two Scipios--Cn. C. and P.--when fortune cleared the stage for him, by
killing both within a month, and annihilating both their armies. The
fate of the two leaders had such an effect in Rome, that when those
eligible to command had heard the particulars, they had no inclination
to act as generals. Every one seemed to fear that if he went to head the
army in Spain, he should be simply going to his own funeral, and every
one naturally shrunk from such an undertaking. At length young P. C. S.
A. M.--or, to give his name at full length, Publius Cornelius Scipio
Africanus Major--who was only twenty-four years of age, though he had
entered the army at seventeen, and had been present, or rather absent,
at the battle of Cannæ, where the only survivors were those who ran
away--volunteered to supply the places of his deceased relatives. An
objection was, at first, made to his age--or rather to his want of
age--but, as there was no older candidate for the post of honour and of
danger, he was permitted to step into it. His popularity was, in some
measure, owing to his having acquired the character of a serious young
man; for ever since he had assumed the toga virilis--an assumption
something like the modern practice of going into stick-ups--he had been
in the habit of passing his mornings in the Temple of Jupiter. He
proceeded to Spain, with the title of Pro-consul, and an army of about
11,000 men, at the head of whom he proceeded to Carthagena; where he
knew the enemy kept the greater portion of their cash, their corn, and
their captives. He was accompanied by his friend Lælius, who commanded
the fleet, and who was sent to make an unexpected attack from the sea;
for Scipio, who was very deep, had ascertained that the water was very
shallow. The defenders of New Carthage had relied upon the ocean as a
defence; but they had, in reality, built their hopes on sand, which,
during the prevalence of a particular wind and tide, afforded easy
access to the city. The place speedily fell into his hands; and his
gallantry--in a double sense--made him with the brave and the fair an
equal favourite. Towards the ladies he was particularly amiable; and he
not only sent back to her lover an interesting young girl, but he
returned to her husband a maudlin old woman. The latter was the aged
wife of the chief Mardonius, who weepingly implored that her sex might
be treated with respect; when the young soldier, hiding his face in his
sleeve, either cried or laughed in it.
[Illustration: Considerate Conduct of Scipio Africanus.]
Hasdrubal now turned his attention to Italy, while Scipio continued his
conquests in Spain, and, among other places, took Astapa, which, if
tradition tells the truth, he must have found without a single
inhabitant. It is said that the place was defended with such valour that
only fifty men remained alive, and these became impressed with the
feeling that when a thing must be done, it is better to do it oneself
than to leave it to be done by others. They came to the resolution that
they were sure not to be spared, and they had, therefore, better get rid
of one another. They accordingly proceeded to the sanguinary task of
mutual destruction; though, as one must have remained to the last, and
there would have been some difficulty in disposing of him, it is
probable that he survived for the purpose of acting as his own reporter
of the dreadful incident. The graver historians insist that not one was
left alive in the city; that the last fifty soldiers, having first
killed all their women, and all their children, made away with all of
themselves; a state of things which induces us to ask how the
particulars have come down to us. If, however, we were to indulge this
spirit of inquiry to any extent, we should, we fear, be compelled to
throw a doubt upon many of those interesting particulars which form the
most agreeable portions of history.
Hasdrubal resolved to make a grand effort, and assembled an army, which
including some Iberians, under his brother Mago, as well as some
Numidians, headed by Masinissa, their king, numbered 75,000 men, and
six-and-thirty elephants. Scipio, though objecting to attack a power
more than twice his size, was compelled to do so, by a want of
provisions, for he had so little food that his army could not even have
grubbed on for a month or two. He was again victorious, and Hasdrubal
proceeded to join his brother Hannibal; but the letters written by the
former to apprise the latter of his coming, instead of going regularly
through all the military posts, fell, by some misdirection or
indirection, into the hands of the enemy. The Consul Livius Salinator
went into the neighbourhood of Sena Gallica--now Senigaglia--and was
joined by his colleague, C. Claudius Nero, who came, under cover of the
night, with a large army; and it would appear that the forces of
Hasdrubal kept such very early hours, that they had all gone to bed, and
knew nothing of the reinforcements that had been sent against them.
Hasdrubal, however, saw among the Romans, on the following morning, some
soldiers, whose faces were so sun-burnt, as to give a strange complexion
to a part of the troops, and he concluded that they had recently been on
a journey. After having indulged in an inquiring look, he commenced a
patient listen, and he fancied he heard two trumpet calls in the hostile
camp, when, without considering whether the second might have been the
mere echo of the first, he resolved, in his own mind, that the armies
of the two Consuls had joined together. He accordingly determined to
fly, and began by trying to swim across the river Metaurus, which is
usually shallow enough; but the rains had swelled it to such a torrent
that he was soon plunged into the depths of misery. His guides,
following the impulse of their own cowardice, ran away as fast as they
could, and he, in perfect ignorance of the country, found the river
rising and his spirits sinking in about an equal ratio. The Romans came
up with him in time to find his army completely damped, and his troops
were, according to the military practice of the period, cut, at once, to
pieces.
Hasdrubal, who had lost heart early in the battle, seems ultimately to
have lost his head, for rushing into the midst of a cohort, he was
decapitated by a Roman soldier. It is said that the head of Hasdrubal
was afterwards brutally thrown into the camp of his brother Hannibal;
but happily for the credit of humanity, this story of the head is absurd
on the very face of it.
Spain was now subject to Rome; and Scipio, after quelling an
insurrection in his army, paid a visit to Syphax, who was king of a
portion of Numidia, and who was desperately in love with a young lady,
named Sophonisba, the daughter of Hasdrubal Gisco, a Carthaginian
general. Sophonisba was one of those troublesome persons, known as
fascinating creatures, who, by attracting the eyes of mankind, set them
very often by the ears, and lead to much calamity. This too interesting
individual had also won the admiration of Masinissa, another king of
another part of Numidia, when her father, irrespective of any attachment
she might have formed, gave her hand to Syphax, by way of attaching the
latter to his interests. Masinissa, in a fit of jealousy, went over to
Rome, leaving Syphax and Hasdrubal to fight it out with Scipio.
The Africans and Carthaginians were, to a certain extent, people of
straw, which was the material they used in constructing their tents, and
Scipio, basely pretending that he desired to negotiate a peace, sent a
set of firebrands, under the garb of envoys, into the camp of the enemy.
These hypocritical incendiaries carried fire among the foe; and, though
the elephants fought like lions, the Carthaginians behaved like lambs,
for the poor creatures, thinking the burning of their tents was
accidental, looked on with simple bewilderment. 40,000 Africans were cut
to pieces on the spot; and Syphax, who had managed to escape, was ready
immediately with 30,000 more, to engage Scipio in the neighbourhood of
Utica. Syphax was urged on by his wife, who is described as a woman of
remarkable spirit--a character equivalent to that of a very troublesome
body. Poor Syphax did all he could against a very superior force, but he
was ultimately taken prisoner, and sent to Scipio, while Sophonisba
remained at home to receive Masinissa--like a woman of spirit--at the
gates of her husband's palace.
The lovely creature, admitting that she was vanquished, and declaring
that further opposition would be vain, appealed, in the character of an
unprotected female, to the generosity of Masinissa. Expressing the
utmost horror at being placed as a captive behind the car of Scipio, she
entreated the protection of her husband's conqueror; and Masinissa, not
knowing exactly what to do, politely offered to marry her. She at once
consented; and, after a widowhood of a few hours, she was presented to
Lælius, the Roman Consul, in her new character.
Syphax, not being dead, was of course rather painfully alive to the
conduct of his wife, and having hinted to Scipio that she might be the
cause of further mischief, an order was immediately sent to Masinissa to
send her back by the bearer. This her new husband was unwilling to do,
but he forwarded her a cup of poison, which she drank off with the air
of a tragedy queen, and died with a clap-trap in her mouth, which was
almost as nauseous as the stuff that she was called upon to swallow.
The Carthaginians now began to feel that every thing went wrong in the
absence of Hannibal, whom they invited home, and on his arrival he was
really anxious for peace and quietness. Scipio felt much the same, and
the two generals, having met, looked at each other for some time in
silent admiration. It may be doubted whether they got any further than
this point, for even if they had a few words, it did not prevent them
from ultimately coming to blows at the great and decisive battle of
Zama. Hannibal brought into the field 50,000 men, and about 80 real
elephants; but his soldiers were most of them raw, and liable to be
roasted on the ground of extreme awkwardness. He put the Moors, the
Gauls, and Libyans in front, the Carthaginian cowards in the centre, for
they were but a middling set, and he brought up the rear, with a few of
his best soldiers. Scipio exhibited some very skillful generalship on
this momentous occasion, and by a clever arrangement of his forces, he
left room for the elephants to run through the ranks without coming into
contact with any of his soldiers.
The success of Scipio was complete; and Hannibal returned to Carthage
after an absence of thirty-six years; having so far forgotten the
manners and customs of his country, that, during a debate in the Senate,
he dragged a noble--whose sentiments did not exactly coincide with his
own--by force from the tribune. On being called to order, he explained
that he had forgotten the forms of the house; and the discussion
proceeded as if nothing particular had happened. Carthage made peace
with Rome, on very advantageous terms to the latter; and Scipio, who
took the name of Africanus, enjoyed the honours of a triumph, at which
poor Syphax--who appears to have been everybody's victim--was obliged to
figure in fetters.
The terms imposed upon Carthage were very severe; for she was to deliver
up, without ransom, all the Roman prisoners: to surrender nearly all her
ships; and to part with all her elephants. She was also to pay over a
considerable sum in cash,--a stipulation which set the Senate off into a
roar of anguish, and caused Hannibal sneeringly to exclaim that "the
only thing to draw tears from their eyes was to draw money from their
pockets."[54]
Though Rome had been victorious, so fatal is war to all who engage in
it, that her successes had brought her almost to the verge of ruin.
Scenes of cruelty had dyed the country with blood, and left a stain upon
it which could not easily be effaced; and wherever the sword of war had
been brandished, nothing else had flourished. Troops had been raised
merely to be cut down; the country had been wasted on all sides; and
there had been a still more terrible waste of human existence. While
life was being made so cheap, the means of supporting it were getting
dearer every day; for provisions rose to an enormous price under the
influence of a system which converted the ploughshare into the sword,
and turned what should have been fields of corn into fields of battle.
To meet the expenses of the war, the public had been obliged to run into
debt; and there is no process to which the term running is more properly
applied, though the opposite movement is always slow, and often
impossible.
The Carthaginian fleet having been destroyed, Rome became nominally
mistress of the seas; but, for want of means, she made a very bad
mistress, and the sea might be said to maintain a mastery over her.
War, however, had been in some degree productive of good; for it had led
to the recognition of the great principle that the public service was
not to be monopolised by the privileged few, inasmuch as where there is
real work to be done, there is scope for the talents and energies to be
met with among the many. Wealth, however, had become a passport to
public employment; and the door could be opened by a golden key, which
has, in modern times, served most appropriately as the emblem of office.
The drain upon the resources of the nation was so considerable, in
consequence of the frequent wars, that the Senators sent their plate to
the treasury, and received bank bills instead,--an arrangement as
satisfactory as exchanging silver dishes for silver paper. The merchants
supplied dresses for the troops on the same terms, and accepted printed
rags for comfortable clothing.
Superstition also sensibly--or rather foolishly--increased during the
wars against Carthage; and the Sibylline books were consulted from time
to time, though usually with no other result than the recommendation of
a job, to be performed by Government Commissioners. On one occasion the
books were declared to require that Cybele should be brought to Rome;
and ambassadors were appointed, at a considerable expense, to go to
Phrygia, for the purpose of fetching her. They professed to find her,
and bring her home; but upon their arrival, they produced nothing but a
large black stone, which the people welcomed as a most precious stone,
and which they were contented to receive as the goddess they required.
FOOTNOTES:
[52] The term εὕρηκα has lately been applied to a newly-invented shirt;
but the term is extremely inappropriate, for the philosopher had no
shirt on when he proclaimed his great discovery.
[53] Stevinus, the Flemish mathematician, and Galileo, both of whom were
born about the middle of the sixteenth century, were the first who came
after Archimedes in any great mechanical discoveries.
[54] Livy, xxx. 44.
CHAPTER THE NINETEENTH.
WAR WITH THE MACEDONIANS. PROCLAMATION OF THE FREEDOM OF GREECE BY
FLAMINIUS. WAR WITH ANTIOCHUS. DEATH OF HANNIBAL, AND OF SCIPIO
AFRICANUS.
[Illustration]
War being still the theme of our history, we are obliged to ask the
reader to accompany us into the field, though we are aware that battles,
and their deadly details, cannot inspire a very lively interest.
Philip of Macedonia had become jealous of the power of Rome, which had
now got a footing in the boot of Italy; and, as Greece lay nearly under
the heel, it was natural that the Grecians should prepare to resist
being trampled on. Philip, therefore, concluded a treaty with Hannibal,
and sent ambassadors with the document; but, instead of delivering it
into the hands for which it was designed, they themselves fell into the
hands of the Romans.
Rome at once despatched to Illyricum a fleet of 50 sail, when Philip,
observing that the vessels were being wafted over by a favourable
breeze, saw there was something in the wind, and resolved--whatever the
blow--to be prepared for it. This was the commencement of the Macedonian
War, which became extremely unpopular with the Romans; for the people at
large regarded it as a bitter cup, though the nobles desired it for the
sake of the "bubble reputation" that the few might find in it. In vain
did the tribes protest against the proposed war, declaring they were no
enemies to Philip, for the Senate insisted he was an enemy of theirs,
and that it was accordingly their duty to fight with him.
The campaign was opened by P. Sulpicius Galba, who crossed the Adriatic,
but did little, and was succeeded by Villius Tappulus, who did nothing.
Fortune had hitherto observed a sort of stiffness towards both sides,
leaning neither to the right nor to the left, when she suddenly took a
turn under the consulship of T. Quinctius Flaminius. This individual
was, comparatively, young in years, but superlatively old in cunning;
and he possessed in an eminent degree the low arts of deceit which are
usually held to constitute the high art of statesmanship. He could
electrotype falsehood with the external appearance of truth, and he had
no lack of that lacquer which brazens out a fraud with the brass of
impudence. Everything in the shape of rust had been rubbed off his
manners, which had become smooth in the extreme, and had acquired that
high state of polish which is frequently associated with a very slippery
character. He slid, as it were, into the confidence of all, with the
easy lubricity of the serpent, and with not a little of its wiliness.
His smile won, or rather lost, those whom he wished to deceive, and he
tried its fascination with such effect on some of the Greek chiefs, that
they permitted him to enter Thebes, and either did not see what he had
in his eye, or were induced to wink at it. He pretended that he wished
to parley with the authorities; but, when the citizens were waiting to
see what would take place, they found the place itself quietly taken by
Flaminius.
Thessaly now became the scene of war, and the Romans met the Greeks near
a line of small hills, called, from their shape, the Dogs' Heads, or
Cynocephalæ. Here both parties fought with a dogged obstinacy, which was
quite in character with the place, until the Greek phalanx, or
Macedonian heavies, gave way before the Roman legions. The principle of
the phalanx was to pack the soldiers so closely together that their
shields touched, and their spears being upwards of twenty feet long, the
arms of the rear ranks leaned on the shoulders of those in advance, so
that they went forth arm in arm, as it were, to meet the enemy. The
Romans, on the contrary, preserved a sort of open order, in which there
was room for the exercise of their limbs; while the Greeks, if they were
able to raise their arms at all, were very likely to lift them against
each other. If the Romans were in need of assistance, there was space
left in their ranks for reinforcements to come up. But, amidst the
density of a Greek phalanx, nothing could make its way except a panic,
which will always find room to run through an entire army. Though
presenting, by these means, a formidable front, their line was no sooner
broken than they offered a most unprotected rear to an active foe, and
the Greek files on the occasion in question bore marks of a special
endorsement at the hands of the Romans. Having been packed as closely as
cards, 8000 Macedonians fell upon the field, or rather upon one another,
and Philip fled to Tempe, as if he was desirous to hide his face in
its well-known vale after his discomfiture. Here he negotiated an
arrangement, which may be termed the peace of the valley, though it was
a kind of peace with which he could scarcely be contented, for it
stipulated that he should give up all his ships except five; but he was,
nevertheless, permitted to retain 500 men of war in the shape of that
number of heavy-armed soldiers.
[Illustration: _Flaminus restoring liberty to Greece at the Isthmian
Games._]
He was also to pay 1000 talents, which would have taken every talent he
possessed, and put him to his wit's end at once, if he had not been
allowed ten years, within which to find the money. He was furthermore
compelled to send his son Demetrius to Rome for his education--a
stipulation, of which the object is not particularly clear, unless it
was thought that while the offspring was being schooled, a lesson was
also being given to the father. Flaminius, laying aside the character of
the warrior, proceeded to Greece as a tourist; and, though in private
life he was as gentle as a lamb, he was everywhere received as a lion.
Having visited the Isthmian games, he interrupted the herald who was
about to open the proceedings with the usual proclamation, and putting
into the hands of the officer a scroll, desired him to "read it out"
before proceeding with the programme. The document was an announcement
of the freedom of the Greek cities over which Macedonia had domineered;
and the people, finding that Flaminius had made them free, resolved on
making him welcome. Frantic with joy, they nearly deafened him with
cheers, and almost buried him in flowers; nor could he keep at bay those
who pressed forward to crown him with laurel. So dense was the throng,
that he must have felt a smothered satisfaction, if he felt any at all;
and even if he could have found words to return thanks, he could find no
breath to give them utterance.
In order that the Greeks might be shown the use of their new freedom,
Flaminius remained behind, to give an illustration of the method of
taking a liberty. Calling to his aid ten commissioners from Rome, he
proceeded to apportion the free cities of Greece in the manner most
agreeable to his own views; for it is a peculiarity of all freedom
imported from abroad, that it must be a freedom in conformity with the
taste of the importers, and not of those for whose use the article is
required. It thus frequently happens that what is recommended as a
luxury from abroad proves far from palatable to a people not accustomed
to the new commodity; and, though efforts may be made to force it down
their throats, at the point of the sword, the morsel is not easy of
digestion, and is only revolting to those whom it may have been intended
to satisfy.
After completing the independence of Greece, by forcing republics on
some of its cities, taking possession of some others, and establishing
internal discord in nearly all, Flaminius returned to Rome in the year
of the City 559, and enjoyed the honours of a triumph.
As no one is at times louder in his denunciations of dishonesty than the
practised rogue, so the Romans, who were for enslaving and plundering
all the world, found it convenient, occasionally, to protest against the
rapacity of such as were rivals in the game of conquest. Philip had
already been dealt with on the principle that it is impossible for two
of a trade to agree; and a quarrel was now picked with Antiochus, who
was doing a somewhat extensive business as a wholesale appropriator of
what did not rightly belong to him. Flaminius, therefore, while
declaring, after his own fashion, the independence of Greece, stipulated
that freedom should be restored by Antiochus to all the Greek cities in
Asia,--an arrangement that would have left the cities at liberty to be
made free with by Rome in her usual manner. Antiochus justified his own
wrong by denying the right of any one else to interfere, and continued
appropriating to himself other places to which he had no legal or
equitable title. He seized on the Thracian Chersonesus, on the ground
that one of his ancestors had seized it once before,--a principle about
as just as if the grandson of a thief, who had been transported for
stealing a watch, should, on the strength of his ancestral crime, rob
the owner anew of the same property.
Finding Lysimachia deserted, he took it as his own desert; when the
Romans, growing jealous of his success in the predatory line, declared
that they should regard, as a direct opposition to Rome, any further
acts of plunder.
While matters were in this state, Hannibal was living in scarcely any
state at all, as an ordinary member of the Carthaginian Senate. He had
taken the opposition side of the house; and though he was a proposer of
many useful reforms, he was frequently coughed down, and in a minority
always. Finding little sympathy amongst his own countrymen, who were all
for peace and quietness, he entered into a negotiation with Antiochus,
for the purpose of ascertaining whether they could arrange to create a
joint disturbance, and thus weaken the Roman power. Treachery was,
however, going on in all directions; for, while Hannibal was plotting
with Antiochus against Rome, some of the Carthaginians were plotting
with Rome against Hannibal; and a further breach of trust in some other
quarter made him acquainted with his danger. He accordingly resolved to
escape; and having a small tower--or marine residence--on the coast, he
sent orders that a ship should be ready to sail, and a berth secured for
him. He walked about the streets of Carthage all day, as if nothing had
happened, and nothing was likely to occur; for the Roman ambassadors
were continually dogging his footsteps; and he led them about so
perseveringly all day, that when the evening arrived they had scarcely a
leg to stand upon. Hannibal had, however, ordered his horse, which flew
with him across the country to the spot where the ship was in waiting;
and, after a difficult passage, by land as well as by sea, he arrived at
the Court of Antiochus.
True to his infantine oath, Hannibal did his utmost to excite hostility
against the Romans; and asked Antiochus to lend him a trifle, in the
shape of 10,000 men, as if they were so many counters, that the game of
war required. Antiochus, however, like a boy jealous of his toys,
refused to hand over the 10,000 men, whose lives might be required as
playthings for himself; and he was not long in making use of them.