the troops of Hannibal effeminate and dissolute, or whether this be a
mere rhetorical flourish, cannot now be decided any longer; but it is
evident that the Romans made a better use of the winter. When after
long and extraordinary exertions, men come into an easy life, they
often fall into a state of lassitude; they are then very apt to lose
the proper tone of mind, and the power of finding their way back to
their former condition, and it returns no more. This is a rock on which
many great characters have split. What, however, has not been taken
into account, is that Hannibal was not able to recruit his army from
Spaniards and Libyans. Every one of his battles cost him many men;
little skirmishes, and diseases in foreign climate, swept away a great
number; and he was only able to make up his losses from the Italians,
which we know with certainty as for the Bruttians. This circumstance is
quite enough to account for the demoralised state of his troops. The
Prussian army of 1762 was much inferior to that of 1757, and likewise
the French one of 1812, which fought in the Russian campaign, was
not so good as that of 1807. Another difficulty for him was that the
Romans, after the battle of Cannæ, had not let their courage droop:
they would not even receive Carthalo, the Carthaginian ambassador.
He found himself in the same plight as Napoleon was in Russia, after
the battle of Borodino, when the peace was not accepted. It is true
that part of southern Italy declared for him, and that he might have
reinforced himself from thence; but all the Latin colonies throughout
its whole extent remained faithful, and were not to be conquered. He
was master of the country, but with a number of hostile fortresses
in it. If he wanted to advance by Campania, he was obliged to subdue
the whole chain of fortified colonies, or to break through them, and
reduce the Latin and Hernican towns in the neighbourhood of the city.
These places were entirely in the interest of Rome, and indignant
at the faithlessness of Capua. It was especially Cales, Fregellæ,
Interamnium, Casinum, Beneventum, Luceria, Venusia, Brundisium, Pæstum,
Æsernia, and others, which paralysed the peoples there; these could
not fairly gather their forces, because they had to fear the sallies
of the Romans. They therefore in most instances blockaded those towns,
and were no increase of strength to Hannibal. Thus his position was
far from being an easy one. He reckoned upon support from Carthage and
Spain; the former he got, as Livy states in a few lines (probably from
Cœlius Antipater), although in his view of the matter, it is always as
if the Carthaginians had deemed the whole undertaking of Hannibal to
be madness. According to Zonaras (from Dio Cassius), the reinforcement
was considerable; but it only came in the following year, or even
later: from Spain he received none at all. If dearth of money had
exercised as decisive an influence among the ancients, as it does with
us, the Romans indeed could no more have done anything. But they made
every possible sacrifice; and thus it happened that by the battle of
Cannæ they only lost those districts which yielded themselves to the
enemy, whilst they had no danger to fear with regard to the rest. The
Marsians, Marrucinians, Sabines, Umbrians, Etruscans, Picentines, and
others, remained faithful to them.
In the list of the peoples which fell off after the battle of Cannæ, as
given by Livy and Polybius, no distinction is made between what took
place at different times: the course of defection was but gradual,
and there was no general rising,--so strong was the belief in the
unshaken might of Rome. Immediately after the battle, a part only of
the Apulians, Samnites, and Lucanians, fell away; so did afterwards
the Bruttians, and at a much later period, the Sallentines; but none
of the Greek towns as yet. It seems that the Ferentines, Hirpinians,
and Caudines declared for Hannibal, whilst he was still on his march to
Capua: Acerræ was taken after a long siege. Hannibal’s object, while he
was abiding in Campania, was now to gain a sea-port; so that he might
keep up a direct communication with Carthage. He found himself in the
strangest position; for though the general of a first-rate power, which
was mistress of the seas, he did not possess one single harbour. An
attempt against Cumæ and Naples was repulsed. Near Nola, for the first
time, the current of his victories was checked; Marcellus threw himself
into this important town, put down the party which wanted to go over
to the Carthaginians, and drove Hannibal back; which is described by
the Romans as a victory, but was not so by any means, although it was
now something great, even to have delayed the progress of Hannibal.
Marcellus showed here considerable talent as a general, and once more
inspired the Romans with confidence.
The Bruttians, after having themselves fallen off, now succeeded in
gaining over Locri, the first Greek town, which declared for Hannibal.
Croton was taken by force of arms; and this completed the ruin of that
place, which, though once so great and prosperous, was still inhabited
only about the centre, as Leyden is now, and still more so, Pisa; so
that the deserted walls could easily be stormed. Every attempt on the
part of the inhabitants to defend the town was impossible; for after
the different devastations by Dionysius, Agathocles, and the Romans
under Rufinus, in the war of Pyrrhus, their number had become very
small. Thus Hannibal had now seaports; and he received by Locri that
reinforcement of troops and elephants from Carthage, which was the
only one which he ever had from thence in a large mass: its amount is
unknown to us.
With the taking of Capua, ends the first period of the war of Hannibal,
which here reaches its culminating point. From 537 to 541, five years
elapse to the fall of Capua, which is the second period. The Romans
make now already the most astonishing efforts. Their legions were
continually increased. Allies we hear no more about: the bravest had
most of them fallen away; Etruscans, Umbrians, &c., are not even spoken
of. Perhaps they incorporated the allies for the time of that war with
the legions, so as not to let them stand isolated. Instead of confining
themselves to the lowest scale, the Romans conceived the grand idea,
of redoubling their exertions everywhere, and of raising an entirely
new army. They refused to ransom the prisoners, and therefore Hannibal
sold these for slaves, and they were scattered all over the world:
many of them may have been butchered. This conduct of the Romans must
not be judged of too severely. One should bear in mind, that in the
first moment of dismay, after the battle of Cannæ, they were completely
stunned: in such moments, those who belong to a mass, will act quite
without any will of their own. It may also be well imagined that
Hannibal demanded ready money, and that the Romans were not able to pay
it. This may have been a principal motive. Those also who had escaped
from the battle of Cannæ, were treated with undeserved severity; just
as the unfortunate Admiral Byng was shot by the English. The whole
of the young men were enlisted; nevertheless there was a scarcity of
freemen able to bear arms. Many, from utter despondency, tried to
shun the service. All who had not been able to pay a _delictum_, and
likewise all the _addicti_, were discharged on the bail of the state,
that they might serve; eight thousand slaves were bought on credit
from their masters, and two regiments formed of them; even gladiators
and their weapons were taken, as there was also a want of arms. Of the
warlike races, there still remained on the side of the Romans only
the Marsians, Marrucinians, Vestinians, Frentanians, Pelignians, and
Picentines. Their greatest strength lay in the many Latin colonies,
which extended from Bruttium to the Po. Such were the resources of
Rome, and notwithstanding Livy’s account, there is no denying that the
danger was very great. He describes the rich individuals who advanced
money to the state, as excellent patriots, although we know for certain
that they were guilty of the most infamous fraud: they had the supplies
for Spain ensured against danger at sea, and had then caused ships
laden with the worst articles, to be wrecked. The price of corn had
risen to ten times its ordinary rate. The town of Petelia alone among
the Lucanians kept true to the Romans, for which it was destroyed by
the Carthaginians and the rest of the Lucanians; Bruttium, the greater
part of Samnium, and many Greek towns went over to the enemy; the
Romans had the ground shaking under their feet. It is surprising that,
under these circumstances, not only had Hannibal no lasting success,
but the Romans also raised their head more and more. Their troops
gradually became well trained, as their foes did not fight any great
battles, which of course gave them time for practice; and thus they got
an army which was certainly better than the one they had before the
battle of Cannæ. Hannibal left Capua, and stayed in Apulia and Lucania,
where he marched backwards and forwards, and made little conquests,
so as to keep the Romans in constant excitement: we cannot quite trace
his designs. In the following year, he made two unsuccessful attempts
upon the Roman camp near Nola. Marcellus and Fabius were here opposed
to him; the operations of the latter were slow, but highly felicitous.
Hannibal is stated to have said, that he considered Fabius as his
tutor, and Marcellus as his rival; that Fabius was teaching him to
guard against blunders, and Marcellus how to develope his good ideas.
This saying is certainly authentic; it displays Hannibal’s great soul.
As early as in 539, the Romans again established themselves in Campania
with a decided superiority. The Campanians showed themselves to be
pitiful cowards. They appeared in the field but once, near Cumæ, and
were beaten; then they allowed themselves to be pent up like sheep,
and Hannibal made several attempts to relieve them. One Hanno is
routed near Beneventum by Tib. Sempronius Gracchus, which is the first
decisive victory of the Romans; it was chiefly gained by the slaves
(_volones_), and these had their freedom given them for it. In the
following year, Arpi returned to the side of the Romans, and in this
way they gradually got many a little town. These small undertakings,
which led to encounters of which the success was various, fill up the
time until 540, when Tarentum delivered itself over to Hannibal; the
secession of Metapontum and Thurii followed shortly afterwards, and it
was perfectly justifiable in a moral point of view. When the hostages
which these places had given to the Romans had made their escape, and
had been retaken, the latter caused them to be indiscriminately put
to death; and therefore, as so many had lost a son or a brother, and
the very first families in these towns had been thus deeply wronged,
they naturally sought for revenge, and gave themselves up to Hannibal.
Yet the citadel of Tarentum remained to the Romans, and into it the
garrison of Metapontum also threw itself. The negotiations with Philip
of Macedon, which took place at this time, may have detained Hannibal
in the east of Italy. Whilst he was waiting till matters improved,
he reduced the Sallentine towns, and tried to keep the allies which
he still had true to him; for the Lucanians and the neighbouring
peoples changed, like weathercocks, with every wind. The Romans now
set to work in good earnest to take Capua. Hanno was still carrying on
operations in that neighbourhood; but they had already for two years
established themselves near Suessula, and had been laying waste the
whole country, so that famine had raged for a good while in Capua.
I cannot understand, why Hannibal, who now had got reinforcements,
did not make every exertion to relieve Capua which the Romans had
invested with a double entrenchment. He ought to have attacked them
in their entrenchments, and driven them out. At the urgent request
of the Campanians, he made in 541 an attempt, the meaning of which,
however, is not to be accounted for by our history, and there are many
contradictions in this undertaking. If we follow the most unpretending
account, Hannibal attacked the Romans, but was not able to break
through their lines: a few Numidians only got through, and opened a
communication with the town. But this could not be followed up, and so
he determined to make a diversion.
Of the two conflicting statements as to which road he took, we are
to consider that of Cœlius as the most improbable. The point in
dispute is, whether he came before the Porta Collina from the north,
through the country of the Pelignians, and on his retreat started
from the Capena, or the reverse. The former account is the more
worthy of belief; the other line would be too great a way round. This
determination of his seems to have taken the Romans by surprise; so
that there was hardly time enough for half of the troops from Capua
to reach Rome by the Appian road before him,--he was some days march
in advance,--although he moved along the arc of that chord by which
they went, namely, across the Vulturnus, through the district of
Cales towards Fregellæ, which was a very strong place. The people of
Fregellæ, like brave men, had broken down the bridges over the Liris,
and while he had to wait there till they were rebuilt, he wasted their
country: he then marched by the Latin road, and through Tusculum, to
the gates of Rome. But before his arrival, the consul Fulvius had come
up by the Appian road, and was at the Porta Capena. Whilst Hannibal was
already on the Esquiline, the former marched through the city by the
Carinæ at the very nick of time, and by a sudden attack hindered the
Carthaginian general from surprising the city on that spot. This was
also what Hannibal had wished; but he had hoped that both the armies
would be called away from Capua: the general, whom he had ordered
either to relieve the place, or else carry off its population, must not
have been able to do it. Hannibal encamped before the Porta Collina,
on the Monte Pincio, beyond the low grounds of the gardens of Sallust.
Here history again appears poetical. Twice did Hannibal march forth to
offer battle to the Romans, who also went out against him; but both
times a thunderstorm is said to have broken out just then, and when
the two armies withdrew, the brightness of the sky returned. These
_portenta_, we are told, convinced Hannibal that he could do nothing
against Rome. Other stories sound very fine; but they likewise are idle
tales. The Romans, it is said, at the very moment that Hannibal was
encamped before their city, were sending out reinforcements to the army
in Spain; and the field which was occupied by the enemy, was sold at
just as good a price as in the height of peace. It was not advisable
for Hannibal to accept a battle: he had no stronghold whatever in his
rear, while the Romans had behind them the unscaleable walls of the
city. When he had stayed eight days before the town, and the Roman
allies far and wide had not stirred, he broke up again, and retired by
Antrodoco and Sulmo to Samnium and Apulia, going through the midst of
hostile countries in which all the towns were shut against him, like a
lion chased by the hunters, but unhurt. The object of his undertaking
had been baffled; he was in that dismal plight, that with great objects
and great means, he still wanted the very thing, however trifling it
might have been, which could have brought about the result of those
objects and means.
In Capua, the distress had risen to the highest pitch, and the town
wanted to capitulate; but the Romans demanded, that it should surrender
unconditionally, on which the heads of the hostile party, Vibius
Virrius and twenty-seven other senators, resolved to die. And indeed
the result showed that they were right; for the Romans behaved with
the most frightful cruelty. The whole senate of Capua, without any
exception, were led in chains to Teanum, and the proconsul Q. Fulvius
Flaccus wished not even to leave the decision to the Roman senate.
But the proconsul Appius Claudius, to whom, as well as the other,
the city had been yielded up, wished to save as many as he could,
and he wrote to the senate, requesting them to institute a _causæ
cognitio_. Flaccus however, foreseeing this, went to Teanum, and
leaving unopened the letters received from the senate, ordered all the
senators of Capua to be put to death. Jubellius Taurea, the bravest
of the Campanians, whose heroism was acknowledged even by the Romans,
killed his wife and children, and himself awaited his execution by the
Romans. When the gates of Capua were opened, there is no doubt but
that the inhabitants suffered all that the citizens of a town taken
by storm have to suffer from the fury of the soldiers. Destroyed it
was not; but all Campanians of rank were banished, most of them to
Etruria; a great number of them were still executed as guilty, and even
without any direct charge against them, they lost their property; the
whole of the _ager Campanus_, all the houses and landed estates were
confiscated; so that there remained nothing but the common, nameless
rabble, and not a magistrate, besides foreigners and freedmen. The city
was afterwards filled again with a new population of Roman citizens and
others; a Roman præfect was sent thither to administer the law. Atella
and Acerræ, the periœcians of Capua, had a like fate. From one of the
Campanian towns, the whole of the population went over to Hannibal.
During this period, in the year of the battle of Cannæ, or in the
following one, old Hiero died at the age of ninety. His son Gelon,
who bore the same character for mildness as his father, but had been
long dead, had two or three daughters, and a son, Hieronymus. Hiero’s
authority was as well established as if his family had sat on the
throne for centuries. Hieronymus, who succeeded his grandfather, was a
contemptible, effeminate fellow; his father Gelon would have followed
quite a different policy from his. That the Syracusans did not like to
have the Romans as their real masters, was but natural; yet they were
obliged to acknowledge either the Carthaginians or the Romans as such,
and the latter, after all, had, on the whole, treated them well. But
there was a general fatality, which made all the nations fall away from
Rome. Hannibal had behaved in the same way towards Sicily, as he had
done in Italy after the battle on the Trasimene lake: he had dismissed
the Syracusan prisoners with presents, and after the battle of Cannæ,
he sent envoys to Syracuse to entice the king into an alliance. Among
these emissaries there were Hippocrates and Epicydes, two grandsons
of a Syracusan, who, when banished from his native city, had settled
in Carthage; a proof that such metics in Carthage did not cease to
be Greeks, although they had even Carthaginian names, as we may see
from monuments. These two were readily listened to by Hieronymus.
Their first proposition was to divide Sicily between Carthage and
Syracuse, with the Himera as a boundary, as in the days of Timoleon;
but Hieronymus in his day-dreams was not yet content with this: he
would not promise his alliance for anything less than the possession of
the whole island. Hannibal, who was far from being much in earnest in
this discussion, granted him his demand; for he hoped that afterwards
indeed he would be able to put him down, if he could only get him for
the present to declare himself against Rome. The Syracusans, who under
Hiero’s rule had never thought of a revolution, were disgusted with
his grandson’s ridiculous aping of eastern kings, and also with his
outrages and those of his companions; so that a party was formed which
wanted to restore the republic, and of course it was joined by all
who were for the Romans, and likewise by all those men of sense who
looked upon the rule of the Carthaginians as more ruinous than that of
the Romans. The conspiracy was discovered, and one of the accomplices
punished with death; yet those who had been found out would not betray
the rest, and thus Hieronymus was off his guard when a great number
of conspirators carried out their design, and he was murdered on the
road from Syracuse to Leontini, one of the most considerable places of
his petty kingdom. After his death, the republic was proclaimed, and a
number of generals appointed, very likely, one for every tribe (φυλή).
We find that a βουλά had always, even under the kings, a share in the
administration, as in all the republics governed by tyrants: that
council was allowed to continue. The question now was, who were to be
generals? There were also the brothers-in-law of the king elected among
them; so that the revolution cannot have been a root and branch one.
Nor indeed did they yet know after all whether they ought to uphold
the league with the Carthaginians. The Roman prætor Appius Claudius
negotiated with them, wishing to keep up the Roman alliance, and the
Syracusan citizens felt great hesitation to break it; but these two
envoys of Hannibal managed to get themselves chosen generals, and they
now did all they could to disturb the negotiation. The whole history
of those events is exceedingly perplexed. Livy has it from Polybius;
his account therefore is authentic. After there had been several
times an appearance of peace being concluded, the Carthaginian party
brought about a revolution with the help of the mercenaries, by which
the chief power was placed in the grasp of Hippocrates and Epicydes,
and the whole family of Hiero was murdered on the threshold of the
altar. After this horrible event, all was wild confusion: there was
a republic indeed in name; but these two fellows ruled by means of
the mercenaries; the unfortunate Syracusans were mere tools in their
hands. Yet it must not be forgotten, that it was also the unjustifiable
cruelty of the Romans which had irritated men’s minds. The community
of Enna, called together under a false pretext, was slaughtered for a
sham insurrection; so that far and near, every one fell away to the
Carthaginians. These now sent a considerable fleet under Himilco to
Sicily, which was indeed quite right and welcome to Hannibal himself,
for the purpose of maintaining the island, and dividing the Roman
forces. The fleet, for some time, kept the communication open between
Carthage and Syracuse; but the generals showed themselves to be most
wretchedly incompetent. Marcellus, who had gained glory by his contest
against Viridomarus, and near Nola, now got the command of a Roman army
in Sicily, and invested Syracuse. The town was quite easy to blockade
on the landside; but the sea remained nearly always open. The war
lasted for two years (538-540). It is represented to us as the siege
of Syracuse; but it rather consisted in the Romans carrying on war
from two very strong camps against the surrounding country. Himilco
had made himself master of Agrigentum, and from thence of a great
part of the Sicilian cities. Only the western towns of Lilybæum and
Panormus, and Messana and Catana in the north, remained always with
the Romans; but the whole semicircle round Agrigentum, even beyond
Heraclea, became subject to the Carthaginians. The Carthaginians tried
to relieve Syracuse, and they encamped in its neighbourhood; but the
unwholesome air, which had prevailed there ever since the foundation of
the city, and had more than once proved its salvation, destroyed the
whole of their army, and the general himself, and Hippocrates, who had
joined him, died. Marcellus made several attempts against Syracuse; but
when from the sea-side he attacked the Achradina, all his endeavours
were baffled by the mechanical skill of Archimedes. As is well known,
there are many accounts of this matter: the best authenticated confines
itself to this, that Archimedes foiled all the attempts of the Romans
to sap the walls; that he smashed the sheds which protected the
assailants, and destroyed the battering engines on their ships by his
superior machinery. It seems less true that he set fire to the Roman
fleet with burning-glasses: the silence of Livy, and consequently of
Polybius, from whom he borrowed his description, bears witness against
it. Marcellus never could have taken the town, had he not by chance
perceived that part of the wall, which adjoined the sea, was but
badly fortified, and had he not heard at the same time from deserters
that the citizens were quite heedlessly keeping a festival. This day
he availed himself of to scale that weak place; and thus the Romans
became masters of two parts of the town, Tycha and Neapolis, and soon
afterwards of the Epipolæ, that is to say, the town on the heights: the
greater portion was still to be taken, namely, the old town (Νᾶσος),
and the most flourishing part, namely, the Achradina; for Tycha and
Neapolis were only suburbs, which were not even connected with the
city. The Syracusans now began to treat. They were much inclined to
surrender, and Marcellus wished for nothing better; but the Roman
deserters, in their rage and despair, wanted to hold out to the last
gasp, and they managed to mislead the mercenaries, and to inspire them
with their own fury. Thus in a massacre the most eminent citizens were
butchered, and these barbarians usurped the government; so that there
was now at Syracuse the same terrible state of things which we read
of in Josephus of the besieged city of Jerusalem. If the Romans ever
could have openly departed from their principles, and have allowed the
deserters to go out free, Syracuse would not have been destroyed: but
they would not deviate from them ostensibly, although they did so in
other ways; for they had recourse in this war to bribery and corruption
of every kind, means which they had formerly scouted. Marcellus bribed
Mericus, a Spanish general among the mercenaries, to give up to him
part of the Achradina; and this treachery was planned with such
fiendish cleverness that it was completely successful. The garrison of
the Νᾶσος was enticed out under the pretence of repelling the enemy,
and the Νᾶσος as well as Achradina were taken. Syracuse was at that
time the most magnificent of all the Greek cities, Athens having long
since lost its splendour. Timæus, who had lived in the latter city, and
must needs have had a distinct remembrance of it, acknowledged Syracuse
as the first and greatest of all.