National patriotism was bestirring itself in Greece as in Carthage:

for a moment it seemed possible to kindle a Hellenic national war

against Rome. But the general in such a crusade could only be Philip

of Macedonia; and he lacked the enthusiasm and the faith in the

nation, without which such a war could not be waged. He knew not

how to solve the arduous problem of transforming himself from the

oppressor into the champion of Greece. His very delay in the

conclusion of the alliance with Hannibal damped the first and best

zeal of the Greek patriots; and when he did enter into the conflict

with Rome, his mode of conducting war was still less fitted to awaken

sympathy and confidence. His first attempt, which was made in the

very year of the battle of Cannae (538), to obtain possession of the

city of Apollonia, failed in a way almost ridiculous, for Philip

turned back in all haste on receiving the totally groundless report

that a Roman fleet was steering for the Adriatic. This took place

before there was a formal breach with Rome; when the breach at length

ensued, friend and foe expected a Macedonian landing in Lower Italy.

Since 539 a Roman fleet and army had been stationed at Brundisium to

meet it; Philip, who was without vessels of war, was constructing a

flotilla of light Illyrian barks to convey his army across. But when

the endeavour had to be made in earnest, his courage failed to

encounter the dreaded quinqueremes at sea; he broke the promise which

he had given to his ally Hannibal to attempt a landing, and with the

view of still doing something he resolved to make an attack on his own

share of the spoil, the Roman possessions in Epirus (540). Nothing

would have come of this even at the best; but the Romans, who well

knew that offensive was preferable to defensive protection, were by no

means content to remain--as Philip may have hoped--spectators of the

attack from the opposite shore. The Roman fleet conveyed a division

of the army from Brundisium to Epirus; Oricum was recaptured from the

king, a garrison was thrown into Apollonia, and the Macedonian camp

was stormed. Thereupon Philip passed from partial action to total

inaction, and notwithstanding all the complaints of Hannibal, who

vainly tried to breathe into such a halting and shortsighted policy

his own fire and clearness of decision, he allowed some years to

elapse in armed inactivity.

Rome Heads a Greek Coalition against Macedonia

Nor was Philip the first to renew the hostilities. The fall of

Tarentum (542), by which Hannibal acquired an excellent port on the

coast which was the most convenient for the landing of a Macedonian

army, induced the Romans to parry the blow from a distance and to give

the Macedonians so much employment at home that they could not think

of an attempt on Italy. The national enthusiasm in Greece had of

course evaporated long ago. With the help of the old antagonism to

Macedonia, and of the fresh acts of imprudence and injustice of which

Philip had been guilty, the Roman admiral Laevinus found no difficulty

in organizing against Macedonia a coalition of the intermediate and

minor powers under the protectorate of Rome. It was headed by the

Aetolians, at whose diet Laevinus had personally appeared and had

gained its support by a promise of the Acarnanian territory which

the Aetolians had long coveted. They concluded with Rome a modest

agreement to rob the other Greeks of men and land on the joint

account, so that the land should belong to the Aetolians, the men

and moveables to the Romans. They were joined by the states of anti-

Macedonian, or rather primarily of anti-Achaean, tendencies in Greece

proper; in Attica by Athens, in the Peloponnesus by Elis and Messene

and especially by Sparta, the antiquated constitution of which had

been just about this time overthrown by a daring soldier Machanidas,

in order that he might himself exercise despotic power under the

name of king Pelops, a minor, and might establish a government of

adventurers sustained by bands of mercenaries. The coalition was

joined moreover by those constant antagonists of Macedonia, the

chieftains of the half-barbarous Thracian and Illyrian tribes, and

lastly by Attalus king of Pergamus, who followed out his own interest

with sagacity and energy amidst the ruin of the two great Greek states

which surrounded him, and had the acuteness even now to attach himself

as a client to Rome when his assistance was still of some value.

Resultless Warfare

Peace between Philip and the Greeks

Peace between Philip and Rome

It is neither agreeable nor necessary to follow the vicissitudes of

this aimless struggle. Philip, although he was superior to each one

of his opponents and repelled their attacks on all sides with energy

and personal valour, yet consumed his time and strength in that

profitless defensive. Now he had to turn against the Aetolians,

who in concert with the Roman fleet annihilated the unfortunate

Acarnanians and threatened Locris and Thessaly; now an invasion of

barbarians summoned him to the northern provinces; now the Achaeans

solicited his help against the predatory expeditions of Aetolians and

Spartans; now king Attalus of Pergamus and the Roman admiral Publius

Sulpicius with their combined fleets threatened the east coast or

landed troops in Euboea. The want of a war fleet paralyzed Philip in

all his movements; he even went so far as to beg vessels of war from

his ally Prusias of Bithynia, and even from Hannibal. It was only

towards the close of the war that he resolved--as he should have done

at first--to order the construction of 100 ships of war; of these

however no use was made, if the order was executed at all. All who

understood the position of Greece and sympathized with it lamented

the unhappy war, in which the last energies of Greece preyed upon

themselves and the prosperity of the land was destroyed; repeatedly

the commercial states, Rhodes, Chios, Mitylene, Byzantium, Athens, and

even Egypt itself had attempted a mediation. In fact both parties had

an interest in coming to terms. The Aetolians, to whom their Roman

allies attached the chief importance, had, like the Macedonians,

much to suffer from the war; especially after the petty king of the

Athamanes had been gained by Philip, and the interior of Aetolia had

thus been laid open to Macedonian incursions. Many Aetolians too had

their eyes gradually opened to the dishonourable and pernicious part

which the Roman alliance condemned them to play; a cry of horror

pervaded the whole Greek nation when the Aetolians in concert with

the Romans sold whole bodies of Hellenic citizens, such as those of

Anticyra, Oreus, Dyme, and Aegina, into slavery. But the Aetolians

were no longer free; they ran a great risk if of their own accord they

concluded peace with Philip, and they found the Romans by no means

disposed, especially after the favourable turn which matters were

taking in Spain and in Italy, to desist from a war, which on their

part was carried on with merely a few ships, and the burden and

injury of which fell mainly on the Aetolians. At length however

the Aetolians resolved to listen to the mediating cities: and,

notwithstanding the counter-efforts of the Romans, a peace was

arranged in the winter of 548-9 between the Greek powers. Aetolia had

converted an over-powerful ally into a dangerous enemy; but the Roman

senate, which just at that time was summoning all the resources of the

exhausted state for the decisive expedition to Africa, did not deem it

a fitting moment to resent the breach of the alliance. The war with

Philip could not, after the withdrawal of the Aetolians, have been

carried on by the Romans without considerable exertions of their own;

and it appeared to them more convenient to terminate it also by a

peace, whereby the state of things before the war was substantially

restored and Rome in particular retained all her possessions on the

coast of Epirus except the worthless territory of the Atintanes.

Under the circumstances Philip had to deem himself fortunate in

obtaining such terms; but the fact proclaimed--what could not indeed

be longer concealed--that all the unspeakable misery which ten years

of a warfare waged with revolting inhumanity had brought upon Greece

had been endured in vain, and that the grand and just combination,

which Hannibal had projected and all Greece had for a moment joined,

was shattered irretrievably.

Spanish War

In Spain, where the spirit of Hamilcar and Hannibal was powerful, the

struggle was more earnest. Its progress was marked by the singular

vicissitudes incidental to the peculiar nature of the country and the

habits of the people. The farmers and shepherds, who inhabited the

beautiful valley of the Ebro and the luxuriantly fertile Andalusia as

well as the rough intervening highland region traversed by numerous

wooded mountain ranges, could easily be assembled in arms as a general

levy; but it was difficult to lead them against the enemy or even to

keep them together at all. The towns could just as little be combined

for steady and united action, obstinately as in each case they bade

defiance to the oppressor behind their walls. They all appear to have

made little distinction between the Romans and the Carthaginians;

whether the troublesome guests who had established themselves in the

valley of the Ebro, or those who had established themselves on the

Guadalquivir, possessed a larger or smaller portion of the peninsula,

was probably to the natives very much a matter of indifference; and

for that reason the tenacity of partisanship so characteristic of

Spain was but little prominent in this war, with isolated exceptions

such as Saguntum on the Roman and Astapa on the Carthaginian side.

But, as neither the Romans nor the Africans had brought with them

sufficient forces of their own, the war necessarily became on both

sides a struggle to gain partisans, which was decided rarely by solid

attachment, more usually by fear, money, or accident, and which, when

it seemed about to end, resolved itself into an endless series of

fortress-sieges and guerilla conflicts, whence it soon revived with

fresh fury. Armies appeared and disappeared like sandhills on the

seashore; on the spot where a hill stood yesterday, not a trace of

it remains today. In general the superiority was on the side of

the Romans, partly because they at first appeared in Spain as the

deliverers of the land from Phoenician despotism, partly because of

the fortunate selection of their leaders and of the stronger nucleus

of trustworthy troops which these brought along with them. It is

hardly possible, however, with the very imperfect and--in point of

chronology especially--very confused accounts which have been handed

down to us, to give a satisfactory view of a war so conducted.

Successes of the Scipios

Syphax against Carthage

The two lieutenant-governors of the Romans in the peninsula, Gnaeus

and Publius Scipio--both of them, but especially Gnaeus, good

generals and excellent administrators--accomplished their task with

the most brilliant success. Not only was the barrier of the Pyrenees

steadfastly maintained, and the attempt to re-establish the

interrupted communication by land between the commander-in-chief of

the enemy and his head-quarters sternly repulsed; not only had a

Spanish New Rome been created, after the model of the Spanish New

Carthage, by means of the comprehensive fortifications and harbour

works of Tarraco, but the Roman armies had already in 539 fought with

success in Andalusia.(2) Their expedition thither was repeated in

the following year (540) with still greater success. The Romans

carried their arms almost to the Pillars of Hercules, extended their

protectorate in South Spain, and lastly by regaining and restoring

Saguntum secured for themselves an important station on the line from

the Ebro to Cartagena, repaying at the same time as far as possible

an old debt which the nation owed. While the Scipios thus almost

dislodged the Carthaginians from Spain, they knew how to raise up a

dangerous enemy to them in western Africa itself in the person of the

powerful west African prince Syphax, ruling in the modern provinces of

Oran and Algiers, who entered into connections with the Romans (about

541). Had it been possible to supply him with a Roman army, great

results might have been expected; but at that time not a man could be

spared from Italy, and the Spanish army was too weak to be divided.

Nevertheless the troops belonging to Syphax himself, trained and led

by Roman officers, excited so serious a ferment among the Libyan

subjects of Carthage that the lieutenant-commander of Spain and

Africa, Hasdrubal Barcas, went in person to Africa with the flower

of his Spanish troops. His arrival in all likelihood gave another

turn to the matter; the king Gala--in what is now the province of

Constantine--who had long been the rival of Syphax, declared for

Carthage, and his brave son Massinissa defeated Syphax, and compelled

him to make peace. Little more is related of this Libyan war than the

story of the cruel vengeance which Carthage, according to her wont,

inflicted on the rebels after the victory of Massinissa.

The Scipios Defeated and Killed

Spain South of the Ebro Lost to the Romans

Nero Sent to Spain

This turn of affairs in Africa had an important effect on the war in

Spain. Hasdrubal was able once more to turn to that country (543),

whither he was soon followed by considerable reinforcements and by

Massinissa himself. The Scipios, who during the absence of the

enemy's general (541, 542) had continued to plunder and to gain

partisans in the Carthaginian territory, found themselves unexpectedly

assailed by forces so superior that they were under the necessity of

either retreating behind the Ebro or calling out the Spaniards. They

chose the latter course, and took into their pay 20,000 Celtiberians;

and then, in order the better to encounter the three armies of the

enemy under Hasdrubal Barcas, Hasdrubal the son of Gisgo, and Mago,

they divided their army and did not even keep their Roman troops

together. They thus prepared the way for their own destruction.

While Gnaeus with his corps, containing a third of the Roman and all

the Spanish troops, lay encamped opposite to Hasdrubal Barcas, the

latter had no difficulty in inducing the Spaniards in the Roman army

by means of a sum of money to withdraw--which perhaps to their free-

lance ideas of morals did not even seem a breach of fidelity, seeing

that they did not pass over to the enemies of their paymaster.

Nothing was left to the Roman general but hastily to begin his

retreat, in which the enemy closely followed him. Meanwhile the

second Roman corps under Publius found itself vigorously assailed

by the two other Phoenician armies under Hasdrubal son of Gisgo

and Mago, and the daring squadrons of Massinissa's horse gave to

the Carthaginians a decided advantage. The Roman camp was almost

surrounded; when the Spanish auxiliaries already on the way should

arrive, the Romans would be completely hemmed in. The bold resolve

of the proconsul to encounter with his best troops the advancing

Spaniards, before their appearance should fill up the gap in the

blockade, ended unfortunately. The Romans indeed had at first the

advantage; but the Numidian horse, who were rapidly despatched in

pursuit, soon overtook them and prevented them both from following up

the victory which they had already half gained, and from marching

back, until the Phoenician infantry came up and at length the fall of

the general converted the lost battle into a defeat. After Publius

had thus fallen, Gnaeus, who slowly retreating had with difficulty

defended himself against the one Carthaginian army, found himself

suddenly assailed at once by three, and all retreat cut off by the

Numidian cavalry. Hemmed in upon a bare hill, which did not even

afford the possibility of pitching a camp, the whole corps were cut

down or taken prisoners. As to the fate of the general himself no

certain information was ever obtained. A small division alone was

conducted by Gaius Marcius, an excellent officer of the school of

Gnaeus, in safety to the other bank of the Ebro; and thither the

legate Titus Fonteius also succeeded in bringing safely the portion

of the corps of Publius that had been left in the camp; most even of

the Roman garrisons scattered in the south of Spain were enabled to

flee thither. In all Spain south of the Ebro the Phoenicians ruled

undisturbed; and the moment seemed not far distant, when the river

would be crossed, the Pyrenees would be open, and the communication

with Italy would be restored. But the emergency in the Roman camp

called the right man to the command. The choice of the soldiers,

passing over older and not incapable officers, summoned that Gaius

Marcius to become leader of the army; and his dexterous management

and quite as much perhaps, the envy and discord among the three

Carthaginian generals, wrested from these the further fruits of their

important victory. Such of the Carthaginians as had crossed the river

were driven back, and the line of the Ebro was held in the meanwhile,

till Rome gained time to send a new army and a new general.

Fortunately the turn of the war in Italy, where Capua had just fallen,

allowed this to be done. A strong legion--12,000 men--arriving under

the propraetor Gaius Claudius Nero, restored the balance of arms.

An expedition to Andalusia in the following year (544) was most

successful; Hasdrubal Barcas was beset and surrounded, and escaped a

capitulation only by ignoble stratagem and open perfidy. But Nero was

not the right general for the Spanish war. He was an able officer,

but a harsh, irritable, unpopular man, who had little skill in the

art of renewing old connections or of forming new ones, or in taking

advantage of the injustice and arrogance with which the Carthaginians

after the death of the Scipios had treated friend and foe in Further

Spain, and had exasperated all against them.

Publius Scipio

The senate, which formed a correct judgment as to the importance

and the peculiar character of the Spanish war, and had learned from

the Uticenses brought in as prisoners by the Roman fleet the great

exertions which were making in Carthage to send Hasdrubal and

Massinissa with a numerous army over the Pyrenees, resolved to

despatch to Spain new reinforcements and an extraordinary general of

higher rank, the nomination of whom they deemed it expedient to leave

to the people. For long--so runs the story--nobody announced himself

as ready to take in hand the complicated and perilous business; but

at last a young officer of twenty-seven, Publius Scipio (son of the

general of the same name that had fallen in Spain), who had held the

offices of military tribune and aedile, came forward to solicit it.

It is incredible that the Roman senate should have left to accident

an election of such importance in this meeting of the Comitia which

it had itself suggested, and equally incredible that ambition and

patriotism should have so died out in Rome that no tried officer

presented himself for the important post. If on the other hand the

eyes of the senate turned to the young, talented, and experienced

officer, who had brilliantly distinguished himself in the hotly-

contested days on the Ticinus and at Cannae, but who still had not the

rank requisite for his coming forward as the successor of men who had

been praetors and consuls, it was very natural to adopt this course,

which compelled the people out of good nature to admit the only

candidate notwithstanding his defective qualification, and which could

not but bring both him and the Spanish expedition, which was doubtless

very unpopular, into favour with the multitude. If the effect of this

ostensibly unpremeditated candidature was thus calculated, it was

perfectly successful. The son, who went to avenge the death of a

father whose life he had saved nine years before on the Ticinus;

the young man of manly beauty and long locks, who with modest blushes

offered himself in the absence of a better for the post of danger;

the mere military tribune, whom the votes of the centuries now raised

at once to the roll of the highest magistracies--all this made a

wonderful and indelible impression on the citizens and farmers of

Rome. And in truth Publius Scipio was one, who was himself

enthusiastic, and who inspired enthusiasm. He was not one of the few

who by their energy and iron will constrain the world to adopt and to

move in new paths for centuries, or who at any rate grasp the reins of

destiny for years till its wheels roll over them. Publius Scipio

gained battles and conquered countries under the instructions of the

senate; with the aid of his military laurels he took also a prominent

position in Rome as a statesman; but a wide interval separates such a

man from an Alexander or a Caesar. As an officer he rendered at least

no greater service to his country than Marcus Marcellus; and as a

politician, although not perhaps himself fully conscious of the

unpatriotic and personal character of his policy, he injured his

country at least as much, as he benefited it by his military skill.

Yet a special charm lingers around the form of that graceful hero;

it is surrounded, as with a dazzling halo, by the atmosphere of serene

and confident inspiration, in which Scipio with mingled credulity and

adroitness always moved. With quite enough of enthusiasm to warm

men's hearts, and enough of calculation to follow in every case the

dictates of intelligence, while not leaving out of account the vulgar;

not naive enough to share the belief of the multitude in his divine

inspirations, nor straightforward enough to set it aside, and yet in

secret thoroughly persuaded that he was a man specially favoured of

the gods--in a word, a genuine prophetic nature; raised above the

people, and not less aloof from them; a man of steadfast word and

kingly spirit, who thought that he would humble himself by adopting

the ordinary title of a king, but could never understand how the

constitution of the republic should in his case be binding;

so confident in his own greatness that he knew nothing of envy

or of hatred, courteously acknowledged other men's merits, and

compassionately forgave other men's faults; an excellent officer and

a refined diplomatist without the repellent special impress of either

calling, uniting Hellenic culture with the fullest national feeling of

a Roman, an accomplished speaker and of graceful manners--Publius

Scipio won the hearts of soldiers and of women, of his countrymen

and of the Spaniards, of his rivals in the senate and of his greater

Carthaginian antagonist. His name was soon on every one's lips, and

his was the star which seemed destined to bring victory and peace

to his country.

Scipio Goes to Spain

Capture of New Carthage

Publius Scipio went to Spain in 544-5, accompanied by the propraetor

Marcus Silanus, who was to succeed Nero and to serve as assistant and

counsellor to the young commander-in-chief, and by his intimate friend

Gaius Laelius as admiral, and furnished with a legion exceeding the

usual strength and a well-filled chest. His appearance on the scene

was at once signalized by one of the boldest and most fortunate -coups

de main- that are known in history. Of the three Carthaginian

generals Hasdrubal Barcas was stationed at the sources, Hasdrubal

son of Gisgo at the mouth, of the Tagus, and Mago at the Pillars of

Hercules; the nearest of them was ten days' march from the Phoenician

capital New Carthage. Suddenly in the spring of 545, before the

enemy's armies began to move, Scipio set out with his whole army of

nearly 30,000 men and the fleet for this town, which he could reach

from the mouth of the Ebro by the coast route in a few days, and

surprised the Phoenician garrison, not above 1000 men strong, by a

combined attack by sea and land. The town, situated on a tongue of

land projecting into the harbour, found itself threatened at once on

three sides by the Roman fleet, and on the fourth by the legions; and

all help was far distant. Nevertheless the commandant Mago defended

himself with resolution and armed the citizens, as the soldiers did

not suffice to man the walls. A sortie was attempted; but the Romans

repelled it with ease and, without taking time to open a regular

siege, began the assault on the landward side. Eagerly the assailants

pushed their advance along the narrow land approach to the town;

new columns constantly relieved those that were fatigued; the weak

garrison was utterly exhausted; but the Romans had gained no

advantage. Scipio had not expected any; the assault was merely

designed to draw away the garrison from the side next to the harbour,

where, having been informed that part of the latter was left dry at

ebb-tide, he meditated a second attack. While the assault was raging

on the landward side, Scipio sent a division with ladders over the

shallow bank "where Neptune himself showed them the way," and they had

actually the good fortune to find the walls at that point undefended.

Thus the city was won on the first day; whereupon Mago in the citadel

capitulated. With the Carthaginian capital there fell into the hands

of the Romans 18 dismantled vessels of war and 63 transports, the

whole war-stores, considerable supplies of corn, the war-chest of 600

talents (more than; 40,000 pounds), ten thousand captives, among whom

were eighteen Carthaginian gerusiasts or judges, and the hostages of

all the Spanish allies of Carthage. Scipio promised the hostages

permission to return home so soon as their respective communities

should have entered into alliance with Rome, and employed the

resources which the city afforded to reinforce and improve the

condition of his army. He ordered the artisans of New Carthage,

2000 in number, to work for the Roman army, promising to them liberty

at the close of the war, and he selected the able-bodied men among

the remaining multitude to serve as rowers in the fleet. But the

burgesses of the city were spared, and allowed to retain their liberty

and former position. Scipio knew the Phoenicians, and was aware that

they would obey; and it was important that a city possessing the only

excellent harbour on the east coast and rich silver mines should be

secured by something more than a garrison.

Success thus crowned the bold enterprise--bold, because it was not

unknown to Scipio that Hasdrubal Barcas had received orders from his

government to advance towards Gaul and was engaged in fulfilling them,

and because the weak division left behind on the Ebro was not in a

position seriously to oppose that movement, should the return of

Scipio be delayed. But he was again at Tarraco, before Hasdrubal made

his appearance on the Ebro. The hazard of the game which the young

general played, when he abandoned his primary task in order to execute

a dashing stroke, was concealed by the fabulous success which Neptune

and Scipio had gained in concert. The marvellous capture of the

Phoenician capital so abundantly justified all the expectations

which had been formed at home regarding the wondrous youth, that

none could venture to utter any adverse opinion. Scipio's command was

indefinitely prolonged; he himself resolved no longer to confine his

efforts to the meagre task of guarding the passes of the Pyrenees.

Already, in consequence of the fall of New Carthage, not only had

the Spaniards on the north of the Ebro completely submitted, but

even beyond the Ebro the most powerful princes had exchanged

the Carthaginian for the Roman protectorate.

Scipio Goes to Andalusia

Hasdrubal Crosses the Pyrenees

Scipio employed the winter of 545-6 in breaking up his fleet and

increasing his land army with the men thus acquired, so that he

might at once guard the north and assume the offensive in the south

more energetically than before; and he marched in 546 to Andalusia.

There he: encountered Hasdrubal Barcas, who, in the execution of his

long-cherished plan, was moving northward to the help of his brother.

A battle took place at Baecula, in which the Romans claimed the

victory and professed to have made 10,000 captives; but Hasdrubal

substantially attained his end, although at the sacrifice of a portion

of his army. With his chest, his elephants, and the best portion of

his troops, he fought his way to the north coast of Spain; marching

along the shore, he reached the western passes of the Pyrenees which

appear to have been unoccupied, and before the bad season began he

was in Gaul, where he took up quarters for the winter. It was evident

that the resolve of Scipio to combine offensive operations with the

defensive which he had been instructed to maintain was inconsiderate

and unwise. The immediate task assigned to the Spanish army, which

not only Scipio's father and uncle, but even Gaius Marcius and Gaius

Nero had accomplished with much inferior means, was not enough for the

arrogance of the victorious general at the head of a numerous army;

and he was mainly to blame for the extremely critical position of Rome

in the summer of 547, when the plan of Hannibal for a combined attack

on the Romans was at length realized. But the gods covered the errors

of their favourite with laurels. In Italy the peril fortunately

passed over; the Romans were glad to accept the bulletin of the

ambiguous victory of Baecula, and, when fresh tidings of victory

arrived from Spain, they thought no more of the circumstance that

they had had to combat the ablest general and the flower of the

Hispano-Phoenician army in Italy.

Spain Conquered

Mago Goes to Italy

Gades Becomes Roman

After the removal of Hasdrubal Barcas the two generals who were

left in Spain determined for the time being to retire, Hasdrubal

son of Gisgo to Lusitania, Mago even to the Baleares; and, until new

reinforcements should arrive from Africa, they left the light cavalry

of Massinissa alone to wage a desultory warfare in Spain, as Muttines

had done so successfully in Sicily. The whole east coast thus fell

into the power of the Romans. In the following year (547) Hanno

actually made his appearance from Africa with a third army, whereupon

Mago and Hasdrubal returned to Andalusia. But Marcus Silanus defeated

the united armies of Mago and Hanno, and captured the latter in

person. Hasdrubal upon this abandoned the idea of keeping the open

field, and distributed his troops among the Andalusian cities, of

which Scipio was during this year able to storm only one, Oringis.

The Phoenicians seemed vanquished; but yet they were able in the

following year (548) once more to send into the field a powerful army,

32 elephants, 4000 horse, and 70,000 foot, far the greater part of

whom, it is true, were hastily-collected: Spanish militia. Again

a battle took place at Baecula. The Roman army numbered little

more than half that of the enemy, and was also to a considerable

extent composed of Spaniards. Scipio, like Wellington in similar

circumstances, disposed his Spaniards so that they should not partake

in the fight--the only possible mode of preventing their dispersion

--while on the other hand he threw his Roman troops in the first

instance on the Spaniards. The day was nevertheless obstinately

contested; but at length the Romans were the victors, and, as a matter

of course, the defeat of such an army was equivalent to its complete

dissolution--Hasdrubal and Mago singly made their escape to Gades.

The Romans were now without a rival in the peninsula; the few towns

that did not submit with good will were subdued one by one, and some

of them were punished with cruel severity. Scipio was even able to

visit Syphax on the African coast, and to enter into communications

with him and also with Massinissa with reference to an expedition

to Africa--a foolhardy venture, which was not warranted by any

corresponding advantage, however much the report of it might please

the curiosity of the citizens of the capital at home. Gades alone,

where Mago held command, was still Phoenician. For a moment it seemed

as if, after the Romans had entered upon the Carthaginian heritage and

had sufficiently undeceived the expectation cherished here and there

among the Spaniards that after the close of the Phoenician rule they

would get rid of their Roman guests also and regain their ancient

freedom, a general insurrection against the Romans would break forth

in Spain, in which the former allies of Rome would take the lead.

The sickness of the Roman general and the mutiny of one of his corps,

occasioned by their pay being in arrear for many years, favoured

the rising. But Scipio recovered sooner than was expected, and

dexterously suppressed the tumult among the soldiers; upon which

the communities that had taken the lead in the national rising were

subdued at once before the insurrection gained ground. Seeing that

nothing came of this movement and Gades could not be permanently held,

the Carthaginian government ordered Mago to gather together whatever

could be got in ships, troops, and money, and with these, if possible,

to give another turn to the war in Italy. Scipio could not prevent

this--his dismantling of the fleet now avenged itself--and he was a

second time obliged to leave in the hands of his gods the defence,

with which he had been entrusted, of his country against new

invasions. The last of Hamilcar's sons left the peninsula without

opposition. After his departure Gades, the oldest and last possession

of the Phoenicians on Spanish soil, submitted on favourable conditions

to the new masters. Spain was, after a thirteen years' struggle,

converted from a Carthaginian into a Roman province, in which the

conflict with the Romans was still continued for centuries by means of

insurrections always suppressed and yet never subdued, but in which at

the moment no enemy stood opposed to Rome. Scipio embraced the first

moment of apparent peace to resign his command (in the end of 548),

and to report at Rome in person the victories which he had achieved

and the provinces which he had won.

Italian War

Position of the Armies

While the war was thus terminated in Sicily by Marcellus, in Greece by

Publius Sulpicius, and in Spain by Scipio, the mighty struggle went on

without interruption in the Italian peninsula. There after the battle

of Cannae had been fought and its effects in loss or gain could by

degrees be discerned, at the commencement of 540, the fifth year of

the war, the dispositions of the opposing Romans and Phoenicians were

the following. North Italy had been reoccupied by the Romans after

the departure of Hannibal, and was protected by three legions, two of

which were stationed in the Celtic territory, the third as a reserve

in Picenum. Lower Italy, as far as Mount Garganus and the Volturnus,

was, with the exception of the fortresses and most of the ports, in

the hands of Hannibal. He lay with his main army at Arpi, while

Tiberius Gracchus with four legions confronted him in Apulia, resting

upon the fortresses of Luceria and Beneventum. In the land of the

Bruttians, where the inhabitants had thrown themselves entirely into

the arms of Hannibal, and where even the ports--excepting Rhegium,

which the Romans protected from Messana--had been occupied by the

Phoenicians, there was a second Carthaginian army under Hanno, which

in the meanwhile saw no enemy to face it. The Roman main army of four

legions under the two consuls, Quintus Fabius and Marcus Marcellus,

was on the point of attempting to recover Capua. To these there fell

to be added on the Roman side the reserve of two legions in the

capital, the garrisons placed in all the seaports--Tarentum and

Brundisium having been reinforced by a legion on account of the

Macedonian landing apprehended there--and lastly the strong fleet

which had undisputed command of the sea. If we add to these the Roman

armies in Sicily, Sardinia, and Spain, the whole number of the Roman

forces, even apart from the garrison service in the fortresses of

Lower Italy which was provided for by the colonists occupying them,

may be estimated at not less than 200,000 men, of whom one-third were

newly enrolled for this year, and about one-half were Roman citizens.

It may be assumed that all the men capable of service from the 17th

to the 46th year were under arms, and that the fields, where the war

permitted them to be tilled at all, were cultivated by the slaves

and the old men, women, and children. As may well be conceived,

under such circumstances the finances were in the most grievous

embarrassment; the land-tax, the main source of revenue, came in but

very irregularly. Yet notwithstanding these difficulties as to men

and money the Romans were able--slowly indeed and by exerting all

their energies, but still surely--to recover what they had so rapidly

lost; to increase their armies yearly, while those of the Phoenicians

were diminishing; to gain ground year by year on the Italian allies

of Hannibal, the Campanians, Apulians, Samnites, and Bruttians, who

neither sufficed, like the Roman fortresses in Lower Italy, for their

own protection nor could be adequately protected by the weak army of

Hannibal; and finally, by means of the method of warfare instituted by

Marcus Marcellus, to develop the talent of their officers and to bring

into full play the superiority of the Roman infantry. Hannibal might

doubtless still hope for victories, but no longer such victories as

those on the Trasimene lake and on the Aufidus; the times of the

citizen-generals were gone by. No course was left to him but to wait

till either Philip should execute his long-promised descent or his own

brothers should join him from Spain, and meanwhile to keep himself,

his army, and his clients as far as possible free from harm and in

good humour. We hardly recognize in the obstinate defensive system

which he now began the same general who had carried on the offensive

with almost unequalled impetuosity and boldness; it is marvellous in

a psychological as well as in a military point of view, that the same

man should have accomplished the two tasks set to him--tasks so

diametrically opposite in their character--with equal completeness.

Conflicts in the South of Italy

At first the war turned chiefly towards Campania. Hannibal appeared

in good time to protect its capital, which he prevented from being

invested; but he was unable either to wrest any of the Campanian towns

held by the Romans from their strong Roman garrisons, or to prevent

--in addition to a number of less important country towns--Casilinum,

which secured his passage over the Volturnus, from being taken by

the two consular armies after an obstinate defence. An attempt of

Hannibal to gain Tarentum, with the view especially of acquiring a

safe landing-place for the Macedonian army, proved unsuccessful.

Meanwhile the Bruttian army of the Carthaginians under Hanno had

various encounters in Lucania with the Roman army of Apulia; here

Tiberius Gracchus sustained the struggle with good results, and after

a successful combat not far from Beneventum, in which the slave

legions pressed into service had distinguished themselves, he

bestowed liberty and burgess-rights on his slave-soldiers in

the name of the people.

Arpi Acquired by the Romans

In the following year (541) the Romans recovered the rich and

important Arpi, whose citizens, after the Roman soldiers had stolen

into the town, made common cause with them against the Carthaginian

garrison. In general the bonds of the symmachy formed by Hannibal

were relaxing; a number of the leading Capuans and several of the

Bruttian towns passed over to Rome; even a Spanish division of the

Phoenician army, when informed by Spanish emissaries of the course

of events in their native land, passed from the Carthaginian into

the Roman service.

Tarentum Taken by Hannibal

The year 542 was more unfavourable for the Romans in consequence of

fresh political and military errors, of which Hannibal did not fail

to take advantage. The connections which Hannibal maintained in the

towns of Magna Graecia had led to no serious result; save that the

hostages from Tarentum and Thurii, who were kept at Rome, were induced

by his emissaries to make a foolhardy attempt at escape, in which they

were speedily recaptured by the Roman posts. But the injudicious

spirit of revenge displayed by the Romans was of more service to

Hannibal than his intrigues; the execution of all the hostages who

had sought to escape deprived them of a valuable pledge, and the

exasperated Greeks thenceforth meditated how they might open

their gates to Hannibal. Tarentum was actually occupied by the

Carthaginians in consequence of an understanding with the citizens and

of the negligence of the Roman commandant; with difficulty the Roman

garrison maintained itself in the citadel. The example of Tarentum

was followed by Heraclea, Thurii, and Metapontum, from which town the

garrison had to be withdrawn in order to save the Tarentine Acropolis.

These successes so greatly increased the risk of a Macedonian landing,

that Rome felt herself compelled to direct renewed attention and

renewed exertions to the Greek war, which had been almost totally

neglected; and fortunately the capture of Syracuse and the favourable

state of the Spanish war enabled her to do so.

Conflicts around Capua

At the chief seat of war, in Campania, the struggle went on with very

varying success. The legions posted in the neighbourhood of Capua had

not yet strictly invested the city, but had so greatly hindered the

cultivation of the soil and the ingathering of the harvest, that the

populous city was in urgent need of supplies from without. Hannibal

accordingly collected a considerable supply of grain, and directed

the Campanians to receive it at Beneventum; but their tardiness gave

the consuls Quintus Flaccus and Appius Claudius time to come up, to

inflict a severe defeat on Hanno who protected the grain, and to seize

his camp and all his stores. The two consuls then invested the town,

while Tiberius Gracchus stationed himself on the Appian Way to prevent

Hannibal from approaching to relieve it But that brave officer fell

in consequence of the shameful stratagem of a perfidious Lucanian;

and his death was equivalent to a complete defeat, for his army,

consisting mostly of those slaves whom he had manumitted, dispersed

after the fall of their beloved leader. So Hannibal found the road to

Capua open, and by his unexpected appearance compelled the two consuls

to raise the blockade which they had barely begun. Their cavalry had

already, before Hannibal's arrival, been thoroughly defeated by the

Phoenician cavalry, which lay as a garrison in Capua under Hanno and

Bostar, and by the equally excellent Campanian horse. The total

destruction of the regular troops and free bands in Lucania led by

Marcus Centenius, a man imprudently promoted from a subaltern to be

a general, and the not much less complete defeat of the negligent and

arrogant praetor Gnaeus Fulvius Flaccus in Apulia, closed the long

series of the misfortunes of this year. But the stubborn perseverance

of the Romans again neutralized the rapid success of Hannibal, at

least at the most decisive point. As soon as Hannibal turned his back

on Capua to proceed to Apulia, the Roman armies once more gathered

around that city, one at Puteoli and Volturnum under Appius Claudius,

another at Casilinum under Quintus Fulvius, and a third on the Nolan

road under the praetor Gaius Claudius Nero. The three camps, well

entrenched and connected with one another by fortified lines,

precluded all access to the place, and the large, inadequately

provisioned city could not but find itself compelled by the mere

investment to surrender at no distant time, should no relief arrive.

As the winter of 542-3 drew to an end, the provisions were almost

exhausted, and urgent messengers, who were barely able to steal

through the well-guarded Roman lines, requested speedy help from

Hannibal, who was at Tarentum, occupied with the siege of the

citadel. With 33 elephants and his best troops he departed by

forced marches from Tarentum for Campania, captured the Roman post at

Caiatia, and took up his camp on Mount Tifata close by Capua, in the

confident expectation that the Roman generals would, now raise the

siege as they had done the year before. But the Romans, who had had

time to entrench their camps and their lines like a fortress, did not

stir, and looked on unmoved from their ramparts, while on one side

the Campanian horsemen, on the other the Numidian squadrons, dashed

against their lines. A serious assault could not be thought of by

Hannibal; he could foresee that his advance would soon draw the other

Roman armies after him to Campania, if even before their arrival the

scarcity of supplies in a region so systematically foraged did not

drive him away. Nothing could be done in that quarter.

Hannibal Marches toward Rome

Hannibal tried a further expedient, the last which occurred to his

inventive genius, to save the important city. After giving the

Campanians information of his intention and exhorting them to hold

out, he started with the relieving army from Capua and took the road

for Rome. With the same dexterous boldness which he had shown in his

first Italian campaigns, he threw himself with a weak army between the

armies and fortresses of the enemy, and led his troops through Samnium

and along the Valerian Way past Tibur to the bridge over the Anio,

which he passed and encamped on the opposite bank, five miles from

the city. The children's children of the Romans still shuddered, when

they were told of "Hannibal at the gate"; real danger there was none.

The country houses and fields in the neighbourhood of the city were

laid waste by the enemy; the two legions in the city, who went forth

against them, prevented the investment of the walls. Besides,

Hannibal had never expected to surprise Rome by a -coup de main-,

such as Scipio soon afterwards executed against New Carthage, and

still less had he meditated a siege in earnest; his only hope was that

in the first alarm part of the besieging army of Capua would march to

Rome and thus give him an opportunity of breaking up the blockade.

Accordingly after a brief stay he departed. The Romans saw in his

withdrawal a miraculous intervention of the gods, who by portents and

visions had compelled the wicked man to depart, when in truth the

Roman legions were unable to compel him; at the spot where Hannibal

had approached nearest to the city, at the second milestone on the

Appian Way in front of the Capene gate, with grateful credulity the

Romans erected an altar to the god "who turned back and protected"

(-Rediculus Tutanus-), Hannibal in reality retreated, because this was

part of his plan, and directed his march towards Capua. But the Roman

generals had not committed the mistake on which their opponent had

reckoned; the legions remained unmoved in the lines round Capua, and

only a weak corps had been detached on the news of Hannibal's march

towards Rome. When Hannibal learned this, he suddenly turned against

the consul Publius Galba, who had imprudently followed him from Rome,

and with whom he had hitherto avoided an engagement, vanquished him,

and took his camp by storm.

Capua Capitulates

But this was a poor compensation for the now inevitable fall of Capua.

Long had its citizens, particularly the better passes, anticipated

with sorrowful forebodings what was coming; the senate-house and the

administration of the city were left almost exclusively to the leaders

of the popular party hostile to Rome. Now despair seized high and

low, Campanians and Phoenicians alike. Twenty-eight senators chose a

voluntary death; the remainder gave over the city to the discretion of

an implacably exasperated foe. Of course a bloody retribution had to

follow; the only discussion was as to whether the process should be

long or short: whether the wiser and more appropriate course was to

probe to the bottom the further ramifications of the treason even

beyond Capua, or to terminate the matter by rapid executions. Appius

Claudius and the Roman senate wished to take the former course; the

latter view, perhaps the less inhuman, prevailed. Fifty-three of the

officers and magistrates of Capua were scourged and beheaded in the

marketplaces of Cales and Teanum by the orders and before the eyes

of the proconsul Quintus Flaccus, the rest of the senators were

imprisoned, numbers of the citizens were sold into slavery, and the

estates of the more wealthy were confiscated. Similar penalties were

inflicted upon Atella and Caiatia. These punishments were severe;

but, when regard is had to the importance of the revolt of Capua

from Rome, and to what was the ordinary if not warrantable usage of

war in those times, they were not unnatural. And had not the citizens

themselves pronounced their own sentence, when immediately after their

defection they put to death all the Roman citizens present in Capua at

the time of the revolt? But it was unjustifiable in Rome to embrace

this opportunity of gratifying the secret rivalry that had long

subsisted between the two largest cities of Italy, and of wholly

annihilating, in a political point of view, her hated and envied

competitor by abolishing the constitution of the Campanian city.

Superiority of the Romans

Tarentum Capitulates

Immense was the impression produced by the fall of Capua, and all the

more that it had not been brought about by surprise, but by a two

years' siege carried on in spite of all the exertions of Hannibal.

It was quite as much a token that the Romans had recovered their

ascendency in Italy, as its defection some years before to Hannibal

had been a token that that ascendency was lost. In vain Hannibal had

tried to counteract the impression of this news on his allies by the

capture of Rhegium or of the citadel of Tarentum. His forced march

to surprise Rhegium had yielded no result. The citadel of Tarentum

suffered greatly from famine, after the Tarentino-Carthaginian

squadron closed the harbour; but, as the Romans with their much more

powerful fleet were able to cut off the supplies from that squadron

itself, and the territory, which Hannibal commanded, scarce sufficed

to maintain his army, the besiegers on the side next the sea suffered

not much less than did the besieged in the citadel, and at length they

left the harbour. No enterprise was now successful; Fortune herself

seemed to have deserted the Carthaginians. These consequences of the

fall of Capua--the deep shock given to the respect and confidence

which Hannibal had hitherto enjoyed among the Italian allies, and the

endeavours made by every community that was not too deeply compromised

to gain readmission on tolerable terms into the Roman symmachy

--affected Hannibal much more keenly than the immediate loss. He had

to choose one of two courses; either to throw garrisons into the

wavering towns, in which case he would weaken still more his army

already too weak and would expose his trusty troops to destruction in

small divisions or to treachery--500 of his select Numidian horsemen

were put to death in this way in 544 on the defection of the town of

Salapia; or to pull down and burn the towns which could not be

depended on, so as to keep them out of the enemy's hands--a course,

which could not raise the spirits of his Italian clients. On the

fall of Capua the Romans felt themselves once more confident as to

the final issue of the war in Italy; they despatched considerable

reinforcements to Spain, where the existence of the Roman army was

placed in jeopardy by the fall of the two Scipios; and for the first

time since the beginning of the war they ventured on a diminution in

the total number of their troops, which had hitherto been annually

augmented notwithstanding the annually-increasing difficulty of

levying them, and had risen at last to 23 legions. Accordingly in

the next year (544) the Italian war was prosecuted more remissly than

hitherto by the Romans, although Marcus Marcellus had after the close

of the Sicilian war resumed the command of the main army; he applied

himself to the besieging of fortresses in the interior, and had

indecisive conflicts with the Carthaginians. The struggle for the

Acropolis of Tarentum also continued without decisive result. In

Apulia Hannibal succeeded in defeating the proconsul Gnaeus Fulvius

Centumalus at Herdoneae. In the following year (545) the Romans took

steps to regain possession of the second large city, which had passed

over to Hannibal, the city of Tarentum. While Marcus Marcellus

continued the struggle against Hannibal in person with his wonted

obstinacy and energy, and in a two days' battle, beaten on the first

day, achieved on the second a costly and bloody victory; while the

consul Quintus Fulvius induced the already wavering Lucanians and

Hirpinians to change sides and to deliver up their Phoenician

garrisons; while well-conducted razzias from Rhegium compelled

Hannibal to hasten to the aid of the hard-pressed Bruttians;

the veteran Quintus Fabius, who had once more--for the fifth

time--accepted the consulship and along with it the commission to

reconquer Tarentum, established himself firmly in the neighbouring

Messapian territory, and the treachery of a Bruttian division of

the garrison surrendered to him the city. Fearful excesses were

committed by the exasperated victors. They put to death all of

the garrison or of the citizens whom they could find, and pillaged

the houses. 30,000 Tarentines are said to have been sold as slaves,

and 3000 talents (730,000 pounds) are stated to have been sent to the

state treasury. It was the last feat in arms of the general of eighty

years; Hannibal arrived to the relief of the city when all was over,

and withdrew to Metapontum.

Hannibal Driven Back

Death of Marcellus

After Hannibal had thus lost his most important acquisitions and

found himself hemmed in by degrees to the south-western point of the

peninsula, Marcus Marcellus, who had been chosen consul for the next

year (546), hoped that, in connection with his capable colleague

Titus Quintius Crispinus, he should be able to terminate the war by a

decisive attack. The old soldier was not disturbed by the burden of

his sixty years; sleeping and waking he was haunted by the one thought

of defeating Hannibal and of liberating Italy. But fate reserved that

wreath of victory for a younger brow. While engaged in an unimportant

reconnaissance in the district of Venusia, both consuls were suddenly

attacked by a division of African cavalry. Marcellus maintained the

unequal struggle--as he had fought forty years before against Hamilcar

and fourteen years before at Clastidium--till he sank dying from

his horse; Crispinus escaped, but died of his wounds received

in the conflict (546).

Pressure of the War

It was now the eleventh year of the war. The danger which some years

before had threatened the very existence of the state seemed to have

vanished; but all the more the Romans felt the heavy burden--a burden

pressing more severely year after year--of the endless war. The

finances of the state suffered beyond measure. After the battle of

Cannae (538) a special bank-commission (-tres viri mensarii-) had

been appointed, composed of men held in the highest esteem, to form

a permanent and circumspect board of superintendence for the public

finances in these difficult times. It may have done what it could;

but the state of things was such as to baffle all financial sagacity.

At the very beginning of the war the Romans had debased the silver and

copper coin, raised the legal value of the silver piece more than a

third, and issued a gold coin far above the value of the metal. This

very soon proved insufficient; they were obliged to take supplies from

the contractors on credit, and connived at their conduct because they

needed them, till the scandalous malversation at last induced the

aediles to make an example of some of the worst by impeaching them

before the people. Appeals were often made, and not in vain, to the

patriotism of the wealthy, who were in fact the very persons that

suffered comparatively the most. The soldiers of the better classes

and the subaltern officers and equites in a body, either voluntarily

or constrained by the -esprit de corps-, declined to receive pay.

The owners of the slaves armed by the state and manumitted after the

engagement at Beneventum(3) replied to the bank-commission, which

offered them payment, that they would allow it to stand over to the

end of the war (540). When there was no longer money in the exchequer

for the celebration of the national festivals and the repairs of the

public buildings, the companies which had hitherto contracted for

these matters declared themselves ready to continue their services for

a time without remuneration (540). A fleet was even fitted out and

manned, just as in the first Punic war, by means of a voluntary loan

among the rich (544). They spent the moneys belonging to minors; and

at length, in the year of the conquest of Tarentum, they laid hands

on the last long-spared reserve fund (164,000 pounds). The state

nevertheless was unable to meet its most necessary payments; the pay

of the soldiers fell dangerously into arrear, particularly in the more

remote districts. But the embarrassment of the state was not the

worst part of the material distress. Everywhere the fields lay

fallow: even where the war did not make havoc, there was a want of

hands for the hoe and the sickle. The price of the -medimnus-

(a bushel and a half) had risen to 15 -denarii- (10s.), at least three

times the average price in the capital; and many would have died of

absolute want, if supplies had not arrived from Egypt, and if, above

all, the revival of agriculture in Sicily(4) had not prevented the

distress from coming to the worst. The effect which such a state of

things must have had in ruining the small farmers, in eating away

the savings which had been so laboriously acquired, and in

converting flourishing villages into nests of beggars and brigands,

is illustrated by similar wars of which fuller details have

been preserved.

The Allies

Still more ominous than this material distress was the increasing

aversion of the allies to the Roman war, which consumed their

substance and their blood. In regard to the non-Latin communities,

indeed, this was of less consequence. The war itself showed that they

could do nothing, so long as the Latin nation stood by Rome; their

greater or less measure of dislike was not of much moment. Now,

however, Latium also began to waver. Most of the Latin communes in

Etruria, Latium, the territory of the Marsians, and northern Campania

--and so in those very districts of Italy which directly had suffered

least from the war--announced to the Roman senate in 545 that

thenceforth they would send neither contingents nor contributions,

and would leave it to the Romans themselves to defray the costs of a

war waged in their interest. The consternation in Rome was great;

but for the moment there were no means of compelling the refractory.

Fortunately all the Latin communities did not act in this way. The

colonies in the land of the Gauls, in Picenum, and in southern Italy,

headed by the powerful and patriotic Fregellae, declared on the

contrary that they adhered the more closely and faithfully to Rome; in

fact, it was very clearly evident to all of these that in the present

war their existence was, if possible, still more at stake than that of

the capital, and that this war was really waged not for Rome merely,

but for the Latin hegemony in Italy, and in truth for the independence

of the Italian nation. That partial defection itself was certainly

not high treason, but merely the result of shortsightedness and

exhaustion; beyond doubt these same towns would have rejected with

horror an alliance with the Phoenicians. But still there was a

variance between Romans and Latins, which did not fail injuriously

to react on the subject population of these districts. A dangerous

ferment immediately showed itself in Arretium; a conspiracy organized

in the interest of Hannibal among the Etruscans was discovered, and

appeared so perilous that Roman troops were ordered to march thither.

The military and police suppressed this movement without difficulty;

but it was a significant token of what might happen in those

districts, if once the Latin strongholds ceased to inspire terror.

Hasdrubal's Approach

Amidst these difficulties and strained relations, news suddenly

arrived that Hasdrubal had crossed the Pyrenees in the autumn of 546,

and that the Romans must be prepared to carry on the war next year

with both the sons of Hamilcar in Italy. Not in vain had Hannibal

persevered at his post throughout the long anxious years; the aid,

which the factious opposition at home and the shortsighted Philip had

refused to him, was at length in the course of being brought to him

by his brother, who, like himself, largely inherited the spirit of

Hamilcar. Already 8000 Ligurians, enlisted by Phoenician gold, were

ready to unite with Hasdrubal; if he gained the first battle, he might

hope that like his brother he should be able to bring the Gauls and

perhaps the Etruscans into arms against Rome. Italy, moreover, was

no longer what it had been eleven years before; the state and the

individual citizens were exhausted, the Latin league was shaken, their

best general had just fallen in the field of battle, and Hannibal was

not subdued. In reality Scipio might bless the star of his genius, if

it averted the consequences of his unpardonable blunder from himself

and from his country.

New Armaments

Hasdrubal and Hannibal on the March

As in the times of the utmost danger, Rome once more called out

twenty-three legions. Volunteers were summoned to arm, and those

legally exempt from military service were included in the levy.

Nevertheless, they were taken by surprise. Far earlier than either

friends or foes expected, Hasdrubal was on the Italian side of the

Alps (547); the Gauls, now accustomed to such transits, were readily

bribed to open their passes, and furnished what the army required.

If the Romans had any intention of occupying the outlets of the Alpine

passes, they were again too late; already they heard that Hasdrubal

was on the Po, that he was calling the Gauls to arms as successfully

as his brother had formerly done, that Placentia was invested. With

all haste the consul Marcus Livius proceeded to the northern army; and

it was high time that he should appear. Etruria and Umbria were in

sullen ferment; volunteers from them reinforced the Phoenician army.

His colleague Gaius Nero summoned the praetor Gaius Hostilius Tubulus

from Venusia to join him, and hastened with an army of 40,000 men to

intercept the march of Hannibal to the north. The latter collected

all his forces in the Bruttian territory, and, advancing along the

great road leading from Rhegium to Apulia, encountered the consul at

Grumentum. An obstinate engagement took place in which Nero claimed

the victory; but Hannibal was able at all events, although with some

loss, to evade the enemy by one of his usual adroit flank-marches, and

to reach Apulia without hindrance. There he halted, and encamped at

first at Venusia, then at Canusium: Nero, who had followed closely in

his steps, encamped opposite to him at both places. That Hannibal

voluntarily halted and was not prevented from advancing by the Roman

army, appears to admit of no doubt; the reason for his taking up his

position exactly at this point and not farther to the north, must have

depended on arrangements concerted between himself and Hasdrubal, or

on conjectures as to the route of the latter's march, with which we

are not acquainted. While the two armies thus lay inactive, face to

face, the despatch from Hasdrubal which was anxiously expected in

Hannibal's camp was intercepted by the outposts of Nero. It stated

that Hasdrubal intended to take the Flaminian road, in other words,

to keep in the first instance along the coast and then at Fanum to

turn across the Apennines towards Narnia, at which place he hoped to

meet Hannibal. Nero immediately ordered the reserve in the capital

to proceed to Narnia as the point selected for the junction of the two

Phoenician armies, while the division stationed at Capua went to the

capital, and a new reserve was formed there. Convinced that Hannibal

was not acquainted with the purpose of his brother and would continue

to await him in Apulia, Nero resolved on the bold experiment of

hastening northward by forced marches with a small but select corps

of 7000 men and, if possible, in connection with his colleague,

compelling Hasdrubal to fight. He was able to do so, for the Roman

army which he left behind still continued strong enough either to

hold its ground against Hannibal if he should attack it, or to

accompany him and to arrive simultaneously with him at the

decisive scene of action, should he depart.

Battle of Sena

Death of Hasdrubal

Nero found his colleague Marcus Livius at Sena Gallica awaiting the

enemy. Both consuls at once marched against Hasdrubal, whom they

found occupied in crossing the Metaurus. Hasdrubal wished to avoid

a battle and to escape from the Romans by a flank movement, but his

guides left him in the lurch; he lost his way on the ground strange to

him, and was at length attacked on the march by the Roman cavalry

and detained until the Roman infantry arrived and a battle became

inevitable. Hasdrubal stationed the Spaniards on the right wing, with

his ten elephants in front of it, and the Gauls on the left, which he

kept back. Long the fortune of battle wavered on the right wing, and

the consul Livius who commanded there was hard pressed, till Nero,

repeating his strategical operation as a tactical manoeuvre, allowed

the motionless enemy opposite to him to remain as they stood, and

marching round his own army fell upon the flank of the Spaniards.

This decided the day. The severely bought and very bloody victory was

complete; the army, which had no retreat, was destroyed, and the camp

was taken by assault. Hasdrubal, when he: saw the admirably-conducted

battle lost, sought and found like his father an honourable soldier's

death. As an officer and a man, he was worthy to be the brother

of Hannibal.

Hannibal Retires to the Bruttian Territory

On the day after the battle Nero started, and after scarcely fourteen

days' absence once more confronted Hannibal in Apulia, whom no message

had reached, and who had not stirred. The consul brought the message

with him; it was the head of Hannibal's brother, which the Roman

ordered to be thrown into the enemy's outposts, repaying in this

way his great antagonist, who scorned to war with the dead, for

the honourable burial which he had given to Paullus, Gracchus, and

Marcellus. Hannibal saw that his hopes had been in vain, and that

all was over. He abandoned Apulia and Lucania, even Metapontum,

and retired with his troops to the land of the Bruttians, whose ports

formed his only means of withdrawal from Italy. By the energy of the

Roman generals, and still more by a conjuncture of unexampled good

fortune, a peril was averted from Rome, the greatness of which

justified Hannibal's tenacious perseverance in Italy, and which fully

bears comparison with the magnitude of the peril of Cannae. The joy

in Rome was boundless; business was resumed as in time of peace; every

one felt that the danger of the war was surmounted.

Stagnation of the War in Italy

Nevertheless the Romans were in no hurry to terminate the war. The

state and the citizens were exhausted by the excessive moral and

material strain on their energies; men gladly abandoned themselves

to carelessness and repose.

The army and fleet were reduced; the Roman and Latin farmers were

brought back to their desolate homesteads the exchequer was filled by

the sale of a portion of the Campanian domains. The administration

of the state was regulated anew and the disorders which had prevailed

were done away; the repayment of the voluntary war-loan was begun,

and the Latin communities that remained in arrears were compelled

to fulfil their neglected obligations with heavy interest.

The war in Italy made no progress. It forms a brilliant proof of the

strategic talent of Hannibal as well as of the incapacity of the Roman

generals now opposed to him, that after this he was still able for

four years to keep the field in the Bruttian country, and that all the

superiority of his opponents could not compel him either to shut

himself up in fortresses or to embark. It is true that he was obliged

to retire farther and farther, not so much in consequence of the

indecisive engagements which took place with the Romans, as because

his Bruttian allies were always becoming more troublesome, and at last

he could only reckon on the towns which his army garrisoned. Thus he

voluntarily abandoned Thurii; Locri was, on the suggestion of Publius

Scipio, recaptured by an expedition from Rhegium (549). As if at last

his projects were to receive a brilliant justification at the hands of

the very Carthaginian authorities who had thwarted him in them, these

now, in their apprehension as to the anticipated landing of the

Romans, revived of their own accord those plans (548, 549), and sent

reinforcements and subsidies to Hannibal in Italy, and to Mago in

Spain, with orders to rekindle the war in Italy so as to achieve some

further respite for the trembling possessors of the Libyan country

houses and the shops of Carthage. An embassy was likewise sent to

Macedonia, to induce Philip to renew the alliance and to land in Italy

(549). But it was too late. Philip had made peace with Rome some

months before; the impending political annihilation of Carthage was

far from agreeable to him, but he took no step openly at least against

Rome. A small Macedonian corps went to Africa, the expenses of which,

according to the assertion of the Romans, were defrayed by Philip from

his own pocket; this may have been the case, but the Romans had at any

rate no proof of it, as the subsequent course of events showed.

No Macedonian landing in Italy was thought of.

Mago in Italy

Mago, the youngest son of Hamilcar, set himself to his task more

earnestly. With the remains of the Spanish army, which he had

conducted in the first instance to Minorca, he landed in 549 at Genoa,

destroyed the city, and summoned the Ligurians and Gauls to arms.

Gold and the novelty of the enterprise led them now, as always, to

come to him in troops; he had formed connections even throughout

Etruria, where political prosecutions never ceased. But the troops

which he had brought with him were too few for a serious enterprise

against Italy proper; and Hannibal likewise was much too weak, and his

influence in Lower Italy had fallen much too low, to permit him to

advance with any prospect of success. The rulers of Carthage had not

been willing to save their native country, when its salvation was

possible; now, when they were willing, it was possible no longer.

The African Expedition of Scipio

Nobody probably in the Roman senate doubted either that the war on

the part of Carthage against Rome was at an end, or that the war on

the part of Rome against Carthage must now be begun; but unavoidable

as was the expedition to Africa, they were afraid to enter on its

preparation. They required for it, above all, an able and beloved

leader; and they had none. Their best generals had either fallen in

the field of battle, or they were, like Quintus Fabius and Quintus

Fulvius, too old for such an entirely new and probably tedious war.

The victors of Sena, Gaius Nero and Marcus Livius, would perhaps have

been equal to the task, but they were both in the highest degree

unpopular aristocrats; it was doubtful whether they would succeed in

procuring the command--matters had already reached such a pass that

ability, as such, determined the popular choice only in times of grave

anxiety--and it was more than doubtful whether these were the men to

stimulate the exhausted people to fresh exertions. At length Publius

Scipio returned from Spain, and the favourite of the multitude, who

had so brilliantly fulfilled, or at any rate seemed to have fulfilled,

the task with which it had entrusted him, was immediately chosen

consul for the next year. He entered on office (549) with the firm

determination of now realizing that African expedition which he had

projected in Spain. In the senate, however, not only was the party

favourable to a methodical conduct of the war unwilling to entertain

the project of an African expedition so long as Hannibal remained in

Italy, but the majority was by no means favourably disposed towards

the young general himself. His Greek refinement and his modern

culture and tone of thought were but little agreeable to the austere

and somewhat boorish fathers of the city; and serious doubts existed

both as to his conduct of the Spanish war and as to his military

discipline. How much ground there was for the objection that he

showed too great indulgence towards his officers of division, was very

soon demonstrated by the disgraceful proceedings of Gaius Pleminius at

Locri, the blame of which certainly was indirectly chargeable to the

scandalous negligence which marked Scipio's supervision. In the

proceedings in the senate regarding the organization of the African

expedition and the appointment of a general for it, the new consul,

wherever usage or the constitution came into conflict with his private

views, showed no great reluctance to set such obstacles aside, and

very clearly indicated that in case of need he was disposed to rely

for support against the governing board on his fame and his popularity

with the people. These things could not but annoy the senate and

awaken, moreover, serious apprehension as to whether, in the impending

decisive war and the eventual negotiations for peace with Carthage,

such a general would hold himself bound by the instructions which he

received--an apprehension which his arbitrary management of the

Spanish expedition was by no means fitted to allay. Both sides,

however, displayed wisdom enough not to push matters too far. The

senate itself could not fail to see that the African expedition was

necessary, and that it was not wise indefinitely to postpone it; it

could not fail to see that Scipio was an extremely able officer and so

far well adapted to be the leader in such a war, and that he, if any

one, could prevail on the people to protract his command as long as

was necessary and to put forth their last energies. The majority came

to the resolution not to refuse to Scipio the desired commission,

after he had previously observed, at least in form, the respect due to

the supreme governing board and had submitted himself beforehand to

the decree of the senate. Scipio was to proceed this year to Sicily

to superintend the building of the fleet, the preparation of siege

materials, and the formation of the expeditionary army, and then in

the following year to land in Africa. For this purpose the army of

Sicily--still composed of those two legions that were formed from the

remnant of the army of Cannae--was placed at his disposal, because a

weak garrison and the fleet were quite sufficient for the protection

of the island; and he was permitted moreover to raise volunteers in

Italy. It was evident that the senate did not appoint the expedition,

but merely allowed it: Scipio did not obtain half the resources which

had formerly been placed at the command of Regulus, and he got that

very corps which for years had been subjected by the senate to

intentional degradation. The African army was, in the view of the

majority of the senate, a forlorn hope of disrated companies and

volunteers, the loss of whom in any event the state had no great

occasion to regret.

Any one else than Scipio would perhaps have declared that the African

expedition must either be undertaken with other means, or not at all;

but Scipio's confidence accepted the terms, whatever they were, solely

with the view of attaining the eagerly-coveted command. He carefully

avoided, as far as possible, the imposition of direct burdens on the

people, that he might not injure the popularity of the expedition.

Its expenses, particularly those of building the fleet which were

considerable, were partly procured by what was termed a voluntary

contribution of the Etruscan cities--that is, by a war tribute imposed

as a punishment on the Arretines and other communities disposed to

favour the Phoenicians--partly laid upon the cities of Sicily. In

forty days the fleet was ready for sea. The crews were reinforced by

volunteers, of whom seven thousand from all parts of Italy responded

to the call of the beloved officer. So Scipio set sail for Africa in

the spring of 550 with two strong legions of veterans (about 30,000

men), 40 vessels of war, and 400 transports, and landed successfully,

without meeting the slightest resistance, at the Fair Promontory in

the neighbourhood of Utica.

Preparations in Africa

The Carthaginians, who had long expected that the plundering

expeditions, which the Roman squadrons had frequently made during

the last few years to the African coast, would be followed by a more

serious invasion, had not only, in order to ward it off, endeavoured

to bring about a revival of the Italo-Macedonian war, but had also

made armed preparation at home to receive the Romans. Of the two

rival Berber kings, Massinissa of Cirta (Constantine), the ruler of

the Massylians, and Syphax of Siga (at the mouth of the Tafna westward

from Oran), the ruler of the Massaesylians, they had succeeded in

attaching the latter, who was far the more powerful and hitherto had

been friendly to the Romans, by treaty and marriage alliance closely

to Carthage, while they cast off the other, the old rival of Syphax

and ally of the Carthaginians. Massinissa had after desperate

resistance succumbed to the united power of the Carthaginians and

of Syphax, and had been obliged to leave his territories a prey to

the latter; he himself wandered with a few horsemen in the desert.

Besides the contingent to be expected from Syphax, a Carthaginian army

of 20,000 foot, 6000 cavalry, and 140 elephants--Hanno had been sent

out to hunt elephants for the very purpose--was ready to fight for

the protection of the capital, under the command of Hasdrubal son of

Gisgo, a general who had gained experience in Spain; in the port

there lay a strong fleet. A Macedonian corps under Sopater, and a

consignment of Celtiberian mercenaries, were immediately expected.

Scipio Driven Back to the Coast

Surprise of the Carthaginian Camp

On the report of Scipio's landing, Massinissa immediately arrived in

the camp of the general, whom not long before he had confronted as an

enemy in Spain; but the landless prince brought in the first instance

nothing beyond his personal ability to the aid of the Romans, and the

Libyans, although heartily weary of levies and tribute, had acquired

too bitter experience in similar cases to declare at once for the

invaders. So Scipio began the campaign. So long as he was only

opposed by the weaker Carthaginian army, he had the advantage, and was

enabled after some successful cavalry skirmishes to proceed to the

siege of Utica; but when Syphax arrived, according to report with

50,000 infantry and 10,000 cavalry, the siege had to be raised, and a

fortified naval camp had to be constructed for the winter on a

promontory, which easily admitted of entrenchment, between Utica and

Carthage. Here the Roman general passed the winter of 550-1. From

the disagreeable situation in which the spring found him he extricated

himself by a fortunate -coup de main-. The Africans, lulled into

security by proposals of peace suggested by Scipio with more artifice

than honour, allowed themselves to be surprised on one and the same

night in their two camps; the reed huts of the Numidians burst into

flames, and, when the Carthaginians hastened to their help, their own

camp shared the same fate; the fugitives were slain without resistance

by the Roman divisions. This nocturnal surprise was more destructive

than many a battle; nevertheless the Carthaginians did not suffer

their courage to sink, and they rejected even the advice of the timid,

or rather of the judicious, to recall Mago and Hannibal. Just at this

time the expected Celtiberian and Macedonian auxiliaries arrived; it

was resolved once more to try a pitched battle on the "Great Plains,"

five days' march from Utica. Scipio hastened to accept it; with

little difficulty his veterans and volunteers dispersed the hastily-

collected host of Carthaginians and Numidians, and the Celtiberians,

who could not reckon on any mercy from Scipio, were cut down after

obstinate resistance. After this double defeat the Africans could no

longer keep the field. An attack on the Roman naval camp attempted by

the Carthaginian fleet, while not unsuccessful, was far from decisive,

and was greatly outweighed by the capture of Syphax, which Scipio's

singular good fortune threw in his way, and by which Massinissa became

to the Romans what Syphax had been at first to the Carthaginians.

Negotiations for Peace

Machinations of the Carthaginian Patriots

After such defeats the Carthaginian peace party, which had been

reduced to silence for sixteen years, was able once more to raise its

head and openly to rebel against the government of the Barcides and

the patriots. Hasdrubal son of Gisgo was in his absence condemned

by the government to death, and an attempt was made to obtain an

armistice and peace from Scipio. He demanded the cession of their

Spanish possessions and of the islands of the Mediterranean, the

transference of the kingdom of Syphax to Massinissa, the surrender of

all their vessels of war except 20, and a war contribution of 4000

talents (nearly 1,000,000 pounds)--terms which seemed so singularly

favourable to Carthage, that the question obtrudes itself whether they

were offered by Scipio more in his own interest or in that of Rome.

The Carthaginian plenipotentiaries accepted them under reservation of

their being ratified by the respective authorities, and accordingly a

Carthaginian embassy was despatched to Rome. But the patriot party in

Carthage were not disposed to give up the struggle so cheaply; faith

in the nobleness of their cause, confidence in their great leader,

even the example that had been set to them by Rome herself, stimulated

them to persevere, apart from the fact that peace of necessity

involved the return of the opposite party to the helm of affairs

and their own consequent destruction. The patriotic party had the

ascendency among the citizens; it was resolved to allow the opposition

to negotiate for peace, and meanwhile to prepare for a last and

decisive effort. Orders were sent to Mago and Hannibal to return with

all speed to Africa. Mago, who for three years (549-551) had been

labouring to bring about a coalition in Northern Italy against Rome,

had just at this time in the territory of the Insubres (about Milan)

been defeated by the far superior double army of the Romans. The

Roman cavalry had been brought to give way, and the infantry had been

thrown into confusion; victory seemed on the point of declaring for

the Carthaginians, when a bold attack by a Roman troop on the enemy's

elephants, and above all a serious wound received by their beloved and

able commander, turned the fortune of the battle. The Phoenician army

was obliged to retreat to the Ligurian coast, where it received and

obeyed the order to embark; but Mago died of his wound on the voyage.

Hannibal Recalled to Africa

Hannibal would probably have anticipated the order, had not the

last negotiations with Philip presented to him a renewed prospect of

rendering better service to his country in Italy than in Libya; when

he received it at Croton, where he latterly had his head-quarters, he

lost no time in complying with it. He caused his horses to be put

to death as well as the Italian soldiers who refused to follow him

over the sea, and embarked in the transports that had been long in

readiness in the roadstead of Croton. The Roman citizens breathed

freely, when the mighty Libyan lion, whose departure no one even now

ventured to compel, thus voluntarily turned his back on Italian

ground. On this occasion the decoration of a grass wreath was

bestowed by the senate and burgesses on the only survivor of the Roman

generals who had traversed that troubled time with honour, the veteran

of nearly ninety years, Quintus Fabius. To receive this wreath--which

by the custom of the Romans the army that a general had saved

presented to its deliverer--at the hands of the whole community was

the highest distinction which had ever been bestowed upon a Roman

citizen, and the last honorary decoration accorded to the old general,

who died in the course of that same year (551). Hannibal, doubtless

not under the protection of the armistice, but solely through his

rapidity of movement and good fortune, arrived at Leptis without

hindrance, and the last of the "lion's brood" of Hamilcar trode once

more, after an absence of thirty-six years, his native soil. He had

left it, when still almost a boy, to enter on that noble and yet so

thoroughly fruitless career of heroism, in which he had set out

towards the west to return homewards from the east, having described

a wide circle of victory around the Carthaginian sea. Now, when what

he had wished to prevent, and what he would have prevented had he been

allowed, was done, he was summoned to help and if possible, to save;

and he obeyed without complaint or reproach.

Recommencement of Hostilities

On his arrival the patriot party came forward openly; the disgraceful

sentence against Hasdrubal was cancelled; new connections were formed

with the Numidian sheiks through the dexterity of Hannibal; and not

only did the assembly of the people refuse to ratify the peace

practically concluded, but the armistice was broken by the plundering

of a Roman transport fleet driven ashore on the African coast, and by

the seizure even of a Roman vessel of war carrying Roman envoys. In

just indignation Scipio started from his camp at Tunes (552) and

traversed the rich valley of the Bagradas (Mejerdah), no longer

allowing the townships to capitulate, but causing the inhabitants of

the villages and towns to be seized en masse and sold. He had already

penetrated far into the interior, and was at Naraggara (to the west of

Sicca, now El Kef, on the frontier between Tunis and Algiers), when

Hannibal, who had marched out from Hadrumetum, fell in with him. The

Carthaginian general attempted to obtain better conditions from the

Roman in a personal conference; but Scipio, who had already gone to

the extreme verge of concession, could not possibly after the breach

of the armistice agree to yield further, and it is not credible that

Hannibal had any other object in this step than to show to the

multitude that the patriots were not absolutely opposed to peace.

The conference led to no result.

Battle of Zama

The two armies accordingly came to a decisive battle at Zama

(presumably not far from Sicca).(5) Hannibal arranged his infantry

in three lines; in the first rank the Carthaginian hired troops, in

the second the African militia and the Phoenician civic force along

with the Macedonian corps, in the third the veterans who had followed

him from Italy. In front of the line were placed the 80 elephants;

the cavalry were stationed on the wings. Scipio likewise disposed his

legions in three ranks, as was the wont of the Romans, and so arranged

them that the elephants could pass through and alongside of the line

without breaking it. Not only was this disposition completely

successful, but the elephants making their way to the side disordered

also the Carthaginian cavalry on the wings, so that Scipio's cavalry

--which moreover was by the arrival of Massinissa's troops rendered

far superior to the enemy--had little trouble in dispersing them,

and were soon engaged in full pursuit. The struggle of the infantry

was more severe. The conflict lasted long between the first ranks on

either side; at length in the extremely bloody hand-to-hand encounter

both parties fell into confusion, and were obliged to seek a support

in the second ranks. The Romans found that support; but the

Carthaginian militia showed itself so unsteady and wavering, that

the mercenaries believed themselves betrayed and a hand-to-hand combat

arose between them and the Carthaginian civic force. But Hannibal now

hastily withdrew what remained of the first two lines to the flanks,

and pushed forward his choice Italian troops along the whole line.

Scipio, on the other hand, gathered together in the centre as many of

the first line as still were able to fight, and made the second and

third ranks close up on the right and left of the first. Once more

on the same spot began a still more fearful conflict; Hannibal's old

soldiers never wavered in spite of the superior numbers of the enemy,

till the cavalry of the Romans and of Massinissa, returning from the

pursuit of the beaten cavalry of the enemy, surrounded them on all

sides. This not only terminated the struggle, but annihilated the

Phoenician army; the same soldiers, who fourteen years before had

given way at Cannae, had retaliated on their conquerors at Zama.

With a handful of men Hannibal arrived, a fugitive, at Hadrumetum.

Peace

After this day folly alone could counsel a continuance of the war on

the part of Carthage. On the other hand it was in the power of the

Roman general immediately to begin the siege of the capital, which was

neither protected nor provisioned, and, unless unforeseen accidents

should intervene, now to subject Carthage to the fate which Hannibal

had wished to bring upon Rome. Scipio did not do so; he granted peace

(553), but no longer upon the former terms. Besides the concessions

which had already in the last negotiations been demanded in favour of

Rome and of Massinissa, an annual contribution of 200 talents (48,000

pounds) was imposed for fifty years on the Carthaginians; and they had

to bind themselves that they would not wage war against Rome or its

allies or indeed beyond the bounds of Africa at all, and that in

Africa they would not wage war beyond their own territory without

having sought the permission of Rome--the practical effect of which

was that Carthage became tributary and lost her political

independence. It even appears that the Carthaginians were bound

in certain cases to furnish ships of war to the Roman fleet.

Scipio has been accused of granting too favourable conditions to the

enemy, lest he might be obliged to hand over the glory of terminating

the most severe war which Rome had waged, along with his command, to

a successor. The charge might have had some foundation, had the first

proposals been carried out; it seems to have no warrant in reference

to the second. His position in Rome was not such as to make the

favourite of the people, after the victory of Zama, seriously

apprehensive of recall--already before the victory an attempt to

supersede him had been referred by the senate to the burgesses, and by

them decidedly rejected. Nor do the conditions themselves warrant

such a charge. The Carthaginian city never, after its hands were thus

tied and a powerful neighbour was placed by its side, made even an

attempt to withdraw from Roman supremacy, still less to enter into

rivalry with Rome; besides, every one who cared to know knew that the

war just terminated had been undertaken much more by Hannibal than by

Carthage, and that it was absolutely impossible to revive the gigantic

plan of the patriot party. It might seem little in the eyes of the

vengeful Italians, that only the five hundred surrendered ships of war

perished in the flames, and not the hated city itself; spite and

pedantry might contend for the view that an opponent is only really

vanquished when he is annihilated, and might censure the man who had

disdained to punish more thoroughly the crime of having made Romans

tremble. Scipio thought otherwise; and we have no reason and

therefore no right to assume that the Roman was in this instance

influenced by vulgar motives rather than by the noble and magnanimous

impulses which formed part of his character. It was not the

consideration of his own possible recall or of the mutability of

fortune, nor was it any apprehension of the outbreak of a Macedonian

war at certainly no distant date, that prevented the self-reliant and

confident hero, with whom everything had hitherto succeeded beyond

belief, from accomplishing the destruction of the unhappy city, which

fifty years afterwards his adopted grandson was commissioned to

execute, and which might indeed have been equally well accomplished

now. It is much more probable that the two great generals, on whom

the decision of the political question now devolved, offered and

accepted peace on such terms in order to set just and reasonable

limits on the one hand to the furious vengeance of the victors, on

the other to the obstinacy and imprudence of the vanquished. The

noble-mindedness and statesmanlike gifts of the great antagonists are

no less apparent in the magnanimous submission of Hannibal to what was

inevitable, than in the wise abstinence of Scipio from an extravagant

and insulting use of victory. Is it to be supposed that one so

generous, unprejudiced, and intelligent should not have asked himself

of what benefit it could be to his country, now that the political

power of the Carthaginian city was annihilated, utterly to destroy

that ancient seat of commerce and of agriculture, and wickedly to

overthrow one of the main pillars of the then existing civilization?

The time had not yet come when the first men of Rome lent themselves

to destroy the civilization of their neighbours, and frivolously

fancied that they could wash away from themselves the eternal

infamy of the nation by shedding an idle tear.

Results of the War

Thus ended the second Punic or, as the Romans more correctly called

it, the Hannibalic war, after it had devastated the lands and islands

from the Hellespont to the Pillars of Hercules for seventeen years.

Before this war the policy of the Romans had no higher aim than to

acquire command of the mainland of the Italian peninsula within its

natural boundaries, and of the Italian islands and seas; it is clearly

proved by their treatment of Africa on the conclusion of peace that

they also terminated the war with the impression, not that they

had laid the foundation of sovereignty over the states of the

Mediterranean or of the so-called universal empire, but that they had

rendered a dangerous rival innocuous and had given to Italy agreeable

neighbours. It is true doubtless that other results of the war, the

conquest of Spain in particular, little accorded with such an idea;

but their very successes led them beyond their proper design, and it

may in fact be affirmed that the Romans came into possession of Spain

accidentally. The Romans achieved the sovereignty of Italy, because

they strove for it; the hegemony--and the sovereignty which grew out

of it--over the territories of the Mediterranean was to a certain

extent thrown into the hands of the Romans by the force of

circumstances without intention on their part to acquire it.

Out of Italy

The immediate results of the war out of Italy were, the conversion

of Spain into two Roman provinces--which, however, were in perpetual

insurrection; the union of the hitherto dependent kingdom of Syracuse

with the Roman province of Sicily; the establishment of a Roman

instead of a Carthaginian protectorate over the most important

Numidian chiefs; and lastly the conversion of Carthage from a powerful

commercial state into a defenceless mercantile town. In other words,

it established the uncontested hegemony of Rome over the western

region of the Mediterranean. Moreover, in its further development,

it led to that necessary contact and interaction between the state

systems of the east and the west, which the first Punic war had

only foreshadowed; and thereby gave rise to the proximate decisive

interference of Rome in the conflicts of the Alexandrine monarchies.

In Italy

As to its results in Italy, first of all the Celts were now certainly,

if they had not been already beforehand, destined to destruction; and

the execution of the doom was only a question of time. Within the

Roman confederacy the effect of the war was to bring into more

distinct prominence the ruling Latin nation, whose internal union

had been tried and attested by the peril which, notwithstanding

isolated instances of wavering, it had surmounted on the whole in

faithful fellowship; and to depress still further the non-Latin or

non-Latinized Italians, particularly the Etruscans and the Sabellians

of Lower Italy. The heaviest punishment or rather vengeance was

inflicted partly on the most powerful, partly on those who were at

once the earliest and latest, allies of Hannibal--the community of

Capua, and the land of the Bruttians. The Capuan constitution was

abolished, and Capua was reduced from the second city into the first

village of Italy; it was even proposed to raze the city and level

it with the ground. The whole soil, with the exception of a few

possessions of foreigners or of Campanians well disposed towards Rome,

was declared by the senate to be public domain, and was thereafter

parcelled out to small occupiers on temporary lease. The Picentes on

the Silarus were similarly treated; their capital was razed, and the

inhabitants were dispersed among the surrounding villages. The doom

of the Bruttians was still more severe; they were converted en masse

into a sort of bondsmen to the Romans, and were for ever excluded from

the right of bearing arms. The other allies of Hannibal also dearly

expiated their offence. The Greek cities suffered severely, with the

exception of the few which had steadfastly adhered to Rome, such as

the Campanian Greeks and the Rhegines. Punishment not much lighter

awaited the Arpanians and a number of other Apulian, Lucanian, and

Samnite communities, most of which lost portions of their territory.

On a part of the lands thus acquired new colonies were settled. Thus

in the year 560 a succession of burgess-colonies was sent to the best

ports of Lower Italy, among which Sipontum (near Manfredonia) and

Croton may be named, as also Salernum placed in the former territory

of the southern Picentes and destined to hold them in check, and above

all Puteoli, which soon became the seat of the genteel -villeggiatura-

and of the traffic in Asiatic and Egyptian luxuries. Thurii became

a Latin fortress under the new name of Copia (560), and the rich

Bruttian town of Vibo under the name of Valentia (562). The veterans

of the victorious army of Africa were settled singly on various

patches of land in Samnium and Apulia; the remainder was retained as

public land, and the pasture stations of the grandees of Rome replaced

the gardens and arable fields of the farmers. As a matter of course,

moreover, in all the communities of the peninsula the persons of note

who were not well affected to Rome were got rid of, so far as this

could be accomplished by political processes and confiscations of

property. Everywhere in Italy the non-Latin allies felt that their

name was meaningless, and that they were thenceforth subjects of Rome;

the vanquishing of Hannibal was felt as a second subjugation of Italy,

and all the exasperation and all the arrogance of the victor vented

themselves especially on the Italian allies who were not Latin. Even

the colourless Roman comedy of this period, well subjected as it was

to police control, bears traces of this. When the subjugated towns

of Capua and Atella were abandoned without restraint to the unbridled

wit of the Roman farce, so that the latter town became its very

stronghold, and when other writers of comedy jested over the fact

that the Campanian serfs had already learned to survive amidst the

deadly atmosphere in which even the hardiest race of slaves, the

Syrians, pined away; such unfeeling mockeries re-echoed the scorn of

the victors, but not less the cry of distress from the down-trodden

nations. The position in which matters stood is shown by the anxious

carefulness, which during the ensuing Macedonian war the senate

evinced in the watching of Italy, and by the reinforcements which were

despatched from Rome to the most important colonies, to Venusia in

554, Narnia in 555, Cosa in 557, and Cales shortly before 570.

What blanks were produced by war and famine in the ranks of the

Italian population, is shown by the example of the burgesses of

Rome, whose numbers during the war had fallen almost a fourth.

The statement, accordingly, which puts the whole number of Italians

who fell in the war under Hannibal at 300,000, seems not at all

exaggerated. Of course this loss fell chiefly on the flower of the

burgesses, who in fact furnished the -elite- as well as the mass of

the combatants. How fearfully the senate in particular was thinned,

is shown by the filling up of its complement after the battle of

Cannae, when it had been reduced to 123 persons, and was with

difficulty restored to its normal state by an extraordinary nomination

of 177 senators. That, moreover, the seventeen years' war, which had

been carried on simultaneously in all districts of Italy and towards

all the four points of the compass abroad, must have shaken to the

very heart the national economy, is, as a general position, clear; but

our tradition does not suffice to illustrate it in detail. The state

no doubt gained by the confiscations, and the Campanian territory in

particular thenceforth remained an inexhaustible source of revenue to

the state; but by this extension of the domain system the national

prosperity of course lost just about as much as at other times it had

gained by the breaking up of the state lands. Numbers of flourishing

townships--four hundred, it was reckoned--were destroyed and ruined;

the capital laboriously accumulated was consumed; the population were

demoralized by camp life; the good old traditional habits of the

burgesses and farmers were undermined from the capital down to the

smallest village. Slaves and desperadoes associated themselves in

robber-bands, of the dangers of which an idea may be formed from the

fact that in a single year (569) 7000 men had to be condemned for

highway robbery in Apulia alone; the extension of the pastures,

with their half-savage slave-herdsmen, favoured this mischievous

barbarizing of the land. Italian agriculture saw its very existence

endangered by the proof, first afforded in this war, that the Roman

people could be supported by grain from Sicily and from Egypt instead

of that which they reaped themselves.

Nevertheless the Roman, whom the gods had allowed to survive the close

of that gigantic struggle, might look with pride to the past and with

confidence to the future. Many errors had been committed, but much

suffering had also been endured; the people, whose whole youth capable

of arms had for ten years hardly laid aside shield or sword, might

excuse many faults. The living of different nations side by side in

peace and amity upon the whole--although maintaining an attitude of

mutual antagonism--which appears to be the aim of modern phases of

national life, was a thing foreign to antiquity. In ancient times it

was necessary to be either anvil or hammer; and in the final struggle

between the victors victory remained with the Romans. Whether they

would have the judgment to use it rightly--to attach the Latin nation

by still closer bonds to Rome, gradually to Latinize Italy, to rule

their dependents in the provinces as subjects and not to abuse them as

slaves, to reform the constitution, to reinvigorate and to enlarge the

tottering middle class--many a one might ask. If they should know how

to use it, Italy might hope to see happy times, in which prosperity

based on personal exertion under favourable circumstances, and the

most decisive political supremacy over the then civilized world, would

impart a just self-reliance to every member of the great whole,

furnish a worthy aim for every ambition, and open a career for every

talent. It would, no doubt, be otherwise, should they fail to use

aright their victory. But for the moment doubtful voices and gloomy

apprehensions were silent, when from all quarters the warriors and

victors returned to their homes; thanksgivings and amusements, and

rewards to the soldiers and burgesses were the order of the day;

the released prisoners of war were sent home from Gaul, Africa,

and Greece; and at length the youthful conqueror moved in splendid

procession through the decorated streets of the capital, to deposit

his laurels in the house of the god by whose direct inspiration, as

the pious whispered one to another, he had been guided in counsel

and in action.

Notes for Chapter VI

1. III. III. The Celts Conquered by Rome

2. III. VI. The Sending of Reinforcements Temporarily Frustrated

3. III. VI. Conflicts in the South of Italy

4. III. VI. Sicily Tranquillized

5. Of the two places bearing this name, the more westerly, situated

about 60 miles west of Hadrumetum, was probably the scene of the

battle (comp. Hermes, xx. 144, 318). The time was the spring or

summer of the year 552; the fixing of the day as the 19th October,

on account of the alleged solar eclipse, is of no account.

CHAPTER VII

The West from the Peace of Hannibal to the Close of the Third Period

Subjugation of the Valley of the Po

The war waged by Hannibal had interrupted Rome in the extension of her

dominion to the Alps or to the boundary of Italy, as was even now the

Roman phrase, and in the organization and colonizing of the Celtic

territories. It was self-evident that the task would now be resumed

at the point where it had been broken off, and the Celts were well

aware of this. In the very year of the conclusion of peace with

Carthage (553) hostilities had recommenced in the territory of the

Boii, who were the most immediately exposed to danger; and a first

success obtained by them over the hastily-assembled Roman levy,

coupled with the persuasions of a Carthaginian officer, Hamilcar, who

had been left behind from the expedition of Mago in northern Italy,

produced in the following year (554) a general insurrection spreading

beyond the two tribes immediately threatened, the Boii and Insubres.

The Ligurians were driven to arms by the nearer approach of the

danger, and even the youth of the Cenomani on this occasion listened

less to the voice of their cautious chiefs than to the urgent appeal

of their kinsmen who were in peril. Of "the two barriers against the

raids of the Gauls," Placentia and Cremona, the former was sacked--not

more than 2000 of the inhabitants of Placentia saved their lives--and

the second was invested. In haste the legions advanced to save what

they could. A great battle took place before Cremona. The dexterous

management and the professional skill of the Phoenician leader failed

to make up for the deficiencies of his troops; the Gauls were unable

to withstand the onset of the legions, and among the numerous dead who

covered the field of battle was the Carthaginian officer. The Celts,

nevertheless, continued the struggle; the same Roman army which had

conquered at Cremona was next year (555), chiefly through the fault of

its careless leader, almost destroyed by the Insubres; and it was not

till 556 that Placentia could be partially re-established. But the

league of the cantons associated for the desperate struggle suffered

from intestine discord; the Boii and Insubres quarrelled, and the

Cenomani not only withdrew from the national league, but purchased

their pardon from the Romans by a disgraceful betrayal of their

countrymen; during a battle in which the Insubres engaged the Romans

on the Mincius, the Cenomani attacked in rear, and helped to destroy,

their allies and comrades in arms (557). Thus humbled and left in the

lurch, the Insubres, after the fall of Comum, likewise consented to

conclude a separate peace (558). The conditions, which the Romans

prescribed to the Cenomani and Insubres, were certainly harder than

they had been in the habit of granting to the members of the Italian

confederacy; in particular, they were careful to confirm by law the

barrier of separation between Italians and Celts, and to enact that

never should a member of these two Celtic tribes be capable of

acquiring the citizenship of Rome. But these Transpadane Celtic

districts were allowed to retain their existence and their national

constitution--so that they formed not town-domains, but tribal

cantons--and no tribute, as it would seem, was imposed on them.

They were intended to serve as a bulwark for the Roman settlements

south of the Po, and to ward off from Italy the incursions of the

migratory northern tribes and the aggressions of the predatory

inhabitants of the Alps, who were wont to make regular razzias in

these districts. The process of Latinizing, moreover, made rapid

progress in these regions; the Celtic nationality was evidently far

from able to oppose such resistance as the more civilized nations of

Sabellians and Etruscans. The celebrated Latin comic poet Statius

Caecilius, who died in 586, was a manumitted Insubrian; and Polybius,

who visited these districts towards the close of the sixth century,

affirms, not perhaps without some exaggeration, that in that quarter

only a few villages among the Alps remained Celtic. The Veneti, on

the other hand, appear to have retained their nationality longer.

Measures Adopted to Check the Immigrations of the Transalpine Gauls

The chief efforts of the Romans in these regions were naturally

directed to check the immigration of the Transalpine Celts, and to

make the natural wall, which separates the peninsula from the interior

of the continent, also its political boundary. That the terror of

the Roman name had already penetrated to the adjacent Celtic cantons

beyond the Alps, is shown not only by the totally passive attitude

which they maintained during the annihilation or subjugation of their

Cisalpine countrymen, but still more by the official disapproval and

disavowal which the Transalpine cantons--we shall have to think

primarily of the Helvetii (between the lake of Geneva and the Main)

and the Carni or Taurisci (in Carinthia and Styria)--expressed to

the envoys from Rome, who complained of the attempts made by isolated

Celtic bands to settle peacefully on the Roman side of the Alps. Not

less significant was the humble spirit in which these same bands of

emigrants first came to the Roman senate entreating an assignment

of land, and then without remonstrance obeyed the rigorous order to

return over the Alps (568-575), and allowed the town, which they

had already founded not far from the later Aquileia, to be again

destroyed. With wise severity the senate permitted no sort of

exception to the principle that the gates of the Alps should be

henceforth closed for the Celtic nation, and visited with heavy

penalties those Roman subjects in Italy, who had instigated any such

schemes of immigration. An attempt of this kind which was made on a

route hitherto little known to the Romans, in the innermost recess of

the Adriatic, and still more, as if would seem, the project of Philip

of Macedonia for invading Italy from the east as Hannibal had done

from the west, gave occasion to the founding of a fortress in the

extreme north-eastern corner of Italy--Aquileia, the most northerly of

the Italian colonies (571-573)--which was intended not only to close

that route for ever against foreigners, but also to secure the command

of the gulf which was specially convenient for navigation, and to

check the piracy which was still not wholly extirpated in those

waters. The establishment of Aquileia led to a war with the Istrians

(576, 577), which was speedily terminated by the storming of some

strongholds and the fall of the king, Aepulo, and which was remarkable

for nothing except for the panic, which the news of the surprise of

the Roman camp by a handful of barbarians called forth in the fleet

and throughout Italy.

Colonizing of the Region on the South of the Po

A different course was adopted with the region on the south of the Po,

which the Roman senate had determined to incorporate with Italy. The

Boii, who were immediately affected by this step, defended themselves

with the resolution of despair. They even crossed the Po and made an

attempt to rouse the Insubres once more to arms (560); they blockaded

a consul in his camp, and he was on the point of succumbing; Placentia

maintained itself with difficulty against the constant assaults of

the exasperated natives. At length the last battle was fought at

Mutina; it was long and bloody, but the Romans conquered (561);

and thenceforth the struggle was no longer a war, but a slave-hunt.

The Roman camp soon was the only asylum in the Boian territory;

thither the better part of the still surviving population began to

take refuge; and the victors were able, without much exaggeration, to

report to Rome that nothing remained of the nation of the Boii but old

men and children. The nation was thus obliged to resign itself to the

fate appointed for it. The Romans demanded the cession of half the

territory (563); the demand could not be refused, and even within the

diminished district which was left to the Boii, they soon disappeared,

and amalgamated with their conquerors.(1)

After the Romans had thus cleared the ground for themselves,

the fortresses of Placentia and Cremona, whose colonists had been

in great part swept away or dispersed by the troubles of the last few

years, were reorganized, and new settlers were sent thither. The new

foundations were, in or near the former territory of the Senones,

Potentia (near Recanati not far from Ancona: in 570) and Pisaurum

(Pesaro: in 570), and, in the newly acquired district of the Boii, the

fortresses of Bononia (565), Mutina (571), and Parma (571); the colony

of Mutina had been already instituted before the war under Hannibal,

but that war had interrupted the completion of the settlement.

The construction of fortresses was associated, as was always the case,

with the formation of military roads. The Flaminian way was prolonged

from its northern termination at Ariminum, under the name of the

Aemilian way, to Placentia (567). Moreover, the road from Rome to

Arretium or the Cassian way, which perhaps had already been long a

municipal road, was taken in charge and constructed anew by the Roman

community probably in 583; while in 567 the track from Arretium over

the Apennines to Bononia as far as the new Aemilian road had been put

in order, and furnished a shorter communication between Rome and the

fortresses on the Po. By these comprehensive measures the Apennines

were practically superseded as the boundary between the Celtic and

Italian territories, and were replaced by the Po. South of the Po

there henceforth prevailed mainly the urban constitution of the

Italians, beyond it mainly the cantonal constitution of the Celts;

and, if the district between the Apennines and the Po was still

reckoned Celtic land, it was but an empty name.

Liguria

In the north-western mountain-land of Italy, whose valleys and hills

were occupied chiefly by the much-subdivided Ligurian stock, the

Romans pursued a similar course. Those dwelling immediately to the

north of the Arno were extirpated. This fate befell chiefly the

Apuani, who dwelt on the Apennines between the Arno and the Magra, and

incessantly plundered on the one side the territory of Pisae, on the

other that of Bononia and Mutina. Those who did not fall victims in

that quarter to the sword of the Romans were transported into Lower

Italy to the region of Beneventum (574); and by energetic measures the

Ligurian nation, from which the Romans were obliged in 578 to recover

the colony of Mutina which it had conquered, was completely crushed in

the mountains which separate the valley of the Po from that of the

Arno. The fortress of Luna (not far from Spezzia), established in 577

in the former territory of the Apuani, protected the frontier against

the Ligurians just as Aquileia did against the Transalpines, and gave

the Romans at the same time an excellent port which henceforth became

the usual station for the passage to Massilia and to Spain. The

construction of the coast or Aurelian road from Rome to Luna, and

of the cross road carried from Luca by way of Florence to Arretium

between the Aurelian and Cassian ways, probably belongs to the

same period.

With the more western Ligurian tribes, who held the Genoese Apennines

and the Maritime Alps, there were incessant conflicts. They were

troublesome neighbours, accustomed to pillage by land and by sea: the

Pisans and Massiliots suffered no little injury from their incursions

and their piracies. But no permanent results were gained amidst these

constant hostilities, or perhaps even aimed at; except apparently

that, with a view to have a communication by land with Transalpine

Gaul and Spain in addition to the regular route by sea, the Romans

endeavoured to clear the great coast road from Luna by way of Massilia

to Emporiae, at least as far as the Alps--beyond the Alps it devolved

on the Massiliots to keep the coast navigation open for Roman vessels

and the road along the shore open for travellers by land. The

interior with its impassable valleys and its rocky fastnesses,

and with its poor but dexterous and crafty inhabitants, served

the Romans mainly as a school of war for the training and hardening

of soldiers and officers.

Corsica

Sardinia

Wars as they are called, of a similar character with those against the

Ligurians, were waged with the Corsicans and to a still greater extent

with the inhabitants of the interior of Sardinia, who retaliated for

the predatory expeditions directed against them by sudden attacks on

the districts along the coast. The expedition of Tiberius Gracchus

against the Sardinians in 577 was specially held in remembrance,

not so much because it gave "peace" to the province, as because

he asserted that he had slain or captured as many as 80,000 of

the islanders, and dragged slaves thence in such multitudes to

Rome that "cheap as a Sardinian" became a proverb.

Carthage

In Africa the policy of Rome was substantially summed up in the one

idea, as short-sighted as it was narrow-minded, that she ought to

prevent the revival of the power of Carthage, and ought accordingly

to keep the unhappy city constantly oppressed and apprehensive of

a declaration of war suspended over it by Rome like the sword of

Damocles. The stipulation in the treaty of peace, that the

Carthaginians should retain their territory undiminished, but

that their neighbour Massinissa should have all those possessions

guaranteed to him which he or his predecessor had possessed within

the Carthaginian bounds, looks almost as if it had been inserted not

to obviate, but to provoke disputes. The same remark applies to the

obligation imposed by the Roman treaty of peace on the Carthaginians

not to make war upon the allies of Rome; so that, according to the

letter of the treaty, they were not even entitled to expel their

Numidian neighbours from their own undisputed territory. With such

stipulations and amidst the uncertainty of African frontier questions

in general, the situation of Carthage in presence of a neighbour

equally powerful and unscrupulous and of a liege lord who was at once

umpire and party in the cause, could not but be a painful one; but

the reality was worse than the worst expectations. As early as 561

Carthage found herself suddenly assailed under frivolous pretexts,

and saw the richest portion of her territory, the province of Emporiae

on the Lesser Syrtis, partly plundered by the Numidians, partly

even seized and retained by them. Encroachments of this kind were

multiplied; the level country passed into the hands of the Numidians,

and the Carthaginians with difficulty maintained themselves in the

larger places. Within the last two years alone, the Carthaginians

declared in 582, seventy villages had been again wrested from them in

opposition to the treaty. Embassy after embassy was despatched to

Rome; the Carthaginians adjured the Roman senate either to allow them

to defend themselves by arms, or to appoint a court of arbitration

with power to enforce their award, or to regulate the frontier anew

that they might at least learn once for all how much they were to

lose; otherwise it were better to make them Roman subjects at once

than thus gradually to deliver them over to the Libyans. But the

Roman government, which already in 554 had held forth a direct

prospect of extension of territory to their client, of course at the

expense of Carthage, seemed to have little objection that he should

himself take the booty destined for him; they moderated perhaps at

times the too great impetuosity of the Libyans, who now retaliated

fully on their old tormentors for their former sufferings; but it

was in reality for the very sake of inflicting this torture that the

Romans had assigned Massinissa as a neighbour to Carthage. All the

requests and complaints had no result, except either that Roman

commissions made their appearance in Africa and after a thorough

investigation came to no decision, or that in the negotiations at

Rome the envoys of Massinissa pretended a want of instructions and

the matter was adjourned. Phoenician patience alone was able to

submit meekly to such a position, and even to exhibit towards

the despotic victors every attention and courtesy, solicited or

unsolicited with unwearied perseverance. The Carthaginians

especially courted Roman favour by sending supplies of grain.

Hannibal

Reform of the Carthaginian Constitution

Hannibal's Flight