 temple — ^the exact shape of which is known to all the 
 world from the sculptures on the arch of Titus — has 
 been found engraven also within a Phoenician sarcopha- 
 gus at Carthage. Some of the sepulchral chambers 
 measure twelve by fifteen feet, and contain as many as 
 teji niches, or columbaria, hewn out of the solid lime- 
 stone as receptacles for the dead.* 
 
 With what deep pathos as one looks at Djebel Khawi 
 — its hill-sides riddled, as they are, with myriads of 
 Phoenician sepulchres — do the words of the Carthagin- 
 ian legate Banno come back to the mind ! " Kill," re- 
 plied he to the Roman consul who cruelly ordered the 
 now disarmed and helpless Carthaginians to destroy 
 their beloved city and build another ten miles from the 
 coast, " kill, if it be your good pleasure, all the citizens, 
 but spare the city, spare the temples of the gods, spare 
 the tombs of the dead. The dead, at least, can do you no 
 harm ; let them receive the honours that are their 
 due." t The appeal might have moved a heart of 
 stone, but it touched no chord in the breast of the Ro- 
 mans. 
 
 Deep in the sanctuary of the human heart, civilized 
 or uncivilized alike, lies the feeling of reverence for the 
 last resting-place of the individual, the fam- 
 ily, or the nation. For the tombs of their Sanctity of 
 
 ■' burying-places 
 
 fathers, even the Nomad Scythians told among the 
 
 Semitic ir£iC6S 
 
 Darius, when he was wearied out by his 
 
 vain pursuit of an enemy, who always fled before him 
 
 and always eluded his grasp, that they would stand 
 
 * See Beule, Fouilles a Carthage, p. 129 seq.^ and the plans of 
 the sepulchres in the Appendix. f Appian, viii. c. §4. 
 
 T 
 
270 Rome and Carthage. 
 
 and fight to the death.* But nowhere, probably, does 
 the feehng lie quite so deep as in the hearts of the va- 
 rious branches of the Semitic race. The voice of the 
 Phoenician Banno is the voice of human nature ; but 
 in a more special sense it is the voice which seems to 
 speak to us in each deed of heroism which marked the 
 last agony of Carthage, and which does speak to us 
 from each successive page of the sacred literature of the 
 Hebrews who are next of kin to the Carthaginians. It 
 is the voice of the patriarch himself that we seem to 
 hear : " Bury me with my fathers in the cave that is in 
 the field of Machpelah which Abraham bought for a 
 possession of a burying-place ; there they buried Abra- 
 ham and Sarah his wife ; there they buried Isaac and 
 Rebekah his wife, and there I buried Leah." 
 
 The other promontory which is included within the 
 circuit of the ancient city, Ras Sidi Bu Said, or, as it is 
 
 called in our maps, Cape Carthage, outtops 
 ^^d^'^^ ^" -^^^ Ghamart by a hundred feet. It is of 
 
 red sandstone, and is the most commanding 
 eminence within the precincts. It is crowned at present 
 by an Arab village of peculiar sanctity, so sacred that, 
 as we were told, no Christian is allowed to sleep there. 
 The venerable Sheikh of the village, however, courteous- 
 ly allowed us to enter and to enjoy the superb view from 
 the summit. It is inhabited by a large number of Mar- 
 abouts or Muslim Saints, living and dead ; men who, by 
 their austerities, their theological learning, or their char- 
 ity, have earned a reputation for sanctity, and have come 
 to live where other saints have lived before them, and to 
 lay their bones in death by the bones of those whose vir- 
 tues they have emulated. 
 
 By a curious caprice of fortune, or, may we not rather 
 
 * See Stanley's jfe-wish Church, vol. i. chap. 2, p. 24. 
 
Scene of Misadventure of Mancinus. 271 
 
 say, by a theological Nemesis, the Saint who is supposed 
 to give to Sidi Bu Said its special sanctity is no less a 
 personage than St. Louis of France himself. The crusad- 
 ing king died in 1270 of a pestilence which broke out in 
 his army near Tunis, as he was on his way to Egypt. 
 His heart lies buried near Palermo, and his body rests in 
 the sanctuary of the French kings at St. Denis ; but his 
 virtues and his sanctity are still a living power on the 
 plains of Carthage. So widely were his virtues recog- 
 nized among those whom he came to exterminate, that 
 with true Muslim charity they believed, or wished to 
 believe, that he had died a good MusHm, and "the Village 
 of the Saint " is believed, even to this day, to be blessed by 
 his body, and by a special portion of his spirit. It is an 
 homage, even if an all-unwitting homage, paid by his 
 followers to the teachings of the Prophet, who told them, 
 what Muslim and Christian have proved alike so apt to 
 forget, that the God of Muslims and Christians is one.* 
 It must have been near to this commanding eminence, 
 and above the remains of the ancient sea gate which is 
 still to be seen on the beach beneath, that ^ 
 
 , . , ■» , • rr 1 Scene of mis- 
 
 the mcompetent legate, Mancmus, effected adventure of 
 a landing with a small force during the final 
 siege, hoping to take the town by assault, and it was 
 from this spot, when entirely isolated, without a sufficiency 
 of arms or of provisions, that he was rescued from total 
 destruction by the prompt succour of Scipio. 
 
 Scipio sent him off in disgrace to Rome, and we can 
 hardly believe, what we are gravely told by a Roman 
 writer, that he had the face to assert, in virtue of his 
 very brief and very uncomfortable occupation of this 
 one spot in the suburbs, that he had been the first Roman 
 
 * Koran, Sura v. 73 : " Say unto the Christians their God and 
 our God is one,'' and cf. Sura ii. 59 and v. 52, 53. 
 
272 Rome and Carthage. 
 
 to enter Carthage ; that he caused pictures to be painted 
 representing the city and the various assaults made 
 on it by the Romans — in which his own, doubtless 
 bore a conspicuous figure ; that he exhibited them in the 
 Forum to all comers with copious explanations; and that 
 he became so popular thereby that, to the extreme dis- 
 gust of Scipio, he was elected consul for the year which 
 followed the fall of Carthage."^ We can share Scipio's 
 disgust ! but we feel as we stand upon the spot and look 
 upon the red sandstone cliffs, the straggling cactus 
 hedges, and the bare hill-sides, with perhaps a sedate 
 Arab or two picturesquely grouped upon them, that we 
 could pardon the impudence of Mancinus, if only one of 
 those pictures had been preserved to us, or had been so 
 described by any one of the eager multitude who 
 thronged to look at them, as to enable us better to re- 
 clolhe in our imagination the landscape with the walls 
 and the towers, the palaces and the gardens, of the 
 mighty city which must have lain full within his view. 
 
 From Sidi Bu Said runs in a south-west direction, par- 
 allel to the line of the coast, and at a distance of three- 
 quarters of a mile from it, a broken line of hills which 
 terminates abruptly in that which, since its purchase by 
 TT.„ r r. the French andthe erection of a small chapel 
 
 Hill of St. . . "^ 
 
 Louis, the an- on its summit, bcars also the name of St 
 yrsa. LquIs. This hill, although it is in no way 
 striking or precipitous, and although there are some dif- 
 ficulties connected with the large number of fifty thous- 
 and souls said by Appian to have taken refuge within its 
 precincts, when the last hours of Carthage came, yet, 
 unquestionably, dominates the plain, the harbours, and 
 the isthmus behind it, and there can be no reasonabis 
 
 * Pliny, Nat, Hist- xxxv. 4, 7. Cf. Cic. Lcelius, xxv. 96. 
 
Gulf of Tunis and Dakhla Peninsula. 273 
 
 doubt that it formed the Byrsa or citadel of the palmy 
 days of Carthage. At all events, it was its most com- 
 manding eminence. 
 
 It is at a moderate distance from the coast, as the an- 
 cient citadels almost invariably were. It lies, as Appian 
 expresses it, "towards the isthmus" * which connected 
 Carthage with the mainland, and^ alone of all the hills 
 within the circumference of ancient Carthage, it answers 
 to the description of Strabo, as being "a brow sufficiently 
 steep lying in the middle of the city, with houses on all 
 sides of it." f On this spot stood the famous temple of 
 Esmun or ^sculapius. Under its protection the infant 
 settlement grew up to maturity and to empire ; against its 
 fortifications discontented mercenaries and hostile Lib- 
 yans, Sicilian Greeks, and Roman generals spent their 
 strength, for centuries, in vain, and on its summit the 
 last scene of the sad tragedy, the heroic death of Has- 
 drubal's wife, is said to have been enacted. The view 
 from the Byrsa is, therefore, one which, for its historical 
 and tragic interest, if not for its intrinsic beauty, has few 
 equals in the world. It may be well, therefore, taking 
 the Byrsa hill as our central standpoint, to describe 
 something of what we saw from thence or from points in 
 its immediate neighborhood. 
 
 To the south and east, almost beneath one's feet, is 
 the broad and beautiful gulf of Tunis, stretching away to 
 the open Mediterranean between the far- 
 
 r ,-r. •/-•.r I.-., Gulf of Tunis 
 
 tamed Promontories of Mercury and Apollo, and Peninsula 
 Beyond the gulf is the Peninsula of the °f ^^^ ^^^^^l^- 
 Dakhla, whose majestic mountains — Hammam-el-Enf, 
 the most commanding among them — by their shape, their 
 silence, and their barrenness, recall what one has read 
 of the " Alps unclothed," as they have been well described, 
 
 * Appian, viii. 95, ztcX rov av^evog, f xx. 9. 
 
^74 Ro7?ie and Carthage. 
 
 of the Peninsula of Mount Sinai. Hidden from view 
 behind the mountains at the end of this peninsula, and 
 looking straight across towards Sicily, of which, in pre- 
 historic times, it must have formed a part, is the Pro- 
 montory of Mercury, sometimes called also the " Fair 
 Promontory," the point which, in times of peace, was 
 named by the proud and jealous republic as thje ne plus 
 ultra of all foreign — especially of all Roman — merchant- 
 men, the point where Regulus halted his ships of war, 
 where the greater Scipio first landed, and from which, 
 with characteristic adroitness, he drew his first omen of 
 success. 
 
 To the west and north is a sandy plain, flanked by the 
 Lake of Tunis, with its flamingo-haunted waters, and by 
 . the ancient city, whose glaring houses and 
 and plain of whitened roof-tops, relieved a little by its 
 ^ ■ Moorish mosques and minarets, still recall 
 
 the name of "the white," given to Tunis by Diodorus 
 Siculus eighteen centuries ago.* The plain is dotted here 
 and there by houses of the wealthy Tunisians, by olive 
 plantations, by one or two solitary palm trees, and by 
 huge hedges of the Barbary fig, whose sharp fleshy leaves 
 afford sure protection against every animal except the 
 camel. Part of it is under cultivation, and yields to its 
 cultivators — if those who just scratch the surface of the 
 earth may be so called — no longer, indeed, the hundred- 
 and-fifty fold of Pliny's time ; f but still in ordinary years 
 
 *■ XX. 9. 
 
 t Pliny, Hist. Nat. xvii. 3, cf. v. 3. Sir Richard Wood, K. C. 
 M. G., Her Majesty's Consul-General at Tunis, to whose hospita- 
 lity and kindness, as well as to that of his family, we owe much of 
 the success and comfort of our stay there, told us of exceptional 
 instances within his knowledge in which even Pliny's estimate of 
 the fertility of the soil had been largely exceeded. 
 
"The Aqueduct. 275 
 
 a large return. Large tracts of country which we know 
 were, till very lately, covered with forests, are now en- 
 tirely bare. Trees are cut down but new ones are never 
 planted. Even the olive plantations seem to be dying 
 away for want of tending or renewal. There is nothing, 
 therefore, to help the thirsty soil to retain even that 
 modicum of rain from heaven which falls upon it, while 
 scientific irrigation with the help of the rivers, which was 
 carried to such a wonderful pitch in ancient times alike 
 by the Phoenicians and by the Romans, is now entirely 
 neglected. What wonder, then, if in seasons of excep- 
 tional drought Nature revenges herself and that the crops, 
 having no deep roots, wither away, while the inhabitants 
 perish by hundreds ? The cultivated portions of the 
 plain, at certain times of the year, swarm with quails, 
 vast numbers of which are snared in nets by the natives 
 or knocked down by sticks when they are tired out — as 
 was the case when we were there — by their annual mi- 
 gration. Wandering over the pasture-lands may be seen 
 the flocks and herds of the Arabs and the long lines of 
 their camels. Here and there are their black tents, 
 which may be shifted at convenience. But some of the 
 natives, passing gradually from the nomadic to the agri- 
 cultural stage, have found a more permanent, if not a 
 more congenial abode, in the numerous subterranean 
 cisterns or magazines which the forethought of their more 
 civilized predecessors constructed ; and the domestic 
 animals of the Arabs are found stabling in the very 
 buildings which may once, perhaps, have sheltered the 
 Carthaginian elephants. 
 
 Stretching right across the plain, " like the bleached 
 vertebras of some gigantic serpent," as they have been 
 well described by Sir Grenville Temple, may be seen 
 great blocks of masonry, the remains of the noble Ro- 
 
276 Rome and Carthage. 
 
 man aqueduct,"^ which brought from the mountains of 
 
 Zaghouan (Mons Zeugitanus ) and Djebel Djougar 
 
 (Mons Zuccharus) — from a distance, that 
 
 The aqueduct. . ^ • ^ -i >^i • i 
 
 IS, of over sixty miles — those perennial 
 streams of fresh water which not only supplied the in- 
 habitants of the city, but sufficed to irrigate its suburbs 
 and its gardens, and made much even of the interven- 
 ing arid country to smile as the Garden of the Lord.f It 
 was the handiwork of that Roman emperor who has 
 left behind him traces of his truly imperial passion for 
 building and for travelling in every province of his vast 
 empire. The aqueduct of Carthage is not unworthy, ei- 
 ther in the magnificence of its design or in the complete- 
 ness of its execution, of the man who could rear at 
 Rome the mighty mass of buildings once called " Ha- 
 drian's Pile," and at Tivoli that museum of art which is 
 still known as his "Villa;" who, at one end of his do- 
 minions, could carry a wall from sea to sea, from the 
 mouth of the Tyne to the Solway Firth, still called Ha- 
 drian's Rampart, and at another could complete the 
 colossal temple of the Olympian Zeus, which had been 
 begun by Pisistratus seven centuries before, and had 
 waited seven centuries to find anyone who had the 
 means and the will to finish it. 
 
 The arches of the aqueduct which were once visible 
 from the Byrsa have been destroyed, not by the hand 
 of time, but by the barbarism of the inhabitants. The 
 basements alone remain, and we saw bands of Arabs 
 
 * Procopius, Bell. Van. ii. i, tov 6x€t6v a^ioOearov ovra be fC 
 TT/iJ TTohv elcjp/e to vSap. Perhaps even more " worthy of ad- 
 miration " it still is in its decay and ruin. 
 
 t It has been calculated that the aqueduct conveyed seven mil- 
 /ions of gallons of water a day, or eighty-one gallons per second I 
 See Playfair's Travels in the Footsteps of Bruce, p. 131. 
 
The Aqueduct. 277 
 
 in the act of carrying away such blocks even of these 
 as their pickaxes could break off, to build a new palace 
 for the Bey of Tunis. Further away man has been 
 more merciful, or, at all events, less powerful to injure, 
 and its arches, rising to the height often of sixty, and 
 sometimes, it is said, of a hundred and twenty-five feet,* 
 march across the valleys from hill to hill in stately pro- 
 cession. Those who are fond of birds may be inter- 
 ested to know that a large owl, of a species which I 
 had never seen before, was building its nest on one of 
 the highest of these arches, while on the other side of 
 the same arch a raven was sitting on its young in undis- 
 turbed repose, and its mate flew croaking round — a cu- 
 rious mixture of associations, ornithological and reli- 
 gious : the bird of Pallas and the bird of Odin nestling 
 together on what is doubtless the handiwork of those 
 master builders of antiquity, the Roman worshippers 
 of Jupiter and Juno, but which supplied the wants of 
 those who, after the lapse of centuries of foreign con- 
 quest, still clung desperately to their ancestral worship 
 of Baal-Moloch and Astartelf The channel which 
 conveyed the water from Zaghouan sometimes pene- 
 trates deep beneath the ground, sometimes runs along 
 the top of single arches, or of tiers of them, one above 
 
 * Davis, i. 460. 
 f The deep channels full of water mentioned by Appian as inter- 
 secting the Megara in every direction seem to necessitate an arti- 
 ficial conduit from a distance even in the time of the Phoenician 
 city: Appian, viii. 117, ra Meyapa .... ox^'^olq Badiatv vdarog 
 TzotKikoir re Koi GKoTicolg Kararc^^euv rjv. In like manner the 
 description of the country round Carthage given by Diodorus (xv. 
 8) as it appeared to the soldiers of Agathocles, implies a vast system 
 of tanks or cisterns, as well as scientific irrigation. tzoIT^uv vdaTut 
 dioxsTevofiivuv /cat KavTU tottov dpdedvTCJv, 
 
278 Rome and Carthage. 
 
 the other. It is broad enough and deep enough for a 
 man to walk upright within it, and in many parts it is 
 still so perfect as to be utilized for the water-supply 
 which modern enterprise has, within the last few years, 
 brought to Tunis from the same distant and perennial 
 fount. 
 
 Far away to the north of the plain we could see the 
 
 hill, on the top of which the citadel of Utica was 
 
 perched, the parent city and the one trusted 
 
 XJtics. 
 
 ally of Carthage, the point where the Ro- 
 mans so often landed in their invasions of Africa, and 
 whence they must have caught the first glimpse of the 
 city which they had so perfidiously doomed to destruc- 
 tion. 
 
 But if the view from the Byrsa is impressive from 
 what it contains within it, how infinitely more impressive 
 is it from what it can only suggest ! It was long, indeed, 
 before we could fully realize, what we knew well enough 
 before we went there, that on the ground immediately 
 beneath our feet so many cities — Phoenician, Roman, 
 Vandal, Byzantine — had been founded, had risen to 
 opulence and power, and had vanished again, leaving 
 barely a trace of their existence behind. A lively Ger- 
 man, indeed, a resident in Tunis, whom we met on 
 board the steamer on our way to Africa, could hardly 
 suppress his surprise or his merriment, perhaps even his 
 contempt, when we told him that we were actually 
 coming all the way from England to see Carthage. 
 " Carthage ! c est riejt T' he exclaimed; and nothing, 
 indeed, in one sense of the word, there was ; but in 
 another, and perhaps a truer sense, how very much ! 
 
 One trace, however, of the ancient city there is which 
 one would have thought that even our matter-of-fact 
 German friend would hardly have called "nothing." 
 
The smaller Cisterns. 279 
 
 About a quarter of a mile from the Byrsa and nearer to 
 the sea, is a huge mass of masonry embedded in the 
 soil, the low vaulted roofs of which, rising side by side 
 in pairs only a few feet above the level of the hillside 
 which has been excavated around them and are actually 
 below its level where it has been undisturbed, look like 
 the graves of some gigantic prehistoric race. "There 
 were giants in the earth in those days," were the words 
 which rose involuntarily to the mind ; but these vaulted 
 roofs turned out to be the coverings of the vast reser- 
 voirs which stored up water for the teeming 
 population of the city. They are eighteen '^^^ smaller 
 in number ; the masonry and cement are 
 still all but perfect. Each reservoir is nearly one hun- 
 dred feet long by twenty wide, and the water still stands 
 in many of them to the depth of seventeen feet. A 
 narrow gallery, hollowed out of the face of the hill be- 
 side them, enables the visitor to pass beneath the surface 
 along their whole length, and to realize the silence and 
 the solitude which reign supreme around this, the one 
 remaining monument of the vanished ancient city. 
 
 I say advisedly of the ancient city, for though the fac- 
 ings of the cisterns and perhaps nearly everything which 
 meets the eye may, very possibly, be Roman, yet, as M. 
 Beule, one of the highest authorities on ancient archi- 
 tecture, as well as an indefatigable excavator, has pointed 
 out, the plan on which they are constructed is undoubt- 
 edly more ancient, and the Roman architects have only 
 copied their Punic predecessors. It seems likely, I would 
 rather say, that they have only repaired their work. If 
 the aqueduct is admitted to be Roman, it will follow that 
 a huge collection of rain-water cisterns would have been 
 an absolute necessity in the Punic city. Nor is it easily 
 credible that the Romans would have taken the trouble 
 
28o Ro7ne and Carthas:e. 
 
 d" 
 
 to destroy what lay deep hidden beneath the ground 
 We have seen that they did not destroy the Necropolis, 
 they only pillaged and profaned it. Why then should 
 they have destroyed, at an infinite expenditure of labour, 
 the huge reservoirs which in that arid country would be 
 of untold value to the scattered cultivators of the ground, 
 or to their flocks and herds, and which did not disturb 
 that dead level to which it was their pleasure and their 
 practice to condemn alike the house or the city of an 
 offender ? - The low vaulted roofs of the cisterns were 
 probably then covered with soil, to lower the temperature 
 and to prevent evaporation, and the Roman plough might 
 therefore have well been driven by the Roman destroyers 
 almost inadvertently across them. M. Beule wdl points 
 out, moreover, that the definition which exactly hits of! 
 the series of undoubtedly Punic fortifications which he 
 has disinterred beneath the Byrsa, hits off with equal 
 precision the range of cisterns themselves. Each con- 
 sists of a "series of chambers equal and parallel, and 
 opening on a common corridor." f 
 
 Behind the Byrsa and beyond the precincts of the an- 
 cient city proper, there is another group of cisterns of 
 still larger proportions. These probably belong to the 
 Roman city, and they were fed not by rain water but by 
 the aqueduct of which they formed the termination. 
 
 They are called the "large cisterns" to dis- 
 SterrT'^^^ tinguish them from the other group, which 
 
 certainly could never be called "small" ex- 
 cept by comparison with them. They are said by the 
 traveller Shaw to have been in his time twenty in number, 
 
 *■ Cf. Livy, iv. i6, for the .Equimjelium or Maslian level ; the 
 place on which the house of Sp. Maelius, the presumed traitor, had 
 stood. 
 
 "I" Beule, Fouilles, p. 6i. 
 
Destruction of Carthage. 28 1 
 
 each measuring not less than a hundred feet in length by- 
 thirty in breadth. Gigantic as they are, they are not so 
 imposing either in associations or in appearance as the 
 smaller group which I have just described, partly because 
 they do not lie so well together, and partly because the 
 deposits and accumulations of successive ages have filled 
 them to within a few feet of the roof. Even so, they are 
 of considerable value to the inhabitants ; for, giving shel- 
 ter as they do to a whole settlement of Arabs with their 
 wives and children, their stores of grain, their agricultural 
 implements, and their domestic animals — which are 
 never few in number — they form in themselves the whole 
 hamlet of Moalka, home and homestead in one! 
 
 All the other buildings of the city, whether Punic or 
 Roman, have long since disappeared. Whole hamlets 
 and towns have been built out of their materials. We 
 saw huge slabs of Carthaginian marble embedded in 
 the palaces of Tunisian nobles ; and some have found 
 their way even into Italian and Spanish cathedrals. In- 
 numerable small fragments, however, which were not 
 thought worth carrying away, still linger on the site of 
 the city. The ground beneath one's feet teems with 
 them ; nay, rather it is composed of them. Bits of tes- 
 sellated pavement, of porphyry, of the famous Numidian 
 marble — green, white, and red — everywhere meet the 
 eye, or are turned up by the spade and the plough- 
 share. These belong, I believe, almost exclusively to 
 periods later than that of the Phoenician city. The Ro- 
 mans did their work of destruction on their hated rival 
 too thoroughly. For seventeen days its ruins burned,* 
 and at the end not one stone was left standing on an- 
 other, at all events above the surface of the ground. 
 
 * Florus, ii, 17, i&. 
 
282 Rome and Carthage. 
 
 The Manes of old Cato must have been more than sat- 
 isfied by the way in which his countrymen carried out 
 his grim resolve. 
 
 The work of excavation has been attempted in recent 
 
 times, with such means as were at their disposal, by Dr. 
 
 Davis, an English, and by M. Beule, a 
 
 Excavations of French archaeologist, whose names I have al- 
 
 Dr. Davis. . . . . 
 
 ready had occasion to mention. Dr. Davis, in 
 a series of explorations, which he has carried on for many 
 years, partly at his own expense, and partly at that of 
 the English Government, has disinterred a large number 
 of marbles and mosaics, many of which, of course, be- 
 long to the Roman period. But he has also opened out to 
 view the basement of a large temple to Baal, which, if 
 it is not Punic itself, is in all probability — as we know 
 the Romans in their new-born enthusiasm for the city 
 of Dido and Venus made a point of doing — built upon 
 the exact site, and, as nearly as possible, after the model 
 of its Punic predecessor ; and, what is more important 
 still, he has discovered a very large number, over 120, 
 of genuine Punic inscriptions. That some of the mosaic 
 pavements also found by him belong to the Phoenician 
 city, we may not unreasonably conclude, when we are 
 told that he has sometimes found three successive layers 
 of mosaics placed one above the other at considerable 
 intervals ; that the cement in which the lower stratum 
 was laid was of a wholly different character from those 
 of the upper ; that it was easily detached from the 
 mosaics and was very friable in itself, having lost all its 
 adhesive power by long lapse of time.* 
 
 M. Beule, on the other hand, who is well known for 
 his excavations in the Acropolis at Athens, expended 
 
 * Davis, p. 202. 
 
Excavations of M. Beule. 2<S3 
 
 much labour in sinking deep shafts, some of which 
 
 happily still remain open, at various points 
 
 near the circumference of the Byrsa, and Excavations of 
 
 •^ M. Beul6. 
 
 he was fortunate enough to bring to light 
 considerable remains of the great triple wall so accu- 
 rately described by the ancients. 
 
 There he came upon the foundation of the outer wall, 
 which, as we have already stated, was six feet thick and 
 forty-five feet high, strengthened by towers at intervals 
 which rose twenty feet higher still. There, before his 
 eyes, were the basements of the semi-circular chambers 
 — the shape so much affected by the Phoenicians as we 
 see in their remains at Malta and at Gozo — which con- 
 tained stabling for three hundred elephants below, and 
 for four thousand horses above ; and there too, at the 
 depth of fifty-six feet below the present surface of the hill, 
 he worked his way through a layer of ashes five or six 
 feet thick, some of which still blackened the hand which 
 touched them, and were mixed with half-charred pieces 
 of wood, with small bits of iron twisted into strange con- 
 tortions by the fury of the Roman flames which had 
 attempted to consume them, with fragments of pottery 
 and glass— the invention of the Tyrians— and with 
 projectiles which must, all too probably, have been 
 collected together in the citadel when the last assault was 
 imminent, to be thrown thence by the Balearic slingers, 
 or to be launched from the very catapults which had been 
 equipped for service by the free-will offerings of the long 
 hair of the frenzied Carthaginian matrons.* 
 
 Some of these remains are preserved in a small muse- 
 um near the chapel of St. Louis, and one of the projec- 
 tiles Pere Roger, the custodian of the chapel, was kind 
 
 *Beule, p. 55. 
 
2S4 Rotne and Carthage. 
 
 enough to give me, when he found that I was specially 
 interested in the history and topography of Carthage. It 
 is heavy for its size, and is made of terra-cotta, that is to 
 say, of clay which had been moulded into an oval form, 
 and then baked to a red heat, exactly answering to the 
 description given by Caesar of the acorn-shaped bolts 
 used by the Romans, and hence called " acorns." 
 Ferventes fusili ex argilla glandes/^ he says in his 
 "Gallic War," and this is one of precisely the same 
 shape and material used by the Phoenicians. 
 
 There is one feature of the ancient city which in spite 
 of all I had heard and read about it I was surprised to 
 find in such perfect preservation. It will doubtless be 
 remembered that ancient Carthage had two docks or 
 harbours, both the work of human hands — one oblong 
 for the use of merchant vessels, the other circular for the 
 use of vessels of war — and our pleasure may be imagined 
 when on suddenly reaching the summit of the Byrsa 
 from behind we saw them both immediately below us, 
 each, of course, much diminished in size by the ever- 
 shifting soil, and by the debris of the buildings which 
 had perished around them, but each preserving its 
 characteristic shape. There, before our eyes, was the 
 circular war-harbour, once surrounded by 220 different 
 docks, each fronted by two Ionic marble pillars. There 
 was still the island in the middle, on which, in the days 
 when Carthage was the mistress of all known seas and 
 islands, was the residence of her lord high admiral, the 
 spot from which he could superintend all the operations 
 of that busy hive of industry, and could issue his orders 
 by the sound of the trumpet ; and there was the inter- 
 vening strip of land, narrower now than then, owing to 
 
 * Caesar, Bell Gall., v. 41. 
 
Oriental Character of Tunis. 285 
 
 the encroachment of the waves, looking across which — 
 himself unobserved the while — he could see all that went 
 on in the open sea and concert his measures against any 
 state which dared — and few ever dared— to measure her 
 strength against that of the Queen of the Ocean. And 
 there, too, was something — though I believe it is really 
 much more modern — which looked like the traces of the 
 outlet opened by the beleaguered Carthaginians in the 
 days of their distress, when they were thus able, for the 
 time at least, to laugh to scorn all the labours of Scipio. 
 
 We bathed close to the supposed outlet. The water 
 was deliciously warm, early though it was in the month 
 of April, and as far out as we could swim, we could rest 
 once and again on the blocks of masonry which once 
 formed the quays, or the sea wall, or it may be even the 
 buildings, of the Phoenician city, but which are now 
 encrusted by shell-fish and seaweeds, and have long 
 been covered by the waves. 
 
 It will readily be believed that the first and great 
 charm of a visit to Carthage is the religio loci, the place 
 itself, and the associations which cluster round it ; but a 
 second and hardly inferior attraction to my mind, is the 
 character of the people who inhabit the plains where 
 Carthage once was. Comparatively few travellers have 
 as yet visited Cothon or the Byrsa. Of tourists in the 
 ordinary sense of the word, there are none ; and Tunis, 
 I have reason to believe, is at the present 
 
 . / Oriental 
 
 day the most Oriental of all Oriental towns. character 
 The wave of Western civilization or its 
 counterfeit, which has done so much to transform Con- 
 stantinople and Cairo, nay even Bagdad and Damascus, 
 has not yet swept over Tunis, A few shopkeepers, 
 indeed, and most of the voituriers are Italians, while 
 the boatmen and the porters who quarrel for the honour 
 
 u 
 
286 Rome and Carthage. 
 
 of carrying your portmanteau, and nearly carry you off 
 in the process, are Maltese, who, it is said, do most of 
 the crime, and certainly seem to carry it in their for- 
 bidding countenances. But beyond these outliers of 
 civilization, and the few Europeans attached to the con- 
 sulates, there are no sights visible, and there is no 
 influence felt, but those of the East. 
 
 And what a mixture of Eastern races there is, and 
 what gorgeous costumes ! Grave and dignified Osmanli 
 Turks with their pride of race, their scarlet fezes, and 
 their yellow slippers; Jews with their bagging panta- 
 loons and their blue coats and head-dresses ; Arabs with 
 their long beards, their white turbans and burnouses, 
 and their many-coloured tunics ; descendants of the 
 prophet, "Grand Scherifs '' as they are called, rejoicing 
 in their green robes and green turbans — the size of which 
 is not unusually exactly proportioned to the degree of 
 their sanctity and their dirtiness ; swarthy Moors from 
 the desert, and Negroes from the Soudan — not such 
 sickly and cringing hybrids as you see in Oxford Street, 
 clad in European dress and aping European manners — 
 but real downright Negroes, half-naked, black as ebony; 
 all jostling one against the other, and all rejoicing in the 
 brotherhood of Islam. 
 
 The streets of Tunis are narrow and unpaved, and 
 are often very dirty. The houses — as in their counter- 
 parts, the three narrow streets leading from 
 Streets of ^j^g Forum to the Byrsa in ancient Car- 
 
 lunis. 
 
 thage — often all but meet across them over- 
 head, and few of them have any pretensions to archi- 
 tectural beauty, yet, as you walk up and down, you 
 have endless and ever-varying subjects of interest and 
 amusement. Every man and woman you meet,, and 
 still more every shop or stall you pass, with its owner 
 
Streets of Tunis. 287 
 
 sitting in the middle of it cross-legged and barefooted in 
 dignified repose, waiting patiently till it pleases Allah to 
 send him a customer, is a study in itself. 
 
 You seem to have the " Arabian Nights " before your 
 very eyes. There, for instance, is the barber's shop 
 with a bench all round it, on which sit rows of customers 
 divested of their turbans and their fezes, listening to the 
 barber's chatter and each waiting till his turn comes to 
 have his head operated upon. There is the Court where 
 justice — Eastern justice, of course, I mean — is adminis- 
 tered by a Turkish Pasha, who sometimes despatches 
 the cases brought before him at the rate of two a min- 
 ute, but to the equal satisfaction, as it would seem, of 
 both plaintiff and defendant. There is the prison, the 
 doors of which are never closed but guarded only by 
 one shabby policeman armed with a blunderbuss which 
 looks as if it would never go off, and a yataghan which 
 is so rusty that you would think it could never leave its 
 scabbard ; the prisoners squatting complacently inside, 
 smoking, or knitting, or wrapped in contemplation, and 
 all submitting quietly to their incarceration, because it, 
 too, is the will of Allah — or of the Bey. There is the 
 Arab coffee-house, where grave and sedate revellers sit 
 almost in the dark playing draughts and sipping strong 
 black coffee, of course without sugar and without milk, 
 from minute saucerless cups. There is the College, 
 founded by the Prime Minister Kheir-eddin — a Turk 
 and a Pasha and yet a genuine reformer, who is loved 
 and honoured the whole country through ^ — where little 
 boys learn to repeat by rote the Koran from end to end 
 at the top of their voices before they understand a word 
 
 * See his book on " Necessary Reforms of Mussulman States :'' 
 Athens, 1874. 
 
288 Rome and Carthage. 
 
 of its meaning, while some reverend Moullah sits in the 
 midst of the circle and, holding his wand of office, 
 chastises them gently, not if they are not quiet, but — 
 oh ! what a paradise of boys ! — if they do not make 
 noise enough. The higher classes, meanwhile, are an- 
 swering questions in Euclid, or arithmetic, or geography, 
 describing by memory, for instance, the sea passage 
 from St. Petersburg to Stamboul through the Cattegat, 
 and the Skaggerack, and all the rest of it, with a pre- 
 cision and a readiness in which I am not quite sure that 
 all, even in the highest forms in English schools, would 
 be able to keep pace with them. There again are the 
 mosques, visited five times a day by throngs of wor- 
 shippers, who reverently put off their shoes before they 
 enter them, and into which Christians — since the Euro- 
 pean element in Tunis is happily small and unaggres- 
 sive, — rightly forbear to claim an entrance. There are 
 the minarets, from which, at stated intervals throughout 
 the day and night, and, above all, at daybreak, comes 
 that strange and beautiful call to prayer — the very same 
 which is heard from Sierra Leone to Sumatra, and from As- 
 trakan to Zanzibar — " Allahu Akbar, God is most great ; 
 prayer u better than sleep, prayer is better than sleep ; 
 there is no God but God, and Mohammed is his prophet T 
 And there, once more, are the caravanserais, filled at 
 evening with groups of camels kneeling in a circle, 
 their old-world heads pointed inwards, sullenly crunch- 
 ing the heap of green barley which their owners with 
 characteristic improvidence have gathered for them, and 
 tended all night long by some swarthy Arab squatting 
 -on his haunches. All these and many more such sights 
 were crowded into the few days that we were enabled 
 to spend in Tunis and its neighborhood. 
 
 And when you pass the city wall — for Tunis, it must 
 
The Neighborhood of Tunis. 289 
 
 be made known to all, is a fortified city, and possesses 
 something which may by courtesy, indeed, 
 be called a wall, but which would, I verily ho^(Ji^f'|un*ir 
 believe, like the walls of Jericho, tumble 
 down, en masse, at the bare report of a heavy gun, — 
 when yo-u pass the gates and find yourself in the country, 
 what a delight, irrespective of the Roman remains which 
 are so thickly strewn over it, at Utica, for instance, and 
 at Uthina, at Hippo Zarytus and at Tysdrus, to see, not 
 the Turk, or the Moor, or the Negro, or the Jew, interest- 
 ing, though each is in his way, but, what is still more in- 
 teresting, the genuine Bedouin of the desert. 
 
 There you have, not the "Arabian Nights" but what 
 is better still, the Book of Genesis itself before your eyes. 
 There, for instance, is the gaunt figure of the Arab 
 against the clear horizon as from the hill-top, wrapped in 
 his white blanket, he stands like Joseph or like Moses 
 watching his flocks, or as he walks magnificently — for 
 who has a walk that can be named with that of the 
 Arab? — over the plain. There is the encampment of 
 black tents, the very same in colour and materials, in 
 shape and in size, as that which heard the laugh of Sarah, 
 or witnessed the last long sleep of Sisera. There is the 
 venerable Sheik, the Abraham of his tribe, with his long 
 white beard, his grave courtesy, and his boundless hos- 
 pitality ; there his dark-eyed princess, with tattered gar- 
 ments perhaps and bare feet, but richly decorated with 
 glass beads and amulets, with ear-rings, which hang not 
 through but round the ear, and with ankle-rings which 
 are often of silver and richly chased; such jewelry, 
 doubtless, as struck the fancy of the grasping Laban, and 
 helped to win the heart of his sister to a stranger in a 
 far distant country. There, again, is a young Rebekah, 
 a damsel of olive complexion but of strange beauty, 
 
290 Rome and Carthage. 
 
 going with her pitcher to the well. Within the tent are 
 stone jars of water of patriarchal make and shape, cur- 
 tains and coverlets of camel's hair, churns for butter, 
 kids' skins, and sheep skins, while near its entrance is 
 the rude circular stone oven about the size of a basin, 
 within which the scanty fuel may be husbanded to the 
 utmost and yet a cake may be baked hastily and well for 
 the tired wayfarer. Round about the encampment roam 
 the Bedouin's wealth, the only wealth he possesses, 
 his sheep and his oxen, his goats and his dogs, his mules 
 and his asses, while here and there, crossing the plains, 
 may be seen those ships of the desert, the long hnes of 
 his camels, each one, perhaps, carrying a whole house 
 and household on his back, each grunting and grumbling 
 as he shambles along, every line in his ungainly figure, 
 and every feature of his countenance, even his gentle 
 eye, looking like what it really is, a never-ceasing, but, 
 alas, a bootless protest against the advance of civiliza- 
 tion. 
 
 And, then, what lavish hospitality you meet with every- 
 where, what courtesy, what simplicity of heart and life ! 
 On one occasion we stopped for a few moments before a 
 Bedouin encampment, and after partaking of their sim- 
 ple fare, their milk and their butter, from a dish which 
 was not a lordly one, only because they had none such 
 in their possession, we were about to depart when one of 
 their number was sent off to a point half a mile away, 
 and returned bringing on his shoulders a present which, 
 it will be believed, it was equally difficult for us to refuse 
 or accept — a live lamb. They would not take a refusal, 
 still less would they take any return for it 
 
 The Arab is, in a sense in which it can hardly be said 
 of any European nation, an inborn gentleman. If he is 
 not the noblest, he is yet, in my opinion, a truly noble 
 
Characteristics of the Arab. 291 
 
 specimen of humanity. He is, and herein lies one of 
 his chief charms, as unchangeable as the 
 deserts in which he has his home. What he is tics of the 
 was in the time of Abraham and Moses, "^^ ' 
 that he was in the time of Christ, and that, in spite of the 
 vast religious impulse given him by Mohammed, which 
 carried him in one sweep of unbroken conquest over 
 half the world, he is, in all essentials, down to the pre- 
 sent day. He is, indeed, such a living bit of antiquity 
 himself that we are disposed to make rather more allow- 
 ance for the thoughtless way in which, unconscious of 
 his past and careless of his future, he destroys, and has 
 for centuries past destroyed the remains of a less ven- 
 erable antiquity than his own which lie scattered so 
 thickly around him. But I must forbear to enter fur- 
 ther here upon the fascinating subject of the Arab ; for 
 though he forms one of the chief attractions of a visit 
 to Carthage and its neighbourhood, I have treated of 
 him fully elsewhere, and his history and characteristics 
 lie beyond the proper scope and object of this vol- 
 ume. 
 
 It was a revelation, doubtless, to the Roman senators 
 that the splendid figs which Cato showed them grew in 
 a country only three days' sail from Rome ; 
 
 , T . ,. , , . , . ^ Conclusion. 
 
 but I am mclmed to thmk it was a greater 
 revelation to me that the remains of the great imperial 
 city, whose history had so long occupied my thoughts, 
 lay within six days' journey of England, and that they 
 could be enjoyed, if not to the full, at least, I hope, to. 
 some good effect, within the narrow limits of an Easter 
 holiday. 
 
INDEX 
 
 AST 
 
 ACHRADINA, 179, 180. 
 Adherbal, Carthaginian ad- 
 miral, 79 ; defeats Claudius at 
 Drepanum, 80 ; causes the de- 
 struction of the third Roman fleet, 
 82. 
 
 Adis, battle of, 58, 62. 
 
 Adrumetum, 10, 222, 225. 
 
 iEgatian Islands, 9 ; battle of, 92. 
 
 JEgasa., 92. 
 
 Africa, 9. 
 
 invasion by Romans, 56. 
 Romans driven from, 66. 
 Scipio invades, 210. 
 researches in, 265. 
 
 Agathocles, 21, 30, 31, 56. 
 
 Agrigentum, 15, 36"; besieged, 37; 
 captured, 38. 
 
 Aleria, 47. 
 
 Alps, 117; Hannibal's passage of, 
 118, 121, 124. 
 
 Anapus, marshes of, 35, 180. 
 
 Antigonus, 114. 
 
 Antiochus, 'the Grea*:, 109, 232 ; de- 
 feated at Magnesia, 233. 
 
 Aosta, 124. 
 
 Apennines, no, 129, 133, 135. 
 
 Appian, 239. 
 
 Archimedes, 179 ; death of, 181. 
 
 Argyrippa, 145. 
 
 Ariminum, 112, 127, 129, 136. 
 
 Arno, 134. 
 
 Arpi, 145 ; Hannibal's quarters at, 
 
 175. 
 Arretium, 133, 135. 
 As, 86. 
 
 Asina, Cn. Corn. Scipio, consul, 66. 
 Aspis, 55. 
 Astarte, or Tanith, 17, 277. 
 
 BYR. 
 
 Atilius, A , consul, 66 
 Aufidus, 153, 155. 
 Autaritus, 98. 
 
 BAAL-MOLOCH, 7, 16, 63, 24T, 
 277. 
 Bagradas, 10, 58, 68, 223. 
 Balearic Islands, 9, 19, 206, 220. 
 Balearic slingers, 139. 
 Barcine gens, or, " Lion's brood," 14, 
 
 84, no, 161. 
 Barcine faction, 217. 
 Battles of, Adis, 56, 6a. 
 
 ^gatian Islands, 92. 
 
 Cannae, 158. 
 
 Drepanum, 80, 
 
 Ecnomus, .so. 
 
 Ibera, 183. 
 
 Lake Trasymene, 140. 
 
 Metaurus, 197. 
 
 Mylae, 45. 
 
 Panormus, 6q. 
 
 Telamon, in. 
 
 Ticinus, 127, 
 
 Trebia, 130. 
 
 Zama, 224. 
 Beneventum, 146. 
 Berbers, 10. 
 
 Beul6, M. , researches of, 263, 279, 283. 
 Boetis, 108. 
 Boii, no, in. 
 Bomilcar, 179. 
 Borghetto, 138. 
 Bostar, a Carthaginian, 73. 
 Bovianum,27. 
 " Bride of the Sea," 66. 
 Bruttians, put to death, 192. 
 Bruttium, 42, 221. 
 Byrsa, 6, 251, 257, 265, 268, 272. 
 
294 
 
 Index. 
 
 CAR. 
 
 CARTHAGE, topography, 5 ; re- 
 lation to Sicily, 6; lew records 
 of, 7 ; spread of influence on the 
 Western Alediierranean, 8 ; con- 
 stitution, II ; the 100 judges of, 
 12 ; oligarchy of, 13 ; social life at, 
 14; wealth and agriculture of, 15; 
 military spirit, 16 ; religion, 17 ; 
 proper names, 17; literature, 17; 
 mercenaries, 18 ; the poor of, 20 ; 
 sources of weakness, 21 ; con- 
 trasted with Rome, 23 ; first war 
 with Rome, 29 ; backwardness of, 
 36 ; naval supremacy of, 39 ; pros- 
 perity and short-sightedness of, 55; 
 terms of Regulus 1 ejected by, 59 ; 
 " Bride of the Sea," 66 ; sends 
 embassy to Rome, 71 ; negligence 
 at, 76 ; armies of, 88 ; supreme 
 efforts of, 91; makes peace with 
 Rome, 94 ; gains and losses by 
 the First Punic War, 95 ; sore 
 distress of, 98 ; mercenaries revolt 
 against, 97; war and peace parties 
 at, 103 ; war declared against 
 Rome, 113; news of victories of 
 Hannibal sent to, 134; lack of zeal 
 at, 169 ; lose Spanish possessions, 
 206; threatened by Scipio, 210; 
 last chance of, 220 ; makes peace 
 with Rome, 226; destroys her 
 fleet, 227 ; topography of, 239 ; 
 changes by nature and man, 240 ; 
 siege of, 240; fortifications, 241 ; 
 harbours, 242 ; third war wi h 
 Rome, 244 ; " peace at any price " 
 offers of, 245 ; grief of, 246 ; scene 
 at, 247 ; besieged by Romans, 
 247 ; repulse of Romans, 248 ; new 
 outlet of, 253 : closely besieged hy 
 Scipio ^milianus, 255 ; final as- 
 sault, 256 ; desperate resistance, 
 256; set on fire, 257; fate of, 259 ; 
 ruins of, 263 ; impressions, 264 ; 
 topography, 265 ; modern re- 
 searches, 266; plan of, 274; aque- 
 duct of, 276; smaller cisterns, 
 279 ; large cisterns, 280. 
 
 Camerina, 65. 
 
 Cannse, 153; battle of, 158; results 
 of the battle, 160. 
 
 Canaanites, i, 16. 
 
 Canusium, 153, 161, 163. 
 
 Capua, 171 ; siege of, 185 ; capture 
 of, 190 ; cruelty of the Romans at, 
 190. 
 
 Carthaginian proper names, 18. 
 
 Carthalo, Carthaginian admiral, 82, 
 245. 
 
 ETR. 
 
 Casilinum, 177. 
 
 Catana, 89. 
 
 Cato, 238, 250. 
 
 Catulus, C. Lutatius, consul, 91 ; 
 
 defeats Hanno at ^gatian Islands, 
 
 92, 93 ; makes peace with Hamil- 
 
 car, 94. 
 Caudex, A. Claudius, 32, 33, 34. 
 Censorinus, consul, 245, 246, 249, 251, 
 Chevelu Pass, 120. 
 Claudius, P., 79 ; defeated at Dre- 
 
 panum, 80 ; sister of, 81 ; punished 
 
 82. 
 Clypea, 55, 59, (>i, 64, 65, 250. 
 Coluvina Rostrata, 46. 
 Consentia, 221. 
 Corsica, 4, 6, 9, 47, 59 ; seized by 
 
 Hamilcar Barca, 102. 
 Corinth, 233. 
 Cortona, 138. 
 Corvus, 44, 45, 46. 
 Cothon. 6, 244. 
 Cremona, 11 1, 128. 
 Crispinus, 192. 
 Croton, 221, 
 Cumse, 89. 
 
 DAKHLA, 273. 
 Davis, Dr., researches of, 265, 
 
 268, 283. 
 Diecplus, 43. 
 Dionysius, the tyrant, 30. 
 Djebel Khawi, 267,269. 
 Dora Baltea, 127. 
 Drepanuni, 48, 75, 79 ; battle of, 80, 
 
 84, 90, 91. 
 Duillius, defeats the Carthaginians 
 
 at Mylse, 45 ; honours bestowed 
 
 upon, 46. 
 DuuiJi viri navales, 41. 
 
 EBRO, 112, 116, 117. 
 Ecnomus, battle of, 50. 
 Egesta, 47, 48. 
 Elba, 9. 
 Elinga, 206. 
 Ei7ibole, 43. 
 Embolon, 52. 
 Epipola;, 179. 
 Epirus, 28. 
 Eratosthenes, 9. 
 Erbessus, 37, 38. 
 
 Ercte, captured by Hamilcar, 85. 
 Eryx, Mount, 83; captured by Paul- 
 
 lus, 84 ; captured by Hamilcar, 70, 
 Etruscans, conquest of, 25, 116. 
 
Index. 
 
 295 
 
 HAN. 
 
 FABIUS Q. MAXIMUS, 11^ 
 policy ot, 145 ; called the Lin- 
 gerer, 146; continued inaction of, 
 147; fails to trap Hannibal, 148; 
 instructs Minucius, 149 ; divides 
 the command with Minucius, 150; 
 great services of, ib.; restores con- 
 fidence after Cannse, 162 ; shield ot 
 Rome, 172; consul, 174, 176; ad- 
 vice to Scipio, 208. 
 
 FsesulEe, 134, 137. 
 
 Flaccus, M. Fulvius, 32. 
 
 Flaccus, Q. Fulvius, consul, 186. 
 
 Flaminia, Via, iii, 112. 
 
 Flaminius, C., no; captures Medio- 
 lanum, in ; character of, 134; dis- 
 liked by the patricians, 135 ; elected 
 consul, 136 ; defeated at Trasy- 
 mene, 140; death of, 141. 
 
 Fulvius, Cn., prsetor, 190, 191. 
 
 GADES, 18, 106, 206. 
 Gallic tribes join Hannibal, 
 
 128. 
 Gaul, IT 7. 
 Gela, 15. 
 
 Geronium, 149, 153, 155. 
 Gerusia, or council of ancients, 12. 
 Gescon, 97, 98. 
 Giuliano, St., 83. 
 Goletta, 266. 
 Gracchus, T. Sempronius, 174, 175 ; 
 
 promises freedom to the armed 
 
 slaves, 176. 
 " Great Plains," 217. 
 
 HAMILCAR, 206, 2T5. 
 Hamilcar, a Carthaginian, 73. 
 
 Hamilcar Barca, 75, 84 ; greatness of, 
 87; plans, 88; achievements, 89; 
 siezes Eryx, 90 ; magnanimity 94, 
 95 ; makes peace with Rome, 96 ; 
 nis patriotism, 99 ; crosses to Spain, 
 105 ; character and death, 107. 
 
 Hamilcar, defeat and death at Hi- 
 mera, 11. 
 
 Hamilcar; a Carthaginian general, 
 48, 52 ; defeated at Ecnomus, 53. 
 
 Hannibal, son of Hamilcar, 108 ; 
 his vow, 109 ; besieges Sagun- 
 tum, 112; his surrender demand- 
 ed, X13; his preparations for 
 the expedition to Italy, 114 ; deter- 
 mines to goby land, 115; size of 
 his army, 116; passes the Rhone, 
 117; defeat of the Gauls, 117; pas- 
 sage of Alps selected, 118 ; diffi- 
 culties encountered, 120; crosses the 
 Alps, 120 ; speech of, 122 ; in Italy, 
 
 HER. 
 
 125 ; defeats Romans at Ticinus, 
 127 ; advances, 128 ; defeats Ro- 
 mans at Treb'a, 130 ; passes the Ap- 
 ennines, 133 ; passes the mar>hes, 
 134 ; marches through Etruria, de- 
 feats the Romans at Trasymene, 
 140; overruns Italy, 144 ; rests his 
 army in Picenum, 145 ; marches 
 into Campania, 146; escapes from 
 Fabius, 148 ; defeats the Romans at 
 Cannae, 164 ; unbroken success of, 
 166 ; his character, 167; his genius, 
 169 ; foiled at Nola, 173 ; winters at 
 Capua, 173 ; his wide projects, 174 ; 
 at Tifata, 175; tide turns against, 
 176 ; gains Tarentum_, 177 ; renewed 
 successes of, 184; attempts to re- 
 lieve Capua, 186; marches on 
 Rome, 187; before Rome, 188; his 
 superiority in the field, 191 ; defeats 
 Fulvius, ib. ; messengers from 
 Hasdrubal captured, 195 ; recalled 
 to Africa, 221 ; lands in Africa, 222 ; 
 defeats Massinissa, 222 ; defeated 
 at Zama, 224; escapes to Adrume- 
 tum, 225 ; advises peace, 226 ; as 
 a statesman, 234 ; driven into exile, 
 235 ; wanderings and death, ib. 
 Hannibal, son o! Hamdcar, 77 ; rein- 
 forces Lilybseum, 77. 
 Hannibal, son of Oisco, 37, 39 ; de- 
 feated by Duillius, 47, 66. 
 Hanno, Carthaginian admiral, 34. 
 Hanno, Carthaginian general, 34 ; 
 sent to Sicily, 38, 52 ; defeated at 
 Ecnomus, 53 ; sails for Carthage, 
 55 ; defeated by Catulus at ^ga- 
 tian Islands, 92 ; enmity to Hamil- 
 car Barca, 99, 104, 116, 117. 
 Hasdrubal, son of Gisco, 204, 206, 
 
 216; condemned to death, 219. 
 Hasdrubal, son- n-law of Hamilcar, 
 
 108. 
 Hasdrubal, grandson of Massinissa, 
 
 248. 
 
 Hasdrubal, son of Hamilcar, 114; 
 
 encounters the Romans, 183, 184; 
 
 advances from Spain, 193 ; in Gaul, 
 
 194; in Italy, 195; defieated by 
 
 Nero, 197 ; death, 198. 
 
 Hasdrubal, Carthaginian general, 
 
 248 ; Usurps authority, 252 ; cruelty, 
 
 253 ; cowardice, 258 ; his wife, 258. 
 
 Hasdrubal, Carthaginian general, 
 
 68 ; defeated at Panormus, 69. 
 Hasdrubal, Carthaginian general, 160, 
 Hastati, 223. 
 Heraclea^ 28, 38, 50, 82. 
 Hercules, pillars of, 104. 
 
296 
 
 Index. 
 
 MAN. 
 Herdonia, ig. 
 
 Hermaean promontory, 6, 55, 73. 
 Herodotus, 5, 17. 
 Hiero, 31, 36, 79, 82. 
 Hieronymus, 174, 175, 180. 
 Himera, 11, 15, 4S. 
 Hill of St. Louis, 272. 
 Himilco, 76. 78, 179, 180. 
 Himilco Phameas, 249, 251. 
 Hippo Zar>'tus, 10, 98, 100, 250. 
 Horace, 126. 
 
 TAPYGIA, 185. 
 J. Ibera, 183. 
 Iberians, 108 
 Is6re, valley of, ng. 
 Island of the A.llobroges, 119. 
 Italy, Gallic war in, no; Hannibal 
 in, ir8. 
 
 JUDGES, The hundred, 12, 47, 
 234. 
 
 KARCHEDON, 5. 
 Keleustes, 47, 44. 
 Kirjath-Hadeschath, 5. 
 
 LAKE TRASYMENE, battle of, 
 140. 
 Lseliu-;, £99, 209, 224. 
 Latins, conquest of, 25. 
 Leptis, ro. 
 Libyans, 53. 
 Libyssa, 236. 
 
 Liguria, 36; joins Hannibal, 128. 
 Lilybaeum, 29, 36, 50, 66, 68 ; s'ep^e 
 
 of, 75 ; relieved, 77 ; threatened l»y 
 
 Carthaginians, 163. 
 Liparean Islands, 9. 
 Lucca, 134. 
 
 Livy, 109, 162, 190, 219, 222, 223 
 Livius, M., 194, 196, 197. 
 Locri, 34, 85, 221. 
 Lorabardy, 128. 
 Lipari, 59. 
 Lucanians, 116. 
 
 MAGO, brother of Hannibal, 130, 
 132, 134, 157, 161 ; returns to 
 Carthage, 161; in Spain, 204; re- 
 called to Afiica, 220; death of, ib. 
 
 Mago, family of, 13. 
 " a Shofete, 18. 
 
 Maherbal, 141, 157, 161. 
 
 Malta, 4, 9. 
 
 Mamertines, 29, 31, 35, loi. 
 
 Mamilius, Q. , consul, 37. 
 
 Manilius. consul, 245, 248, 251. 
 
 Manlius, Q., 37. 
 
 Manlius, L., 52, 56, 
 
 OST. 
 
 Marca, 134. 
 
 Marcellus defeats the Gauls at Tela- 
 mon. III, 172; in Sicily, 178; 
 besieges Syracuse, 179 ; captures 
 Syracuse, 180 ; spoils Syracuse, 181 ; 
 death of, 192; Hannibal's treat- 
 ment of, 193. 
 
 Marcinus, 252, 271. 
 
 Marsalia, 116. 
 
 Massinissa, 211, 217, 218; routs 
 the Carthaginian cavalry at Zama, 
 224; king of Numidia, 228, 244; 
 death of, 249. 
 
 Ma:.S2esylians, 211. 
 
 Missylians, 211. 
 
 Matho, 97, 98. 
 
 Mediolanum, in. 
 
 Megara, 6. 
 
 Melcarth, 17, 106. 
 
 Melicertes, 17. 
 
 Mercenaries, 21 ; treatment of, 97 ; 
 revolt of, 97, 100; destroyed, loi. 
 
 Mcssana, straits of, 65, 95. 
 
 Messana, 29, 31, 50. 
 
 Metagonittz urbes, 106. 
 
 Metapontum, 191, 221. 
 
 Metaurus, battle of, 197. 
 
 Metellua, Cecilius, 69 ; defeats H.is- 
 drubal at Panormus, 70. 
 
 Minucias, Marcus, 146; success of, 
 149 ; co-dictator, 149 ; beaten by 
 Hannibal, 150 ; death of, 16. 
 
 Monte Pellegrino, 85. 
 
 Murviedro, 112. 
 
 Mummius, 233. 
 
 Mylae, battle of, 45, 47, 52. 
 
 Mylitta, 17. 
 
 NAPLES, 175. 
 Naraggara, 223. 
 
 Narnia, 195. 
 
 Nasica P. Cornelius Scipio, 244. 
 
 Naval tactics, 43. 
 " armaments, 49. 
 
 Neapolis, 34. 
 
 Necropolis, 267. 
 
 Nepheris, 255. 
 
 Nero Caius, praetor, 186. 
 Nero C. Claudius, 194, outgenerals 
 Hannibal, 196; defeats Hasdrubal 
 at Metaurus, 197 ; barbarism of, 198 
 
 New Carthage, 108, iis, n6, 166; 
 taken by Scipio, 205. 
 
 Nola, 172, 175. 
 
 Numidia, 19 ; cavalry of, 38, 120, 128. 
 
 OCTACILIUS, M., 35. 
 Ortigia, 189. 
 Ostia, 230. 
 
Lidex. 
 
 297 
 
 RAS. 
 
 PACHYNUS, 36, 65, 83. 
 Panormus, 48 ; Romans take, 
 66 ; battle at, 70 ; Hamilcar lands 
 
 at, 85. 
 Passignano, 138. 
 Paullus, L. ^milius, consul, 152, 153, 
 
 154 ; defeated at Cannae, 160; death 
 
 of, 161. 
 Pauliiis L. Junius, consul, 82, 83, 84, 
 
 86. 
 Pavia, 127. 
 Pacnulus, 8. 
 
 Peace negotiations, 219. 
 Pera, M. Junius, Dictator, 163. 
 Periplus , 20, 43. 
 Perseus, 233. 
 Perugia, 139. 
 Philip, 175. 
 Phoenicians, characteristics of, i ; 
 
 commercial enterprise, 2 ; size of 
 
 territory, 3 ; found Carthage, 5. 
 Phileni, 19. 
 Phintias, 50. 
 Picenum, 145. 
 Pisa, 116. 
 Piso, Consul, 252. 
 Pityusian Islands, 9. 
 Placentia, iii, 127, 128, 132, 195. 
 Plautus, 8. 
 Pliny, 15, 86. 
 Po, no. III, 112, 127. 
 P&Iybius, 38, 50, 52, 56, 63, 73, 83, 90, 
 
 94, loi, III, 119, 133, 137, 196, 251, 
 
 259. 
 Postumius, L., 37. 
 Principes, 223. 
 Prosbole, 43. 
 Prusias, 236. 
 Punic faith, 109, 168. 
 Punic wars, first, 20 ; end of, 94 ; 
 
 second, 112 ; end of, 227; third, 244; 
 
 end of, 259. 
 Pulcher, A. Claudius, consul, 186 
 Puteoli, 176. 
 Pydna, 250. 
 Pyrenees, 116, 117. 
 Pyrrhus, war with, 28 ; discomfiture 
 
 of, 29. 
 
 RAS SIDS BU SAID, 270. 
 Regulus, M. Atilius, 52; de- 
 feats Hanno at Ecnomus, 53, 54 ; 
 invades Africa, 56; defeats the 
 Carthaginians at Adis, 58 ; offers 
 terms to the Carthaginians, 59 ; 
 defeated at Adis, 62 ; embassy to 
 Rome, 71 ; death, 72 ; wife of, 74 ; 
 her cruelty, 74. 
 
 SCI. 
 
 Rhegium, 30, 32. 
 
 Rhodian, mercenary, 77 ; baffles the 
 Romans, 78 ; is captured, ib. 
 
 Rhodian ship, u ed as a model by 
 Romans, 91, 
 
 Rhone, 116, 119, 126. 
 
 Rome, 23 ; compared with Car- 
 thage, 23; advancement, 27; war 
 with Pj-^rrhus, 28; and Carthage 
 face to face, 29; political questions, 
 33; first fleet, 39; difficulties in 
 creating a fleet, 41 ; naval affairs 
 ib. fleet sails, 43 ; joy over first naval 
 victory, 46; attacks Sardinia and 
 Corsica, 47; victory at Ecnomus, 52; 
 efforts of Rome, 64 ; destruction of 
 Romanfleet, 65 ; destruction of sec- 
 ond Roman fleet, 67 ; destruction of 
 elephants at, 71 ; destruction of 
 third Roman fleet, 83 ; despondency 
 at, ib. ; during the mercenary w. r, 
 102 ; seizes Sardinia and Corsica, 
 ib. ; defeats the Gauls, no ; Senate, 
 126; news of Trasymene at, 142; 
 great exertions of, 152 ; news oi 
 Cannae, 162 ; greatness of, 165 ; 
 great excitement of, 174 ; condition 
 of, 231 ; in the Eas , 232; joy at, 
 ovtr capture of Carthage, 259. 
 
 Roman Legion, 28 ; character dete- 
 riorated, 229. 
 
 Roquemaure, 119. 
 
 Rubicon, no. 
 
 SACRED BAND, 16. 
 Saguntum, 112. 
 
 Salapia, 177. 
 
 Samnium, 146. 
 
 Sardinia, 4, 5, 59, 67, 102. 
 
 Sardinia, Island of, 4, 9, loi. 
 
 Sardinians yor sale, 230. 
 
 Scipio, P. Cornelius, 126 ; defeated at 
 Ticinus, 128 ; successes in Spain, 
 183 ; defeat and death, 184. 
 
 Scipio, C, 126 ; defeat and death, 
 184. 
 
 Scipio, P. Cornelius, Africanus, son 
 of P. Cornelius, 128, 199 ; early 
 history, 200 ; character and in- 
 fluence, 201 ; captures New Car- 
 thage, 204 ; elected consul, 207 ; in 
 Sicily, 209 ; invades Africa, 210 ; 
 rebukes Massinissa, 218; modera- 
 tion of, 219 ; defeats Hannibal at 
 Zama, 224 ; returns to Rome, 227 ; 
 death of, 237. 
 
298 
 
 Index. 
 
 TEM. 
 
 Scipio, P. Cornelius, ^Emilianus, 249 ; 
 250 ; consul, 252 ; attacks on Car- 
 thage, 253 ; mole, 253 ; final assault 
 on Carthage, 256 ; lakes Carthage 
 by storm, 257 ; destroys Carthage, 
 
 Scipio, L. Cornelius, epitaph of, 48. 
 
 Selinus, 15, 69. 
 
 Sempronius, consul, 127, 129 ; defeated 
 at Trebia, 130. 
 
 Servilius, Cn., 133, 135, 141. 
 
 Shaw, researches of, 280. 
 
 Shofete, 13, 18. 
 
 Sicily, 6; a battle-field, 30; Car- 
 thaginians driven from, 95 ; war in, 
 178. 
 
 Sidon, I. 
 
 Siculus, Diodorus, 73, 274. 
 
 Silpia, 206. 
 
 Sophonisba, 212, 217; dnuKs poison, 
 218. 
 
 Spain, 24; Phoenician settlements in, 
 
 9- 
 
 Spendius, 97, 98, 100. loi. 
 
 Spcletium, 144. 
 
 Spolia opinta, 11 1. 
 
 Strabo, 273. 
 
 Suffetes, II, 12. 
 
 Syphax, 184, 211, 217; fall of, 219. 
 
 Syracuse, 31, 34, 35 ; siege of, 37; cap- 
 ture, 38 ; threatened by Carthagin- 
 ian fleet, 163 ; besieged by Marcel- 
 lus, 179; captured by jNIarcellus, 
 180; fate of, 181. 
 
 Syrtis, 67. 
 
 Syssitia, 14, 15, 16. 
 
 T'^NIA, 248, 249, 254, 266. 
 Tagus, 108, 112. 
 Tarentaise, 120. 
 Tarentines, 28, 3^. 
 Tarentum, 34, 133, 177; captured by 
 
 Hannibal, 184 ; besieged by Fa- 
 
 bius, 192. 
 Tartessus, 106. 
 Taurini, 127. 
 Telamon, battle of, in. 
 Telesia, 146. 
 Temple, Sir Grenville, researches of, 
 
 275. 
 
 ZAM, 
 
 Tiber, 144. 
 
 Trasj^mene, battle of Lake, 140. 
 Thurii, 191. 
 Ticinus, battle of, 127. 
 Tifata, 175. 
 Trebia, battle of, 130. 
 Tripolis, desert o*^, 10. 
 Triton, 10. 
 Triarii, 50, 223. 
 Timoleon, 30, 37. 
 
 Tunis, 58, 97, 99, loi ; gulf of, 273 ; ori- 
 ental character, 285 ; streets of, 286, 
 Tycha, 179. 
 Tyndaris, 52. 
 Tyre, i ; merchants of, 3, 11, 17, 106 
 
 u 
 
 MBRIANS, 116. 
 Utica, 5. 10,58, 99, ICO, 246, 
 260, 278. 
 
 VALERIUS, M., consul, 35. 
 Valerius, Q., praetor, 92. 
 Varro, P. Terentius, consu', 152, 
 
 154 ; divides command with Paul- 
 
 lus, ib.; defeated at Cannae, 160, 
 
 163, 166. 
 Valerius, Q., praetor, 92 ; at battle of 
 
 jEgatian Islands, 93. 
 Velia, 34. 
 Venusia, 16. 
 Venus Coelest!s, 17. 
 Verbanus, lake of, 127. 
 Volscians, 26. 
 VuUurnus 156, 173. 
 
 w 
 
 AR, the truceless, 100, loi. 
 "White rock," 121. 
 
 XANTHIPPUS, 60; the com. 
 mander of Carthaginian army 
 61 ; defeats Regulus at Adis, 62. 
 
 ZACYNTHUS, 112. 
 Zama, 223 ; battle of, 224. 
 
' * T'he volumes contain the ripe results of the studies of men who 
 are authorities in their respective fields ." — The Nation. 
 
 EPOCHS OF HISTORY 
 
 EPOCHS OF 
 ANCIENT HISTORY 
 
 Eleven volumes, i6mo, 
 each $i.oo. 
 
 EPOCHS OF 
 MODERN HISTORY 
 
 Eighteen volumes, i6mo, 
 each $i.oo. 
 
 The Epoch volumes have most successfully borne the test of 
 experience, and are universally acknowledged to be the best series 
 of historical manuals in existence. They are admirably adapted in 
 form and matter to the needs of colleges, schools, reading circles, 
 and private classes. Attention is called to them as giving the 
 utmost satisfaction as class hand-books. 
 
 Noah Porter, President of Yale College. 
 
 "The 'Epochs of History' have been prepared with knowl- 
 edge and artistic skill to meet the wants of a large number of 
 readers. To the young they furnish an outline or compendium. 
 To those who are older they present a convenient sketch of the 
 heads of the knowledge which they have already acquired. The 
 outlines are by no means destitute of spirit, and may be used with 
 great profit for family reading, and in select classes or reading clubs. " 
 
 Charles Kendall Adams, President of Cornell University. 
 
 "A series of concise and carefully prepared volumes on special 
 eras of history. Each is also complete in itself, and has no especial 
 connection with the other members of the series. The works are 
 all written by authors selected by the editor on account of some 
 especial qualifications for a portrayal of the period they respectively 
 describe. The volumes form an excellent collection, especially 
 adapted to the wants of a general reader." 
 
 The Publishers will supply these volumes to teachers at SPECIAL 
 
 NET RA TES, and would solicit correspondence concerning 
 
 terms for examination and introduction copies. 
 
 CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS, Publishers 
 
 l^^-l^S Broadway, New York 
 
THE GREAT SUCCESS OF 
 THE SERIES 
 
 is the best proof of its general popularity, and the excellence of 
 the various volumes is further attested by their having been 
 adopted as text-books in many of our leading educational institu- 
 tions. The publishers beg to call attention to the following list 
 comprising some of the most prominent institutions using volumes 
 of the series : 
 
 Smith College, Northampton, Mass. 
 Univ. of Vermont, Burlington, Vt. 
 Yale Univ., New Haven, Conn. 
 Harvard Univ., Cambridge, Mass. 
 Bellewood Sem., Anchorage, Ky. 
 Vanderbilt Univ., Nashville, Tenn. 
 State Univ., Minneapolis, Minn. 
 Christian Coll., Columbia, Mo. 
 Adelphi Acad., Brooklyn, N. Y. 
 Earlham Coll., Richmond, Ind. 
 Granger Place School, Canandaigua, 
 
 N. Y. 
 Salt Lake Acad. , Salt Lake City, Utah. 
 Beloit Col., Beloit, Wis. 
 Logan Female Coll., Russellville, Ky. 
 No. West Univ., Evanston, 111. 
 State Normal School, Baltimore, Md. 
 Hamilton Coll., Clinton, N. Y. 
 Doane Coll., Crete, Neb. 
 Princeton College, Princeton, N. J. 
 Williams Coll., Williamstown, Mass. 
 Cornell Univ., Ithaca, N. Y. 
 Illinois Coll., Jacksonville, 111. 
 
 Univ. of South, Sewaunee, Tenn. 
 Wesleyan Univ., Mt. Pleasant, la. 
 Univ. of Cal., Berkeley, Cal. 
 So. Car. Coll., Columbia, S. C. 
 Amsterdam Acad., Amsterdam, 
 
 N. Y. 
 Carleton Coll., Northfield, Minn. 
 Wesleyan Univ., Middletown, Mass. 
 Albion Coll., Albion, Mich. 
 Dartmouth Coll., Hanover, N. H. 
 Wilmington Coll., Wilmington, O. 
 Madison Univ., Hamilton, N. Y. 
 Syracuse Univ., Syracuse, N. Y. 
 Univ. of Wis., Madison, Wis. 
 Union Coll., Schenectady, N. Y, 
 Norwich Free Acad., Norwich, Conn. 
 Greenwich Acad., Greenwich, Conn. 
 Univ. of Neb., Lincoln, Neb. 
 Kalamazoo Coll., Kalamazoo, Mich. 
 Olivet Coll., Olivet, Mich. 
 Amherst Coll., Amherst, Mass. 
 Ohio State Univ., Columbus, O. 
 Free Schools, Oswego, N. Y. 
 
 Bishop J. F. Hurst, ex-President of Drew Theol. Sem. 
 
 " It appears to me that the idea of Morris in his Epochs is 
 strictly in harmony with the philosophy of history — namely, that 
 great movements should be treated not according to narrow 
 geographical and national limits and distinction, but universally, 
 according to their place in the general life of the world. The 
 historical Maps and the copious Indices are welcome additions 
 to the volumes." 
 
EPOCHS OF ANCIENT 
 HISTORY. 
 
 A SERIES OF BOOKS NARRATING THE HISTORY OF 
 
 GREECE AND ROME, AND OF THEIR RELATIONS TO 
 
 OTHER COUNTRIES AT SUCCESSIVE EPOCHS. 
 
 Edited by 
 
 Rev. G. W. Cox and Charles Sankey, M.A. 
 
 Eleven volumes, i6mo, with 41 Maps and Plans. 
 
 Sold separately. Price per vol., $1.00. 
 
 The Set, Roxburgh style, gilt top, in box, ^iz.oo. 
 
 TROY— ITS LEGEND, HISTORY, AND 
 LITERATURE. By S. G. W. Benjamin. 
 
 ** The task of the author has been to gather into a clear 
 and very readable narrative all that is known of legendary, 
 historical, and geographical Troy, and to tell the story of 
 Homer, and weigh and compare the different theories in the 
 Homeric controversy. The work is well done. His book is 
 altogether candid, and is a very valuable and entertaining 
 compendium." — Hartford Courant. 
 
 "As a monograph on Troy, covering all sides of the ques- 
 tion, it is of great value, and supplies a long vacant place in 
 our fund of classical knowledge." — N. V. Christian Advocate. 
 
 THE GREEKS AND THE PERSIANS. By 
 
 Rev G. W. Cox. 
 
 "It covers the ground in a perfectly satisfactory way. 
 The work is clear, succinct, and readable." — New York 
 Independent. 
 
 ** Marked by thorough and comprehensive scholarship and 
 by a skillful style," — Congregationalist. 
 
 "It would be hard to find a more creditable book. The 
 author's prefatory remarks upon the origin and growth of 
 Greek civilization are alone worth the price of the volume." 
 — Christian Union. 
 
EPOCHS OF ANCIENT HISTORY 
 
 THE ATHENIAN EMPIRE— From the Flight 
 of Xerxes to the Fall of Athens. By Rev. 
 G. W. Cox. 
 
 "Mr. Cox writes in such a way as to bring before the 
 reader everything which is important to be known or learned ; 
 and his narrative cannot fail to give a good idea of the men 
 and deeds with which he is concerned." — The Churchman. 
 
 ' ' Mr. Cox has done his work with the honesty of a true 
 student. It shows persevering scholarship and a '^esire to 
 get at the truth." — New York Herald. 
 
 THE SPARTAN AND THEBAN SUPREMA- 
 CIES. By Charles Sankey, M.A. 
 
 ** This volume covers the period between the disasters of 
 Athens at the close of the Pelopenesian war and the rise of 
 Macedon. It is a very striking and instructive picture of the 
 political life of the Grecian commonwealth at that time." — 
 The Churchffian. 
 
 "It is singularly interesting to read, and in respect to 
 arrangement, maps, etc., is all that can be desired." — Boston 
 Congregationalist. 
 
 THE MACEDONIAN EMPIRE— Its Rise and 
 Culmination to Death of Alexander the 
 Great. By A. M. Curteis, M.A. 
 
 "A good and satisfactory history of a very important period. 
 The maps are excellent, and the story is lucidly and vigor- 
 ously told."— r^^ Nation. 
 
 " The same compressive style and yet completeness of 
 detail that have characterized the previous issues in this 
 delightful series, are found in this volume. Certainly the art 
 of conciseness in writing was never carried to a higher or 
 more effective point." — Boston Saturday Evening Gazette. 
 
 ^*^^ The above Jive volumes give a connected and complete, 
 history of Greece from the earliest times to the death of 
 A lexander. 
 
EPOCHS OF ANCIENT HISTORY 
 
 EARLY ROME— From the Foundation of the 
 City to its Destruction by the Gauls. By 
 
 W. IHNE, Ph.D. 
 
 ** Those who want to know the truth instead of the tra- 
 ditions that used to be learned of our fathers, will find in the 
 work entertainment, careful scholarship, and sound sense." — 
 Cincinnati Times. 
 
 " The book is excellently well done. The views are those 
 of a learned and able man, and they are presented in this 
 volume with great force and clearness." — The Nation. 
 
 ROME AND CARTHAGE— The Punic Wars. 
 
 By R. BoswoRTH Smith. 
 
 " By blending the account of Rome and Carthage the ac- 
 complished author presents a succinct and vivid picture of 
 two great cities and people which leaves a deep impression. 
 The story is full of intrinsic interest, and was never better 
 told." — Christian Union. 
 
 " The volume is one of rare interest and value." — Chicago 
 Interior. 
 
 "An admirably condensed history of Carthage, from its 
 establishment by the adventurous Phoenician traders to its 
 sad and disastrous fall." — New York Herald. 
 
 THE GRACCHI, MARIUS, AND SULLA. By 
 
 A. H. Beesley. 
 
 " A concise and scholarly historical sketch, descriptive of 
 the decay of the Roman Republic, and the events which paved 
 the way for the advent of the conquering Caesar. It is an 
 excellent account of the leaders and legislation of the repub- 
 lic." — Boston Post. 
 
 *' It is prepared in succinct but comprehensive style, and is 
 an excellent book for reading and reference." — New York 
 Observer. 
 
 " No better condensed account of the two Gracchi and the 
 turbulent careers of Marius and Sulla has yet appeared." — 
 New York Independent. 
 
EPOCHS OF ANCIENT HISTORY 
 
 THE ROMAN TRIUMVIRATES. By the Very Rev. 
 Charles Merivale, D.D. 
 
 " In brevity, clear and scholarly treatment of the subject, 
 and the convenience of map, index, and side notes, the 
 volume is a model." — New York Tribune. 
 
 "An admirable presentation, and in style vigorous and 
 picturesque. " — Hartford Courant. 
 
 THE EARLY EMPIRE— From the Assassina- 
 tion of Julius Caesar to the Assassination 
 of Domitian. By Rev. W. Wolfe Capes, M. A. 
 
 " It is written with great clearness and simplicity of style, 
 and is as attractive an account as has ever been given in 
 brief of one of the most interesting periods of Roman 
 History." — Boston Saturday Evening Gazette. 
 
 "It is a clear, well-proportioned, and trustworthy perfor- 
 mance, and well deserves to be studied." — Christian at 
 Work. 
 
 THE AGEOFTHEANTONINES— The Roman 
 Empire of the Second Century. By Rev. 
 W. Wolfe Capes, M.A. 
 
 " The Roman Empire during the second century is the 
 broad subject discussed in this book, and discussed with 
 learning and intelligence." — New York Independent. 
 
 " The writer's diction is clear and elegant, and his narra- 
 tion is free from any touch of pedantry. In the treatment of 
 its prolific and interesting theme, and in its general plan, the 
 book is a model of works of its class." — New York Herald. 
 
 " We are glad to commend it. It is written clearly, and 
 with care and accuracy. It is also in such neat and compact 
 form as to be the more attractive." — Congregationalist. 
 
 %* The above six volumes ghje the History of Rome from 
 the founding of the City to the death of Marcus Aurelius 
 Antoninus. 
 
EPOCHS OF MODERN 
 HISTORY. 
 
 A SERIES OF BOOKS NARRATING THE HISTORY OF 
 
 ENGLAND AND EUROPE AT SUCCESSIVE EPOCHS 
 
 SUBSEQUENT TO THE CHRISTIAN ERA. 
 
 Edited by 
 
 Edward E. Morris. 
 
 Eighteen volumes, i6mo, with 74 Maps, Plans, and Tables. 
 
 Sold separately. Price per vol., $1.00. 
 
 The Set, Roxburgh style, gilt top, in box, $18.00. 
 
 THE BEGINNING OF THE MIDDLE AGES- 
 England and Europe in the Ninth Century. 
 
 By the Very Rev. R. W. Church, M.A. 
 
 "A remarkably thoughtful and satisfactory discussion of 
 the causes and results of the vast changes which came upon 
 Europe during the period discussed. The book is adapted to 
 be exceedingly serviceable." — Chicago Standard. 
 
 "At once readable and valuable. It is comprehensive and 
 yet gives the details of a period most interesting to the student 
 of history. " — Herald and Presbyter. 
 
 "It is written with a clearness and vividness of statement 
 which make it the pleasantest reading. It represents a great 
 deal of patient research, and is careful and scholarly." — 
 Boston Journal. 
 
 THE NORMANS IN EUROPE— The Feudal 
 System and England under the Norman 
 Kings. By Rev. A. H. Johnson, M.A. 
 
 " Its pictures of the Normans in their home, of the Scan- 
 dinavian exodus, the conquest of England, and Norman 
 administration, are full of vigor and cannot fail of holding the 
 reader's attention. " — Episcopal Register. 
 
 " The style of the author is vigorous and animated, and he 
 has given a valuable sketch of the origin and progress of the 
 great Northern movement that has shaped the history of 
 modern Europe." — Boston Transcript. 
 
EPOCHS OF MODERN- HISTORY 
 
 THE CRUSADES. By Rev. G. W. Cox. 
 
 " To be warmly commended for important qualities. The 
 author shows conscientious fidelity to the materials, and such 
 skill in the use of them, that, as a result, the reader has 
 before him a narrative related in a style that makes it truly 
 fascinating. ' ' — Congregationalist. 
 
 " It is written in a pure and flowing style, and its arrange- 
 ment and treatment of subject are exceptional." — Christian 
 Intelligencer. 
 
 THE EARLY P L A NT AGEN ETS— Their 
 Relation to tlie History of Europe; The 
 Foundation and Growth of Constitutional 
 Government. By Rev. W. Stubbs, m.a. 
 
 " Nothing could be desired more clear, succinct, and well 
 arranged. All parts of the book are well done. It may be 
 pronounced the best existing brief, history of the constitution 
 for this, its most important period," — The Nation. 
 
 "Prof. Stubbs has presented leading events with such fair- 
 ness and wisdom as are seldom found. He is remarkably 
 clear and satisfactory. " — The Churchman. 
 
 EDWARD III. By Rev. W. Warburton, M.A. 
 
 " The author has done his work well, and we commend it 
 as containing in small space all essential matter." — New York 
 Independent. 
 
 "Events and movements are admirably condensed by the 
 author, and presented in such attractive form as to entertain 
 as well as instruct." — Chicago Interior. 
 
 THE HOUSES OF LANCASTER AND YORK 
 —The Conquest and Loss of France. By 
 
 James Gairdner. 
 
 " Prepared in a most careful and thorough manner, and 
 ought to be read by every student. " — New York Times. 
 
 "It leaves nothing to be desired as regards compactness, 
 accuracy, and excellence of literary execution." — Boston 
 Journal. 
 
EPOCHS OF MODERN HISTORY 
 
 THE ERA OF THE PROTESTANT REVO- 
 LUTION. By Frederic Seebohm. With Notes, on 
 Books in English relating to the Reformation, by Prof. 
 George P. Fisher, D.D. 
 
 "For an impartial record of the civil and ecclesiastical 
 changes about four hundred years ago, we cannot commend a 
 better manual." — Sunday- School Times. 
 
 "All that could be desired, as well in execution as in plan. 
 The narrative is animated, and the selection and grouping of 
 events skillful and effective." — The Nation. 
 
 THE EARLY TUDORS— Henry VII., Henry 
 
 VI 11. By Rev. C. E. Moberley, M.A., late Master in 
 Rugby School. 
 
 "Is concise, scholarly, and accurate. On the epoch of which 
 it treats, we know of no work which equals it." — N. V. Observer. 
 
 " A marvel of clear and succinct brevity and good historical 
 judgment. There is hardly a better book of its kind to be 
 named." — New York Independent. 
 
 THE AGE OF ELIZABETH. By Rev. M. 
 Creighton, M.A. 
 
 "Clear and compact in style ; careful in their facts, and 
 just in interpretation of them. It sheds much light on the 
 progress of the Reformation and the origin of the Popish 
 reaction during Queen Elizabeth's reign ; also, the relation of 
 Jesuitism to the latter.'* — Presbyterian Review. 
 
 " A clear, concise, and just story of an era crowded with 
 events of interest and importance." — New York World. 
 
 THE THIRTY YEARS' WAR— 1 61 8-1 648. 
 
 By Samuel Rawson Gardiner. 
 
 " As a manual it will prove of the greatest practical value, 
 while to the general reader it v^ill afford a clear and interesting 
 account of events. We know of no more spirited and attractive 
 recital of the great era." — Boston Saturday Evening Gazette. 
 
 " The thrilling story of those times has never been told so 
 vividly or succinctly as in this volume." — Episcopal Register. 
 
EPOCHS OF MODERN- HISTORY. 
 
 THE PURITAN REVOLUTION; and the First 
 Two Stuarts, 1 603- 1 660. By Samuel Rawson 
 Gardiner. 
 
 " The narrative is condensed and brief, yet sufficiently com- 
 prehensive to give an adequate view of the events related." 
 — Chicago Standard. 
 
 ' * Mr. Gardiner uses his researches in an admirably clear 
 and fair way." — Congregationalist. 
 
 ' ' The sketch is concise, but clear and perfectly intelligible." 
 —Hartford Courant. 
 
 THE ENGLISH RESTORATION AND LOUIS 
 XIV., from the Peace of Westphalia to the 
 Peace of Nimwegen. By Osmund Airy, M. A. 
 
 " It is crisply and admirably written. An immense amount 
 of information is conveyed and with great clearness, the 
 arrangement of the subjects showing great skill and a thor- 
 ough command of the complicated theme." — Boston Saturday 
 Evening Gazette. 
 
 "The author writes with fairness and discrimination, and 
 has given a clear and intelligible presentation of the time." — 
 New York Evangelist. 
 
 THE FALL OF THE STUARTS; and Western 
 Europe. By Rev. Edward Hale, M.A. 
 
 " A valuable compend to the general reader and scholar.** 
 — Providence Journal. 
 
 "It will be found of great value. It is a very graphic 
 
 account of the history of Europe during the 17th century, 
 
 and is admirably adapted for the use of students." — Boston 
 
 Saturday Evening Gazette. 
 
 ' * An admirable handbook for the student. " — The Churchman, 
 
 THE AGE OF ANNE. By Edward E. Morris, M.A. 
 
 " The author's arrangement of the material is remarkably 
 clear, his selection and adjustment of the facts judicious, his 
 historical judgment fair and candid, while the style wins by 
 its simple elegance." — Chicago Standard. 
 
 '* An excellent compendium of the history of an important 
 period." — The Watchman. 
 
EPOCHS OF MODERN HISTORY. 
 
 THE EARLY HANOVERIANS— Europe from 
 the Peace of Utrecht to the Peace of Aix- 
 la-Chapelle. By Edward E. Morris, M,A. 
 
 " Masterly, condensed, and vigorous, this is one of the 
 books which it is a delight to read at odd moments ; which 
 are broad and suggestive, and at the same time condensed in 
 treatment." — Christian Advocate. 
 
 "A remarkably clear and readable summary of the salient 
 points of interest. The maps and tables, no less than the 
 author's style and treatment of the subject, entitle the volume 
 to the highest claims of recognition." — Boston Daily Ad- 
 vertiser. 
 
 FREDERICK THE GREAT, AND THE SEVEN 
 YEARS' WAR. By F. W. Longman. 
 
 "The subject is most important, and the author has treated 
 it in a way which is both scholarly and entertaining." — The 
 Churchman. 
 
 "Admirably adapted to interest school boys, and older 
 heads will find it pleasant reading." — New York Tribune. 
 
 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION, AND FIRST 
 EMPIRE. By William O'Connor Morris. With 
 Appendix by Andrew D. White, LL.D., ex-President of 
 Cornell University. 
 
 "We have long needed a simple compendium of this period, 
 and we have here one which is brief enough to be easily run 
 through with, and yet particular enough to make entertaining 
 reading." — New York Evening Post. 
 
 " The author has well accomplished his difficult task of 
 sketching in miniature the grand and crowded drama of the 
 French Revolution and the Napoleonic Empire, showing 
 himself to be no servile compiler, but capable of judicious 
 and independent criticism." — Springjield Republican. 
 
 THE EPOCH OF REFORM— 1 830-1 850. By 
 
 Justin McCarthy. 
 
 " Mr. McCarthy knows the period of which he writes 
 thoroughly, and the result is a narrative that is at once enter- 
 taining and trustworthy." — New York Examiner. 
 
 " The narrative is clear and comprehensive, and told with 
 abundant knowledge and grasp of the subject." — Boston 
 Courier, 
 
IMPORTANT HISTORICAL 
 WORKS. 
 
 THE DAWN OF HISTORY. An Introduction 
 to Pre- Historic Study. New and Enlarged Edition. 
 Edited by C. F. Keary. i2mo, cloth, $1.25. 
 
 This work treats successively of the earliest traces of man ; 
 of language, its growth, and the story it tells of the pre-his- 
 toricusersof it ; of early social life, the religions, mythologies, 
 and folk-tales, and of the history of writing. The present 
 edition contains about one hundred pages of new matter, 
 embodying the results of the latest researches. 
 
 ' ' A fascinating manual. In its way, the work is a model 
 of what a popular scientific work should be." — Boston Sat. 
 Eve. Gazette. 
 
 THE ORIGIN OF NATIONS. By Professor George 
 Rawlinson, M.A. i2mo, with maps, $1.00. 
 
 The first part of this book discusses the antiquity of civiliza- 
 tion in Egypt and the other early nations of the East. The 
 second part is an examination of the ethnology of Genesis, 
 showing its accordance with the latest results of modem 
 ethnographical science. 
 
 ' ' A work of genuine scholarly excellence, and a useful 
 offset to a great deal of the superficial current literature on 
 such subjects. " — Congregationalist. 
 
 MANUAL OF MYTHOLOGY. For the Use 
 of Schools, Art Students, and General 
 Readers. Founded on the Works of Pet- 
 iscus, Preller, and Welcker. By Alexander 
 S. Murray, Department of Greek and Roman Antiquities, 
 British Museum. With 45 Plates. Reprinted from the 
 Second Revised London Edition. Crown 8vo, $1.75. 
 
 ** It has been acknowledged the best work on the subject 
 to be found in a concise form, and as it embodies the results 
 of the latest researches and discoveries in ancient mythologies, 
 it is superior for school and general purposes as a handbook 
 to any of the so-called standard works." — Cleveland Herald. 
 
 "'Whether as a manual for reference, a text-book for school 
 use, or for the general reader, the book will be found very 
 valuable and interesting." — Boston Journal. 
 
IMPORTANT HISTORICAL WORKS. 
 
 THE HISTORY OF ROME, from the Earliest 
 Time to tiie Period of Its Decline. By Dr. 
 
 Theodor Mommsen. Translated by W. P. Dickson, D.D., 
 LL.D, Reprinted from the Revised London Edition. Four 
 volumes, crown 8vo. Price per set, $8.00. 
 
 "A work of the very highest merit; its learning is exact 
 and profound ; its narrative full of genius and skill ; its 
 descriptions of men are admirably vivid." — London Times. 
 
 "Since the days of Niebuhr, no work on Roman History 
 has appeared that combines so much to attract, instruct, and 
 charm the reader. Its style — a rare quality in a German 
 author — is vigorous, spirited, and animated." — Dr. Schmitz. 
 
 THE PROVINCES OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. 
 From Caesar to Diocletian. By Theodor 
 Mommsen. Translated by William P. Dickson, D.D., 
 LL.D. With maps. Two vols., Svo, $6.00. 
 
 " The author draws the wonderfully rich and varied picture 
 of the conquest and administration of that great circle of 
 peoples and lands which formed the empire of Rome outside 
 of Italy, their agriculture, trade, and manufactures, their 
 artistic and scientific life, through all degrees of civilization, 
 with such detail and coriipleteness as could have come from 
 no other hand than that of this great master of historical re- 
 search." — Prof. W. A. Packard, Princeton College. 
 
 THE HISTORY OF THE ROMAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 Abridged from the History by Professor Theodor Mommsen, 
 by C. Bryans and F. J. R. Hendy. i2mo, $1.75. 
 
 " It is a genuine boon that the essential parts of Mommsen's 
 Rome are thus brought within the easy reach of all, and the 
 abridgment seems to me to preserve unusually well the glow 
 and movement of the original." — Prof. Tracy Peck, Yale 
 University. 
 
 "The condensation has been accurately and judiciously 
 effected, I heartily commend the volume as the most adequate 
 embodiment, in a single volume, of the main results of modem 
 historical research in the field of Roman affairs." — Prof. 
 Henry M. Baird, University of City of New York. 
 
IMPORTANT HISTORICAL WORKS. 
 
 THE HISTORY OF GREECE. By Prof. Dr. 
 
 Ernst Curtius. Translated by Adolphus William Ward, 
 M.A., Fellow of St. Peter's College, Cambridge, Prof, of 
 History in Owen's College, Manchester. Five volumes, 
 crown 8vo. Price per set, $10.00. 
 
 " We cannot express our opinion of Dr. Curtius' book bet- 
 ter than by saying that it may be fitly ranked with Theodor 
 Mommsen's great work." — London Spectator. 
 
 "As an introduction to the study of Grecian history, no 
 previous work is comparable to the present for vivacity and 
 picturesque beauty, while in sound learning and accuracy of 
 statement it is not inferior to the elaborate productions which 
 enrich the literature of the age. " — N. Y. Daily 1 'ribune. 
 
 OESAR: a Sketch. By James Anthony Froude, 
 M.A. i2mo, gilt top, $1.50. 
 
 ' * This book is a most fascinating biography and "is by far 
 the best account of Julius Caesar to be found in the English 
 language." — The London Standard. 
 
 "He combines into a compact and nervous narrative all 
 that is known of the personal, social, political, and military 
 life of Caesar ; and with his sketch of Caesar includes other 
 brilliant sketches of the great man, his friends, or rivals, 
 who contemporaneously with him formed the principal figures 
 in the Roman world." — Harper's Monthly. 
 
 CICERO. Life of Marcus Tullius Cicero. By 
 
 William Forsyth, M.A., Q.C. 20 Engravings. New 
 Edition. 2 vols., crown 8vo, in one, gilt top, $2.50. 
 
 The author has not only given us the most complete and 
 well-balanced account of the life of Cicero ever published ; 
 he has drawn an accurate and graphic picture of domestic life 
 among the best classes of the Romans, one which the reader 
 of general literature, as well as the student, may peruse with 
 pleasure and profit. 
 
 "A scholar without pedantry, and a Christian without cant, 
 Mr. Forsyth seems to have seized with praiseworthy tact the 
 precise attitude which it behooves a biographer to take when 
 narrating the life, the personal life of Cicero. Mr. Forsyth 
 produces what we venture to say will become one of the 
 classics of English biographical literature, and will be wel- 
 comed by readers of all ages and both sexes, of all professions 
 and of no profession at all. " — London Quarterly. 
 
VALUABLE WORKS ON 
 CLASSICAL LITERATURE. 
 
 THE HISTORY OF ROMAN LITERATURE. 
 From the Earliest Period to the Death of 
 
 Marcus Aurelius. With Chronological Tables, etc., 
 for the use of Students. By C. T. Cruttwell, M.A. Crown 
 8vo, $2,50. 
 
 Mr. Cruttwell's book is written throughout from a purely 
 literary point of view, and the aim has been to avoid tedious 
 and trivial details. The result is a volume not only suited 
 for the student, but remarkably readable for all who possess 
 any interest in the subject. 
 
 *' Mr. Cruttwell has given us a genuine history of Roman 
 literature, not merely a descriptive list of authors and their 
 productions, but a well elaborated portrayal of the successive 
 stages in the intellectual development of the Romans and the 
 various forms of expression which these took in literature." — 
 N'. V. Nation. 
 
 UNIFORM WITH THE ABOVE. 
 
 A HISTORY OF GREEK LITERATURE. 
 From the Earliest Period of Demosthenes. 
 
 By Frank Byron Jevons, M.A., Tutor in the University 
 of Durham. Crown 8vo, $2.50. 
 
 The author goes into detail with sufficient fullness to make 
 the history complete, but he never loses sight of the com- 
 manding lines along which the Greek mind moved, and a 
 clear understanding of which is necessary to every intelligent 
 student of universal literature. 
 
 " It is beyond all question the best history of Greek litera- 
 ture that has hitherto been published." — London Spectator. 
 
 ' ' With such a book as this within reach there is no reason 
 why any intelligent English reader may not get a thorough 
 and comprehensive insight into the spirit of Greek literature, 
 of its historic development, and of its successive and chief 
 masterpieces, which are here so finely characterized, analyzed, 
 and criticised." — Chicago Advance. 
 
TRANSLATIONS OF PLATO. 
 
 THE DIALOGUES OF PLATO. Translated 
 into English, with Analysis and Introduc- 
 tions. By B, JOWETT, M.A., Master of Balliol College, 
 Oxford. A new and cheaper edition. Four vols. , crown 8vo, 
 per set, $8,00. 
 
 "The present work of Professor Jowett will be welcomed 
 with profound interest, as the only adequate endeavor to 
 transport the most precious monument of Grecian thought 
 among the familiar treasures of English literature. The 
 noble reputation of Professor Jowett, both as a thinker and a 
 scholar, is a valid guaranty for the excellence of his perfor- 
 mance." — New York Tribune. 
 
 SOCRATES. A Translation of the Apology, 
 Crito, and parts of the Phaedo of Plato. 
 
 Containing the Defence of Socrates at his Trial, his Conver- 
 sation in Prison, with his Thoughts on the Future Life, and 
 an Account of his Death. With an Introduction by Professor 
 W. W. Goodwin, of Harvard College. i2mo, cloth, $1.00: 
 paper, 50 cents. 
 
 TALKS WITH SOCRATES ABOUT LIFE. 
 Translations from the Gorgias and the 
 
 Republic of Plato. i2mo, cloth, $1.00; paper, 50 
 cents. 
 
 A DAY IN ATHENS WITH SOCRATES. 
 Translations from the Protagoras and the 
 
 Republic of Plato. Being conversations between 
 Socrates and other Greeks on Virtue and Justice. i2mo, 
 cloth, $1.00 ; paper, 50 cents. 
 
 " Eminent scholars, men of much Latin and more Greek, 
 attest the skill and truth with which the versions are made ; 
 we can confidently speak of their English grace and clearness. 
 They seem a ' model of style,' because they are without 
 manner and perfectly simple." — W. D. HowELLS. 
 
 "We do not remember any translation of a Greek author 
 which is a better specimen of idiomatic English than this, or 
 a more faithful rendering of the real spirit of the original 
 into English as good and as simple as the Greek." — New York 
 Evenijtz Post. 
 
 CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS, 
 
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