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Title: The History of Rome, Book III

Author: Theodor Mommsen

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THE HISTORY OF ROME, BOOK III

From the Union of Italy to the Subjugation of Carthage and the Greek
States

by

THEODOR MOMMSEN

Translated with the Sanction of the Author

By

William Purdie Dickson, D.D., LL.D.
Professor of Divinity in the University of Glasgow

A New Edition Revised Throughout and Embodying Recent Additions






Preparer's Note

This work contains many literal citations of and references to
foreign words, sounds, and alphabetic symbols drawn from many
languages, including Gothic and Phoenician, but chiefly Latin and
Greek.  This English Gutenberg edition, constrained to the characters
of 7-bit ASCII code, adopts the following orthographic conventions:

1) Except for Greek, all literally cited non-English words that do
not refer to texts cited as academic references, words that in the
source manuscript appear italicized, are rendered with a single
preceding, and a single following dash; thus, -xxxx-.

2) Greek words, first transliterated into Roman alphabetic
equivalents, are rendered with a preceding and a following double-
dash; thus, --xxxx--.  Note that in some cases the root word itself
is a compound form such as xxx-xxxx, and is rendered as --xxx-xxx--

3) Simple unideographic references to vocalic sounds, single
letters, or alphabeic dipthongs; and prefixes, suffixes, and syllabic
references are represented by a single preceding dash; thus, -x,
or -xxx.

4) Ideographic references, referring to signs of representation rather
than to content, are represented as -"id:xxxx"-.  "id:" stands for
"ideograph", and indicates that the reader should form a picture based
on the following "xxxx"; which may be a single symbol, a word, or an
attempt at a picture composed of ASCII characters.  For example,
 --"id:GAMMA gamma"-- indicates an uppercase Greek gamma-form followed
by the form in lowercase.  Some such exotic parsing as this is
necessary to explain alphabetic development because a single symbol
may have been used for a number of sounds in a number of languages,
or even for a number of sounds in the same language at different
times.  Thus, "-id:GAMMA gamma" might very well refer to a Phoenician
construct that in appearance resembles the form that eventually
stabilized as an uppercase Greek "gamma" juxtaposed to one of
lowercase.  Also, a construct such as --"id:E" indicates a symbol
that with ASCII resembles most closely a Roman uppercase "E", but,
in fact, is actually drawn more crudely.

5) Dr. Mommsen has given his dates in terms of Roman usage, A.U.C.;
that is, from the founding of Rome, conventionally taken to be
753 B. C.  The preparer of this document, has appended to the end
of each volume a table of conversion between the two systems.





CONTENTS

BOOK III:  From the Union of Italy to the Subjugation of Carthage
           and the Greek States

   CHAPTER

      I. Carthage

     II. The War between Rome and Carthage Concerning Sicily

    III. The Extension of Italy to Its Natural Boundaries

     IV. Hamilcar and Hannibal

      V. The War under Hannibal to the Battle of Cannae

     VI. The War under Hannibal from Cannae to Zama

    VII. The West from the Peace of Hannibal to the Close
         of the Third Period

   VIII. The Eastern States and the Second Macedonian War

     IX. The War with Antiochus of Asia

      X. The Third Macedonian War

     XI. The Government and the Governed

    XII. The Management of Land and of Capital

   XIII. Faith and Manners

    XIV. Literature and Art




BOOK THIRD

From the Union of Italy to the Subjugation of Carthage and the Greek
States




Arduum res gestas scribere.

--Sallust.




Chapter I

Carthage

The Phoenicians

The Semitic stock occupied a place amidst, and yet aloof from, the
nations of the ancient classical world.  The true centre of the
former lay in the east, that of the latter in the region of the
Mediterranean; and, however wars and migrations may have altered the
line of demarcation and thrown the races across each other, a deep
sense of diversity has always severed, and still severs, the Indo-
Germanic peoples from the Syrian, Israelite, and Arabic nations.
This diversity was no less marked in the case of that Semitic people
which spread more than any other in the direction of the west--the
Phoenicians.  Their native seat was the narrow border of coast bounded
by Asia Minor, the highlands of Syria, and Egypt, and called Canaan,
that is, the "plain."  This was the only name which the nation itself
made use of; even in Christian times the African farmer called himself
a Canaanite.  But Canaan received from the Hellenes the name of
Phoenike, the "land of purple," or "land of the red men," and the
Italians also were accustomed to call the Canaanites Punians, as we
are accustomed still to speak of them as the Phoenician or Punic race.

Their Commerce

The land was well adapted for agriculture; but its excellent harbours
and the abundant supply of timber and of metals favoured above all
things the growth of commerce; and it was there perhaps, where the
opulent eastern continent abuts on the wide-spreading Mediterranean
so rich in harbours and islands, that commerce first dawned in all
its greatness upon man.  The Phoenicians directed all the resources of
courage, acuteness, and enthusiasm to the full development of commerce
and its attendant arts of navigation, manufacturing, and colonization,
and thus connected the east and the west.  At an incredibly early
period we find them in Cyprus and Egypt, in Greece and Sicily, in
Africa and Spain, and even on the Atlantic Ocean and the North Sea.
The field of their commerce reached from Sierra Leone and Cornwall
in the west, eastward to the coast of Malabar.  Through their hands
passed the gold and pearls of the East, the purple of Tyre, slaves,
ivory, lions' and panthers' skins from the interior of Africa,
frankincense from Arabia, the linen of Egypt, the pottery and fine
wines of Greece, the copper of Cyprus, the silver of Spain, tin from
England, and iron from Elba.  The Phoenician mariners brought to
every nation whatever it could need or was likely to purchase; and
they roamed everywhere, yet always returned to the narrow home to
which their affections clung.

Their Intellectual Endowments

The Phoenicians are entitled to be commemorated in history by the
side of the Hellenic and Latin nations; but their case affords a
fresh proof, and perhaps the strongest proof of all, that the
development of national energies in antiquity was of a one-sided
character. Those noble and enduring creations in the field of
intellect, which owe their origin to the Aramaean race, do not belong
primarily to the Phoenicians.  While faith and knowledge in a certain
sense were the especial property of the Aramaean nations and first
reached the Indo-Germans from the east, neither the Phoenician
religion nor Phoenician science and art ever, so far as we can
see, held an independent rank among those of the Aramaean family.
The religious conceptions of the Phoenicians were rude and uncouth,
and it seemed as if their worship was meant to foster rather than to
restrain lust and cruelty.  No trace is discernible, at least in times
of clear historical light, of any special influence exercised by their
religion over other nations.  As little do we find any Phoenician
architecture or plastic art at all comparable even to those of Italy,
to say nothing of the lands where art was native.  The most ancient
seat of scientific observation and of its application to practical
purposes was Babylon, or at any rate the region of the Euphrates.  It
was there probably that men first followed the course of the stars; it
was there that they first distinguished and expressed in writing the
sounds of language; it was there that they began to reflect on time
and space and on the powers at work in nature: the earliest traces
of astronomy and chronology, of the alphabet, and of weights and
measures, point to that region.  The Phoenicians doubtless availed
themselves of the artistic and highly developed manufactures of
Babylon for their industry, of the observation of the stars for
their navigation, of the writing of sounds and the adjustment of
measures for their commerce, and distributed many an important germ
of civilization along with their wares; but it cannot be demonstrated
that the alphabet or any other of those ingenious products of the
human mind belonged peculiarly to them, and such religious and
scientific ideas as they were the means of conveying to the Hellenes
were scattered by them more after the fashion of a bird dropping
grains than of the husbandman sowing his seed.  The power which
the Hellenes and even the Italians possessed, of civilizing and
assimilating to themselves the nations susceptible of culture with
whom they came into contact, was wholly wanting in the Phoenicians.
In the field of Roman conquest the Iberian and the Celtic languages
have disappeared before the Romanic tongue; the Berbers of Africa
speak at the present day the same language as they spoke in the times
of the Hannos and the Barcides.

Their Political Qualities

Above all, the Phoenicians, like the rest of the Aramaean nations as
compared with the Indo-Germans, lacked the instinct of political life
--the noble idea of self-governing freedom.  During the most
flourishing times of Sidon and Tyre the land of the Phoenicians was
a perpetual apple of contention between the powers that ruled on the
Euphrates and on the Nile, and was subject sometimes to the Assyrians,
sometimes to the Egyptians.  With half its power Hellenic cities
would have made themselves independent; but the prudent men of Sidon
calculated that the closing of the caravan-routes to the east or of
the ports of Egypt would cost them more than the heaviest tribute, and
so they punctually paid their taxes, as it might happen, to Nineveh or
to Memphis, and even, if they could not avoid it, helped with their
ships to fight the battles of the kings.  And, as at home the
Phoenicians patiently bore the oppression of their masters, so also
abroad they were by no means inclined to exchange the peaceful career
of commerce for a policy of conquest.  Their settlements were
factories.  It was of more moment in their view to deal in buying and
selling with the natives than to acquire extensive territories in
distant lands, and to carry out there the slow and difficult work of
colonization.  They avoided war even with their rivals; they allowed
themselves to be supplanted in Egypt, Greece, Italy, and the east of
Sicily almost without resistance; and in the great naval battles,
which were fought in early times for the supremacy of the western
Mediterranean, at Alalia (217) and at Cumae (280), it was the
Etruscans, and not the Phoenicians, that bore the brunt of the
struggle with the Greeks.  If rivalry could not be avoided, they
compromised the matter as best they could; no attempt was ever made
by the Phoenicians to conquer Caere or Massilia.  Still less, of
course, were the Phoenicians disposed to enter on aggressive war.
On the only occasion in earlier times when they took the field on the
offensive--in the great Sicilian expedition of the African Phoenicians
which ended in their defeat at Himera by Gelo of Syracuse (274)--it
was simply as dutiful subjects of the great-king and in order to avoid
taking part in the campaign against the Hellenes of the east, that
they entered the lists against the Hellenes of the west; just as their
Syrian kinsmen were in fact obliged in that same year to share the
defeat of the Persians at Salamis(1).

This was not the result of cowardice; navigation in unknown waters
and with armed vessels requires brave hearts, and that such were to be
found among the Phoenicians, they often showed.  Still less was it
the result of any lack of tenacity and idiosyncrasy of national
feeling; on the contrary the Aramaeans defended their nationality with
the weapons of intellect as well as with their blood against all the
allurements of Greek civilization and all the coercive measures of
eastern and western despots, and that with an obstinacy which no Indo-
Germanic people has ever equalled, and which to us who are Occidentals
seems to be sometimes more, sometimes less, than human.  It was the
result of that want of political instinct, which amidst all their
lively sense of the ties of race, and amidst all their faithful
attachment to the city of their fathers, formed the most essential
feature in the character of the Phoenicians.  Liberty had no charms
for them, and they lusted not after dominion; "quietly they lived,"
says the Book of Judges, "after the manner of the Sidonians, careless
and secure, and in possession of riches."

Carthage

Of all the Phoenician settlements none attained a more rapid and
secure prosperity than those which were established by the Tyrians and
Sidonians on the south coast of Spain and the north coast of Africa--
regions that lay beyond the reach of the arm of the great-king and the
dangerous rivalry of the mariners of Greece, and in which the natives
held the same relation to the strangers as the Indians in America held
to the Europeans.  Among the numerous and flourishing Phoenician
cities along these shores, the most prominent by far was the "new
town," Karthada or, as the Occidentals called it, Karchedon or
Carthago.  Although not the earliest settlement of the Phoenicians
in this region, and originally perhaps a dependency of the adjoining
Utica, the oldest of the Phoenician towns in Libya, it soon
outstripped its neighbours and even the motherland through the
incomparable advantages of its situation and the energetic activity
of its inhabitants.  It was situated not far from the (former) mouth
of the Bagradas (Mejerda), which flows through the richest corn
district of northern Africa, and was placed on a fertile rising
ground, still occupied with country houses and covered with groves
of olive and orange trees, falling off in a gentle slope towards the
plain, and terminating towards the sea in a sea-girt promontory.
Lying in the heart of the great North-African roadstead, the Gulf of
Tunis, at the very spot where that beautiful basin affords the best
anchorage for vessels of larger size, and where drinkable spring water
is got close by the shore, the place proved singularly favourable for
agriculture and commerce and for the exchange of their respective
commodities--so favourable, that not only was the Tyrian settlement
in that quarter the first of Phoenician mercantile cities, but even
in the Roman period Carthage was no sooner restored than it became the
third city in the empire, and even now, under circumstances far from
favourable and on a site far less judiciously chosen, there exists and
flourishes in that quarter a city of a hundred thousand inhabitants.
The prosperity, agricultural, mercantile, and industrial, of a city
so situated and so peopled, needs no explanation; but the question
requires an answer--in what way did this settlement come to attain
a development of political power, such as no other Phoenician
city possessed?

Carthage Heads the Western Phoenicians in Opposition to the Hellenes

That the Phoenician stock did not even in Carthage renounce its policy
of passiveness, there is no lack of evidence to prove.  Carthage paid,
even down to the times of its prosperity, a ground-rent for the space
occupied by the city to the native Berbers, the tribe of the Maxyes or
Maxitani; and although the sea and the desert sufficiently protected
the city from any assault of the eastern powers, Carthage appears to
have recognized--although but nominally--the supremacy of the great-
king, and to have paid tribute to him occasionally, in order to secure
its commercial communications with Tyre and the East.

But with all their disposition to be submissive and cringing,
circumstances occurred which compelled these Phoenicians to adopt a
more energetic policy.  The stream of Hellenic migration was pouring
ceaselessly towards the west: it had already dislodged the Phoenicians
from Greece proper and Italy, and it was preparing to supplant them
also in Sicily, in Spain, and even in Libya itself.  The Phoenicians
had to make a stand somewhere, if they were not willing to be totally
crushed.  In this case, where they had to deal with Greek traders and
not with the great-king, submission did not suffice to secure the
continuance of their commerce and industry on its former footing,
liable merely to tax and tribute.  Massilia and Cyrene were already
founded; the whole east of Sicily was already in the hands of the
Greeks; it was full time for the Phoenicians to think of serious
resistance.  The Carthaginians undertook the task; after long and
obstinate wars they set a limit to the advance of the Cyrenaeans,
and Hellenism was unable to establish itself to the west of the desert
of Tripolis.  With Carthaginian aid, moreover, the Phoenician settlers
on the western point of Sicily defended themselves against the Greeks,
and readily and gladly submitted to the protection of the powerful
cognate city.(2)  These important successes, which occurred in the
second century of Rome, and which saved for the Phoenicians the south-
western portion of the Mediterranean, served of themselves to give to
the city which had achieved them the hegemony of the nation, and to
alter at the same time its political position.  Carthage was no longer
a mere mercantile city: it aimed at the dominion of Libya and of a
part of the Mediterranean, because it could not avoid doing so.
It is probable that the custom of employing mercenaries contributed
materially to these successes.  That custom came into vogue in Greece
somewhere about the middle of the fourth century of Rome, but among
the Orientals and the Carians more especially it was far older, and it
was perhaps the Phoenicians themselves that began it.  By the system
of foreign recruiting war was converted into a vast pecuniary
speculation, which was quite in keeping with the character and
habits of the Phoenicians.

The Carthaginian Dominion in Africa

It was probably the reflex influence of these successes abroad,
that first led the Carthaginians to change the character of their
occupation in Africa from a tenure of hire and sufferance to one of
proprietorship and conquest.  It appears to have been only about the
year 300 of Rome that the Carthaginian merchants got rid of the rent
for the soil, which they had hitherto been obliged to pay to the
natives.  This change enabled them to prosecute a husbandry of their
own on a great scale.  From the outset the Phoenicians had been
desirous to employ their capital as landlords as well as traders,
and to practise agriculture on a large scale by means of slaves or
hired labourers; a large portion of the Jews in this way served the
merchant-princes of Tyre for daily wages.  Now the Carthaginians
could without restriction extract the produce of the rich Libyan soil
by a system akin to that of the modern planters; slaves in chains
cultivated the land--we find single citizens possessing as many as
twenty thousand of them.  Nor was this all.  The agricultural villages
of the surrounding region--agriculture appears to have been introduced
among the Libyans at a very early period, probably anterior to the
Phoenician settlement, and presumably from Egypt--were subdued by
force of arms, and the free Libyan farmers were transformed into
fellahs, who paid to their lords a fourth part of the produce of the
soil as tribute, and were subjected to a regular system of recruiting
for the formation of a home Carthaginian army.  Hostilities were
constantly occurring with the roving pastoral tribes (--nomades--)
on the borders; but a chain of fortified posts secured the territory
enclosed by them, and the Nomades were slowly driven back into the
deserts and mountains, or were compelled to recognize Carthaginian
supremacy, to pay tribute, and to furnish contingents.  About the
period of the first Punic war their great town Theveste (Tebessa, at
the sources of the Mejerda) was conquered by the Carthaginians.  These
formed the "towns and tribes (--ethne--) of subjects," which appear in
the Carthaginian state-treaties; the former being the non-free Libyan
villages, the latter the subject Nomades.

Libyphoenicians

To this fell to be added the sovereignty of Carthage over the other
Phoenicians in Africa, or the so-called Liby-phoenicians.  These
included, on the one hand, the smaller settlements sent forth from
Carthage along the whole northern and part of the north-western coast
of Africa--which cannot have been unimportant, for on the Atlantic
seaboard alone there were settled at one time 30,000 such colonists
--and, on the other hand, the old Phoenician settlements especially
numerous along the coast of the present province of Constantine
and Beylik of Tunis, such as Hippo afterwards called Regius (Bona),
Hadrumetum (Susa), Little Leptis (to the south of Susa)--the second
city of the Phoenicians in Africa--Thapsus (in the same quarter), and
Great Leptis (Lebda to the west of Tripoli).  In what way all these
cities came to be subject to Carthage--whether voluntarily, for their
protection perhaps from the attacks of the Cyrenaeans and Numidians,
or by constraint--can no longer be ascertained; but it is certain that
they are designated as subjects of the Carthaginians even in official
documents, that they had to pull down their walls, and that they had
to pay tribute and furnish contingents to Carthage.  They were
not liable however either to recruiting or to the land-tax, but
contributed a definite amount of men and money, Little Leptis for
instance paying the enormous sum annually of 365 talents (90,000
pounds); moreover they lived on a footing of equality in law with
the Carthaginians, and could marry with them on equal terms.(3)
Utica alone escaped a similar fate and had its walls and independence
preserved to it, less perhaps from its own power than from the pious
feeling of the Carthaginians towards their ancient protectors;
in fact, the Phoenicians cherished for such relations a remarkable
feeling of reverence presenting a thorough contrast to the
indifference of the Greeks.  Even in intercourse with foreigners it is
always "Carthage and Utica" that stipulate and promise in conjunction;
which, of course, did not preclude the far more important "new town"
from practically asserting its hegemony also over Utica.  Thus the
Tyrian factory was converted into the capital of a mighty North
-African empire, which extended from the desert of Tripoli to the
Atlantic Ocean, contenting itself in its western portion (Morocco and
Algiers) with the occupation, and that to some extent superficial, of
a belt along the coast, but in the richer eastern portion (the present
districts of Constantine and Tunis) stretching its sway over the
interior also and constantly pushing its frontier farther to the
south.  The Carthaginians were, as an ancient author significantly
expresses it, converted from Tyrians into Libyans.  Phoenician
civilization prevailed in Libya just as Greek civilization prevailed
in Asia Minor and Syria after the campaigns of Alexander, although
not with the same intensity.  Phoenician was spoken and written at
the courts of the Nomad sheiks, and the more civilized native tribes
adopted for their language the Phoenician alphabet;(4) to Phoenicise
them completely suited neither the genius of the nation nor
the policy of Carthage.

The epoch, at which this transformation of Carthage into the capital
of Libya took place, admits the less of being determined, because
the change doubtless took place gradually.  The author just mentioned
names Hanno as the reformer of the nation.  If the Hanno is meant who
lived at the time of the first war with Rome, he can only be regarded
as having completed the new system, the carrying out of which
presumably occupied the fourth and fifth centuries of Rome.

The flourishing of Carthage was accompanied by a parallel decline
in the great cities of the Phoenician mother-country, in Sidon and
especially in Tyre, the prosperity of which was destroyed partly by
internal commotions, partly by the pressure of external calamities,
particularly of its sieges by Salmanassar in the first, Nebuchodrossor
in the second, and Alexander in the fifth century of Rome.  The noble
families and the old firms of Tyre emigrated for the most part to
the secure and flourishing daughter-city, and carried thither their
intelligence, their capital, and their traditions.  At the time when
the Phoenicians came into contact with Rome, Carthage was as decidedly
the first of Canaanite cities as Rome was the first of the
Latin communities.

Naval Power of Carthage

But the empire of Libya was only half of the power of Carthage; its
maritime and colonial dominion had acquired, during the same period,
a not less powerful development.

Spain

In Spain the chief station of the Phoenicians was the primitive Tyrian
settlement at Gades (Cadiz).  Besides this they possessed to the west
and east of it a chain of factories, and in the interior the region of
the silver mines; so that they held nearly the modern Andalusia and
Granada, or at least the coasts of these provinces.  They made no
effort to acquire the interior from the warlike native nations; they
were content with the possession of the mines and of the stations for
traffic and for shell and other fisheries; and they had difficulty in
maintaining their ground even in these against the adjoining tribes.
It is probable that these possessions were not properly Carthaginian
but Tyrian, and Gades was not reckoned among the cities tributary to
Carthage; but practically, like all the western Phoenicians, it was
under Carthaginian hegemony, as is shown by the aid sent by Carthage
to the Gaditani against the natives, and by the institution of
Carthaginian trading settlements to the westward of Gades.  Ebusus and
the Baleares, again, were occupied by the Carthaginians themselves at
an early period, partly for the fisheries, partly as advanced posts
against the Massiliots, with whom furious conflicts were waged
from these stations.

Sardinia

In like manner the Carthaginians already at the end of the second
century of Rome established themselves in Sardinia, which was
utilized by them precisely in the same way as Libya.  While the
natives withdrew into the mountainous interior of the island to
escape from bondage as agricultural serfs, just as the Numidians in
Africa withdrew to the borders of the desert, Phoenician colonies
were conducted to Caralis (Cagliari) and other important points, and
the fertile districts along the coast were turned to account by the
introduction of Libyan cultivators.

Sicily

Lastly in Sicily the straits of Messana and the larger eastern half of
the island had fallen at an early period into the hands of the Greeks;
but the Phoenicians, with the help of the Carthaginians, retained the
smaller adjacent islands, the Aegates, Melita, Gaulos, Cossyra--the
settlement in Malta especially was rich and flourishing--and they kept
the west and north-west coast of Sicily, whence they maintained
communication with Africa by means of Motya and afterwards of
Lilybaeum and with Sardinia by means of Panormus and Soluntum.
The interior of the island remained in the possession of the natives,
the Elymi, Sicani, and Siceli.  After the further advance of the
Greeks was checked, a state of comparative peace had prevailed in
the island, which even the campaign undertaken by the Carthaginians
at the instigation of the Persians against their Greek neighbours on
the island (274) did not permanently interrupt, and which continued
on the whole to subsist till the Attic expedition to Sicily (339-341).
The two competing nations made up their minds to tolerate each other,
and confined themselves in the main each to its own field.

Maritime Supremacy
Rivalry with Syracuse

All these settlements and possessions were important enough in
themselves; but they were of still greater moment, inasmuch as they
became the pillars of the Carthaginian maritime supremacy.  By their
possession of the south of Spain, of the Baleares, of Sardinia, of
western Sicily and Melita, and by their prevention of Hellenic
colonies on the east coast of Spain, in Corsica, and in the region of
the Syrtes, the masters of the north coast of Africa rendered their
sea a closed one, and monopolized the western straits.  In the
Tyrrhene and Gallic seas alone the Phoenicians were obliged to
admit the rivalry of other nations.  This state of things might
perhaps be endured, so long as the Etruscans and the Greeks served
to counterbalance each other in these waters; with the former, as the
less dangerous rivals, Carthage even entered into an alliance against
the Greeks.  But when, on the fall of the Etruscan power--a fall
which, as is usually the case in such forced alliances, Carthage had
hardly exerted all her power to avert--and after the miscarriage of
the great projects of Alcibiades, Syracuse stood forth as indisputably
the first Greek naval power, not only did the rulers of Syracuse
naturally begin to aspire to dominion over Sicily and lower Italy
and at the same time over the Tyrrhene and Adriatic seas, but the
Carthaginians also were compelled to adopt a more energetic policy.
The immediate result of the long and obstinate conflicts between
them and their equally powerful and infamous antagonist, Dionysius
of Syracuse (348-389), was the annihilation or weakening of the
intervening Sicilian states--a result which both parties had an
interest in accomplishing--and the division of the island between
the Syracusans and Carthaginians.  The most flourishing cities in
the island--Selinus, Himera, Agrigentum, Gela, and Messana--were
utterly destroyed by the Carthaginians in the course of these unhappy
conflicts: and Dionysius was not displeased to see Hellenism destroyed
or suppressed there, so that, leaning for support on foreign
mercenaries enlisted from Italy, Gaul and Spain, he might rule in
greater security over provinces which lay desolate or which were
occupied by military colonies.  The peace, which was concluded after
the victory of the Carthaginian general Mago at Kronion (371), and
which subjected to the Carthaginians the Greek cities of Thermae (the
ancient Himera), Segesta, Heraclea Minoa, Selinus, and a part of the
territory of Agrigentum as far as the Halycus, was regarded by the two
powers contending for the possession of the island as only a temporary
accommodation; on both sides the rivals were ever renewing their
attempts to dispossess each other.  Four several times--in 360 in the
time of Dionysius the elder; in 410 in that of Timoleon; in 445 in
that of Agathocles; in 476 in that of Pyrrhus--the Carthaginians were
masters of all Sicily excepting Syracuse, and were baffled by its
solid walls; almost as often the Syracusans, under able leaders, such
as were the elder Dionysius, Agathocles, and Pyrrhus, seemed equally
on the eve of dislodging the Africans from the island.  But more and
more the balance inclined to the side of the Carthaginians, who were,
as a rule, the aggressors, and who, although they did not follow out
their object with Roman steadfastness, yet conducted their attack with
far greater method and energy than the Greek city, rent and worn out
by factions, conducted its defence.  The Phoenicians might with reason
expect that a pestilence or a foreign -condottiere- would not always
snatch the prey from their hands; and for the time being, at least at
sea, the struggle was already decided:(5) the attempt of Pyrrhus to
re-establish the Syracusan fleet was the last.  After the failure of
that attempt, the Carthaginian fleet commanded without a rival the
whole western Mediterranean; and their endeavours to occupy Syracuse,
Rhegium, and Tarentum, showed the extent of their power and the
objects at which they aimed.  Hand in hand with these attempts went
the endeavour to monopolize more and more the maritime commerce of
this region, at the expense alike of foreigners and of their own
subjects; and it was not the wont of the Carthaginians to recoil from
any violence that might help forward their purpose.  A contemporary
of the Punic wars, Eratosthenes, the father of geography (479-560),
affirms that every foreign mariner sailing towards Sardinia or towards
the Straits of Gades, who fell into the hands of the Carthaginians,
was thrown by them into the sea; and with this statement the fact
completely accords, that Carthage by the treaty of 406 (6) declared
the Spanish, Sardinian, and Libyan ports open to Roman trading
vessels, whereas by that of 448,(7) it totally closed them, with
the exception of the port of Carthage itself, against the same.

Constitution of Carthage
Council
Magistrates

Aristotle, who died about fifty years before the commencement of the
first Punic war, describes the constitution of Carthage as having
changed from a monarchy to an aristocracy, or to a democracy inclining
towards oligarchy, for he designates it by both names.  The conduct
of affairs was immediately vested in the hands of the Council of
Ancients, which, like the Spartan gerusia, consisted of the two kings
nominated annually by the citizens, and of twenty-eight gerusiasts,
who were also, as it appears, chosen annually by the citizens.  It was
this council which mainly transacted the business of the state-making,
for instance, the preliminary arrangements for war, appointing levies
and enlistments, nominating the general, and associating with him a
number of gerusiasts from whom the sub-commanders were regularly
taken; and to it despatches were addressed.  It is doubtful whether by
the side of this small council there existed a larger one; at any rate
it was not of much importance.  As little does any special influence
seem to have belonged to the kings; they acted chiefly as supreme
judges, and they were frequently so named (shofetes, -praetores-).
The power of the general was greater.  Isocrates, the senior
contemporary of Aristotle, says that the Carthaginians had an
oligarchical government at home, but a monarchical government in
the field; and thus the office of the Carthaginian general may be
correctly described by Roman writers as a dictatorship, although the
gerusiasts attached to him must have practically at least restricted
his power and, after he had laid down his office, a regular official
reckoning--unknown among the Romans--awaited him.  There existed no
fixed term of office for the general, and for this very reason he was
doubtless different from the annual king, from whom Aristotle also
expressly distinguishes him.  The combination however of several
offices in one person was not unusual among the Carthaginians, and it
is not therefore surprising that often the same person appears as at
once general and shofete.

Judges

But the gerusia and the magistrates were subordinate to the
corporation of the Hundred and Four (in round numbers the Hundred),
or the Judges, the main bulwark of the Carthaginian oligarchy.
It had no place in the original constitution of Carthage, but, like
the Spartan ephorate, it originated in an aristocratic opposition to
the monarchical elements of that constitution.  As public offices were
purchasable and the number of members forming the supreme board was
small, a single Carthaginian family, eminent above all others in
wealth and military renown, the clan of Mago,(8) threatened to unite
in its own hands the management of the state in peace and war and the
administration of justice.  This led, nearly about the time of the
decemvirs, to an alteration of the constitution and to the appointment
of this new board.  We know that the holding of the quaestorship gave
a title to admission into the body of judges, but that the candidate
had nevertheless to be elected by certain self-electing Boards of Five
(Pentarchies); and that the judges, although presumably by law chosen
from year to year, practically remained in office for a longer
period or indeed for life, for which reason they are usually called
"senators" by the Greeks and Romans.  Obscure as are the details, we
recognize clearly the nature of the body as an oligarchical board
constituted by aristocratic cooptation; an isolated but characteristic
indication of which is found in the fact that there were in Carthage
special baths for the judges over and above the common baths for the
citizens.  They were primarily intended to act as political jurymen,
who summoned the generals in particular, but beyond doubt the shofetes
and gerusiasts also when circumstances required, to a reckoning on
resigning office, and inflicted even capital punishment at pleasure,
often with the most reckless cruelty.  Of course in this as in every
instance, where administrative functionaries are subjected to the
control of another body, the real centre of power passed over from
the controlled to the controlling authority; and it is easy to
understand on the one hand how the latter came to interfere in all
matters of administration--the gerusia for instance submitted
important despatches first to the judges, and then to the people
--and on the other hand how fear of the control at home, which
regularly meted out its award according to success, hampered the
Carthaginian statesman and general in council and action.

Citizens

The body of citizens in Carthage, though not expressly restricted, as
in Sparta, to the attitude of passive bystanders in the business of
the state, appears to have had but a very slight amount of practical
influence on it In the elections to the gerusia a system of open
corruption was the rule; in the nomination of a general the people
were consulted, but only after the nomination had really been made by
proposal on the part of the gerusia; and other questions only went to
the people when the gerusia thought fit or could not otherwise agree.
Assemblies of the people with judicial functions were unknown in
Carthage.  The powerlessness of the citizens probably in the main
resulted from their political organization; the Carthaginian mess-
associations, which are mentioned in this connection and compared
with the Spartan Pheiditia, were probably guilds under oligarchical
management.  Mention is made even of a distinction between "burgesses
of the city" and "manual labourers," which leads us to infer that the
latter held a very inferior position, perhaps beyond the pale of law.

Character of the Government

On a comprehensive view of its several elements, the Carthaginian
constitution appears to have been a government of capitalists, such as
might naturally arise in a burgess-community which had no middle class
of moderate means but consisted on the one hand of an urban rabble
without property and living from hand to mouth, and on the other hand
of great merchants, planters, and genteel overseers.  The system of
repairing the fortunes of decayed grandees at the expense of the
subjects, by despatching them as tax-assessors and taskwork-overseers
to the dependent communities--that infallible token of a rotten urban
oligarchy--was not wanting in Carthage; Aristotle describes it as the
main cause of the tried durability of the Carthaginian constitution.
Up to his time no revolution worth mentioning had taken place in
Carthage either from above or from below.  The multitude remained
without leaders in consequence of the material advantages which the
governing oligarchy was able to offer to all ambitious or necessitous
men of rank, and was satisfied with the crumbs, which in the form of
electoral corruption or otherwise fell to it from the table of the
rich.  A democratic opposition indeed could not fail with such a
government to emerge; but at the time of the first Punic war it was
still quite powerless.  At a later period, partly under the influence
of the defeats which were sustained, its political influence appears
on the increase, and that far more rapidly than the influence of the
similar party at the same period in Rome; the popular assemblies began
to give the ultimate decision in political questions, and broke down
the omnipotence of the Carthaginian oligarchy.  After the termination
of the Hannibalic war it was even enacted, on the proposal of
Hannibal, that no member of the council of a Hundred could hold office
for two consecutive years; and thereby a complete democracy was
introduced, which certainly was under existing circumstances the only
means of saving Carthage, if there was still time to do so.  This
opposition was swayed by a strong patriotic and reforming enthusiasm;
but the fact cannot withal be overlooked, that it rested on a corrupt
and rotten basis.  The body of citizens in Carthage, which is compared
by well-informed Greeks to the people of Alexandria, was so disorderly
that to that extent it had well deserved to be powerless; and it might
well be asked, what good could arise from revolutions, where, as in
Carthage, the boys helped to make them.

Capital and Its Power in Carthage

From a financial point of view, Carthage held in every respect
the first place among the states of antiquity.  At the time of the
Peloponnesian war this Phoenician city was, according to the testimony
of the first of Greek historians, financially superior to all
the Greek states, and its revenues were compared to those of the
great-king; Polybius calls it the wealthiest city in the world.
The intelligent character of the Carthaginian husbandry--which, as was
the case subsequently in Rome, generals and statesmen did not disdain
scientifically to practise and to teach--is attested by the agronomic
treatise of the Carthaginian Mago, which was universally regarded by
the later Greek and Roman farmers as the fundamental code of rational
husbandry, and was not only translated into Greek, but was edited also
in Latin by command of the Roman senate and officially recommended
to the Italian landholders.  A characteristic feature was the close
connection between this Phoenician management of land and that of
capital: it was quoted as a leading maxim of Phoenician husbandry that
one should never acquire more land than he could thoroughly manage.
The rich resources of the country in horses, oxen, sheep, and goats,
in which Libya by reason of its Nomad economy perhaps excelled at that
time, as Polybius testifies, all other lands of the earth, were of
great advantage to the Carthaginians.  As these were the instructors
of the Romans in the art of profitably working the soil, they were so
likewise in the art of turning to good account their subjects; by
virtue of which Carthage reaped indirectly the rents of the "best
part of Europe," and of the rich--and in some portions, such as in
Byzacitis and on the lesser Syrtis, surpassingly productive--region
of northern Africa.  Commerce, which was always regarded in Carthage
as an honourable pursuit, and the shipping and manufactures which
commerce rendered flourishing, brought even in the natural course of
things golden harvests annually to the settlers there; and we have
already indicated how skilfully, by an extensive and evergrowing
system of monopoly, not only all the foreign but also all the inland
commerce of the western Mediterranean, and the whole carrying trade
between the west and east, were more and more concentrated in that
single harbour.

Science and art in Carthage, as afterwards in Rome, seem to have been
mainly dependent on Hellenic influences, but they do not appear to
have been neglected.  There was a respectable Phoenician literature;
and on the conquest of the city there were found rich treasures of
art--not created, it is true, in Carthage, but carried off from
Sicilian temples--and considerable libraries.  But even intellect
there was in the service of capital; the prominent features of its
literature were chiefly agronomic and geographical treatises, such
as the work of Mago already mentioned and the account by the admiral
Hanno of his voyage along the west coast of Africa, which was
originally deposited publicly in one of the Carthaginian temples, and
which is still extant in a translation.  Even the general diffusion of
certain attainments, and particularly of the knowledge of foreign
languages,(9) as to which the Carthage of this epoch probably stood
almost on a level with Rome under the empire, forms an evidence of the
thoroughly practical turn given to Hellenic culture in Carthage.  It
is absolutely impossible to form a conception of the mass of capital
accumulated in this London of antiquity, but some notion at least may
be gained of the sources of public revenue from the fact, that, in
spite of the costly system on which Carthage organized its wars and
in spite of the careless and faithless administration of the state
property, the contributions of its subjects and the customs-revenue
completely covered the expenditure, so that no direct taxes were
levied from the citizens; and further, that even after the second
Punic war, when the power of the state was already broken, the current
expenses and the payment to Rome of a yearly instalment of 48,000
pounds could be met, without levying any tax, merely by a somewhat
stricter management of the finances, and fourteen years after the
peace the state proffered immediate payment of the thirty-six
remaining instalments.  But it was not merely the sum total of its
revenues that evinced the superiority of the financial administration
at Carthage.  The economical principles of a later and more advanced
epoch are found by us in Carthage alone of all the more considerable
states of antiquity.  Mention is made of foreign state-loans, and in
the monetary system we find along with gold and silver mention of a
token-money having no intrinsic value--a species of currency not used
elsewhere in antiquity.  In fact, if government had resolved itself
into mere mercantile speculation, never would any state have solved
the problem more brilliantly than Carthage.

Comparison between Carthage and Rome
In Their Economy

Let us now compare the respective resources of Carthage and Rome.
Both were agricultural and mercantile cities, and nothing more; art
and science had substantially the same altogether subordinate and
altogether practical position in both, except that in this respect
Carthage had made greater progress than Rome.  But in Carthage the
moneyed interest preponderated over the landed, in Rome at this
time the landed still preponderated over the moneyed; and, while
the agriculturists of Carthage were universally large landlords
and slave-holders, in the Rome of this period the great mass of the
burgesses still tilled their fields in person.  The majority of the
population in Rome held property, and was therefore conservative; the
majority in Carthage held no property, and was therefore accessible
to the gold of the rich as well as to the cry of the democrats for
reform.  In Carthage there already prevailed all that opulence which
marks powerful commercial cities, while the manners and police of Rome
still maintained at least externally the severity and frugality of
the olden times.  When the ambassadors of Carthage returned from Rome,
they told their colleagues that the relations of intimacy among the
Roman senators surpassed all conception; that a single set of silver
plate sufficed for the whole senate, and had reappeared in every house
to which the envoys had been invited.  The sneer is a significant
token of the difference in the economic conditions on either side.

In Their Constitution

In both the constitution was aristocratic; the judges governed in
Carthage, as did the senate in Rome, and both on the same system of
police-control.  The strict state of dependence in which the governing
board at Carthage held the individual magistrate, and the injunction
to the citizens absolutely to refrain from learning the Greek language
and to converse with a Greek only through the medium of the public
interpreter, originated in the same spirit as the system of government
at Rome; but in comparison with the cruel harshness and the absolute
precision, bordering on silliness, of this Carthaginian state-
tutelage, the Roman system of fining and censure appears mild and
reasonable.  The Roman senate, which opened its doors to eminent
capacity and in the best sense represented the nation, was able
also to trust it, and had no need to fear the magistrates.
The Carthaginian senate, on the other hand, was based on a jealous
control of administration by the government, and represented
exclusively the leading families; its essence was mistrust of all
above and below it, and therefore it could neither be confident that
the people would follow whither it led, nor free from the dread of
usurpations on the part of the magistrates.  Hence the steady course
of Roman policy, which never receded a step in times of misfortune,
and never threw away the favours of fortune by negligence or
indifference; whereas the Carthaginians desisted from the struggle
when a last effort might perhaps have saved all, and, weary or
forgetful of their great national duties, allowed the half-completed
building to fall to pieces, only to begin it in a few years anew.
Hence the capable magistrate in Rome was ordinarily on a good
understanding with his government; in Carthage he was frequently
at decided feud with his masters at home, and was forced to resist
them by unconstitutional means and to make common cause with the
opposing party of reform.

In the Treatment of Their Subject

Both Carthage and Rome ruled over communities of lineage kindred with
their own, and over numerous others of alien race.  But Rome had
received into her citizenship one district after another, and had
rendered it even legally accessible to the Latin communities; Carthage
from the first maintained her exclusiveness, and did not permit the
dependent districts even to cherish a hope of being some day placed
upon an equal footing.  Rome granted to the communities of kindred
lineage a share in the fruits of victory, especially in the acquired
domains; and sought, by conferring material advantages on the rich and
noble, to gain over at least a party to her own interest in the other
subject states.  Carthage not only retained for herself the produce
of her victories, but even deprived the most privileged cities of
their freedom of trade.  Rome, as a rule, did not wholly take away
independence even from the subject communities, and imposed a fixed
tribute on none; Carthage despatched her overseers everywhere, and
loaded even the old-Phoenician cities with a heavy tribute, while her
subject tribes were practically treated as state-slaves.  In this way
there was not in the compass of the Carthagino-African state a single
community, with the exception of Utica, that would not have been
politically and materially benefited by the fall of Carthage; in the
Romano-Italic there was not one that had not much more to lose than
to gain in rebelling against a government, which was careful to avoid
injuring material interests, and which never at least by extreme
measures challenged political opposition to conflict.  If Carthaginian
statesmen believed that they had attached to the interests of Carthage
her Phoenician subjects by their greater dread of a Libyan revolt
and all the landholders by means of token-money, they transferred
mercantile calculation to a sphere to which it did not apply.
Experience proved that the Roman symmachy, notwithstanding its
seemingly looser bond of connection, kept together against Pyrrhus
like a wall of rock, whereas the Carthaginian fell to pieces like a
gossamer web as soon as a hostile army set foot on African soil.  It
was so on the landing of Agathocles and of Regulus, and likewise in
the mercenary war; the spirit that prevailed in Africa is illustrated
by the fact, that the Libyan women voluntarily contributed their
ornaments to the mercenaries for their war against Carthage.  In
Sicily alone the Carthaginians appear to have exercised a milder rule,
and to have attained on that account better results.  They granted to
their subjects in that quarter comparative freedom in foreign trade,
and allowed them to conduct their internal commerce, probably from the
outset and exclusively, with a metallic currency; far greater freedom
of movement generally was allowed to them than was permitted to the
Sardinians and Libyans.  Had Syracuse fallen into Carthaginian hands,
their policy would doubtless soon have changed.  But that result did
not take place; and so, owing to the well-calculated mildness of the
Carthaginian government and the unhappy distractions of the Sicilian
Greeks, there actually existed in Sicily a party really friendly to
the Phoenicians; for example, even after the island had passed to the
Romans, Philinus of Agrigentum wrote the history of the great war in
a thoroughly Phoenician spirit.  Nevertheless on the whole the
Sicilians must, both as subjects and as Hellenes, have been at
least as averse to their Phoenician masters as the Samnites
and Tarentines were to the Romans.

In Finance

In a financial point of view the state revenues of Carthage doubtless
far surpassed those of Rome; but this advantage was partly neutralized
by the facts, that the sources of the Carthaginian revenue--tribute
and customs--dried up far sooner (and just when they were most needed)
than those of Rome, and that the Carthaginian mode of conducting war
was far more costly than the Roman.

In Their Military System

The military resources of the Romans and Carthaginians were very
different, yet in many respects not unequally balanced.  The citizens
of Carthage still at the conquest of the city amounted to 700,000,
including women and children,(10) and were probably at least as
numerous at the close of the fifth century; in that century they were
able in case of need to set on foot a burgess-army of 40,000 hoplites.
At the very beginning of the fifth century, Rome had in similar
circumstances sent to the field a burgess-army equally strong;(11)
after the great extensions of the burgess-domain in the course of that
century the number of full burgesses capable of bearing arms must at
least have doubled.  But far more than in the number of men capable of
bearing arms, Rome excelled in the effective condition of the burgess-
soldier.  Anxious as the Carthaginian government was to induce its
citizens to take part in military service, it could neither furnish
the artisan and the manufacturer with the bodily vigour of the
husbandman, nor overcome the native aversion of the Phoenicians to
warfare.  In the fifth century there still fought in the Sicilian
armies a "sacred band" of 2500 Carthaginians as a guard for the
general; in the sixth not a single Carthaginian, officers excepted,
was to be met with in the Carthaginian armies, e. g. in that of Spain.
The Roman farmers, again, took their places not only in the muster-
roll, but also in the field of battle.  It was the same with the
cognate races of both communities; while the Latins rendered to
the Romans no less service than their own burgess-troops, the Liby-
phoenicians were as little adapted for war as the Carthaginians, and,
as may easily be supposed, still less desirous of it, and so they too
disappeared from the armies; the towns bound to furnish contingents
presumably redeemed their obligation by a payment of money.  In the
Spanish army just mentioned, composed of some 15,000 men, only a
single troop of cavalry of 450 men consisted, and that but partly, of
Liby-phoenicians.  The flower of the Carthaginian armies was formed by
the Libyan subjects, whose recruits were capable of being trained
under able officers into good infantry, and whose light cavalry was
unsurpassed in its kind.  To these were added the forces of the more
or less dependent tribes of Libya and Spain and the famous slingers of
the Baleares, who seem to have held an intermediate position between
allied contingents and mercenary troops; and finally, in case of need,
the hired soldiery enlisted abroad.  So far as numbers were concerned,
such an army might without difficulty be raised almost to any desired
strength; and in the ability of its officers, in acquaintance with
arms, and in courage it might be capable of coping with that of Rome.
Not only, however, did a dangerously long interval elapse, in the
event of mercenaries being required, ere they could be got ready,
while the Roman militia was able at any moment to take the field, but
--which was the main matter--there was nothing to keep together the
armies of Carthage but military honour and personal advantage, while
the Romans were united by all the ties that bound them to their common
fatherland.  The Carthaginian officer of the ordinary type estimated
his mercenaries, and even the Libyan farmers, very much as men
in modern warfare estimate cannon-balls; hence such disgraceful
proceedings as the betrayal of the Libyan troops by their general
Himilco in 358, which was followed by a dangerous insurrection of the
Libyans, and hence that proverbial cry of "Punic faith," which did the
Carthaginians no small injury.  Carthage experienced in full measure
all the evils which armies of fellahs and mercenaries could bring upon
a state, and more than once she found her paid serfs more dangerous
than her foes.

The Carthaginian government could not fail to perceive the defects
of this military system, and they certainly sought to remedy them by
every available means.  They insisted on maintaining full chests
and full magazines, that they might at any time be able to equip
mercenaries.  They bestowed great care on those elements which among
the ancients represented the modern artillery--the construction of
machines, in which we find the Carthaginians regularly superior to
the Siceliots, and the use of elephants, after these had superseded in
warfare the earlier war-chariots: in the casemates of Carthage there
were stalls for 300 elephants.  They could not venture to fortify the
dependent cities, and were obliged to submit to the occupation of the
towns and villages as well as of the open country by any hostile army
that landed in Africa--a thorough contrast to the state of Italy,
where most of the subject towns had retained their walls, and a
chain of Roman fortresses commanded the whole peninsula.  But on the
fortification of the capital they expended all the resources of money
and of art, and on several occasions nothing but the strength of its
walls saved the state; whereas Rome held a political and military
position so secure that it never underwent a formal siege.
Lastly, the main bulwark of the state was their war-marine, on which
they lavished the utmost care.  In the building as well as in the
management of vessels the Carthaginians excelled the Greeks; it was at
Carthage that ships were first built of more than three banks of oars,
and the Carthaginian war-vessels, at this period mostly quinqueremes,
were ordinarily better sailors than the Greek; the rowers, all of them
public slaves, who never stirred from the galleys, were excellently
trained, and the captains were expert and fearless.  In this respect
Carthage was decidedly superior to the Romans, who, with the few ships
of their Greek allies and still fewer of their own, were unable even
to show themselves in the open sea against the fleet which at that
time without a rival ruled the western Mediterranean.

If, in conclusion, we sum up the results of this comparison of
the resources of the two great powers, the judgment expressed by a
sagacious and impartial Greek is perhaps borne out, that Carthage and
Rome were, when the struggle between them began, on the whole equally
matched.  But we cannot omit to add that, while Carthage had put forth
all the efforts of which intellect and wealth were capable to provide
herself with artificial means of attack and defence, she was unable in
any satisfactory way to make up for the fundamental wants of a land
army of her own and of a symmachy resting on a self-supporting basis.
That Rome could only be seriously attacked in Italy, and Carthage only
in Libya, no one could fail to see; as little could any one fail to
perceive that Carthage could not in the long run escape from such
an attack.  Fleets were not yet in those times of the infancy of
navigation a permanent heirloom of nations, but could be fitted out
wherever there were trees, iron, and water.  It was clear, and had
been several times tested in Africa itself, that even powerful
maritime states were not able to prevent enemies weaker by sea from
landing.  When Agathocles had shown the way thither, a Roman general
could follow the same course; and while in Italy the entrance of an
invading army simply began the war, the same event in Libya put an
end to it by converting it into a siege, in which, unless special
accidents should intervene, even the most obstinate and heroic courage
must finally succumb.

Notes for Chapter I

1. II. IV. Victories of Salamis and Himera, and Their Effects

2. I. X. Phoenicians and Italians in Opposition to the Hellenes

3. The most precise description of this important class occurs in
the Carthaginian treaty (Polyb. vii. 9), where in contrast to the
Uticenses on the one hand, and to the Libyan subjects on the other,
they are called --ol Karchedonion uparchoi osoi tois autois nomois
chrontai--.  Elsewhere they are spoken of as cities allied
(--summachides poleis--, Diod. xx. 10) or tributary (Liv. xxxiv. 62;
Justin, xxii. 7, 3).  Their -conubium- with the Carthaginians is
mentioned by Diodorus, xx. 55; the -commercium- is implied in the
"like laws." That the old Phoenician colonies were included among
the Liby-phoenicians, is shown by the designation of Hippo as a
Liby-phoenician city (Liv. xxv. 40); on the other hand as to the
settlements founded from Carthage, for instance, it is said in the
Periplus of Hanno: "the Carthaginians resolved that Hanno should sail
beyond the Pillars of Hercules and found cities of Liby-phoenicians."
In substance the word "Liby-phoenicians" was used by the Carthaginians
not as a national designation, but as a category of state-law.  This
view is quite consistent with the fact that grammatically the name
denotes Phoenicians mingled with Libyans (Liv. xxi. 22, an addition to
the text of Polybius); in reality, at least in the institution of very
exposed colonies, Libyans were frequently associated with Phoenicians
(Diod. xiii. 79; Cic. pro Scauro, 42).  The analogy in name and legal
position between the Latins of Rome and the Liby-phoenicians
of Carthage is unmistakable.

4. The Libyan or Numidian alphabet, by which we mean that which was
and is employed by the Berbers in writing their non-Semitic language
--one of the innumerable alphabets derived from the primitive Aramaean
one--certainly appears to be more closely related in several of its
forms to the latter than is the Phoenician alphabet; but it by no
means follows from this, that the Libyans derived their writing not
from Phoenicians but from earlier immigrants, any more than the
partially older forms of the Italian alphabets prohibit us from
deriving these from the Greek.  We must rather assume that the Libyan
alphabet has been derived from the Phoenician at a period of the
latter earlier than the time at which the records of the Phoenician
language that have reached us were written.

5. II. VII. Decline of the Roman Naval Power

6. II. VII. Decline of the Roman Naval Power

7. II. VII. The Roman Fleet

8. II. IV. Etrusco-Carthaginian Maritime Supremacy

9. The steward on a country estate, although a slave, ought, according
to the precept of the Carthaginian agronome Mago (ap. Varro, R. R. i.
17), to be able to read, and ought to possess some culture.  In the
prologue of the "Poenulus" of Plautus, it is said of the hero of
the title:-

-Et is omnes linguas scit; sed dissimulat sciens
Se scire; Poenus plane est; quid verbit opus't-?

10. Doubts have been expressed as to the correctness of this number,
and the highest possible number of inhabitants, taking into account
the available space, has been reckoned at 250,000.  Apart from the
uncertainty of such calculations, especially as to a commercial city
with houses of six stories, we must remember that the numbering is
doubtless to be understood in a political, not in an urban, sense,
just like the numbers in the Roman census, and that thus all
Carthaginians would be included in it, whether dwelling in the city
or its neighbourhood, or resident in its subject territory or in other
lands.  There would, of course, be a large number of such absentees in
the case of Carthage; indeed it is expressly stated that in Gades, for
the same reason, the burgess-roll always showed a far higher number
than that of the citizens who had their fixed residence there.

11. II. VII. System of Government, note




Chapter II

The War between Rome and Carthage Concerning Sicily

State of Sicily

For upwards of a century the feud between the Carthaginians and
the rulers of Syracuse had devastated the fair island of Sicily.
On both sides the contest was carried on with the weapons of political
proselytism, for, while Carthage kept up communications with the
aristocratic-republican opposition in Syracuse, the Syracusan dynasts
maintained relations with the national party in the Greek cities that
had become tributary to Carthage.  On both sides armies of mercenaries
were employed to fight their battles--by Timoleon and Agathocles, as
well as by the Phoenician generals.  And as like means were employed
on both sides, so the conflict had been waged on both with a disregard
of honour and a perfidy unexampled in the history of the west.  The
Syracusans were the weaker party.  In the peace of 440 Carthage had
still limited her claims to the third of the island to the west of
Heraclea Minoa and Himera, and had expressly recognized the hegemony
of the Syracusans over all the cities to the eastward.  The expulsion
of Pyrrhus from Sicily and Italy (479) left by far the larger half of
the island, and especially the important Agrigentum, in the hands of
Carthage; the Syracusans retained nothing but Tauromenium and the
south-east of the island.

Campanian Mercenaries

In the second great city on the east coast, Messana, a band of foreign
soldiers had established themselves and held the city, independent
alike of Syracusans and Carthaginians.  These new rulers of Messana
were Campanian mercenaries.  The dissolute habits that had become
prevalent among the Sabellians settled in and around Capua,(1) had
made Campania in the fourth and fifth centuries--what Aetolia, Crete,
and Laconia were afterwards--the universal recruiting field for
princes and cities in search of mercenaries.  The semi-culture that
had been called into existence there by the Campanian Greeks, the
barbaric luxury of life in Capua and the other Campanian cities,
the political impotence to which the hegemony of Rome condemned them,
while yet its rule was not so stern as wholly to withdraw from them
the right of self-disposal--all tended to drive the youth of Campania
in troops to the standards of the recruiting officers.  As a matter of
course, this wanton and unscrupulous selling of themselves here, as
everywhere, brought in its train estrangement from their native land,
habits of violence and military disorder, and indifference to the
breach of their allegiance.  These Campanians could see no reason why
a band of mercenaries should not seize on their own behalf any city
entrusted to their guardianship, provided only they were in a position
to hold it--the Samnites had established their dominion in Capua
itself, and the Lucanians in a succession of Greek cities, after
a fashion not much more honourable.

Mammertines

Nowhere was the state of political relations more inviting for such
enterprises than in Sicily.  Already the Campanian captains who came
to Sicily during the Peloponnesian war had insinuated themselves in
this way into Entella and Aetna.  Somewhere about the year 470 a
Campanian band, which had previously served under Agathocles and after
his death (465) took up the trade of freebooters on their own account,
established themselves in Messana, the second city of Greek Sicily,
and the chief seat of the anti-Syracusan party in that portion of
the island which was still in the power of the Greeks.  The citizens
were slain or expelled, their wives and children and houses were
distributed among the soldiers, and the new masters of the city, the
Mamertines or "men of Mars," as they called themselves, soon became
the third power in the island, the north-eastern portion of which they
reduced to subjection in the times of confusion that succeeded the
death of Agathocles.  The Carthaginians were no unwilling spectators
of these events, which established in the immediate vicinity of the
Syracusans a new and powerful adversary instead of a cognate and
ordinarily allied or dependent city.  With Carthaginian aid the
Mamertines maintained themselves against Pyrrhus, and the untimely
departure of the king restored to them all their power.

Hiero of Syracuse
War between the Syracusans and the Mammertines

It is not becoming in the historian either to excuse the perfidious
crime by which the Mamertines seized their power, or to forget that
the God of history does not necessarily punish the sins of the fathers
to the fourth generation.  He who feels it his vocation to judge the
sins of others may condemn the human agents; for Sicily it might be a
blessing that a warlike power, and one belonging to the island, thus
began to be formed in it--a power which was already able to bring
eight thousand men into the field, and which was gradually putting
itself in a position to take up at the proper time and on its own
resources that struggle against the foreigners, to the maintenance
of which the Hellenes, becoming more and more unaccustomed to arms
notwithstanding their perpetual wars, were no longer equal.

In the first instance, however, things took another turn.  A young
Syracusan officer, who by his descent from the family of Gelo and
his intimate relations of kindred with king Pyrrhus as well as by the
distinction with which he had fought in the campaigns of the latter,
had attracted the notice of his fellow-citizens as well as of the
Syracusan soldiery--Hiero, son of Hierocles--was called by military
election to command the army, which was at variance with the citizens
(479-480).  By his prudent administration, the nobility of his
character, and the moderation of his views, he rapidly gained the
hearts of the citizens of Syracuse--who had been accustomed to the
most scandalous lawlessness in their despots--and of the Sicilian
Greeks in general.  He rid himself--in a perfidious manner, it is
true--of the insubordinate army of mercenaries, revived the citizen-
militia, and endeavoured, at first with the title of general,
afterwards with that of king, to re-establish the deeply sunken
Hellenic power by means of his civic troops and of fresh and more
manageable recruits.  With the Carthaginians, who in concert with the
Greeks had driven king Pyrrhus from the island, there was at that time
peace.  The immediate foes of the Syracusans were the Mamertines.
They were the kinsmen of those hated mercenaries whom the Syracusans
had recently extirpated; they had murdered their own Greek hosts;
 they had curtailed the Syracusan territory; they had oppressed and
plundered a number of smaller Greek towns.  In league with the Romans
who just about this time were sending their legions against the
Campanians in Rhegium, the allies, kinsmen, and confederates in crime
of the Mamertines,(2) Hiero turned his arms against Messana.  By a
great victory, after which Hiero was proclaimed king of the Siceliots
(484), he succeeded in shutting up the Mamertines within their city,
and after the siege had lasted some years, they found themselves
reduced to extremity and unable to hold the city longer against Hiero
on their own resources.  It is evident that a surrender on stipulated
conditions was impossible, and that the axe of the executioner, which
had fallen upon the Campanians of Rhegium at Rome, as certainly
awaited those of Messana at Syracuse.  Their only means of safety lay
in delivering up the city either to the Carthaginians or to the
Romans, both of whom could not but be so strongly set upon acquiring
that important place as to overlook all other scruples.  Whether it
would be more advantageous to surrender it to the masters of Africa
or to the masters of Italy, was doubtful; after long hesitation the
majority of the Campanian burgesses at length resolved to offer
the possession of their sea-commanding fortress to the Romans.

The Mammertines Received into the Italian Confederacy

It was a moment of the deepest significance in the history of the
world, when the envoys of the Mamertines appeared in the Roman senate.
No one indeed could then anticipate all that was to depend on the
crossing of that narrow arm of the sea; but that the decision, however
it should go, would involve consequences far other and more important
than had attached to any decree hitherto passed by the senate, must
have been manifest to every one of the deliberating fathers of the
city.  Strictly upright men might indeed ask how it was possible to
deliberate at all, and how any one could even think of suggesting
that the Romans should not only break their alliance with Hiero, but
should, just after the Campanians of Rhegium had been punished by them
with righteous severity, admit the no less guilty Sicilian accomplices
to the alliance and friendship of the state, and thereby rescue them
from the punishment which they deserved.  Such an outrage on propriety
would not only afford their adversaries matter for declamation,
but must seriously offend all men of moral feeling.  But even the
statesman, with whom political morality was no mere phrase, might ask
in reply, how Roman burgesses, who had broken their military oath and
treacherously murdered the allies of Rome, could be placed on a level
with foreigners who had committed an outrage on foreigners, where
no one had constituted the Romans judges of the one or avengers of
the other?  Had the question been only whether the Syracusans or
Mamertines should rule in Messana, Rome might certainly have
acquiesced in the rule of either.  Rome was striving for the
possession of Italy, as Carthage for that of Sicily; the designs of
the two powers scarcely then went further.  But that very circumstance
formed a reason why each desired to have and retain on its frontier an
intermediate power--the Carthaginians for instance reckoning in this
way on Tarentum, the Romans on Syracuse and Messana--and why, if that
course was impossible, each preferred to see these adjacent places
given over to itself rather than to the other great power.
As Carthage had made an attempt in Italy, when Rhegium and Tarentum
were about to be occupied by the Romans, to acquire these cities for
itself, and had only been prevented from doing so by accident, so in
Sicily an opportunity now offered itself for Rome to bring the city of
Messana into its symmachy; should the Romans reject it, it was not to
be expected that the city would remain independent or would become
Syracusan; they would themselves throw it into the arms of the
Phoenicians.  Were they justified in allowing an opportunity to
escape, such as certainly would never recur, of making themselves
masters of the natural tete de pont between Italy and Sicily, and of
securing it by means of a brave garrison on which they could, for good
reasons, rely?  Were they justified in abandoning Messana, and thereby
surrendering the command of the last free passage between the eastern
and western seas, and sacrificing the commercial liberty of Italy?
It is true that other objections might be urged to the occupation of
Messana besides mere scruples of feeling and of honourable policy.
That it could not but lead to a war with Carthage, was the least of
these; serious as was such a war, Rome might not fear it.  But there
was the more important objection that by crossing the sea the Romans
would depart from the purely Italian and purely continental policy
which they had hitherto pursued; they would abandon the system by
which their ancestors had founded the greatness of Rome, to enter upon
another system the results of which no one could foretell.  It was one
of those moments when calculation ceases, and when faith in men's own
and in their country's destiny alone gives them courage to grasp the
hand which beckons to them out of the darkness of the future, and
to follow it no one knows whither.  Long and seriously the senate
deliberated on the proposal of the consuls to lead the legions to the
help of the Mamertines; it came to no decisive resolution.  But the
burgesses, to whom the matter was referred, were animated by a lively
sense of the greatness of the power which their own energy had
established.  The conquest of Italy encouraged the Romans, as that of
Greece encouraged the Macedonians and that of Silesia the Prussians,
to enter upon a new political career.  A formal pretext for supporting
the Mamertines was found in the protectorate which Rome claimed the
right to exercise over all Italians.  The transmarine Italians were
received into the Italian confederacy;(3) and on the proposal of
the consuls the citizens resolved to send them aid (489).

Variance between Rome and Carthage
Carthaginians in Messana
Messana Seized by the Romans
War between the Romans and the Carthaginians and the Syracusans

Much depended on the way in which the two Sicilian powers, immediately
affected by this intervention of the Romans in the affairs of the
island, and both hitherto nominally in alliance with Rome, would
regard her interference.  Hiero had sufficient reason to treat the
summons, by which the Romans required him to desist from hostilities
against their new confederates in Messana, precisely in the same way
as the Samnites and Lucanians in similar circumstances had received
the occupation of Capua and Thurii, and to  answer the Romans by a
declaration of war.  If, however, he remained unsupported, such a war
would be folly; and it might be expected from his prudent and moderate
policy that he would acquiesce in what was inevitable, if Carthage
should be disposed for peace.  This seemed not impossible.  A Roman
embassy was now (489) sent to Carthage, seven years after the attempt
of the Phoenician fleet to gain possession of Tarentum, to demand
explanations as to these incidents.(4)  Grievances not unfounded, but
half-forgotten, once more emerged--it seemed not superfluous amidst
other warlike preparations to replenish the diplomatic armoury
with reasons for war, and for the coming manifesto to reserve to
themselves, as was the custom of the Romans, the character of the
party aggrieved.  This much at least might with entire justice be
affirmed, that the respective enterprises on Tarentum and Messana
stood upon exactly the same footing in point of design and of pretext,
and that it was simply the accident of success that made the
difference.  Carthage avoided an open rupture.  The ambassadors
carried back to Rome the disavowal of the Carthaginian admiral who
had made the attempt on Tarentum, along with the requisite false
oaths: the counter-complaints, which of course were not wanting on
the part of Carthage, were studiously moderate, and abstained from
characterizing the meditated invasion of Sicily as a ground for war.
Such, however, it was; for Carthage regarded the affairs of Sicily
--just as Rome regarded those of Italy--as internal matters in which
an independent power could allow no interference, and was determined
to act accordingly.  But Phoenician policy followed a gentler course
than that of threatening open war.  When the preparations of Rome for
sending help to the Mamertines were at length so far advanced that the
fleet formed of the war-vessels of Naples, Tarentum, Velia, and Locri,
and the vanguard of the Roman land army under the military tribune
Gaius Claudius, had appeared at Rhegium (in the spring of 490),
unexpected news arrived from Messana that the Carthaginians, having
come to an understanding with the anti-Roman party there, had as a
neutral power arranged a peace between Hiero and the Mamertines; that
the siege had in consequence been raised; and that a Carthaginian
fleet lay in the harbour of Messana, and a Carthaginian garrison in
the citadel, both under the command of admiral Hanno.  The Mamertine
citizens, now controlled by Carthaginian influence, informed the Roman
commanders, with due thanks to the federal help so speedily accorded
to them, that they were glad that they no longer needed it.
The adroit and daring officer who commanded the Roman vanguard
nevertheless set sail with his troops.  But the Carthaginians warned
the Roman vessels to retire, and even made some of them prizes; these,
however, the Carthaginian admiral, remembering his strict orders to
give no pretext for the outbreak of hostilities, sent back to his good
friends on the other side of the straits.  It almost seemed as if the
Romans had compromised themselves as uselessly before Messana, as the
Carthaginians before Tarentum.  But Claudius did not allow himself
to be deterred, and on a second attempt he succeeded in landing.
Scarcely had he arrived when he called a meeting of the citizens; and,
at his wish, the Carthaginian admiral also appeared at the meeting,
still imagining that he should be able to avoid an open breach.  But
the Romans seized his person in the assembly itself; and Hanno and the
Phoenician garrison in the citadel, weak and destitute of a leader,
were pusillanimous enough, the former to give to his troops the
command to withdraw, the latter to comply with the orders of their
captive general and to evacuate the city along with him.  Thus the
tete de pont of the island fell into the hands of the Romans.  The
Carthaginian authorities, justly indignant at the folly and weakness
of their general, caused him to be executed, and declared war against
the Romans.  Above all it was their aim to recover the lost place.  A
strong Carthaginian fleet, led by Hanno, son of Hannibal, appeared off
Messana; while the fleet blockaded the straits, the Carthaginian army
landing from it began the siege on the north side.  Hiero, who had
only waited for the Carthaginian attack to begin the war with Rome,
again brought up his army, which he had hardly withdrawn, against
Messana, and undertook the attack on the south side of the city.

Peace with Hiero

But meanwhile the Roman consul Appius Claudius Caudex had appeared at
Rhegium with the main body of his army, and succeeded in crossing on
a dark night in spite of the Carthaginian fleet.  Audacity and fortune
were on the side of the Romans; the allies, not prepared for an attack
by the whole Roman army and consequently not united, were beaten in
detail by the Roman legions issuing from the city; and thus the siege
was raised.  The Roman army kept the field during the summer, and
even made an attempt on Syracuse; but, when that had failed and the
siege of Echetla (on the confines of the territories of Syracuse and
Carthage) had to be abandoned with loss, the Roman army returned to
Messana, and thence, leaving a strong garrison behind them, to Italy.
The results obtained in this first campaign of the Romans out of Italy
may not quite have corresponded to the expectations at home, for the
consul had no triumph; nevertheless, the energy which the Romans
displayed in Sicily could not fail to make a great impression on the
Sicilian Greeks.  In the following year both consuls and an army twice
as large entered the island unopposed.  One of them, Marcus Valerius
Maximus, afterwards called from this campaign the "hero of Messana"
(-Messalla-), achieved a brilliant victory over the allied
Carthaginians and Syracusans.  After this battle the Phoenician army
no longer ventured to keep the field against the Romans; Alaesa,
Centuripa, and the smaller Greek towns generally fell to the victors,
and Hiero himself abandoned the Carthaginian side and made peace and
alliance with the Romans (491).  He pursued a judicious policy in
joining the Romans as soon as it appeared that their interference in
Sicily was in earnest, and while there was still time to purchase
peace without cessions and sacrifices.  The intermediate states in
Sicily, Syracuse and Messana, which were unable to follow out a policy
of their own and had only the choice between Roman and Carthaginian
hegemony, could not but at any rate prefer the former; because the
Romans had very probably not as yet formed the design of conquering
the island for themselves, but sought merely to prevent its being
acquired by Carthage, and at all events Rome might be expected to
substitute a more tolerable treatment and a due protection of
commercial freedom for the tyrannizing and monopolizing system that
Carthage pursued.  Henceforth Hiero continued to be the most
important, the steadiest, and the most esteemed ally of the Romans
in the island.

Capture of Agrigentum

The Romans had thus gained their immediate object.  By their double
alliance with Messana and Syracuse, and the firm hold which they had
on the whole east coast, they secured the means of landing on the
island and of maintaining--which hitherto had been a very difficult
matter--their armies there; and the war, which had previously been
doubtful and hazardous, lost in a great measure its character of risk.
Accordingly, no greater exertions were made for it than for the wars
in Samnium and Etruria; the two legions which were sent over to the
island for the next year (492) sufficed, in concert with the Sicilian
Greeks, to drive the Carthaginians everywhere into their fortresses.
The commander-in-chief of the Carthaginians, Hannibal son of Gisgo,
threw himself with the flower of his troops into Agrigentum, to defend
to the last that most important of the Carthaginian inland cities.
Unable to storm a city so strong, the Romans blockaded it with
entrenched lines and a double camp; the besieged, who numbered 50,000
soon suffered from want of provisions.  To raise the siege the
Carthaginian admiral Hanno landed at Heraclea, and cut off in turn the
supplies from the Roman besieging force.  On both sides the distress
was great.  At length a battle was resolved on, to put an end to the
state of embarrassment and uncertainty.  In this battle the Numidian
cavalry showed itself just as superior to the Roman horse as the Roman
infantry was superior to the Phoenician foot; the infantry decided
the victory, but the losses even of the Romans were very considerable.
The result of the successful struggle was somewhat marred by the
circumstance that, after the battle, during the confusion and fatigue
of the conquerors, the beleaguered army succeeded in escaping from
the city and in reaching the fleet.  The victory was nevertheless of
importance; Agrigentum fell into the hands of the Romans, and thus the
whole island was in their power, with the exception of the maritime
fortresses, in which the Carthaginian general Hamilcar, Hanno's
successor in command, entrenched himself to the teeth, and was not to
be driven out either by force or by famine.  The war was thenceforth
continued only by sallies of the Carthaginians from the Sicilian
fortresses and their descents on the Italian coasts.

Beginning of the Maritime War
The Romans Build a Fleet

In fact, the Romans now for the first time felt the real difficulties
of the war.  If, as we are told, the Carthaginian diplomatists before
the outbreak of hostilities warned the Romans not to push the matter
to a breach, because against their will no Roman could even wash his
hands in the sea, the threat was well founded.  The Carthaginian fleet
ruled the sea without a rival, and not only kept the coast towns of
Sicily in due obedience and provided them with all necessaries,
but also threatened a descent upon Italy, for which reason it was
necessary in 492 to retain a consular army there.  No invasion on a
large scale occurred; but smaller Carthaginian detachments landed on
the Italian coasts and levied contributions on the allies of Rome,
and what was worst of all, completely paralyzed the commerce of Rome
and her allies.  The continuance of such a course for even a short
time would suffice entirely to ruin Caere, Ostia, Neapolis, Tarentum,
and Syracuse, while the Carthaginians easily consoled themselves for
the loss of the tribute of Sicily with the contributions which they
levied and the rich prizes of their privateering.  The Romans now
learned, what Dionysius, Agathocles, and Pyrrhus had learned before,
that it was as difficult to conquer the Carthaginians as it was easy
to beat them in the field.  They saw that everything depended on
procuring a fleet, and resolved to form one of twenty triremes and
a hundred quinqueremes.  The execution, however, of this energetic
resolution was not easy.  The representation originating in the
schools of the rhetoricians, which would have us believe that the
Romans then for the first time dipped their oars in water, is no doubt
a childish tale; the mercantile marine of Italy must at this time have
been very extensive, and there was no want even of Italian vessels of
war.  But these were war-barks and triremes, such as had been in use
in earlier times; quinqueremes, which under the more modern system of
naval warfare that had originated chiefly in Cartilage were almost
exclusively employed in the line, had not yet been built in Italy.
The measure adopted by the Romans was therefore much as if a maritime
state of the present day were to pass at once from the building of
frigates and cutters to the building of ships of the line; and, just
as in such a case now a foreign ship of the line would, if possible,
be adopted as a pattern, the Romans referred their master shipbuilders
to a stranded Carthaginian -penteres- as a model No doubt the Romans,
had they wished, might have sooner attained their object with the aid
of the Syracusans and Massiliots; but their statesmen had too much
sagacity to desire to defend Italy by means of a fleet not Italian.
The Italian allies, however, were largely drawn upon both for the
naval officers, who must have been for the most part taken from the
Italian mercantile marine, and for the sailors, whose name (-socii
navales-) shows that for a time they were exclusively furnished by
the allies; along with these, slaves provided by the state and
the wealthier families were afterwards employed, and ere long also
the poorer class of burgesses.  Under such circumstances, and when we
take into account, as is but fair, on the one hand the comparatively
low state of shipbuilding at that time, and on the other hand the
energy of the Romans, there is nothing incredible in the statement
that the Romans solved within a year the problem--which baffled
Napoleon--of converting a continental into a maritime power, and
actually launched their fleet of 120 sail in the spring of 494.
It is true, that it was by no means a match for the Carthaginian fleet
in numbers and efficiency at sea; and these were points of the greater
importance, as the naval tactics of the period consisted mainly in
manoeuvring.  In the maritime warfare of that period hoplites and
archers no doubt fought from the deck, and projectile machines were
also plied from it; but the ordinary and really decisive mode of
action consisted in running foul of the enemy's vessels, for which
purpose the prows were furnished with heavy iron beaks: the vessels
engaged were in the habit of sailing round each other till one or the
other succeeded in giving the thrust, which usually proved decisive.
Accordingly the crew of an ordinary Greek trireme, consisting of about
200 men, contained only about 10 soldiers, but on the other hand 170
rowers, from 50 to 60 on each deck; that of a quinquereme numbered
about 300 rowers, and soldiers in proportion.

The happy idea occurred to the Romans that they might make up for
what their vessels, with their unpractised officers and crews,
necessarily lacked in ability of manoeuvring, by again assigning a
more considerable part in naval warfare to the soldiers.  They
stationed at the prow of each vessel a flying bridge, which could be
lowered in front or on either side; it was furnished on both sides
with parapets, and had space for two men in front.  When the enemy's
vessel was sailing up to strike the Roman one, or was lying alongside
of it after the thrust had been evaded, the bridge on deck was
suddenly lowered and fastened to its opponent by means of a grappling-
iron: this not only prevented the running down, but enabled the Roman
marines to pass along the bridge to the enemy's deck and to carry it
by assault as in a conflict on land.  No distinct body of marines
was formed, but land troops were employed, when required, for this
maritime service.  In one instance as many as 120 legionaries fought
in each ship on occasion of a great naval battle; in that case however
the Roman fleet had at the same time a landing-army on board.

In this way the Romans created a fleet which was a match for the
Carthaginians.  Those err, who represent this building of a Roman
fleet as a fairy tale, and besides they miss their aim; the feat must
be understood in order to be admired.  The construction of a fleet by
the Romans was in very truth a noble national work--a work through
which, by their clear perception of what was needful and possible, by
ingenuity in invention, and by energy in resolution and in execution,
they rescued their country from a position which was worse than at
first it seemed.

Naval Victory at Mylae

The outset, nevertheless, was not favourable to the Romans.  The Roman
admiral, the consul Gnaeus Cornelius Scipio, who had sailed for
Messana with the first seventeen vessels ready for sea (494), fancied,
when on the voyage, that he should be able to capture Lipara by a
coup de main.  But a division of the Carthaginian fleet stationed at
Panormus blockaded the harbour of the island where the Roman vessels
rode at anchor, and captured the whole squadron along with the consul
without a struggle.  This, however, did not deter the main fleet from
likewise sailing, as soon as its preparations were completed, for
Messana.  On its voyage along the Italian coast it fell in with a
Carthaginian reconnoitring squadron of less strength, on which it
had the good fortune to inflict a loss more than counterbalancing
the first loss of the Romans; and thus successful and victorious it
entered the port of Messana, where the second consul Gaius Duilius
took the command in room of his captured colleague.  At the promontory
of Mylae, to the north-west of Messana, the Carthaginian fleet, that
advanced from Panormus under the command of Hannibal, encountered the
Roman, which here underwent its first trial on a great scale.  The
Carthaginians, seeing in the ill-sailing and unwieldy vessels of the
Romans an easy prey, fell upon them in irregular order; but the newly
invented boarding-bridges proved their thorough efficiency.  The Roman
vessels hooked and stormed those of the enemy as they came up one
by one; they could not be approached either in front or on the sides
without the dangerous bridge descending on the enemy's deck.  When the
battle was over, about fifty Carthaginian vessels, almost the half of
the fleet, were sunk or captured by the Romans; among the latter was
the ship of the admiral Hannibal, formerly belonging to king Pyrrhus.
The gain was great; still greater the moral effect of the victory.
Rome had suddenly become a naval power, and held in her hand the
 means of energetically terminating a war which threatened to be
endlessly prolonged and to involve the commerce of Italy in ruin.

The War on the Coasts of Sicily and Sardinia

Two plans were open to the Romans.  They might attack Carthage on the
Italian islands and deprive her of the coast fortresses of Sicily and
Sardinia one after another--a scheme which was perhaps practicable
through well-combined operations by land and sea; and, in the event of
its being accomplished, peace might either be concluded with Carthage
on the basis of the cession of these islands, or, should such terms
not be accepted or prove unsatisfactory, the second stage of the war
might be transferred to Africa.  Or they might neglect the islands and
throw themselves at once with all their strength on Africa, not, in
the adventurous style of Agathocles, burning their vessels behind them
and staking all on the victory of a desperate band, but covering with
a strong fleet the communications between the African invading army
and Italy; and in that case a peace on moderate terms might be
expected from the consternation of the enemy after the first
successes, or, if the Romans chose, they might by pushing matters
to an extremity compel the enemy to entire surrender.

They chose, in the first instance, the former plan of operations.
In the year after the battle of Mylae (495) the consul Lucius Scipio
captured the port of Aleria in Corsica--we still possess the tombstone
of the general, which makes mention of this deed--and made Corsica a
naval station against Sardinia.  An attempt to establish a footing in
Ulbia on the northern coast of that island failed, because the fleet
wanted troops for landing.  In the succeeding year (496) it was
repeated with better success, and the open villages along the coast
were plundered; but no permanent establishment of the Romans took
place.  Nor was greater progress made in Sicily.  Hamilcar conducted
the war with energy and adroitness, not only by force of arms on sea
and land, but also by political proselytism.  Of the numerous small
country towns some every year fell away from the Romans, and had to
be  laboriously wrested afresh from the Phoenician grasp; while in
the coast fortresses the Carthaginians maintained themselves without
challenge, particularly in their headquarters of Panormus and in their
new stronghold of Drepana, to which, on account of its easier defence
by sea, Hamilcar had transferred the inhabitants of Eryx.  A second
great naval engagement off the promontory of Tyndaris (497), in which
both parties claimed the victory, made no change in the position of
affairs.  In this way no progress was made, whether in consequence
of the division and rapid change of the chief command of the Roman
troops, which rendered the concentrated management of a series of
operations on a small scale exceedingly difficult, or from the general
strategical relations of the case, which certainly, as the science
of war then stood, were unfavourable to the attacking party in
general,(5) and particularly so to the Romans, who were still on
the mere threshold of scientific warfare.  Meanwhile, although the
pillaging of the Italian coasts had ceased, the commerce of Italy
suffered not much less than it had done before the fleet was built.

Attack on Africa
Naval Victory of Ecnomus

Weary of a course of operations without results, and impatient to put
an end to the war, the senate resolved to change its system, and to
assail Carthage in Africa.  In the spring of 498 a fleet of 330 ships
of the line set sail for the coast of Libya: at the mouth of the river
Himera on the south coast of Sicily it embarked the army for landing,
consisting of four legions, under the charge of the two consuls Marcus
Atilius Regulus and Lucius Manlius Volso, both experienced generals.
The Carthaginian admiral suffered the embarkation of the enemy's
troops to take place; but on continuing their voyage towards Africa
the Romans found the Punic fleet drawn up in order of battle off
Ecnomus to protect its native land from invasion.  Seldom have greater
numbers fought at sea than were engaged in the battle that now ensued.
The Roman fleet: of 330 sail contained at least 100,000 men in its
crews, besides the landing army of about 40,000; the Carthaginian of
350 vessels was manned by at least an equal number; so that well-nigh
three hundred thousand men were brought into action on this day to
decide the contest between the two mighty civic communities.
The Phoenicians were placed in a single widely-extended line, with
their left wing resting on the Sicilian coast.  The Romans arranged
themselves in a triangle, with the ships of the two consuls as
admirals at the apex, the first and second squadrons drawn out in
oblique line to the right and left, and a third squadron, having the
vessels built for the transport of the cavalry in tow, forming the
line which closed the triangle.  They thus bore down in close order on
the enemy.  A fourth squadron placed in reserve followed more slowly.
The wedge-shaped attack broke without difficulty the Carthaginian
line, for its centre, which was first assailed, intentionally gave
way, and the battle resolved itself into three separate engagements.
While the admirals with the two squadrons drawn up on the wings
pursued the Carthaginian centre and were closely engaged with it, the
left wing of the Carthaginians drawn up along the coast wheeled round
upon the third Roman squadron, which was prevented by the vessels
which it had in tow from following the two others, and by a vehement
onset in superior force drove it against the shore; at the same time
the Roman reserve was turned on the open sea, and assailed from
behind, by the right wing of the Carthaginians.  The first of these
three engagements was soon at an end; the ships of the Carthaginian
centre, manifestly much weaker than the two Roman squadrons with which
they were engaged, took to flight.  Meanwhile the two other divisions
of the Romans had a hard struggle with the superior enemy; but in
close fighting the dreaded boarding-bridges stood them in good stead,
and by this means they succeeded in holding out till the two admirals
with their vessels could come up.  By their arrival the Roman reserve
was relieved, and the Carthaginian vessels of the right wing retired
before the superior force.  And now, when this conflict had been
decided in favour of the Romans, all the Roman vessels that still
could keep the sea fell on the rear of the Carthaginian left wing,
which was obstinately following up its advantage, so that it was
surrounded and almost all the vessels composing it were taken.  The
losses otherwise were nearly equal.  Of the Roman fleet 24 sail were
sunk; of the Carthaginian 30 were sunk, and 64 were taken.

Landing of Regulus in Africa

Notwithstanding its considerable loss, the Carthaginian fleet did not
give up the protection of Africa, and with that view returned to the
gulf of Carthage, where it expected the descent to take place and
purposed to give battle a second time.  But the Romans landed, not on
the western side of the peninsula which helps to form the gulf, but on
the eastern side, where the bay of Clupea presented a spacious harbour
affording protection in almost all winds, and the town, situated close
by the sea on a shield-shaped eminence rising out of the plain,
supplied an excellent defence for the harbour.  They disembarked the
troops without hindrance from the enemy, and established themselves
on the hill; in a short time an entrenched naval camp was constructed,
and the land army was at liberty to commence operations.  The Roman
troops ranged over the country and levied contributions: they were
able to send as many as 20,000 slaves to Rome.  Through the rarest
good fortune the bold scheme had succeeded at the first stroke, and
with but slight sacrifices: the end seemed attained.  The feeling of
confidence that in this respect animated the Romans is evinced by the
resolution of the senate to recall to Italy the greater portion of the
fleet and half of the army; Marcus Regulus alone remained in Africa
with 40 ships, 15,000 infantry, and 500 cavalry.  Their confidence,
however, was seemingly not overstrained.  The Carthaginian army, which
was disheartened, did not venture forth into the plain, but waited to
sustain discomfiture in the wooded defiles, in which it could make no
use of its two best arms, the cavalry and the elephants.  The towns
surrendered -en masse-; the Numidians rose in insurrection, and
overran the country far and wide.  Regulus might hope to begin the
next campaign with the siege of the capital, and with that view he
pitched his camp for the winter in its immediate vicinity at Tunes.

Vain Negotiations for Peace

The spirit of the Carthaginians was broken: they sued for peace.
But the conditions which the consul proposed--not merely the cession
of Sicily and Sardinia, but the conclusion of an alliance on unequal
terms with Rome, which would have bound the Carthaginians to renounce
a war-marine of their own and to furnish vessels for the Roman wars
--conditions which would have placed Carthage on a level with Neapolis
and Tarentum, could not be accepted, so long as a Carthaginian army
kept the field and a Carthaginian fleet kept the sea, and the capital
stood unshaken.

Preparations of Carthage

The mighty enthusiasm, which is wont to blaze up nobly among Oriental
nations, even the most abased, on the approach of extreme peril--the
energy of dire necessity--impelled the Carthaginians to exertions,
such as were by no means expected from a nation of shopkeepers.
Hamilcar, who had carried on the guerilla war against the Romans in
Sicily with so much success, appeared in Libya with the flower of
the Sicilian troops, which furnished an admirable nucleus for the
newly-levied force.  The connections and gold of the Carthaginians,
moreover, brought to them excellent Numidian horsemen in troops,
and also numerous Greek mercenaries; amongst whom was the celebrated
captain Xanthippus of Sparta, whose talent for organization and
strategical skill were of great service to his new masters.(6)  While
the Carthaginians were thus making their preparations in the course of
the winter, the Roman general remained inactive at Tunes.  Whether it
was that he did not anticipate the storm which was gathering over his
head, or that a sense of military honour prohibited him from doing
what his position demanded--instead of renouncing a siege which he was
not in a condition even to attempt, and shutting himself up in the
stronghold of Clupea, he remained with a handful of men before the
walls of the hostile capital, neglecting even to secure his line of
retreat to the naval camp, and neglecting to provide himself with
--what above all he wanted, and what might have been so easily
obtained through negotiation with the revolted Numidian tribes
--a good light cavalry.  He thus wantonly brought himself and
his army into a plight similar to that which formerly befell
Agathocles in his desperate adventurous expedition.

Defeat of Regulus

When spring came (499), the state of affairs had so changed, that now
the Carthaginians were the first to take the field and to offer battle
to the Romans.  It was natural that they should do so, for everything
depended on their getting quit of the army of Regulus, before
reinforcements could arrive from Italy.  The same reason should have
led the Romans to desire delay; but, relying on their invincibleness
in the open field, they at once accepted battle notwithstanding their
inferiority of strength--for, although the numbers of the infantry on
both sides were nearly the same, their 4000 cavalry and 100 elephants
gave to the Carthaginians a decided superiority--and notwithstanding
the unfavourable nature of the ground, the Carthaginians having taken
up their position in a broad plain presumably not far from Tunes.
Xanthippus, who on this day commanded the Carthaginians, first threw
his cavalry on that of the enemy, which was stationed, as usual, on
the two flanks of the line of battle; the few squadrons of the Romans
were scattered like dust in a moment before the masses of the enemy's
horse, and the Roman infantry found itself outflanked by them and
surrounded.  The legions, unshaken by their apparent danger, advanced
to attack the enemy's line; and, although the row of elephants placed
as a protection in front of it checked the right wing and centre of
the Romans, the left wing at any rate, marching past the elephants,
engaged the mercenary infantry on the right of the enemy, and
overthrew them completely.  But this very success broke up the Roman
ranks.  The main body indeed, assailed by the elephants in front and
by the cavalry on the flanks and in the rear, formed square, and
defended itself with heroic courage, but the close masses were at
length broken and swept away.  The victorious left wing encountered
the still fresh Carthaginian centre, where the Libyan infantry
prepared a similar fate for it.  From the nature of the ground and the
superior numbers of the enemy's cavalry, all the combatants in these
masses were cut down or taken prisoners; only two thousand men,
chiefly, in all probability, the light troops and horsemen who were
dispersed at the commencement, gained--while the Roman legions stood
to be slaughtered--a start sufficient to enable them with difficulty
to reach Clupea.  Among the few prisoners was the consul himself, who
afterwards died in Carthage; his family, under the idea that he had
not been treated by the Carthaginians according to the usages of war,
wreaked a most revolting vengeance on two noble Carthaginian captives,
till even the slaves were moved to pity, and on their information the
tribunes put a stop to the shameful outrage.(7)

Evacuation of Africa

When the terrible news reached Rome, the first care of the Romans was
naturally directed to the saving of the force shut up in Clupea.  A
Roman fleet of 350 sail immediately started, and after a noble victory
at the Hermaean promontory, in which the Carthaginians lost 114 ships,
it reached Clupea just in time to deliver from their hard-pressed
position the remains of the defeated army which were there entrenched.
Had it been despatched before the catastrophe occurred, it might have
converted the defeat into a victory that would probably have put an
end to the Punic wars.  But so completely had the Romans now lost
their judgment, that after a successful conflict before Clupea they
embarked all their troops and sailed home, voluntarily evacuating
that important and easily defended position which secured to
them facilities for landing in Africa, and abandoning their
numerous African allies without protection to the vengeance of the
Carthaginians.  The Carthaginians did not neglect the opportunity of
filling their empty treasury, and of making their subjects clearly
understand the consequences of unfaithfulness.  An extraordinary
contribution of 1000 talents of silver (244,000 pounds) and 20,000
oxen was levied, and the sheiks in all the communities that had
revolted were crucified; it is said that there were three thousand of
them, and that this revolting atrocity on the part of the Carthaginian
authorities really laid the foundation of the revolution which broke
forth in Africa some years later.  Lastly, as if to fill up the
measure of misfortune to the Romans even as their measure of success
had been filled before, on the homeward voyage of the fleet three-
fourths of the Roman vessels perished with their crews in a violent
storm; only eighty reached their port (July 499).  The captains had
foretold the impending mischief, but the extemporised Roman admirals
had nevertheless given orders to sail.

Recommencement of the War in Sicily

After successes so immense the Carthaginians were able to resume their
offensive operations, which had long been in abeyance.  Hasdrubal son
of Hanno landed at Lilybaeum with a strong force, which was enabled,
particularly by its enormous number of elephants--amounting to 140
--to keep the field against the Romans: the last battle had shown
that it was possible to make up for the want of good infantry to some
extent by elephants and cavalry.  The Romans also resumed the war in
Sicily; the annihilation of their invading army had, as the voluntary
evacuation of Clupea shows, at once restored ascendency in the senate
to the party which was opposed to the war in Africa and was content
with the gradual subjugation of the islands.  But for this purpose
too there was need of a fleet; and, since that which had conquered at
Mylae, at Ecnomus, and at the Hermaean promontory was destroyed, they
built a new one.  Keels were at once laid down for 220 new vessels
of war--they had never hitherto undertaken the building of so many
simultaneously--and in the incredibly short space of three months
they were all ready for sea.  In the spring of 500 the Roman fleet,
numbering 300 vessels mostly new, appeared on the north coast of
Sicily; Panormus, the most important town in Carthaginian Sicily,
was acquired through a successful attack from the seaboard, and the
smaller places there, Soluntum, Cephaloedium, and Tyndaris, likewise
fell into the hands of the Romans, so that along the whole north coast
of the island Thermae alone was retained by the Carthaginians.
Panormus became thenceforth one of the chief stations of the Romans
in Sicily.  The war by land, nevertheless, made no progress; the two
armies stood face to face before Lilybaeum, but the Roman commanders,
who knew not how to encounter the mass of elephants, made no attempt
to compel a pitched battle.

In the ensuing year (501) the consuls, instead of pursuing sure
advantages in Sicily, preferred to make an expedition to Africa, for
the purpose not of landing but of plundering the coast towns.  They
accomplished their object without opposition; but, after having first
run aground in the troublesome, and to their pilots unknown, waters of
the Lesser Syrtis, whence they with difficulty got clear again, the
fleet encountered a storm between Sicily and Italy, which cost more
than 150 ships.  On this occasion also the pilots, notwithstanding
their representations and entreaties to be allowed to take the course
along the coast, were obliged by command of the consuls to steer
straight from Panormus across the open sea to Ostia.

Suspension of the Maritime War
Roman Victory at Panormus

Despondency now seized the fathers of the city; they resolved to
reduce their war-fleet to sixty sail, and to confine the war by sea
to the defence of the coasts, and to the convoy of transports.
Fortunately, just at this time, the languishing war in Sicily took a
more favourable turn.  In the year 502, Thermae, the last point which
the Carthaginians held on the north coast, and the important island of
Lipara, had fallen into the hands of the Romans, and in the following
year (summer of 503) the consul Lucius Caecilius Metellus achieved
a brilliant victory over the army of elephants under the walls of
Panormus.  These animals, which had been imprudently brought forward,
were wounded by the light troops of the Romans stationed in the moat
of the town; some of them fell into the moat, and others fell back
on their own troops, who crowded in wild disorder along with the
elephants towards the beach, that they might be picked up by the
Phoenician ships.  One hundred and twenty elephants were captured, and
the Carthaginian army, whose strength depended on these animals, was
obliged once more to shut itself up in its fortresses.  Eryx soon fell
into the hands of the Romans (505), and the Carthaginians retained
nothing in the island but Drepana and Lilybaeum.  Carthage a second
time offered peace; but the victory of Metellus and the exhaustion
of the enemy gave to the more energetic party the upper hand
in the senate.

Siege of Lilybaeum

Peace was declined, and it was resolved to prosecute in earnest the
siege of the two Sicilian cities and for this purpose to send to sea
once more a fleet of 200 sail.  The siege of Lilybaeum, the first
great and regular siege undertaken by Rome, and one of the most
obstinate known in history, was opened by the Romans with an important
success: they succeeded in introducing their fleet into the harbour
of the city, and in blockading it on the side facing the sea.
The besiegers, however, were not able to close the sea completely.
In spite of their sunken vessels and their palisades, and in spite of
the most careful vigilance, dexterous mariners, accurately acquainted
with the shallows and channels, maintained with swift-sailing vessels
a regular communication between the besieged in the city and the
Carthaginian fleet in the harbour of Drepana.  In fact after some
time a Carthaginian squadron of 50 sail succeeded in running into
the harbour, in throwing a large quantity of provisions and a
reinforcement of 10,000 men into the city, and in returning
unmolested.  The besieging land army was not much more fortunate.
They began with a regular attack; machines were erected, and in a
short time the batteries had demolished six of the towers flanking
the walls, so that the breach soon appeared to be practicable.  But
the able Carthaginian commander Himilco parried this assault by giving
orders for the erection of a second wall behind the breach.  An
attempt of the Romans to enter into an understanding with the garrison
was likewise frustrated in proper time.  And, after a first sally
 made for the purpose of burning the Roman set of machines had
been repulsed, the Carthaginians succeeded during a stormy night
in effecting their object.  Upon this the Romans abandoned their
preparations for an assault, and contented themselves with blockading
the walls by land and water.  The prospect of success in this way was
indeed very remote, so long as they were unable wholly to preclude the
entrance of the enemy's vessels; and the army of the besiegers was in
a condition not much better than that of the besieged in the city,
because their supplies were frequently cut off by the numerous and
bold light cavalry of the Carthaginians, and their ranks began to be
thinned by the diseases indigenous to that unwholesome region.  The
capture of Lilybaeum, however, was of sufficient importance to induce
a patient perseverance in the laborious task, which promised to be
crowned in time with the desired success.

Defeat of the Roman Fleet before Drepana
Annililation of the Roman Transport Fleet

But the new consul Publius Claudius considered the task of maintaining
the investment of Lilybaeum too trifling: he preferred to change once
more the plan of operations, and with his numerous newly-manned
vessels suddenly to surprise the Carthaginian fleet which was waiting
in the neighbouring harbour of Drepana.  With the whole blockading
squadron, which had taken on board volunteers from the legions, he
started about midnight, and sailing in good order with his right wing
by the shore, and his left in the open sea, he safely reached the
harbour of Drepana at sunrise.  Here the Phoenician admiral Atarbas
was in command.  Although surprised, he did not lose his presence of
mind or allow himself to be shut up in the harbour, but as the Roman
ships entered the harbour, which opens to the south in the form of
a sickle, on the one side, he withdrew his vessels from it by the
opposite side which was still free, and stationed them in line on the
outside.  No other course remained to the Roman admiral but to recall
as speedily as possible the foremost vessels from the harbour, and to
make his arrangements for battle in like manner in front of it; but in
consequence of this retrograde movement he lost the free choice of his
position, and was obliged to accept battle in a line, which on the one
hand was outflanked by that of the enemy to the extent of five ships
--for there was not time fully to deploy the vessels as they issued
from the harbour--and on the other hand was crowded so close on the
shore that his vessels could neither retreat, nor sail behind the
line so as to come to each other's aid.  Not only was the battle lost
before it began, but the Roman fleet was so completely ensnared that
it fell almost wholly into the hands of the enemy.  The consul indeed
escaped, for he was the first who fled; but 93 Roman vessels, more
than three-fourths of the blockading fleet, with the flower of the
Roman legions on board, fell into the hands of the Phoenicians.  It
was the first and only great naval victory which the Carthaginians
gained over the Romans.  Lilybaeum was practically relieved on the
side towards the sea, for though the remains of the Roman fleet
returned to their former position, they were now much too weak
seriously to blockade a harbour which had never been wholly closed,
and they could only protect themselves from the attack of the
Carthaginian ships with the assistance of the land army.  That single
imprudent act of an inexperienced and criminally thoughtless officer
had thrown away all that had been with so much difficulty attained
by the long and galling warfare around the fortress; and those war-
vessels of the Romans which his presumption had not forfeited were
shortly afterwards destroyed by the folly of his colleague.

The second consul, Lucius Junius Pullus, who had received the charge
of lading at Syracuse the supplies destined for the army at Lilybaeum,
and of convoying the transports along the south coast of the island
with a second Roman fleet of 120 war-vessels, instead of keeping his
ships together, committed the error of allowing the first convoy
to depart alone and of only following with the second.  When the
Carthaginian vice-admiral, Carthalo, who with a hundred select ships
blockaded the Roman fleet in the port of Lilybaeum, received the
intelligence, he proceeded to the south coast of the island, cut off
the two Roman squadrons from each other by interposing between them,
and compelled them to take shelter in two harbours of refuge on the
inhospitable shores of Gela and Camarina.  The attacks of the
Carthaginians were indeed bravely repulsed by the Romans with the help
of the shore batteries, which had for some time been erected there
as everywhere along the coast; but, as the Romans could not hope to
effect a junction and continue their voyage, Carthalo could leave
the elements to finish his work.  The next great storm, accordingly,
completely annihilated the two Roman fleets in their wretched
roadsteads, while the Phoenician admiral easily weathered it on
the open sea with his unencumbered and well-managed ships.
The Romans, however, succeeded in saving the greater part
of the crews and cargoes (505).

Perplexity of the Romans

The Roman senate was in perplexity.  The war had now reached its
sixteenth year; and they seemed to be farther from their object in
the sixteenth than in the first.  In this war four large fleets had
perished, three of them with Roman armies on board; a fourth select
land army had been destroyed by the enemy in Libya; to say nothing of
the numerous losses which had been occasioned by the minor naval
engagements, and by the battles, and still more by the outpost
warfare and the diseases, of Sicily.

What a multitude of human lives the war swept away may be seen from
the fact, that the burgess-roll merely from 502 to 507 decreased by
about 40,000, a sixth part of the entire number; and this does not
include the losses of the allies, who bore the whole brunt of the war
by sea, and, in addition, at least an equal proportion with the Romans
of the warfare by land.  Of the financial loss it is not possible to
form any conception; but both the direct damage sustained in ships and
-materiel-, and the indirect injury through the paralyzing of trade,
must have been enormous.  An evil still greater than this was the
exhaustion of all the methods by which they had sought to terminate
the war.  They had tried a landing in Africa with their forces fresh
and in the full career of victory, and had totally failed.  They had
undertaken to storm Sicily town by town; the lesser places had fallen,
but the two mighty naval strongholds of Lilybaeum and Drepana stood
more invincible than ever.  What were they to do?  In fact, there was
to some extent reason for despondency.  The fathers of the city became
faint-hearted; they allowed matters simply to take their course,
knowing well that a war protracted without object or end was more
pernicious for Italy than the straining of the last man and the last
penny, but without that courage and confidence in the nation and in
fortune, which could demand new sacrifices in addition to those that
had already been lavished in vain.  They dismissed the fleet; at the
most they encouraged privateering, and with that view placed the war-
vessels of the state at the disposal of captains who were ready to
undertake a piratical warfare on their own account.  The war by land
was continued nominally, because they could not do otherwise; but
they were content with observing the Sicilian fortresses and barely
maintaining what they possessed,--measures which, in the absence
of a fleet, required a very numerous army and extremely
costly preparations.

Now, if ever, the time had come when Carthage was in a position to
humble her mighty antagonist.  She, too, of course must have felt
some exhaustion of resources; but, in the circumstances, the
Phoenician finances could not possibly be so disorganized as to
prevent the Carthaginians from continuing the war--which cost them
little beyond money--offensively and with energy.  The Carthaginian
government, however, was not energetic, but on the contrary weak and
indolent, unless impelled to action by an easy and sure gain or by
extreme necessity.  Glad to be rid of the Roman fleet, they foolishly
allowed their own also to fall into decay, and began after the example
of the enemy to confine their operations by land and sea to the petty
warfare in and around Sicily.

Petty War in Sicily
Hamilcar Barcas

Thus there ensued six years of uneventful warfare (506-511), the most
inglorious in the history of this century for Rome, and inglorious
also for the Carthaginian people.  One man, however, among the latter
thought and acted differently from his nation.  Hamilcar, named Barak
or Barcas (i. e. lightning), a young officer of much promise, took
over the supreme command in Sicily in the year 507.  His army, like
every Carthaginian one, was defective in a trustworthy and experienced
infantry; and the government, although it was perhaps in a position to
create such an infantry and at any rate was bound to make the attempt,
contented itself with passively looking on at its defeats or at most
with nailing the defeated generals to the cross.  Hamilcar resolved to
take the matter into his own hands.  He knew well that his mercenaries
were as indifferent to Carthage as to Rome, and that he had to expect
from his government not Phoenician or Libyan conscripts, but at the
best a permission to save his country with his troops in his own way,
provided it cost nothing.  But he knew himself also, and he knew men.
His mercenaries cared nothing for Carthage; but a true general is able
to substitute his own person for his country in the affections of his
soldiers; and such an one was this young commander.  After he had
accustomed his men to face the legionaries in the warfare of outposts
before Drepana and Lilybaeum, he established himself with his force on
Mount Ercte (Monte Pellegrino near Palermo), which commands like a
fortress the neighbouring country; and making them settle there with
their wives and children, levied contributions from the plains, while
Phoenician privateers plundered the Italian coast as far as Cumae.  He
thus provided his people with copious supplies without asking money
from the Carthaginians, and, keeping up the communication with Drepana
by sea, he threatened to surprise the important town of Panormus in
his immediate vicinity.  Not only were the Romans unable to expel
him from his stronghold, but after the struggle had lasted awhile at
Ercte, Hamilcar formed for himself another similar position at Eryx.
This mountain, which bore half-way up the town of the same name and
on its summit the temple of Aphrodite, had been hitherto in the hands
of the Romans, who made it a basis for annoying Drepana.  Hamilcar
deprived them of the town and besieged the temple, while the Romans
in turn blockaded him from the plain.  The Celtic deserters from the
Carthaginian army who were stationed by the Romans at the forlorn post
of the temple--a reckless pack of marauders, who in the course of this
siege plundered the temple and perpetrated every sort of outrage
--defended the summit of the rock with desperate courage; but Hamilcar
did not allow himself to be again dislodged from the town, and kept
his communications constantly open by sea with the fleet and the
garrison of Drepana.  The war in Sicily seemed to be assuming a turn
more and more unfavourable for the Romans.  The Roman state was losing
in that warfare its money and its soldiers, and the Roman generals
their repute; it was  already clear that no Roman general was a
match for Hamilcar, and the time might be calculated when even the
Carthaginian mercenary would be able boldly to measure himself
against the legionary.  The privateers of Hamilcar appeared with ever-
increasing audacity on the Italian coast: already a praetor had been
obliged to take the field against a band of Carthaginian rovers which
had landed there.  A few years more, and Hamilcar might with his fleet
have accomplished from Sicily what his son subsequently undertook by
the land route from Spain.

A Fleet Built by the Romans
Victory of Catulus at the Island Aegusa

The Roman senate, however, persevered in its inaction;
the desponding party for once had the majority there.  At length a
number of sagacious and high-spirited men determined to save the state
even without the interposition of the government, and to put an end to
the ruinous Sicilian war.  Successful corsair expeditions, if they had
not raised the courage of the nation, had aroused energy and hope in
a portion of the people; they had already joined together to form
a squadron, burnt down Hippo on the African coast, and sustained a
successful naval conflict with the Carthaginians off Panormus.  By a
private subscription--such as had been resorted to in Athens also,
but not on so magnificent a scale--the wealthy and patriotic Romans
equipped a war fleet, the nucleus of which was supplied by the ships
built for privateering and the practised crews which they contained,
and which altogether was far more carefully fitted out than had
hitherto been the case in the shipbuilding of the state.  This fact
--that a number of citizens in the twenty-third year of a severe war
voluntarily presented to the state two hundred ships of the line,
manned by 60,000 sailors--stands perhaps unparalleled in the annals of
history.  The consul Gaius Lutatius Catulus, to whom fell the honour
of conducting this fleet to the Sicilian seas, met there with almost
no opposition: the two or three Carthaginian vessels, with which
Hamilcar had made his corsair expeditions, disappeared before the
superior force, and almost without resistance the Romans occupied
the harbours of Lilybaeum and Drepana, the siege of which was now
undertaken with energy by water and by land.  Carthage was completely
taken by surprise; even the two fortresses, weakly provisioned, were
in great danger.  A fleet was equipped at home; but with all the haste
which they displayed, the year came to an end without any appearance
of Carthaginian sails in the Sicilian waters; and when at length, in
the spring of 513, the hurriedly-prepared vessels appeared in the
offing of Drepana, they deserved the name of a fleet of transports
rather than that of a war fleet ready for action.  The Phoenicians had
hoped to land undisturbed, to disembark their stores, and to be able
to take on board the troops requisite for a naval battle; but the
Roman vessels intercepted them, and forced them, when about to sail
from the island of Hiera (now Maritima) for Drepana, to accept battle
near the little island of Aegusa (Favignana) (10 March, 513).  The
issue was not for a moment doubtful; the Roman fleet, well built and
manned, and admirably handled by the able praetor Publius Valerius
Falto (for a wound received before Drepana still confined the consul
Catulus to his bed), defeated at the first blow the heavily laden and
poorly and inadequately manned vessels of the enemy; fifty were sunk,
and with seventy prizes the victors sailed into the port of Lilybaeum.
The last great effort of the Roman patriots had borne fruit; it
brought victory, and with victory peace.

Conclusion of Peace

The Carthaginians first crucified the unfortunate admiral--a step
which did not alter the position of affairs--and then dispatched
 to the Sicilian general unlimited authority to conclude a peace.
Hamilcar, who saw his heroic labours of seven years undone by the
fault of others, magnanimously submitted to what was inevitable
without on that account sacrificing either his military honour, or
his nation, or his own designs.  Sicily indeed could not be retained,
seeing that the Romans had now command of the sea; and it was not
to be expected that the Carthaginian government, which had vainly
endeavoured to fill its empty treasury by a state-loan in Egypt,
would make even any further attempt to vanquish the Roman fleet He
therefore surrendered Sicily.  The independence and integrity of the
Carthaginian state and territory, on the other hand, were expressly
recognized in the usual form; Rome binding herself not to enter into
a separate alliance with the confederates of Carthage, and Carthage
engaging not to enter into separate alliance with the confederates
of Rome,--that is, with their respective subject and dependent
communities; neither was to commence war, or exercise rights of
sovereignty, or undertake recruiting within the other's dominions.(8)
The secondary stipulations included, of course, the gratuitous return
of the Roman prisoners of war and the payment of a war contribution;
but the demand of Catulus that Hamilcar should deliver up his arms and
the Roman deserters was resolutely refused by the Carthaginian, and
with success.  Catulus desisted from his second request, and allowed
the Phoenicians a free departure from Sicily for the moderate ransom
of 18 -denarii- (12 shillings) per man.

If the continuance of the war appeared to the Carthaginians
undesirable, they had reason to be satisfied with these terms.  It may
be that the natural wish to bring to Rome peace as well as triumph,
the recollection of Regulus and of the many vicissitudes of the war,
the consideration that such a patriotic effort as had at last decided
the victory could neither be enjoined nor repeated, perhaps even the
personal character of Hamilcar, concurred in influencing the Roman
general to yield so much as he did.  It is certain that there was
dissatisfaction with the proposals of peace at Rome, and the assembly
of the people, doubtless under the influence of the patriots who had
accomplished the equipment of the last fleet, at first refused to
ratify it.  We do not know with what view this was done, and therefore
we are unable to decide whether the opponents of the proposed peace in
reality rejected it merely for the purpose of exacting some further
concessions from the enemy, or whether, remembering that Regulus had
summoned Carthage to surrender her political independence, they were
resolved to continue the war till they had gained that end--so that it
was no longer a question of peace, but a question of conquest.  If the
refusal took place with the former view, it was presumably mistaken;
compared with the gain of Sicily every other concession was of little
moment, and looking to the determination and the inventive genius of
Hamilcar, it was very rash to stake the securing of the principal
gain on the attainment of secondary objects.  If on the other hand
the party opposed to the peace regarded the complete political
annihilation of Carthage as the only end of the struggle that would
satisfy the Roman community, it showed political tact and anticipation
of coming events; but whether the resources of Rome would have
sufficed to renew the expedition of Regulus and to follow it up as far
as might be required not merely to break the courage but to breach the
walls of the mighty Phoenician city, is another question, to which
no one now can venture to give either an affirmative or a negative
answer.  At last the settlement of the momentous question was
entrusted to a commission which was to decide it upon the spot in
Sicily.  It confirmed the proposal in substance; only, the sum to be
paid by Carthage for the costs of the war was raised to 3200 talents
(790,000 pounds), a third of which was to be paid down at once, and
the remainder in ten annual instalments.  The definitive treaty
included, in addition to the surrender of Sicily, the cession also of
the islands between Sicily and Italy, but this can only be regarded as
an alteration of detail made on revision; for it is self-evident that
Carthage, when surrendering Sicily, could hardly desire to retain the
island of Lipara which had long been occupied by the Roman fleet,
and the suspicion, that an ambiguous stipulation was intentionally
introduced into the treaty with reference to Sardinia and Corsica,
is unworthy and improbable.

Thus at length they came to terms.  The unconquered general of a
vanquished nation descended from the mountains which he had defended
so long, and delivered to the new masters of the island the fortresses
which the Phoenicians had held in their uninterrupted possession for
at least four hundred years, and from whose walls all assaults of the
Hellenes had recoiled unsuccessful.  The west had peace (513).

Remarks on the Roman Conduct of the War

Let us pause for a moment over the conflict, which extended the
dominion of Rome beyond the circling sea that encloses the peninsula.
It was one of the longest and most severe which the Romans ever waged;
many of the soldiers who fought in the decisive battle were unborn
when the contest began.  Nevertheless, despite the incomparably noble
incidents which it now and again presented, we can scarcely name any
war which the Romans managed so wretchedly and with such vacillation,
both in a military and in a political point of view.  It could hardly
be otherwise.  The contest occurred amidst a transition in their
political system--the transition from an Italian policy, which no
longer sufficed, to the policy befitting a great state, which had not
yet been found.  The Roman senate and the Roman military system were
excellently organized for a purely Italian policy.  The wars which
such a policy provoked were purely continental wars, and always rested
on the capital situated in the middle of the peninsula as the ultimate
basis of operations, and proximately on the chain of Roman fortresses.
The problems to be solved were mainly tactical, not strategical;
marches and operations occupied but a subordinate, battles held the
first, place; fortress warfare was in its infancy; the sea and naval
war hardly crossed men's thoughts even incidentally.  We can easily
understand--especially if we bear in mind that in the battles of that
period, where the naked weapon predominated, it was really the hand-
to-hand encounter that proved decisive--how a deliberative assembly
might direct such operations, and how any one who just was burgomaster
might command the troops.  All this was changed in a moment.  The
field of battle stretched away to an incalculable distance, to the
unknown regions of another continent, and beyond a broad expanse of
sea; every wave was a highway for the enemy; from any harbour he
might be expected to issue for his onward march.  The siege of
strong places, particularly maritime fortresses, in which the first
tacticians of Greece had failed, had now for the first time to be
attempted by the Romans.  A land army and the system of a civic
militia no longer sufficed.  It was essential to create a fleet, and,
what was more difficult, to employ it; it was essential to find out
the true points of attack and defence, to combine and to direct
masses, to calculate expeditions extending over long periods and great
distances, and to adjust their co-operation; if these things were not
attended to, even an enemy far weaker in the tactics of the field
might easily vanquish a stronger opponent.  Is there any wonder that
the reins of government in such an exigency slipped from the hands of
a deliberative assembly and of commanding burgomasters?

It was plain, that at the beginning of the war  the Romans did not
know what they were undertaking; it was only during the course of the
struggle that the inadequacies of their system, one after another,
forced themselves on their notice--the want of a naval power, the
lack of fixed military leadership, the insufficiency of their
generals, the total uselessness of their admirals.  In part these
evils were remedied by energy and good fortune; as was the case with
the want of a fleet.  That mighty creation, however, was but a grand
makeshift, and always remained so.  A Roman fleet was formed, but it
was rendered national only in name, and was always treated with the
affection of a stepmother; the naval service continued to be little
esteemed in comparison with the high honour of serving in the legions;
the naval officers were in great part Italian Greeks; the crews were
composed of subjects or even of slaves and outcasts.  The Italian
farmer was at all times distrustful of the sea; and of the three
things in his life which Cato regretted one was, that he had travelled
by sea when he might have gone by land.  This result arose partly out
of the nature of the case, for the vessels were oared galleys and the
service of the oar can scarcely be ennobled; but the Romans might at
least have formed separate legions of marines and taken steps towards
the rearing of a class of Roman naval officers.  Taking advantage
of the impulse of the nation, they should have made it their aim
gradually to establish a naval force important not only in numbers
but in sailing power and practice, and for such a purpose they had a
valuable nucleus in the privateering that was developed during the
long war; but nothing of the sort was done by the government.
Nevertheless the Roman fleet with its unwieldy grandeur was the
noblest creation of genius in this war, and, as at its beginning, so
at its close it was the fleet that turned the scale in favour of Rome.

Far more difficult to be overcome were those deficiencies, which could
not be remedied without an alteration of the constitution.  That the
senate, according to the strength of the contending parties within it,
should leap from one system of conducting the war to another, and
perpetrate errors so incredible as the evacuation of Clupea and the
repeated dismantling of the fleet; that the general of one year should
lay siege to Sicilian towns, and his successor, instead of compelling
them to surrender, should pillage the African coast or think proper to
risk a naval battle; and that at any rate the supreme command should
by law change hands every year--all these anomalies could not be done
away without stirring constitutional questions the solution of which
was more difficult than the building of a fleet, but as little could
their retention be reconciled with the requirements of such a war.
Above all, moreover, neither the senate nor the generals could at once
adapt themselves to the new mode of conducting war.  The campaign of
Regulus is an instance how singularly they adhered to the idea that
superiority in tactics decides everything.  There are few generals who
have had such successes thrown as it were into their lap by fortune:
in the year 498 he stood precisely where Scipio stood fifty years
later, with this difference, that he had no Hannibal and no
experienced army arrayed against him.  But the senate withdrew half
the army, as soon as they had satisfied themselves of the tactical
superiority of the Romans; in blind reliance on that superiority the
general remained where he was, to be beaten in strategy, and accepted
battle when it was offered to him, to be beaten also in tactics.
This was the more remarkable, as Regulus was an able and experienced
general of his kind.  The rustic method of warfare, by which Etruria
and Samnium had been won, was the very cause of the defeat in the
plain of Tunes.  The principle, quite right in its own province, that
every true burgher is fit for a general, was no longer applicable;
the new system of war demanded the employment of generals who had a
military training and a military eye, and every burgomaster had not
those qualities.  The arrangement was however still worse, by which
the chief command of the fleet was treated as an appanage to the chief
command of the land army, and any one who chanced to be president of
the city thought himself able to act the part not of general only, but
of admiral too.  The worst disasters which Rome suffered in this war
were due not to the storms and still less to the Carthaginians, but
to the presumptuous folly of its own citizen-admirals.

Rome was victorious at last.  But her acquiescence in a gain far less
than had at first been demanded and indeed offered, as well as the
energetic opposition which the peace encountered in Rome, very clearly
indicate the indecisive and superficial character of the victory and
of the peace; and if Rome was the victor, she was indebted for her
victory in part no doubt to the favour of the gods and to the energy
of her citizens, but still more to the errors of her enemies in the
conduct of the war--errors far surpassing even her own.

Notes for Chapter II

1. II. V. Campanian Hellenism

2. II. VII. Submission of Lower Italy

3. The Mamertines entered quite into the same position towards Rome
as the Italian communities, bound themselves to furnish ships (Cic.
Verr. v. 19, 50), and, as the coins show, did not possess the right
of coining silver.

4. II. VII. Submission of Lower Italy

5. II. VII. Last Struggles in Italy

6. The statement, that the military talent of Xanthippus was the
primary means of saving Carthage, is probably coloured; the officers
of Carthage can hardly have waited for foreigners to teach them that
the light African cavalry could be more appropriately employed on the
plain than among hills and forests.  From such stories, the echo of
the talk of Greek guardrooms, even Polybius is not free.  The
statement that Xanthippus was put to death by the Carthaginians after
the victory, is a fiction; he departed voluntarily, perhaps to enter
the Egyptian service.

7. Nothing further is known with certainty as to the end of Regulus;
even his mission to Rome--which is sometimes placed in 503, sometimes
in 513--is very ill attested.  The later Romans, who sought in the
fortunes and misfortunes of their forefathers mere materials for
school themes, made Regulus the prototype of heroic misfortune as
they made Fabricius the prototype of heroic poverty, and put into
circulation in his name a number of anecdotes invented by way of
due accompaniment--incongruous embellishments, contrasting ill with
serious and sober history.

8. The statement (Zon. viii. 17) that the Carthaginians had to promise
that they would not send any vessels of war into the territories of
the Roman symmachy--and therefore not to Syracuse, perhaps even not
to Massilia--sounds credible enough; but the text of the treaty says
nothing of it (Polyb. iii. 27).




Chapter III

The Extension of Italy to Its Natural Boundaries

Natural Boundaries of Italy

The Italian confederacy as it emerged from the crises of the fifth
century--or, in other words, the State of Italy--united the various
civic and cantonal communities from the Apennines to the Ionian Sea
under the hegemony of Rome.  But before the close of the fifth century
these limits were already overpassed in both directions, and Italian
communities belonging to the confederacy had sprung up beyond the
Apennines and beyond the sea.  In the north the republic, in revenge
for ancient and recent wrongs, had already in 471 annihilated the
Celtic Senones; in the south, through the great war from 490 to 513,
it had dislodged the Phoenicians from the island of Sicily.  In the
north there belonged to the combination headed by Rome the Latin town
of Ariminum (besides the burgess-settlement of Sena), in the south the
community of the Mamertines in Messana, and as both were nationally of
Italian origin, so both shared in the common rights and obligations of
the Italian confederacy.  It was probably the pressure of events at
the moment rather than any comprehensive political calculation, that
gave rise to these extensions of the confederacy; but it was natural
that now at least, after the great successes achieved against
Carthage, new and wider views of policy should dawn upon the Roman
government--views which even otherwise were obviously enough suggested
by the physical features of the peninsula.  Alike in a political and
in a military point of view Rome was justified in shifting its
northern boundary from the low and easily crossed Apennines to the
mighty mountain-wall that separates northern from southern Europe,
the Alps, and in combining with the sovereignty of Italy the
sovereignty of the seas and islands on the west and east of the
peninsula; and now, when by the expulsion of the Phoenicians from
Sicily the most difficult portion of the task had been already
achieved, various circumstances united to facilitate its completion
by the Roman government.

Sicily a Dependency of Italy

In the western sea which was of far more account for Italy than the
Adriatic, the most important position, the large and fertile island
of Sicily copiously furnished with harbours, had been by the peace
with Carthage transferred for the most part into the possession of the
Romans.  King Hiero of Syracuse indeed, who during the last twenty-two
years of the war had adhered with unshaken steadfastness to the Roman
alliance, might have had a fair claim to an extension of territory;
but, if Roman policy had begun the war with the resolution of
tolerating only secondary states in the island, the views of the
Romans at its close decidedly tended towards the seizure of Sicily
for themselves.  Hiero might be content that his territory--namely, in
addition to the immediate district of Syracuse, the domains of Elorus,
Neetum, Acrae, Leontini, Megara, and Tauromenium--and his independence
in relation to foreign powers, were (for want of any pretext to
curtail them) left to him in their former compass; he might well be
content that the war between the two great powers had not ended in
the complete overthrow of the one or of the other, and that there
consequently still remained at least a possibility of subsistence for
the intermediate power in Sicily.  In the remaining and by far the
larger portion of Sicily, at Panormus, Lilybaeum, Agrigentum, Messana,
the Romans effected a permanent settlement.

Sardinia Roman
The Libyan Insurrection
Corsica

They only regretted that the possession of that beautiful island was
not enough to convert the western waters into a Roman inland sea,
so long as Sardinia still remained Carthaginian.  Soon, however,
after the conclusion of the peace there appeared an unexpected
prospect of wresting from the Carthaginians this second island of the
Mediterranean.  In Africa, immediately after peace had been concluded
with Rome, the mercenaries and the subjects of the Phoenicians joined
in a common revolt.  The blame of the dangerous insurrection was
mainly chargeable on the Carthaginian government.  In the last years
of the war Hamilcar had not been able to pay his Sicilian mercenaries
as formerly from his own resources, and he had vainly requested that
money might be sent to him from home; he might, he was told, send his
forces to Africa to be paid off.  He obeyed; but as he knew the men,
he prudently embarked them in small subdivisions, that the authorities
might pay them off by troops or might at least separate them, and
thereupon he laid down his command.  But all his precautions were
thwarted not so much by the emptiness of the exchequer, as by the
collegiate method of transacting business and the folly of the
bureaucracy.  They waited till the whole army was once more united in
Libya, and then endeavoured to curtail the pay promised to the men.
Of course a mutiny broke out among the troops, and the hesitating and
cowardly demeanour of the authorities showed the mutineers what they
might dare.  Most of them were natives of the districts ruled by, or
dependent on, Carthage; they knew the feelings which had been provoked
throughout these districts by the slaughter decreed by the government
after the expedition of Regulus(1) and by the fearful pressure of
taxation, and they knew also the character of their government, which
never kept faith and never pardoned; they were well aware of what
awaited them, should they disperse to their homes with pay exacted by
mutiny.  The Carthaginians had for long been digging the mine, and
they now themselves supplied the men who could not but explode it.
Like wildfire the revolution spread from garrison to garrison, from
village to village; the Libyan women contributed their ornaments to
pay the wages of the mercenaries; a number of Carthaginian citizens,
amongst whom were some of the most distinguished officers of the
Sicilian army, became the victims of the infuriated multitude;
Carthage was already besieged on two sides, and the Carthaginian
army marching out of the city was totally routed in consequence of
the blundering of its unskilful leader.

When the Romans thus saw their hated and still dreaded foe involved in
a greater danger than any ever brought on that foe by the Roman wars,
they began more and more to regret the conclusion of the peace of 513
--which, if it was not in reality precipitate, now at least appeared
so to all--and to forget how exhausted at that time their own state
had been and how powerful had then been the standing of their
Carthaginian rival.  Shame indeed forbade their entering into
communication openly with the Carthaginian rebels; in fact, they gave
an exceptional permission to the Carthaginians to levy recruits for
this war in Italy, and prohibited Italian mariners from dealing with
the Libyans.  But it may be doubted whether the government of Rome
was very earnest in these acts of friendly alliance; for, in spite
of them, the dealings between the African insurgents and the Roman
mariners continued, and when Hamilcar, whom the extremity of the peril
had recalled to the command of the Carthaginian army, seized and
imprisoned a number of Italian captains concerned in these dealings,
the senate interceded for them with the Carthaginian government and
procured their release.  The insurgents themselves appeared to
recognize in the Romans their natural allies.  The garrisons in
Sardinia, which like the rest of the Carthaginian army had declared
in favour of the insurgents, offered the possession of the island to
the Romans, when they saw that they were unable to hold it against the
attacks of the un-conquered mountaineers of the interior (about 515);
and similar offers came even from the community of Utica, which had
likewise taken part in the revolt and was now hard pressed by the
arms of Hamilcar.  The latter suggestion was declined by the Romans,
chiefly doubtless because its acceptance would have carried them
beyond the natural boundaries of Italy and therefore farther than
the Roman government was then disposed to go; on the other hand they
entertained the offers of the Sardinian mutineers, and took over
from them the portion of Sardinia which had been in the hands of the
Carthaginians (516).  In this instance, even more than in the affair
of the Mamertines, the Romans were justly liable to the reproach that
the great and victorious burgesses had not disdained to fraternize
and share the spoil with a venal pack of mercenaries, and had not
sufficient self-denial to prefer the course enjoined by justice and
by honour to the gain of the moment.  The Carthaginians, whose troubles
reached their height just about the period of the occupation of
Sardinia, were silent for the time being as to the unwarrantable
violence; but, after this peril had been, contrary to the expectations
and probably contrary to the hopes of the Romans, averted by the
genius of Hamilcar, and Carthage had been reinstated to her full
sovereignty in Africa (517), Carthaginian envoys immediately appeared
at Rome to require the restitution of Sardinia.  But the Romans, not
inclined to restore their booty, replied with frivolous or at any rate
irrelevant complaints as to all sorts of injuries which they alleged
that the Carthaginians had inflicted on the Roman traders, and
hastened to declare war;(2) the principle, that in politics power
is the measure of right, appeared in its naked effrontery.  Just
resentment urged the Carthaginians to accept that offer of war; had
Catulus insisted upon the cession of Sardinia five years before, the
war would probably have pursued its course.  But now, when both
islands were lost, when Libya was in a ferment, and when the state was
weakened to the utmost by its twenty-four years' struggle with Rome
and the dreadful civil war that had raged for nearly five years more,
they were obliged to submit It was only after repeated entreaties,
and after the Phoenicians had bound themselves to pay to Rome a
compensation of 1200 talents (292,000 pounds) for the warlike
preparations which had been wantonly occasioned, that the Romans
reluctantly desisted from war.  Thus the Romans acquired Sardinia
almost without a struggle; to which they added Corsica, the ancient
possession of the Etruscans, where perhaps some detached Roman
garrisons still remained over from the last war.(3)  In Sardinia,
however, and still more in the rugged Corsica, the Romans restricted
themselves, just as the Phoenicians had done, to an occupation of
the coasts.  With the natives in the interior they were continually
engaged in war or, to speak more correctly, in hunting them like wild
beasts; they baited them with dogs, and carried what they captured to
the slave market; but they undertook no real conquest.  They had
occupied the islands not on their own account, but for the security
of Italy.  Now that the confederacy possessed the three large islands,
it might call the Tyrrhene Sea its own.

Method of Administration in the Transmarine Possessions
Provincial Praetors

The acquisition of the islands in the western sea of Italy introduced
into the state administration of Rome a distinction, which to all
appearance originated in mere considerations of convenience and almost
accidentally, but nevertheless came to be of the deepest importance
for all time following--the distinction between the continental and
transmarine forms of administration, or to use the appellations
afterwards current, the distinction between Italy and the provinces.
Hitherto the two chief magistrates of the community, the consuls, had
not had any legally defined sphere of action; on the contrary their
official field extended as far as the Roman government itself.  Of
course, however, in practice they made a division of functions
between them, and of course also they were bound in every particular
department of their duties by the enactments existing in regard to it;
the jurisdiction, for instance, over Roman citizens had in every case
to be left to the praetor, and in the Latin and other autonomous
communities the existing treaties had to be respected.  The four
quaestors who had been since 487 distributed throughout Italy did not,
formally at least, restrict the consular authority, for in Italy,
just as in Rome, they were regarded simply as auxiliary magistrates
dependent on the consuls.  This mode of administration appears to have
been at first extended also to the territories taken from Carthage,
and Sicily and Sardinia to have been governed for some years by
quaestors under the superintendence of the consuls; but the Romans
must very soon have become practically convinced that it was
indispensable to have superior magistrates specially appointed for
the transmarine regions.  As they had been obliged to abandon the
concentration of the Roman jurisdiction in the person of the praetor
as the community became enlarged, and to send to the more remote
districts deputy judges,(4) so now (527) the concentration of
administrative and military power in the person of the consuls had to
be abandoned.  For each of the new transmarine regions--viz. Sicily,
and Sardinia with Corsica annexed to it--there was appointed a special
auxiliary consul, who was in rank and title inferior to the consul and
equal to the praetor, but otherwise was--like the consul in earlier
times before the praetorship was instituted--in his own sphere of
action at once commander-in-chief, chief magistrate, and supreme
judge.  The direct administration of finance alone was withheld from
these new chief magistrates, as from the first it had been withheld
from the consuls;(5) one or more quaestors were assigned to them,
who were in every way indeed subordinate to them, and were their
assistants in the administration of justice and in command, but yet
had specially to manage the finances and to render account of their
administration to the senate after having laid down their office.

Organization of the Provinces
-Commercium-
Property
Autonomy

This difference in the supreme administrative power was the essential
distinction between the transmarine and continental possessions.  The
principles on which Rome had organized the dependent lands in Italy,
were in great part transferred also to the extra-Italian possessions.
As a matter of course, these communities without exception lost
independence in their external relations.  As to internal intercourse,
no provincial could thenceforth acquire valid property in the province
out of the bounds of his own community, or perhaps even conclude a
valid marriage.  On the other hand the Roman government allowed, at
least to the Sicilian towns which they had not to fear, a certain
federative organization, and probably even general Siceliot diets
with a harmless right of petition and complaint.(6)  In monetary
arrangements it was not indeed practicable at once to declare the
Roman currency to be the only valid tender in the islands; but it
seems from the first to have obtained legal circulation, and in like
manner, at least as a rule, the right of coining in precious metals
seems to have been withdrawn from the cities in Roman Sicily.(7)  On
the other hand not only was the landed property in all Sicily left
untouched--the principle, that the land out of Italy fell by right of
war to the Romans as private property, was still unknown to this
century--but all the Sicilian and Sardinian communities retained self-
administration and some sort of autonomy, which indeed was not assured
to them in a way legally binding, but was provisionally allowed.
If the democratic constitutions of the communities were everywhere
set aside, and in every city the power was transferred to the hands
of a council representing the civic aristocracy; and if moreover the
Sicilian communities, at least, were required to institute a general
valuation corresponding to the Roman census every fifth year; both
these measures were only the necessary sequel of subordination
to the Roman senate, which in reality could not govern with Greek
--ecclesiae--, or without a view of the financial and military
resources of each dependent community; in the various districts
of Italy also the same course was in both respects pursued.

Tenths and Customs
Communities Exempted

But, side by side with this essential equality of rights, there was
established a distinction, very important in its effects, between the
Italian communities on the one hand and the transmarine communities
on the other.  While the treaties concluded with the Italian towns
imposed on them a fixed contingent for the army or the fleet of
the Romans, such a contingent was not imposed on the transmarine
communities, with which no binding paction was entered into at all,
but they lost the right of arms,(8) with the single exception that
they might be employed on the summons of the Roman praetor for the
defence of their own homes.  The Roman government regularly sent
Italian troops, of the strength which it had fixed, to the islands;
in return for this, a tenth of the field-produce of Sicily, and a toll
of 5 per cent on the value of all articles of commerce exported from
or imported into the Sicilian harbours, were paid to Rome.  To the
islanders these taxes were nothing new.  The imposts levied by the
Persian great-king and the Carthaginian republic were substantially of
the same character with that tenth; and in Greece also such a taxation
had for long been, after Oriental precedent, associated with the
-tyrannis- and often also with a hegemony.  The Sicilians had in this
way long paid their tenth either to Syracuse or to Carthage, and had
been wont to levy customs-dues no longer on their own account.  "We
received,"  says Cicero, "the Sicilian communities into our clientship
and protection in such a way that they continued under the same law
under which they had lived before, and obeyed the Roman community
under relations similar to those in which they had obeyed their
own rulers."  It is fair that this should not be forgotten; but to
continue an injustice is to commit injustice.  Viewed in relation not
to the subjects, who merely changed masters, but to their new rulers,
the abandonment of the equally wise and magnanimous principle of Roman
statesmanship--viz., that Rome should accept from her subjects simply
military aid, and never pecuniary compensation in lieu of it--was of
a fatal importance, in comparison with which all alleviations in the
rates and the mode of levying them, as well as all exceptions in
detail, were as nothing.  Such exceptions were, no doubt, made in
various cases.  Messana was directly admitted to the confederacy of
the -togati-, and, like the Greek cities in Italy, furnished its
contingent to the Roman fleet.  A number of other cities, while not
admitted to the Italian military confederacy, yet received in addition
to other favours immunity from tribute and tenths, so that their
position in a financial point of view was even more favourable than
that of the Italian communities.  These were Segesta and Halicyae,
which were the first towns of Carthaginian Sicily that joined the
Roman alliance; Centuripa, an inland town in the east of the island,
which was destined to keep a watch over the Syracusan territory in its
neighbourhood;(9) Halaesa on the northern coast, which was the first
of the free Greek towns to join the Romans, and above all Panormus,
hitherto the capital of Carthaginian, and now destined to become
that of Roman, Sicily.  The Romans thus applied to Sicily the ancient
principle of their policy, that of subdividing the dependent
communities into carefully graduated classes with different
privileges; but, on the average, the Sardinian and Sicilian
communities were not in the position of allies but in the
manifest relation of tributary subjection.

Italy and the Provinces

It is true that this thorough distinction between the communities that
furnished contingents and those that paid tribute, or at least did not
furnish contingents, was not in law necessarily coincident with the
distinction between Italy and the provinces.  Transmarine communities
might belong to the Italian confederacy; the Mamertines for example
were substantially on a level with the Italian Sabellians, and there
existed no legal obstacle to the establishment even of new communities
with Latin rights in Sicily and Sardinia any more than in the country
beyond the Apennines.  Communities on the mainland might be deprived
of the right of bearing arms and become tributary; this arrangement
was already the case with certain Celtic districts on the Po, and was
introduced to a considerable extent in after times.  But, in reality,
the communities that furnished contingents just as decidedly
preponderated on the mainland as the tributary communities in the
islands; and while Italian settlements were not contemplated on the
part of the Romans either in Sicily with its Hellenic civilization or
in Sardinia, the Roman government had beyond doubt already determined
not only to subdue the barbarian land between the Apennines and the
Alps, but also, as their conquests advanced, to establish in it
new communities of Italic origin and Italic rights.  Thus their
transmarine possessions were not merely placed on the footing of land
held by subjects, but were destined to remain on that footing in all
time to come; whereas the official field recently marked off by law
for the consuls, or, which is the same thing, the continental
territory of the Romans, was to become a new and more extended Italy,
which should reach from the Alps to the Ionian sea.  In the first
instance, indeed, this essentially geographical conception of Italy
was not altogether coincident with the political conception of the
Italian confederacy; it was partly wider, partly narrower.  But even
now the Romans regarded the whole space up to the boundary of the Alps
as -Italia-, that is, as the present or future domain of the -togati-
and, just as was and still is the case in North America, the boundary
was provisionally marked off in a geographical sense, that the field
might be gradually occupied in a political sense also with the advance
of colonization.(10)

Events on the Adriatic Coasts

In the Adriatic sea, at the entrance of which the important and long-
contemplated colony of Brundisium had at length been founded before
the close of the war with Carthage (510), the supremacy of Rome was
from the very first decided.  In the western sea Rome had been obliged
to rid herself of rivals; in the eastern, the quarrels of the Hellenes
themselves prevented any of the states in the Grecian peninsula from
acquiring or retaining power.  The most considerable of them, that of
Macedonia, had through the influence of Egypt been dislodged from the
upper Adriatic by the Aetolians and from the Peloponnesus by the
Achaeans, and was scarcely even in a position to defend its northern
frontier against the barbarians.  How concerned the Romans were to
keep down Macedonia and its natural ally, the king of Syria, and how
closely they associated themselves with the Egyptian policy directed
to that object, is shown by the remarkable offer which after the end
of the war with Carthage they made to king Ptolemy III.  Euergetes,
to support him in the war which he waged with Seleucus II.  Callinicus
of Syria (who reigned 507-529) on account of the murder of Berenice,
and in which Macedonia had probably taken part with the latter.
Generally, the relations of Rome with the Hellenistic states became
closer; the senate already negotiated even with Syria, and interceded
with the Seleucus just mentioned on behalf of the Ilians with whom
the Romans claimed affinity.

For a direct interference of the Romans in the affairs of
the eastern powers there was no immediate need.  The Achaean league,
the prosperity of which was arrested by the narrow-minded coterie-
policy of Aratus, the Aetolian republic of military adventurers, and
the decayed Macedonian empire kept each other in check; and the Romans
of that time avoided rather than sought transmarine acquisitions.
When the Acarnanians, appealing to the ground that they alone of all
the Greeks had taken no part in the destruction of Ilion, besought
the descendants of Aeneas to help them against the Aetolians, the
senate did indeed attempt a diplomatic mediation; but when the
Aetolians returned an answer drawn up in their own saucy fashion,
the antiquarian interest of the Roman senators by no means provoked
them into undertaking a war by which they would have freed the
Macedonians from their hereditary foe (about 515).

Illyrian Piracy
Expedition against Scodra

Even the evil of piracy, which was naturally in such a state of
matters the only trade that flourished on the Adriatic coast, and
from which the commerce of Italy suffered greatly, was submitted to by
the Romans with an undue measure of patience, --a patience intimately
connected with their radical aversion to maritime war and their
wretched marine.  But at length it became too flagrant.  Favoured by
Macedonia, which no longer found occasion to continue its old function
of protecting Hellenic commerce from the corsairs of the Adriatic for
the benefit of its foes, the rulers of Scodra had induced the Illyrian
tribes--nearly corresponding to the Dalmatians, Montenegrins, and
northern Albanians of the present day--to unite for joint piratical
expeditions on a great scale.

With whole squadrons of their swift-sailing biremes, the veil-known
"Liburnian" cutters, the Illyrians waged war by sea and along the
coasts against all and sundry.  The Greek settlements in these
regions, the island-towns of Issa (Lissa) and Pharos (Lesina), the
important ports of Epidamnus (Durazzo) and Apollonia (to the north of
Avlona on the Aous) of course suffered especially, and were repeatedly
beleaguered by the barbarians.  Farther to the south, moreover, the
corsairs established themselves in Phoenice, the most flourishing town
of Epirus; partly voluntarily, partly by constraint, the Epirots and
Acarnanians entered into an unnatural symmachy with the foreign
freebooters; the coast was insecure even as far as Elis and Messene.
In vain the Aetolians and Achaeans collected what ships they had, with
a view to check the evil: in a battle on the open sea they were beaten
by the pirates and their Greek allies; the corsair fleet was able at
length to take possession even of the rich and important island of
Corcyra (Corfu).  The complaints of Italian mariners, the appeals for
aid of their old allies the Apolloniates, and the urgent entreaties
of the besieged Issaeans at length compelled the Roman senate to
send at least ambassadors to Scodra.  The brothers Gaius and Lucius
Coruncanius went thither to demand that king Agron should put an end
to the disorder.  The king answered that according to the national law
of the Illyrians piracy was a lawful trade, and that the government
had no right to put a stop to privateering; whereupon Lucius
Coruncanius replied, that in that case Rome would make it her business
to introduce a better law among the Illyrians.  For this certainly not
very diplomatic reply one of the envoys was--by the king's orders, as
the Romans asserted--murdered on the way home, and the surrender of
the murderers was refused.  The senate had now no choice left to it.
In the spring of 525 a fleet of 200 ships of the line, with a landing-
army on board, appeared off Apollonia; the corsair-vessels were
scattered before the former, while the latter demolished the piratic
strongholds; the queen Teuta, who after the death of her husband
Agron conducted the government during the minority of her son Pinnes,
besieged in her last retreat, was obliged to accept the conditions
dictated by Rome.  The rulers of Scodra were again confined both on
the north and south to the narrow limits of their original domain,
and had to quit their hold not only on all the Greek towns, but also
on the Ardiaei in Dalmatia, the Parthini around Epidamnus, and the
Atintanes in northern Epirus; no Illyrian vessel of war at all, and
not more than two unarmed vessels in company, were to be allowed in
future to sail to the south of Lissus (Alessio, between Scutari and
Durazzo).  The maritime supremacy of Rome in the Adriatic was
asserted, in the most praiseworthy and durable way, by the rapid
and energetic suppression of the evil of piracy.

Acquisition of Territory in Illyria
Impression in Greece and Macedonia

But the Romans went further, and established themselves on the east
coast.  The Illyrians of Scodra were rendered tributary to Rome;
Demetrius of Pharos, who had passed over from the service of Teuta to
that of the Romans, was installed, as a dependent dynast and ally of
Rome, over the islands and coasts of Dalmatia; the Greek cities
Corcyra, Epidamnus, Apollonia, and the communities of the Atintanes
and Parthini were attached to Rome under mild forms of symmachy.
These acquisitions on the east coast of the Adriatic were not
sufficiently extensive to require the appointment of a special
auxiliary consul; governors of subordinate rank appear to have
been sent to Corcyra and perhaps also to other places, and the
superintendence of these possessions seems to have been entrusted
to the chief magistrates who administered Italy.(11)  Thus the most
important maritime stations in the Adriatic became subject, like
Sicily and Sardinia, to the authority of Rome.  What other result was
to be expected?  Rome was in want of a good naval station in the upper
Adriatic--a want which was not supplied by her possessions on the
Italian shore; her new allies, especially the Greek commercial towns,
saw in the Romans their deliverers, and doubtless did what they could
permanently to secure so powerful a protection; in Greece itself
no one was in a position to oppose the movement; on the contrary,
the praise of the liberators was on every one's lips.  It may be a
question whether there was greater rejoicing or shame in Hellas, when,
in place of the ten ships of the line of the Achaean league, the most
warlike power in Greece, two hundred sail belonging to the barbarians
now entered her harbours and accomplished at a blow the task, which
properly belonged to the Greeks, but in which they had failed so
miserably.  But if the Greeks were ashamed that the salvation of their
oppressed countrymen had to come from abroad, they accepted the
deliverance at least with a good grace; they did not fail to receive
the Romans solemnly into the fellowship of the Hellenic nation by
admitting them to the Isthmian games and the Eleusinian mysteries.

Macedonia was silent; it was not in a condition to protest in arms,
and disdained to do so in words.  No resistance was encountered.
Nevertheless Rome, by seizing the keys to her neighbour's house, had
converted that neighbour into an adversary who, should he recover his
power, or should a favourable opportunity occur, might be expected to
know how to break the silence.  Had the energetic and prudent king
Antigonus Doson lived longer, he would have doubtless taken up the
gauntlet which the Romans had flung down, for, when some years
afterwards the dynast Demetrius of Pharos withdrew from the hegemony
of Rome, prosecuted piracy contrary to the treaty in concert with
the Istrians, and subdued the Atintanes whom the Romans had declared
independent, Antigonus formed an alliance with him, and the troops
of Demetrius fought along with the army of Antigonus at the battle
of Sellasia (532).  But Antigonus died (in the winter 533-4); and his
successor Philip, still a boy, allowed the Consul Lucius Aemilius
Paullus to attack the ally of Macedonia, to destroy his capital,
and to drive him from his kingdom into exile (535).

Northern Italy

The mainland of Italy proper, south of the Apennines, enjoyed profound
peace after the fall of Tarentum: the six days' war with Falerii (513)
was little more than an interlude.  But towards the north, between the
territory of the confederacy and the natural boundary of Italy--the
chain of the Alps--there still extended a wide region which was not
subject to the Romans.  What was regarded as the boundary of Italy on
the Adriatic coast was the river Aesis immediately above Ancona.
Beyond this boundary the adjacent properly Gallic territory as far as,
and including, Ravenna belonged in a similar way as did Italy proper
to the Roman alliance; the Senones, who had formerly settled there,
were extirpated in the war of 471-2,(12) and the several townships
were connected with Rome, either as burgess-colonies, like Sena
Gallica,(13) or as allied towns, whether with Latin rights, like
Ariminum,(14) or with Italian rights, like Ravenna.  On the wide
region beyond Ravenna as far as the Alps non-Italian peoples were
settled.  South of the Po the strong Celtic tribe of the Boii still
held its ground (from Parma to Bologna); alongside of them, the
Lingones on the east and the Anares on the west (in the region of
Parma)--two smaller Celtic cantons presumably clients of the Boii--
peopled the plain.  At the western end of the plain the Ligurians
began, who, mingled with isolated Celtic tribes, and settled on the
Apennines from above Arezzo and Pisa westward, occupied the region of
the sources of the Po.  The eastern portion of the plain north of the
Po, nearly from Verona to the coast, was possessed by the Veneti, a
race different from the Celts and probably of Illyrian extraction.
Between these and the western mountains were settled the Cenomani
(about Brescia and Cremona) who rarely acted with the Celtic nation
and were probably largely intermingled with Veneti, and the Insubres
(around Milan).  The latter was the most considerable of the Celtic
cantons in Italy, and was in constant communication not merely
with the minor communities partly of Celtic, partly of non-Celtic
extraction, that were scattered in the Alpine valleys, but also with
the Celtic cantons beyond the Alps.  The gates of the Alps, the mighty
stream navigable for 230 miles, and the largest and most fertile plain
of the then civilized Europe, still continued in the hands of the
hereditary foes of the Italian name, who, humbled indeed and weakened,
but still scarce even nominally dependent and still troublesome
neighbours, persevered in their barbarism, and, thinly scattered over
the spacious plains, continued to pasture their herds and to plunder.
It was to be anticipated that the Romans would hasten to possess
themselves of these regions; the more so as the Celts gradually began
to forget their defeats in the campaigns of 471 and 472 and to bestir
themselves again, and, what was still more dangerous, the Transalpine
Celts  began anew to show themselves on the south of the Alps.

Celtic Wars

In fact the Boii had already renewed the war in 516, and their
chiefs Atis and Galatas had--without, it is true, the authority of the
general diet--summoned the Transalpine Gauls to make common cause with
them.  The latter had numerously answered the call, and in 518 a
Celtic army, such as Italy had not seen for long, encamped before
Ariminum.  The Romans, for the moment much too weak to attempt a
battle, concluded an armistice, and to gain time allowed envoys from
the Celts to proceed to Rome, who ventured in the senate to demand
the cession of Ariminum--it seemed as if the times of Brennus had
returned.  But an unexpected incident put an end to the war before it
had well begun.  The Boii, dissatisfied with their unbidden allies and
afraid probably for their own territory, fell into variance with the
Transalpine Gauls.  An open battle took place between the two Celtic
hosts; and, after the chiefs of the Boii had been put to death by
their own men, the Transalpine Gauls returned home.  The Boii were
thus delivered into the hands of the Romans, and the latter were at
liberty to expel them like the Senones, and to advance at least to
the Po; but they preferred to grant the Boii peace in return for
the cession of some districts of their land (518).  This was probably
done, because they were just at that time expecting the renewed
outbreak of war with Carthage; but, after that war had been averted by
the cession of Sardinia, true policy required the Roman government to
take possession as speedily and entirely as possible of the country up
to the Alps.  The constant apprehensions on the part of the Celts as
to such a Roman invasion were therefore sufficiently justified; but
the Romans were in no haste.  So the Celts on their part began the
war, either because the Roman assignations of land on the east coast
(522), although not a measure immediately directed against them, made
them apprehensive of danger; or because they perceived that a war with
Rome for the possession of Lombardy was inevitable; or, as is perhaps
most probable, because their Celtic impatience was once more weary of
inaction and preferred to arm for a new warlike expedition.  With the
exception of the Cenomani, who acted with the Veneti and declared for
the Romans, all the Italian Celts concurred in the war, and they were
joined by the Celts of the upper valley of the Rhone, or rather by
a number of adventurers belonging to them, under the leaders
Concolitanus and Aneroestus.(15)  With 50,000 warriors on foot, and
20,000 on horseback or in chariots, the leaders of the Celts advanced
to the Apennines (529).  The Romans had not anticipated an attack on
this side, and had not expected that the Celts, disregarding the Roman
fortresses on the east coast and the protection of their own kinsmen,
would venture to advance directly against the capital.  Not very long
before a similar Celtic swarm had in an exactly similar way overrun
Greece.  The danger was serious, and appeared still more serious than
it really was.  The belief that Rome's destruction was this time
inevitable, and that the Roman soil was fated to become the property
of the Gauls, was so generally diffused among the multitude in Rome
itself that the government reckoned it not beneath its dignity to
allay the absurd superstitious belief of the mob by an act still more
absurd, and to bury alive a Gaulish man and a Gaulish woman in the
Roman Forum with a view to fulfil the oracle of destiny.  At the same
time they made more serious preparations.  Of the two consular armies,
each of which numbered about 25,000 infantry and 1100 cavalry, one
was stationed in Sardinia under Gaius Atilius Regulus, the other at
Ariminum under Lucius Aemilius Papus.  Both received orders to repair
as speedily as possible to Etruria, which was most immediately
threatened.  The Celts had already been under the necessity of leaving
a garrison at home to face the Cenomani and Veneti, who were allied
with Rome; now the levy of the Umbrians was directed to advance from
their native mountains down into the plain of the Boii, and to inflict
all the injury which they could think of on the enemy upon his own
soil.  The militia of the Etruscans and Sabines was to occupy the
Apennines and if possible to obstruct the passage, till the regular
troops could arrive.  A reserve was formed in Rome of 50,000 men.
Throughout all Italy, which on this occasion recognized its true
champion in Rome, the men capable of service were enrolled, and stores
and materials of war were collected.

Battle of Telamon

All this, however, required time.  For once the Romans had allowed
themselves to be surprised, and it was too late at least to save
Etruria.  The Celts found the Apennines hardly defended, and plundered
unopposed the rich plains of the Tuscan territory, which for long had
seen no enemy.  They were already at Clusium, three days' march from
Rome, when the army of Ariminum, under the consul Papus, appeared on
their flank, while the Etruscan militia, which after crossing the
Apennines had assembled in rear of the Gauls, followed the line of the
enemy's march.  Suddenly one evening, after the two armies had already
encamped and the bivouac fires were kindled, the Celtic infantry again
broke up and retreated on the road towards Faesulae (Fiesole): the
cavalry occupied the advanced posts during the night, and followed the
main force next morning.  When the Tuscan militia, who had pitched
their camp close upon the enemy, became aware of his departure, they
imagined that the host had begun to disperse, and marched hastily in
pursuit.  The Gauls had reckoned on this very result: their infantry,
which had rested and was drawn up in order, awaited on a well-chosen
battlefield the Roman militia, which came up from its forced march
fatigued and disordered.  Six thousand men fell after a furious
combat, and the rest of the militia, which had been compelled to seek
refuge on a hill, would have perished, had not the consular army
appeared just in time.  This induced the Gauls to return homeward.
Their dexterously-contrived plan for preventing the union of the two
Roman armies and annihilating the weaker in detail, had only been
partially successful; now it seemed to them advisable first of all to
place in security their considerable booty.  For the sake of an easier
line of march they proceeded from the district of Chiusi, where they
were, to the level coast, and were marching along the shore, when
they found an unexpected obstacle in the way.  It was the Sardinian
legions, which had landed at Pisae; and, when they arrived too late to
obstruct the passage of the Apennines, had immediately put themselves
in motion and were advancing along the coast in a direction opposite
to the march of the Gauls.  Near Telamon (at the mouth of the Ombrone)
they met with the enemy.  While the Roman infantry advanced with close
front along the great road, the cavalry, led by the consul Gaius
Atilius Regulus in person, made a side movement so as to take the
Gauls in flank, and to acquaint the other Roman army under Papus as
soon as possible with their arrival.  A hot cavalry engagement took
place, in which along with many brave Romans Regulus fell; but he had
not sacrificed his life in vain: his object was gained.  Papus became
aware of the conflict, and guessed how matters stood; he hastily
arrayed his legions, and on both sides the Celtic host was now pressed
by Roman legions.  Courageously it made its dispositions for the
double conflict, the Transalpine Gauls and Insubres against the
troops of Papus, the Alpine Taurisci and the Boii against the
Sardinian infantry; the cavalry combat pursued its course apart on
the flank.  The forces were in numbers not unequally matched, and the
desperate position of the Gauls impelled them to the most obstinate
resistance.  But the Transalpine Gauls, accustomed only to close
fighting, gave way before the missiles of the Roman skirmishers; in
the hand-to-hand combat the better temper of the Roman weapons placed
the Gauls at a disadvantage; and at last an attack in flank by the
victorious Roman cavalry decided the day.  The Celtic horsemen made
their escape; the infantry, wedged in between the sea and the three
Roman armies, had no means of flight.  10,000 Celts, with their king
Concolitanus, were taken prisoners; 40,000 others lay dead on the
field of battle; Aneroestus and his attendants had, after the Celtic
fashion, put themselves to death.

The Celts Attacked in Their Own Land

The victory was complete, and the Romans were firmly resolved to
prevent the recurrence of such surprises by the complete subjugation
of the Celts on the south of the Alps.  In the following year (530)
the Boii submitted without resistance along with the Lingones; and in
the year after that (531) the Anares; so that the plain as far as the
Po was in the hands of the Romans.  The conquest of the northern bank
of the river cost a more serious struggle.  Gaius Flaminius crossed
the river in the newly-acquired territory of the Anares (somewhere
near Piacenza) in 531; but during the crossing, and still more while
making good his footing on the other bank, he suffered so heavy losses
and found himself with the river in his rear in so dangerous a
position, that he made a capitulation with the enemy to secure a free
retreat, which the Insubres foolishly conceded.  Scarce, however, had
he escaped when he appeared in the territory of the Cenomani, and,
united with them, advanced for the second time from the north into the
canton of the Insubres.  The Gauls perceived what was now the object
of the Romans, when it was too late: they took from the temple of
their goddess the golden standards called the "immovable,"  and with
their whole levy, 50,000 strong, they offered battle to the Romans.
The situation of the latter was critical: they were stationed with
their back to a river (perhaps the Oglio), separated from home by the
enemy's territory, and left to depend for aid in battle as well as for
their line of retreat on the uncertain friendship of the Cenomani.
There was, however, no choice.  The Gauls fighting in the Roman ranks
were placed on the left bank of the stream; on the right, opposite to
the Insubres, the legions were drawn up, and the bridges were broken
down that they might not be assailed, at least in the rear, by their
dubious allies.

The Celts Conquered by Rome

In this way undoubtedly the river cut off their retreat, and their way
homeward lay through the hostile army.  But the superiority of the
Roman arms and of Roman discipline achieved the victory, and the army
cut its way through: once more the Roman tactics had redeemed the
blunders of the general.  The victory was due to the soldiers and
officers, not to the generals, who gained a triumph only through
popular favour in opposition to the just decree of the senate.  Gladly
would the Insubres have made peace; but Rome required unconditional
subjection, and things had not yet come to that pass.  They tried to
maintain their ground with the help of their northern kinsmen; and,
with 30,000 mercenaries whom they had raised amongst these and their
own levy, they received the two consular armies advancing once more in
the following year (532) from the territory of the Cenomani to invade
their land.  Various obstinate combats took place; in a diversion,
attempted by the Insubres against the Roman fortress of Clastidium
(Casteggio, below Pavia), on the right bank of the Po, the Gallic
king Virdumarus fell by the hand of the consul Marcus Marcellus.  But,
after a battle already half won by the Celts but ultimately decided
in favour of the Romans, the consul Gnaeus Scipio took by assault
Mediolanum, the capital of the Insubres, and the capture of that town
and of Comum terminated their resistance.  Thus the Celts of Italy
were completely vanquished, and as, just before, the Romans had shown
to the Hellenes in the war with the pirates the difference between a
Roman and a Greek sovereignty of the seas, so they had now brilliantly
demonstrated that Rome knew how to defend the gates of Italy against
freebooters on land otherwise than Macedonia had guarded the gates of
Greece, and that in spite of all internal quarrels Italy presented as
united a front to the national foe, as Greece exhibited distraction
and discord.

Romanization of the Entire of Italy

The boundary of the Alps was reached, in so far as the whole flat
country on the Po was either rendered subject to the Romans, or, like
the territories of the Cenomani and Veneti, was occupied by dependent
allies.  It needed time, however, to reap the consequences of this
victory and to Romanize the land.  In this the Romans did not adopt
a uniform mode of procedure.  In the mountainous northwest of Italy
and in the more remote districts between the Alps and the Po they
tolerated, on the whole, the former inhabitants; the numerous wars,
as they are called, which were waged with the Ligurians in particular
(first in 516) appear to have been slave-hunts rather than wars, and,
often as the cantons and valleys submitted to the Romans, Roman
sovereignty in that quarter was hardly more than a name.  The
expedition to Istria also (533) appears not to have aimed at much
more than the destruction of the last lurking-places of the Adriatic
pirates, and the establishment of a communication by land along the
coast between the Italian conquests of Rome and her acquisitions on
the other shore.  On the other hand the Celts in the districts south
of the Po were doomed irretrievably to destruction; for, owing to
the looseness of the ties connecting the Celtic nation, none of the
northern Celtic cantons took part with their Italian kinsmen except
for money, and the Romans looked on the latter not only as their
national foes, but as the usurpers of their natural heritage.  The
extensive assignations of land in 522 had already filled the whole
territory between Ancona and Ariminum with Roman colonists, who
settled here without communal organization in market-villages and
hamlets.  Further measures of the same character were taken, and
it was not difficult to dislodge and extirpate a half-barbarous
population like the Celtic, only partially following agriculture,
and destitute of walled towns.  The great northern highway, which had
been, probably some eighty years earlier, carried by way of Otricoli
to Narni, and had shortly before been prolonged to the newly-founded
fortress of Spoletium (514), was now (534) carried, under the name of
the "Flaminian" road, by way of the newly-established market-village
Forum Flaminii (near Foligno), through the pass of Furlo to the coast,
and thence along the latter from Fanum (Fano) to Ariminum; it was the
first artificial road which crossed the Apennines and connected the
two Italian seas.  Great zeal was manifested in covering the newly-
acquired fertile territory with Roman townships.  Already, to cover
the passage of the Po, the strong fortress of Placentia (Piacenza)
had been founded on the right bank; not far from it Cremona had been
laid out on the left bank, and the building of the walls of Mutina
(Modena), in the territory taken away from the Boii, had far advanced
--already preparations were being made for further assignations of
land  and for continuing the highway, when sudden event interrupted
the Romans in reaping the fruit of their successes.

Notes for Chapter III

1. III. II. Evacuation of Africa

2. That the cession of the islands lying between Sicily and Italy,
which the peace of 513 prescribed to the Carthaginians, did not
include the cession of Sardinia is a settled point (III. II. Remarks
On the Roman Conduct of the War); but the statement, that the Romans
made that a pretext for their occupation of the island three years
after the peace, is ill attested.  Had they done so, they would merely
have added a diplomatic folly to the political effrontery.

3. III. II. The War on the Coasts of Sicily and Sardinia

4. III. VIII. Changes in Procedure

5. II. I. Restrictions on the Delegation of Powers

6. That this was the case may be gathered partly from the appearance
of the "Siculi" against Marcellus (Liv. xxvi. 26, seq.), partly from
the "conjoint petitions of all the Sicilian communities" (Cicero,
Verr. ii. 42, 102; 45, 114; 50, 146; iii. 88, 204), partly from well-
known analogies (Marquardt, Handb. iii. i, 267).  Because there was no
-commercium- between the different towns, it by no means follows that
there was no -concilium-.

7. The right of coining gold and silver was not monopolized by Rome
in the provinces so strictly as in Italy, evidently because gold
and silver money not struck after the Roman standard was of less
importance.  But in their case too the mints were doubtless, as a
rule, restricted to the coinage of copper, or at most silver, small
money; even the most favourably treated communities of Roman Sicily,
such as the Mamertines, the Centuripans, the Halaesines, the
Segestans, and also in the main the Pacormitaus coined only copper.

8. This is implied in Hiero's expression (Liv. xxii. 37):
that he knew that the Romans made use of none but Roman or Latin
infantry and cavalry, and employed "foreigners" at most only among
the light-armed troops.

9. This is shown at once by a glance at the map, and also by the
remarkable exceptional provision which allowed the Centuripans
to buy to any part of Sicily.  They needed, as Roman spies, the
utmost freedom of movement We may add that Centuripa appears to
have been among the first cities that went over to Rome
(Diodorus, l. xxiii. p. 501).

10. This distinction between Italy as the Roman mainland or consular
sphere on the one hand, and the transmarine territory or praetorial
sphere on the other, already appears variously applied in the sixth
century.  The ritual rule, that certain priests should not leave Rome
(Val. Max. i. i, 2), was explained to mean, that they were not allowed
to cross the sea (Liv. Ep. 19, xxxvii. 51; Tac. Ann. iii. 58, 71; Cic.
Phil. xi. 8, 18; comp. Liv. xxviii. 38, 44, Ep. 59). To this head
still more definitely belongs the interpretation which was proposed in
544 to be put upon the old rule, that the consul might nominate the
dictator only on "Roman ground": viz. that "Roman ground" comprehended
all Italy (Liv. xxvii. 5).  The erection of the Celtic land between
the Alps and Apennines into a special province, different from that of
the consuls and subject to a separate Standing chief magistrate, was
the work of Sulla.  Of course no one will Urge as an objection to this
view, that already in the sixth century Gallia or Ariminum is very
often designated as the "official district"  (-provincia-), usually of
one of the consuls.  -Provincia-, as is well known, was in the older
language not--what alone it denoted subsequently--a definite space
assigned as a district to a standing chief magistrate, but the
department of duty fixed for the individual consul, in the first
instance by agreement with his colleague, under concurrence of the
senate; and in this sense frequently individual regions in northern
Italy, or even North Italy generally, were assigned to individual
consuls as -provincia-.

11. A standing Roman commandant of Corcyra is apparently mentioned in
Polyb. xxii. 15, 6 (erroneously translated by Liv. xxxviii. ii, comp.
xlii. 37), and a similar one in the case of Issa in Liv. xliii. 9.
We have, moreover, the analogy of the -praefectus pro legato insularum
Baliarum- (Orelli, 732), and of the governor of Pandataria (Inscr.
Reg. Neapol. 3528).  It appears, accordingly, to have been a rule in
the Roman administration to appoint non-senatorial -praefecti- for the
more remote islands.  But these "deputies" presuppose in the nature of
the case a superior magistrate who nominates and superintends them;
and this superior magistracy can only have been at this period that of
the consuls.  Subsequently, after the erection of Macedonia and Gallia
Cisalpina into provinces, the superior administration was committed to
one of these two governors; the very territory now in question, the
nucleus of the subsequent Roman province of Illyricum, belonged, as
is well known, in part to Caesar's district of administration.

12. III. VII. The Senones Annihilated

13. III. VII. Breach between Rome and Tarentum

14. III. VII. Construction of New Fortresses and Roads

15. These, whom Polybius designates as the "Celts in the Alps and on
the Rhone, who on account of their character as military adventurers
are called Gaesatae (free lances)," are in the Capitoline Fasti named
-Germani-.  It is possible that the contemporary annalists may have
here mentioned Celts alone, and that it was the historical speculation
of the age of Caesar and Augustus that first induced the redactors of
these Fasti to treat them as "Germans." If, on the other hand, the
mention of the Germans in the Fasti was based on contemporary records
--in which case this is the earliest mention of the name--we shall here
have to think not of the Germanic races who were afterwards so called,
but of a Celtic horde.




Chapter IV

Hamilcar and Hannibal

Situation of Carthage after the Peace

The treaty with Rome in 513 gave to the Carthaginians peace, but they
paid for it dearly.  That the tribute of the largest portion of Sicily
now flowed into the enemy's exchequer instead of the Carthaginian
treasury, was the least part of their loss.  They felt a far keener
regret when they not merely had to abandon the hope of monopolizing
all the sea-routes between the eastern and the western Mediterranean
--just as that hope seemed on the eve of fulfilment--but also saw
their whole system of commercial policy broken up, the south-western
basin of the Mediterranean, which they had hitherto exclusively
commanded, converted since the loss of Sicily into an open
thoroughfare for all nations, and the commerce of Italy rendered
completely independent of the Phoenician.  Nevertheless the quiet
men of Sidon might perhaps have prevailed on themselves to acquiesce
in this result.  They had met with similar blows already; they had
been obliged to share with the Massiliots, the Etruscans, and the
Sicilian Greeks what they had previously possessed alone; even now
the possessions which they retained, Africa, Spain, and the gates of
the Atlantic Ocean, were sufficient to confer power and prosperity.
But in truth, where was their security that these at least would
continue in their hands?  The demands made by Regulus, and his very
near approach to the obtaining of what he asked, could only be
forgotten by those who were willing to forget; and if Rome should now
renew from Lilybaeum the enterprise which she had undertaken with so
great success from Italy, Carthage would undoubtedly fall, unless the
perversity of the enemy or some special piece of good fortune should
intervene to save it No doubt they had peace for the present; but the
ratification of that peace had hung on a thread, and they knew what
public opinion in Rome thought of the terms on which it was concluded.
It might be that Rome was not yet meditating the conquest of Africa
and was as yet content with Italy; but if the existence of the
Carthaginian state depended on that contentment, the prospect was but
a sorry one; and where was the security that the Romans might not find
it even convenient for their Italian policy to extirpate rather than
reduce to subjection their African neighbour?

War Party and Peace Party in Carthage

In short, Carthage could only regard the peace of 513 in the light
of a truce, and could not but employ it in preparations for the
inevitable renewal of the war; not for the purpose of avenging the
defeat which she had suffered, nor even with the primary view of
recovering what she had lost, but in order to secure for herself an
existence that should not be dependent on the good-will of the enemy.
But when a war of annihilation is surely, though in point of time
indefinitely, impending over a weaker state, the wiser, more
resolute, and more devoted men--who would immediately prepare for the
unavoidable struggle, accept it at a favourable moment, and thus cover
their defensive policy by a strategy of offence--always find
themselves hampered by the indolent and cowardly mass of the money-
worshippers, of the aged and feeble, and of the thoughtless who are
minded merely to gain time, to live and die in peace, and to postpone
at any price the final struggle.  So there was in Carthage a party
for peace and a party for war, both, as was natural, associating
themselves with the political distinction which already existed
between the conservatives and the reformers.  The former found its
support in the governing boards, the council of the Ancients and that
of the Hundred, led by Hanno the Great, as he was called; the latter
found its support in the leaders of the multitude, particularly the
much-respected Hasdrubal, and in the officers of the Sicilian army,
whose great successes under the leadership of Hamilcar, although they
had been otherwise fruitless, had at least shown to the patriots a
method which seemed to promise deliverance from the great danger that
beset them.  Vehement feud had probably long subsisted between these
parties, when the Libyan war intervened to suspend the strife.  We
have already related how that war arose.  After the governing party
had instigated the mutiny by their incapable administration which
frustrated all the precautionary measures of the Sicilian officers,
had converted that mutiny into a revolution by the operation of their
inhuman system of government, and had at length brought the country to
the verge of ruin by their military incapacity--and particularly that
of their leader Hanno, who ruined the army--Hamilcar Barcas, the hero
of Ercte, was in the perilous emergency solicited by the government
itself to save it from the effects of its blunders and crimes.  He
accepted the command, and had the magnanimity not to resign it
even when they appointed Hanno as his colleague.  Indeed, when the
indignant army sent the latter home, Hamilcar had the self-control
a second time to concede to him, at the urgent request of the
government, a share in the command; and, in spite of his enemies and
in spite of such a colleague, he was able by his influence with the
insurgents, by his dexterous treatment of the Numidian sheiks, and
by his unrivalled genius for organization and generalship, in a
singularly short time to put down the revolt entirely and to recall
rebellious Africa to its allegiance (end of 517).

During this war the patriot party had kept silence; now it spoke out
the louder.  On the one hand this catastrophe had brought to light
the utterly corrupt and pernicious character of the ruling oligarchy,
their incapacity, their coterie-policy, their leanings towards the
Romans.  On the other hand the seizure of Sardinia, and the
threatening attitude which Rome on that occasion assumed, showed
plainly even to the humblest that a declaration of war by Rome was
constantly hanging like the sword of Damocles over Carthage, and that,
if Carthage in her present circumstances went to war with Rome,
the consequence must necessarily be the downfall of the Phoenician
dominion in Libya.  Probably there were in Carthage not a few who,
despairing of the future of their country, counselled emigration to
the islands of the Atlantic; who could blame them?  But minds of the
nobler order disdain to save themselves apart from their nation,
and great natures enjoy the privilege of deriving enthusiasm from
circumstances in which the multitude of good men despair.  They
accepted the new conditions just as Rome dictated them; no course
was left but to submit and, adding fresh bitterness to their former
hatred, carefully to cherish and husband resentment--that last
resource of an injured nation.  They then took steps towards a
political reform.(1)  They had become sufficiently convinced of the
incorrigibleness of the party in power: the fact that the governing
lords had even in the last war neither forgotten their spite nor
learned greater wisdom, was shown by the effrontery bordering on
simplicity with which they now instituted proceedings against Hamilcar
as the originator of the mercenary war, because he had without full
powers from the government made promises of money to his Sicilian
soldiers.  Had the club of officers and popular leaders desired to
overthrow this rotten and wretched government, it would hardly have
encountered much difficulty in Carthage itself; but it would have met
with more formidable obstacles in Rome, with which the chiefs of the
government in Carthage already maintained relations that bordered on
treason.  To all the other difficulties of the position there fell
to be added the circumstance, that the means of saving their country
had to be created without allowing either the Romans, or their own
government with its Roman leanings, to become rightly aware of
what was doing.

Hamilcar Commander-in-Chief

So they left the constitution untouched, and the chiefs of the
government in full enjoyment of their exclusive privileges and of the
public property.  It was merely proposed and carried, that of the two
commanders-in-chief, who at the end of the Libyan war were at the head
of the Carthaginian troops, Hanno and Hamilcar, the former should be
recalled, and the latter should be nominated commander-in-chief for
all Africa during an indefinite period.  It was arranged that he
should hold a position independent of the governing corporations
--his antagonists called it an unconstitutional monarchical power,
Cato calls it a dictatorship--and that he could only be recalled and
placed upon his trial by the popular assembly.(2)  Even the choice
of a successor was to be vested not in the authorities of the capital,
but in the army, that is, in the Carthaginians serving in the array as
gerusiasts or officers, who were named in treaties also along with
the general; of course the right of confirmation was reserved to the
popular assembly at home.  Whether this may or may not have been a
usurpation, it clearly indicates that the war party regarded and
treated the army as its special domain.

The commission which Hamilcar thus received sounded but little
liable to exception.  Wars with the Numidian tribes on the borders
never ceased; only a short time previously the "city of a hundred
gates,"  Theveste (Tebessa), in the interior had been occupied by the
Carthaginians.  The task of continuing this border warfare, which was
allotted to the new commander-in-chief of Africa, was not in itself of
such importance as to prevent the Carthaginian government, which was
allowed to do as it liked in its own immediate sphere, from tacitly
conniving at the decrees passed in reference to the matter by the
popular assembly; and the Romans did not perhaps recognize its
significance at all.

Hamilcar's War Projects
The Army
The Citizens

Thus there stood at the head of the army the one man, who had given
proof in the Sicilian and in the Libyan wars that fate had destined
him, if any one, to be the saviour of his country.  Never perhaps was
the noble struggle of man with fate waged more nobly than by him.
The army was expected to save the state; but what sort of army?
The Carthaginian civic militia had fought not badly under Hamilcar's
leadership in the Libyan war; but he knew well, that it is one thing
to lead out the merchants and artisans of a city, which is in the
extremity of peril, for once to battle, and another to form them
into soldiers.  The patriotic party in Carthage furnished him with
excellent officers, but it was of course almost exclusively the
cultivated class that was represented in it.  He had no citizen-
militia, at most a few squadrons of Libyphoenician cavalry.  The task
was to form an army out of Libyan forced recruits and mercenaries; a
task possible in the hands of a general like Hamilcar, but possible
even for him only on condition that he should be able to pay his men
punctually and amply.  But he had learned, by experience in Sicily,
that the state revenues of Carthage were expended in Carthage itself
on matters much more needful than the payment of the armies that
fought against the enemy.  The warfare which he waged, accordingly,
had to support itself, and he had to carry out on a great scale what
he had already attempted on a smaller scale at Monte Pellegrino.  But
further, Hamilcar was not only a military chief, he was also a party
leader.  In opposition to the implacable governing party, which
eagerly but patiently waited for an opportunity of overthrowing him,
he had to seek support among the citizens; and although their leaders
might be ever so pure and noble, the multitude was deeply corrupt and
accustomed by the unhappy system of corruption to give nothing without
being paid for it.  In particular emergencies, indeed, necessity or
enthusiasm might for the moment prevail, as everywhere happens even
with the most venal corporations; but, if Hamilcar wished to secure
the permanent support of the Carthaginian community for his plan,
which at the best could only be carried out after a series of years,
he had to supply his friends at home with regular consignments of
money as the means of keeping the mob in good humour.  Thus compelled
to beg or to buy from the lukewarm and venal multitude the permission
to save it; compelled to bargain with the arrogance of men whom
he hated and whom he had constantly conquered, at the price of
humiliation and of silence, for the respite indispensable for his
ends; compelled to conceal from those despised traitors to their
country, who called themselves the lords of his native city, his plans
and his contempt--the noble hero stood with few like-minded friends
between enemies without and enemies within, building upon the
irresolution of the one and of the other, at once deceiving both and
defying both, if only he might gain means, money, and men for the
contest with a land which, even were the army ready to strike the
blow, it seemed difficult to reach and scarce possible to vanquish.
He was still a young man, little beyond thirty, but he had apparently,
when he was preparing for his expedition, a foreboding that he would
not be permitted to attain the end of his labours, or to see otherwise
than afar off the promised land.  When he left Carthage he enjoined
his son Hannibal, nine years of age, to swear at the altar of the
supreme God eternal hatred to the Roman name, and reared him and his
younger sons Hasdrubal and Mago--the "lion's brood,"  as he called
them--in the camp as the inheritors of his projects, of his genius,
and of his hatred.

Hamilcar Proceed to Spain
Spanish Kingdom of the Barcides

The new commander-in-chief of Libya departed from Carthage immediately
after the termination of the mercenary war (perhaps in the spring of
518).  He apparently meditated an expedition against the free Libyans
in the west.  His army, which was especially strong in elephants,
marched along the coast; by its side sailed the fleet, led by his
faithful associate Hasdrubal.  Suddenly tidings came that he had
crossed the sea at the Pillars of Hercules and had landed in Spain,
where he was waging war with the natives--with people who had done him
no harm, and without orders from his government, as the Carthaginian
authorities complained.  They could not complain at any rate that he
neglected the affairs of Africa; when the Numidians once more
rebelled, his lieutenant Hasdrubal so effectually routed them that
for a long period there was tranquillity on the frontier, and several
tribes hitherto independent submitted to pay tribute.  What he
personally did in Spain, we are no longer able to trace in detail.
His achievements compelled Cato the elder, who, a generation after
Hamilcar's death, beheld in Spain the still fresh traces of his
working, to exclaim, notwithstanding all his hatred of the
Carthaginians, that no king was worthy to be named by the side of
Hamilcar Barcas.  The results still show to us, at least in a general
way, what was accomplished by Hamilcar as a soldier and a statesman in
the last nine years of his life (518-526)--till in the flower of his
age, fighting bravely in the field of battle, he met his death like
Scharn-horst just as his plans were beginning to reach maturity--and
what during the next eight years (527-534) the heir of his office
and of his plans, his son-in-law Hasdrubal, did to prosecute, in the
spirit of the master, the work which Hamilcar had begun.  Instead of
the small entrepot for trade, which, along with the protectorate over
Gades, was all that Carthage had hitherto possessed on the Spanish
coast, and which she had treated as a dependency of Libya, a
Carthaginian kingdom was founded in Spain by the generalship of
Hamilcar, and confirmed by the adroit statesmanship of Hasdrubal.
The fairest regions of Spain, the southern and eastern coasts,
became Phoenician provinces.  Towns were founded; above all, "Spanish
Carthage" (Cartagena) was established by Hasdrubal on the only good
harbour along the south coast, containing the splendid "royal castle"
of its founder.  Agriculture flourished, and, still more, mining in
consequence of the fortunate discovery of the silver-mines of
Cartagena, which a century afterwards had a yearly produce of more
than 360,000 pounds (36,000,000 sesterces).  Most of the communities
as far as the Ebro became dependent on Carthage and paid tribute to
it.  Hasdrubal skilfully by every means, even by intermarriages,
attached the chiefs to the interests of Carthage.  Thus Carthage
acquired in Spain a rich market for its commerce and manufactures;
and not only did the revenues of the province sustain the army, but
there remained a balance to be remitted to Carthage and reserved for
future use.  The province formed and at the same time trained the
army; regular levies took place in the territory subject to Carthage;
the prisoners of war were introduced into the Carthaginian corps.
Contingents and mercenaries, as many as were desired, were supplied
by the dependent communities.  During his long life of warfare the
soldier found in the camp a second home, and found a substitute for
patriotism in fidelity to his standard and enthusiastic attachment
to his great leaders.  Constant conflicts with the brave Iberians and
Celts created a serviceable infantry, to co-operate with the excellent
Numidian cavalry.

The Carthaginian Government and the Barcides

So far as Carthage was concerned, the Barcides were allowed to go on.
Since the citizens were not asked for regular contributions, but on
the contrary some benefit accrued to them and commerce recovered in
Spain what it had lost in Sicily and Sardinia, the Spanish war and the
Spanish army with its brilliant victories and important successes soon
became so popular that it was even possible in particular emergencies,
such as after Hamilcar's fall, to effect the despatch of considerable
reinforcements of African troops to Spain; and the governing party,
whether well or ill affected, had to maintain silence, or at any rate
to content themselves with complaining to each other or to their
friends in Rome regarding the demagogic officers and the mob.

The Roman Government and the Barcides

On the part of Rome too nothing took place calculated seriously to
alter the course of Spanish affairs.  The first and chief cause of
the inactivity of the Romans was undoubtedly their very want of
acquaintance with the circumstances of the remote peninsula--which was
certainly also Hamilcar's main reason for selecting Spain and not, as
might otherwise have been possible, Africa itself for the execution of
his plan.  The explanations with which the Carthaginian generals met
the Roman commissioners sent to Spain to procure information on the
spot, and their assurances that all this was done only to provide
the means of promptly paying the war-contributions to Rome, could not
possibly find belief in the senate.  But they probably discerned
only the immediate object of Hamilcar's plans, viz. to procure
compensation in Spain for the tribute and the traffic of the islands
which Carthage had lost; and they deemed an aggressive war on the part
of the Carthaginians, and in particular an invasion of Italy from
Spain--as is evident both from express statements to that effect and
from the whole state of the case--as absolutely impossible.  Many, of
course, among the peace party in Carthage saw further; but, whatever
they might think, they could hardly be much inclined to enlighten
their Roman friends as to the impending storm, which the Carthaginian
authorities had long been unable to prevent, for that step would
accelerate, instead of averting, the crisis; and even if they did so,
such denunciations proceeding from partisans would justly be received
with great caution at Rome.  By degrees, certainly, the inconceivably
rapid and mighty extension of the Carthaginian power in Spain could
not but excite the observation and awaken the apprehensions of the
Romans.  In fact, in the course of the later years before the outbreak
of war, they did attempt to set bounds to it.  About the year 528,
mindful of their new-born Hellenism, they concluded an alliance
with the two Greek or semi-Greek towns on the east coast of Spain,
Zacynthus or Saguntum (Murviedro, not far from Valencia), and Emporiae
(Ampurias); and when they acquainted the Carthaginian general
Hasdrubal that they had done so, they at the same time warned him
not to push his conquests over the Ebro, with which he promised
compliance.  This was not done by any means to prevent an invasion
of Italy by the land-route--no treaty could fetter the general who
undertook such an enterprise--but partly to set a limit to the
material power of the Spanish Carthaginians which began to be
dangerous, partly to secure the free communities between the Ebro
and the Pyrenees whom Rome thus took under her protection, a basis
of operations in case of its being necessary to land and make war in
Spain.  In reference to the impending war with Carthage, which the
senate did not fail to see was inevitable, they hardly apprehended any
greater inconvenience from the events that had occurred in Spain than
that they might be compelled to send some legions thither, and that
the enemy would be somewhat better provided with money and soldiers
than, without Spain, he would have been; they were at any rate firmly
resolved, as the plan of the campaign of 536 shows and as indeed could
not but be the case, to begin and terminate the next war in Africa,
--a course which would at the same time decide the fate of Spain.
Further grounds for delay were suggested during the first years by the
instalments from Carthage, which a declaration of war would have cut
off, and then by the death of Hamilcar, which probably induced friends
and foes to think that his projects must have died with him.  Lastly,
during the latter years when the senate certainly began, to apprehend
that it was not prudent long to delay the renewal of the war, there
was the very intelligible wish to dispose of the Gauls in the
valley of the Po in the first instance, for these, threatened with
extirpation, might be expected to avail themselves of any serious war
undertaken by Rome to allure the Transalpine tribes once more to
Italy, and to renew those Celtic migrations which were still fraught
with very great peril.  That it was not regard either for the
Carthaginian peace party or for existing treaties which withheld the
Romans from action, is self-evident; moreover, if they desired war,
the Spanish feuds furnished at any moment a ready pretext.  The
conduct of Rome in this view is by no means unintelligible; but as
little can it be denied that the Roman senate in dealing with this
matter displayed shortsightedness and slackness--faults which were
still more inexcusably manifested in their mode of dealing at the same
epoch with Gallic affairs.  The policy of the Romans was always more
remarkable for tenacity, cunning, and consistency, than for grandeur
of conception or power of rapid organization--qualities in which the
enemies of Rome from Pyrrhus down to Mithradates often surpassed her.

Hannibal

Thus the smiles of fortune inaugurated the brilliantly conceived
project of Hamilcar.  The means of war were acquired--a numerous army
accustomed to combat and to conquer, and a constantly replenished
exchequer; but, in order that the right moment might be discovered for
the struggle and that the right direction might be given to it, there
was wanted a leader.  The man, whose head and heart had in a desperate
emergency and amidst a despairing people paved the way for their
deliverance, was no more, when it became possible to carry out his
design.  Whether his successor Hasdrubal forbore to make the attack
because the proper moment seemed to him to have not yet come, or
whether, more a statesman than a general, he believed himself unequal
to the conduct of the enterprise, we are unable to determine.  When,
at the beginning of 534, he fell by the hand of an assassin, the
Carthaginian officers of the Spanish army summoned to fill his place
Hannibal, the eldest son of Hamilcar.  He was still a young man--born
in 505, and now, therefore, in his twenty-ninth year; but his had
already been a life of manifold experience.  His first recollections
pictured to him his father fighting in a distant land and conquering
on Ercte; he had keenly shared that unconquered father's feelings on
the peace of Catulus, on the bitter return home, and throughout the
horrors of the Libyan war.  While yet a boy, he had followed his
father to the camp; and he soon distinguished himself.  His light
and firmly-knit frame made him an excellent runner and fencer, and a
fearless rider at full speed; the privation of sleep did not affect
him, and he knew like a soldier how to enjoy or to dispense with food.
Although his youth had been spent in the camp, he possessed such
culture as belonged to the Phoenicians of rank in his day; in Greek,
apparently after he had become a general, he made such progress under
the guidance of his confidant Sosilus of Sparta as to be able to
compose state papers in that language.  As he grew up, he entered
the army of his father, to perform his first feats of arms under the
paternal eye and to see him fall in battle by his side.  Thereafter he
had commanded the cavalry under his sister's husband, Hasdrubal, and
distinguished himself by brilliant personal bravery as well as by his
talents as a leader.  The voice of his comrades now summoned him--the
tried, although youthful general--to the chief command, and he could
now execute the designs for which his father and his brother-in-law
had lived and died.  He took up the inheritance, and he was worthy of
it.  His contemporaries tried to cast stains of various sorts on his
character; the Romans charged him with cruelty, the Carthaginians with
covetousness; and it is true that he hated as only Oriental natures
know how to hate, and that a general who never fell short of money and
stores can hardly have been other than covetous.  But though anger and
envy and meanness have written his history, they have not been able to
mar the pure and noble image which it presents.  Laying aside wretched
inventions which furnish their own refutation, and some things which
his lieutenants, particularly Hannibal Monomachus and Mago the
Samnite, were guilty of doing in his name, nothing occurs in the
accounts regarding him which may not be justified under the
circumstances, and according to the international law, of the times;
and all agree in this, that he combined in rare perfection discretion
and enthusiasm, caution and energy.  He was peculiarly marked by that
inventive craftiness, which forms one of the leading traits of the
Phoenician character; he was fond of taking singular and unexpected
routes; ambushes and stratagems of all sorts were familiar to him;
and he studied the character of his antagonists with unprecedented
care.  By an unrivalled system of espionage--he had regular spies even
in Rome--he kept himself informed of the projects of the enemy; he
himself was frequently seen wearing disguises and false hair, in order
to procure information on some point or other.  Every page of the
history of this period attests his genius in strategy; and his gifts
as a statesman were, after the peace with Rome, no less conspicuously
displayed in his reform of the Carthaginian constitution, and in the
unparalleled influence which as a foreign exile he exercised in the
cabinets of the eastern powers.  The power which he wielded over men
is shown by his incomparable control over an army of various nations
and many tongues--an army which never in the worst times mutinied
against him.  He was a great man; wherever he went, he riveted the
eyes of all.

Rupture between Rome and Carthage

Hannibal resolved immediately after his nomination (in the spring
of 534) to commence the war.  The land of the Celts was still in a
ferment, and a war seemed imminent between Rome and Macedonia: he had
good reason now to throw off the mask without delay and to carry the
war whithersoever he pleased, before the Romans began it at their own
convenience with a descent on Africa.  His army was soon ready to take
the field, and his exchequer was filled by some razzias on a great
scale; but the Carthaginian government showed itself far from desirous
of despatching the declaration of war to Rome.  The place of
Hasdrubal, the patriotic national leader, was even more difficult
to fill in Carthage than that of Hasdrubal the general in Spain; the
peace party had now the ascendency at home, and persecuted the leaders
of the war party with political indictments.  The rulers who had
already cut down and mutilated the plans of Hamilcar were by no means
inclined to allow the unknown young man, who now commanded in Spain,
to vent his youthful patriotism at the expense of the state; and
Hannibal hesitated personally to declare war in open opposition to the
legitimate authorities.  He tried to provoke the Saguntines to break
the peace; but they contented themselves with making a complaint to
Rome.  Then, when a commission from Rome appeared, he tried to
drive it to a declaration of war by treating it rudely; but the
commissioners saw how matters stood: they kept silence in Spain,
with a view to lodge complaints at Carthage and to report at home that
Hannibal was ready to strike and that war was imminent.  Thus the time
passed away; accounts had already come of the death of Antigonus
Doson, who had suddenly died nearly at the same time with Hasdrubal;
in Cisalpine Gaul the establishment of fortresses was carried on by
the Romans with redoubled rapidity and energy; preparations were made
in Rome for putting a speedy end in the course of the next spring to
the insurrection in Illyria.  Every day was precious; Hannibal formed
his resolution.  He sent summary intimation to Carthage that the
Saguntines were making aggressions on the Torboletes, subjects of
Carthage, and he must therefore attack them; and without waiting for
a reply he began in the spring of 535 the siege of a town which was in
alliance with Rome, or, in other words, war against Rome.  We may form
some idea of the views and counsels that would prevail in Carthage
from the impression produced in certain circles by York's
capitulation.  All "respectable men," it was said, disapproved an
attack made "without orders"; there was talk of disavowal, of
surrendering the daring officer.  But whether it was that dread of the
army and of the multitude nearer home outweighed in the Carthaginian
council the fear of Rome; or that they perceived the impossibility
of retracing such a step once taken; or that the mere -vis inertiae-
prevented any definite action, they resolved at length to resolve on
nothing and, if not to wage war, to let it nevertheless be waged.
Saguntum defended itself, as only Spanish towns know how to conduct
defence: had the Romans showed but a tithe of the energy of their
clients, and not trifled away their time during the eight months'
siege of Saguntum in the paltry warfare with Illyrian brigands, they
might, masters as they were of the sea and of places suitable for
landing, have spared themselves the disgrace of failing to grant the
protection which they had promised, and might perhaps have given a
different turn to the war.  But they delayed, and the town was at
length taken by storm.  When Hannibal sent the spoil for distribution
to Carthage, patriotism and zeal for war were roused in the hearts of
many who had hitherto felt nothing of the kind, and the distribution
cut off all prospect of coming to terms with Rome.  Accordingly, when
after the destruction of Saguntum a Roman embassy appeared at Carthage
and demanded the surrender of the general and of the gerusiasts
present in the camp, and when the Roman spokesman, interrupting an
attempt at justification, broke off the discussion and, gathering
up his robe, declared that he held in it peace and war and that the
gerusia might choose between them, the gerusiasts mustered courage
to reply that they left it to the choice of the Roman; and when he
offered war, they accepted it (in the spring of 536).

Preparations for Attacking Italy

Hannibal, who had lost a whole year through the obstinate resistance
of the Saguntines, had as usual retired for the winter of 535-6 to
Cartagena, to make all his preparations on the one hand for the attack
of Italy, on the other for the defence of Spain and Africa; for, as
he, like his father and his brother-in-law, held the supreme command
in both countries, it devolved upon him to take measures also for the
protection of his native land.  The whole mass of his forces amounted
to about 120,000 infantry and 16,000 cavalry; he had also 58
elephants, 32 quinqueremes manned, and 18 not manned, besides the
elephants and vessels remaining at the capital.  Excepting a few
Ligurians among the light troops, there were no mercenaries in this
Carthaginian army; the troops, with the exception of some Phoenician
squadrons, consisted mainly of the Carthaginian subjects called out
for service--Libyans and Spaniards.  To insure the fidelity of the
latter the general, who knew the men with whom he had to deal, gave
them as a proof of his confidence a general leave of absence for the
whole winter; while, not sharing the narrow-minded exclusiveness of
Phoenician patriotism, he promised to the Libyans on his oath the
citizenship of Carthage, should they return to Africa victorious.
This mass of troops however was only destined in part for the
expedition to Italy.  Some 20,000 men were sent to Africa, the smaller
portion of them proceeding to the capital and the Phoenician territory
proper, the majority to the western point of Africa.  For the
protection of Spain 12,000 infantry, 2500 cavalry, and nearly the half
of the elephants were left behind, in addition to the fleet stationed
there; the chief command and the government of Spain were entrusted
to Hannibal's younger brother Hasdrubal.  The immediate territory of
Carthage was comparatively weakly garrisoned, because the capital
afforded in case of need sufficient resources; in like manner a
moderate number of infantry sufficed for the present in Spain, where
new levies could be procured with ease, whereas a comparatively large
proportion of the arms specially African--horses and elephants--was
retained there.  The chief care was bestowed in securing the
communications between Spain and Africa: with that view the fleet
remained in Spain, and western Africa was guarded by a very strong
body of troops.  The fidelity of the troops was secured not only by
hostages collected from the Spanish communities and detained in the
stronghold of Saguntum, but by the removal of the soldiers from the
districts where they were raised to other quarters: the east African
militia were moved chiefly to Spain, the Spanish to Western Africa,
the West African to Carthage.  Adequate provision was thus made for
defence.  As to offensive measures, a squadron of 20 quinqueremes with
1000 soldiers on board was to sail from Carthage for the west coast of
Italy and to pillage it, and a second of 25 sail was, if possible,
to re-establish itself at Lilybaeum; Hannibal believed that he might
count upon the government making this moderate amount of exertion.
With the main army he determined in person to invade Italy; as was
beyond doubt part of the original plan of Hamilcar.  A decisive attack
on Rome was only possible in Italy, as a similar attack on Carthage
was only possible in Libya; as certainly as Rome meant to begin her
next campaign with the latter, so certainly ought Carthage not to
confine herself at the outset either to any secondary object of
operations, such as Sicily, or to mere defence--defeat would in
any case involve equal destruction, but victory would not yield
equal fruit.

Method of Attack

But how could Italy be attacked?  He might succeed in reaching the
peninsula by sea or by land; but if the project was to be no mere
desperate adventure, but a military expedition with a strategic aim,
a nearer basis for its operations was requisite than Spain or Africa.
Hannibal could not rely for support on a fleet and a fortified
harbour, for Rome was now mistress of the sea.  As little did the
territory of the Italian confederacy present any tenable basis.  If
in very different times, and in spite of Hellenic sympathies, it had
withstood the shock of Pyrrhus, it was not to be expected that it
would now fall to pieces on the appearance of the Phoenician general;
an invading army would without doubt be crushed between the network of
Roman fortresses and the firmly-consolidated confederacy.  The land of
the Ligurians and Celts alone could be to Hannibal, what Poland was to
Napoleon in his very similar Russian campaigns.  These tribes still
smarting under their scarcely ended struggle for independence, alien
in race from the Italians, and feeling their very existence endangered
by the chain of Roman fortresses and highways whose first coils were
even now being fastened around them, could not but recognize their
deliverers in the Phoenician army (which numbered in its ranks
numerous Spanish Celts), and would serve as a first support for it to
fall back upon--a source whence it might draw supplies and recruits.
Already formal treaties were concluded with the Boii and the Insubres,
by which they bound themselves to send guides to meet the Carthaginian
army, to procure for it a good reception from the cognate tribes and
supplies along its route, and to rise against the Romans as soon as
it should set foot on Italian ground.  In fine, the relations of Rome
with the east led the Carthaginians to this same quarter.  Macedonia,
which by the victory of Sellasia had re-established its sovereignty
in the Peloponnesus, was in strained relations with Rome; Demetrius of
Pharos, who had exchanged the Roman alliance for that of Macedonia
and had been dispossessed by the Romans, lived as an exile at the
Macedonian court, and the latter had refused the demand which the
Romans made for his surrender.  If it was possible to combine the
armies from the Guadalquivir and the Karasu anywhere against the
common foe, it could only be done on the Po.  Thus everything directed
Hannibal to Northern Italy; and that the eyes of his father had
already been turned to that quarter, is shown by the reconnoitring
party of Carthaginians, whom the Romans to their great surprise
encountered in Liguria in 524.

The reason for Hannibal's preference of the land route to that by sea
is less obvious; for that neither the maritime supremacy of the Romans
nor their league with Massilia could have prevented a landing at
Genoa, is evident, and was shown by the sequel.  Our authorities fail
to furnish us with several of the elements, on which a satisfactory
answer to this question would depend, and which cannot be supplied by
conjecture.  Hannibal had to choose between two evils.  Instead of
exposing himself to the unknown and less calculable contingencies of
a sea voyage and of naval war, it must have seemed to him the better
course to accept the assurances, which beyond doubt were seriously
meant, of the Boii and Insubres, and the more so that, even if the
army should land at Genoa, it would still have mountains to cross;
he could hardly know exactly, how much smaller are the difficulties
presented by the Apennines at Genoa than by the main chain of the
Alps.  At any rate the route which he took was the primitive Celtic
route, by which many much larger hordes had crossed the Alps: the
ally and deliverer of the Celtic nation might without temerity
venture to traverse it.

Departure of Hannibal

So Hannibal collected the troops, destined for the grand army, in
Cartagena at the beginning of the favourable season; there were 90,000
infantry and 12,000 cavalry, of whom about two-thirds were Africans
and a third Spaniards.  The 37 elephants which they took with them
were probably destined rather to make an impression on the Gauls than
for serious warfare.  Hannibal's infantry no longer needed, like that
led by Xanthippus, to shelter itself behind a screen of elephants, and
the general had too much sagacity to employ otherwise than sparingly
and with caution that two-edged weapon, which had as often occasioned
the defeat of its own as of the enemy's army.  With this force the
general set out in the spring of 536 from Cartagena towards the Ebro.
He so far informed his soldiers as to the measures which he had taken,
particularly as to the connections he had entered into with the Celts
and the resources and object of the expedition, that even the common
soldier, whose military instincts lengthened war had developed, felt
the clear perception and the steady hand of his leader, and followed
him with implicit confidence to the unknown and distant land; and the
fervid address, in which he laid before them the position of their
country and the demands of the Romans, the slavery certainly reserved
for their dear native land, and the disgrace of the imputation that
they could surrender their beloved general and his staff, kindled a
soldierly and patriotic ardour in the hearts of all.

Position of Rome
Their Uncertain Plans for War

The Roman state was in a plight, such as may occur even in firmly-
established and sagacious aristocracies.  The Romans knew doubtless
what they wished to accomplish, and they took various steps; but
nothing was done rightly or at the right time.  They might long ago
have been masters of the gates of the Alps and have settled matters
with the Celts; the latter were still formidable, and the former were
open.  They might either have had friendship, with Carthage, had they
honourably kept the peace of 513, or, had they not been disposed for
peace, they might long ago have conquered Cartilage: the peace was
practically broken by the seizure of Sardinia, and they allowed the
power of Carthage to recover itself undisturbed for twenty years.
There was no great difficulty in maintaining peace with Macedonia; but
they had forfeited her friendship for a trifling gain.  There must
have been a lack of some leading statesman to take a connected and
commanding view of the position of affairs; on all hands either too
little was done, or too much.  Now the war began at a time and at a
place which they had allowed the enemy to determine; and, with all
their well-founded conviction of military superiority, they were
perplexed as to the object to be aimed at and the course to be
followed in their first operations.  They had at their disposal more
than half a million of serviceable soldiers; the Roman cavalry alone
was less good, and relatively less numerous, than the Carthaginian,
the former constituting about a tenth, the latter an eighth, of the
whole number of troops taking the field.  None of the states affected
by the war had any fleet corresponding to the Roman fleet of 220
quinqueremes, which had just returned from the Adriatic to the western
sea.  The natural and proper application of this crushing superiority
of force was self-evident.  It had been long settled that the war
ought to be opened with a landing in Africa.  The subsequent turn
taken by events had compelled the Romans to embrace in their scheme
of the war a simultaneous landing in Spain, chiefly to prevent the
Spanish army from appearing before the walls of Carthage.  In
accordance with this plan they ought above all, when the war had been
practically opened by Hannibal's attack on Saguntum in the beginning
of 535, to have thrown a Roman army into Spain before the town fell;
but they neglected the dictates of interest no less than of honour.
For eight months Saguntum held out in vain: when the town passed into
other hands, Rome had not even equipped her armament for landing in
Spain.  The country, however, between the Ebro and the Pyrenees was
still free, and its tribes were not only the natural allies of the
Romans, but had also, like the Saguntines, received from Roman
emissaries promises of speedy assistance.  Catalonia may be reached by
sea from Italy in not much longer time than from Cartagena by and: had
the Romans started, like the Phoenicians, in April, after the formal
declaration of war that had taken place in the interval, Hannibal
might have encountered the Roman legions on the line of the Ebro.

Hannibal on the Ebro

At length, certainly, the greater part of the army and of the fleet
was got ready for the expedition to Africa, and the second consul
Publius Cornelius Scipio was ordered to the Ebro; but he took time,
and when an insurrection broke out on the Po, he allowed the army that
was ready for embarkation to be employed there, and formed new legions
for the Spanish expedition.  So although Hannibal encountered on the
Ebro very vehement resistance, it proceeded only from the natives;
and, as under existing circumstances time was still more precious to
him than the blood of his men, he surmounted the opposition after some
months with the loss of a fourth part of his army, and reached the
line of the Pyrenees.  That the Spanish allies of Rome would be
sacrificed a second time by that delay might have been as certainly
foreseen, as the delay itself might have been easily avoided; but
probably even the expedition to Italy itself, which in the spring of
536 must not have been anticipated in Rome, would have been averted
by the timely appearance of the Romans in Spain.  Hannibal had by no
means the intention of sacrificing his Spanish "kingdom," and throwing
himself like a desperado on Italy.  The time which he had spent in
the siege of Saguntum and in the reduction of Catalonia, and the
considerable corps which he left behind for the occupation of the
newly-won territory between the Ebro and the Pyrenees, sufficiently
show that, had a Roman army disputed the possession of Spain with him,
he would not have been content to withdraw from it; and--which was the
main point--had the Romans been able to delay his departure from Spain
for but a few weeks, winter would have closed the passes of the Alps
before Hannibal reached them, and the African expedition would have
departed without hindrance for its destination.

Hannibal in Gaul
Scipio at Massilia
Passage of the Rhone

Arrived at the Pyrenees, Hannibal sent home a portion of his troops;
a measure which he had resolved on from the first with the view of
showing to the soldiers how confident their general was of success,
and of checking the feeling that his enterprise was one of those from
which there is no return home.  With an army of 50,000 infantry and
9000 cavalry, entirely veteran soldiers, he crossed the Pyrenees
without difficulty, and then took the coast route by Narbonne and
Nimes through the Celtic territory, which was opened to the army
partly by the connections previously formed, partly by Carthaginian
gold, partly by arms.  It was not till it arrived in the end of July
at the Rhone opposite Avignon, that a serious resistance appeared to
await it.  The consul Scipio, who on his voyage to Spain had landed at
Massilia (about the end of June), had there been informed that he had
come too late and that Hannibal had crossed not only the Ebro but the
Pyrenees.  On receiving these accounts, which appear to have first
opened the eyes of the Romans to the course and the object of
Hannibal, the consul had temporarily given up his expedition to Spain,
and had resolved in connection with the Celtic tribes of that region,
who were under the influence of the Massiliots and thereby under that
of Rome, to receive the Phoenicians on the Rhone, and to obstruct
their passage of the river and their march into Italy.  Fortunately
for Hannibal, opposite to the point at which he meant to cross, there
lay at the moment only the general levy of the Celts, while the consul
himself with his army of 22,000 infantry and 2000 horse was still in
Massilia, four days' march farther down the stream.  The messengers of
the Gallic levy hastened to inform him.  It was the object of Hannibal
to convey his army with its numerous cavalry and elephants across the
rapid stream under the eyes of the enemy, and before the arrival of
Scipio; and he possessed not a single boat.  Immediately by his
directions all the boats belonging to the numerous navigators of
the Rhone in the neighbourhood were bought up at any price, and the
deficiency of boats was supplied by rafts made from felled trees;
and in fact the whole numerous army could be conveyed over in one day.
While this was being done, a strong division under Hanno, son of
Bomilcar, proceeded by forced marches up the stream till they reached
a suitable point for crossing, which they found undefended, situated
two short days' march above Avignon.  Here they crossed the river on
hastily constructed rafts, with the view of then moving down on the
left bank and taking the Gauls, who were barring the passage of the
main army, in the rear.  On the morning of the fifth day after they
had reached the Rhone, and of the third after Hanno's departure, the
smoke-signals of the division that had been detached rose up on the
opposite bank and gave to Hannibal the anxiously awaited summons for
the crossing.  Just as the Gauls, seeing that the enemy's fleet of
boats began to move, were hastening to occupy the bank, their camp
behind them suddenly burst into flames.  Surprised and divided, they
were unable either to withstand the attack or to resist the passage,
and they dispersed in hasty flight.

Scipio meanwhile held councils of war in Massilia as to the proper
mode of occupying the ferries of the Rhone, and was not induced to
move even by the urgent messages that came from the leaders of the
Celts.  He distrusted their accounts, and he contented himself with
detaching a weak Roman cavalry division to reconnoitre on the left
bank of the Rhone.  This detachment found the whole enemy's army
already transported to that bank, and occupied in bringing over the
elephants which alone remained on the right bank of the stream; and,
after it had warmly engaged some Carthaginian squadrons in the
district of Avignon, merely for the purpose of enabling it to complete
its reconnaissance--the first encounter of the Romans and Phoenicians
in this war--it hastily returned to report at head-quarters.  Scipio
now started in the utmost haste with all his troops for Avignon; but,
when he arrived there, even the Carthaginian cavalry that had been
left behind to cover the passage of the elephants had already taken
its departure three days ago, and nothing remained for the consul but
to return with weary troops and little credit to Massilia, and to
revile the "cowardly flight" of the Punic leader.  Thus the Romans had
for the third time through pure negligence abandoned their allies and
an important line of defence; and not only so, but by passing after
this first blunder from mistaken slackness to mistaken haste, and by
still attempting without any prospect of success to do what might have
been done with so much certainty a few days before, they let the real
means of repairing their error pass out of their hands.  When once
Hannibal was in the Celtic territory on the Roman side of the Rhone,
he could no longer be prevented from reaching the Alps; but if Scipio
had at the first accounts proceeded with his whole army to Italy--the
Po might have been reached by way of Genoa in seven days--and had
united with his corps the weak divisions in the valley of the Po,
he might have at least prepared a formidable reception for the enemy.
But not only did he lose precious time in the march to Avignon, but,
capable as otherwise he was, he wanted either the political courage
or the military sagacity to change the destination of his corps as the
change of circumstances required.  He sent the main body under his
brother Gnaeus to Spain, and returned himself with a few men to Pisae.

Hannibal's Passage of the Alps

Hannibal, who after the passage of the Rhone had in a great assembly
of the army explained to his troops the object of his expedition, and
had brought forward the Celtic chief Magilus himself, who had arrived
from the valley of the Po, to address the army through an interpreter,
meanwhile continued his march to the passes of the Alps without
obstruction.  Which of these passes he should choose, could not be
at once determined either by the shortness of the route or by the
disposition of the  inhabitants, although he had no time to lose
either in circuitous routes or in combat.  He had necessarily to
select a route which should be practicable for his baggage, his
numerous cavalry, and his elephants, and in which an army could
procure sufficient means of subsistence either by friendship or by
force; for, although Hannibal had made preparations to convey
provisions after him on beasts of burden, these could only meet for
a few days the wants of an army which still, notwithstanding its great
losses, amounted to nearly 50,000 men.  Leaving out of view the coast
route, which Hannibal abstained from taking not because the Romans
barred it, but because it would have led him away from his
destination, there were only two routes of note leading across the
Alps from Gaul to Italy in ancient times:(3) the pass of the Cottian
Alps (Mont Genevre) leading into the territory of the Taurini (by Susa
or Fenestrelles to Turin), and that of the Graian Alps (the Little St.
Bernard) leading into the territory of the Salassi (to Aosta and
Ivrea).  The former route is the shorter; but, after leaving the
valley of the Rhone, it passes by the impracticable and unfruitful
river-valleys of the Drac, the Romanche, and the upper Durance,
through a difficult and poor mountain country, and requires at least
a seven or eight days' mountain march.  A military road was first
constructed there by Pompeius, to furnish a shorter communication
between the provinces of Cisalpine and Transalpine Gaul.

The route by the Little St. Bernard is somewhat longer; but after
crossing the first Alpine wall that forms the eastern boundary of
the Rhone valley, it keeps by the valley of the upper Isere, which
stretches from Grenoble by way of Chambery up to the very foot of the
Little St. Bernard or, in other words, of the chain of the higher
Alps, and is the broadest, most fertile and most populous of all the
Alpine valleys.  Moreover, the pass of the Little St. Bernard, while
not the lowest of all the natural passes of the Alps, is by far the
easiest; although no artificial road was constructed there, an
Austrian corps with artillery crossed the Alps by that route in 1815.
And lastly this route, which only leads over two mountain ridges, has
been from the earliest times the great military route from the Celtic
to the Italian territory.  The Carthaginian army had thus in fact no
choice.  It was a fortunate coincidence, but not a motive influencing
the decision of Hannibal, that the Celtic tribes allied with him in
Italy inhabited the country up to the Little St. Bernard, while
the route by Mont Genevre would have brought him at first into the
territory of the Taurini, who were from ancient times at feud with
the Insubres.

So the Carthaginian army marched in the first instance up the Rhone
towards the valley of the upper Isere, not, as might be presumed, by
the nearest route up the left bank of the lower Isere from Valence to
Grenoble, but through the "island" of the Allobroges, the rich, and
even then thickly peopled, low ground, which is enclosed on the north
and west by the Rhone, on the south by the Isere, and on the east
by the Alps.  The reason of this movement was, that the nearest route
would have led them through an impracticable and poor mountain-
country, while the "island" was level and extremely fertile, and was
separated by but a single mountain-wall from the valley of the upper
Isere.  The march along the Rhone into, and across, the "island"
to the foot of the Alpine wall was accomplished in sixteen days: it
presented little difficulty, and in the "island" itself Hannibal
dexterously availed himself of a feud that had broken out between two
chieftains of the Allobroges to attach to his interests one of the
most important of the chiefs, who not only escorted the Carthaginians
through the whole plain, but also supplied them with provisions, and
furnished the soldiers with arms, clothing, and shoes.  But the
expedition narrowly escaped destruction at the crossing of the first
Alpine chain, which rises precipitously like a wall, and over which
only a single available path leads (over the Mont du Chat, near the
hamlet Chevelu).  The population of the Allobroges had strongly
occupied the pass.  Hannibal learned the state of matters early enough
to avoid a surprise, and encamped at the foot, until after sunset the
Celts dispersed to the houses of the nearest town; he then seized the
pass in the night Thus the summit was gained; but on the extremely
steep path, which leads down from the summit to the lake of Bourget,
the mules and horses slipped and fell.  The assaults, which at
suitable points were made by the Celts upon the army in march, were
very annoying, not so much of themselves as by reason of the turmoil
which they occasioned; and when Hannibal with his light troops threw
himself from above on the Allobroges, these were chased doubtless
without difficulty and with heavy loss down the mountain, but the
confusion, in the train especially, was further increased by the noise
of the combat.  So, when after much loss he arrived in the plain,
Hannibal immediately attacked the nearest town, to chastise and
terrify the barbarians, and at the same time to repair as far as
possible his loss in sumpter animals and horses.  After a day's repose
in the pleasant valley of Chambery the army continued its march up the
Isere, without being detained either by want of supplies or by attacks
so long as the valley continued broad and fertile.  It was only when
on the fourth day they entered the territory of the Ceutrones (the
modern Tarantaise) where the valley gradually contracts, that they had
again greater occasion to be on their guard.  The Ceutrones received
the army at the boundary of their country (somewhere about Conflans)
with branches and garlands, furnished cattle for slaughter, guides,
and hostages; and the Carthaginians marched through their territory
as through a friendly land.  When, however, the troops had reached the
very foot of the Alps, at the point where the path leaves the Isere,
and winds by a narrow and difficult defile along the brook Reclus
up to the summit of the St. Bernard, all at once the militia of the
Ceutrones appeared partly in the rear of the army, partly on the
crests of the rocks enclosing the pass on the right and left, in
the hope of cutting off the train and baggage.  But Hannibal, whose
unerring tact had seen in all those advances made by the Ceutrones
nothing but the design of procuring at once immunity for their
territory and a rich spoil, had in expectation of such an attack
sent forward the baggage and cavalry, and covered the march with all
his infantry.  By this means he frustrated the design of the enemy,
although he could not prevent them from moving along the mountain
slopes parallel to the march of the infantry, and inflicting very
considerable loss by hurling or rolling down stones.  At the "white
stone"  (still called -la roche blanche-), a high isolated chalk cliff
standing at the foot of the St. Bernard and commanding the ascent to
it, Hannibal encamped with his infantry, to cover the march of the
horses and sumpter animals laboriously climbing upward throughout
the whole night; and amidst continual and very bloody conflicts he at
length on the following day reached the summit of the pass.  There,
on the sheltered table-land which spreads to the extent of two and a
half miles round a little lake, the source of the Doria, he allowed
the army to rest.  Despondency had begun to seize the minds of the
soldiers.  The paths that were becoming ever more difficult, the
provisions failing, the marching through defiles exposed to the
constant attacks of foes whom they could not reach, the sorely thinned
ranks, the hopeless situation of the stragglers and the wounded, the
object which appeared chimerical to all save the enthusiastic leader
and his immediate staff--all these things began to tell even on the
African and Spanish veterans.  But the confidence of the general
remained ever the same; numerous stragglers rejoined the ranks; the
friendly Gauls were near; the watershed was reached, and the view of
the descending path, so gladdening to the mountain-pilgrim, opened up:
after a brief repose they prepared with renewed courage for the last
and most difficult undertaking, --the downward march.  In it the army
was not materially annoyed by the enemy; but the advanced season--it
was already the beginning of September--occasioned troubles in the
descent, equal to those which had been occasioned in the ascent by the
attacks of the adjoining tribes.  On the steep and slippery mountain-
slope along the Doria, where the recently-fallen snow had concealed
and obliterated the paths, men and animals went astray and slipped,
and were precipitated into the chasms.  In fact, towards the end of
the first day's march they reached a portion of the path about 200
paces in length, on which avalanches are constantly descending from
the precipices of the Cramont that overhang it, and where in cold
summers snow lies throughout the year.  The infantry passed over;
but the horses and elephants were unable to cross the smooth masses
of ice, on which there lay but a thin covering of freshly-fallen snow,
and the general encamped above the difficult spot with the baggage,
the cavalry, and the elephants.  On the following day the horsemen,
by zealous exertion in entrenching, prepared a path for horses and
beasts of burden; but it was not until after a further labour of three
days with constant reliefs, that the half-famished elephants could at
length be conducted over.  In this way the whole army was after a
delay of four days once more united; and after a further three days'
march through the valley of the Doria, which was ever widening and
displaying greater fertility, and whose inhabitants the Salassi,
clients of the Insubres, hailed in the Carthaginians their allies
and deliverers, the army arrived about the middle of September in the
plain of Ivrea, where the exhausted troops were quartered in the
villages, that by good nourishment and a fortnight's repose they might
recruit from their unparalleled hardships.  Had the Romans placed a
corps, as they might have done, of 30,000 men thoroughly fresh and
ready for action somewhere near Turin, and immediately forced on a
battle, the prospects of Hannibal's great plan would have been very
dubious; fortunately for him, once more, they were not where they
should have been, and they did not disturb the troops of the enemy
in the repose which was so greatly needed.(4)

Results

The object was attained, but at a heavy cost.  Of the 50,000
veteran infantry and the 9000 cavalry, which the army had numbered
at the crossing of the Pyrenees, more than half had been sacrificed
in the conflicts, the marches, and the passages of the rivers.
Hannibal now, according to his own statement, numbered not more
than 20,000 infantry--of whom three-fifths were Libyans and two-fifths
Spaniards--and 6000 cavalry, part of them doubtless dismounted: the
comparatively small loss of the latter proclaimed the excellence of
the Numidian cavalry no less than the consideration of the general
in making a sparing use of troops so select.  A march of 526 miles or
about 33 moderate days' marching--the continuance and termination of
which were disturbed by no special misfortunes on a great scale that
could not be anticipated, but were, on the other hand, rendered
possible only by incalculable pieces of good fortune and still more
incalculable blunders of the enemy, and which yet not only cost such
sacrifices, but so fatigued and demoralized the army, that it needed
a prolonged rest in order to be again ready for action--is a military
operation of doubtful value, and it may be questioned whether Hannibal
himself regarded it as successful.  Only in so speaking we may not
pronounce an absolute censure on the general: we see well the defects
of the plan of operations pursued by him, but we cannot determine
whether he was in a position to foresee them--his route lay through
an unknown land of barbarians--or whether any other plan, such as that
of taking the coast road or of embarking at Cartagena or at Carthage,
would have exposed him to fewer dangers.  The cautious and masterly
execution of the plan in its details at any rate deserves our
admiration, and to whatever causes the result may have been due
--whether it was due mainly to the favour of fortune, or mainly to
the skill of the general--the grand idea of Hamilcar, that of taking
up the conflict with Rome in Italy, was now realized.  It was his
genius that projected this expedition; and as the task of Stein and
Scharnhorst was more difficult and nobler than that of York and
Blucher, so the unerring tact of historical tradition has always dwelt
on the last link in the great chain of preparatory steps, the passage
of the Alps, with a greater admiration than on the battles of the
Trasimene lake and of the plain of Cannae.

Notes for Chapter IV

1. Our accounts as to these events are not only imperfect but one-
sided, for of course it was the version of the Carthaginian peace
party which was adopted by the Roman annalists.  Even, however, in
our fragmentary and confused accounts (the most important are those of
Fabius, in Polyb. iii. 8; Appian. Hisp. 4; and Diodorus, xxv. p. 567)
the relations of the parties appear dearly enough.  Of the vulgar
gossip by which its opponents sought to blacken the "revolutionary
combination" (--etaireia ton ponerotaton anthropon--) specimens may
be had in Nepos (Ham. 3), to which it will be difficult perhaps
to find a parallel.

2. The Barca family conclude the most important state treaties, and
the ratification of the governing board is a formality (Pol. iii. 21).
Rome enters her protest before them and before the senate (Pol. iii.
15).  The position of the Barca family towards Carthage in many points
resembles that of the Princes of Orange towards the States-General.

3. It was not till the middle ages that the route by Mont Cenis became
a military road.  The eastern passes, such as that over the Poenine
Alps or the Great St. Bernard--which, moreover, was only converted
into a military road by Caesar and Augustus--are, of course, in this
case out of the question.

4. The much-discussed questions of topography, connected with this
celebrated expedition, may be regarded as cleared up and substantially
solved by the masterly investigations of Messrs. Wickham and Cramer.
Respecting the chronological questions, which likewise present
difficulties, a few remarks may be exceptionally allowed to have
a place here.

When Hannibal reached the summit of the St. Bernard, "the peaks were
already beginning to be thickly covered with snow" (Pol. iii. 54),
snow lay on the route (Pol. iii. 55), perhaps for the most part snow
not freshly fallen, but proceeding from the fall of avalanches.  At
the St. Bernard winter begins about Michaelmas, and the falling of
snow in September; when the Englishmen already mentioned crossed
the mountain at the end of August, they found almost no snow on
their road, but the slopes on both sides were covered with it.
Hannibal thus appears to have arrived at the pass in the beginning
of September; which is quite compatible with the statement that
he arrived there "when the winter was already approaching"
--for --sunaptein ten tes pleiados dusin-- (Pol. iii. 54) does
not mean anything more than this, least of all, the day of the
heliacal setting of the Pleiades (about 26th October); comp.
Ideler, Chronol. i. 241.

If Hannibal reached Italy nine days later, and therefore about the
middle of September, there is room for the events that occurred from
that time up to the battle of the Trebia towards the end of December
(--peri cheimerinas tropas--, Pol. iii. 72), and in particular for
the transporting of the army destined for Africa from Lilybaeum to
Placentia.  This hypothesis further suits the statement that the
day of departure was announced at an assembly of the army --upo ten
earinen oran-- (Pol. iii. 34), and therefore towards the end of March,
and that the march lasted five (or, according to App. vii. 4, six)
months.  If Hannibal was thus at the St. Bernard in the beginning of
September, he must have reached the Rhone at the beginning of August
--for he spent thirty days in making his way from the Rhone thither
--and in that case it is evident that Scipio, who embarked at
the beginning of summer (Pol. iii. 41) and so at latest by the
commencement of June, must have spent much time on the voyage or
remained for a considerable period in singular inaction at Massilia.




Chapter V

The War under Hannibal to the Battle of Cannae

Hannibal and the Italian Celts

The appearance of the Carthaginian army on the Roman side of the Alps
changed all at once the situation of affairs, and disconcerted the
Roman plan of war.  Of the two principal armies of the Romans, one had
landed in Spain and was already engaged with the enemy there: it was
no longer possible to recall it.  The second, which was destined
for Africa under the command of the consul Tiberius Sempronius, was
fortunately still in Sicily: in this instance Roman delay for once
proved useful.  Of the two Carthaginian squadrons destined for Italy
and Sicily, the first was dispersed by a storm, and some of its
vessels were captured by the Syracusans near Messana; the second had
endeavoured in vain to surprise Lilybaeum, and had thereafter been
defeated in a naval engagement off that port.  But the continuance of
the enemy's squadrons in the Italian waters was so inconvenient, that
the consul determined, before crossing to Africa, to occupy the small
islands around Sicily, and to drive away the Carthaginian fleet
operating against Italy.  The summer passed away in the conquest of
Melita, in the chase after the enemy's squadron, which he expected
to find at the Lipari islands while it had made a descent near Vibo
(Monteleone) and pillaged the Bruttian coast, and, lastly, in gaining
information as to a suitable spot for landing on the coast of Africa;
so that the army and fleet were still at Lilybaeum, when orders
arrived from the senate that they should return with all possible
speed for the defence of their homes.

In this way, while the two great Roman armies, each in itself equal
in numbers to that of Hannibal, remained at a great distance from the
valley of the Po, the Romans were quite unprepared for an attack in
that quarter.  No doubt a Roman army was there, in consequence of
an insurrection that had broken out among the Celts even before the
arrival of the Carthaginian army.  The founding of the two Roman
strongholds of Placentia and Cremona, each of which received 6000
colonists, and more especially the preparations for the founding of
Mutina in the territory of the Boii, had already in the spring of 536
driven the Boii to revolt before the time concerted with Hannibal;
and the Insubres had immediately joined them.  The colonists already
settled in the territory of Mutina, suddenly attacked, took refuge in
the town.  The praetor Lucius Manlius, who held the chief command at
Ariminum, hastened with his single legion to relieve the blockaded
colonists; but he was surprised in the woods, and no course was left
to him after sustaining great loss but to establish himself upon a
hill and to submit to a siege there on the part of the Boii, till
a second legion sent from Rome under the praetor Lucius Atilius
succeeded in relieving army and town, and in suppressing for the
moment the Gaulish insurrection.  This premature rising of the Boii
on the one hand, by delaying the departure of Scipio for Spain,
essentially promoted the plans of Hannibal; on the other hand, but
for its occurrence he would have found the valley of the Po entirely
unoccupied, except the fortresses.  But the Roman corps, whose two
severely thinned legions did not number 20,000 soldiers, had enough
to do to keep the Celts in check, and did not think of occupying the
passes of the Alps.  The Romans only learned that the passes were
threatened, when in August the consul Publius Scipio returned without
his army from Massilia to Italy, and perhaps even then they gave
little heed to the matter, because, forsooth, the foolhardy attempt
would be frustrated by the Alps alone.  Thus at the decisive hour and
on the decisive spot there was not even a Roman outpost.  Hannibal had
full time to rest his army, to capture after a three days' siege the
capital of the Taurini which closed its gates against him, and to
induce or terrify into alliance with him all the Ligurian and Celtic
communities in the upper basin of the Po, before Scipio, who had
taken the command in the Po valley, encountered him.

Scipio in the Valley of the Po
Conflict on the Ticino
The Armies at Placentia

Scipio, who, with an army considerably smaller and very weak in
cavalry, had the difficult task of preventing the advance of the
superior force of the enemy and of repressing the movements of
insurrection which everywhere were spreading among the Celts, had
crossed the Po presumably at Placentia, and marched up the river to
meet the enemy, while Hannibal after the capture of Turin marched
downwards to relieve the Insubres and Boii.  In the plain between
the Ticino and the Sesia, not far from Vercelli, the Roman cavalry,
which had advanced with the light infantry to make a reconnaissance
in force, encountered the Punic cavalry sent out for the like purpose,
both led by the generals in person.  Scipio accepted battle when
offered, notwithstanding the superiority of the enemy; but his light
infantry, which was placed in front of the cavalry, dispersed before
the charge of the heavy cavalry of the enemy, and while the latter
engaged the masses of the Roman horsemen in front, the light Numidian
cavalry, after having pushed aside the broken ranks of the enemy's
infantry, took the Roman horsemen in flank and rear.  This decided
the combat.  The loss of the Romans was very considerable.  The consul
himself, who made up as a soldier for his deficiencies as a general,
received a dangerous wound, and owed his safety entirely to the
devotion of his son of seventeen, who, courageously dashing into the
ranks of the enemy, compelled his squadron to follow him and rescued
his father.  Scipio, enlightened by this combat as to the strength of
the enemy, saw the error which he had committed in posting himself,
with a weaker army, in the plain with his back to the river, and
resolved to return to the right bank of the Po under the eyes of his
antagonist.  As the operations became contracted into a narrower space
and his illusions regarding Roman invincibility departed, he recovered
the use of his considerable military talents, which the adventurous
boldness of his youthful opponent's plans had for a moment paralyzed.
While Hannibal was preparing for a pitched battle, Scipio by a rapidly
projected and steadily executed march succeeded in reaching the right
bank of the river which in an evil hour he had abandoned, and broke
down the bridge over the Po behind his army; the Roman detachment of
600 men charged to cover the process of destruction were, however,
intercepted and made prisoners.  But as the upper course of the river
was in the hands of Hannibal, he could not be prevented from marching
up the stream, crossing on a bridge of boats, and in a few days
confronting the Roman army on the right bank.  The latter had taken
a position in the plain in front of Placentia; but the mutiny of a
Celtic division in the Roman camp, and the Gallic insurrection
breaking out afresh all around, compelled the consul to evacuate the
plain and to post himself on the hills behind the Trebia.  This was
accomplished without notable loss, because the Numidian horsemen sent
in pursuit lost their time in plundering, and setting fire to, the
abandoned camp.  In this strong position, with his left wing resting
on the Apennines, his right on the Po and the fortress of Placentia,
and covered in front by the Trebia--no inconsiderable stream at that
season--Scipio was unable to save the rich stores of Clastidium
(Casteggio) from which in this position he was cut off by the army of
the enemy; nor was he able to avert the insurrectionary movement on
the part of almost all the Gallic cantons, excepting the Cenomani who
were friendly to Rome; but he completely checked the progress of
Hannibal, and compelled him to pitch his camp opposite to that of
the Romans.  Moreover, the position taken up by Scipio, and the
circumstance of the Cenomani threatening the borders of the Insubres,
hindered the main body of the Gallic insurgents from directly joining
the enemy, and gave to the second Roman army, which meanwhile had
arrived at Ariminum from Lilybaeum, the opportunity of reaching
Placentia through the midst of the insurgent country without material
hindrance, and of uniting itself with the army of the Po.

Battle on the Trebia

Scipio had thus solved his difficult task completely and brilliantly.
The Roman army, now close on 40,000 strong, and though not a match for
its antagonist in cavalry, at least equal in infantry, had simply to
remain in its existing position, in order to compel the enemy either
to attempt in the winter season the passage of the river and an attack
upon the camp, or to suspend his advance and to test the fickle temper
of the Gauls by the burden of winter quarters.  Clear, however, as
this was, it was no less clear that it was now December, and that
under the course proposed the victory might perhaps be gained by Rome,
but would not be gained by the consul Tiberius Sempronius, who held
the sole command in consequence of Scipio's wound, and whose year of
office expired in a few months.  Hannibal knew the man, and neglected
no means of alluring him to fight.  The Celtic villages that had
remained faithful to the Romans were cruelly laid waste, and, when
this brought on a conflict between the cavalry, Hannibal allowed his
opponents to boast of the victory.  Soon thereafter on a raw rainy
day a general engagement came on, unlocked for by the Romans.  From
the earliest hour of the morning the Roman light troops had been
skirmishing with the light cavalry of the enemy; the latter slowly
retreated, and the Romans eagerly pursued it through the deeply
swollen Trebia to follow up the advantage which they had gained.
Suddenly the cavalry halted; the Roman vanguard found itself face to
face with the army of Hannibal drawn up for battle on a field chosen
by himself; it was lost, unless the main body should cross the stream
with all speed to its support.  Hungry, weary, and wet, the Romans
came on and hastened to form in order of battle, the cavalry, as
usual, on the wings, the infantry in the centre.  The light troops,
who formed the vanguard on both sides, began the combat: but the
Romans had already almost exhausted their missiles against the
cavalry, and immediately gave way.  In like manner the cavalry gave
way on the wings, hard pressed by the elephants in front, and
outflanked right and left by the far more numerous Carthaginian horse.
But the Roman infantry proved itself worthy of its name: at the
beginning of the battle it fought with very decided superiority
against the infantry of the enemy, and even when the repulse of the
Roman horse allowed the enemy's cavalry and light-armed troops to turn
their attacks against the Roman infantry, the latter, although ceasing
to advance, obstinately maintained its ground.  At this stage a select
Carthaginian band of 1000 infantry, and as many horsemen, under the
leadership of Mago, Hannibal's youngest brother, suddenly emerged from
an ambush in the rear of the Roman army, and fell upon the densely
entangled masses.  The wings of the army and the rear ranks of the
Roman centre were broken up and scattered by this attack, while the
first division, 10,000 men strong, in compact array broke through the
Carthaginian line, and made a passage for itself obliquely through the
midst of the enemy, inflicting great loss on the opposing infantry and
more especially on the Gallic insurgents.  This brave body, pursued
but feebly, thus reached Placentia.  The remaining mass was for the
most part slaughtered by the elephants and light troops of the enemy
in attempting to cross the river: only part of the cavalry and some
divisions of infantry were able, by wading through the river, to gain
the camp whither the Carthaginians did not follow them, and thus they
too reached Placentia.(1)  Few battles confer more honour on the Roman
soldier than this on the Trebia, and few at the same time furnish
graver impeachment of the general in command; although the candid
judge will not forget that a commandership in chief expiring on a
definite day was an unmilitary institution, and that figs cannot be
reaped from thistles.  The victory came to be costly even to the
victors.  Although the loss in the battle fell chiefly on the Celtic
insurgents, yet a multitude of the veteran soldiers of Hannibal died
afterwards from diseases engendered by that raw and wet winter day,
and all the elephants perished except one.

Hannibal Master of Northern Italy

The effect of this first victory of the invading army was, that the
national insurrection now spread and assumed shape without hindrance
throughout the Celtic territory.  The remains of the Roman army of
the Po threw themselves into the fortresses of Placentia and Cremona:
completely cut off from home, they were obliged to procure their
supplies by way of the river.  The consul Tiberius Sempronius only
escaped, as if by miracle, from being taken prisoner, when with a
weak escort of cavalry he went to Rome on account of the elections.
Hannibal, who would not hazard the health of his troops by further
marches at that inclement season, bivouacked for the winter where he
was; and, as a serious attempt on the larger fortresses would have
led to no result, contented himself with annoying the enemy by attacks
on the river port of Placentia and other minor Roman positions.  He
employed himself mainly in organizing the Gallic insurrection: more
than 60,000 foot soldiers and 4000 horsemen from the Celts are said
to have joined his army.

Military and Political Position of Hannibal

No extraordinary exertions were made in Rome for the campaign of 537.
The senate thought, and not unreasonably, that, despite the lost
battle, their position was by no means fraught with serious danger.
Besides the coast garrisons, which were despatched to Sardinia,
Sicily, and Tarentum, and the reinforcements which were sent to Spain,
the two new consuls Gaius Flaminius and Gnaeus Servilius obtained
only as many men as were necessary to restore the four legions to
their full complement; additions were made to the strength of the
cavalry alone.  The consuls had to protect the northern frontier, and
stationed themselves accordingly on the two highways which led  from
Rome to the north, the western of which at that lime terminated at
Arretium, and the eastern at Ariminum; Gaius Flaminius occupied the
former, Gnaeus Servilius the latter.  There they ordered the troops
from the fortresses on the Po to join them, probably by water, and
awaited the commencement of the favourable season, when they proposed
to occupy in the defensive the passes of the Apennines, and then,
taking up the offensive, to descend into the valley of the Po and
effect a junction somewhere near Placentia.  But Hannibal by no means
intended to defend the valley of the Po.  He knew Rome better perhaps
than the Romans knew it themselves, and was very well aware how
decidedly he was the weaker and continued to be so notwithstanding the
brilliant battle on the Trebia; he knew too that his ultimate object,
the humiliation of Rome, was not to be wrung from the unbending Roman
pride either by terror or by surprise, but could only be gained by
the actual subjugation of the haughty city.  It was clearly apparent
that the Italian federation was in political solidity and in military
resources infinitely superior to an adversary, who received only
precarious and irregular support from home, and who in Italy was
dependent for primary aid solely on the vacillating and capricious
nation of the Celts; and that the Phoenician foot soldier was,
notwithstanding all the pains taken by Hannibal, far inferior in
point of tactics to the legionary, had been completely proved by
the defensive movements of Scipio and the brilliant retreat of the
defeated infantry on the Trebia.  From this conviction flowed the two
fundamental principles which determined Hannibal's whole method of
operations in Italy--viz., that the war should be carried on, in
somewhat adventurous fashion, with constant changes in the plan and
in the theatre of operations; and that its favourable issue could
only be looked for as the result of political and not of military
successes--of the gradual loosening and final breaking up of the
Italian federation.  That mode of carrying on the war was necessary,
because the single element which Hannibal had to throw into the scale
against so many disadvantages--his military genius--only told with
its full weight, when he constantly foiled his opponents by unexpected
combinations; he was undone, if the war became stationary.  That aim
was the aim dictated to him by right policy, because, mighty conqueror
though he was in battle, he saw very clearly that on each occasion he
vanquished the generals and not the city, and that after each new
battle the Romans remained just as superior to the Carthaginians as
he was personally superior to the Roman commanders.  That Hannibal
even at the height of his fortune never deceived himself on this
point, is worthier of admiration than his most admired battles.

Hannibal Crosses the Apennines

It was these motives, and not the entreaties of the Gauls that he
should spare their country--which would not have influenced him--that
induced Hannibal now to forsake, as it were, his newly acquired basis
of operations against Italy, and to transfer the scene of war to Italy
itself.  Before doing so he gave orders that all the prisoners should
be brought before him.  He ordered the Romans to be separated and
loaded with chains as slaves--the statement that Hannibal put to death
all the Romans capable of bearing arms, who here and elsewhere fell
into his hands, is beyond doubt at least strongly exaggerated.  On the
other hand, all the Italian allies were released without ransom, and
charged to report at home that Hannibal waged war not against Italy,
but against Rome; that he promised to every Italian community the
restoration of its ancient independence and its ancient boundaries;
and that the deliverer was about to follow those whom he had set free,
bringing release and revenge.  In fact, when the winter ended, he
started from the valley of the Po to search for a route through
the difficult defiles of the Apennines.  Gaius Flaminius, with the
Etruscan army, was still for the moment at Arezzo, intending to move
from that point towards Lucca in order to protect the vale of the Arno
and the passes of the Apennines, so soon as the season should allow.
But Hannibal anticipated him.  The passage of the Apennines was
accomplished without much difficulty, at a point as far west as
possible or, in other words, as distant as possible from the enemy;
but the marshy low grounds between the Serchio and the Arno were so
flooded by the melting of the snow and the spring rains, that the army
had to march four days in water, without finding any other dry spot
for resting by night than was supplied by piling the baggage or by
the sumpter animals that had fallen.  The troops underwent unutterable
sufferings, particularly the Gallic infantry, which marched behind the
Carthaginians along tracks already rendered impassable: they murmured
loudly and would undoubtedly have dispersed to a man, had not the
Carthaginian cavalry under Mago, which brought up the rear, rendered
flight impossible.  The horses, assailed by a distemper in their
hoofs, fell in heaps; various diseases decimated the soldiers;
Hannibal himself lost an eye in consequence of ophthalmia.

Flaminius

But the object was attained.  Hannibal encamped at Fiesole, while
Gaius Flaminius was still waiting at Arezzo until the roads should
become passable that he might blockade them.  After the Roman
defensive position had thus been turned, the best course for the
consul, who might perhaps have been strong enough to defend the
mountain passes but certainly was unable now to face Hannibal in the
open field, would have been to wait till the second army, which had
now become completely superfluous at Ariminum, should arrive.  He
himself, however, judged otherwise.  He was a political party leader,
raised to distinction by his efforts to limit the power of the senate;
indignant at the government in consequence of the aristocratic
intrigues concocted against him during his consulship; carried away,
through a doubtless justifiable opposition to their beaten track of
partisanship, into a scornful defiance of tradition and custom;
intoxicated at once by blind love of the common people and equally
bitter hatred of the party of the nobles; and, in addition to all
this, possessed with the fixed idea that he was a military genius.
His campaign against the Insubres of 531, which to unprejudiced
judges only showed that good!   soldiers often repair the errors
of bad generals,(2) was regarded by him and by his adherents as an
irrefragable proof that the Romans had only to put Gaius Flaminius at
the head of the army in order to make a speedy end of Hannibal.  Talk
of this sort had procured for him his second consulship, and hopes of
this sort had now brought to his camp so great a multitude of unarmed
followers eager for spoil, that their number, according to the
assurance of sober historians, exceeded that of the legionaries.
Hannibal based his plan in part on this circumstance.  So far from
attacking him, he marched past him, and caused the country all around
to be pillaged by the Celts who thoroughly understood plundering,
and by his numerous cavalry.  The complaints and indignation of the
multitude which had to submit to be plundered under the eyes of the
hero who had promised to enrich them, and the protestation of the
enemy that they did not believe him possessed of either the power
or the resolution to undertake anything before the arrival of his
colleague, could not but induce such a man to display his genius
for strategy, and to give a sharp lesson to his inconsiderate
and haughty foe.

Battle on the Trasimene Lake

No plan was ever more successful.  In haste, the consul followed the
line of march of the enemy, who passed by Arezzo and moved slowly
through the rich valley of the Chiana towards Perugia.  He overtook
him in the district of Cortona, where Hannibal, accurately informed
of his antagonist's march, had had full time to select his field of
battle--a narrow defile between two steep mountain walls, closed at
its outlet by a high hill, and at its entrance by the Trasimene lake.
With the flower of his infantry he barred the outlet; the light troops
and the cavalry placed themselves in concealment on either side.  The
Roman columns advanced without hesitation into the unoccupied pass;
the thick morning mist concealed from them the position of the enemy.
As the head of the Roman line approached the hill, Hannibal gave the
signal for battle; the cavalry, advancing behind the heights, closed
the entrance of the pass, and at the same time the mist rolling away
revealed the Phoenician arms everywhere along the crests on the right
and left.  There was no battle; it was a mere rout.  Those that
remained outside of the defile were driven by the cavalry into the
lake.  The main body was annihilated in the pass itself almost without
resistance, and most of them, including the consul himself, were cut
down in the order of march.  The head of the Roman column, formed of
6000 infantry, cut their way through the infantry of the enemy, and
proved once more the irresistible might of the legions; but, cut off
from the rest of the army and without knowledge of its fate, they
marched on at random, were surrounded on the following day, on a
hill which they had occupied, by a corps of Carthaginian cavalry,
and--as the capitulation, which promised them a free retreat, was
rejected by Hannibal--were all treated as prisoners of war.  15,000
Romans had fallen, and as many were captured; in other words, the
army was annihilated.  The slight Carthaginian loss--1500 men--again
fell mainly upon the Gauls.(3)  And, as if this were not enough,
immediately after the battle on the Trasimene lake, the cavalry of
the army of Ariminum under Gaius Centenius, 4000 strong, which Gnaeus
Servilius had sent forward for the temporary support of his colleague
while he himself advanced by slow marches, was likewise surrounded by
the Phoenician army, and partly slain, partly made prisoners.  All
Etruria was lost, and Hannibal might without hindrance march on Rome.
The Romans prepared themselves for the worst; they broke down the
bridges over the Tiber, and nominated Quintus Fabius Maximus dictator
to repair the walls and conduct the defence, for which an army of
reserve was formed.  At the same time two new legions were summoned
under arms in the room of those annihilated, and the fleet, which
might become of importance in the event of a siege, was put in order.

Hannibal on the East Coast
Reorganization of the Carthaginian Army

But Hannibal was more farsighted than king Pyrrhus.  He did not march
on Rome; nor even against Gnaeus Servilius, an able general, who had
with the help of the fortresses on the northern road preserved his
army hitherto uninjured, and would perhaps have kept his antagonist
at bay.  Once more a movement occurred which was quite unexpected.
Hannibal marched past the fortress of Spoletium, which he attempted in
vain to surprise, through Umbria, fearfully devastated the territory
of Picenum which was covered all over with Roman farmhouses, and
halted on the shores of the Adriatic.  The men and horses of his
army had not yet recovered from the painful effects of their spring
campaign; here he rested for a considerable time to allow his army to
recruit its strength in a pleasant district and at a fine season of
the year, and to reorganize his Libyan infantry after the Roman mode,
the means for which were furnished to him by the mass of Roman arms
among the spoil.  From this point, moreover, he resumed his long-
interrupted communication with his native land, sending his messages
of victory by water to Carthage.  At length, when his army was
sufficiently restored and had been adequately exercised in the use
of the new arms, he broke up and marched slowly along the coast into
southern Italy.

War in Lower Italy
Fabius

He had calculated correctly, when he chose this time for remodelling
his infantry.  The surprise of his antagonists, who were in constant
expectation of an attack on the capital, allowed him at least four
weeks of undisturbed leisure for the execution of the unprecedentedly
bold experiment of changing completely his military system in the
heart of a hostile country and with an army still comparatively small,
and of attempting to oppose African legions to the invincible legions
of Italy.  But his hope that the confederacy would now begin to break
up was not fulfilled.  In this respect the Etruscans, who had carried
on their last wars of independence mainly with Gallic mercenaries,
were of less moment; the flower of the confederacy, particularly
in a military point of view, consisted--next to the Latins--of the
Sabellian communities, and with good reason Hannibal had now come into
their neighbourhood.  But one town after another closed its gates; not
a single Italian community entered into alliance with the Phoenicians.
This was a great, in fact an all-important, gain for the Romans.
Nevertheless it was felt in the capital that it would be imprudent to
put the fidelity of their allies to such a test, without a Roman army
to keep the field.  The dictator Quintus Fabius combined the two
supplementary legions formed in Rome with the army of Ariminum,
and when Hannibal marched past the Roman fortress of Luceria towards
Arpi, the Roman standards appeared on his right flank at Aeca.
Their leader, however, pursued a course different from that of his
predecessors.  Quintus Fabius was a man advanced in years, of a
deliberation and firmness, which to not a few seemed procrastination
and obstinacy.  Zealous in his reverence for the good old times, for
the political omnipotence of the senate, and for the command of the
burgomasters, he looked to a methodical prosecution of the war as
--next to sacrifices and prayers--the means of saving the state.
A political antagonist of Gaius Flaminius, and summoned to the head of
affairs in virtue of the reaction against his foolish war-demagogism,
Fabius departed for the camp just as firmly resolved to avoid a
pitched battle at any price, as his predecessor had been determined at
any price to fight one; he was without doubt convinced that the first
elements of strategy would forbid Hannibal to advance so long as the
Roman army confronted him intact, and that accordingly it would not be
difficult to weaken by petty conflicts and gradually to starve out the
enemy's army, dependent as it was on foraging for its supplies.

March to Capua and Back to Apulia
War in Apulia

Hannibal, well served by his spies in Rome and in the Roman army,
immediately learned how matters stood, and, as usual, adjusted the
plan of his campaign in accordance with the individual character of
the opposing leader.  Passing the Roman army, he marched over the
Apennines into the heart of Italy towards Beneventum, took the open
town of Telesia on the boundary between Samnium and Campania, and
thence turned against Capua, which as the most important of all the
Italian cities dependent on Rome, and the only one standing in some
measure on a footing of equality with it, had for that very reason
felt more severely than any other community the oppression of the
Roman government.  He had formed connections there, which led him to
hope that the Campanians might revolt from the Roman alliance; but in
this hope he was disappointed.  So, retracing his steps, he took the
road to Apulia.  During all this march of the Carthaginian army the
dictator had followed along the heights, and had condemned his
soldiers to the melancholy task of looking on with arms in their
hands, while the Numidian cavalry plundered the faithful allies far
and wide, and the villages over all the plain rose in flames.  At
length he opened up to the exasperated Roman army the eagerly-coveted
opportunity of attacking the enemy.  When Hannibal had begun his
retreat, Fabius intercepted his route near Casilinum (the modern
Capua), by strongly garrisoning that town on the left bank of the
Volturnus and occupying the heights that crowned the right bank with
his main army, while a division of 4000 men encamped on the road
itself that led along by the river.  But Hannibal ordered his light-
armed troops to climb the heights which rose immediately alongside
of the road, and to drive before them a number of oxen with lighted
faggots on their horns, so that it seemed as if the Carthaginian army
were thus marching off during the night by torchlight.  The Roman
division, which barred the road, imagining that they were evaded and
that further covering of the road was superfluous, marched by a side
movement to the same heights.  Along the road thus left free Hannibal
then retreated with the bulk of his army, without encountering the
enemy; next morning he without difficulty, but with severe loss to
the Romans, disengaged and recalled his light troops.  Hannibal then
continued his march unopposed in a north-easterly direction; and
by a widely-circuitous route, after traversing and laying under
contribution the lands of the Hirpinians, Campanians, Samnites,
Paelignians, and Frentanians without resistance, he arrived with rich
booty and a full chest once more in the region of Luceria, just as
the harvest there was about to begin.  Nowhere in his extensive march
had he met with active opposition, but nowhere had he found allies.
Clearly perceiving that no course remained for him but to take up
winter quarters in the open field, he began the difficult operation
of collecting the winter supplies requisite for the army, by means of
its own agency, from the fields of the enemy.  For this purpose he
had selected the broad and mostly flat district of northern Apulia,
which furnished grain and grass in abundance, and which could be
completely commanded by his excellent cavalry.  An entrenched camp
was constructed at Gerunium, twenty-five miles to the north of
Luceria.  Two-thirds of the army were daily despatched from it to
bring in the stores, while Hannibal with the remainder took up a
position to protect the camp and the detachments sent out.

Fabius and Minucius

The master of the horse, Marcus Minucius, who held temporary command
in the Roman camp during the absence of the dictator, deemed this a
suitable opportunity for approaching the enemy more closely, and
formed a camp in the territory of the Larinates; where on the one hand
by his mere presence he checked the sending out of detachments and
thereby hindered the provisioning of the enemy's army, and on the
other hand, in a series of successful conflicts in which his troops
encountered isolated Phoenician divisions and even Hannibal himself,
drove the enemy from their advanced positions and compelled them to
concentrate themselves at Gerunium.  On the news of these successes,
which of course lost nothing in the telling, the storm broke, forth
in the capital against Quintus Fabius.  It was not altogether
unwarranted.  Prudent as it was on the part of Rome to abide by the
defensive and to expect success mainly from the cutting off of the
enemy's means of subsistence, there was yet something strange in a
system of defence and of starving out, under which the enemy had laid
waste all central Italy without opposition beneath the eyes of a Roman
army of equal numbers, and had provisioned themselves sufficiently for
the winter by an organized method of foraging on the greatest scale.
Publius Scipio, when he commanded on the Po, had not adopted this view
of a defensive attitude, and the attempt of his successor to imitate
him at Casilinum had failed in such a way as to afford a copious fund
of ridicule to the scoffers of the city.  It was wonderful that the
Italian communities had not wavered, when Hannibal so palpably showed
them the superiority of the Phoenicians and the nullity of Roman aid;
but how long could they be expected to bear the burden of a double
war, and to allow themselves to be plundered under the very eyes of
the Roman troops and of their own contingents?  Finally, it could not
be alleged that the condition of the Roman army compelled the general
to adopt this mode of warfare.  It was composed, as regarded its core,
of the capable legions of Ariminum, and, by their side, of militia
called out, most of whom were likewise accustomed to service; and, far
from being discouraged by the last defeats, it was indignant at the
but little honourable task which its general, "Hannibal's lackey,"
assigned to it, and it demanded with a loud voice to be led against
the enemy.  In the assemblies of the people the most violent
invectives were directed against the obstinate old man.  His political
opponents, with the former praetor Gaius Terentius Varro at their
head, laid hold of the quarrel--for the understanding of which we must
not forget that the dictator was practically nominated by the senate,
and the office was regarded as the palladium of the conservative
party--and, in concert with the discontented soldiers and the
possessors of the plundered estates, they carried an unconstitutional
and absurd resolution of the people conferring the dictatorship, which
was destined to obviate the evils of a divided command in times of
danger, on Marcus Minucius,(4) who had hitherto been the lieutenant
of Quintus Fabius, in the same way as on Fabius himself.  Thus the
Roman army, after its hazardous division into two separate corps had
just been appropriately obviated, was once more divided; and not only
so, but the two sections were placed under leaders who notoriously
followed quite opposite plans of war.  Quintus Fabius of course
adhered more than ever to his methodical inaction; Marcus Minucius,
compelled to justify in the field of battle his title of dictator,
made a hasty attack with inadequate forces, and would have been
annihilated had not his colleague averted greater misfortune by the
seasonable interposition of a fresh corps.  This last turn of matters
justified in some measure the system of passive resistance.  But in
reality Hannibal had completely attained in this campaign all that
arms could attain: not a single material operation had been frustrated
either by his impetuous or by his deliberate opponent; and his
foraging, though not unattended with difficulty, had yet been in the
main so successful that the army passed the winter without complaint
in the camp at Gerunium.  It was not the Cunctator that saved Rome,
but the compact structure of its confederacy and, not less perhaps,
the national hatred with which the Phoenician hero was regarded on
the part of Occidentals.

New War-like Preparations in Rome
Paullus and Varro

Despite all its misfortunes, Roman pride stood no less unshaken than
the Roman symmachy.  The donations which were offered by king Hiero of
Syracuse and the Greek cities in Italy for the next campaign--the war
affected the latter less severely than the other Italian allies of
Rome, for they sent no contingents to the land army--were declined
with thanks; the chieftains of Illyria were informed that they could
not be allowed to neglect payment of their tribute; and even the
king of Macedonia was once more summoned to surrender Demetrius of
Pharos.  The majority of the senate, notwithstanding the semblance
of legitimation which recent events had given to the Fabian system
of delay, had firmly resolved to depart from a mode of war that was
slowly but certainly ruining the state; if the popular dictator had
failed in his more energetic method of warfare, they laid the blame
of the failure, and not without reason, on the fact that they had
adopted a half-measure and had given him too few troops.  This error
they determined to avoid and to equip an army, such as Rome had never
sent out before--eight legions, each raised a fifth above the normal
strength, and a corresponding number of allies--enough to crush an
opponent who was not half so strong.  Besides this, a legion under
the praetor Lucius Postumius was destined for the valley of the Po,
in order, if possible, to draw off the Celts serving in the army of
Hannibal to their homes.  These resolutions were judicious; everything
depended on their coming to an equally judicious decision respecting
the supreme command.  The stiff carriage of Quintus Fabius, and
the attacks of the demagogues which it provoked, had rendered the
dictatorship and the senate generally more unpopular than ever:
amongst the people, not without the connivance of their leaders,
the foolish report circulated that the senate was intentionally
prolonging the war.  As, therefore, the nomination of a dictator was
not to be thought of, the senate attempted to procure the election of
suitable consuls; but this only had the effect of thoroughly rousing
suspicion and obstinacy.  With difficulty the senate carried one of
its candidates, Lucius Aemilius Paullus, who had with judgment
conducted the Illyrian war in 535;(5) an immense majority of the
citizens assigned to him as colleague the candidate of the popular
party, Gaius Terentius Varro, an incapable man, who was known only by
his bitter opposition to the senate and more especially as the main
author of the proposal to elect Marcus Minucius co-dictator, and who
was recommended to the multitude solely by his humble birth and his
coarse effrontery.

Battle at Cannae

While these preparations for the next campaign were being made in
Rome, the war had already recommenced in Apulia.  As soon as the
season allowed him to leave his winter quarters, Hannibal, determining
as usual the course of the war and assuming the offensive, set out
from Gerunium in a southerly direction, and marching past Luceria
crossed the Aufidus and took the citadel of Cannae (between Canosa
and Barletta) which commanded the plain of Canusium, and had hitherto
served the Romans as their chief magazine.  The Roman army which,
since Fabius had conformably to the constitution resigned his
dictatorship in the middle of autumn, was now commanded by Gnaeus
Servilius and Marcus Regulus, first as consuls then as proconsuls,
had been unable to avert a loss which they could not but feel.  On
military as well as on political grounds, it became more than ever
necessary to arrest the progress of Hannibal by a pitched battle.
With definite orders to this effect from the senate, accordingly, the
two new commanders-in-chief, Paullus and Varro, arrived in Apulia in
the beginning of the summer of 538.  With the four new legions and a
corresponding contingent of Italians which they brought up, the Roman
army rose to 80,000 infantry, half burgesses, half allies, and 6000
cavalry, of whom one-third were burgesses and two-thirds allies;
whereas Hannibal's army numbered 10,000 cavalry, but only about 40,000
infantry.  Hannibal wished nothing so much as a battle, not merely for
the general reasons which we have explained above, but specially
because the wide Apulian plain allowed him to develop the whole
superiority of his cavalry, and because the providing supplies for
his numerous army would soon, in spite of that excellent cavalry, be
rendered very difficult by the proximity of an enemy twice as strong
and resting on a chain of fortresses.  The leaders of the Roman forces
also had, as we have said, made up their minds on the general question
of giving battle, and approached the enemy with that view; but the
more sagacious of them saw the position of Hannibal, and were disposed
accordingly to wait in the first instance and simply to station
themselves in the vicinity of the enemy, so as to compel him to retire
and accept battle on a ground less favourable to him.  Hannibal
encamped at Cannae on the right bank of the Aufidus.  Paullus pitched
his camp on both banks of the stream, so that the main force came to
be stationed on the left bank, but a strong corps took up a position
on the right immediately opposite to the enemy, in order to impede his
supplies and perhaps also to threaten Cannae.  Hannibal, to whom it
was all-important to strike a speedy blow, crossed the stream with the
bulk of his troops, and offered battle on the left bank, which Paullus
did not accept.  But such military pedantry was disapproved by the
democratic consul--so much had been said about men taking the field
not to stand guard, but to use their swords--and he gave orders
accordingly to attack the enemy, wherever and whenever they found him.
According to the old custom foolishly retained, the decisive voice in
the council of war alternated between the commanders-in-chief day by
day; it was necessary therefore on the following day to submit, and
to let the hero of the pavement have his way.  On the left bank,
where the wide plain offered full scope to the superior cavalry of
the enemy, certainly even he would not fight; but he determined to
unite the whole Roman forces on the right bank, and there, taking up
a position between the Carthaginian camp and Cannae and seriously
threatening the latter, to offer battle.  A division of 10,000 men
was left behind in the principal Roman camp, charged to capture the
Carthaginian encampment during the conflict and thus to intercept the
retreat of the enemy's army across the river.  The bulk of the Roman
army, at early dawn on the and August according to the unconnected,
perhaps in tune according to the correct, calendar, crossed the river
which at this season was shallow and did not materially hamper the
movements of the troops, and took up a position in line near the
smaller Roman camp to the westward of Cannae.  The Carthaginian army
followed and likewise crossed the stream, on which rested the right
Roman as well as the left Carthaginian wing.  The Roman cavalry was
stationed on the wings: the weaker portion consisting of burgesses,
led by Paullus, on the right next the river; the stronger consisting
of the allies, led by Varro, on the left towards the plain.  In the
centre was stationed the infantry in unusually deep files, under the
command of the consul of the previous year Gnaeus Servilius.  Opposite
to this centre Hannibal arranged his infantry in the form of a
crescent, so that the Celtic and Iberian troops in their national
armour formed the advanced centre, and the Libyans, armed after the
Roman fashion, formed the drawn-back wings on either side.  On the
side next the river the whole heavy cavalry under Hasdrubal was
stationed, on the side towards the plain the light Numidian horse.
After a short skirmish between the light troops the whole line was
soon engaged.  Where the light cavalry of the Carthaginians fought
against the heavy cavalry of Varro, the conflict was prolonged,
amidst constant charges of the Numidians, without decisive result.
In the centre, on the other hand, the legions completely overthrew
the Spanish and Gallic troops that first encountered them; eagerly the
victors pressed on and followed up their advantage.  But meanwhile, on
the right wing, fortune had turned against the Romans.  Hannibal had
merely sought to occupy the left cavalry wing of the enemy, that he
might bring Hasdrubal with the whole regular cavalry to bear against
the weaker right and to overthrow it first.  After a brave resistance,
the Roman horse gave way, and those that were not cut down were chased
up the river and scattered in the plain; Paullus, wounded, rode to the
centre to turn or, if not, to share the fate of the legions.  These,
in order the better to follow up the victory over the advanced
infantry of the enemy, had changed their front disposition into a
column of attack, which, in the shape of a wedge, penetrated the
enemy's centre.  In this position they were warmly assailed on both
sides by the Libyan infantry wheeling inward upon them right and left,
and a portion of them were compelled to halt in order to defend
themselves against the flank attack; by this means their advance was
checked, and the mass of infantry, which was already too closely
crowded, now had no longer room to develop itself at all.  Meanwhile
Hasdrubal, after having completed the defeat of the wing of Paullus,
had collected and arranged his cavalry anew and led them behind the
enemy's centre against the wing of Varro.  His Italian cavalry,
already sufficiently occupied with the Numidians, was rapidly
scattered before the double attack, and Hasdrubal, leaving the
pursuit of the fugitives to the Numidians, arranged his squadrons
for the third time, to lead them against the rear of the Roman
infantry.  This last charge proved decisive.  Flight was not possible,
and quarter was not given.  Never, perhaps, was an army of such size
annihilated on the field of battle so completely, and with so little
loss to its antagonist, as was the Roman army at Cannae.  Hannibal
had lost not quite 6000 men, and two-thirds of that loss fell upon
the Celts, who sustained the first shock of the legions.  On the other
hand, of the 76,000 Romans who had taken their places in the line of
battle 70,000 covered the field, amongst whom were the consul Lucius
Paullus, the proconsul Gnaeus Servilius, two-thirds of the staff-
officers, and eighty men of senatorial rank.  The consul Gaius Varro
was saved solely by his quick resolution and his good steed, reached
Venusia, and was not ashamed to survive.  The garrison also of the
Roman camp, 10,000 strong, were for the most part made prisoners of
war; only a few thousand men, partly of these troops, partly of the
line, escaped to Canusium.  Nay, as if in this year an end was to
be made with Rome altogether, before its close the legion sent to
Gaul fell into an ambush, and was, with its general Lucius Postumius
who was nominated as consul for the next year, totally destroyed
by the Gauls.

Consequences of the Battle of Cannae
Prevention of Reinforcements from Spain

This unexampled success appeared at length to mature the great
political combination, for the sake of which Hannibal had come to
Italy.  He had, no doubt, based his plan primarily upon his army; but
with accurate knowledge of the power opposed to him he designed that
army to be merely the vanguard, in support of which the powers of the
west and east were gradually to unite their forces, so as to prepare
destruction for the proud city.  That support however, which seemed
the most secure, namely the sending of reinforcements from Spain, had
been frustrated by the boldness and firmness of the Roman general sent
thither, Gnaeus Scipio.  After Hannibal's passage of the Rhone Scipio
had sailed for Emporiae, and had made himself master first of the
coast between the Pyrenees and the Ebro, and then, after conquering
Hanno, of the interior also (536).  In the following year (537) he had
completely defeated the Carthaginian fleet at the mouth of the Ebro,
and after his brother Publius, the brave defender of the valley of
the Po, had joined him with a reinforcement of 8000 men, he had even
crossed the Ebro, and advanced as far as Saguntum.  Hasdrubal had
indeed in the succeeding year (538), after obtaining reinforcements
from Africa, made an attempt in accordance with his brother's orders
to conduct an army over the Pyrenees; but the Scipios opposed his
passage of the Ebro, and totally defeated him, nearly at the same
time that Hannibal conquered at Cannae.  The powerful tribe of the
Celtiberians and numerous other Spanish tribes had joined the Scipios;
they commanded the sea, the passes of the Pyrenees, and, by means of
the trusty Massiliots, the Gallic coast also.  Now therefore support
to Hannibal was less than ever to be looked for from Spain.

Reinforcements from Spain

On the part of Carthage as much had hitherto been done in support
of her general in Italy as could be expected.  Phoenician squadrons
threatened the coasts of Italy and of the Roman islands and guarded
Africa from a Roman landing, and there the matter ended.  More
substantial assistance was prevented not so much by the uncertainty
as to where Hannibal was to be found and the want of a port of
disembarkation in Italy, as by the fact that for many years the
Spanish army had been accustomed to be self-sustaining, and above
all by the murmurs of the peace party.  Hannibal severely felt the
consequences of this unpardonable inaction; in spite of all his saving
of his money and of the soldiers whom he had brought with him, his
chests were gradually emptied, the pay fell into arrear, and the ranks
of his veterans began to thin.  But now the news of the victory of
Cannae reduced even the factious opposition at home to silence.  The
Carthaginian senate resolved to place at the disposal of the general
considerable assistance in money and men, partly from Africa, partly
from Spain, including 4000 Numidian horse and 40 elephants, and to
prosecute the war with energy in Spain as well as in Italy.

Alliance between Carthage and Macedonia

The long-discussed offensive alliance between Carthage and Macedonia
had been delayed, first by the sudden death of Antigonus, and then by
the indecision of his successor Philip and the unseasonable war waged
by him and his Hellenic allies against the Aetolians (534-537).  It
was only now, after the battle of Cannae, that Demetrius of Pharos
found Philip disposed to listen to his proposal to cede to Macedonia
his Illyrian possessions--which it was necessary, no doubt, to wrest
in the first place from the Romans--and it was only now that the court
of Pella came to terms with Carthage.  Macedonia undertook to land an
invading army on the east coast of Italy, in return for which she
received an assurance that the Roman possessions in Epirus should
be restored to her.

Alliance between Carthage and Syracuse

In Sicily king Hiero had during the years of peace maintained a policy
of neutrality, so far as he could do so with safety, and he had shown
a disposition to accommodate the Carthaginians during the perilous
crises after the peace with Rome, particularly by sending supplies of
corn.  There is no doubt that he saw with the utmost regret a renewed
breach between Carthage and Rome; but he had no power to avert it, and
when it occurred he adhered with well-calculated fidelity to Rome.
But soon afterwards (in the autumn of 538) death removed the old man
after a reign of fifty-four years.  The grandson and successor of the
prudent veteran, the young and incapable Hieronymus, entered at once
into negotiations with the Carthaginian diplomatists; and, as they
made no difficulty in consenting to secure to him by treaty, first,
Sicily as far as the old Carthagino-Sicilian frontier, and then, when
he rose in the arrogance of his demands, the possession even of the
whole island, he entered into alliance with Carthage, and ordered
the Syracusan fleet to unite with the Carthaginian which had come
to threaten Syracuse.  The position of the Roman fleet at Lilybaeum,
which already had to deal with a second Carthaginian squadron
stationed near the Aegates, became all at once very critical, while at
the same time the force that was in readiness at Rome for embarkation
to Sicily had, in consequence of the defeat at Cannae, to be diverted
to other and more urgent objects.

Capua and Most of the Communities of Lower Italy Pass over to Hannibal

Above all came the decisive fact, that now at length the fabric of the
Roman confederacy began to be unhinged, after it had survived unshaken
the shocks of two severe years of war.  There passed over to the side
of Hannibal Arpi in Apulia, and Uzentum in Messapia, two old towns
which had been greatly injured by the Roman colonies of Luceria and
Brundisium; all the towns of the Bruttii--who took the lead--with the
exception of the Petelini and the Consentini who had to be besieged
before yielding; the greater portion of the Lucanians; the Picentes
transplanted into the region of Salernum; the Hirpini; the Samnites
with the exception of the Pentri; lastly and chiefly, Capua the
second city of Italy, which was able to bring into the field 30,000
infantry and 4000 horse, and whose secession determined that of
the neighbouring towns Atella and Caiatia.  The aristocratic party,
indeed, attached by many ties to the interest of Rome everywhere,
and more especially in Capua, very earnestly opposed this change of
sides, and the obstinate internal conflicts which arose regarding it
diminished not a little the advantage which Hannibal derived from
these accessions.  He found himself obliged, for instance, to have one
of the leaders of the aristocratic party in Capua, Decius Magius, who
even after the entrance of the Phoenicians obstinately contended for
the Roman alliance, seized and conveyed to Carthage; thus furnishing
a demonstration, very inconvenient for himself, of the small value of
the liberty and sovereignty which had just been solemnly assured to
the Campanians by the Carthaginian general.  On the other hand, the
south Italian Greeks adhered to the Roman alliance--a result to which
the Roman garrisons no doubt contributed, but which was still more due
to the very decided dislike of the Hellenes towards the Phoenicians
themselves and towards their new Lucanian and Bruttian allies, and
their attachment on the other hand to Rome, which had zealously
embraced every opportunity of manifesting its Hellenism, and had
exhibited towards the Greeks in Italy an unwonted gentleness.  Thus
the Campanian Greeks, particularly Neapolis, courageously withstood
the attack of Hannibal in person: in Magna Graecia Rhegium, Thurii,
Metapontum, and Tarentum did the same notwithstanding their very
perilous position.  Croton and Locri on the other hand were partly
carried by storm, partly forced to capitulate, by the united
Phoenicians and Bruttians; and the citizens of Croton were conducted
to Locri, while Bruttian colonists occupied that important naval
station.  The Latin colonies in southern Italy, such as Brundisium,
Venusia, Paesturn, Cosa, and Cales, of course maintained unshaken
fidelity to Rome.  They were the strongholds by which the conquerors
held in check a foreign land, settled on the soil of the surrounding
population, and at feud with their neighbours; they, too, would be the
first to be affected, if Hannibal should keep his word and restore to
every Italian community its ancient boundaries.  This was likewise
the case with all central Italy, the earliest seat of the Roman rule,
where Latin manners and language already everywhere preponderated, and
the people felt themselves to be the comrades rather than the subjects
of their rulers.  The opponents of Hannibal in the Carthaginian senate
did not fail to appeal to the fact that not one Roman citizen or one
Latin community had cast itself into the arms of Carthage.  This
groundwork of the Roman power could only be broken up, like the
Cyclopean walls, stone by stone.

Attitude of the Romans

Such were the consequences of the day of Cannae, in which the flower
of the soldiers and officers of the confederacy, a seventh of the
whole number of Italians capable of bearing arms, perished.  It was
a cruel but righteous punishment for the grave political errors with
which not merely some foolish or miserable individuals, but the Roman
people themselves, were justly chargeable.  A constitution adapted for
a small country town was no longer suitable for a great power; it was
simply impossible that the question as to the leadership of the armies
of the city in such a war should be left year after year to be decided
by the Pandora's box of the balloting-urn.  As a fundamental revision
of the constitution, if practicable at all, could not at least be
undertaken now, the practical superintendence of the war, and in
particular the bestowal and prolongation of the command, should have
been at once left to the only authority which was in a position to
undertake it--the senate--and there should have been reserved for the
comitia the mere formality of confirmation.  The brilliant successes
of the Scipios in the difficult arena of Spanish warfare showed what
might in this way be achieved.  But political demagogism, which was
already gnawing at the aristocratic foundations of the constitution,
had seized on the management of the Italian war.  The absurd
accusation, that the nobles were conspiring with the enemy without,
had made an impression on the "people."  The saviours to whom
political superstition looked for deliverance, Gaius Flaminius and
Gaius Varro, both "new men" and friends of the people of the purest
dye, had accordingly been empowered by the multitude itself to execute
the plans of operations which, amidst the approbation of that
multitude, they had unfolded in the Forum; and the results were the
battles on the Trasimene lake and at Cannae.  Duty required that the
senate, which now of course understood its task better than when it
recalled half the army of Regulus from Africa, should take into its
hands the management of affairs, and should oppose such mischievous
proceedings; but when the first of those two defeats had for the
moment placed the rudder in its hands, it too had hardly acted in a
manner unbiassed by the interests of party.  Little as Quintus Fabius
may be compared with these Roman Cleons, he had yet conducted the war
not as a mere military leader, but had adhered to his rigid attitude
of defence specially as the political opponent of Gaius Flaminius; and
in the treatment of the quarrel with his subordinate, had done what he
could to exasperate at a time when unity was needed.  The consequence
was, first, that the most important instrument which the wisdom of
their ancestors had placed in the hands of the senate just for such
cases--the dictatorship--broke down in his hands; and, secondly--at
least indirectly--the battle of Cannae.  But the headlong fall of the
Roman power was owing not to the fault of Quintus Fabius or Gaius
Varro, but to the distrust between the government and the governed--to
the variance between the senate and the burgesses.  If the deliverance
and revival of the state were still possible, the work had to begin at
home with the re-establishment of unity and of confidence.  To have
perceived this and, what is of more importance, to have done it,
and done it with an abstinence from all recriminations however just,
constitutes the glorious and imperishable honour of the Roman senate.
When Varro--alone of all the generals who had command in the battle
--returned to Rome, and the Roman senators met him at the gate and
thanked him that he had not despaired of the salvation of his country,
this was no empty phraseology veiling the disaster under sounding
words, nor was it bitter mockery over a poor wretch; it was the
conclusion of peace between the government and the governed.  In
presence of the gravity of the time and the gravity of such an appeal,
the chattering of demagogues was silent; henceforth the only thought
of the Romans was how they might be able jointly to avert the common
peril.  Quintus Fabius, whose tenacious courage at this decisive
moment was of more service to the state than all his feats of war,
and the other senators of note took the lead in every movement, and
restored to the citizens confidence in themselves and in the future.
The senate preserved its firm and unbending attitude, while messengers
from all sides hastened to Rome to report the loss of battles, the
secession of allies, the capture of posts and magazines, and to ask
reinforcements for the valley of the Po and for Sicily at a time
when Italy was abandoned and Rome was almost without a garrison.
Assemblages of the multitude at the gates were forbidden; onlookers
and women were sent to their houses; the time of mourning for the
fallen was restricted to thirty days that the service of the gods of
joy, from which those clad in mourning attire were excluded, might
not be too long interrupted--for so great was the number of the
fallen, that there was scarcely a family which had not to lament its
dead.  Meanwhile the remnant saved from the field of battle had been
assembled by two able military tribunes, Appius Claudius and Publius
Scipio the younger, at Canusium.  The latter managed, by his lofty
spirit and by the brandished swords of his faithful comrades, to
change the views of those genteel young lords who, in indolent despair
of the salvation of their country, were thinking of escape beyond the
sea.  The consul Gaius Varro joined them with a handful of men; about
two legions were gradually collected there; the senate gave orders
that they should be reorganized and reduced to serve in disgrace and
without pay.  The incapable general was on a suitable pretext recalled
to Rome; the praetor Marcus Claudius Marcellus, experienced in the
Gallic wars, who had been destined to depart for Sicily with the fleet
from Ostia, assumed the chief command.  The utmost exertions were made
to organize an army capable of taking the field.  The Latins were
summoned to render aid in the common peril.  Rome itself set the
example, and called to arms all the men above boyhood, armed the
debtor-serfs and criminals, and even incorporated in the army eight
thousand slaves purchased by the state.  As there was a want of arms,
they took the old spoils from the temples, and everywhere set the
workshops and artisans in action.  The senate was completed, not as
timid patriots urged, from the Latins, but from the Roman burgesses
who had the best title.  Hannibal offered a release of captives at the
expense of the Roman treasury; it was declined, and the Carthaginian
envoy who had arrived with the deputation of captives was not admitted
into the city: nothing should look as if the senate thought of peace.
Not only were the allies to be prevented from believing that Rome was
disposed to enter into negotiations, but even the meanest citizen was
to be made to understand that for him as for all there was no peace,
and that safety lay only in victory.

Notes for Chapter V

1. Polybius's account of the battle on the Trebia is quite clear.  If
Placentia lay on the right bank of the Trebia where it falls into the
Po, and if the battle was fought on the left bank, while the Roman
encampment was pitched upon the right--both of which points have been
disputed, but are nevertheless indisputable--the Roman soldiers must
certainly have passed the Trebia in order to gain Placentia as well
as to gain the camp.  But those who crossed to the camp must have made
their way through the disorganized portions of their own army and
through the corps of the enemy that had gone round to their rear,
and must then have crossed the river almost in hand-to-hand combat
with the enemy.  On the other hand the passage near Placentia was
accomplished after the pursuit had slackened; the corps was several
miles distant from the field of battle, and had arrived within reach
of a Roman fortress; it may even have been the case, although it
cannot be proved, that a bridge led over the Trebia at that point,
and that the -tete de pont- on the other bank was occupied by the
garrison of Placentia.  It is evident that the first passage was
just as difficult as the second was easy, and therefore with good
reason Polybius, military judge as he was, merely says of the corps
of 10,000, that in close columns it cut its way to Placentia (iii. 74,
6), without mentioning the passage of the river which in this case
was unattended with difficulty.

The erroneousness of the view of Livy, which transfers the Phoenician
camp to the right, the Roman to the left bank of the Trebia, has
lately been repeatedly pointed out.  We may only further mention,
that the site of Clastidium, near the modern Casteggio, has now been
established by inscriptions (Orelli-Henzen, 5117).

2. III. III. The Celts Attacked in Their Own Land

3. The date of the battle, 23rd June according to the uncorrected
calendar, must, according to the rectified calendar, fall somewhere
in April, since Quintus Fabius resigned his dictatorship, after six
months, in the middle of autumn (Lav. xxii. 31, 7; 32, i), and must
therefore have entered upon it about the beginning of May.  The
confusion of the calendar (p. 117) in Rome was even at this period
very great.

4. The inscription of the gift devoted by the new dictator on account
of his victory at Gerunium to Hercules Victor-- -Hercolei sacrom M.
Minuci(us) C. f. dictator vovit- --was found in the year 1862 at Rome,
near S. Lorenzo.

5. III. III. Northern Italy




Chapter VI

The War under Hannibal from Cannae to Zama

The Crisis

The aim of Hannibal in his expedition to Italy had been to break up
the Italian confederacy: after three campaigns that aim had been
attained, so far as it was at all attainable.  It was clear that the
Greek and Latin or Latinized communities of Italy, since they had not
been shaken in their allegiance by the day of Cannae, would not yield
to terror, but only to force; and the desperate courage with which
even in Southern Italy isolated little country towns, such as the
Bruttian Petelia, maintained their forlorn defence against the
Phoenicians, showed very plainly what awaited them among the Marsians
and Latins.  If Hannibal had expected to accomplish more in this way
and to be able to lead even the Latins against Rome, these hopes had
proved vain.  But it appears as if even in other respects the Italian
coalition had by no means produced the results which Hannibal hoped
for.  Capua had at once stipulated that Hannibal should not have the
right to call Campanian citizens compulsorily to arms; the citizens
had not forgotten how Pyrrhus had acted in Tarentum, and they
foolishly imagined that they should be able to withdraw at once from
the Roman and from the Phoenician rule.  Samnium and Luceria were no
longer what they had been, when king Pyrrhus had thought of marching
into Rome at the head of the Sabellian youth.

Not only did the chain of Roman fortresses everywhere cut the nerves
and sinews of the land, but the Roman rule, continued for many years,
had rendered the inhabitants unused to arms--they furnished only a
moderate contingent to the Roman armies--had appeased their ancient
hatred, and had gained over a number of individuals everywhere to the
interest of the ruling community.  They joined the conqueror of the
Romans, indeed, after the cause of Rome seemed fairly lost, but they
felt that the question was no longer one of liberty; it was simply
the exchange of an Italian for a Phoenician master, and it was not
enthusiasm, but despair that threw the Sabellian communities into
the arms of the victor.  Under such circumstances the war in Italy
flagged.  Hannibal, who commanded the southern part of the peninsula
as far up as the Volturnus and Garganus, and who could not simply
abandon these lands again as he had abandoned that of the Celts, had
now likewise a frontier to protect, which could not be left uncovered
with impunity; and for the purpose of defending the districts that he
had gained against the fortresses which everywhere defied him and the
armies advancing from the north, and at the same time of resuming the
difficult offensive against central Italy, his forces--an army of
about 40,000 men, without reckoning the Italian contingents--were far
from sufficient.

Marcellus

Above all, he found that other antagonists were opposed to him.
Taught by fearful experience, the Romans adopted a more judicious
system of conducting the war, placed none but experienced officers
at the head of their armies, and left them, at least where it was
necessary, for a longer period in command.  These generals neither
looked down on the enemy's movements from the mountains, nor did they
throw themselves on their adversary wherever they found him; but,
keeping the true mean between inaction and precipitation, they took up
their positions in entrenched camps under the walls of fortresses, and
accepted battle where victory would lead to results and defeat would
not be destruction.  The soul of this new mode of warfare was Marcus
Claudius Marcellus.  With true instinct, after the disastrous day of
Cannae, the senate and people had turned their eyes to this brave and
experienced officer, and entrusted him at once with the actual supreme
command.  He had received his training in the troublesome warfare
against Hamilcar in Sicily, and had given brilliant evidence of his
talents as a leader as well as of his personal valour in the last
campaigns against the Celts.  Although far above fifty, he still
glowed with all the ardour of the most youthful soldier, and only a
few years before this he had, as general, cut down the mounted general
of the enemy(1)--the first and only Roman consul who achieved that
feat of arms.  His life was consecrated to the two divinities, to
whom he erected the splendid double temple at the Capene Gate--to
Honour and to Valour; and, while the merit of rescuing Rome from this
extremity of danger belonged to no single individual, but pertained to
the Roman citizens collectively and pre-eminently to the senate, yet
no single man contributed more towards the success of the common
enterprise than Marcus Marcellus.

Hannibal Proceeds to Campania

From the field of battle Hannibal had turned his steps to Campania, He
knew Rome better than the simpletons, who in ancient and modern times
have fancied that he might have terminated the struggle by a march on
the enemy's capital.  Modern warfare, it is true, decides a war on the
field of battle; but in ancient times, when the system of attacking
fortresses was far less developed than the system of defence, the most
complete success in the field was on numberless occasions neutralized
by the resistance of the walls of the capitals.  The council and
citizens of Carthage were not at all to be compared to the senate
and people of Rome; the peril of Carthage after the first campaign of
Regulus was infinitely more urgent than that of Rome after the battle
of Cannae; yet Carthage had made a stand and been completely
victorious.  With what colour could it be expected that Rome would now
deliver her keys to the victor, or even accept an equitable peace?
Instead therefore of sacrificing practicable and important successes
for the sake of such empty demonstrations, or losing time in the
besieging of the two thousand Roman fugitives enclosed within the
walls of Canusium, Hannibal had immediately proceeded to Capua before
the Romans could throw in a garrison, and by his advance had induced
this second city of Italy after long hesitation to join him.  He might
hope that, in possession of Capua, he would be able to seize one of
the Campanian ports, where he might disembark the reinforcements which
his great victories had wrung from the opposition at home.

Renewal of the War in Campania
The War in Apulia

When the Romans learned whither Hannibal had gone, they also left
Apulia, where only a weak division was retained, and collected
their remaining forces on the right bank of the Volturnus.  With
the two legions saved from Cannae Marcus Marcellus marched to Teanum
Sidicinum, where he was joined by such troops as were at the moment
disposable from Rome and Ostia, and advanced--while the dictator
Marcus Junius slowly followed with the main army which had been
hastily formed--as far as the Volturnus at Casilinum, with a view if
possible to save Capua.  That city he found already in the power of
the enemy; but on the other hand the attempts of the enemy on Neapolis
had been thwarted by the courageous resistance of the citizens, and
the Romans were still in good time to throw a garrison into that
important port.  With equal fidelity the two other large coast towns,
Cumae and Nuceria, adhered to Rome.  In Nola the struggle between
the popular and senatorial parties as to whether they should attach
themselves to the Carthaginians or to the Romans, was still undecided.
Informed that the former were gaining the superiority, Marcellus
crossed the river at Caiatia, and marching along the heights of
Suessula so as to evade the enemy's army, he reached Nola in
sufficient time to hold it against the foes without and within.
In a sally he even repulsed Hannibal in person with considerable loss;
a success which, as the first defeat sustained by Hannibal, was of far
more importance from its moral effect than from its material results.
In Campania indeed, Nuceria, Acerrae, and, after an obstinate siege
prolonged into the following year (539), Casilinum also, the key
of the Volturnus, were conquered by Hannibal, and the severest
punishments were inflicted on the senates of these towns which had
adhered to Rome.  But terror is a bad weapon of proselytism; the
Romans succeeded, with comparatively trifling loss, in surmounting the
perilous moment of their first weakness.  The war in Campania came to
a standstill; then winter came on, and Hannibal took up his quarters
in Capua, the luxury of which was by no means fraught with benefit to
his troops who for three years had not been under a roof.  In the next
year (539) the war acquired another aspect.  The tried general Marcus
Marcellus, Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus who had distinguished himself
in the campaign of the previous year as master of the horse to the
dictator, and the veteran Quintus Fabius Maximus, took--Marcellus as
proconsul, the two others as consuls--the command of the three Roman
armies which were destined to surround Capua and Hannibal; Marcellus
resting on Nola and Suessula, Maximus taking a position on the right
bank of the Volturnus near Cales, and Gracchus on the coast near
Liternum, covering Neapolis and Cumae.  The Campanians, who marched
to Hamae three miles from Cumae with a view to surprise the Cumaeans,
were thoroughly defeated by Gracchus; Hannibal, who had appeared
before Cumae to wipe out the stain, was himself worsted in a combat,
and when the pitched battle offered by him was declined, retreated
in ill humour to Capua.  While the Romans in Campania thus not only
maintained what they possessed, but also recovered Compulteria and
other smaller places, loud complaints were heard from the eastern
allies of Hannibal.  A Roman army under the praetor Marcus Valerius
had taken position at Luceria, partly that it might, in connection
with the Roman fleet, watch the east coast and the movements of the
Macedonians; partly that it might, in connection with the army of
Nola, levy contributions on the revolted Samnites, Lucanians, and
Hirpini.  To give relief to these, Hannibal turned first against his
most active opponent, Marcus Marcellus; but the latter achieved under
the walls of Nola no inconsiderable victory over the Phoenician army,
and it was obliged to depart, without having cleared off the stain,
from Campania for Arpi, in order at length to check the progress of
the enemy's army in Apulia.  Tiberius Gracchus followed it with his
corps, while the two other Roman armies in Campania made arrangements
to proceed next spring to the attack of Capua.

Hannibal Reduced to the Defensive
His Prospects as to Reinforcements

The clear vision of Hannibal had not been dazzled by his victories.
It became every day more evident that he was not thus gaining his
object Those rapid marches, that adventurous shifting of the war to
and fro, to which Hannibal was mainly indebted for his successes,
were at an end; the enemy had become wiser; further enterprises were
rendered almost impossible by the inevitable necessity of defending
what had been gained.  The offensive was not to be thought of; the
defensive was difficult, and threatened every year to become more so.
He could not conceal from himself that the second half of his great
task, the subjugation of the Latins and the conquest of Rome, could
not be accomplished with his own forces and those of his Italian
allies alone.  Its accomplishment depended on the council at Carthage,
on the head-quarters at Cartagena, on the courts of Pella and of
Syracuse.  If all the energies of Africa, Spain, Sicily, and Macedonia
should now be exerted in common against the common enemy; if Lower
Italy should become the great rendezvous for the armies and fleets of
the west, south, and east; he might hope successfully to finish what
the vanguard under his leadership had so brilliantly begun.  The most
natural and easy course would have been to send to him adequate
support from home; and the Carthaginian state, which had remained
almost untouched by the war and had been brought from deep decline so
near to complete victory by a small band of resolute patriots acting
of their own accord and at their own risk, could beyond doubt have
done this.  That it would have been possible for a Phoenician fleet
of any desired strength to effect a landing at Locri or Croton,
especially as long as the port of Syracuse remained open to the
Carthaginians and the fleet at Brundisium was kept in check by
Macedonia, is shown by the unopposed disembarkation at Locri of 4000
Africans, whom Bomilcar about this time brought over from Carthage to
Hannibal, and still more by Hannibal's undisturbed embarkation, when
all had been already lost.  But after the first impression of the
victory of Cannae had died away, the peace party in Carthage, which
was at all times ready to purchase the downfall of its political
opponents at the expense of its country, and which found faithful
allies in the shortsightedness and indolence of the citizens, refused
the entreaties of the general for more decided support with the half-
simple, half-malicious reply, that he in fact needed no help inasmuch
as he was really victor; and thus contributed not much less than
the Roman senate to save Rome.  Hannibal, reared in the camp and a
stranger to the machinery of civic factions, found no popular leader
on whose support he could rely, such as his father had found in
Hasdrubal; and he was obliged to seek abroad the means of saving
his native country--means which itself possessed in rich abundance
at home.

For this purpose he might, at least with more prospect of success,
reckon on the leaders of the Spanish patriot army, on the connections
which he had formed in Syracuse, and on the intervention of Philip.
Everything depended on bringing new forces into the Italian field of
war against Rome from Spain, Syracuse, or Macedonia; and for the
attainment or for the prevention of this object wars were carried
on in Spain, Sicily, and Greece.  All of these were but means to an
end, and historians have often erred in accounting them of greater
importance.  So far as the Romans were concerned, they were
essentially defensive wars, the proper objects of which were to hold
the passes of the Pyrenees, to detain the Macedonian army in Greece,
to defend Messana and to bar the communication between Italy and
Sicily.  Of course this defensive warfare was, wherever it was
possible, waged by offensive methods; and, should circumstances be
favourable, it might develop into the dislodging of the Phoenicians
from Spain and Sicily, and into the dissolution of Hannibal's
alliances with Syracuse and with Philip.  The Italian war in itself
fell for the time being into the shade, and resolved itself into
conflicts about fortresses and razzias, which had no decisive effect
on the main issue.  Nevertheless, so long as the Phoenicians retained
the offensive at all, Italy always remained the central aim of
operations; and all efforts were directed towards, as all interest
centred in, the doing away, or perpetuating, of Hannibal's isolation
in southern Italy.

The Sending of Reinforcements Temporarily Frustrated

Had it been possible, immediately after the battle of Cannae, to bring
into play all the resources on which Hannibal thought that he might
reckon, he might have been tolerably certain of success.  But the
position of Hasdrubal at that time in Spain after the battle on the
Ebro was so critical, that the supplies of money and men, which the
victory of Cannae had roused the Carthaginian citizens to furnish,
were for the most part expended on Spain, without producing much
improvement in the position of affairs there.  The Scipios transferred
the theatre of war in the following campaign (539) from the Ebro to
the Guadalquivir; and in Andalusia, in the very centre of the proper
Carthaginian territory, they achieved at Illiturgi and Intibili two
brilliant victories.  In Sardinia communications entered into with
the natives led the Carthaginians to hope that they should be able
to master the island, which would have been of importance as an
intermediate station between Spain and Italy.  But Titus Manlius
Torquatus, who was sent with a Roman army to Sardinia, completely
destroyed the Carthaginian landing force, and reassured to the Romans
the undisputed possession of the island (539).  The legions from
Cannae sent to Sicily held their ground in the north and east of
the island with courage and success against the Carthaginians and
Hieronymus; the latter met his death towards the end of 539 by the
hand of an assassin.  Even in the case of Macedonia the ratification
of the alliance was delayed, principally because the Macedonian envoys
sent to Hannibal were captured on their homeward journey by the Roman
vessels of war.  Thus the dreaded invasion of the east coast was
temporarily suspended; and the Romans gained time to secure the very
important station of Brundisium first by their fleet and then by the
land army which before the arrival of Gracchus was employed for the
protection of Apulia, and even to make preparations for an invasion of
Macedonia in the event of war being declared.  While in Italy the war
thus came to a stand, out of Italy nothing was done on the part of
Carthage to accelerate the movement of new armies or fleets towards
the seat of war.  The Romans, again, had everywhere with the greatest
energy put themselves in a state of defence, and in that defensive
attitude had fought for the most part with good results wherever the
genius of Hannibal was absent.  Thereupon the short-lived patriotism,
which the victory of Cannae had awakened in Carthage, evaporated; the
not inconsiderable forces which had been organized there were, either
through factious opposition or merely through unskilful attempts
to conciliate the different opinions expressed in the council, so
frittered away that they were nowhere of any real service, and but a
very small portion arrived at the spot where they would have been most
useful.  At the close of 539 the reflecting Roman statesman might
assure himself that the urgency of the danger was past, and that the
resistance so heroically begun had but to persevere in its exertions
at all points in order to achieve its object.

War in Sicily
Siege of Syracuse

First of all the war in Sicily came to an end.  It had formed no part
of Hannibal's original plan to excite a war on the island; but partly
through accident, chiefly through the boyish vanity of the imprudent
Hieronymus, a land war had broken out there, which--doubtless because
Hannibal had not planned it--the Carthaginian council look up with
especial zeal.  After Hieronymus was killed at the close of 539, it
seemed more than doubtful whether the citizens would persevere in
the policy which he had pursued.  If any city had reason to adhere
to Rome, that city was Syracuse; for the victory of the Carthaginians
over the Romans could not but give to the former, at any rate, the
sovereignty of all Sicily, and no one could seriously believe that
the promises made by Carthage to the Syracusans would be really kept.
Partly induced by this consideration, partly terrified by the
threatening preparations of the Romans--who made every effort to
bring once more under their complete control that important island,
the bridge between Italy and Africa, and now for the campaign of 540
sent their best general, Marcus Marcellus, to Sicily--the Syracusan
citizens showed a disposition to obtain oblivion of the past by a
timely return to the Roman alliance.  But, amidst the dreadful
confusion in the city--which after the death of Hieronymus was
agitated alternately by endeavours to re-establish the ancient freedom
of the people and by the -coups de main- of the numerous pretenders to
the vacant throne, while the captains of the foreign mercenary troops
were the real masters of the place--Hannibal's dexterous emissaries,
Hippocrates and Epicydes, found opportunity to frustrate the projects
of peace.  They stirred up the multitude in the name of liberty;
descriptions, exaggerated beyond measure, of the fearful punishment
that the Romans were said to have inflicted on the Leontines, who had
just been re-conquered, awakened doubts even among the better portion
of the citizens whether it was not too late to restore their old
relations with Rome; while the numerous Roman deserters among the
mercenaries, mostly runaway rowers from the fleet, were easily
persuaded that a peace on the part of the citizens with Rome would
be their death-warrant.  So the chief magistrates were put to death,
the armistice was broken, and Hippocrates and Epicydes undertook
the government of the city.  No course was left to the consul except
to undertake a siege; but the skilful conduct of the defence,
in which the Syracusan engineer Archimedes, celebrated as a learned
mathematician, especially distinguished himself, compelled the Romans
after besieging the city for eight months to convert the siege into
a blockade by sea and land.

Carthaginian Expedition to Sicily
The Carthaginian Troops Destroyed
Conquest of Syracuse

In the meanwhile Carthage, which hitherto had only supported the
Syracusans with her fleets, on receiving news of their renewed rising
in arms against the Romans had despatched a strong land army under
Himilco to Sicily, which landed without interruption at Heraclea Minoa
and immediately occupied the important town of Agrigentum.  To effect
a junction with Himilco, the bold and able Hippocrates marched forth
from Syracuse with an army: the position of Marcellus between the
garrison of Syracuse and the two hostile armies began to be critical.
With the help of some reinforcements, however, which arrived from
Italy, he maintained his position in the island and continued the
blockade of Syracuse.  On the other hand, the greater portion of the
small inland towns were driven to the armies of the Carthaginians not
so much by the armies of the enemy, as by the fearful severity of the
Roman proceedings in the island, more especially the slaughter of the
citizens of Enna, suspected of a design to revolt, by the Roman
garrison which was stationed there.  In 542 the besiegers of Syracuse
during a festival in the city succeeded in scaling a portion of the
extensive outer walls that had been deserted by the guard, and in
penetrating into the suburbs which stretched from the "island" and
the city proper on the shore (Achradina) towards the interior.  The
fortress of Euryalus, which, situated at the extreme western end of
the suburbs, protected these and the principal road leading from the
interior to Syracuse, was thus cut off and fell not long afterwards.
When the siege of the city thus began to assume a turn favourable
to the Romans, the two armies under Himilco and Hippocrates advanced
to its relief, and attempted a simultaneous attack on the Roman
positions, combined with an attempt at landing on the part of the
Carthaginian fleet and a sally of the Syracusan garrison; but the
attack was repulsed on all sides, and the two relieving armies were
obliged to content themselves with encamping before the city, in the
low marshy grounds along the Anapus, which in the height of summer and
autumn engender pestilences fatal to those that tarry in them.  These
pestilences had often saved the city, oftener even than the valour of
its citizens; in the times of the first Dionysius, two Phoenician
armies in the act of besieging the city had been in this way destroyed
under its very walls.  Now fate turned the special defence of the city
into the means of its destruction; while the army of Marcellus
quartered in the suburbs suffered but little, fevers desolated the
Phoenician and Syracusan bivouacs.  Hippocrates died; Himilco and
most of the Africans died also; the survivors of the two armies,
mostly native Siceli, dispersed into the neighbouring cities.  The
Carthaginians made a further attempt to save the city from the sea
side; but the admiral Bomilcar withdrew, when the Roman fleet offered
him battle.  Epicydes himself, who commanded in the city, now
abandoned it as lost, and made his escape to Agrigentum.  Syracuse
would gladly have surrendered to the Romans; negotiations had already
begun.  But for the second time they were thwarted by the deserters:
in another mutiny of the soldiers the chief magistrates and a number
of respectable citizens were slain, and the government and the defence
of the city were entrusted by the foreign troops to their captains.
Marcellus now entered into a negotiation with one of these, which gave
into his hands one of the two portions of the city that were still
free, the "island"; upon which the citizens voluntarily opened to
him the gates of Achradina also (in the autumn of 542).  If mercy
was to be shown in any case, it might, even according to the far
from laudable principles of Roman public law as to the treatment
of perfidious communities, have been extended to this city, which
manifestly had not been at liberty to act for itself, and which had
repeatedly made the most earnest attempts to get rid of the tyranny
of the foreign soldiers.  Nevertheless, not only did Marcellus stain
his military honour by permitting a general pillage of the wealthy
mercantile city, in the course of which Archimedes and many other
citizens were put to death, but the Roman senate lent a deaf ear to
the complaints which the Syracusans afterwards presented regarding the
celebrated general, and neither returned to individuals their pillaged
property nor restored to the city its freedom.  Syracuse and the towns
that had been previously dependent on it were classed among the
communities tributary to Rome--Tauromenium and Neetum alone obtained
the same privileges as Messana, while the territory of Leontini became
Roman domain and its former proprietors Roman lessees--and no
Syracusan citizen was henceforth allowed to reside in the "island,"
the portion of the city that commanded the harbour.

Guerilla War in Sicily
Agrigentum Occupied by the Romans
Sicily Tranquillized

Sicily thus appeared lost to the Carthaginians; but the genius of
Hannibal exercised even from a distance its influence there.  He
despatched to the Carthaginian army, which remained at.  Agrigentum
in perplexity and inaction under Hanno and Epicydes, a Libyan cavalry
officer Muttines, who took the command of the Numidian cavalry, and
with his flying squadrons, fanning into an open flame the bitter
hatred which the despotic rule of the Romans had excited over all the
island, commenced a guerilla warfare on the most extensive scale and
with the happiest results; so that he even, when the Carthaginian and
Roman armies met on the river Himera, sustained some conflicts with
Marcellus himself successfully.  The relations, however, which
prevailed between Hannibal and the Carthaginian council, were here
repeated on a small scale.  The general appointed by the council
pursued with jealous envy the officer sent by Hannibal, and insisted
upon giving battle to the proconsul without Muttines and the
Numidians.  The wish of Hanno was carried out, and he was completely
beaten.  Muttines was not induced to deviate from his course; he
maintained himself in the interior of the country, occupied several
small towns, and was enabled by the not inconsiderable reinforcements
which joined him from Carthage gradually to extend his operations.
His successes were so brilliant, that at length the commander-in-
chief, who could not otherwise prevent the cavalry officer from
eclipsing him, deprived him summarily of the command of the light
cavalry, and entrusted it to his own son.  The Numidian, who had
now for two years preserved the island for his Phoenician masters,
had the measure of his patience exhausted by this treatment.  He and
his horsemen who refused to follow the younger Hanno entered into
negotiations with the Roman general Marcus Valerius Laevinus and
delivered to him Agrigentum.  Hanno escaped in a boat, and went to
Carthage to report to his superiors the disgraceful high treason of
Hannibal's officer; the Phoenician garrison in the town was put to
death by the Romans, and the citizens were sold into slavery (544).
To secure the island from such surprises as the landing of 540, the
city received a new body of inhabitants selected from Sicilians well
disposed towards Rome; the old glorious Akragas was no more.  After
the whole of Sicily was thus subdued, the Romans exerted themselves to
restore some sort of tranquillity and order to the distracted island.
The pack of banditti that haunted the interior were driven together
en masse and conveyed to Italy, that from their head-quarters at
Rhegium they might burn and destroy in the territories of Hannibal's
allies.  The government did its utmost to promote the restoration
of agriculture which had been totally neglected in the island.
The Carthaginian council more than once talked of sending a fleet
to Sicily and renewing the war there; but the project went no further.

Philip of Macedonia and His Delay

Macedonia might have exercised an influence over the course of
events more decisive than that of Syracuse.  From the Eastern powers
neither furtherance nor hindrance was for the moment to be expected.
Antiochus the Great, the natural ally of Philip, had, after the
decisive victory of the Egyptians at Raphia in 537, to deem himself
fortunate in obtaining peace from the indolent Philopator on the basis
of the -status quo ante-.  The rivalry of the Lagidae and the constant
apprehension of a renewed outbreak of the war on the one hand, and
insurrections of pretenders in the interior and enterprises of all
sorts in Asia Minor, Bactria, and the eastern satrapies on the other,
prevented him from joining that great anti-Roman alliance which
Hannibal had in view.  The Egyptian court was decidedly on the side
of Rome, with which it renewed alliance in 544; but it was not to be
expected of Ptolemy Philopator, that he would support otherwise than
by corn-ships.  Accordingly there was nothing to prevent Greece and
Macedonia from throwing a decisive weight into the great Italian
struggle except their own discord; they might save the Hellenic name,
if they had the self-control to stand by each other for but a few
years against the common foe.  Such sentiments doubtless were current
in Greece.  The prophetic saying of Agelaus of Naupactus, that he was
afraid that the prize-fights in which the Hellenes now indulged at
home might soon be over; his earnest warning to direct their eyes to
the west, and not to allow a stronger power to impose on all the
parties now contending a peace of equal servitude--such sayings had
essentially contributed to bring about the peace between Philip and
the Aetolians (537), and it was a significant proof of the tendency
of that peace that the Aetolian league immediately nominated Agelaus
as its -strategus-.

National patriotism was bestirring itself in Greece as in Carthage:
for a moment it seemed possible to kindle a Hellenic national war
against Rome.  But the general in such a crusade could only be Philip
of Macedonia; and he lacked the enthusiasm and the faith in the
nation, without which such a war could not be waged.  He knew not
how to solve the arduous problem of transforming himself from the
oppressor into the champion of Greece.  His very delay in the
conclusion of the alliance with Hannibal damped the first and best
zeal of the Greek patriots; and when he did enter into the conflict
with Rome, his mode of conducting war was still less fitted to awaken
sympathy and confidence.  His first attempt, which was made in the
very year of the battle of Cannae (538), to obtain possession of the
city of Apollonia, failed in a way almost ridiculous, for Philip
turned back in all haste on receiving the totally groundless report
that a Roman fleet was steering for the Adriatic.  This took place
before there was a formal breach with Rome; when the breach at length
ensued, friend and foe expected a Macedonian landing in Lower Italy.
Since  539 a Roman fleet and army had been stationed at Brundisium to
meet it; Philip, who was without vessels of war, was constructing a
flotilla of light Illyrian barks to convey his army across.  But when
the endeavour had to be made in earnest, his courage failed to
encounter the dreaded quinqueremes at sea; he broke the promise which
he had given to his ally Hannibal to attempt a landing, and with the
view of still doing something he resolved to make an attack on his own
share of the spoil, the Roman possessions in Epirus (540).  Nothing
would have come of this even at the best; but the Romans, who well
knew that offensive was preferable to defensive protection, were by no
means content to remain--as Philip may have hoped--spectators of the
attack from the opposite shore.  The Roman fleet conveyed a division
of the army from Brundisium to Epirus; Oricum was recaptured from the
king, a garrison was thrown into Apollonia, and the Macedonian camp
was stormed.  Thereupon Philip passed from partial action to total
inaction, and notwithstanding all the complaints of Hannibal, who
vainly tried to breathe into such a halting and shortsighted policy
his own fire and clearness of decision, he allowed some years to
elapse in armed inactivity.

Rome Heads a Greek Coalition against Macedonia

Nor was Philip the first to renew the hostilities.  The fall of
Tarentum (542), by which Hannibal acquired an excellent port on the
coast which was the most convenient for the landing of a Macedonian
army, induced the Romans to parry the blow from a distance and to give
the Macedonians so much employment at home that they could not think
of an attempt on Italy.  The national enthusiasm in Greece had of
course evaporated long ago.  With the help of the old antagonism to
Macedonia, and of the fresh acts of imprudence and injustice of which
Philip had been guilty, the Roman admiral Laevinus found no difficulty
in organizing against Macedonia a coalition of the intermediate and
minor powers under the protectorate of Rome.  It was headed by the
Aetolians, at whose diet Laevinus had personally appeared and had
gained its support by a promise of the Acarnanian territory which
the Aetolians had long coveted.  They concluded with Rome a modest
agreement to rob the other Greeks of men and land on the joint
account, so that the land should belong to the Aetolians, the men
and moveables to the Romans.  They were joined by the states of anti-
Macedonian, or rather primarily of anti-Achaean, tendencies in Greece
proper; in Attica by Athens, in the Peloponnesus by Elis and Messene
and especially by Sparta, the antiquated constitution of which had
been just about this time overthrown by a daring soldier Machanidas,
in order that he might himself exercise despotic power under the
name of king Pelops, a minor, and might establish a government of
adventurers sustained by bands of mercenaries.  The coalition was
joined moreover by those constant antagonists of Macedonia, the
chieftains of the half-barbarous Thracian and Illyrian tribes, and
lastly by Attalus king of Pergamus, who followed out his own interest
with sagacity and energy amidst the ruin of the two great Greek states
which surrounded him, and had the acuteness even now to attach himself
as a client to Rome when his assistance was still of some value.

Resultless Warfare
Peace between Philip and the Greeks
Peace between Philip and Rome

It is neither agreeable nor necessary to follow the vicissitudes of
this aimless struggle.  Philip, although he was superior to each one
of his opponents and repelled their attacks on all sides with energy
and personal valour, yet consumed his time and strength in that
profitless defensive.  Now he had to turn against the Aetolians,
who in concert with the Roman fleet annihilated the unfortunate
Acarnanians and threatened Locris and Thessaly; now an invasion of
barbarians summoned him to the northern provinces; now the Achaeans
solicited his help against the predatory expeditions of Aetolians and
Spartans; now king Attalus of Pergamus and the Roman admiral Publius
Sulpicius with their combined fleets threatened the east coast or
landed troops in Euboea.  The want of a war fleet paralyzed Philip in
all his movements; he even went so far as to beg vessels of war from
his ally Prusias of Bithynia, and even from Hannibal.  It was only
towards the close of the war that he resolved--as he should have done
at first--to order the construction of 100 ships of war; of these
however no use was made, if the order was executed at all.  All who
understood the position of Greece and sympathized with it lamented
the unhappy war, in which the last energies of Greece preyed upon
themselves and the prosperity of the land was destroyed; repeatedly
the commercial states, Rhodes, Chios, Mitylene, Byzantium, Athens, and
even Egypt itself had attempted a mediation.  In fact both parties had
an interest in coming to terms.  The Aetolians, to whom their Roman
allies attached the chief importance, had, like the Macedonians,
much to suffer from the war; especially after the petty king of the
Athamanes had been gained by Philip, and the interior of Aetolia had
thus been laid open to Macedonian incursions.  Many Aetolians too had
their eyes gradually opened to the dishonourable and pernicious part
which the Roman alliance condemned them to play; a cry of horror
pervaded the whole Greek nation when the Aetolians in concert with
the Romans sold whole bodies of Hellenic citizens, such as those of
Anticyra, Oreus, Dyme, and Aegina, into slavery.  But the Aetolians
were no longer free; they ran a great risk if of their own accord they
concluded peace with Philip, and they found the Romans by no means
disposed, especially after the favourable turn which matters were
taking in Spain and in Italy, to desist from a war, which on their
part was carried on with merely a few ships, and the burden and
injury of which fell mainly on the Aetolians.  At length however
the Aetolians resolved to listen to the mediating cities: and,
notwithstanding the counter-efforts of the Romans, a peace was
arranged in the winter of 548-9 between the Greek powers.  Aetolia had
converted an over-powerful ally into a dangerous enemy; but the Roman
senate, which just at that time was summoning all the resources of the
exhausted state for the decisive expedition to Africa, did not deem it
a fitting moment to resent the breach of the alliance.  The war with
Philip could not, after the withdrawal of the Aetolians, have been
carried on by the Romans without considerable exertions of their own;
and it appeared to them more convenient to terminate it also by a
peace, whereby the state of things before the war was substantially
restored and Rome in particular retained all her possessions on the
coast of Epirus except the worthless territory of the Atintanes.
Under the circumstances Philip had to deem himself fortunate in
obtaining such terms; but the fact proclaimed--what could not indeed
be longer concealed--that all the unspeakable misery which ten years
of a warfare waged with revolting inhumanity had brought upon Greece
had been endured in vain, and that the grand and just combination,
which Hannibal had projected and all Greece had for a moment joined,
was shattered irretrievably.

Spanish War

In Spain, where the spirit of Hamilcar and Hannibal was powerful, the
struggle was more earnest.  Its progress was marked by the singular
vicissitudes incidental to the peculiar nature of the country and the
habits of the people.  The farmers and shepherds, who inhabited the
beautiful valley of the Ebro and the luxuriantly fertile Andalusia as
well as the rough intervening highland region traversed by numerous
wooded mountain ranges, could easily be assembled in arms as a general
levy; but it was difficult to lead them against the enemy or even to
keep them together at all.  The towns could just as little be combined
for steady and united action, obstinately as in each case they bade
defiance to the oppressor behind their walls.  They all appear to have
made little distinction between the Romans and the Carthaginians;
whether the troublesome guests who had established themselves in the
valley of the Ebro, or those who had established themselves on the
Guadalquivir, possessed a larger or smaller portion of the peninsula,
was probably to the natives very much a matter of indifference; and
for that reason the tenacity of partisanship so characteristic of
Spain was but little prominent in this war, with isolated exceptions
such as Saguntum on the Roman and Astapa on the Carthaginian side.
But, as neither the Romans nor the Africans had brought with them
sufficient forces of their own, the war necessarily became on both
sides a struggle to gain partisans, which was decided rarely by solid
attachment, more usually by fear, money, or accident, and which, when
it seemed about to end, resolved itself into an endless series of
fortress-sieges and guerilla conflicts, whence it soon revived with
fresh fury.  Armies appeared and disappeared like sandhills on the
seashore; on the spot where a hill stood yesterday, not a trace of
it remains today.  In general the superiority was on the side of
the Romans, partly because they at first appeared in Spain as the
deliverers of the land from Phoenician despotism, partly because of
the fortunate selection of their leaders and of the stronger nucleus
of trustworthy troops which these brought along with them.  It is
hardly possible, however, with the very imperfect and--in point of
chronology especially--very confused accounts which have been handed
down to us, to give a satisfactory view of a war so conducted.

Successes of the Scipios
Syphax against Carthage

The two lieutenant-governors of the Romans in the peninsula, Gnaeus
and Publius Scipio--both of them, but especially Gnaeus, good
generals and excellent administrators--accomplished their task with
the most brilliant success.  Not only was the barrier of the Pyrenees
steadfastly maintained, and the attempt to re-establish the
interrupted communication by land between the commander-in-chief of
the enemy and his head-quarters sternly repulsed; not only had a
Spanish New Rome been created, after the model of the Spanish New
Carthage, by means of the comprehensive fortifications and harbour
works of Tarraco, but the Roman armies had already in 539 fought with
success in Andalusia.(2)  Their expedition thither was repeated in
the following year (540) with still greater success.  The Romans
carried their arms almost to the Pillars of Hercules, extended their
protectorate in South Spain, and lastly by regaining and restoring
Saguntum secured for themselves an important station on the line from
the Ebro to Cartagena, repaying at the same time as far as possible
an old debt which the nation owed.  While the Scipios thus almost
dislodged the Carthaginians from Spain, they knew how to raise up a
dangerous enemy to them in western Africa itself in the person of the
powerful west African prince Syphax, ruling in the modern provinces of
Oran and Algiers, who entered into connections with the Romans (about
541).  Had it been possible to supply him with a Roman army, great
results might have been expected; but at that time not a man could be
spared from Italy, and the Spanish army was too weak to be divided.
Nevertheless the troops belonging to Syphax himself, trained and led
by Roman officers, excited so serious a ferment among the Libyan
subjects of Carthage that the lieutenant-commander of Spain and
Africa, Hasdrubal Barcas, went in person to Africa with the flower
of his Spanish troops.  His arrival in all likelihood gave another
turn to the matter; the king Gala--in what is now the province of
Constantine--who had long been the rival of Syphax, declared for
Carthage, and his brave son Massinissa defeated Syphax, and compelled
him to make peace.  Little more is related of this Libyan war than the
story of the cruel vengeance which Carthage, according to her wont,
inflicted on the rebels after the victory of Massinissa.

The Scipios Defeated and Killed
Spain South of the Ebro Lost to the Romans
Nero Sent to Spain

This turn of affairs in Africa had an important effect on the war in
Spain.  Hasdrubal was able once more to turn to that country (543),
whither he was soon followed by considerable reinforcements and by
Massinissa himself.  The Scipios, who during the absence of the
enemy's general (541, 542) had continued to plunder and to gain
partisans in the Carthaginian territory, found themselves unexpectedly
assailed by forces so superior that they were under the necessity of
either retreating behind the Ebro or calling out the Spaniards.  They
chose the latter course, and took into their pay 20,000 Celtiberians;
and then, in order the better to encounter the three armies of the
enemy under Hasdrubal Barcas, Hasdrubal the son of Gisgo, and Mago,
they divided their army and did not even keep their Roman troops
together.  They thus prepared the way for their own destruction.
While Gnaeus with his corps, containing a third of the Roman and all
the Spanish troops, lay encamped opposite to Hasdrubal Barcas, the
latter had no difficulty in inducing the Spaniards in the Roman army
by means of a sum of money to withdraw--which perhaps to their free-
lance ideas of morals did not even seem a breach of fidelity, seeing
that they did not pass over to the enemies of their paymaster.
Nothing was left to the Roman general but hastily to begin his
retreat, in which the enemy closely followed him.  Meanwhile the
second Roman corps under Publius found itself vigorously assailed
by the two other Phoenician armies under Hasdrubal son of Gisgo
and Mago, and the daring squadrons of Massinissa's horse gave to
the Carthaginians a decided advantage.  The Roman camp was almost
surrounded; when the Spanish auxiliaries already on the way should
arrive, the Romans would be completely hemmed in.  The bold resolve
of the proconsul to encounter with his best troops the advancing
Spaniards, before their appearance should fill up the gap in the
blockade, ended unfortunately.  The Romans indeed had at first the
advantage; but the Numidian horse, who were rapidly despatched in
pursuit, soon overtook them and prevented them both from following up
the victory which they had already half gained, and from marching
back, until the Phoenician infantry came up and at length the fall of
the general converted the lost battle into a defeat.  After Publius
had thus fallen, Gnaeus, who slowly retreating had with difficulty
defended himself against the one Carthaginian army, found himself
suddenly assailed at once by three, and all retreat cut off by the
Numidian cavalry.  Hemmed in upon a bare hill, which did not even
afford the possibility of pitching a camp, the whole corps were cut
down or taken prisoners.  As to the fate of the general himself no
certain information was ever obtained.  A small division alone was
conducted by Gaius Marcius, an excellent officer of the school of
Gnaeus, in safety to the other bank of the Ebro; and thither the
legate Titus Fonteius also succeeded in bringing safely the portion
of the corps of Publius that had been left in the camp; most even of
the Roman garrisons scattered in the south of Spain were enabled to
flee thither.  In all Spain south of the Ebro the Phoenicians ruled
undisturbed; and the moment seemed not far distant, when the river
would be crossed, the Pyrenees would be open, and the communication
with Italy would be restored.  But the emergency in the Roman camp
called the right man to the command.  The choice of the soldiers,
passing over older and not incapable officers, summoned that Gaius
Marcius to become leader of the army; and his dexterous management
and quite as much perhaps, the envy and discord among the three
Carthaginian generals, wrested from these the further fruits of their
important victory.  Such of the Carthaginians as had crossed the river
were driven back, and the line of the Ebro was held in the meanwhile,
till Rome gained time to send a new army and a new general.
Fortunately the turn of the war in Italy, where Capua had just fallen,
allowed this to be done.  A strong legion--12,000 men--arriving under
the propraetor Gaius Claudius Nero, restored the balance of arms.
An expedition to Andalusia in the following year (544) was most
successful; Hasdrubal Barcas was beset and surrounded, and escaped a
capitulation only by ignoble stratagem and open perfidy.  But Nero was
not the right general for the Spanish war.  He was an able officer,
but a harsh, irritable, unpopular man, who had little skill in the
art of renewing old connections or of forming new ones, or in taking
advantage of the injustice and arrogance with which the Carthaginians
after the death of the Scipios had treated friend and foe in Further
Spain, and had exasperated all against them.

Publius Scipio

The senate, which formed a correct judgment as to the importance
and the peculiar character of the Spanish war, and had learned from
the Uticenses brought in as prisoners by the Roman fleet the great
exertions which were making in Carthage to send Hasdrubal and
Massinissa with a numerous army over the Pyrenees, resolved to
despatch to Spain new reinforcements and an extraordinary general of
higher rank, the nomination of whom they deemed it expedient to leave
to the people.  For long--so runs the story--nobody announced himself
as ready to take in hand the complicated and perilous business; but
at last a young officer of twenty-seven, Publius Scipio (son of the
general of the same name that had fallen in Spain), who had held the
offices of military tribune and aedile, came forward to solicit it.
It is incredible that the Roman senate should have left to accident
an election of such importance in this meeting of the Comitia which
it had itself suggested, and equally incredible that ambition and
patriotism should have so died out in Rome that no tried officer
presented himself for the important post.  If on the other hand the
eyes of the senate turned to the young, talented, and experienced
officer, who had brilliantly distinguished himself in the hotly-
contested days on the Ticinus and at Cannae, but who still had not the
rank requisite for his coming forward as the successor of men who had
been praetors and consuls, it was very natural to adopt this course,
which compelled the people out of good nature to admit the only
candidate notwithstanding his defective qualification, and which could
not but bring both him and the Spanish expedition, which was doubtless
very unpopular, into favour with the multitude.  If the effect of this
ostensibly unpremeditated candidature was thus calculated, it was
perfectly successful.  The son, who went to avenge the death of a
father whose life he had saved nine years before on the Ticinus;
the young man of manly beauty and long locks, who with modest blushes
offered himself in the absence of a better for the post of danger;
the mere military tribune, whom the votes of the centuries now raised
at once to the roll of the highest magistracies--all this made a
wonderful and indelible impression on the citizens and farmers of
Rome.  And in truth Publius Scipio was one, who was himself
enthusiastic, and who inspired enthusiasm.  He was not one of the few
who by their energy and iron will constrain the world to adopt and to
move in new paths for centuries, or who at any rate grasp the reins of
destiny for years till its wheels roll over them.  Publius Scipio
gained battles and conquered countries under the instructions of the
senate; with the aid of his military laurels he took also a prominent
position in Rome as a statesman; but a wide interval separates such a
man from an Alexander or a Caesar.  As an officer he rendered at least
no greater service to his country than Marcus Marcellus; and as a
politician, although not perhaps himself fully conscious of the
unpatriotic and personal character of his policy, he injured his
country at least as much, as he benefited it by his military skill.
Yet a special charm lingers around the form of that graceful hero;
it is surrounded, as with a dazzling halo, by the atmosphere of serene
and confident inspiration, in which Scipio with mingled credulity and
adroitness always moved.  With quite enough of enthusiasm to warm
men's hearts, and enough of calculation to follow in every case the
dictates of intelligence, while not leaving out of account the vulgar;
not naive enough to share the belief of the multitude in his divine
inspirations, nor straightforward enough to set it aside, and yet in
secret thoroughly persuaded that he was a man specially favoured of
the gods--in a word, a genuine prophetic nature; raised above the
people, and not less aloof from them; a man of steadfast word and
kingly spirit, who thought that he would humble himself by adopting
the ordinary title of a king, but could never understand how the
constitution of the republic should in his case be binding;
so confident in his own greatness that he knew nothing of envy
or of hatred, courteously acknowledged other men's merits, and
compassionately forgave other men's faults; an excellent officer and
a refined diplomatist without the repellent special impress of either
calling, uniting Hellenic culture with the fullest national feeling of
a Roman, an accomplished speaker and of graceful manners--Publius
Scipio won the hearts of soldiers and of women, of his countrymen
and of the Spaniards, of his rivals in the senate and of his greater
Carthaginian antagonist.  His name was soon on every one's lips, and
his was the star which seemed destined to bring victory and peace
to his country.

Scipio Goes to Spain
Capture of New Carthage

Publius Scipio went to Spain in 544-5, accompanied by the propraetor
Marcus Silanus, who was to succeed Nero and to serve as assistant and
counsellor to the young commander-in-chief, and by his intimate friend
Gaius Laelius as admiral, and furnished with a legion exceeding the
usual strength and a well-filled chest.  His appearance on the scene
was at once signalized by one of the boldest and most fortunate -coups
de main- that are known in history.  Of the three Carthaginian
generals Hasdrubal Barcas was stationed at the sources, Hasdrubal
son of Gisgo at the mouth, of the Tagus, and Mago at the Pillars of
Hercules; the nearest of them was ten days' march from the Phoenician
capital New Carthage.  Suddenly in the spring of 545, before the
enemy's armies began to move, Scipio set out with his whole army of
nearly 30,000 men and the fleet for this town, which he could reach
from the mouth of the Ebro by the coast route in a few days, and
surprised the Phoenician garrison, not above 1000 men strong, by a
combined attack by sea and land.  The town, situated on a tongue of
land projecting into the harbour, found itself threatened at once on
three sides by the Roman fleet, and on the fourth by the legions; and
all help was far distant.  Nevertheless the commandant Mago defended
himself with resolution and armed the citizens, as the soldiers did
not suffice to man the walls.  A sortie was attempted; but the Romans
repelled it with ease and, without taking time to open a regular
siege, began the assault on the landward side.  Eagerly the assailants
pushed their advance along the narrow land approach to the town;
new columns constantly relieved those that were fatigued; the weak
garrison was utterly exhausted; but the Romans had gained no
advantage.  Scipio had not expected any; the assault was merely
designed to draw away the garrison from the side next to the harbour,
where, having been informed that part of the latter was left dry at
ebb-tide, he meditated a second attack.  While the assault was raging
on the landward side, Scipio sent a division with ladders over the
shallow bank "where Neptune himself showed them the way," and they had
actually the good fortune to find the walls at that point undefended.
Thus the city was won on the first day; whereupon Mago in the citadel
capitulated.  With the Carthaginian capital there fell into the hands
of the Romans 18 dismantled vessels of war and 63 transports, the
whole war-stores, considerable supplies of corn, the war-chest of 600
talents (more than; 40,000 pounds), ten thousand captives, among whom
were eighteen Carthaginian gerusiasts or judges, and the hostages of
all the Spanish allies of Carthage.  Scipio promised the hostages
permission to return home so soon as their respective communities
should have entered into alliance with Rome, and employed the
resources which the city afforded to reinforce and improve the
condition of his army.  He ordered the artisans of New Carthage,
2000 in number, to work for the Roman army, promising to them liberty
at the close of the war, and he selected the able-bodied men among
the remaining multitude to serve as rowers in the fleet.  But the
burgesses of the city were spared, and allowed to retain their liberty
and former position.  Scipio knew the Phoenicians, and was aware that
they would obey; and it was important that a city possessing the only
excellent harbour on the east coast and rich silver mines should be
secured by something more than a garrison.

Success thus crowned the bold enterprise--bold, because it was not
unknown to Scipio that Hasdrubal Barcas had received orders from his
government to advance towards Gaul and was engaged in fulfilling them,
and because the weak division left behind on the Ebro was not in a
position seriously to oppose that movement, should the return of
Scipio be delayed.  But he was again at Tarraco, before Hasdrubal made
his appearance on the Ebro.  The hazard of the game which the young
general played, when he abandoned his primary task in order to execute
a dashing stroke, was concealed by the fabulous success which Neptune
and Scipio had gained in concert.  The marvellous capture of the
Phoenician capital so abundantly justified all the expectations
which had been formed at home regarding the wondrous youth, that
none could venture to utter any adverse opinion.  Scipio's command was
indefinitely prolonged; he himself resolved no longer to confine his
efforts to the meagre task of guarding the passes of the Pyrenees.
Already, in consequence of the fall of New Carthage, not only had
the Spaniards on the north of the Ebro completely submitted, but
even beyond the Ebro the most powerful princes had exchanged
the Carthaginian for the Roman protectorate.

Scipio Goes to Andalusia
Hasdrubal Crosses the Pyrenees

Scipio employed the winter of 545-6 in breaking up his fleet and
increasing his  land  army with  the men thus acquired, so that he
might at once guard the north and assume the offensive in the south
more energetically than before; and he marched in 546 to Andalusia.
There he: encountered Hasdrubal Barcas, who, in the execution of his
long-cherished plan, was moving northward to the help of his brother.
A battle took place at Baecula, in which the Romans claimed the
victory and professed to have made 10,000 captives; but Hasdrubal
substantially attained his end, although at the sacrifice of a portion
of his army.  With his chest, his elephants, and the best portion of
his troops, he fought his way to the north coast of Spain; marching
along the shore, he reached the western passes of the Pyrenees which
appear to have been unoccupied, and before the bad season began he
was in Gaul, where he took up quarters for the winter.  It was evident
that the resolve of Scipio to combine offensive operations with the
defensive which he had been instructed to maintain was inconsiderate
and unwise.  The immediate task assigned to the Spanish army, which
not only Scipio's father and uncle, but even Gaius Marcius and Gaius
Nero had accomplished with much inferior means, was not enough for the
arrogance of the victorious general at the head of a numerous army;
and he was mainly to blame for the extremely critical position of Rome
in the summer of 547, when the plan of Hannibal for a combined attack
on the Romans was at length realized.  But the gods covered the errors
of their favourite with laurels.  In Italy the peril fortunately
passed over; the Romans were glad to accept the bulletin of the
ambiguous victory of Baecula, and, when fresh tidings of victory
arrived from Spain, they thought no more of the circumstance that
they had had to combat the ablest general and the flower of the
Hispano-Phoenician army in Italy.

Spain Conquered
Mago Goes to Italy
Gades Becomes Roman

After the removal of Hasdrubal Barcas the two generals who were
left in Spain determined for the time being to retire, Hasdrubal
son of Gisgo to Lusitania, Mago even to the Baleares; and, until new
reinforcements should arrive from Africa, they left the light cavalry
of Massinissa alone to wage a desultory warfare in Spain, as Muttines
had done so successfully in Sicily.  The whole east coast thus fell
into the power of the Romans.  In the following year (547) Hanno
actually made his appearance from Africa with a third army, whereupon
Mago and Hasdrubal returned to Andalusia.  But Marcus Silanus defeated
the united armies of Mago and Hanno, and captured the latter in
person.  Hasdrubal upon this abandoned the idea of keeping the open
field, and distributed his troops among the Andalusian cities, of
which Scipio was during this year able to storm only one, Oringis.
The Phoenicians seemed vanquished; but yet they were able in the
following year (548) once more to send into the field a powerful army,
32 elephants, 4000 horse, and 70,000 foot, far the greater part of
whom, it is true, were hastily-collected: Spanish militia.  Again
a battle took place at Baecula.  The Roman army numbered little
more than half that of the enemy, and was also to a considerable
extent composed of Spaniards.  Scipio, like Wellington in similar
circumstances, disposed his Spaniards so that they should not partake
in the fight--the only possible mode of preventing their dispersion
--while on the other hand he threw his Roman troops in the first
instance on the Spaniards.  The day was nevertheless obstinately
contested; but at length the Romans were the victors, and, as a matter
of course, the defeat of such an army was equivalent to its complete
dissolution--Hasdrubal and Mago singly made their escape to Gades.
The Romans were now without a rival in the peninsula; the few towns
that did not submit with good will were subdued one by one, and some
of them were punished with cruel severity.  Scipio was even able to
visit Syphax on the African coast, and to enter into communications
with him and also with Massinissa with reference to an expedition
to Africa--a foolhardy venture, which was not warranted by any
corresponding advantage, however much the report of it might please
the curiosity of the citizens of the capital at home.  Gades alone,
where Mago held command, was still Phoenician.  For a moment it seemed
as if, after the Romans had entered upon the Carthaginian heritage and
had sufficiently undeceived the expectation cherished here and there
among the Spaniards that after the close of the Phoenician rule they
would get rid of their Roman guests also and regain their ancient
freedom, a general insurrection against the Romans would break forth
in Spain, in which the former allies of Rome would take the lead.
The sickness of the Roman general and the mutiny of one of his corps,
occasioned by their pay being in arrear for many years, favoured
the rising.  But Scipio recovered sooner than was expected, and
dexterously suppressed the tumult among the soldiers; upon which
the communities that had taken the lead in the national rising were
subdued at once before the insurrection gained ground.  Seeing that
nothing came of this movement and Gades could not be permanently held,
the Carthaginian government ordered Mago to gather together whatever
could be got in ships, troops, and money, and with these, if possible,
to give another turn to the war in Italy.  Scipio could not prevent
this--his dismantling of the fleet now avenged itself--and he was a
second time obliged to leave in the hands of his gods the defence,
with which he had been entrusted, of his country against new
invasions.  The last of Hamilcar's sons left the peninsula without
opposition.  After his departure Gades, the oldest and last possession
of the Phoenicians on Spanish soil, submitted on favourable conditions
to the new masters.  Spain was, after a thirteen years' struggle,
converted from a Carthaginian into a Roman province, in which the
conflict with the Romans was still continued for centuries by means of
insurrections always suppressed and yet never subdued, but in which at
the moment no enemy stood opposed to Rome.  Scipio embraced the first
moment of apparent peace to resign his command (in the end of 548),
and to report at Rome in person the victories which he had achieved
and the provinces which he had won.

Italian War
Position of the Armies

While the war was thus terminated in Sicily by Marcellus, in Greece by
Publius Sulpicius, and in Spain by Scipio, the mighty struggle went on
without interruption in the Italian peninsula.  There after the battle
of Cannae had been fought and its effects in loss or gain could by
degrees be discerned, at the commencement of 540, the fifth year of
the war, the dispositions of the opposing Romans and Phoenicians were
the following.  North Italy had been reoccupied by the Romans after
the departure of Hannibal, and was protected by three legions, two of
which were stationed in the Celtic territory, the third as a reserve
in Picenum.  Lower Italy, as far as Mount Garganus and the Volturnus,
was, with the exception of the fortresses and most of the ports, in
the hands of Hannibal.  He lay with his main army at Arpi, while
Tiberius Gracchus with four legions confronted him in Apulia, resting
upon the fortresses of Luceria and Beneventum.  In the land of the
Bruttians, where the inhabitants had thrown themselves entirely into
the arms of Hannibal, and where even the ports--excepting Rhegium,
which the Romans protected from Messana--had been occupied by the
Phoenicians, there was a second Carthaginian army under Hanno, which
in the meanwhile saw no enemy to face it.  The Roman main army of four
legions under the two consuls, Quintus Fabius and Marcus Marcellus,
was on the point of attempting to recover Capua.  To these there fell
to be added on the Roman side the reserve of two legions in the
capital, the garrisons placed in all the seaports--Tarentum and
Brundisium having been reinforced by a legion on account of the
Macedonian landing apprehended there--and lastly the strong fleet
which had undisputed command of the sea.  If we add to these the Roman
armies in Sicily, Sardinia, and Spain, the whole number of the Roman
forces, even apart from the garrison service in the fortresses of
Lower Italy which was provided for by the colonists occupying them,
may be estimated at not less than 200,000 men, of whom one-third were
newly enrolled for this year, and about one-half were Roman citizens.
It may be assumed that all the men capable of service from the 17th
to the 46th year were under arms, and that the fields, where the war
permitted them to be tilled at all, were cultivated by the slaves
and the old men, women, and children.  As may well be conceived,
under such circumstances the finances were in the most grievous
embarrassment; the land-tax, the main source of revenue, came in but
very irregularly.  Yet notwithstanding these difficulties as to men
and money the Romans were able--slowly indeed and by exerting all
their energies, but still surely--to recover what they had so rapidly
lost; to increase their armies yearly, while those of the Phoenicians
were diminishing; to gain ground year by year on the Italian allies
of Hannibal, the Campanians, Apulians, Samnites, and Bruttians, who
neither sufficed, like the Roman fortresses in Lower Italy, for their
own protection nor could be adequately protected by the weak army of
Hannibal; and finally, by means of the method of warfare instituted by
Marcus Marcellus, to develop the talent of their officers and to bring
into full play the superiority of the Roman infantry.  Hannibal might
doubtless still hope for victories, but no longer such victories as
those on the Trasimene lake and on the Aufidus; the times of the
citizen-generals were gone by.  No course was left to him but to wait
till either Philip should execute his long-promised descent or his own
brothers should join him from Spain, and meanwhile to keep himself,
his army, and his clients as far as possible free from harm and in
good humour.  We hardly recognize in the obstinate defensive system
which he now began the same general who had carried on the offensive
with almost unequalled impetuosity and boldness; it is marvellous in
a psychological as well as in a military point of view, that the same
man should have accomplished the two tasks set to him--tasks so
diametrically opposite in their character--with equal completeness.

Conflicts in the South of Italy

At first the war turned chiefly towards Campania.  Hannibal appeared
in good time to protect its capital, which he prevented from being
invested; but he was unable either to wrest any of the Campanian towns
held by the Romans from their strong Roman garrisons, or to prevent
--in addition to a number of less important country towns--Casilinum,
which secured his passage over the Volturnus, from being taken by
 the two consular armies after an obstinate defence.  An attempt of
Hannibal to gain Tarentum, with the view especially of acquiring a
safe landing-place for the Macedonian army, proved unsuccessful.
Meanwhile the Bruttian army of the Carthaginians under Hanno had
various encounters in Lucania with the Roman army of Apulia; here
Tiberius Gracchus sustained the struggle with good results, and after
a successful combat not far from Beneventum, in which the slave
legions pressed into service had distinguished themselves, he
bestowed liberty and burgess-rights on his slave-soldiers in
the name of the people.

Arpi Acquired by the Romans

In the following year (541) the Romans recovered the rich and
important Arpi, whose citizens, after the Roman soldiers had stolen
into the town, made common cause with them against the Carthaginian
garrison.  In general the bonds of the symmachy formed by Hannibal
were relaxing; a number of the leading Capuans and several of the
Bruttian towns passed over to Rome; even a Spanish division of the
Phoenician army, when informed by Spanish emissaries of the course
of events in their native land, passed from the Carthaginian into
the Roman service.

Tarentum Taken by Hannibal

The year 542 was more unfavourable for the Romans in consequence of
fresh political and military errors, of which Hannibal did not fail
to take advantage.  The connections which Hannibal maintained in the
towns of Magna Graecia had led to no serious result; save that the
hostages from Tarentum and Thurii, who were kept at Rome, were induced
by his emissaries to make a foolhardy attempt at escape, in which they
were speedily recaptured by the Roman posts.  But the injudicious
spirit of revenge displayed by the Romans was of more service to
Hannibal than his intrigues; the execution of all the hostages who
had sought to escape deprived them of a valuable pledge, and the
exasperated Greeks thenceforth meditated how they might open
their gates to Hannibal.  Tarentum was actually occupied by the
Carthaginians in consequence of an understanding with the citizens and
of the negligence of the Roman commandant; with difficulty the Roman
garrison maintained itself in the citadel.  The example of Tarentum
was followed by Heraclea, Thurii, and Metapontum, from which town the
garrison had to be withdrawn in order to save the Tarentine Acropolis.
These successes so greatly increased the risk of a Macedonian landing,
that Rome felt herself compelled to direct renewed attention and
renewed exertions to the Greek war, which had been almost totally
neglected; and fortunately the capture of Syracuse and the favourable
state of the Spanish war enabled her to do so.

Conflicts around Capua

At the chief seat of war, in Campania, the struggle went on with very
varying success.  The legions posted in the neighbourhood of Capua had
not yet strictly invested the city, but had so greatly hindered the
cultivation of the soil and the ingathering of the harvest, that the
populous city was in urgent need of supplies from without.  Hannibal
accordingly collected a considerable supply of grain, and directed
the Campanians to receive it at Beneventum; but their tardiness gave
the consuls Quintus Flaccus and Appius Claudius time to come up, to
inflict a severe defeat on Hanno who protected the grain, and to seize
his camp and all his stores.  The two consuls then invested the town,
while Tiberius Gracchus stationed himself on the Appian Way to prevent
Hannibal from approaching to relieve it But that brave officer fell
in consequence of the shameful stratagem of a perfidious Lucanian;
and his death was equivalent to a complete defeat, for his army,
consisting mostly of those slaves whom he had manumitted, dispersed
after the fall of their beloved leader.  So Hannibal found the road to
Capua open, and by his unexpected appearance compelled the two consuls
to raise the blockade which they had barely begun.  Their cavalry had
already, before Hannibal's arrival, been thoroughly defeated by the
Phoenician cavalry, which lay as a garrison in Capua under Hanno and
Bostar, and by the equally excellent Campanian horse.  The total
destruction of the regular troops and free bands in Lucania led by
Marcus Centenius, a man imprudently promoted from a subaltern to be
a general, and the not much less complete defeat of the negligent and
arrogant praetor Gnaeus Fulvius Flaccus in Apulia, closed the long
series of the misfortunes of this year.  But the stubborn perseverance
of the Romans again neutralized the rapid success of Hannibal, at
least at the most decisive point.  As soon as Hannibal turned his back
on Capua to proceed to Apulia, the Roman armies once more gathered
around that city, one at Puteoli and Volturnum under Appius Claudius,
another at Casilinum under Quintus Fulvius, and a third on the Nolan
road under the praetor Gaius Claudius Nero.  The three camps, well
entrenched and connected with one another by fortified lines,
precluded all access to the place, and the large, inadequately
provisioned city could not but find itself compelled by the mere
investment to surrender at no distant time, should no relief arrive.
As the winter of 542-3 drew to an end, the provisions were almost
exhausted, and urgent messengers, who were barely able to steal
through the well-guarded Roman lines, requested speedy help from
Hannibal, who was at Tarentum, occupied  with the siege of the
citadel.  With 33 elephants and his best troops he departed by
forced marches from Tarentum for Campania, captured the Roman post at
Caiatia, and took up his camp on Mount Tifata close by Capua, in the
confident expectation that the Roman generals would, now raise the
siege as they had done the year before.  But the Romans, who had had
time to entrench their camps and their lines like a fortress, did not
stir, and looked on unmoved from their ramparts, while on one side
the Campanian horsemen, on the other the Numidian squadrons, dashed
against their lines.  A serious assault could not be thought of by
Hannibal; he could foresee that his advance would soon draw the other
Roman armies after him to Campania, if even before their arrival the
scarcity of supplies in a region so systematically foraged did not
drive him away.  Nothing could be done in that quarter.

Hannibal Marches toward Rome

Hannibal tried a further expedient, the last which occurred to his
inventive genius, to save the important city.  After giving the
Campanians information of his intention and exhorting them to hold
out, he started with the relieving army from Capua and took the road
for Rome.  With the same dexterous boldness which he had shown in his
first Italian campaigns, he threw himself with a weak army between the
armies and fortresses of the enemy, and led his troops through Samnium
and along the Valerian Way past Tibur to the bridge over the Anio,
which he passed and encamped on the opposite bank, five miles from
the city.  The children's children of the Romans still shuddered, when
they were told of "Hannibal at the gate"; real danger there was none.
The country houses and fields in the neighbourhood of the city were
laid waste by the enemy; the two legions in the city, who went forth
against them, prevented the investment of the walls.  Besides,
Hannibal had never expected to surprise Rome by a -coup de main-,
such as Scipio soon afterwards executed against New Carthage, and
still less had he meditated a siege in earnest; his only hope was that
in the first alarm part of the besieging army of Capua would march to
Rome and thus give him an opportunity of breaking up the blockade.
Accordingly after a brief stay he departed.  The Romans saw in his
withdrawal a miraculous intervention of the gods, who by portents and
visions had compelled the wicked man to depart, when in truth the
Roman legions were unable to compel him; at the spot where Hannibal
had approached nearest to the city, at the second milestone on the
Appian Way in front of the Capene gate, with grateful credulity the
Romans erected an altar to the god "who turned back and protected"
(-Rediculus Tutanus-), Hannibal in reality retreated, because this was
part of his plan, and directed his march towards Capua.  But the Roman
generals had not committed the mistake on which their opponent had
reckoned; the legions remained unmoved in the lines round Capua, and
only a weak corps had been detached on the news of Hannibal's march
towards Rome.  When Hannibal learned this, he suddenly turned against
the consul Publius Galba, who had imprudently followed him from Rome,
and with whom he had hitherto avoided an engagement, vanquished him,
and took his camp by storm.

Capua Capitulates

But this was a poor compensation for the now inevitable fall of Capua.
Long had its citizens, particularly the better passes, anticipated
with sorrowful forebodings what was coming; the senate-house and the
administration of the city were left almost exclusively to the leaders
of the popular party hostile to Rome.  Now despair seized high and
low, Campanians and Phoenicians alike.  Twenty-eight senators chose a
voluntary death; the remainder gave over the city to the discretion of
an implacably exasperated foe.  Of course a bloody retribution had to
follow; the only discussion was as to whether the process should be
long or short: whether the wiser and more appropriate course was to
probe to the bottom the further ramifications of the treason even
beyond Capua, or to terminate the matter by rapid executions.  Appius
Claudius and the Roman senate wished to take the former course; the
latter view, perhaps the less inhuman, prevailed.  Fifty-three of the
officers and magistrates of Capua were scourged and beheaded in the
marketplaces of Cales and Teanum by the orders and before the eyes
of the proconsul Quintus Flaccus, the rest of the senators were
imprisoned, numbers of the citizens were sold into slavery, and the
estates of the more wealthy were confiscated.  Similar penalties were
inflicted upon Atella and Caiatia.  These punishments were severe;
but, when regard is had to the importance of the revolt of Capua
from Rome, and to what was the ordinary if not warrantable usage of
war in those times, they were not unnatural.  And had not the citizens
themselves pronounced their own sentence, when immediately after their
defection they put to death all the Roman citizens present in Capua at
the time of the revolt?  But it was unjustifiable in Rome to embrace
this opportunity of gratifying the secret rivalry that had long
subsisted between the two largest cities of Italy, and of wholly
annihilating, in a political point of view, her hated and envied
competitor by abolishing the constitution of the Campanian city.

Superiority of the Romans
Tarentum Capitulates

Immense was the impression produced by the fall of Capua, and all the
more that it had not been brought about by surprise, but by a two
years' siege carried on in spite of all the exertions of Hannibal.
It was quite as much a token that the Romans had recovered their
ascendency in Italy, as its defection some years before to Hannibal
had been a token that that ascendency was lost.  In vain Hannibal had
tried to counteract the impression of this news on his allies by the
capture of Rhegium or of the citadel of Tarentum.  His forced march
to surprise Rhegium had yielded no result.  The citadel of Tarentum
suffered greatly from famine, after the Tarentino-Carthaginian
squadron closed the harbour; but, as the Romans with their much more
powerful fleet were able to cut off the supplies from that squadron
itself, and the territory, which Hannibal commanded, scarce sufficed
to maintain his army, the besiegers on the side next the sea suffered
not much less than did the besieged in the citadel, and at length they
left the harbour.  No enterprise was now successful; Fortune herself
seemed to have deserted the Carthaginians.  These consequences of the
fall of Capua--the deep shock given to the respect and confidence
which Hannibal had hitherto enjoyed among the Italian allies, and the
endeavours made by every community that was not too deeply compromised
to gain readmission on tolerable terms into the Roman symmachy
--affected Hannibal much more keenly than the immediate loss.  He had
to choose one of two courses; either to throw garrisons into the
wavering towns, in which case he would weaken still more his army
already too weak and would expose his trusty troops to destruction in
small divisions or to treachery--500 of his select Numidian horsemen
were put to death in this way in 544 on the defection of the town of
Salapia; or to pull down and burn the towns which could not be
depended on, so as to keep them out of the enemy's hands--a course,
which could not raise the spirits of his Italian clients.  On the
fall of Capua the Romans felt themselves once more confident as to
the final issue of the war in Italy; they despatched considerable
reinforcements to Spain, where the existence of the Roman army was
placed in jeopardy by the fall of the two Scipios; and for the first
time since the beginning of the war they ventured on a diminution in
the total number of their troops, which had hitherto been annually
augmented notwithstanding the annually-increasing difficulty of
levying them, and had risen at last to 23 legions.  Accordingly in
the next year (544) the Italian war was prosecuted more remissly than
hitherto by the Romans, although Marcus Marcellus had after the close
of the Sicilian war resumed the command of the main army; he applied
himself to the besieging of fortresses in the interior, and had
indecisive conflicts with the Carthaginians.  The struggle for the
Acropolis of Tarentum also continued without decisive result.  In
Apulia Hannibal succeeded in defeating the proconsul Gnaeus Fulvius
Centumalus at Herdoneae.  In the following year (545) the Romans took
steps to regain possession of the second large city, which had passed
over to Hannibal, the city of Tarentum.  While Marcus Marcellus
continued the struggle against Hannibal in person with his wonted
obstinacy and energy, and in a two days' battle, beaten on the first
day, achieved on the second a costly and bloody victory; while the
consul Quintus Fulvius induced the already wavering Lucanians and
Hirpinians to change sides and to deliver up their Phoenician
garrisons; while well-conducted razzias from Rhegium compelled
Hannibal to hasten to the aid of the hard-pressed Bruttians;
the veteran Quintus Fabius, who had once more--for the fifth
time--accepted the consulship and along with it the commission to
reconquer Tarentum, established himself firmly in the neighbouring
Messapian territory, and the treachery of a Bruttian division of
the garrison surrendered to him the city.  Fearful excesses were
committed by the exasperated victors.  They put to death all of
the garrison or of the citizens whom they could find, and pillaged
the houses.  30,000 Tarentines are said to have been sold as slaves,
and 3000 talents (730,000 pounds) are stated to have been sent to the
state treasury.  It was the last feat in arms of the general of eighty
years; Hannibal arrived to the relief of the city when all was over,
and withdrew to Metapontum.

Hannibal Driven Back
Death of Marcellus

After Hannibal had thus lost his most important acquisitions and
found himself hemmed in by degrees to the south-western point of the
peninsula, Marcus Marcellus, who had been chosen consul for the next
year (546), hoped that, in connection with his capable colleague
Titus Quintius Crispinus, he should be able to terminate the war by a
decisive attack.  The old soldier was not disturbed by the burden of
his sixty years; sleeping and waking he was haunted by the one thought
of defeating Hannibal and of liberating Italy.  But fate reserved that
wreath of victory for a younger brow.  While engaged in an unimportant
reconnaissance in the district of Venusia, both consuls were suddenly
attacked by a division of African cavalry.  Marcellus maintained the
unequal struggle--as he had fought forty years before against Hamilcar
and fourteen years before at Clastidium--till he sank dying from
his horse; Crispinus escaped, but died of his wounds received
in the conflict (546).

Pressure of the War

It was now the eleventh year of the war.  The danger which some years
before had threatened the very existence of the state seemed to have
vanished; but all the more the Romans felt the heavy burden--a burden
pressing more severely year after year--of the endless war.  The
finances of the state suffered beyond measure.  After the battle of
Cannae (538) a special bank-commission (-tres viri mensarii-) had
been appointed, composed of men held in the highest esteem, to form
a permanent and circumspect board of superintendence for the public
finances in these difficult times.  It may have done what it could;
but the state of things was such as to baffle all financial sagacity.
At the very beginning of the war the Romans had debased the silver and
copper coin, raised the legal value of the silver piece more than a
third, and issued a gold coin far above the value of the metal.  This
very soon proved insufficient; they were obliged to take supplies from
the contractors on credit, and connived at their conduct because they
needed them, till the scandalous malversation at last induced the
aediles to make an example of some of the worst by impeaching them
before the people.  Appeals were often made, and not in vain, to the
patriotism of the wealthy, who were in fact the very persons that
suffered comparatively the most.  The soldiers of the better classes
and the subaltern officers and equites in a body, either voluntarily
or constrained by the -esprit de corps-, declined to receive pay.
The owners of the slaves armed by the state and manumitted after the
engagement at Beneventum(3) replied to the bank-commission, which
offered them payment, that they would allow it to stand over to the
end of the war (540).  When there was no longer money in the exchequer
for the celebration of the national festivals and the repairs of the
public buildings, the companies which had hitherto contracted for
these matters declared themselves ready to continue their services for
a time without remuneration (540).  A fleet was even fitted out and
manned, just as in the first Punic war, by means of a voluntary loan
among the rich (544).  They spent the moneys belonging to minors; and
at length, in the year of the conquest of Tarentum, they laid hands
on the last long-spared reserve fund (164,000 pounds).  The state
nevertheless was unable to meet its most necessary payments; the pay
of the soldiers fell dangerously into arrear, particularly in the more
remote districts.  But the embarrassment of the state was not the
worst part of the material distress.  Everywhere the fields lay
fallow: even where the war did not make havoc, there was a want of
hands for the hoe and the sickle.  The price of the -medimnus-
(a bushel and a half) had risen to 15 -denarii- (10s.), at least three
times the average price in the capital; and many would have died of
absolute want, if supplies had not arrived from Egypt, and if, above
all, the revival of agriculture in Sicily(4) had not prevented the
distress from coming to the worst.  The effect which such a state of
things must have had in ruining the small farmers, in eating away
the savings which had been so laboriously acquired, and in
converting flourishing villages into nests of beggars and brigands,
is illustrated by similar wars of which fuller details have
been preserved.

The Allies

Still more ominous than this material distress was the increasing
aversion of the allies to the Roman war, which consumed their
substance and their blood.  In regard to the non-Latin communities,
indeed, this was of less consequence.  The war itself showed that they
could do nothing, so long as the Latin nation stood by Rome; their
greater or less measure of dislike was not of much moment.  Now,
however, Latium also began to waver.  Most of the Latin communes in
Etruria, Latium, the territory of the Marsians, and northern Campania
--and so in those very districts of Italy which directly had suffered
least from the war--announced to the Roman senate in 545 that
thenceforth they would send neither contingents nor contributions,
and would leave it to the Romans themselves to defray the costs of a
war waged in their interest.  The consternation in Rome was great;
but for the moment there were no means of compelling the refractory.
Fortunately all the Latin communities did not act in this way.  The
colonies in the land of the Gauls, in Picenum, and in southern Italy,
headed by the powerful and patriotic Fregellae, declared on the
contrary that they adhered the more closely and faithfully to Rome; in
fact, it was very clearly evident to all of these that in the present
war their existence was, if possible, still more at stake than that of
the capital, and that this war was really waged not for Rome merely,
but for the Latin hegemony in Italy, and in truth for the independence
of the Italian nation.  That partial defection itself was certainly
not high treason, but merely the result of shortsightedness and
exhaustion; beyond doubt these same towns would have rejected with
horror an alliance with the Phoenicians.  But still there was a
variance between Romans and Latins, which did not fail injuriously
to react on the subject population of these districts.  A dangerous
ferment immediately showed itself in Arretium; a conspiracy organized
in the interest of Hannibal among the Etruscans was discovered, and
appeared so perilous that Roman troops were ordered to march thither.
The military and police suppressed this movement without difficulty;
but it was a significant token of what might happen in those
districts, if once the Latin strongholds ceased to inspire terror.

Hasdrubal's Approach

Amidst these difficulties and strained relations, news suddenly
arrived that Hasdrubal had crossed the Pyrenees in the autumn of 546,
and that the Romans must be prepared to carry on the war next year
with both the sons of Hamilcar in Italy.  Not in vain had Hannibal
persevered at his post throughout the long anxious years; the aid,
which the factious opposition at home and the shortsighted Philip had
refused to him, was at length in the course of being brought to him
by his brother, who, like himself, largely inherited the spirit of
Hamilcar.  Already 8000 Ligurians, enlisted by Phoenician gold, were
ready to unite with Hasdrubal; if he gained the first battle, he might
hope that like his brother he should be able to bring the Gauls and
perhaps the Etruscans into arms against Rome.  Italy, moreover, was
 no longer what it had been eleven years before; the state and the
individual citizens were exhausted, the Latin league was shaken, their
best general had just fallen in the field of battle, and Hannibal was
not subdued.  In reality Scipio might bless the star of his genius, if
it averted the consequences of his unpardonable blunder from himself
and from his country.

New Armaments
Hasdrubal and Hannibal on the March

As in the times of the utmost danger, Rome once more called out
twenty-three legions.  Volunteers were summoned to arm, and those
legally exempt from military service were included in the levy.
Nevertheless, they were taken by surprise.  Far earlier than either
friends or foes expected, Hasdrubal was on the Italian side of the
Alps (547); the Gauls, now accustomed to such transits, were readily
bribed to open their passes, and furnished what the army required.
If the Romans had any intention of occupying the outlets of the Alpine
passes, they were again too late; already they heard that Hasdrubal
was on the Po, that he was calling the Gauls to arms as successfully
as his brother had formerly done, that Placentia was invested.  With
all haste the consul Marcus Livius proceeded to the northern army; and
it was high time that he should appear.  Etruria and Umbria were in
sullen ferment; volunteers from them reinforced the Phoenician army.
His colleague Gaius Nero summoned the praetor Gaius Hostilius Tubulus
from Venusia to join him, and hastened with an army of 40,000 men to
intercept the march of Hannibal to the north.  The latter collected
all his forces in the Bruttian territory, and, advancing along the
great road leading from Rhegium to Apulia, encountered the consul at
Grumentum.  An obstinate engagement took place in which Nero claimed
the victory; but Hannibal was able at all events, although with some
loss, to evade the enemy by one of his usual adroit flank-marches, and
to reach Apulia without hindrance.  There he halted, and encamped at
first at Venusia, then at Canusium: Nero, who had followed closely in
his steps, encamped opposite to him at both places.  That Hannibal
voluntarily halted and was not prevented from advancing by the Roman
army, appears to admit of no doubt; the reason for his taking up his
position exactly at this point and not farther to the north, must have
depended on arrangements concerted between himself and Hasdrubal, or
on conjectures as to the route of the latter's march, with which we
are not acquainted.  While the two armies thus lay inactive, face to
face, the despatch from Hasdrubal which was anxiously expected in
Hannibal's camp was intercepted by the outposts of Nero.  It stated
that Hasdrubal intended to take the Flaminian road, in other words,
to keep in the first instance along the coast and then at Fanum to
turn across the Apennines towards Narnia, at which place he hoped to
meet Hannibal.  Nero immediately ordered the reserve in the capital
to proceed to Narnia as the point selected for the junction of the two
Phoenician armies, while the division stationed at Capua went to the
capital, and a new reserve was formed there.  Convinced that Hannibal
was not acquainted with the purpose of his brother and would continue
to await him in Apulia, Nero resolved on the bold experiment of
hastening northward by forced marches with a small but select corps
of 7000 men and, if possible, in connection with his colleague,
compelling Hasdrubal to fight.  He was able to do so, for the Roman
army which he left behind still continued strong enough either to
hold its ground against Hannibal if he should attack it, or to
accompany him and to arrive simultaneously with him at the
decisive scene of action, should he depart.

Battle of Sena
Death of Hasdrubal

Nero found his colleague Marcus Livius at Sena Gallica awaiting the
enemy.  Both consuls at once marched against Hasdrubal, whom they
found occupied in crossing the Metaurus.  Hasdrubal wished to avoid
a battle and to escape from the Romans by a flank movement, but his
guides left him in the lurch; he lost his way on the ground strange to
him, and was at length attacked on the march by the Roman cavalry
and detained until the Roman infantry arrived and a battle became
inevitable.  Hasdrubal stationed the Spaniards on the right wing, with
his ten elephants in front of it, and the Gauls on the left, which he
kept back.  Long the fortune of battle wavered on the right wing, and
the consul Livius who commanded there was hard pressed, till Nero,
repeating his strategical operation as a tactical manoeuvre, allowed
the motionless enemy opposite to him to remain as they stood, and
marching round his own army fell upon the flank of the Spaniards.
This decided the day.  The severely bought and very bloody victory was
complete; the army, which had no retreat, was destroyed, and the camp
was taken by assault.  Hasdrubal, when he: saw the admirably-conducted
battle lost, sought and found like his father an honourable soldier's
death.  As an officer and a man, he was worthy to be the brother
of Hannibal.

Hannibal Retires to the Bruttian Territory

On the day after the battle Nero started, and after scarcely fourteen
days' absence once more confronted Hannibal in Apulia, whom no message
had reached, and who had not stirred.  The consul brought the message
with him; it was the head of Hannibal's brother, which the Roman
ordered to be thrown into the enemy's outposts, repaying in this
way his great antagonist, who scorned to war with the dead, for
the honourable burial which he had given to Paullus, Gracchus, and
Marcellus.  Hannibal saw that his hopes had been in vain, and that
all was over.  He abandoned Apulia and Lucania, even Metapontum,
and retired with his troops to the land of the Bruttians, whose ports
formed his only means of withdrawal from Italy.  By the energy of the
Roman generals, and still more by a conjuncture of unexampled good
fortune, a peril was averted from Rome, the greatness of which
justified Hannibal's tenacious perseverance in Italy, and which fully
bears comparison with the magnitude of the peril of Cannae.  The joy
in Rome was boundless; business was resumed as in time of peace; every
one felt that the danger of the war was surmounted.

Stagnation of the War in Italy

Nevertheless the Romans were in no hurry to terminate the war.  The
state and the citizens were exhausted by the excessive moral and
material strain on their energies; men gladly abandoned themselves
to carelessness and repose.

The army and fleet were reduced; the Roman and Latin farmers were
brought back to their desolate homesteads the exchequer was filled by
the sale of a portion of the Campanian domains.  The administration
of the state was regulated anew and the disorders which had prevailed
were done away; the repayment of the voluntary war-loan was begun,
and the Latin communities that remained in arrears were compelled
to fulfil their neglected obligations with heavy interest.

The war in Italy made no progress.  It forms a brilliant proof of the
strategic talent of Hannibal as well as of the incapacity of the Roman
generals now opposed to him, that after this he was still able for
four years to keep the field in the Bruttian country, and that all the
superiority of his opponents could not compel him either to shut
himself up in fortresses or to embark.  It is true that he was obliged
to retire farther and farther, not so much in consequence of the
indecisive engagements which took place with the Romans, as because
his Bruttian allies were always becoming more troublesome, and at last
he could only reckon on the towns which his army garrisoned.  Thus he
voluntarily abandoned Thurii; Locri was, on the suggestion of Publius
Scipio, recaptured by an expedition from Rhegium (549).  As if at last
his projects were to receive a brilliant justification at the hands of
the very Carthaginian authorities who had thwarted him in them, these
now, in their apprehension as to the anticipated landing of the
Romans, revived of their own accord those plans (548, 549), and sent
reinforcements and subsidies to Hannibal in Italy, and to Mago in
Spain, with orders to rekindle the war in Italy so as to achieve some
further respite for the trembling possessors of the Libyan country
houses and the shops of Carthage.  An embassy was likewise sent to
Macedonia, to induce Philip to renew the alliance and to land in Italy
(549).  But it was too late.  Philip had made peace with Rome some
months before; the impending political annihilation of Carthage was
far from agreeable to him, but he took no step openly at least against
Rome.  A small Macedonian corps went to Africa, the expenses of which,
according to the assertion of the Romans, were defrayed by Philip from
his own pocket; this may have been the case, but the Romans had at any
rate no proof of it, as the subsequent course of events showed.
No Macedonian landing in Italy was thought of.

Mago in Italy

Mago, the youngest son of Hamilcar, set himself to his task more
earnestly.  With the remains of the Spanish army, which he had
conducted in the first instance to Minorca, he landed in 549 at Genoa,
destroyed the city, and summoned the Ligurians and Gauls to arms.
Gold and the novelty of the enterprise led them now, as always, to
come to him in troops; he had formed connections even throughout
Etruria, where political prosecutions never ceased.  But the troops
which he had brought with him were too few for a serious enterprise
against Italy proper; and Hannibal likewise was much too weak, and his
influence in Lower Italy had fallen much too low, to permit him to
advance with any prospect of success.  The rulers of Carthage had not
been willing to save their native country, when its salvation was
possible; now, when they were willing, it was possible no longer.

The African Expedition of Scipio

Nobody probably in the Roman senate doubted either that the war on
the part of Carthage against Rome was at an end, or that the war on
the part of Rome against Carthage must now be begun; but unavoidable
as was the expedition to Africa, they were afraid to enter on its
preparation.  They required for it, above all, an able and beloved
leader; and they had none.  Their best generals had either fallen in
the field of battle, or they were, like Quintus Fabius and Quintus
Fulvius, too old for such an entirely new and probably tedious war.
The victors of Sena, Gaius Nero and Marcus Livius, would perhaps have
been equal to the task, but they were both in the highest degree
unpopular aristocrats; it was doubtful whether they would succeed in
procuring the command--matters had already reached such a pass that
ability, as such, determined the popular choice only in times of grave
anxiety--and it was more than doubtful whether these were the men to
stimulate the exhausted people to fresh exertions.  At length Publius
Scipio returned from Spain, and the favourite of the multitude, who
had so brilliantly fulfilled, or at any rate seemed to have fulfilled,
the task with which it had entrusted him, was immediately chosen
consul for the next year.  He entered on office (549) with the firm
determination of now realizing that African expedition which he had
projected in Spain.  In the senate, however, not only was the party
favourable to a methodical conduct of the war unwilling to entertain
the project of an African expedition so long as Hannibal remained in
Italy, but the majority was by no means favourably disposed towards
the young general himself.  His Greek refinement and his modern
culture and tone of thought were but little agreeable to the austere
and somewhat boorish fathers of the city; and serious doubts existed
both as to his conduct of the Spanish war and as to his military
discipline.  How much ground there was for the objection that he
showed too great indulgence towards his officers of division, was very
soon demonstrated by the disgraceful proceedings of Gaius Pleminius at
Locri, the blame of which certainly was indirectly chargeable to the
scandalous negligence which marked Scipio's supervision.  In the
proceedings in the senate regarding the organization of the African
expedition and the appointment of a general for it, the new consul,
wherever usage or the constitution came into conflict with his private
views, showed no great reluctance to set such obstacles aside, and
very clearly indicated that in case of need he was disposed to rely
for support against the governing board on his fame and his popularity
with the people.  These things could not but annoy the senate and
awaken, moreover, serious apprehension as to whether, in the impending
decisive war and the eventual negotiations for peace with Carthage,
such a general would hold himself bound by the instructions which he
received--an apprehension which his arbitrary management of the
Spanish expedition was by no means fitted to allay.  Both sides,
however, displayed wisdom enough not to push matters too far.  The
senate itself could not fail to see that the African expedition was
necessary, and that it was not wise indefinitely to postpone it; it
could not fail to see that Scipio was an extremely able officer and so
far well adapted to be the leader in such a war, and that he, if any
one, could prevail on the people to protract his command as long as
was necessary and to put forth their last energies.  The majority came
to the resolution not to refuse to Scipio the desired commission,
after he had previously observed, at least in form, the respect due to
the supreme governing board and had submitted himself beforehand to
the decree of the senate.  Scipio was to proceed this year to Sicily
to superintend the building of the fleet, the preparation of siege
materials, and the formation of the expeditionary army, and then in
the following year to land in Africa.  For this purpose the army of
Sicily--still composed of those two legions that were formed from the
remnant of the army of Cannae--was placed at his disposal, because a
weak garrison and the fleet were quite sufficient for the protection
of the island; and he was permitted moreover to raise volunteers in
Italy.  It was evident that the senate did not appoint the expedition,
but merely allowed it: Scipio did not obtain half the resources which
had formerly been placed at the command of Regulus, and he got that
very corps which for years had been subjected by the senate to
intentional degradation.  The African army was, in the  view of the
majority of the senate, a forlorn hope of disrated companies and
volunteers, the loss of whom in any event the state had no great
occasion to regret.

Any one else than Scipio would perhaps have declared that the African
expedition must either be undertaken with other means, or not at all;
but Scipio's confidence accepted the terms, whatever they were, solely
with the view of attaining the eagerly-coveted command.  He carefully
avoided, as far as possible, the imposition of direct burdens on the
people, that he might not injure the popularity of the expedition.
Its expenses, particularly those of building the fleet which were
considerable, were partly procured by what was termed a voluntary
contribution of the Etruscan cities--that is, by a war tribute imposed
as a punishment on the Arretines and other communities disposed to
favour the Phoenicians--partly laid upon the cities of Sicily.  In
forty days the fleet was ready for sea.  The crews were reinforced by
volunteers, of whom seven thousand from all parts of Italy responded
to the call of the beloved officer.  So Scipio set sail for Africa in
the spring of 550 with two strong legions of veterans (about 30,000
men), 40 vessels of war, and 400 transports, and landed successfully,
without meeting the slightest resistance, at the Fair Promontory in
the neighbourhood of Utica.

Preparations in Africa

The Carthaginians, who had long expected that the plundering
expeditions, which the Roman squadrons had frequently made during
the last few years to the African coast, would be followed by a more
serious invasion, had not only, in order to ward it off, endeavoured
to bring about a revival of the Italo-Macedonian war, but had also
made armed preparation at home to receive the Romans.  Of the two
rival Berber kings, Massinissa of Cirta (Constantine), the ruler of
the Massylians, and Syphax of Siga (at the mouth of the Tafna westward
from Oran), the ruler of the Massaesylians, they had succeeded in
attaching the latter, who was far the more powerful and hitherto had
been friendly to the Romans, by treaty and marriage alliance closely
to Carthage, while they cast off the other, the old rival of Syphax
and ally of the Carthaginians.  Massinissa had after desperate
resistance succumbed to the united power of the Carthaginians and
of Syphax, and had been obliged to leave his territories a prey to
the latter; he himself wandered with a few horsemen in the desert.
Besides the contingent to be expected from Syphax, a Carthaginian army
of 20,000 foot, 6000 cavalry, and 140 elephants--Hanno had been sent
out to hunt elephants for the very purpose--was ready to fight for
the protection of the capital, under the command of Hasdrubal son of
Gisgo, a general who had gained experience in Spain; in the port
there lay a strong fleet.  A Macedonian corps under Sopater, and a
consignment of Celtiberian mercenaries, were immediately expected.

Scipio Driven Back to the Coast
Surprise of the Carthaginian Camp

On the report of Scipio's landing, Massinissa immediately arrived in
the camp of the general, whom not long before he had confronted as an
enemy in Spain; but the landless prince brought in the first instance
nothing beyond his personal ability to the aid of the Romans, and the
Libyans, although heartily weary of levies and tribute, had acquired
too bitter experience in similar cases to declare at once for the
invaders.  So Scipio began the campaign.  So long as he was only
opposed by the weaker Carthaginian army, he had the advantage, and was
enabled after some successful cavalry skirmishes to proceed to the
siege of Utica; but when Syphax arrived, according to report with
50,000 infantry and 10,000 cavalry, the siege had to be raised, and a
fortified naval camp had to be constructed for the winter on a
promontory, which easily admitted of entrenchment, between Utica and
Carthage.  Here the Roman general passed the winter of 550-1.  From
the disagreeable situation in which the spring found him he extricated
himself by a fortunate -coup de main-.  The Africans, lulled into
security by proposals of peace suggested by Scipio with more artifice
than honour, allowed themselves to be surprised on one and the same
night in their two camps; the reed huts of the Numidians burst into
flames, and, when the Carthaginians hastened to their help, their own
camp shared the same fate; the fugitives were slain without resistance
by the Roman divisions.  This nocturnal surprise was more destructive
than many a battle; nevertheless the Carthaginians did not suffer
their courage to sink, and they rejected even the advice of the timid,
or rather of the judicious, to recall Mago and Hannibal.  Just at this
time the expected Celtiberian and Macedonian auxiliaries arrived; it
was resolved once more to try a pitched battle on the "Great Plains,"
five days' march from Utica.  Scipio hastened to accept it; with
little difficulty his veterans and volunteers dispersed the hastily-
collected host of Carthaginians and Numidians, and the Celtiberians,
who could not reckon on any mercy from Scipio, were cut down after
obstinate resistance.  After this double defeat the Africans could no
longer keep the field.  An attack on the Roman naval camp attempted by
the Carthaginian fleet, while not unsuccessful, was far from decisive,
and was greatly outweighed by the capture of Syphax, which Scipio's
singular good fortune threw in his way, and by which Massinissa became
to the Romans what Syphax had been at first to the Carthaginians.

Negotiations for Peace
Machinations of the Carthaginian Patriots

After such defeats the Carthaginian peace party, which had been
reduced to silence for sixteen years, was able once more to raise its
head and openly to rebel against the government of the Barcides and
the patriots.  Hasdrubal son of Gisgo was in his absence condemned
by the government to death, and an attempt was made to obtain an
armistice and peace from Scipio.  He demanded the cession of their
Spanish possessions and of the islands of the Mediterranean, the
transference of the kingdom of Syphax to Massinissa, the surrender of
all their vessels of war except 20, and a war contribution of 4000
talents (nearly 1,000,000 pounds)--terms which seemed so singularly
favourable to Carthage, that the question obtrudes itself whether they
were offered by Scipio more in his own interest or in that of Rome.
The Carthaginian plenipotentiaries accepted them under reservation of
their being ratified by the respective authorities, and accordingly a
Carthaginian embassy was despatched to Rome.  But the patriot party in
Carthage were not disposed to give up the struggle so cheaply; faith
in the nobleness of their cause, confidence in their great leader,
even the example that had been set to them by Rome herself, stimulated
them to persevere, apart from the fact that peace of necessity
involved the return of the opposite party to the helm of affairs
and their own consequent destruction.  The patriotic party had the
ascendency among the citizens; it was resolved to allow the opposition
to negotiate for peace, and meanwhile to prepare for a last and
decisive effort.  Orders were sent to Mago and Hannibal to return with
all speed to Africa.  Mago, who for three years (549-551) had been
labouring to bring about a coalition in Northern Italy against Rome,
had just at this time in the territory of the Insubres (about Milan)
been defeated by the far superior double army of the Romans.  The
Roman cavalry had been brought to give way, and the infantry had been
thrown into confusion; victory seemed on the point of declaring for
the Carthaginians, when a bold attack by a Roman troop on the enemy's
elephants, and above all a serious wound received by their beloved and
able commander, turned the fortune of the battle.  The Phoenician army
was obliged to retreat to the Ligurian coast, where it received and
obeyed the order to embark; but Mago died of his wound on the voyage.

Hannibal Recalled to Africa

Hannibal would probably have anticipated the order, had not the
last negotiations with Philip presented to him a renewed prospect of
rendering better service to his country in Italy than in Libya; when
he received it at Croton, where he latterly had his head-quarters, he
lost no time in complying with it.  He caused his horses to be put
to death as well as the Italian soldiers who refused to follow him
over the sea, and embarked in the transports that had been long in
readiness in the roadstead of Croton.  The Roman citizens breathed
freely, when the mighty Libyan lion, whose departure no one even now
ventured to compel, thus voluntarily turned his back on Italian
ground.  On this occasion the decoration of a grass wreath was
bestowed by the senate and burgesses on the only survivor of the Roman
generals who had traversed that troubled time with honour, the veteran
of nearly ninety years, Quintus Fabius.  To receive this wreath--which
by the custom of the Romans the army that a general had saved
presented to its deliverer--at the hands of the whole community was
the highest distinction which had ever been bestowed upon a Roman
citizen, and the last honorary decoration accorded to the old general,
who died in the course of that same year (551).  Hannibal, doubtless
not under the protection of the armistice, but solely through his
rapidity of movement and good fortune, arrived at Leptis without
hindrance, and the last of the "lion's brood" of Hamilcar trode once
more, after an absence of thirty-six years, his native soil.  He had
left it, when still almost a boy, to enter on that noble and yet so
thoroughly fruitless career of heroism, in which he had set out
towards the west to return homewards from the east, having described
a wide circle of victory around the Carthaginian sea.  Now, when what
he had wished to prevent, and what he would have prevented had he been
allowed, was done, he was summoned to help and if possible, to save;
and he obeyed without complaint or reproach.

Recommencement of Hostilities

On his arrival the patriot party came forward openly; the disgraceful
sentence against Hasdrubal was cancelled; new connections were formed
with the Numidian sheiks through the dexterity of Hannibal; and not
only did the assembly of the people refuse to ratify the peace
practically concluded, but the armistice was broken by the plundering
of a Roman transport fleet driven ashore on the African coast, and by
the seizure even of a Roman vessel of war carrying Roman envoys.  In
just indignation Scipio started from his camp at Tunes (552) and
traversed the rich valley of the Bagradas (Mejerdah), no longer
allowing the townships to capitulate, but causing the inhabitants of
the villages and towns to be seized en masse and sold.  He had already
penetrated far into the interior, and was at Naraggara (to the west of
Sicca, now El Kef, on the frontier between Tunis and Algiers), when
Hannibal, who had marched out from Hadrumetum, fell in with him.  The
Carthaginian general attempted to obtain better conditions from the
Roman in a personal conference; but Scipio, who had already gone to
the extreme verge of concession, could not possibly after the breach
of the armistice agree to yield further, and it is not credible that
Hannibal had any other object in this step than to show to the
multitude that the patriots were not absolutely opposed to peace.
The conference led to no result.

Battle of Zama

The two armies accordingly came to a decisive battle at Zama
(presumably not far from Sicca).(5)  Hannibal arranged his infantry
in three lines; in the first rank the Carthaginian hired troops, in
the second the African militia and the Phoenician civic force along
with the Macedonian corps, in the third the veterans who had followed
him from Italy.  In front of the line were placed the 80 elephants;
the cavalry were stationed on the wings.  Scipio likewise disposed his
legions in three ranks, as was the wont of the Romans, and so arranged
them that the elephants could pass through and alongside of the line
without breaking it.  Not only was this disposition completely
successful, but the elephants making their way to the side disordered
also the Carthaginian cavalry on the wings, so that Scipio's cavalry
--which moreover was by the arrival of Massinissa's troops rendered
far superior to the enemy--had little trouble in dispersing them,
and were soon engaged in full pursuit.  The struggle of the infantry
was more severe.  The conflict lasted long between the first ranks on
either side; at length in the extremely bloody hand-to-hand encounter
both parties fell into confusion, and were obliged to seek a support
in the second ranks.  The Romans found that support; but the
Carthaginian militia showed itself so unsteady and wavering, that
the mercenaries believed themselves betrayed and a hand-to-hand combat
arose between them and the Carthaginian civic force.  But Hannibal now
hastily withdrew what remained of the first two lines to the flanks,
and pushed forward his choice Italian troops along the whole line.
Scipio, on the other hand, gathered together in the centre as many of
the first line as still were able to fight, and made the second and
third ranks close up on the right and left of the first.  Once more
on the same spot began a still more fearful conflict; Hannibal's old
soldiers never wavered in spite of the superior numbers of the enemy,
till the cavalry of the Romans and of Massinissa, returning from the
pursuit of the beaten cavalry of the enemy, surrounded them on all
sides.  This not only terminated the struggle, but annihilated the
Phoenician army; the same soldiers, who fourteen years before had
given way at Cannae, had retaliated on their conquerors at Zama.
With a handful of men Hannibal arrived, a fugitive, at Hadrumetum.

Peace

After this day folly alone could counsel a continuance of the war on
the part of Carthage.  On the other hand it was in the power of the
Roman general immediately to begin the siege of the capital, which was
neither protected nor provisioned, and, unless unforeseen accidents
should intervene, now to subject Carthage to the fate which Hannibal
had wished to bring upon Rome.  Scipio did not do so; he granted peace
(553), but no longer upon the former terms.  Besides the concessions
which had already in the last negotiations been demanded in favour of
Rome and of Massinissa, an annual contribution of 200 talents (48,000
pounds) was imposed for fifty years on the Carthaginians; and they had
to bind themselves that they would not wage war against Rome or its
allies or indeed beyond the bounds of Africa at all, and that in
Africa they would not wage war beyond their own territory without
having sought the permission of Rome--the practical effect of which
was that Carthage became tributary and lost her political
independence.  It even appears that the Carthaginians were bound
in certain cases to furnish ships of war to the Roman fleet.

Scipio has been accused of granting too favourable conditions to the
enemy, lest he might be obliged to hand over the glory of terminating
the most severe war which Rome had waged, along with his command, to
a successor.  The charge might have had some foundation, had the first
proposals been carried out; it seems to have no warrant in reference
to the second.  His position in Rome was not such as to make the
favourite of the people, after the victory of Zama, seriously
apprehensive of recall--already before the victory an attempt to
supersede him had been referred by the senate to the burgesses, and by
them decidedly rejected.  Nor do the conditions themselves warrant
such a charge.  The Carthaginian city never, after its hands were thus
tied and a powerful neighbour was placed by its side, made even an
attempt to withdraw from Roman supremacy, still less to enter into
rivalry with Rome; besides, every one who cared to know knew that the
war just terminated had been undertaken much more by Hannibal than by
Carthage, and that it was absolutely impossible to revive the gigantic
plan of the patriot party.  It might seem little in the eyes of the
vengeful Italians, that only the five hundred surrendered ships of war
perished in the flames, and not the hated city itself; spite and
pedantry might contend for the view that an opponent is only really
vanquished when he is annihilated, and might censure the man who had
disdained to punish more thoroughly the crime of having made Romans
tremble.  Scipio thought otherwise; and we have no reason and
therefore no right to assume that the Roman was in this instance
influenced by vulgar motives rather than by the noble and magnanimous
impulses which formed part of his character.  It was not the
consideration of his own possible recall or of the mutability of
fortune, nor was it any apprehension of the outbreak of a Macedonian
war at certainly no distant date, that prevented the self-reliant and
confident hero, with whom everything had hitherto succeeded beyond
belief, from accomplishing the destruction of the unhappy city, which
fifty years afterwards his adopted grandson was commissioned to
execute, and which might indeed have been equally well accomplished
now.  It is much more probable that the two great generals, on whom
the decision of the political question now devolved, offered and
accepted peace on such terms in order to set just and reasonable
limits on the one hand to the furious vengeance of the victors, on
the other to the obstinacy and imprudence of the vanquished.  The
noble-mindedness and statesmanlike gifts of the great antagonists are
no less apparent in the magnanimous submission of Hannibal to what was
inevitable, than in the wise abstinence of Scipio from an extravagant
and insulting use of victory.  Is it to be supposed that one so
generous, unprejudiced, and intelligent should not have asked himself
of what benefit it could be to his country, now that the political
power of the Carthaginian city was annihilated, utterly to destroy
that ancient seat of commerce and of agriculture, and wickedly to
overthrow one of the main pillars of the then existing civilization?
The time had not yet come when the first men of Rome lent themselves
to destroy the civilization of their neighbours, and frivolously
fancied that they could wash away from themselves the eternal
infamy of the nation by shedding an idle tear.

Results of the War

Thus ended the second Punic or, as the Romans more correctly called
it, the Hannibalic war, after it had devastated the lands and islands
from the Hellespont to the Pillars of Hercules for seventeen years.
Before this war the policy of the Romans had no higher aim than to
acquire command of the mainland of the Italian peninsula within its
natural boundaries, and of the Italian islands and seas; it is clearly
proved by their treatment of Africa on the conclusion of peace that
they also terminated the war with the impression, not that they
had laid the foundation of sovereignty over the states of the
Mediterranean or of the so-called universal empire, but that they had
rendered a dangerous rival innocuous and had given to Italy agreeable
neighbours.  It is true doubtless that other results of the war, the
conquest of Spain in particular, little accorded with such an idea;
but their very successes led them beyond their proper design, and it
may in fact be affirmed that the Romans came into possession of Spain
accidentally.  The Romans achieved the sovereignty of Italy, because
they strove for it; the hegemony--and the sovereignty which grew out
of it--over the territories of the Mediterranean was to a certain
extent thrown into the hands of the Romans by the force of
circumstances without intention on their part to acquire it.

Out of Italy

The immediate results of the war out of Italy were, the conversion
of Spain into two Roman provinces--which, however, were in perpetual
insurrection; the union of the hitherto dependent kingdom of Syracuse
with the Roman province of Sicily; the establishment of a Roman
instead of a Carthaginian protectorate over the most important
Numidian chiefs; and lastly the conversion of Carthage from a powerful
commercial state into a defenceless mercantile town.  In other words,
it established the uncontested hegemony of Rome over the western
region of the Mediterranean.  Moreover, in its further development,
it led to that necessary contact and interaction between the state
systems of the east and the west, which the first Punic war had
only foreshadowed; and thereby gave rise to the proximate decisive
interference of Rome in the conflicts of the Alexandrine monarchies.

In Italy

As to its results in Italy, first of all the Celts were now certainly,
if they had not been already beforehand, destined to destruction; and
the execution of the doom was only a question of time.  Within the
Roman confederacy the effect of the war was to bring into more
distinct prominence the ruling Latin nation, whose internal union
had been tried and attested by the peril which, notwithstanding
isolated instances of wavering, it had surmounted on the whole in
faithful fellowship; and to depress still further the non-Latin or
non-Latinized Italians, particularly the Etruscans and the Sabellians
of Lower Italy.  The heaviest punishment or rather vengeance was
inflicted partly on the most powerful, partly on those who were at
once the earliest and latest, allies of Hannibal--the community of
Capua, and the land of the Bruttians.  The Capuan constitution was
abolished, and Capua was reduced from the second city into the first
village of Italy; it was even proposed to raze the city and level
it with the ground.  The whole soil, with the exception of a few
possessions of foreigners or of Campanians well disposed towards Rome,
was declared by the senate to be public domain, and was thereafter
parcelled out to small occupiers on temporary lease.  The Picentes on
the Silarus were similarly treated; their capital was razed, and the
inhabitants were dispersed among the surrounding villages.  The doom
of the Bruttians was still more severe; they were converted en masse
into a sort of bondsmen to the Romans, and were for ever excluded from
the right of bearing arms.  The other allies of Hannibal also dearly
expiated their offence.  The Greek cities suffered severely, with the
exception of the few which had steadfastly adhered to Rome, such as
the Campanian Greeks and the Rhegines.  Punishment not much lighter
awaited the Arpanians and a number of other Apulian, Lucanian, and
Samnite communities, most of which lost portions of their territory.
On a part of the lands thus acquired new colonies were settled.  Thus
in the year 560 a succession of burgess-colonies was sent to the best
ports of Lower Italy, among which Sipontum (near Manfredonia) and
Croton may be named, as also Salernum placed in the former territory
of the southern Picentes and destined to hold them in check, and above
all Puteoli, which soon became the seat of the genteel -villeggiatura-
and of the traffic in Asiatic and Egyptian luxuries.  Thurii became
a Latin fortress under the new name of Copia (560), and the rich
Bruttian town of Vibo under the name of Valentia (562).  The veterans
of the victorious army of Africa were settled singly on various
patches of land in Samnium and Apulia; the remainder was retained as
public land, and the pasture stations of the grandees of Rome replaced
the gardens and arable fields of the farmers.  As a matter of course,
moreover, in all the communities of the peninsula the persons of note
who were not well affected to Rome were got rid of, so far as this
could be accomplished by political processes and confiscations of
property.  Everywhere in Italy the non-Latin allies felt that their
name was meaningless, and that they were thenceforth subjects of Rome;
the vanquishing of Hannibal was felt as a second subjugation of Italy,
and all the exasperation and all the arrogance of the victor vented
themselves especially on the Italian allies who were not Latin.  Even
the colourless Roman comedy of this period, well subjected as it was
to police control, bears traces of this.  When the subjugated towns
of Capua and Atella were abandoned without restraint to the unbridled
wit of the Roman farce, so that the latter town became its very
stronghold, and when other writers of comedy jested over the fact
that the Campanian serfs had already learned to survive amidst the
deadly atmosphere in which even the hardiest race of slaves, the
Syrians, pined away; such unfeeling mockeries re-echoed the scorn of
the victors, but not less the cry of distress from the down-trodden
nations.  The position in which matters stood is shown by the anxious
carefulness, which during the ensuing Macedonian war the senate
evinced in the watching of Italy, and by the reinforcements which were
despatched from Rome to the most important colonies, to Venusia in
554, Narnia in 555, Cosa in 557, and Cales shortly before 570.

What blanks were produced by war and famine in the ranks of the
Italian population, is shown by the example of the burgesses of
Rome, whose numbers during the war had fallen almost a fourth.
The statement, accordingly, which puts the whole number of Italians
who fell in the war under Hannibal at 300,000, seems not at all
exaggerated.  Of course this loss fell chiefly on the flower of the
burgesses, who in fact furnished the -elite- as well as the mass of
the combatants.  How fearfully the senate in particular was thinned,
is shown by the filling up of its complement after the battle of
Cannae, when it had been reduced to 123 persons, and was with
difficulty restored to its normal state by an extraordinary nomination
of 177 senators.  That, moreover, the seventeen years' war, which had
been carried on simultaneously in all districts of Italy and towards
all the four points of the compass abroad, must have shaken to the
very heart the national economy, is, as a general position, clear; but
our tradition does not suffice to illustrate it in detail.  The state
no doubt gained by the confiscations, and the Campanian territory in
particular thenceforth remained an inexhaustible source of revenue to
the state; but by this extension of the domain system the national
prosperity of course lost just about as much as at other times it had
gained by the breaking up of the state lands.  Numbers of flourishing
townships--four hundred, it was reckoned--were destroyed and ruined;
the capital laboriously accumulated was consumed; the population were
demoralized by camp life; the good old traditional habits of the
burgesses and farmers were undermined from the capital down to the
smallest village.  Slaves and desperadoes associated themselves in
robber-bands, of the dangers of which an idea may be formed from the
fact that in a single year (569) 7000 men had to be condemned for
highway robbery in Apulia alone; the extension of the pastures,
with their half-savage slave-herdsmen, favoured this mischievous
barbarizing of the land.  Italian agriculture saw its very existence
endangered by the proof, first afforded in this war, that the Roman
people could be supported by grain from Sicily and from Egypt instead
of that which they reaped themselves.

Nevertheless the Roman, whom the gods had allowed to survive the close
of that gigantic struggle, might look with pride to the past and with
confidence to the future.  Many errors had been committed, but much
suffering had also been endured; the people, whose whole youth capable
of arms had for ten years hardly laid aside shield or sword, might
excuse many faults.  The living of different nations side by side in
peace and amity upon the whole--although maintaining an attitude of
mutual antagonism--which appears to be the aim of modern phases of
national life, was a thing foreign to antiquity.  In ancient times it
was necessary to be either anvil or hammer; and in the final struggle
between the victors victory remained with the Romans.  Whether they
would have the judgment to use it rightly--to attach the Latin nation
by still closer bonds to Rome, gradually to Latinize Italy, to rule
their dependents in the provinces as subjects and not to abuse them as
slaves, to reform the constitution, to reinvigorate and to enlarge the
tottering middle class--many a one might ask.  If they should know how
to use it, Italy might hope to see happy times, in which prosperity
based on personal exertion under favourable circumstances, and the
most decisive political supremacy over the then civilized world, would
impart a just self-reliance to every member of the great whole,
furnish a worthy aim for every ambition, and open a career for every
talent.  It would, no doubt, be otherwise, should they fail to use
aright their victory.  But for the moment doubtful voices and gloomy
apprehensions were silent, when from all quarters the warriors and
victors returned to their homes; thanksgivings and amusements, and
rewards to the soldiers and burgesses were the order of the day;
the released prisoners of war were sent home from Gaul, Africa,
and Greece; and at length the youthful conqueror moved in splendid
procession through the decorated streets of the capital, to deposit
his laurels in the house of the god by whose direct inspiration, as
the pious whispered one to another, he had been guided in counsel
and in action.

Notes for Chapter VI

1. III. III. The Celts Conquered by Rome

2. III. VI. The Sending of Reinforcements Temporarily Frustrated

3. III. VI. Conflicts in the South of Italy

4. III. VI. Sicily Tranquillized

5. Of the two places bearing this name, the more westerly, situated
about 60 miles west of Hadrumetum, was probably the scene of the
battle (comp. Hermes, xx. 144, 318).  The time was the spring or
summer of the year 552; the fixing of the day as the 19th October,
on account of the alleged solar eclipse, is of no account.




Chapter VII

The West from the Peace of Hannibal to the Close of the Third Period

Subjugation of the Valley of the Po

The war waged by Hannibal had interrupted Rome in the extension of her
dominion to the Alps or to the boundary of Italy, as was even now the
Roman phrase, and in the organization and colonizing of the Celtic
territories.  It was self-evident that the task would now be resumed
at the point where it had been broken off, and the Celts were well
aware of this.  In the very year of the conclusion of peace with
Carthage (553) hostilities had recommenced in the territory of the
Boii, who were the most immediately exposed to danger; and a first
success obtained by them over the hastily-assembled Roman levy,
coupled with the persuasions of a Carthaginian officer, Hamilcar, who
had been left behind from the expedition of Mago in northern Italy,
produced in the following year (554) a general insurrection spreading
beyond the two tribes immediately threatened, the Boii and Insubres.
The Ligurians were driven to arms by the nearer approach of the
danger, and even the youth of the Cenomani on this occasion listened
less to the voice of their cautious chiefs than to the urgent appeal
of their kinsmen who were in peril.  Of "the two barriers against the
raids of the Gauls," Placentia and Cremona, the former was sacked--not
more than 2000 of the inhabitants of Placentia saved their lives--and
the second was invested.  In haste the legions advanced to save what
they could.  A great battle took place before Cremona.  The dexterous
management and the professional skill of the Phoenician leader failed
to make up for the deficiencies of his troops; the Gauls were unable
to withstand the onset of the legions, and among the numerous dead who
covered the field of battle was the Carthaginian officer.  The Celts,
nevertheless, continued the struggle; the same Roman army which had
conquered at Cremona was next year (555), chiefly through the fault of
its careless leader, almost destroyed by the Insubres; and it was not
till 556 that Placentia could be partially re-established.  But the
league of the cantons associated for the desperate struggle suffered
from intestine discord; the Boii and Insubres quarrelled, and the
Cenomani not only withdrew from the national league, but purchased
their pardon from the Romans by a disgraceful betrayal of their
countrymen; during a battle in which the Insubres engaged the Romans
on the Mincius, the Cenomani attacked in rear, and helped to destroy,
their allies and comrades in arms (557).  Thus humbled and left in the
lurch, the Insubres, after the fall of Comum, likewise consented to
conclude a separate peace (558).  The conditions, which the Romans
prescribed to the Cenomani and Insubres, were certainly harder than
they had been in the habit of granting to the members of the Italian
confederacy; in particular, they were careful to confirm by law the
barrier of separation between Italians and Celts, and to enact that
never should a member of these two Celtic tribes be capable of
acquiring the citizenship of Rome.  But these Transpadane Celtic
districts were allowed to retain their existence and their national
constitution--so that they formed not town-domains, but tribal
cantons--and no tribute, as it would seem, was imposed on them.
They were intended to serve as a bulwark for the Roman settlements
south of the Po, and to ward off from Italy the incursions of the
migratory northern tribes and the aggressions of the predatory
inhabitants of the Alps, who were wont to make regular razzias in
these districts.  The process of Latinizing, moreover, made rapid
progress in these regions; the Celtic nationality was evidently far
from able to oppose such resistance as the more civilized nations of
Sabellians and Etruscans.  The celebrated Latin comic poet Statius
Caecilius, who died in 586, was a manumitted Insubrian; and Polybius,
who visited these districts towards the close of the sixth century,
affirms, not perhaps without some exaggeration, that in that quarter
only a few villages among the Alps remained Celtic.  The Veneti, on
the other hand, appear to have retained their nationality longer.

Measures Adopted to Check the Immigrations of the Transalpine Gauls

The chief efforts of the Romans in these regions were naturally
directed to check the immigration of the Transalpine Celts, and to
make the natural wall, which separates the peninsula from the interior
of the continent, also its political boundary.  That the terror of
the Roman name had already penetrated to the adjacent Celtic cantons
beyond the Alps, is shown not only by the totally passive attitude
which they maintained during the annihilation or subjugation of their
Cisalpine countrymen, but still more by the official disapproval and
disavowal which the Transalpine cantons--we shall have to think
primarily of the Helvetii (between the lake of Geneva and the Main)
and the Carni or Taurisci (in Carinthia and Styria)--expressed to
the envoys from Rome, who complained of the attempts made by isolated
Celtic bands to settle peacefully on the Roman side of the Alps.  Not
less significant was the humble spirit in which these same bands of
emigrants first came to the Roman senate entreating an assignment
of land, and then without remonstrance obeyed the rigorous order to
return over the Alps (568-575), and allowed the town, which they
had already founded not far from the later Aquileia, to be again
destroyed.  With wise severity the senate permitted no sort of
exception to the principle that the gates of the Alps should be
henceforth closed for the Celtic nation, and visited with heavy
penalties those Roman subjects in Italy, who had instigated any such
schemes of immigration.  An attempt of this kind which was made on a
route hitherto little known to the Romans, in the innermost recess of
the Adriatic, and still more, as if would seem, the project of Philip
of Macedonia for invading Italy from the east as Hannibal had done
from the west, gave occasion to the founding of a fortress in the
extreme north-eastern corner of Italy--Aquileia, the most northerly of
the Italian colonies (571-573)--which was intended not only to close
that route for ever against foreigners, but also to secure the command
of the gulf which was specially convenient for navigation, and to
check the piracy which was still not wholly extirpated in those
waters.  The establishment of Aquileia led to a war with the Istrians
(576, 577), which was speedily terminated by the storming of some
strongholds and the fall of the king, Aepulo, and which was remarkable
for nothing except for the panic, which the news of the surprise of
the Roman camp by a handful of barbarians called forth in the fleet
and throughout Italy.

Colonizing of the Region on the South of the Po

A different course was adopted with the region on the south of the Po,
which the Roman senate had determined to incorporate with Italy.  The
Boii, who were immediately affected by this step, defended themselves
with the resolution of despair.  They even crossed the Po and made an
attempt to rouse the Insubres once more to arms (560); they blockaded
a consul in his camp, and he was on the point of succumbing; Placentia
maintained itself with difficulty against the constant assaults of
the exasperated natives.  At length the last battle was fought at
Mutina; it was long and bloody, but the Romans conquered (561);
and thenceforth the struggle was no longer a war, but a slave-hunt.
The Roman camp soon was the only asylum in the Boian territory;
thither the better part of the still surviving population began to
take refuge; and the victors were able, without much exaggeration, to
report to Rome that nothing remained of the nation of the Boii but old
men and children.  The nation was thus obliged to resign itself to the
fate appointed for it.  The Romans demanded the cession of half the
territory (563); the demand could not be refused, and even within the
diminished district which was left to the Boii, they soon disappeared,
and amalgamated with their conquerors.(1)

After the Romans had thus cleared the ground for themselves,
the fortresses of Placentia and Cremona, whose colonists had been
in great part swept away or dispersed by the troubles of the last few
years, were reorganized, and new settlers were sent thither.  The new
foundations were, in or near the former territory of the Senones,
Potentia (near Recanati not far from Ancona: in 570) and Pisaurum
(Pesaro: in 570), and, in the newly acquired district of the Boii, the
fortresses of Bononia (565), Mutina (571), and Parma (571); the colony
of Mutina had been already instituted before the war under Hannibal,
but that war had interrupted the completion of the settlement.
The construction of fortresses was associated, as was always the case,
with the formation of military roads.  The Flaminian way was prolonged
from its northern termination at Ariminum, under the name of the
Aemilian way, to Placentia (567).  Moreover, the road from Rome to
Arretium or the Cassian way, which perhaps had already been long a
municipal road, was taken in charge and constructed anew by the Roman
community probably in 583; while in 567 the track from Arretium over
the Apennines to Bononia as far as the new Aemilian road had been put
in order, and furnished a shorter communication between Rome and the
fortresses on the Po.  By these comprehensive measures the Apennines
were practically superseded as the boundary between the Celtic and
Italian territories, and were replaced by the Po.  South of the Po
there henceforth prevailed mainly the urban constitution of the
Italians, beyond it mainly the cantonal constitution of the Celts;
and, if the district between the Apennines and the Po was still
reckoned Celtic land, it was but an empty name.

Liguria

In the north-western mountain-land of Italy, whose valleys and hills
were occupied chiefly by the much-subdivided Ligurian stock, the
Romans pursued a similar course.  Those dwelling immediately to the
north of the Arno were extirpated.  This fate befell chiefly the
Apuani, who dwelt on the Apennines between the Arno and the Magra, and
incessantly plundered on the one side the territory of Pisae, on the
other that of Bononia and Mutina.  Those who did not fall victims in
that quarter to the sword of the Romans were transported into Lower
Italy to the region of Beneventum (574); and by energetic measures the
Ligurian nation, from which the Romans were obliged in 578 to recover
the colony of Mutina which it had conquered, was completely crushed in
the mountains which separate the valley of the Po from that of the
Arno.  The fortress of Luna (not far from Spezzia), established in 577
in the former territory of the Apuani, protected the frontier against
the Ligurians just as Aquileia did against the Transalpines, and gave
the Romans at the same time an excellent port which henceforth became
the usual station for the passage to Massilia and to Spain.  The
construction of the coast or Aurelian road from Rome to Luna, and
of the cross road carried from Luca by way of Florence to Arretium
between the Aurelian and Cassian ways, probably belongs to the
same period.

With the more western Ligurian tribes, who held the Genoese Apennines
and the Maritime Alps, there were incessant conflicts.  They were
troublesome neighbours, accustomed to pillage by land and by sea: the
Pisans and Massiliots suffered no little injury from their incursions
and their piracies.  But no permanent results were gained amidst these
constant hostilities, or perhaps even aimed at; except apparently
that, with a view to have a communication by land with Transalpine
Gaul and Spain in addition to the regular route by sea, the Romans
endeavoured to clear the great coast road from Luna by way of Massilia
to Emporiae, at least as far as the Alps--beyond the Alps it devolved
on the Massiliots to keep the coast navigation open for Roman vessels
and the road along the shore open for travellers by land.  The
interior with its impassable valleys and its rocky fastnesses,
and with its poor but dexterous and crafty inhabitants, served
the Romans mainly as a school of war for the training and hardening
of soldiers and officers.

Corsica
Sardinia

Wars as they are called, of a similar character with those against the
Ligurians, were waged with the Corsicans and to a still greater extent
with the inhabitants of the interior of Sardinia, who retaliated for
the predatory expeditions directed against them by sudden attacks on
the districts along the coast.  The expedition of Tiberius Gracchus
against the Sardinians in 577 was specially held in remembrance,
not so much because it gave "peace" to the province, as because
he asserted that he had slain or captured as many as 80,000 of
the islanders, and dragged slaves thence in such multitudes to
Rome that "cheap as a Sardinian" became a proverb.

Carthage

In Africa the policy of Rome was substantially summed up in the one
idea, as short-sighted as it was narrow-minded, that she ought to
prevent the revival of the power of Carthage, and ought accordingly
to keep the unhappy city constantly oppressed and apprehensive of
a declaration of war suspended over it by Rome like the sword of
Damocles.  The stipulation in the treaty of peace, that the
Carthaginians should retain their territory undiminished, but
that their neighbour Massinissa should have all those possessions
guaranteed to him which he or his predecessor had possessed within
the Carthaginian bounds, looks almost as if it had been inserted not
to obviate, but to provoke disputes.  The same remark applies to the
obligation imposed by the Roman treaty of peace on the Carthaginians
not to make war upon the allies of Rome; so that, according to the
letter of the treaty, they were not even entitled to expel their
Numidian neighbours from their own undisputed territory.  With such
stipulations and amidst the uncertainty of African frontier questions
in general, the situation of Carthage in presence of a neighbour
equally powerful and unscrupulous and of a liege lord who was at once
umpire and party in the cause, could not but be a painful one; but
the reality was worse than the worst expectations.  As early as 561
Carthage found herself suddenly assailed under frivolous pretexts,
and saw the richest portion of her territory, the province of Emporiae
on the Lesser Syrtis, partly plundered by the Numidians, partly
even seized and retained by them.  Encroachments of this kind were
multiplied; the level country passed into the hands of the Numidians,
and the Carthaginians with difficulty maintained themselves in the
larger places.  Within the last two years alone, the Carthaginians
declared in 582, seventy villages had been again wrested from them in
opposition to the treaty.  Embassy after embassy was despatched to
Rome; the Carthaginians adjured the Roman senate either to allow them
to defend themselves by arms, or to appoint a court of arbitration
with power to enforce their award, or to regulate the frontier anew
that they might at least learn once for all how much they were to
lose; otherwise it were better to make them Roman subjects at once
than thus gradually to deliver them over to the Libyans.  But the
Roman government, which already in 554 had held forth a direct
prospect of extension of territory to their client, of course at the
expense of Carthage, seemed to have little objection that he should
himself take the booty destined for him; they moderated perhaps at
times the too great impetuosity of the Libyans, who now retaliated
fully on their old tormentors for their former sufferings; but it
was in reality for the very sake of inflicting this torture that the
Romans had assigned Massinissa as a neighbour to Carthage.  All the
requests and complaints had no result, except either that Roman
commissions made their appearance in Africa and after a thorough
investigation came to no decision, or that in the negotiations at
Rome the envoys of Massinissa pretended a want of instructions and
the matter was adjourned.  Phoenician patience alone was able to
submit meekly to such a position, and even to exhibit towards
the despotic victors every attention and courtesy, solicited or
unsolicited with unwearied perseverance.  The Carthaginians
especially courted Roman favour by sending supplies of grain.

Hannibal
Reform of the Carthaginian Constitution
Hannibal's Flight

This pliability on the part of the vanquished, however was not mere
patience and resignation.  There was still in Carthage a patriotic
party, and at its head stood the man who, wherever fate placed him,
was still dreaded by the Romans.  It had not abandoned the idea of
resuming the struggle by taking advantage of those complications that
might be easily foreseen between Rome and the eastern powers; and, as
the failure of the magnificent scheme of Hamilcar and his sons had
been due mainly to the Carthaginian oligarchy, the chief object was
internally to reinvigorate the country for this new struggle.  The
salutary influence of adversity, and the clear, noble, and commanding
mind of Hannibal, effected political and financial reforms.  The
oligarchy, which had filled up the measure of its guilty follies by
raising a criminal process against the great general, charging him
with having intentionally abstained from the capture of Rome and with
embezzlement of the Italian spoil--that rotten oligarchy was, on the
proposition of Hannibal, overthrown, and a democratic government was
introduced such as was suited to the circumstances of the citizens
(before 559).  The finances were so rapidly reorganized by the
collection of arrears and of embezzled moneys and by the introduction
of better control, that the contribution due to Rome could be paid
without burdening the citizens in any way with extraordinary taxes.
The Roman government, just then on the point of beginning its critical
war with the great-king of Asia, observed the progress of these
events, as may easily be conceived, with apprehension; it was no
imaginary danger that the Carthaginian fleet might land in Italy and
a second war under Hannibal might spring up there, while the Roman
legions fighting in Asia Minor.  We can scarcely, therefore, censure
the Romans for sending an embassy to Carthage (in 559) which was
presumably charged to demand the surrender of Hannibal.  The spiteful
Carthaginian oligarchs, who sent letter after letter to Rome to
denounce to the national foe the hero who had overthrown them as
having entered into secret communications with the powers unfriendly
to Rome, were contemptible, but their information was probably
correct; and, true as it was that that embassy involved a humiliating
confession of the dread with which the simple shofete of Carthage
inspired so powerful a people, and natural and honourable as it was
that the proud conqueror of Zama should take exception in the senate
to so humiliating a step, still that confession was nothing but the
simple truth, and Hannibal was of a genius so extraordinary, that none
but sentimental politicians in Rome could tolerate him longer at the
head of the Carthaginian state.  The marked recognition thus accorded
to him by the Roman government scarcely took himself by surprise.
As it was Hannibal and not Carthage that had carried on the last war,
so it was he who had to bear the fate of the vanquished.  The
Carthaginians could do nothing but submit and be thankful that
Hannibal, sparing them the greater disgrace by his speedy and prudent
flight to the east, left to his ancestral city merely the lesser
disgrace of having banished its greatest citizen for ever from his
native land, confiscated his property, and razed his house.  The
profound saying that those are the favourites of the gods, on whom
they lavish infinite joys and infinite sorrows, thus verified itself
in full measure in the case of Hannibal.

Continued Irritation in Rome towards Carthage

A graver responsibility than that arising out of their proceedings
against Hannibal attaches to the Roman government for their
persistence in suspecting and tormenting the city after his removal.
Parties indeed fermented there as before; but, after the withdrawal
of the extraordinary man who had wellnigh changed the destinies of the
world, the patriot party was not of much more importance in Carthage
than in Aetolia or Achaia.  The most rational of the various ideas
which then agitated the unhappy city was beyond doubt that of
attaching themselves to Massinissa and of converting him from
the oppressor into the protector of the Phoenicians.  But neither
the national section of the patriots nor the section with Libyan
tendencies attained the helm; on the contrary the government remained
in the hands of the oligarchs friendly to Rome, who, so far as they
did not altogether renounce thought of the future, clung to the single
idea of saving the material welfare and the communal freedom of
Carthage under Roman protection.  With this state of matters the
Romans might well have been content.  But neither the multitude, nor
even the ruling lords of the average stamp, could rid themselves of
the profound alarm produced by the Hannibalic war; and the Roman
merchants with envious eyes beheld the city even now, when its
political power was gone, possessed of extensive commercial
dependencies and of a firmly established wealth which nothing could
shake.  Already in 567 the Carthaginian government offered to pay up
at once the whole instalments stipulated in the peace of 553--an offer
which the Romans, who attached far more importance to the having
Carthage tributary than to the sums of money themselves, naturally
declined, and only deduced from it the conviction that, in spite of
all the trouble they had taken, the city was not ruined and was not
capable of ruin.  Fresh reports were ever circulating through Rome as
to the intrigues of the faithless Phoenicians.  At one time it was
alleged that Aristo of Tyre had been seen in Carthage as an emissary
of Hannibal, to prepare the citizens for the landing of an Asiatic
war-fleet (561); at another, that the council had, in a secret
nocturnal sitting in the temple of the God of Healing, given audience
to the envoys of Perseus (581); at another there was talk of the
powerful fleet which was being equipped in Carthage for the Macedonian
war (583).  It is probable that these and similar reports were founded
on nothing more than, at most, individual indiscretions; but still
they were the signal for new diplomatic ill usage on the part of Rome,
and for new aggressions on the part of Massinissa, and the idea gained
ground the more, the less sense and reason there was in it, that the
Carthaginian question would not be settled without a third Punic war.

Numidians

While the power of the Phoenicians was thus sinking in the land of
their choice, just as it had long ago succumbed in their original
home, a new state grew up by their side.  The northern coast of Africa
has been inhabited from time immemorial, and is inhabited still, by
the people, who themselves assume the name of Shilah or Tamazigt, whom
the Greeks and Romans call Nomades or Numidians, i. e. the "pastoral"
people, and the Arabs call Berbers, although they also at times
designate them as "shepherds" (Shawie), and to whom we are wont to
give the name of Berbers or Kabyles.  This people is, so far as its
language has been hitherto investigated, related to no other known
nation.  In the Carthaginian period these tribes, with the exception
of those dwelling immediately around Carthage or immediately on the
coast, had on the whole maintained their independence, and had also
substantially retained their pastoral and equestrian life, such as the
inhabitants of the Atlas lead at the present day; although they were
not strangers to the Phoenician alphabet and Phoenician civilization
generally,(2) and instances occurred in which the Berber sheiks had
their sons educated in Carthage and intermarried with the families of
the Phoenician nobility.  It was not the policy of the Romans to have
direct possessions of their own in Africa; they preferred to rear a
state there, which should not be of sufficient importance to be able
to dispense with Roman protection, and yet should be sufficiently
strong to keep down the power of Carthage now that it was restricted
to Africa, and to render all freedom of movement impossible for the
tortured city.  They found what they sought among the native princes.
About the time of the Hannibalic war the natives of North Africa were
subject to three principal kings, each of whom, according to the
custom there, had a multitude of princes bound to follow his banner;
Bocchar king of the Mauri, who ruled from the Atlantic Ocean to the
river Molochath (now Mluia, on the boundary between Morocco and the
French territory); Syphax king of the Massaesyli, who ruled from the
last-named point to the "Perforated Promontory," as it was called
(Seba Rus, between Jijeli and Bona), in what are now the provinces of
Oran and Algiers; and Massinissa king of the Massyli, who ruled from
the Tretum Promontorium to the boundary of Carthage, in what is now
the province of Constantine.  The most powerful of these, Syphax king
of Siga, had been vanquished in the last war between Rome and Carthage
and carried away captive to Rome, where he died in captivity.  His
wide dominions were mainly given to Massinissa; although Vermina the
son of Syphax by humble petition recovered a small portion of his
father's territory from the Romans (554), he was unable to deprive
the earlier ally of the Romans of his position as the privileged
oppressor of Carthage.

Massinissa

Massinissa became the founder of the Numidian kingdom; and seldom has
choice or accident hit upon a man so thoroughly fitted for his post.
In body sound and supple up to extreme old age; temperate and sober
like an Arab; capable of enduring any fatigue, of standing on the same
spot from morning to evening, and of sitting four-and-twenty hours on
horseback; tried alike as a soldier and a general amidst the romantic
vicissitudes of his youth as well as on the battle-fields of Spain,
and not less master of the more difficult art of maintaining
discipline in his numerous household and order in his dominions;
with equal unscrupulousness ready to throw himself at the feet of his
powerful protector, or to tread under foot his weaker neighbour; and,
in addition to all this, as accurately acquainted with the
circumstances of Carthage, where he was educated and had been on
familiar terms in the noblest houses, as he was filled with an African
bitterness of hatred towards his own and his people's oppressors,
--this remarkable man became the soul of the revival of his nation,
which had seemed on the point of perishing, and of whose virtues and
faults he appeared as it were a living embodiment.  Fortune favoured
him, as in everything, so especially in the fact, that it allowed
him time for his work.  He died in the ninetieth year of his age
(516-605), and in the sixtieth year of his reign, retaining to the
last the full possession of his bodily and mental powers, leaving
behind him a son one year old and the reputation of having been
the strongest man and the best and most fortunate king of his age.

Extension and Civilization of Numidia

We have already narrated how purposely and clearly the Romans in
their management of African affairs evinced their taking part with
Massinissa, and how zealously and constantly the latter availed
himself of the tacit permission to enlarge his territory at the
expense of Carthage.  The whole interior to the border of the desert
fell to the native sovereign as it were of its own accord, and even
the upper valley of the Bagradas (Mejerdah) with the rich town of Vaga
became subject to the king; on the coast also to the east of Carthage
he occupied the old Sidonian city of Great Leptis and other districts,
so that his kingdom stretched from the Mauretanian to the Cyrenaean
frontier, enclosed the Carthaginian territory on every side by land,
and everywhere pressed, in the closest vicinity, on the Phoenicians.
It admits of no doubt, that he looked on Carthage as his future
capital; the Libyan party there was significant.  But it was not
only by the diminution of her territory that Carthage suffered injury.
The roving shepherds were converted by their great king into another
people.  After the example of the king, who brought the fields
under cultivation far and wide and bequeathed to each of his sons
considerable landed estates, his subjects also began to settle and
to practise agriculture.  As he converted his shepherds into settled
citizens, he converted also his hordes of plunderers into soldiers who
were deemed by Rome worthy to fight side by side with her legions;
and he bequeathed to his successors a richly-filled treasury, a well-
disciplined army, and even a fleet.  His residence Cirta (Constantine)
became the stirring capital of a powerful state, and a chief seat of
Phoenician civilization, which was zealously fostered at the court of
the Berber king--fostered perhaps studiously with a view to the future
Carthagino-Numidian kingdom.  The hitherto degraded Libyan nationality
thus rose in its own estimation, and the native manners and language
made their way even into the old Phoenician towns, such as Great
Leptis.  The Berber began, under the aegis of Rome, to feel himself
the equal or even the superior of the Phoenician; Carthaginian envoys
at Rome had to submit to be told that they were aliens in Africa,
and that the land belonged to the Libyans.  The Phoenico-national
civilization of North Africa, which still retained life and vigour
even in the levelling times of the Empire, was far more the work
of Massinissa than of the Carthaginians.

The State of Culture in Spain

In Spain the Greek and Phoenician towns along the coast, such as
Emporiae, Saguntum, New Carthage, Malaca, and Gades, submitted to the
Roman rule the more readily, that, left to their own resources, they
would hardly have been able to protect themselves from the natives;
as for similar reasons Massilia, although far more important and more
capable of self-defence than those towns, did not omit to secure a
powerful support in case of need by closely attaching itself to the
Romans, to whom it was in return very serviceable as an intermediate
station between Italy and Spain.  The natives, on the other hand, gave
to the Romans endless trouble.  It is true that there were not wanting
the rudiments of a national Iberian civilization, although of its
special character it is scarcely possible for us to acquire any clear
idea.  We find among the Iberians a widely diffused national writing,
which divides itself into two chief kinds, that of the valley of the
Ebro, and the Andalusian, and each of these was presumably subdivided
into various branches: this writing seems to have originated at a very
early period, and to be traceable rather to the old Greek than to the
Phoenician alphabet.  There is even a tradition that the Turdetani
(round Seville) possessed lays from very ancient times, a metrical
book of laws of 6000 verses, and even historical records; at any rate
this tribe is described as the most civilized of all the Spanish
tribes, and at the same time the least warlike; indeed, it regularly
carried on its wars by means of foreign mercenaries.  To the same
region probably we must refer the descriptions given by Polybius of
the flourishing condition of agriculture and the rearing of cattle
in Spain--so that, in the absence of opportunity of export, grain and
flesh were to be had at nominal prices--and of the splendid royal
palaces with golden and silver jars full of "barley wine." At least a
portion of the Spaniards, moreover, zealously embraced the elements of
culture which the Romans brought along with them, so that the process
of Latinizing made more rapid progress in Spain than anywhere else in
the transmarine provinces.  For example, warm baths after the Italian
fashion came into use even at this period among the natives.  Roman
money, too, was to all appearance not only current in Spain far
earlier than elsewhere out of Italy, but was imitated in Spanish
coins; a circumstance in some measure explained by the rich silver-
mines of the country.  The so-called "silver of Osca" (now Huesca
in Arragon), i. e. Spanish -denarii- with Iberian inscriptions, is
mentioned in 559; and the commencement of their coinage cannot be
placed much later, because the impression is imitated from that of
the oldest Roman -denarii-.

But, while in the southern and eastern provinces the culture of the
natives may have so far prepared the way for Roman civilization and
Roman rule that these encountered no serious difficulties, the west
and north on the other hand, and the whole of the interior, were
occupied by numerous tribes more or less barbarous, who knew little of
any kind of civilization--in Intercatia, for instance, the use of gold
and silver was still unknown about 600--and who were on no better
terms with each other than with the Romans.  A characteristic trait
in these free Spaniards was the chivalrous spirit of the men and, at
least to an equal extent, of the women.  When a mother sent forth her
son to battle, she roused his spirit by the recital of the feats of
his ancestors; and the fairest maiden unasked offered her hand in
marriage to the bravest man.  Single combat was common, both with
a view to determine the prize of valour, and for the settlement of
lawsuits; even disputes among the relatives of princes as to the
succession were settled in this way.  It not unfrequently happened
that a well-known warrior confronted the ranks of the enemy and
challenged an antagonist by name; the defeated champion then
surrendered his mantle and sword to his opponent, and even entered
into relations of friendship and hospitality with him.  Twenty years
after the close of the second Punic war, the little Celtiberian
community of Complega (in the neighbourhood of the sources of the
Tagus) sent a message to the Roman general, that unless he sent to
them for every man that had fallen a horse, a mantle, and a sword,
it would fare ill with him.  Proud of their military honour, so that
they frequently could not bear to survive the disgrace of being
disarmed, the Spaniards were nevertheless disposed to follow any
one who should enlist their services, and to stake their lives in
any foreign quarrel.  The summons was characteristic, which a Roman
general well acquainted with the customs of the country sent to a
Celtiberian band righting in the pay of the Turdetani against the
Romans--either to return home, or to enter the Roman service with
double pay, or to fix time and place for battle.  If no recruiting
officer made his appearance, they met of their own accord in free
bands, with the view of pillaging the more peaceful districts and
even of capturing and occupying towns, quite after the manner of the
Campanians.  The wildness and insecurity of the inland districts are
attested by the fact that banishment into the interior westward of
Cartagena was regarded by the Romans as a severe punishment, and that
in periods of any excitement the Roman commandants of Further Spain
took with them escorts of as many as 6000 men.  They are still more
clearly shown by the singular relations subsisting between the Greeks
and their Spanish neighbours in the Graeco-Spanish double city of
Emporiae, at the eastern extremity of the Pyrenees.  The Greek
settlers, who dwelt on the point of the peninsula separated on the
landward side from the Spanish part of the town by a wall, took care
that this wall should be guarded every night by a third of their civic
force, and that a higher official should constantly superintend the
watch at the only gate; no Spaniard was allowed to set foot in the
Greek city, and the Greeks conveyed their merchandise to the natives
only in numerous and well-escorted companies.

Wars between the Romans and Spaniards

These natives, full of restlessness and fond of war--full of the
spirit of the Cid and of Don Quixote--were now to be tamed and, if
possible, civilized by the Romans.  In a military point of view
the task was not difficult.  It is true that the Spaniards showed
themselves, not only when behind the walls of their cities or under
the leadership of Hannibal, but even when left to themselves and in
the open field of battle, no contemptible opponents; with their short
two-edged sword which the Romans subsequently adopted from them, and
their formidable assaulting columns, they not unfrequently made even
the Roman legions waver.  Had they been able to submit to military
discipline and to political combination, they might perhaps have
shaken off the foreign yoke imposed on them.  But their valour was
rather that of the guerilla than of the soldier, and they were utterly
void of political judgment.  Thus in Spain there was no serious war,
but as little was there any real peace; the Spaniards, as Caesar
afterwards very justly pointed out to them, never showed themselves
quiet in peace or strenuous in war.  Easy as it was for a Roman
general to scatter a host of insurgents, it was difficult for the
Roman statesman to devise any suitable means of really pacifying and
civilizing Spain.  In fact, he could only deal with it by palliative
measures; because the only really adequate expedient, a comprehensive
Latin colonization, was not accordant with the general aim of Roman
policy at this period.

The Romans Maintain a Standing Army in Spain
Cato
Gracchus

The territory which the Romans acquired in Spain in the course of the
second Punic war was from the beginning divided into two masses--the
province formerly Carthaginian, which embraced in the first instance
the present distr