fate of Regulus than to obtain victory. Under the consul Metellus,
therefore, when the Carthaginians were growing insolent, and when the
war had returned into Sicily, they gave the enemy such a defeat at
Panormus that they thought no more of that island. A proof of the
greatness of this victory was the capture of about a hundred elephants,
a vast prey, even if they had taken that number, not in war, but in
hunting.[56] Under the consulship of Appius Claudius, they were
overcome, not by the enemy, but by the gods themselves, whose auspices
they had despised, their fleet being sunk in that very place where the
consul had ordered the chickens to be thrown overboard, because he was
warned by them not to fight. Under the consulship of Marcus Fabius
Buteo, they overthrew, near Ægimurus, in the African sea, a fleet of the
enemy which was just sailing for Italy. But, oh! how great materials for
a triumph were then lost by a storm, when the Roman fleet, richly laden
with spoil, and driven by contrary winds, covered with its wreck the
coasts of Africa and the Syrtes, and of all the islands lying amid those
seas! A great calamity! But not without some honor to this eminent
people, from the circumstance that their victory was intercepted only by
a storm, and that the matter for their triumph was lost only by a
shipwreck. Yet, though the Punic spoils were scattered abroad, and
thrown up by the waves on every promontory and island, the Romans still
celebrated a triumph. In the consulship of Lutatius Catulus, an end was
at last put to the war near the islands named Ægates. Nor was there any
greater fight during this war; for the fleet of the enemy was laden with
provisions, troops, towers, and arms; indeed, all Carthage, as it were,
was in it; a state of things which proved its destruction, as the Roman
fleet, on the contrary, being active, light, free from encumbrance, and
in some degree resembling a land-camp, was wheeled about by its oars
like cavalry in a battle by their reins; and the beaks of the vessels,
directed now against one part of the enemy and now against another,
presented the appearance of living creatures. In a very short time,
accordingly, the ships of the enemy were shattered to pieces, and filled
the whole sea between Sicily and Sardinia with their wrecks. So great,
indeed, was the victory that there was no thought of demolishing the
enemy's city; since it seemed superfluous to pour their fury on towers
and walls, when Carthage had already been destroyed at sea.
[Footnote 56: "A vast prey--not in war, but in hunting." The sense is,
it would have been a considerable capture if he had taken these hundred
elephants, not in battle, but in hunting, in which more are often
taken.]
THE SECOND PUNIC WAR
After the first Carthaginian war there was scarcely a rest of four
years, when there was another war, inferior, indeed, in length of time,
for it occupied but eighteen years, but so much more terrible, from the
direfulness of its havoc, that if anyone compares the losses on both
sides, the people that conquered was more like one defeated. What
provoked this noble people was that the command of the sea was forced
from them, that their islands were taken, and that they were obliged to
pay tribute which they had before been accustomed to impose. Hannibal,
when but a boy, swore to his father, before an altar, to take revenge on
the Romans; nor was he backward to execute his oath. Saguntum,
accordingly, was made the occasion of a war; an old and wealthy city of
Spain, and a great but sad example of fidelity to the Romans. This city,
though granted, by the common treaty, the special privilege of enjoying
its liberty, Hannibal, seeking pretences for new disturbances, destroyed
with his own hands and those of its inhabitants, in order that, by an
infraction of the compact, he might open a passage for himself into
Italy.
Among the Romans there is the highest regard to treaties, and
consequently, on hearing of the siege of an allied city, and
remembering, too, the compact made with the Carthaginians, they did not
at once have recourse to arms, but chose rather to expostulate on legal
grounds. In the mean time the Saguntines, exhausted with famine, the
assaults of machines, and the sword, and their fidelity being at last
carried to desperation, raised a vast pile in the market-place, on which
they destroyed, with fire and sword, themselves, their wives and
children, and all that they possessed. Hannibal, the cause of this great
destruction, was required to be given up. The Carthaginians hesitating
to comply, Fabius, who was at the head of the embassy, exclaimed: "What
is the meaning of this delay? In the fold of this garment I carry war
and peace; which of the two do you choose?" As they cried out "War,"
"Take war, then," he rejoined, and, shaking out the fore-part of his
toga in the middle of the senate house, as if he really carried war in
its folds, he spread it abroad, not without awe on the part of the
spectators.
The sequel of the war was in conformity with its commencement; for, as
if the last imprecations of the Saguntines, at their public
self-immolation and burning of the city, had required such obsequies to
be performed to them, atonement was made to their _manes_ by the
devastation of Italy, the reduction of Africa, and the destruction of
the leaders and kings who engaged in that contest. When once, therefore,
that sad and dismal force and storm of the Punic War had arisen in
Spain, and had forged, in the fire of Saguntum, the thunderbolt long
before intended for the Romans, it immediately burst, as if hurried
along by resistless violence, through the middle of the Alps, and
descended, from those snows of incredible altitude, on the plains of
Italy, as if it had been hurled from the skies. The violence of its
first assault burst, with a mighty sound, between the Po and the
Ticinus. There the army under Scipio was routed; and the general
himself, being wounded, would have fallen into the hands of the enemy,
had not his son, then quite a boy, covered his father with his shield,
and rescued him from death. This was the Scipio who grew up for the
conquest of Africa, and who was to receive a name from its ill-fortune.
To Ticinus succeeded Trebia, where, in the consulship of Sempronius, the
second outburst of the Punic War was spent. On that occasion, the crafty
enemy, having chosen a cold and snowy day, and having first warmed
themselves at their fires, and anointed their bodies with oil, conquered
us, though they were men that came from the south and a warm sun, by the
aid (strange to say!) of our own winter.
The third thunderbolt of Hannibal fell at the Trasimene lake, when
Flaminius was commander. There also was employed a new stratagem of
Carthaginian subtlety; for a body of cavalry, being concealed by a mist
rising from the lake, and by the osiers growing in the fens, fell upon
the rear of the Romans as they were fighting. Nor can we complain of the
gods; for swarms of bees settling upon the standards, the reluctance of
the eagles to move forward, and a great earthquake that happened at the
commencement of the battle--unless, indeed, it was the tramping of horse
and foot, and the violent concussion of arms, that produced this
trembling of the ground--had forewarned the rash leader of approaching
defeat.
The fourth and almost mortal wound of the Roman Empire was at Cannæ, an
obscure village of Apulia; which, however, became famous by the
greatness of the defeat, its celebrity being acquired by the slaughter
of forty thousand men. Here the general, the ground, the face of heaven,
the day, indeed, all nature conspired together for the destruction of
the unfortunate army. For Hannibal, the most artful of generals, not
content with sending pretended deserters among the Romans, who fell upon
their rear as they were fighting, but having also noted the nature of
the ground in those open plains, where the heat of the sun is extremely
violent, the dust very great, and the wind blows constantly, and as it
were statedly, from the east, drew up his army in such a position that,
while the Romans were exposed to all these inconveniences, he himself,
having heaven, as it were, on his side, fought with wind, dust, and sun
in his favor. Two vast armies, in consequence, were slaughtered till the
enemy were satiated, and till Hannibal said to his soldiers, "Put up
your swords." Of the two commanders, one escaped, the other was slain;
which of them showed the greater spirit is doubtful. Paulus was ashamed
to survive; Varrodid not despair. Of the greatness of the slaughter the
following proofs may be noticed: that the Aufidus was for some time red
with blood; that a bridge was made of dead bodies, by order of Hannibal,
over the torrent of Vergellus, and that two _modii_ of rings were sent
to Carthage, and the equestrian dignity estimated by measure.
It was afterward not doubted but that Rome might have seen its last day,
and that Hannibal, within five days, might have feasted in the Capitol,
if--as they say that Adherbal, the Carthaginian, the son of Bomilcar,
observed--"he had known as well how to use his victory as how to gain
it." But at that crisis, as is generally said, either the fate of the
city that was to be empress of the world, or his own want of judgment,
and the influence of deities unfavorable to Carthage, carried him in a
different direction. When he might have taken advantage of his victory,
he chose rather to seek enjoyment from it, and, leaving Rome, to march
into Campania and to Tarentum, where both he and his army soon lost
their vigor, so that it was justly remarked that "Capua proved a Cannæ
to Hannibal"; since the sunshine of Campania and the warm springs of
Baiæ subdued--who could have believed it?--him who had been unconquered
by the Alps and unshaken in the field. In the mean time the Romans began
to recover and to rise, as it were, from the dead. They had no arms, but
they took them down from the temples; men were wanting, but slaves were
freed to take the oath of service; the treasury was exhausted, but the
senate willingly offered their wealth for the public service, leaving
themselves no gold but what was contained in their children's
_bullæ_[57] and in their own belts and rings. The knights followed their
example, and the common people that of the knights; so that when the
wealth of private persons was brought to the public treasury--in the
consulship of Lævinus and Marcellus--the registers scarcely sufficed to
contain the account of it, or the hands of the clerks to record it.
[Footnote 57: A sort of ornament suspended from the necks of children,
which, among the wealthy, was made of gold. It was in the shape of a
bubble on water, or, as Pliny says, of a heart.]
But how can I sufficiently praise the wisdom of the centuries in the
choice of magistrates, when the younger sought advice from the elder as
to what consuls should be created? They saw that against an enemy so
often victorious, and so full of subtlety, it was necessary to contend,
not only with courage, but with his own wiles. The first hope of the
empire now recovering, and, if I may use the expression, coming to life
again, was Fabius, who found a new mode of conquering Hannibal, which
was, _not to fight_. Hence he received that new name, so salutary to the
commonwealth, of _Cunctator_, or Delayer. Hence too it happened that he
was called by the people _the shield of the empire_. Through the whole
of Samnium, and through the Falerian and Gauran forests, he so harassed
Hannibal that he who could not be reduced by valor was weakened by
delay. The Romans then ventured, under the command of Claudius
Marcellus, to engage him; they came to close quarters with him, drove
him out of his dear Campania, and forced him to raise the siege of Nola.
They ventured likewise, under the leadership of Sempronius Gracchus, to
pursue him through Lucania, and to press hard upon his rear as he
retired; though they then fought him (sad dishonor!) with a body of
slaves, for to this extremity had so many disasters reduced them, but
they were rewarded with liberty, and from slaves they made them Romans.
O amazing confidence in the midst of so much adversity! O extraordinary
courage and spirit of the Roman people in such oppressive and
distressing circumstances! At a time when they were uncertain of
preserving their own Italy, they yet ventured to look to other
countries; and when the enemy were at their throat, flying through
Campania and Apulia, and making an Africa in the middle of Italy, they
at the same time both withstood that enemy and dispersed their arms over
the earth into Sicily, Sardinia, and Spain.
Sicily was assigned to Marcellus, and did not long resist his efforts;
for the whole island was conquered in the conquest of one city.
Syracuse, its great and, till that period, unconquered capital, though
defended by the genius of Archimedes, was at last obliged to yield. Its
triple wall and three citadels, its marble harbor and the celebrated
fountain of Arethusa, were no defence to it, except so far as to procure
consideration for its beauty when it was conquered.
Sardinia Gracchus reduced; the savageness of the inhabitants, and the
vastness of its Mad Mountains--for so they are called--availed it
nothing. Great severity was exercised upon its cities, and upon Caralis,
the city of its cities, that a nation, obstinate and regardless of
death, might at least be humbled by concern for the soil of its country.
Into Spain were sent the two Scipios, Cnaeus, and Publius, who wrested
almost the whole of it from the Carthaginians; but, being surprised by
the artifices of Punic subtlety, they again lost it, even after they had
slaughtered the enemy's forces in great battles. The wiles of the
Carthaginians cut off one of them by the sword as he was pitching his
camp, and the other by surrounding him with lighted fagots after he had
made his escape into a tower. But the other Scipio, to whom the Fates
had decreed so great a name from Africa, being sent with an army to
revenge the death of his father and uncle, recovered all that warlike
country of Spain, so famous for its men and arms, that seminary of the
enemy's force, that instructress of Hannibal, from the Pyrenean
mountains--the account is scarcely credible--to the Pillars of Hercules
and the ocean, whether with greater speed or good fortune is difficult
to decide; how great was his speed, four years bear witness; how
remarkable his good fortune, even one city proves, for it was taken on
the same day in which siege was laid to it, and it was an omen of the
conquest of Africa that Carthage in Spain was so easily reduced. It is
certain, however, that what most contributed to make the province submit
was the eminent virtue of the general, who restored to the barbarians
certain captive youths and maidens of extraordinary beauty, not allowing
them even to be brought into his sight, that he might not seem, even by
a single glance, to have detracted from their virgin purity.
These actions the Romans performed in different parts of the world, yet
were they unable, notwithstanding, to remove Hannibal, who was lodged in
the heart of Italy. Most of the towns had revolted to the enemy, whose
vigorous commander used even the strength of Italy against the Romans.
However, we had now forced him out of many towns and districts. Tarentum
had returned to our side; and Capua, the seat, home, and second country
of Hannibal, was again in our hands; the loss of which caused the Punic
leader so much affliction that he then directed all his force against
Rome.
O people worthy of the empire of the world, worthy of the favor and
admiration of all, not only men, but gods! Though they were brought into
the greatest alarm, they desisted not from their original design; though
they were concerned for their own city, they did not abandon their
attempts on Capua; but, part of their army being left there with the
consul Appius, and part having followed Flaccus to Rome, they fought
both at home and abroad at the same time. Why then should we wonder that
the gods themselves, the gods, I say--nor shall I be ashamed[58] to
admit it--again opposed Hannibal as he was preparing to march forward
when at three miles' distance from Rome. For, at every movement of his
force, so copious a flood of rain descended, and such a violent storm of
wind arose, that it was evident the enemy was repulsed by divine
influence, and the tempest proceeded, not from heaven, but from the
walls of the city and the Capitol. He therefore fled and departed, and
withdrew to the farthest corner of Italy, leaving the city in a manner
adored. It is but a small matter to mention, yet sufficiently indicative
of the magnanimity of the Roman people, that during those very days in
which the city was besieged, the ground which Hannibal occupied with his
camp was offered for sale at Rome, and, being put up to auction,
actually found a purchaser. Hannibal, on the other side, wished to
imitate such confidence, and put up for sale the bankers' houses in the
city; but no buyer was found; so that it was evident that the Fates had
their presages.
[Footnote 58: Why should he be ashamed to admit that Rome was saved by
the aid of the gods? To receive assistance from the gods was a proof of
merit. The gods help those who help themselves, says the proverb. When
he says that the gods "_again_ opposed Hannibal," he seems to refer to
what he said above in speaking of the battle of Cannae, that the
deities, averse to Carthage, prevented Hannibal from marching at that
time to Rome.]
But as yet nothing had been effectually accomplished by so much valor,
or even through such eminent favor from the gods; for Hasdrubal, the
brother of Hannibal, was approaching with a new army, new strength, and
every fresh requisite for war. There had doubtless been an end of Rome,
if that general had united himself with his brother; but Claudius Nero,
in conjunction with Livius Salinator, overthrew him as he was pitching
his camp. Nero was at that time keeping Hannibal at bay in the farthest
corner of Italy; while Livius had marched to the very opposite quarter,
that is, to the very entrance and confines of Italy; and of the ability
and expedition with which the consuls joined their forces--though so
vast a space, that is, the whole of Italy where it is longest, lay
between them--and defeated the enemy with their combined strength, when
they expected no attack, and without the knowledge of Hannibal, it is
difficult to give a notion. When Hannibal, however, had knowledge of the
matter, and saw his brother's head thrown down before his camp, he
exclaimed, "I perceive the evil destiny of Carthage." This was his first
confession of that kind, not without a sure presage of his approaching
fate; and it was now certain, even from his own acknowledgment, that
Hannibal might be conquered. But the Roman people, full of confidence
from so many successes, thought it would be a noble enterprise to subdue
such a desperate enemy in his own Africa. Directing their whole force,
therefore, under the leadership of Scipio, upon Africa itself, they
began to imitate Hannibal, and to avenge upon Africa the sufferings of
their own Italy. What forces of Hasdrubal (good gods!), what armies of
Syphax, did that commander put to flight! How great were the camps of
both that he destroyed in one night by casting firebrands into them! At
last, not at three miles distance, but by a close siege, he shook the
very gates of Carthage itself. And thus he succeeded in drawing off
Hannibal when he was still clinging to and brooding over Italy. There
was no more remarkable day, during the whole course of the Roman Empire,
than that on which those two generals, the greatest of all that ever
lived, whether before or after them, the one the conqueror of Italy, and
the other of Spain, drew up their forces for a close engagement. But
previously a conference was held between them concerning conditions of
peace. They stood motionless awhile in admiration of each other. When
they could not agree on a peace, they gave the signal for battle. It is
certain, from the confession of both, that no troops could have been
better drawn up, and no fight more obstinately maintained. This Hannibal
acknowledged concerning the army of Scipio, and Scipio concerning that
of Hannibal. But Hannibal was forced to yield, and Africa became the
prize of the victory; and the whole earth soon followed the fate of
Africa.
THE THIRD PUNIC WAR
The third war with Africa was both short in its duration--for it was
finished in four years--and, compared with those that preceded it, of
much less difficulty; as we had to fight not so much against troops in
the field as against the city itself; but it was far the greatest of the
three in its consequences, for in it Carthage was at last destroyed. And
if anyone contemplates the events of the three periods, he will
understand that the war was begun in the first, greatly advanced in the
second, and entirely finished in the third.
The cause of this war was that Carthage, in violation of an article in
the treaty, had once fitted out a fleet and army against the Numidians,
and had frequently threatened the frontiers of Masinissa. But the Romans
were partial to this good king, who was also their ally.
When the war had been determined upon, they had to consider about the
end of it. Cato, even when his opinion was asked on any other subject,
pronounced, with implacable enmity, that Carthage should be destroyed.
Scipio Nasica gave his voice for its preservation, lest, if the fear of
the rival city were removed, the exultation of Rome should grow
extravagant. The senate decided on a middle course, resolving that the
city should only be removed from its place; for nothing appeared to them
more glorious than that there should be a Carthage which should not be
feared. In the consulship of Manlius and Censorinus, therefore, the
Roman people having attacked Carthage, but giving them some hopes of
peace, burned their fleet, which they voluntarily delivered up, in sight
of the city. Having next summoned the chief men, they commanded them to
quit the place if they wished to preserve their lives. This requisition,
from its cruelty, so incensed them that they chose rather to submit to
the utmost extremities. They accordingly bewailed their necessities
publicly, and shouted with one voice _to arms_; and a resolution was
made to resist the enemy by every means in their power; not because any
hope of success was left, but because they had rather their birthplace
should be destroyed by the hands of the enemy than by their own. With
what spirit they resumed the war may be understood from the facts that
they pulled down their roofs and houses for the equipment of a new
fleet; that gold and silver, instead of brass and iron, were melted in
their forges for the construction of arms; and that the women parted
with their hair to make cordage for the engines of war.