Carthage clears the Alps, Rome traverses the seas, the two
peoples, personified in two men Hannibal and Scipio, wrestle
and are desperate to terminate the struggle. ’Tis a duel _à
outrance_, a fight to the death. Rome totters, she utters a cry
of anguish: _Hannibal ad portas!_ But she rises again, uses
the limits of her strength in a last blow, throws herself on
Carthage and effaces her from the world.--VICTOR HUGO.
A taste of blood whets the appetite of a nation no less than of
an animal. It is notorious that the love of power grows with its
acquisition. It was inevitable then that the Romans, after beating off
their eastern enemy, should turn their eyes more and more jealously
towards their one remaining rival in the west--namely, Carthage. A
certain amount of antagonism there had doubtless been all along between
Rome and Carthage, but there was a long time during which the Italian
city had hardly achieved strength enough to excite a real jealousy on the
part of a community of such recognised power as Carthage. And even now
there was no possibility that Rome could claim to compete with her rival
on the sea. Inheriting the traditions of her mother city, Tyre, Carthage
was pre-eminently a commercial city. She occupied that pre-eminence of
the western Mediterranean that Tyre so long held in the East, and she
was little disposed to accept without a struggle the rivalry of a people
of another land and race. It was inevitable then that a war to the death
must sooner or later determine the question of mastery so soon as Rome
had achieved a degree of power which enforced her recognition as an
actual rival of Carthage. The contest was precipitated--as might have
been expected--by the condition of things in Sicily, an island which lay
intermediate between the territories of the two powers, and thus almost
of necessity became a bone of contention between them. In the early days,
indeed, it was the Greeks and Carthaginians who disputed over Sicily,
and perpetually quarrelled there, but now after the death of Agathocles,
the powerful tyrant of Syracuse, and the defeat of Pyrrhus, it became
clear that Syracuse and the other Greek cities of Sicily must look for
aid in future to Rome rather than to Greece. But the acceptance of such
an alliance on the part of Rome virtually implied war with Carthage, and
such a war broke out actively only a few years after the expulsion of
Pyrrhus from Italy. It required indeed a series of three most memorable
wars, extending over a period of more than a century, finally to decide
the fate of Carthage.
The first of these wars--in some sense perhaps the most important, yet
as regards its results by far the least striking in itself--lasted some
twenty-three years. It was fought out largely in Sicily itself by the
Romans who were, for the most part, successful and in the end entirely
victorious; and on the sea, where the fleets of the Romans were for a
long time quite unable to compete with their rivals; the same dogged
pertinacity, however, that had made Rome mistress of Italy and that had
brought about the final triumph over Pyrrhus, stood them in good stead
in the new effort to create a powerful navy--an effort which was at last
crowned with such complete success that in the final decisive battle at
the Ægatian Islands, the fleet of Carthage was entirely destroyed and
dispersed. At last Carthage sued for peace, acknowledging the supremacy
of Rome in Sicily and giving up all claim to that island.
The events that followed illustrate not merely the inertia of
long-established institutions in the way in which Carthage rallied
from her defeat and returned again and again to the contest, but they
illustrate even more strikingly the influence which individual great
men have in history. There have been philosophers who have contended
that great statesmen and great warriors are rather the result of the
opportunity of their times than a directing influence; but it is hard
for any one who attentively considers the course of history to overlook
the fact that the great man, even though in some sense called forth by
the necessities of the time, yet may put his stamp in a most definitive
way upon the trend of future events. So it was, for example, with
Alexander; so it was with Pyrrhus; and so it was now with a group of
great Carthaginians including Hamilcar Barca, his son-in-law Hasdrubal,
and most notably of all, the son of Hamilcar, the famous but ill-fated
warrior Hannibal.
These men, fired with loyalty to their native city, were imbued with a
bitter hatred of Rome, and swore to devote their lives to the work of
gaining back prestige for Carthage and to the destruction of her enemy.
In the end their effort was not successful; yet the struggle in which
they participated was one of the most wonderful and picturesque episodes
in all history, and it has bequeathed us the name of Hannibal as that of
one of the three or four greatest generals of all time. The story of how
he precipitated the Second Punic War through the destruction of Saguntum;
how he crossed the Alps with his army, invading the territory of Italy
itself, and there defeating the Romans again and again until their very
national existence seemed threatened; and of how, finally, recalled from
Italy to protect Carthage herself against the invasion of the Roman
Scipio Africanus, Hannibal was defeated before Carthage, all his labour
of years coming to nought--must be told in detail. Suffice it here to say
that this story, fascinating in itself, is of double interest, because it
relates not merely to the prowess of individual warriors, of individual
hosts, but to the evolution of that world-power through which Rome was to
stamp her influence for all time on European history.
Yet a Third Punic War was necessary before Carthage was finally removed
for all time from the stage of important history. Another Scipio, called
Africanus Minor, the adopted son of his great predecessor, was the leader
of the Roman arms in that final assault upon Carthage, and the somewhat
unwilling officer who carried out the mandate of the Roman senate, which
declared that Carthage should be absolutely destroyed. That mandate
was put into effect. No rival remained to Rome in the West, and, as we
shall see, steps had been taken which resulted almost simultaneously in
the final subjugation of those powers that hitherto had disputed the
influence of Rome in the East.[a]
CAUSES OF THE FIRST PUNIC WAR
[Sidenote: [326-289 B.C.]]
Nothing is more remarkable in the history of Rome than the manner in
which she was brought into contact with only one enemy at a time. During
the heat of her contest with the Samnites, Alexander of Macedon was
terminating his career. The Second Samnite War broke out in 326 B.C.;
and in the following year the great king died at the untimely age of
thirty-two. The possibility that he might have turned his course westward
occurred to Roman minds. Livy[c] broaches the question, whether Rome
would have risen superior to the contest or not, and decides it in the
affirmative. But his judgment is that of a patriot, rather than of a
historian. Scarcely did Rome prevail over the unassisted prowess of the
Samnites. Scarcely did she drive the adventurous Pyrrhus from her shores.
If a stronger than Pyrrhus--a man of rarest ability both for war and
peace--had joined his power to that of C. Pontius the Samnite, it can
hardly be doubted that the history of the world would have been changed.
The same good fortune attended Rome in her collision with Carthage. The
adventurous temper of Pyrrhus led him from Italy to Sicily, and threw
the Carthaginians into alliance with the Romans. What might have been
the result of the Tarentine War, if the diplomacy of Cineas had been
employed to engage the great African city against Rome? Now that Italy
was prostrate, it was plain that a collision between the two governments
was inevitable. As Pyrrhus left the soil of Italy forever, he said
regretfully: “How fair a battle-field we are leaving for the Romans and
Carthaginians!”
It was by means of her fleets that Carthage was brought into connection
and collision with other countries. In early days she had established
commercial settlements in the south of Spain and in Sicily. It was in
the latter country that she came in contact first with the Greeks, and
afterwards with the Romans. In early times the Carthaginians contented
themselves with obtaining possession of three factories or trading
marts on the coast of Sicily--Panormus, Motya, and Lilybæum, which they
fortified very strongly. But after the great overthrow of the Athenian
power by the Syracusans (413 B.C.), the Carthaginian government formed
the design of becoming masters of this fertile and coveted island. But
their successes were checked by Dionysius the tyrant of Syracuse, whose
long reign of thirty-eight years (405-367 B.C.) comprises the time
of Rome’s great depression by the Gallic invasion, while the year of
his death is coincident with that of the Licinian laws, the era from
which dates the constant advance of the great Italian city. After many
vicissitudes he was obliged to conclude a peace by which the river
Halycus was settled as the boundary between Grecian and Carthaginian
Sicily, and the territory of Agrigentum was added to Syracusan rule (383
B.C.).
In 317 B.C. Agathocles made himself king of Syracuse, and in 310 B.C.
the Carthaginians declared war against him. Reduced to great straits,
he took the bold step of transporting the troops which remained for
the defence of the capital into Africa, so as to avail himself of the
known disaffection of the Libyan subjects of Carthage. His successes
were marvellous. One of the suffets fell in battle, the other acted as
a traitor. All the Libyan subjects of Carthage supported the Sicilian
monarch, but he was obliged to return to Sicily by an insurrection there.
The remainder of his life was spent in vain attempts in Sicily, in
Corcyra, and in southern Italy. He died in 289 B.C., less than ten years
before the appearance of that other fearless adventurer Pyrrhus in Italy.
[Sidenote: [289-264 B.C.]]
After the death of Agathocles, the Carthaginians and Greeks of Sicily
rested quiet till Pyrrhus undertook to expel the former from the island.
The appearance of Carthaginian fleets off Ostia, and in the Gulf of
Tarentum, roused the jealousy of the Italian republic, and an opportunity
only was wanting to give rise to open war between the two states.
The occupation of Messana by the Campanian mercenaries of Agathocles,
calling themselves Mamertines, has been noticed. From this place they
became dangerous neighbours of Syracuse. A young man named Hiero, who
had won distinction in the Sicilian campaigns of Pyrrhus, defeated these
marauders at Centuripæ, and was by his grateful compatriots proclaimed
king about the year 270 B.C. In 265 B.C. the new king resolved to destroy
this nest of robbers, and advanced against Messana with a force superior
to any they could bring into the field against him. The Mamertines, in
this peril, were divided; one party wished to call in the Carthaginians,
another preferred alliance with Rome. The latter prevailed, and envoys
were despatched to demand immediate aid. The senate were well inclined
to grant what was asked; for that Messana, a town with a good harbour,
and separated from Italy by a narrow strait, should pass into the hands
of Carthage, might have given alarm to a less watchful government. Yet
shame restrained them. It was barely six years since Hiero had assisted
them in punishing the Campanian legion which had seized Italian Rhegium,
as the Mamertines had seized Sicilian Messana, and the senate declined
to entertain the question. But the consuls, eager for military glory,
brought the matter before the centuriate assembly, which straightway
voted that support should be given to the Mamertines, or in other
words, that the Carthaginians should not be allowed to gain possession
of Messana. The consul Appius Claudius, son of the old censor, was to
command the army.
During this delay, however, the Carthaginian party among the Mamertines
had prevailed, and Hanno, with a party of Carthaginian soldiers, had
been admitted into the town. But Appius succeeded in landing his troops
to the south of the town,[47] and defeated Hiero with such loss that the
prudent king retired to Syracuse. Next day the Romans fell upon Hanno,
and also defeated him. The consul pursued his successes by plundering the
Syracusan dominions up to the very gates of the city.
The Romans, having now set foot in Sicily, determined to declare war
against Carthage. It is probable that the senate, recollecting the rapid
success of Pyrrhus, who in two years almost swept the Carthaginians out
of the island, reckoned on a speedy conquest; else, after their late
exhausting wars, they would hardly have engaged in this new and terrible
conflict. But they were much deceived. The First Punic War, which began
in 264 B.C., did not end till 241, having dragged out its tedious
length for three-and-twenty years. The general history of it is most
uninteresting. All the great men of Rome, who had waged her Italian wars
with so much vigour and ability, were in their graves; we hear no more of
Decius, or Curius, or Fabricius, and no worthy successors had arisen. The
only men of note who appear on the Roman side are Duilius and Regulus.
But the generals of Carthage are no less obscure, except the great
Hamilcar.[48]
THE WAR BEGINS
[Sidenote: [264-262 B.C.]]
To make the dreary length of this war more intelligible, it may
conveniently be divided into three periods. The first comprises its first
seven years (264-257), during which the Romans were uniformly successful,
and at the close of which they had driven the Carthaginians to the south
and west coasts of Sicily. The second is an anxious period of mingled
success and failure, also lasting for seven years (256-250): it begins
with the invasion of Africa by Regulus, and ends with his embassy and
death. The third is a long and listless period of nine years (249-241),
in which the Romans slowly retrieve their losses, and at length conclude
the war by a great victory at sea.
FIRST PERIOD (264-257 B.C.)
The ill success of Hanno at Messana so displeased the Carthaginian
government that they ordered the unfortunate general to be crucified.
The Romans pursued their first success with vigour. In the year 264
B.C. both the consuls crossed over into Sicily with an army of nearly
fifty thousand men. A number of the Sicilian towns declared in favour
of the new power, which might (they hoped) secure their independence
against both Syracuse and Carthage; for at present no one dreamed of
a permanent occupation of the island by the Romans. Hiero, a prudent
man, was struck by the energy of the new invaders. “They had conquered
him,” he said, “before he had had time to see them.” He shrewdly
calculated that the Carthaginians would prove inferior in the struggle,
and forthwith concluded a treaty of alliance with Rome, by which he was
left in undisturbed possession of a small but fertile region lying round
Syracuse; some more remote towns, as Tauromenium, being also subject to
his sceptre.
[Illustration: A ROMAN CONSUL]
From this time forth to the time of his death, a period of forty-seven
years, he remained a useful ally of the Roman people. In 262 B.C. both
consuls laid siege to the city of Agrigentum, which, though fallen from
her ancient splendour, was still the second of the Hellenic communities
in Sicily. Another Hanno was sent from Carthage to raise the siege,
and for some time fortune favoured him. He drew a second circle of
entrenchments round the Roman lines, so as to intercept all supplies;
and thus the besiegers, being themselves besieged, were reduced to the
greatest straits. But the consul at length forced Hanno to give him
battle, and gained a complete victory. Upon this the commandant of the
garrison, finding further defence useless, slipped out of Agrigentum by
night, and deserted the hapless city after a siege of seven months. The
Romans repaid themselves for the miseries they had undergone by indulging
in all those excesses which soldiers are wont to commit when they take
a town by storm after a long and obstinate defence. It is said that
twenty-five thousand men were slain.
[Sidenote: [262-260 B.C.]]
This great success raised the spirits of the Romans. And now the senate
conceived the hope and formed the plan of expelling the Carthaginians
entirely from Sicily: but after a short experience, that sagacious
council became aware that a fleet was indispensable for success. Nothing
shows the courage and resolution of the Romans more than their manner
of acting in this matter. It is no light matter for landsmen to become
seamen; but for unpractised landsmen to think of encountering the most
skilful seamen then known might have been deemed a piece of romantic
absurdity, if the men of Rome had not undertaken and accomplished it.
What they wanted first was a set of ships, which, in size at least and
weight, should be a match for those of the enemy. It is a mistake to
suppose that the Romans had no fleet before this time. The treaties with
Carthage sufficiently prove the contrary; and on several occasions we
hear of ships being employed by them. But these ships were of the trireme
kind, formerly employed by the Greeks. The Carthaginians, like the Greeks
after Alexander, used quinqueremes; and it would have been as absurd for
the small Roman ships to have encountered those heavier vessels, as for
a frigate to cope with a three-decker. The Romans therefore determined
to build quinqueremes. A Carthaginian ship cast ashore on the coast
of Bruttium served as a model; the forest of Sila, in that district,
supplied timber. In sixty days from the time the trees were felled they
had completed, probably by the help of Greek artisans, a fleet of one
hundred quinqueremes, and twenty triremes; and while it was building,
they trained men to row in a manner which to us seems laughable, by
placing them on scaffolds ranged on land in the same way as the benches
in the ships (262 B.C.).
[Sidenote: [260-256 B.C.]]
The consul Cn. Cornelius put to sea first with seventeen ships, leaving
the rest of the fleet to follow; but he was surprised near Lipara and
captured, with the whole of his little squadron, by the Carthaginian
admiral. His plebeian colleague, C. Duilius, was in command of the army
in Sicily; but as soon as he heard of this disaster, he hastened to take
charge of the main body of the fleet, and sailed slowly along the north
coast of Sicily (260 B.C.).
Meantime, the Roman shipwrights had contrived certain engines, by means
of which their seamen might grapple with the enemy’s ships, so as to
bring them to close quarters and deprive them of the superiority derived
from their better construction and the greater skill of their crews.
These engines were called crows (_corvi_). They consisted of a gangway
thirty-six feet long and four broad, pierced with an oblong hole towards
one end, so as to play freely round a strong pole twenty-four feet high,
which was fixed near the ship’s prow. At the other end was attached a
strong rope, which passed over a sheaf at the head of the pole. By this
rope the gangway was kept hauled up till within reach of the enemy’s
ship; it was then suddenly let go, and as it fell with all its weight,
a strong spike on its under side (shaped like a crow’s beak) was driven
into the enemy’s deck. Then the Roman men-at-arms poured along the
gangway, and a stand-up fight followed, in which the best soldiers must
prevail.
Thus prepared, Duilius encountered the enemy’s fleet. He found them
ravaging the coast at Mylæ, a little to the west of Palermo. The admiral
was the same person who had commanded the garrison of Agrigentum, and
was carried in an enormous septireme, which had formerly belonged to
Pyrrhus. Nothing daunted, Duilius attacked without delay. By his rude
assault the skilful tactics of the Carthaginian seamen were confounded.
The Roman fighting-men were very numerous, and when they had once boarded
an enemy’s ship, easily made themselves masters of her. Duilius took
thirty-one Carthaginian ships and sunk fourteen. For a season, no Roman
name stood so high as that of Duilius. Public honours were awarded him;
he was to be escorted home at night from banquets and festivals by the
light of torches and the music of the flute; a pillar was set up in the
Forum, ornamented with the beaks of the captured ships, and therefore
called the Columna Rostrata, to commemorate the great event; fragments
of the inscription still remain in the Capitoline Museum at Rome. And no
doubt the triumph was signal. The honours conferred upon the conqueror
cannot but give a pleasing impression of the simple manners then
prevailing at Rome, especially when we contrast them with the cruelty of
the Carthaginian government, who crucified their unfortunate admiral. To
have defeated the Mistress of the Sea upon her own element in the first
trial of strength was indeed remarkable.
The sea fight of Duilius was fought in the year 260 B.C. In the following
years the Carthaginians were only able to act upon the defensive. Not
only Agrigentum, but Camarina, Gela, Enna, Segesta, and many other cities
had surrendered to the Romans. The Carthaginians were confined to their
great trading marts, Drepana, Lilybæum, Eryx, and Panormus. They did not
dare to meet the Romans in the field; yet these places were very strong,
especially Lilybæum. Against its iron fortifications all the strength of
Pyrrhus had been broken. It was not time yet for Carthage to despair.
But in the eighth year of the war the senate determined on more decisive
measures. They knew the weakness of the Carthaginians at home; they had a
victorious fleet, and they determined not to let their fortune slumber.
SECOND PERIOD (256-250 B.C.)
[Sidenote: [256-255 B.C.]]
Duilius appears for a brief time as the hero of the first part of the
war; but its second period is marked by the name of a man who has become
famous as a patriot--M. Atilius Regulus. It was in the year 256, the
eighth of the war, that the consuls, M. Regulus and L. Manlius, sailed
from Italy and doubled Cape Pachynus with a fleet of 330 quinqueremes.
The Carthaginian fleet, even larger in number, had been stationed at
Lilybæum to meet the enemy, whether they should approach from the north
or from the east. They now put to sea, and sailed westwards along the
southern coast of Sicily. They met the Roman fleet at a place called
Ecnomus, a little more than halfway along that coast. The battle that
ensued was the greatest that, up to that time, had ever been fought at
sea; it is calculated that not fewer than 300,000 men were engaged. It
was desperately contested on both sides; but at Ecnomus, again, we are
astonished to find the Roman fleet victorious (256 B.C.).
[Illustration: ROMAN EMBASSY AT CARTHAGE
(After Mirys)]
The way was now open to Africa. The consuls, after refitting and
provisioning their fleet, sailed straight across to the Hermæan
promontory, which is distant from the nearest point of Sicily not more
than eighty miles. But the omens were not auspicious; the Roman soldiery
went on board with gloomy forebodings of their fate; one of the tribunes
refused to lead his legionaries into the ships, till Regulus ordered the
lictors to seize him. The passage, however, was favoured by the wind.
The consuls landed their men, drew up the fleet on shore, and fortified
it in a naval camp; and then, marching southwards, they took the city of
Aspis or Clupea by assault. No Carthaginian army met them; every place
they came near, except Utica, surrendered at discretion, for they were
unfortified and defenceless. Carthage, being of old mistress of the sea,
feared no invaders, and, like England, trusted for defence to her wooden
walls. Yet she had not been unwarned. Sixty years before the adventurous
Agathocles had landed like Regulus. Then, as now, the whole country lay
like a garden before him, covered with wealthy towns and the luxurious
villas of the Carthaginian merchants. Then two hundred towns or more had
surrendered almost without stroke of sword. It appeared as if the same
easy success now awaited Regulus and the Romans.
The consuls were advancing along the coast of the gulf towards Carthage,
when Manlius was recalled with the greater part of the army, and Regulus
was left in Africa with only fifteen thousand foot and five hundred
horse. Yet even with this small force he remained master of the country.
He had gone round the whole Gulf of Tunis as far as Utica, and now he
turned upon his steps with the intention of marching upon the capital
itself. On his way he was obliged to cross the river Bagradas, and here
(so ran the legend) the army was stopped by a huge serpent, so strong
and tough of skin that they were unable to destroy it, till they brought
up their artillery of catapults and balists; he then continued his route
southwards to the Bay of Carthage. He was allowed to take Tunis, which
stood within twenty miles of Carthage. The great city was now reduced
to the utmost straits. A Roman army was encamped within sight; famine
stared the townsmen in the face; the government trembled. In this abject
condition the council sent an embassy to ask what terms of peace Regulus
would grant.
The consul was so elated by success, that he demanded the most
extravagant concessions. The Carthaginians were to give up their fleet,
pay all the expenses of the war, and cede all Sicily, with Sardinia,
Corsica, and the Balearic Isles, to Rome. When these terms were reported,
the government took care to publish them, and public indignation rose
against the arrogant invaders. The civic force was not untrained to
arms, and they had now to fight for their hearths and altars. A good
general was sought for. At that time there happened to be at Carthage
a soldier of fortune, by name Xanthippus, a Lacedæmonian.[49] This man
had been heard to censure the native generals, and to declare that the
victories of the Romans were due, not to their own superior skill, but
to the faults of their opponents. He was summoned before the council
and desired to give reasons for his remarks. He did so; and, for a
moment, the government, dismissing all jealousy, appointed this obscure
foreigner general-in-chief. Xanthippus immediately drew together all
the mercenaries he could find, and united them with the armed citizens;
then, supported by a large body of elephants, he boldly took the field.
The Romans were astonished; but they were too much accustomed to victory
to hesitate about accepting battle. But they were both outnumbered and
outgeneralled. Xanthippus gained a victory as easy as it was complete.
Regulus himself was taken prisoner; only two thousand of his men
succeeded in making good their retreat to Clupea.
Thus was Carthage delivered by the ability of one man, and that man a
foreigner. The government did not improve in wisdom or generosity; their
incapable generals resumed the command, and Xanthippus, loaded with
honours and presents, prudently withdrew from the jealous city.
The Roman senate did their best to repair this great calamity. The new
consuls were ordered to put to sea, and bring off the garrison and
fugitives from Clupea. Near the Hermæan promontory they encountered the
enemy’s fleet, and again defeated it; and then, having taken up the ships
and men at Clupea, they sailed for Syracuse. But a still greater disaster
was in store for Rome than the destruction of her African army. This was
the loss of that fleet of which she was justly proud. The time of year
was about the beginning of the dog-days, when the Mediterranean is apt to
be visited by sudden storms. The consuls, upon their passage, were warned
that such a storm was at hand; but they were ignorant and rash, and
continued their course. Before they could double Cape Pachynus they were
caught by the tempest; almost the whole fleet was wrecked or foundered;
the coast of Sicily from Camarina to Pachynus was strewed with fragments
of ships and bodies of men. Such was the end of the first Roman fleet
(255 B.C.).
[Sidenote: [255-250 B.C.]]
These successive disasters might well raise the hopes of Carthage,
and they sent a considerable force into Sicily, with 140 elephants.
Agrigentum is said to have been recovered, and no doubt it was expected
that the whole island would once more become their own. But the Romans
showed a spirit equal to the need. In three months’ time (so wonderful
was their energy) a new fleet of 220 sail was ready for sea. The consuls
of the year 254 B.C., having touched at Messana to take up the remnants
of the old fleet, passed onwards to Drepana. They could not take this
strong place, but they were more successful at Panormus, the modern
Palermo, which yielded after a short siege to the Roman arms. This was an
important conquest.
Next year the fleet touched at several places on the African coast,
but without making any impression on the country. Among the shoals and
currents of the Lesser Syrtis it ran great danger of being lost; but
having escaped this peril, the consuls returned to Panormus and thence
stood straight across for the mouth of the Tiber. On the passage they
were overtaken by another of those terrible storms, and again nearly
the whole fleet was lost. Thus, within three years, the Romans lost two
great fleets. This was enough to damp even their courage; and the senate
determined to try whether it were not possible to keep their ground in
Sicily without a navy. For the present they gave up all claim to the
command of the sea, and limited themselves to a small fleet of sixty
ships.
Matters continued in this state for two years. Neither party seemed
willing to hazard a battle by land; but in 250 B.C. Hasdrubal, the
Carthaginian general, was induced to march secretly from Lilybæum to
Panormus, in the hope of surprising and recovering that important
town. The Roman commandant was the proconsul L. Cæcilius Metellus. He
allowed the enemy to approach the walls, and then suddenly sallied
forth, covering his attack by a cloud of light troops, slingers, and
javelin-men. Some of the elephants being wounded, carried confusion into
their own ranks, and Metellus, seizing the occasion, charged the enemy
and defeated them utterly. Besides thirteen Carthaginian generals, 120
elephants were taken and carried across the sea on strong rafts to adorn
the triumph of the proconsul. The battle of Panormus was the greatest
battle that was fought on land in the course of the war, and it was the
last. In memory of this victory we find the elephant as a frequent device
on the coins of the great family of the Metelli.[b] We may well quote
here Polybius’ account both of the loss of the fleet in 255 and of this
victory at Panormus or Palermo.
POLYBIUS’ ACCOUNT OF ROMAN AFFAIRS[50]
[Sidenote: [255-251 B.C.]]
The _Romans_ had made ready, early in the Spring, a Fleet of Three
Hundred and Fifty Sail; and Embarking their Army under the Command of
their new Consuls, _M. Æmilius_, and _Servius Fulvius_, and standing
along the Coast of _Sicily_ towards _Africa_, they met, and fought off
of _Cape Mercury_ with the _Carthaginian_ Fleet, which was not able
to sustain the first shock, but being entirely beaten, lost in the
Ingagement, an Hundred and Fourteen of their Vessels, and all that
was in them, to the _Romans_; who afterwards prosecuting their course,
arriv’d at _Aspis_; where taking their Men on Board that remain’d in
_Africa_, they shap’d their Course back to _Sicily_. And being well
advanc’d on their way, they were surpriz’d off of _Camarina_ with so
dreadful a Tempest, that the losses and hardships they sustain’d were
without Example, and beyond Expression: So terrible it was, that of Three
Hundred and Seventy odd Vessels that compos’d their Fleet, Fourscore only
escap’d Shipwreck, the rest being either founder’d in the Sea, or were
lost and broken against the Rocks, that whole Coast being cover’d with
dead bodies, and strew’d with the Ruines and Fragments of their Ships,
insomuch as History affords no Example of the like dreadful disaster. And
yet it may be said, that this Calamity was not owing so much to Fortune,
as to the obstinacy of the Consuls: For the Pilots endeavour’d to obviate
the hazard they should be expos’d to by Navigating on that Coast of
_Sicily_, which borders on the _African_ Sea, there being there not only
no Harbours to succour vessels in distress; but the Season too of the
Year was now improper; for by observation of the rising and setting of
_Orion_ and the _Dog Star_, they compute and know the safe Seasons for
Navigation. But the Consuls, contemning their Counsel, stood boldly out
to Sea, in hopes that after this signal Victory, their appearing suddenly
on the Coast, might terrify many Towns, and awe them to submission: But
their folly was chastis’d by this memorable loss, which they sustain’d
upon a motive much too little for the hazard. The _Romans_ have indeed
this inflexibility of Mind peculiar to them, believing that whatsoever
they have resolv’d and determin’d to undertake, ought to be indispensably
perform’d; and they have establish’d it into a Principle, that what they
once have decreed to execute, cannot be impossible to bring to pass:
The effect, indeed, of a generous obstinacy, but the cause oftentimes
of their falling into pernicious Errors and Misfortunes, and their
sustaining unspeakable losses, especially in their Naval Expeditions.
As to their Exploits by Land, where the Encounter is only Man to Man,
their Courage frequently conducts them to the Success they propose, by
reason their adventures are with Men like themselves; and yet there
want not Examples wherein their Measures and Forces have fail’d, and
they have sunk and miscarry’d under the weight of their Enterprises.
But whenever, by a temerarious Audacity, they act against these raging
Elements, and attempt to vanquish the Sea and Wind, they are sure to reap
no other fruit of their Obstinacy, than Loss and Calamity. This we have
now mentioned, is an instance, and they have heretofore smarted by the
like Errors; and they shall always stand liable to the same disasters,
till they appear better advis’d and instructed in the weakness of that
overweening Presumption, which they are apt to entertain in all their
Designs, vainly imagining, that both Sea and Land should on all occasions
consent and open their way to Success in all their Enterprises.
The _Carthaginians_, upon advice of this Misfortune of the _Romans_ at
Sea, were of Opinion, that they should now be a match for them by Land,
whereunto they were perswaded through the late Victory they had gain’d.
That they should be equal to them likewise by Sea, they had no doubt,
by reason of their late great loss by Tempest; howbeit they omitted
not to reinforce their Strength both by Sea and Land. They dispatch’d
_Hasdrubal_ into _Sicily_, to whom, besides the Forces already there,
they order’d a farther supply of Troops out of those that were lately
drawn out of _Heraclea_, together with an Hundred and Forty Elephants:
He was no sooner departed, but they sent after him Two Hundred Vessels
laden with all things necessary for the Service of the War. _Hasdrubal_,
being safely arriv’d at _Lilybæum_, apply’d himself with diligence to
Exercise and Discipline his Troops and his Elephants, intending to spread
his Army all over the Country, and to make himself entire Master of the
Field. As for the _Romans_, they were not without a very sensible sorrow,
when by those who had escap’d Shipwreck, they receiv’d an account of the
mighty loss they had sustain’d at Sea; nevertheless, being determin’d
not to yield the Advantage to the Enemy, they order’d a new Fleet to
be speedily built, to consist of Two Hundred and Twenty Sail; which
Fleet (a wonderful and incredible thing to relate) was compleatly built
and finish’d in the space of three Months; on which the new Consuls,
_Aulus Atilius_, and _C. Cornelius_ speedily Embark’d; who, after having
pass’d the _Streight_, and touch’d at _Messina_, to take with them the
Vessels that had been sav’d in the late Storm, shap’d their Course
for _Palermo_ with a Naval Army consisting of Three Hundred Sail, and
forthwith sat down and besieg’d that place, which then was the Capital
City of the _Carthaginians_ in _Sicily_. They made their Attacks in two
several places, and when their Works were advanc’d to their Minds, they
approach’d with their Engines of Battery, by which, a Tower or Work
standing near the Sea, was quickly, and without much trouble, demolish’d;
at which breach the Souldiers enter’d, and took by Assault, and kept
Possession of that quarter of the City call’d the _New Town_, whereby
the place it self was put into manifest danger; but the Inhabitants
coming seasonably in to the Relief, they advanc’d no farther; so the
Consuls, after they had put a good Garrison into the place they had
taken, return’d back to _Rome_. Early the next Summer the new Consuls,
_C. Servilius_, and _C. Sempronius_, sail’d over to _Sicily_ with all
their Naval Power, and from thence, soon after, stood for the Coast of
_Africk_, where they made several Descents, but perform’d nothing of
moment; at length arriving at the Island of the _Lotophagy_, which is
likewise call’d _Meninx_, not far distant from the _lesser Syrtis_, or
_Flatts_; here being unacquainted with the Coast, their Fleet fell among
the Sands, where their Vessels grounded, and stuck fast, as if they had
been a-shoar, and there remain’d till the Flood fetch’d them off; when
with great difficulty and hazard, throwing their Lumber over-board,
they made a shift to escape. From thence, like People flying from an
Enemy, they stood away for the Coast of _Sicily_; and after they had
doubl’d the Cape of _Lilybæum_ they got into the Port of _Palermo_. But
from thence steering their Course homeward, a Storm took them in the
_Phare_ of _Messina_, where, by a blind Obstinacy they were imbay’d,
which Storm attack’d them with such violence, that above an Hundred
and Fifty of their Ships miscarry’d. Things happening thus adverse to
them by Sea, tho’ the Senate and People could not subdue their Thirst
of Glory and Empire, nevertheless their Losses and Calamities, and the
straits to which they were now reduc’d, prevail’d with them to quit all
farther attempts of trying their Fortune by Sea; so they now totally
abandon’d all thoughts of Naval Preparations. And determining to rely
solely on their Land Armies, they dispatch’d the Consuls, _L. Cæcilius_,
and _Cn. Furius_ to _Sicily_ with the Legions, alotting them only about
Threescore Vessels whereon securely to Embark and waft over the Army,
their Baggage and Amunition. These Misfortunes of the _Romans_ much
augmented the _Carthaginian_ Glory and Fame in the World, and gave a
new Face to their Affairs. In a word, as the _Romans_ had now yielded
them up the Dominion of the Sea, it was no difficulty for them to be
entirely Masters there; nor were they without hopes of succeeding in
their Affairs by Land; nor did they reckon very wide of the matter, for
from the time of the defeat of the _Roman_ Army, by the assistance of
the Elephants, which discompos’d and broke their Ranks in the Battel
fought in _Africk_, where those Animals made such destruction of their
People, the Souldiers became so terribly aw’d, that tho’ they had been
on several occasions drawn up in Battalia to ingage within five or six
Furlongs of the _Carthaginian_ Army; sometimes in the Territory of
_Selinunce_, sometimes about _Lilybæum_, yet for the space of two Years
together they wanted Resolution to ingage them, or to adventure to abide
in the Champain Country, so great a dread they had conceiv’d of the Fury
and Shock of those stupendious beasts: So that little or no Progress
was made in their Affairs during all that space, saving the taking of
_Lipary_ and _Thermes_, the Army continuing Coopt up in the Mountains,
and Inaccessible Places. Wherefore the _Romans_, observing this Terrour
among their Legions, took a Resolution once more, to tempt their Fortune
by Sea: Accordingly upon the Creation of _C. Atilius_ and _L. Manlius_
Consuls, they Order’d the Building of Fifty Vessels, and Levies of men
for that Service; and now they had a Navy once again establish’d.
[Illustration: REGULUS’ DEPARTURE FOR CARTHAGE]
[Sidenote: [251-250 B.C.]]
_Hasdrubal_ having observ’d this dread that possess’d the _Roman_ Army,
when ever he presented them Battel, and having Intelligence that one
of the Consuls was now return’d back to _Rome_, and one half of the
Army with him; and that _Cæcilius_ with the rest of the Troops was at
_Palermo_, Assisting their Allies in gathering in their Harvest, their
Corn being now Ripe; he March’d out of _Lilybæum_ with his Troops,
and came and Incamp’d on the Borders of the Territory of _Palermo_.
_Cæcilius_ observing this weak Proceeding of the _Carthaginian_, kept his
People within the Walls of the Town, thereby to ingage him to Advance
nearer, which _Hasdrubal_ accordingly did, perswaded thereto by the shew
of fear the _Romans_ were under, and imagining that _Cæcilius_ had not
the Resolution to appear in the Field, he rashly adventur’d his Army into
a narrow Straight: and albeit he wasted the Country to the very Walls of
_Palermo_, _Cæcilius_ nevertheless held his first determination, not to
move till the Enemy had pass’d the River that runs close by the Town.
When, in short, after the Elephants and the whole Army had got over, he
Order’d some of his light Arm’d Souldiers, to advance out against them
to Pickeer, and draw them the more boldly on. And observing all things
to Succeed as he had projected, he Posted a Body of select and skilful
Souldiers upon the Counterscarp of the Town, with Orders that if the
Elephants advanc’d upon them, to Attack them with Darts and Missive
Weapons, and in case they should be press’d by those Animals, that they
should then retire into the Ditch; and from thence gall and molest them
all they could. He Order’d the Towns People at the same time to furnish
themselves with great quantities of Darts, and Post themselves without
the Town at the Foot of the Walls, and there abide in a Posture of
Defence. _Cæcilius_ himself with all his troops remain’d in readiness
at a certain Gate of the Town, that was oppos’d to the Right Wing of
the Enemy, from whence he sustain’d the Troops with fresh Supplies of
men, who were already Ingaged. In a Word, the Battel began now to grow
warm, and the Leaders of the Elephants being resolv’d to be sharers with
_Hasdrubal_ in the Honour of the day, proceeding as if they design’d the
Victory should be wholly owing to them, advanc’d all in Order upon the
_Romans_, whom they soon forc’d to give Ground and retire into the Ditch.
But now the Elephants, smarting with the Wounds they had receiv’d, and
vex’d with the Darts wherewith they were gall’d both from the Ditch and
the Walls of the Town, began to grow unruly, fell upon their own People,
and destroy’d many, and put their Troops in disorder. This being observ’d
by _Cæcilius_ he forthwith Salli’d out with his Troops fresh and in good
Order, and attacking the Enemy in Flank, who were already in Confusion,
slew many, and put the rest of the Army to Flight. Ten Elephants were
then taken with the _Indians_ their Guides, and others who had lost
their Leaders fell likewise into their Hands after the Battel. The happy
Issue of this Action got _Cæcilius_ the Reputation every where of having
Restor’d the _Roman_ Courage by Land, to Attempt Incamping in the open
and plain Country, and to know how to behave themselves well again out
of their Retrenchments. There was great joy at _Rome_ upon the Arrival
of the News of this Defeat, not so much on account of the Elephants
which had been taken, tho’ it was a very sensible blow to the Enemy, but
because the taking of those Animals, and the Victory obtain’d against
them, had restor’d the Souldiers Resolution. Wherefore they determin’d
once again, as had been propos’d (to the end they might at any rate put
a Period to this War) to Dispatch the Consuls away with a new Navy. And
when all things were in readiness for the Expedition, they departed for
_Sicily_ with a Fleet of Two Hundred Sail, it being now the Fourteenth
Year of the First _Punic_ War.[d]
[Sidenote: [250-249 B.C.]]
After the battle of Panormus, the hopes of the Romans rose again, and
the senate gave orders to build a third fleet of two hundred sail. But
the Carthaginians, weary of the expenses of the war, and suffering
greatly in their commerce, thought that a fair opportunity for making
peace was now offered. The Romans had not so entirely recovered from
their late disasters, but that they might be glad to listen to fair
terms. Accordingly an embassy was despatched to offer an exchange of
prisoners and to propose terms on which a peace might be concluded.
Regulus (according to the well-known story) accompanied this embassy,
under promise to return to Carthage if the purposes of the embassy should
fail. When he arrived at Rome he refused to enter the walls and take his
place in the senate, as being no longer a citizen or a senator. Then the
senate sent certain of their own number to confer with him in presence
of the ambassadors, and the counsel which he gave confirmed the wavering
minds of the fathers. “Useless it was,” he said, “to ransom prisoners who
had ignobly yielded with arms in their hands: let them be left to perish
unheeded; let war go on till Carthage be subdued.” His counsel prevailed,
and the embassy returned without effect. Regulus also returned to suffer
the vengeance of the Carthaginians. Every one knows the horrid tortures
by which it is said that life was taken from him; how his eyelids were
cut off; how he was placed in a barrel stuck full of nails, with one
end knocked out; and how he was exposed to the unmitigated glare of an
African sun, to die by the slow agonies of pain, and thirst, and fever.
Regulus was a man of the old Roman kind, like Curius and Fabricius,
devoted to his country, eager for glory, frugal, bold, resolute or (call
it) stubborn. He has been censured for excessive presumptuousness in
his African campaign, and for the extravagance by which he lost all the
advantages which he might have secured. But it must be allowed that he
had some grounds even for overweening confidence. Ever since the two
nations had met in arms, the star of Carthage had grown dim before that
of Rome. Even on the sea, where her navies had long ridden triumphant,
the Queen of the Mediterranean had twice been beaten by her unskilled
rival. There was enough to make more sagacious men than Regulus believe
that Carthage was well-nigh powerless against Rome. The Romans had yet to
learn that when the jealous government of Carthage allowed great generals
to command their armies, such as Xanthippus, and Hamilcar, and Hannibal,
then the well-trained mercenaries might gain easy victories over their
own brave but less practised citizens.
The whole story of the embassy and death of Regulus has been doubted,
chiefly because of the silence of Polybius, the most authentic historian
of the time; and from the certainty that at least one mythical marvel
has been introduced into the narrative. But if allowance be made for
some patriotic exaggeration, there is nothing improbable in the story.
Those who crucified their own unlucky generals would not be slow to wreak
any measure of vengeance on a recusant prisoner. We read also that the
Romans retaliated by torturing some Carthaginian prisoners, and this
fact can hardly be an invention. At all events, the personal qualities
of Regulus rest too firmly on old tradition to be questioned. While we
read the beautiful passage in which Cicero describes his disinterested
patriotism; while we repeat the noble ode, in which Horace paints him as
putting aside all who would have persuaded him to stay--people, friends,
and family--and going forth to torture and death with the same serene
indifference as if he were leaving the busy life of Rome for the calm
retirement of his country house, so long will the blood flow more quickly
and the heart beat higher at mention of the name of Regulus.[b]
[Illustration: REGULUS RETURNS TO CARTHAGE
(After Mirys)]
Of Regulus, Niebuhr writes rather sharply: Few events in Roman history
are more celebrated than this embassy and the martyrdom of Regulus, which
have been sung by Roman poets and extolled by orators. Who does not know
that Regulus, as a slave of the Carthaginians, refused to enter the city;
that he attended the deliberations of the senate with their sanction,
and rejected the exchange no less vehemently than the peace; that he
confirmed the wavering fathers in their resolution; that he preferred his
honour and his oath to all the enticements to remain behind; and that, in
order to remove the temptation, he pretended that a slow poison had been
administered him by Punic faithlessness, which would soon end his days,
even if the senate, less mindful of the country than of the individual,
should wish to retain him by exchange or protection; how he withdrew from
the embraces of his friends as a dishonoured man, and after his return to
Carthage was put to death by diabolical tortures?
Palmerius[g] was the first who attacked this account after the Valesian
extracts from Diodorus[h] had become known, and his reasons have been
strengthened by Beaufort[i] with very appropriate arguments besides. But
Beaufort has perhaps carried his scepticism too far in doubting, and in
reality rejecting, the truth of the embassy on account of the silence of
Polybius.
Neither of these writers has mentioned, which is of great importance,
that Dion Cassius[j] declared the martyrdom of Regulus to be a mere
fable, although he repeated it. He also related that after Regulus had
fallen into captivity, his sleep was at first disturbed, as he was kept
shut up with an elephant, but that this cruelty did not last long. It may
be accounted for, and even pardoned, as Regulus forgot all human feelings
towards Carthage when it had fallen and implored his compassion; and it
is not unlikely that this account may have given rise to the more widely
extended one respecting the mode of his death.
It is most probable that the death of Regulus happened in the course
of nature; and it is very possible that the cruel maltreatment of the
Punic prisoners, respecting whom it is certain, even according to Roman
testimonies, that they were surrendered to the family as hostages or for
revenge, has become the occasion of the prevailing narrative through that
unpardonable calumny which the Romans constantly indulged in against
Carthage. It seems most credible that Hasdrubal and Bostar were given as
hostages, because Regulus actually believed, and the Romans shared his
opinion, that he was secretly poisoned. But with an unbiassed judgment we
must regard the narrative of Diodorus respecting the perfectly inhuman
fury of the family of Regulus against these innocent prisoners to be no
less doubtful than the Roman one; since it is quite certain that no Roman
recorded this disgrace to his nation, and here, as well as elsewhere,
Philinus must be regarded as the source of Diodorus, whose hatred
against Rome is very pardonable, but always renders his testimony highly
suspicious.
For the rest, if this deed of Regulus had not been praised to us in early
years as heroic, we should without prejudice find it less brilliant.
That he went back because he had sworn, was an act which, if he had not
done it, would have been branded with infamy. If he had reason to fear,
it was a consequence of the shameful abuse which he himself had made
of his victory, inasmuch as he only knew how to use it as a mere child
of fortune, and in a way inferior to most of the generals who were his
contemporaries.[e]
THIRD PERIOD (249-241 B.C.)
[Sidenote: [249-244 B.C.]]
It has been said that the senate, encouraged by the victory of Panormus,
resolved once more to attempt the sea. In the year 249 B.C. the third
fleet was ready, and its purpose soon became evident. The consuls were
ordered to invest Lilybæum, the queen of Carthaginian fortresses, both by
sea and land. If this strong place fell, the Carthaginians would have no
firm hold on Sicily: but it could not be taken unless it were blockaded
by sea, for by sea supplies could be poured into it from Carthage. The
Romans began the siege with activity; they constructed enormous works,
they endeavoured to throw a dam across the harbour, but in vain. The
skilful seamen of Carthage contrived to carry provision ships into the
harbour through the midst of the Roman fleet. Their navy lay at hand in
the Bay of Drepana, ready to take advantage of any remissness on the part
of the Romans.
Yet the invincible perseverance of the Romans would have prevailed but
for the headstrong folly of the patrician consul for the year 249 B.C.
This was P. Claudius, a younger son of the old censor, brother of him who
had relieved Messana. As he lay before Lilybæum, he formed a plan for
surprising the enemy’s fleet at Drepana, and left his station for this
purpose. In vain he was warned by the pullarii, that the sacred chickens
would not feed. “Then let them drink,” said the irreverent commander, and
threw them into the sea. But the men were much dispirited by the omen
and the contempt of the omen. And the consul had managed matters with so
little secrecy and skill that the enemy were informed of his intended
attack. As the Romans sailed in column into the harbour, the Carthaginian
fleet was seen sailing outward. But on a sudden they tacked and bore down
upon the side of the Roman column. Of Claudius’ 220 ships, only thirty
escaped.
The reckless consul was recalled to Rome by the senate, and ordered to
supersede himself by naming a dictator. With the old insolence of his
family, he named the son of one of his own freedmen, by name Claudius
Glycias. But the senate set aside the nomination, and themselves
appointed A. Atilius Calatinus, also called Serranus. What became of
Claudius we know not. But he was dead three years after; for a story is
preserved, that at that time his sister insolently expressed a wish that
he were still alive, that he might lose more men, and make the streets
less crowded. She was heavily fined for this speech; and if words deserve
punishment, none deserved it more than hers.
The loss of the fleet of Claudius was not the only disaster of the
year. L. Junius, his plebeian colleague, was less guilty, but even
more unfortunate. He was convoying a large fleet of ships, freighted
with supplies for the forces at Lilybæum, when, near Camarina, he
was overtaken by a tremendous hurricane, and both the convoy and the
convoying squadron perished. The destruction was so complete, that every
single ship was broken up, and not a plank (says Polybius) was fit to be
used again.
Thus by the folly of one consul and the misfortune of the other, the
Romans lost their entire fleet for the third time. It seemed to them as
if the god of the sea was jealous of these new pretenders to his favour.
These disasters left the Carthaginians once more masters of the sea.
And at the same time a really great man was appointed to a command in
Sicily. This was Hamilcar, the father of Hannibal. He seems not to
have had many ships or troops at his command; but the skill with which
he used his means abundantly shows what might have been done if the
government had trusted him more completely. He made continual descents
on the coast of Italy, plundering and alarming. Before long he landed
suddenly near Panormus, and in the face of the Roman commandant seized
a hill called Hercta, which overhung the town (the same with the modern
Monte Pelegrino). Here he fortified himself; and hence he carried on a
continual predatory warfare against the Romans for the space of three
years. After this, by an equally sudden movement, he made a descent on
Eryx, which had been taken by the Romans not long before, and surprised
it. To this place he now shifted his quarters, and continued the same
harassing attacks.
[Sidenote: [243-241 B.C.]]
Except for this, matters were at a standstill. The whole strength of
the Romans was concentrated in the lines of Lilybæum; but they had no
fleet now, and therefore the place was fully supplied from the sea.
On the other hand the activity of Hamilcar kept the enemy always in
alarm. Slight actions constantly took place; and an anecdote is told by
Diodorus, which sets the character of Hamilcar in a pleasing light. In a
skirmish with the Roman consul, C. Fundanius, he had suffered some loss,
and sent (according to custom) to demand a truce, that he might bury his
dead. But the consul insolently replied that he ought to concern himself
about the living rather than the dead, and save further bloodshed by
surrendering at once. Soon after it was Hamilcar’s turn to defeat the
Romans, and when their commander sent for leave to bury their dead, the
Carthaginian general at once granted it, saying that he “warred not with
the dead, but with the living.”
These interminable hostilities convinced the senate that they must once
more build a fleet, or give up all hopes of driving the Carthaginians
out of Sicily. Lilybæum would foil all their efforts, as it had foiled
the efforts of Pyrrhus. The siege had now lasted eight years, from 250
to 241 B.C., and it appeared no nearer its conclusion than at first. All
sacrifices must be made. A fleet must be built. And it was built. At
the beginning of the year 241 B.C., the patrician consul, C. Lutatius
Catulus, put to sea with more than two hundred sail. This was the fourth
navy which the Romans had created. It is impossible not to admire this
iron determination; impossible not to feel satisfaction at seeing it
rewarded.
The consul, with his new fleet, sailed early in the year, and blockaded
Drepana by sea and land, hoping to deprive the Carthaginians of the
harbour in which their fleet lay to watch the Romans at Lilybæum. He also
took great pains to train his seamen in naval tactics. In an action which
took place at Drepana he was severely wounded.
On the other hand the Carthaginians had of late neglected their navy;
and it was not till early in the following year (241) that a fleet was
despatched to the relief of Drepana. It was heavily freighted with
provisions and stores. Hanno, its commander, touched at Hiera, a small
island, about twenty or twenty-five miles from the port of Drepana. Of
this (it appears) Catulus was informed, and, though still suffering from
his wound, he at once put to sea, hoping to intercept the enemy before
they unloaded their ships. On the evening of the 9th of March he lay to
at Ægusa, another small island, not above ten miles distant from Hiera.
Next morning the Carthaginians put to sea and endeavoured to run into
Drepana. But they were intercepted by the Roman fleet, and obliged to
give battle. They fought under great disadvantages, and the Romans gained
an easy victory. Fifty of the enemy’s ships were sunk, seventy taken; the
rest escaped to Hiera.
This battle, called the battle of the Ægatian Islands (for that was the
general name of the group), decided the war. It was plain that Lilybæum
must now surrender; and that though Hamilcar might yet stand at bay,
he could not recover Sicily for the present. The merchants of Carthage
were eager for the conclusion of the war; and the government sent orders
to Hamilcar to make a peace on the best terms he could obtain. Catulus
at first required, as a preliminary to all negotiations, that Hamilcar
should lay down his arms, and give up all Roman deserters in his service.
But when the Carthaginians disdainfully refused this condition, the
consul prudently waived it, and a treaty was finally agreed on by the
two commanders to the following effect--that the Carthaginians should
evacuate Sicily; should give up all Roman prisoners without ransom;
and should pay twenty-two hundred talents in twenty years towards the
expenses of the war. But the Roman tribes refused to ratify the treaty
without inquiry. Accordingly the senate sent over ten envoys, who
confirmed the treaty of Catulus, except that they raised the sum to
thirty-two hundred talents, and required this larger sum to be paid in
ten years, instead of twenty. They also insisted on the cession of all
the small islands between Italy and Sicily.
Thus ended the First Punic War. The issue of this long struggle was
altogether in favour of Rome. She had performed few brilliant exploits;
she had sent few eminent men to conduct the war; but she had done great
things. She had beaten the Mistress of the Sea upon her own element. She
had gained possession of an island nearly twice as large as Yorkshire,
and fertile beyond the example of other lands. Her losses, indeed, had
been enormous; for she had lost seven hundred ships, a vast number of
men, and large sums of money. But Carthage had suffered still more.
For though she had lost not more than five hundred ships, yet the
interruption to her trade, and the loss of her great commercial emporiums
of Lilybæum and Drepana, not only crippled the resources of the state,
but largely diminished the fortunes of every individual citizen. The
Romans and Italians, who fought in this war, were mostly agricultural;
and the losses of such a people are small, and soon repaired, while those
suffered by a great commercial state are often irreparable.
This war was only the prelude to a more fierce and deadly contest.
Carthage had withdrawn discomfited from Sicily, and her empty treasury
and ruined trade forbade her to continue the conflict at that time. But
it was not yet decided whether Rome or Carthage was to rule the coasts
of the Mediterranean. The great Hamilcar left Eryx without despair. He
foresaw that by patience and prudence he might shake off the control of
his jealous government, and train up an army in his own interest, with
which he might defy the Roman legions.
EVENTS BETWEEN THE FIRST AND SECOND PUNIC WARS
[Sidenote: [241-218 B.C.]]
The First Punic War lasted three-and-twenty years; and the interval
between the end of this war and the beginning of the next was of nearly
the same duration. In the course of this period (from 240 to 218 B.C.)
both Rome and Carthage, notwithstanding their exhausted condition, were
involved in perilous wars. In the next three years Carthage was brought
to the very brink of destruction by a general mutiny of her mercenary
troops, which had been employed in Sicily, and were now to be disbanded.
Their leaders were Spendius, a runaway Campanian slave, who feared to be
given up to the Romans, and Matho, a Libyan, who had been too forward in
urging the demands of the army for their pay, to hope for forgiveness
from the Carthaginian government. Led on by these desperadoes, the
soldiers gave full vent to their ferocity; they seized Gisco, who had
been sent to treat with them, as a hostage; plundered the country round
about; raised the subject Africans in rebellion; besieged the fortified
towns of Utica and Hippo; and cut off all communication by land with the
promontory upon which Carthage stands. At the end of the second year,
however, Hamilcar, being invested with the command of the civic forces,
reduced Spendius to such extremities that he surrendered at discretion,
and compelled Matho to shut himself up in Tunis.
[Sidenote: [240-235 B.C.]]
The spirit of the insurgents was now quite broken, and they would fain
have given in. But Matho and his officers were fighting with halters
round their necks, and whenever any one attempted to persuade peaceful
measures, a knot of the more violent cried him down; and thus, as
usually happens in popular commotions, the real wishes of the greater
part were drowned in the loud vociferations of a few bold and resolute
desperadoes. What made the task of these men easier was that the army was
composed of a great many different nations; and the soldiers, not being
able to understand one another, could not so readily combine against
their leaders. Almost the only word which was understood by all, was the
terrible cry of “Stone him, stone him!” which was raised by the leading
insurgents, whenever any one rose to advocate peace, and was re-echoed by
the mass in ignorance or fear. But Hamilcar maintained a strict blockade,
and the insurgents in Tunis were reduced to such extremities of famine
that Matho was obliged to risk a battle. He was utterly defeated, taken
prisoner, and put to death. Thus terminated this terrible war, which had
lasted more than three years and four months, and at one time threatened
the very existence of Carthage. It was known by the name of the War
without Truce, or the Inexpiable War.
The forbearance shown by the Romans to Carthage during this fearful war
makes their conduct at its close the more surprising. The mercenary
troops in Sardinia had mutinied after the example of their brethren, and
had taken possession of the island. After the close of the war in Africa
these insurgents, fearing that their turn was come, put themselves under
Roman protection; and their prayer for aid, like that of the Mamertines,
was granted. The senate had the effrontery not only to demand the cession
of Sardinia and Corsica, but also the payment of a further sum of twelve
hundred talents. The Carthaginians were too weak to refuse; not even
Hamilcar could have counselled them to do so. But this ungenerous conduct
strengthened Hamilcar’s grim resolve, to take full vengeance on the
grasping Italian republic.
To execute this resolve it was necessary for him to obtain an independent
authority, so as to form armies and carry on campaigns, without being
fettered by the orders of the narrow-minded government. And now seemed
the time to obtain this authority. Hanno and the leading members of the
council had long been jealous of the family of Barca, of which Hamilcar
was the chief. Hamilcar’s fame and popularity were now so high that
it was possible he might overthrow the power of the council of One
Hundred. It was, therefore, with pleasure that they received his proposal
to reduce Spain under the Carthaginian power. Carthage already had
settlements in the south of Spain, and the old trading city of Gades was
in alliance with her. But the rest of the country was peopled by wild and
savage tribes, who could not be conquered in a day. But, before we trace
the consequences of this extension of Carthaginian power in Spain, the
affairs of Rome and Italy claim our attention.
During the Mercenary War in Africa, the Romans had remained at peace;
and so profound was the general tranquillity in the year 235 B.C., that
the temple of Janus was closed by the consul Manlius Torquatus, for the
first time (say the annals) since the reign of Numa. In the last year of
the First Punic War, the lower Sabine country had been formed into two
tribes--the Veline and the Quirine. Thus the number of thirty-five was
completed, and no addition was hereafter made to the Roman territory.
[Illustration: THE MASSACRE OF THE INSURGENTS BY HAMILCAR]
This tranquillity was of no long duration. The success of their arms in
Sicily, and their newly acquired maritime power, encouraged the Romans
to cross the Adriatic, not so much for the purpose of advancing their
own dominion as to render a service to all who frequented these seas
for the purposes of traffic. The far side of the Adriatic, then called
Illyricum, consists of a narrow ledge of coast land flanked by parallel
mountain chains. Many islands appear off the shore, and several large
creeks afford safe anchorage for ships. These natural advantages made
the Illyrians of the coast skilful seamen. Their light barks (lembi)
issued from behind the islands or out of the creeks, and practised
piracy on their neighbours. Their main stronghold was Scodra (Scutari).
In 231 B.C., Teuta, a woman of bold and masculine spirit, became chief
of this piratical race during the infancy of her son Pinnes, and in 230
B.C. had made herself supreme over all the islands except Issa, which
she blockaded in person in that year. The senate had not hitherto found
leisure to check the progress of these pirates. But in the year just
named, they sent C. and L. Coruncanius as envoys to remonstrate with
Teuta. But Teuta was little disposed to listen to remonstrance. It was
not, she said, customary for the chiefs of Illyricum to prevent their
subjects from making use of the sea. The younger Coruncanius, indignant
at this avowal of national piracy, replied that if such were the
institutions of the Illyrians, the Romans would lose no time in helping
her to mend them. Exasperated by this sarcasm, Teuta ordered the envoys
to be pursued and the younger one to be put to death. The Romans at once
declared war against the Illyrians.
[Sidenote: [235-229 B.C.]]
After the surrender of Issa, the Illyrian queen pursued her success by
the capture not only of Dyrrhachium, but also of Corcyra; and Demetrius,
a clever and unscrupulous Greek of Pharos (a place on the coast of upper
Illyricum), the chief counsellor of Teuta, was made governor of this
famous island. The Epirots now sent ambassadors to crave protection from
Rome; and the senate gladly took advantage of this opening. Early in the
next spring both consuls appeared at Corcyra with a powerful fleet and
army. Demetrius quickly discerned to which side fortune would incline,
and surrendered Corcyra to the Romans without a blow. This treachery
paralysed Teuta’s spirit; and Demetrius enabled the Roman commanders to
overpower her forces with little trouble. She was obliged to surrender
the greater part of her dominions to the traitor, who now became chief
of Corcyra and southern Illyricum, under the protection of Rome. The
Illyrians were not to appear south of Lissus with more than two barks at
a time.
[Illustration: STANDARD BEARER]
The suppression of Illyrian piracy was even more advantageous to the
commerce of Greece than that of Rome. The leading men of the senate
began, even at this time, to show a strong disposition to win the good
opinion of the Greeks, who, degenerate as they were, were still held to
be the centre of civilisation and the dispensers of fame. Postumius the
consul, therefore, sent envoys to various Greek states to explain the
appearance of a Roman force in those quarters. They were received with
high distinction. The Athenians and Corinthians, especially, paid honour
to Rome; and the latter people recognised her Greek descent by voting
that her citizens should be admitted to the Isthmian games (228 B.C.).
This short war was scarcely ended, when Rome saw a conflict impending,
which filled her with alarm.
It will be remembered that just before the war with Pyrrhus, the Senonian
Gauls had been extirpated, and the Boians defeated with great slaughter
in two battles near Lake Vadimo in Etruria (283 B.C.). From that time the
Gauls had remained quiet within their own boundaries. But in 232 B.C.,
the tribune C. Flaminius, a man who will hereafter claim more special
notice, proposed to distribute all the public land held by Rome on the
Picenian and Umbrian coasts to a number of poor citizens; a law which
was put into effect four years afterwards. When the colonies of Sena
Gallica and Ariminum had been planted on that same coast, the Boians were
too much weakened by their late defeats to offer any opposition. But in
two generations their strength was recruited, and they were encouraged
to rise against Rome by the promised support of the Insubrians, a
powerful tribe who occupied the trans-Padane district about Milan. The
arrival of large bodies of Gauls from beyond the Alps completed their
determination, and increased the terror which the recollections of the
Allia still wrought upon the Roman mind. Report exaggerated the truth,
and the Romans made larger preparations for this Gallic war than they
had made against Pyrrhus or the Carthaginians. Active preparations were
seconded by superstitious rites. The Sibylline books were consulted, and
in them it was found written that the soil of Rome must be twice occupied
by a foreign foe. To fulfil this prediction, the government barbarously
ordered a Gaulish man and woman, together with a Greek woman, to be
buried alive in the Forum.
[Sidenote: [229-223 B.C.]]
The campaign opened in northern Etruria. The Gauls crossed the Apennines
into the vale of the Arno and fell suddenly upon the prætor stationed
with an army at Fæsulæ. Him they overpowered, and defeated with great
slaughter. The consul Æmilius now, with great promptitude, crossed
the Umbrian hills into Etruria; and on his approach the Gauls retired
northwards along the coast, wishing to secure their booty; while Æmilius
hung upon their rear, without venturing to engage in a general action.
But near Pisa they found that the other consul, Atilius, had landed from
Sardinia; and thus hemmed in by two consular armies, they were obliged to
give battle at a place called Telamon. The conflict was desperate; but
the Romans were better armed and better disciplined than of old, while
the Gauls had remained stationary. Their large heavy broadswords, forged
of ill-tempered iron, bent at the first blow, and while they stooped to
straighten them with the foot, they were full exposed to the thrust of
the short Roman sword. The victory of Telamon was as signal as that of
Sentinum or of Vadimo (225 B.C.).
The consuls of the next year (224 B.C.) again invaded the Boian country,
and received the complete submission of all the tribes on the left
bank of the Po. In the following year C. Flaminius, the reputed cause
of the war, was consul, and pushed across the Po, with the resolution
of punishing the Insubrians (Milanese) for the part they had taken
in the invasion of Etruria. The place at which he crossed the great
river was somewhere above Mantua; and here he formed a league with the
Cenomani, who were at deadly feud with the Insubrians. Assisted by these
auxiliaries, he moved westward across the Adda, the boundary of the
Insubrian district. At this moment Flaminius received despatches from
the senate, forbidding him to invade the Insubrian country. But he laid
them aside unopened, and at once gave battle to the enemy. He gained
a signal victory; and then, opening the despatches, he laughed at the
caution of the senate.
During the winter the Insubrians sued for peace; but the new consuls, Cn.
Cornelius Scipio and M. Claudius Marcellus, afterwards so celebrated,
persuaded the senate to undertake a fourth campaign. The consuls both
marched north, and entered the Insubrian territory. But Marcellus,
hearing that Viridomarus, the Insubrian chief, had crossed the Po to
ravage the country lately occupied by the Romans, left his colleague to
reduce the principal towns of the Insubrians, while he pursued the chief
with his army. He came up with him near Clastidium, and attacked him with
his cavalry alone. A smart action ensued, in which Marcellus encountered
Viridomarus, and slew him with his own hand; and the Gauls fled in
disorder. Thus were won the third and last _spolia opima_. Meanwhile
Scipio had taken Mediolanum (Milan), the chief city of the Insubrian
Gauls, and the war was concluded (221 B.C.).
Soon after this it was resolved, probably at the instance of Flaminius,
to plant two colonies, Cremona and Placentia, on opposite sides of the
Po, so as to secure the territory lately won in the Boian and Insubrian
territories. But the execution of this project did not take place
till three years later, when Hannibal was on his march. Some years
afterwards we hear this district spoken of as the province of Ariminum.
Communication was secured between Rome and Ariminum by a road constructed
in the censorship of Flaminius, which bore his name (220 B.C.).
During this great disturbance in Italy, Demetrius of Pharos proved as
false to his new patrons as he had been to Teuta. Relying on the support
of Philip, king of Macedon, he assumed the air of an independent chief,
and encouraged his subjects in their old piratical practices. In 219 B.C.
L. Æmilius Paulus, the patrician consul, received orders from the senate
to put a stop to these proceedings. In one short campaign he reduced
Corcyra, took Pharos, and forced Demetrius to take refuge at the court
of Philip, where we shall find him at a later time active in promoting
hostilities against Rome. Illyricum again fell into the hands of native
chiefs; the Romans, however, kept possession of the island of Corcyra,
together with the strong towns of Oricum and Apollonia--positions of
great service in the Macedonian Wars.
Thus triumphant on all sides and on all sides apparently secure, the
Roman government had no presentiment of the storm that had long been
gathering in the west. We must now return to Hamilcar.
HAMILCAR AND HANNIBAL
[Sidenote: [235-219 B.C.]]
He crossed the straits of Gibraltar in 235 B.C. With him went his
son-in-law Hasdrubal, and his son Hannibal, then a boy of nine years old,
but even then giving promise of those qualities which afterwards made him
the terror of Rome. Hamilcar had not intended to take him to Spain; but
the boy pleaded so earnestly, that the father yielded on condition that
he should swear eternal enmity to Rome and the Romans. Hannibal himself,
in his old age, told the tale to Antiochus, king of Syria, how he was
led to the altar of his country’s gods, and took this direful oath.
Nothing can more strongly show the feelings with which Hamilcar left
his country. He went, not as the servant of Carthage but as the enemy of
Rome, with feelings of personal hostility, not to be appeased save by the
degradation of his antagonist.
His first object was to conquer Spain, and thus put Carthage in
possession of a province which might itself become a great kingdom, and
was worth many Sicilies and Sardinias. One of the chief advantages he
proposed to himself in this conquest was the supply of hardy soldiers,
which would be given by the possession of Spain. But he was well aware
that for this purpose conquest was not sufficient; he must enlist the
feelings of the Spaniards in his cause, he must teach them to look up to
himself and his family as their friends and benefactors. Accordingly he
married a Spanish lady of Castulo; he lived among the natives like one
of themselves; he taught them to work their rich silver mines; and in
all ways opened out the resources of the country. Meanwhile he collected
and disciplined an excellent army, with which he reduced many of the
ruder tribes to the northward of the modern Andalusia and Murcia. Thus
he reigned (this is the best word to express his power) with vigour and
wisdom for eight years; and in the ninth he fell in battle, admired and
regretted by all southern Spain.
Hannibal was yet only in his eighteenth year, too young to take up the
work which his father had left unfinished. But Hasdrubal, the son-in-law
of the great commander, proved his worthy successor. He at once assumed
supreme authority. By the gentler arts of conciliation he won over a
great number of tribes; and in order to give a capital to this new realm,
he founded the city of New Carthage, now Carthagena, on the coast of
Murcia. The successes of Hamilcar had already attracted the notice of
the senate; and in the year 227 B.C., presently after his death, they
concluded a league with Hasdrubal, whereby the river Ebro was fixed as
the northern boundary of the Carthaginian empire in Spain. Hasdrubal fell
by the knife of an assassin in the year 221 B.C., the seventh of his
command.
Hannibal was now in his twenty-fourth year. He was at once elected by
the acclamations of the army to stand in his great father’s place. Nor
did the government venture to brave the anger of a young general at the
head of an army devoted to his cause. Hannibal remained as ruler of
Carthaginian Spain. The office was becoming hereditary in his family.
Hamilcar had enlarged the Carthaginian rule in Spain from a few trading
settlements to a great province. Hasdrubal had carried the limits of this
province as far as the sierra of Toledo. Hannibal immediately crossed
this range into the valley of the Tagus, and reduced the Celtiberian
tribes which then occupied Castille. He even passed the Castilian
Mountains which form the upper edge of the basin of the Tagus, and made
the name of Carthage feared among the Vaccæans of the Douro, by taking
their chief town, Helmantica (Salamanca). At the close of the year 220
B.C., all Spain south of the Ebro was in subjection to Carthage, or in
alliance with her. The great qualities of the three men through whom they
knew her made them not unwilling vassals.
[Sidenote: [219-218 B.C.]]
But there was one city south of the Ebro which still maintained
independence. This was Saguntum, an ancient colony from the Greek island
of Zacynthus. Its site on the coast of modern Valencia is marked by
the present town of Murviedro (Muri Veteres), rather more than halfway
between New Carthage and the mouth of the Ebro. Saguntum had been for
some time in alliance with Rome; and therefore, though it was on the
Carthaginian side of the Ebro, was by Roman custom entitled to support.
In the year 219 B.C. this city was at war with a neighbouring tribe, and
Hannibal eagerly accepted an invitation to destroy the ally of his enemy.
He surrounded Saguntum with a large army; but the people held out for
eight months with that heroic obstinacy which seems to distinguish all
dwellers on Spanish ground, when engaged in defensive warfare. In many
respects the siege of Saguntum brings that of Saragossa to mind.
While the siege yet lasted, the Roman senate had sent envoys to Hannibal,
requiring him to desist from attacking their ally. He replied coldly,
that “he could not answer for their safety in his camp; they had better
seek redress at Carthage.” They went on their way; but meantime the news
of the fall of Saguntum reached Rome, and an embassy was sent to Carthage
to demand that Hannibal, the author of the mischief, should be given up.
There was a large party, that of Hanno and the government, which would
probably have complied with this demand. But Rome was hated at Carthage,
and the government did not dare to oppose the general feeling. They
replied that Saguntum was not mentioned in the treaty of Hasdrubal; even
if it were, that treaty had never been ratified by the government, and
therefore was of no authority. Then Q. Fabius Buteo, chief of the Roman
envoys, doubling his toga in his hand, held it up and said: “In this fold
I carry peace and war: choose ye which ye will have.” “Give us which you
will,” replied the suffet. “Then take war,” said the Roman, letting his
toga fall loose. “We accept the gift,” cried the senators of Carthage,
“and welcome.”
Thus war was formally declared against Rome. But before we pass on to
the narrative of this war, it will be well to form some idea of the
extraordinary man who, by his sole genius, undertook and supported it
with success for so many years.
Hannibal was now in his twenty-eighth year, nearly of the same age
at which Napoleon Bonaparte led the army of the French republic into
Italy. And when we have named Napoleon, we have named, perhaps, the only
man, ancient or modern, who can claim to be superior, or even equal,
to Hannibal as a general. Bred in the camp, he possessed every quality
necessary to gain the confidence of his men. His personal strength and
activity were such that he could handle their arms and perform their
exercises, on foot or on horseback, more skilfully than themselves. His
endurance of heat and cold, of fatigue and hunger, excelled that of
the hardiest soldier in the camp. He never required others to do what
he could not and would not do himself. To these bodily powers he added
an address as winning as that of Hasdrubal his brother-in-law, talents
for command fully as great as those of his father Hamilcar. His frank
manners and genial temper endeared him to the soldiery; his strong will
swayed them like one man. The different nations who made up his motley
arms--Africans and Spaniards, Gauls and Italians--looked upon him each as
their own chief.
Amid the hardships which his mixed army underwent for sixteen years in
a foreign land, there never was a mutiny in his camp. This admirable
versatility of the man was seconded by qualities required to make the
general. His quick perception and great sagacity led him to marvellously
correct judgment of future events and distant countries--which in those
days, when travellers were few and countries unknown, must have been
a task of extraordinary difficulty. He formed his plans after patient
inquiry, and kept them profoundly secret till it was necessary to make
them known. But with this caution in designing was united marvellous
promptness in executing. “He was never deceived himself,” says Polybius,
“but never failed to take advantage of the errors of his opponent.”
Nor was he a mere soldier. In leisure hours he delighted to converse
with Greeks on topics of intellectual cultivation. As a statesman, he
displayed ability hardly inferior to that which he displayed as a general.
Against these great qualities, he is said to have been cruel even to
ferocity, and treacherous beyond the common measure of his country. As
to perfidy, we hear of no single occasion on which Hannibal broke faith
with Rome. As to cruelty, there can be no doubt that he was indifferent
to human life; and on several occasions we shall find him, under the
influence of passion, treating his prisoners with great barbarity. But
though he had been trained to consider the Romans as his natural enemies,
to be hunted down like wolves, we shall find him treating worthy foemen,
such as Marcellus, with the magnanimity of a noble nature.
But whatever might be the ability, whatever the hardihood of the young
general, he required it all. To penetrate from the Ebro to the Po--with
chains of giant mountains to bar his progress, through barbarous and
hostile countries, without roads or maps or accurate knowledge of his
route, without certain provision for the food and clothing of his army,
without the hearty concurrence of his own government--was an undertaking
from which the boldest might shrink, and to have accomplished this march
with triumphant success would alone justify the homage which is still
paid to the genius of Hannibal.[b]
FOOTNOTES
[47] [In the words of Polybius,[d] “App. Claudius with unspeakable
bravery passing the strait by night, got at length into Messana.”]
[48] [Hamilcar took command of an army in Sicily six years before the
close of the war. The story of his brilliant achievements reads like a
romance; but all his energy, skill, and daring did not save his city from
defeat.]
[49] [Appian[f] says that Lacedæmon, being asked for a general, sent
Xanthippus.]
[50] [H. Shear’s version of 1693 is here adopted. We retain the chief
features of the original typographical setting, in keeping with the
quaint phraseology.]
[Illustration: ROMAN BEACON FIRES]
[Illustration]