when he saw that the plebeians were suffering because the laws
concerning debtors were too severe, and came forward as patron of the
poor, he received no recognition, and languished in private life, while
Camillus was a favorite. He therefore turned to the plebeians, and
devoted his large fortune to relieving suffering debtors. The
patricians looking upon him as a deserter from their party, brought up
charges against him, and though he showed the marks of distinction that
he had won in battles for the country, and gained temporary respite
from their enmity, they did not relent until his condemnation had been
secured. He was hurled from the fatal Tarpeian Rock, and his house was
razed to the ground in the year 384.
Eight years after the death of Manlius (B.C. 376), two tribunes of the
plebeians, one of whom was Caius Licinius Stolo, proposed some new laws
to protect poor debtors, whose grievances had been greatly increased by
the havoc of the Gauls, and after nine more years of tedious discussion
and effort, they were enacted (B.C. 367), and are known as the Licinian
Laws, or rather, Rogations, for a law before it was finally passed was
known as a rogation, and these were long discussed before they were
agreed to. (_Rogare_, to ask, that is, to ask the opinion of one.)
So great was the feeling aroused by this discussion, that Camillus was
called upon to interfere, and he succeeded in pacifying the city;
Lucius Sextius was chosen as the first plebeian consul, and Camillus,
having thus a third time saved the state, dedicated a temple to
Concord. As a plebeian had been made consul, the disturbing struggles
between the two orders could not last much longer, and we find that the
plebeians gradually gained ground, until at last the political
distinction between them and the patricians was wiped out for
generations. The laws that finally effected this were those of
Publilius, in 339, and of Hortensius, the dictator, in 286.
The period of the death of Camillus is to be remembered on account of
several facts connected with a plague that visited Rome in the year
365. The people, in their despair, for the third time in the history of
the city, performed a peculiar sacrifice called the _Lectisternium_
(_lectus_, a couch, _sternere_, to spread), to implore the favor of
offended deities. They placed images of the gods upon cushions or
couches and offered them viands, as if the images could really eat
them. Naturally this did not effect any abatement of the ravaging
disease, and under orders of the priests, stage plays were instituted
as a means of appeasing the wrath of heaven. The first Roman play-
writer, Plautus, did not live till a hundred years after this time, and
these performances were trivial imitations of Etruscan acting, which
thus came to Rome at second-hand from Greece; but, as the Romans did
not particularly delight in intellectual efforts at that time,
buffoonery sufficed instead of the wit which gave so much pleasure to
the cultivated attendants at the theatre of Athens. Livy says that
these plays neither relieved the minds nor the bodies of the Romans;
and, in fact, when on one occasion the performances were interrupted by
the overflowing waters of the Tiber which burst into the circus, the
people turned from the theatre in terror, feeling that their efforts to
soothe the gods had been despised. It was at this time that the earth
is said to have been opened in the forum by an earthquake, and that
Curtius cast himself into it as a sacrifice; but, as we have read of
the occurrence before we shall not stop to consider it again. The young
hero was called Mettus Curtius in the former instance, but now the name
given to him is Marcus Curtius.
IX.
HOW THE REPUBLIC OVERCAME ITS NEIGHBORS.
We have now reached the time when Rome had brought under her sway all
the country towards Naples as far as the river Liris, and, gaining
strength, she is about to add materially to her territory and to lay
the foundation for still more extensive conquests. During the century
that we are next to consider, she conquered her immediate neighbors,
and was first noticed by that powerful city which was soon to become
her determined antagonist, Carthage. It was the time when the great
Macedonian conqueror, Alexander, finished his war in Persia, and the
mention of his name leads Livy to pause in his narrative, and,
reflecting that the age was remarkable above others for its conquerors,
to enquire what would have been the consequences if Alexander had been
minded to turn his legions against Rome, after having become master of
the Eastern world. Alexander died, however, before he had an
opportunity to get back from the East; but, as the old historian says,
it is entertaining and relaxing to the mind to digress from weightier
considerations and to embellish historical study with variety, and he
decides that if the great Eastern conqueror had marched against Rome,
he would have been defeated. While Livy was probably influenced in this
decision by that desire to magnify the prowess of his country which is
plainly seen throughout his work, we may agree with him without fear of
being far from correct, especially when we remember that Alexander
achieved his great success against peoples that had not reached the
stage of military science that Rome had by this time attained. "The
aspect of Italy," Livy says, "would have appeared to him quite
different from that of India, which he traversed in the guise of a
reveller at the head of a crew of drunkards * * * Never were we worsted
by an enemy's cavalry, never by their infantry, never in open fight,
never on equal ground," but our army "has defeated and will defeat a
thousand armies more formidable than those of Alexander and the
Macedonians, provided that the same love of peace and solicitude about
domestic harmony in which we now live continue permanent." This is what
patriotism says for Rome, and we can hardly say less, when we remember
that when she came into conflict with great Carthage, led by diplomatic
and scientific Hannibal, she proved the victor. We are, however, more
interested now in what the Roman arms actually accomplished than in
enquiries, however interesting, about what they might have done. They
subjugated the world, and that is enough for us.
One of the most favored and celebrated families in the history of Rome
for a thousand years was that called Valerian, and at the time to which
our thoughts are now directed, one of the members comes into prominence
as the most illustrious general of the era. Marcus Valerius Corvus was
born at about the time when the rogations of Licinius Stolo became
laws, and in early life distinguished himself as a soldier in an
assault made on the Romans by the Gauls, who seem not to have all been
swept away for a long time. It was in the year 349. The dreaded enemy
rushed upon Rome, and the citizens took up arms in a mass. One soldier,
Titus Manlius, met a gigantic Gaul on a bridge over the Anio, and after
slaying him, carried off a massy chain that he bore on his neck.
_Torquatus_ in Latin means "provided with a chain," and this word
was added to the name of Manlius ever after. It was at the same time
that Marcus Valerius encountered another huge Gaul in single combat,
and overcame him, though he was aided by a raven which settled on his
helmet, and in the contest picked at the eyes of the barbarian.
_Corvus_ is the Latin word for raven, and it was added to the other
names of Valerius. A golden crown and ten oxen were presented to him,
and the people chose him consul.
Corvus was no less powerful than popular. He competed with the other
soldiers in their games of the camp, and listened to their jokes like a
companion without taking offence. He thus established a bond between
the two orders. Six times he served as consul, and twice as dictator.
Never was such a man more needed than was he now. At an unknown period
there had come down from the snowy tops of the Apennines a strong
people, known afterwards as Samnites, who now began to press upon the
inhabitants of the region called Campania, in the midst of which is the
volcano Vesuvius. [Footnote: Among the strange customs of the olden
times in Italy was one called _ver sacrum_ (sacred spring). In time of
distress a vow would be made to sacrifice every creature born in April
and May to propitiate an offended deity. In many cases man and beast
were thus offered; but in time humanity revolted against the sacrifice
of children, and they were considered sacred, but allowed to grow up,
and at the age of twenty were sent blindfolded out into the world
beyond the frontier to found a colony wherever the gods might lead
them. The Mamertines in Sicily sprang from such emigrants, and it is
supposed that the Samnites had a similar origin.] There, too, were Cumæ
and Capua, of which we have had occasion to speak, and Herculaneum and
Pompeii; there was Naples on its beautiful bay, and there was
Palæopolis, the "old city," not far distant (_Nea,_ new, _polis,_ city;
_palaios,_ old, _polis,_ city). This was a part of Magna Græcia, which
included many rich cities in the southern portion of the peninsula,
among which were Tarentum, and there had been the earliest of the Greek
colonies, Sybaris, the abode of wealth and luxury, until its
destruction at the time of the fall of the Tarquins.
The Campanians invoked the help of Rome against their sturdy foes, and
a struggle for the mastery of Italy began, which lasted for more than
half a century, though there were three wars, separated by intervals of
peace. The first struggle lasted from 343 to 341, and is important for
its first battle, which was fought at the foot of Mount Gaurus, three
miles from Cumæ. It is memorable because Valerius Corvus, who lived
until the Samnites had been finally subdued, was victorious, and the
historian Niebuhr tells us that though we find it but little spoken of,
it is one of the most noteworthy in all the history of the world,
because it indicated that Rome was to achieve the final success, and
thus take its first step towards universal sovereignty. After this
victory the Carthaginians, with whom Rome was to have a desperate war
afterwards, sent congratulations, accompanied by a golden crown for the
shrine of Jupiter in the capitol. It is said that at the time of the
expulsion of the Tarquins, the Romans and Carthaginians had entered
into a treaty of friendship, which had been renewed five years before
the war with the Samnites, but we are not certain of it.
The results of the burning of Rome by the Gauls had not all ceased to
be felt, and many of the plebeians were still suffering under the
burden of debts that they could not pay. A portion of the army,
composed, as we know, of plebeians, was left to winter at Capua. There
it saw the luxurious extravagance of the citizens, and felt its own
burdens more than ever by contrast. A mutiny ensued, and though it was
quelled, more concessions were made to the plebeians, and their debts
were generally abolished. Meantime the Latins saw evidence that the
power of Rome was growing more rapidly than their own, and they,
therefore, determined to go to war to obtain the equality that they
thought the terms of the treaty between the nations authorized them to
expect. The Samnites were now the allies of Rome, and fought with her.
The armies met under the shadow of Mount Vesuvius. In a vision, so the
story runs, it had been foretold to the Romans that the leader of one
army and the soldiers of the other were forfeited to the gods; and
when, during the battle, the plebeian consul, Marcus Decius Mus, who
had been a hero in the previous war, saw that his line was falling
back, he uttered a solemn prayer and threw himself into the thickest of
the fight. By thus giving up his life, as the partial historians like
to tell us that many Romans have done at various epochs, he ensured
victory on this occasion, and subsequently the conquest of the world,
to his countrymen. Other battles and other victories followed, and the
people of Latium became dependent upon Rome. The last engagement was at
Antium, an ancient city on a promontory below Ostia, which, having a
little navy, had interfered with the Roman commerce. The prows of the
vessels of Antium were set up in the Roman forum as an ornament to the
_suggestum_, or stage from which orators addressed the people. This was
called the _rostra_ afterward. (_Rostra_, beaks of birds or ships.)
Thus the city kept on adding to its dependents, and increasing its
power. In 329, the Volscians were overcome and their long warfare with
Rome ended. Two years later, the Romans declared war against Palæopolis
and Neapolis, and after taking the Old City, made a league with the
New. One war thus led to another, and as the Samnites, getting jealous
of the increasing power of their ally, had aided these two cities, Rome
declared war the second time against them, in 326. It proved the most
important of the three Samnite wars, lasting upward of twenty years.
The aim of each of the combatants seems to have been to gain as many
allies as possible, and to lessen the adherents of the enemy. For this
reason the war was peculiar, the armies of Rome being often found in
Apulia, and those of the enemy being ever ready to overrun Campania.
Success at first followed the Samnite banners, and this was notably the
case at the battle of Caudine Forks, fought in a pass on the road from
Capua to Beneventum (then Maleventum), in the year 321, when the Romans
were entrapped and all obliged to pass under the yoke. Such a success
is apt to influence allies, and this tended to strengthen the Samnites.
It was not until seven years had passed that the Romans were able to
make decided gains, and though their cause appeared quite hopeful, the
very success brought new troubles, because it led the Etruscans to take
part with the Samnites and to create a diversion on the north. This
outbreak is said to have been quelled by Fabius Maximus Rullus, (a
general whose personal prowess is vaunted in the highest terms by the
historians of Rome,) who defeated the Etruscans at Lake Vadimonis, B.C.
310. Success followed in the south, also, and in the year 304,
Bovianum, in the heart of Samnium, which had been before taken by them,
fell into the hands of the Romans and closed the war, leaving Rome the
most powerful nation in Central Italy.
Unable to overcome its northern neighbor, Samnium now turned to attack
Lucania, the country to the south, which reached as far as the
Tarentine Gulf, just under the great heel of Italy. Magna Græcia was
then in a state of decadence, and Lucania was an ally of Rome, which
took its part against Samnium, not as loving Samnium less, but as
loving power more. The struggle became very general. The Etruscans had
begun a new war with Rome, but were about to treat for peace, when the
Samnites induced them to break off the negotiations, and they attacked
Rome at once on the north and the south. The undaunted Romans struck
out with one arm against the Etruscans and their allies the Gauls on
the north, and with the other hurled defiance at the Samnites on the
south. The war was decided by a battle fought in 295, on the ridge of
the Apennines, near the town of Sentinum in Umbria, where the allies
had all managed to unite their forces. On this occasion it is related
that Publius Decius Mus, son of that hero who had sacrificed himself at
Mount Vesuvius, followed his father's example, devoted himself and the
opposing army to the infernal gods, and thus enabled the Romans to
achieve a splendid victory.
The Samnites continued the desperate struggle five years longer, but in
the year 290 they became subject to Rome; their leader, the hero of the
battle of the Caudine Forks, having been taken two years previously and
perfidiously put to death in Rome as the triumphal car of the victor
ascended the Capitoline Hill. This is considered one of the darkest
blots on the Roman name, and Dr. Arnold forcibly says that it shows
that in their dealings with foreigners, the Romans "had neither
magnanimity, nor humanity, nor justice."
The Etruscans and the Gauls did not yet cease their wars on the north,
and in 283 they encountered the Roman army at the little pond, between
the Ciminian Hills and the Tiber, known as Lake Vadimonis, on the spot
where the Etrurian power had been broken thirty years before by Fabius
Maximus, and were defeated with great slaughter. The constant wars had
made the rich richer than before, while at the same time the poor were
growing poorer, and after the third Samnite war we are ready to believe
that debts were again pressing with heavy force upon many of the
citizens. Popular tumults arose, and the usual remedy, an agrarian law,
was proposed. There was a new secession of the people to the Janiculum,
followed by the enactment of the Hortensian laws, celebrated in the
history of jurisprudence because they deprived the senate of its veto
and declared that the voice of the people assembled in their tribes was
supreme law. Debts were abolished or greatly reduced, and seven jugera
of land were allotted to every citizen. We see from this that the
commotions of our own days, made by socialists, communists, and
nihilists, as they are called, are only repetitions of such agitations
as those which took place so many centuries ago.
In the midst of a storm in the especially boisterous winter season of
the year 280, the waves of the Mediterranean washed upon the shores of
Southern Italy a brave man more dead than alive, who was to take the
lead in the last struggle against the supremacy of Rome among its
neighbors. The winds and the waves had no respect for his crown. They
knew not that he ruled over a strong people whose extensive mountainous
land was known as the "continent," and that he had left it with
thousands of archers and slingers and footmen and knights; and that he
had also huge elephants trained to war, beasts then unknown in Italian
warfare, which he expected would strike horror into the cavalry of the
country he had been cast upon.
As we study history, we find that at almost every epoch it centres
about the personality of some strong man who has either power to
control, or sympathetic attractiveness that holds to him those who are
around him. It was so in this case. Pyrrhus, King of Epirus, was born
seven years after the great Alexander died, and was at this time
thirty-seven years of age. Claiming descent from Pyhrrus, son of
Achilles, and being a son of Æacides, he was in the direct line the
Kings of Epirus. He was also cousin of an Alexander, who, in the year
332, had crossed over from Epirus to help the Tarentines against the
Lucanians, had formed an alliance with the Romans, and had finally been
killed by a Lucanian on the banks of the Acheron, in 326. After a
variety of vicissitudes, Pyrrhus had ascended the throne of his father
at the age of twenty-three, and, taking Alexander the Great as his
model, had soon become popular and powerful. Aiming at the conquest of
the whole of Greece, he attacked the king of Macedonia and overcame
him. After resting a while upon his laurels, he found a life of
inactivity unbearable, and accepted a request, sent him in 281, to
follow in the footsteps of his cousin Alexander, and go to the help of
the people of Tarentum against the Romans, with whom they were then at
war. This is the reason why he was voyaging in haste to Italy, and it
was this ambition that led to his shipwreck on a winter's night.
Pyrrhus had a counsellor named Cineas, who asked him how he would use
his victory if he should be so fortunate as to overcome the Romans, who
were reputed great warriors and conquerors of many peoples. The Romans
overcome, replied the king, no city, Greek nor barbarian, would dare to
oppose me, and I should be master of all Italy. Well, Italy conquered,
what next? Sicily next would hold out its arms to receive me, Pyrrhus
replied. And, what next? These would be but forerunners of greater
victories. There are Libya and Carthage, said the king. Then? Then,
continued Pyrrhus, I should be able to master all Greece. And then?
continued Cineas. Then I would live at ease, eat and drink all day, and
enjoy pleasant conversation. And what hinders you from taking now the
ease that you are planning to take after such hazards and so much
blood-shedding? Here the conversation closed, for Pyrrhus could not
answer this question.
Once on the Italian shore the invading king marched to Tarentum, and
found it a city of people given up to pleasures, who had no thought of
fighting themselves, but expected that he would do that work for them
while they enjoyed their theatres, their baths, and their festivities.
They soon found, however, that they had a master instead of a servant.
Pyrrhus shut up the theatres and was inflexible in demanding the
services of the young and strong in the army. His preparations were
made as promptly as possible, but Rome was ahead of him, and her army
was superior, excepting that the Grecians brought elephants with them.
The first battle was fought on the banks of the river Liris, and the
elephants gave victory to the invader, but the valor of the Romans was
such that Pyrrhus is said to have boasted that if he had such soldiers
he could conquer the world, and to have confessed that another such
victory would send him back to Epirus alone. It is not to be wondered
at, therefore, that he sent Cineas to Rome to plead for peace. The
Romans were on the point of entering into negotiations, when aged and
blind Appius Claudius, hearing of it, caused himself to be carried to
the forum, where he delivered an impassioned protest against the
proposed action. So effectual was he that the people became eager for
war, and sent word to Pyrrhus that they would only treat with him when
he should withdraw his forces from Italy. Pyrrhus then marched rapidly
towards Rome, but when he had almost reached the city, after
devastating the country through which he had passed, he learned that
the Romans had made peace with the Etruscans, with whom they had been
fighting, and that thus another army was free to act against him. He
therefore retreated to winter quarters at Tarentum. The next year the
two forces met on the edge of the plains of Apulia, at Asculum, but the
battle resulted in no gain to Pyrrhus, who was again obliged to retire
for the winter to Tarentum. (B.C. 279.)
In the last battle the brunt of the fighting had fallen to the share of
the Epirots, and Pyrrhus was not anxious to sacrifice his comparatively
few remaining troops for the benefit of the Tarentines. Therefore,
after arranging a truce with Rome, he accepted an invitation from the
Greeks of Sicily to go to their help against the Carthaginians. For two
years he fought, at first with success; but afterwards he met repulses,
so that being again asked to assist his former allies in Italy, he
returned, in 276, and for two years led the remnants of his troops and
the mercenaries that he had attracted to his standard against the
Romans. His Italian career closed in the year 274, when he encountered
his enemy in the neighborhood of Maleventum, and was defeated, the
Romans having learned how to meet the formerly dreaded elephants. The
name of this place was then changed to Beneventum. Two years later
still, in 272, Tarentum fell under the sway of Rome, which soon had
overcome every nation on the peninsula south of a line marked by the
Rubicon on the east and the Macra on the west,--the boundaries of
Gallia Cisalpina. (_Cis_, on this side, _alpina_, alpine.)
Not only had Rome thus gained power and prestige at home, but she had
begun to come in contact with more distant peoples. Carthage had
offered to assist her after the battle of Asculum, sending a large
fleet of ships to Ostia in earnest of her good faith. Now, when the
news of the permanent repulse of the proud king of Epirus was spread
abroad, great Ptolemy Philadelphus, the Egyptian patron of art,
literature, and science, sent an embassy empowered to conclude a treaty
of amity with the republic. The proposition was accepted with
earnestness, and ambassadors of the highest rank were sent to
Alexandria, where they were treated with extraordinary consideration,
and allowed to see all the splendor of the Egyptian capital.