_Latium_, lying south of Etruria, was chiefly a low plain; but its

surface was varied by spurs of the Apennines on the north, and by the

Vol´scian and Alban ranges of volcanic origin in the center and south. It

included the Roman Campagna, now a solitary and almost treeless expanse,

considered uninhabitable from the noxious exhalations of the soil, but

during and before the flourishing period of Rome, the site of many

populous cities. Several foreign tribes occupied portions of the Latin

territory, among whom the Volsci, on the mountains which bear their name,

and the Æqui, north of Prænes´te, were best worthy of mention. In the

view of history, a cluster of low hills—seven east and three west of the

Tiber—which constitute in later ages the site of Rome, is not only the

most important part of Latium, but that which gives its significance to

all the rest.

=5.= _Campania_ was a fertile and delightful region, extending from the

Liris to the Silarus, and from the Apennines to the sea. Greek and Roman

writers never wearied of celebrating the excellence of its harbors, the

beauty of its landscape, the exuberant richness of its soil, and the

enchanting softness of its air. The coast is varied by the isolated cone

of Vesu´vius and a range of volcanic hills, including the now extinct

crater of Solfata´ra. _Umbria_ was a mountainous country east of Etruria.

Before the coming of the Gauls, it extended northward to the Ru´bicon

and eastward to the Adriatic; but its coast was wholly conquered by that

people, who drove the Umbrians beyond the mountains.

_Picenum_ consisted of a flat, fertile plain along the Adriatic, and

a hilly region, consisting of twisted spurs of the Apennines, in the

interior. Poets praised the apples of Picenum, and its olives were among

the choicest in Italy. The _Sabine_ territory, at its greatest extension,

was 200 miles in length, and reached nearly from sea to sea. It was

inhabited by many tribes, probably of common origin. Beside the Sabines

proper, were the Sam´nites, the Frenta´ni, and the Marsi, Mar´ruci´ni,

Pelig´ni, and Vesti´ni, who formed the League of the Four Cantons. The

Sabine country, though rough, was fertile, and its wine and oil chiefly

supplied the common people of Rome.

=6.= SOUTHERN ITALY included four countries: Luca´nia and Brut´tium on

the west, Apulia and Cala´bria on the east. _Lucania_ is a picturesque

and fertile country, watered by many rivers. _Bruttium_ is of similar

character, and was especially valued in old times for its pine forests,

which, from their timber and pitch, yielded an important revenue to the

Roman government. Both countries attracted multitudes of Greek colonists,

whose cities early rose to a high degree of wealth and civilization. (See

Book III, §§ 87, 90.) _Apulia_, unlike any other division of central or

southern Italy, consists chiefly of a rich, unbroken plain, from twenty

to forty miles in width, gently sloping from the mountains to the sea.

In ancient times it maintained great numbers of horses and sheep, the

latter of which were famed for the fineness of their wool. When the plain

became parched by summer heats, the flocks were driven to the neighboring

mountains of Samnium; while, in winter, the Samnite flocks forsook their

bleak and snowy heights to find pasturage in the rich meadows of Apulia.

The northern portion of Apulia is mountainous, being traversed by two

strong spurs of the Apennines, one of which projects into the sea and

forms the rocky headland of Mount Garga´nus.

_Calabria_,[62] called by the Greeks Iapyg´ia or Messa´pia, occupied

the long peninsula which is commonly called the heel of Italy. Its soft

limestone soil quickly absorbs moisture, rendering the country arid, and

the heats of summer intense. The products of the soil were, however, in

ancient times, abundant and of great value. Its oil, wine, and honey were

widely celebrated, the wool afforded by its flocks was of the finest

quality, and the horses which recruited the Tarentine cavalry were among

the most excellent in the world.

=7.= Italy possessed three islands of great importance: Sicily, noted for

its excellent harbors and inexhaustible soil; Sardin´ia, for its silver

mines and harvests of grain; and Cor´sica, for its dense forests of

pine and fir. The position as well as the valuable productions of these

islands, early tempted the enterprise of both Greeks and Carthaginians;

and rivalry in their possession first drew these nations into hostility

with each other, and with the ultimately victorious power of Rome.

HISTORY OF ROME.

=8.= Our history in this Book falls naturally into three divisions:

I. THE ROMAN KINGDOM, B. C. 753-510.

II. THE ROMAN REPUBLIC, ” 510-30.

III. THE ROMAN EMPIRE, ” 30-A. D. 476.

The records of the First Period, so far as they relate to persons, are

largely mixed with fable, and it is impossible to separate the fanciful

from the real. The student is recommended to read the stories of the

kings, in their earliest and most attractive form, in Dr. Arnold’s

History of Rome. Under their beautiful mythical guise, these legends

present, doubtless, a considerable amount of truth. Our limits only admit

a statement of the popular ancient belief concerning the rise of Rome,

among the other and older nations which inhabited Italy.

=9.= Central and southern Italy were occupied, from the earliest

known times, by three races, the Etrus´cans, Italians, and Iapygians.

The latter were nearly related to the Greeks, as has been proved by

their language and the identity of their objects of worship. They

therefore mingled readily with the Hellenic settlers (see § 6), and

Greek civilization quickly took root and flourished throughout southern

Italy. The Italians proper—so called because, when united, they became

the ruling race in Italy—arrived later in the peninsula than the

Iapygians. They came from the north, and crowded into closer quarters the

half-Hellenic inhabitants of the south. They consisted of four principal

races: the Umbrians, Sabines, Oscans, and Latins. Of these the first

three were closely connected, while the Latins were distinct. The latter

formed a confederacy of thirty cities, or cantons, and met every year

on the Alban Mount to offer a united sacrifice to Jupiter Latia´ris,

the protecting deity of the Latin race. During this festival wars were

suspended, as in Elis during the Olympic Games.

=10.= The Etruscans, or Tuscans, were wholly different in language,

appearance, and character from the other nations of Italy. Their origin

is wrapped in mystery. Some suppose them to have been Turanian, and thus

allied to the Lapps, Finns, and Estho´nians of northern Europe, and the

Basques of Spain; others, and the greater number, believe the mass of the

people to have been Pelasgi—that race which overspread Greece and Italy

at a remoter period than history can reach—but to have been absorbed and

enslaved by a more powerful people from the north, who called themselves

_Ras´ena_, while they were named by others Etruscans. History first

finds these invaders in Rhæ´tia, the country about the head-waters of

the Ad´ige, the Danube, and the Rhine; then traces them to the plain of

the Po, where, at a very early period, they formed a league of twelve

cities; and thence south of the Apennines into Tus´cany, which, reduced

in limits, still bears their name.

Here they formed a similar but quite distinct confederacy of the

same number of cities. For a time their dominion extended across

the peninsula, and their fleets commanded both the “Upper” and the

“Lower Sea,” the latter of which derived from them its ancient name,

Tyrrhenian. They conquered Campania, and built there a third cluster

of twelve cities, of which Cap´ua was the chief; but they lost this

portion of their territory in wars with the Samnites. Many relics of

Etruscan art exist, in the massive walls of their cities, their castings

in bronze, figures in terra-cotta, and golden chains, bracelets, and

other ornaments, which prove them to have been a luxurious and wealthy

people. Their religion was of a gloomy and superstitious character. They

sought to know the will of their gods by auguries drawn from thunder

and lightning, from the flight of birds, or from the entrails of slain

beasts; and to avert their wrath by sacrifices prescribed and regulated

by an elaborate ritual. To learn these rites formed a large part of the

education of a young Tuscan noble.

=11.= The Romans, who were destined to be for nearly twelve centuries the

dominant race of Italy and the world, belonged to the Latin branch of

the Italian family. A Greek tradition celebrated by Virgil, and believed

by most Romans in the days of the empire, traced their origin to a

company of Trojan emigrants, led to the shores of Italy by Æne´as, son

of Anchises, after the fall of Troy. (See Book III, § 14.) But the Latin

coast was at that time densely populated, and the new comers, if any

such there were, must soon have been absorbed and lost among the older

inhabitants.

=12.= The common legends assigned the building of Rome to Rom´ulus,

grandson of Nu´mitor, an Alban prince. Numitor had been deprived of his

crown by his brother Amu´lius, who also killed the son of the deposed

king, and compelled his daughter Silvia to become a vestal. Beloved of

Mars, she became, however, the mother of Romulus and Remus, whereupon

her uncle caused her to be thrown, with her twin sons, into the Anio, a

tributary of the Tiber. The rivers had overflowed their banks; when they

subsided, the cradle containing the infant princes was overturned at the

foot of the Palatine Mount. Nourished by a wolf, and fed by a woodpecker

sacred to Mars, they grew to be hardy young shepherds, and distinguished

themselves in combats with wild beasts and robbers.

At the age of twenty they became aware of their royal birth, and having

conquered Amulius, restored their grandfather to his throne. But they

still loved the home of their youth, and resolved to build a new city on

the banks of the Tiber. The brothers, differing in their choice of a

site, consulted the auspices. After watching all night, Remus, at dawn,

saw six vultures; but Romulus, at sunrise, saw twelve. The majority

of the shepherds voted the decision to Romulus, and it was ever after

believed that the twelve vultures denoted twelve centuries, during which

the dominion of the city should endure.

=13.= His shepherd comrades being too few to satisfy his ambition,

Romulus offered asylum on the Cap´itoline to homicides and runaway

slaves, thus enrolling among his subjects the refuse of the neighboring

tribes. To obtain wives for these adventurers, he invited the Latins and

Sabines to witness games in honor of Neptune; and when not only men,

but women and children were assembled, the runners and wrestlers rushed

into the crowd and carried away whom they would. War followed, in which

the Latins were thrice defeated. The Sabine king, Titus Tatius, marched

with a powerful army upon Rome, obtained possession of the Capitoline

fortress through the treachery of the maiden Tarpe´ia, the daughter of

its commander, and nearly defeated the forces of Romulus in a long and

obstinate battle.

The Sabine women, however, now reconciled to their fate, came between

their fathers and husbands, beseeching them with tears to be reconciled,

since, whoever should be conquered, the grief and loss must be their own.

A lasting peace was made, and the two kings agreed to reign jointly over

the united nations, Romulus holding his court on the Palatine, and Titus

Tatius on the Capitoline and Quirinal hills. After the death of Tatius,

Romulus ruled alone. At the end of a prosperous reign of thirty-seven

years, he was reviewing his troops one day in the Field of Mars, when

the sun became suddenly darkened, a tempest agitated earth and air,

and Romulus disappeared. The people mourned him as dead, but they were

comforted by his appearing in a glorified form to one of their number,

assuring him that the Romans should become lords of the world, and that

he himself, under the name of Quiri´nus, would be their guardian.

=14.= After a year’s interregnum, Numa, a Sabine of wise and peaceful

character, was chosen king. He was revered in after ages as the religious

founder of Rome, no less than Romulus as the author of its civil and

military institutions. The wisdom and piety of his laws were attributed

to the nymph Ege´ria, who met him by a fountain in a grove, and dictated

to him the principles of good government. The few records of this king

and his predecessor belong rather to mythology than to history.

=15.= Tullus Hostil´ius, the third king of Rome, is the first of whose

deeds we have any trustworthy account. He conquered Alba Longa, and

transferred its citizens to the Cæ´lian Hill in Rome. This new city then

became the protectress of the Latin League, with the right of presiding

at the annual festival, though it was never, like Alba, a member of the

League, but a distinct power in alliance with it. The federal army was

commanded alternately by a Roman and a Latin general; and the lands

acquired in the wars of the League were equally divided between the two

contracting parties, thus giving to Rome, it is evident, a far greater

share than to any other city.

=16.= The citizens of consolidated Rome now constituted three tribes:

the _Ram´nes_, or original Romans, on the Palatine; the _Tit´ies_, or

Sabines, on the Capitoline and Quirinal; and the _Lu´ceres_, on the

Cælian. Each tribe consisted of ten _cu´riæ_, or wards, and each _curia_

of ten _houses_, or clans (_gentes_). The patrician, or noble, houses,

which alone enjoyed the rights of citizenship, thus numbered three

hundred. The heads of all the houses constituted the Senate, while the

_Comit´ia Curia´ta_, or public assembly, included all citizens of full

age.

Rome, at this period, contained only two classes beside the Patricians.

These were the _clients_ and _slaves_. The former were the poorer people

who belonged to no _gens_, and therefore, though free, had no civil

rights. They were permitted to choose a patron in the person of some

noble, who was bound to protect their interests, if need were, in courts

of law. The client, on the other hand, followed his patron to war as a

vassal; contributed to his ransom, or that of his children, if taken

prisoners; and paid part of the costs of any lawsuit in which the patron

might be engaged, or of his expenses in discharging honorable offices in

the state. The relation on either side descended from father to son. It

was esteemed a glory to a noble family to have a numerous clientage, and

to increase that which it had inherited from its ancestors. The clients

bore the clan-name[63] of their patron. Slaves were not numerous in the

days of the kings. During the Republic, multitudes of captives were

brought into the market by foreign wars; and at the close of that period,

at least half the inhabitants of Roman territory were bondsmen.

=17.= Ancus Mar´tius conquered many Latin towns, and transported

their citizens to Rome, where he assigned them the Aventine Hill as a

residence. Of these new settlers some became clients of the nobility,

but the wealthier class scorned this dependent condition, and relied

upon the protection of the king. Hence arose a new order in the state,

the _Plebs_, or commonalty, which was destined to become, in later

times, equally important with the nobility. It included, beside the

conquered people, foreign settlers who came for trade, for refuge, or

for employment in the army; clients whose protecting families had become

extinct; and sons of patricians who had married wives of inferior rank.

Ancus extended the Roman territory to the sea; built the port-town

of Os´tia, and established salt-works in its vicinity; fortified the

Janiculan Hill, opposite Rome, for a defense against the Etruscans; and

constructed the Mamertine, the first Roman prison.

[Illustration: CITY OF ROME.]

=18.= Lucius Tarquin´ius Priscus was of Greek origin, though he took

his name from the Etruscan town Tarquinii, where he was born. The

characteristics of his race were shown in the magnificent works with

which he embellished Rome. He drained the lower parts of the city by a

great system of sewers, and restrained the overflow of the Tiber by a

wall of massive masonry, at the place where the Cloa´ca Maxima entered

the river. In the valley thus redeemed from inundation he built the

Forum, with its surrounding rows of porticos and shops; and constructed

the Circus Maximus for the celebration of the Great Games, which had been

founded by Romulus, and resembled in most of their features the athletic

contests of the Greeks.

As a native of Etruria, Tarquin vowed the erection, upon the Capitoline,

of a temple to Jupiter, Juno, and Minerva, the three deities who were

worshiped together in every Etruscan city, and for this purpose he

cleared away from that mountain all the holy places of the Sabine gods.

The temple was built by his son. The wars of Tarquin against the Sabines,

Latins, and Etruscans were usually victorious, and added largely to the

population of Rome. From the noblest of the conquered peoples he formed

three new half-tribes of fifty “houses” each, which he joined to the

three old tribes of Ramnes, Tities, and Luceres, while he increased

the number of Vestal Virgins from four to six, that each race might be

equally represented. Tarquin was murdered by hired agents of the sons

of Ancus Martius, who hoped thus to secure for themselves the throne

of their father. But the Roman monarchy was strictly elective, not

hereditary; their crime failed of its purpose, and Servius Tul´lius, an

Etruscan general, and son-in-law of the murdered king, obtained the crown.

=19.= He made radical changes in the constitution, by giving to every

free Roman the right of suffrage, though all offices in the government

were still held by the nobles. The Greek cities of southern Italy

were, at the same time, changing from aristocratic to popular forms of

government, and there are many signs of Greek influence in Latium and

Rome. The new popular assembly, _Comitia Centuria´ta_, was so called from

the “centuries” in which the entire citizen-soldiery was enrolled. Wealth

now acquired in Rome something of the power which had hitherto been

reserved for rank. Every man who held property was bound to serve in the

armies, and his military position was accurately graded by the amount of

his possessions. Highest of all were the _Eq´uites_, or horsemen. These

were divided into eighteen centuries, of which the first six—two for each

original tribe—were wholly patrician, while the remaining twelve were

wealthy and powerful plebeians.

The mass of the people enrolled for service on foot was divided into five

classes. Those who were able to equip themselves in complete brazen armor

fought in the front rank of the phalanx. Of this class there were eighty

centuries: forty of younger men, from seventeen to forty-five years of

age, who were the choicest of Roman infantry in the field; and forty of

their elders, from forty-six to sixty, who were usually retained for the

defense of the city. The second class were placed behind the first; they

wore no coat of mail, and their shields were of wood instead of brass.

The third class wore no greaves, and the fourth carried no shields.

These three classes consisted of only twenty centuries each. The fifth

and lowest military class did not serve in the phalanx, but formed the

light-armed infantry, and provided themselves only with darts and slings.

Below all the classes were a few centuries of the poorest people, who

were not required to equip themselves for war. They were sometimes armed,

at the public expense, on occasions of great loss or danger to the state;

or they followed the army as supernumeraries, and were ready to take the

weapons and places of those who fell.

=20.= Beside the patrician tribes of Ramnes, Tities, and Luceres, Servius

made four tribes in the city and twenty-six in the country, consisting

of land-owners without respect to rank. The meeting-place for the whole

thirty was the Forum at Rome, while the centuries met without the city on

the Field of Mars. The people assembled in the Forum had all the powers

of self-government. They elected magistrates and levied taxes for the

support of the state, duties which hitherto had belonged to the Comitia

Curiata. Of the public lands on the Etruscan side of the Tiber, gained in

his early wars, Servius assigned a certain portion to the plebeians, in

full ownership. The patricians had leased these lands from the state for

the pasturage of their flocks, and they were much exasperated by the new

allotment.

=21.= Servius extended the bounds of the city far beyond the Roma

Quadra´ta of the Palatine. The Esquiline, Cælian, and Aventine hills had

already been occupied by surburban settlements, while the Capitoline,

Quirinal, and Vim´inal were held by the Sabine tribes. These Seven

Hills,[64] with a large space between and around them, were inclosed by

Servius in a new wall, which lasted more than eight hundred years, until

the time of the emperor Aurelian. Servius reigned forty-four years, B. C.

578-534. Desirous above all things for the continuance of his reformed

institutions, he had determined to abdicate the throne, after causing the

people, by a free and universal vote, to elect two magistrates who should

rule but one year. Before the end of their term they were to provide, in

like manner, for the peaceful choice of their successors; and thus Rome

would have passed, by a bloodless revolution, to a popular government.

The nobles, however, revolted against this infringement of their

exclusive rights. Led by Tarquin, son of the first monarch of that name,

and husband of the wicked Tullia, daughter of Servius, they murdered the

beneficent king and placed their leader on the throne.

=22.= Tarquin, called “the Proud,” set aside all the popular laws of

Servius, and restored the privileges of the “houses”; but as soon as

he felt secure in his power, he oppressed nobles and people alike. He

compelled the poorer classes to toil upon the public works which his

father had begun, and upon others which he himself originated. Such

were the permanent stone seats of the Circus Maximus, a new system of

sewers, and the great Temple of Jupiter on the Capitoline Hill. By wars

or intrigues, Tarquin made himself supreme throughout Latium. But his

insolence disgusted the patricians; he took away the property or lives of

citizens without consulting the Senate, while he imposed upon them civil

and military burdens beyond what the law permitted. The vile misconduct

of his son Sextus led at last to a revolt, in which kingly government was

overthrown. The Tarquins and all their clan were banished. The very name

of king was thenceforth held in especial abhorrence at Rome. Only in one

case was it tolerated. A “king for offering sacrifices” was appointed,

that the gods might not miss their usual mediator with men; but this

sacerdotal king was forbidden to hold any civil office.

RECAPITULATION.

Early history of Rome is largely fabulous. Three races in

Italy, of whom the Etruscans, before the rise of Rome,

were most powerful. Their cities, art, and religion. Rome

was founded by Latins, but embraced a mixed population of

Sabines, Etruscans, and others, which gave rise to the three

tribes. Three hundred noble “houses” constituted the Senate

and _Comitia Curiata_. Clientage. Formation of a commonalty

under Ancus Martius. Buildings of Tarquinius Priscus. Free

constitution of Servius Tullius. Division of the people into

centuries, both as soldiers and citizens. Thirty tribes

assemble in the Forum. Inclosure of the Seven Hills by the

Tullian Wall. Tyranny of Tarquin the Proud. Royalty abolished

at Rome. Supposed Chronology of the Kings: Romulus, B. C.

753-716; Numa, 716-673; Tullius Hostilius, 673-641; Ancus

Martius, 641-616; L. Tarquinius Priscus, 616-578; Servius

Tullius, 578-534; Tarquinius Superbus, 534-510.

RELIGION OF ROME.

=23.= Before passing to the history of the Republic, we glance at the

religion of Rome. For the first 170 years from the foundation of the

city, the Romans had no images of their gods. Idolatry has probably

been, in every nation, a later corruption of an earlier and more

spiritual worship. Roman religion was far less beautiful and varied in

its conceptions than that of the Greeks.[65] It afforded but little

inspiration to poetry or art, but it kept alive the homely household

virtues, and regulated the transactions of the farm, the forum, and the

shop, by principles drawn from a higher range of being.

The chief gods of the Romans were Jupiter and Mars. The former was

supreme; but the latter was, throughout the early history of this warlike

people, the central object of worship. March, the first month of their

year, was consecrated to him, and, in almost all European languages,

still bears his name. The great war festival occupied a large portion

of the month. During its first few days the twelve _Salii_, or leapers,

priests of Mars, who were chosen from the noblest families, passed

through the streets singing, dancing, and beating their rods upon their

brazen shields. Quirinus, under whose name Romulus was worshiped, was

only a duplicate Mars, arising from the union of the two mythologies

of the Romans and Sabines. He had, also, his twelve leapers, and was

honored, in February, with similar ceremonies.

=24.= The celebrations of the several periods of the farmer’s year

were next in order to the war festival. The month of April was marked

by days of sacrifice to the nourishing earth; to Ceres, the goddess

of growth; to the patroness of flocks; and to Jupiter, the protector

of vines; while a deprecatory offering was made to Rust, the enemy of

crops. In May the Arval Brothers, a company of twelve priests, held

their three days’ festival in honor of Dea Dia, invoking her blessing in

maintaining the fertility of the earth, and granting prosperity to the

whole territory of Rome. August had its harvest festivals; October, its

wine celebration in honor of Jupiter; December, its two thanksgivings

for the treasures of the granary, its Saturnalia or seed-sowing on the

17th, and its celebration of the shortest day, which brought back the new

sun. Sailors had their festivals in honor, respectively, of the gods of

the river, the harbor, and the sea. The ceremonial year was closed with

the singular Lu´perca´lia, or wolf festival, in which a certain order

of priests, girdled with goat-skins, leaped about like wolves, or ran

through the city scourging the spectators with knotted thongs; and by the

Ter´mina´lia, or boundary-stone festival in honor of Ter´minus, the god

of landmarks.

Janus, the double-faced god of beginnings, was a peculiarly Roman

divinity. To him all gates and doors were sacred, as well as the morning,

the opening of all solemnities, and the month (January) in which the

labors of the husbandman began anew in southern Italy. Sacrifices were

offered to him on twelve altars, and prayers at the beginning of every

day. New-year’s day was especially sacred to him, and was supposed to

impart its character to the whole year. People were careful, therefore,

to have their thoughts, words, and acts, on that day pure, beneficent,

and just. They greeted each other with gifts and good wishes, and

performed some part of whatever work they had planned for the year; while

they were much dispirited if any trifling accident occurred. A covered

passage between the Palatine and Quirinal hills, _i. e._, between the

original Roman and Sabine cities, was known by the name of Janus. Armies

going out or returning passed through it, and hence it was always open

in time of war and closed in peace. The same ceremony was continued

after the passage had ceased to be used, the triumphal gate having been

constructed in the walls of Servius.

[Illustration: ITALY, WITH THE ELEVEN REGIONS OF AUGUSTUS.]

=25.= Vulcan, the god of fire and the forge, was honored by two

festivals, the consecration of trumpets in May, and the Vol´cana´lia in

August. Though of inferior rank to the divinities already mentioned,

yet dearest of all to the Romans, were the gods of the hearth, the

household, and store-room, and of the forest and field. Every house

was a temple, and every meal a sacrifice to Vesta, the goddess of the

hearth. Her temple was the hearth-stone of the city. There six chosen

maidens, daughters of the most illustrious families, guarded the sacred

fire, which was the symbol of the goddess, by night and day. Every house

had over its main entrance a little chapel of the _La´res_, where the

father of the family performed his devotions immediately on returning

from any journey. The Lares were supposed to be the spirits of good

men, especially the deceased ancestors of the family. Public Lares were

the protecting spirits of the city; they were worshiped in a temple and

numerous chapels, the latter being placed at the crossings of streets.

There were also rural Lares, and _Lares Via´les_, who were worshiped by

travelers.

=26.= Like all people in any degree affected by Greek culture, the Romans

consulted the Delphic oracle. After the capture of Ve´ii (see § 57), they

presented that shrine with a tenth of the spoils. Rome itself possessed

only one oracle, that of Faunus (the favoring god), on the Aventine Hill.

Several oracles of Fortune, Faunus, and Mars existed in Latium, but in

none of them were audible responses given, by the mouth of inspired

persons, as at Delphi. At Albu´nea, near Tibur, Faunus was consulted by

the sacrifice of a sheep. The skin of the animal was spread upon the

ground; the person seeking direction slept upon it, and believed that he

learned the will of the god by visions and dreams. The Romans frequently

resorted to the Greek oracles in southern Italy; and the most acceptable

gift which the inhabitants of Magna Græcia could offer to their friends

in Rome, was a palm-leaf inscribed with some utterance of the Cumæan

sibyl, a priestess of Apollo at Cumæ, near Naples.

=27.= The Sibylline Books were believed to have been purchased by one

of the Tarquins from a mysterious woman, who appeared at Rome offering

nine volumes at an exorbitant price. The king refusing to purchase, the

sibyl went away and destroyed three of the books; then brought back

the remaining six, for which she asked the same amount of money. The

king again sent her away; she destroyed three more books, and demanded

the whole price for the remaining three. The curiosity of Tarquin was

aroused, and he bought the books, which were found to contain important

revelations concerning the fate of Rome. They were kept in a stone

chest under the temple of Jupiter Cap´itoli´nus. One of the four sacred

colleges was charged with the care of them, and they were only consulted,

by order of the Senate, on occasions of great public calamity.

=28.= The Romans probably learned from the Etruscans their various

methods of divination—the interpretation of signs in the heavens, of

thunder and lightning, of the flight or voice of birds, of the appearance

of sacrifices, and of dreams. The legends ascribed to Tarquinius Priscus

the introduction of Etruscan divinities and modes of worship into

Rome. At a later time, the Senate provided by special decree for the

cultivation of “Etruscan discipline” by young men of the highest birth,

lest a science so important to the commonwealth should be corrupted by

falling into the hands of low and mercenary persons.

The _Augurs_ constituted the second of the sacred colleges; their number

was gradually increased from three to sixteen; they were distinguished

by a sacred dress and a curved staff, and were held in the highest

honor. No public act of any kind could be performed without “taking

the auguries”—no election held, no law passed, no war declared; for,

by theory, the gods were the rulers of the state, and the magistrates

merely their deputies. If, in the midst of the comitia, an augur, however

falsely, declared that it thundered, the Assembly broke up at once. It

must be admitted that the augurs often used their great power unfairly

in the political strife between patricians and plebeians. The latter, as

originally foreigners (see § 17), were held to have no share in the gods

of Rome, who thus became the exclusive patrons of the privileged class.

When, by a change in the constitution, plebeians were at length elected

to high offices, the augurs in several cases declared the election null,

on the pretext that the auspices had been irregular; and as no one could

appeal from their decision, their veto was absolute.

=29.= The College of Pontiffs was the most illustrious of the religious

institutions attributed to the good king Numa. The pontiffs superintended

all public worship according to their sacred books, and were required

to give instruction to all who asked it, concerning the ceremonies with

which the gods might be approached. Whenever sacred officers were to be

appointed, or wills read, they convoked the Assembly. Certain cases of

sacrilegious crime could only be judged by them; and in very early times,

like the Hebrew scribes, they were the sole possessors of both civil and

religious law. The highest magistrate, equally with private persons,

submitted to their decrees, provided three members of the college agreed

in the decision. They alone knew what days and hours might be used for

the transaction of public business. The calendar was in their keeping,

and—since these august and reverend dignitaries were only men—it is well

known that they sometimes used their power to lengthen the year’s office

of a favorite consul, or to shorten that of one whom they disapproved.

The title of Pon´tifex Maximus, or Supreme Pontiff, was adopted by the

Roman emperors, and passed from them to the popes or bishops of modern

Rome.

=30.= The fourth of the sacred colleges consisted of the _Fetia´les_, or

heralds, who were the guardians of the public faith in all dealings with

foreign nations. If war was to be declared, it was the duty of a herald

to enter the enemy’s country, and four times—once on either side of the

Roman boundary, then to the first citizen whom he chanced to meet, and,

finally, to the magistrates at the seat of government—to set forth the

causes of complaint, and with great solemnity to call on Jupiter to give

victory to those whose cause was just.

The priests of particular gods were called _Flamens_, or kindlers,

because one of their principal duties was the offering of sacrifices by

fire. Chief of them all was the Flamen Dialis, or priest of Jupiter; and

next to him were the priests of Mars and Quirinus. Though the purity

and dignity of the priestly life were guarded by many curious laws, the

priest was not forbidden to hold civil offices. He was not allowed,

however, to mount a horse, to look upon an army outside the walls, or, in

early times, to leave the city for even a single night.

=31.= After the good king Servius Tullius had completed his census,

he performed a solemn purification of the city and people. During

the Republic, the same ceremony was repeated after every general

registration, which took place once in five years. Sacrifices of a pig, a

sheep, and an ox were offered; water was sprinkled from olive-branches,

and certain substances were burned, whose smoke was supposed to have a

cleansing effect. In like manner, farmers purified their fields, and

shepherds their flocks. An army or a fleet always underwent lustration

before setting out on any enterprise. In the case of the latter,

altars were erected on the shore near which the ships were moored. The

sacrifices were carried three times around the fleet, in a small boat,

by the generals and priests, while prayers were offered aloud for the

success of the expedition.

RECAPITULATION.

Roman religion less imaginative and more practical than the

Greek. Jupiter, Mars, and Quirinus its chief divinities. Yearly

festivals had reference chiefly to war and husbandry. Worship

of Janus. Household gods. The Romans shared their belief in

oracles with the Greeks; their arts of divination, with the

Etruscans. Four Sacred Colleges: Pontiffs, Augurs, Heralds,

and Keepers of the Sibylline Books. Priests might hold civil

offices. Ceremonial cleansing of the city after every census;

of armies and fleets before every expedition.

II. THE ROMAN REPUBLIC.

=32.= The 480 years’ history of the Roman Republic will be best

understood if divided into four periods:

I. The Growth of the Constitution, B. C. 510-343.

II. Wars for the possession of Italy, B. C. 343-264.

III. Foreign Wars, by which Rome became the ruling power in the

world, B. C. 264-133.

IV. Internal Commotions and Civil Wars, B. C. 133-31.

The leaders of the revolution which expelled the Tarquins, restored the

laws of Servius and carried forward his plans, by causing the election

of two chief magistrates, of whom one was probably a plebeian. The

_consuls_, during their year of office, had all the power and dignity of

kings. They were preceded in public by their guard of twelve lictors,

bearing the _fasces_, or bundles of rods. Out of the city, when the

consul was engaged in military command, an ax was bound up with the rods,

in token of his absolute power over life and death.

=33.= For 150 years the Republic was involved in a struggle for

existence, during which its power was much less than that of regal Rome.

The Latins threw off their supremacy, and Lars Por´sena, the Etruscan

king of Clu´sium, actually conquered the city, and received from the

Senate an ivory throne, a golden crown, a scepter, and triumphal robe,

in token of homage. In their further attempts upon Latium, the Etruscans

were defeated, and Rome became independent, but with the loss of all

her territories west of the Tiber. The Latins were defeated at the Lake

Regillus, by the aid—so Roman minstrels related—of the twin deities,

Castor and Pollux, who appeared at the head of the legions, in the form

of two beautiful youths of more than mortal stature, mounted on white

horses, and who were the first to break through into the enemy’s camp.

A temple was consequently built to them in the Forum, and they were

regarded as the especial patrons of the Roman knights.

=34.= External dangers over, the patricians again made their power felt

in the oppression of the common people. The first period of the Republic

was absorbed in conflicts between the two great orders in the state—less

attractive, certainly, than the romantic stories of the kingly age, or

the stirring incidents of the later period of conquest. But the steps by

which a great people has gained and established its freedom can never be

without importance, especially to the only republic which has rivaled

Rome in grandeur, in variety of interests, or in the multitude of races

and languages included eventually within its limits.

=35.= The wealth of Rome hitherto had been chiefly derived from the

products of the soil. The lands west of the Tiber were now lost, and

all the rural district was open to invasion. Crops were ruined, farm

buildings destroyed, cattle driven away. At the same time, through the

losses and necessities of the government, taxes were greatly increased;

and these were levied, not upon the reduced value of the property, but

upon the scale of former assessments. To meet their dues, the poor were

obliged to borrow money, at enormous rates of interest, from the rich.

The nobles seized the opportunity to enforce to their full extent the

cruel laws concerning debt, and the sufferings of the insolvent grew too

grievous to be borne. Many sold themselves as slaves to discharge their

obligations. Those who refused thus to sign away their own and their

children’s liberty were often imprisoned, loaded with chains, and starved

or tortured by the cruelty of their creditors. The patrician castles,

which commanded the hills of Rome, contained gloomy dungeons, which were

the scenes of untold atrocities toward such as had the misfortune to

incur the wrath of their owners.

=36.= Fifteen years after the expulsion of the kings, the plebeians,

wearied out with a government which existed only for the rich, and

imposed all its burdens on the poor, withdrew in a body to a hill beyond

the Anio, and declared their intention of founding a new city, where

they might govern themselves by more just and equal laws, B. C. 494.

The patricians now perceived that they had gone too far. However much

they hated the people, they had no idea of losing their services. They

yielded, therefore, and received back the seceded plebeians on their own

conditions. These were: (1.) Cancellation of claims against insolvent

debtors; (2.) Liberation of all such who had been imprisoned or enslaved;

(3.) Annual election of two _Tribunes_, whose duty it should be to defend

the interests of the commons. The number of these officers was soon

raised to five, and eventually to ten. Two plebeian _Æ´diles_ were at the

same time appointed, and charged with the superintendence of streets,

buildings, markets, and public lands; of the public games and festivals,

and of the general order of the city. They were judges in cases of small

importance, like those of modern police courts; and they were eventually

intrusted with the keeping of the decrees of the Senate, which had

sometimes been tampered with by the patrician magistrates.

=37.= The scene of this first decisive battle of the people for their

rights, was consecrated to Jupiter, and known in later years as the

Sacred Mount (_Mons Sacer_). The Roman commons had thenceforth an

important part in public affairs. To prevent suffering in future,

Spurius Cassius, consul in the year following the secession, proposed

a division among the plebeians of a certain part of the public lands,

while the tithe of produce levied by the state upon the lands leased by

the patricians, should be strictly collected and applied to the payment

of the common people when they served as soldiers. Hitherto the troops

had received no pay, while their burden of war expenses was great. The

other consul opposed the law, and charged Cassius with seeking popularity

that he might make himself a king. The law—the first of a long series of

“Agrarian” enactments—was passed; but when the year of his consulship had

expired, Cassius was brought to trial by his enemies, and condemned as

a traitor. He was scourged and beheaded, and his house was razed to the

ground, B. C. 485.

=38.= Having destroyed the leader, the patricians went on to rob the

people of all the advantage of the law. They insisted on electing both

consuls themselves, only requiring their confirmation by the popular

assemblies; and with or without this confirmation, their candidates held

supreme power, and refused to divide the public lands. The only resource

of the commons was to withhold themselves from military service, and the

tribunes now made their power felt by protecting them in refusing to

enlist. The consuls defeated this measure by holding their recruiting

stations outside of the city, while the jurisdiction of the tribunes was

wholly within the walls. Though a man might keep himself safe within the

protection of the tribunes, yet his lands were laid waste, his buildings

burnt, and his cattle confiscated by order of the government. One last

expedient remained. Though compelled to enlist, the soldiers could not be

made to gain a battle; and considering the consul who led them, and the

class to which he belonged, worse enemies than those whom they met in the

field, they allowed themselves to be defeated by the Veientians.

=39.= The noble house of the Fa´bii, as champions of the nobility, had

been for six successive years in possession of the consulship. They

now saw the danger to Rome of longer opposition to the will of the

people; and when Kæso Fabius, in the year 479 B. C., came into power, he

insisted upon the execution of the Cassian law. The patricians refused

with scorn, and the Fabii resolved to quit Rome. With their hundreds

of clients, their families, and a few burghers who were attached to

them by friendship and sympathy, they established a colony in Etruria,

on the little river Crem´era, a few miles from the city. They promised

to be no less loyal and valiant defenders of Roman interests, and to

maintain with their own resources this advanced post, in the war then in

progress against Veii. Two years from their migration, the settlement was

surprised by the Veientians, and every man was put to death, B. C. 477.

=40.= The consuls still refused to comply with the Agrarian law, and

at the expiration of their term were impeached by Genu´cius, one of

the tribunes of the people. On the morning of the day appointed for

the trial, Genucius was found murdered in his bed, B. C. 473. This

treacherous act paralyzed the people for the moment, and the consuls

proceeded with the enlistment of soldiers. Vo´lero Publi´lius, a strong

and active commoner, refused to be enrolled; and in the tumult which

ensued, the consuls with all their retinue were driven from the Forum.

The next year Volero was chosen tribune, and brought forward a law that

the tribunes should thenceforth be elected by the commons alone in

their tribes, instead of by the entire people in the centuries. This

was designed to avoid the overwhelming vote of the clients of the great

houses, who were obliged to obey the decrees of their patrons, and who

often controlled the action of the general assembly. For a whole year

the patricians contrived, by various delays, to prevent the passage

of the bill. Ap´pius Clau´dius, one of the consuls, stationed himself

with an armed force in the Forum to oppose it; and it was not until the

plebeians, resorting in their turn to force, had seized the Capitol,

and held it for some time under military guard, that the Publilian law

was passed. This “second Great Charter of Roman liberties” gave the

tribes not only the power of electing tribunes and ædiles, but of first

discussing all questions which concerned the entire nation. It was a long

step toward the gaining of equal rights by the commons, B. C. 471.

=41.= In the meanwhile, the Romans were carrying on wars with the Æqui

and Volsci, two Oscan nations which had taken advantage of the changes

in the Latin League, to extend their power to the cities on the Alban

Mount and over the southern plain of Latium. Their forays extended to the

very gates of Rome, driving the country people to take refuge, with their

cattle, within the walls, where a plague then raging added the horrors of

pestilence to those of war. It is probable that the civil conflicts in

Rome had caused the exile of many citizens; and these, in most instances,

joined the hostile nations. Rome was the champion of oligarchy among

the cities of Italy, as Sparta was among those of Greece. The spirit of

party was often stronger than patriotism; the sympathy between Roman and

foreign aristocrats was greater than between patrician and plebeian at

home; and thus an exiled noble was willing to become the destroyer of his

country.

=42.= The story of Coriola´nus may be partly fictitious, but it truly

illustrates the condition of the Republic at that period. Caius Marcius,

a descendant of the fourth king of Rome, was the pride of the patricians

for his warlike virtues, and had won his surname Coriolanus by capturing

the Volscian town of Cori´oli by his individual gallantry. But he was

bitterly opposed to the common people, and when he was about to be tried

before the comitia for having opposed a distribution of corn, he fled and

took refuge among the Volscians, whom he had formerly conquered. The king

warmly welcomed him, and seized the first opportunity to stir up a new

war with the Romans, that he might turn against them the arms of their

best leader. When the Volscian army approached Rome, the Senate sent

deputies to demand peace, but Caius refused all terms except such as were

impossible for the Republic to grant. The priests and augurs next went to

plead with him, but without effect.

At last the noble ladies of Rome, headed by Volum´nia, the mother of

Caius, and his wife, Vergil´ia, with her young children, went out in a

sad and solemn procession to plead for their sacred city. Coriolanus

honored, above all, the mother to whose wise and faithful care he owed

his greatness. He sprang to meet her with fitting reverence, but before

she would receive his greeting, Volumnia exclaimed: “Let me know whether

I stand, in thy camp, thy prisoner or thy mother; whether I am speaking

to an enemy or to my son!” Her reproaches silenced Caius; the entreaties

of his wife and children, and the tears of the noble ladies, moved him

from his purpose. He exclaimed, “Mother, thine is the victory; thou hast

saved Rome, but thou hast lost thy son!” He led away the Volscian army.

Some say he fell a victim to their revenge; but others, that he lived on

among them to extreme old age, and lamented, in the desolateness of his

years of infirmity, the factious pride that had exiled him from wife,

children, and native land.

=43.= In the meantime, Rome suffered another visitation of pestilence,

in which thousands of people died daily in the streets. The Æquians

and Volscians ravaged the country up to the walls of Rome; and in

addition to their other miseries, the crowded multitude were threatened

with starvation. Their civil grievances were not to be redressed by

anything less than a thorough and radical reform. In the year 462 B.

C., the tribune Terenti´lius Harsa proposed the appointment of a board

of ten commissioners, half patrician and half plebeian, to revise the

constitution, define the duties of consuls and tribunes, and frame a code

of laws from the mass of decisions and precedents. This movement was

the occasion for ten years of violent contention, during which Rome was

several times near falling into the hands of the Volscians, and was once

actually occupied by a band of exiles and slaves under a Sabine leader,

Herdo´nius, who seized the Capitol and demanded the restoration of all

banished citizens to their rights in Rome.

=44.= Chief of the exiles was Kæso Quinc´tius, son of the great

Cincinna´tus, who had been expelled for raising riots in the Forum, to

prevent any action of the people upon the Terentilian law. The invading

party was defeated, and every man slain. The father of Kæso was then

consul. In revenge for the fate of his son, he declared that the law

should never pass while he was in office; and that he would immediately

lead the entire citizen-soldiery out to war, thus preventing a meeting of

the tribes. Nay more, the augurs were to accompany him, and so consecrate

the ground of the encampment, that a lawful assembly could be held under

the absolute power of the consuls, and repeal all the laws which had

ever been enacted at Rome under the authority of the tribunes. At the

close of his term, Cincinnatus declared that he would appoint a dictator,

whose authority would supersede that of all other officers, patrician or

plebeian. All these things could be done under the strict forms of the

Roman constitution; but the Senate and the wiser patricians saw that the

patience of the commons might be taxed too far, and persuaded Cincinnatus

to forego so extreme an exercise of his power.

=45.= War with the Æquians went on, and treaties were only made to be

broken. In the year 458 B. C., the entire Roman army was entrapped in a

pass of the Alban Hills, surrounded by the enemy, and in imminent danger

of destruction. In this crisis, Cincinnatus, who had retired from the

consulship to resume his favorite toil of farming, was called to be

dictator, with absolute power. The messengers of the Senate found him at

his plow, in his little garden-plot across the Tiber. He left the plow in

the furrow, hastened to Rome, levied a new army in a single day, went out

and defeated the Æquians, and returned the next evening in triumph.

RECAPITULATION.

Consuls are appointed with kingly power, but for a limited

time. Rome subject to Porsena. The Latins are defeated at the

Lake Regillus. Roman nobles oppress their debtors, and the poor

secede. Tribunes of the people and ædiles are appointed. The

first Agrarian Law is proposed by Cassius, B. C. 486. To avenge

the tyranny of their consuls, the common soldiers refuse to

fight. The Fabii take sides with the people, and are destroyed

in their colony on the Cremera. The Publilian Laws give the

election of officers to the people in their tribes, B. C. 471.

War and pestilence. Ten years’ debate upon the Terentilian

Laws, which propose a revision of the constitution, B. C.

462-452. The Capitol seized by exiles and Sabines. Cincinnatus,

as a noble, opposes the commons, but, as a general, saves Rome.

THE LAWS OF THE TWELVE TABLES.

=46.= The passage of the Terentilian law was delayed six years, but

at length the nobles yielded the main point, and the _decemviri_ were

chosen. Though wholly patrician, they were men who enjoyed the confidence

of both orders for their proved integrity. Both consuls and tribunes

were superseded for the time, and full powers, constituent, legislative,

and executive, were intrusted to the Ten. The laws of the Twelve Tables,

which were the result of their labors, became the “source of all public

and private right” at Rome for many centuries. During the debate upon the

bill, commissioners had already been sent to Greece, to study the laws

and constitution of the Hellenic states. They returned with an Ionian

sophist, Hermodo´rus of Ephesus, who aided in explaining to the lawmakers

whatever was obscure in the notes of the commissioners; and so valuable

were his services, that he was honored with a statue in the Roman

_comitium_.

=47.= Only a few points in this celebrated work of legislation can here

be noticed. The laws of Rome gave to a father absolute right of property

in his family. He might sell his son, his daughter, or even his wife.

The latter act, indeed, was denounced as impious by the religious law,

but no penalty was attached to it; the curse of the chief pontiff merely

marked the guilty person for the wrathful judgments of Heaven. If a

father desired to make his son free, the process was more difficult than

the emancipation of a slave. The latter, if sold to another master, could

be liberated at once, but a son thus sold and liberated returned to the

possession of his father. This subjection could only end with the death

of the parent, though the son himself might then be an old man. The

Twelve Tables enacted that, if a father had three times sold his son,

he lost all further control over him; but a son thus emancipated was

considered as severed from all relationship with his father, and could

no longer inherit his property. Women were all their lives considered as

minors and wards. If their father died, they passed under the control of

their brothers; or, if they married, they became the absolute property of

their husbands. A widow might become the ward of her own son. Marriages

between patricians and plebeians were declared unlawful, and children

born in such had no claim upon their fathers’ possessions.

=48.= The ten Law-givers visited with their heaviest penalties the

defamation of character; and so stringent was their definition of libel,

that neither poets nor historians dared even name the living except

in terms of praise. It is much more difficult, therefore, to gain a

true idea of public men in the history of Rome than of Greece, whose

historians spoke with grand impartiality of men and measures, and the

license of whose comic poets, though often used with insolent injustice,

yet shows us all the weak points of character, and reveals the man as his

contemporaries really saw him. The Roman historians, even when writing of

the past, could often draw their materials only from funeral orations, or

from the flattering verses of dependent poets, laid up among the records

of great families.

=49.= The decemvirs, during their appointed year of office, completed

ten tables of laws; and these, according to Roman ideas, were so just

and so acceptable, that the assemblies willingly consented to renew

the same form of government for another term, especially as the work

of legislation was not quite complete. In the new decemvirate, Appius

Claudius was re-elected, and his unscrupulous character now made itself

felt in the tyrannical nature of the government. The people found that

they had ten consuls instead of two, and the power of the Ten was

unchecked by any popular tribune.

=50.= The domestic rights of the plebeians were rudely invaded. A fair

maiden, Virginia, caught the eye of Appius as she went daily to school

in the Forum, attended by her nurse. He declared that she was the slave

of one of his clients, having been born of a slave-woman in his house,

and sold to the wife of Virginius, who had no children of her own. The

friends of Virginia and of the people resented this insolent falsehood

with such indignation, that the consul’s officers were compelled to

release the maiden under bonds to appear the next day before his

judgment-seat, where her lineage might be proved.

Virginius, her father, was with the army before Tus´culum. He was hastily

summoned, and, riding all night, reached the city early in the morning.

In the garb of a suppliant, he appeared in the Forum with his daughter

and a great company of matrons and friends. But his plea was not heard.

Appius judged the maiden to be, at least, considered a slave until her

freedom could be proved, in direct violation of the law which he had

himself enacted the year before, that every one should be regarded as

free until proved a slave. Virginius perceived that no justice could be

expected before such a tribunal. He only demanded one last word with

his daughter; and having drawn her aside with her nurse into one of the

stalls of the Forum, he seized a butcher’s knife and plunged it into her

heart, crying aloud, “Thus only, my child, can I keep thee free!” Then

turning to the decemvir, he exclaimed, “On thy head be the curse of this

innocent blood!” No one obeyed the consul’s order to seize him. With the

bloody knife in his hand, he rushed through the crowd, mounted his horse

at the gate of the city, and rode to the camp.

=51.= The army of plebeians arose at his call and marched upon Rome. They

entered and passed through the streets to the Aventine, calling upon the

people, as they went, to elect ten tribunes and defend their rights. The

other army, near Fide´næ, was aroused in the same manner by Icil´ius, the

betrothed lover of Virginia. The common soldiers put aside those of the

decemvirs who were with them, chose, likewise, ten tribunes, and marched

to the city. The twenty tribunes appointed two of their number to act

for the rest, and then leaving the Aventine guarded by a garrison, they

passed out of the walls followed by the army, and as many of the people

as could remove, and established themselves again on the Sacred Mount

beyond the Anio.

=52.= The Senate, which had wavered, was now compelled to act. The

seceders had declared that they would treat with no one but Valerius

and Hora´tius, men whom they could trust. These were sent to hear their

demands. The people required that the power of the tribunes should be

restored, a right of appeal from the decision of the magistrates to the

popular assembly established, and the decemvirs given up to be burnt,

as nine friends of the commons had been, within the memory of men still

living. This latter demand, caused only by the exasperation of the

moment, was withdrawn upon maturer council; the others were granted, the

decemvirs resigned, and the people returned to Rome, B. C. 449. A popular

assembly was held, in which ten tribunes were elected, Virginius and

Icilius being of the number. Two supreme magistrates were chosen by a

free vote of the people; in the place of the decemvirate, and they were

now first called consuls. Their powers were the same with those of the

prætors, or generals, who had ruled from the expulsion of the kings to

the appointment of the first decemvirate, except that an appeal might be

made from their sentence to that of the comitia.

The first consuls under this new act were Valerius and Horatius. They

went forth and gained so signal a victory over the Sabines, that Rome

suffered no more incursions from that people for 150 years. Ancient

custom and even law among the Romans honored victorious generals with

a triumphal entry into the city on their return; but the Senate, whose

duty it was to decree the triumph, regarding the consuls as false to

the interests of their order, forbade any such honor to be paid them.

Hereupon the people exerted their supreme authority, and commanded the

consuls to “triumph” in spite of the Senate. (See §§ 109-111.) Appius

Claudius and one of his colleagues were impeached and died in prison; the

rest fled from Rome, and their property was confiscated.

=53.= A strong reaction now set in, in favor of the patricians; and

so determined was their opposition to the new laws, that the people

seceded again, but this time only to the Janiculum, west of the Tiber

and opposite Rome. At last a law was passed legalizing marriage between

the two orders. Instead of throwing open the consulship freely to the

plebeians, it was agreed (B. C. 444) to divide its duties and dignities

among five officers, of whom two, the censors, should be chosen only from

the nobles, though by a free vote of the tribes, while the three military

tribunes might be either patricians or plebeians. The censors were to

hold office five years, the tribunes only one.

For some alleged defect in the auspices (see § 28), the first three

tribunes were set aside, and for six years consuls were regularly

appointed as before. In 438 B. C., tribunes were elected, and for three

following years consuls again, showing the extreme difficulty with which

the people gained their rights, even when conceded by law. In 433 B. C.,

an important law of Æmilius, the dictator, limited the duration of the

censor’s office to eighteen months, though he was still appointed only

once in five years, thus leaving the place vacant a much greater time

than it was filled.

=54.= The censors were invested with truly kingly splendor and

extraordinary powers. They registered the citizens and their property,

administered the revenues of the state, kept the rolls of the Senate,

from which they erased all unworthy names, and added such as they

considered fit. In this judgment of character they were guided solely

by their own sense of duty. If a man was tyrannical to his wife and

children, or cruel to his slaves, if he neglected his land, or wasted his

fortune, or followed any dishonorable calling, he was degraded from his

rank, whatever that might be. If a senator or a knight, he was deprived

of his gold ring and purple-striped tunic; if a private citizen, he

was expelled from the tribes and lost his vote. The censors were thus

the guardians of morals, and their power extended to many matters which

could hardly be reached by the general action of the law. The taking of

every census was followed by a lustration, or ceremonial purifying of the

people (see § 31). Hence, the five years which intervened between two

elections of censors were called a _lustrum_, or greater year.

=55.= The Romans must have watched with interest, during the years 415

and 414 B. C., the movements of the great Athenian expedition against

Syracuse. Had the brilliant schemes of Alcibiades been carried into

effect, the Greeks would doubtless have become the leading power in

western Europe; “Greece, and not Rome, might have conquered Carthage;

Greek, instead of Latin, might have been at this day the principal

element of the languages of Spain, of France, and of Italy; and the laws

of Athens, rather than of Rome, might be the foundation of the law of the

civilized world.”

RECAPITULATION.

Decemviri chosen to make new laws for Rome. Absolute power of

the _paterfamilias_. Laws against libel make Roman history mere

eulogium. Tyranny of the second decemvirate. Appius Claudius

unjustly claims Virginia for a slave. The people secede,

overthrow the decemvirate, and restore consuls and tribunes.

The new consuls defeat the Sabines, and triumph in spite of the

Senate. By another change of constitution, censors and military

tribunes are chosen, instead of consuls. The censors have

absolute power to correct public morals. The Athenians fail in

their Sicilian expedition, B. C. 415, 414, and leave room for

the supremacy of Rome.

CAPTURE OF ROME BY THE GAULS.

=56.= The Gauls were now beginning their terrible incursions from the

north into the valley of the Po, thus absorbing the attention of the

Etruscans; and the time favored a fresh attack of the Romans upon Veii,

the nearest state across the Tiber. The war began B. C. 405, and lasted

ten years. The necessity of keeping an armed force continually in the

field, gave rise to the standing army, which ultimately made so essential

a part of Roman power; and, at the same time, obliged the patricians to

study the interests of the people. It was now agreed that the soldiers

should be regularly paid, and money secured for this purpose by a careful

collection of the rents for public lands. The number of military tribunes

was doubled. Their chief, the præfect of the city, was a patrician, and

chosen by that order, but the remaining five were elected from either or

both classes, by a free vote of the popular assembly.

=57.= After ten years’ warfare with varying success, Veii was taken (B.

C. 396) by the dictator Camillus. It is said that on the very day of its

surrender, Melpum, the Etruscan stronghold in the north, fell before

the Gauls. The loss of these two frontier fortresses began the rapid

decline of Etrurian power. The joy of the Romans was commemorated by

the whimsical custom, long continued, of concluding every festal game

with a mock auction called the “Sale of Veientes.” Cape´na, Fale´rii,

Nep´ete, and Sunium were likewise conquered, and with their lands became

possessions of Rome. Within half a century, the Etruscans lost to the

Gauls all their possessions in Campania and north of the Apennines, and

to the Romans, all between the Cimin´ian forests and the Tiber. The

nation had already lost its force through unbounded excess in luxury. The

nobles were enormously rich, while the people were poor and enslaved.

=58.= The war of the Romans against Volsin´ii was equally successful;

but, by a sudden and terrible reverse, Rome was now doomed to suffer the

fate which she too often inflicted. The Gauls, after conquering northern

Etruria, overflowed the barrier of the Apennines and spread over central

Italy. They met the entire Roman force near the little river Al´lia,

and defeated it with great slaughter; then pushing on with irresistible

power, they captured and burned the city. So overwhelming was the

disaster, that the 16th of July, the date of the battle of the Allia,

was pronounced a “black day” of ill-omen, on which no business could be

safely transacted and no sacrifices acceptably offered.

=59.= The vestal virgins withdrew with the sacred fire to Cære, in

Etruria; the mass of the people, with the fugitives from the conquered

army, had taken refuge in Veii and other Etruscan towns; but the noblest

of the patricians resolved to hold the Capitol. Those who were too old to

fight, hoped to serve their country equally well by an heroic death. They

repeated, after the pontifex maximus, a solemn imprecation,[66] devoting

themselves and the army of the Gauls to death for the deliverance of

Rome. Then, arrayed in their most magnificent apparel, holding their

ivory scepters, and seated each upon his ivory throne at the door of

his own house, they sat motionless while the tumult of plunder and

pillage was going on around. The barbarians were struck with admiration

of these venerable figures, and one of them began reverently to stroke

the long white beard of Papir´ius. Enraged by this profaning touch, the

old senator struck him with his ivory scepter. It was the signal for

slaughter. The Gauls, recovering from their momentary awe, massacred the

noble old men without delay.

=60.= The siege of the Capitol continued six or eight months. At one time

it was nearly taken, by the enemy scaling the steep cliff by night. The

garrison were asleep, but some geese sacred to Juno gave a timely alarm,

and the citadel was saved. Marcus Manlius, who was the first to awaken,

succeeded in throwing several of the first assailants down the cliff,

and thus maintained the fortress until his comrades could come to his

aid. At length, though the garrison were nearly exhausted by hunger,

the Gauls were equally ready to make terms, for they had heard that the

Venetians were invading their northern possessions. A thousand pounds of

gold were paid for the ransom of the city, and the barbarians retired.

They were followed by Camillus, the conqueror of Veii and Falerii, who

was now again dictator, and who, by cutting off straggling parties of the

enemy, regained some portion of the rich booty which they were carrying

away; but it is probably not true that he gained any important success

over them, as was formerly believed.

=61.= A period of great distress followed the retreat of the Gauls. The

farms, upon which the livelihood of so many people depended, had been

laid waste; their fruit-trees, buildings, implements, stock and stores,

even to the seed-corn needed for next year’s sowing, had been burnt.

Rome was a mass of rubbish, in which even the direction of the former

streets could no longer be discerned. The government furnished roofing

materials, and allowed wood and stone to be taken from the public forests

and quarries, on condition that every person so aided would give security

to complete his building within the year. But these pledges were often

forfeited; and to meet the expense of rebuilding, as well as to pay the

extraordinary taxes for restoring the fortress and the temples, money

had to be borrowed, and the poor were again at the mercy of the rich.

Innocent debtors were dragged from their homes, to toil as slaves in the

shops or fields of their creditors.

Many chose to remain in the Etruscan towns where they had taken refuge,

and even to make of Veii a new Rome for the plebeians, where they might

live free from the overbearing rule of the patricians, and be themselves

a privileged class. Though this wholesale secession was prevented, yet

the numbers in Rome were so greatly diminished, that a mass of the

conquered Etruscans were brought in to fill the vacant places. These

were provided with Roman lands, were organized into four new tribes, and

admitted to full civil rights. The “new people” formed more than a sixth

part of the whole population of the reconstructed city.

=62.= No one could see without pity the distress of the people; but

Marcus Manlius, the same whose alertness and presence of mind had saved

the Capitol, had also reasons of his own for trying to relieve them.

He was jealous of Camillus, and thought that his own services had not

been duly rewarded. He sold at auction the best portion of his lands,

and applied the proceeds to paying the debts of needy persons, thus

delivering them from imprisonment and torture. He was rewarded by the

unbounded gratitude of the poor; his house was continually thronged

with partisans, to whom he spoke of the selfish cruelty of the nobles,

in throwing the whole burden of the public calamity on others, and

even accused them of embezzling the immense sums raised to replace the

treasures of the temples, which had been borrowed to purchase the retreat

of the Gauls.

=63.= For this charge Manlius was thrown into prison, and the people

began to regard him as a martyr to their cause. On his release, he

renewed his attacks upon the government. He fortified his house on the

Capitoline, and with his party held the whole height in defiance of the

authorities. His treason was so evident, that even the tribunes of the

people took part with the patricians against him, and he was brought to

trial before the popular assembly.

He appeared, followed by several comrades whose lives he had saved in

battle, and by four hundred debtors whom he had rescued from the dungeon.

He exhibited the spoils of thirty enemies slain with his own hand, and

forty crowns or other honorary rewards received from his generals. He

appealed to the gods, whose temples he had saved from pollution, and he

bade the people look at the Capitol before they pronounced judgment. It

was impossible to convict such a criminal in such a presence, for the

very spot on the Capitol where Manlius had stood alone against the Gauls,

was visible from the Forum. He was afterward condemned for treason and

thrown from the Tarpeian Rock, the precipitous side of the Capitoline

Hill, looking toward the Tiber.

=64.= The power of the patricians was only confirmed by this rash and

selfish attempt to overthrow it. For seven years the distress of the

people went on increasing; the commons lost heart, and their eldest men

refused any longer to accept public office. Two younger men now came

forward, who were destined, by their firm and wise procedure, to relieve

in great measure the miseries of their class.

C. Licinius Stolo was of one of the oldest and wealthiest plebeian

families, connected by many marriages with the nobles. Becoming tribune

(B. C. 376), together with his friend, L. Sextius, he proposed a new

set of laws, designed to remove both the poverty and the political

wrongs under which the commons were suffering. (1.) To relieve immediate

distress, it was proposed that the enormous interest already paid upon

debts should be reckoned as so much defrayed of the principal, and

should, therefore, be deducted from the sum still due. (2.) To prevent

future poverty, the public lands, hitherto absorbed in great measure by

the patricians, were to be thrown open equally to the plebeians, and no

man was to be allowed to hold more than 500 _jugera_,[67] or to pasture

more than 100 oxen and 500 sheep on the undivided portion. Further,

to secure employment to the poor, a certain amount of free labor was

required upon every farm. (3.) Two consuls were to be elected, of whom

one every year should be a plebeian.

=65.= The strongest objection to a plebeian consulship was on religious

grounds; for high patricians held it an impiety to place in the supreme

magistracy one who had no right to take the auspices, and whom they

regarded as no true Roman. To attack this prejudice in the boldest

manner, Licinius proposed to increase the number of keepers of the

Sibylline Books from two to ten, and to appoint five of these from

the plebeians. These laws were not passed without many years’ violent

opposition. At length they were ratified by the Senate and the Comitia

Curiata (B. C. 367); and to celebrate this happy agreement between the

two orders, a Temple of Concord was built upon the Capitoline Hill. At

the same time, a new office, the prætorship, was instituted and confined

to the patricians, comprising most of the civil and judicial duties

which had hitherto belonged to the consuls, while the latter kept their

absolute military power. The first plebeian consul under this arrangement

was L. Sextius.

=66.= The restless and turbulent Gauls re-appeared in Latium, during

the same year with the passing of the Licinian laws. They were defeated

by the aged general Camillus, who had been six times military tribune

and five times dictator. On their second invasion they encamped within

five miles of the city, and struck terror, we may well believe, into

the hearts of those who remembered the desolations of thirty years

before; but, at length, they broke up their camp without fighting, and

passed into Campania. On their return through Latium they were signally

defeated. In 350 B. C., they spent the winter upon the Alban Mount, and

joined the Greek pirates on the coast in ravaging the country, until they

were dislodged by L. Furius Camillus, a son of the general.

They made a treaty B. C. 346, after which they never again appeared in

Latium. They continued to be the ruling race between the Alps and the

northern Apennines, and along the Adriatic as far south as the Abruz´zi.

Many towns, like Milan, were held, however, by the Etruscans in a sort

of independence, while the Gauls lived in unwalled villages. From their

Tuscan subjects, the Gauls learned letters and the arts of civilized

life, which spread from them, in a greater or less degree, to all the

Alpine populations.

RECAPITULATION.

Veii taken B. C. 396, after a ten years’ siege. Defeat of the

Romans on the Allia, and capture of their city by the Gauls, B.

C. 390. Massacre of the senators. Manlius saves the Capitol,

during a seven months’ siege. Rome in ruins. Distress of the

poor. Treason of Manlius. The Licinian laws, passed after nine

years’ contest, relieve debtors and divide the public lands

among the common people. The Gauls overrun central Italy, B. C.

361-346, but at length retire north of the Apennines.

SECOND PERIOD, B. C. 343-264.

=67.= From the political struggles which developed the Roman

constitution, we turn to the series of foreign wars between Rome and her

most powerful rival for the supremacy of southern Italy. The Samnites

were a Sabine race, settled as conquerors in the Oscan country. Their

possessions were mostly inland, comprising the snow-covered mountain

range which separates the Apulian from the Campanian plains, but they

extended to the coast between Naples and Pæstum, where they included the

once famous cities of Herculaneum and Pompeii.

The Samnites ranked with the Latins, as the most warlike races of Italy;

but the conquests of the former, at the period to which we have now come,

had been by far the more brilliant and extensive. In the decline both of

Greek and Etruscan power in southern Italy (see Book III, § 90), they

had gained control of the whole lower portion of the peninsula, except

a few Greek colonies like Tarentum and Neapolis. But Latium, under the

leadership of Rome, had advanced surely though slowly, securing each

advantage by the formation of Roman colonies, bound by the strongest ties

of obedience to the mother city, while the Samnite nation had no settled

policy and no regularly constituted head. Each new settlement, therefore,

divided and diminished their strength.

=68.= The conquerors of Cumæ and Capua adopted the luxurious habits of

the Greeks and Etruscans, whom they had supplanted, but with whom they

continued to live on friendly terms. The Greek-loving inhabitants of the

coast dreaded their rude countrymen of the hills, almost as much as did

the refined Hellenes themselves, and thus a great division took place in

the Samnite stock. The civilized and Hellenized Samnites besought the

aid of the Romans against the predatory hordes of their own race, who

were constantly swooping down from the Samnian hills to ravage their

fields. The Romans consented, on condition of their own supremacy being

acknowledged throughout Campania, and their former treaty with Samnium

was broken.

=69.= The First Samnite War began with the march of two Roman armies

into Campania, while the Latin allies invaded the Pelignian country on

the north. The Roman armies were victorious, and both consuls obtained

a triumph. A large force was left, at the request of the Campanians, to

guard their cities during the winter. The common soldiers were still

burdened with poverty, and the prolonged absence from their farms

occasioned serious suffering to their families.

In the second year of the war, mutinous plots were discovered, and a

large body of the troops were sent home. On their way they released all

the bondmen for debt whom they found working in the fields of their

creditors, fortified a regular camp on the slope of the Alban Hills, and

were joined by a large body of oppressed common people from the city.

But when they met the army hastily raised by the patricians, and sent

forth under Valerius the dictator—whose family had always been faithful

friends to the people, and who was himself greatly beloved by all classes

for his generous character, no less than his military glory—these men,

whose revolt had been occasioned by real distress, and not by defect of

loyalty, could not bring themselves to fight their fellow-citizens and

the defenders of their common country. The two armies stood facing each

other, until remorse on one side and pity on the other had overcome all

mutual resentment; then, both pressing forward, they grasped hands or

rushed into each others’ arms with tears and demands for pardon. The just

requirements of the soldiers were granted by the Senate, together with

amnesty for their irregular proceedings, and this singular rebellion

ended in a lasting peace.

=70.= The Latins, meanwhile, had been left to carry on the Samnite war by

themselves, and their repeated successes encouraged them to assert their

independence of Rome. The Romans now (B. C. 341) made peace with the

Samnites, and, two years later, turned their arms against the Latins, who

were strengthened by alliance with their late opponents, the Campanians

and Volscians. The two consuls with their forces moved into Campania, and

encamped in the plain of Capua, opposite the army of the three allies.

Strict orders were issued against skirmishing or personal encounters, and

disobedience was to be punished with death. Ignorant or heedless of the

command, Titus Manlius, the consul’s son, accepted a challenge from a

Latin warrior, killed his opponent, and brought the spoils in triumph to

lay at his father’s feet. The consul turned away his face, and summoning

his guards, ordered them to behead the young man before his tent, in the

presence of all the soldiers. Roman discipline knew no ties of affection.

Manlius, the father, was forever regarded with horror, but Manlius, the

consul and general, was strictly obeyed as long as he commanded the

armies of Rome.

=71.= The decisive battle in the Latin war took place at the foot of

Vesuvius. The augurs, having taken the auspices as usual, declared that

fate demanded the sacrifice of a general on one side and an army on the

other. It was therefore made known to the Roman officers that, whichever

portion of the army should begin to yield, the consul commanding in that

quarter would devote himself to the gods of death and the grave, in order

that the army which must perish might be that of the Latins.

Manlius led the Roman right; Publius Decius, the people’s consul, the

left. The battle was severe, and bravely fought on both sides; but, at

length, the Latin right wing prevailed, and the Roman left began to

give way. Decius instantly called the chief pontiff—for, as a plebeian,

he himself was ignorant of the ceremonies by which the gods must be

addressed—and bade him dictate the form of words in which he was to

devote himself to death. By the direction of the pontiff, he wrapped

his toga around his face, set his feet upon a javelin, and repeated the

imprecation.[68] Then sending his guard of lictors to the other consul

to announce his fate, he mounted his horse, plunged into the host of the

enemy, and was quickly slain. The Latins saw and understood the act,

but they still fought fiercely, like men who struggled against fate. So

equally matched were the main forces, that Manlius gained the day at last

only by bringing on the poorer supernumeraries, whom he had armed to

constitute a double reserve.

=72.= A second battle was much more easily won, and the Latins had no

strength to rally for a third. The Latin League was wholly broken up,

Roman law every-where took the place of local constitutions, and some

cities even became Roman colonies. The Latins were one in race and

language with Rome, and their transient hostility was exchanged for

a close and permanent alliance. The battle under Mount Vesuvius was

one of the most important in the history of Rome, for by securing the

sovereignty of Latium, it opened the way to the conquest of the world.

=73.= For the next twelve years the Romans were unable to undertake any

great foreign war. Italy was invaded by Alexander of Epirus, uncle of the

great Macedonian conqueror, B. C. 332. His quarrel was with the Samnites,

but if his success had been equal to his ambition, no engagements with

the Romans would have prevented his overrunning the whole peninsula. He

was defeated and slain, however, in 326 B. C., and the Romans immediately

prepared for a renewed contest with the Samnites, which was to last

twenty-two years, B. C. 326-304. The two chief states of Italy fought for

sovereignty, and their allies included almost all the other nations in

the peninsula.

The events of the first five years were too indecisive to be worth

recording. The advantage was generally with the Romans, but the Samnite

power was still unbroken, and was able, in 321 B. C., to inflict one

of the most severe and disgraceful defeats that Roman arms had ever

sustained. The combined forces of Rome, led by the two consuls, were

entrapped in a mountain-pass between Naples and Ben´even´tum, known as

the “Caudine Forks.” Half the soldiers fell in the fight which ensued;

the rest surrendered, but were generously spared by Pontius, the Samnite

general, on condition of an honorable peace being signed by the two

consuls and by two tribunes of the people, who were present with the

troops. The soldiers were then made to “pass under the yoke,”[69] in

token of surrender, and were permitted to march away, without their

arms, toward Rome. But the Senate, having got back its forces, refused

to be bound by the agreement of the consuls. The signers of the treaty,

stripped and bound, were given up to the vengeance of the Samnites, but

Pontius refused to receive them. He did not choose to punish the innocent

for the guilty, nor to justify the Roman government in taking all the

advantage of the agreement, and refusing all the sacrifices.

=74.= The war went on six years without any very important event,

until, in 315 B. C., the Samnites gained another great success at

Lau´tulæ. Almost all the allies of Rome now deserted what seemed the

losing cause. Campania revolted; the Ausonians and Volscians joined the

Samnite alliance. But, in the following year, a still more severe and

decisive battle gave victory to the Romans. The Samnites were crushed

beyond all power of recovery. The war was continued, however, ten years

longer, chiefly by the efforts of the Etruscans, Oscans, and Umbrians,

to preserve the balance of power in Italy. But these efforts were never

united, and the Romans were able to defeat them, one by one, until, in

304 B. C., the Samnites became subject to Rome, and all the other parties

concluded a peace. Rome was now, without question, the first nation

in Italy; and, considering the disputes which weakened the fragments

of Alexander’s empire, might almost be considered the greatest in the

world. In intellectual culture, the Romans were still inferior to the

conquered Samnites. Pontius, the Samnite general, was well versed in

Greek philosophy, and in the elevation of his character far surpassed the

proudest Romans of his time.

=75.= Near the close of the Second Samnite War, the Æqui, who had been

for eighty years in a state of neutrality, took up arms against Rome; and

immediately after the treaty of B. C. 304, the consuls marched 40,000 men

into their territory. A sharp and severe struggle of fifty days resulted

in the capture and destruction of forty-one towns. A large portion of

the people were sold into slavery, and the rest became subjects of Rome.

A few years later, however, they received the rights of citizens, were

enrolled in the tribes, and served in the wars against the Samnites.

=76.= The latter people busily employed the six years’ interval

between their second and third great struggle with Rome, in forming

and strengthening the “Italian League.” Etruscans, Umbrians, and

Gauls, on the north, were allied with Lucanians, Apulians, most of the

Greek cities, and the Samnites, on the south. Rome had the advantage

in compactness, numbers, and wealth; her own or her allies’ territory

extended across Italy from the Mediterranean to the Adriatic, and divided

the states of her enemies.

The war broke out in 298 B. C., but no important movement was made until,

in 295 B. C., the combined armies of the four northern nations advanced

toward Rome. The plan of the consuls was at once bold and sagacious. One

army awaited the invaders, while another marched directly into Etruria.

This movement exposed the weakness of the league, for the Etruscans

and Umbrians, deserting their allies, drew off to defend their own

territories. The Samnites and Gauls crossed the Apennines to Senti´num,

where they were overtaken by the first Roman army. In the battle which

followed, the Gallic war-chariots had nearly driven from the field the

legions of Decius, the consul, when, remembering the example of his

father at Vesuvius, he, likewise, devoted himself to the powers of death

for the deliverance of Rome. The legions were at length triumphant;

25,000 of the enemy lay dead upon the field.

=77.= The Gauls now withdrew from the league, but the Samnites continued

the war with unabated resolution. Twenty-eight years after his great

victory at the Caudine Forks, Pontius again defeated a Roman army under

Fabius Gur´ges. The Romans were so exasperated by this defeat where they

were confident of victory, that they would have deprived the consul of

his command, had not his old father, Fabius Maximus, offered to serve as

his lieutenant.

A great victory was now gained, in which Pontius was captured, and

made to walk, loaded with chains, in the triumph of the consul. When

the procession reached the ascent to the Capitol, he was led aside and

beheaded in the Mamertine prison—he who, thirty years before, had spared

the lives and liberty of two Roman armies, and even generously released

the officers when given over to his vengeance! This base treatment of a

brave foe has been called the greatest stain in the Roman annals. The

war was ended with the complete submission of Samnium, and the Romans

established a colony of 20,000 people at Venu´sia, to hold the conquered

territory in awe, B. C. 290.

=78.= In the same year, the consul, Curius Denta´tus, began and ended

another war against the Sabines, who had come to the aid of their Samnite

kinsmen. They were subdued, and their extensive country, rich in oil,

wine, and forests of oak, fell into the possession of the Romans. The

commons at Rome suffered greatly, nevertheless, from the burdens of the

war. Their farms had been neglected during their absence with the army,

and those who had the misfortune to have been taken prisoners, had to be

ransomed at a cost ruinous to small fortunes.

Curius, the conqueror of the Sabines, proposed a new Agrarian law for the

division of their lands among the poor of Rome. A political contest of

several years ensued, during which the mass of the people seceded again

to the Janiculum. A rumor of foreign invasion induced the Senate to yield

and appoint Hortensius, a plebeian of ancient family, to be dictator. By

his wise and conciliatory counsels, peace was restored. He convened all

the people in a grove of oaks without the walls, and by the solemn oaths

of the whole assembly passed the Hortensian laws, which ended the civil

strife of Rome for 150 years. Every citizen received an allotment of

land, and certain invidious marks of distinction between patricians and

plebeians were effaced, B. C. 286.

RECAPITULATION.

The Hellenized Samnites ask the aid of Rome against their

highland countrymen. The First Samnite War, B. C. 343-341,

opens with success to the Romans. Sedition of troops in

Campania. The Latins revolt against Rome and join the

Campanians and Volscians. The Romans make peace and alliance

with the Samnites for the Latin War, B. C. 340-338. In the

battle of Vesuvius, Decius, the consul, devotes himself

to death, and the Romans are victorious. The Latin League

suppressed, and the supremacy of Rome established. An invasion

of Italy by Alexander of Epirus, is followed by the Second

Samnite War, B. C. 326-304. The Romans defeated at the

Caudine Forks, B. C. 321, but at last completely victorious.

They conquer the Æqui, B. C. 304. Third Samnite War, and

Italian League against Rome, B. C. 298-290. Great victory

at Sentinum over Gauls, Samnites, Etruscans, and Umbrians.

Capture of Pontius, B. C. 292, and end of the Samnite wars.

Sabine territories conquered and divided among the people, by

Hortensian laws.

WAR WITH PYRRHUS.

=79.= Within three years (B. C. 283), the Romans were menaced by a new

danger, in a powerful coalition formed by the Tarentines, and including

nearly all the nations of Italy. The storm gathered swiftly and burst

from all quarters at once. In the south, the Samnites, Lucanians, and

Bruttians were in arms; in the north, the Etruscans and Umbrians, with

hordes of Gallic mercenaries, were pouring into the field. Arre´tium

alone stood firmly by the Roman alliance, and was besieged by an army

of Etruscans and Gauls. The consul, Metel´lus, marching to its relief,

was defeated with the total loss of his army. Embassadors, sent to

remonstrate with the Seno´nian Gauls for the infringement of their treaty

with Rome, were murdered, and their bodies hewed to pieces and cast

out without burial. This outrage, which the laws of the rudest savages

pronounced sacrilege, provoked a speedy vengeance. Dolabel´la, the

consul, marched into the Gallic territory with his army, killed every man

who was found, carried off the women and children as slaves, and reduced

every village to a heap of ashes and rubbish.

=80.= The Boian Gauls took up arms to avenge their brethren, and, joining

the Etruscans, met the Roman forces in the valley of the Tiber, near

the little lake Vad´imon. They were defeated so thoroughly that very

few escaped from the field. The consul Fabric´ius, the following year,

defeated the Samnites, Lucanians, and Bruttians in several great battles,

broke up the coalition in the south, and collected an amount of spoils

which enabled him to pay all the war expenses of the year, and, beside

allowing a liberal share to every soldier, to leave half a million of

dollars in the treasury. Tarentum, the prime mover of the war, had never

drawn a sword, but had left all its burdens and losses to her allies. To

punish this passive but mischievous policy, a Roman fleet was now sent to

cruise around the eastern and southern coasts of Italy. It was defeated

and sunk by the Tarentines in their own harbor. They then seized Thurii,

expelled the Roman garrison, and, in the name of all the Italian Greeks,

sent to Pyrrhus, king of Epirus, for aid.

=81.= This accomplished and ambitious prince was glad of a new field of

enterprise. He hastened into Italy with a well-appointed army of 25,500

men, drilled and equipped in the Macedonian fashion, and supplied with

twenty elephants. The gay and self-indulgent Tarentines, quite willing

that another should fight their battles for them, forgot their promises

of service and subsidies; but Pyrrhus showed them that he was master

by stopping the sports of the circus and theaters, and the banquets of

the clubs, and keeping the citizens under arms from morning to night.

Even with inferior forces he was able to defeat the Roman legions at

Heracle´a, on the Siris. Seven times the Epirotes and Greeks were driven

from the field, and seven times regained it; but when the last Italian

reserve was engaged, Pyrrhus brought on his elephants, till then unknown

in Italy, and they put to flight the Roman horse. The rout was complete;

the Romans did not stay to defend their camp, but fled to Venu´sia,

leaving Pyrrhus master of the field.

=82.= He was now joined by many allies, some of whom had even been

subjects or friends of Rome; but the advantage of his victory was not

sufficient to balance his loss in officers and men—losses the more

serious as Greece was now overrun by the Gauls, and there was little hope

of recruits. In these circumstances, Pyrrhus sent to Rome his embassador,

Cin´eas, an orator of such brilliant talent, that he was said to have won

more cities by his tongue than Pyrrhus by his sword. A large party was

inclined to listen to his proposals of “peace, friendship, and alliance.”

But Appius Claudius—thirty years ago censor, now a blind old man—heard in

his house that Rome was making peace, with a victorious enemy still upon

Italian soil. He caused himself to be carried in a litter through the

Forum to the Senate-house. When he arrived, all his sons and sons-in-law

went out to meet him and lead him to his ancient place. All the Senate

listened in breathless silence as the old man rose to speak, protesting

against the dishonor of his country. When he ceased, it was voted that

no peace should be made while any foreign foe was in Italy, and that the

orator who had so nearly persuaded them should leave the city that very

day.

=83.= The war went on between the consummate genius of Pyrrhus and the

unconquerable will of the Roman people. They were fighting for existence,

while Pyrrhus fought for glory; and though in every pitched battle he was

victorious, fresh armies were always ready to oppose him. Still hoping

to make peace with Rome, he refused to ransom or exchange the multitude

of prisoners whom he had taken, but he allowed them all to return to

Rome for the winter holidays—the Saturna´lia—on their simple promise to

return if the Senate refused a treaty. The Senate refused, and every

man returned. In his second campaign, Pyrrhus gained another brilliant

victory, at As´culum, over the Romans and their allies. But his restless

ambition now turned to a new field, and he departed into Sicily, where

the Greek cities had implored his aid against the Carthaginians. Once

master of that fertile island, he believed that he could attempt the

conquest of Italy with better resources, and he left troops to hold

Tarentum and Locri for his base of future operations in the peninsula.

=84.= In Sicily his genius and valor for a time drove all before him. The

strong town of Eryx was taken, Pyrrhus himself being the first to mount

the scaling-ladders. The Carthaginians implored peace, offering ships and

money as the conditions of an alliance. Pyrrhus haughtily refused; but a

reverse which he afterward suffered at Lilybæ´um, encouraged his enemies

and alienated his allies. After two years he returned into Italy, pursued

by a Carthaginian fleet, which defeated him with a loss of seventy ships.

On landing, he was met by a body of Mamertines,[70] who had crossed the

straits from Sicily, and whom he defeated only by a sharp and costly

battle. He arrived at Tarentum with an army equal in numbers, but far

inferior in character, to that with which he had come from Epirus four

years earlier. His faithful Epirotes were slain, and in their places were

ill-trained Italian mercenaries, who would serve only as long as pay and

plunder abounded.

=85.= Being in great want of money to satisfy these unruly followers,

Pyrrhus yielded to the advice of his Epicure´an courtiers, and

appropriated the treasures of the temple of Proser´pina, at Locri.

The money was embarked by sea for Tarentum, but a storm drove the

sacrilegious vessel back upon the coasts of Locri; and Pyrrhus was so

affected by remorse, that he restored the gold and put to death the

counselors. He believed that he was ever after haunted by the wrath of

Proserpina, which dragged him down to ruin. The following year he was

totally defeated near Beneventum, by Curius Dentatus, the consul. Toward

the end of the year he passed over into Greece, still leaving a garrison

at Tarentum, in token of his unconquered resolution to return.

During the first invasion by Pyrrhus, the Eighth Legion, stationed at

Rhegium, and composed chiefly of Campanian mercenaries, had, like the

Mamertines in Sicily, thrown off their allegiance, slaughtered the Greek

inhabitants, and held the town as an independent military post. They

were now reduced, and most of the garrison put to the sword; the rest,

consisting of the original soldiers of the legion, were tried at Rome,

scourged, and beheaded.

=86.= Roman supremacy was now speedily established both in northern and

southern Italy. Picenum was conquered, and half her inhabitants were

forcibly removed to the shores of the Gulf of Salerno. Umbria submitted

B. C. 266, the chief cities of Etruria followed, and the entire peninsula

south of the Macra and Rubicon became subject to Rome. Hitherto the

Romans, like the Spartans, had prided themselves upon the homeliness of

their manners. When the Samnites sent envoys to M. Curius to bespeak his

kind offices with the Senate, and offer him a present of gold, they found

the ex-consul seated by his fire and roasting turnips in the ashes, with

a wooden platter before him. To their proffered gift he replied, “I count

it my glory not to possess gold myself, but to have power over those who

do.”

The eleven years following the departure of Pyrrhus were a period of the

greatest prosperity ever enjoyed by the common people of Rome, and the

wealth arising from the conquest of Italy materially changed their manner

of living. Every freeman received a fresh grant of seven _jugera_ of land

or a portion of money. The property of the displaced governments went,

of course, to the Roman state, and thus valuable possessions of mines,

quarries, forests, fisheries, and public lands were added to its domains.

The administration of the public revenues demanded a greatly increased

number of officials, and the rich, as well as the poor, profited by the

results of war.

=87.= The new territories were secured by that system of colonies which,

in later times, served to establish the Roman power from the Atlantic to

the Euphrates. The colonies were of two kinds. Most favored were those

composed of “Roman citizens,” who retained all their rights as such,

voting in the assembly, and being eligible to any office which they could

have filled if remaining at Rome. Those who joined a “Latin colony,” on

the other hand, lost their civil rights in Rome, but they had privileges

which attached them both by interest and affection to the mother city.

Ostia, and the maritime colonies generally, were of the former and higher

class. The great system of Roman roads, which ultimately intersected all

western Europe, and may be seen to-day in their massive remains, owed

its origin to Appius Claudius “the Blind,” who when censor, in 312 B.

C., constructed the Appian Way to connect Rome with her new dependency,

Campania. He also built the first of the Roman aqueducts, to supply the

poorer portion of the city with water.

=88.= The free-born plebeians of Rome now possessed half the high offices

in the state, and even in the sacred colleges of pontiffs and augurs.

They were admitted to the Senate when they had served as consuls, or had

been appointed to be either prætors or ædiles. Appius Claudius, in his

censorship, went still further, and placed upon the rolls of the Senate

the names of some who had been born slaves, or who possessed no lands.

He enrolled these two very numerous classes in the tribes as voters;

and instead of assigning them to those of the city, where they almost

exclusively belonged, he distributed them over all the districts, so that

they might control all elections. To rescue Rome from the inevitable rule

of the mob, his successors in the censorship confined these new votes

to the city, thus giving them the control only of four tribes out of

thirty-one, and so the danger was averted.

RECAPITULATION.

Coalitions in the north and south against the Romans. Siege of

Arretium, and defeat of Metellus. War with the Senonian and

Boian Gauls. Victories of Fabricius in the south. Pyrrhus comes

to the aid of the Tarentines; defeats the Romans at Heraclea,

Asculum, etc.; sends Cineas to Rome, whose persuasions are

thwarted by Appius Claudius the Blind; passes into Sicily, and

after two years returns to Epirus. All Italy subject to Rome.

Increased wealth and luxury of the people. Many new colonies

upon the conquered lands. Roads and aqueducts are constructed.

Freedmen and non-possessors of land admitted to the suffrage by

Appius Claudius.

THIRD PERIOD, B. C. 264-133.

=89.= The great commercial Republic of Carthage, though allied with Rome

during the wars with Pyrrhus, had regarded with jealousy the steadily

increasing power of the Italian state. The Roman people, on the other

hand, had been so enriched by their recent wars, that they were eager

for fresh plunder and a new allotment of conquered lands. A slight and

doubtful pretext was, therefore, sufficient to plunge the two nations

into war. The Carthaginians had seized the citadel of Messana, under

pretense of aiding the Mamertines against Hi´ero of Syracuse. The Romans

had recently punished the buccaneers of Rhegium for precisely the same

crime which the “Sons of Mara” had committed at Messana, but when the

latter sought their aid against both Syracusans and Carthaginians, the

temptation was too great; they accepted the disreputable alliance, and

invaded Sicily with 20,000 men.

=90.= Having gained possession of Messana, they kept it for their own.

The combined forces of Syracuse and Carthage, besieging the place, were

defeated by Claudius, the consul; and Hiero, being distrustful of his

African allies, returned home. The next year he made peace with the

Romans, and continued until his death, nearly half a century later, their

faithful friend and ally. Most of the Greek cities in Sicily followed his

example. Hannibal,[71] son of Gisco, the Carthaginian general, could no

longer meet the Romans in the field, but shut himself up in Agrigentum

and was besieged. Hanno, attempting to relieve him, was decisively

defeated; the city was taken, and its people were sold as slaves.

Hannibal, who escaped to Panor´mus (Palermo) with most of his troops,

now carried the war upon the sea, and ravaged the defenseless coasts

of Italy with a fleet of sixty vessels. The next year his lieutenant,

Boö´des, with a naval detachment, met the consul, Scipio, at Lip´ara,

and captured his whole squadron. Hannibal then set out with fifty ships

to ravage the coasts of Italy again. But the Romans, wisely learning

from their enemies, were now prepared to meet them on their own element.

A Carthaginian quin´quereme (a vessel with five rows of oars) had been

cast ashore on the coast of Bruttium. It was used as a model, and the

Romans, who previously had had nothing greater than triremes, possessed,

within two months, one hundred first-class war vessels. While the

ships were building, the crews were trained on shore to their peculiar

and complicated motions. In the very first encounter, Hannibal was

defeated; in the second, off Mylæ, he lost fifty vessels, among them his

magnificent flag-ship, which had formerly belonged to Pyrrhus.

=91.= In 259 B. C., Sardinia and Corsica were attacked, and the town of

Ale´ria taken by the Romans. The following year, another great naval

victory was gained off Ec´nomus, in Sicily; and the consuls, Manlius and

Regulus, invaded Africa. They captured and fortified the town of Cly´pea,

which they made their headquarters, and then proceeded to lay waste

the lands of Carthage with fire and sword. The beautiful villas of the

nobles and merchants afforded inestimable spoils; and 20,000 persons,

many of whom were of exalted rank, and accustomed to all the refinements

of wealth, were dragged away as slaves.

In the winter, Manlius returned to Rome with half the army and all the

plunder, while Regulus remained to prosecute the war. He defeated the

Carthaginian generals, captured their camp, and overran the country at

pleasure. More than three hundred walled villages or towns were taken.

In vain the judges and nobles of Carthage cast their children into the

brazen arms of Moloch, whence they rolled into the fiery furnace burning

always before him. The hideous idol was not appeased, and the Roman

general was equally implacable. To all embassies he refused peace, except

on such intolerable terms that even disastrous war seemed better.

=92.= At the darkest moment, relief arrived in the person of a Spartan

general, Xanthippus, who came with a body of Greek mercenaries. His

military fame and the evident wisdom of his counsels inspired such

confidence, that he was put in the place of the incompetent Punic

commanders. With his 4,000 Greeks, added to the Carthaginian infantry and

100 elephants, he defeated and captured Regulus, and wholly destroyed the

Roman army. A still more terrible disaster befell the fleet which had

been sent to bring away the shattered remnants of the forces from Africa.

A violent storm came on, and the southern coast of Sicily was strewn with

the remains of 260 vessels and 100,000 men, B. C. 255.

The Romans, though nearly driven to despair of the republic, never

relaxed their exertions, but equipped a new fleet, with which, the

following year, they captured the important town of Panormus. This

fleet was wrecked, B. C. 253, and the next two years were full of

discouragements; but, in 250 B. C., a brilliant victory, won at Panormus

by the proconsul Metellus, tended to restore the balance of the opposing

forces. A hundred elephants, taken alive, were exhibited in the triumph

of Metellus.

=93.= For the next eight years, the advantage was usually with the

Carthaginians. Hamilcar Barca, the father of the great Hannibal, ravaged

the coasts of Italy, and the Romans had no leader of equal genius to

oppose to him. At last they rallied all their forces to put an end to the

war. The wealthier citizens at their own expense fitted out a fleet of

200 ships, and the consul Luta´tius gained a decisive victory among the

islands west of Sicily. This reverse, following twenty-three years of

exhausting war, so disheartened the Carthaginians, that they agreed to

abandon Sicily and all the neighboring islands, to pay 2,000 talents, and

release all the Roman prisoners without ransom.

=94.= The First Punic War had lasted nearly twenty-four years, B. C.

264-241 inclusive. Rome emerged from it a great naval power, able

to meet on equal terms the well-trained mariners who had hitherto

ruled the western Mediterranean. Foreseeing that the struggle must be

renewed, both parties spent the twenty-three years which followed in

strenuous preparations. Rome seized upon Sardinia and Corsica; and

Carthage, absorbed and weakened by a revolt of her mercenary troops, was

compelled to submit, and even to pay a heavy fine for having presumed to

remonstrate.

These islands, with Sicily, were placed under proconsular government,

the system by which Rome afterward managed all her vast foreign

possessions. The two consuls, on completing their year of office, divided

the “provinces” between them by lot or agreement, and each held in his

own, both military and civil control, while the finances were managed

by quæstors responsible only to the Senate. When the provinces became

numerous, the greater number were governed by pro-prætors. One-tenth

of the whole produce of these conquered countries was claimed by Rome,

beside a duty of five per cent on all imports and exports.

=95.= By the request of the western Greeks, Rome exerted her new naval

power in clearing the Adriatic of the Illyrian pirates, who were ravaging

its coasts and destroying its commerce. Their queen, Teuta, seized the

Roman embassadors who were first sent into her country, killed two and

imprisoned the third. In the war which immediately followed, she lost the

greater part of her dominions, and was compelled to keep her corsairs

within stricter limits for the future, beside paying a yearly tribute to

her conquerors. In gratitude for this important service, the Romans were

admitted to equal rights with the Hellenic race in the Isthmian Games and

the Eleusinian Mysteries, B. C. 228.

=96.= While thus asserting her power in the Greek peninsula, Rome desired

to extend her Italian dominion to its natural limit in the Alpine range.

The Gauls were not slow in taking the alarm. Obtaining fresh forces

from their kinsmen beyond the mountains, they advanced into central

Italy, and, overrunning Etruria, threatened Rome again as in the days

of Brennus. Three armies were quickly in the field to oppose them;

and though one was routed, another, under the consul Æmil´ius, aided

by Regulus,[72] who had unexpectedly arrived from Sardinia, gained a

decisive victory which nearly destroyed the Gallic host. Within three

years all Cisalpine Gaul submitted to Rome, B. C. 222. Mediola´num and

Comum (Milan and Como), as well as Placen´tia, Parma, Mode´na, Man´tua,

Vero´na, and Brix´ia, were occupied by Roman colonies, connected with

the capital by the great military road called the Flaminian Way, and its

continuations.

=97.= Carthage, meanwhile, had yielded only from necessity, and for a

time, to the superior power of Rome. A large majority of her citizens

were for renewing the war at the earliest possible moment; and to recruit

her power and wealth, Hamilcar had devoted all his energies to the

conquest of the Spanish peninsula, B. C. 236-228. After his death, his

son-in-law, Has´drubal, organized and developed the resources of the

country by building towns, encouraging trade and tillage, training the

native tribes into efficient soldiers, and working the newly discovered

silver mines, which, beside paying all the expenses of the province, were

rapidly filling up the home treasury. Rome, with her command of the sea,

secured from fear of invasion, saw without uneasiness the prosperity of

her rival. But an item which no one could have foreseen, the genius of

Hannibal, was now to be added to the resources of Carthage.

=98.= At nine years of age he had accompanied his father into Spain, and

before the altar of his country’s gods had taken a solemn oath of eternal

and unrelenting enmity to Rome. The oath of the child had not been

forgotten by the youth. At the age of eighteen he fought by his father’s

side in the battle where Hamilcar was slain; and during the following

eight years of Hasdrubal’s administration, that general intrusted

his young brother-in-law with the command of most of his military

enterprises. Upon the death of Hasdrubal, the army by acclamation placed

Hannibal at its head, and the government at home neither could nor would

annul the appointment.

Having confirmed his power in Spain by two years’ war against the native

tribes, Hannibal deliberately sought the quarrel with Rome to which he

had devoted his life. The Greek city of Saguntum had placed itself under

the protection of Rome. It was attacked by Hannibal, and taken after an

obstinate defense of eight months. The Romans sent to Carthage to demand

the surrender of the young general for this breach of the treaty. The

reply was a declaration of war.

=99.= Leaving his brother Hasdrubal in charge of Spain, Hannibal prepared

for a bolder movement than the Romans had foreseen. He knew that the

great mountain-barrier of the Alps had already often been traversed by

the Gauls, and he relied upon finding able guides among this people, who

were mostly friendly to Carthage. He resolved, therefore, on the hitherto

unprecedented feat of leading an army from Spain into Italy by land.

Having offered, during the winter, solemn sacrifices and prayers for

success, at the distant shrine of the Tyrian Hercules at Gades, he set

forth from Carthagena, in the spring of 218 B. C., with an army of 90,000

foot, 12,000 horse, and a considerable number of elephants. The Spanish

tribes between the Ebro and the Pyrenees were yet to be overcome. They

resisted bravely, but were subdued, and a force of 11,000 men was left to

hold them in subjection.

=100.= Having passed the Pyrenees, Hannibal advanced through friendly

tribes of Gauls to the Rhone, which he crossed near the modern town of

Orange, gaining an advance of three days upon the army of Scipio, the

consul, who had intended to stop him. The passage of the Alps, with

such a force, was one of the greatest military achievements of ancient

times. The higher mountains were already obstructed by the snows of early

autumn; hostile tribes contested his passage in narrow and dangerous

defiles; and in two fierce battles, the army of Hannibal narrowly escaped

total destruction. When, after fifteen days of toilsome and dangerous

marching, he emerged into the plain of the Po, it was with scarcely

more than one-fourth of the great army which had accompanied him from

Carthagena.

=101.= The Insubrian Gauls welcomed Hannibal as their deliverer from the

hated power of Rome. After a short period of rest in their hospitable

country, he sought Scipio, and totally routed his forces in a battle on

the Tici´nus. By a still greater victory on the Tre´bia, over the forces

of the two consuls (Dec., 218 B. C.), Hannibal became master of northern

Italy. All the Gauls who had wavered now hastened to join his standard;

but the gain from this quarter was balanced by the irreparable loss of

his elephants, and the severe suffering of his African and Spanish troops

from the unwonted coldness of the winter.

In the spring of 217 B. C., he crossed the Apennines, and traversed the

marshes of the Arno, a passage of tremendous difficulty, in which many

of his beasts of burden perished. Again seeking battle, Hannibal passed

the army of Flaminius at Arretium, and laid waste the country toward

Peru´sia, thus provoking the consul to follow. When he had drawn the

Roman army into a most perilous position, between precipitous cliffs and

the Lake Thrasymene, he let loose his Gauls and Numidians to the attack.

The defeat of the Romans was overwhelming: thousands were forced into the

lake; thousands fell by the sword, among whom was Flaminius himself; and

15,000 prisoners remained in the hands of the enemy.

=102.= A panic seized Rome; the conqueror was instantly expected at

her gates, and Fabius was elected dictator with unlimited powers. But

Hannibal had sought to detach the Italian allies from Rome, by releasing

without ransom all their prisoners whom he had taken. Wishing to give

time for the disunion to take effect, he turned aside into Apulia, where

he rested and recruited his troops worn by so many hardships.

It was already proved in three battles that the Carthaginian was

irresistible in the field. The policy of Fabius, therefore, was to avoid

a general engagement, while he annoyed and weakened his enemy by cutting

off his foraging parties, and otherwise harassing his march. In vain

Hannibal crossed the Apennines into the rich Campanian fields, plundering

and destroying the crops; he could neither capture a town nor entice

Fabius into a battle. The latter fortified the Samnian mountain-passes,

thinking to catch his enemy in a trap; but Hannibal eluded the snare and

retired safe into Apulia, laden with abundant provision for the comfort

of his winter-quarters.

=103.= Great discontent was felt at Rome with the cautious policy of

the dictator, and, in the spring of 216 B. C., an army of nearly 90,000

men was led into Apulia by the two consuls Æmilius Paulus and Terentius

Varro. They were met by Hannibal on the plain of the Aufidus, near the

little town of Cannæ. The Carthaginians were inferior in numbers but

superior in discipline, especially in the Numidian horsemen, who had

always been victorious in an open field. Never had the Romans suffered so

overwhelming a defeat. Their army was annihilated. From 40,000 to 50,000

men lay dead upon the plain, among whom were Æmilius the consul, eighty

senators, and the flower of Roman knighthood. Varro, the other consul,

with a small but resolute band, made his way in good order from the

battle-field; the rest of the survivors were either dispersed or taken

prisoners.

=104.= Southern Italy was now lost to Rome. Except the Roman colonies

and the Greek cities held by Roman garrisons, all submitted to Hannibal.

Capua opened her gates and became the winter-quarters of the African

army. Philip of Macedon and Hieron´ymus of Syracuse made alliance with

Carthage, and wars with these two powers divided the attention of the

Romans. Still, beside keeping two armies in the foreign fields, they

occupied every province of Italy with a separate force; and though too

wise to meet Hannibal again in a general engagement, hemmed him in

closely and cut off his supplies. The great general was now but faintly

supported at home, and the ungenerous policy of Carthage probably

deprived her of the conquest of Italy.

=105.= Three years, therefore, passed with no decisive events. In 212

B. C., Syracuse was taken by Marcellus after two years’ siege. The

attacks of the Romans had been long foiled by the skill of Archimedes,

the philosopher, who is said to have burnt their ships at the distance

of a bow-shot from the walls, by means of a combination of mirrors which

concentrated the sun’s rays. He constructed powerful engines, which, when

attached to the walls, grappled the Roman ships and lifted them out of

the water; and, in short, the brain of Archimedes was a better defense to

Syracuse than the arms of all her soldiers. In the taking of the city,

the philosopher was slain by some ignorant troopers; but Marcellus deeply

regretted the event. He ordered him to be buried with high honors, and

distinguished his family by many marks of friendship.

=106.= Hannibal had been long anxiously awaiting the arrival of his

brother from Spain; but the generalship of the two Scipios, Cneius and

Publius, who conducted the war in that country, and more especially the

brilliant genius of the son of the latter, afterward known as Africanus,

had detained Hasdrubal and involved him in many disasters, even the loss

of his capital, Carthagena. At last, in 208 B. C., Hasdrubal left Spain

to the care of two other generals, and striking out a new path, as his

brother’s route of eleven years before was now guarded by the Romans,

he crossed the Pyrenees at their western extremity and plunged into the

heart of Gaul. Many of the restless people flocked to his standard, and

he “descended from the Alps like a rolling snow-ball, far greater than he

came over the Pyrenees.”

He found some of Hannibal’s roads uninjured; the mountaineers made no

effort to dispute his passage, and he arrived in Italy before he was

expected, so that no Roman army was ready to receive him. He might,

perhaps, have settled once for all the supremacy of Carthage by marching

directly on Rome, for the resources of the Republic, both in men and

money, had been drained to the utmost, and another Thrasymene or Cannæ

would have ended her existence.

=107.= Hasdrubal lost time in the siege of Placentia, and his letter,

describing to Hannibal his plan of operations, fell into the hands of

Nero, the consul, who, by a rapid and secret march, joined his colleague

at Sena with 7,000 men, leaving the main part of his army still facing

Hannibal in the south. Hasdrubal was uninformed of the reinforcement of

his enemy, but his quick ear caught one more trumpet-note than usual,

at sunrise, in the Roman camp; and as he rode forth to reconnoiter, he

discovered that the horses appeared over-driven, and the armor of the men

stained. He therefore delayed until night-fall, and then moved to cross

the river Metau´rus in search of a stronger position. But his guides

betrayed him, and when morning dawned his worn and weary troops were

still on the nearer side of the river, where they were soon overtaken

by the foe. He made the best arrangement of his men which the crisis

would admit, placing the ten elephants in front “like a line of moving

fortresses,” his veteran Spanish infantry on the right, the Ligurians in

the center, and the Gauls on the left.

The battle was fiercely contested, for both armies felt that the decision

of the day would be final, and that there was no hope for the vanquished.

At last Nero, by a circuitous movement, fell upon the Spanish infantry,

which had already borne the brunt of the fighting. Hasdrubal saw that

the day was lost, and scorning to survive his men or to adorn a Roman

triumph, he spurred his horse into the midst of a cohort, and died, sword

in hand, B. C. 207.

=108.= The consul Nero returned to his camp before Hannibal had even

discovered his absence. Hasdrubal’s arrival in Italy, the battle and

its result were first made known to the great general by seeing the

ghastly head of his brother, which Nero had brutally ordered to be thrown

within his lines. Hannibal read the tale of disaster in the terrible

message, and groaned aloud that he recognized the fate of Carthage.

Though he remained four years strongly posted in the mountain fastnesses

of Bruttium, the issue of the war was already decided. In 204 B. C., the

younger Scipio crossed into Africa, and the Carthaginians were compelled

to recall Hannibal.

The final battle was fought at Zama, B. C. 202. The great Carthaginian

displayed again his perfect generalship, but he had no longer his

invincible cavalry, and his elephants were rendered useless by the

skillful tactics of Scipio. He was defeated with the loss of 20,000

men slain, and an equal number of prisoners. The peace, concluded in

the following year, took from Carthage all her possessions beyond the

limits of Africa, and all the lands conquered from Numidia, whose king,

Mas´sinis´sa, had rendered important aid to Scipio in the recent war. She

surrendered, also, her fleet and elephants, promised a yearly tribute of

200 talents, and engaged to make no war without permission from Rome.

RECAPITULATION.

The First Punic War (B. C. 264-241) begins with the invasion

of Sicily by the Romans, who are joined by many Greek

cities, capture Messana and Agrigentum, equip a fleet upon

a Carthaginian model, and gain many naval victories. They

invade Africa, and ravage the lands of Carthage almost without

opposition; but Xanthippus arrives with auxiliaries, defeats

and captures Regulus. Five years of disaster to the Romans

are followed by the great victory of Metellus at Palermo; and

after eight years of again unsuccessful warfare, the victory of

Lutatius among the Ægates ends the contest. During the peace

which follows, Sardinia and Corsica are seized by the Romans,

and placed under proconsular government; the Illyrian pirates

are subdued, B. C. 229, 228; Cisalpine Gaul conquered, B. C.

225-222. The Second Punic War is begun, B. C. 218, by Hannibal.

He crosses the Pyrenees and Alps, defeats the Romans on the

Ticinus and the Trebia, and still more disastrously near the

Lake Thrasymene and at Cannæ. Syracuse, though defended by the

science of Archimedes, is captured by Marcellus. The three

Scipios make successful war in Spain. Hasdrubal comes at last

to the relief of his brother, but is defeated and slain on

the Metaurus, B. C. 207. Hannibal is recalled to Africa, and

finally defeated at Zama by Scipio Africanus, B. C. 202.

EXTENSION OF ROMAN POWER.

=109.= A triumph was awarded to Scipio, who was received at Rome with

unbounded enthusiasm. The _Triumph_, which was the highest reward a

Roman general could attain, may here be described once for all. The

victorious chief waited without the walls until the Senate had decided

upon his claim to the honor. Several conditions were to be observed: the

victory must have been over foreign and not domestic foes; it must have

been, not the recovery of something lost, but an actual extension of

Roman territory; the war must be completed and the army withdrawn from

the field, for the soldiers were entitled to a share in the triumph of

their general. The honor was limited to persons of consular or, at least,

prætorian rank; an officer of lower grade might receive an _ovation_, in

which he entered the city on foot, but the chariot was a mark of kingly

state which could only be permitted to the highest.

=110.= If a triumph was decreed, a special vote of the people continued

to the general his military command for the day within the walls, for

without a suspension of the law, he must have laid it down on entering

the gates. On the appointed day, he was met at the Triumphal Gate by the

Senate and all the magistrates, in splendid apparel. Taking the lead of

the procession, they were followed by a band of trumpeters, and a train

of wagons laden with the spoils of the conquered countries, which were

indicated by tablets inscribed in large letters with their names. Models

in wood or ivory of the captured cities; pictures of mountains, rivers,

or other natural features of the regions subdued; loads of gold, silver,

precious stones, vases, statues, and whatever was most rich, curious, or

admirable in the spoils of temples and palaces, made an important part

of the display. Then came a band of flute players, preceding the white

oxen destined for sacrifice, their horns gilded and adorned with wreaths

of flowers and fillets of wool. Elephants and other strange animals from

the conquered countries, were followed by a train of captive princes or

leaders with their families, and a crowd of captives of inferior rank,

loaded with fetters.

Then came the twelve lictors of the imperator in single file, their

fasces wreathed in laurel; and, lastly, the triumphant general himself,

in his circular chariot drawn by four horses. His robes glistened with

golden embroidery; he bore a scepter, and upon his head was a wreath of

Delphic laurel. A slave standing behind him held a crown of Etruscan

gold; he was instructed to whisper from time to time in his master’s ear,

“Remember that thou art but a man.” Behind the general rode his sons and

lieutenants, and then came the entire army, their spears adorned with

laurels—who either sang hymns of praise, or amused themselves and the

by-standers with coarse jokes and doggerel verses at their general’s

expense. This rude license of speech was thought to neutralize the effect

of overmuch flattery, which the Romans, like the modern Italians, were

taught especially to dread. All the people, in gala dress, thronged the

streets, and every temple and shrine were adorned with flowers.

=111.= As a terrible contrast to the joy of the day, just as the

procession had nearly finished its course to the Capitol, some of the

captured chiefs were led aside and put to death. When their execution was

announced, the sacrifices were offered in the temple of the Capitoline

Jupiter; the laurel crown of the general was placed in the lap of the

image; a magnificent banquet was served, and the “triumphator” was

escorted home, late in the evening, by a crowd of citizens bearing

torches and pipes. The state presented him a site for a house, and at

the entrance to this triumphal mansion, a laurel-wreathed statue of its

founder perpetuated the memory of his glory to his latest descendants.

=112.= Carthage being stripped of her power and possessions, Rome became

supreme in the western Mediterranean and the greater part of Spain. The

confiscated lands of the Italian nations which had taken sides with

Hannibal, afforded settlements for large bodies of veteran soldiers. The

Cisalpine Gauls were still in revolt, under the lead of a Carthaginian

general; but they were reduced by a ten years’ war (B. C. 201-191),

and afterward became Latinized with that wonderful facility which

distinguishes their race.

=113.= The Alexandrine kingdoms in the East were all prematurely old

and falling into decay. The campaigns of Flamininus against Philip of

Macedon, B. C. 198, 197, have been already described. (See Book IV, §§

81-83.) A new war for the protectorate of Greece was occasioned by the

movements of Antiochus the Great. This ambitious and restless monarch not

only welcomed to his court the now exiled Hannibal, but allied himself

with the Ætolians and led an army to their aid. He had miscalculated

the power of Rome, which met him promptly with much more than twice

his numbers, defeated him once by land and twice by sea, and finally,

in the great battle of Magnesia, in Lydia, shattered his forces, while

beginning her own long career of Asiatic conquest. The lands conquered

from Antiochus were divided between the friendly powers of Pergamus and

Rhodes, and the example of their good fortune led many other nations to

seek the Roman alliance.

=114.= For more than twenty years, Rome was occupied with continual wars

in the west, against the brave and freedom-loving tribes of Spain and

the Ligurian Alps, as well as with the natives of Corsica and Sardinia.

The latter island was conquered, B. C. 176, by Sempronius Gracchus, who

brought away so great a multitude of captives, that “Sardinians for sale”

became a proverbial phrase in Rome for anything cheap and worthless.

Meanwhile, Philip V. had died in Macedon, and Perseus had succeeded to

the throne. The final struggle of this prince with Rome, and its result

in the battle of Pydna (B. C. 168), have been described in Book IV. Rome

became for six centuries what Macedon had been only during one man’s

short career, the undisputed ruler of the civilized world. None except

barbarians any longer hoped to resist her ascendency; and but for a few

revolts, like those of the Achæans, the Carthaginians, and the Jews, her

progress in absorbing the old states of Asia, Africa, and Europe was both

peaceful and rapid.

=115.= After eighteen years of comparative tranquillity, it was resolved

that the time had come for the complete extinction of Carthage. Cato,

the censor, now eighty-four years of age, and the sternest of Roman

legislators, declared that Rome could never be safe while her former

rival was so near, so hostile, and so strong; and whenever he was

called upon for his vote in the Senate, whatever might be the subject of

debate, his unvarying reply was, “I vote that Carthage no longer be.” The

doomed city had more than fulfilled every condition of the treaty which

closed the First Punic War, and still made many sacrifices for the sake

of peace. But the last command of Rome was not intended to be obeyed.

The Carthaginians were ordered to destroy their city, and remove to a

situation farther from the sea. They refused, and a war began, in which,

for four years, the brave spirit of the people sustained them without the

faintest hope of victory.

=116.= Their fleet, their weapons, and their mines in Spain, Sardinia,

and Elba had all been surrendered to the enemy. In two months 120 ships

were built in the blockaded port, and a passage cut through the land

to enable them to reach the sea. Public buildings were torn down to

furnish timber and metal. Every living being toiled night and day at the

defenses. An arsenal was established which daily produced 2,000 shields

or weapons, and even the women contributed their long hair to make

strings for the engines which hurled stones or arrows from the walls.

At length the Romans, under the consul Scipio Æmilia´nus, forced their

way into the city. The people defended it house by house, and street by

street, and days of carnage were still required to quench the pride of

Carthage in ashes and blood. The city was fired in all directions, and

when, after seventeen days, the flames were at last extinguished, nothing

remained but shapeless heaps of rubbish. The territories of the Punic

state became the “Province of Africa,” whose capital was fixed at Utica.

Roman traders flocked to the latter city, and took into their own hands

the flourishing commerce of the coast.

=117.= In the same year, B. C. 146, L. Mum´mius, the consul, plundered

and destroyed Corinth. Its walls and houses were leveled with the ground,

and a curse was pronounced on whomsoever should build on its desolate

site. Its commerce passed to Argos and Delos, while the care of the

Isthmian Games was intrusted to Sicyon. The policy of Rome toward the

Greeks was far more liberal than toward any other conquered people. Her

firm and settled government was, indeed, preferable to the dissension

and misrule which disfigured the later ages of Greece; and the Greeks

themselves declared, in the words of Themistocles, that “ruin had averted

ruin.”

=118.= The natives of western Spain, intrenched among their mountains,

still maintained a brave resistance to the power of Rome. The

Lusitanians, who had never yet been conquered, were basely deceived by

Serto´rius Galba, who enticed 7,000 of them from their strongholds by

promising grants of fertile lands; and when, trusting the word of a

Roman general, they had descended into the plain, he caused them to be

treacherously surrounded, disarmed, and either massacred or enslaved.

Among the few who escaped was a youth named Viria´thus, who lived to

become the leader and avenger of his people. The career of this guerrilla

chief is full of stirring events. Issuing suddenly from a cleft in

the mountains, he seven times defeated a Roman army with tremendous

slaughter. In the last of these victories, the forces of Servilia´nus

were entrapped in a narrow pass and completely surrounded. Absolute

surrender was their only choice. Viriathus, however, preferring peace

to vengeance, used his advantage with great moderation. He allowed his

enemy to depart unhurt, on his solemn engagement to leave the Lusitanians

henceforth unmolested in their own territories, and to recognize him,

their chief, as a friend and ally of the Roman people.

=119.= The terms were ratified by the Senate, but only to be violated.

On the renewal of the war, Viriathus sent three of his most trusted

friends to remonstrate, and offer renewed terms of peace. The consul

bribed these messengers, by promises of large rewards, to murder their

chief. The crime was committed, and within a year Lusita´nia (Portugal)

was added to the Roman dominions. Numantia, in the north, still held out

against the besieging army of Qu. Pompe´ius. A severe winter caused great

sickness and suffering in the legions, and Pompey offered peace on terms

favorable to the Spaniards, but, according to Roman ideas, disgraceful to

the besiegers. These were accepted, and the last payment but one had been

made by the Numantines, when Pompey’s successor in the consulship arrived

at the camp. Being thus relieved from command, he denied that he had ever

made the treaty, and persisted in his falsehood before the Senate.

The war went on six years, with no credit and frequent disgrace to the

Romans, until Scipio Æmilianus, the greatest general of his own time,

starved the city at last into surrender. Many of the Numantines, rather

than fall into the hands of an enemy whose perfidy they had too often

proved, set fire to their houses and perished among the burning ruins.

The whole peninsula, except its northern coast, was now subject to

Rome. It was divided into three provinces—Hither and Farther Spain, and

Lusitania—and became eventually the most prosperous and best governed

part of the Roman foreign possessions. The Lusitanian mountains were

still haunted by brigands, and isolated country houses in that region had

to be built like fortresses; yet the country was rich in corn and cattle,

and occupied by a thriving and industrious people.

RECAPITULATION.