FORMATION OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE.
The second of the three great peninsulas of southern Europe, that which
lies between the other two, is that of Italy. ♦Different meanings of
the name Italy.♦ The name of Italy has been used in several meanings
at different times, but it has always meant either the whole or a part
of the land which we now call Italy. The name gradually spread itself
from the extreme south to the north.[4] At the time when our survey
begins, the name did not go beyond the long narrow peninsula itself;
and indeed it hardly took in the whole of that. ♦Its meaning under
the Roman commonwealth.♦ During the time of the Roman commonwealth
Italy did not reach beyond the little rivers _Macra_ on one side, near
_Luna_, and _Rubico_ on the other side, near _Ariminum_. The land to
the north, as far as the Alps, was not counted for Italy till after
the time of Cæsar. But the Alps are the natural boundary which fence
off the peninsular land from the great mass of central Europe; so
that, looking at the matter as a piece of geography, we may count the
whole land within the Alps as Italy. It will be at once seen that the
Italian peninsula, though so long and narrow, is by no means cut up
into promontories and smaller peninsulas as the Greek peninsula is. Nor
is it surrounded by so many islands. It is only quite in the south,
where the long narrow peninsula splits off into two smaller ones, that
the coast has at all the character of the Greek coast, and there only
in a much slighter degree. ♦The Italian islands.♦ Close by this end of
Italy lies the great island of _Sicily_, whose history has always been
closely connected with that of Italy. Further off lie the two other
great islands of _Corsica_ and _Sardinia_, which in old times were not
reckoned to belong to Italy at all. Besides these there are several
smaller islands, _Elba_ and others, along the Italian coast; but they
lie a good way from each other, and do not form any marked feature in
the geography. There is nothing at all like even the group of islands
off western Greece, much less like the endless multitude, great and
small, in the Ægæan. Through the whole length of the peninsula, like
a backbone, runs the long chain of the _Apennines_. These branch off
from the Alps in north-western Italy near the sea, and run through the
whole length of the country to the very toe of the boot, as the Italian
peninsula has been called from its shape. From all this it follows
that, though Italy was the land which was destined in the end to have
the rule over all the rest, yet the people of Italy were not likely to
begin to make themselves a name so early as the Greeks did. Least of
all were they likely to take in the same way to a sea-faring life, and
to plant colonies in far off lands.
§ 1. _The Inhabitants of Italy and Sicily._
♦Non-Aryans in Italy.♦
We seem to have somewhat clearer signs in Italy than we have in Greece
of the men who dwelled in the land before the Aryans who appear as
its historical inhabitants came into it. ♦Ligurians.♦ On the coast of
_Liguria_, the land on each side of the city of Genoa, a land which was
not reckoned Italian in early times, we find people who seem not to
have been Aryan. And these Ligurians seem to have been part of a race
which was spread through Italy and Sicily before the Aryan settlements,
and to have been akin to the non-Aryan inhabitants of Spain and
southern Gaul, of whom the Basques on each side of the Pyrenees remain
as a remnant. ♦Etruscans.♦ And in historical times a large part of
Italy was held, and in earlier times a still larger part seems to
have been held, by the _Etruscans_. These are a people about whose
origin and language there have been many theories, but nothing can
as yet be said to be certainly known. These Etruscans, in historical
times, formed a confederacy of twelve cities in the land west of the
Apennines, between the Macra and the Tiber; and it is believed that in
earlier times they had settlements both more to the north, on the Po,
and more to the south, in Campania. If they were a non-Aryan race, the
part of the non-Aryans in the geography and history of Italy becomes
greater than it has been in any part of Western Europe except Spain.
♦The Italians.♦
But whatever we make of the Etruscans, the rest of Italy in the older
sense was held by various branches of an Aryan race nearly allied to
the Greeks, whom we may call the _Italians_. Of this race there were
two great branches. One of them, under various names, seems to have
held all the southern part of the western coast of Italy, and to have
spread into Sicily. Some of the tribes of this branch seem to have been
almost as nearly akin to the Greeks as the Epeirots and other kindred
nations on the east side of the Hadriatic. ♦Latins.♦ Of this branch
of the Italian race, the most famous people were the _Latins_; and it
was the greatest Latin city, the border city of the Latins against
the Etruscans, the city of _Rome_ on the Tiber, which became, step by
step, the mistress of Latium, of Italy, and of the Mediterranean world.
♦Opicans.♦ The other branch, which held a much larger part of the
peninsula, taking in the _Sabines_, _Æquians_, _Volscians_, _Samnites_,
_Lucanians_, and other people who play a great part in the Roman
history, may perhaps be classed together as _Opicans_ or _Oscans_, in
distinction from the Latins, and the other tribes allied to them. These
tribes seem to have pressed from the eastern, the Hadriatic, coast of
Italy, down upon the nations to the south-west of them, and to have
largely extended their borders at their expense.
But part of ancient Italy, and a still larger part of Italy in the
modern sense, was inhabited by nations other than the Italians.
♦Iapygians.♦ In the heel of the boot were the _Iapygians_, a people of
uncertain origin, but who seem in any case to have had a great gift of
receiving the Greek language and manners. ♦Gauls.♦ And in the northern
part, in the lands which were not then counted as part of Italy, were
the _Gauls_, a Celtic people, akin to the Gauls beyond the Alps, and
whose country was therefore called _Cisalpine Gaul_ or Gaul on this
side of the Alps. They were found on both sides of the Po, and on the
Hadriatic coast they seem to have stretched in early times almost as
far south as _Ancona_. ♦Veneti.♦ In the north-east corner of Italy were
yet another people, the _Veneti_, perhaps of Illyrian origin, whose
name long after was taken by the city of _Venice_. But during the
whole time with which we have to do, there was no city so called, and
the name of _Venetia_ is always the name of a country.
♦Greek colonies in Italy.♦
All these nations we may look on as the original inhabitants of Italy;
that is, all were there before anything like contemporary history
begins.[5] But besides these original nations, there were in one part
of Italy many Greek colonies, and also in the island of Sicily. Some
cities of Italy claimed to be Greek colonies, without any clear proof
that they were so. But there seems no reason to doubt that _Kymê_ or
_Cumæ_ on the western coast of Italy, and _Ankôn_ or _Ancona_ on the
Hadriatic, were solitary Greek colonies far away from any other Greek
settlements. Cumæ, though so far off, is said to have been the earliest
Greek colony in Italy. But where the Greeks mainly settled was in the
two lesser peninsulas, the heel and the toe of the boot, into which
the great peninsula of Italy divides at its southern end. Here, as
was before said, there is a nearer approach to the kind of coast to
which the Greeks were used at home. Here then arose a number of Greek
cities, stretching from the extreme south almost up to Cumæ. As in the
case of the Greek cities in Asia, the time of greatness of the Italian
Greeks came earlier than that of the Greeks in Greece itself. In the
sixth century B.C. some of these Greek colonies in Italy, as _Taras_ or
_Tarentum_, _Krotôn_ or _Crotona_, _Sybaris_, and others, were among
the greatest cities of the Greek name. But, as the Italian nations grew
stronger, the Greek cities lost their power, and many of them, Cumæ
among them, fell into the hands of Italian conquerors, and lost their
Greek character more or less thoroughly. Others remained Greek till
they became subject to Rome, and the Greek speech and manners did not
quite die out of southern Italy till ages after the Christian æra.
♦Inhabitants of Sicily.♦
The geography and history of the great island of Sicily, which lies
so near to the toe of the boot, cannot be kept apart from those of
Italy. The mainland and the island were, to a great extent, inhabited
by the same nations. The _Sikanians_ in the western part of the island
may not unlikely have been akin to the Ligurians and Basques; but the
_Sikels_, who gave their name to the island, and who are the people
with whom the Greeks had most to do, were clearly of the Italian stock,
and were nearly allied to the Latins. ♦Phœnician and Greek colonies.♦
The Phœnicians of Carthage planted some colonies in the western and
northern parts of the island, the chief of which was the city which the
Greeks called _Panormos_, the modern capital _Palermo_. But the western
and southern sides of the triangle were full of Greek cities, which are
said to have been founded from the eighth century B.C. to the sixth.
Several of these, especially _Syracuse_ and _Akragas_ or _Agrigentum_,
were among the chief of Greek cities; and from them the Greek speech
and manners gradually spread themselves over the natives, till in the
end Sicily was reckoned as wholly a Greek land. But for some centuries
Sicilian history is chiefly made up of struggles for the mastery
between Carthage and the Greek cities. This was in truth a struggle
between the Aryan and the Semitic race, and we shall see that, many
ages after, the same battle was again fought on the same ground.
§ 2. _Growth of the Roman power in Italy._
♦Gradual conquest of Italy.♦
The history of ancient Italy, as far as we know it, is the history of
the gradual conquest of the whole land by one of its own cities; and
the changes in its political geography are mainly the changes which
followed the gradual bringing of the whole peninsula under the Roman
dominion. But the form which the conquests of Rome took hindered those
conquests from having so great an effect on the map as they otherwise
might have had. The cities and districts of Italy, as they were one by
one conquered by Rome, were commonly left as separate states, in the
relation of dependent alliance, from which most of them were step by
step promoted to the rights of Roman citizenship. ♦Different positions
of the Italian cities.♦ An Italian city might be a dependent ally of
Rome; it might be a Roman colony with the full franchise or a colony
holding the inferior Latin franchise; or it might have been actually
made part of a Roman tribe. All these were very important political
differences; but they do not make much difference in the look of things
on the map. The most important of the changes which can be called
strictly geographical belong to the early days of Rome, when there were
important national movements among the various races of Italy. ♦Origin
of Rome.♦ Rome arose at the point of union of the
three races, Latin, Oscan, and Etruscan, and it arose from an union
between the _Latin_ and _Oscan_ races. ♦Rome a Latin city.♦ Two Latin
and one _Sabine_ settlements seem to have joined together to form
the city of Rome; but the Sabine element must have been thoroughly
Latinized, and Rome must be counted as a Latin city, the greatest,
though very likely the youngest, among the cities of Latium.
♦Her early Latin dominion.♦
Rome, planted on a march, rose, in the way in which marchlands often do
rise, to supremacy among her fellows. Our first authentic record of the
early commonwealth sets Rome before us as bearing rule over the whole
of Latium. This dominion she seems to have lost soon after the driving
out of the kings, and some of her territory right of the Tiber seems
to have become Etruscan. Presently Rome appears, no longer as mistress
of Latium, but as forming one member of a triple league concluded on
equal terms with the Latins as a body, and with the Hernicans. ♦Wars
with her neighbours.♦ This league was engaged in constant wars with its
neighbours of the Oscan race, the _Æquians_ and _Volscians_, by whom
many of the Latin cities were taken. ♦More distant wars. | B.C. 396.♦
But the first great advance of Rome’s actual dominion was made on the
right bank of the Tiber, by the taking of the Etruscan city of _Veii_.
♦B.C. 343.♦ Fifty years later Rome began to engage in more distant
wars; and we may say generally that the conquest of Italy was going on
bit by bit for eighty years more. ♦B.C. 296.♦ By the end of that time,
all Italy, in the older sense, was brought in one shape or another
under the Roman dominion. The neighbouring districts, both Latin and of
other races, had been admitted to citizenship. Roman and Latin colonies
were planted in various parts of the country; elsewhere the old cities,
Etruscan, Samnite, Greek, or any other, still remained as dependent
allies of Rome. ♦Incorporation of the Italian states. | B.C. 89.♦
Presently Rome went on to win dominion out of Italy; but the Italian
states still remained in their old relation to Rome, till the Italian
allies received the Roman franchise after the _Social_ or _Marsian_
war. The _Samnites_ alone held out, and they may be said to have been
altogether exterminated in the wars of Sulla. The rest of Italy was
Roman.
§ 3. _The Western Provinces._
The great change in Roman policy, and in European geography as affected
by it, took place when Rome began to win territory out of Italy. The
relation of these foreign possessions to the ruling city was quite
different from that of the Italian states. The foreign conquests of
Rome were made into _provinces_. ♦Nature of the Roman Provinces.♦ A
province was a district which was subject to Rome, and put under the
rule of a Roman governor, which was not done with the dependent allies
in Italy. But it must be borne in mind that, though we speak of a
province as having a certain geographical extent, yet there might be
cities within its limits whose formal relation to Rome was that of
dependent, or even of equal, alliance. There might also be Roman and
Latin colonies, either colonies really planted or cities which had
been raised to the Roman or Latin franchise. All these were important
distinctions as regarded the internal government of the different
states; still practically all alike formed part of the Roman dominion.
In a geographical survey it will therefore be enough to mark the extent
of the different provinces, without attending to their political, or
more truly municipal, distinctions, except in a few cases where they
are of special importance.
♦Eastern and Western Provinces.♦
The provinces then are the foreign dominions of Rome, and they fall
naturally into two, or rather three, divisions. There are the
provinces of the West, in which the Romans had chiefly to contend with
nations much less civilized than themselves, and in which therefore
the provincials gradually adopted the language and manners of their
conquerors. But in the provinces to the east of the Hadriatic, the
Greek language and Greek manners had become the language and manners
of civilized life, and their supremacy was not supplanted by those of
Rome. And in the more distant parts, as in Syria and Egypt, the Greek
civilization was a mere varnish; the mass of the people still kept to
their old manners and languages as they were before the Macedonian
conquests. In these countries therefore the Latin tongue and Roman
civilization made but little progress. The Roman conquests went on
on both sides of the Hadriatic at the same time, but it was to the
west that they began. The first Roman province however forms a sort
of intermediate class by itself, standing between the eastern and the
western.
♦Sicily.♦
This first Roman province was formed in the great island of _Sicily_,
which, by its geographical position, belongs to the western part of
Europe, while the fact that Greek became the prevailing language in
it rather connects it with the eastern part. ♦First Roman possessions
in the island. B.C. 241.♦ The Roman dominion in Sicily began when the
Carthaginian possessions in the island were given up to Rome, as the
result of the first Punic war. But, as Hierôn of _Syracuse_ had helped
Rome against Carthage, his kingdom remained in alliance with Rome,
and was not dealt with as a conquered land. ♦Conquest of Syracuse.
B.C. 212.♦ It was only when Syracuse turned against Rome in the
second Punic war that it was, on its conquest, formally made a Roman
possession. ♦B.C. 132.♦ Eighty years later the condition of Sicily
under the Roman government was finally settled, and it may be taken
as a type of the endless variety of relations in which the different
districts and cities throughout the Roman dominions stood to the ruling
commonwealth. ♦State of Sicily.♦ The greater part of the island became
simply subject; the land was held to be forfeited to the Roman People,
and the former inhabitants held it simply as tenants on payment of a
tithe. But some cities were called free, and kept their land; others
remained in name independent allies of the Roman People. Other cities
were afterwards raised to the Latin franchise; in others Latin or
Roman colonies were planted, and one Sicilian city, that of _Messana_,
received the full citizenship of Rome. It must be borne in mind that
these different relations, these exceptionally favoured cities and
districts, are found, not only in Sicily, but throughout all the
provinces. ♦Greek civilization of Sicily.♦ Sicily, by the time of the
conquest, was looked on as a thoroughly Greek land. The Greek language
and manners had now spread themselves everywhere among the Sikels and
the other inhabitants of the island. And Sicily remained a thoroughly
Greek land, till, ages afterwards, it again became, as it had been in
the days of the Greek and Phœnician colonies, a battle-field of Aryan
and Semitic races in the days of the Mahometan conquests.
♦Sardinia and Corsica.♦
The two great islands of _Sardinia_ and _Corsica_ seem almost as
natural appendages to Italy as Sicily itself; but their history is
very different. They have played no important part in the history of
the world. The original stock of their inhabitants seems to have been
akin to the non-Aryan element in Spain and Sicily. The attempts at
Greek colonization in them were but feeble, and they passed under the
dominion, first of Carthage and then of Rome, without any important
change in their condition. ♦B.C. 238.♦ These two islands became a
Roman province, which was always reckoned one of the most worthless of
provinces, in the interval between the first and second Punic wars.
♦Cisalpine Gaul.♦
Thus far the Roman dominions did not reach beyond what we should
look upon as the natural extent of the dominion of an Italian power.
Indeed, as long as Italy did not reach to the Alps, we should say that
it had not reached the natural extent of an Italian dominion. But
the conquest of Cisalpine Gaul cannot be separated from the general
conquest of Western Europe. The Roman conquest of Gaul and Spain, by
gradually spreading the Latin language and Roman civilization over
those countries, created two of the chief nations and languages of
modern Europe. But the process was simply the continuation of a process
which began within the borders of what we now call Italy. Gaul within
the Alps was as strictly a foreign conquest as Spain or as Gaul beyond
the Alps. Only the geographical position of Cisalpine Gaul allowed it
to be easily and speedily incorporated with Italy in a way which the
lands beyond the Alps could not be. The beginnings of conquest in this
direction took place after the end of the Samnite wars. ♦Foundation
of Sena Gallica. B.C. 282.♦ Then the colony of _Sena Gallica_, now
_Sinigaglia_, was founded on Gaulish soil, and it was presently
followed by the foundation of _Ariminum_ or _Rimini_. ♦Conquest of
Cisalpine Gaul. B.C. 201-191.♦ The Roman arms were carried beyond the
Po in the time between the first and the second Punic war; after the
second Punic war, Cisalpine Gaul was thoroughly conquered, and was
secured by the foundation of many Roman and Latin colonies. ♦B.C. 43.♦
The Roman and Latin franchises were gradually extended to most parts
of the country, and at last Cisalpine Gaul was formally incorporated
with Italy.
♦Conquest of Liguria and Venetia.♦
Closely connected with the conquest of Cisalpine Gaul was the conquest
of the other non-Italian lands within the boundaries of modern Italy.
These were _Liguria_ to the south-east of Cisalpine Gaul and _Venetia_
to the north-west. Both these lands held out longer than Cisalpine
Gaul; but by the time of Augustus they were all, together with the
peninsula of _Istria_, counted as part of Italy. ♦Foundation of
Aquileia, B.C. 183.♦ The dominion of Rome in this region was secured at
an early stage of the conquest by the foundation of the great colony
of _Aquileia_. We thus see that, not only Venice, but Milan, Pavia,
Verona, Ravenna, and Genoa, cities which played so great a part in
the after history of Italy, arose in lands which were not originally
Italian. But we also see that Italy, with the boundaries given to it by
Augustus, took in a somewhat larger territory to the north-east than
the kingdom of Italy does now.
♦Spain.♦
The lands within the Alps may be fairly said to have been conquered by
Rome in self-defence, and we cannot help looking on the three great
islands as natural parts of an Italian dominion. The conquests of the
Romans in lands altogether beyond their own borders may be said to
have begun in Western Europe with the conquest of _Spain_, which began
before that of Transalpine Gaul. ♦Connexion of Spain and Gaul.♦ Spain
and Gaul, using the names in the geographical sense, have much which
binds them together. ♦Iberians in Spain.♦ On the borders of the two
countries traces are still left of the old non-Aryan inhabitants who
still speak the Basque language. These represent the old _Iberian_
inhabitants of Spain and Gaul, who, when our history begins, stretched
as far into Gaul as the Garonne. ♦Celts.♦ But the _Celts_, the first
wave of the Aryan migration in Europe, had pressed into both Gaul and
Spain; in Gaul they had, when trustworthy history begins, already
occupied by far the greater part of the country. ♦Greek and♦ The
Mediterranean coasts of Gaul and Spain were also connected together
by the sprinkling of Greek colonies along those shores, of which
_Massalia_ was the head. And, beside the primitive non-Aryan element,
there was an intrusive non-Aryan element also. ♦Phœnician settlements.♦
In southern Spain several Phœnician settlements had been made, the
chief of which was _Gades_ or _Cadiz_, beyond the straits, the one
great Phœnician city on the Ocean. And between the first and second
Punic wars Carthage obtained a large Spanish dominion, of which _New
Carthage_ or _Carthagena_ was the capital.
It was the presence of these last settlements which first brought Spain
under the Roman dominion. ♦First Roman province in Spain.♦ _Saguntum_
was an ally of Rome, and its taking by Hannibal was the beginning of
the second Punic war. ♦B.C. 218-206.♦ The campaigns of the Scipios
during that war led to the gradual conquest of the whole country. ♦B.C.
49.♦ The Carthaginian possessions first became a Roman province, while
Gades became a favoured ally of Rome, and at last was admitted to the
full Roman franchise. ♦B.C. 133.♦ Meanwhile, the gradual conquest of
the rest of the country went on, till, after the taking of _Numantia_,
all Spain, except the remote tribes in the north-west, had become
a Roman possession. ♦Final conquest. B.C. 19.♦ These tribes, the
_Cantabrians_ and their neighbours, were not fully subdued till the
time of Augustus. ♦Romanization of Spain.♦ But long before that time
the Latin language and Roman manners had been fast spreading through
the country, and in Augustus’ time southern Spain was altogether
Romanized. It was only in a small district close to the Pyrenees that
the ancient language held out, as it has done ever since.
♦Transalpine Gaul.♦
The conquest of Spain, owing to the connexion of the country with
Carthage, thus began while a large part even of Cisalpine Gaul was
still unsubdued. And the Roman arms were not carried into Gaul beyond
the Alps till the conquest of Spain was pretty well assured. ♦B.C.
122.♦ The foundation of the first Roman colony at _Aquæ Sextiæ_, the
modern _Aix_, was only eleven years later than the fall of Numantia.
The Romans stepped in as allies of the Greek city of Massalia, and, as
usual, from helping their allies they took to conquering on their own
account. ♦The Transalpine Province. B.C. 125-105.♦ A Roman province,
including the colonies of _Narbonne_ and _Toulouse_, was thus formed
in the south-eastern part of Transalpine Gaul. The advance of Rome
in this direction seems to have been checked by the invasion of the
Cimbri and Teutones, but through that long delay Roman influences were
able to establish themselves more firmly. This part of Gaul was early
and thoroughly Romanized, and part of it still keeps, in its name of
_Provence_, the memory of its having been the first Roman province
beyond the Alps. The rest of Gaul was left untouched till the great
campaigns of Cæsar.
♦Conquests of Cæsar. B.C. 58-51.♦
It is from Cæsar, ethnologer as well as conqueror, that we get our
chief knowledge of the country as it was in his day. ♦Boundaries of
Transalpine Gaul.♦ Transalpine Gaul, as a geographical division, has
well-marked boundaries in the Mediterranean, the Alps, the Rhine,
the Ocean, and the Pyrenees. But this geographical division has
never answered to any divisions of blood and language. ♦Its three
divisions, and their inhabitants, Iberian, Celtic, and German.♦ Gaul
in Cæsar’s day, that is Gaul beyond the Roman province, formed three
divisions—_Aquitaine_ to the south-west, _Celtic Gaul_ in the middle,
and _Belgic Gaul_ to the north-east. Aquitaine, stretching to the
Garonne—the name was under Augustus extended to the Loire—was Iberian,
akin to the people on the other side of the Pyrenees: a trace of its
old speech remains in the small Basque district north of the Pyrenees.
Celtic Gaul, from the Loire to the Seine and Marne, was the most truly
Celtic land, and it was in this part of Gaul that the modern French
nation took its rise. In the third division, Belgic Gaul, the tribes
to the east, nearer to the Rhine, were some of them purely German, and
others had been to a great extent brought under German influences or
mixed with German elements. There was, in fact, no unity in Gaul beyond
that which the Romans brought with them. ♦Romanization of Gaul.♦ In
seven years Cæsar subdued the whole land, and the work of assimilation
began. The Roman language gradually displaced all the native languages,
except where Basque and Breton survive in two corners; but in a large
part of Belgic Gaul the events of later times brought the German tongue
back again. ♦Permanence of the ancient geography.♦ There is no Roman
province in which, among all changes, the ancient geography has had
so much effect upon that of all later times. In southern Gaul most of
the cities still keep their old names with very little change. But in
northern Gaul the cities have mostly taken the names of the tribes
of which they were the heads. Thus _Tolosa_ is still _Toulouse_; but
_Lutetia Parisiorum_ has become _Paris_.
♦Roman Africa.♦
The lands which we have thus gone through, Cisalpine Gaul with Liguria
and Venetia, Spain, and Transalpine Gaul, form a marked division in
historical geography. They are those parts of Western Europe which Rome
conquered during the time of her Commonwealth, and they are those parts
which have mainly kept their Roman speech to this day. But these did
not make up the whole of the lands where Rome planted her Latin speech,
at least for a while. The conquest of Britain belongs to the days of
the Empire; but Rome, during the Commonwealth, made another conquest,
which, though not in Europe, may be counted as belonging to the
Western or Latin-speaking half of her dominion. This is the conquest
of that part of _Africa_ which Rome won as the result of her wars with
Carthage. ♦Province of Africa, B.C. 146;♦ The only African possession
won by Rome during the days of the Commonwealth was _Africa_ in the
strictest sense, the immediate dominion of Carthage. This became a
province when the Punic wars were ended by the destruction of Carthage.
♦of New Africa, B.C. 49.♦ The neighbouring state of _Numidia_, after
passing, like Carthage itself, through the intermediate state of a
dependency, was made a province by Cæsar, being called _New Africa_,
the former African province becoming the _Old_. ♦Restoration and
greatness of Carthage.♦ Cæsar also restored the city of Carthage as
a Roman colony, and it became the chief of the Latin-speaking cities
of the Empire, second only to Rome herself. But in Africa, just as
in Britain, the land never became thoroughly Romanized like Gaul and
Spain. The Roman tongue and laws therefore died out in both lands at
the first touch of an invader, the English in one case and the Saracens
in the other. The strip of fertile land between the sea on one side
and the mountains and the Great Desert on the other received, first
Phœnician and then Roman civilization. But neither of them could
really take root there in the way that the Roman civilization took root
in Gaul and Spain.
§ 4. _The Eastern Provinces._
♦Contrast between the Eastern and Western provinces.♦
The Hadriatic Sea may be roughly taken as the boundary between the
Eastern and Western parts of the Roman dominion. In the West, the
Romans carried with them not only their arms, but their tongue, their
laws, and their manners. They were not only conquerors but civilizers.
The native Iberians and Celts adopted Roman fashions, and the isolated
Greek and Phœnician cities, like Massalia and Gades, gradually became
Roman also. East of the Hadriatic the state of things was quite
different. Here the language and civilization of Greece had, through
the conquests of the Macedonian kings, become everywhere predominant.
♦Greek civilization in the East.♦ Greek was everywhere the polite and
literary language, and a certain varnish of Greek manners had been
everywhere spread. In some parts indeed it was the merest varnish;
still it was everywhere strong enough to withstand the influence
of Latin. Sicily and Southern Italy are the only lands which have
altogether thrown away the Greek tongue, and have taken to Latin or any
of the languages formed out of Latin. No part of the eastern half of
the Roman dominion ever became Roman in the same way as Gaul and Spain.
The whole of the lands east of the Hadriatic may thus, as opposed to
the Latin-speaking lands of the west, be called Greek-speaking lands.
♦Distinctions among the Eastern provinces.♦ But there are some wide
distinctions to be drawn among them. First, there was old Greece itself
and the Greek colonies, and lands like _Epeiros_, which had become
thoroughly Greek. Secondly, there were the kingdoms, like _Macedonia_
in Europe and _Pergamos_ in Asia, which had adopted the Greek speech
and manners, but which did not, like Epeiros, become Greek in any
political sense. Thirdly, there were a number of native states,
_Bithynia_ and others, whose kings also tried to imitate Greek ways,
but naturally could not do so as thoroughly as the kings of Macedonia
and Pergamos. ♦Lands beyond Tauros.♦ Fourthly, beyond Mount Tauros lay
the kingdoms of _Syria_ and _Egypt_, which were ruled by Macedonian
kings, which contained great Greek or Macedonian cities like _Antioch_
and _Alexandria_, but where there were native languages, and an old
native civilization, which neither Greek nor Roman influences could
ever root out. We shall see as we go on that Tauros makes a great
historical boundary. The lands on this side of it really came, though
very gradually, under the dominion of the Greek speech and the Roman
law. Beyond Mount Tauros both the Greek and the Roman element lay
merely on the surface, and therefore those lands, like Africa, easily
fell away when they were attacked by the Saracens.[6] We must now go
through such of the lands east of the Hadriatic as were formed into
Roman provinces during the time of the Roman Commonwealth.
♦The Illyrian Provinces.♦
But again, between the Latin and the Greek parts of the Roman dominion
there was a border land, namely, the lands held by the great _Illyrian_
race. The southern parts of Illyria came within the reach of Greek
influences, and it was through the affairs of Illyria that Rome was
first led to meddle in the affairs of Greece. ♦The kingdom of Skodra.♦
The use of the name _Illyria_ is at all times very vague; as a more
definite meaning as the name of a kingdom whose capital was _Skodra_,
and which, in the second half of the third century, was a dangerous
neighbour to the Greek cities and islands on that coast. ♦B.C. 168.♦
This kingdom was involved in the third Macedonian war, and came to an
end at the same time. As usual, it is not easy to distinguish how much,
if any, of the country actually became a Roman province, and how much
was left for a while in the intermediate state of dependent alliance.
But, for all practical purposes, the Illyrian kingdom of Skodra formed
from this time a part of the Roman dominion. With the fall of Skodra,
the parts of Illyria which lay further to the north, beyond the bounds
of the Greek world, first came into notice. ♦Dalmatian Wars.♦ The
Greek colonies in Dalmatia had played their part in the first Illyrian
war; but the land itself, which was to become an outlying fringe of
Italy lying east of the Hadriatic, is now first heard of as a distinct
country formed by a separation from the kingdom of Skodra. ♦B.C. 156. |
B.C. 34.♦ The first Dalmatian war soon followed; but it was not till
after several wars that Dalmatia became a province, and even after that
time there were several revolts. ♦Roman colonies in Dalmatia.♦ Before
long, Dalmatia was settled with several Roman colonies, as _Jadera_ or
_Zara_, and, above all, _Salona_, which became one of the chief cities
of the Roman dominion. The neighbouring lands of _Liburnia_, _Istria_,
and the land of the _Iapodes_, were gradually reduced during the same
period. ♦Istria incorporated with Italy.♦ Istria, like the neighbouring
land of Venetia, was actually incorporated with Italy, and _Pola_,
under the name of _Pietas Julia_, became a Roman colony.
♦The outlying Greek lands.♦
We have already traced the process by which old Greece and the
neighbouring lands of Macedonia and Epeiros gradually sank, first
practically, and then formally, into parts of the Roman dominion. It
would be hard to say at what particular moment many of the Greek cities
and islands sank from the relation of obedient allies into that of
acknowledged subjects. ♦Their late formal annexation.♦ We have seen
that some of them, as Rhodes and Byzantion, were not formally annexed
till the reign of Vespasian. The Greek cities on the Euxine do not seem
to have been formally annexed at all till a late period of the Eastern
Empire. Other outlying Greek lands and cities became so mixed up with
the history of some of the Asiatic kingdoms that they will come in
for a mention along with them. ♦Conquest of Crete, B.C. 67,♦ _Crete_
kept its independence to become a nest of pirates, and to be specially
conquered. It then formed one province with the then recent conquest of
_Kyrênê_, the one great Greek settlement in Africa, which had become an
appanage of the Macedonian kings of Egypt. The same had been the fate
of _Cyprus_, an island which had always been partly Greek, and which
had been further Hellenized under its Macedonian kings. ♦of Cyprus,
B.C. 58.♦ Cyprus too became a province. Thus, before Rome lost her own
freedom, she had become the formal or practical mistress of all the
earlier abodes of freedom. Men could not yet foresee that a time would
come when _Greek_ and _Roman_ should be words having the same meaning,
and when the place and name of Rome herself should be transferred to
one of the Greek cities which Vespasian formally reduced from alliance
to bondage.
♦The Asiatic Provinces.♦
In Roman history one war and one conquest always led to another, and,
as the affairs of Illyria had led to Roman interference in Greece,
so the affairs of Greece led to Roman interference in _Asia_. ♦B.C.
191-188.♦ The first war which Rome waged with _Antiochos_ of Syria led
to no immediate increase of the Roman territory, but all the Seleukid
possessions on this side Tauros were divided among the allies of Rome.
♦Province of Asia. B.C. 133-129.♦ This, as usual, was the first step
towards the conquest of Asia, and it is quite according to the usual
course of things that the first Roman province beyond the Ægæan, the
province of _Asia_, was formed of the dominions of Rome’s first and
most useful allies, the kings of Pergamos. The mission of Alexander
and his successors, as the representatives of Western civilization
against the East, now passed into the hands of Rome. Step by step, the
other lands west of Tauros came under the formal or practical dominion
of Rome. ♦Bithynia. B.C. 74.♦ _Bithynia_ was the first to be annexed,
and this acquisition was one of the causes which led to the second war
between Rome and the famous _Mithridates_ of _Pontos_. ♦Overthrow of
Mithridates. B.C. 64.♦ His final overthrow brought a number of other
lands under Roman dominion or influence. The Greek cities of _Sinôpê_
and _Hêrakleia_ obtained a nominal freedom, and vassal kings went on
reigning in part of Pontos itself, and in the distant Greek kingdom
of _Bosporos_. Rome was now mistress of Asia Minor. ♦Lykia.♦ The land
was divided among her provinces and her vassal kings, save that the
wise federal commonwealth of _Lykia_ still kept the highest amount of
independence which was consistent with the practical supremacy of Rome.
The Mithridatic war, which made Rome mistress of Asia in the narrower
sense, at once involved her in the affairs of the further East.
Tigranes of _Armenia_ had been the chief ally of Mithridates; but,
though his power was utterly humbled, no Armenian province was added
to the Roman dominion for a long time to come. ♦Province of Syria.
B.C. 64.♦ But the remnant of the Seleukid monarchy became the Roman
province of _Syria_. As usual, several cities and principalities were
allowed to remain in various relations of alliance and dependence on
the ruling commonwealth. ♦Palestine.♦ Among these we find _Judæa_ and
the rest of _Palestine_, sometimes under a Roman procurator, sometimes
united under a single vassal king, sometimes parted out among various
kings and tetrarchs, as suited the momentary caprice or policy of Rome.
♦Comparison with British India.♦ In all these various relations between
the native states and the ruling city we have a lively foreshadowing of
the relations between England and the subject and dependent princes of
India. ♦Rome the champion of the West.♦ The conquests of Rome in these
regions made her more distinctly than ever the sole representative of
the West against the East, and these conquests presently brought her
into collision with the one power in the known world which could at all
meet her on equal terms. She had stepped into the place of Alexander
and Seleukos so far as that all those parts of Alexander’s Asiatic
conquests which had received even a varnish of Hellenic culture had
become parts of her dominion. ♦Her rivalry with Parthia.♦ The further
East beyond the Euphrates was again under the command of a great
barbarian power, that of _Parthia_, which had stepped into the place
of Persia, as Rome had stepped into the place of Greece and Macedonia.
Rome had now again a rival, in a sense from which she had not had a
rival since the overthrow of Carthage and Macedonia.
One only of the Macedonian kingdoms now remained to be gathered in.
♦Conquest of Egypt. B.C. 31.♦ The annexation of _Egypt_, an annexation
made famous by the names of Kleopatra, Antonius, the elder and the
younger Cæsar, completed the work. Rome was now fully mistress of her
own civilized world. Her dominion took in all the lands round the
great inland sea. If, here and there, her formal dominion was broken
by a city or principality whose nominal relation was that of alliance,
the distinction concerned only the local affairs of that city or
principality. ♦_Pax Romana._♦ Within the whole historic world of the
three ancient continents, the Roman Peace had begun. Rome had still to
wage wars, and even to annex provinces; but those wars and annexations
were now done rather to round off and to strengthen the territory which
had been already gained, than in the strictest sense to extend it.
§ 5. _Conquests under the Empire._
At the same moment when the Roman commonwealth was practically changed
into a monarchy, the Roman dominion was thus brought, not indeed to its
greatest extent, but to an extent of which its further extension was
only a natural completion. ♦Conquests under Augustus and Tiberius.♦
There seems a certain inconsistency when we find Augustus laying
down a rule against the enlargement of the Empire, while the Empire
was, during his reign and that of his successor, extended in every
direction. But the conquests of this time were mainly conquests for
the purpose of strengthening the frontier; the occasional changes of
this and that city or district from the dependent to the provincial
relation, or sometimes from the provincial to the dependent, are now
hardly worth mentioning. ♦Incorporation of the dependent kingdoms.♦
Between Augustus and Nero, or, at all events, between Augustus
and Vespasian, all the dependent states in Asia and Africa, such
as _Mauritania_, _Kappadokia_, _Lykia_, and others, were finally
incorporated with the Empire to which they had long been practically
subject. These annexations can hardly be called conquests. And it was
merely finishing a work which had been begun two hundred years before,
when the small corner of Spain which still kept its independence was
brought under the Roman power. ♦Strengthening of the frontier.♦ The
real conquests of this time consisted in the strengthening of the
European frontier. No frontier nearer than the Rhine and the Danube
could be looked on as safe. This lesson was easily learned; but it
had also to be accompanied by another lesson which taught that the
Rhine and the Danube, and no more distant points, were to be the real
frontiers of Rome.
This brings us both to the lands which were then our own and to the
lands which became our own in after times. During the reign of Augustus
two conquests which most nearly concern our own history were planned,
and one of them was attempted. The annexation of the land which was to
become England was talked of; the annexation of the land which then
was England, along with the rest of the German lands, was seriously
attempted. But the conquest of Britain was put off from the days of
Augustus to the days of Claudius. ♦Attempted conquest of Germany. B.C.
11-A.D. 9.♦ The attempt at the conquest of Germany, which was deemed to
have been already carried out, was shivered when Arminius overthrew the
legions of Varus. ♦A.D. 19.♦ The expeditions of Drusus and Germanicus
into Northern Germany must have brought the Roman armies into contact
with our own forefathers, for the first time, and, for several ages,
for the last time. But from this time the relations between Rome
and southern Germany begin, and constantly increase in importance.
The two great rivers were fixed as a real frontier. ♦Conquests on
the Danube.♦ The lands between the Alps and the Danube, _Rætia_,
_Vindelicia_, _Noricum_, _Pannonia_, with _Mœsia_ on the lower Danube,
were all added to the Empire during the reign of Augustus. These were
strictly defensive annexations, annexations made in order to remove the
dangerous frontier further from Italy. Beyond the Rhine and the Danube
the Roman possessions were mere outposts held for the defence of the
land between the two great streams.
♦Attempt on Arabia. B.C. 24.♦
Meanwhile, while the attempt of the conquest of Germany came to so
little, an attempt at conquest at the other end of the world, in the
_Arabian_ peninsula, came to even less. ♦Thrace.♦ It marks the policy
of Rome and the gradual nature of her advance that, while these more
distant conquests were made or attempted, _Thrace_ still retained her
dependent princes, the only land of any extent within the European
dominions of Rome which did so. But Thrace, surrounded by Roman
provinces, was in no way dangerous; it might remain a dependency while
more distant lands were incorporated. It was not till uniformity was
more sought after, till, under Vespasian, the nominal freedom of so
many cities and principalities came to an end, that Thrace became a
province. ♦Annexation of Byzantion.♦ It was then that, among her latest
formal acquisitions in Europe, Rome annexed the city which was, in the
course of ages, to take her own place and name.
♦Conquest of Britain.♦
Thus, in the days between Augustus and Trajan, the conquests which
Rome actually made were mainly of a defensive and strengthening
character. To this rule there is one and only one exception of any
importance. This is the annexation to the Roman world of the land which
was looked on as another world, the conquest of the greater part of the
Isle of _Britain_. But Britain, though it did not come under the same
law as the defensive annexations of Rætia and Pannonia, was naturally
suggested by the annexation of Gaul and by the visits of the first
Cæsar to the island. ♦Claudius. B.C. 43.♦ No actual conquest however
took place till the reign of Claudius. ♦Agricola. B.C. 84.♦ Forty years
later the Roman conquests in Britain were pushed by _Agricola_ as far
as the isthmus between the friths of Forth and Clyde, the boundary
marked by the later rampart of _Antoninus_. But the lasting boundary of
the Roman dominion in Britain cannot be looked on as reaching beyond
the line of the southern wall of _Hadrian_, _Severus_, and _Stilicho_,
between the Solway and the mouth of the Tyne. The northern part of
Britain thus remained unconquered, and the conquest of Ireland was not
even attempted. For us the conquest of the land which afterwards became
our own has an interest above all the other conquests of Rome. But it
is a purely geographical interest. The British victories of Cæsar and
Agricola were won, not over our own forefathers, but over those Celtic
Britons whom our forefathers more thoroughly swept away. The history of
our own nation is still for some ages to be looked for by the banks of
the Elbe and the Weser, not by those of the Severn and the Thames.
♦The Eastern conquests of Trajan.♦
Britain was the last to be won of the Western provinces of Rome, and
the first to be lost. Still it was, for more than three hundred years,
thoroughly incorporated with the Empire, and its loss did not happen
till that general break-up of the Empire of which its loss was the
first stage. But between the conquest of Britain and its loss there
was a short time in which Rome again extended her dominion in the old
fashion, both in Europe and Asia. ♦Conquests of Trajan. A.D. 98-117.♦
This was during the reign of Trajan, when the Roman borders were again
widely extended in both Europe and Asia. Under him the Danube ceased
to be a boundary stream in one continent and the Euphrates in the
other. ♦His Asiatic and European conquests.♦ But a marked distinction
must be drawn between his Asiatic and his European warfare. Trajan’s
Asiatic conquests were strictly momentary; they were at once given up
by his successor; and they will be better dealt with when we speak in
another chapter of the long strife between Rome and her Eastern rival,
first Parthian and then Persian. ♦Conquest of Arabia Petræa. A.D. 106.♦
The only lasting Asiatic conquest of Trajan’s reign was not made by
Trajan himself, namely the small Roman province in Northern _Arabia_.
The European conquests of Trajan stand on another ground. If not
strictly defensive, like those of Augustus, they might easily seem to
be so. ♦Dacia.♦ The _Dacians_, to the north of the lower Danube, were
really threatening to the Roman power in those regions, and they had
dealt Rome more than one severe blow in the days of Domitian. ♦A.D.
106.♦ Trajan now formed the lands between the Thiess and the Danube,
the Dniester and the Carpathian Mountains, into the Roman province of
_Dacia_. ♦A.D. 270.♦ The last province to be won was the first to be
given up; for Aurelian withdrew from it, and transferred its name to
the Mœsian land immediately south of the Danube. But if Dacia was in
this way one of the most short lived of Roman conquests, it was in
another way one of the most lasting. ♦Later history of Dacia.♦ Cut off,
as it has been for so many ages, from all Roman influences, forming,
as it has done, one of the great highways of barbarian migration, a
large part of Dacia, namely the modern Rouman principality, still keeps
its Roman language no less than Spain and Gaul. In one way the land is
to this day more Roman than Spain or Gaul, as its people still call
themselves by the Roman name. Dacia, in fact, though geographically
belonging to the Eastern half of the Empire, stood in the same position
as the Western provinces. Greek influences had not reached so far
north, nor was there in Dacia any old-standing native civilization,
such as there was in Syria and Egypt. There was therefore nothing that
was at all able to hold up against Roman influences. The land was
speedily and thoroughly Romanized, and it remains Roman in speech and
name sixteen hundred years after the withdrawal of the Roman power.
* * * * *
♦Summary.♦
The Roman Empire was thus gradually formed by bringing, first Italy
and then the whole of the Mediterranean lands, under the dominion of
the one Roman city. In every part of that dominion the process of
conquest was gradual. The lands which became Roman provinces passed
through various stages of alliance and dependence before they were
fully incorporated. But, in the end, all the civilized world of those
times became Roman. Speaking roughly, three great rivers, the Rhine,
Danube, and Euphrates, formed the European and Asiatic boundaries of
the Empire. In Africa the Roman dominion consisted only of the strip
of fertile land between the Mediterranean and the mountains and
deserts. Britain and Dacia, the only two great provinces lying beyond
this range, were the last conquered and the first given up. In Western
Europe and in Africa Rome carried her language and her civilization
with her, and in those lands the Roman speech still remains, except
where it has been swept away by Teutonic and Saracen conquests. In the
lands from the Hadriatic to Mount Tauros, which had been brought more
or less under Greek influences, the Greek speech and civilization stood
its ground, and in those lands Greek still survives wherever it has not
been swept away by Slavonic and Turkish conquests. In the further east,
in Syria and Egypt, where there was an old native civilization, neither
Greek nor Roman influences took real root. The differences between
these three parts of the Roman Empire, the really Roman, the Greek, and
the Oriental, will be clearly seen as we go on.
FOOTNOTES:
[4] We shall come as we go on to two uses of the name in which Italy,
oddly enough, meant only the northern part of the land commonly so
called. But in both these cases the name had a purely political and
technical meaning, and it never came into common use in this sense.
[5] Some may think that the Cisalpine Gauls ought to be excepted, as
the common Roman story represents them as having crossed the Alps from
Transalpine Gaul at a time which almost comes within the range of
contemporary history. But this is a point about which there is no real
certainty; and it seems quite as likely that the Gaulish settlements on
the Italian side of the Alps were as old as those on the other side.
[6] In a more minute study of the history it will be found that Latin
Africa held out against the Saracens very much longer than Syria
and Egypt. But for our purpose the two may be classed together in
opposition to those lands in Europe and Asia which always remained
Roman or Greek.