ranks, raised a joyful cry, while the Greeks were correspondingly
disheartened, until Pyrrhus, learning what had taken place, rode along
the line with his head bare, stretching out his hands to his soldiers
and telling them that he was safe. At length he was victorious, chiefly
by means of a sudden charge of his Thessalian horse on the Romans after
they had been thrown into disorder by the advance of the elephants. The
Roman horses were terrified at these animals, and, long before they came
near, ran away with their riders in panic. The slaughter was very great:
Dionysius says that of the Romans there fell but little short of fifteen
thousand, but Hieronymus reduces this to seven thousand, while on
Pyrrhus' side there fell, according to Dionysius, thirteen thousand, but
according to Hieronymus less than four thousand.
These, however, were the very flower of Pyrrhus' army; for he lost all
his most trusty officers and his most intimate personal friends. Still,
he captured the Roman camp, which was abandoned by the enemy, induced
several of their allied cities to join him, plundered a vast extent of
country, and advanced within three hundred stades--less than forty
English miles--of Rome itself. After the battle many of the Lucanians
and Samnites came up; these allies he reproached for their dilatory
movements, but was evidently well pleased at having conquered the great
Roman army with no other forces but his own Epirotes and the Tarentines.
The Romans did not remove Laevinus from his office of consul, although
Caius Fabricius is reported to have said that it was not the Epirotes
who had conquered the Romans, but Pyrrhus who had conquered Laevinus;
meaning that he thought that the defeat was owing not to the greater
force but the superior generalship of the enemy. They astonished Pyrrhus
by quickly filling up their ranks with fresh levies, and talking about
the war in a spirit of fearless confidence. He decided to try whether
they were disposed to make terms with him, as he perceived that to
capture Rome and utterly subdue the Roman people would be a work of no
small difficulty, and that it would be vain to attempt it with the force
at his disposal, while after his victory he could make peace on terms
which would reflect great lustre on himself. Cineas was sent as
ambassador to conduct this negotiation.
He conversed with the leading men of Rome, and offered their wives and
children presents from the King. No one, however, would accept them, but
they all, men and women alike, replied that if peace were publicly
concluded with the King, they would then have no objection to regard him
as a friend. And when Cineas spoke before the senate in a winning and
persuasive manner he could not make any impression upon his audience,
although he announced to them that Pyrrhus would restore the prisoners
he had taken without any ransom, and would assist them in subduing all
Italy, while all that he asked in return was that he should be regarded
as a friend, and that the people of Tarentum should not be molested. The
common people, however, were evidently eager for peace, in consequence
of their having been defeated in one great battle, and expecting that
they would have to fight another against a larger force, because the
Italian states would join Pyrrhus.
At this crisis Appius Claudius, an illustrious man, but who had long
since been prevented by old age and blindness from taking any active
part in politics, when he heard of the proposals of Pyrrhus, and that
the question of peace or war was about to be voted upon by the senate,
could no longer endure to remain at home, but caused his slaves to carry
him through the Forum to the senate house in a litter. When he reached
the doors of the senate house his sons and sons-in-law supported him and
guided him into the house, while all the assembly observed a respectful
silence.
Speaking from where he stood, he addressed them as follows: "My
countrymen, I used to grieve at the loss of my sight, but now I am sorry
not to be deaf also, when I hear the disgraceful propositions with which
you are tarnishing the glory of Rome. What has become of that boast
which we were so fond of making before all mankind, that if Alexander
the Great had invaded Italy, and had met us when we were young, and our
fathers when they were in the prime of life, he would not have been
reputed invincible, but would either have fled or perhaps even have
fallen, and added to the glory of Rome?
"You now prove that this was mere empty vaporing, by your terror of
these Chaonians and Molossians, nations who have always been a prey and
a spoil to the Macedonians, and by your fear of this Pyrrhus, who used
formerly to dance attendance on one of Alexander's bodyguards,[54] and
who has now wandered hither not so much in order to assist the Greeks in
Italy as to escape from his enemies at home, and promises to be our
friend and protector, forsooth, when the army he commands did not
suffice to keep for him the least portion of that Macedonia which he
once acquired. Do not imagine that you will get rid of this man by
making a treaty with him. Rather you will encourage other Greek princes
to invade you, for they will despise you and think you an easy prey to
all men if you let Pyrrhus go home again without paying the penalty of
his outrages upon you, nay, with the power to boast that he has made
Rome a laughing-stock for Tarentines and Samnites."
[Footnote 54: Demetrius.]
By these words Appius roused a warlike spirit in the Romans, and they
dismissed Cineas with the answer that if Pyrrhus would leave Italy they
would, if he wished, discuss the question of an alliance with him, but
that while he remained in arms in their country the Romans would fight
him to the death, however many Laevinuses he might defeat. It is related
that Cineas, during his mission to Rome, took great interest in
observing the national life of the Romans, and fully appreciated the
excellence of their political constitution, which he learned by
conversing with many of the leading men of the State. On his return he
told Pyrrhus that the senate seemed to him like an assembly of kings,
and that as to the populace he feared that the Greeks might find in them
a new Lernæan hydra; for twice as many troops had been enrolled in the
consul's army as he had before, and yet there remained many more Romans
capable of bearing arms.
After this Caius Fabricius came to arrange terms for the exchange of
prisoners; a man whom Cineas said the Romans especially valued for his
virtue and bravery, but who was excessively poor. Pyrrhus, in
consequence of this, entertained Fabricius privately, and made him an
offer of money, not as a bribe for any act of baseness, but speaking of
it as a pledge of friendship and sincerity. As Fabricius refused this,
Pyrrhus waited till the next day, when, desirous of making an impression
on him, as he had never seen an elephant, he had his largest elephant
placed behind Fabricius during their conference, concealed by a curtain.
At a given signal, the curtain was withdrawn, and the creature reached
out his trunk over the head of Fabricius with a harsh and terrible cry.
Fabricius, however, quietly turned round, and then said to Pyrrhus with
a smile, "You could not move me by your gold yesterday, nor can you with
your beast to-day."
At table that day they conversed upon all subjects, but chiefly about
Greece and Greek philosophy. Cineas repeated the opinion of Epicurus and
his school, about the gods, and the practice of political life, and the
objects at which we should aim, how they considered pleasure to be the
highest good, and held aloof from taking any active part in politics,
because it spoiled and destroyed perfect happiness; and about how they
thought that the gods lived far removed from hopes and fears, and
interest in human affairs, in a placid state of eternal fruition.[55]
While he was speaking in this strain Fabricius burst out: "Hercules!"
cried he, "may Pyrrhus and the Samnites continue to waste their time on
these speculations as long as they remain at war with us!" Pyrrhus, at
this, was struck by the spirit and noble disposition of Fabricius, and
longed more than ever to make Rome his friend instead of his enemy. He
begged him to arrange terms of peace, and after they were concluded to
come and live with him as the first of his friends and officers.
[Footnote 55: I have translated the above passages almost literally from
the Greek. Yet I am inclined to think that Arnold has penetrated the
true meaning, and shows us the reason for Fabricius' exclamation when he
states the Epicurean philosophy, as expounded by Cineas, to be "that war
and state affairs were but toil and trouble, and that the wise man
should imitate the blissful rest of the gods, who, dwelling in their own
divinity, regarded not the vain turmoil of this lower world."]
Fabricius is said to have quietly answered: "That, O King, will not be
to your advantage; for those who now obey you, and look up to you, if
they had any experience of me, would prefer me to you for their king."
Pyrrhus was not angry at this speech, but spoke to all his friends about
the magnanimous conduct of Fabricius, and intrusted the prisoners to him
alone, on the condition that, if the senate refused to make peace, they
should be allowed to embrace their friends, and spend the festival of
the Saturnalia with them, and then be sent back to him. And they were
sent back after the Saturnalia, for the senate decreed that any of them
who remained behind should be put to death.
After this, when C. Fabricius was consul, a man came into his camp
bringing a letter from King Pyrrhus' physician, in which he offered to
poison the King if he could be assured of a suitable reward for his
services in thus bringing the war to an end without a blow. Fabricius,
disgusted at the man's treachery, brought his colleague to share his
views, and in haste sent off a letter to Pyrrhus, bidding him be on his
guard. The letter ran as follows: "Caius Fabricius and Quintus Æmilius,
the Roman consuls, greet King Pyrrhus. You appear to be a bad judge both
of your friends and of your enemies. You will perceive, by reading the
enclosed letter which has been sent to us, that you are fighting against
good and virtuous men, and trusting to wicked and treacherous ones. We
do not give you this information out of any love we bear you, but for
fear that we might be charged with having assassinated you and be
thought to have brought the war to a close by treachery because we could
not do so by manhood."
Pyrrhus on receiving this letter, and discovering the plot against his
life, punished his physician, and, in return for the kindness of
Fabricius and the Romans, delivered up their prisoners without ransom,
and sent Cineas a second time to arrange terms of peace. However, the
Romans refused to receive their prisoners back without ransom, being
unwilling either to receive a favor from their enemy or to be rewarded
for having abstained from treachery toward him, but set free an equal
number of Tarentines and Samnites, and sent them to him. As to terms of
peace, they refused to entertain the question unless Pyrrhus first
placed his entire armament on board the ships in which it came, and
sailed back to Epirus with it.
As it was now necessary that Pyrrhus should fight another battle, he
advanced with his army to the city of Asculum, and attacked the Romans.
Here he was forced to fight on rough ground, near the swampy banks of a
river, where his elephants and cavalry were of no service, and he was
forced to attack with his phalanx. After a drawn battle, in which many
fell, night parted the combatants. Next day Pyrrhus manoeuvred so as to
bring the Romans fairly into the plain, where his elephants could act
upon the enemy's line. He occupied the rough ground on either side,
placed many archers and slingers among his elephants, and advanced with
his phalanx in close order and irresistible strength.
The Romans, who were unable on the level ground to practise the
bush-fighting and skirmishing of the previous day, were compelled to
attack the phalanx in front. They endeavored to force their way through
that hedge of spears before the elephants could come up, and showed
marvellous courage in hacking at the spears with their swords, exposing
themselves recklessly, careless of wounds or death. After a long
struggle, it is said that they first gave way at the point where Pyrrhus
was urging on his soldiers in person, though the defeat was chiefly due
to the weight and crushing charge of the elephants. The Romans could not
find any opportunity in this sort of battle for the display of their
courage, but thought it their duty to stand aside and save themselves
from a useless death, just as they would have done in the case of a wave
of the sea or an earthquake coming upon them. In the flight to their
camp, which was not far off, Hieronymus says that six thousand Romans
perished, and that in Pyrrhus' commentaries his loss is stated at three
thousand five hundred and five.
Dionysius, on the other hand, does not admit that there were two battles
at Asculum, or that the Romans suffered a defeat, but tells us that they
fought the whole of one day until sunset, and then separated, Pyrrhus
being wounded in the arm by a javelin, and the Samnites having plundered
his baggage. He also states the total loss on both sides to be above
fifteen thousand.
The armies separated after the battle, and it is said that Pyrrhus, when
congratulated on his victory by his friends, said in reply: "If we win
one more such victory over the Romans, we shall be utterly ruined." For
a large part of the force which he had brought with him had perished,
and very nearly all his friends and officers, and there were no more to
send for at home.
THE PUNIC WARS
B.C. 264-219-149
FLORUS
(The three Punic wars stand out in history as a mighty "duel _à
l'outrance_" [a fight to the death], as Victor Hugo says, in the final
scene of which Rome, having herself been brought near to defeat, "rises
again, uses the limits of her strength in a last blow, throws herself on
Carthage, and effaces her from the world."
Jealousy and antagonism had long existed between Rome and Carthage, but
it was the preeminence of the African city which held Roman ambition in
check and for generations deferred the final struggle. But when at last
Rome had acquired the strength she needed in order to assert her
rivalry, it was only a question of actual preparation, and the first
cause of quarrel was sure to be seized upon by either party, especially
by the growing and haughty Italian Power.
The immediate object of contention was the island of Sicily, lying
between the territory of Rome and that of Carthage. In Sicily the First
Punic War, lasting about twenty-three years, was mainly carried on by
the Romans with success, while on the sea Carthage for a long time
maintained superiority.
During the intervals between the Punic wars two things appear with
striking force in the history of these events--the passive strength and
recuperative power of Carthage, which enabled her to return again and
again to the struggle from almost crushing defeat, and the marvellous
development of resources and aggressive vigor on the part of Rome, in
whose case the rise of powerful individual leaders more than offset the
weight of long-accumulated energies, supplemented as these were by the
genius and achievement of great Carthaginian warriors.
The wars progressed in a spirit of deadly hatred, constantly intensified
on both sides, and the Roman determination, of which Cato was the
mouthpiece, that Carthage must be destroyed, met its stubborn answer in
the endeavors of the Carthaginians to turn this vengeance against Rome
herself.
Carthage had been mistress of the world, the richest and most powerful
of cities. Her naval supremacy alone had sufficed to secure her safety
and superiority over all rivals or possible combinations of force. But
the strength of her government lay not so much in her people, or even in
her statesmen and soldiers, as in her men of wealth. A political
establishment founded upon such supports was peculiarly liable to all
the dangers of corruption and of public ignorance and apathy in the
conduct of affairs. These causes appear conspicuously in the history of
the Punic wars, as contributing largely to the overthrow and final
extinguishment of Carthage, which left to her successful rival the open
way to universal dominion.
The account of Florus presents in a style at once comprehensive and
succinct a splendid narrative of these wars, with their decisive and
world-changing events.)
THE FIRST PUNIC WAR
The victor-people of Italy, having now spread over the land as far as
the sea, checked its course for a little, like a fire, which, having
consumed the woods lying in its track, is stopped by some intervening
river. But soon after, seeing at no great distance a rich prey, which
seemed in a manner detached and torn away from their own Italy, they
were so inflamed with a desire to possess it that, since it could
neither be joined to their country by a mole or bridge, they resolved
that it should be secured by arms and war, and reunited, as it were, to
their continent. And behold! as if the Fates themselves opened a way for
them, an opportunity was not wanting, for Messana, a city of Sicily in
alliance with them, happened then to make a complaint concerning the
tyranny of the Carthaginians.
As the Romans coveted Sicily, so likewise did the people of Carthage;
and both at the same time, with equal desires and equal forces,
contemplated the attainment of the empire of the world. Under the
pretext, therefore, of assisting their allies, but in reality being
allured by the prey, that rude people, that people sprung from
shepherds, and merely accustomed to the land, made it appear, though the
strangeness of the attempt startled them (yet such confidence is there
in true courage), that to the brave it is indifferent whether a battle
be fought on horseback or in ships, by land or by sea.
It was in the consulship of Appius Claudius that they first ventured
upon that strait which has so ill a name from the strange things related
of it, and so impetuous a current. But they were so far from being
affrighted, that they regarded the violence of the rushing tide as
something in their favor, and, sailing forward immediately and without
delay, they defeated Hiero, king of Syracuse, with so much rapidity that
he owned he was conquered before he saw the enemy. In the consulship of
Duilius and Cornelius, they likewise had courage to engage at sea, and
then the expedition used in equipping the fleet was a presage of
victory; for within sixty days after the timber was felled, a navy of a
hundred and sixty ships lay at anchor; so that the vessels did not seem
to have been made by art, but the trees themselves appeared to have been
turned into ships by the aid of the gods. The aspect of the battle, too,
was wonderful; as the heavy and slow ships of the Romans closed with the
swift and nimble barks of the enemy. Little availed their naval arts,
such as breaking off the oars of a ship, and eluding the beaks of the
enemy by turning aside; for the grappling-irons and other instruments,
which, before the engagement, had been greatly derided by the enemy,
were fastened upon their ships, and they were compelled to fight as on
solid ground. Being victorious, therefore, at Liparæ, by sinking and
scattering the enemy's fleet, they celebrated their first naval triumph.
And how great was the exultation at it! Duilius, the commander, not
content with one day's triumph, ordered, during all the rest of his
life, when he returned from supper, lighted torches to be carried, and
flutes to play, before him, as if he would triumph every day. The loss
in this battle was trifling, in comparison with the greatness of the
victory; though the other consul, Cornelius Asina, was cut off, being
invited by the enemy to a pretended conference, and put to death; an
instance of Carthaginian perfidy.
Under the dictatorship of Calatinus, the Romans expelled almost all the
garrisons of the Carthaginians from Agrigentum, Drepanum, Panormus,
Eryx, and Lilybæum. Some alarm was experienced at the forest of
Camarina, but we were rescued by the extraordinary valor of Calpurnius
Flamma, a tribune of the soldiers, who, with a choice troop of three
hundred men, seized upon an eminence occupied by the enemy, to our
annoyance, and so kept them in play till the whole army escaped; thus,
by eminent success, equalling the fame of Thermopylæ and Leonidas,
though our hero was indeed more illustrious, inasmuch as he escaped and
outlived so great an effort, notwithstanding he wrote nothing with his
blood.
In the consulship of Lucius Cornelius Scipio, when Sicily was become as
a suburban province of the Roman people, and the war was spreading
farther, they crossed over into Sardinia, and into Corsica, which lies
near it. In the latter they terrified the natives by the destruction of
the city of Olbia, in the former by that of Aleria; and so effectually
humbled the Carthaginians, both by land and sea, that nothing remained
to be conquered but Africa itself. Accordingly, under the leadership of
Marcus Atilius Regulus, the war passed over into Africa. Nor were there
wanting some on the occasion who mutinied at the mere name and dread of
the Punic sea, a tribune named Mannius increasing their alarm; but the
general, threatening him with the axe if he did not obey, produced
courage for the voyage by the terror of death. They then hastened their
course by the aid of winds and oars, and such was the terror of the
Africans at the approach of the enemy that Carthage was almost surprised
with its gates opened.
The first prize taken in the war was the city of Clypea, which juts out
from the Carthaginian shore as a fortress or watch-tower. Both this and
more than three hundred fortresses besides were destroyed. Nor had the
Romans to contend only with men, but with monsters also; for a serpent
of vast size, born, as it were, to avenge Africa, harassed their camp on
the Bagrada. But Regulus, who overcame all obstacles, having spread the
terror of his name far and wide, having killed or taken prisoners a
great number of the enemy's force, and their captains themselves, and
having despatched his fleet, laden with much spoil and stored with
materials for a triumph, to Rome, proceeded to besiege Carthage itself,
the origin of the war, and took his position close to the gates of it.
Here fortune was a little changed; but it was only that more proofs of
Roman fortitude might be given, the greatness of which was generally
best shown in calamities. For the enemy applying for foreign assistance,
and Lacedaemon having sent them Xanthippus as a general, we were
defeated by a captain so eminently skilled in military affairs. It was
then that by an ignominious defeat, such as the Romans had never before
experienced, their most valiant commander fell alive into the enemy's
hands. But he was a man able to endure so great a calamity; as he was
neither humbled by his imprisonment at Carthage nor by the deputation
which he headed to Rome; for he advised what was contrary to the
injunctions of the enemy, and recommended that no peace should be made,
and no exchange of prisoners admitted. Even by his voluntary return to
his enemies, and by his last sufferings, whether in prison or on the
cross, the dignity of the man was not at all obscured. But being
rendered, by all these occurrences, even more worthy of admiration, what
can be said of him but that, when conquered, he was superior to his
conquerors, and that, though Carthage had not submitted, he triumphed
over Fortune herself?