Fortunately he has copied from Polybius; for otherwise he is below
criticism. Yet even then, his account, like that of Zonaras, is very
obscure and unconnected. We merely gather from thence that Scipio
landed on the outer part of the peninsula, where he took up his
position, and made himself master of the suburb; so that Carthage was
confined to the old town and the harbours. About a year before his
consulship already, a Roman officer had discovered the possibility
of landing at Megara, and of taking possession of it; and by this
means Carthage was brought to great distress, as a large part of the
provisions used to come in that way. Nothing could be done against
the walls on the landside; Scipio, therefore, directed his attack
against the side from the bay with redoubled energy. In the meanwhile,
the Carthaginians summoned Hasdrubal to the city, and he entrenched
himself on the isthmus before it; but when the suburb was taken, he
threw himself panic-struck into the town, and the Romans occupied his
fortified camp; so that the Carthaginians were entirely hemmed in.
Another Carthaginian general, Bithyas, had remained in the interior
of the country; and he behaved admirably, always supplying the city
with provisions, which he conveyed to it through the very midst of the
unwieldy Roman ships. To cut off from Carthage this support, Scipio
now chose as a last expedient, the gulf being shallow, to choke up the
mouth of the harbour by running a dam across; and this was so much the
easier, as the swell, when coming from the Syrtes, carries with it a
good deal of mud. The harbour has ceased to exist; yet one may still
very distinctly make out its site and shape from the silt which has
been washed in. From the dam, Scipio tried to batter the wall of the
harbour with his engines: the desperate struggles of the Carthaginians
to hinder this, beggar all description. The greatest feat which they
accomplished, was the building of a whole fleet of fifty triremes in
the arsenal, and then,--as the latter was connected by a canal with
the outer harbour, the entrance of which Scipio was endeavouring to
block up,--digging from thence an outlet on the other side to the sea,
by which they brought out their ships to attack the Roman fleet in the
gulf. Polybius (in Appian) justly remarks, that, if at that moment they
had fearlessly fallen upon the Roman fleet, they would undoubtedly have
destroyed it, as the Romans had utterly neglected their naval concerns.
Unhappily, they slackened after their more than human effort, and,
lingering for some days, irretrievably lost time, and with it all the
fruits of their labour: the Romans got their ships ready as well as
they could, and thus the Carthaginians were driven back, particularly
by the Græco-Asiatic ships of Sida, which fought quite in a way of
their own. Four of these small vessels would cast anchor, on which
they swung round as on a pivot, and thus defended themselves against
the Carthaginians, an example which was followed by the others. The
Carthaginians retreated. The next day, they wished to renew the attack:
but they got foul of each other in the narrow entrance, the canal,
which they had dug, being unfortunately not wide enough, and the Romans
bore down upon them, and drove them against the wall of the harbour; so
that this gigantic undertaking was again baffled. The Carthaginians now
saw nothing but ruin before their eyes. Scipio first took the harbour
for merchantmen, and from thence he advanced through the canal against
the arsenal. Thus the city was conquered bit for bit, and the Romans
made their way as far as the arsenal; as this could not have been held,
the Carthaginians, perhaps too hastily, at once set fire to it, and
then to the storehouses for the ships. The Romans were in possession
of both harbours, and the fight was for the old city, Bozra (Byrsa),
which had no walls on that side, but only leant upon the threefold
wall on the isthmus: from the harbour, three large streets led up to
the Byrsa, and in these the rich and the old families seem to have
lived:--one may still trace in the description the gradual development
of the city. The houses there were most of them seven or eight stories
high, with flat roofs. (We must look upon Carthage as having been
with regard to art and beauty like the fine towns of Greece, but with
much more of Roman grandeur and massiveness: the building of stately
streets is ascribed to them by the Romans as a thing peculiarly their
own; the Greeks knew nothing of it.) There was now the same struggle
as at Saragossa. House after house was defended and taken; the enemy
broke through the party-walls, they fought from room to room, and when
they had forced their way up the stairs, and driven the unfortunate
inmates from the last stories, they tried to throw bridges from the
roofs across the streets. The superior strength of the Romans assured
them the victory, besides which, a most fearful famine was raging in
the city where people were already feeding on dead bodies: and yet the
besieged would not hear of surrender, though indeed such a thing could
hardly have been mooted, as Hasdrubal had treated the Roman prisoners
with the most horrible barbarity. When, after much bloodshed, part of
the city was already taken, the Romans stopped short, and set fire to
the buildings; on which the Carthaginians, fleeing before the flames,
pulled up the houses, and thus raised up a huge mound of rubbish
against the wall and the citadel: the harrowing description of this
fire is evidently from Polybius, the unfortunate eye-witness of the
horrors which now took place. The soldiers deliberately buried the
wounded alive under the ruins! Thus the old town was reached, and now
every one tried only to save himself; the priests went as suppliants
with signs of truce, and begged for mercy: Scipio then caused it to be
announced that the lives of those who would come out should be spared.
On this, the people which still survived, fifty thousand in number,
came forth; the Roman deserters only, with Hasdrubal and his family,
retreated to the highest part of the citadel, a most hallowed place
which was called Ἀσκληπιεῖον. Hasdrubal was base enough to sue for
his life; but his wife slew her children, and cursing him, even from
the pinnacle of the temple, threw herself into the flames, an example
which was followed by the deserters. Thus Scipio became master of a
heap of smouldering ruins drenched with blood. Much must, however, have
been preserved, as he took from the temples many Sicilian trophies,
which he sent back to that island. Neither Tarentum nor Capua had been
destroyed by the senate; but Scipio had to raze Carthage to the ground
at their command. He now completed the work already begun, and drove a
plough-share across the site as a sign of its everlasting desolation:
the army, when it went away, left only that utter wilderness in the
midst of which Marius seated himself sixty years afterwards. The
prisoners were treated with more or less humanity: most of them were
sold for slaves, some also were slain; a few of those of higher rank
met with a better fate, and were distributed among the Italian towns.
Bithyas was one of these; their race and their name perished from the
earth. The Romans, whose forefathers had put to death the great C.
Pontius, spared the life of Hasdrubal: he was kept for the triumph.
Carthage had stood for seven hundred years. Part of its territory was
given to the Numidian kings, the three sons of Masinissa; the rest
became a Roman province, under the rule of a proconsul or prætor.
THE PSEUDO-PHILIP. THE ACHÆAN WAR. DESTRUCTION OF CORINTH.
When Carthage was overpowered, the Macedonian war was already ended,
and Corinth near its downfall. The Macedonian war of Andriscus is a
striking example of the way in which the whole of a people may be
taken in. The false Demetrius, as he was called, was in the opinion of
those who knew history well, by no means an impostor: but he had been
brought up in Poland, had gone over to the Roman catholic religion, and
had adopted European manners; whence the mistrust which he met with in
Russia. There is a very strong likelihood that one of the Sebastians
in Portugal, was the true king: (Lessing, in the “_Literatur briefe_,”
has also written a masterly article on this subject, though it was one
which was out of his beat.) But Andriscus was really an impostor, most
likely a Thracian gladiator; heaven knows how he could have dreamed
of the venturesome idea of giving himself out as the son of Perseus:
perhaps he bore some likeness to him. Such personifications are not
unseldom attempted in the East; in Europe, some instances of the kind
are met with in the middle ages. The war had already broken out when
Scipio became consul, perhaps even a year before: (the destruction of
Carthage was in the time of his proconsulship.)
Perseus and his sons were, after the triumph of Æmilius Paullus, sent
as prisoners to Alba on the lake Fucinus, where they were treated
in a way which clearly showed that their extinction was determined
on. The king did not outlive this cruel usage more than two years;
he had so childishly clung to life, that he would not listen to the
hints of Æmilius Paullus, to take it himself: they probably killed
him by constantly disturbing his sleep. His eldest son died in the
same manner; the youngest lived in the most abject degradation. Being
clever, he learnt the Latin language, and earned his daily bread as
clerk to the municipal council of Alba: beyond this, we have no further
trace of him.
During the Carthaginian war, Andriscus now set forth that he was a
son of Perseus, and he found a party in Macedonia; being, however,
unable to stand his ground, he went to Demetrius in Syria, and was
by him given up to the Romans. Such an act is just what one would
have expected from Demetrius, who had every reason to do his best to
regain his footing with the Romans, now that he had only just escaped
being punished by them. He had fled indeed from Rome after the death
of his brother Antiochus Epiphanes, to secure the throne; and the
Romans had sent commissioners to Syria, on hearing that the Syrians,
contrary to the existing treaties, were keeping elephants, and had
moreover built a greater number of ships than they were allowed. One
of these commissioners was slain in a riot at Laodicea, and Demetrius,
with great difficulty, turned aside the vengeance of the Romans, by
yielding up the murderers and killing the elephants. Under these
circumstances, it was but natural that Andriscus was given up. At
Rome, this man was, as an adventurer, held in such contempt, that he
was not properly guarded; and he again made his escape. He came to
Thrace, where the Romans were already feared and hated; all sorts
of people flocked to him there, and he made an inroad into Macedon.
A war in that country was very inconvenient to the Romans, who were
engaged in their enterprise against Carthage, and had no troops in
the north of Greece. To the amazement of every body, Andriscus routed
the Macedonians on the eastern bank of the Strymon; he then crossed
the river, and beat them once more, whereupon they all joined him.
His success was quite wonderful; he put on the diadem under the
name of Philip. Things must at that time have been in a very dismal
state in Macedon. The Romans had brought in the wretched republican
constitution, and the most eminent men had been led away to Italy;
so that the people, who from the earliest times had been accustomed
to kingly rule, eagerly caught at this hope of bettering its lot. In
Thessaly also, he found partizans. Nasica, who happened to be there,
got together the contingents of the Greeks, and with their aid repulsed
Philip when he invaded it: at that time, therefore, the Greeks were
still faithful. Andriscus was a tyrannical fellow at bottom: Polybius
calls him στυγνὸς ἀνήρ. Yet he knew how to make himself respected:
his armaments were on an extraordinary scale, and he ventured to wage
war even against the Roman prætor, P. Juventius Thalna; after having
beaten him, he marched once more into Thessaly. Matters looked serious
enough: Q. Metellus, the prætor, was obliged to go with a large army to
Greece, where he landed on the coast, which could not have been easily
defended; in the meanwhile, the Achæans already showed themselves
very mutinous, and the war, if it lasted, could not but lead to a
rising. Metellus drove the king from Thessaly, who, like Perseus, fell
back upon Pydna, followed by the Romans. The Macedonians, who were
superior in numbers, divided their forces for a foray; and Metellus
took advantage of this, and attacked and utterly routed them. The
conquest of Macedonia in this insurrection was not, however, so easy as
the former one had been; for many places held out, expecting a worse
fate. On this occasion Pella must have been destroyed: Dio Chrysostom,
in the first century after the birth of Christ, speaks of it as a
ruined city; it now lies buried under mounds of earth, and is only to
be traced by the row of hills which marked its site. Undoubtedly the
most interesting antiquities might be found there, especially works
of art; but unfortunately, the present condition of European affairs
gives little hope of any thorough researches being made there so very
soon. Andriscus was taken prisoner in Thrace, and put to death: Macedon
became a regular province, and from henceforth a governor seems to have
been constantly sent thither; its few remaining privileges were taken
away.
Had the Achæans known what they wanted, the revolt of the pseudo-Philip
would have been the moment for them to act: but they allowed themselves
to be beguiled into folly and absurdity. Although we cannot disguise
from ourselves, that the causes which hastened on the fall of Achaia,
were disgraceful to the Achæans, yet it is a fact that its ruin made
the condition of the survivors not better but worse; and this awakens
our sympathy for them. And moreover, this degenerate people still had
among them many excellent men. The Romans had for a long time been
bent on the destruction of Achaia, and by means of traitors, such as
Callicrates and Andronidas, they ruled there with unlimited sway;
hence causes for grievances arose, and when these fellows had once
gained a settled position, they too were no longer as ready to do the
dirty work as before. The catastrophe was wholly brought on by one
unhappy violent act of the otherwise excellent Philopœmen, a man who
was justly called the last of the Greeks. He entertained from his very
childhood a deadly hatred against Sparta, since Cleomenes had destroyed
his native town of Megalopolis; and to bring down Sparta, was what he
ever had most at heart. He took advantage of Rome’s being entangled
in the war of Antiochus, to compel Sparta to join the Achæan league,
and to adopt its customs and forms; for among the Achæans, unlike the
other confederacies of the same kind in the ancient world, such a
fusion existed. Achaia then comprised the whole of the Peloponnesus:
that strange federal system was full as mischievous as that of our
unfortunate German confederacy, in which the least of the petty princes
has just as good a vote as he on whom the safety of the country
hinges;--or as the state of things in America before the constitution
of Washington, when Delaware with seventy thousand inhabitants, had
an equal vote with Virginia, the population of which amounted to half
a million; or as in the republics of the Netherlands, where Zeeland,
which paid three per cent. of the taxes, had by its votes as much
weight as Holland which paid fifty-eight per cent. This absurdity was
the ruin of the Achæan league. Elis was a large town and country, while
Lacedæmon, even after the sea-coast had been already severed from it,
was yet greater than all Achaia; nevertheless, each of the twelve
little Achæan townships, many of which were not larger than some of
our German villages,[59] had just as many votes as Lacedæmon. But the
second article was the most galling of all. Even as Sicyon had adopted
the Achæan νόμιμα, which was all very well, so was Sparta likewise to
do away with the laws of Lycurgus, to which it had clung with so much
pride, and to put up with those of the Achæans: this was done some
years before the war with Perseus. Spartiates, in the true sense of the
word, there were none at that time, but only Lacedæmonians; the former
had died away, and since the days of Cleomenes, the population of the
town, which consisted of descendants of the Periœcians and Neodamodes,
under the name of Lacedæmonians, stepped into the full rights of
citizens. But as these Lacedæmonians had adopted the laws and the ἀγωγή
of Lycurgus, and prided themselves in them, it was a great piece of
cruelty in Philopœmen to force them to drop them again: for this was a
change which was felt throughout the whole business of every day life.
Moreover, there is not much to be said in praise of the Achæan forms,
and however little good there may have been in the Spartan system,
if it did nothing else, it made good soldiers. For these reasons,
the Lacedæmonians strove to rid themselves of this hateful alliance,
and there were long negotiations in consequence: yet it was still
binding on them in the beginning of the seventh century, when even a
Lacedæmonian, Menalcidas, was the general of the Achæan league.
About this time, some unlucky quarrels having arisen between the
Oropians and Athenians, the former bribed Menalcidas with ten talents
to help them. The assistance, however, came too late; notwithstanding
which he exacted the money from them, and though he had previously
promised part of it to Callicrates, he kept the whole for himself.
From the charge which the latter brought against him, sprang all the
woes which befell Achaia. Menalcidas did his utmost to sever Lacedæmon
from the league, and he succeeded. At the time of the negotiations
which took place about it at Rome, both Menalcidas and the Achæan
ambassador deceived the people who had sent them: each of them carried
home a false decision. It was just then the most unfortunate period
of the third Punic war. Lacedæmon now severed itself, and a war broke
out between the Achæans and Lacedæmonians, in which the latter had
the worst of it: for Menalcidas was a wretched general, and they were
so hard pressed that they had to consent to an agreement by which the
Achæans got every thing that they wanted. Menalcidas laid hands upon
his own life, and the Lacedæmonians again joined the Achæan league.
When the Romans, in the year 605, now saw that they were about to
overthrow Carthage, they also took a different tone towards Achaia.
The Achæans had acted in direct disobedience to them, and had thus
drawn down their vengeance upon themselves, although they had remained
faithful during the revolt of the pseudo-Philip, and had given them
their aid. But the very prosperity of Achaia may have led the Romans
to break it up. Its extent in those times cannot be stated with
exactness: it very likely took in the whole of Peloponnesus and Megara,
and although Attica, Phocis, and Locris did not belong to it, several
places yet farther off, by having isopolity, were in the league; for
instance, Heraclea, by mount Oeta, Pleuron, in Ætolia. The Roman
commissioners, C. Aurelius Orestes and his colleagues, appeared at
Corinth, and announced it to be the will of the Roman senate, that
Lacedæmon should be declared independent; and that all the places,
which, at the time of the alliance with Philip, had not belonged to
Achaia, but had been under Philip’s sway, should be separated from it:
these were Corinth, Orchomenus in Arcadia, Heraclea, Pleuron. (Whether
Elis and Messene belonged to the same category, is more than we know,
as Appian’s notices are so scanty: the _excerpta_ of Constantinus
Porphyrogenitus will very likely still bring to light a great deal more
of this period.) This was about the half of the Peloponnesus, and the
most distinguished of their towns. The Achæan council, then assembled
in Corinth, would not listen to the end of this message; they ordered
the doors to be thrown open, and the people to be called together to
hear the insolence of the Romans. The rage of the people was beyond all
bounds: the Romans returned to their lodgings, without having gotten
an answer; the citizens spread themselves about the town and fell upon
the Lacedæmonians; everywhere the houses were searched to see whether
any Lacedæmonian had hidden himself within, and not even that of the
Roman ambassadors was spared. The first of these, Aurelius Orestes, was
bent upon revenge; but the Roman senate was not yet inclined to inflict
immediate punishment. We find it often stated that Corinth had been
destroyed _ob pulsatos legatos_; this is not to be understood literally
of personal violence, _pulsare_ being the technical expression for
every violation of the law of nations. Even a derogatory _appellatio_
of the ambassador, by which his dignity was insulted, was termed
_pulsatio_.
The Roman senate did not trust its allies, and again sent
commissioners; so that the Achæans might have easily saved themselves
by submission. The demand of the Romans was a most glaring injustice;
but unhappily there is henceforward in all the dealings of the Roman
people with foreign nations, nothing but insolence and unrighteousness.
And yet, now that the moral interest of the Roman history is quite at
an end, a new one begins: the history of Rome becomes neither more
nor less than the general history of those ages, and the events in
the latter which find no place in the former, are so insignificant
that they cannot be made into an independent history. Now though the
Achæans could hardly have succeeded in getting the Romans to desist
from their demands, they ought at all events to have submitted to their
will: it was madness to kick against it. But it was with them as with
the ill-fated Jews, in that last struggle with the Romans of which we
read the history in Josephus; those who had the language of freedom on
their lips, were the fiercest tyrants of the nation. He who votes for
yielding to necessity, is often held to be a vile traitor; the man, on
the contrary, who is for risking everything, is looked up to as a lover
of his country. The prophet Jeremy already had good reason to complain
of the false prophets who beguiled the people to mad undertakings.
Just so it was with the Achæans. Those among them who talked the most
loudly of freedom, were by no means its best friends; the true patriots
indeed were those who gave their advice for peace. The Romans were now
still waiting for more favourable circumstances, as they were not in
a condition to take the field, on account of the Macedonian and Punic
wars: embassies therefore went backwards and forwards on both sides.
Achaia had formerly been under the lead of Callicrates, one of its
citizens, who had sold himself to the Romans; and it was now under the
influence of a couple of madmen, Critolaus and Diæus, his most violent
foes, who were for resistance, even to the last gasp. Critolaus amused
the Roman ambassadors. As the Achæans only met twice a-year, he now
sent to call one of these meetings, and promised to introduce the Roman
ambassadors; but he secretly warned all the members not to come, and
then declared that, according to the laws, a new assembly could not be
held for six months.