205 made a counter-invasion upon the coast of Carthage. It was only “a
forlorn hope of volunteers and disrated companies,” but it caused the
recall of Hannibal and gained valuable African allies for Rome. The
last scene of the duel was the victory of Zama in 202 in which Scipio
won his title of Africanus and became the hero and saviour of Rome.[12]
Carthage ceded Spain and the Spanish islands, lost her whole war-fleet,
came under Roman suzerainty and agreed to pay an enormous indemnity.
But her end was not yet. For another fifty years she was permitted to
exist on sufferance in humiliation and agony.
Now, frightful as had been the losses of Rome in this seventeen-years’
conflict, and great as was her exhaustion, she proceeded in the very
year following the peace with Carthage to enter upon a fresh series
of campaigns. The Gauls of the north made a desperate revolt, sacked
Piacenza and invested Cremona, but the Romans quickly brought them to
reason. The Gauls could not, of course, receive any of the rights of
citizenship as yet, but they received back their independence, and
were left free of tribute to act as a bulwark against their northern
cousins. There was incessant fighting in Spain also. In Sardinia there
were perpetual slave-drives, until the market was glutted with slaves,
and the phrase was begotten “as cheap as a Sardinian.” How could the
senate at such a moment declare a fresh war with the greatest of
European powers? Was it under pressure of that greedy commercial party
at Rome of which we are beginning to hear so much? The suggestion is
absurd. There were hard knocks and little money to be got from Macedon;
and it is difficult to conceive how any powerful commercial interests
could have arisen at Rome during the seventeen years of the Hannibalic
War. If ever there was a nation whose early history declined the
economic interpretation it was the Romans. Even when the Romans had
conquered Macedon they shut down the famous gold mines because they
did not know how to manage them! Nor, I think, was it any large-minded
_Welt-politik_ which led Rome into the Second Macedonian War. Doubtless
Philip and the Greeks were dangerous and uncomfortable neighbours,
and no doubt it was true that Philip of Macedon and Antiochus of
Syria had formed a compact to divide up the realms of the boy-king
of Egypt. But the war could probably have been postponed for years
by negotiation. Philip did not want to fight Rome: he had not even
ventured to intervene while she was almost prostrate before Hannibal.
The fact is that the Romans were by habits and instinct a fighting
people. From the earliest times they had inherited the custom of an
annual summer campaign. Peace did not present itself to them, or most
of their neighbours, as a desirable condition to be preserved as long
as possible. They were soldiers and nought else, and what are soldiers
for but for fighting? It is only blind optimism which can believe
that nations are even now actuated habitually in their international
relations by foresight and policy. “The plain truth is,” said William
James, “that people _want_ war. They want it anyhow; for itself,
and apart from each and every possible consequence. It is the final
bouquet of life’s fireworks.” That is certainly true of the Romans: the
Roman state, as a whole, needed its customary annual campaign. It was
the business of her statesmen and diplomats to choose the enemy and
prepare a _casus belli_. To imagine the states of 200 B.C. as always
calculating their actions solely on the basis of commercial interest
must be unhistorical.
In their attack on Philip the Romans were allied with the most
respectable elements in Levantine politics: Rhodes, the commercial
republic; Pergamum, the kingdom of the cultivated Attalus; Athens,
the ancient home of art and learning; Egypt, the centre of commerce
and literature. Elsewhere[13] I have described how the simple Romans
comported themselves in this land of higher civilisation. They trod
almost reverently into the circle of Greek culture; they were flattered
when the Athenians initiated them into the Eleusinian Mysteries, or
when the Achæan League permitted them to take part in the Isthmian
games. And when they had beaten Philip--not without difficulty, nor
without indispensable aid from the Ætolian cavalry--at Cynocephalæ,
they made no attempt at annexation. Leaving Philip crippled, they
were content. Flamininus, their Philhellenic general, was proud to
proclaim the liberty of Greece before he retired. He and many of his
officers carried away with them an ineffaceable impression. They
were returning to barbarism from a land rich in ancient temples of
incredible splendour, crowded with works of art. They had seen the
tragedies in the theatres, the runners in the games. They had heard the
philosophers disputing in the colonnades, the orators haranguing in the
market-place. A world glowing with life undreamt-of, where there were
other things to live for than battle, had suddenly flashed upon their
eyes.
The next great war was against Philip’s accomplice, Antiochus of Syria.
This war was as inevitable as the last. Antiochus, puffed up with
the pretensions of an Oriental King of Kings, was eager to match his
strength against the _parvenus_ Romans. Rome seemed, and perhaps was,
reluctant to undertake the apparently enormous task at this moment,
though Pergamum and Rhodes invoked her assistance. One strong cause for
war was that Antiochus had given a home to Hannibal, Rome’s hunted but
dreaded foe. If the Great King had but had the sense to give Hannibal
power over his great host it might yet have gone hard with the Romans.
As it was, the battle of Magnesia (190) was one of those tame victories
in which Oriental hosts are butchered by superior Western weapons and
methods of fighting. But even with the wealth of Syria spread out at
her feet, Rome annexed nothing; not out of any spirit of self-denial,
for she exacted an indemnity of almost four million sterling, but
because she was not prepared to undertake the responsibility of
governing regions so vast and so much more civilised than herself.
Actually, of course, the effect of these wars was to give Rome complete
command of the Mediterranean coast-lands. Though she did not annex,
she accepted suzerainty; that is, she controlled, or attempted to
control, foreign policy. Rome is the patron; Macedonia, Syria, Egypt,
Pergamum, Rhodes, Bithynia, Athens, the two leagues and all the ancient
states of Greece are her clients. The position of policeman and nurse
of the Ægean world had been thrust upon Rome because she was strong
and just. Even that was a terrific and bewildering responsibility.
Every day fresh embassies came to Rome to complain of neighbours and
solicit assistance--clever Greeks who would talk your head off with
sophistries, and rich Asiatics who would corrupt you with bribes and
blandishments. There was no one within reach who would stand up and
fight squarely. In the West there were Provinces, in the East allies;
it was difficult to know which gave most trouble.
So we come to the next stage, when the Romans began to annex and
subjugate. It was the only way. In Macedonia, after Philip had been
conquered and pardoned, Perseus arose and rebelled. After Perseus had
been crushed and his kingdom dismembered, a bastard pretender arose
and headed a revolt, joined by the Greeks. Obviously there was nothing
for it but to round off the business by sending a permanent army under
a permanent general to Macedonia, and to call it his “province.”
Not even yet did the Romans dream of making cities like Athens her
subjects. These free cities, however, needed a sharp lesson; and
Corinth, as an almost impregnable fortress which had been a centre of
Achæan mischief, was selected for destruction and destroyed in 146 B.C.
In the same year came the end of Carthage. During the last fifty
years there had been incessant trouble there. Rome had left Carthage
prostrate before her dangerous African enemies, and refused all her
appeals to be allowed to defend herself. All the time Carthage was
undoubtedly recovering financially from her defeat, in spite of her
large annual tribute. This sight moved the fears and jealousy of
the Romans. It was not sufficient to have ordered the expulsion of
Hannibal. The Romans who had grown up under the shadow of the great
Punic War had sucked in hate and fear of Carthage with their mother’s
milk. Intelligent people like Scipio, who had seen Carthage in the
dust, might mock at their fears. It was the Old Roman party, with their
spokesman Cato and his stupid parrot-cry of _delenda est Carthago_,
who constantly kept their nerves on edge, until at last in sheer panic
they obeyed. The long feud between Carthage and the Berber chief
Masinissa came to a head in 154. Masinissa appealed to Rome, and Rome
ordered Carthage to dismiss her army and burn her fleet. Carthage, now
desperate, refused, went to war with Masinissa, and was beaten. Then
Rome declared war upon her--the Third Punic War. Two consuls landed
with a large army and Carthage offered submission. The consuls demanded
complete disarmament. Carthage submitted. Then the consuls demanded
that the existing city should be destroyed and the inhabitants settled
ten miles inland. That meant not only the destruction of their homes
and hearths and temples, but the end of the commerce for which they
lived. This preposterous demand shows that Cato’s policy had triumphed.
Carthage could not submit to this, and there followed one of those
frightful sieges in which the Semitic peoples show their amazing
tenacity. Three years it lasted, by favour of the gross incompetence of
the Roman generals; until at last a Scipio came to turn the tide once
more. Carthage was destroyed utterly with fire and sword, her very site
laid bare, and the soil sown with salt, in token that man should dwell
there no more.
The destruction of these two cities, Corinth and Carthage, together
with other facts such as the unreasonable irritation which Rome
displayed against her Greek allies, Rhodes and Pergamum, have been
taken by some modern historians to indicate, once more, a policy of
commercial jealousy instigating the destruction of rival markets. In
the one case, however, it has been proved that Corinth was no longer a
great centre of Greek commerce when she was destroyed, and in the case
of Carthage it was the party of Cato, who was much more of a farmer
than a company-promoter, that urged destruction. A man of business
might indeed be foolish enough to want to close the principal markets
which bought and sold with him--there are such business men to-day--but
he would scarcely be so mad as to have a fine commercial centre with
its docks and quays utterly destroyed and cursed for ever. Similarly,
when Macedon was conquered her rich gold mines were shut down by
order of the senate. The truth is that Rome was tired and exhausted
with her colossal wars, irritable and nervous beyond expression with
the gigantic task of government which she had found thrust upon her.
Surrounded with false friends and secret enemies, she was losing the
noble _sang froid_ she had displayed in times of real crisis. Corinth
was destroyed as a warning to the Greeks, Carthage as an expiation for
the _lemures_ of the unburied Roman dead.
THE PROVINCES
In considering the ancient, imperial, and provincial systems it is
necessary for the modern to divest himself of all the geographical
notions which spring from the study of maps. The ancients probably
had only the most vague notions of territory. Natural frontiers such
as mountains, rivers, and coasts were of course familiar to them, from
the strategic point of view. Within those were cities great and small,
which in the case of civilised people formed the units of life and
government. In the case of barbarians there were tribes and nations,
seldom sufficiently settled to produce any notion of geographical
area. Thus when Rome conquered Sicily she was acquiring not so much
one geographical unit, an island, as a collection of states of various
types and constitutions. Similarly in the case of Spain; she said
and thought that she acquired Spain, although the greater part of
the Iberian peninsula remained unconquered for another century and a
half. To remember the limitations of ancient geographical knowledge
is essential to the understanding of the Roman provincial system.
_Provincia_ means in the first instance a sphere of official duty, a
man’s _provincia_ might be the feeding of the sacred geese or it might
be the control of an army. It was not for a long time that the word
came to connote a territorial area. When it did so, the day of the
city-state was at an end.
The earliest Roman provinces were _Sicily_, acquired by conquest in
the First Punic War, 241 B.C., then _Corsica_ and _Sardinia_, annexed
in the diplomatic intrigues which followed. Spain, or rather “_the
Spains_.” Further and Hither, were the fruit of the Second Punic War
(201). After the Third Punic War (146) the territory of Carthage became
a province under the name of _Africa_. At the same time the Macedonian
Wars gave Rome the province of _Macedonia_. To complete the list so
far as the Roman Republic is concerned: Attalus III. bequeathed his
kingdom to Rome in 133, and this became the province of _Asia_. In 121
the conquest of Southern Gaul gave Rome _Gallia Narbonensis_. In 103
the prevalence of piracy on the southern coasts of Asia Minor compelled
the Romans to make _Cilicia_ a province. In 81 a legislative act of
Sulla brought the already conquered _Cisalpine Gaul_ into the same
category. The King of _Bithynia_ imitated Attalus in bequeathing his
kingdom to Rome. _Cyrene_ also was bequeathed to Rome and united in one
province with _Crete_ in 63. In 64 Pompeius the Great deposed the King
of _Syria_ and annexed his kingdom. About the same time, on the death
of Mithradates, _Pontus_ was added to Bithynia as a united province.
In 51 Julius Cæsar completed the conquest of Gaul and added it as
_Gallia Comata_ to the old province of Narbonensian Gaul. Finally in 31
Octavianus added _Egypt_ to the list.
It was not the Roman way to think a situation out with the logic and
directness of a Greek or a Frenchman. More like the Englishman, he
took things as they came and made the best of them with as little
derangement as possible of his pre-existing system and preconceived
ideas. The Roman Empire was not governed on a system as it was not
acquired by a policy. When Sicily came into the Roman hands, it came
piecemeal in the course of the war. Various cities accepted Roman
“alliance” on various terms. Rome had never been able to grant full
citizenship to Greek states, because their inhabitants, speaking a
foreign language, could not give the equivalent in military service.
If Sicily had been Italian it would no doubt have entered the Roman
alliance as a collection of municipia; as it was, the sixty-five or
so separate Sicilian states continued to enjoy for the most part
their previous constitutions under various agreements with Rome. Some
were “free,” some were “free and confederate”; similarly of kings
who yielded to Rome, some were styled “allies,” some “allies and
friends.” The cities would have their charters and the kings would
have their personal treaties with Rome which lapsed with their death.
But in a region conquered in war most of the tribes or states were
simply “stipendiary,” that is, tribute-paying. The _stipendium_ paid
was originally, and in theory, an indemnity or a contribution for the
maintenance of a military force by people who were unqualified to
give personal service. It was generally settled by a commission of
ten members of the senate, who went out to organise a newly acquired
territory. Even these tributary states had their charters from
Rome. The _stipendium_ was by no means extortionate. In Macedonia,
for example, the people only paid to Rome half as much as they had
previously paid to their kings. In Sicily and Sardinia the tillers of
the soil paid a tithe, generally in kind (that is, in corn), to the
Roman treasury, and the town-dwellers probably paid a poll-tax. It was
an error of the jurists, who confused this tithe with the tenth paid by
occupants of Roman public land, which afterwards led to the dangerous
legal theory that Rome had acquired the whole soil of the country
conquered by her arms and leased it back for a consideration to the
original proprietors. As a matter of fact, few of the provinces were
remunerative to the Roman state. Spain, where warfare was incessant,
was certainly a heavy loss. Macedonia was no source of profit. Sicily,
largely owing to the Roman Peace, became the granary of the capital,
but Asia alone was a source of great wealth to the treasury. There
were, of course, harbour dues for the provinces as for Italy herself.
On the whole, it is fair to say that local autonomy was generally
preserved. Either through policy or, more probably, because the Romans
habitually took things as they found them, the previous laws and
constitutions of conquered units, whether cities or tribes, remained
in force. In Syracuse, for example, the law of King Hiero remained,
and it was much better for the Sicilians to pay their taxes to Rome
than to be subject to the personal extortions of a monster like
Agathocles. In law-suits between citizens of one Sicilian state the
trial was to be held in that state by a native judge and according to
the native laws--possibly with a right of appeal to the Roman governor.
In suits between Romans and Sicilians the judge was to be a native
of the defendant’s state. So far the Roman sway is the mildest, the
most benevolent system of government which has ever been imposed by
an empire upon conquered subjects. Athens, it will be remembered, had
grown rich and beautiful by misapplying the contributions of allies
which she had converted into the tribute of subjects. Sparta had put
garrisons into every conquered city. So had Carthage. No modern power
allows as much local autonomy to conquered territories as Rome granted
to hers.
But in every conquered territory it was necessary to have an armed
force, large or small according to circumstances, and for the soldiers
a general. As all the Roman magistrates were military in the first
instance, but also judicial and executive--as, in fact, the nature of
Roman ideas of _imperium_ implied an unlimited competence in every
department of rule, the provincial general was also, necessarily, a
provincial judge and administrator free from all control during his
year of office. No doubt the Romans, if they had possessed the wisdom
and retrospective foresight so lavishly displayed by their modern
critics, would, in sending officers to distant parts, have revised
their notions of _imperium_ and defined the spheres of duty which they
entrusted to their generals. If they had studied political science they
might have learnt that it is wise to separate the legal functions from
the administrative, and both from the military. Or if they had made
historical researches, they might have discovered that the Persian
administrative system of three independent functionaries in each
satrapy was the best that had yet been discovered. But they did none
of these things: they simply blundered on in the old Roman way, _more
maiorum_. They did not foresee the demoralising effect of absolute
power in an alien and subject land. They did not foresee the necessity
for central control in a Roman Colonial Office; there was not even any
Latin equivalent for the Franco-Grecian term “bureaucracy.” Thus they
were compelled to trust to the honour and sense of justice which was,
when this colossal experiment began, still believed to exist in the
heart of a Roman officer and gentleman, unaware that corruption was
beginning even then to taint the whole body of their aristocracy.
They might, one would think, have realised the super-human temptations
in the path of a Roman governor. He went out, with a company of his own
friends, chiefly ambitious young men, for a staff, with a senatorial
legate chosen by himself, and a juvenile quæstor as his subordinate to
keep accounts, if he could: for there was no competitive examination in
book-keeping. The governor went for a year only among a people whose
traditions, laws, and even language, were probably quite unknown to
him. He left an austere and barbarous republic to act as monarch among
flattering Greeks or cringing Asiatics. No power on earth could even
criticise him while he held the _imperium_: afterwards he might be
impeached, it is true, but before a court of his own friends. He had
just completed a civic magistracy, and these were won and held by means
of lavish bribes and public entertainments. Opportunities to recoup
himself were irresistible.
True to the _mos maiorum_, the Romans invented no new magistracy for
the provinces. Already as early as the Samnite Wars they had found it
necessary sometimes to break down the annual system by proroguing a
magistrate’s term of office in order that he might finish a campaign.
If he were prætor or consul, he continued for another year as proprætor
or proconsul. When Sicily was conquered the Romans added another prætor
to the two functionaries already existing, another for Sardinia, and
two more for Spain; but after that the new provinces were entrusted
to proprætors and proconsuls, or, in case of a war, to the consuls
themselves during the latter part of their year of office. The senate
decided what the magisterial provinces should be, which of them should
be consular, and then generally the qualified officers balloted for
them.
The same want of elasticity in the Roman system spoilt their good
intentions in the matter of finance. As we have seen, the State imposed
no crushing burdens upon its vassals. Had the _stipendium_ been
honestly collected by official emissaries under proper control, the
provincials would have had little cause of complaint. But the Romans
here again provided no new functionaries for the new duty. In some
cases they allowed the subject communities to collect their own taxes
and forward the required aggregate to Rome, and in such cases there was
a great deal of peculation on the way. But where this was impossible
the senate farmed out the collection of taxes under contract to certain
individuals who bought them at auction. The _publicani_ quickly grew
into a regular institution, grouping themselves into capitalist
syndicates which combined tax-farming with money-lending. Banks were
established in every provincial centre. This capitalist class soon
established itself as a political body at Rome, where it exerted a
powerful and sinister influence over public policy. Just below the
senatorial order were the _equites_. Of old they had been real cavalry,
for it was only the rich who could afford to maintain a horse and
the necessary equipment; now it was mainly a titular distinction,
implying a certain income. It was here that the bankers of Rome and
the financial interests were grouped in a single powerful class. For
a time these “horsemen” actually secured control of the jury courts
which tried charges of extortion. Then the lot of the provincials was
wretched indeed: to pay their greedy and extortionate tax-gatherers
they had often to borrow from the same individuals in their capacity
of usurers, and then, if they ventured to journey to Rome with a
complaint, they would meet the same evil class in the very judges who
heard their complaints. This was how “publican and sinner” came to be
an appropriate conjunction.