Petty War in Sicily

Hamilcar Barcas

Thus there ensued six years of uneventful warfare (506-511), the most

inglorious in the history of this century for Rome, and inglorious

also for the Carthaginian people. One man, however, among the latter

thought and acted differently from his nation. Hamilcar, named Barak

or Barcas (i. e. lightning), a young officer of much promise, took

over the supreme command in Sicily in the year 507. His army, like

every Carthaginian one, was defective in a trustworthy and experienced

infantry; and the government, although it was perhaps in a position to

create such an infantry and at any rate was bound to make the attempt,

contented itself with passively looking on at its defeats or at most

with nailing the defeated generals to the cross. Hamilcar resolved to

take the matter into his own hands. He knew well that his mercenaries

were as indifferent to Carthage as to Rome, and that he had to expect

from his government not Phoenician or Libyan conscripts, but at the

best a permission to save his country with his troops in his own way,

provided it cost nothing. But he knew himself also, and he knew men.

His mercenaries cared nothing for Carthage; but a true general is able

to substitute his own person for his country in the affections of his

soldiers; and such an one was this young commander. After he had

accustomed his men to face the legionaries in the warfare of outposts

before Drepana and Lilybaeum, he established himself with his force on

Mount Ercte (Monte Pellegrino near Palermo), which commands like a

fortress the neighbouring country; and making them settle there with

their wives and children, levied contributions from the plains, while

Phoenician privateers plundered the Italian coast as far as Cumae. He

thus provided his people with copious supplies without asking money

from the Carthaginians, and, keeping up the communication with Drepana

by sea, he threatened to surprise the important town of Panormus in

his immediate vicinity. Not only were the Romans unable to expel

him from his stronghold, but after the struggle had lasted awhile at

Ercte, Hamilcar formed for himself another similar position at Eryx.

This mountain, which bore half-way up the town of the same name and

on its summit the temple of Aphrodite, had been hitherto in the hands

of the Romans, who made it a basis for annoying Drepana. Hamilcar

deprived them of the town and besieged the temple, while the Romans

in turn blockaded him from the plain. The Celtic deserters from the

Carthaginian army who were stationed by the Romans at the forlorn post

of the temple--a reckless pack of marauders, who in the course of this

siege plundered the temple and perpetrated every sort of outrage

--defended the summit of the rock with desperate courage; but Hamilcar

did not allow himself to be again dislodged from the town, and kept

his communications constantly open by sea with the fleet and the

garrison of Drepana. The war in Sicily seemed to be assuming a turn

more and more unfavourable for the Romans. The Roman state was losing

in that warfare its money and its soldiers, and the Roman generals

their repute; it was already clear that no Roman general was a

match for Hamilcar, and the time might be calculated when even the

Carthaginian mercenary would be able boldly to measure himself

against the legionary. The privateers of Hamilcar appeared with ever-

increasing audacity on the Italian coast: already a praetor had been

obliged to take the field against a band of Carthaginian rovers which

had landed there. A few years more, and Hamilcar might with his fleet

have accomplished from Sicily what his son subsequently undertook by

the land route from Spain.

A Fleet Built by the Romans

Victory of Catulus at the Island Aegusa

The Roman senate, however, persevered in its inaction;

the desponding party for once had the majority there. At length a

number of sagacious and high-spirited men determined to save the state

even without the interposition of the government, and to put an end to

the ruinous Sicilian war. Successful corsair expeditions, if they had

not raised the courage of the nation, had aroused energy and hope in

a portion of the people; they had already joined together to form

a squadron, burnt down Hippo on the African coast, and sustained a

successful naval conflict with the Carthaginians off Panormus. By a

private subscription--such as had been resorted to in Athens also,

but not on so magnificent a scale--the wealthy and patriotic Romans

equipped a war fleet, the nucleus of which was supplied by the ships

built for privateering and the practised crews which they contained,

and which altogether was far more carefully fitted out than had

hitherto been the case in the shipbuilding of the state. This fact

--that a number of citizens in the twenty-third year of a severe war

voluntarily presented to the state two hundred ships of the line,

manned by 60,000 sailors--stands perhaps unparalleled in the annals of

history. The consul Gaius Lutatius Catulus, to whom fell the honour

of conducting this fleet to the Sicilian seas, met there with almost

no opposition: the two or three Carthaginian vessels, with which

Hamilcar had made his corsair expeditions, disappeared before the

superior force, and almost without resistance the Romans occupied

the harbours of Lilybaeum and Drepana, the siege of which was now

undertaken with energy by water and by land. Carthage was completely

taken by surprise; even the two fortresses, weakly provisioned, were

in great danger. A fleet was equipped at home; but with all the haste

which they displayed, the year came to an end without any appearance

of Carthaginian sails in the Sicilian waters; and when at length, in

the spring of 513, the hurriedly-prepared vessels appeared in the

offing of Drepana, they deserved the name of a fleet of transports

rather than that of a war fleet ready for action. The Phoenicians had

hoped to land undisturbed, to disembark their stores, and to be able

to take on board the troops requisite for a naval battle; but the

Roman vessels intercepted them, and forced them, when about to sail

from the island of Hiera (now Maritima) for Drepana, to accept battle

near the little island of Aegusa (Favignana) (10 March, 513). The

issue was not for a moment doubtful; the Roman fleet, well built and

manned, and admirably handled by the able praetor Publius Valerius

Falto (for a wound received before Drepana still confined the consul

Catulus to his bed), defeated at the first blow the heavily laden and

poorly and inadequately manned vessels of the enemy; fifty were sunk,

and with seventy prizes the victors sailed into the port of Lilybaeum.

The last great effort of the Roman patriots had borne fruit; it

brought victory, and with victory peace.

Conclusion of Peace

The Carthaginians first crucified the unfortunate admiral--a step

which did not alter the position of affairs--and then dispatched

to the Sicilian general unlimited authority to conclude a peace.

Hamilcar, who saw his heroic labours of seven years undone by the

fault of others, magnanimously submitted to what was inevitable

without on that account sacrificing either his military honour, or

his nation, or his own designs. Sicily indeed could not be retained,

seeing that the Romans had now command of the sea; and it was not

to be expected that the Carthaginian government, which had vainly

endeavoured to fill its empty treasury by a state-loan in Egypt,

would make even any further attempt to vanquish the Roman fleet He

therefore surrendered Sicily. The independence and integrity of the

Carthaginian state and territory, on the other hand, were expressly

recognized in the usual form; Rome binding herself not to enter into

a separate alliance with the confederates of Carthage, and Carthage

engaging not to enter into separate alliance with the confederates

of Rome,--that is, with their respective subject and dependent

communities; neither was to commence war, or exercise rights of

sovereignty, or undertake recruiting within the other's dominions.(8)

The secondary stipulations included, of course, the gratuitous return

of the Roman prisoners of war and the payment of a war contribution;

but the demand of Catulus that Hamilcar should deliver up his arms and

the Roman deserters was resolutely refused by the Carthaginian, and

with success. Catulus desisted from his second request, and allowed

the Phoenicians a free departure from Sicily for the moderate ransom

of 18 -denarii- (12 shillings) per man.

If the continuance of the war appeared to the Carthaginians

undesirable, they had reason to be satisfied with these terms. It may

be that the natural wish to bring to Rome peace as well as triumph,

the recollection of Regulus and of the many vicissitudes of the war,

the consideration that such a patriotic effort as had at last decided

the victory could neither be enjoined nor repeated, perhaps even the

personal character of Hamilcar, concurred in influencing the Roman

general to yield so much as he did. It is certain that there was

dissatisfaction with the proposals of peace at Rome, and the assembly

of the people, doubtless under the influence of the patriots who had

accomplished the equipment of the last fleet, at first refused to

ratify it. We do not know with what view this was done, and therefore

we are unable to decide whether the opponents of the proposed peace in

reality rejected it merely for the purpose of exacting some further

concessions from the enemy, or whether, remembering that Regulus had

summoned Carthage to surrender her political independence, they were

resolved to continue the war till they had gained that end--so that it

was no longer a question of peace, but a question of conquest. If the

refusal took place with the former view, it was presumably mistaken;

compared with the gain of Sicily every other concession was of little

moment, and looking to the determination and the inventive genius of

Hamilcar, it was very rash to stake the securing of the principal

gain on the attainment of secondary objects. If on the other hand

the party opposed to the peace regarded the complete political

annihilation of Carthage as the only end of the struggle that would

satisfy the Roman community, it showed political tact and anticipation

of coming events; but whether the resources of Rome would have

sufficed to renew the expedition of Regulus and to follow it up as far

as might be required not merely to break the courage but to breach the

walls of the mighty Phoenician city, is another question, to which

no one now can venture to give either an affirmative or a negative

answer. At last the settlement of the momentous question was

entrusted to a commission which was to decide it upon the spot in

Sicily. It confirmed the proposal in substance; only, the sum to be

paid by Carthage for the costs of the war was raised to 3200 talents

(790,000 pounds), a third of which was to be paid down at once, and

the remainder in ten annual instalments. The definitive treaty

included, in addition to the surrender of Sicily, the cession also of

the islands between Sicily and Italy, but this can only be regarded as

an alteration of detail made on revision; for it is self-evident that

Carthage, when surrendering Sicily, could hardly desire to retain the

island of Lipara which had long been occupied by the Roman fleet,

and the suspicion, that an ambiguous stipulation was intentionally

introduced into the treaty with reference to Sardinia and Corsica,

is unworthy and improbable.

Thus at length they came to terms. The unconquered general of a

vanquished nation descended from the mountains which he had defended

so long, and delivered to the new masters of the island the fortresses

which the Phoenicians had held in their uninterrupted possession for

at least four hundred years, and from whose walls all assaults of the

Hellenes had recoiled unsuccessful. The west had peace (513).

Remarks on the Roman Conduct of the War

Let us pause for a moment over the conflict, which extended the

dominion of Rome beyond the circling sea that encloses the peninsula.

It was one of the longest and most severe which the Romans ever waged;

many of the soldiers who fought in the decisive battle were unborn

when the contest began. Nevertheless, despite the incomparably noble

incidents which it now and again presented, we can scarcely name any

war which the Romans managed so wretchedly and with such vacillation,

both in a military and in a political point of view. It could hardly

be otherwise. The contest occurred amidst a transition in their

political system--the transition from an Italian policy, which no

longer sufficed, to the policy befitting a great state, which had not

yet been found. The Roman senate and the Roman military system were

excellently organized for a purely Italian policy. The wars which

such a policy provoked were purely continental wars, and always rested

on the capital situated in the middle of the peninsula as the ultimate

basis of operations, and proximately on the chain of Roman fortresses.

The problems to be solved were mainly tactical, not strategical;

marches and operations occupied but a subordinate, battles held the

first, place; fortress warfare was in its infancy; the sea and naval

war hardly crossed men's thoughts even incidentally. We can easily

understand--especially if we bear in mind that in the battles of that

period, where the naked weapon predominated, it was really the hand-

to-hand encounter that proved decisive--how a deliberative assembly

might direct such operations, and how any one who just was burgomaster

might command the troops. All this was changed in a moment. The

field of battle stretched away to an incalculable distance, to the

unknown regions of another continent, and beyond a broad expanse of

sea; every wave was a highway for the enemy; from any harbour he

might be expected to issue for his onward march. The siege of

strong places, particularly maritime fortresses, in which the first

tacticians of Greece had failed, had now for the first time to be

attempted by the Romans. A land army and the system of a civic

militia no longer sufficed. It was essential to create a fleet, and,

what was more difficult, to employ it; it was essential to find out

the true points of attack and defence, to combine and to direct

masses, to calculate expeditions extending over long periods and great

distances, and to adjust their co-operation; if these things were not

attended to, even an enemy far weaker in the tactics of the field

might easily vanquish a stronger opponent. Is there any wonder that

the reins of government in such an exigency slipped from the hands of

a deliberative assembly and of commanding burgomasters?

It was plain, that at the beginning of the war the Romans did not

know what they were undertaking; it was only during the course of the

struggle that the inadequacies of their system, one after another,

forced themselves on their notice--the want of a naval power, the

lack of fixed military leadership, the insufficiency of their

generals, the total uselessness of their admirals. In part these

evils were remedied by energy and good fortune; as was the case with

the want of a fleet. That mighty creation, however, was but a grand

makeshift, and always remained so. A Roman fleet was formed, but it

was rendered national only in name, and was always treated with the

affection of a stepmother; the naval service continued to be little

esteemed in comparison with the high honour of serving in the legions;

the naval officers were in great part Italian Greeks; the crews were

composed of subjects or even of slaves and outcasts. The Italian

farmer was at all times distrustful of the sea; and of the three

things in his life which Cato regretted one was, that he had travelled

by sea when he might have gone by land. This result arose partly out

of the nature of the case, for the vessels were oared galleys and the

service of the oar can scarcely be ennobled; but the Romans might at

least have formed separate legions of marines and taken steps towards

the rearing of a class of Roman naval officers. Taking advantage

of the impulse of the nation, they should have made it their aim

gradually to establish a naval force important not only in numbers

but in sailing power and practice, and for such a purpose they had a

valuable nucleus in the privateering that was developed during the

long war; but nothing of the sort was done by the government.

Nevertheless the Roman fleet with its unwieldy grandeur was the

noblest creation of genius in this war, and, as at its beginning, so

at its close it was the fleet that turned the scale in favour of Rome.

Far more difficult to be overcome were those deficiencies, which could

not be remedied without an alteration of the constitution. That the

senate, according to the strength of the contending parties within it,

should leap from one system of conducting the war to another, and

perpetrate errors so incredible as the evacuation of Clupea and the

repeated dismantling of the fleet; that the general of one year should

lay siege to Sicilian towns, and his successor, instead of compelling

them to surrender, should pillage the African coast or think proper to

risk a naval battle; and that at any rate the supreme command should

by law change hands every year--all these anomalies could not be done

away without stirring constitutional questions the solution of which

was more difficult than the building of a fleet, but as little could

their retention be reconciled with the requirements of such a war.

Above all, moreover, neither the senate nor the generals could at once

adapt themselves to the new mode of conducting war. The campaign of

Regulus is an instance how singularly they adhered to the idea that

superiority in tactics decides everything. There are few generals who

have had such successes thrown as it were into their lap by fortune:

in the year 498 he stood precisely where Scipio stood fifty years

later, with this difference, that he had no Hannibal and no

experienced army arrayed against him. But the senate withdrew half

the army, as soon as they had satisfied themselves of the tactical

superiority of the Romans; in blind reliance on that superiority the

general remained where he was, to be beaten in strategy, and accepted

battle when it was offered to him, to be beaten also in tactics.

This was the more remarkable, as Regulus was an able and experienced

general of his kind. The rustic method of warfare, by which Etruria

and Samnium had been won, was the very cause of the defeat in the

plain of Tunes. The principle, quite right in its own province, that

every true burgher is fit for a general, was no longer applicable;

the new system of war demanded the employment of generals who had a

military training and a military eye, and every burgomaster had not

those qualities. The arrangement was however still worse, by which

the chief command of the fleet was treated as an appanage to the chief

command of the land army, and any one who chanced to be president of

the city thought himself able to act the part not of general only, but

of admiral too. The worst disasters which Rome suffered in this war

were due not to the storms and still less to the Carthaginians, but

to the presumptuous folly of its own citizen-admirals.

Rome was victorious at last. But her acquiescence in a gain far less

than had at first been demanded and indeed offered, as well as the

energetic opposition which the peace encountered in Rome, very clearly

indicate the indecisive and superficial character of the victory and

of the peace; and if Rome was the victor, she was indebted for her

victory in part no doubt to the favour of the gods and to the energy

of her citizens, but still more to the errors of her enemies in the

conduct of the war--errors far surpassing even her own.

Notes for Chapter II

1. II. V. Campanian Hellenism

2. II. VII. Submission of Lower Italy

3. The Mamertines entered quite into the same position towards Rome

as the Italian communities, bound themselves to furnish ships (Cic.

Verr. v. 19, 50), and, as the coins show, did not possess the right

of coining silver.

4. II. VII. Submission of Lower Italy

5. II. VII. Last Struggles in Italy

6. The statement, that the military talent of Xanthippus was the

primary means of saving Carthage, is probably coloured; the officers

of Carthage can hardly have waited for foreigners to teach them that

the light African cavalry could be more appropriately employed on the

plain than among hills and forests. From such stories, the echo of

the talk of Greek guardrooms, even Polybius is not free. The

statement that Xanthippus was put to death by the Carthaginians after

the victory, is a fiction; he departed voluntarily, perhaps to enter

the Egyptian service.

7. Nothing further is known with certainty as to the end of Regulus;

even his mission to Rome--which is sometimes placed in 503, sometimes

in 513--is very ill attested. The later Romans, who sought in the

fortunes and misfortunes of their forefathers mere materials for

school themes, made Regulus the prototype of heroic misfortune as

they made Fabricius the prototype of heroic poverty, and put into

circulation in his name a number of anecdotes invented by way of

due accompaniment--incongruous embellishments, contrasting ill with

serious and sober history.

8. The statement (Zon. viii. 17) that the Carthaginians had to promise

that they would not send any vessels of war into the territories of

the Roman symmachy--and therefore not to Syracuse, perhaps even not

to Massilia--sounds credible enough; but the text of the treaty says

nothing of it (Polyb. iii. 27).

CHAPTER III

The Extension of Italy to Its Natural Boundaries

Natural Boundaries of Italy

The Italian confederacy as it emerged from the crises of the fifth

century--or, in other words, the State of Italy--united the various

civic and cantonal communities from the Apennines to the Ionian Sea

under the hegemony of Rome. But before the close of the fifth century

these limits were already overpassed in both directions, and Italian

communities belonging to the confederacy had sprung up beyond the

Apennines and beyond the sea. In the north the republic, in revenge

for ancient and recent wrongs, had already in 471 annihilated the

Celtic Senones; in the south, through the great war from 490 to 513,

it had dislodged the Phoenicians from the island of Sicily. In the

north there belonged to the combination headed by Rome the Latin town

of Ariminum (besides the burgess-settlement of Sena), in the south the

community of the Mamertines in Messana, and as both were nationally of

Italian origin, so both shared in the common rights and obligations of

the Italian confederacy. It was probably the pressure of events at

the moment rather than any comprehensive political calculation, that

gave rise to these extensions of the confederacy; but it was natural

that now at least, after the great successes achieved against

Carthage, new and wider views of policy should dawn upon the Roman

government--views which even otherwise were obviously enough suggested

by the physical features of the peninsula. Alike in a political and

in a military point of view Rome was justified in shifting its

northern boundary from the low and easily crossed Apennines to the

mighty mountain-wall that separates northern from southern Europe,

the Alps, and in combining with the sovereignty of Italy the

sovereignty of the seas and islands on the west and east of the

peninsula; and now, when by the expulsion of the Phoenicians from

Sicily the most difficult portion of the task had been already

achieved, various circumstances united to facilitate its completion

by the Roman government.

Sicily a Dependency of Italy

In the western sea which was of far more account for Italy than the

Adriatic, the most important position, the large and fertile island

of Sicily copiously furnished with harbours, had been by the peace

with Carthage transferred for the most part into the possession of the

Romans. King Hiero of Syracuse indeed, who during the last twenty-two

years of the war had adhered with unshaken steadfastness to the Roman

alliance, might have had a fair claim to an extension of territory;

but, if Roman policy had begun the war with the resolution of

tolerating only secondary states in the island, the views of the

Romans at its close decidedly tended towards the seizure of Sicily

for themselves. Hiero might be content that his territory--namely, in

addition to the immediate district of Syracuse, the domains of Elorus,

Neetum, Acrae, Leontini, Megara, and Tauromenium--and his independence

in relation to foreign powers, were (for want of any pretext to

curtail them) left to him in their former compass; he might well be

content that the war between the two great powers had not ended in

the complete overthrow of the one or of the other, and that there

consequently still remained at least a possibility of subsistence for

the intermediate power in Sicily. In the remaining and by far the

larger portion of Sicily, at Panormus, Lilybaeum, Agrigentum, Messana,

the Romans effected a permanent settlement.

Sardinia Roman

The Libyan Insurrection

Corsica

They only regretted that the possession of that beautiful island was

not enough to convert the western waters into a Roman inland sea,

so long as Sardinia still remained Carthaginian. Soon, however,

after the conclusion of the peace there appeared an unexpected

prospect of wresting from the Carthaginians this second island of the

Mediterranean. In Africa, immediately after peace had been concluded

with Rome, the mercenaries and the subjects of the Phoenicians joined

in a common revolt. The blame of the dangerous insurrection was

mainly chargeable on the Carthaginian government. In the last years

of the war Hamilcar had not been able to pay his Sicilian mercenaries

as formerly from his own resources, and he had vainly requested that

money might be sent to him from home; he might, he was told, send his

forces to Africa to be paid off. He obeyed; but as he knew the men,

he prudently embarked them in small subdivisions, that the authorities

might pay them off by troops or might at least separate them, and

thereupon he laid down his command. But all his precautions were

thwarted not so much by the emptiness of the exchequer, as by the

collegiate method of transacting business and the folly of the

bureaucracy. They waited till the whole army was once more united in

Libya, and then endeavoured to curtail the pay promised to the men.

Of course a mutiny broke out among the troops, and the hesitating and

cowardly demeanour of the authorities showed the mutineers what they

might dare. Most of them were natives of the districts ruled by, or

dependent on, Carthage; they knew the feelings which had been provoked

throughout these districts by the slaughter decreed by the government

after the expedition of Regulus(1) and by the fearful pressure of

taxation, and they knew also the character of their government, which

never kept faith and never pardoned; they were well aware of what

awaited them, should they disperse to their homes with pay exacted by

mutiny. The Carthaginians had for long been digging the mine, and

they now themselves supplied the men who could not but explode it.

Like wildfire the revolution spread from garrison to garrison, from

village to village; the Libyan women contributed their ornaments to

pay the wages of the mercenaries; a number of Carthaginian citizens,

amongst whom were some of the most distinguished officers of the

Sicilian army, became the victims of the infuriated multitude;

Carthage was already besieged on two sides, and the Carthaginian

army marching out of the city was totally routed in consequence of

the blundering of its unskilful leader.

When the Romans thus saw their hated and still dreaded foe involved in

a greater danger than any ever brought on that foe by the Roman wars,

they began more and more to regret the conclusion of the peace of 513

--which, if it was not in reality precipitate, now at least appeared

so to all--and to forget how exhausted at that time their own state

had been and how powerful had then been the standing of their

Carthaginian rival. Shame indeed forbade their entering into

communication openly with the Carthaginian rebels; in fact, they gave

an exceptional permission to the Carthaginians to levy recruits for

this war in Italy, and prohibited Italian mariners from dealing with

the Libyans. But it may be doubted whether the government of Rome

was very earnest in these acts of friendly alliance; for, in spite

of them, the dealings between the African insurgents and the Roman

mariners continued, and when Hamilcar, whom the extremity of the peril

had recalled to the command of the Carthaginian army, seized and

imprisoned a number of Italian captains concerned in these dealings,

the senate interceded for them with the Carthaginian government and

procured their release. The insurgents themselves appeared to

recognize in the Romans their natural allies. The garrisons in

Sardinia, which like the rest of the Carthaginian army had declared

in favour of the insurgents, offered the possession of the island to

the Romans, when they saw that they were unable to hold it against the

attacks of the un-conquered mountaineers of the interior (about 515);

and similar offers came even from the community of Utica, which had

likewise taken part in the revolt and was now hard pressed by the

arms of Hamilcar. The latter suggestion was declined by the Romans,

chiefly doubtless because its acceptance would have carried them

beyond the natural boundaries of Italy and therefore farther than

the Roman government was then disposed to go; on the other hand they

entertained the offers of the Sardinian mutineers, and took over

from them the portion of Sardinia which had been in the hands of the

Carthaginians (516). In this instance, even more than in the affair

of the Mamertines, the Romans were justly liable to the reproach that

the great and victorious burgesses had not disdained to fraternize

and share the spoil with a venal pack of mercenaries, and had not

sufficient self-denial to prefer the course enjoined by justice and

by honour to the gain of the moment. The Carthaginians, whose troubles

reached their height just about the period of the occupation of

Sardinia, were silent for the time being as to the unwarrantable

violence; but, after this peril had been, contrary to the expectations

and probably contrary to the hopes of the Romans, averted by the

genius of Hamilcar, and Carthage had been reinstated to her full

sovereignty in Africa (517), Carthaginian envoys immediately appeared

at Rome to require the restitution of Sardinia. But the Romans, not

inclined to restore their booty, replied with frivolous or at any rate

irrelevant complaints as to all sorts of injuries which they alleged

that the Carthaginians had inflicted on the Roman traders, and

hastened to declare war;(2) the principle, that in politics power

is the measure of right, appeared in its naked effrontery. Just

resentment urged the Carthaginians to accept that offer of war; had

Catulus insisted upon the cession of Sardinia five years before, the

war would probably have pursued its course. But now, when both

islands were lost, when Libya was in a ferment, and when the state was

weakened to the utmost by its twenty-four years' struggle with Rome

and the dreadful civil war that had raged for nearly five years more,

they were obliged to submit It was only after repeated entreaties,

and after the Phoenicians had bound themselves to pay to Rome a

compensation of 1200 talents (292,000 pounds) for the warlike

preparations which had been wantonly occasioned, that the Romans

reluctantly desisted from war. Thus the Romans acquired Sardinia

almost without a struggle; to which they added Corsica, the ancient

possession of the Etruscans, where perhaps some detached Roman

garrisons still remained over from the last war.(3) In Sardinia,

however, and still more in the rugged Corsica, the Romans restricted

themselves, just as the Phoenicians had done, to an occupation of

the coasts. With the natives in the interior they were continually

engaged in war or, to speak more correctly, in hunting them like wild

beasts; they baited them with dogs, and carried what they captured to

the slave market; but they undertook no real conquest. They had

occupied the islands not on their own account, but for the security

of Italy. Now that the confederacy possessed the three large islands,

it might call the Tyrrhene Sea its own.

Method of Administration in the Transmarine Possessions

Provincial Praetors

The acquisition of the islands in the western sea of Italy introduced

into the state administration of Rome a distinction, which to all

appearance originated in mere considerations of convenience and almost

accidentally, but nevertheless came to be of the deepest importance

for all time following--the distinction between the continental and

transmarine forms of administration, or to use the appellations

afterwards current, the distinction between Italy and the provinces.

Hitherto the two chief magistrates of the community, the consuls, had

not had any legally defined sphere of action; on the contrary their

official field extended as far as the Roman government itself. Of

course, however, in practice they made a division of functions

between them, and of course also they were bound in every particular

department of their duties by the enactments existing in regard to it;

the jurisdiction, for instance, over Roman citizens had in every case

to be left to the praetor, and in the Latin and other autonomous

communities the existing treaties had to be respected. The four

quaestors who had been since 487 distributed throughout Italy did not,

formally at least, restrict the consular authority, for in Italy,

just as in Rome, they were regarded simply as auxiliary magistrates

dependent on the consuls. This mode of administration appears to have

been at first extended also to the territories taken from Carthage,

and Sicily and Sardinia to have been governed for some years by

quaestors under the superintendence of the consuls; but the Romans

must very soon have become practically convinced that it was

indispensable to have superior magistrates specially appointed for

the transmarine regions. As they had been obliged to abandon the

concentration of the Roman jurisdiction in the person of the praetor

as the community became enlarged, and to send to the more remote

districts deputy judges,(4) so now (527) the concentration of

administrative and military power in the person of the consuls had to

be abandoned. For each of the new transmarine regions--viz. Sicily,

and Sardinia with Corsica annexed to it--there was appointed a special

auxiliary consul, who was in rank and title inferior to the consul and

equal to the praetor, but otherwise was--like the consul in earlier

times before the praetorship was instituted--in his own sphere of

action at once commander-in-chief, chief magistrate, and supreme

judge. The direct administration of finance alone was withheld from

these new chief magistrates, as from the first it had been withheld

from the consuls;(5) one or more quaestors were assigned to them,

who were in every way indeed subordinate to them, and were their

assistants in the administration of justice and in command, but yet

had specially to manage the finances and to render account of their

administration to the senate after having laid down their office.

Organization of the Provinces

-Commercium-

Property

Autonomy

This difference in the supreme administrative power was the essential

distinction between the transmarine and continental possessions. The

principles on which Rome had organized the dependent lands in Italy,

were in great part transferred also to the extra-Italian possessions.

As a matter of course, these communities without exception lost

independence in their external relations. As to internal intercourse,

no provincial could thenceforth acquire valid property in the province

out of the bounds of his own community, or perhaps even conclude a

valid marriage. On the other hand the Roman government allowed, at

least to the Sicilian towns which they had not to fear, a certain

federative organization, and probably even general Siceliot diets

with a harmless right of petition and complaint.(6) In monetary

arrangements it was not indeed practicable at once to declare the

Roman currency to be the only valid tender in the islands; but it

seems from the first to have obtained legal circulation, and in like

manner, at least as a rule, the right of coining in precious metals

seems to have been withdrawn from the cities in Roman Sicily.(7) On

the other hand not only was the landed property in all Sicily left

untouched--the principle, that the land out of Italy fell by right of

war to the Romans as private property, was still unknown to this

century--but all the Sicilian and Sardinian communities retained self-

administration and some sort of autonomy, which indeed was not assured

to them in a way legally binding, but was provisionally allowed.

If the democratic constitutions of the communities were everywhere

set aside, and in every city the power was transferred to the hands

of a council representing the civic aristocracy; and if moreover the

Sicilian communities, at least, were required to institute a general

valuation corresponding to the Roman census every fifth year; both

these measures were only the necessary sequel of subordination

to the Roman senate, which in reality could not govern with Greek

--ecclesiae--, or without a view of the financial and military

resources of each dependent community; in the various districts

of Italy also the same course was in both respects pursued.

Tenths and Customs

Communities Exempted

But, side by side with this essential equality of rights, there was

established a distinction, very important in its effects, between the

Italian communities on the one hand and the transmarine communities

on the other. While the treaties concluded with the Italian towns

imposed on them a fixed contingent for the army or the fleet of

the Romans, such a contingent was not imposed on the transmarine

communities, with which no binding paction was entered into at all,

but they lost the right of arms,(8) with the single exception that

they might be employed on the summons of the Roman praetor for the

defence of their own homes. The Roman government regularly sent

Italian troops, of the strength which it had fixed, to the islands;

in return for this, a tenth of the field-produce of Sicily, and a toll

of 5 per cent on the value of all articles of commerce exported from

or imported into the Sicilian harbours, were paid to Rome. To the

islanders these taxes were nothing new. The imposts levied by the

Persian great-king and the Carthaginian republic were substantially of

the same character with that tenth; and in Greece also such a taxation

had for long been, after Oriental precedent, associated with the

-tyrannis- and often also with a hegemony. The Sicilians had in this

way long paid their tenth either to Syracuse or to Carthage, and had

been wont to levy customs-dues no longer on their own account. "We

received," says Cicero, "the Sicilian communities into our clientship

and protection in such a way that they continued under the same law

under which they had lived before, and obeyed the Roman community

under relations similar to those in which they had obeyed their

own rulers." It is fair that this should not be forgotten; but to

continue an injustice is to commit injustice. Viewed in relation not

to the subjects, who merely changed masters, but to their new rulers,

the abandonment of the equally wise and magnanimous principle of Roman

statesmanship--viz., that Rome should accept from her subjects simply

military aid, and never pecuniary compensation in lieu of it--was of

a fatal importance, in comparison with which all alleviations in the

rates and the mode of levying them, as well as all exceptions in

detail, were as nothing. Such exceptions were, no doubt, made in

various cases. Messana was directly admitted to the confederacy of

the -togati-, and, like the Greek cities in Italy, furnished its

contingent to the Roman fleet. A number of other cities, while not

admitted to the Italian military confederacy, yet received in addition

to other favours immunity from tribute and tenths, so that their

position in a financial point of view was even more favourable than

that of the Italian communities. These were Segesta and Halicyae,

which were the first towns of Carthaginian Sicily that joined the

Roman alliance; Centuripa, an inland town in the east of the island,

which was destined to keep a watch over the Syracusan territory in its

neighbourhood;(9) Halaesa on the northern coast, which was the first

of the free Greek towns to join the Romans, and above all Panormus,

hitherto the capital of Carthaginian, and now destined to become

that of Roman, Sicily. The Romans thus applied to Sicily the ancient

principle of their policy, that of subdividing the dependent

communities into carefully graduated classes with different

privileges; but, on the average, the Sardinian and Sicilian

communities were not in the position of allies but in the

manifest relation of tributary subjection.

Italy and the Provinces

It is true that this thorough distinction between the communities that

furnished contingents and those that paid tribute, or at least did not

furnish contingents, was not in law necessarily coincident with the

distinction between Italy and the provinces. Transmarine communities

might belong to the Italian confederacy; the Mamertines for example

were substantially on a level with the Italian Sabellians, and there

existed no legal obstacle to the establishment even of new communities

with Latin rights in Sicily and Sardinia any more than in the country

beyond the Apennines. Communities on the mainland might be deprived

of the right of bearing arms and become tributary; this arrangement

was already the case with certain Celtic districts on the Po, and was

introduced to a considerable extent in after times. But, in reality,

the communities that furnished contingents just as decidedly

preponderated on the mainland as the tributary communities in the

islands; and while Italian settlements were not contemplated on the

part of the Romans either in Sicily with its Hellenic civilization or

in Sardinia, the Roman government had beyond doubt already determined

not only to subdue the barbarian land between the Apennines and the

Alps, but also, as their conquests advanced, to establish in it

new communities of Italic origin and Italic rights. Thus their

transmarine possessions were not merely placed on the footing of land

held by subjects, but were destined to remain on that footing in all

time to come; whereas the official field recently marked off by law

for the consuls, or, which is the same thing, the continental

territory of the Romans, was to become a new and more extended Italy,

which should reach from the Alps to the Ionian sea. In the first

instance, indeed, this essentially geographical conception of Italy

was not altogether coincident with the political conception of the

Italian confederacy; it was partly wider, partly narrower. But even

now the Romans regarded the whole space up to the boundary of the Alps

as -Italia-, that is, as the present or future domain of the -togati-

and, just as was and still is the case in North America, the boundary

was provisionally marked off in a geographical sense, that the field

might be gradually occupied in a political sense also with the advance

of colonization.(10)

Events on the Adriatic Coasts

In the Adriatic sea, at the entrance of which the important and long-

contemplated colony of Brundisium had at length been founded before

the close of the war with Carthage (510), the supremacy of Rome was

from the very first decided. In the western sea Rome had been obliged

to rid herself of rivals; in the eastern, the quarrels of the Hellenes

themselves prevented any of the states in the Grecian peninsula from

acquiring or retaining power. The most considerable of them, that of

Macedonia, had through the influence of Egypt been dislodged from the

upper Adriatic by the Aetolians and from the Peloponnesus by the

Achaeans, and was scarcely even in a position to defend its northern

frontier against the barbarians. How concerned the Romans were to

keep down Macedonia and its natural ally, the king of Syria, and how

closely they associated themselves with the Egyptian policy directed

to that object, is shown by the remarkable offer which after the end

of the war with Carthage they made to king Ptolemy III. Euergetes,

to support him in the war which he waged with Seleucus II. Callinicus

of Syria (who reigned 507-529) on account of the murder of Berenice,

and in which Macedonia had probably taken part with the latter.

Generally, the relations of Rome with the Hellenistic states became

closer; the senate already negotiated even with Syria, and interceded

with the Seleucus just mentioned on behalf of the Ilians with whom

the Romans claimed affinity.

For a direct interference of the Romans in the affairs of

the eastern powers there was no immediate need. The Achaean league,

the prosperity of which was arrested by the narrow-minded coterie-

policy of Aratus, the Aetolian republic of military adventurers, and

the decayed Macedonian empire kept each other in check; and the Romans

of that time avoided rather than sought transmarine acquisitions.

When the Acarnanians, appealing to the ground that they alone of all

the Greeks had taken no part in the destruction of Ilion, besought

the descendants of Aeneas to help them against the Aetolians, the

senate did indeed attempt a diplomatic mediation; but when the

Aetolians returned an answer drawn up in their own saucy fashion,

the antiquarian interest of the Roman senators by no means provoked

them into undertaking a war by which they would have freed the

Macedonians from their hereditary foe (about 515).

Illyrian Piracy

Expedition against Scodra

Even the evil of piracy, which was naturally in such a state of

matters the only trade that flourished on the Adriatic coast, and

from which the commerce of Italy suffered greatly, was submitted to by

the Romans with an undue measure of patience, --a patience intimately

connected with their radical aversion to maritime war and their

wretched marine. But at length it became too flagrant. Favoured by

Macedonia, which no longer found occasion to continue its old function

of protecting Hellenic commerce from the corsairs of the Adriatic for

the benefit of its foes, the rulers of Scodra had induced the Illyrian

tribes--nearly corresponding to the Dalmatians, Montenegrins, and

northern Albanians of the present day--to unite for joint piratical

expeditions on a great scale.

With whole squadrons of their swift-sailing biremes, the veil-known

"Liburnian" cutters, the Illyrians waged war by sea and along the

coasts against all and sundry. The Greek settlements in these

regions, the island-towns of Issa (Lissa) and Pharos (Lesina), the

important ports of Epidamnus (Durazzo) and Apollonia (to the north of

Avlona on the Aous) of course suffered especially, and were repeatedly

beleaguered by the barbarians. Farther to the south, moreover, the

corsairs established themselves in Phoenice, the most flourishing town

of Epirus; partly voluntarily, partly by constraint, the Epirots and

Acarnanians entered into an unnatural symmachy with the foreign

freebooters; the coast was insecure even as far as Elis and Messene.

In vain the Aetolians and Achaeans collected what ships they had, with

a view to check the evil: in a battle on the open sea they were beaten

by the pirates and their Greek allies; the corsair fleet was able at

length to take possession even of the rich and important island of

Corcyra (Corfu). The complaints of Italian mariners, the appeals for

aid of their old allies the Apolloniates, and the urgent entreaties

of the besieged Issaeans at length compelled the Roman senate to

send at least ambassadors to Scodra. The brothers Gaius and Lucius

Coruncanius went thither to demand that king Agron should put an end

to the disorder. The king answered that according to the national law

of the Illyrians piracy was a lawful trade, and that the government

had no right to put a stop to privateering; whereupon Lucius

Coruncanius replied, that in that case Rome would make it her business

to introduce a better law among the Illyrians. For this certainly not

very diplomatic reply one of the envoys was--by the king's orders, as

the Romans asserted--murdered on the way home, and the surrender of

the murderers was refused. The senate had now no choice left to it.

In the spring of 525 a fleet of 200 ships of the line, with a landing-

army on board, appeared off Apollonia; the corsair-vessels were

scattered before the former, while the latter demolished the piratic

strongholds; the queen Teuta, who after the death of her husband

Agron conducted the government during the minority of her son Pinnes,

besieged in her last retreat, was obliged to accept the conditions

dictated by Rome. The rulers of Scodra were again confined both on

the north and south to the narrow limits of their original domain,

and had to quit their hold not only on all the Greek towns, but also

on the Ardiaei in Dalmatia, the Parthini around Epidamnus, and the

Atintanes in northern Epirus; no Illyrian vessel of war at all, and

not more than two unarmed vessels in company, were to be allowed in

future to sail to the south of Lissus (Alessio, between Scutari and

Durazzo). The maritime supremacy of Rome in the Adriatic was

asserted, in the most praiseworthy and durable way, by the rapid

and energetic suppression of the evil of piracy.

Acquisition of Territory in Illyria

Impression in Greece and Macedonia

But the Romans went further, and established themselves on the east

coast. The Illyrians of Scodra were rendered tributary to Rome;

Demetrius of Pharos, who had passed over from the service of Teuta to

that of the Romans, was installed, as a dependent dynast and ally of

Rome, over the islands and coasts of Dalmatia; the Greek cities

Corcyra, Epidamnus, Apollonia, and the communities of the Atintanes

and Parthini were attached to Rome under mild forms of symmachy.

These acquisitions on the east coast of the Adriatic were not

sufficiently extensive to require the appointment of a special

auxiliary consul; governors of subordinate rank appear to have

been sent to Corcyra and perhaps also to other places, and the

superintendence of these possessions seems to have been entrusted

to the chief magistrates who administered Italy.(11) Thus the most

important maritime stations in the Adriatic became subject, like

Sicily and Sardinia, to the authority of Rome. What other result was

to be expected? Rome was in want of a good naval station in the upper

Adriatic--a want which was not supplied by her possessions on the

Italian shore; her new allies, especially the Greek commercial towns,

saw in the Romans their deliverers, and doubtless did what they could

permanently to secure so powerful a protection; in Greece itself

no one was in a position to oppose the movement; on the contrary,

the praise of the liberators was on every one's lips. It may be a

question whether there was greater rejoicing or shame in Hellas, when,

in place of the ten ships of the line of the Achaean league, the most

warlike power in Greece, two hundred sail belonging to the barbarians

now entered her harbours and accomplished at a blow the task, which

properly belonged to the Greeks, but in which they had failed so

miserably. But if the Greeks were ashamed that the salvation of their

oppressed countrymen had to come from abroad, they accepted the

deliverance at least with a good grace; they did not fail to receive

the Romans solemnly into the fellowship of the Hellenic nation by

admitting them to the Isthmian games and the Eleusinian mysteries.

Macedonia was silent; it was not in a condition to protest in arms,

and disdained to do so in words. No resistance was encountered.

Nevertheless Rome, by seizing the keys to her neighbour's house, had

converted that neighbour into an adversary who, should he recover his

power, or should a favourable opportunity occur, might be expected to

know how to break the silence. Had the energetic and prudent king

Antigonus Doson lived longer, he would have doubtless taken up the

gauntlet which the Romans had flung down, for, when some years

afterwards the dynast Demetrius of Pharos withdrew from the hegemony

of Rome, prosecuted piracy contrary to the treaty in concert with

the Istrians, and subdued the Atintanes whom the Romans had declared

independent, Antigonus formed an alliance with him, and the troops

of Demetrius fought along with the army of Antigonus at the battle

of Sellasia (532). But Antigonus died (in the winter 533-4); and his

successor Philip, still a boy, allowed the Consul Lucius Aemilius

Paullus to attack the ally of Macedonia, to destroy his capital,

and to drive him from his kingdom into exile (535).

Northern Italy

The mainland of Italy proper, south of the Apennines, enjoyed profound

peace after the fall of Tarentum: the six days' war with Falerii (513)

was little more than an interlude. But towards the north, between the

territory of the confederacy and the natural boundary of Italy--the

chain of the Alps--there still extended a wide region which was not

subject to the Romans. What was regarded as the boundary of Italy on

the Adriatic coast was the river Aesis immediately above Ancona.

Beyond this boundary the adjacent properly Gallic territory as far as,

and including, Ravenna belonged in a similar way as did Italy proper

to the Roman alliance; the Senones, who had formerly settled there,

were extirpated in the war of 471-2,(12) and the several townships

were connected with Rome, either as burgess-colonies, like Sena

Gallica,(13) or as allied towns, whether with Latin rights, like

Ariminum,(14) or with Italian rights, like Ravenna. On the wide

region beyond Ravenna as far as the Alps non-Italian peoples were

settled. South of the Po the strong Celtic tribe of the Boii still

held its ground (from Parma to Bologna); alongside of them, the

Lingones on the east and the Anares on the west (in the region of

Parma)--two smaller Celtic cantons presumably clients of the Boii--

peopled the plain. At the western end of the plain the Ligurians

began, who, mingled with isolated Celtic tribes, and settled on the

Apennines from above Arezzo and Pisa westward, occupied the region of

the sources of the Po. The eastern portion of the plain north of the

Po, nearly from Verona to the coast, was possessed by the Veneti, a

race different from the Celts and probably of Illyrian extraction.

Between these and the western mountains were settled the Cenomani

(about Brescia and Cremona) who rarely acted with the Celtic nation

and were probably largely intermingled with Veneti, and the Insubres

(around Milan). The latter was the most considerable of the Celtic

cantons in Italy, and was in constant communication not merely

with the minor communities partly of Celtic, partly of non-Celtic

extraction, that were scattered in the Alpine valleys, but also with

the Celtic cantons beyond the Alps. The gates of the Alps, the mighty

stream navigable for 230 miles, and the largest and most fertile plain

of the then civilized Europe, still continued in the hands of the

hereditary foes of the Italian name, who, humbled indeed and weakened,

but still scarce even nominally dependent and still troublesome

neighbours, persevered in their barbarism, and, thinly scattered over

the spacious plains, continued to pasture their herds and to plunder.

It was to be anticipated that the Romans would hasten to possess

themselves of these regions; the more so as the Celts gradually began

to forget their defeats in the campaigns of 471 and 472 and to bestir

themselves again, and, what was still more dangerous, the Transalpine

Celts began anew to show themselves on the south of the Alps.

Celtic Wars

In fact the Boii had already renewed the war in 516, and their

chiefs Atis and Galatas had--without, it is true, the authority of the

general diet--summoned the Transalpine Gauls to make common cause with

them. The latter had numerously answered the call, and in 518 a

Celtic army, such as Italy had not seen for long, encamped before

Ariminum. The Romans, for the moment much too weak to attempt a

battle, concluded an armistice, and to gain time allowed envoys from

the Celts to proceed to Rome, who ventured in the senate to demand

the cession of Ariminum--it seemed as if the times of Brennus had

returned. But an unexpected incident put an end to the war before it

had well begun. The Boii, dissatisfied with their unbidden allies and

afraid probably for their own territory, fell into variance with the

Transalpine Gauls. An open battle took place between the two Celtic

hosts; and, after the chiefs of the Boii had been put to death by

their own men, the Transalpine Gauls returned home. The Boii were

thus delivered into the hands of the Romans, and the latter were at

liberty to expel them like the Senones, and to advance at least to

the Po; but they preferred to grant the Boii peace in return for

the cession of some districts of their land (518). This was probably

done, because they were just at that time expecting the renewed

outbreak of war with Carthage; but, after that war had been averted by

the cession of Sardinia, true policy required the Roman government to

take possession as speedily and entirely as possible of the country up

to the Alps. The constant apprehensions on the part of the Celts as

to such a Roman invasion were therefore sufficiently justified; but

the Romans were in no haste. So the Celts on their part began the

war, either because the Roman assignations of land on the east coast

(522), although not a measure immediately directed against them, made

them apprehensive of danger; or because they perceived that a war with

Rome for the possession of Lombardy was inevitable; or, as is perhaps

most probable, because their Celtic impatience was once more weary of

inaction and preferred to arm for a new warlike expedition. With the

exception of the Cenomani, who acted with the Veneti and declared for

the Romans, all the Italian Celts concurred in the war, and they were

joined by the Celts of the upper valley of the Rhone, or rather by

a number of adventurers belonging to them, under the leaders

Concolitanus and Aneroestus.(15) With 50,000 warriors on foot, and

20,000 on horseback or in chariots, the leaders of the Celts advanced

to the Apennines (529). The Romans had not anticipated an attack on

this side, and had not expected that the Celts, disregarding the Roman

fortresses on the east coast and the protection of their own kinsmen,

would venture to advance directly against the capital. Not very long

before a similar Celtic swarm had in an exactly similar way overrun

Greece. The danger was serious, and appeared still more serious than

it really was. The belief that Rome's destruction was this time

inevitable, and that the Roman soil was fated to become the property

of the Gauls, was so generally diffused among the multitude in Rome

itself that the government reckoned it not beneath its dignity to

allay the absurd superstitious belief of the mob by an act still more

absurd, and to bury alive a Gaulish man and a Gaulish woman in the

Roman Forum with a view to fulfil the oracle of destiny. At the same

time they made more serious preparations. Of the two consular armies,

each of which numbered about 25,000 infantry and 1100 cavalry, one

was stationed in Sardinia under Gaius Atilius Regulus, the other at

Ariminum under Lucius Aemilius Papus. Both received orders to repair

as speedily as possible to Etruria, which was most immediately

threatened. The Celts had already been under the necessity of leaving

a garrison at home to face the Cenomani and Veneti, who were allied

with Rome; now the levy of the Umbrians was directed to advance from

their native mountains down into the plain of the Boii, and to inflict

all the injury which they could think of on the enemy upon his own

soil. The militia of the Etruscans and Sabines was to occupy the

Apennines and if possible to obstruct the passage, till the regular

troops could arrive. A reserve was formed in Rome of 50,000 men.

Throughout all Italy, which on this occasion recognized its true

champion in Rome, the men capable of service were enrolled, and stores

and materials of war were collected.

Battle of Telamon

All this, however, required time. For once the Romans had allowed

themselves to be surprised, and it was too late at least to save

Etruria. The Celts found the Apennines hardly defended, and plundered

unopposed the rich plains of the Tuscan territory, which for long had

seen no enemy. They were already at Clusium, three days' march from

Rome, when the army of Ariminum, under the consul Papus, appeared on

their flank, while the Etruscan militia, which after crossing the

Apennines had assembled in rear of the Gauls, followed the line of the

enemy's march. Suddenly one evening, after the two armies had already

encamped and the bivouac fires were kindled, the Celtic infantry again

broke up and retreated on the road towards Faesulae (Fiesole): the

cavalry occupied the advanced posts during the night, and followed the

main force next morning. When the Tuscan militia, who had pitched

their camp close upon the enemy, became aware of his departure, they

imagined that the host had begun to disperse, and marched hastily in

pursuit. The Gauls had reckoned on this very result: their infantry,

which had rested and was drawn up in order, awaited on a well-chosen

battlefield the Roman militia, which came up from its forced march

fatigued and disordered. Six thousand men fell after a furious

combat, and the rest of the militia, which had been compelled to seek

refuge on a hill, would have perished, had not the consular army

appeared just in time. This induced the Gauls to return homeward.

Their dexterously-contrived plan for preventing the union of the two

Roman armies and annihilating the weaker in detail, had only been

partially successful; now it seemed to them advisable first of all to

place in security their considerable booty. For the sake of an easier

line of march they proceeded from the district of Chiusi, where they

were, to the level coast, and were marching along the shore, when

they found an unexpected obstacle in the way. It was the Sardinian

legions, which had landed at Pisae; and, when they arrived too late to

obstruct the passage of the Apennines, had immediately put themselves

in motion and were advancing along the coast in a direction opposite

to the march of the Gauls. Near Telamon (at the mouth of the Ombrone)

they met with the enemy. While the Roman infantry advanced with close

front along the great road, the cavalry, led by the consul Gaius

Atilius Regulus in person, made a side movement so as to take the

Gauls in flank, and to acquaint the other Roman army under Papus as

soon as possible with their arrival. A hot cavalry engagement took

place, in which along with many brave Romans Regulus fell; but he had

not sacrificed his life in vain: his object was gained. Papus became

aware of the conflict, and guessed how matters stood; he hastily

arrayed his legions, and on both sides the Celtic host was now pressed

by Roman legions. Courageously it made its dispositions for the

double conflict, the Transalpine Gauls and Insubres against the

troops of Papus, the Alpine Taurisci and the Boii against the

Sardinian infantry; the cavalry combat pursued its course apart on

the flank. The forces were in numbers not unequally matched, and the

desperate position of the Gauls impelled them to the most obstinate

resistance. But the Transalpine Gauls, accustomed only to close

fighting, gave way before the missiles of the Roman skirmishers; in

the hand-to-hand combat the better temper of the Roman weapons placed

the Gauls at a disadvantage; and at last an attack in flank by the

victorious Roman cavalry decided the day. The Celtic horsemen made

their escape; the infantry, wedged in between the sea and the three

Roman armies, had no means of flight. 10,000 Celts, with their king

Concolitanus, were taken prisoners; 40,000 others lay dead on the

field of battle; Aneroestus and his attendants had, after the Celtic

fashion, put themselves to death.

The Celts Attacked in Their Own Land

The victory was complete, and the Romans were firmly resolved to

prevent the recurrence of such surprises by the complete subjugation

of the Celts on the south of the Alps. In the following year (530)

the Boii submitted without resistance along with the Lingones; and in

the year after that (531) the Anares; so that the plain as far as the

Po was in the hands of the Romans. The conquest of the northern bank

of the river cost a more serious struggle. Gaius Flaminius crossed

the river in the newly-acquired territory of the Anares (somewhere

near Piacenza) in 531; but during the crossing, and still more while

making good his footing on the other bank, he suffered so heavy losses

and found himself with the river in his rear in so dangerous a

position, that he made a capitulation with the enemy to secure a free

retreat, which the Insubres foolishly conceded. Scarce, however, had

he escaped when he appeared in the territory of the Cenomani, and,

united with them, advanced for the second time from the north into the

canton of the Insubres. The Gauls perceived what was now the object

of the Romans, when it was too late: they took from the temple of

their goddess the golden standards called the "immovable," and with

their whole levy, 50,000 strong, they offered battle to the Romans.

The situation of the latter was critical: they were stationed with

their back to a river (perhaps the Oglio), separated from home by the

enemy's territory, and left to depend for aid in battle as well as for

their line of retreat on the uncertain friendship of the Cenomani.

There was, however, no choice. The Gauls fighting in the Roman ranks

were placed on the left bank of the stream; on the right, opposite to

the Insubres, the legions were drawn up, and the bridges were broken

down that they might not be assailed, at least in the rear, by their

dubious allies.

The Celts Conquered by Rome

In this way undoubtedly the river cut off their retreat, and their way

homeward lay through the hostile army. But the superiority of the

Roman arms and of Roman discipline achieved the victory, and the army

cut its way through: once more the Roman tactics had redeemed the

blunders of the general. The victory was due to the soldiers and

officers, not to the generals, who gained a triumph only through

popular favour in opposition to the just decree of the senate. Gladly

would the Insubres have made peace; but Rome required unconditional

subjection, and things had not yet come to that pass. They tried to

maintain their ground with the help of their northern kinsmen; and,

with 30,000 mercenaries whom they had raised amongst these and their

own levy, they received the two consular armies advancing once more in

the following year (532) from the territory of the Cenomani to invade

their land. Various obstinate combats took place; in a diversion,

attempted by the Insubres against the Roman fortress of Clastidium

(Casteggio, below Pavia), on the right bank of the Po, the Gallic

king Virdumarus fell by the hand of the consul Marcus Marcellus. But,

after a battle already half won by the Celts but ultimately decided

in favour of the Romans, the consul Gnaeus Scipio took by assault

Mediolanum, the capital of the Insubres, and the capture of that town

and of Comum terminated their resistance. Thus the Celts of Italy

were completely vanquished, and as, just before, the Romans had shown

to the Hellenes in the war with the pirates the difference between a

Roman and a Greek sovereignty of the seas, so they had now brilliantly

demonstrated that Rome knew how to defend the gates of Italy against

freebooters on land otherwise than Macedonia had guarded the gates of

Greece, and that in spite of all internal quarrels Italy presented as

united a front to the national foe, as Greece exhibited distraction

and discord.

Romanization of the Entire of Italy

The boundary of the Alps was reached, in so far as the whole flat

country on the Po was either rendered subject to the Romans, or, like

the territories of the Cenomani and Veneti, was occupied by dependent

allies. It needed time, however, to reap the consequences of this

victory and to Romanize the land. In this the Romans did not adopt

a uniform mode of procedure. In the mountainous northwest of Italy

and in the more remote districts between the Alps and the Po they

tolerated, on the whole, the former inhabitants; the numerous wars,

as they are called, which were waged with the Ligurians in particular

(first in 516) appear to have been slave-hunts rather than wars, and,

often as the cantons and valleys submitted to the Romans, Roman

sovereignty in that quarter was hardly more than a name. The

expedition to Istria also (533) appears not to have aimed at much

more than the destruction of the last lurking-places of the Adriatic

pirates, and the establishment of a communication by land along the

coast between the Italian conquests of Rome and her acquisitions on

the other shore. On the other hand the Celts in the districts south

of the Po were doomed irretrievably to destruction; for, owing to

the looseness of the ties connecting the Celtic nation, none of the

northern Celtic cantons took part with their Italian kinsmen except

for money, and the Romans looked on the latter not only as their

national foes, but as the usurpers of their natural heritage. The

extensive assignations of land in 522 had already filled the whole

territory between Ancona and Ariminum with Roman colonists, who

settled here without communal organization in market-villages and

hamlets. Further measures of the same character were taken, and

it was not difficult to dislodge and extirpate a half-barbarous

population like the Celtic, only partially following agriculture,

and destitute of walled towns. The great northern highway, which had

been, probably some eighty years earlier, carried by way of Otricoli

to Narni, and had shortly before been prolonged to the newly-founded

fortress of Spoletium (514), was now (534) carried, under the name of

the "Flaminian" road, by way of the newly-established market-village

Forum Flaminii (near Foligno), through the pass of Furlo to the coast,

and thence along the latter from Fanum (Fano) to Ariminum; it was the

first artificial road which crossed the Apennines and connected the

two Italian seas. Great zeal was manifested in covering the newly-

acquired fertile territory with Roman townships. Already, to cover

the passage of the Po, the strong fortress of Placentia (Piacenza)

had been founded on the right bank; not far from it Cremona had been

laid out on the left bank, and the building of the walls of Mutina

(Modena), in the territory taken away from the Boii, had far advanced

--already preparations were being made for further assignations of

land and for continuing the highway, when sudden event interrupted

the Romans in reaping the fruit of their successes.

Notes for Chapter III

1. III. II. Evacuation of Africa

2. That the cession of the islands lying between Sicily and Italy,

which the peace of 513 prescribed to the Carthaginians, did not

include the cession of Sardinia is a settled point (III. II. Remarks

On the Roman Conduct of the War); but the statement, that the Romans

made that a pretext for their occupation of the island three years

after the peace, is ill attested. Had they done so, they would merely

have added a diplomatic folly to the political effrontery.

3. III. II. The War on the Coasts of Sicily and Sardinia

4. III. VIII. Changes in Procedure

5. II. I. Restrictions on the Delegation of Powers

6. That this was the case may be gathered partly from the appearance

of the "Siculi" against Marcellus (Liv. xxvi. 26, seq.), partly from

the "conjoint petitions of all the Sicilian communities" (Cicero,

Verr. ii. 42, 102; 45, 114; 50, 146; iii. 88, 204), partly from well-

known analogies (Marquardt, Handb. iii. i, 267). Because there was no

-commercium- between the different towns, it by no means follows that

there was no -concilium-.

7. The right of coining gold and silver was not monopolized by Rome

in the provinces so strictly as in Italy, evidently because gold

and silver money not struck after the Roman standard was of less

importance. But in their case too the mints were doubtless, as a

rule, restricted to the coinage of copper, or at most silver, small

money; even the most favourably treated communities of Roman Sicily,

such as the Mamertines, the Centuripans, the Halaesines, the

Segestans, and also in the main the Pacormitaus coined only copper.

8. This is implied in Hiero's expression (Liv. xxii. 37):

that he knew that the Romans made use of none but Roman or Latin

infantry and cavalry, and employed "foreigners" at most only among

the light-armed troops.

9. This is shown at once by a glance at the map, and also by the

remarkable exceptional provision which allowed the Centuripans

to buy to any part of Sicily. They needed, as Roman spies, the

utmost freedom of movement We may add that Centuripa appears to

have been among the first cities that went over to Rome

(Diodorus, l. xxiii. p. 501).

10. This distinction between Italy as the Roman mainland or consular

sphere on the one hand, and the transmarine territory or praetorial

sphere on the other, already appears variously applied in the sixth

century. The ritual rule, that certain priests should not leave Rome

(Val. Max. i. i, 2), was explained to mean, that they were not allowed

to cross the sea (Liv. Ep. 19, xxxvii. 51; Tac. Ann. iii. 58, 71; Cic.

Phil. xi. 8, 18; comp. Liv. xxviii. 38, 44, Ep. 59). To this head

still more definitely belongs the interpretation which was proposed in

544 to be put upon the old rule, that the consul might nominate the

dictator only on "Roman ground": viz. that "Roman ground" comprehended

all Italy (Liv. xxvii. 5). The erection of the Celtic land between

the Alps and Apennines into a special province, different from that of

the consuls and subject to a separate Standing chief magistrate, was

the work of Sulla. Of course no one will Urge as an objection to this

view, that already in the sixth century Gallia or Ariminum is very

often designated as the "official district" (-provincia-), usually of

one of the consuls. -Provincia-, as is well known, was in the older

language not--what alone it denoted subsequently--a definite space

assigned as a district to a standing chief magistrate, but the

department of duty fixed for the individual consul, in the first

instance by agreement with his colleague, under concurrence of the

senate; and in this sense frequently individual regions in northern

Italy, or even North Italy generally, were assigned to individual

consuls as -provincia-.

11. A standing Roman commandant of Corcyra is apparently mentioned in

Polyb. xxii. 15, 6 (erroneously translated by Liv. xxxviii. ii, comp.

xlii. 37), and a similar one in the case of Issa in Liv. xliii. 9.

We have, moreover, the analogy of the -praefectus pro legato insularum

Baliarum- (Orelli, 732), and of the governor of Pandataria (Inscr.

Reg. Neapol. 3528). It appears, accordingly, to have been a rule in

the Roman administration to appoint non-senatorial -praefecti- for the

more remote islands. But these "deputies" presuppose in the nature of

the case a superior magistrate who nominates and superintends them;

and this superior magistracy can only have been at this period that of

the consuls. Subsequently, after the erection of Macedonia and Gallia

Cisalpina into provinces, the superior administration was committed to

one of these two governors; the very territory now in question, the

nucleus of the subsequent Roman province of Illyricum, belonged, as

is well known, in part to Caesar's district of administration.

12. III. VII. The Senones Annihilated

13. III. VII. Breach between Rome and Tarentum

14. III. VII. Construction of New Fortresses and Roads

15. These, whom Polybius designates as the "Celts in the Alps and on

the Rhone, who on account of their character as military adventurers

are called Gaesatae (free lances)," are in the Capitoline Fasti named

-Germani-. It is possible that the contemporary annalists may have

here mentioned Celts alone, and that it was the historical speculation

of the age of Caesar and Augustus that first induced the redactors of

these Fasti to treat them as "Germans." If, on the other hand, the

mention of the Germans in the Fasti was based on contemporary records

--in which case this is the earliest mention of the name--we shall here

have to think not of the Germanic races who were afterwards so called,

but of a Celtic horde.

CHAPTER IV

Hamilcar and Hannibal

Situation of Carthage after the Peace

The treaty with Rome in 513 gave to the Carthaginians peace, but they

paid for it dearly. That the tribute of the largest portion of Sicily

now flowed into the enemy's exchequer instead of the Carthaginian

treasury, was the least part of their loss. They felt a far keener

regret when they not merely had to abandon the hope of monopolizing

all the sea-routes between the eastern and the western Mediterranean

--just as that hope seemed on the eve of fulfilment--but also saw

their whole system of commercial policy broken up, the south-western

basin of the Mediterranean, which they had hitherto exclusively

commanded, converted since the loss of Sicily into an open

thoroughfare for all nations, and the commerce of Italy rendered

completely independent of the Phoenician. Nevertheless the quiet

men of Sidon might perhaps have prevailed on themselves to acquiesce

in this result. They had met with similar blows already; they had

been obliged to share with the Massiliots, the Etruscans, and the

Sicilian Greeks what they had previously possessed alone; even now

the possessions which they retained, Africa, Spain, and the gates of

the Atlantic Ocean, were sufficient to confer power and prosperity.

But in truth, where was their security that these at least would

continue in their hands? The demands made by Regulus, and his very

near approach to the obtaining of what he asked, could only be

forgotten by those who were willing to forget; and if Rome should now

renew from Lilybaeum the enterprise which she had undertaken with so

great success from Italy, Carthage would undoubtedly fall, unless the

perversity of the enemy or some special piece of good fortune should

intervene to save it No doubt they had peace for the present; but the

ratification of that peace had hung on a thread, and they knew what

public opinion in Rome thought of the terms on which it was concluded.

It might be that Rome was not yet meditating the conquest of Africa

and was as yet content with Italy; but if the existence of the

Carthaginian state depended on that contentment, the prospect was but

a sorry one; and where was the security that the Romans might not find

it even convenient for their Italian policy to extirpate rather than

reduce to subjection their African neighbour?

War Party and Peace Party in Carthage

In short, Carthage could only regard the peace of 513 in the light

of a truce, and could not but employ it in preparations for the

inevitable renewal of the war; not for the purpose of avenging the

defeat which she had suffered, nor even with the primary view of

recovering what she had lost, but in order to secure for herself an

existence that should not be dependent on the good-will of the enemy.

But when a war of annihilation is surely, though in point of time

indefinitely, impending over a weaker state, the wiser, more

resolute, and more devoted men--who would immediately prepare for the

unavoidable struggle, accept it at a favourable moment, and thus cover

their defensive policy by a strategy of offence--always find

themselves hampered by the indolent and cowardly mass of the money-

worshippers, of the aged and feeble, and of the thoughtless who are

minded merely to gain time, to live and die in peace, and to postpone

at any price the final struggle. So there was in Carthage a party

for peace and a party for war, both, as was natural, associating

themselves with the political distinction which already existed

between the conservatives and the reformers. The former found its

support in the governing boards, the council of the Ancients and that

of the Hundred, led by Hanno the Great, as he was called; the latter

found its support in the leaders of the multitude, particularly the

much-respected Hasdrubal, and in the officers of the Sicilian army,

whose great successes under the leadership of Hamilcar, although they

had been otherwise fruitless, had at least shown to the patriots a

method which seemed to promise deliverance from the great danger that

beset them. Vehement feud had probably long subsisted between these

parties, when the Libyan war intervened to suspend the strife. We

have already related how that war arose. After the governing party

had instigated the mutiny by their incapable administration which

frustrated all the precautionary measures of the Sicilian officers,

had converted that mutiny into a revolution by the operation of their

inhuman system of government, and had at length brought the country to

the verge of ruin by their military incapacity--and particularly that

of their leader Hanno, who ruined the army--Hamilcar Barcas, the hero

of Ercte, was in the perilous emergency solicited by the government

itself to save it from the effects of its blunders and crimes. He

accepted the command, and had the magnanimity not to resign it

even when they appointed Hanno as his colleague. Indeed, when the

indignant army sent the latter home, Hamilcar had the self-control

a second time to concede to him, at the urgent request of the

government, a share in the command; and, in spite of his enemies and

in spite of such a colleague, he was able by his influence with the

insurgents, by his dexterous treatment of the Numidian sheiks, and

by his unrivalled genius for organization and generalship, in a

singularly short time to put down the revolt entirely and to recall

rebellious Africa to its allegiance (end of 517).

During this war the patriot party had kept silence; now it spoke out

the louder. On the one hand this catastrophe had brought to light

the utterly corrupt and pernicious character of the ruling oligarchy,

their incapacity, their coterie-policy, their leanings towards the

Romans. On the other hand the seizure of Sardinia, and the

threatening attitude which Rome on that occasion assumed, showed

plainly even to the humblest that a declaration of war by Rome was

constantly hanging like the sword of Damocles over Carthage, and that,

if Carthage in her present circumstances went to war with Rome,

the consequence must necessarily be the downfall of the Phoenician

dominion in Libya. Probably there were in Carthage not a few who,

despairing of the future of their country, counselled emigration to

the islands of the Atlantic; who could blame them? But minds of the

nobler order disdain to save themselves apart from their nation,

and great natures enjoy the privilege of deriving enthusiasm from

circumstances in which the multitude of good men despair. They

accepted the new conditions just as Rome dictated them; no course

was left but to submit and, adding fresh bitterness to their former

hatred, carefully to cherish and husband resentment--that last

resource of an injured nation. They then took steps towards a

political reform.(1) They had become sufficiently convinced of the

incorrigibleness of the party in power: the fact that the governing

lords had even in the last war neither forgotten their spite nor

learned greater wisdom, was shown by the effrontery bordering on

simplicity with which they now instituted proceedings against Hamilcar

as the originator of the mercenary war, because he had without full

powers from the government made promises of money to his Sicilian

soldiers. Had the club of officers and popular leaders desired to

overthrow this rotten and wretched government, it would hardly have

encountered much difficulty in Carthage itself; but it would have met

with more formidable obstacles in Rome, with which the chiefs of the

government in Carthage already maintained relations that bordered on

treason. To all the other difficulties of the position there fell

to be added the circumstance, that the means of saving their country

had to be created without allowing either the Romans, or their own

government with its Roman leanings, to become rightly aware of

what was doing.

Hamilcar Commander-in-Chief

So they left the constitution untouched, and the chiefs of the

government in full enjoyment of their exclusive privileges and of the

public property. It was merely proposed and carried, that of the two

commanders-in-chief, who at the end of the Libyan war were at the head

of the Carthaginian troops, Hanno and Hamilcar, the former should be

recalled, and the latter should be nominated commander-in-chief for

all Africa during an indefinite period. It was arranged that he

should hold a position independent of the governing corporations

--his antagonists called it an unconstitutional monarchical power,

Cato calls it a dictatorship--and that he could only be recalled and

placed upon his trial by the popular assembly.(2) Even the choice

of a successor was to be vested not in the authorities of the capital,

but in the army, that is, in the Carthaginians serving in the array as

gerusiasts or officers, who were named in treaties also along with

the general; of course the right of confirmation was reserved to the

popular assembly at home. Whether this may or may not have been a

usurpation, it clearly indicates that the war party regarded and

treated the army as its special domain.

The commission which Hamilcar thus received sounded but little

liable to exception. Wars with the Numidian tribes on the borders

never ceased; only a short time previously the "city of a hundred

gates," Theveste (Tebessa), in the interior had been occupied by the

Carthaginians. The task of continuing this border warfare, which was

allotted to the new commander-in-chief of Africa, was not in itself of

such importance as to prevent the Carthaginian government, which was

allowed to do as it liked in its own immediate sphere, from tacitly

conniving at the decrees passed in reference to the matter by the

popular assembly; and the Romans did not perhaps recognize its

significance at all.

Hamilcar's War Projects

The Army

The Citizens

Thus there stood at the head of the army the one man, who had given

proof in the Sicilian and in the Libyan wars that fate had destined

him, if any one, to be the saviour of his country. Never perhaps was

the noble struggle of man with fate waged more nobly than by him.

The army was expected to save the state; but what sort of army?

The Carthaginian civic militia had fought not badly under Hamilcar's

leadership in the Libyan war; but he knew well, that it is one thing

to lead out the merchants and artisans of a city, which is in the

extremity of peril, for once to battle, and another to form them

into soldiers. The patriotic party in Carthage furnished him with

excellent officers, but it was of course almost exclusively the

cultivated class that was represented in it. He had no citizen-

militia, at most a few squadrons of Libyphoenician cavalry. The task

was to form an army out of Libyan forced recruits and mercenaries; a

task possible in the hands of a general like Hamilcar, but possible

even for him only on condition that he should be able to pay his men

punctually and amply. But he had learned, by experience in Sicily,

that the state revenues of Carthage were expended in Carthage itself

on matters much more needful than the payment of the armies that

fought against the enemy. The warfare which he waged, accordingly,

had to support itself, and he had to carry out on a great scale what

he had already attempted on a smaller scale at Monte Pellegrino. But

further, Hamilcar was not only a military chief, he was also a party

leader. In opposition to the implacable governing party, which

eagerly but patiently waited for an opportunity of overthrowing him,

he had to seek support among the citizens; and although their leaders

might be ever so pure and noble, the multitude was deeply corrupt and

accustomed by the unhappy system of corruption to give nothing without

being paid for it. In particular emergencies, indeed, necessity or

enthusiasm might for the moment prevail, as everywhere happens even

with the most venal corporations; but, if Hamilcar wished to secure

the permanent support of the Carthaginian community for his plan,

which at the best could only be carried out after a series of years,

he had to supply his friends at home with regular consignments of

money as the means of keeping the mob in good humour. Thus compelled

to beg or to buy from the lukewarm and venal multitude the permission

to save it; compelled to bargain with the arrogance of men whom

he hated and whom he had constantly conquered, at the price of

humiliation and of silence, for the respite indispensable for his

ends; compelled to conceal from those despised traitors to their

country, who called themselves the lords of his native city, his plans

and his contempt--the noble hero stood with few like-minded friends

between enemies without and enemies within, building upon the

irresolution of the one and of the other, at once deceiving both and

defying both, if only he might gain means, money, and men for the

contest with a land which, even were the army ready to strike the

blow, it seemed difficult to reach and scarce possible to vanquish.

He was still a young man, little beyond thirty, but he had apparently,

when he was preparing for his expedition, a foreboding that he would

not be permitted to attain the end of his labours, or to see otherwise

than afar off the promised land. When he left Carthage he enjoined

his son Hannibal, nine years of age, to swear at the altar of the

supreme God eternal hatred to the Roman name, and reared him and his

younger sons Hasdrubal and Mago--the "lion's brood," as he called

them--in the camp as the inheritors of his projects, of his genius,

and of his hatred.

Hamilcar Proceed to Spain

Spanish Kingdom of the Barcides

The new commander-in-chief of Libya departed from Carthage immediately

after the termination of the mercenary war (perhaps in the spring of

518). He apparently meditated an expedition against the free Libyans

in the west. His army, which was especially strong in elephants,

marched along the coast; by its side sailed the fleet, led by his

faithful associate Hasdrubal. Suddenly tidings came that he had

crossed the sea at the Pillars of Hercules and had landed in Spain,

where he was waging war with the natives--with people who had done him

no harm, and without orders from his government, as the Carthaginian

authorities complained. They could not complain at any rate that he

neglected the affairs of Africa; when the Numidians once more

rebelled, his lieutenant Hasdrubal so effectually routed them that

for a long period there was tranquillity on the frontier, and several

tribes hitherto independent submitted to pay tribute. What he

personally did in Spain, we are no longer able to trace in detail.

His achievements compelled Cato the elder, who, a generation after

Hamilcar's death, beheld in Spain the still fresh traces of his

working, to exclaim, notwithstanding all his hatred of the

Carthaginians, that no king was worthy to be named by the side of

Hamilcar Barcas. The results still show to us, at least in a general

way, what was accomplished by Hamilcar as a soldier and a statesman in

the last nine years of his life (518-526)--till in the flower of his

age, fighting bravely in the field of battle, he met his death like

Scharn-horst just as his plans were beginning to reach maturity--and

what during the next eight years (527-534) the heir of his office

and of his plans, his son-in-law Hasdrubal, did to prosecute, in the

spirit of the master, the work which Hamilcar had begun. Instead of

the small entrepot for trade, which, along with the protectorate over

Gades, was all that Carthage had hitherto possessed on the Spanish

coast, and which she had treated as a dependency of Libya, a

Carthaginian kingdom was founded in Spain by the generalship of

Hamilcar, and confirmed by the adroit statesmanship of Hasdrubal.

The fairest regions of Spain, the southern and eastern coasts,

became Phoenician provinces. Towns were founded; above all, "Spanish

Carthage" (Cartagena) was established by Hasdrubal on the only good

harbour along the south coast, containing the splendid "royal castle"

of its founder. Agriculture flourished, and, still more, mining in

consequence of the fortunate discovery of the silver-mines of

Cartagena, which a century afterwards had a yearly produce of more

than 360,000 pounds (36,000,000 sesterces). Most of the communities

as far as the Ebro became dependent on Carthage and paid tribute to

it. Hasdrubal skilfully by every means, even by intermarriages,

attached the chiefs to the interests of Carthage. Thus Carthage

acquired in Spain a rich market for its commerce and manufactures;

and not only did the revenues of the province sustain the army, but

there remained a balance to be remitted to Carthage and reserved for

future use. The province formed and at the same time trained the

army; regular levies took place in the territory subject to Carthage;

the prisoners of war were introduced into the Carthaginian corps.

Contingents and mercenaries, as many as were desired, were supplied

by the dependent communities. During his long life of warfare the

soldier found in the camp a second home, and found a substitute for

patriotism in fidelity to his standard and enthusiastic attachment

to his great leaders. Constant conflicts with the brave Iberians and

Celts created a serviceable infantry, to co-operate with the excellent

Numidian cavalry.

The Carthaginian Government and the Barcides

So far as Carthage was concerned, the Barcides were allowed to go on.

Since the citizens were not asked for regular contributions, but on

the contrary some benefit accrued to them and commerce recovered in

Spain what it had lost in Sicily and Sardinia, the Spanish war and the

Spanish army with its brilliant victories and important successes soon

became so popular that it was even possible in particular emergencies,

such as after Hamilcar's fall, to effect the despatch of considerable

reinforcements of African troops to Spain; and the governing party,

whether well or ill affected, had to maintain silence, or at any rate

to content themselves with complaining to each other or to their

friends in Rome regarding the demagogic officers and the mob.

The Roman Government and the Barcides

On the part of Rome too nothing took place calculated seriously to

alter the course of Spanish affairs. The first and chief cause of

the inactivity of the Romans was undoubtedly their very want of

acquaintance with the circumstances of the remote peninsula--which was

certainly also Hamilcar's main reason for selecting Spain and not, as

might otherwise have been possible, Africa itself for the execution of

his plan. The explanations with which the Carthaginian generals met

the Roman commissioners sent to Spain to procure information on the

spot, and their assurances that all this was done only to provide

the means of promptly paying the war-contributions to Rome, could not

possibly find belief in the senate. But they probably discerned

only the immediate object of Hamilcar's plans, viz. to procure

compensation in Spain for the tribute and the traffic of the islands

which Carthage had lost; and they deemed an aggressive war on the part

of the Carthaginians, and in particular an invasion of Italy from

Spain--as is evident both from express statements to that effect and

from the whole state of the case--as absolutely impossible. Many, of

course, among the peace party in Carthage saw further; but, whatever

they might think, they could hardly be much inclined to enlighten

their Roman friends as to the impending storm, which the Carthaginian

authorities had long been unable to prevent, for that step would

accelerate, instead of averting, the crisis; and even if they did so,

such denunciations proceeding from partisans would justly be received

with great caution at Rome. By degrees, certainly, the inconceivably

rapid and mighty extension of the Carthaginian power in Spain could

not but excite the observation and awaken the apprehensions of the

Romans. In fact, in the course of the later years before the outbreak

of war, they did attempt to set bounds to it. About the year 528,

mindful of their new-born Hellenism, they concluded an alliance

with the two Greek or semi-Greek towns on the east coast of Spain,

Zacynthus or Saguntum (Murviedro, not far from Valencia), and Emporiae

(Ampurias); and when they acquainted the Carthaginian general

Hasdrubal that they had done so, they at the same time warned him

not to push his conquests over the Ebro, with which he promised

compliance. This was not done by any means to prevent an invasion

of Italy by the land-route--no treaty could fetter the general who

undertook such an enterprise--but partly to set a limit to the

material power of the Spanish Carthaginians which began to be

dangerous, partly to secure the free communities between the Ebro

and the Pyrenees whom Rome thus took under her protection, a basis

of operations in case of its being necessary to land and make war in

Spain. In reference to the impending war with Carthage, which the

senate did not fail to see was inevitable, they hardly apprehended any

greater inconvenience from the events that had occurred in Spain than

that they might be compelled to send some legions thither, and that

the enemy would be somewhat better provided with money and soldiers

than, without Spain, he would have been; they were at any rate firmly

resolved, as the plan of the campaign of 536 shows and as indeed could

not but be the case, to begin and terminate the next war in Africa,

--a course which would at the same time decide the fate of Spain.

Further grounds for delay were suggested during the first years by the

instalments from Carthage, which a declaration of war would have cut

off, and then by the death of Hamilcar, which probably induced friends

and foes to think that his projects must have died with him. Lastly,

during the latter years when the senate certainly began, to apprehend

that it was not prudent long to delay the renewal of the war, there

was the very intelligible wish to dispose of the Gauls in the

valley of the Po in the first instance, for these, threatened with

extirpation, might be expected to avail themselves of any serious war

undertaken by Rome to allure the Transalpine tribes once more to

Italy, and to renew those Celtic migrations which were still fraught

with very great peril. That it was not regard either for the

Carthaginian peace party or for existing treaties which withheld the

Romans from action, is self-evident; moreover, if they desired war,

the Spanish feuds furnished at any moment a ready pretext. The

conduct of Rome in this view is by no means unintelligible; but as

little can it be denied that the Roman senate in dealing with this

matter displayed shortsightedness and slackness--faults which were

still more inexcusably manifested in their mode of dealing at the same

epoch with Gallic affairs. The policy of the Romans was always more

remarkable for tenacity, cunning, and consistency, than for grandeur

of conception or power of rapid organization--qualities in which the

enemies of Rome from Pyrrhus down to Mithradates often surpassed her.

Hannibal

Thus the smiles of fortune inaugurated the brilliantly conceived

project of Hamilcar. The means of war were acquired--a numerous army

accustomed to combat and to conquer, and a constantly replenished

exchequer; but, in order that the right moment might be discovered for

the struggle and that the right direction might be given to it, there

was wanted a leader. The man, whose head and heart had in a desperate

emergency and amidst a despairing people paved the way for their

deliverance, was no more, when it became possible to carry out his

design. Whether his successor Hasdrubal forbore to make the attack

because the proper moment seemed to him to have not yet come, or

whether, more a statesman than a general, he believed himself unequal

to the conduct of the enterprise, we are unable to determine. When,

at the beginning of 534, he fell by the hand of an assassin, the

Carthaginian officers of the Spanish army summoned to fill his place

Hannibal, the eldest son of Hamilcar. He was still a young man--born

in 505, and now, therefore, in his twenty-ninth year; but his had

already been a life of manifold experience. His first recollections

pictured to him his father fighting in a distant land and conquering

on Ercte; he had keenly shared that unconquered father's feelings on

the peace of Catulus, on the bitter return home, and throughout the

horrors of the Libyan war. While yet a boy, he had followed his

father to the camp; and he soon distinguished himself. His light

and firmly-knit frame made him an excellent runner and fencer, and a

fearless rider at full speed; the privation of sleep did not affect

him, and he knew like a soldier how to enjoy or to dispense with food.

Although his youth had been spent in the camp, he possessed such

culture as belonged to the Phoenicians of rank in his day; in Greek,

apparently after he had become a general, he made such progress under

the guidance of his confidant Sosilus of Sparta as to be able to

compose state papers in that language. As he grew up, he entered

the army of his father, to perform his first feats of arms under the

paternal eye and to see him fall in battle by his side. Thereafter he

had commanded the cavalry under his sister's husband, Hasdrubal, and

distinguished himself by brilliant personal bravery as well as by his

talents as a leader. The voice of his comrades now summoned him--the

tried, although youthful general--to the chief command, and he could

now execute the designs for which his father and his brother-in-law

had lived and died. He took up the inheritance, and he was worthy of

it. His contemporaries tried to cast stains of various sorts on his

character; the Romans charged him with cruelty, the Carthaginians with

covetousness; and it is true that he hated as only Oriental natures

know how to hate, and that a general who never fell short of money and

stores can hardly have been other than covetous. But though anger and

envy and meanness have written his history, they have not been able to

mar the pure and noble image which it presents. Laying aside wretched

inventions which furnish their own refutation, and some things which

his lieutenants, particularly Hannibal Monomachus and Mago the

Samnite, were guilty of doing in his name, nothing occurs in the

accounts regarding him which may not be justified under the

circumstances, and according to the international law, of the times;

and all agree in this, that he combined in rare perfection discretion

and enthusiasm, caution and energy. He was peculiarly marked by that

inventive craftiness, which forms one of the leading traits of the

Phoenician character; he was fond of taking singular and unexpected

routes; ambushes and stratagems of all sorts were familiar to him;

and he studied the character of his antagonists with unprecedented

care. By an unrivalled system of espionage--he had regular spies even

in Rome--he kept himself informed of the projects of the enemy; he

himself was frequently seen wearing disguises and false hair, in order

to procure information on some point or other. Every page of the

history of this period attests his genius in strategy; and his gifts

as a statesman were, after the peace with Rome, no less conspicuously

displayed in his reform of the Carthaginian constitution, and in the

unparalleled influence which as a foreign exile he exercised in the

cabinets of the eastern powers. The power which he wielded over men

is shown by his incomparable control over an army of various nations

and many tongues--an army which never in the worst times mutinied

against him. He was a great man; wherever he went, he riveted the

eyes of all.

Rupture between Rome and Carthage

Hannibal resolved immediately after his nomination (in the spring

of 534) to commence the war. The land of the Celts was still in a

ferment, and a war seemed imminent between Rome and Macedonia: he had

good reason now to throw off the mask without delay and to carry the

war whithersoever he pleased, before the Romans began it at their own

convenience with a descent on Africa. His army was soon ready to take

the field, and his exchequer was filled by some razzias on a great

scale; but the Carthaginian government showed itself far from desirous

of despatching the declaration of war to Rome. The place of

Hasdrubal, the patriotic national leader, was even more difficult

to fill in Carthage than that of Hasdrubal the general in Spain; the

peace party had now the ascendency at home, and persecuted the leaders

of the war party with political indictments. The rulers who had

already cut down and mutilated the plans of Hamilcar were by no means

inclined to allow the unknown young man, who now commanded in Spain,

to vent his youthful patriotism at the expense of the state; and

Hannibal hesitated personally to declare war in open opposition to the

legitimate authorities. He tried to provoke the Saguntines to break

the peace; but they contented themselves with making a complaint to

Rome. Then, when a commission from Rome appeared, he tried to

drive it to a declaration of war by treating it rudely; but the

commissioners saw how matters stood: they kept silence in Spain,

with a view to lodge complaints at Carthage and to report at home that

Hannibal was ready to strike and that war was imminent. Thus the time

passed away; accounts had already come of the death of Antigonus

Doson, who had suddenly died nearly at the same time with Hasdrubal;

in Cisalpine Gaul the establishment of fortresses was carried on by

the Romans with redoubled rapidity and energy; preparations were made

in Rome for putting a speedy end in the course of the next spring to

the insurrection in Illyria. Every day was precious; Hannibal formed

his resolution. He sent summary intimation to Carthage that the

Saguntines were making aggressions on the Torboletes, subjects of

Carthage, and he must therefore attack them; and without waiting for

a reply he began in the spring of 535 the siege of a town which was in

alliance with Rome, or, in other words, war against Rome. We may form

some idea of the views and counsels that would prevail in Carthage

from the impression produced in certain circles by York's

capitulation. All "respectable men," it was said, disapproved an

attack made "without orders"; there was talk of disavowal, of

surrendering the daring officer. But whether it was that dread of the

army and of the multitude nearer home outweighed in the Carthaginian

council the fear of Rome; or that they perceived the impossibility

of retracing such a step once taken; or that the mere -vis inertiae-

prevented any definite action, they resolved at length to resolve on

nothing and, if not to wage war, to let it nevertheless be waged.

Saguntum defended itself, as only Spanish towns know how to conduct

defence: had the Romans showed but a tithe of the energy of their

clients, and not trifled away their time during the eight months'

siege of Saguntum in the paltry warfare with Illyrian brigands, they

might, masters as they were of the sea and of places suitable for

landing, have spared themselves the disgrace of failing to grant the

protection which they had promised, and might perhaps have given a

different turn to the war. But they delayed, and the town was at

length taken by storm. When Hannibal sent the spoil for distribution

to Carthage, patriotism and zeal for war were roused in the hearts of

many who had hitherto felt nothing of the kind, and the distribution

cut off all prospect of coming to terms with Rome. Accordingly, when

after the destruction of Saguntum a Roman embassy appeared at Carthage

and demanded the surrender of the general and of the gerusiasts

present in the camp, and when the Roman spokesman, interrupting an

attempt at justification, broke off the discussion and, gathering

up his robe, declared that he held in it peace and war and that the

gerusia might choose between them, the gerusiasts mustered courage

to reply that they left it to the choice of the Roman; and when he

offered war, they accepted it (in the spring of 536).

Preparations for Attacking Italy

Hannibal, who had lost a whole year through the obstinate resistance

of the Saguntines, had as usual retired for the winter of 535-6 to

Cartagena, to make all his preparations on the one hand for the attack

of Italy, on the other for the defence of Spain and Africa; for, as

he, like his father and his brother-in-law, held the supreme command

in both countries, it devolved upon him to take measures also for the

protection of his native land. The whole mass of his forces amounted

to about 120,000 infantry and 16,000 cavalry; he had also 58

elephants, 32 quinqueremes manned, and 18 not manned, besides the

elephants and vessels remaining at the capital. Excepting a few

Ligurians among the light troops, there were no mercenaries in this

Carthaginian army; the troops, with the exception of some Phoenician

squadrons, consisted mainly of the Carthaginian subjects called out

for service--Libyans and Spaniards. To insure the fidelity of the

latter the general, who knew the men with whom he had to deal, gave

them as a proof of his confidence a general leave of absence for the

whole winter; while, not sharing the narrow-minded exclusiveness of

Phoenician patriotism, he promised to the Libyans on his oath the

citizenship of Carthage, should they return to Africa victorious.

This mass of troops however was only destined in part for the

expedition to Italy. Some 20,000 men were sent to Africa, the smaller

portion of them proceeding to the capital and the Phoenician territory

proper, the majority to the western point of Africa. For the

protection of Spain 12,000 infantry, 2500 cavalry, and nearly the half

of the elephants were left behind, in addition to the fleet stationed

there; the chief command and the government of Spain were entrusted

to Hannibal's younger brother Hasdrubal. The immediate territory of

Carthage was comparatively weakly garrisoned, because the capital

afforded in case of need sufficient resources; in like manner a

moderate number of infantry sufficed for the present in Spain, where

new levies could be procured with ease, whereas a comparatively large

proportion of the arms specially African--horses and elephants--was

retained there. The chief care was bestowed in securing the

communications between Spain and Africa: with that view the fleet

remained in Spain, and western Africa was guarded by a very strong

body of troops. The fidelity of the troops was secured not only by

hostages collected from the Spanish communities and detained in the

stronghold of Saguntum, but by the removal of the soldiers from the

districts where they were raised to other quarters: the east African

militia were moved chiefly to Spain, the Spanish to Western Africa,

the West African to Carthage. Adequate provision was thus made for

defence. As to offensive measures, a squadron of 20 quinqueremes with

1000 soldiers on board was to sail from Carthage for the west coast of

Italy and to pillage it, and a second of 25 sail was, if possible,

to re-establish itself at Lilybaeum; Hannibal believed that he might

count upon the government making this moderate amount of exertion.

With the main army he determined in person to invade Italy; as was

beyond doubt part of the original plan of Hamilcar. A decisive attack

on Rome was only possible in Italy, as a similar attack on Carthage

was only possible in Libya; as certainly as Rome meant to begin her

next campaign with the latter, so certainly ought Carthage not to

confine herself at the outset either to any secondary object of

operations, such as Sicily, or to mere defence--defeat would in

any case involve equal destruction, but victory would not yield

equal fruit.

Method of Attack

But how could Italy be attacked? He might succeed in reaching the

peninsula by sea or by land; but if the project was to be no mere

desperate adventure, but a military expedition with a strategic aim,

a nearer basis for its operations was requisite than Spain or Africa.

Hannibal could not rely for support on a fleet and a fortified

harbour, for Rome was now mistress of the sea. As little did the

territory of the Italian confederacy present any tenable basis. If

in very different times, and in spite of Hellenic sympathies, it had

withstood the shock of Pyrrhus, it was not to be expected that it

would now fall to pieces on the appearance of the Phoenician general;

an invading army would without doubt be crushed between the network of

Roman fortresses and the firmly-consolidated confederacy. The land of

the Ligurians and Celts alone could be to Hannibal, what Poland was to

Napoleon in his very similar Russian campaigns. These tribes still

smarting under their scarcely ended struggle for independence, alien

in race from the Italians, and feeling their very existence endangered

by the chain of Roman fortresses and highways whose first coils were

even now being fastened around them, could not but recognize their

deliverers in the Phoenician army (which numbered in its ranks

numerous Spanish Celts), and would serve as a first support for it to

fall back upon--a source whence it might draw supplies and recruits.

Already formal treaties were concluded with the Boii and the Insubres,

by which they bound themselves to send guides to meet the Carthaginian

army, to procure for it a good reception from the cognate tribes and

supplies along its route, and to rise against the Romans as soon as

it should set foot on Italian ground. In fine, the relations of Rome

with the east led the Carthaginians to this same quarter. Macedonia,

which by the victory of Sellasia had re-established its sovereignty

in the Peloponnesus, was in strained relations with Rome; Demetrius of

Pharos, who had exchanged the Roman alliance for that of Macedonia

and had been dispossessed by the Romans, lived as an exile at the

Macedonian court, and the latter had refused the demand which the

Romans made for his surrender. If it was possible to combine the

armies from the Guadalquivir and the Karasu anywhere against the

common foe, it could only be done on the Po. Thus everything directed

Hannibal to Northern Italy; and that the eyes of his father had

already been turned to that quarter, is shown by the reconnoitring

party of Carthaginians, whom the Romans to their great surprise

encountered in Liguria in 524.

The reason for Hannibal's preference of the land route to that by sea

is less obvious; for that neither the maritime supremacy of the Romans

nor their league with Massilia could have prevented a landing at

Genoa, is evident, and was shown by the sequel. Our authorities fail

to furnish us with several of the elements, on which a satisfactory

answer to this question would depend, and which cannot be supplied by

conjecture. Hannibal had to choose between two evils. Instead of

exposing himself to the unknown and less calculable contingencies of

a sea voyage and of naval war, it must have seemed to him the better

course to accept the assurances, which beyond doubt were seriously

meant, of the Boii and Insubres, and the more so that, even if the

army should land at Genoa, it would still have mountains to cross;

he could hardly know exactly, how much smaller are the difficulties

presented by the Apennines at Genoa than by the main chain of the

Alps. At any rate the route which he took was the primitive Celtic

route, by which many much larger hordes had crossed the Alps: the

ally and deliverer of the Celtic nation might without temerity

venture to traverse it.

Departure of Hannibal

So Hannibal collected the troops, destined for the grand army, in

Cartagena at the beginning of the favourable season; there were 90,000

infantry and 12,000 cavalry, of whom about two-thirds were Africans

and a third Spaniards. The 37 elephants which they took with them

were probably destined rather to make an impression on the Gauls than

for serious warfare. Hannibal's infantry no longer needed, like that

led by Xanthippus, to shelter itself behind a screen of elephants, and

the general had too much sagacity to employ otherwise than sparingly

and with caution that two-edged weapon, which had as often occasioned

the defeat of its own as of the enemy's army. With this force the

general set out in the spring of 536 from Cartagena towards the Ebro.

He so far informed his soldiers as to the measures which he had taken,

particularly as to the connections he had entered into with the Celts

and the resources and object of the expedition, that even the common

soldier, whose military instincts lengthened war had developed, felt

the clear perception and the steady hand of his leader, and followed

him with implicit confidence to the unknown and distant land; and the

fervid address, in which he laid before them the position of their

country and the demands of the Romans, the slavery certainly reserved

for their dear native land, and the disgrace of the imputation that

they could surrender their beloved general and his staff, kindled a

soldierly and patriotic ardour in the hearts of all.

Position of Rome

Their Uncertain Plans for War

The Roman state was in a plight, such as may occur even in firmly-

established and sagacious aristocracies. The Romans knew doubtless

what they wished to accomplish, and they took various steps; but

nothing was done rightly or at the right time. They might long ago

have been masters of the gates of the Alps and have settled matters

with the Celts; the latter were still formidable, and the former were

open. They might either have had friendship, with Carthage, had they

honourably kept the peace of 513, or, had they not been disposed for

peace, they might long ago have conquered Cartilage: the peace was

practically broken by the seizure of Sardinia, and they allowed the

power of Carthage to recover itself undisturbed for twenty years.

There was no great difficulty in maintaining peace with Macedonia; but

they had forfeited her friendship for a trifling gain. There must

have been a lack of some leading statesman to take a connected and

commanding view of the position of affairs; on all hands either too

little was done, or too much. Now the war began at a time and at a

place which they had allowed the enemy to determine; and, with all

their well-founded conviction of military superiority, they were

perplexed as to the object to be aimed at and the course to be

followed in their first operations. They had at their disposal more

than half a million of serviceable soldiers; the Roman cavalry alone

was less good, and relatively less numerous, than the Carthaginian,

the former constituting about a tenth, the latter an eighth, of the

whole number of troops taking the field. None of the states affected

by the war had any fleet corresponding to the Roman fleet of 220

quinqueremes, which had just returned from the Adriatic to the western

sea. The natural and proper application of this crushing superiority

of force was self-evident. It had been long settled that the war

ought to be opened with a landing in Africa. The subsequent turn

taken by events had compelled the Romans to embrace in their scheme

of the war a simultaneous landing in Spain, chiefly to prevent the

Spanish army from appearing before the walls of Carthage. In

accordance with this plan they ought above all, when the war had been

practically opened by Hannibal's attack on Saguntum in the beginning

of 535, to have thrown a Roman army into Spain before the town fell;

but they neglected the dictates of interest no less than of honour.

For eight months Saguntum held out in vain: when the town passed into

other hands, Rome had not even equipped her armament for landing in

Spain. The country, however, between the Ebro and the Pyrenees was

still free, and its tribes were not only the natural allies of the

Romans, but had also, like the Saguntines, received from Roman

emissaries promises of speedy assistance. Catalonia may be reached by

sea from Italy in not much longer time than from Cartagena by and: had

the Romans started, like the Phoenicians, in April, after the formal

declaration of war that had taken place in the interval, Hannibal

might have encountered the Roman legions on the line of the Ebro.

Hannibal on the Ebro