began. Masinissa put forth impudent claims to the oldest Phœnician
settlements, to the rich coast of Bysacene which the Carthaginians had
possessed from the very first. Polybius says that those districts had
belonged to Carthage as early as in the days of the Roman kings. This
was so barefaced, that the Romans had not the hardihood to declare
for him openly. Scipio Africanus went over as Roman commissioner and
umpire. The facts were so glaring, that he could not possibly decide
for Masinissa; yet he did not scruple with unjustifiable policy to
refuse to give sentence, and thus Carthage and Masinissa remained
at enmity with each other, and the Carthaginians must have felt
convinced, that any active resistance would involve them in a war with
the Romans: they were therefore obliged to confine themselves to the
defensive. Their position was a most unhappy one; just like that of
the states with which Napoleon had made peace in order to bring on
their ruin, in which cases he set everything like truth at defiance.
Unluckily for Carthage, Masinissa reigned upwards of fifty years
after the peace of Scipio, and during the whole of his life played
his game with Rome so cleverly, that her sad condition grew worse and
worse. Already before the war with Perseus, soon after the death of
Philip, they complained bitterly of Masinissa, who wrested from them
one district after another. The Romans for the sake of appearances
sent over arbitrators, who, however, allowed the affair to drag on and
never decided anything. And the plot thickened so much, that at last it
came to a war between Carthage and Masinissa, the date of which cannot
be stated with chronological precision,--very likely, not quite so
close upon the breaking out of the third Punic war.[56] The territory
of Carthage at that time was about as much as modern Tunis, and the
western part of Tripoli; Masinissa, by his continual conquests, was
the lord of one of the mightiest kingdoms which the world then knew,
and was much stronger than the Carthaginians. The Carthaginians had
gathered together a considerable army under Hasdrubal, one of their
generals; but their former disasters had not made them more warlike:
they did not what Macchiavell had wished for his own native city, not
having yet come to the conviction that they ought ever to rely on their
own bravery, and likewise to lighten the lot of their own subjects:
had it not been for this, the war might, after all, have taken quite a
different turn. They had amended none of the faults of their military
system, and they still carried on the war by means of mercenaries.
Hasdrubal went out to meet Masinissa with an army of fifty thousand
men; but he was quite an incapable general, and though the battle was
not decisively lost, he looked upon himself as beaten, and retreated
without securing his connexion with Carthage: he was, therefore, cut
off, and now began to make offers of peace, which, however, Masinissa
haughtily rejected. The latter would not consent to let go the army
thus hemmed in, which hunger and distress had driven to extremity,
until the Carthaginians gave hostages as pledges for the peace being
kept, undertook to pay five thousand talents within fifty years, and
recognised his encroachments upon them. When the defenceless and
disarmed soldiers were now marching off, Gulussa, Masinissa’s youngest
son, fell upon them, and cut most of them to pieces. Masinissa had
the hostages, and so he still demanded that the peace should be kept,
and even complained to the Romans of the Carthaginians not being
disposed to abide by it. The Romans had already for some time turned
their attention again to Carthage, very likely on account of the
flourishing state of its trade, and because they had been told that
stores of timber for building ships were heaped up in the arsenals:
for though indeed this had been by no means forbidden in the treaties,
the Carthaginians were thus able at a moment’s warning to build a
fleet. Rome now called for the surrender or the destruction of this
timber; and while the debates on the subject were going on, old Cato
incessantly urged in the senate, that Carthage should be destroyed.
The government of the world had given the senate an importance which
made up for the loss of power at home from the growth of the democratic
principle, and the senators felt more and more like kings. Now the
senate, with regard to Carthage, was divided between two opinions,--the
one of blind dogged hatred, that Carthage should be destroyed, at the
bottom of which was the consciousness that Rome was the object of
universal hatred; the other, that of P. Cornelius Scipio Nasica, which
held on the other hand that Carthage was a godsend, as nothing else
could keep Rome well balanced. Nasica seems to have been fully aware of
the actual condition of the state, and so were many others; but with
regard to the remedy, opinions were divided. Some thought that there
was no help for it, and that therefore one ought to go ahead, and make
the most of a short life. Cato was one of these. Others, like Nasica,
believed that the evil might at least be checked by superficial means,
as a thorough reform could not perhaps be carried out. A small party,
which afterwards came forward with Tib. Gracchus at its head, tried to
root out the disease by desperate remedies. Whether this justice to
Carthage in Nasica sprang indeed from a love of righteousness, is more
than we can tell; yet it may be that the son of him who was called “the
Best” wished to behave uprightly: certain it is that he was powerless,
and the destruction of Carthage was decreed. When Masinissa had beaten
the Carthaginians, and it was fancied that the end might be easily
gained, the Romans began to reproach the Carthaginians for that war
with Masinissa, as if it had been a breach of the treaty, when in
fact it had only been a measure of self-defence. The Carthaginians in
their alarm sent embassy after embassy, begging of the Romans to tell
them what they were to do to preserve the peace. But they were put off
with crooked answers, and assured that it was not meant to undertake
anything against them, only they ought to do their best to give
satisfaction to Rome. Resistance seemed so hopeless, that the utmost
humiliation was a necessity for Carthage: there was peace in all the
rest of the world, and Rome was fully at leisure.
In the year 603, two consular armies under L. Marcius Censorinus and
M’. Manilius, amounting, it is said, to eighty thousand men, were sent
in a large fleet to Sicily, and put on shore near Lilybæum. Thither
also the last Carthaginian ambassadors were directed to repair, as
the consuls were furnished with instructions. The Carthaginians saw
that the Romans were bent upon their ruin, and that nothing was left
to them, but to defend themselves to the last gasp; and yet the
ambassadors still appeared before the consuls. These gave as their
answer, that they could not then explain themselves; but that it was
not the wish of the Romans to bereave them of their freedom, and that
if they yielded to the commands which they would receive, they should
retain their liberties: still, it was added, as they had too often
already broken the peace, and as great preparations of theirs had been
observed, and too many factions were at work among them, Rome was to
have a guarantee; they should give three hundred children of the first
families as hostages. These, to the despair of their parents, were
sent to Sicily. Carthage had not a friend in the wide world: her very
oldest allies became faithless; even Utica, which hitherto had always
stood by her, now hopeless of her fate had thrown itself into the arms
of the Romans, by whom it was received, although this was against the
treaties. When the hostages were given, the Romans still sailed over
to Africa, and landed, partly near Utica, and partly at the old camp
of Scipio (_castra Cornelia_); here they took up a regular military
position, and the consuls now summoned the magistrates of Carthage to
receive their commands. They raised complaints that the Carthaginians
had built ships beyond the number allowed by the treaty; that they
had filled their arsenals with offensive weapons, which they meant
to use against Rome only; and it was therefore required of them that
they should surrender all their ships of war, and all the catapults,
and that moreover they should deliver up all their arms and stores.
Rome, it was also declared, would fully protect them, and the peace
with Masinissa would be sanctioned. Hard as they felt this to be, the
Carthaginians yielded to it; and the whole of the arms were brought on
a thousand waggons, and under the eyes of the Roman commissioners, to
the Roman camp. The Romans, on first landing, had demanded a supply
of corn for their army, and received the grain from the magazines of
the city, which was thus very nearly reduced to a state of famine.
With this the Carthaginians thought to have done enough; but now the
ambassadors received the last audience. They were led through the ranks
of the whole army to the tribunal of the consuls, who now told them,
that all that had been done betokened the good will of the Carthaginian
government, yet that the latter was not even master of the town; that
so long as this strong city was standing, Rome was not safe; and that
Carthage therefore must be demolished, and its inhabitants were to
build for themselves an open town in the inland country, two (German)
miles away from the sea. When the ambassadors remonstrated, the
consuls said that they had promised safety to the men, and not to the
walls; that the people should not be harmed, and they might just as
well live ten (Roman) miles from the sea as those who dwelt in Rome.
The outbursts of rage and despair at this infamous deceit were of no
avail; the last awful prayer was, that the consuls would, before the
ambassadors returned, cause the Roman fleet to make its appearance
before Carthage, to strike it with dismay. This was no treason in them;
it was prompted by despair. Those among them who had advised their
countrymen to yield, saw full well that, if they went home, they should
fall victims to the rage of the people; and they therefore remained
under the protection of the Romans. Those who came back, refused to
answer the people, who had gone out to meet them, and they weeping
brought the answer into the senate. It was resolved to die upon the
ruins of the city; the gates were immediately shut, and all the Romans
and Italians in the town were seized and tortured to death. This the
consuls had not expected. They were indeed well informed men,--Manilius
was even a highly distinguished jurist,--but they were unfit for war;
it may be that the fate of the town appeared to themselves so dreadful,
that their heart sickened, and they went to work without spirit. Had
they at once advanced to the city, they would have taken it, and the
misery been less; but they loitered in the camp, waiting till the
Carthaginians should surrender. Things, however, took quite a different
turn. The citizens made up their minds not to yield themselves up;
they laid hold of everything that might serve as a weapon, and worked
day and night with unexampled energy; the women gave their hair for
the ropes of the catapults, the slaves were set free, the walls were
manned, and the war declared. When the consuls saw that they had made a
bad business of it, they wished to storm the town. But across that neck
of land on which Carthage lay, it was fortified by a threefold wall,
three miles long, forty-five feet (thirty πήχεις) high, and twenty-five
feet thick, in which in former times there had been arsenals; and on
the side towards the sea, there was one somewhat lower. Both of these
the Romans tried to storm, but were beaten back. The country in the
neighbourhood of the city was left to Hasdrubal, the general who had
fought against Masinissa, and whom they had been obliged to sacrifice.
This Hasdrubal, with an army of twenty thousand men, formed of outcasts
and refugees, and acting independently, had ravaged the country, and at
the same time had waged a war of pillage against Masinissa. He and all
the rest who had been banished were reinstated, and Carthage appointed
him as her general without the city.
This war is so dismal, that I can hardly bear to think of it, and
still less to tell of it at any length. There is nothing more
heartrending than this struggle of despair, which indeed could not
end otherwise than in the destruction of the whole people, and that
most miserably, but which yet must be gone through. At first, one
is glad to see the discomfiture of the Romans, the whole might of
the unskilful consuls being baffled by the despair of the besieged.
The Carthaginians defended themselves bravely within the city: their
commander is unknown; without, there were Hasdrubal and Himilco Phameas
as partisans. The way in which the latter carried on the war, so as
by means of diversions to give the town a free opening to provision
itself, strongly reminds one of the achievements of Francesco Ferrucci
at the siege of Florence by Charles V., in the years 1529 and 1530; who
was at last taken prisoner and hanged by the Spaniards, whose behaviour
there was like that of the French in Tyrol. But although Phameas
distinguished himself very much as a military man, yet his end shows
how great was the corruption of those times. After having done things
which were so brilliant, that he ought to have felt called upon indeed
to remain true, he entered into negotiations with the Roman consul; and
he told his men that the fate of Carthage was decided, that every one
must now take care of himself, and that he could pledge himself for the
safety of all those who should join him. A few thousand men went over.
The Roman senate did not blush to give this traitor splendid garments,
money, landed estates, and other things of the same kind. This was a
heavy blow for Carthage; and yet at this very time it seemed as if its
fate was about to take a more propitious turn.
Masinissa again showed himself to be a base perfidious oriental. His
faithfulness to Rome had hitherto been quite natural, as to this
connexion he owed his greatness; but now he had rather see Carthage
saved than destroyed, although still weakened. He could not shut his
eyes to the fact that if Carthage was once a Roman province, he should
no longer be able to fleece it; and that moreover, as the Romans held
the maxim _bella ex bellis serendi_, they would soon find a handle
for quarrels: for if Carthage was no more, they would then have no
reason whatever for sparing him. And thus mistrust betrayed itself
between him and the Romans: he sent no troops, but merely asked what
they wanted? Offended at this, they told him that they would let him
know it in time, and thereupon he answered that he would wait for it.
Yet they afterwards called upon him for his help, and it was granted
them. He even began to treat with Carthage, wishing that it would
unconditionally throw itself into his arms. This is a thing which
often happens in eastern history: the same bashaw, for instance, who
had stirred up the Sultan against Ali Pacha, would at last, when he
was weakened, have been glad to see him saved. After the death of
Masinissa, his son Gulussa was very suspicious of the Romans. Had the
Carthaginians thrown themselves into the arms of Masinissa or his son,
these would have declared for them, and it is very possible that the
Roman rule in Africa would then have been broken.
The attacks on Carthage were left off, the siege was raised, and the
two consuls confined themselves to waging war against Hasdrubal and
Himilco. But Hasdrubal defeated the consul Manilius, who was obliged
to fall back with his army to Utica: on this occasion P. Scipio first
distinguished himself. In the following year (604), the consuls L.
Calpurnius Piso and L. Mancinus came over, and carried on the war in a
very bungling manner. Hasdrubal posted himself at Nepheris, a fortified
place a few days’ marches from the city, and every attempt to drive him
out was unsuccessful; and what is really astonishing, the sea was open
to the Carthaginians, although they had no fleet, and they continued
to get supplies from thence. The bad progress of the war, in which the
Romans took only single towns, was the amazement of the whole world,
and it strengthened the belief that the Nemesis for Rome’s ambition
would at length appear. At the same time happened the rising in
Macedonia under the pseudo-Philip; the Spaniards also roused themselves
to new hopes, and the Carthaginians tried to stir up commotions every
where. This general agitation, which reached far into Asia, gave
Carthage the courage to hold out, and not to enter into a league with
the Numidians.
The Romans were so much the more ashamed, as such base conduct as
theirs had been towards Carthage could not but rise up in judgment
against them; and therefore their dissatisfaction with the generals
was very great. In the year 605, P. Scipio was chosen consul. He is
in the classical ages never called Æmilianus, although the analogy of
this appellation is quite correct; but he is spoken of as _P. Scipio,
Paulli filius_. Thus it is always in Cicero, there being no manuscript
which has Æmilianus: in the _fasti_, this surname is always of modern
interpolation.[57]
Scipio is one of those characters, which have a great name in history,
but of which we may ask, do they deserve their fame? I do not gainsay
his great qualities: he is a distinguished general, a very eminent man
in his day, and he has done many praise-worthy and righteous deeds.
But he made a display of this worthiness; even quite ordinary acts
of his were to be cried up as great achievements: one really blushes
for the age in which such things could have been given out as being
above common. From what we are told by his teacher and friend Polybius
himself, who loved him dearly, we may see that he also thought that
there was much in him which was mere ostentation. He had received from
Polybius a most varied education, and had been particularly instructed
by him in the art of war. Besides this military ability, he was
remarkable as a political character: he was one of those who were for
upholding the existing state of things; he found himself comfortable
in it; for him what was established was all right, and he did not
trouble himself with asking whether it might not have been wrong in
its origin. Perhaps he looked upon the condition of the republic as so
hopeless, that he believed, that any change must have shaken it: such
views are held by many otherwise true-hearted and honest men. In no
respect is he to be compared to the elder Scipio, who was a man of real
genius, and felt himself to be far above all his contemporaries, so
that with great love for his countrymen, he had hatred against any one
who wanted to put himself on a par with him. The latter was artless,
even to rashness; whereas, on the contrary, his adopted grandson was a
made up man, in whom genius was wanting. The education of the younger
Scipio was much more finished than that of the elder one; for he had
all the knowledge of a well instructed Greek, and he lived with the
most distinguished men, such as Polybius and Panætius. He allowed
himself to be employed by his nation for two terrible destructions,
which were quite against his feelings; yet he did not all he could
to prevent them: the elder Scipio would not have destroyed Carthage.
Besides which, his behaviour towards his brother-in-law Tib. Gracchus
is altogether blameable: for with all his influence and might he backed
the thoroughly bad party; whence also he was so much hated by the
people, as was seen at his death. The introduction to the _Somnium
Scipionis_ is not to be considered as historical by any means: the
very fact that he had first come to Africa as a military tribune under
Manilius and Censorinus, is incorrect; it is one of Cicero’s historical
blunders. Cicero has treated him with particular favour. Thus it often
happens that we identify ourselves with some personage in history or
in literature; we learn to feel like him, and to feel as his case were
ours, and we then ascribe to him quite a different character from that
which is really his. Scipio’s position was not altogether unlike that
of Cicero.
Whilst still very young, Scipio stood for the ædileship, instead of
which he was chosen to be consul, although the _lex Villia annalis_ was
then rigorously observed. The provisions of this law we cannot state
for certain: they were not the same as in aftertimes; the statutes
which were in force in Cicero’s days, dated from the age of Sylla.
Nevertheless Scipio was elected consul by the unanimous voice of public
opinion.
[Illustration:
_a._ triple wall.
_b._ Byrsa.
_c._ harbour.
_d._ newly dug canal.
_e._ Megara (Magalia).
_f._ Roman Carthage.
]
Carthage was built on a peninsula, of which, however, it did not take
up the whole, as indeed has been supposed, but only the southern
half: this mistake arose from its having been said that the city was
twenty-three (Roman) miles in circumference. It seems to have been
entirely surrounded by a sort of breastwork. This is now known from the
excavations of Colonel Humbert, who was several years in the service
of the Dey of Tunis; but the results of his researches have not yet
found their way into books.[58] (His papers fell into the hands of a
downright adventurer, Count Camillo Borgia, who copied his drawings,
and passed them off as his own.) The old town of Carthage was so
thoroughly destroyed, that no traces of it are found above ground;--the
place on which it stood was laid under a curse, and therefore the later
Roman Carthage was founded by the side of it;--yet there is still to
be seen a quay built of great blocks of hewn stone, from which I had a
piece broken off as a relic, which is, however, still lying at Leghorn.
Where it faced the isthmus, the city, as has been remarked before,
was fenced by a triple wall; next to this was the Bozra; on the south
was the port, which was detached, as at Cadiz. The harbour (Cothon),
which was dug out, had several basins with a narrow entrance, like
the docks in London: from the offing one sailed into the harbour for
merchant vessels, and from thence by a canal to the arsenal, which was
situated on an island, and strongly fortified; round the basins, there
were storehouses with the equipments for every ship. This port was of
later origin; probably there was a third district also. In the course
of time, there had likewise grown up a large suburb, Megara or Magalia,
the situation of which cannot be exactly defined: it was quite covered
with gardens, but was also surrounded by a wall. As the coast was very
steep, it was difficult to land there. It is the present El Marsa. The
Roman Carthage, founded again by C. Gracchus and Cæsar, was in this
neighbourhood, as may be clearly made out from the antiquities, which
are brought to light there. The only Carthaginian relics to be found in
it, are tombs; which is easily accounted for, as it lay outside of the
city.