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NIEBUHR'S 
 
 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
ftiiiwk 
 
 Pul/ishj'J, by Taylor S f^vJj^yu. U/jpAr GowsrStreet.ZoTidoruldH: 
 
THE HISTORY OF ROME 
 
 FROM THE FIRST PUNIC WAR TO THE DEATH OF CONSTANTINE. 
 
 BY 
 
 B. G, NIEBUHR. 
 
 IN A SERIES OF LECTURES, 
 
 INCLUDING AN INTRODUCTORY COURSE ON THE SOURCES AND STUDY OF 
 ROMAN HISTORY. 
 
 EDITED BY 
 
 LEONHARD SCHMITZ, Ph. D. 
 VOL. I. 
 
 FORMmG THE FOURTH VOLUME OF THE ENTIRE HISTORY. 
 
 LONDON : 
 
 Printed by S. Bentley and Co., Bangor House, Shoe Lane: 
 
 FOR TAYLOR AND WALTON, 
 
 Booksellers and Publishers to University College ; 
 
 28, UPPER GOWER-STREET, 
 
 AND SOLD BY DEIGHTONS, CAMBRIDGE ; AND PARKER, OXFORD, 
 
 M.DCCC.XLIV. 
 
TO HIS MAJESTY 
 
 FREDERIC WILLIAM THE FOURTH, 
 KING OF PRUSSIA, 
 
 THE MOST ILLUSTRIOUS TUPIL OF KIEBUHR, 
 THE GENUINE AND MUNIFICENT ADMIRER OF HIS MERITS, 
 
 THIS AYORK 
 
 IS MOST RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED 
 
 BY 
 
 THE EDITOR. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 Upwards of thirteen years have now elapsed since 
 the death of Niebuhr, and none of the many courses of 
 lectures delivered by him have yet been published. It 
 must, at first sight, appear strange that those lectures, 
 which, as far as their intrinsic merits and their suggestive 
 nature are concerned, cannot easily be surpassed by any 
 others, should have been neglected so long by Niebuhr's 
 countrymen ; and it will probably appear still more 
 strange that the first attempt to rescue these precious 
 relics is made in this country. But there are circum- 
 stances which will account for this apparent neglect of 
 a man, whose opinions on subjects of ancient history 
 must be of the highest interest to every scholar. The 
 main cause is the pietas which Niebuhr's pupils feel for 
 their great master, and which has deterred them from pub- 
 lishing anything that might possibly place him before the 
 public in an unfair light. This apprehension arises from 
 the condition of the notes which were taken down by 
 his pupils in the lecture-room, and which are the only 
 materials out of which the lectures can be re-constructed, 
 for Niebuhr himself never wrote them down. The diffi- 
 culty of casting these confused, fragmentary, and some- 
 times unintelligible, notes into a proper and intelhgible 
 form is indeed so great, that this would be of itself suffi- 
 
Vlll PREFACE. 
 
 cient to deter any one from undertaking a task which is 
 far more irksome than that of producing an original work, 
 and which, when accompUshed, must of necessity fall short 
 of what it might be. 
 
 It is therefore not indifference on the part of Nie- 
 buhr's pupils, that has so long delayed the publication 
 of any of his courses of lectures, but simply the anxiety to 
 do justice to his memory, and the difficulties which present 
 themselves at almost every step. The anxiety to be just 
 towards Niebuhr went indeed so far, that when I ap- 
 plied to one of his most eminent pupils to undertake the 
 publication of the lectures on Roman history, or at least 
 to give me his assistance if he declined the task, he de- 
 clared that no one ought to venture upon such an un- 
 dertaking, unless he felt that he could do it in the man- 
 ner in which Niebuhr himself would have done it, if the 
 thought of publishing his lectures had occurred to him. 
 Honourable as this feeling is, still, if we were to wait 
 till any of Niebuhr's pupils could, without presumption, 
 say that he was equal to his master, the lectures would 
 in all probability remain buried for ever. I am as anxious 
 as any one to do justice to Niebuhr, and although I am 
 at the same time very far from believing that I have at- 
 tained that competency which my late fellow-student re- 
 gards as the conditio sine qua non, I have been induced by 
 various favourable circumstances to undertake the task ; 
 and after the completion of the work, which may not be 
 what it ought to be, I have at least this consolation, 
 — that I have ttiade my best efforts ; and that I have 
 spared neither time nor trouble to make out of my ma- 
 terials all that could be made of them under the cir- 
 cumstances of the case, and without altering any of 
 
PREFACE. IX 
 
 Niebuhr's sentiments and opinions. With regard to the 
 difficulties of accomplishing this, I think I may say that 
 I have felt them more strongly than others who have 
 merely looked at them without actually trying to over- 
 come them ; and the reader of the present work will find 
 indications enough of my inability to solve them in all 
 instances. This fact would have deterred me, like other 
 pupils of Niebuhr, from venturing upon the undertaking, 
 had I not been favoured by circumstances, among which 
 I mention with gratitude the advice, encouragement, and 
 assistance of my distinguished friends, Bishop Thirlwall, 
 the Chevalier Bunsen, the Rev. Philip Smith, and Dr. 
 William Smith. 
 
 In order to put the reader in a position fully to under- 
 stand these preliminary remarks, it will be necessary for 
 me to give some account of the materials I had to work 
 upon, and of the principles I have endeavoured to follow. 
 The notes, upon which the present work is founded, were 
 made in the winter of 1828-29 and the summer of 1829, 
 when Niebuhr gave a course of lectures on the History 
 of Rome in the University of Bonn, the last time that 
 he ever lectured on that subject. His intention was to 
 relate the history of Rome from the earliest times to the 
 downfall of the Western Empire, during the winter course 
 of 1828-29 : but the time — he lectured five times every 
 week, and each lecture lasted three quarters of an hour 
 — was not sufficient, and he was not able to carry the 
 history further than the reign of Augustus. In order to 
 fulfil his engagement, he continued his lectures in the 
 summer of 1829, in which he related the history of the 
 Roman emperors. The time allowed for this continu- 
 ation, one lecture every week, proved again insufficient; 
 
X PREFACE. 
 
 and, brief as his sketches of the history of the emperors 
 and the principal events of their reigns were, yet the 
 summer course came to its close just as Niebuhr had 
 finished his account of Constantino the Great.* 
 
 It must be observed that Niebuhr delivered his lec- 
 tures before young men who were supposed to be ac- 
 quainted with the leading events of Roman history, or at 
 least to possess a sufficient acquaintance with the ancient 
 languages to read the Greek and Latin works which form 
 the sources of our knowledge. It was therefore not so 
 much Niebuhr's object to fill their memory with all the 
 details of history, as to enable them to understand its im- 
 portant events, and to form correct notions of the men 
 and institutions which occur in the history of Rome. 
 Hence some events were passed over altogether, and 
 others were only slightly alluded to, especially where he 
 could refer his hearers to the ancients themselves for 
 accurate and satisfactory information. 
 
 Niebuhr, as a lecturer, was a singular phaenomenon ; 
 he delivered his discourses extempore, and without hav- 
 ing any written notes before him to assist his memory. 
 The form in which he delivered them was that of a 
 familiar and lively conversation with friends, in which he 
 made use of his most varied and inexhaustible stores of 
 knowledge and personal experience to illustrate the sub- 
 jects of his discourses, and in which he abandoned himself 
 without restraint to the expression of his strong feelings, 
 as they might be called forth by the subjects under 
 consideration. A few harsh expressions which escaped 
 
 * A writer in the Lchensnachrichten von B. G. Niebuhr, vol. iii. 
 J). 290, erroneously states that the lectures comprised the history- 
 down to the fall of the Western Empire. 
 
PREFACE. XI 
 
 him under the influence of such passionate feehngs have 
 been softened down in the present work, for an expression 
 printed makes a very different impression from what it 
 does when spoken in the heat of the moment. When 
 Niebuhr spoke, it always appeared as if the rapidity with 
 which the thoughts occurred to him obstructed his power 
 of communicating them in their regular order of succes- 
 sion. Nearly all his sentences, therefore, were anacoluths ; 
 for, before having finished one, he began another, perpe- 
 tually mixing up one thought with another, without pro- 
 ducing any one in its complete form. This peculiarity 
 was more particularly striking when he was labouring 
 under any mental excitement, which occurred the oftener 
 as, with his great sensitiveness, he felt that warmth of 
 interest in treating of the history of past ages, which we 
 are accustomed to witness only in discussions on the 
 political affairs of our own time and country. The circum- 
 stance of Niebuhr delivering his thoughts in that singular 
 manner — a deficiency of which he himself was painfully 
 conscious — rendered it often extremely difficult to under- 
 stand him ; and it may easily be inferred in what a state of 
 confusion the notes were, which were taken down by the 
 students under such circumstances. But, notwithstand- 
 ing this deficiency in Niebuhr as a lecturer, there was 
 an indescribable charm in the manner in which he treated 
 his subjects : the warmth of his feelings, the sympathy 
 which he felt with the persons and things he was speaking 
 of, his strong conviction of the truth of what he was 
 saying, his earnestness, and, above all, the vividness with 
 which he conceived and described the characters of the 
 most prominent men, who were to him living realities, with 
 souls, feelings, and passions hke ourselves, carried his 
 
Xll PREFACE. 
 
 hearers away, and produced effects which are usually the 
 results only of the most powerful oratory. Would that 
 my materials had enabled me in all cases to preserve these 
 features in the lectures which I am now bringing before 
 the public ! 
 
 Another circumstance, which gave rise to mistakes 
 and confusion in the notes, was the ignorance of Nie- 
 buhr''s hearers about a countless number of things which 
 he introduced as illustrations of the history of Rome, and 
 which were taken from the history of countries with whose 
 languages we pupils were unacquainted. Hence proper 
 names were constantly misunderstood or misspelt. Nie- 
 buhr moreover, spoke very rapidly; and in addition to all 
 this it must be remembered that students are not trained 
 as short-hand writers, like the reporters of lectures in this 
 country, and that every student notes down as much as he 
 can, or as much as he may think proper or useful to him- 
 self, no one being able to write with the same rapidity with 
 which a lecturer like Niebuhr speaks. Some slight mis- 
 takes also were made by Niebuhr himself, but these were 
 chiefly such as any one engaged in a lively conversation will 
 make : for example, the name of one person was occasionally 
 mentioned for that of another, dates were confounded, or 
 the order of events was reversed. Sometimes also he for- 
 got to mention an event in its proper place, and afterwards, 
 when the oversight occurred to him, he stated what he had 
 omitted. All such mistakes, inaccuracies, and inconsisten- 
 cies, I have endeavoured to remedy tacitly, wherever it was 
 possible for me to do so. These corrections could of course 
 only be made by tracing Niebuhr's statements to their 
 sources, both ancient and modern ; and I have made them 
 only in cases where they were commanded by positive evi- 
 
PREFACE. XIU 
 
 dence. There are a few points which I was obliged to 
 leave as I found them, and which I could not consider as 
 mistakes, although the authorities which I had before me 
 seemed to justify the supposition that they were mistakes. 
 But Niebuhr may have had other authorities which were 
 unknown to me. Wherever such a case occurred, I have 
 pointed it out in a note. There are lastly a very few state- 
 ments which I was unable to substantiate by any authority, 
 but which I have nevertheless preserved, in the hope that 
 they may induce others to search, and with better success 
 than myself. 
 
 It would perhaps have been desirable to publish the 
 complete course of Niebuhr's lectures on Roman History 
 at once, but I thought it preferable, on mature conside- 
 ration, first to give to the world only the lectures on that 
 portion of the history of Rome, which is not contained 
 in the three volumes already before the public, so that 
 the present lectures will form a sort of continuation to 
 his great work. But in determining upon this plan I 
 have added two things, which at first sight may seem 
 to be out of place and inconsistent with my plan, — viz. 
 the twelve Introductory Lectures, and those on the first 
 Punic war, from p. 95 to p. 140. With regard to the 
 Introductory Lectures, it is true, the translators of the 
 first two volumes have prefixed to vol. i. a short intro- 
 duction by Niebuhr ; but that introduction contains only a 
 few general remarks, and was written as early as the year 
 1810, whereas the twelve Introductory Lectures now pub- 
 lished give a complete summary of all that has ever been done 
 for Roman history; they contain some very valuable re- 
 marks on both ancient and modern works, and are intended 
 to lay before the student the materials upon which our 
 
XIV PREFACE. 
 
 knowledge of Roman history is based, and to instruct him 
 about the manner in which he has to make use of them. 
 An account of the first Punic war is contained at the end 
 of vol. III. but that account is only a fragment, and was 
 moreover written as early as the year 1811. These were 
 reasons sufficient in themselves to induce me to publish the 
 lectures on the first Punic war, which also contain discus- 
 sions upon a variety of things not to be found elsewhere. 
 
 When I had made up my mind to set about the task of 
 preparing these lectures for publication, I soon found that 
 my own notes alone would be too insecure a basis to 
 work upon, as no one of Niebuhr's pupils was able, even 
 if he had wished to do so, to make his notes complete 
 and accurate. I therefore procured from Germany as 
 many and as good manuscripts as I could, to correct and 
 complete my own by the assistance of the others. But I 
 am well aware that notwithstanding all this, some of the 
 lectures cannot be complete, considering the small space 
 they occupy in this work, and the fact that, when they were 
 delivered, each occupied the space of three-quarters of an 
 hour. This incompleteness however is only apparent, and 
 aifects only the form ; for the substance of Niebuhr's dis- 
 courses is preserved throughout, and there are only a very 
 few instances in which the omission of explanatory matter 
 is perceptible. The students in German universities 
 seldom write down the remarks of the lecturer on things 
 not closely connected with the subject under consideration, 
 although the remarks of a man like Niebuhr, even when 
 they appeared less important to an inexperienced student, 
 were always of the greatest interest and highly suggestive. 
 But I am happy to say that my own manuscript, as well as 
 the others which I have collated, have few omissions of 
 
PREFACE. XV 
 
 this kind, and all the students appear to have been well 
 aware of the importance of Niebuhr's remarks on extra- 
 neous subjects. The very few lectures in which such 
 omissions occur, are for this reason somewhat briefer than 
 the rest. In a spoken discourse, the introduction of 
 explanatory or extraneous matter always appears to in- 
 terrupt the context less than in a written or printed 
 discourse. In most cases therefore, where such observa- 
 tions by the way appeared to interrupt the narrative and 
 could be conveniently removed, I have taken them out of 
 the text and put them at the foot of the page as notes. 
 In order to distinguish them from the notes which I have 
 added myself, I have always marked them with Niebuhr's 
 initial— N. 
 
 All these lectures are only brief summaries, that is, the 
 results of Niebuhr's investigations. He never gave any 
 other references to his authorities except in the general 
 way in which they occur in the text. Wherever I have 
 been able to find the passages of his authorities, and 
 wherever I thought them useful to the student, I have 
 given the exact references. It would have been easy to 
 multiply their number, but I was not inclined to swell the 
 bulk of the work with a useless display of learning ; suffice 
 it to say that I have endeavoured to verify every one of 
 Niebuhr's statements by referring to the ancient as well 
 as modern authorities. I have purposely abstained from 
 giving references to the numberless modern works on the 
 History of Rome or separate portions of it, except in a 
 few cases in which Niebuhr's words seemed to suggest the 
 propriety of doing so, and a few others in which I could 
 refer to Niebuhr's own works. Still less did I feel called 
 upon to controvert opinions of Niebuhr; and it is only 
 
XVI PREFACE. 
 
 in one or two instances that I have added any remarks of 
 this kind, because in referring to the authorities, state- 
 ments presented themselves to me at once, which were 
 at variance with Niebuhr's opinion. In these cases how- 
 ever I am very far from asserting that Niebuhr is wrong, 
 and all that I mean to suggest is, that I have not been 
 able to discover the authorities on which his opinions or 
 statements may be founded. 
 
 If I have not succeeded in reproducing these lectures 
 in a manner worthy of Niebuhr in all respects, I venture to 
 hope that a consideration of the difficulties with which 1 
 have had to struggle, will suggest at least some excuse for 
 my inadequate performance. I have often been on the 
 point of giving up the undertaking altogether in despair, 
 but my love and admiration for Niebuhr, my conviction of 
 the peculiar interest and value of his lectures, and the en- 
 couragement of learned friends, always urged me on, and 
 gave me fresh strength to proceed with my task. And 
 now that the w^ork is completed, I would rather see all 
 its defects attributed to my own incapacity, than that any 
 one of them should, through my fault, be imputed to 
 Niebuhr. 
 
 L. SCHMITZ. 
 
 London, April, 1844. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 INTRODUCTION.— SOURCES AND STUDY OP 
 ROMAN HISTORY. 
 
 LECTURE I. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Examination of the sources of Roman history, its credibility, 
 
 authenticity, and literature . . . . .1 
 
 LECTURE II. 
 
 The same subject continued . . ... 7 
 
 Annals ........ 7 
 
 Tradition . . . . . . ,12 
 
 Lays . . . . . . . .12 
 
 LECTURE III. 
 
 Destruction of historical documents and their restorations . 14 
 
 Popular lays, continued . . . . . .16 
 
 Chronicles . . . . . . .18 
 
 Earliest method of writing history . . . .20 
 
 LECTURE IV. 
 
 Earliest literature of the Romans 
 
 Appius Claudius, the Blind 
 
 Naevius 
 
 Q. Fabius Pictor . 
 
 Numerius Fabius Pictor 
 
 Fabius Maximus Servilianus 
 
 23 
 23 
 23 
 27 
 29 
 30 
 
 32 
 
 LECTURE 
 
 L. Cincius Alimentus . 
 
 C. Acilius ...... . . 32 
 
 Q. Eniiius ••..... 33 
 
 M. Porcius Cato , . • ... 35 
 
 L. Cassius Hemina ...... 37 
 
XVlll CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Q. Fabiu3 Maximus Servilianus . • . . .38 
 
 Cn. Gellius .38 
 
 L. Calpurnius Piso Censorius , . . . .38 
 
 C. Junius Gracchanus ...... 40 
 
 Q. Claudius Quadrigarius . . . . . .40 
 
 Q. Valerius Antias . . . . . .41 
 
 LECTURE VI. 
 
 C. Licinius Macer . . . . , . .42 
 
 Q. Aelius Tubero . . . . . .44 
 
 T. Pomponius Atticus . . . . . .44 
 
 M. Tullius Cicero ...... 44 
 
 Sallust . . . . . . . .45 
 
 Sisenna ....... 46 
 
 Diodorus Siculus . . . . . . .46 
 
 Dionysius of Halicarnassus ..... 46 
 
 LECTURE VIL 
 
 Dionysius of Halicarnassus, continued . . . .50 
 
 Livy ........ 53 
 
 LECTURE VIII, 
 
 Livy, continued . . . . . .58 
 
 History and manuscripts of Livy's work ... 63 
 
 LECTURE IX. 
 
 The same subject continued . . . .67 
 
 Critical labours bestowed upon Livy .... 68 
 
 Plutarch ........ 70 
 
 Appian . . . . . . . . ' 70 
 
 Dion Cassius (Xiphilinus and Zonaras) . . . .72 
 
 LECTURE X. 
 
 Dion Cassius, continued ..... 77 
 
 The study of Roman history in the middle ages, and after the 
 
 revival of letters . . . . . .79 
 
 Sigonius ....... 80 
 
 Panvinius . . . . . . . .80 
 
 Pighius, ....... 80 
 
 Freinsheini . . . . .82 
 
 Sceptics of the eighteenth century, and other modern writers on 
 
 the history of Rome . . .82 
 
CONTENTS. XIX 
 
 LECTURE XL 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Critical examination of Roman history and its results . . 84 
 
 Requirements of the student of history ... 86 
 
 Auxiliary sciences : Antiquities, Geography . . .87 
 
 Mannert ....... 87 
 
 Cluverius . . . . . . . .87 
 
 D'Anville . . . . . . .88 
 
 Barbie du Bocage . . . . . .88 
 
 Reichard ....... 89 
 
 Rennell ........ 90 
 
 LECTURE XII. 
 
 Importance of a knowledge of Roman history . . 91 
 
 HISTORY OF ROME FROM THE FIRST PUNIC WAR. 
 
 LECTURE I. 
 
 Events which preceded and led to the first Punic war . . 95 
 
 The Campanian legion ...... 95 
 
 Mamertines . . . . . . .96 
 
 State of Sicily under Agathocles and Hiero ... 97 
 
 Beginning of the first Punic war . . . . 102 
 
 LECTURE II. 
 Foundation of Carthage ..... 103 
 
 Sketch of its history ...... 105 
 
 Its dominions at the beginning of the war with Rome . 106 
 
 Political constitution and national character of the Carthaginians 107 
 
 LECTURE III. 
 
 Physical nature of Sicily . . . . .111 
 
 Division of the first Punic war into periods or masses . .112 
 
 Taking of Agrigentum ..... 113 
 
 Ancient ships . . . . . . .115 
 
 Fleet of the Romans . . . . . .115 
 
 Victory of C. Duilius 117 
 
XX CONTENTS. 
 
 LECTURE IV. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Victory of the Romans near Ecnomus . . . 119 
 
 Their landing in Africa and their success there . . 120 
 
 Regulus ....... 121 
 
 Xanthippus ....... 122 
 
 Defeat of Regulus ...... 123 
 
 Disasters of the Romans at sea ..... 124 
 
 Victory of L. Caecilius Metellus at Panormus . . 125 
 
 Character of the last pei'iod of the war .... 126 
 
 LECTURE V. 
 
 Embassy of Regulus to Rome .... 128 
 
 Lilybaeum ....... 129 
 
 Effects of the war upon Sicily .... 129 
 
 Siege of Lilybaeum ...... 130 
 
 Defeat of the Romans at Drepana .... 132 
 
 Wreck of the Roman transports near Camarina . . 133 
 
 Hamilcar Barca . . . . . .134 
 
 Hercte ........ 135 
 
 Eryx ........ 135 
 
 LECTURE VL 
 
 The third Roman fleet ...... I37 
 
 Victory of the Romans near the Aegates . . . 138 
 
 Conclusion of the war and peace ..... 139 
 
 Sicily the first Roman province .... 140 
 
 Constitutional changes made within the last fifty years . . 140 
 
 War against the Faliscans . . . . .142 
 
 Insurrection of the mercenaries at Carthage . . . 142 
 
 Sardinia and Corsica •..,.. 143 
 
 lUyricum . . . , . _ .144 
 
 LECTURE VII. 
 
 History strengthens the belief in divine Providence . 146 
 
 The Cisalpine Gauls, and war against them . . .147 
 
 Hamilcar Barca in Spain ..... 152 
 
 LECTURE VIII. 
 
 The second Punic war . . ; . . .155 
 
 Its importance . . , .155 
 
 The literature upon it . . . . . .155 
 
CONTENTS. XXI 
 
 PAGE 
 
 The great commanders : Hannibal, Scipio, Q. Fabius Maximus, 
 
 and Claudius Marcellus . . • • .158 
 
 Division of the war into five periods . . . .162 
 
 Contemporary wars . . • . • .163 
 
 LECTURE IX. 
 
 The Carthaginian empire in Spain .... 164 
 
 Treaty of Rome with Hasdrubal . . . .165 
 
 Siege of Saguntum . . . . . .165 
 
 Expedition of Hannibal towards the Alps . . . 166 
 
 Proceedings of the Romans on the approach of Hannibal . 167 
 
 Hannibal's passage over the Alps . . . .169 
 
 LECTURE X. 
 
 Conduct of the Romans on the approach of Hannibal . . 174 
 
 First engagement with the Romans on the Ticinus . . 175 
 
 Battle on the Trebia . . . . . .176 
 
 C. Flaminius . ; . . . . 1 79 
 
 Hannibal's march into Etruria . . . . .181 
 
 Battle of lake Trasimenus ..... 183 
 
 LECTURE XL 
 
 Extraordinary phaenomena in nature . . . .185 
 
 Proceedings of Hannibal after the battle of Trasimenus . 186 
 
 Why he did not march against Rome .'' • . . . 187 
 
 His arrival in Apulia . . . . .189 
 
 L. Aemilius Paullus and C. Terentius Varro . . .190 
 
 Battle of Cannae .... . 191 
 
 LECTURE XIL 
 
 Hannibal in Campania .... . 196 
 
 Capua ....... 196 
 
 Third period of the war, from 537 to 541 . . . 199 
 
 Exertions of the Romans ..... 200 
 
 They gain advantages in Campania .... 201 
 
 Besiege Capua ...... 202 
 
 Hannibal at the gates of Rome ..... 202 
 
 Hieronymus of Syracuse . ... 203 
 
 His successors, Hippocrates and Epicydes . . . 203 
 
 Siege and capture of Syracuse by the Romans . . 204 
 
 LECTURE XIIL 
 Surrender of Capua ...... 205 
 
 The period from 541 to 545 ..... 20G 
 
XXll 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 The war in Spain 
 P. Cornelius Scipio 
 Hasdrubal . 
 Battle on the Metaurus 
 
 PAGE 
 
 . 206 
 207 
 
 . 209 
 210 
 
 LECTURE XIV. 
 
 Continuation of the war in Spain 
 
 Insurrection of the Italian allies in the army of Scipio 
 
 Syphax ...... 
 
 P. Cornelius Scipio, consul, crosses over to Africa 
 Masinissa ...... 
 
 Negotiations for peace .... 
 
 LECTURE XV. 
 
 The negotiations for peace broken off 
 Battle of Zama .... 
 
 Peace concluded .... 
 
 Consequences of the second Punic war 
 
 First war with Macedonia 
 
 Condition of Macedonia 
 
 Philip III. ..... 
 
 General view of the state of the East 
 Peace with Macedonia 
 
 211 
 212 
 213 
 213 
 216 
 218 
 
 221 
 221 
 222 
 223 
 224 
 225 
 225 
 226 
 228 
 
 LECTURE XVI. 
 
 Affairs in the East 
 Internal condition of Rome 
 Second Macedonian war 
 T. Quinctius Flamininus 
 Condition of Greece . 
 Battle of Cynoscephalae . 
 Peace with Philip 
 Freedom of Greece 
 
 230 
 231 
 231 
 232 
 234 
 235 
 237 
 238 
 
 LECTURE XVII. 
 
 War against the Boians and Insubrians 
 Antiochus the Great and his empire 
 Hannibal at the court of Antiochus . 
 War against Nabis 
 Feelings of the Greeks 
 Battle of Thermopylae . 
 War against the Aetolians 
 
 240 
 242 
 243 
 244 
 245 
 246 
 247 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 XXlll 
 
 LECTURE XVIII. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 War with Antiochus in Asia ..... 249 
 
 Battle of Magnesia ...... 250 
 
 Peace with Antiochus, and the subsequent arrangements in Asia 251 
 
 Death of P. Cornelius Scipio ..... 253 
 
 Beginning of demoralization among the Romans . . 254 
 
 M. Porcius Cato ....... 256 
 
 LECTURE XIX. 
 
 Early acquaintance of the Italians with Greek literature 
 Roman literature ..... 
 
 Atellanae and Praetextatae . 
 
 Livius Andronicus .... 
 
 Naevius ..... 
 
 Plautus . . ... 
 
 Ennius ..... 
 
 Pacuvius ...... 
 
 Romans who wrote Greek ... 
 
 Death of Scipio and Hannibal 
 
 The importance of capital at Rome . 
 
 LECTURE XX. 
 
 The Ligurian war .... 
 
 War in Spain ..... 
 
 Cato and Tib. Sempronius Gracchus 
 
 The last years of the reign of Philip of Macedonia 
 
 Conduct of the Romans .... 
 
 Demetrius ...... 
 
 Perseus ...... 
 
 Death of Philip ..... 
 
 The first period of the reign of Perseus . 
 War of Perseus against the Romans 
 Feelings of the Greeks at that time 
 
 259 
 259 
 260 
 260 
 261 
 261 
 262 
 264 
 264 
 265 
 266 
 
 267 
 267 
 268 
 269 
 270 
 271 
 271 
 272 
 272 
 274 
 275 
 
 LECTURE XXI. 
 
 Continuation of the war against Perseus . . . 277 
 
 L. Aemilius PauUus ...... 279 
 
 Battle of Pydna ..... . 279 
 
 Conduct of the Romans after their victory . . . 280 
 
 Arrangements in Macedonia and Greece . . . 282 
 
 The period between the conqiiest of Macedonia and the third 
 
 Punic war . . . . . . . 283 
 
XXIV CONTENTS. 
 
 LECTURE XXII. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Carthage during the interval between the second and third war 
 
 with Rome ....... 286 
 
 Masinissa becomes the occasion of the third Punic war . 287 
 
 Conduct of the Romans ..... 288 
 
 Beginning of the war ...... 289 
 
 P. Cornelius Scipio ...... 292 
 
 LECTURE XXIII. 
 
 Topography of Carthage , . . . . .294 
 
 Its siege and destruction ..... 295 
 
 Pseudo-PhUip of Macedonia ; his war with Rome and his de- 
 feat ........ 298 
 
 Achaia, its constitution, and the evUs resulting from it . 300 
 
 Unreasonable demands of the Romans . . . .301 
 
 Insults offered to the Roman ambassadors at Corinth . 302 
 
 LECTURE XXIV. 
 
 Condition of the Achaeans ..... 303 
 
 304 
 . 305 
 
 305 
 . 305 
 
 306 
 . 306 
 
 307 
 . 307 
 
 308 
 
 They declare war against Rome 
 
 Critolaus defeated in Locris 
 
 Metellus ...... 
 
 Diaeus ...... 
 
 Mummius . ..... 
 
 Destruction of Corinth .... 
 
 ^^'^ars in Spain against the Celtiberians 
 
 I\L Claudius Marcellus concludes peace with them 
 
 Wars against the Lusitanians, Viriathus, and Numantia 
 
 LECTURE XXV. 
 
 War against Numantia, continued . . . .312 
 
 Its destruction by Scipio ..... 315 
 
 Servile war in Sicily ...... 315 
 
 Attalus of Pergamus . . . . , .317 
 
 Aristonicus ...... 317 
 
 Constitutional changes at Rome . . . .318 
 
 LECTURE XXVI. 
 
 Ager publicus and its occupation ..... 323 
 
 Condition of the Roman people at the time of the Gracchi 325 
 
 Agrarian law of Tib. Sempronius Gracchus . . . 327 
 
 Character of the opposition ..... 330 
 
CONTENTS. XXV 
 
 LECTURE XXVII. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Machinations of the opposition ..... 332 
 M. Octavius is deprived of his tribuneship, and the law of Tib. 
 
 Senipronius Gracchus is carried .... 333 
 
 Gracchus tries to obtain the tribuneship for the next year . 333 
 
 Is murdered ....... 336 
 
 Persecutions of his fi-iends ..... 336 
 
 Events of the period from the death of Tib. Gracchus to the 
 
 tribuneship of C. Sempronius Gracchus . . . 339 
 
 LECTURE XXVIII. 
 
 C. Sempronius Gracchus ...... 341 
 
 His tribuneship and legislation .... 342 
 
 Intrigues of the senate to deprive him of the favour of the 
 
 people ........ 348 
 
 LECTURE XXIX. 
 
 Consulship of L. Opimius, and death of C. Gracchus . 351 
 
 C. Papirius Carbo ...... 353 
 
 L. Crassus ....... 334 
 
 Foreign wars during this period ..... 354 
 
 The Jugurthine war and Sallust's description of it . . 356 
 
 M. Aemilius Scaurus ...... 358 
 
 LECTURE XXX. 
 
 The war against Jugurtha, continued . . . 360 
 
 Q. Caecilius Metellus . . . . . .361 
 
 C. Marius brings the war to a close .... 362 
 
 The Cimbri and Teutones ..... 365 
 
 Defeats of the Romans by the Cimbri . . , 366 
 
 C. Marius four times consul : begins his campaign in his fourth 
 consulship . . . . . . .367 
 
 LECTURE XXXI. 
 
 C. Marius defeats the Teutones, and, in conjunction with C. Lu- 
 
 tatius Catulus, the Cimbri also ... 369 
 
 The consulships of Marius . • . . . . 372 
 
 L. Appuleius Satiirninus and his agrarian laws . . 372 
 
 He and his associates are put to death .... 374 
 
 The equites as judices and farmers of the public revenue , 375 
 
XXVI CONTENTS. 
 
 LECTURE XXXII. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Internal condition of Rome ..... 376 
 
 The lex Domitia de sacerdotiis .... 377 
 
 The judicial power of the equites .... 377 
 
 The question about the franchise of the Italians . . 378 
 
 M. Livius Drusus and his legislation .... 378 
 
 His assassination ...... 382 
 
 The law of Q. Varius ...... 383 
 
 LECTURE XXXIII. 
 
 The Social or Marsic war ..... 384 
 
 The lex Julia ....... 387 
 
 Division of the scene of war into three regions . . 388 
 
 Outline of the course of events ..... 388 
 
 LECTURE XXXIV. 
 
 C. Marius and L. Cornelius Sulla . . . .391 
 
 The kingdom of Pontus ...... 392 
 
 Mithridates vi. . . ... . . 392 
 
 First war against Mithridates . . . . . 393 
 
 Civil war between Marius and Sulla .... 394' 
 
 Victory of Sulla, and his departure for Greece . . . 396 
 
 The tribes of the new citizens . . . .397 
 
 LECTURE XXXV. 
 
 Cinna and Cn. Octavius ...... 399 
 
 Struggle between the parties of Marius and Sulla . . 400 
 
 Q. Sertorius ....... 400 
 
 Rome besieged and taken by the Marian party . . 401 
 
 Sulla's exploits in Achaia and Asia .... 403 
 
 LECTURE XXXVI. 
 
 Sulla's return to Italy .... . , 4,08 
 
 The consulship of C. Marius, the younger, and Cn. Papirius 
 Carbo ........ 409 
 
 Blockade of Praeneste . . . . . 4,10 
 
 Sulla at Rome, and his victory dt the CoUine gate . .411 
 
 His proscription and his military colonies . . . .1,12 
 
 His reforms of the constitution and criminal legislation. . 413 
 
 His abdication and death . . . .417 
 
CONTENTS. XXVll 
 
 LECTURE XXXVII. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 The literature and manners of the Romans at this time . .419 
 
 Attempt of M. Aemilius Lepidus to rescind the acts of Sulla 422 
 Q. Sertorius ....... 424 
 
 LECTURE XXXVIII. 
 
 Proceedings of Sertorius in Spain .... 427 
 
 His war against Q. Metellus Pius and Pompey . . . 428 
 
 Pompey ....... 430 
 
 M. Perpei-na ....... 430 
 
 Murder of Sertorius ...... 430 
 
 War against Spartacus . . . . . .431 
 
 Second war against Mithridates, and cause of the third war 433 
 
THE HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 LECTURE I. 
 
 EXAMINATION OF THE SOURCES OF ROMAN HISTORY, ITS 
 CREDIBILITY, AUTHENTICITY, AND LITERATURE. 
 
 I SHALL endeavour, with the help of God, to relate to 
 you, in one course, the complete history of Rome, during 
 the commonwealth and under the empire : the time I shall 
 devote to it will, I believe, be sufficient; for it is not my 
 intention to follow out my inquiries step by step, but only 
 to give the results and conclusions to which 1 have come. 
 
 In former times, and down to the eighteenth century, 
 Roman history was treated with a full belief in its truth, 
 that is, uncritically, the confusions and inconsistencies of 
 its early periods being endured without uneasiness; and 
 such also was the case during a great part of the eighteenth 
 century. In the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth 
 centuries scholars were occupied with the details of history, 
 — chronology, numismatics, and the like : eminent men, as 
 Tillemont, Eckhel, and others, produced admirable works 
 as far as the detail is concerned; but it is only in our 
 days, after scepticism had taken possession of the field. 
 
^ HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 that history has been subjected to criticism. But, as is 
 usually the case in such matters, these critical researches, 
 after being once set on foot, have become the principal 
 object in Roman history. This may be well for a time, but 
 it must not always be so : there is too much of it already; 
 it is dwelt upon too much, and we must try to counteract 
 this tendency -pro virili parte. 
 
 You may expect, first, a view of the literature of Roman 
 history; secondly, results, and not researches, concerning 
 the early portions of it ; and. thirdly, the history of the 
 later times, down to the period when the Roman world 
 assumes a different aspect; and it will be my endeavour 
 to render these later times as clear and distinct to you as I 
 can. 
 
 I shall first speak to you of the historians of the com- 
 monwealth. They may be divided into great classes, 
 though every thing cannot be classified without taking some 
 artificial or unnatural point of view. The first question 
 which arises is : Are the sources of the earliest history of 
 Rome, down to the time when an historical literature 
 sprang up in the city, worthy of credit? 1 have already 
 said that there was a time when there prevailed a simple 
 and sincere belief in the authenticity of the ancient histo- 
 rians, when the history of Rome was read like that of the 
 German emperors ; and it would have been looked upon as 
 a crime, if any one had ventured to doubt the historical 
 character of Roman history as transmitted by Livy. It is 
 incomprehensible how even very ingenious writers, men 
 far above us, took the details of ancient history for 
 granted, without feeling any doubt as to their credibility. 
 Thus Scaliger believed the list of the kings of Sicyon 
 to be as authentic and consistent as that of the kings of 
 France. Men lived in a state of literary innocence. 
 This continued after the revival of learning, so long as 
 history was treated merely philologically, and so long only 
 could it last. But when, in the seventeenth century, in 
 the Netherlands, England, France, and Germany, the hu- 
 
INTRODUCTION. 6 
 
 man mind began to assert its rights, and men raised 
 themselves above their books to that kind of learning 
 which we find among the ancients, some few, though not 
 without great timidity, began to point out its incon- 
 gruities and contradictions. Valla ^, who was so deeply 
 imbued with the spirit of the ancients, that one of his 
 writings was for a long time believed to be the work of an 
 ancient Roman, was struck by the accounts of Livy, and 
 was the first who proved that there were impossibilities 
 in his narrative. His example was followed by Glareanus, 
 whose remarks irritated Sigonius, and induced him to op- 
 pose the ingenious German. At the conclusion of the 
 sixteenth century, Pighius, in the Netherlands, and others, 
 exhibited prodigious learning in compiling, and were in 
 possession of many good ideas, but did not carry them out 
 successfully. The investigations of Perizonius are mas- 
 terly. Then followed the sceptical works of Bayle and 
 Beaufort : and here we see what always happens, when 
 truth is not separated from falsehood, or when the separa- 
 tion is not carried on after it has been begun, and after the 
 human mind has struck into such paths that it has become 
 impossible to avoid the complete separation. In the seven- 
 teenth century Roman history could not possibly be believed 
 with the intense faith of the sixteenth, when men viewed 
 every thing Roman with as much interest and delight, as 
 they looked on their dearest friends. So long as this was 
 the case, Roman history might perfectly satisfy even the 
 noblest minds without any critical investigations. But 
 when the sphere of the human mind became extended, as in 
 the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, Roman history 
 could not possibly escape the general influence, since it 
 
 ' It is one of my most pleasing recollections, that I discovered 
 his tombstone, and induced the chapter of the Lateran to replace it in 
 their church, of which he had been a canon. Italy was at that time 
 far in advance of the rest of Europe : next followed the French, and 
 a short time afterwards the Germans, to whom philology was re- 
 signed by the former. — N. 
 
 B 2 
 
4 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 came into contact with other sciences. Sigonius had felt 
 great pleasure in inquiring, whether a man, whose name 
 is otherwise unknown, had been tribune twice or three 
 times : and woe on us, if we treat these men with con- 
 tempt, as if they had busied themselves with trifles ! But 
 men now began to turn their attention to what they could 
 comprehend; they endeavoured to understand what they 
 had before collected ; reason began to assert its rights. 
 Had Perizonius pursued the path he had struck into, had 
 he not undertaken investigations of quite a different kind, 
 had he been able to believe in the possibility of gaining po- 
 sitive results, matters would have been far better; but with- 
 out faith no such results can be gained, as in life a man 
 can accomplish nothing without decision. The consequence 
 was, that these writers saw the history of Rome to be full 
 of contradictions, and could demonstrate that statements of 
 much greater authority overthrew the accounts given by 
 Livy or Dionysius. Beaufort was a man of great talents, 
 but no philologer : he belonged to that light class of sceptics, 
 who feel no want of a positive conviction ; thus he went so 
 far as to reject the wheat with the chaff, and to assert that 
 the first four centuries of Roman history deserved no credit. 
 Abbe Pouilly had done the same before him in the Me- 
 moires de 1' Academic des Inscriptions; but Beaufort's un- 
 dertaking had great influence upon the English and French 
 writers, such as Hume and Ferguson, none of whom was 
 able to enter into the matter so deeply as he had done. 
 Scepticism, originating with Bayle and Freret, now pre- 
 vailed generally, and men grew ashamed of believing 
 Roman history, as it was transmitted to them. This was 
 an easy method of getting over its difficulties. It is 
 remarkable that the most untenable statements, when not 
 attacked by Beaufort, were never doubted ; as, for instance, 
 the seven kings of Rome, the chronology, &c. : the year 
 of the foundation of the city was believed to be as firmly 
 established as any thing could be. They saw the mote, 
 but not the beam, and were at last so much perplexed, 
 
INTRODUCTION. O 
 
 that they beheved without knowing wh}', and rejected what 
 was very well established. After such a state of things 
 a sound criticism must follow, or else the subject is lost. 
 
 In fact, it is Livy himself who has brought the history 
 of Rome into disrepute, not merely because he relates 
 things contradictory and impossible, but because he states 
 in the introduction to his sixth book, that a new era and 
 a new life began in Roman history from the destruction of 
 Rome by the Gauls ; that, during the long period previous 
 to this, history was handed down only by tradition, and 
 that all written documents were destroyed in the burning 
 of the city. This statement is only half correct, or rather 
 altogether false, and gives us quite an erroneous idea of the 
 early history. In my next Lecture I shall speak of the 
 sources of Roman history previous to its literature. The 
 first historian we meet with lived in the second Punic war, 
 and yet what a minute account we have in Livy of the 
 preceding times and of the wars with the Samnites ! but 
 of this to-morrow. 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 LECTURE II. 
 
 THE SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED. ANNALS. TRADITION. 
 
 LAYS. 
 
 That there was writing in Italy, even in the earliest 
 period of Ronrian history, cannot be doubted, for we have 
 coins bearing the name of Sybaris, which was destroyed 
 four years before the estabhshment of the commonwealth. 
 Hence it cannot be questioned, that writing was common 
 among the Greeks of Italy : why not, then, among the 
 Italians themselves? Another question is, whether writing 
 could be common among the Romans, and the answer to 
 this must depend on another : namely, whether they were 
 acquainted with the Egyptian papyrus; for before its intro- 
 duction the art of writing cannot have been in very general 
 use. The census at Rome, which could not be taken with- 
 out a great deal of writing, is a proof that the art was ex- 
 tensively applied. Thus we have no reason to deny, that 
 history was written at Rome previous to the banishment of 
 the kings ; and it would be arbitrary scepticism to doubt, that 
 the early Roman laws were written long before the time of 
 the Decemvirs, perhaps under the reign of the second Tar- 
 quin, though some refer them to a still earlier period. The 
 art of writing was therefore applied, in all probability, not 
 merely to the purposes of common life, but also to books; 
 and when Livy, speaking of the times previous to the burn- 
 ing of the city, says per ilia tempora literce rarcs sunt\ this 
 is one of those notions, in which he was misled by opinions 
 prevalent in his own age. Authors, in the modern sense 
 
 ' VI. 1. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 7 
 
 of the word, that is, such as write for the pubhc, — for mak- 
 ing collections of laws is a different thing, — certainly did 
 not exist at all in the earliest times ; but when Livy adds, 
 una custodia Jidelis memoi'icB rerum gestarum, he goes too 
 far. We must not take a one-sided view of the origin 
 of an historical literature : we have a parallel to that 
 of Rome in the history of our ancestors; and not here 
 alone, for in Greece Chronographies and Toichographies — 
 annals kept by the priests — are mentioned by Polybius^, 
 and this practice continued down to his time. Analogous 
 to these are our Annales Fuldenses and others, which 
 sprang up at the end of the seventh century, and afterwards 
 disappeared gradually, for the same reasons which made 
 them cease among the ancients. Such annals were com- 
 posed of single lines : they would begin, for instance, with 
 the thirteenth year of the reign of king Dagobert, and by 
 the side of this date the events of the year were recorded 
 in the briefest manner possible. They were kept for the 
 most part in churches. We find such annals at different 
 times and among the most different nations; and, indeed, 
 there is nothing more natural, than that a person should 
 make such brief records to assist his own memory. Hence 
 the custom of our ancestors to record in their Bibles every 
 thing of importance which happened in their families ; and 
 the same interest which we feel in our families, the an- 
 cients felt in the state. Some small towns in Germany 
 still continue to keep such annals : in short, the custom is 
 a very ancient one, and annals existed everywhere in great 
 numbers, where they had not been accidentally destroyed. 
 As the year received its name from the annual magis- 
 trates, it was necessary to preserve their names for all 
 kinds of documents. The same custom prevailed among 
 the Romans from the earliest times down to the latest em- 
 perors : no document was valid without the names of the 
 
 v. 33 : 01 Ta Kara Kaipovs iv rals XPo^'oyP^t^'^'S' vrrofxvrfnaTi^o- 
 fitvoi TToXtTiKws els Tovs Toixovs. 
 
8 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 consuls as the mark of its date. In these annals the ba- 
 nishment of the kings formed an era^ The Annales Pon- 
 tijicum belonged to this kind of annals : they were authentic 
 and comprehensive documents, the object of which was 
 to record whatever was deemed worthy of remembrance. 
 Cicero says*, that they had been preserved from the com- 
 mencement of the Roman state down to the time of P. 
 Mucins^; but this is a rash assertion, which we will not 
 impute to him as an intentional misstatement. We must 
 not, however, allow ourselves to be misled; for though the 
 pontifical annals had doubtless been kept from very early 
 times, it can be demonstrated that those of the most 
 ancient periods were lost. The pontifex maximus had 
 to record every year the principal events, as the names 
 of the magistrates, the wars, and the like, and he inscribed 
 them on a whited tablet, which was exhibited for the 
 inspection of the public in his house ^, where many may 
 have taken copies for their private use. One thing 
 we must observe here: it is certain, that the pontifical 
 annals, such as they existed in later times, were not the 
 ancient and original ones, but were restored and made up, 
 as well as might be, and that it was only the constant use 
 and regular continuation of them that established the belief 
 that they were transmitted in their original form from time 
 immemorial. These annals were kept as long as there 
 wxre pontiffs, for the pontiffs were the repositories of the 
 laws and fixed the chronology, and thus were the natural 
 keepers of historical records. But if such annals had ex- 
 isted, comprising the earliest history of the commonwealth 
 from the banishment of the kings, it is inconceivable how 
 they could have recorded the most absurd and contradic- 
 tory things. Besides, would not Fabius have made use 
 of them? would not Livy have consulted them, Mhere 
 
 3- See vol. I. p. 263. ■» De Orat. ii. 12. 
 
 '" Mucius was consul, B. c. 133. 
 
 ^ Cicero, as above. Servius on Virg. N^w. i. 373. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 9 
 
 he says^ that the battle of Regillus was placed by some in 
 the year 255. and by others in the year 258^? 
 
 Thus, if on the one hand we cannot doubt that the 
 earliest history of Rome was founded on an authentic basis, 
 on the other hand we cannot believe that the pontifical 
 annals were preserved from the earliest times. My own 
 opinion is, that Livy made the abovementioned mistake 
 in the introduction to the sixth book, because he found 
 no annals of an earlier date than the destruction of Rome 
 by the Gauls, and thence drew the sweeping conclusion, 
 that none such existed. We have, however, the most 
 unexceptionable evidence that there were many other and 
 very ancient annals preserved 9; but that the pontifical 
 annals did not go beyond the burning of Rome by the 
 Gauls 1°, may be seen from the passage of Cicero, in which 
 he speaks ^^ of the eclipse of the sun, which happened 
 fourteen or fifteen years before the destruction of the 
 city, and on which Mr. Edward Heis of Cologne has writ- 
 ten, at my suggestion, a beautiful and elaborate treatise ^2. 
 This eclipse, which was visible in Gades at sunset, had 
 been mentioned in the pontifical annals as quite a remark- 
 able phenomenon. Now Cicero says, that the preceding 
 eclipses were calculated backwards up to the one, during 
 which Romulus was carried up to heaven. This calcu- 
 lating backward shows, that an attempt was made to sup- 
 ply the loss of actual observations. Such echpses influ- 
 enced the regulation of festivals, and were essential parts 
 of the contents of the pontifical books '^ ; they would there- 
 fore have been recorded, and not have been calculated 
 
 ' II. 21. ^ Compare vol. i. p. 556; vol. 11. p. 3. 
 
 » Vol. II. p. 2, foil. 
 
 ^^ The house of the pontifex maximus was situated in the lower 
 part of the city, and was probably destroyed. The original of the 
 Twelve Tables likewise perished, and was afterwards restoi-ed. — N. 
 
 " De republ. i. 16. '- Compare vol. i. p. 251, note 675. 
 
 '^ Compare Cato in Gellius, 11. 28. 
 
10 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 backwards, if the annales maximi had been preserved. 
 This is unsophisticated evidence of what I have said. 
 Servius says^^ that the annals had been divided into eighty 
 books. That this scholion does not exist in the Codex 
 Fuldensis is no argument against its genuineness, for I 
 do not see why any one should have fabricated such a state- 
 ment. In the time of Cicero specimens of these pontifical 
 annals were in the hands of the public: they formed a 
 part of the Roman literature. In the introduction to his 
 work De Legihus, he says^^: post annales — quibus nihil 
 potest esse jucundius. How they could be ca\[edi jucundi is 
 hardly comprehensible. All the manuscripts of the work 
 are but copies of one and the same, which was discovered 
 in the fifteenth century, and the reading of all is jucundius. 
 Ursinus wished to change it into jejunius^ others into 
 incomptius. But an author like Cicero may sometimes use 
 a bold expression which puzzles us, and he may have 
 meant to say, that these annals were delightful to him 
 merely because they were historical records of great an- 
 tiquity. Whether, however, this was actually his mean- 
 ing in this passage, is a very doubtful point; but we 
 can make no alteration. From the passages in which 
 Livy mentions the appointment of the magistrates^* in 
 very short sentences, we m.ay form some idea of the cha- 
 racter of these pontifical annals. I believe that the copy 
 which he used began with the year 460, otherwise I do not 
 see why he did not always observe the same practice. 
 These annals first recorded the names of the magistrates, 
 and then the memorable events of the year, and the persons 
 most distinguished in them: I am convinced that according 
 to their original plan they never entered into the details of 
 
 " On iEn. I. 373. ^^ i. 2. 
 
 '^ In vol. I. p. 250, Niebuhr seems to have adopted the correc- 
 tion of Ursinus. 
 
 '^ For instance, at the conclusion of the tenth book, and in the 
 third and fourth decads at the end of every year. — N. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 11 
 
 battles or of other subjects. That which constitutes the 
 real character of history they never possessed in any higher 
 degree than the annals of the middle ages. 
 
 It yet remains to be mentioned that Diomedes'^ says, 
 that the res gesta populi Romani are recorded by the 
 scribes (he uses the present tense). Although every 
 thing, which such writers say, must not be subjected to a 
 rigid criticism, still the expression is important: he can- 
 not have wished to deceive, and must have known the 
 truth. Now, when Cicero says that annals were kept down 
 to the time of P. Mucius, I believe that two kinds of 
 annals must be distinguished. The old ones may have 
 ceased then, and yet have been continued in some sense. 
 It is possible that at the time of P. Mucius they were 
 neglected as superfluous, for a literature had then sprung 
 up among the Romans ^9, and, besides this, another mode 
 of recording the events of the day was probably adopted 
 already in the Acta Diurna-". In these Acta Diurna the 
 affairs of the people were recorded every day : they formed 
 a kind of daily newspaper. The acts of the senate {acta 
 senatiis) were also open to the public and no longer kept 
 secret. Nevertheless the annals may in a certain sense 
 still have been continued. I have been led to suppose this 
 by a fragment of a Roman chronicle of the tenth century 
 in the collection of Pertz. The author of it was Bene- 
 dict, a monk of the monastery of Soracte. In this frag- 
 ment many ostenta are recorded, and, what is curious 
 enough, in the genuine old language, as for example, murus 
 de ccbIo tactus est. It is this fact, which induces me to 
 consider the circumstance of Diomedes having used the 
 present tense in the abovementioned passage, as one of 
 
 '® III. 480. '^ Compare vol. i. p. 250. 
 
 -" The Acta Diurna are often called simply Diurna, from which 
 the modern word journal has been formed. Our system of book- 
 keeping, called the Italian, was known among the Romans. — N. See 
 vol. II. p. 602, note 1319. 
 
12 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 great importance. In the work " De Origine Gentis Ro- 
 manae," first published by Andrew Schottus"^ as a work of 
 Aurehus Victor, the pontifical annals are ridiculously ad- 
 duced for the settlement of iEneas in Italy -2. This work 
 is an impudent fabrication-^ by a literary impostor of the 
 fifteenth or sixteenth century. He refers his readers to 
 a number of books which did not exist, and, probably from 
 sheer ignorance, attributes to Cato statements in direct 
 contradiction to those which he actually made, and which 
 we know from Servius. 
 
 These pontifical annals, in addition to which many 
 others must have existed and been preserved, — constitute 
 the first source of Roman history, though we are unable 
 to fix the time when they commenced. But they are, after 
 all, only a dry and meagre skeleton of history. Along with 
 them there existed a living historical tradition, compre- 
 hending all the details of the history of the past. Such a 
 tradition may have consisted either of narratives transmitted 
 from father to son, and was thus left wholly to memory, — 
 that unsafe repository for historical facts, — or of written 
 compositions. The latter were poetical tales or lays. Here 
 we are entering upon a field, where scholars will never be 
 able to agree so long as they take a one-sided view of the 
 matter. Some believe that the subject of these lays arose 
 out of poetical traditions, as is the case in the legends of 
 Iceland and the northern sagas ; others deny that they 
 are the origin of history, and adhere to the written history 
 as it is transmitted to us. I remain unshaken in my 
 conviction, that a great portion of Roman history arose 
 out of songs, — that is to say, a body of living popular 
 poetry, — which extended over the period from Ro- 
 mulus to the battle of Regillus, the heroic age of Rome. 
 
 '^ Antwerp, 1579. 
 
 "^ In cap. 9. In the same book (c. 7.) we find the pontifical annals 
 also adduced for the arrival of Hercules in Italy. 
 " Compare vol. 11. p. .9, note 11. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 1 3 
 
 It is evident to me, that several portions of what is called 
 the history of this period formed complete and true epic 
 poems. If passages like that of Cicero's, in which he 
 states from Cato-*, "that among the ancient Romans it 
 was the custom at banquets for the praises of great men 
 to be sung to the flute," have no authority, I really do not 
 know what have any. The three inscriptions on the monu- 
 ments of the Scipios, written in the Saturnian verse, may 
 be regarded as specimens of ancient songs. The story 
 of Coriolanus, the embassy of his mother, his return and 
 death among the Volscians, which cannot be reconciled 
 with chronology, were the subject of an epic poem. The 
 story of Curtius was another, which has been placed in a 
 time, to which it cannot possibly belong. If persons will 
 dispute the existence of such lays as that of the Horatii, 
 I can point out verses in Livy; and although I cann5t 
 prove the existence of any verses in support of the lay 
 of the Tarquins, I need only refer to the fact, that such 
 stories are always related in a rhythmical form, and not in 
 prose. Surely those who invented such brilliant stories 
 were not wanting in the os rotundum to give them a poetical 
 form. Now, have these songs ever been stripped of their 
 metrical form and resolved into prose ? Into this point 
 I will not enter: my conviction, which alone I have to 
 express here, is, that at one time these lays had a poetical 
 form. All that is really beautiful in Roman story arose 
 out of poetry. 
 
 =" Tusc. Qusest. iv. 2; vol. i. p. 254, foil. 
 
14 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 LECTURE III. 
 
 DESTRUCTION OF HISTORICAL DOCUMENTS AND THEIR 
 RESTORATION. POPULAR LAYS CONTINUED. CHRO- 
 NICLES. EARLIEST METHOD OF WRITING HISTORY. 
 
 We often find that all the historical documents of a 
 nation are lost either in consequence of a general cala- 
 mity or through the tyranny of individuals, and that at- 
 tempts are afterwards made to restore them. Such was 
 the case in China, when the ancient books were destroyed 
 at the command of an emperor, and afterwards restored 
 from the recollections of aged men ^ : and such was also 
 the case in Rome, when the Sibylline books were restored, 
 as far as was possible, after the Capitol had been burnt 
 in the time of Sulla. There are many instances of the 
 same kind, especially with regard to religious books ; and 
 one tradition, which however deserves no credit, relates the 
 same thing of several books of the Holy Scriptures. We 
 may account in a similar manner for the fabulous anti- 
 quity of the Egyptians. That the eighteenth dynasty of 
 Manetho is historical, has been firmly established since 
 the gigantic discovery of our age, which has taught us to 
 read the Egyptian hieroglyphics. Previous to this dy- 
 nasty Egypt was ruled by the so-called Hycsos, under 
 
 ' Schlosser, Geschichte dei* alten Welt, i. i. p. 78, says: Klap- 
 roth indeed states that these books were restored from the recollec- 
 tions of aged persons, but he has not stated whether he has any 
 Chinese authority for it. Compare vol. i. p. 251. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 15 
 
 whom the ancient documents are said to have been lost. 
 Notwithstanding this the Egyptian annals have seventeen 
 dynasties before the historical one, and make the most 
 extravagant claims to antiquity. The same want of criti- 
 cism, which Roman history has experienced, meets us in 
 the history of Egypt, and those who do not believe in 
 Champollion's discovery have denied the historical cha- 
 racter of the eighteenth dynasty, and rejected the whole 
 history down to the time of Psammetichus as fabulous, 
 merely because they did not see where else to stop. 
 Sound criticism would say : the expulsion of the Hycsos 
 is the boundary, and all that lies beyond is an historical 
 forgery, made by one who attempted to restore the ancient 
 history either at random, or from slender remains, or who 
 found pleasure in the exercise of his invention. Wherever 
 in history we find numbers capable of being resolved into 
 arithmetical proportions, we may say with the greatest 
 certainty, that they are artificial arrangements to which 
 the history has been adapted, as the philosopher exclaimed, 
 when he saw mathematical diagrams in the sand, " I see 
 traces of man." The course of human affairs is not di- 
 rected by numerical proportions, and wherever they are 
 found, we may, according to a law, which Leibnitz would 
 have laid down as an axiom, declare unhesitatingly, that 
 there is an arrangement according to a certain plan. Such 
 artificial arrangements we find in the Indian and Baby- 
 lonian eras: large spaces are divided according to certain 
 numerical proportions. Such also is the case with the his- 
 tory of Rome from its foundation down to the burning 
 of the city by the Gauls. For this period 360 years were 
 assumed, which number was taken for granted by Fabius 
 and Polybius, who copied it from a table [Triva^)". Of 
 the'se 360 years 240 were allotted to the kings, and 120 
 to the commonwealth. In all Roman institutions the 
 numbers 3, 10, 30 and 12 play an important part; all 
 
 * Dionysius, i. 74. Compare vol. i. p. 242, note 656. 
 
16 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 nuiherical combinations connected with Rome arise out 
 of multiples of three, which is most frequently multiplied 
 by ten, as 30, 300, 3000. Such also is the number of the 
 360 houses at Athens in its ancient constitution. Of the 
 240 years assigned to the kings 120 is the half, and hence 
 the middle of the reign of Ancus Martius the fourth king- 
 falls in 120. He is the creator of the plebeian order, and 
 consequently 120 is the date of the origin of the plebeians. 
 Thus we have three periods, each containing ten times 
 twelve years: 120 years previous to the existence of the 
 plebeian order, 120 with plebeians, and 120 without kings. 
 How could it ever have happened that of seven kings 
 the fourth should just fall in the middle of the period 
 assigned them, and that this period should be divided into 
 two halves by the middle of the reign of the fourth king^? 
 Here is evidence for those who will judge with reason and 
 without prejudice; even if there were not other circum- 
 stances in the history which involve impossibilities, such 
 as the statement that Tarquinius Superbus was a grandson 
 of Tarquinius Priscus*. For this whole period then down 
 to the Gallic conquest, we have a made-up history at least 
 with regard to chronology. The restoration may indeed 
 have been founded upon the scanty information gained 
 from the pontiffs, and on the date of the eclipse of the sun 
 mentioned by Cicero. No prodigies are mentioned by 
 Livy before the burning of the city by the Gauls : it is true 
 they are not frequent during the first century after that 
 event, but this only proves that he did not pay any especial 
 attention to them till he had finished the tenth book, after 
 which, and not till then, he had annals as his sources. 
 Dionysius likewise has no prodigies previous to the Gallic 
 conquest. 
 
 Yesterday I directed your attention to the fact, that the 
 question concerning the sources of early Roman history 
 has been considered from a false point of view. It is quite 
 
 3 Compare vol. i. p. 252, foil. ^ Vol. i. p. 372, foil. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 17 
 
 a matter of indifference, whether the ancient history existed 
 in the form of poems or in prose, and whether it was 
 written or not. I will only remind you of what we have 
 seen in our own literature. Those who have investigated 
 its real history, know the various changes which our epic 
 poems have undergone. Since we have become acquainted 
 with the fragment first published by Eccard and afterwards 
 by the brothers Grimm ■'5, who shewed that it was part of 
 an alliterative poem in a language which is not Franconian 
 but a modification of the Gothic, we see the threads of the 
 whole cycle. Its contents are much more ancient than 
 the time of Charlemagne; in the tenth century a Latin 
 paraphrase of it was made, which is very good consider- 
 ing the time. The original of the Nibelungen must be 
 referred, as Schlegel has shewn very satisfactorily, to the 
 frontiers of Suabia; a bad paraphrase of it was made in 
 the Heldenhuch ; and at a still later period we find the 
 prose work Siegfried constructed out of the same materials. 
 The lay of the Horatii in Livy stands precisely on the same 
 footing as if we had nothing of the Nibelungen but the 
 two lines preserved in Aventinus''. The six verses of the 
 lay of the Horatii preserved in Livy are quite sufficient" ; for 
 the form of the lays, as I have said, is totally indiiferent in 
 investigating the origin of the history of Rome. Such lays 
 exist along side of the records of chronicles. The lays in 
 Saxo Grammaticus stand by the side of the Runic records, 
 and he has combined them in such a manner that history is 
 
 ' Niebuhr here refers to the fragment of the lay of Hildebrand, 
 which was first published by Eccard in his Franc. Orient, i. p. 864, 
 foil. It was for a long time believed to be a fragment of a prose 
 work in the old idiom of Lower Germany, until its alliterative cha- 
 racter was pointed out by the brothers Grimm in their edition of 
 " Die beiden altesten deutschen Gedichte aiis dem achten Jahrlmn- 
 dert." Cassel, 1812. 
 
 ® His real name was John Thurnmeyer ; he wrote a chronicle in 
 Latin (1566, in fol.) and afterwards ti'anslated it into German. 
 
 ' See vol. I. p. 258. 
 
 VOL. IV. C 
 
18 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 intermixed with poetical traditions, which cannot be recon- 
 ciled with one another. I believe that lihianus did not go 
 to work arbitrarily in his description of the Messenian 
 war, but composed his beautiful epic poem out of old Mes- 
 senian popular lays. His work, like that of the Nibelun- 
 gen, embraced a long period of time. What this poem 
 related of the war with Sparta and of Aristomenes is 
 absolutely irreconcileable with what Pausanias found in 
 authentic records and in the contemporary songs of Tyr- 
 tseus. Tradition goes on forming and developing itself in 
 such a peculiar and thriving manner, that it becomes more 
 and more estranged from history. Long before the exist- 
 ence of a literature there are men, who, endowed with all 
 the requisites of an historian, write history in the form of 
 chronicles and not unfrequently in the most brilliant man- 
 ner. We have an instance of this in the history of Cologne. 
 The chronicle of that city is one of the most splendid docu- 
 ments of our literature^; and it is to be lamented that we 
 have not got any good edition of it, as there are so many 
 materials still in the archives. Some of the most beauti- 
 ful portions of it may have been written as late as the 
 fifteenth century. Now we find in this chronicle, among 
 other things of the same kind, the poem of Godefrit Hagen 
 on the feuds of the bishops ; it is written by a contem- 
 porary and is exceedingly pleasing^. The writer of the 
 chronicle, perhaps feeling the beauties of the poem, has 
 made a paraphrase of it in prose and incorporated it in the 
 chronicle: in some passages the rhyme is still preserved 
 and in others but slightly changed. The portion of the 
 
 * Of this chronicle Niebuhr speaks in several of his letters, but 
 especially in one to Savigny. (Lebensnachrichten, vol. ii. p. 370 
 and 373, where Niebulir calls the author of the poem mentioned 
 below in our text, Gotthard Hagen, instead of Godefrit Hagen.) 
 
 ^ A separate edition of it has been published by E. von Groote, 
 Cologne, 1834, under the title, " Des Meisters Godefrit Hagen, der 
 Zeit Stadtschreibersj Reimchronik der Stadt Coin aus dem drei- 
 zehnten Jahrhundert," with notes and a vocabulary. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 19 
 
 work, in which we have the poem reduced to perfect prose, 
 forms a strange contrast to the chronicler's simple and 
 meagre records of subsequent periods. Here then we have 
 an instance, how in times previous to the existence of a 
 literature, — for the author who had made several other 
 chronicles did not write for the puhlic, — every thing is 
 constantly changing its character. The earliest history of 
 Russia by Nestor, a monk of the eleventh century, whose 
 work has been continued by monks of the same convent 
 and always in the strain and character of its author, is an 
 instance of a similar kind. As for many of these chroni- 
 clers no one knows who they are, nor will any body ever 
 know, and yet if they had lived in a literary age they 
 would have been honourably distinguished. 
 
 Such chronicles were undoubtedly written at Rome 
 before the period of its literature, which sprang up when 
 the Romans began to write for the Greeks, in order to 
 rescue their own history from the contempt with which it 
 was looked upon by the latter. All the nations of antiquity 
 exerted themselves to gain the respect of the Greeks, and 
 it was not Alexander alone who said, " How much have I 
 undertaken, Athenians, to gain your praise ^°!" Hence the 
 first Roman authors wrote in Greek and not in Latin; for 
 their countrymen had their chronicles, which every one 
 read for himself and which were written by persons that 
 had no notion of literary fame. 
 
 Cicero says, that history had been falsified through 
 the writings in praise of great men, which were preserved 
 in their families", and Livy speaks to the same effect^-: 
 these praises however were not always mere fabrications, 
 but some were authentic documents of a very early date. 
 The expulsion of the kings falls twenty-eight years before 
 the invasion of Greece by Xerxes, and from that time in- 
 
 '° Plutarch, Alex. c. 60. 
 
 " Brutus, 16. Compare Cic. de Leg. ii. 21-. 
 
 '* VIII. 40. Compare Plutarch, Numa, c. i. 
 
20 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 numerable historical documents may have been preserved 
 at Rome. When we read in Livy the account of the seven 
 consulships of the Fabii^\ we have no other choice but 
 believing that we have before us, either an extremely well- 
 contrived fiction, or an historical narrative founded upon 
 ancient documents belonging to the house of the Fabii. 
 In the last books of Livy's first decad we have such accu- 
 rate accounts of the campaigns against the Samnites, that 
 I have no doubt but that either Q. Fabius Maxiraus him- 
 self wrote for his house the history of the wars, in which 
 he was engaged, because his house was of great historical 
 importance, or that the Fabii possessed numerous docu- 
 ments relating to the early history'*. This supposition 
 becomes still more probable, if we consider the great intel- 
 lectual cultivation which we find among the Fabii. One of 
 them, C. Fabius Pictor, was an excellent painter and dis- 
 played his art in a temple'^, and Q. Fabius Pictor, the his- 
 torian, wrote very beautiful Greek. The Fabii seem to me 
 to have been a learned family, and I believe they had their 
 chronicles long before one of their number wrote a history 
 in Greek. 
 
 Now, how did the Romans proceed when they first 
 began to write the early periods of their history ? The 
 part previous to the establishment of the commonwealth 
 was composed in accordance with the tables kept by the 
 pontiifs, and these, as we have seen, were made up 
 according to mere numerical combinations. These tables 
 were taken, without any criticism, for authentic documents, 
 and if any one, for instance in the fifth century, wanted to 
 write a history of Rome for his house, he first had recourse 
 to the annals. But at the same time he found the old 
 songs of Romulus, the Tarquins, Coriolanus, Camillus and 
 a number of others. l^he events they related he inserted 
 where he thought they would fit, little concerned whether 
 they would stand the test of an accurate examination or 
 
 " Vol. II. p. 175, foil. '^ Vol. II. p. 8. '5 Vol. III. p. 356. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 21 
 
 not, exactly as we find in the chronicle of Cologne. Such 
 is the origin of the Roman chronicles before the time of 
 their literature. The scepticism therefore is contemptible, 
 which says that the Romans had no history before the time 
 of Fabius. 
 
 There were two other kinds of authentic documents, of 
 which an historian might avail himself: — 1. The Brazen 
 Tables, of which the greater number was undoubtedly 
 carried away by the Gauls, as the Vandals did at a later 
 period when they conquered the city; but many of these 
 were in the capitol and inaccessible to the Gauls. 2. The 
 old Law Books. It is common to all nations to record old 
 customs and traditional rights historically in the form of 
 single cases out of which they arose: in more ancient 
 times, where authentic documents are wanting, the rules 
 or laws resulting from individual cases are supplied from 
 recollection. Such is the custom throughout the East: 
 the Mohammedan laws consist of such single cases, and the 
 whole of the Koran, so far as the civil law is concerned, is 
 of this description. We find the same character even in 
 the Pentateuch ; for where a rule is to be laid down as to 
 the conditions on which daughters can inherit the property 
 of their father, Moses merely adduces a precedent in the 
 case of the daughters of Zelophehad ^'^. It was the same 
 with the Roman laws ; a number of single cases was 
 recorded in the old law-books ^'^, such as \he judicium per - 
 duelUonis, which arose out of the story of Horatius who 
 slew his sister. 
 
 The history of the Roman constitution back to the time 
 of the kings was quite complete. It cannot have existed 
 any where else but in the pontifical books, from which 
 Junius Gracchanus derived his information, who handed it 
 down to Gains, and from whom again Lydus made his ex- 
 tracts'''. These accounts, when carefully examined, agree 
 
 1** Numbers, c. xxxvi. See vol. i. p. 346, 
 
 " Vol. II. p. 281, foil. '** Vol. II. p. 10, foil. 
 
22 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 SO perfectly with all historical facts, are so free from any 
 thing which might appear doubtful, and are so consistent 
 with one another, that the results of my investigations must 
 lead to the conviction, that we are able to trace the history 
 of Rome and its constitution back to the beginning of the 
 commonwealth as accurately as one can wish, and even 
 more perfectly than the history of many nations in the 
 middle ages. The history of Rome gives a moral confir- 
 mation to what has been said by great men respecting the 
 study of nature, that a superficial knowledge makes man 
 atheistical, but that a profound one strengthens his belief 
 in the existence of a God. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 23 
 
 LECTURE IV. 
 
 EARLIEST LITERATURE OF THE ROMANS. — APPIUS CLAU- 
 DIUS, THE BLIND. — N^VIUS. Q. FABIUS PICTOR. 
 
 Let no one imagine that the Romans were barbarians, 
 before they adopted the civilization of the Greeks : their 
 works of art and their buildings prove the contrary- That 
 people, which under its kings constructed such gigantic 
 sewers, which had a painter like Fabius Pictor and a 
 sculptor able to produce a work like the Capitoline she- 
 wolf^ cannot be conceived to have been without some kind 
 of literature, though, of course, different from that of the 
 Greeks : form is something accidental, and Roman litera- 
 ture may have had its own peculiar beauties. There ex- 
 isted in the days of Cicero a poem of Appius Claudius the 
 Blind", consisting of moral sentiments, of which I have dis- 
 covered some fragments, and which is of far more ancient 
 date than the beginning of what we now call Roman litera- 
 ture: Cicero despised the ancient literature of his coun- 
 try, and knew it only from hear-say. There also existed a 
 speech against Pyrrhus delivered by the same Appius'; 
 and we may be sure that, at a time when such speeches 
 were written, historical composition was not neglected. 
 
 But the first work, which may be regarded as a history, 
 and indeed a contemporary one, though agreeably to the 
 taste of the age in a metrical form, was the First Punic 
 War by Nsevius. If we had a history of this war like that 
 
 ' Compare vol. iii. p. 424. 
 
 " Cicero, Tuscul. iv. 2. Compare vol. in. p. 312, foil. 
 
 ' Cicero, Brut. 16. Compare vol. iii. p. 313. 
 
24 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 of the Hannibalian war by Livy, we should undoubtedly 
 look upon it as the greatest in ancient times. Its vastness 
 and importance are by no means generally known : I hope 
 one day to be able to put it in its true light. Naevius had 
 served in it and described it, as Bernal Diaz did that of 
 Cortez. Nsevius wrote in the Saturnian verse, which is 
 characteristic of the age ; and he who judges from internal 
 evidence must see, that he only did what all before him 
 had done, and that the history of former days still con- 
 tinued to be familiar to the Romans through the medium 
 of poetry. Godefrit Hagen likewise wrote in poetry on 
 contemporary events, merely because no one was yet 
 accustomed to German prose : prose-works were written 
 in Latin. The history of the conquest of Livonia by the 
 German knights was described a short time afterwards in a 
 poem, which is not yet published^. Down to the thir- 
 teenth century all traditional history in Germany was 
 transmitted in the form of poetry, and the same was the 
 case with the early period of Roman history. Nsevius 
 assuredly wrote his work in the same form, in which he 
 found so many historical events of the past described. 
 
 Concerning Nsevius and his poems I shall here say 
 but Httle. The year in which he brought his first play 
 upon the stage, is uncertain: two passages of Gellius^ 
 contradict each other; but we may suppose it to have 
 been in the year 523, ten years after the conclusion of 
 the first Punic war. Whether the piece which was then 
 performed, or the great poem on the first Punic war, was 
 the first he had written, is also uncertain. Nsevius was a 
 Campanian, and it must be supposed there existed at 
 
 * Niebuhr here alludes to the chronicle of Livonia, written at the 
 end of the thirteenth century by Ditleb von Alnpeke, at Reval. 
 The MS. of it exists at Heidelberg. Cod. 367, fol. 192, foil. 
 
 * XVII. 21. To what other passage of Gellius Niebuhr here 
 alludes, I have not been able to discover. All the 3ISS. of the 
 Lectures which I have collated, agree in the statement made in the 
 text, otherwise I should be inclined to think it a mistake. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 25 
 
 Capua a much more lively interest for literature than at 
 Rome, where it was gradually developed out of popular 
 poetry. Naevius wrote many plays. His poem on the 
 Punic war was divided, Suetonius says^, into seven books 
 and written continente scriptura. The verses, though per- 
 haps not distinguished originally, — an experienced reader 
 must have been able to make them out for himself, — 
 may have been indicated afterwards; in inscriptions, as 
 well as in all the fragments we possess of this work, the 
 verses are always marked. Servius, who had read En- 
 nius, seems to have never seen the work of Naevius, and 
 I believe that he merely knew it from old commentators. 
 Hence he says, that Virgil had borrowed the plan of the 
 first books of the j?Eneid from Naevius^ : he moreover 
 knows, that the landing of jEneas in Latium and the 
 foundation of Rome were treated of in it ; and we may 
 justly conclude that Naevius represented the hostility be- 
 tween the Romans and Carthaginians, like Virgil, as having 
 arisen from the reception which iEneas met with in Car- 
 thage and from his unfaithfulness to Dido^. As Naevius 
 did not place ^S^neas at so early a period as was done in 
 the times of Virgil, the anachronism with which the latter 
 has been charged, is groundless — blind enthusiasm will 
 never be just towards Virgil, but only sound criticism, — 
 accordingly, he would very properly with old Naevius make 
 the arrival of ^neas coincide with the foundation of Car- 
 thage. There is yet an immense deal to be done by a 
 commentator on the ^-Eneid. Virgil, without contradict- 
 ing the common opinion, very frequently draws forth from 
 the old poets that which is historically correct, but un- 
 known to others^; hence it is only learned scholars and 
 good historians that are able to be his commentators. On 
 the other hand, he does not scruple, as a poet, to let 
 things stand, which are historically irreconcileable ; thus 
 
 •"' De Illustr. Gram. 2. ^ gervius ad Aen. i. 98 ii. 797, in. 10. 
 ^ Vol. I. p. 191. foil, « Vol. I. note 980. 
 
26 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 Romulus is with him the actual grandson of ^neas ; he 
 does not make him descend from the Alban kings, but 
 conceives him to be the son of Ilia, as the older Roman 
 poets did '°. I am also convinced that the shield of yEneas 
 in Virgil had its model in Nsevius, in whose poem ^neas 
 or some other hero had a shield representing the wars of 
 the giants". I suspect that Nsevius gave a full account 
 of the semina odii et helU, and that he went through the 
 whole history of Rome: that he spoke of Romulus we 
 know 12. 
 
 That Nsevius drew misery upon himself through some 
 verses, by which he had offended the proud Metelli, is 
 well known": but no one, I believe, has asked himself, 
 how it was possible to throw a Roman citizen into a 
 dungeon for having written some libellous verses. In 
 addition to this it is said that he wrote two plays while 
 in prison ^^. But if one has been at Rome and seen those 
 awful dungeons in the prison, which were considered by 
 the ancients themselves as the entries of death for those 
 who were to be executed, and into which no ray of light 
 could penetrate, such an account must be incomprehen- 
 sible. Yet I believe that the difficulty can be removed. 
 We know that Nsevius was a Campanian: we know that 
 the greater number of the Campanians lost the Roman 
 franchise, or at least all the advantages of it, on account 
 of their insurrection in the second Punic war. We may 
 therefore suppose, that Nsevius being without friends and 
 helpless 1^ was given up for his offence to Metellus, as 
 
 '" Servius, on iEn. i. 273. " Vol. i. p. 192. 
 
 '* Servius, on iEn. i. 273. 
 
 '' GelliuSj III. 3; Pseudo-Asconius on Cic. in Verr. i. 10 p. 140 
 ed. Orelli mentions the verse which gave offence to the iMetelli : 
 Fato Metelli Romae Jiunt consules, and adds, cui tunc INIetellus 
 consul iratus versu responderat senario hypercatalecto, qui et Sa- 
 turnius dicitur : 
 
 Duhmit Dialiim Metelli Naevio poctac. 
 
 '^ Gellius, III. 3. '* Compare vol. ii. note 10.5. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 27 
 
 a noxae dediius, not to be kept in the state prison but 
 in the house of Metellus himself, since there were pri- 
 sons attached to all the houses of the nobles. Insol- 
 vent debtors fell into the same condition of noxae dcditi, 
 and were kept nervo et compedihus^^. The account of 
 his death at Utica in the year 550, as stated by Hiero- 
 nymus in the Chronicle of Eusebius'''^, is false, for Utica 
 was then in the hands of the Carthaginians, and remained 
 faithful to them to the last. If he was expelled by the 
 nobles, he certainly did not go to Africa, and we must 
 reject this account the more, since Cicero says that Varro 
 assigned a later date for his death i^. The year of his 
 death must therefore be considered uncertain. There are 
 incredible contradictions in ancient authors respecting the 
 literary men of the sixth century. 
 
 After the second Punic war there were several Ro- 
 mans who wrote the history of their country in the Greek 
 language ; and among them we have to mention especially 
 Q. Fabius Pictor and L. Cincius Alimentus. Both were 
 of noble families. Q. Fabius had been praetor. The ob- 
 ject of his work was to counteract the contempt, with 
 which the Greeks regarded the Romans. He wrote the 
 history of Rome from its beginning : whethei- he spoke 
 of j5!^neas we cannot ascertain, but we have ample evi- 
 dence of the manner in which he treated of the primordia 
 urMs, of Romulus and Remus '9. Of the earliest times 
 he gave only a brief outline, but as he advanced nearer 
 the age in which he lived, his account became more mi- 
 nute-*^. His real subject, however, was the second Punic 
 war, with which he was contemporary; but he had like- 
 wise given a complete account of the first war with the 
 
 "^ Vol. I. p. 576. Gellius, XX. I. 
 
 " p. 37. Compare Cicero, Brut. 15 : His consulibus (Cethego 
 et Tuditano)j ttt in vetcribus commcntariis scriptum est, Naevius 
 mortuus est. '^ Brut. 15. 
 
 '" Dionys. i. 79. '" Dionys. i. 6. 
 
28 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 Carthaginians. We learn from Polybius'^' that he shewed 
 great partiaUty to his countrymen and endeavoured to jus- 
 tify them in every thing, and when a man hke Polybius 
 passes such a censure, we may readily believe him. An 
 indulgent treatment of one's country is just enough, but 
 it was more than indulgence when he attempted to justify 
 his Romans on every occasion^-. 
 
 It is nowhere mentioned into how many books his 
 work was divided, though it was held in an unusually 
 high degree of estimation and is very often referred to 
 by Polybius, Livy and Dionysius. We may be sure 
 that we also possess a great many things borrowed from 
 him, where we do not read his name. Appian, who 
 gave a very different account of the second Punic war 
 from Livy, mentions that Q. Fabius was sent as ambas- 
 sador to Delphi 2\ Appian knew little of Latin, and 
 was not much of an investigator, and as far as Diony- 
 sius of Halicarnassus went, he merely abridged him, so 
 that we may look upon him as representing Dionysius*^. 
 But for the end of the war against Pyrrhus and the begin- 
 ning of the first Punic war, when he was no longer guided 
 by Dionysius, he found and used the Greek work of 
 Fabius down to the time when Polybius began. Now 
 as his account of this period perfectly agrees with Dion 
 Cassius, I have no doubt that Dion Cassius also based 
 his narrative here upon that of Fabius. I don't mean to 
 say that he used no other writers, but his acute eye 
 must have recognised Fabius as his best authority "^ 
 All those invaluable accounts of the early Roman consti- 
 tution, which we find in Dion Cassius, may be referred 
 to Fabius. The expressions of Dion in describing the 
 civil history of Rome are so careful and accurate, that 
 
 2' 1. U. III. 8. 9. ^^ Vol. II. p. 8. 
 
 '^ VII. 27, His words are 17 8e ^ovXfj Koivrov fxev ^a^iov, tou 
 (Tvyypa^ea Ttoi'Se tu>v epyav, els AeX^ois eTrefiire. Compare Plutarch, 
 Fab. Max. 18. Livy, xxii. 57. 
 
 •* Vol. 111. notes 353 & 844. " Vol. n. \>. 12. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 29 
 
 we cannot hesitate for a moment in assigning them to 
 Fabius. Thus the populus is called by him S>;jw,05, and 
 the plehs -rtX^os or o^iXog"^. Whoever reads the history 
 of Dion Cassiiis and possesses an accurate knowledge of 
 constitutional terms, will find that every thing is correct, 
 whereas Dionysius makes dreadful mistakes"'. Fabius 
 then is the father of Roman history, and though his 
 work is lost, we must acknowledge that we are greatly 
 indebted to him for the information we derive from him 
 respecting the constitution and its changes-^. There 
 have been some censorious critics who have considered 
 it ridiculous, that we in the nineteenth century pretended 
 to know the Roman constitution better than Dionysius in 
 the reign of Augustus ; but we only need refer them to 
 Dion Cassius, for we do not pretend to know it better 
 than he did. 
 
 There is a literary difficulty about this remarkable 
 man, which in my opinion can never be solved. It 
 arises from an expression of Cicero's in his work " De 
 Divinatione"^'^. He there mentions a " Somnium Aeneae" 
 from the Greek annals of a Numerius Fabius Pictor, 
 of whom no mention is found any where else. The 
 difficulty might indeed be solved very easil)', since we 
 know that at the time of Q. Fabius Pictor, whose 
 name is firmly established by the testimonies of Diony- 
 sius, Appian and Polybius, several other Romans wrote 
 in the Greek tongue ; why then should not a Numerius 
 Fabius have likewise written in Greek ? Is it not pos- 
 sible that his writings may have had merely an epheme- 
 ral existence like those of so many authors of our own 
 day? To this class of writers the senator Cn. Aufidius 
 
 '« Vol. II. p. 169, note .367. =" Vol. ii. p. 13. 
 
 =^8 Vol. II. p. 12. 
 
 ^ I. 21, It is true we have only one good MS. of the work De 
 Divinatione, and a number of bad ones of the 15th century, so that 
 the cognomen Numerius might be a mistake, but I do not see how 
 any one could have inserted such a cognomen. N. 
 
30 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 must have belonged whose Greek work is only men- 
 tioned by Cicero'*^. But in his work " De Oratore""'', 
 and in the introduction to the first book, " De Legibus," 
 Cicero speaks of a Fabius Pictor as a writer of Latin 
 Annals, and in the former of these passages he places him 
 between Cato and Piso. None of the ancient authors, 
 neither Livy, nor Polybius, nor any grammarian men- 
 tions Latin annals of Fabius Pictor. Gellius^- indeed 
 speaks of Annales Fabii, but without the addition Pic- 
 toris, and nothing is said as to whether this Fabius 
 wrote in Latin or in Greek. I make this remark be- 
 cause the passage of Gellius has been erroneously ad- 
 duced to prove that Gellius knew a Fabius Pictor who 
 was the author of Latin annals. There is indeed another 
 Fabius Pictor who wrote de jure pontificio^^^ but he has 
 nothing to do with Roman history. Now are we to 
 suppose that all other ancient authors overlooked Fabius, 
 the Latin annalist, and that Cicero alone has preserved 
 his name ? My opinion is this. There was a Latin 
 annalist of the name of Fabius Maximus Servilianus, 
 whom Servius''* and Dionysius^^ mention as an old an- 
 nalist of great importance and who lived between Cato 
 and Piso, which is exactly what Cicero says of Fabius 
 Pictor. Cicero therefore, I believe, committed a mis- 
 take. Every man, says Miiser, may err, and even the 
 wisest sometimes in the most incredible manner. Cicero 
 had perhaps merely cast a hasty glance at the annals 
 — he had a dislike for these ancient annals — which bore 
 the title Q. Fahii Annales, and when he found a Fabius 
 who lived between Cato and Piso, he added Pictor, a 
 name with which he was familiar, where he ought to 
 
 ^ Tuscul. Disput. V. 38: Cn. Aufidius praetorius et in senatu 
 sententiam diceLat, et Graernm scribebnt hi/itoriam et videbat in 
 Uteris. 
 
 3' II. 12. "^ V. ^ 
 
 3» Nonius, s. V. Picumnus. ^* ad Aen. i. 3. 
 
 ^■' I. 7. Compai'e J\Iacrol». Saturn, i. IG. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 31 
 
 have added Maximus^^. We must also remember that 
 Cicero did not possess a very extensive knowledge of the 
 history of his country, in evidence of which 1 need only 
 mention what everybody knows, that his statement about 
 the self sacrifice of Decius the grandson is a mere fancy 
 of his own^^. 
 
 ^^ When a man s])eaks under great mental excitement, he may 
 easily make a blunder, but when he dictates, it may happen still 
 more easily. It has often happened to me that in referring' to a 
 man I pronounced a wrong name and did so repeatedly ; until some 
 one called my attention to it. Another instance of such a blunder 
 in speaking occurred in a letter of Cicero to Atticus (vi. 2). He 
 had called the citizens of Phlius Phliuntiij and Atticus reminded him 
 that they were called Phliasii. Cicero replies, that the mistake had 
 escaped him, and that he knew very well what he ought to have said. 
 The principle of comparing the relations of ancient history with 
 those of our own time, in order to form a more distinct notion of 
 them, should also be followed in the explanation of ancient authors. 
 N. 
 
 " See Vol. III. p. 505. Cicero, De Finib. ii. 19; Tuscul. Quaest. 
 I. 37. 
 
32 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 LECTURE V. 
 
 L. CINCIUS ALIMENTUS. — C. ACILIUS. — Q. ENNIUS. — M. POR- 
 CIUS CATO. — L. CASSIUS HEMINA. — Q. FABIUS MAXIMUS 
 SERVILIANUS. — CN. GELLIUS. — L. CALPURNIUS PISO CEN- 
 SORIUS. — C. JUNIUS GRACCHANUS. — Q. CLAUDIUS QUADRI- 
 GARIUS. — Q. VALERIUS ANTIAS. 
 
 L. CiNcius Aliraentus^ who, as we learn from Diony- 
 sius of Halicarnassus", wrote the history of Rome in 
 Greek, was a contemporary of Q. Fabius Pictor. It is 
 very instructive to examine such isolated accounts in order 
 to form a correct estimate of the loss of these old writers. 
 We know from two passages of Livy^ that Cincius wrote 
 on the second Punic war and the early relations of Rome, 
 but it is only from Dionysius* that we learn that he wrote 
 a complete history of his country from the earliest down 
 to his own time. He was praetor in the second Punic 
 war, and was taken prisoner by the Carthaginians^ Be- 
 sides his history of Rome he is said to have written on 
 chronology, on the consular power, and on Roman anti- 
 quities, which, as Dionysius informs us, he treated as 
 an independent and critical investigator*^. How much 
 Dionysius may have borrowed from him, cannot be as- 
 certained. 
 
 Not long after him C. Acilius wrote Roman annals 
 
 1 Compare vol. i. p. 272 foil. * i. 6. 
 
 3 XXI. 38 ; VII. 3. * i. 6. 
 
 * Livy XXI. 38: xxvi. 23. 28. xxvii. 7, &c. 
 " A. Kraiise, Vitae et Fragmenta veterum Historicorum Ronia- 
 norum, p. 68 foil. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 33 
 
 from the time of Romulus down to his own days. This 
 work was likewise in Greek, and was afterwards trans- 
 lated into Latin by one Claudius who is otherwise un- 
 known to us^. Acilius too seems to have been an import- 
 ant and respectable writer. Thus the literature of Rome 
 was at that time essentially a Greek one. 
 
 It was probably about the beginning of the war with 
 Perseus that Q. Ennius composed a poem under the 
 strange name of Annales ; but we cannot conceive that 
 he should, like a chronicler, have described the events 
 as they took place one year after another; he was a 
 man of too much poetical genius to write such a foolish 
 work which would have been nothing more than a heap of 
 versus mevioriales. The number of fragments which are 
 preserved, enables us to form a tolerably clear idea of the 
 work ; and if the references which we have, were more 
 carefully given, we might even have an accurate know- 
 ledge of the proportions of its parts. But corrupt as a 
 great many numbers in the ancient grammarians are, yet it 
 is clear that the earliest times, the reputed arrival of the 
 Trojans in Latium and the time of the kings, were con- 
 tained in the first three books. The war with Pyrrhus 
 may with great probability he assigned to the fifth. I do 
 not know whether the verse 
 
 Horrida Romuleum certamina pango duellum 
 
 which occurs in Merula's collection of the fragments, is 
 genuine, but there can be no doubt that Ennius occupied 
 himself very little with the internal struggles of the Ro- 
 mans. If we examine the later books containing the events 
 subsequent to the first Punic war, which according to Ci- 
 cero^ he passed over, we find passages which prove that the 
 war against Hannibal was described very minutely. The 
 account of it began with the seventh book, and the whole 
 
 ^ Livy. XXV. 39; xxxv. 14; Cicero, de off. iii. 32; Dionys. in. 
 77 ; Plutarch, Romul. 21. 
 ' Brutus, 19. 
 VOL. IV. D 
 
34 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 work consisted of eighteen books^. The end of the 
 seventh book brought the history down to his own time. 
 In the eighteenth book Enniiis himself intimated that in 
 the year 578 he was still engaged upon writing his work. 
 The whole poem was wanting in symmetry, for in the 
 early times which were despatched very briefly, so that 250 
 years were contained in one book, a great many things 
 must have been passed over, like the first Punic war. The 
 account of the wars against the Samnites was extremely 
 short. The beautiful history of the kings in Livy may 
 have been taken chiefly from Ennius. He was born in 
 515 at Rudiae in Calabria^", and died in 585 at the age 
 of seventy ^^ 
 
 The fragments of Ennius were collected very carefully 
 about the end of the sixteenth century by Hieronymus 
 Columna^-. This collection contains, with the exception 
 of a few trifles, all that can be gathered from the an- 
 cient authors. Soon after Columna, a Dutchman P. Mo- 
 rula published a new edition of the fragments of En- 
 nius ^^, which contained all that Columna had overlooked. 
 The collection and the commentary of Columna are very 
 valuable, but he is exceedingly vain, and pretends to 
 have read Greek authors and scholiasts whose works 
 had certainly not been discovered at that time, so that 
 
 ® We may take it for granted that Ennius himself made the divi- 
 sion into eighteen books. The opinion that Q. Vargunteius made it, 
 is founded on a wrong interpretation of a passage in Suetonius (De 
 illustr. Gram. 2). I believe that Suetonius merely meant to say that 
 Vargunteius made critical and explanatoiy commentaries on Ennius^, 
 such as Lampadio had made on Naevius. — N. 
 
 "• Cicero^ Tuscul. Quaest. i. 1; Brut. 18; Varro, ap. Geilium, 
 XVII. 21 
 
 " Cicero, Brut. 20 ; de Senect. 5. 
 
 '2 Q. Ennii, poetae vetustissimi quae supersunt fragmenta, ab 
 Hieronymo Columna conquisita, disposita et explicata, Neapoli 1390. 
 i". A reprint of this edition appeared at Amsterdam in 1707. 
 
 " Q. Ennii fragmenta coUegit et illustravit P. Merula, Lugd. 
 Bat. 1595. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 35 
 
 afterwards many scholars found themselves not a little 
 puzzled by his assertions. The case of Merula is differ- 
 ent. He said that he had gathered a number of verses 
 from a work of L. Calpurnius Piso, a contemporary of 
 Pliny, which bore the title "De continentia veterum poet- 
 arum." He adds, that Piso in this work compared the 
 early poets with the later ones, and the latter with one ano- 
 ther, that the manuscript of it was at Paris in the library 
 of St. Victor, where he feared, it would be stolen. Now 
 what circumstance could have led him to this strange ap- 
 prehension for which no reason is assigned ? He further 
 states that he used the manuscript, and that he discovered 
 that it had formerly been bound up together with a manu- 
 script of Lucan from which it had afterwards been cut 
 away. Now there is indeed in the library of St. Victor at 
 Paris a manuscript of Lucan, from which another one 
 has been torn off, — my friend Immanuel Bekker whose 
 attention I had directed to it, saw it himself — but this 
 proves nothing. It is not improbable that P. Merula 
 either in joke or in earnest wanted to impose upon the 
 public, but he was not able to write such perfect verses 
 as would deceive a good scholar. At least all those 
 which he pretends to have derived from Piso, are suspi- 
 cious to me, though I do not mean positively to assert 
 that they are something modern. They are hexameters 
 and indeed such as Ennius might have written ; but they 
 never carry with them that conviction of genuineness 
 which is so strong in the other fragments of Ennius that 
 we might almost swear and say : this cannot come from 
 a modern author. My opinion therefore is, that we must 
 not place too much confidence in those verses which are 
 said to be taken from Piso. 
 
 Not long after Ennius, whom we reckon among the 
 Roman historians, although very little of his has been 
 incorporated with history by subsequent writers, the his- 
 tory of Rome began to be written in Latin prose, and 
 the most important among the works we now meet with 
 
 D 2 
 
36 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 are the " Origines"" of Cato. The form which he adopted 
 in this work, shows great originahty, and also that the 
 Romans at that time began to entertain just views of 
 their own history and to follow the right way in writing 
 it. Subsequent writers again lost sight of this and became 
 estranged from the early constitution of their country. 
 Cato wrote the history not only of Rome, but of Italy. 
 While he described the gradual increase of the Roman 
 commonwealth, he gave accounts of the nations of Italy 
 as they successively came in contact with it'^ The Ori- 
 gines consisted of seven books ^°: the first contained the 
 history of the Kings, the second and third carried the 
 history down to the complete subjugation of Italy, the 
 fourth contained the first Punic war, the fifth the second, 
 and the sixth and seventh the subsequent wars down to 
 his own time, that is, to the praetorship of Ser. Galba. 
 He wrote his work at an advanced age, about the year 
 600. There is a curious prolepsis and anachronism in 
 Livy in the disputes about the Lex Oppia, where the 
 . tribune L. Valerius appeals to Cato's Origines against 
 him^*'. During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries 
 people had such curious notions respecting every thing 
 written in antiquity, that on account of this passage in 
 Livy, they would not beheve that Cato wrote his Origines 
 at an advanced period of his life, and G. Vossius^^ thought 
 it worth while to consider, whether C. Nepos was not 
 speaking of a different work in saying that Cato wrote 
 it as a senex. 
 
 Little of this work is extant, but what we have is 
 excellent. It is said that once a philologer tried to con- 
 jure up spirits in order to obtain from them ancient books 
 
 " Compare vol. i. p. 8 and note 2; vol. ii. p. 8. 
 •* C. Nepos, Cato, c. 3. 
 
 '* Livy XXXIV. 5 makes L, Valerius say to Cato : Tuas adversus 
 te Origines revolvam. 
 " De Histor. Lat. i. 5. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 37 
 
 which were lost, and if such a thing were possible, the first 
 ancient work to be asked for would be the Origines of 
 Cato ; for if we had them and the history of Q. Fabius 
 Pictor, we might dispense with all speculations concern- 
 ing the early history of the nations of Italy. Cato's work 
 was the only one of its kind in the whole range of Roman 
 literature. In reading the descriptions which Livy gives 
 of the wars against the Aequians and Volscians, we are 
 extremely wearied by the intolerable sameness, which is 
 even increased by his repeating the same things over 
 again. The same character is generally, though with 
 great injustice, ascribed to the Roman annalists : but 
 Cato was anything but monotonous or wearisome. 
 
 A very short time after Cato and before the destruc" 
 tion of Carthage, the history of Rome was written by 
 L. Cassius Hemina'^. From many of his historical re- 
 marks I conclude that he wrote about Alba according 
 to its ancient local chronology, and that he synchronized 
 with the Greeks, which is a circumstance of great im- 
 portance. The fourth book of his work bore the title 
 Bellum Punicum posterius% from which we may infer 
 that the last war against the Carthaginians had not 
 broken out at the time when he wrote it. He even men- 
 tioned the secular festival of the year 608-°, which may 
 indeed have been just at the end of his work, but I do 
 not believe that it consisted of only four books, though I 
 admit that the number of books into which it was divided, 
 was not very great. Cassius Hemina was one of the old 
 authorities who had derived his information from genu- 
 ine sources ^^ 
 
 From this time forward Roman histories were written 
 by various persons : the Latin rhetoricians who now be- 
 
 " Compare vol. i. p. 271, and vol. ii. p. 8. 
 
 '^ Prisciaiij vii. p. 767 ed Putsch. 
 
 '" Censoriuus, de die nat. 17. 
 
 '• Pliny, Hist. Nat. xui. 13; xxix. 1. 
 
38 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 gan to spring up, laid down the books which already 
 existed as the foundations for their own works and only 
 made additions from old chronicles which had been ne- 
 glected by their predecessors-". I do not think it neces- 
 sary, to give you a complete list of these writers of the 
 seventh century or to enter into an examination of their 
 merits ; my intention is merely to furnish you with an out- 
 line of the literature of the history of Rome, and I cannot 
 therefore mention such writers as are in themselves of 
 little or no importance. To this period belongs Q. Fa- 
 bius Maximus, whom Cicero, as I remarked before, calls 
 Fabius Pictor. His work seems to have been a very 
 minute history, as he spoke of the capture of Rome by 
 the Gauls in his fourth book-^. Cn. Gellius-^ also be- 
 longs to this period. He was a very prolix and credu- 
 lous writer; he was only a second rate historian, and no 
 authority, but would to God that we possessed the works 
 of these writers, for who can say whether or not many a 
 valuable old chronicle had been used by them and incor- 
 porated in their works ! 
 
 A writer about whose character I can speak with 
 greater decision, is L. Calpurnius Piso Censorius-^ His 
 censorship falls in the time between the two Gracchi. It 
 may be that he wrote after the expiration of this office, but 
 it is also possible that the surname Censorius was added 
 afterwards. To judge from the extracts which Dionysius 
 gives from him, he must have been a man of a peculiar 
 character. Before him historians had received the mate- 
 rials just as they w^ere handed down to them by their pre- 
 decessors, and had not cared whether that which was trans- 
 mitted to them, was possible or not. They had regarded 
 the events of early Roman history as something belonging 
 to a time which had no connexion whatever with their own 
 
 22 Compare vol. ii. p. 8 foil. " Gellius, N. A. v. 4. 
 
 2^ Compare vol. ii. p. 9. note 11. 
 
 " Compare vol. i. pp 235. 237 ; ii. p. 9. foil.; m p. 319. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 89 
 
 age- Piso began to look at things in a different light : 
 his object was to divest the ancient stories of all that ap- 
 peared to him improbable or impossible, and to reconstruct 
 out of the ancient traditions such a history as he thought 
 consistent and in accordance with the natural course of 
 things. This is the same mode of proceeding as has been 
 unfortunately applied in our days to matters of the highest 
 importance. Piso, for instance, calculates that L. Tar- 
 quinius Superbus could not possibly have been the son 
 of Tarquinius Priscus, because he would then have been 
 too old when he came to the throne. Therefore Piso, 
 without giving any further reasons for it, makes Tarquinius 
 Superbus the grandson of Tarquinius Priscus"*^. He is 
 surprised at the account that Tarpeia had a monument 
 on the capitol, and forgetting that she was a Sabine, he 
 made her a heroine, and discarded the history of her 
 treachery "7. He is unable to understand the difference 
 between the Sabine and Latin Romans. The Romans 
 had the ancient legend about the lake Curtius into which 
 Curtius was said to have thrown himself in consequence 
 of an oracle. Piso destroyed this sublime story com- 
 pletely ; for as he conceived that a battle could not have 
 been fought on that spot at any other time but in the 
 reign of Romulus, when the sewers did not yet exist, he 
 supposed that some Sabine general of the name of Cur- 
 tius had sunk in that marshy district together with his 
 war-horse"*^. Such poor and contemptible interpretations 
 are suggested by the same spirit which has actuated some 
 interpreters of the Holy Scriptures, who leave no letter 
 untouched and turn the narratives upside down in order 
 to make out, as they fanc)^, an intelligible history; but 
 in the latter case this mode of proceeding is more un- 
 pardonable than in any other. In the same spirit and 
 for the purpose of making out that the northern sagas 
 
 ^^ Dionys. iv. 7. ^' Dionys. ii. 40. 
 
 '^ Varro, de linjr. Lat. v. 148 ed. Miiller. Compare vol. i. p. 237. 
 
40 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 are historical, the whole lay of the Nibelungen has been 
 transformed into a war of the Burgundians and connected 
 with the accounts of Roman chronicles of the fifth century. 
 But, fortunately, nobody believes these things. Such was 
 the spirit of L. Calpurnius Piso, a remarkable man, but 
 in a bad way : he may be regarded as the first author of 
 forgeries in Roman history. 
 
 C. Junius Gracchanus derived his name from his friend- 
 ship with the younger Gracchus. Both the Gracchi were 
 men of very deep, intense and warm feelings, and exer- 
 cised an inspiring influence upon eminent persons ; it is, 
 therefore, no wonder that young and enthusiastic men were, 
 as it were, charmed by them. Junius Gracchanus wrote 
 a history of the Roman constitution, in which he gave a 
 chronological account of its changes -9. The work seems 
 to have been the only one of its kind ; it is quoted by 
 Censorinus, Ulpian and other jurists. He appears to have 
 followed in his calculations the aera from the expulsion of 
 the kings. Gains prefixed an abridgement of the work 
 of Gracchanus to his book on the twelve tables, for he 
 himself did not possess the learning of Gracchanus, and 
 where he is left to himself, he is very often wrong, but 
 his collection is nevertheless extremely valuable. The 
 sources of Gracchanus were probably the ancient law- 
 books, and certainly most authentic ones. I can say with 
 the fullest conviction that all his statements were cor- 
 rect. 
 
 In Cicero's youth, at the time when the books ad 
 Ilerennium were written, or rather somewhat earlier, about 
 the year 680, there were two men who wrote a general 
 history of Rome, Q. Claudius Quadrigarius and Q. Vale- 
 rius Antias. The former began his history with the de- 
 struction of Rome by the Gauls, and declared that there 
 existed no documents older than that event ^", for I have 
 
 "^ Compare vol. ii. p. 10 foil, and note 251. 
 ^ Compare vol. ii. p. 2 foil. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 41 
 
 no doubt that the KXwhos t»j in Plutarch''^ is our Claudius 
 Quadrigarius. In the first book he spoke of the Galhc 
 war, and had consequently given only a very brief outline 
 of the more ancient times. We must therefore consider 
 him as a man of a critical mind, who would not write 
 about what, according to his conviction, was not historical. 
 He must have written about the time when Cicero was 
 consul, for we find a passage quoted from his work which 
 refers to the servile war^". A. Gellius liked him very 
 much on account of his naivete'^. 
 
 Q. Valerius Antias is the very opposite of Quadri- 
 garius : of all the Roman historians he is the most untrue ; 
 in him we can point out manifest falsifications^*. Livy^^ 
 says that none surpassed him in exaggerations. He knew 
 all the details of the earliest times most accurately, the 
 numbers of the slain, prisoners &c. He was animated by 
 the spirit of falsehood. This is the verdict of Livy^^, 
 who nevertheless in his first books has passages which he 
 cannot have taken from any one else but Valerius Antias. 
 
 ^' Numa^ c. 1. 
 
 ^^ The fragment of Quadrigarius to which Niebuhr here alludes, 
 I have not been able to discover. 
 
 ^' A. Gellius, IX. 13 ; xiii. 28 ; xv. 1 ; xvii. 2, and elsewhere. 
 '* Compare vol. ii. p. 9. 
 
 ^ XXXVI. 38 : in augendo eo non alius intemperantior est. Com- 
 pare XXXVIII. 23 ; XXXIII. 11. 
 
 ^ XXXIII. 10; XXVI. 49; iii. 5, and passim. Compare vol. i. 
 pp. 237, 501, 526; vol. ii. note 570; iii. pp. 124, 358. 
 
42 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 LECTURE VI. 
 
 C. LICINIUS MACER. Q. AELTUS TUBERO. — T. POMPONIUS 
 
 ATTICUS. — M. TULLIUS CICERO. — SALLUST. SISENNA. 
 
 DIODORUS SICULUS. DIONYSIUS OF HALICARNASSUS. 
 
 All these annalists had something extremely old- 
 fashioned in their language, which differed from that of the 
 writers of the subsequent period just as much as the Ger- 
 man written in the beginning of the eighteenth century 
 from that which became established after the seven years 
 war. At the end of the seventh century of Rome we 
 find only one distinguished annalist, C. Licinius Macer^. 
 He was the father of the orator and poet C. Licinius Cal- 
 vus, a contemporary of Catullus, who flourished about the 
 year 700, so that at the time of Cicero's consulship Macer 
 may have been beyond the prime of life. His tribuneship 
 falls between the first consulship of Pompey and the death 
 of Sulla. Licinius Macer was a remarkable man, and we 
 are able to form an idea of the character of his work from 
 what Livy and Dionysius quote from it. From the quo- 
 tations in Livy we see that Macer did what only two wri- 
 ters had done before him, the one as an historian and the 
 other as a writer on the constitution, for he derived his 
 materials from documents which he sought and found 2. 
 Macer may have related a great many things which were 
 passed over by his successors, merely because they could 
 not reconcile them with other accounts which they adopt- 
 
 ^ Compai-e vol. 11. p. 10. 
 
 ' Livy, IV. 7, 20, 23; vii. 9 ; ix. 38, 46 ; x. 9. Compare Diouys. 
 II. 52; IV. 6 ; v. 74 and passim. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 43 
 
 ed; for Livy^ says in more than one place that his state- 
 ments did not agree with other annals. The treaty with 
 Porsenna was probably mentioned by nobody but Licinius 
 Macer^. Pliny speaks of him, as if he had read him^; 
 Cicero is dissatisfied with him, and in the introduction to 
 his work "de Legibus" he mentions him disrespectfully. 
 He may be right, for Macer, although he deserved respect 
 as a critical 'historian, may yet not have been equally 
 distinguished as a writer, which is indeed very probable. 
 If we Germans, for instance, praise Mascov^ as the first 
 who wrote a history of Germany, we do not thereby mean 
 to assert that his work possesses everything that is re- 
 quired of a history of Germany. But it may also be that 
 Cicero judged unfavourably of him, because he belonged 
 to a different political party '^. In the struggles which were 
 then going on at Rome, every one thought the lesser evil 
 to be on his own side: some conceived it to lie in the 
 greater power of the government, and others in the full 
 operation of popular freedom; just as is now the case in 
 France, where a calm and unprejudiced spectator cannot 
 join either of the parties unconditionally, or wish to see 
 one gain the upper hand. In such circumstances Ci- 
 cero may, for a time, have confined his wishes to one 
 party, and been anxious to see the other completely 
 suppressed. I consider the loss of the annals of Macer 
 greatly to be deplored. Whether the abridgement of 
 a speech of Macer among the fragments of Sallust was 
 made from an actual speech of Macer, or whether it 
 was written by Sallust under his name, is uncertain. At 
 
 ^ VII. 9 ; IX. 46 ; X. 9. '' Compare vol. i. p. 546 foil. 
 
 * Hist. Nat. XXXII. 3 and 5. 
 
 ® His history appeared in 1726 under the title: GescMchte der 
 Beutschen bis zu Anfang der Fr'dnkischen Monarchie. An English 
 translation of it by Thomas Lediard appeared in 1738, London, 
 2 vols. 4to. 
 
 7 Cicero, ad Att. i. 4; Plutarch, Cic. 9 ; Valer. Max. ix. 12. 7. 
 
44 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 any rate the great knowledge of the Roman constitution 
 displayed in it renders it worthy of Sallust. 
 
 After the consulship of Cicero, while Caesar was in 
 Gaul, Q. Aelius Tubero, a friend of Cicero, wrote a his- 
 tory of Rome which was likewise founded on authentic 
 documents, though, unless he has been greatly wronged, he 
 cannot be compared with Macer in importance.^ T. Pom- 
 ponius Atticus wrote Roman annals which seem to have 
 been nothing more than chronological tables 9. It was not 
 an unusual thing at that time to draw up short historical 
 outlines from the detailed narratives of others, as Corne- 
 lius Nepos did after the example of Apollodorus. Thus 
 sciences extend and become contracted again. The annals 
 of Atticus seem to have been valuable, but as we never 
 find them quoted, we may conclude that we possess no- 
 thing of them^*^. In the admirable introduction to the 
 work "De Legibus" Cicero represents himself as being 
 told by his friend Atticus that his countrymen were look- 
 ing to him for a history of Rome, and he seems to have 
 done this not from vanity, but because he thought it his 
 duty to write such a work, and because many of his friends 
 had actually expressed such a wish to him. To this sug- 
 gestion he replies in a manner which shews that he would 
 have liked to undertake the task, but that at the same 
 time he had never entertained any serious thought of 
 doing it. But however this may be, we may without in- 
 juring his reputation assert, that had he ventured upon it, 
 he would have attempted something which was beyond his 
 
 ^ SeeLivy, IV. 23; Sueton. Caes. 83 ; A. Gellius, x. 28 ; xiv.7and 
 8 ; Servius ad Aen. ii. 15 ; Cicero, ad Quint. Frat. i. 1 ; pro Plane. 
 42 ; pro Ligario, 7 foil. 
 
 ® C. Nepos, Hannib. 13, Attic. 18; Cicero, Brut 3, 5, and 11; 
 Orat. 34 ; Asconius in Pison. p. 13, ed. Orelli. 
 
 '° There are some passages in which the work of Atticus is quoted, 
 and which seem to have escaped Niebuhi-, viz. the passages of C. Nepos 
 and Asconius refen-ed to above. To them we may add Ascon. in Cor- 
 nel, p. 76 ed. Orelli. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 45 
 
 powers. He was a stranger to the early history of his 
 country", he was more of a statesman than a scholar, and 
 a man of an immensely active and indefatigable character. 
 The task of writing a history of Rome would have re- 
 quired a series of studies for which he had no time. In 
 his work " De re publica " we have an opportunity of 
 seeing how little historical knowledge he possessed when 
 he began writing it. He does not seem to have made use 
 of Junius Gracchanus, but to have derived the greater 
 part of his information from his friend Atticus. 
 
 Sallust, as he himself says'", found the history of his 
 country unwarrantably neglected, although if it had been 
 written, it would have thrown that of the Greeks into the 
 shade. And the Romans had indeed no history of their 
 country, any more than we have one of Germany. Sallust, 
 like Cicero, a man of great activity, had the power of writ- 
 ing it, but as a practical man he preferred undertaking 
 separate portions of it, especially those in which Sisenna 
 did not satisfy him^^ The object of his Jugurthine war 
 was to show how the Roman world had sunk in every re- 
 spect through the government of the oligarchs, and how 
 the popular party was developing and gaining strength 
 through the shameful abuse which the aristocratical party 
 made of its victory. His " Historiae " began after the 
 death of Sulla and were intended to show the reaction 
 against the institutions of the dictator. They also contain- 
 ed the war against Sertorius. In his account of the con- 
 spiracy of Catiline who belonged to the party of Sulla, his 
 object was to show what degenerate villains those aristo- 
 crats were, and he suggests that their party had already 
 lost its importance, and that their proceedings were no 
 better than those of robbers. If Sallust had not been 
 satisfied with the history of the other events which were 
 described by Sisenna, such as the Marsic war, he would 
 undoubtedly have written it himself. Much has already 
 
 " Compare vol, i. note 1040. ^- Catiline, 7. ^^ Jugurth. 100. 
 
46 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 been done for Sallust, but there are yet many laurels to 
 be gained 1*. 
 
 The history of the Roman republic was now closed 
 like the temple of Janus. Every one had now gained 
 the full conviction that no remedy could be expected 
 from the forms of the law, but that it was necessary to 
 keep the state together from without like a mass of he- 
 terogeneous things, and this conviction had, of course, its 
 influence upon the historians of the age. About the 
 time of Caesar's death Diodorus Siculus wrote his work, 
 but on such a plan that the history of Rome formed 
 only a secondary part of it. Dionysius of Halicarnassus 
 and Livy wrote about the same time. 
 
 In the introduction to his work on the history of Rome, 
 Dionysius gives an account of himself and of the time at 
 which he wrote. He came to Rome after the end of the 
 civil war between Augustus and Antony, and remained 
 there twenty-two years, which he spent upon preparing his 
 work. It was published in the year 745 ^^, for it is evident 
 that the passage to which I allude, is not to be understood 
 of the time when he began writing, but of the time when 
 he wrote his introduction and prefixed it to his work. He 
 calls himself a son of Alexander of Halicarnassus, and he 
 came to Rome in the capacity of a rhetorician. His 
 rhetorical works, which belong to an earlier period than 
 his history, surpass all others of the kind in excellence: 
 they are full of the most exquisite remarks and criti- 
 cisms, and we have therefore the more reason to lament 
 that the texts are so much corrupted. I believe that 
 it is Dionysius whom Suidas mentions under the name 
 of Caecilius, for if he obtained the Roman franchise, he 
 also received a Roman name^^. A Caecilius is mentioned 
 
 " Respecting Niebuhr's opinion on the letters addressed to Caesar, 
 which are commonly ascribed to Sallust, see vol. iii. p. 342, foil. 
 
 '* Dionys. i. 7. 
 
 '^ Atticus too is mentioned under the name of Caecilius, Sueton. 
 Tiber, c. 7, but this occurs seldom. — N. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 47 
 
 in the lives of the ten orators which are ascribed to 
 Plutarch ''^, and some have been of opinion that this is the 
 same Caecilius who was quaestor under Verres in Sicily 
 and afterwards wanted to come forward as his accuser ; 
 but I suspect that the CaeciUus in the lives of the ten 
 orators is likewise Dionysius, for what is attributed there 
 to Caecilius is nothing else than what we find in Diony- 
 sius^^. However I am well aware that this is not a suffi- 
 cient criterion, since the same things may have been said 
 in books of different writers; but it is at all events pro- 
 bable to me, that Dionysius was frequently called by his 
 Roman name. He wrote his history in twenty books. 
 The first ten are complete ; the eleventh is much muti- 
 lated, as several leaves are torn away ; but we possess ex- 
 tracts from the latter half of the work which were made 
 by Constantinus Porphyrogenitus in his collections " De 
 vitiis et virtutibus," and " De legationibus." Besides 
 these extracts we have a collection of curious fragments 
 which are very much mutilated, and sometimes quite 
 unintelligible "J. Their existence had been mentioned 
 by Montfaucon long before their publication by Mai-°. 
 They contain much valuable matter, but they are in an 
 awful condition. Of the first ten books there are more 
 manuscripts than of any other work, and some of them 
 are very old: the Codex Chiggianus which belongs to 
 the tenth century, and the Vatican manuscript are ex- 
 
 '=' P. 832. E. Compare Plutarch, Demosth.3. 
 
 " This supposition of Niebuhr is contradicted by Quinctilian 
 (ill. 1. 16) who mentions Caecilius and Dionysius together as two 
 distinct rhetoricians. 
 
 ^^ Compare vol. ii. note 916 ; vol. ill. note 934. 
 
 ^° Mai has published many things with an unfortunate vanitj^^ and 
 in the present instance he never mentioned that the existence of these 
 fi-agments had been noticed by Montfaucon who had shown him the 
 way. One of Mai's own countrymen, Ciampi^ (Biblioth. Ital. torn. 
 VIII. p. 225, foil.) has censured him for this want of candour, which 
 however must not prevent our acknowledging our great obligations 
 to him. — N. 
 
48 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 cellent. The eleventh book exists only in very few ma- 
 nuscripts, and these are of recent origin, not older than 
 the fifteenth century. The division into books is observ- 
 ed in all of them, as it was in the ancient manuscripts 
 which were made when works were no longer written on 
 rolls, but in codices, and when several books together 
 formed one volume -^ It is highly probable that the 
 work of Dionysius, like that of Livy-", was divided into 
 decads. Now the first volume of Dionysius which con- 
 tains the first decad, is preserved, and of the second there 
 existed only a few torn leaves when Nicholas V. began to 
 collect libraries. Hence the text of the extant portion 
 of the eleventh book is far more corrupt than that of the 
 preceding ten. The Greek text of Dionysius was first 
 published by Robert Stephens, Paris, 1546. fol., but un- 
 fortunately from a very bad manuscript. Previous to 
 that time Dionysius had been very generally read in a 
 Latin translation which had been made by Lapus"^ Bi- 
 ragus (Treviso, 1480.) in the time of Sixtus IV.-^ from a 
 very excellent Roman manuscript. Lapus was like so 
 many others an unskilful translators^, but still his work 
 was received and read with great interest, until people 
 discovered how very deficient and incorrect it was. Gla- 
 
 *' In this manner the Digestum Veins comprised in one volume 
 twenty-five books, and the Digestum Novum formed a second volume 
 beginning with the twenty-sixth book. — N. 
 
 ^^ It is an unfounded remark of Petrarch's, that the division into 
 decads was not made by Livy himself. — N. 
 
 ^' Lapus is a corruption of Jacobus. — N. 
 
 " This pope did a great deal for literature ; he arranged and col- 
 lected in his Vatican library all that could be gathered of ancient li- 
 terature. — N. 
 
 ^^ The translation of Herodian by Angelus and that of Procopius 
 by Leonardus Arretinus are really excellent ; but, generally speaking, 
 the men of that time were not able to translate. Their works how- 
 ever were nevertheless much read and often printed. To us they 
 are of importance in so far as they represent the manuscripts from 
 which they translated. — N. 
 
 I 
 
INTRODUCTION. 49 
 
 reanus then corrected it and published a new edition of 
 it at Basel (1532). He himself says that he corrected 
 it in six thousand places. This improved edition was 
 likewise used very much: but as Glareanus had done no 
 more than correcting Lapus, Sigismund Gelenius of Co- 
 logne made an entirely new and far better translation, 
 and it was not till after the publication of this new trans- 
 lation that R. Stephens published the Greek text. In 
 1586 Frederick Sylburg gave to the world his edition of 
 Dionysius, which is the best that has appeared ; a more 
 useful one cannot be wished for. He availed himself of 
 the translations of Lapus and Gelenius, but although 
 he had a critical apparatus, and collations from Vene- 
 tian and Roman manuscripts, yet he did not correct 
 the text, which is greatly to be lamented. His notes 
 are most excellent, and no editor ever did for his au- 
 thor, what Sylburg did for Dionysius. The philologi- 
 cal index added to this edition, is unequalled, and the 
 historical one is almost perfect. Sylburg is a man of 
 whom German philology may be proud, but his merits 
 are not yet sufficiently recognised. Whoever has made 
 himself acquainted with his works, must own that he is 
 not inferior to any philologer, not even to the great Gro- 
 novius. He had an eminent talent for divination. He 
 contributed to the Greek Thesaurus of Henry Stephens, 
 but unfortunately we cannot ascertain which parts of 
 the work belong to him. He also distinguished himself 
 by what he did for the Etymologicum Magnum, Pausa- 
 nias, and Clemens of Alexandria. 
 
50 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 LECTURE VII. 
 
 DIONYSIUS OF HALICARNASSUS, CONTINUED. — LIVY. 
 
 After the edition of Sylburg, which was reprinted at 
 Leipzig in 1691, more than a century passed before any- 
 thing further was done for Dionysius, until the new edi- 
 tion ^ of Hudson in 170-i. Hudson had the excellent Vati- 
 can manuscript, and gave a collation of it, but did not know 
 what use to make of it. The notes of Sylburg are some- 
 times omitted, and sometimes given in a mutilated form. 
 Although the edition of Sylburg is incomparably more use- 
 ful to a scholar than that of Hudson, still the latter gained 
 great celebrity in Germany. Strange prejudices were then 
 afloat respecting editions of ancient authors, and as 
 Clarke's Homer had been reprinted in Germany, so now 
 Hudson's edition of Dionysius was thought worth being 
 reprinted at Leipzig-. The publisher requested Reiske 
 to correct the proof sheets, but Reiske was unable to do 
 such a thing without making emendations. He had an 
 
 * London, 2 vols. fol. Hudson, being the friend of Dodwell, 
 was looked upon as a great philologer, although England pos- 
 sessed at the time the greatest philologer that ever lived in 
 Richard Bentley, but — obstrepebant . Bentley was a Whig, and the 
 Tories were bent upon keeping him down : the whole University of 
 Oxford conspired against him, but to no purpose. They wanted to 
 set up Hudson as a great philologer against him, though in reality he 
 was but a poor huddler. Reiz and Hudson were men of the same 
 cast : they had the good fortune of holding eminent positions, and 
 although stupid, they were trumpeted forth as wise men and great 
 scholars. — N. 
 
 - 1774—1777, 6 vols. 8vo. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 51 
 
 excellent talent for divination, but was too hasty ^. He 
 had read Dionysius only once before, and while he was 
 correcting the proofs, he made his emendations, and with- 
 out giving any notice of it, he put into the text the readings 
 of the Vatican manuscript as well as his own emendations, 
 which are sometimes good, but sometimes very bad. Of 
 D. G. Grimm's edition I can say nothing. Dionysius is 
 still waiting for a competent editor. 
 
 The circumstance that Dionysius in his rhetorical works 
 shews himself to be a man of sound judgment speaks 
 very much in his favour, and this impression is greatly 
 enhanced by the fact of his having spent twenty-two years 
 upon his work, during which period he learned the Latin lan- 
 guage, read the Roman annals and made himself acquaint- 
 ed with the Roman constitution in Rome itself. The first 
 eleven books carry down the history a little beyond the 
 time of the decemvirs ; but the whole work contained the 
 history down to the first Punic war, where Polybius began. 
 He called his work Archaeologia, a name which does not 
 seem to have been used before him. As in the eleven 
 books still extant, he does not carry his history fur- 
 ther than Livy does in his first three, as he has two 
 books before he comes to the building of Rome, and 
 again two which contain the history of the kings down to 
 the banishment of Tarquinius Superbus, the minute his- 
 tory of those early periods excites our mistrust in regard 
 to the author's judgment. It is not to be denied tha 
 Dionysius had formed a plan which we cannot approve of; 
 he undertook to write a pragmatical history from the 
 earliest times, and this is a blunder at which we sometimes 
 cannot help smiling; but the longer and the more care- 
 fully the work is examined, the more must true criticism 
 acknowledge that it is deserving of all respect. Before 
 
 ^ I honour Reiske as a friend of my father, and I cannot let an 
 opportunity pass without praising him, but I cannot on this account 
 conceal his defects. 
 
 E 2 
 
52 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 Roman history was treated critically, Dionysius was neg- 
 lected, and indeed if any one should wish to decry him, he 
 would not find it very difficult, for there are passages in 
 him, in which the most intolerable common-places, nay, 
 things which are utterly false, are set forth in long 
 rhetorical discussions. But leaving such things out of the 
 question, I say, that we cannot value too highly the 
 treasures we possess in him. Through him we become 
 acquainted with a multitude of facts derived from the 
 ancient law-books, and with institutions which were re- 
 ferred to the kings as their authors : we owe it solely to 
 him that we are not in utter darkness about these things, and 
 about an infinite number of changes in the laws and consti- 
 tution. The mistakes into which he fell, must be distin- 
 guished from the substance of the accounts which he 
 collected. Having once lost the thread with which he 
 might have found his way in the labyrinth, it was impos- 
 sible for him not to go astray. This would not have hap- 
 pened to him, if he had understood the expressions of Fabius; 
 but he knew nothing of the ancient mode of expressing 
 constitutional relations, and was misled by the meaning 
 which constitutional terms had assumed in his own days. 
 He did not comprehend the happy distinction of Fabius 
 between Sij/Aoj (populus) and ofiiXo; (plebs), and he called 
 the former vX^Qog and the latter S^|xoj*. Hence he often 
 finds himself in a painful perplexity, and we see how, from 
 mere ignorance, he torments himself with riddles, when he 
 places the S^ju-oj in opposition to the S^/x-oj, and makes the 
 tribunes disturb the assemblies of the people. But he is 
 determined to find his way, and does not pass over any- 
 thing, although it may cause him pain. That he is a 
 rhetorician and not a statesman, is indeed but too manifest, 
 and hence his judgment is deficient, though not absolutely 
 bad, for he was an extremely intelligent man. His lan- 
 guage is very good, and with a few exceptions it may be 
 
 '' Compare vol. ii. notes 417 and 431, and p. 220. foil. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 53 
 
 called perfectly pure. But what may be brought against 
 him as a proof of his bad taste are his speeches, in which 
 he imitated the Athenians in such a manner, that he made 
 his heroes speak as if all of them were real Athenians. I 
 read Dionysius at a very early age, and as a young man I 
 studied his primordia of the early history of the Italian 
 nations, till the exertion exhausted my strength ; but few 
 results were to be gained : I have gone through him more 
 carefully and perseveringly than perhaps any one else : his 
 faults did not escape me, and I thought him far inferior to 
 Livy. I have been censured for wishing to find fault with 
 him, but assuredly no one feels that respect, esteem, and 
 gratitude towards him which I feel. The more I search, the 
 greater are the treasures I find in him. In former times it 
 was the general belief, that whatever Dionysius had more 
 than Livy were mere fancies of his own, but with the ex- 
 ception of his speeches there is absolutely nothing that can 
 be called invented: he only worked up those materials which 
 were transmitted to him by other authorities. It is true 
 that he made more use of Cn. Gellius and similar writers 
 than of Cato, it is also true that he not unfrequently prefer- 
 red those authors who furnished abundant materials to others 
 who gave more solid and substantial information^ — all this is 
 true ; but he is nevertheless undervalued, and he has claims 
 to an infinitely higher rank than that which is usually 
 assigned to him. He worked with the greatest love of his 
 subject, and he did not, certainly, intend to introduce any 
 forgery. He is not read much now, nor will he perhaps 
 ever be read much. 
 
 It was nearly about the time of the publication of 
 Dionysius that Livy began to write his history. It is my 
 conviction that he did not begin earlier, and I here express 
 it after mature consideration and scrupulous investigation. 
 He was born at Patavium in 693 according to Cato, or 695 
 according to Varro, in the consulship of the great Caesar, 
 
 * Compare vol. ii. p. 11. 
 
54 
 
 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 and died in his eightieth year, in 772 according to Cato, or 
 774 according to Varro, that is, the twentieth year after 
 the birth of Christ, so that he saw the early part of the 
 reign of Tiberius. The only circumstances of his early 
 life which we know are, that he commenced his career as a 
 rhetorician and wrote on rhetoric^. But these early works 
 were obscured and thrown into the shade by the deep im- 
 pression which his history made upon his contemporaries. 
 The first decad of his historical work has been called a work 
 of his youth, as if he had written it at the age of about thirty, 
 or even earlier. It has been adduced against this opinion, 
 that he speaks of Augustus as the founder and restorer of 
 all temples'^, of the closing of the temple of Janus^, and of 
 the building of the temple of Jupiter Feretrius^, and Dod- 
 w^ell, a man who seldom hits the right point, is perfectly 
 right here when he observes that Livy must have spoken 
 of Spain after its conquest by Augustus^''. The ninth 
 book was written after the campaigns of Drusus in Ger- 
 many, for, in speaking of the Ciminian forest, he says, that 
 at that time the roads through it were more impassable 
 and horrible quam nuper fuere Germanici saltus^^, and 
 Ahenobarbus and Drusus were the first who threw the 
 German forests open to the Romans. To these facts we 
 must add the circumstance of Dionysius not mentioning 
 Livy any where. If a work written in such a masterly man- 
 ner as that of Livy had existed, we should be utterly unable 
 to comprehend how Dionysius could have remained ignorant 
 of it, or have overlooked it. In Livy, on the other hand, 
 and that even in the last books of the first decad, we find 
 several traces of his having read Dionysius. The account 
 which Livy^- gives of the treachery of Naples, cannot pos- 
 
 « Quinctil, x. 1. 39; viii. 2. 18; Senec. Epist. 100; Sueton. 
 Claud. 41. ^ Livy, iv. 20. « Livy, i. 19. » Livy, i. 10. 
 
 '" Annal. Vellei. p. 19. 
 
 " Livy, IX. 36. Compare voL iii. p. 279, note 485. 
 '•- viii. 22, foil. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 55 
 
 sibly have been taken from Roman annals, it must have 
 been derived from a Greek source. It is also probable, 
 that in his comparison of the power of Alexander the Great 
 with that of the Romans i^, he had a Greek writer before 
 him who had done the same. The account of the piratical 
 expedition of Cleonymus^* must likewise have been taken 
 from a Greek writer. I therefore firmly believe that Dio- 
 nysius had completed his work before Livy finished his 
 first decad, and that the latter made use of Dionysius 
 even before he wrote the eighth book. Nay, it is not im- 
 possible that the Greek work of Dionysius may have sug- 
 gested to Livy the idea of writing the history of Rome in 
 Latin. The liveliness and freshness of the style of Livy's 
 work might indeed be said to be opposed to my supposi- 
 tion, that he wrote it at an advanced period of his life ; but 
 such things merely depend upon the personal character of 
 the writer. Let no one say that I allow him too little 
 time to complete his history, for as he was about fifty 
 years old when Dionysius published his work, there still 
 remained thirty years from the time he commenced his 
 history until his death, and the work is not indeed too ex- 
 tensive to be executed in the course of twenty-five years, 
 especially if we take into consideration Livy's method of 
 writing. It is moreover probable to me that he died before 
 he had accomplished his object. We know it to be a fact 
 that his work consisted of one hundred and forty-two books, 
 and that the last of them ended with the death of Drusus. 
 Here we perceive an evident want of symmetry, which with 
 Livy and the ancients in general would be something in- 
 comprehensible. The whole plan of the work renders it 
 manifest that it was intended to be divided into decads. 
 If we possessed the second decad, we should see still 
 more clearly that it was Livy himself who made this 
 division. The twentieth book, for instance, must have 
 been of double the extent of the others; and this for no 
 
 '^ IX. 18, foil. " X. 2. 
 
66 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 Other reason but because he would not begin the second 
 Punic war with the twenty-second book, in order that this 
 war again might be brought to a close in the thirtieth, and 
 that the thirty-first might open with the Macedonian war. 
 If we examine Livy's history with due attention to 
 style and his mode of treating his subjects, we find it 
 extremely unequal. The first book and some parts of 
 the second Punic war are, perhaps, the most beautiful 
 portions of the whole work. The second Punic war is 
 written with particular care, and it contains passages of 
 the most exquisite beauty. In the first decad there are 
 many episodes, some of which are very successfully worked 
 up. The more Livy feels himself free from restraint the 
 more beautiful is his narrative ; where he has to record 
 the recurrence of the same or similar circumstances, he 
 himself often grows weary, and writes without any 
 pleasure. From the thirty-first book onward all are far 
 inferior to those in which he describes the second Punic 
 war. In the fourth and fifth decads he gave for the 
 most part a mere Latin paraphrase of Polybius, and he 
 could not indeed have chosen a better guide; but it is 
 evident that he is beginning to hurry onwards to other 
 subjects, and here things happen to him which we rarely 
 meet with in the earlier books : he contradicts himself, 
 his style becomes prolix, and he relates the same things 
 over again. The style of the fragment belonging to the 
 ninety-first book, which was discovered at Rome, is per- 
 fectly different from all the other extant parts of his 
 work : repetitions are here so frequent in the small com- 
 pass of four pages, and the prolixity is so great, that 
 we should hardly believe it to belong to Livy, if we did 
 not read at the beginning of the fragment: Titi Livii xci, 
 and if sundry other things did not prove it to be his. Here 
 we see the justice with which the ancient grammarians 
 censured him for his repetitions and tautologies^^, here 
 
 '* Diomedes quotes a passage from Livy which runs thus : retro 
 domiim, undo venerant. N. — Similar tautologies however occur in 
 
INTRODUCTION. 57 
 
 we see how the writer has grown old and become loqua- 
 cious, a character so exquisitely pourtrayed by Cicero 
 in his Cato Major, and which may have been very agree- 
 able in personal intercourse with Livy. If we pos- 
 sessed the second decad which was probably far better 
 than the later ones, we should see manifest reasons to 
 account for the loss of the latter; for as they were so 
 much inferior to the first decads, they were never read 
 in the schools of the grammarians, and consequently very 
 seldom or never copied. 
 
 the earlier decads also. In xxxvii. 21, we read : inde retro, unde 
 profecta eraf, Elaeam rediit ; in xxxviii. 16: Leonorius retro, unde 
 venerat, cum maiore parte hominum repetit Byzantium, and xl. 48 : 
 Convertit, inde agmen retro, unde venerat, ad Alcen. 
 
58 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 LECTURE VIII. 
 
 LIVY, CONTINUED. HISTORY AND MANUSCRIPTS OF 
 
 HIS WORK. 
 
 It is quite manifest that at the time when Livy began 
 his work, he was not intimately acquainted with his sub- 
 ject, although, considering that the history of Rome was 
 at that time extremely neglected, he may, compa- 
 ratively speaking, have possessed a tolerable knowledge 
 of it, for he had read several of the old books. His 
 reasons for undertaking the task were undoubtedly those 
 which he states in his preface: his delight in history 
 and its substance, and the consolation to be derived 
 from its pages at a time when the Romans were reco- 
 vering from the evils of their civil wars, and the rising 
 generation required to be refreshed by being led back 
 to the glorious times of old. He seems to have set to 
 work immediately after he had formed the resolution, 
 and with that enthusiastic delight which we generally 
 feel the moment after we have come to the determina- 
 tion to realize a grand idea. In the first part of his 
 work he followed Ennius alone", whence his accounts 
 are consistent in themselves, and not made up of con- 
 tradictory or irreconcileable statements. But as he went 
 on, he gradually began to use more authors, though their 
 number always remained very limited. In Livy every 
 thing stands isolated, whereas in Dionysius one thread 
 
 1 Compare vol. i. p. 3. 
 
 '■' Compare vol. i. p. Slti, foil, and p. 234. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 59 
 
 runs through the whole work : Livy took no pains 
 to write a learned history. We must suppose that he, 
 like most of the ancient writers, dictated his history 
 to a scribe or secretary, and the manner in which he 
 worked seems to have been this : he had the events of 
 one year read to him, and then dictated his own history 
 of that year, so that he worked out his history in por- 
 tions, each comprising the events of one year, without 
 viewing this year either in its connexion with the prece- 
 ding or the subsequent one. Hence it often occurs 
 that the end of a year appears at the same time as the 
 conclusion of a series of events, and hence we also find 
 very often that the events recorded in one year are irre- 
 concileable with those of the year preceding. These in- 
 consistencies, however, are not unfrequently of very great use 
 to us, since they sometimes give us interesting information 
 concerning events about which there existed different ac- 
 counts. At first Livy used only few annalists; Fabius^j 
 Valerius Antias* and Tubero^ are mentioned; but I doubt 
 whether he had read the Origines of Cato, and I cannot 
 say whether he made use of Quadrigarius for the period 
 which followed immediately after the burning of the 
 city by the Gauls. It seems probable to me that he 
 did not make use of the pontifical annals, until he 
 reached the end of the first decad. With Polybius he 
 was unacquainted until after he had begun writing the 
 second Punic war, for had he known the incomparable, 
 critical, and authentic account which Polybius gives of 
 this war, he would not in the first period of it have 
 used Caelius Antipater who wrote the history of it ex 
 professo, and who although his narratives were written in a 
 beautiful style, was a wretched historian. The whole 
 description of the siege of Saguntum is probably taken 
 
 ^ Livy, I. 44, 55 ; II. 40 ; X. 37. 
 
 * Livy, X. 41, Compare vol. in. p. 338, and Lecture v. p. 41. 
 
 ^ Livy, IV. 23. X. 9. 
 
60 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 from Caelius Antipater. During this period he does not 
 seem to have made use even of Cincius AUmentus, but 
 on reaching the time when he had to speak of Phihp 
 of Macedonia, his attention turned, or was turned by 
 some one, to Polybius, whom he now translated into 
 Latin throughout the fourth decad. When Polybius left 
 him he continued writing his history in the same manner, 
 and he followed his authors, such as Posidonius, the me- 
 moirs of Ilutilius, Sulla, Theophanes and others, most 
 unscrupulously, and gave what he found in them. At a 
 later period he used, perhaps, the history of the civil wars 
 written by Asinius Pollio. Thus the further he advanced 
 the more he was obliged to enter into details, and the 
 more also did he become conscious of his real calling. 
 Seneca in his seventh Suasoria has preserved Livy's de- 
 scription of the character of Cicero, which is excellent. 
 If we compare with this his other narratives one by one, 
 we see the greatness of his talent for narration — which is 
 with us so much valued in the writers of novels — the 
 liveliness of his portraits, and his clear perception of 
 character^. In these points he is a master of extraor- 
 dinary powers ; but he is altogether deficient in not having 
 a clear survey or control over his subject, and no great 
 author has this deficiency to such an extent as Livy. For 
 an annalist a clear survey is not necessary, but in a work 
 like that of Livy, it is a matter of the highest import- 
 ance. He neither knew what he had written nor what 
 he was going to write, but wrote at hazard. His list of 
 the nations which revolted from the Romans immediately 
 after the battle of Cannae ^ is exceedingly incorrect, for 
 it contains nations which did not revolt till several years 
 later, and yet Livy represents their insurrection as the im- 
 mediate consequence of the battle of Cannae. He shews his 
 want of criticism in the manner in which he relates at the be- 
 ginning of the second Punic war, the tales of the siege of Sa- 
 
 ® Compare vol. i. p. 3. ' xxii. (il. 
 
 I 
 
INTRODUCTION. 61 
 
 guntum and the passage of Hannibal across the Alps. 
 The former can have been copied only from Caelius An- 
 ti pater; and there are things stated in it which cannot pos- 
 sibly have happened. This want of survey is also the 
 cause of his utter incapability of judging of events and 
 of the persons concerned in them : he can never say whether 
 persons acted wisely or foolishly, nor whether they were 
 right or wrong. He had from his early youth belonged 
 to the party of Pompey. At the time when Caesar 
 crossed the Rubico, he was not more than ten years old, 
 and having no distinct notion of the state of things pre- 
 vious to this event, he pictured to himself the preceding 
 period as a sort of golden age^. He seems to have 
 been one of those men who never ask themselves whether 
 the disease could have been avoided, and what would 
 have been the result, if such a crisis had not taken place. 
 And the false notions which he thus formed, are applied 
 by him to persons and circumstances with which they 
 have nothing to do. 
 
 The tribunes, for instance and all that is connected 
 with them, are in his eyes seditious persons, and he 
 speaks of them in the most revolting terms 9. When Tar- 
 quinius Superbus intended to usurp the supremacy over 
 the Latins and Turnus Herdonius opposed him, which was 
 no more than his duty, Livyi** calls him seditiosiis faci- 
 norosusqne hotno, hisque artibus opes domi nactus, and this 
 merely because the man had courage enough to oppose a 
 tyrant more powerful than himself. For such sentiments 
 Livy must have become proverbial: he belonged to the 
 
 ^ We see the same tiling in France. A friend of mine who is a 
 decided royalist and holds one of the highest offices in France, once 
 told me^ tliat those noblemen who had been bo)'s at the time of the 
 revolution^ fancied that the pei-iod previous to the revolution, was 
 the golden age of their order and its privileges. — N. 
 
 ^ Instances of this occur in iv. 35, 49; v. 2; vi. 27; and a 
 great many other passages. 
 
 '0 I. 50. 
 
62 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 class of men whom the French call Ultra : he idolized the 
 olden times. Augustus called him a Pompeian^^ and it 
 is a well known anecdote that he forbade one of his grand- 
 sons to read Livy. The youth, however, secretly con- 
 tinued reading, and being surprised on one occasion tried 
 to hide the book. But Augustus, who knew that his 
 power was too well established to suffer any injury 
 from a work written by a partizan of Pompey, allowed 
 his grandson to go on reading Livy as much as he 
 pleased. 
 
 One cannot speak of Livy without mentioning the 
 Patavinitas which Asinius Pollio is said to have censured 
 in him^". Cicero distinguished between urbanitas as pecu- 
 liar to men born and brought up at Rome, and the elo- 
 quence of men coming from the municipia, and it may 
 be that Asinius Pollio, on some occasion when he heard 
 Livy speak in company, made some such remark, as : " One 
 discovers in his dialect that he has not been brought up 
 at Rome ;" just as at Paris one often hears the remark, 
 that it is easy to discover from a person's dialect that he 
 is not a Parisian^^. But this cannot have been applied 
 to Livy's work, for his language is as perfect and as clas- 
 sical as any other in Roman literature, and much as he dif- 
 fers from Cicero, yet he is not inferior to him in the gram- 
 matical correctness and purity of his language. Now if we 
 further consider that Asinius Pollio had been consul thirty 
 years before Livy began writing his history, and that conse- 
 quently he was some seventy years old when Livy wrote, I 
 must own that it is almost inconceivable to me that Asinius 
 Pollio should have known the work of Livy. I therefore 
 consider this story as one of those numberless false anec- 
 
 " Tacitus, Annal. iv. 34. '- Quinctil. viii. 1. 3. 
 
 '^ In reading a French work I can always distinguish whether 
 the author is, for example^ a native of Paris or Geneva, and a 
 Frenchman can do this, of coarse, with still greater certainty. Every 
 Frenchman must be able to recognise that Sismondi's works have 
 somethinar foreign about them. N. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 63 
 
 dotes which we find in the works of Macrobius. If 
 Asinius PolHo had lived to see the work of Livy, Pliny 
 would undoubtedly have mentioned him among the 
 longaevi. 
 
 I need not point out to you the beauties of Livy's 
 style ; you know them well enough. What is most fasci- 
 nating in him, is his amiable character and his kindliness. 
 The more one reads him, the more one forgives him his 
 defects, and had we his last books in which he described 
 the events of his own time, his frankness and candour 
 would still more win our admiration and love. His repu- 
 tation was extraordinary : one man came from Cadiz to 
 Rome merely to see Livy^^; and this reputation was not 
 ephemeral, it lasted and became firmly established. Livy 
 was regarded as the historian, and Roman history was 
 learned and studied from him alone. He threw all his 
 predecessors into the shade, and nearly all those who lived 
 after him confined themselves to abridging his work, as 
 Eutropius did. Livy was the Stator of the history of 
 Rome, and after him no one wrote a Roman history 
 except in very brief outlines, such as Florus ; but even 
 he used no other sources beyond Livy, except in one pas- 
 sage in which he gives a different account from that of 
 Livy. Others, as Orosius and Eutropius, had read ab- 
 solutely no history but Livy's; and as regards Orosius it 
 is not even quite certain whether he did not draw up his 
 sketch from some other epitome of Livy. I for one be- 
 lieve that he did compile his history from some abridg- 
 ment of Livy. The Greeks had no such historian ^^. 
 Silius Italicus, the most wretched of all poets, made only 
 a paraphrase of Livy. I once went through this poetaster 
 very carefully, and the result of my examination was the 
 conviction, that he had taken everything from Livy. 
 
 The first and third decads were read in the schools 
 of the grammarians, which generally speaking, not only 
 
 '* Pliny, Epist. ii. 3. '* Compare vol. i. p. i. 
 
64 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 survived the seventh century, but continued to exist in 
 some places, as at Ravenna, down to the eleventh. The 
 principal prose works that were read and commented upon 
 in these schools, were Livy and Cicero's orations against 
 Catiline. All the manuscripts of the first decad of Livy 
 depend upon one single original copy which was written 
 in the fourth century by Nicomachus for Symmachus and 
 his family. There exists no manuscript containing all the 
 books of Livy ; those in which we find the first and third 
 decads do not contain the fourth, of which we have no 
 manuscript older than the fifteenth century. Of the first 
 and third decads, however, we have manuscripts as old as 
 the tenth century. The literary history of a work ought not 
 to be given without that of the text. The "Bibliotheca La- 
 tina" of Fabricius is deficient in this respect, and a work 
 which shall combine the two is yet to be written. At the 
 time of the revival of letters persons began to turn their 
 attention again to Livy ; they found the first and third de- 
 cads in a tolerable number of manuscripts, but the fourth 
 only in a few, and these very mutilated ones. The fourth 
 decad was not brought to light during the first period after 
 the invention of the art of printing ; but still we see that it 
 was known and read during the fourteenth century, though 
 several parts of it were wanting, such as the whole of the 
 thirty-third book, and the latter parts of the fortieth, from 
 chapter 37, which was supplied in 1518 from a manu- 
 script of Mainz, while the thirty- third book was still 
 wanting. The last five books, from 41 to 45, were pub- 
 lished in the edition of Basel of the year 1581, from a 
 manuscript of the convent of Lorsch (codex Laurisha- 
 mensis) written in the eighth century, which is now 
 at Vienna. The thirty-third book was published at Rome 
 in 1616 from a Bamberg manuscript. Goller of Cologne 
 has lately compared this manuscript and published very 
 valuable readings from iti*^. The codex Laurishamensis 
 
 '^ The work to which Niebuhr here alludes is entitled : '' Livii 
 
INTRODUCTION. 65 
 
 has likewise been compared very recently, and the last 
 five books have been much corrected. 
 
 Thus we have thirty books complete, and by far the 
 greater part of the next five. After the work had gra- 
 dually been completed thus far, great hopes were excited 
 of discovering the whole; everybody turned his attention 
 to Livy and was anxious to make new discoveries, and 
 many a one allowed himself to be imposed upon by the 
 strangest tales and reports. In the time of Louis XIV, 
 several adventurers came forward, and pretended to know 
 where the missing books of Livy were to be found. Some 
 said that they existed in the Seraglio at Constantinople^^, 
 others that they were to be found in Chios, and some 
 even pretended to know that there existed a complete 
 Arabic translation of Livy in the library of Fez. But 
 the Arabs never translated historians. We know that at 
 one time there existed at Lausanne a manuscript con- 
 taining the whole of the fifth decad, but it is now lost. 
 In the year 1772 a real discovery was made by Bruns, 
 a countryman of mine. Attention had not yet been di- 
 rected to palimpsests (codices rescripti), and he found a 
 manuscript which had originally belonged to the library of 
 Heidelberg, and which contained some portions of the Old 
 Testament, but under it he discovered the words : Oratio 
 Marci Tullii pro Roscio incipit feliciter. At first he 
 thought that it was the oration of Cicero pro Roscio 
 comoedo. The original writing was not scratched out, but 
 merely washed away, and any one who has some prac- 
 tice in the work can read such manuscripts without using 
 any tincture. He requested a learned Italian, Giovenazzi, 
 to examine the manuscript with him. The latter saw that 
 
 liber xxxiii. auctus atque emendatus. Cum Fr. Jacobsii suisque 
 notis ex cod. Bamberg, ed. F. Goller," 1812. 
 
 '^ It is true, that some books of the Greek emperors were left 
 behind at Constantinople at the time the city was taken possession 
 of by the Turks, but all of them probably perished in the great 
 fire. N. 
 
 F 
 
66 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 it was an oration of Cicero already known and printed, 
 but paid no attention to the excellent readings it con- 
 tained. Afterwards, whilst Bruns was turning over several 
 pages, they observed some which were written in an un- 
 usually neat manner, and which both were admiring, when 
 Bruns happened to see the words Titi Livii liher nonages- 
 imus primus. They now read with incredible difficulty 
 (for the means of bringing out the effaced characters dis- 
 tinctly were not yet known) a long fragment of Livy, with 
 the exception of one part where the writing had been 
 scratched away. The discovery of this part was reserved 
 for me. I have completed some words of which parts are 
 cut away in the manuscripts^. 
 
 '^ This fragment of the ninety-first book of Livy was edited by 
 Niebuhr at Berlin in 1820, in his: Cicero pro M. Fonteio et C. 
 Rabirio oratt. fragm. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 67 
 
 LECTURE IX. 
 
 LIVY, CONTINUED. — MANUSCRIPTS OF HIS WORK. CRITICAL 
 
 LABOURS BESTOWED UPON IT. PLUTARCH. APPIAN. 
 
 DION CASSIUS. (XIPHILINUS. ZONARAS.) 
 
 Our text of Livy is different in the different decads. 
 As regards the first, you must recollect that all the ma- 
 nuscripts hitherto discovered depend solely on the copy 
 of Nicomachus Dexter, and at the end of the tenth book 
 we read in some manuscripts : Nicomachus Dexter emen- 
 davi ad exemplam parentis mei Clementiani. Victorianus 
 emendabam Dominis Symmachis. The best among the 
 codices derived from it is the Codex Florentinus. The 
 English manuscripts offer only few various readings. It 
 is unpardonable that there are still so many manuscripts 
 which have never been compared. There are some Har- 
 leian manuscripts of modern origin, which have many dif- 
 ferent readings. One manuscript, the Codex from which 
 Klockius made excerpta, shows some very curious differ- 
 ences in its readings. It is altogether so singular that I 
 have often doubted whether the extracts from it are really 
 trustworthy. The palimpsest of Verona agrees on the 
 whole with the Florentine manuscript, and presents 
 scarcely any remarkable difference. Not one of the Paris 
 manuscripts has yet been collated. 
 
 The text of the third decad is that of the excellent 
 Codex Puteanus of which Gronovius made use, and which is 
 much sounder than any manuscript of the first decad. For 
 the fourth decad the Bamberg and Mainz manuscripts are 
 the most valuable. The various readings in these are most 
 
 F 2 
 
68 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 numerous, but they have not yet been sufficiently collated 
 and examined. The five books of the fifth decad depend 
 entirely upon the one Vienna manuscript, the Codex Lau- 
 rishamensis. Much is yet to be done for the text of 
 Livy. The libraries of Italy contain many manuscripts, 
 but the first editions of Livy which were published may 
 be regarded as copies of them. The best editions of Livy 
 are those published in France and Germany. The texts 
 which are commonly used in Italy are, for the most part, 
 bad. 
 
 It is astonishing how little criticism has yet done for 
 Livy, and yet it was he on whom the first critical la- 
 bours were bestowed. Laurentius Valla, a true scholar, 
 wrote scholia upon Livy, various readings, and also some 
 historical disquisitions, which are reprinted in Draken- 
 borch's edition of Livy. After him M. Antonius Sabelli- 
 cus of Venice wrote historical remarks upon Livy, which 
 are not however of great importance. Then came Gla- 
 reanus, a very ingenious and able man, whose attention 
 was particularly directed to the interpretation of his 
 author, although we often find him engaged in endeavour- 
 ing to restore the text. He found many incongruities, 
 which he did not scruple to point out in his remarks. 
 After him, many whose names are now forgotten, occupied 
 themselves with restoring the text in the Aldine, Ascen- 
 sian and Basel editions, and we can only judge of them 
 by what they have done ; but the name of Gelenius will 
 not be forgotten. A short time after Glareanus, Sigonius 
 wrote his scholia on Livy, which contain on the whole 
 very good and valuable remarks ; but his criticisms are 
 for the most part historical, and chiefly concerning names. 
 In these schoha he constantly shows an ill feeling towards 
 Glareanus, and treats him in a very insulting manner. 
 Glareanus answered his charges as a man whose feelings 
 were hurt, but with no ill-temper. Sigonius indeed ad- 
 vanced the critical treatment of Livy, but at the same time 
 he made several arbitrary alterations which have not yet 
 
INTRODUCTION. C9 
 
 been expunged from the text of Livy. His writings are 
 very unequal, and amongst much that is excellent, there 
 are things which are utterly worthless and bad. In draw- 
 ing up the Fasti he made use of Dionysius, whose w^ork 
 was then not yet printed. After him there followed a 
 period of more than eighty years, during which nothing 
 was done for Livy, until at last Gronovius, who was de- 
 scended from a Holstein family and was born at Ham- 
 burg, went to Holland. He gave a new impulse to philo- 
 logy, which he found in a dying condition ; if the age had 
 only been an impressible one, the fruits of his exertions 
 would have been splendid. His works are real treasures : 
 he collated manuscripts at an early period of his life, and 
 he constituted the text of Livy in a masterly manner. 
 What raises his works so far above those of all others, is 
 his cautious circumspection and his astonishing gramma- 
 tical and historical knowledge : he carries the prize away 
 over all that have ever written upon Livy. But in things 
 connected with the constitution of Rome, he does not rank 
 among the first; here he has often misled others, espe- 
 cially in his opposition against Brissonius, — but no man is 
 perfect. What his immediate successors, such as Tana- 
 quil Faber, did, is but of little importance; but the work 
 at last passed into the hands of two Dutchmen, or, pro- 
 perly speaking, Germans, Duker and Drakenborch, who 
 occupy the first rank among all the scholars that have 
 ever edited ancient authors. As some persons are great 
 in poetry, and bad writers of prose, and vice versa, so some 
 were complete masters of the Greek language and feeble 
 in the Latin, and vice versa. Thus Duker is deficient in 
 his knowledge of the Greek language, and his notes on 
 Thucydides are quite worthless ; but his knowledge of 
 Latin is profound. Drakenborch has not so much saga- 
 city and ability, but with a limited intellect he possesses 
 good sense : he is of an exceedingly conscientious charac- 
 ter, and never indulges in conjectures without the most 
 careful examination of every point. The store of philolo- 
 
70 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 gical knowledge he possessed, is astonishing, and his edi- 
 tion of Livy is an inexhaustible mine for those who wish 
 to enter deeply into the study of the Latin language. 
 The index to his notes is useful, but not perfect. He 
 is a true model of the manner in which a work like his 
 ought to be begun and completed : in the first parts of 
 his work he often refers to the last books of his author, 
 a proof of his having studied the whole thoroughly be- 
 fore he began writing. 
 
 After Drakenborch nothing was done for the criticism 
 of Livy; Professor Walch^, of Berlin, was the first who 
 resumed the task : his emendations are beautiful, and it is 
 greatly to be lamented that he has not given to the world 
 an edition of Livy according to his plan. As little as there 
 is left for a future critical editor of Virgil to add to what 
 has been done already, so much is there yet to be done for 
 Livy, especially for his first decad. It is not impossible 
 that there may still exist manuscripts which have not yet 
 been discovered. The nations of southern Europe have 
 done little or nothing for Livy. 
 
 When the Romans ceased to write their own history 
 from the earliest times down to their own age, the Greeks 
 began one after another to undertake the task, though 
 they did it from a somewhat different point of view. 
 Among these I reckon Plutarch, although he wrote only 
 separate biographies. Livy was his principal guide, and 
 for the early times he used Dionysius of Halicarnassus^. 
 He worked with great carelessness, and therefore requires 
 to be read with much discretion. He was, moreover, 
 guided by certain moral principles, and particular views of 
 human life, to which he made history subservient. 
 
 Some thirty years after Plutarch the work of Appian 
 was written. He was a jurist of Alexandria, and during 
 
 1 The work of G. L. Walch, to which Niebuhr here alludes, is 
 entitled " Eniendationes Livianae," Berlin, 1815. 
 
 ^ Compare vol. iii. notes 841. and 872. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 71 
 
 the reigns of Trajan, Hadrian, and Antoninus Pius he 
 lived at Rome, and pleaded in the courts of justice. It 
 cannot, however, be concluded from this, that in pleading 
 he used the Latin language, as at that time the Greek was 
 held in the highest estimation at Rome. Fronto asked 
 and obtained for him the office of procurator to the em- 
 peror ^ He wrote his history in twenty- four books, not 
 according to a synchronistic system, but on the plan of 
 Cato's Origines. The first book was called 'Pwjxajxwv 
 ^a(TiKiKYi, the second 'IraXjx)?, the third 2auv<T»x)j, the fourth 
 KsAtjxiIj, the fifth SjxsXjx^ xai vy](r<a)T<x^, &c. The twenty- 
 first book came down to the battle of Actium, and the 
 twenty-second, entitled 'ExxtovtustIix, comprised the history 
 of one hundred years, from the battle of Actium down to 
 the beginning of the reign of Vespasian ; the twenty-third 
 contained the Dacian and Illyrian wars, and the twenty- 
 fourth the war against the Parthians. Appian is a com- 
 piler who, for the history of the early times, chiefly follow- 
 ed Dionysius as far as he went, so that in some measure he 
 now makes up for the lost portion of the work of Diony- 
 sius*. In his history of the second Punic war, and per- 
 haps in that of the first, too, he followed Fabius. After- 
 wards he used Polybius, and where he was left by this 
 guide, he followed Apollodorus. The sources which he 
 used, were indeed very good, but he did not know how to 
 use them : he is ignorant and bold. He believed, for ex- 
 ample, that Britain lay quite close to the northern coast of 
 Spain 5, and he places Saguntum on the northern bank of 
 the Iberus*'. Writers like him do best when they copy 
 from others without thinking, then they will at least be 
 correct ; but they should not presume to give a condensed 
 
 ^ M. Corn. Fronto, Epist. ad Antoninum Pium, 9. p. 13. foil. ed. 
 Niebuhr. 
 
 ■* Comp. vol. II. p. 512 foil; vol. iil. p. 212. notes 353, 872 and 
 842. 
 
 ^ De Reb. Hisp. c. 1. « De Reb. Hisp. c. 7. and 10. 
 
72 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 abridgment of the works of others. Of the whole work we 
 possess only eleven books complete, viz. vi. 'I/3rjpjx^; vii. 
 'Avvj/3a»x^; VIII. A»/3yx^; xi.'^upiuKYj xciiYlapSuri; XII. MiflpjSa- 
 Ttioj; XIII — XVII. 'Eju,<$uX<a; and xxiii. Auxuyj or 'IXKvpixrj. 
 But what we possess under the name of UxpSiKrj, as a part 
 of the eleventh book, is spurious, as has been shewn most 
 satisfactorily by Schweighaiiser^. Of the 'IXXvpmrj, at first 
 only some fragments were published ; the whole of it ap- 
 peared for the first time complete in the edition of Tol- 
 lius. Of the remaining books we have the " Excerpta De 
 Legationibus " and " De Virtutibus et Vitiis." The ac- 
 count of the Illyrian war yet awaits an able commentator. 
 Excellent materials for a critical examination of the text of 
 Appian are contained in the Latin translation made in 
 1472, by Petrus Candidus, at the command of the learned 
 Pope Sixtus IV.; the Latin is barbarous, but the transla- 
 tion is literal, and Schweighaiiser has made good use of it. 
 There are only three editions of Appian worth mentioning : 
 the one by H. Stephens, the second by ToUius, and the 
 third by Schweighaiiser. 
 
 About eighty years after Appian, Dion Cassius wrote 
 his work. He was born at Nicaea in Bithynia, in the 
 reign of Antoninus Pius, and belonged to a family which 
 was already in possession of the Roman franchise. His 
 father held most important offices, and it has been sup- 
 posed that the ingenious orator Dion Chrysostom was his 
 grandfather on his mother's side^. He came to Rome at 
 an early period of his life, but it was not till he had 
 reached the age of about forty, that he wrote a history of 
 the reign of Commodus. He dedicated this work to the 
 emperor Severus, who encouraged him to continue his 
 historical labours. If dreams, as he himself says, stimu- 
 lated him to write the history of the Roman empire, they 
 were certainly sent by good spirits. He was raised to the 
 
 7 In his edition of Appian, vol. iii. p. 905 foil. 
 
 8 Reimarus, De vita et scriptis Dionis, § 3. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 73 
 
 consulship under Severus, and a second time under Alex- 
 ander Severus, a. d. 229. He spent ten years in collecting 
 materials for his work, and twelve more in composing it. 
 The last books seem to have been continuations. Accord- 
 ing to the judicious calculation of J. A. Fabricius, Dion 
 must have been about seventy years old when he obtained 
 his second consulship, and he probably lived to the age 
 of about eighty. He must have been perfectly master of 
 the Latin language, for he lived at Rome as a senator 
 during a period of from thirty to forty years. He had an 
 interest in, and made himself thoroughly acquainted with, 
 the political history of Rome, a thing which no rhetorician 
 ever did. Livy, for instance, has no idea either of a state 
 or of tactics, and when, as in the 8th chapter of the 8th 
 book, he speaks of battles, it is evident that he has no con- 
 ception of the most ordinary rules of drawing up the 
 legions in battle array: he had perhaps never seen a 
 legion making its exercises, and hence the arrangement 
 which he describes is utterly impossible 9. Dion, on the 
 other hand, finds himself at home everywhere, in constitu- 
 tional matters and the civil law, as well as in tactics. He 
 did not acquiesce in the information he gathered from 
 Livy : he went to the sources themselves ; he wrote the 
 early period of Roman history quite independent of his 
 predecessors, and only took Fabius for his guide ''^. The 
 early constitution was clear to him, and when he speaks of 
 it, he is very careful in his expressions. He has great 
 talents as an historian. He has been accused of xaxorjQsioi, 
 in those parts of his work where he exposes the false pre- 
 tensions of certain persons to political virtue, and it cannot 
 indeed be denied that he was influenced by bitter feelings ; 
 but when in going through the history of the English pa- 
 triots in the reigns of George L and George H., we hear 
 
 ' Compare vol. iii. p. 98. foil. 
 
 '" Compare vol. ii. p. 12; vol. in. p. 426; Lebensnachrichten 
 iiber B. G. Niebuhr, in. p. 187. 
 
74 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 their claims to patriotism, and afterwards learn how they 
 hunt after offices, how, notwithstanding their loud assu- 
 rances of their noble sentiments, they keep up a secret cor- 
 respondence with the Pretender, we see a state of things 
 analogous to that of Rome in the time of Dion Cassius ; 
 and we cannot wonder at his speaking with indignation of 
 patriots, whose reputation was acquired by fraud and hy- 
 pocrisy. The case would be different if he showed a dia- 
 bolical delight in proving that virtue did not exist; but 
 when a man drags the mask from a villain, he does what 
 is right; and this is all that Dion Cassius does. I be- 
 lieve indeed that he mistrusted many a man's sincerity, and 
 judged harshly of him in consequence; but at the bottom 
 of all this, there lies indeed a bitter, but yet sound view of 
 human life, and amidst the corruption of his age he could 
 not judge otherwise ^\ He was no friend of tyranny; but 
 a man who, in such circumstances, insists upon destroying 
 by force that which is wrong, only wastes his own strength. 
 What places Dion in a less advantageous light, is his 
 style, which is neither eloquent nor beautiful. His lan- 
 guage is full of peculiarities, some of which are real faults, 
 and shew the degenerate state of the language. Examples 
 of this may be seen in the Index of Reimarus. Dion wrote 
 just as he spoke, and there is in him no affectation or 
 elegance acquired artificially, as is the case with Pau- 
 sanias. His history was, for a long time, very much read, 
 and was a common source of information concerning the 
 history of Rome. It was continued by an anonymous 
 writer, as we see from the discoveries of Mai, and carried 
 down to the time subsequent to the reign of Constantino. 
 Dion himself divided his work into eighty books and into 
 decads. In the twelfth century of our aera, when Zonaras 
 wrote, there existed only the first twenty books, and the 
 remainder from the thirty-sixth book to the end. In the 
 tenth century, when Constantinus Porphyrogenitus ordered 
 
 " Compare vol. iii. note 846. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 75 
 
 excerpta to be made from it, the whole work was still 
 extant. In the eleventh century, a monk, of the name of 
 Joannes Xiphilinus, made extracts from the latter portion of 
 the work, from the thirty-sixth to the eightieth book. The 
 part containing the history of Antoninus Pius was want- 
 ing. Whether Xiphilinus was not in possession of the first 
 twenty books, or whether he merely passed them over, I 
 cannot say, but I suspect that there existed in the imperial 
 library no more than the first twenty books, and the re- 
 mainder from the 36th to the 80th book. The first twenty 
 books are now lost, and Zonaras and other writers who 
 lived after his time, testify that from the twenty-first book 
 onward to book 36 no part was left. We possess a frag- 
 ment, which is believed to belong to the thirty-fifth book, 
 but it belongs in all probability to the thirty-sixth. The 
 part which we have complete, is from the 36th to the 54th 
 book. The 55th and 56th books are mutilated, and those 
 from 57 to 60 still more so, and are full of gaps. Of the 
 first twenty books we have the abridgment made by Zo- 
 naras, and from the 36th to the 80th book that of Xiphili- 
 nus. Besides these there are fragments of some of the last 
 twenty books. The first of these fragments was published 
 by Fulvius Ursinus from a very old manuscript which can- 
 not have been made later than the eighth century. It is 
 written in three columns, but is in such a mutilated state 
 that only the middle column is legible. Other fragments 
 are preserved in the Excerpta of Constantinus Porphyro- 
 genitus " De Legationibus," "De Virtutibus et Vitiis," 
 and " De Sententiis," and also a number of scattered frag- 
 ments. It is surprising that Zonaras has not, like Xiphili- 
 nus, been printed in Reimarus'' edition of Dion Cassius. 
 Zonaras was a practical man and lived under Alexius Com- 
 nenus and Joannes Comnenus. He wrote a history from 
 the creation of the world down to the death of Alexius. 
 The first part is made up from extracts from Josephus, and 
 the second contains the history of Rome from Dion Cas- 
 sius. He was private secretary to the emperor and com- 
 
76 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 mander of the imperial guards. His own judgment is 
 feeble, but still he is not a fool like so many others: he 
 is a sensible and learned man but with limited intellectual 
 powers. His extracts from Dion Cassius are of immense 
 importance; he copied very faithfully, and especially in 
 writing the history of times in which one might expect 
 to find him in the greatest perplexities. But his extracts 
 have been used very little ; Freinsheim is almost the only 
 man who availed himself of them for the times on which 
 the history of Livy is lost ^2. 
 
 '* In the early part of the history of Rome Zonaras borrowed not 
 only from Dion, but also from some lives of Plutarch^ such as those 
 of Romulus, Numa, Valerius Publicola ; and it is probably this cir- 
 cumstance which led a singular Italian writer to the foolish assertion, 
 that Dion had copied his history from Plutarch, and that the rest 
 was founded on Zonaras! With this view of the matter he made 
 an announcement that he was going to publish a restoration of Dion 
 Cassius. His ignorance is so great that in his announcement he 
 wrote, BtjSXia oKTcoyivra. N. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 77 
 
 LECTURE X. 
 
 DION CASSIUS, CONTINUED. THE STUDY OF ROMAN HIS- 
 TORY IN THE MIDDLE AGES, AND AFTER THE REVIVAL 
 
 OF LETTERS. SIGONIUS. — • PANVINIUS. PIGHIUS. — 
 
 FREINSHEIM. SCEPTICS OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY, 
 
 AND OTHER MODERN WRITERS ON THE HISTORY OF 
 ROME. 
 
 The beginning of the thirty-sixth book of Dion Cas- 
 sius is incomplete. The Abbe Morelli, an excellent phi- 
 lologer, and one of the most amiable and most learn- 
 ed men of the eighteenth century, while seeking to con- 
 sole himself for the fall of Venice in the year 1797, dis- 
 covered in its library a complete manuscript of Dion Cas- 
 sius, which however, through various circumstances, had 
 suffered the greatest mutilations. This manuscript was 
 the mother- manuscript from which all the subsequent 
 ones are but copies. The gaps in it are not indicated 
 by any marks, but all is written continuously as if nothing 
 were wanting. This kind of deception on the part of 
 copyists was not uncommon in the fifteenth century. Of 
 some books of Dionysius one half is wanting in the ma- 
 nuscripts, and in one instance a great part of the middle 
 of a book is left out. Perizonius and others shewed the 
 existence of such gaps, but were not able to point out 
 the exact places in which they existed; for such omis- 
 sions are sometimes made so cleverly and cunningly, as 
 to render it a matter of the greatest diflSculty to hit 
 upon the spot where they occur. Sometimes, however, co- 
 pyists were more careless ; they broke off in one passage 
 and then connected another with it in such a manner, 
 
78 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 that there was absolutely no sense m the passage thus 
 made up; but then they knew that books were not always 
 bought with a serious intention to read them^. 
 
 About the editions of Dion Cassius I shall say but 
 little : the best are, that of R. Stephens, the Basle edi- 
 tion (1558), and that of Fabricius and Reimarus. The 
 text still requires a good deal of correction; and a com- 
 parison of the Venetian manuscript, of which Sturz in 
 his edition (1824) has made, I believe, no use, would 
 be very important. The remarks of Fabricius and Rei- 
 marus are of extraordinary value, but show little know- 
 ledge of the language. We must own that Fabricius 
 was not a great philologer, and Reimarus, his son-in- 
 law, though in other respects a man who deserves great 
 admiration, was even inferior to him. The accentuation 
 is horrible ; but, although deficient in philological learn- 
 ing, Reimarus devoted himself with so much attention to 
 the Greek index that it is one of the most excellent we 
 possess. He who wishes to study Dion Cassius, should 
 read this index first. It was made, I believe, after the 
 whole work was completed-. 
 
 After the time of Dion Cassius the Greeks as well 
 as the Romans confined themselves to making excerpta 
 and compilations. The great works were neglected and 
 lost in the middle ages, and although a small portion of 
 Livy was read in schools for the provectioi-es, still as 
 far as the study of the history of Rome is concerned, 
 people were satisfied with Florus, Eutropius and Oro- 
 sius, whose sketches were, generally speaking, consi- 
 dered as the sources of Roman history, and were mul- 
 
 ' The new fragments which Morelli discovered were published by 
 him at Bassano, 1798, 8°., and a reprint of them appeared at Leipzig 
 in 1818, 8". 
 
 '^ Philological indexes are extremely useful to a scholar, and they 
 enhance the value of an edition considerably. He who makes a phi- 
 lological index, is led to an infinite number of questions and points of 
 which he would otherwise never have thought. — N. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 79 
 
 tiplied in innumerable copies down to the time of 
 the revival of letters; for although, after the fall of the 
 western empire, there were yet some men at Rome and 
 Ravenna who collected and read the old manuscripts 
 which had escaped the destruction of the barbarians, still 
 there were throughout the middle ages no general views, 
 no idea of symmetry, and no striving after anything which 
 did not present itself at once. These facts account for 
 all the frailties of the middle ages Had not the glossa- 
 tores been in the same predicament, they might have 
 been able to understand the Laws of Justinian just as 
 well as we understand them. I venture to assert, that 
 no direct quotations from Livy are to be found as early 
 as the time of Priscian, not even from those books of 
 Livy which have come down to our time. Johannes Saris- 
 beriensis alone forms an exception. Those books of Livy 
 which are now lost were probably never read by any one 
 during the whole of the middle ages, except perhaps by 
 some grammarians in Italy. In the fourteenth century, 
 however, a new zeal arose among the Italians. An anec- 
 dote, though one that sounds incredible, may shew the ar- 
 dent zeal with which people at that time read the ancients. 
 An eccentric citizen of Florence was engaged in build- 
 ing a house, and one Saturday, while he was absorbed in 
 reading Livy's account of Cato, his workmen came to re- 
 ceive their wages, and began to quarrel with each other 
 while waiting. He went out immediately and inveighed 
 against them, as if they were a party of the Roman tri- 
 bunes. Petrarch read the history of the second Punic 
 war in Livy and the Commentaries of Caesar in a manner 
 in which they had certainly not been read since the days 
 of the great Boethius. This zeal gradually dispelled 
 the darkness and barbarism of the time. Few centuries 
 can boast of a greater genius than St. Bernard, but he 
 had not been able to effect anything against the reign- 
 ing spirit of barbarism. In the fourteenth century the 
 ItaUans began to look upon themselves with pride as the 
 
80 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 direct descendants of the ancient Romans ^ Ancient ma- 
 nuscripts were eagerly collected, and he who was so lucky 
 as to find an author yet unknown or a fragment of another, 
 was held in his^h estimation. The letters of Poffgius 
 
 O CO 
 
 on this subject are really moving : he is zealous and 
 anxious to make discoveries, and his contemporaries, such 
 as Leonardus Arretinus, Bartholomaeus and others, felt 
 the greatest delight in receiving copies of his books. 
 Roman history was then read with incredible interest, 
 but all kept to what was transmitted to them ; a few 
 only ventured to make some critical observations here and 
 there. Glareanus, a man of a strange character, but of 
 refined judgment and great intellect, was the first who 
 looked at Livy as an independent investigator. Sigo- 
 nius, a layman of Modena, and Panvinius, an Augustin 
 monk, acquired considerable merit by what they did for 
 the Fasti. Both wrote also on Roman antiquities, in 
 which field their merit is indescribable and their progress 
 gigantic. They dwelt upon the age of Cicero and Caesar, 
 for which contemporary writers furnished abundant mate- 
 rials, but they did not penetrate into the earliest periods 
 of Roman history. Both, though Panvinius more parti- 
 cularly, were but slightly acquainted with Greek litera- 
 ture, and their knowledge of the various epochs of Greek 
 history was very imperfect. Archaeological and antiqua- 
 rian knowledge was advanced by them in a brilHant man- 
 ner, and the Fasti in particular are much indebted to 
 Sigonius^. The Fasti have come down to us in separate 
 collections, and, fortunately, also for those times, for which 
 the books of Livy and Dionysius are lost. About the 
 close of the sixteenth century Stephanus Pighius^ a man 
 
 2 Compare vol. ii. Pref. p. xxi. 
 
 * See vol. II., page 559, note 1239. 
 
 * He was secretary to Cardinal GranveUa, and lived for some 
 time as a priest at Xanten on the Rhine^ but he had spent many 
 years in Italy. His commentary on Valerius Maximus is a highly 
 respectable performance. — N. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 81 
 
 of great learning, first conceived the idea of restoring the 
 history of Rome in the form of annals, not merely as a 
 supplement of the time for which Livy was lost, but he 
 subjected the history of Livy himself to a critical exam- 
 ination. But the idea of his annals is a mistake. He 
 dwells upon things of secondary importance. If the Fasti 
 were preserved complete, they would be important only in 
 so far as we might see, for instance, when the distinc- 
 tion between the patrician and plebeian aediles ceased to 
 be observed, and in so far as we might form conclusions 
 as to the age and life of certain persons from the time of 
 their consulship or praetorship. When a young man I 
 endeavoured to learn the consular Fasti by heart, and I 
 believe that Roman youths did frequently so learn them. 
 Many Romans of good memory were able, for example, 
 to state the year of the consulship of Scaevola and Crassus, 
 or of other men, at any time. This would have been a 
 useful exercise for a memory like that of a Scaliger or a 
 Muretus. Pighius, of course, wished to restore the Fasti 
 for those times also for which they were lost; and that 
 not only by gathering what he found mentioned, but where 
 he had no authorities, he made up the Fasti of what 
 seemed possible or probable to him. For example, when 
 he wants a tribune of the people, he puts in the name of 
 some plebeian quite at random and without any reason 
 whatever; when he wants the name of an aedile, he takes 
 the name of one whom he knows to have been consul 
 afterwards; and in this manner he makes out whole lists of 
 tribunes, aediles, &c. ^. This has been so little heeded that, 
 until recently, there have been scholars who took the 
 Fasti of Pighius for authentic records. Gerardus Vossius 
 transcribed many things on no other authority except that 
 of Pighius, and Professor Schubert of Konigsberg, in his 
 work on the Roman aediles, has introduced names of 
 aediles which are simply copied from Pighius. But not- 
 
 ^ Compare vol. ii., p. 559, and notes 1238 and 1297- 
 
 G 
 
82 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 withstanding all this, he who writes on Roman history 
 cannot dispense with the work of Pighius : it contains 
 many ingenious combinations, and it has often led me to 
 the discovery, that combinations which I myself had made 
 were wrong. Pighius died before he had completed his 
 task, and the learned Jesuit, Andreas Schottus, of Antwerp, 
 published the work with a continuation by himself, which 
 is far inferior to what Pighius had written. 
 
 Towards the end of the Thirty years' war, John Freins- 
 heim of Strassburg wrote his Supplements to the work 
 of Livy'. This bold undertaking is executed very une- 
 qually*^. From the 46th to the 56th book Freinsheim was 
 more successful than in the later books ; for as he advanced 
 in his work, he became more and more careless, and from 
 the time of the Social war the work is altogether wretched. 
 It is however, notwithstanding this, indispensable for him 
 who studies Roman history. Although Freinsheim was 
 not a first-rate philologer, he is yet one of the ornaments 
 of Germany in those times. That he did not complete 
 such a gigantic undertaking is pardonable enough, but 
 the pretension to replace Livy is altogether a mistake 
 peculiar to the age in which Freinsheim lived. After 
 him, Livy was for a long time neglected. 
 
 The first half of the eighteenth century produced the 
 scepticism of Bayle, Pouilly, and Beaufort, which although 
 it had its advantages, yielded no results. The work 
 which the good and worthy RoUin wrote from Livy and 
 the Supplements of Freinsheim, can scarcely be called a 
 Roman history. But all that Rollin ever wrote is per- 
 vaded by such a noble and virtuous spirit, notwithstand- 
 ing his want of judgment, that the French were perfectly 
 right in putting his works into the hands of the young. 
 His history of Rome is written in a readable and pleas- 
 ing form, but no one in our days can have the patience 
 to go through it. Rollin was deficient in learning, al- 
 
 ' The original edition is printed very incorrectly, and the repi-int 
 in Drakenborch's edition of Livy is still worse, or at least just as bad 
 as the original edition. — N. ® Compare vol. iii. note 847. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 83 
 
 though he was not exactly unlearned; but he wrote 
 uncritically, and was indifferent about accurate definitions. 
 Roman history, on the whole, was written in those days as 
 if its events had in reality never taken place. 
 
 At the same time, or somewhat later than Rollin's 
 work, a Roman history was written by Hooke^, an En- 
 glishman, which I am but httle acquainted with. The 
 book is not much known in Germany, and does not exist 
 in our university-library. All 1 can say about him is, 
 that he followed the views of Beaufort, and yet wrote a 
 history of those times in which he believed it to deserve 
 no credit. He does not enter into any of the deeper 
 questions. Still less so does Ferguson : he is a respect- 
 able and ingenious writer, but unlearned ; he was no 
 scholar, and had no idea of the Roman constitution. 
 His history does not really begin until the time of the 
 Gracchi, when the accounts become more detailed. He 
 wrote pragmatically and with a moral tendency. To 
 those who want to acquire a knowledge of Roman his- 
 tory, the book is worth nothing ; he who is not a scho- 
 lar, may read it in order to prepare himself for a better 
 understanding of the times of Cicero ; but he will cer- 
 tainly do better to read Middleton's life of Cicero. The 
 history of Rome written by Levesque is perfectly worth- 
 less: he quite agrees with Beaufort, that the whole of 
 the early history consists of fables. From the period 
 down to the first Punic war, he picks out only some iso- 
 lated events which he treats as historical, and this he 
 does at random without giving any reasons, either to him- 
 self or to his readers. The book itself, as well as the 
 spirit in which it is written, is bad. Micali's history 
 is the work of an unlearned man who is biassed by a 
 strange and passionate hatred of the ancient Romans; 
 he makes up a visionary history of the Italian nations 
 with the greatest levity. His hatred of the Romans is 
 often quite unbearable. 
 
 * Compare vol. ii. note 204. 
 
 G 2 
 
84 
 
 LECTURE XL 
 
 CRITICAL EXAMINATION OF ROMAN HISTORY AND ITS RE- 
 SULTS. REQUIREMENTS OF THE STUDENT OF HISTORY. 
 
 AUXILIARY SCIENCES, ANTIQUITIES, GEOGRAPHY. MAN- 
 
 NERT. CLUVERIUS. d'aNVILLE. BARBIE DU SOCAGE. 
 
 REICHARD. RENNELL. 
 
 The general tendency of philology in Germany must 
 have felt the influence of a critical history of Rome. 
 After many and very fluctuating periods, German philo- 
 logy has acquired, within the last forty years, a decided 
 and definite character: just as certain arts or sciences 
 arrive at a flourishing state, without its being at all pos- 
 sible for us to trace them back to one particular starting 
 point. Philology has been developed simultaneously by 
 several minds who w orked independently of one another : 
 it was the character of the age. IVIen like Lessing, who 
 had eminent philological talents without possessing all the 
 requisites of a philologer, may be said to be the real 
 fathers of our philology : the great movement of the 
 time originated with them. The revival of historical ju- 
 risprudence began in the same manner as grammatical 
 philology, with Prolusiones which were, in reality, far from 
 what they should be. It is wonderful to see how very 
 deficient the first attempts at better things often are, 
 before a clear view of the object is gained. So it was 
 with jurisprudence. During a long period before Savigny 
 wrote, the attempts were of such a character, that if the 
 great men of former ages, such as Donellus, Cujacius, 
 and Duarenus, could have heard their successors, they 
 would have been greatly disappointed and dissatisfied. 
 As it had become necessary for the history of ancient 
 
INTRODUCTION. 85 
 
 Rome to be investigated afresh, it was a highly favourable 
 circumstance that jurisprudence had already commenced 
 a critical examination of the original sources. Such in- 
 vestigations concerning past ages could not at once attain 
 the desired end in the immense labyrinth. Those who 
 first began could not be free from prejudices, and were 
 often led astray. This we see in the attempts which have 
 been made to explain the earliest form and constitution of 
 the Roman state, at the time when it was felt, that the 
 opinions which had been previously entertained must have 
 been wrong. 
 
 With regard to the ancients it is my conviction that, 
 on the whole, all information on matters of importance as 
 far as it is obtainable, has been obtained, and that it is 
 time to abandon such investigations ; it would be very un- 
 fortunate, if they continued to be the order of the day. I 
 am further convinced, that it is impossible to overturn the 
 results to which the investigations concerning the institu- 
 tions and constitutions of the ancients have led us : they 
 are as certain as if we had derived them directly from 
 the original sources themselves. It is with ancient history 
 as it is with the King in the Prophet, who had forgotten 
 his dream : we must not merely interpret what the an- 
 cients read, but re-discover what they read ; and this may 
 be done with confidence and success. But as our sources 
 are of a limited number, and as these sources have been 
 completed by the results of investigation, there is nothing 
 further that could be wished for, until better sources are 
 discovered. There are other points also, concerning 
 which further investigations cannot possibly be made. I 
 entertain no fear of the results of my enquiries being 
 ever overthrown ; all that is still to be gained is of se- 
 condary importance, and there is nothing in the ancient 
 sources which has not been found out already. To over- 
 throw the results at which we have arrived, and ever and 
 anon to make the same investigations over again, is an 
 evil : we must make use of what has been gained. I 
 
86 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 wish that more attention was paid to the later times, for 
 these are of such a nature that new discoveries may be 
 made at every step; but in order to acquire a thorough 
 knowledge of them, one must be well acquainted with the 
 earlier forms and their changes. 
 
 It is as if Roman history ceased to have any interest, 
 where we have contemporary authorities, and as if only 
 those parts were interesting which must be made up by 
 conjectures and combination. But the history of Rome 
 down to the end of the empire is one whole, which begins 
 from the darkest ages, the sources of which are distorted 
 and perverted, since we have them only at the third or 
 fourth hand ; but their history may be restored by combin- 
 ation and comparison, and Fabius, Gracchanus, and Macer 
 must form the pillars of it. Scepticism here leads to no- 
 thing, and is highly injurious to the human mind. 
 
 The study of ancient history requires for its basis, a 
 sound and profound philological knowledge and a ready 
 grammatical tact to serve as a guard against groundless 
 and fanciful etymologies, a well developed and matured 
 judgment to distinguish between what is only possible 
 or probable and evident truth, a knowledge of human and 
 political affairs, of social relations in general, and of oc- 
 currences which have taken place at different times and 
 in different nations, according to the same or similar laws, 
 but, above all things, conscientiousness and candour. We 
 have to bear in mind what was said after the revival of 
 letters by men of all creeds, that learning is the fruit of 
 piety, in order that, by the sincerity of our hearts, by 
 knowledge of ourselves, and by a conscientious walk in 
 the sight of God, we may guard ourselves against the 
 desire to appear what we are not, that we may never for- 
 give ourselves the slightest deviation from the truth, and 
 that we may never consider a result of our investigations 
 which flatters our wishes, as truth, so long as there is in 
 our conscience the slightest feeling of its being wrong. 
 But this is not the place to discuss these preparatory 
 
INTRODUCTION. 87 
 
 requirements of the student of history : they belong to a 
 higher science which teaches us how to learn and to 
 cultivate our minds, though they find a direct appHcation 
 in all historical matters, as veracity is but too often set 
 aside, and appearance is all that is aimed at. Hypotheses 
 which flatter the author or have a brilliant appearance 
 are set forth as truth ; and how many instances might not 
 be mentioned in which writers have stolen the ideas of 
 others and given them to the world as their own, in order 
 to shine with them ! This practice is unfortunately car- 
 ried on in all its variations, from the most secret and 
 hidden plagiarism to the most manifest robberies: for 
 when conscience is once seduced, it knows of no scru- 
 ples. But the sin is always essentially the same. The 
 ancients exhort us to be conscientious, and we ought to 
 follow their counsel ; we must feel that the reputation of 
 past ages depends upon us, and that we commit a crime, 
 if we impair that reputation by giving praise or censure 
 where they are not deserved. 
 
 Every one must see that our own personal views and 
 opinions can be of little avail in history, if they are not in 
 accordance with things and relations which really existed. 
 Hence we must have an accurate knowledge of the na- 
 ture of the countries whose history we are studying, of 
 the internal condition of a nation, of its political con- 
 stitution, its religion &c. If, therefore, Roman antiqui- 
 ties should at any future time be written and worked out 
 into a definite and independent science, they must, hke 
 ancient geography, serve as an introduction to the study 
 of Roman history. The earlier works on Antiquities 
 are the best, the modern ones are bad. As regards an- 
 cient geography, we still want a good chorography of 
 ancient Italy. The work of Mannert can be recom- 
 mended only with very great restrictions. Notwithstand- 
 ing all that we may find fault with in the detail of the 
 works of Cluverius, his " Italia Antiqua," and his " Sici- 
 lia, Sardinia, et Corsica Antiqua," are gigantic produc- 
 
88 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 tions and excellent in the highest degree. But copies 
 of them are so scarce and costly that I can hardly look 
 upon them as works to refer you to. If we examine 
 them from the point of view from which Cluverius 
 worked, we shall find little to add to what he gives. 
 What he says about the earliest nations of Italy, is the 
 weakest part of the book, but the nature of the countries, 
 if we make some allowance for the time in which he lived, 
 is described in the most admirable manner. The only 
 maps which I can recommend, are those of D'Anville, 
 though I do not mean to say that there are no faults at 
 all in them. D'Anville was a genius who knew how to 
 make use of everything, and who possessed the sagacity 
 to discover very soon, whether the statements he had before 
 him deserved credit or not. Proofs of this may be seen 
 in his works on modern geography; for instance, in his 
 geography of Africa, where he had only few more re- 
 sources than his predecessors. It is with him as with 
 a talented artist, who produces greater effects by a simple 
 apparatus than others with the most abundant materials. 
 All the improvements in the instruments of sculptors have 
 not enabled them to produce anything so perfect as the 
 works of the Greeks, whose instruments were far more 
 simple than ours. The maps of D'Anville are excellent, 
 though some points might be made more exact, and that 
 of Gaul cannot be surpassed in correctness ; that of 
 Greece is imperfect, especially Epirus, for there were 
 at the time no other maps except the bad Venetian ones, 
 of which D'Anville himself complains, and the interior 
 of the country was never visited by travellers. As regards 
 the outlines of Greece, it is remarkable that D'Anville 
 drew those of Peloponnesus from the description of Por- 
 telane, and some maps of the Mediterranean. Barbie du 
 Bocage, his pupil, was a talented man, but he was in an 
 unfavourable position, as he had a predecessor of such ex- 
 traordinary genius. He remarked, for instance, that D'An- 
 ville had placed Patras thirty-two minutes from its real 
 
INTRODUCTION. 89 
 
 site, but his discovery met with no favour, and he was 
 obliged to retract his observation, although it was correct. 
 The only fault of any importance in D'Anville's map of 
 Italy is in the neighbourhood of Naples. Otranto and 
 Brindisi are situated twenty minutes further east than the 
 sites assigned to them by D'Anville. The outline of the 
 coast is often very exact; but the whole coast of the 
 Adriatic is drawn too far west. If we compare his maps 
 with those of DeHsle, we cannot sufficiently admire his 
 genius which produced quite a new creation ; not that it 
 had been his desire to find fault with the works of his 
 predecessors, but he could not help discovering where his 
 predecessors had worked hastily or carelessly. His map 
 of Egypt is an extraordinary production, if we consider 
 that he had nothing but the rude drawings of Arabian 
 and Turkish maps. All that may be said against the 
 maps of D'Anville refers to the imperfection which is 
 only apparent, that they represent the state of a country 
 only at one particular time. He made his division of 
 Italy as it was in the time of Augustus, and he refers all 
 political relations to this time, unless he expressly marks 
 out two distinct divisions, as he does in the case of Gaul. 
 His division of Italy, it is true, places him in contradic- 
 tion with other divisions, but we must be on our guard, 
 if we should feel inclined to censure him for it. Sam- 
 nium, for instance, comprises according to Livy a large 
 district which D'Anville makes a part of Apulia, because 
 he represents Italy according to the description of Pliny ^. 
 I must caution you against the maps of Reichard^. 
 
 ' The reprint of D'Anville's Atlas published by Weigel at Niirn- 
 berg (1781 — 85) is beautiful and cheap. At Dusseldorf a School- 
 Atlas has been published (1820, and a second edition in 1825), which 
 gives the maps of D'Anville on a small scale. It is correct, and costs 
 a mere nothing. — N. 
 
 ^ The Atlas of Christ. Theoph. Reichard, of which Niebuhr here 
 speaks, is entitled " Orbis terrarum antiquus." It was published at 
 Niirnberg, 1818 — 27, and consists of fifteen maps in folio. 
 
90 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 His map of Italy, costs about six shillings, and none can 
 be worse. He is quite an ignorant man, and places which 
 have never existed are marked in his map as towns of 
 great importance. In the Roman Itineraries the post- 
 stages are mentioned, which were not towns, but merely 
 points at which horses were changed. Places of this kind 
 are, for instance, Sublanuvium (Lanuvium was situated 
 on a hill) and Subaricia, which Reichard metamorphoses 
 into large towns. A point at which a road branched out 
 into two, was called ad bivium, and of this Reichard makes 
 a considerable town, Atbirium. Aquila, a town founded 
 in the middle ages, bears a Roman name, and is therefore 
 forthwith represented as an ancient Sabine town. Some 
 places mentioned by Roman writers as belonging to the 
 immediate neighbourhood of Rome, such as Politorium, 
 Medullia, and Tellene, which were conquered and colo- 
 nized by the Romans, and of which we can only conjec- 
 ture in what direction they lay, are placed by Reichard at 
 random, and on spots where they cannot have existed — 
 a just punishment for falsehood. He makes the Volscians 
 extend as far as the mouth of the Tiber, although no 
 Roman author mentions that their territory extended fur- 
 ther than Antium. Numberless faults of this kind might 
 be collected; but I have not been able to overcome the 
 disgust which prevented my going through the whole. 
 Reichard's atlas owes the favourable reception it has met 
 with, only to the beauty with which the maps are executed, 
 and to the audacity of its author. We must confess, that 
 in geography properly so called we have no one who can 
 be compared with D'Anville. My father, who was cer- 
 tainly a competent judge in these matters, entertained the 
 most sincere admiration for him. Major Rennell was a 
 great man, but he did not possess the unerring tact of 
 D'Anville, and always drew middle results. Further dis- 
 coveries in Africa will show, for instance, that Rennell 
 has assigned a wrong place to Timbuctu, although D'An- 
 ville with fewer resources had given it its proper place. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 91 
 
 LECTURE XII. 
 
 IMPORTANCE OF THE HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 The importance of the history of Rome is generally 
 acknowledged, and has never been disputed. There may 
 be persons who, in regard to ancient history in general, 
 entertain fanciful opinions and underrate its value, but 
 they will never deny the importance of Roman history. 
 For many sciences it is indispensable as an introduction or 
 a 'preparation. As long as the Roman law retains the 
 dignified position which it now occupies, so long Ro- 
 man history cannot lose its importance for the student of 
 the law in general. A knowledge of the history of Rome, 
 her laws and institutions, is absolutely necessary to a theo- 
 logian who wishes to make himself acquainted with ecclesi- 
 astical history. There are indeed sciences which are in 
 no such direct relation to Roman history, and to which it 
 cannot therefore be of the same importance ; but whoever 
 wishes, for instance, to acquire a perfect knowledge of the 
 history of diseases, must be intimately acquainted with 
 Roman history, and without it many things will remain 
 utterly obscure to him. Its immense importance to a 
 philologer requires no explanation. If philologers are 
 principally occupied with Roman literature, the Roman 
 classics in all their detail must be as familiar to them as if 
 they were their contemporaries ; and even those whose 
 attention is chiefly engaged by the literature of the Greeks 
 cannot dispense with Roman history, or else they will 
 remain one-sided, and confine themselves within such nar- 
 row limits as to be unable to gain a free point of view. 
 Let Greek philology be ever so much a man's real 
 
92 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 element, still he must know in what manner the Greeks 
 ended, and what was their condition under the Roman 
 dominion. The consequence of this necessity having 
 never yet been duly recognized is, that the later periods 
 of the history of Greece are still so much neglected. If, 
 on the other hand, we look at the history of a country 
 by itself, as a science which, independent of all others, 
 possesses sufficient intrinsic merits of its own, the history 
 of Rome is not surpassed by that of any other country. 
 The history of all nations of the ancient world ends in 
 that of Rome, and that of all modern nations has grown 
 out of that of Rome. Thus, if we compare history with 
 history, that of Rome has the highest claims to our atten- 
 tion. It shows us a nation, which was in its origin small 
 like a grain of corn; but this originally small population 
 waxed great, transferred its character to hundreds of 
 thousands, and became the sovereign of nations from the 
 rising to the setting sun. The whole of western Europe 
 adopted the language of the Romans, and its inhabitants 
 looked upon themselves as Romans. The laws and insti- 
 tutions of the Romans acquired such a power and dura- 
 bility, that even at the present moment they still continue 
 to maintain their influence upon millions of men. Such a 
 development is without a parallel in the history of the 
 world. Before this star all others fade and vanish. In 
 addition to this, we have to consider the greatness of the 
 individuals and their achievements, the extraordinary cha- 
 racter of the institutions which formed the ground-work 
 of Rome's grandeur, and those events which in greatness 
 surpass all others : all this gives to Roman history import- 
 ance and durability. Hence we find, that in the middle 
 ages, when most branches of knowledge were neglected, 
 the history of Rome, although in an imperfect form, was 
 held in high honour. Whatever eminent men appear dur- 
 ing the middle ages, they all shew a certain knowledge of 
 Roman history, and an ardent love of Roman literature. 
 The revival of letters was not a little promoted by this dis- 
 
INTRODUCTION. 93 
 
 position in the minds of men : it was through the medium 
 of Roman literature that sciences were revived in Europe, 
 and the first restorers were distinguished for their enthusi- 
 astic love of Roman history and literature; Dante and 
 Petrarch felt as warmly for Rome as the ancient Romans 
 did. Valerius Maximus was considered the most import- 
 ant book next to the Bible throughout the middle ages: 
 it was the mirror of virtues, and was translated into all the 
 languages of Europe. Rienzi, the tribune, is said to have 
 read all the works of the ancients. At the tables of the 
 German knights stories used to be read aloud and alter- 
 nately, which related either the events of the Old Testa- 
 ment or the heroic deeds of the Romans. This partiality 
 for Roman history continued after the revival of letters, 
 and although it was often studied in an unprofitable man- 
 ner, still every one had a dim notion of its importance ^ 
 
 ^ Here the Introduction breaks off, and the remaining part of 
 this lecture forms the beginning of Niebuhr's account of ancient 
 Italy, which may be read more fully in vol. I. 
 
THE HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 THE FIRST PUNIC WAR.^ 
 
 LECTURE I. 
 
 EVENTS WHICH PRECEDED AND LED TO THE FIRST PUNIC 
 
 WAR. THE CAMPANIAN LEGION. MAMERTINES. — STATE 
 
 OF SICILY UNDER AGATHOCLES AND HIERO. BEGINNING 
 
 OF THE WAR. 
 
 The punishment inflicted by the Romans on the Cam- 
 panian legion stationed at Rhegium is an event of the ut- 
 most importance, as it brought the Carthaginians in conflict 
 with the Romans. Campania contributed one legion to 
 the Roman armies, and was on terms of perfect equality 
 with Rome according to the ancient right of municipium,^ 
 although Rome had, in reality, decided advantages over it. 
 When the Romans sent eight legions against Pyrrhus, 
 one of them was composed of Campanians,^ and was placed 
 as a garrison at Rhegium.^ The fear of the Bruttians 
 
 ' The history of Rome from the earliest times down to the end 
 of the First Punic war is contained in the first three volumes ; but 
 the account of this Punic war is repeated here for reasons stated in 
 the Preface. The substance of the history contained in the first 
 three volumes, excluding the first Punic war, was condensed by 
 Niebuhr in fifty-one Lectures. — Ed. 
 
 " Vol. III. p. 144. 
 
 3 Vol. III. p. 404; II. p. 38, with the note of the translators. 
 
 * Vol. III. p. 477. 
 
96 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 had, in former times, induced the Greek towns of Italy to 
 entertain friendly relations with Rome ; but after the ar- 
 rival of Pyrrhus in Italy their fidelity was more than sus- 
 picious, and it was found necessary to secure them by 
 garrisons. Several Greek towns got rid of their garri- 
 sons by treachery, and their example was followed by the 
 inhabitants of Rhegium ; at least Decius Jubellius, the 
 commander of the Campanian legion, charged them with 
 this crime,^ and exacted a truly Satanic vengeance: the 
 men were massacred, the women and children were sold 
 as slaves, and the city thus fell into the hands of the 
 soldiers. About eight years before this occurrence, the 
 Mamertines, Oscan mercenaries and kinsmen of the Cam- 
 panians, had done the same at Messana, and their common 
 crime now united them together still more closely. The 
 Romans themselves took no part in these horrors, and, 
 after the war was over, they marched against Rhegium. 
 Had those vagabond soldiers delivered up to the Romans 
 their guilty leaders, they might have escaped with a mild 
 punishment; but their crimes had thrown them into a 
 state of savageness, and they thought it impossible that the 
 Romans should pardon their conduct. They consequently 
 determined to offer resistance to the last, and indulged in 
 the hope that they might, after all, maintain themselves 
 with the aid of the Carthaginians. But the Carthaginians 
 hesitated, perhaps on account of their alliance with Rome ; 
 for the memorable treaty which had been concluded be- 
 tween the two states after the expulsion of the Tarquins, 
 had been renewed several times'^*, especially with regard to 
 the boundary of their dominions in Sicily and Sardinia. 
 At the beginning of the war with Pyrrhus they had en- 
 tered into a formal alliance which had not existed before", 
 and which bound them to mutual assistance; and neither 
 of the two states was allowed to conclude peace with Pyr- 
 
 5 Vol. III. p. 480, * Vol. III. p. 86, foD. 
 
 ' Vol. in. p. 506. 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 97 
 
 rhus without the consent of the other. When Pyrrhus 
 was in Sicily, both nations were jealous of each other; and 
 when in the second year of the war with Pyrrhus a Car- 
 thaginian fleet of 120 vessels appeared before Ostia to 
 assist the Romans, it was dismissed with thanks without 
 being used^. After Pyrrhus had quitted Italy, and while 
 the war against Tarentum was still going on slowly, a Car- 
 thaginian fleet cast anchor in front of the harbour of Ta- 
 rentum to assist the town against the Romans 9. The 
 Carthaginian admiral entered into negotiations with Milo, 
 which, however, only accelerated the peace with the Ro- 
 mans, and Milo availed himself of the opportunity of ob- 
 taining several thousands of gold-pieces more. The Car- 
 thaginian admiral ought to have acted on this occasion with 
 more decision ; but the affair was too serious and hazard- 
 ous for a Carthaginian general, who, unless favoured 
 by fortune, would have fallen a victim. The siege of 
 Rhegium lasted a long time, but the Carthaginians did 
 not interfere. The Romans concluded a treaty with Hiero 
 of Syracuse, which was the first treaty of Rome with a 
 Greek state beyond the boundaries of Italy. Hiero sup- 
 ported the Romans with energy^"; for his great object was 
 to recover Messana, and to expel the Mamertines, which 
 could be effected much more easily if Rhegium fell first, 
 and might have been effected indeed, if the war had been 
 prosecuted more speedily. But some time passed away, 
 and the assistance which Rome had received from Hiero 
 was lost sight of. 
 
 The reign of Agathocles had been long and victorious ; 
 but it was a terrible time, and the reign of Dionysius was, 
 comparatively speaking, looked upon as having been an 
 age of justice. Agathocles was a man of no ordinary 
 talents, but he was a monster. His reign, although some- 
 times surrounded with splendour, was for Syracuse a period 
 
 ' Vol. III. p. 506. ' Vol. Ill, p. 538, foil. 
 
 '« Vol. III. p. 51.1 with note 981. 
 
98 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 of the greatest misery. He lavished the marrow and the 
 heart's blood of the country, while he surrounded himself 
 with the splendour of magnificent palaces and the like, and 
 the island became desolate. His wars are memorable on 
 account of their awful calamities, but, as his adversaries had 
 likewise severe reverses, these wars still cast some lustre 
 upon his reign. His peace with Carthage was concluded 
 on tolerable terms, although it did not answer his previous 
 expectations, Agathocles was one of those men who suffer 
 the punishment of their crimes even in this world. Con- 
 tentions divided his familj^, and it can scarcely be doubted 
 that he was poisoned by his own son, or grandson ; he was 
 burnt half-alive, as the poison acted too slowly, and his 
 whole family was at last extirpated. The curse which 
 rested upon the house of Lysimachus passed over to that of 
 Agathocles. After his death the island fell into complete 
 decay : Syracuse was torn in pieces by the tyrant Icetas, 
 and Messana fell into the hands of the Mamertines. The 
 horrors which these mercenaries perpetrated resemble those 
 which were committed in the Netherlands in 1576, where 
 bands of mercenaries plundered whole towns, in order to 
 pay themselves their hire : such, for instance, was the fate 
 of Maestricht. After Pyrrhus had left Locri, the whole 
 island appeared to be in a state of dissolution. Not long 
 after this, however, Hiero, then a young man, was at the 
 head of the Syracusan army, and the soldiers, fortunately 
 for Syracuse, proclaimed him king. He was a great man, 
 and the best king they could have wished for. In his 
 reign, which lasted upwards of fifty years, the first Punic 
 war broke out. The strength of his little kingdom be- 
 came, of course, much exhausted by the support he gave 
 to the Romans, although he reigned with the greatest 
 wisdom and economy. He made a gentle use of his power, 
 ruled like a citizen over his equals, and never insulted the 
 feelings of his subjects". The last twenty years of his 
 
 " Vol. III. p. 5G1, foil. 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 99 
 
 reign were very prosperous, and Syracuse began to recover 
 from its sufferings'^. But notwithstanding all this, Syra- 
 cuse, after the death of Hiero, was still a very decayed 
 place. Hiero had in his youth been of a warlike dispo- 
 sition, but this afterwards vanished almost entirely. Car- 
 thage had extended her dominions, had gained possession 
 of Agrigentum, and advanced as far as Gela and Camarina, 
 so that she now occupied as great a portion of the island 
 as after the first peace with Dionysius. Hiero was anxious 
 to expel the Mamertines from Messana and take posses- 
 sion of the town ; he would then have been a neighbour of 
 the Romans, and he hoped that he might be able to fall 
 back upon them, if the Carthaginians should become too 
 powerful in the island. His external relations to Carthage, 
 however, were at that time of a friendly nature, and there 
 is little doubt that an actual peace had been concluded be- 
 tween Carthage and Syracuse. 
 
 When Hiero had, by an excusable stretch of power, 
 got rid of his old mercenaries, and had firmly established 
 his authority, he undertook the war against the JNIamer- 
 tines", who had extended their sway over almost the whole 
 of the north-eastern part of the island. Hiero was success- 
 ful, and was supported by the Carthaginians, with whom he 
 still kept up a good understanding. Messana was besieged 
 by both in concert, and under these circumstances the 
 Mamertines saw no means of escape. It was the wish of 
 Hiero to destroy them ; but the Carthaginians had not the 
 same interest in so doing, and merely wished to expel them 
 from the island ; for as they were Oscans and Italicans, and 
 of the same race as the Romans, the Carthaginians mis- 
 trusted them, and feared lest they should open to the Ro- 
 mans the way into Sicily, which they themselves were anx- 
 ious to keep clear of an Italian population. It was, more- 
 ls Vol. III. p. 617. 
 
 '^ The beautiful idyl of Theocritus, called Charites, or Hiero, 
 (xvi.) refers to this war. N. — Compare \'ol. iii. p. 562. 
 
 H 2 
 
100 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 over, the intention of the Carthaginians, in ease of success, 
 to keep Messana for themselves, and to use Hiero as their 
 tool '^. The Romans had, in the meantime, punished their 
 faithless allies, and compelled the legion besieged at Rhe- 
 gium to surrender. Of the 4000 men of the legion, 300 
 only survived: they were sent to Rome and beheaded ^^. A 
 few years after this, the Mamertines solicited the assistance 
 of the Romans. This was, as Polybius would express it, 
 an ccTOTTov, or something the absurdity of which must strike 
 every one. The Romans, who had just punished their own 
 allies for the same crime of which the Mamertines were 
 guilty, at first scrupled and refused to comply with their 
 request; but the daemon of ambition had already taken 
 possession of their minds. They reasoned with themselves 
 thus : that they must not take too strict a moral view of 
 the case, and that they could not be made to answer for the 
 sins of the Mamertines. Moreover, they owed it to them- 
 selves not to allow the Carthaginians to take possession of 
 Messana and its excellent harbour, which would give them 
 an opportunity of sending a fleet to Calabria without any 
 difficulty ; whereas now their nearest port was that of 
 Palermo, from which such an undertaking could not so 
 easily be ventured on. What intentions the Carthagi- 
 nians entertained in regard to Italy might be inferred 
 from the fact of their having sent a fleet to Tarentum ; 
 and if the Carthaginians were allowed to acquire the full 
 possession of Sicily and Sardinia, Rome, for her false 
 delicacy, would soon see the war transferred to her own 
 territory, which would be the more dangerous, as the fleet 
 of the Carthaginians might sail wherever they liked, and 
 would be invulnerable 1^. It was a similar policy that 
 Great Britain adopted against Napoleon. According to a 
 true moral and political principle, against which nothing 
 
 " The Carthaginians had moral principles which diiFered from 
 those of the Romans ; but it is wrong to say, that Jldes Punica was 
 the same as the Roman injuria. — N. 
 
 '* Vol. in. p. 54.1, foil. ^^ Vol. III. p. 563. Compare Polyb. i. 10. 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 101 
 
 could have been said, they ought to have endeavoured to 
 put Hiero in possession of Messana. The state of things 
 required a quick resolution, since the Mamertines might 
 easily secure the protection of the Carthaginians, by merely 
 throwing the gates open to them. The senate took no 
 resolution, and rejected the proposal, either from timidity 
 or on account of moral scruples : but the consuls and tri- 
 bunes brought the matter before the assembly of the peo- 
 ple, and here it was decreed that assistance should be sent 
 to the Mamertines. With great exertions a number of 
 light, but probably very clumsy, triremes were built, and 
 carried a Roman army to the neighbourhood of Rhegium 
 to negotiate with the Mamertines, who, as the Romans 
 had been too slow in their movements, had admitted the 
 Carthaginian general with very few Carthaginian troops, 
 or perhaps none at all, into the town. A legate of Ap- 
 pius Claudius went to Messana, and negotiated with the 
 Mamertines, who were glad to obtain a peace which 
 was quite unworthy of the Romans, and the Carthaginian 
 commander was obliged to quit the town. The Cartha- 
 ginians, although war was not yet declared, had wished 
 to prevent the Romans from crossing over into Sicily; but 
 the Romans were favoured by the current and wind, and 
 crossed the straits in small bodies. When in possession of 
 Messana, they were besieged by the Syracusans and the 
 Carthaginians in separate camps; the Romans sallied forth 
 against king Hiero, their former ally, who offered indeed 
 a powerful resistance ; but the Sicilian soldiers could not 
 hold out against the Roman legions, and he was defeated. 
 The Carthaginian governors of the island retreated with 
 their insufficient forces, and the Romans advanced without 
 encountering any resistance. In the following year, when the 
 consuls M'. OtaciUus and M'. Valerius Messala landed in Si- 
 cily, the Romans appeared before the walls of Syracuse. 
 A number of Greek towns had already opened their gates 
 to them; and when preparations were made to lay siege to 
 Syracuse, Hiero, following the wishes of his people, made 
 
102 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 overtures to the Romans, and found a favourable reception, 
 as it was evident that Carthage would not continue to look 
 on while the Romans were making such progress in Sicily. 
 Hiero remained the sovereign of a small state, became the 
 ally of the Roman people, and paid down a contribution of 
 one hundred talents ^^. The alliance thus established be- 
 tween the Romans and Hiero was both offensive and de- 
 fensive. 
 
 The beginning of the first Punic war is usually dated 
 from the passage of the Romans into Sicily, but their al- 
 liance with Hiero must be looked upon as its real com- 
 mencement. The condition of Carthage at that time is 
 very obscure, although much has been written about it. 
 The Carthaginians were an oriental people and of a cha- 
 racter widely different from that of the Romans or the 
 Greeks, who for this reason should not be our guides in 
 judging of the Carthaginians. The first Punic war was, on 
 the whole, conducted very awkwardly, and previous to the 
 time when the great Hamilcar Barca appeared in the field, 
 it has nothing that can excite our sympathy in that degree 
 in which it is excited by the wars against Pyrrhus and the 
 Samnites. 
 
 '' Polyb. I. 16. Compare vol. iii. p. 569, where Niebuhr follows 
 the account of Orosius (iv. 7), according to whom Hiero had to 
 pay 200 talents. 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 101 
 
 LECTURE 11. 
 
 CARTHAGE. — ITS FOUNDATION. SKETCH OF ITS HISTORY. — 
 
 ITS DOMINIONS AT THE BEGINNING OF THE WAR. 
 
 POLITICAL CONSTITUTION, AND NATIONAL CHARACTER OF 
 THE CARTHAGINIANS. 
 
 Everybody knows that Carthage was a colony of Tyre. 
 We may adopt the statement of Trogus Pompeius, that the 
 building of Carthage took place seventy-two years before the 
 foundation of liome^ This statement is, like many which 
 occurred in Pompeius", of infinite importance, and is in all 
 probability founded upon Phoenician chronicles. It is evi- 
 dent that Timaeus had the same statement in view, although 
 he made the foundation of Rome contemporaneous with that 
 of Carthage. Historical works existed at Carthage and 
 were known to the Romans ; but after the destruction of Car- 
 thage they were given to the kings of Numidia". When- 
 ever we meet with such dates in history, and wish to act in a 
 truly philosophic manner, we must endeavour to understand 
 them with great precision, and accept them with gratitude*. 
 
 1 Vol. I. p. 272. 
 
 * It is, however, strange that Trogus Pompeius did not look into 
 the Phoenician originals themselves, but was satisfied with Greek 
 translations and extracts. — N. 
 
 ^ Pliny, Hist. Nat. xviii. 5 ; Sallust, Jugurth. 17. 
 
 ■• Some time ago I found a wish expressed somewhere by a writer 
 of our nineteenth century to adhere to the old-fashioned chronology 
 which counted the years from the creation of the world. But who- 
 ever writes such things, shews that he does not know histoiy, and that 
 he has no notion of the manner in which it should be treated. 
 That system of chronology has become ridiculous by the abuse 
 wliich has been made of it. If a man now will write a chro- 
 
104 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 Carthage was not the first Tyrian settlement in those re- 
 gions. Utica (in Phoenician Athica) had been founded 
 before. The stories about Pygmalion, Elisa, &e., although 
 we look upon them as something more than mere fables, are 
 beautiful and truly poetical legends. Thus much is certain, 
 that the colony of Carthage was established at the time 
 when the power of the Phoenicians was at its height, when 
 they were masters of Cyprus and Thasus. Their settle- 
 ments in Cythera and other places belong to a much later 
 date than is commonly supposed. I believe that Cadiz ex- 
 isted before the foundation of Carthage. The original 
 name of the latter place was Bozra (a town), in Greek 
 Byrsa, derived, it was said, from the mode of purchasing 
 the ground. By the side of Bozra there soon arose a new 
 town, Carthada, (Carthago, Kap^vj'dcuv,) just as Neapolis 
 arose by the side of Parthenope. This town remained, 
 perhaps for two hundred years, an insignificant place, and 
 rose very slowly ; it was in a state of dependence upon 
 Tyre, and paid tribute to the neighbouring Libyan tribes. 
 The relation between Carthage and its mother-city is a 
 beautiful feature in its history, and Carthage never ne- 
 glected the duties it owed to its parent Tyre. But the 
 Libyans were hard and oppressive neighbours. The man- 
 ner in which, and the time when, Carthage began to extend 
 its dominion, are unknown ; but in the year 245 after the 
 building of Rome it was in possession of a part of Sicily, 
 of Sardinia, and of Libya, as we see from the treaty which 
 it concluded with Rome. Respecting the early times of 
 Carthage we have only a few statements in Diodorus and 
 Justin, which are evidently derived from Timaeus. From 
 
 nology, and like Calvisius ascend to the beginning of the world, 
 and according to this plan give us, in his table, for instance, a 
 list of the kings of Attica, it is something more than old-fash- 
 ioned, it is laughable. I may add here, that a true philologer 
 does not attach any great importance to his being able to state 
 exactly in what month or on what day a Roman emperor ascended 
 the throne: such things are trifles, although in certain instances 
 thev may be interesting enough. — N. 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 105 
 
 Justin^, we hear of a civil war in which Malchus, a Car- 
 thaginian general, conquered his native town ; but I cannot 
 dwell upon any detail, and shall give you only a rapid 
 sketch of the history of Carthage. 
 
 About the year of Rome 272, the Carthaginians are 
 said to have crossed over into Sicily with a great army. 
 This expedition is fabulous ; I do not mean to say that 
 there was no expedition at all, but its reputed great- 
 ness is fabulous. Their defeat at Himera, and the battle 
 of Salamis, are said to have occurred on the same day ;^ 
 but a more correct chronology shews, that Gelo, to whom 
 this victory is ascribed, did not ascend the throne till 
 after the battle of Salamis. The synchronism is altogether 
 visionary, and destroys the whole chronology of the history 
 of Sicily, nor is it possible that the expedition of the Car- 
 thaginians can have been so important. The only thing 
 that can be regarded as certain is, that the Carthaginians 
 were defeated, and that for a long time after, they did not 
 think of any fresh attempt against Sicily ; but they 
 strengthened themselves in other parts. When the Athe- 
 nians were in Sicily, the Carthaginians were confined to 
 three points, viz. : Motye, the first Punic settlement in 
 the island, and the two Greek towns of Panormus and 
 Solus,^ and during the Athenian expedition no mention 
 is made of the Carthaginians. After the unfortunate issue 
 of the Athenian expedition, the implacable enmity of the 
 victorious towns against the allies of the Athenians brought 
 great calamities upon the island. The Carthaginians were 
 invited, and came over with a considerable army. In this 
 campaign, about 350 u.c, Selinus, Agrigentum, Camarina, 
 and Gela were destroyed, and the very existence of the 
 Greeks in Sicily was threatened. Dionysius, however, 
 concluded a tolerable peace, and in some measure restored 
 the former boundaries. In the reign of Dionysius II. the 
 
 * XVIII. 7. ^ Diodor. xi. 20, foil. 
 
 ' Thucydides, vi. 2. 
 
106 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 war with the Carthaginians was renewed, but Timoleon de- 
 feated them. A favourable peace was then concluded, and 
 the western part of Sicily, including Selinus, was ceded to 
 the Carthaginians, and a line from Himera to Agrigentura, 
 (the rivers Himera and Halycus,) marked the boundary 
 which afterwards remained the normal boundary, and was 
 usually restored on the conclusion of a peace. Under 
 Agathocles the Carthaginians besieged Syracuse, but he 
 twice landed w^ith an army in Africa, and confined them 
 in Sicily to Lilybaeum. But afterwards the normal boun- 
 dary was restored. Soon after the death of Agathocles 
 there followed the war of Pyrrhus.^ 
 
 At the commencement of the first Punic war the Car- 
 thaginians were in possession of the western half of the 
 island, and of the north coast as far as Myle and Messana. 
 Their empire in Africa extended as far as the great 
 marshes in the east, and comprised nearly the whole of 
 modern Tunis. Along the coast they had a great num- 
 ber of colonies, and probably in the interior also. The 
 coast of Algiers, as far as the straits of Gibraltar, was 
 covered with fortified factories, or properly speaking, colo- 
 nies ; but in those parts of the coast where the moun- 
 tains stretch into the sea, they appear to have had no 
 strong settlements.^ All Sardinia was subject to them, 
 with the exception of the mountainous districts which 
 were inhabited by savage tribes, who then lived in the 
 
 « Vol. III. p. 311. foil. 
 
 ® The Libyans received a Punic civilization, and adopted the 
 Punic language. Saint Augustin says, that Punic was his mo- 
 ther tongue. The Libyans are a remarkable instance of the 
 great influence of a people like the Carthaginians. It is very pro- 
 bable, that wlien the Arabs conquered those countries, they found 
 a people there, which, to some extent, was able to understand their 
 language; and this must have greatly facilitated their progress. 
 The idioms of Tunis and Malta are undoubtedly Punic, modified by 
 the influence of the Arabic, and would certainly be a subject worthy 
 to be investigated by orientalists ; but, unfortunately, they do not 
 often write about things of any historical importance. — N. 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 107 
 
 same manner as they do at the present day.i° There 
 were a fev/ Carthaginian settlements in this island, pro- 
 bably near its excellent harbours. Carthage was also the 
 sovereign of the Balearian islands. In Spain she pos- 
 sessed Granada and Murcia, and Gades was in a state of 
 dependence, although it was treated like a sister. 
 
 In regard to the political constitution of Carthage we 
 are quite in the dark. I have made several attempts to 
 see my way clearly, and have read all that has been written 
 upon it, but no certain result is to be gained. It is evident, 
 however, that when Aristotle ^^ speaks of a S^fxof at Carthage, 
 we must conceive it as a perfect commonalty which was 
 gradually formed out of colonial citizens and Libyans. ^- 
 The driixog of Carthage consisted of such <TvvrjXvhs, Liby- 
 ans and Punians, who were quite distinct from each other, 
 while the patricians and plebeians of Rome belonged to one 
 and the same nation. The relation between the Punians 
 and Libyans was analogous to that existing between the 
 Lettian and Lithuanian tribes, among whom German colo- 
 nists settled, or between the Slavonic population about 
 Liibeck and the Germans, the former of whom became 
 completely Germanized. We know that Carthage had a 
 senate, yepovrss, which held the reins of government down to 
 the first Punic war. According to Aristotle the 8^ju.oj of 
 
 '" They still wear the same dress which Cicero (Pro Scauro, c. 2. 
 § 45,) calls mastrucca. — N. 
 
 " Polit. II. 8. p. 63, foil. ed. Gottling. 
 
 '^ There is no prejudice which could seem to be opposed to this 
 supposition. In speaking of Africans, we are apt to think only of 
 negroes, and to forget that the Libyans, or the Amazirgs, as they 
 call themselves, do not differ in their whole physical constitution 
 from the inhabitants of southern Europe. The Libyan tribes had, 
 it is true, a peculiar language ; but all the coasts of the Mediter- 
 ranean, including the main part of Egypt previous to its conquest by 
 the Ethiopians, were occupied by white nations, which, although 
 differing in language, did not lind any greater difficulties in assimi- 
 lating themselves with the Romans, than an Iberian or Celtic popu- 
 lation. — N. 
 
108 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 Carthage had somewhat more power than that of Sparta, 
 where the people were like the three hundred legislators 
 of Napoleon, who were obliged to submit to his will. At 
 Sparta, the magistrates alone were permitted to speak in 
 the assembly, and the ^ix,os was silent. The people might, 
 it is true, reject what was brought before them, but it 
 would not have been very advisable to make use of this 
 right. At Carthage, says Aristotle, matters were different, 
 for any one might come forward and speak. Those whom 
 he calls /Sao-jAeTj,^'' (the suffetes,) had in former times un- 
 doubtedly been the highest military officers ; afterwards 
 they became a mere administrative authority, and their 
 power was carefully kept distinct from that of the mili- 
 tary commanders. Moreover, we find mention of a body 
 which Aristotle calls the Hundred, or the One Hundred 
 and Four, whom he compares to the Spartan ephors. I 
 have shewn elsewhere ^^ that this number bears a relation 
 to the fifty-two weeks of the year, just as in the Greek 
 constitutions so many things are connected with the divi- 
 sion of the year into twelve months. There were also 
 magistrates, whom Aristotle calls i:zvTa^y[M^^ but what 
 they were, we do not know; they are mentioned, together 
 with the council of the One Hundred and Four, who 
 were unquestionably the magistrates before whom kings 
 and generals had to undergo the eo-Suvij : perhaps they were a 
 council which had the right to interfere with the administra- 
 tion of the senate and the kings. Aristotle further remarks, 
 that the senate was invested with the entire power of adminis- 
 tration and government, and that the decision rested with 
 the people. There existed, however, no representatives 
 of the people to set them in motion, like the tribunes at 
 Rome. The highest offices at Carthage were given 
 a^jo-r/vSrjv and wAoyTi'vSijv, and were cJvjjra), as Aristotle says. 
 
 '3 Polit. as above. " Vol. i. p. 339, note 851. 
 
 '* Polit. II. 8. p. 64, ed. Gottling, if the reading be correct. Our 
 text of Aristotle's Politics is derived from a MS. of the 14th century, 
 and belongs to the most corrupt texts of ancient writers. — N. 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 109 
 
 This statement agrees with a passage in Polybius,'^ who 
 says that it was customary at Carthage to purchase offices 
 from those who had them to dispose of, without any 
 scruple ; a practice which we also find in the smaller 
 cantons of Switzerland, especially in the Grisons, where 
 the office of high-bailiff is purchasable. At Venice, too, 
 the practice was once very notorious, though there the 
 offices were not, indeed, formally sold, but it was a thing 
 understood, that every one should pay for them. At 
 Venice, persons sought the great offices of state as a 
 provedir/ione, to restore their ruined estates. The rich 
 were never punished, not even for murder, but paid down 
 fines, and cartes blanches for murder were regularly sold. 
 Such also was the character of the Carthaginians. They 
 were, it is true, a commercial people, but this should not 
 have deadened their feeling of honour.^^ But sentiments 
 like those which we find in modern times in America, 
 were quite general among the Carthaginians, and were 
 the source of their misfortunes. As far as their wealth 
 reached, they were all-powerful; but their avarice drew 
 upon them the hatred of their neighbours and subjects. 
 Libya had to pay exceedingly heavy taxes, and had, like 
 India, to give up a fourth, and in extraordinary emer- 
 gencies, half of its produce. To these heavy taxes we 
 must add all that the Carthaginian governors received or 
 extorted. When Aristotle ^*^ says that the Carthaginians 
 kept the commonalty in good humour by sending them 
 to other towns, not to settle there, but to suck out the 
 blood of their inhabitants, we must own that Carthage 
 was altogether in a very bad condition. Hence the con- 
 trast between Carthage and Rome in its better days. 
 Great men, however, such as Hamilcar, Hasdrubal, and 
 Hannibal, succeeded nevertheless in gaining the affections 
 
 '^ VI. 5(3. 
 
 " A similar spirit prevails in America, where any profit which a 
 person can make is thought lawful. — N. 
 " As above, p. 66. 
 
no 
 
 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 of the people in subject countries, as in Spain, where, 
 at the time of the second war with the Romans, these 
 men were really popular. Had Mago or Himilco been 
 sent thither, the state of things would have been far dif- 
 ferent. 
 
 The Carthaginians themselves were very unwarlike, 
 and thought that money would indeed be worth nothing, 
 if, notwithstanding their wealth, they themselves should 
 be compelled to serve as soldiers. The armies therefore 
 consisted of mercenaries, and only the cavalry was formed 
 of Carthaginians. Their military system had its advan- 
 tages as well as its disadvantages. The mercenaries were 
 an evil, but the circumstance that their generals were not 
 magistrates at the same time, had its advantages; for the 
 same general might often be allowed to pursue his plans 
 for a number of years, whereas the Romans allowed their 
 consuls to act during one year only, or at most during 
 a second year as proconsuls. The Carthaginian generals, 
 therefore, were intimately acquainted with their soldiers, 
 and a great general like Hamilcar could accomplish in- 
 credible things. Previous to the time of Hamilcar, how- 
 ever, the choice of their generals was often so unfortunate, 
 that it would have been better if changes had been made 
 more frequently. 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. Ill 
 
 LECTURE III. 
 
 PHYSICAL NATURE OF SICILY. — DIVISION OF THE WAR INTO 
 PERIODS OR MASSES. TAKING OF AGRIGENTUM. AN- 
 CIENT SHIPS. FLEET OF THE ROMANS. VICTORY OF 
 
 C. DUILIUS. 
 
 In order to understand the operations during the first 
 Punic war, it is necessary tp have a clear view of the 
 physical structure of Sicily. The heart and kernel of 
 Sicily is Mount Aetna, from which a chain of mountains 
 stretches along the coast towards the Apennines, and pro- 
 ceeds through Bruttium as far as Hipponium. The range 
 of mountains in southern Italy belongs, if we consider 
 it geologically, to Sicily, and forms a continuation of 
 Mount Pelorus. The Apennines terminate in the neigh- 
 bourhood of Hipponium, and are connected with the 
 Sicilian mountains only by low hills, so that the Greeks 
 often entertained the idea of making a canal across the 
 isthmus, which would at present be a very easy under- 
 taking. The range of mountains from Aetna to Messana 
 runs often so close to the shore, that there is hardly a 
 small road between the sea and the mountain. South of 
 Aetna the mountain leaves a considerable plain towards 
 the sea, especially about Leontini. In the south of Sicily, 
 between Syracuse and the western part of the island, there 
 are only low hills. West of Aetna there run chains of 
 mountains which are designated by the names Heraei 
 montes and Nebrodes montes. From Pelorus to Himera 
 the mountains run close by the sea-shore ; the sea washes 
 the foot of the mountains, and in many places there is no 
 road at all between the mountain and the sea. An arti- 
 
112 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 ficial road might indeed be built, as is the case on Mount 
 Posilipo near Naples ; but it has not yet been done. To 
 the west of Himera there is a small extent of flat coast, and 
 the mountains become gradually lower. About Palermo 
 they form a plain, out of which there rises only one hill, 
 which is crowned with the convent of Santa Rosalia. 
 Further west the mountains rise again, and Mount San 
 Giuliano (Eryx) is, next to Aetna, the highest point in 
 Sicily. The south-western portion as far as Agrigentum is 
 for the most part a flat coast; and further east from Agri- 
 gentum the mountains are at a considerable distance from 
 the coast, so that if we imagine a line drawn from Agri- 
 gentum to Catana, the country south of this line is a per- 
 fect plain, which is only interrupted here and there by low 
 hills. By means of this general outline we shall be able, 
 I hope, to estimate the manner in which the war was con- 
 ducted. Persons have asked, Why did not the Romans, 
 who were in possession of Messana, proceed along the 
 coast to Panormus, which would have facilitated the com- 
 munication ? The answer to this lies in the nature of the 
 country, with which I have become acquainted not through 
 the description of travellers alone, but through paying 
 strict attention to the events of the year 1812, when the 
 English sent an expedition to Palermo. This expedition 
 could not reach Palermo by land, but was obliged to be 
 transported in ships. And as it is now, so it was with the 
 ancients : the communication between Messana and Panor- 
 mus was not practicable by land. 
 
 In order not to fill our heads with a mass of confused 
 detail, we must divide the first Punic war into five periods. 
 The first comprises the first four years, from 488 to 491, 
 during which the Romans carried on the war without a 
 fleet, and the Carthaginians were masters of the sea. The 
 second extends from 492 to 496; the Romans now built 
 a fleet, and were more successful than could have been 
 expected; the Carthaginians were defeated by sea, and 
 Regulus effected a landing in Africa. The third contains 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 113 
 
 the campaign of Regulus in Africa during the years 496 
 and 497. The fourth begins with the destruction of the 
 army of Regulus and ends with the victory of L. Caecilius 
 Metellus at Panormus, from 497 to 501. The fifth period 
 is a struggle of ten years, about Lilybaeum and Drepana, 
 from 502 to the victory near the Aegates insulse in 511. 
 During this last period the war was confined to the ex- 
 tremely limited space about Lilybaeum and Drepana ; but 
 the diversion which Hamilcar Barca made, and of which 
 we unfortunately know so little, is one of the most brilliant 
 exploits in the history of ancient or of modern warfare, 
 although it is more important in a military than in an his- 
 torical point of view: it was a military game at chess, 
 which shewed a general who created his own resources and 
 had them under his full control. Wars which have been 
 protracted through a considerable number of years cannot 
 be properly understood, unless they are divided into such 
 separate and distinct masses as I have just made in regard 
 to the first Punic war. The Thirty years' war is generally 
 related without such divisions, and it is for no other reason 
 that people find it so difficult to form a distinct and accu- 
 rate idea of it. 
 
 Respecting the tactics of the Carthaginian mercenaries 
 we know nothing ; but it can scarcely be doubted, that each 
 kind of these mercenaries retained its own peculiar weapons 
 and mode of fighting; the Carthaginians themselves, when 
 they did serve in their armies, formed most probably a 
 phalanx ; that this was the case with the Greeks and 
 Macedonians who were in their service requires no proof. 
 The Spaniards and Celts fought, I believe, catervatim, and 
 wore linen breast-plates. It is certain that the Gauls 
 fought in great masses. 
 
 In the year 490, the third of the war, the Romans be- 
 sieged Agrigentum with two armies.' This city was of 
 very great extent, but as a city it was only a shadow of 
 
 Vol. III. p. 570, foil. 
 
114 
 
 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 what it had been 140 years before. A great Carthaginian 
 army had thrown itself within its extensive walls. The 
 Romans besieged them very closely for a period of seven 
 months. At the commencement of the war, the Cartha- 
 ginian generals were very inferior men, and it was unfortu- 
 nate for Carthage that Hamilcar Barca came too late, and 
 at a time when it was no longer in his power to recover 
 what had been lost. During the first period the Cartha- 
 ginians seem to have made little or no use of elephants, 
 and to have shrunk from entering upon an open contest 
 with the Romans. The siege had already lasted for five 
 months, when the "Carthaginians sent an army and fifty 
 elephants under Hanno to the relief of the besieged in 
 Agrigentum ; but he had not sufficient courage to fight, 
 and he protected himself and his troops in a fortified camp 
 near Heraclea, from whence he hoped to compel the Romans 
 to raise the siege by cutting off their necessary supplies. 
 Thus Agrigentum suffered from want of provisions through 
 the Romans, and the Romans through the Carthaginians. 
 As the latter were masters of the sea, the Romans were 
 much confined by the Numidian horsemen, the Cossacks of 
 the ancients, and on foraging excursions they often sus- 
 tained great losses; but their perseverance led them to 
 victory. Although the circumstances were unfavourable, 
 they attacked Hanno, who had been encamped for two 
 months, and routed his army. The fall of Agrigentum 
 was now unavoidable. Whether the Romans allowed the 
 besieged to escape in order not to drive the enemy to 
 extremes, or whether the Carthaginians forced their way 
 through the Roman camp in despair, cannot be said with 
 certainty : but the Carthaginian army left the city and 
 made its way through the Roman fortifications: all those 
 who could bear arms followed them ; and the rest of the 
 population, the defenceless and the sick, remained behind. 
 The Romans then took the town by storm, and com- 
 mitted all the horrors which usually accompany such a 
 conquest: the soldiers indemnified themselves for the 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 115 
 
 sufferings and hardships they had endured during the 
 seven months of the siege. 
 
 The taking of Agrigentum suggested to the Romans 
 ideas entirely new respecting the objects of the war. At its 
 commencement they had merely wished to have Messana 
 and Syracuse as their dependent allies, but they now cher- 
 ished the thought which Dionysius, Agathocles, and 
 Pyrrhus had endeavoured to realize, namely, to expel the 
 Carthaginians from the island altogether. But they saw at 
 the same time, that it was impossible to accomplish this 
 without a fleet. Down to the time of the Peloponnesian 
 war, no larger vessels had been built than triremes and 
 penteconters. The penteconters were open boats, but 
 the triremes had decks. One part of the men on board 
 were soldiers, and the other rowers. But these ships had 
 long since been outstripped by others. After the Pelopon- 
 nesian war, larger vessels were first built at Syracuse, at 
 first quadriremes and afterwards quinqueremes. They 
 were used in the Macedonian fleets, as early as the time 
 of Alexander the Great, and in Sicily, and they after- 
 wards occur during the first Punic war; but the Romans, 
 as well as their subjects, had only triremes^. Although 
 the ancients, like the modern Greeks, had excellent sails, 
 their object was to make their ships independent of the 
 wind, current, and waves, like our steam-boats, and they 
 found the power which gave them this independence, in their 
 oars. A quinquereme had 300 rowers and 120 marines; and 
 a trireme with 120 rowers bore the same proportion to a quin- 
 quereme, which a steam-boat of twelve horse power bears 
 to one of thirty, and could do as little against it as a frigate 
 or a brigantine can effect against a ship of the line. At 
 the commencement of the war, the Romans had transported 
 their soldiers to Sicily in triremes. It is said, that they 
 had no armed vessels, and it is certain, that they were not 
 acquainted with the art of shipbuilding. The most natural 
 course for the Romans would now have been, to send some 
 
 - Vol. III. p 575, note 1052 
 
 I 2 
 
116 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 shipbuilders to Macedonia or to Egypt, (for they had con- 
 nexions with Ptolemy Philadelphus) to obtain models; for the 
 ancients, like ourselves, built from models, which is the most 
 natural method, and is also expressly mentioned. But this 
 they did not do. A Carthaginian quinquereme had been 
 thrown upon the coast of Bruttium, and after this model the 
 Romans built 120 ships •^. They were of a clumsy construc- 
 tion, and in no way to be compared with the Carthaginian 
 ships. In addition to this, the Romans had no sailors, or only 
 a few ; and as a fleet of one hundred quinqueremes required 
 30,000 rowers, they were obliged to man their ships chiefly 
 with slaves and freedmen^ The Romans had to learn the 
 service in the fleet, just as in Russia and France those men 
 are obliged to learn the maritime service who come from 
 the inland districts. But what seems to us most ludicrous 
 is, that the men were exercised on scaffoldings : in our days 
 such a method of drilling men would call forth a host of 
 caricatures, and it was laughable indeed. The contrast 
 between a Roman and a Carthaginian vessel was the same 
 as there is at present between a Russian ship of the line, 
 and an English or an American one. But the Romans 
 were great, and devised means by which they overcame 
 their difficulties. If we have to fight against an enemy of 
 superior skill, the only means by which we can hope to 
 conquer him is, to oppose him with greater masses ^ In 
 
 3 Vol. III. p. 576, note 1053 
 
 ■* A (liffei'ent opinion is expressed in vol. iii. p. 576. 
 
 ' The great Carnot saw this and rejected the old tactics of lines, 
 which our forefathers had used, and with which the French com- 
 menced the wars of the revolution and were deplorably beaten. Car- 
 not was one of the greatest men of modern times : he saw the prob- 
 lem at once, and solved it. He formed the troops into masses, with 
 which he broke in upon the enemy. These masses, if once broken 
 through, would have been lost ; but they had confidence, and threw 
 themselves irresistibly upon the thin lines. A whole year passed 
 away before the enemy comprehended this new method. It was with 
 these new tactics that Carnot decided the battle of Bretigny, which 
 forms the crisis of modern history, and the importance of which has 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 117 
 
 order to make up for the awkwardness of their ships, the 
 Romans attached boarding-hridges to them^. It was a 
 simple idea to form wooden bridges which held two or 
 three men abreast ; both sides were protected by parapets 
 to prevent the men falling into the water. These bridges 
 were thrown upon the ships of the enemy by the help of a 
 very simple mechanism, and took a firm hold of them by 
 means of grappling irons. When a Carthaginian vessel 
 was thus boarded, the advantage of its greater speed and 
 lightness was lost, and the Romans were able to make use 
 of the soldiers of their legions; and as the Carthaginian 
 soldiers were bad, or at least far inferior to the Roman le- 
 gionaries, the latter had decided advantages. But the princi- 
 pal object now was, to get so near the enemy's ships as to 
 be able to make use of the boarding machines. In the 
 first attempt at maritime warfare in the year 492, the Ro- 
 man squadron was lost near Lipara, through the impru- 
 dence of its commander Cn. Cornelius Scipio. But a few 
 days after, the Carthaginians had likewise to sustain a 
 heavy loss, for one of their squadrons under Hannibal fell in 
 with the Roman fleet and was almost completely destroyed. 
 The victory of the consul C. Duilius, which soon followed, 
 was decisive. The Carthaginians had, at first, shewn great 
 contempt of the Roman navy ; but they soon discovered 
 their delusion, and despair came over them when they saw 
 the sea-fight changed into a land-fight. Thirty-one Car- 
 thaginian ships were taken, and many others were des- 
 troyed, and the Romans were intoxicated with joy at this 
 briUiant victory. Fortune thus favoured their first enter- 
 prize on the unstable element, and henceforth remained 
 faithful to them on it. 
 
 never yet been rightly understood. General Hoche made use of the 
 same military system in Lorraine ; it was by means of heavy masses 
 that the Americans defeated the English ships, which they could 
 not have done in any other way. — N. 
 ° Vol. HI. p. 577, foil. 
 
118 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 LECTURE IV. 
 
 VICTORY OF THE ROMANS NEAR ECNOMUS. — THEIR LAND- 
 
 ING IN AFRICA, AND THEIR SUCCESS THERE. REGULUS. 
 
 XANTHIPPUS. DEFEAT OF REGULUS. — DISASTERS OF 
 
 THE ROMANS AT SEA. VICTORY OF L. CAECILIUS ME- 
 
 TELLUS AT PANORMUS. CHARACTER OF THE LAST PE- 
 RIOD OF THE WAR. 
 
 Every one knows the great honours with which C. Dui- 
 lius was rewarded for his victory: he was allowed to he 
 accompanied home in the evening from banquets by torch- 
 light and music, which must otherwise have been forbid- 
 den, and the celebrated columna rostrata was erected, with 
 inscriptions recording the details of his victory. Some 
 fragments of these inscriptions are still preserved ; but it is 
 not generally known, that the present table which contains 
 them is not the original one, — the antiquaries at Rome are 
 aware of this, but not those of Germany, — for it is a piece 
 of Greek marble, which was unknown in Rome at the time 
 of Duilius. The original column, adorned with the beaks 
 of the conquered ships and the inscriptions, was struck by 
 lightning in the reign of Tiberius, and faithfully restored 
 by Germanicus. 
 
 During the three years which now followed, from 493 to 
 495, the Romans were masters of the sea; and a piratical 
 expedition against Sardinia and Corsica was likewise suc- 
 cessful. In Sicily, the Carthaginians still maintained them- 
 selves from Selinus to Lilybaeum, and on the whole north- 
 ern coast of the island from Lilybaeum to Mylae. In the 
 year 496, the ninth of the war, the Romans determined to 
 attack the Carthaginians in Africa. Agathocles had shewn 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 119 
 
 that they were most vulnerable in their own country. In 
 order to be able to act with the necessary energy, they in- 
 creased their navy to no less than 330 men of war ; which 
 were, according to Polybius, for the most part quinqueremes; 
 the Carthaginian fleet consisted of 350 quinqueremes. Poly- 
 bius draws attention to the tremendous efforts of this war; 
 and with justice, for as every quinquereme had 300 rowers 
 and 120 marines, the Romans employed about 140,000 men, 
 and had a number of transports for their horses besides. The 
 Carthaginian forces were equally strong, the Roman ships 
 were still awkward, and their success still depended upon 
 their boarding bridges. They sailed along the eastern and 
 southern coasts of Sicily, either because the northern coast 
 was in the possession of the enemy, or because they had to 
 take in provisions at Syracuse. The Carthaginians met 
 them between Agrigentum and Pachynus (near Ecnomus)^ 
 The Romans adopted the system of fighting in masses, and 
 divided their fleet into four squadrons. Each consul com- 
 manded one, and the third and fourth were commanded by 
 generals whose names are unknown. As they sailed against 
 the enemy, the first and second squadrons formed two 
 straight lines, so that merely two ships (in the form of a 
 cuneus) were facing the enemy. But these two lines gra- 
 dually formed into a right angle which was closed by the 
 third squadron. The fourth was placed behind to protect 
 the transports. This was a manoeuvre which required 
 favourable circumstances for its execution. The Carthagi- 
 nians, who were stationed nearer to Camarina, had likewise 
 divided their fleet into four squadrons, two of which formed 
 the centre and two were stationed so as to form the winsrs. 
 With the centre they sailed against the Romans, while the 
 wings sailed around them. The Romans advanced with 
 their first two squadrons against the Carthaginian centre, 
 which retired, in order to draw the Romans away from 
 their third and fourth lines. In this manner the two Car- 
 
 J Vol. III. p. 583. 
 
120 HISTORY OF ROME 
 
 thaginian wings fell upon the third and fourth squadrons of 
 the Romans, which were guarding the transports near the 
 coast. But the boarding bridges saved the Romans. As 
 soon as the Carthaginian centre ceased to retreat, a great 
 number of its vessels were lost, and the Romans now re- 
 turned to save the two squadrons which were pressed very 
 hard by the Carthaginian wings. One part of the Cartha- 
 ginian ships was dispersed and the other thrown upon the 
 coast: the whole Carthaginian fleet was completely de- 
 feated, and both consuls, L. Manlius and M. Atilius Regu- 
 lus, sailed with their forces to Africa. The remainder of 
 the Carthaginian fleet made for Carthage : their com- 
 manders had lost their courage and +heir senses to an 
 inconceivable degree. 
 
 The Romans landed south-east of cape Hermaeum 
 near the town of Clupea (in Greek Aspis, the Punic name 
 is not known,) and took the place after a brave defence. 
 The main army of the Carthaginians was still in Sicily, as 
 they had entertained to the last the firm hope of preventing 
 the Romans from landing in Africa, and they were conse- 
 quently unprepared to meet the enemy. The Romans 
 found the people everywhere inclined to desert their cruel 
 masters. The Carthaginians had but few fortified places 
 in Africa to keep their subjects in submission : just as the 
 Lombards pulled down the walls of the fortified towns in 
 Italy, partly because they were ignorant of, or disliked the 
 art of besieging, and partly with a view to prevent rebel- 
 lions. The African towns subject to Carthage were thus, 
 for the most part, open places, and the real Punic colonies 
 on the coast were the only ones which were fortified. The 
 consequences of this system had been seen in the wars of 
 Agathocles : the progress of an enemy in Africa could not 
 be stopped ; but the Africans were perhaps discouraged by 
 the unfortunate issue of the war of Agathocles. It is 
 almost inconceivable what could induce the Roman Senate 
 at this juncture to call back L. Manlius and his army, and 
 to think that Regulus and his army would alone be suffi- 
 
HISTORY OF ROME, 121 
 
 cient to carry on the operations against the Carthagi- 
 nians. 
 
 After the departure of Manhus in 497, Regulus de- 
 feated the Carthaginians near Adis". Their army was 
 excessively timid, and withdrew into inaccessible districts 
 to protect itself. Unwarlike and without any zeal as their 
 soldiers were, they were easily driven out of their fortified 
 places, and Regulus found no difficulty in taking Tunes, 
 in the immediate vicinity of Carthage. Africa seems to 
 have been looked upon at that time as a fabulous land of 
 monsters and dragons. The story about the huge serpent 
 on the river Bagradas, whose skin is said to have measured 
 one hundred and twenty feet, and whose defeat could only 
 be effected by the exertions of the whole Roman army, 
 although Livy3 related it quite seriously, must be regarded 
 as a fable. It may be, that the Romans had to sustain 
 losses through serpents ; but this particular tale is worth 
 nothing, and was, perhaps, borrowed from Naevius, who, 
 as a poet, might with all propriety invent such a marvel- 
 lous occurrence. 
 
 The Carthaginians were reduced to the last extremity, 
 their courage failed them, and they could not withdraw their 
 whole army from Sicily without giving up the island alto- 
 gether. An embassy was therefore sent to Regulus to sue 
 for peace. Regulus is one of those men who have a great 
 name in history without deserving it : in his prosperity he 
 was without mercy, intoxicated with victory, and ungene- 
 rous. There is a story, according to which he petitioned 
 the senate for his recall, because his farm was going to 
 ruin during his absence*. But we know from Polybius, 
 that he had set his heart upon concluding the war himself, 
 in order that his successors might not reap the fruits of 
 his labours; and Polybius shews at the same time, how 
 unreasonably he acted in demanding, with this object in 
 
 2 Vol. III. p. 587. 3 Epitome xviii. 
 
 * Vol. III. p. 586. 
 
122 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 view, from the Carthaginians, things which were utterly 
 impossible, and made the terms of the peace much more 
 distressing than those which they actually obtained at the 
 end of the war^. He demanded the recognition of the 
 supremacy of Rome; an offensive and defensive alliance 
 with Rome; assistance in all her undertakings; the sur- 
 render of all their ships of war except one, but if the 
 Romans should require it, then Carthage was to build 
 fifty ships of war to assist them. It was further demanded 
 that they should give up Sicily, Sardinia, Corsica, and 
 the Balearian islands ; surrender all the Roman prisoners 
 without ransom, but pay ransom for the Punic ones, and 
 pay all the expenses of the war. These terms were un- 
 reasonable, and Regulus deserved the fate which awaited 
 him. Carthage would not submit to them, and declared 
 that it would rather fight to the last. Fresh preparations 
 were accordingly made, all the citizens capable of bearing 
 arms were enlisted, and mercenaries were drawn together 
 from all parts. Among them was the celebrated Xan- 
 thippus. Diodorus^ calls him a Spartan, which he cer- 
 tainly was not. He was a Lacedaemonian, or a Neoda- 
 modes (v£oSajw,aJS>)j), the descendant of a freedman, who in 
 his education had been subjected to the rigid Spartan dis- 
 cipline^. The accounts which we have of the Spartan 
 affairs at this time are obscure ; but it may be regarded as 
 a fact, that while every Spartan was obliged to obey the 
 laws of Lycurgus, strangers, and not merely Lacedaemo- 
 nians or Neodamodes, but even the children of proxeni, 
 were allowed to adopt the same aywy^. Xanthippus came 
 to Carthage as the leader of a band of Peloponnesians, 
 which he himself had probably collected at Taenarus, the 
 chief recruiting place at that time. He declared openly, 
 that the Carthaginians had not been defeated by the supe- 
 riority of the Romans, but through the ignorance of their 
 
 * Vol. III. p. 588. ^ XXIII. Eclog. 13. p. 504. 
 
 ' Polybius, I. 32. 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 123 
 
 own generals. It was now a fortunate circumstance that 
 civil and military powers were kept distinct at Carthage. 
 When Xanthippus was introduced into the senate of Car- 
 thage and requested to propose a better plan for carrying 
 on the war, he reminded them that they had a great 
 number of elephants^, and a better and more numerous 
 cavalry 9 than the Romans ; that they ought to seek the 
 plains and compel the Romans to take refuge in the moun- 
 tains; and that it was cowardice alone which could wish to 
 transfer the war into the mountains. Xanthippus was ap- 
 pointed to the supreme command of the army; a great 
 resolution on the part of Carthage ! He arranged the 
 army according to his own views; and after the soldiers 
 were well drilled and exercised, he marched out into the 
 open field to the great astonishment of the Romans, which 
 was increased on the appearance of the elephants. The 
 Romans endeavoured to protect themselves against these 
 animals by deep lines, and by placing numerous cohorts, 
 one behind the other in the centre, and the cavalry on 
 the wings. In a few moments the Romans were routed 
 and driven back to their camp : their left wing, in order to 
 avoid the elephants, moved towards the right wing of the 
 Carthaginians, and put them to flight, but the right wing 
 of the Romans was crushed by the elephants. Regulus 
 and five hundred Romans were taken prisoners, and 2000 
 of the left wing escaped in the confusion of the pursuit to 
 Clupea. 
 
 Xanthippus had the wisdom, after this victory, to return 
 
 * The Carthaginians had not been long familiai- with the use of 
 elephants in war, and I believe that it was at the beginning of this 
 war that they used them for the first time, for we do not find them 
 mentioned either in the war against Dionysius, or in those against 
 Agathocles. In India, elephants have been used in war from time 
 immemorial, and it must have been there that the Macedonians be- 
 came acquainted with their use. — N. 
 
 ^ Regulus had not more than about 20,000 men, and consequently 
 not more than from 1500 to 1800 horsemen. The Numidian cavalry 
 in the Cai'thaginian armies was always very considerable. — N. 
 
124 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 to his country with the rich presents of the Carthaginians, 
 and to withdraw himself from the jealousy of a foreign 
 nation. The Romans sent out their whole fleet to rescue 
 the garrison of Clupea ; but the Carthaginians, encouraged 
 by their victory, equipped their fleet and sailed out to 
 meet the enemy, but they were defeated. The statement 
 which we read in Polybius, that a hundred and fourteen 
 Carthaginian ships were taken, is false: the word exuTov 
 should be omitted in his text, and then we have the right 
 number of ships, that is, fourteen ^°. The Roman consuls 
 then sailed to Clupea, took their soldiers on board, and 
 after having evacuated their last post in Africa, they sailed 
 along the southern coast of Sicily towards Syracuse. It 
 was just the season about the beginning of the dog-days, 
 in the first days of July, when the Sirocco is sometimes 
 accompanied by fearful storms ^^ ; and such a storm arose 
 while the Roman fleet was on its return. When vessels, 
 which solely depended on their oars, were overtaken by a 
 storm of this kind, they were completely destroyed in the 
 breakers on the harbourless coast. It was impossible for 
 the Roman ships to escape: nearly the whole fleet was 
 wrecked on the coast between Camarina and Pachynus. 
 This was the first great disaster; but in this very same 
 year it was to be followed by a second, in which a fleet 
 and an army were destroyed. 
 
 The Carthaginians now displayed double courage : they 
 sent considerable reinforcements to Sicily, and applied the 
 system of tactics which Xanthippus had taught them. The 
 Romans were somewhat intimidated, and sought war in 
 the mountains only. The expenses of building a fleet were 
 immense ; hence the Carthaginians wished to carry on the 
 war either by sea or by land, for to do both at once was 
 too expensive. The Romans, after having received the 
 news of the disaster which had befallen their fleet, had 
 immediately turned their thoughts towards building a new 
 
 '» Polybius, I. 36. Vol. in. p. 592. " Vol. iii p. 592, foil. 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 125 
 
 one ; they now made considerable conquests on the coast 
 of Sicily, and also took possession of Panormus. Here- 
 upon they sailed again with a large fleet towards the coast 
 of Africa; but after they had laid waste the coast of the 
 Lesser Syrtis, and had with great difficulty escaped destruc- 
 tion on the sands of the Syrtis, they returned to Panormus; 
 and while they were boldly steering across the sea towards 
 the mouth of the Tiber, they were surprised by a fearful 
 storm, in which nearly the whole fleet was wrecked. It is 
 of importance to know, that south winds are always storms 
 in the Mediterranean — the Noti in Horace are heavy gales 
 — and of the same character as our north-west winds, 
 which are harmless in the Mediterranean, where all south 
 winds, from south-west to south-east, are equally destruc- 
 tive. But in the neighbourhood of the Syrtes (from"; the 
 verb a-upeiv) the north-west wind is equally dangerous. Ves- 
 sels, which approach too near, are in such a wind driven 
 upon the sandbanks with incredible force. The danger 
 is increased by the circumstance, that the currents which 
 come from the Adriatic and the Euxine meet in the 
 Syrtes. The accounts which the ancients give of the dan- 
 gers of the Syrtes are by no means exaggerated. At the 
 present time, attention has again been directed towards 
 those dangerous places. 
 
 The loss of the second fleet was a blow which bowed 
 down the courage of the Romans : however they were re- 
 solved not to make peace, but to try how far they could 
 carry on the war with more moderate exertions. In this 
 manner the year 501 approached, four years after the de- 
 feat of Regulus. From the year 499 fortune had, on the 
 whole, favoured the Carthaginians. But the fourth pe- 
 riod of the war now ended with the victory gained by 
 L. Caecilius Metellus over Hasdrubal near Panormus. 
 The Carthaginian general had hoped to turn to his ad- 
 vantage the fear which the Romans had shewn, ever since 
 the defeat of Regulus, of the Numidian horsemen and 
 the cavalry, and to conquer Panormus. He advanced to 
 
126 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 the distance of about two miles from the town — he may 
 have had a secret understanding with some persons in the 
 place. It was harvest time, and he ravaged the fields. 
 Metellus proved himself to be a great general, and in 
 order to draw the Carthaginians into a position where 
 their elephants would be of no avail, he drew up his lines 
 of light-armed troops before the trenches of the camp, 
 which was close by the walls of Panormus. The legions 
 acted on the wings, and the light -armed infantry was 
 driven back by the elephants into the camp. The Car- 
 thaginians followed, and advanced nearer the camp and the 
 town. The Romans, who were constantly supplied with 
 fresh missiles from the town, sent showers of javelins 
 and darts upon the Carthaginians and their elephants. 
 During the confusion which was thus produced, and while 
 the Carthaginians were making a valiant attack, the Roman 
 legions sallied forth from the camp on the left flank of 
 the enemy. The elephants were wounded, grew wild, and 
 threw themselves upon the Carthaginian cavalry and in- 
 fantry. The Carthaginians were routed, and their confu- 
 sion was so great, that more than one hundred elephants 
 fell into the hands of the Romans. It was the greatest 
 defeat that the Carthaginians had yet suffered in the open 
 field '^. It revived the courage of the Romans and dis- 
 heartened their enemies. The Carthaginians were now 
 confined to the extreme west of the island, where they 
 possessed only Lilybaeum, Eryx, and Drepana. 
 
 In the year after this victory the siege of Lilybaeum 
 was commenced, and during the whole of this last period 
 of the war we hear of nothing but sieges, which are in- 
 terrupted only by blockades. The siege of Lilybaeum is 
 one of the most obstinate efforts against one place; and 
 from the moment it began, the war may be called the 
 Lilybaean war, just as one part of the Peloponnesian 
 war is called the Decelean. All the five periods of the 
 first Punic war might, in fact, be called by particular 
 
 '* Compare Vol. in. p 597. foil. 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 127 
 
 names, which would indeed assist our memory greatly, but I 
 will not recommend such a method, for there is much that 
 may be said against it. The fifth and last act of this war 
 is the noblest, and for Carthage also the most glorious : 
 the Romans shewed only perseverance and obstinacy. 
 Concerning the civil history of Rome during this time 
 little can be said, for few changes were made, and the 
 crisis was over for a time. 
 
128 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 LECTURE V. 
 
 EMBASSY OF REGULUS TO ROME. — LILYBAEUM. — EFFECTS 
 
 OF THE WAR UPON SICILY. SIEGE OF LILYBAEUM. 
 
 DEFEAT OF THE ROMANS AT DREPANA. — WRECK OF 
 
 THE ROMAN TRANSPORTS NEAR CAMARINA. HAMILCAR 
 
 BARCA. HERCTE. ERYX. 
 
 I DID not mention yesterday the embassy of Regulus 
 to Rome. Every one remembers the beautiful verses of 
 Horace, and what Cicero says, concerning Regulus ; but 
 Palmerius and Beaufort have shewn, that this tragedy is a 
 complete fiction^ and that it was probably invented be- 
 cause the Romans allowed that the terms of peace pro- 
 posed by Regulus were abominable, and that he had to 
 make amends for his shameful conduct. Beaufort has drawn 
 attention to a fragment of Diodorus", according to which 
 two noble Carthaginians were retained at Rome as hos- 
 tages for the life of Regulus. The same fragment states, 
 that after the death of Regulus at Carthage, one of them 
 was killed at Rome by the relatives of Regulus, and that 
 the other would have suffered the most cruel death, had 
 not the Romans rescued him from his prison. It was pro- 
 bably this crime, committed by the family of Regulus, 
 which caused the fabrication of the whole story about the 
 death of Regulus. Previous to the time of Polybius it 
 does not seem to have been known ; for had he been ac- 
 quainted with the tragic fate of Regulus as later winters 
 tell it, he would not have passed it over in silence. 
 
 ' Compare Vol. iii. p. 598^ foil. Palmerius, Exercit. in Auct. 
 Graec. p. 151, foil. * Fragm. lib. xxiv. p. 566, ed. Wesseling. 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 129 
 
 The common account of the death of Regulus may be 
 effaced from the pages of history without any scruple. 
 
 Although the war had now lasted for nearly fourteen 
 years, there had been only two battles in the open field, 
 and the Carthaginians were, nevertheless, confined to the 
 western corner of Sicily. The siege of Lilybaeum began 
 in the year 502, and the Lilybaean war lasted full nine 
 years : in the tenth, peace was concluded. The siege was 
 undertaken by the Romans under unfavourable circum- 
 stances : the Carthaginians were masters of the sea, but 
 they had limited their naval forces as much as possible on 
 account of their enormous expense. The Romans encou- 
 raged by their late success, had again built a fleet, though 
 likewise of a limited number of ships ; but it was sufficient, 
 if not to render the communication between Carthage and 
 Lilybaeum impossible, yet to make it difficult. Lilybaeum 
 was the only Punic town in Sicily, and had been built after 
 the destruction of Motye by the elder Dionysius^. Its 
 name is Punic, and shows the unpoetical character of the 
 Carthaginians, for according to Bochart it signifies nothing 
 but Le Lubi, that is, a place opposite to Libya. The co- 
 lony was undoubtedly a mixed one, like Carthage in Spain, 
 consisting of Punians and Libyans, and had now become a 
 place of considerable importance. Panormus had originally 
 had a Punic population ; but it was now Hellenized, and 
 was, like all the rest, completely a Greek town, for the inha- 
 bitants of Sicily were all Greeks, even those who acknow- 
 ledged the sovereignty of Carthage. Lilybaeum had an 
 excellent harbour, which was the more safe, as it was diffi- 
 cult to sail into it on account of the sandbanks and the la- 
 goons. The sand, which is driven thither from the Syrtes 
 by south winds, has in the course of time completely filled 
 the harbour, and the present town of Marsala has no har- 
 bour, but only a miserable road^ Drepana has preserved 
 its excellent harbour to this day, although the Emperor 
 
 ^ Vol. III. p. 601. * See a different opinion in Vol. in. p. 605. 
 
 K 
 
130 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 Charles V. endeavoured to destroy it from cowardice and 
 fear of the Moors. Drepana was about fifteen miles 
 from Lilybaeum, and not far from Drepana was mount 
 Eryx. Such was the small district occupied by the Car- 
 thaginians, and the war, which was concentrated there for 
 nine years, caused the misery of that part of the island, 
 for wherever armies were encamped, everything was de- 
 stroyed. The insurrection during the second Punic war 
 completed the distress of Sicily, and at the time of the 
 Servile war, it became a perfect wilderness. The present 
 wretched condition of the island, after the lapse of so 
 many centuries, and after the miseries inflicted upon it 
 by so many destructive governments, is, with the sole 
 exception of Syracuse, not worse than it was at that 
 time, as far as the cultivation of the soil is concerned. 
 The population, however, is now more brutalized than it 
 was under the Romans, when at least arts and sciences 
 were cultivated ; for with the exception of the Portuguese, 
 the Sicilians are in the lowest stage of European civiliza- 
 tion. 
 
 The Romans began the siege of Lilybaeum in a bold 
 manner^. They stationed their fleet near the place and 
 cruised before its harbour, so that Carthage had no direct 
 communication with Lilybaeum. They hoped to conquer 
 it by force or by treachery ; and the latter would probably 
 have been the case, had not a faithful Achaean of the 
 name of Alexo informed Himilco, the commander of the 
 garrison, of the existence of a plot among the mercenaries 
 for that object. Alexo was a man of honour, although 
 he belonged to a contemptible class. The Romans had 
 adopted the Greek method of besieging : in their wars 
 against the Samnites they had only used towers, and 
 simply blockaded the towns of their enemy, but no regu- 
 lar sieges are mentioned previous to the first Punic war^. 
 
 * Compare vol. in. p. 602. 
 
 ® There is a fragment of Diodorus in which the Romans are 
 made to request the Carthaginians not to force them to learn mari- 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 131 
 
 The Romans made indeed great progress, and were very 
 successful with their fire-engines. It is a mistake of 
 Polybius to state, that at the commencement of the siege 
 they threw down six towers'^; this circumstance belongs to 
 a later time. Hannibal, a bold Carthaginian admiral, kept 
 up the communication between Carthage and Lilybaeum 
 by making his way through the Roman fleet. When Car- 
 thage heard that the besieged were reduced to extremes, 
 and resolved to send reinforcements to Sicily, he con- 
 ducted them safely into the harbour, to the great con- 
 sternation of the Romans. The besieged immediately 
 made a sally, which, however, proved unsuccessful, not- 
 withstanding their immense exertions. But a fearful west 
 wind soon after accomplished what men had not been 
 able to achieve. The storm blew in the direction of the 
 Roman camp, which was full of fire-engines and com- 
 bustibles, and as the besieged threw fire into the camp, 
 all the machines, towers, and galleries of the Romans 
 soon became a prey to the flames. The six towers which, 
 according to Polybius, had been thrown down at the com- 
 mencement of the siege, did not fall earlier than just 
 before the catastrophe brought about by the hurricane. 
 The Romans now confined themselves to blockading the 
 fortress, though they must have been convinced that they 
 could thereby effect nothing. However they attempted, 
 like Cardinal Richelieu, to obstruct and destroy the en- 
 trance of the harbour ; but they succeeded only so far as 
 to render the communication between the fortress and the 
 sea less free. The Roman fleet was stationed near Lily- 
 baeum, and that of the Carthaginians in the port of 
 Drepana. 
 
 time warfare also, for, they said, they had always been learning new 
 tactics, and had always soon conquered those of whom they had 
 Jearnt. — N. 
 
 ^ Polybius, I. 42. In vol. ill. p. 603, Niebuhr seems to liave 
 adopted the statement of Polybius without expressing any doubt as 
 to its correctness. 
 
 K 2 
 
132 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 In the year 503, the Romans sent reinforcements to 
 their troops, as well as to their fleet, without the Car- 
 thaginians being aware of it. One of the consuls of this 
 year was P. Claudius, the son of Appius Claudius the 
 Blind, who had all the faults of his father without any 
 of his great qualities. He resolved with foolhardiness to 
 attack the Carthaginian fleet in the port of Drepana. 
 Among the Carthaginian generals there were now some 
 whom experience had raised far above mediocrity, whereas, 
 among the Romans, there was not one of any great merit ; 
 and while the Romans were superior in their soldiers, 
 the Carthaginians excelled them in their generals.*^ Clau- 
 dius manned his galleys in the stillness of the night, and 
 before daybreak he sailed into the port of Drepana, ex- 
 pecting to find the Carthaginians unprepared. They had 
 not indeed expected the enemy, but their general was 
 watchful. He quickly manned his ships ; and while the 
 Roman vessels were running into the extensive harbour 
 at the western entrance, in a long line, he led his ships 
 into the sea along the opposite coast. When the Romans 
 discovered what was going on, and that it was the in- 
 tention of the Carthaginians to drive them into the har- 
 bour, and there to throw them on the coast, which was 
 occupied by Carthaginian troops, a signal was given and 
 they hastily retreated. But while the ships which wei'e 
 hastening to get out pressed upon and injured those 
 which were still running into the harbour, the Cartha- 
 ginian fleet drew up in battle array, and attacked the 
 Romans. It seems that the Romans had given up using 
 their boarding-bridges, for had they made use of them 
 the issue of the engagement might have been different 9. 
 The Romans were completely defeated, and lost upwards 
 of ninety ships ; a small number only escaped to the road 
 of Lilybaeum. 
 
 The Carthaginians had now decided advantages over 
 
 * Vol. III. p. 607. ^ Compare vol. iii. p. 605, foil. 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 133 
 
 the Romans. P. Claudius was called to Rome to appoint 
 a dictator; for after the curiae had lost their privileges, 
 the right of the consul to nominate a dictator had gra- 
 dually become a right to appoint him'^. He insultingly 
 appointed M. Claudius Glycias, the son of a freedman. 
 The Fasti mention only the name of his father, but not 
 that of his grandfather, and he was consequently yet a 
 libertinus. Claudius was tried for high treason, and ac- 
 cording to all appearance sent into exile, where he died 
 soon after. His sister, a vestal virgin, while riding 
 through the crowds in the circus, loudly expressed her 
 regret that her brother was no longer alive, since, by the 
 defeat of another fleet, he might have sent a great many 
 more of the rabble out of the world". She, too, was 
 accused and condemned to a heavy penalty as guilty of 
 high treason against the people. 
 
 Another disaster yet awaited the Romans. They sent 
 a convoy of eight hundred ships'- with provisions to re- 
 lieve the wants of the army at Lilybaeum. It was escorted 
 by a considerable fleet, under the command of the consul 
 C. Junius. He sailed through the straits of Messana to 
 Syracuse, took in a cargo there, and sent a part of the 
 convoy under escort to Lilybaeum, intending to follow 
 himself afterwards with the remainder. This was very 
 imprudent; for the accompanying ships of war were not 
 suflicient against the powerful fleet of the Carthaginians, 
 which frightened the Roman detachment so much that it 
 took shelter on the bad road-stead of Phintias. The 
 Carthaginian admiral Carthalo would not attack them 
 there, but still succeeded in destroying many of the trans- 
 ports. Had the Romans received speedy support, the 
 
 '" Compare vol. i. p. 566, foil. 
 
 " Suetonius, Tiberius, c. 2; Livy, Epitome xix. 
 
 '2 This fact is worth remembering, as it refutes the false notion, 
 that the commerce of the ancient world was of no great importance ; 
 it shews that navigation in the Mediterranean was carried on upon 
 a very large scale. — N. 
 
134 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 affair might yet have turned out well. But Junius de- 
 layed his departure, and when he sailed from Syracuse 
 and heard what had taken place, and when the Car- 
 thaginians shewed themselves, he too sought shelter on 
 bad road-steads near Camarina. A frightful south- storm 
 now arose. Carthalo, adroit and active, doubled cape Pa- 
 chynus towards the north, where he found protection 
 against the wind. The whole of the Roman fleet, the 
 ships of war, as well as the transports, were thrown on 
 the rocks and the coast with such vehemence, that, as 
 Polybius^^ says, not a plank was saved which could be 
 used again. The Romans were now unable any longer 
 to compete with the Carthaginians at sea; fortune seemed 
 to be against them, and they renounced the sea entirely, 
 with the exception of a few ships. 
 
 The only advantage which the Romans gained in the 
 course of this year, was the taking of the town of Eryx. 
 The town itself was situated on the declivity of the moun- 
 tain, and the temple of Venus on the top of it formed the 
 acropolis. The town was taken by surprise. 
 
 Carthage was now the sole mistress of the sea. It 
 seems to have been about this time that the Carthaginians 
 made the memorable attempt to contract a loan of more 
 than two thousand talents with Ptolemy Philadelphus. 
 But the king of Egypt refused to comply with their re- 
 quest, as he wished to remain neutraP*. Carthage had 
 to raise extraordinary contributions, and the continuation 
 of the war drained her last resources. 
 
 It was at this time that the great Hamilcar Barca ap- 
 peared on the scene of action. It is not certain whether 
 he belonged to any of the great families at Carthage ^^. 
 
 '^ I. 54. '* Appian, De Reb. Sicul., vol. i. p. 92, ed. Schweigh. 
 
 '^ The surname Barca is of the same meaning as Barak in the 
 Old Testament, and we may safely recognize in it the Semitic word 
 barak, i. e. lightning ; it maj' also signify blessing, but the other in- 
 terpretation is more suitable. The Romans, in like manner, called 
 the Scipios, the Jiilmina belli, ami the Turks called their great Sultan, 
 Bayazid, lightning. — N. 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 135 
 
 It might almost be said that he was a greater man than 
 even his son Hannibal. There is no parallel case in his- 
 tory of a father and his son being so eminently great in 
 their art as Hamilcar and Hannibal. To be a good general 
 is an art ; it requires genius, and the talent for it must be 
 born with a man ; the mechanical part alone can be learnt. 
 Hamilcar began his operations with a boldness which 
 surpasses everything of its kind. In the neighbourhood 
 of Palermo there is a mountain, monte Pellegrino, with 
 the convent of Santa Rosalia ; in ancient times it bore the 
 name of Hercte, (EJ^xt^, ^. e. a prison), and near it was a 
 small harbour just sufficient to form a landing place ^^l 
 Here Hamilcar, who had just returned from an expedition 
 against Bruttium, appeared unexpectedly with a squadron, 
 took possession of the mountain either by surprise or by 
 treachery, established himself, and made excursions in which 
 he ravaged the Roman coast as far as Cumae. On this 
 mountain, Hamilcar maintained himself, as in a fortress, for 
 three years (504-508), during which he often suffered from 
 extreme want of provisions, but he made excursions both 
 by land and sea, and tried to wear out the Romans. But 
 after the third year, he found an opportunity of making 
 himself master of the town of Eryx. He left Hercte, 
 and with a detachment of his troops he occupied Eryx, 
 where he was blockaded by the Romans who were in 
 possession of the top and the foot of the mountain. The 
 communication with the sea was much more difficult here 
 than on mount Hercte, and the corps which he com- 
 manded consisted of profligate mercenaries, hundreds of 
 whom were ready to deliver him up into the hands of 
 the enemy ; but he inspired these faithless savages with 
 such a degree of admiration, that they did not venture to 
 make the attempt. Polybius justly remarks ^^, that it is 
 impossible to relate the history of these years, on account 
 of the apparent uniformity of the occurrences. But the 
 engagements on this small space were, nevertheless, often 
 
 '* Compare vol. m. p. 610. " i. 66. 
 
136 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 very bloody, and although the troops of Hamilcar were oc- 
 casionally beaten, the Romans gained nothing decisive, and 
 never made any progress beyond the momentary advan- 
 tage. The newly-discovered fragments of Diodorus^^ con- 
 tain an anecdote about Hamilcar which is beautiful, and 
 shews his character in the clearest light. In the year 
 preceding the close of the war, the Roman consul, C. 
 Fundanius marched out against him ; the troops of Ha- 
 milcar were defeated through the fault of the commanders 
 of the infantry, and many were slain. Hamilcar sent to 
 the Roman general and asked for a truce, that he might 
 be able to bury the dead^-. The consul sent him back 
 the answer, that he ought rather to be concerned about 
 the living, and capitulate. Hamilcar either did not re- 
 ceive the bodies at all, or only with this insulting reply. 
 A short time afterwards another engagement took place, 
 in which the Romans suffered great losses. Heralds were 
 now sent by the Romans or their allies to effect the 
 delivery of the dead, and Hamilcar granted their re- 
 quest by saying, that he would always be willing to 
 allow them to take back the dead after a battle, for he 
 made war against the living only. This answer was either 
 the simple expression of his own feelings, or was intended 
 to put the Romans to the blush. This and similar anec- 
 dotes were probably derived from Philinus, who is said to 
 have always represented the Carthaginians in a more 
 favourable light than the Romans. 
 
 >s Lib. XXIV. 2 and 3, p. 60, ed. Dindorf. 
 
 '^ This pietas towards the dead was generally observed in the 
 wars of the ancients, but more especially by the Greeks ; the Ro- 
 mans were little concerned about the dead. — N. 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 137 
 
 LECTURE VI. 
 
 THIRD ROMAN FLEET. — VICTORY OF THE ROMANS NEAR 
 THE AEGATES. — CONCLUSION OF THE WAR AND PEACE. 
 SICILY THE FIRST ROMAN PROVINCE. CONSTITU- 
 TIONAL CHANGES WITHIN THE LAST FIFTY YEARS. 
 
 WAR AGAINST THE FALISCANS. INSURRECTION OF THE 
 
 MERCENARIES AT CARTHAGE. — SARDINIA AND CORSICA. 
 ILLYRICUM. 
 
 The peculiar nature of the war gradually convinced 
 the Romans, that it could not possibly be brought to a 
 close without extraordinary exertions. It was therefore 
 decreed, for the third time, to build a fleet; but as the 
 state was no longer able to raise the necessary sums by a 
 property-tax, a special loan was contracted with wealthy 
 individuals for the building and equipping a fleet of two 
 hundred ships of war ^, on condition that the money should 
 be returned if the undertaking should turn out favourably. 
 This condition implied, of course, that the advanced sums 
 were not to be returned if the undertaking failed". The 
 taxation of property, which was generally fixed at a certain 
 rate per thousand, would have ruined the poorer citizens, 
 and to raise any sums in this manner would have been im- 
 possible. The loans which the Roman state contracted 
 were usually different from those of modern times; but 
 those which were contracted during the Hannibalian war^ 
 approached nearer to our system"*. 
 
 ' According to Orosius, Aurelius Victoi% and Eutropius, it con- 
 sisted of 300 ships. 
 
 2 Polybius, I. 59. ^ Livy, xxvi. 36 ; XXIX. 16. 
 
 ■* Down to the seventeenth century all loans were repaid as soon 
 
138 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 The Roman fleet was placed under the command of the 
 consul C. Lutatius Catulus and the praetor Q. Valerius 
 Falto, in the year 510. The ships were no longer as 
 awkward as before, for at Lilybaeum the Romans had 
 taken an excellent galley, which they now used as a model 
 for their two hundred quinqueremes^ They also provided 
 themselves with better sailors, whom they selected from 
 all the maritime towns of Italy; and the best soldiers of 
 the legions were used as marines. Boarding-bridges were 
 no longer used, for the Romans were now resolved to let 
 the issue depend upon an open sea-fight. The Cartha- 
 ginians had entirely neglected their fleet from want of 
 money ; and as their patriotism was not as strong as that 
 of the Romans, no extraordinary exertions had been made. 
 They manned and repaired all their old ships to convey 
 provisions and reinforcements to Lilybaeum, Drepana, and 
 Eryx, which felt very much the want of both. Their fleet, 
 loaded with corn, arrived at the Aegatian islands. In 
 order to do without a great number of transports, the pro- 
 visions were conveyed in ships of war. Their marines 
 were not of the best kind, and the whole expedition had 
 been got up in too great a hurry. The Romans were 
 cruizing along the coast, and the Carthaginians intended to 
 land their provisions, in order to take on board Hamilcar 
 and the best of his soldiers as marines, and then to venture 
 on an open sea-fight against the Romans. The latter saw 
 that everything would be lost if the Carthaginians were 
 allowed to carry out their plan, and determined on attack- 
 ing the Carthaginians before they had attained their 
 object^. The Romans, well prepared, sailed out to meet 
 
 as it could be done, in order to avoid the continued payment of inte- 
 rest. In many cases, however, it was impossible to follow this 
 system, and in Holland, Spain, and at Niirnberg, there still exist 
 bonds which were signed in the fifteenth century. 
 
 * Poly bins, i. 39. 
 
 ^ Corn is a dangerous cargo, and vessels laden with it are easily 
 upset, if it is not laden in sacks. There are many instances of ships 
 with corn having been upset. — N. 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 139 
 
 the enemy. Hanno, the Carthaginian admiral, endeavour- 
 ed, with a favourable wind and full sails'^, to cross over 
 from the island of Hiera to Lilybaeum. He thus fell on 
 the Romans with double force, and had decided advan- 
 tages over them. The Carthaginians boldly accepted the 
 battle ; but both the cargo of the ships and the bad con- 
 dition of the Carthaginian soldiers rendered it easy for the 
 Romans to gain a complete victory. Seventy Carthaginian 
 ships were taken, many others were sunk, and the rest 
 dispersed*^. 
 
 The Carthaginians, unable to equip a second fleet, 
 began to negotiate for peace. According to the account of 
 Polybius^, which seems to be probable, Hamilcar Barca 
 was chosen to conduct the negotiations. It was soon 
 agreed, that Sicily should be evacuated and surrendered 
 to the Romans, that Carthage should pay a contribution of 
 2200 talents, and restore all Roman prisoners and deserters 
 without ransom.^'' The Romans had also demanded, that 
 Hamilcar should lay down his arms and return home as a 
 prisoner of war ; but he had rejected this humiliating con- 
 dition, and declared, that he would rather die sword in hand 
 than return home in that condition". It was agreed, that 
 the peace should not be valid until the Roman people had 
 given their sanction to it ; and when the terms of the peace 
 were laid before the people at Rome, the contributions 
 were raised by one thousand talents, and it was further 
 demanded that the Carthaginians should give up all the 
 smaller islands between Sicily and Italy. This circum- 
 stance alone is sufiicient to shew, that the Liparian islands 
 were then still in the possession of the Carthaginians. 
 
 " Galleys often used no sails at all oi* small ones, but when the 
 wind was favourable, large sails were hoisted. — N. 
 
 ** Polybius, I. 61. Compare Diodorus, Fragm. lib. xxiv. Eclog. 
 3, p. 509; Oros. iv. 10; Eutrop. ii. 16. 
 
 ® I. 62. Compare Valerius Max. vi. 6 2. 
 
 •" Polybius, I. 62; iii. 27. Compare Appian, De Reb, Sicul. 
 p, 9t, ed. Schvieigh. ; Kutrop. ii. 16. " Cornel. Nepos, Hamilc. 1. 
 
140 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 After this peace, which terminated the first Punic war, 
 Sicily was constituted as a Roman province. This was a 
 new system, and Sicily was the first country to which it 
 was applied. A province, in the Roman sense of the word, 
 was a country in which a Roman general (either during the 
 time of his magistratus curulis, or, in case of his year of 
 oflice having elapsed, during the time for which his m- 
 perium was prolonged,) exercised over his soldiers, as well 
 as over the inhabitants of the country, the same power as 
 in times of war, by virtue of the lex de imperio^^. It is a 
 wrong notion, that the inhabitants of a province were not 
 the owners of the soil; they were unquestionably the own- 
 ers of the soil, though not according to the Roman, but 
 according to the provincial law^^. Within the bound- 
 aries of a province there were also civitates liberae and 
 civitates foederatae^'^ . The property of those who had 
 lost it during the war was, of course, disposed of by the 
 Romans in what manner they pleased. But the dominions 
 of Hiero, who retained his title of king, the Mamertines 
 and Tauromenium, became civitates foederatae ; whereas 
 Segesta, Centoripa, and others, were entirely free. Hence- 
 forward, there was usually one praetor and one quaestor in 
 Sicily. 
 
 All we know about the changes made in the Roman 
 constitution during the last fifty years, is little more than 
 nothing, and I think myself very fortunate in having dis- 
 covered some isolated traces. One of them is, that in the 
 year 506 a second praetor was appointed, as is evident 
 from a passage in Lydus "De Magistratibus " ^^ Another 
 great change which took place during the war has, from an 
 accidental circumstance, not been fully recognised, and I 
 almost think that I am the first that has drawn attention to 
 it. Dionysius^*^, who calls the first Punic war 4>o<vjxoj 
 
 '* Compare vol. HI. p. 620. '^ Vol. iii. p. 618. '^ Vol. iii. p. 616. 
 '* I. 38. 45. Compare vol. iii. p. 619, foil.; Livy, Epit. lib. xix. 
 '« VII. p. 475, ed. Sylburg, 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 141 
 
 ■ffoAe/xof, says, that down to its commencement, the Roman 
 commonwealth paid every year the sum of 500 minas to 
 defray the expenses of the pubhc festivals and games. 
 This payment then ceased, but the festivals did not 
 cease; and, from this time forward, wealthy individuals 
 were obliged to cover the expenses of the great festivals. 
 During and after the second Punic war, we find it ex- 
 pressly stated, that the expenses were defrayed by the 
 aediles. This was an important change, for as the aedile- 
 ship was an introduction to the higher offices, the change 
 could not remain without the most serious consequences. 
 I wonder that Polybius did not see its importance; for 
 while he blames the Carthaginians for selling the highest 
 state-offices, he says nothing about the Romans, who had 
 in reality adopted the same practice ; for if an aedile did 
 not gain great popularity by the splendour of his games, 
 he could scarcely hope to obtain any of the higher offices 
 afterwards. 
 
 A short time before the beginning of the first Punic 
 war another change had been made, which affected the 
 character of the senate. Originally there had been two 
 quaestors, but their number was doubled, and from the 
 year 485 it was increased to eight ^'^. He who had been 
 quaestor had the right scntentiam dicendi in senatu^ and the 
 censors were obliged to make him a senator as soon as a 
 vacancy occurred. The senate had, at first, been the 
 representative of the gentes and curiae. After the ple- 
 beians had become eligible, it was left to the discretion of 
 the censors to choose persons to fill the vacancies which 
 occurred in it, and the Roman senate was, perhaps, at no 
 time more wretchedly composed than during that period. 
 But this now ceased. If it were possible to devise any 
 means, by which the election of really great and good men 
 could be secured, it would undoubtedly be better than to 
 leave the elections in the hands of the vidgus imperitum ; 
 
 ''^ Compare vol. iii. p. 5,51. 
 
142 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 but that power of the censors was a dangerous anomaly, as 
 the example of Appius Claudius had shewn. After its 
 abolition the senate became more important : it was hence- 
 forth an assembly elected chiefly by the people. Eight 
 quaestors were appointed every year; after the lapse of 
 thirty years 240 persons had been quaestors, and a great 
 number of men were thus made senators by popular elec- 
 tion. The censors, however, continued to have the power 
 of expelling an unworthy individual. At a later period, 
 when the number of quaestors was still greater, and when 
 the tribunes of the people also became senators by virtue 
 of their office, the senate was altogether an assembly whose 
 members were elected by the people. 
 
 It was not without great difficulty that, after the peace 
 with Carthage, the Romans recovered from their exhaus- 
 tion : for although they had not seen the enemy in their 
 own country, immense treasures had been lost, and not 
 less than seven hundred ships i*^. Soon after the conclu- 
 sion of the peace the Romans had to carry on a war 
 against the Faliscans, which, however, was brought to a 
 close within six days'^. It is an almost unaccountable 
 phenomenon, that during the long period of the Punic war, 
 Italy, with the exception of one movement in Samnium, 
 remained tranquil; and, that after the termination of it, 
 an insignificant people like the Faliscans could venture to 
 rise against the victorious giant. It may be, that the truce 
 between them and the Romans had expired just at that 
 time ; and, that as the Romans may have been unwilling 
 to renew or fulfil the conditions of the truce, those unfor- 
 tunate men were induced by senseless individuals to resist 
 the demands of the Romans by force. 
 
 Soon after the return of the Carthaginian troops from 
 Sicily, Carthage was brought to the verge of destruction 
 by the insurrection of her mercenaries. They broke out 
 in open rebellion because the Carthaginians were unable 
 
 '^ Polybius, I. 63. '^ Polybius, i. 65; Livy, Epit. lib. xix. 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 143 
 
 to pay them their arrears, on account of the heavy contri- 
 butions which they had to pay to the Romans. The rebels 
 were encouraged and supported by the Italian deserters, 
 who feared lest they should be delivered up to the Romans. 
 One of these deserters, who had been a slave among the 
 Romans, was Spendius, a Campanian, who now made him- 
 self very conspicuous "'\ Carthage was brought to the 
 brink of destruction; and not only Libya, but Hippo and 
 Utica also revolted. The cruel manner in which the war 
 was carried on, shews the character of those Ligurian, Ibe- 
 rian, Gallic, and Libyan mercenaries : they were not real 
 savages, but they acted like savages -^ The Carthaginians 
 had often not an inch of territory beyond their walls and 
 fortifications. The war lasted for three years and four 
 months--. At length, under the command of Hamilcar, 
 and through the horrors committed by the rebellious mon- 
 sters themselves, the Carthaginians succeeded in suppress- 
 ing the insurrection and destroying the rebels. The Car- 
 thaginians had declared the revolted towns in Africa in a 
 state of blockade ; and here we find one of the instances in 
 which the Romans shewed themselves just even towards 
 their own rivals, for they recognized the right of blockade ; 
 exchanged their prisoners with the Carthaginians; forbade 
 all commerce with the rebels ; and protected the provisions 
 which were conveyed to Carthage -^ In the same spirit 
 they refused the offer of the Uticans, who proposed to sur- 
 render their town into the hands of the Romans. These 
 acts of justice make it the more surprising, that shortly after 
 the Romans committed such glaring injustice towards Car- 
 thage. During this war in Africa, the mercenaries in Sar- 
 dinia, the maritime towns of which were entirely Punic 
 down to the time of Cicero-*, had likewise revolted, and 
 
 "0 Polybius, I. 69, foil. ; Diodor. Fragm. lib. xxv. Excerpt. De 
 Virt. et Vit. p. 567. 
 
 " Similar instances occur in the Thirty years' war. — N. 
 
 " Pol}'bius, I. 88. Compare Diodorus, 1. c. and Livy, xxi. 2. 
 
 '3 Polybius, I. 83. " See vol. i. p. 170. 
 
144 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 had massacred the Carthaginian colonists in the island. 
 Polybius^^ thinks that, at first, they murdered only the 
 Carthaginian officers. The native Sards rose against the 
 mercenaries, expelled them from the island, and refused 
 obedience to Carthage. After the conclusion of the war 
 against the rebels in Africa, when the Carthaginians made 
 preparations to reconquer Sardinia, the Romans protected 
 the Sards and took possession of the island, threatening 
 the Carthaginians with a fresh war, if they would not give 
 up their claims to Sardinia and Corsica. The Carthagi- 
 nians, being too much exhausted to make any resistance, 
 were obliged to yield, and to pay an additional contribu- 
 tion of 1200 talents. This is one of the most detestable 
 acts of injustice in the history of Rome"^. 
 
 At the time of the Peloponnesian war a number of 
 small tribes had arisen in Illyricum, and formed themselves 
 into independent bodies; but after the time of Philip of 
 Macedonia a greater state had been formed, the origin of 
 which cannot be traced with accuracy; nor is it certain 
 whether it was founded by Bardylis, who is known to have 
 formed a kingdom in those districts at the time of Philip "7. 
 Not even the capital of this Illyrian state can be distinctly 
 ascertained ; and all we can say, is, that it must have been 
 situated somewhere in the neighbourhood of Ragusa. The 
 real Illyrian pirates must have been those who inhabited 
 the northern part of Dalmatia. The maritime power of 
 the Rhodians was still of considerable importance; but 
 about the year 520 the lUyrians became formidable in 
 those seas, and ravaged the defenceless coasts in a dreadful 
 manner ; and, unfortunately for them, they also ventured 
 to disturb the navigation of the allies of the Romans. 
 Ambassadors were sent to demand reparation ; but Teuta, 
 the queen of the Illyrians, answered, that piracy was the 
 
 ^ I. 79 and 88. '^ Polybius i. 88. Zonaras, viii. 18. 
 
 " Diodorus, xvi. 4; Cicero, De Off. ii. 11; Photiiis, Biblioth. 
 p. 530, ed. Bekker; Libanius, Orat. xxviii. p. 632. 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 145 
 
 national custom of her subjects, that she herself had not 
 wronged the Romans, and could not forbid her subjects 
 that which was their right and their privilege. One of the 
 ambassadors, probably a son of the great Tiberius Corun- 
 canius, said that it was the custom of the Romans to do 
 away with bad customs ; and Teuta, enraged at such bold- 
 ness, despatched assassins who murdered the ambassa- 
 dors ^^ Previous to this time the Romans had never 
 entertained the thought of crossing over to the eastern 
 coast of the Adriatic ; but they now sent out an army and 
 a fleet, which landed on the Dalmatian coast. Several 
 tribes were subdued ; and the Greek towns of Dyrrachium, 
 Apollonia, Corcyra, and others, solicited the protection of 
 the Romans, which was readily granted. The Romans 
 soon concluded an honourable peace with the Illyrians, and 
 thus became the real benefactors of the Greeks "9. It is 
 remarkable to see how much they courted the favour of 
 the Greeks : although the latter were very weak at that 
 time, yet the Romans sent ambassadors to them, and were 
 delighted with the honours conferred upon them by the 
 Greeks. The Corinthians bestowed upon them the right 
 of taking part in the Isthmian games ^°, and the Athenians 
 honoured them with the right of isopolity^^ Even before 
 this time, either immediately after or during the first 
 Punic war, the Romans had sent an embassy to the Aeto- 
 lians at a time when they were at war with the Acarna- 
 nians ; but the embassy had been scorned by the Aetolians, 
 and was not followed by any results ^^. 
 
 ^^ Polybius, II. 8 ; Appian, De Reb. Illyr. 7. ^9 Polybius, ii. 12. 
 2" Polybius, II. 12. " Zonaras, viii. 9. 
 
 ^^ Justin, xxviii. 1 and 2. 
 
14(> HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 LECTURE VII. 
 
 HISTORY STRENGTHENS THE BELIEF IN DIVINE PROVI- 
 DENCE. THE CISALPINE GAULS. WAR AGAINST THEM. 
 
 — HAMILCAR BARCA IN SPAIN. 
 
 As THE contemplation of nature shews an inherent in- 
 telligence, which may also he conceived as coherent with 
 nature, so does history on a hundred occasions shew an 
 intelligence distinct from nature, which conducts and de- 
 termines those things which seem to us accidental; and it 
 is not true that the study of history weakens the helief in 
 a divine providence : history is of all other kinds of know- 
 ledge the one which most decidedly leads to that belief. 
 Circumstances, which are called accidental, combine 
 in such a wonderful way with others to produce certain 
 results, that men evidently cannot do what they please. 
 For example, the Gauls alone would have been sufficient 
 to crush the Romans ; and had they invaded Italy during 
 the first Punic war, the Romans would have been utterly 
 unable to make their efforts against Sicily. Again, had 
 Alexander, the son of Pyrrhus, tried to avenge the mis- 
 fortunes of his father in Italy, — had he formed connexions 
 in Italy at the time when Regulus was defeated, the Ro- 
 mans would not have been able to offer any resistance. 
 But Alexander's eyes were directed towards petty con- 
 quests; the Gauls were quiet, and the Carthaginians had 
 no good generals, except at the close of the war : in short, 
 it was providential that all things combined to make the 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 147 
 
 Romans victorious. They themselves seem to have been 
 prepared for some outbreak, for ever since the time of 
 Pyrrhus they kept a strong garrison at Tarentum to pre- 
 vent any undertakings from the east. 
 
 About this time the Romans extended their relations 
 with foreign powers far and wide. Previous to the Punic 
 war, they had formed friendly connexions with Ptolemy 
 Philadelphus ', and they now did the same with Seleucus 
 Callinicus of Syria. 
 
 After the Gauls had lost the Romagna, they had fallen 
 into a kind of torpor. During the last fifty years they had 
 been perfectly quiet in their Cisalpine districts, either be- 
 cause there were no immigrations into their territory, or be- 
 cause they were satisfied in the belief that the Romans had 
 forgotten them. After the extermination of the Senones, 
 their beautiful country, Romagna and Urbino, had passed 
 into the hands of the Romans as a wilderness-. But a great 
 part of it was now occupied by Roman settlers according 
 to the right of the agrarian law. After the first Punic 
 war, about the year 522, the tribune C. Flaminius, by a 
 decree of the people, caused this ager Gallicus et Picenus 
 to be divided 3. He carried this decree under the vehe- 
 ment opposition of the senate (for we can now no longer 
 speak of patricians), and even of his own father*. This 
 distribution of Gallic territory and the settlement of a 
 great number of Romans on the frontiers, we are told, dis- 
 turbed the Boians who inhabited the country about Mo- 
 
 ' Vol. in. p. 548. 2 Vol. Ill p. 428 foil. 
 
 ' Cicero, Brutus, c. 14 ; Acadeni. ii. ,5. ; Polybius, ii. 21. 
 
 * (Cicero, De Inventione, ii. 17.) This opposition of his own father 
 
 shews the great change which had taken place. The father was like 
 
 his son, a plebeian, when he opposed the measure, but this cannot 
 
 surprise us, since, according to the Licinian Law, the plebeians had 
 
 the jus occupandorum agrorum, as well as the patricians. This law 
 
 of C. Flaminius is the first instance of a mere plebiscitum, without the 
 
 consent of tlie senate, becoming binding as a lex, in accordance witli 
 
 the Hortensian law.- — N. Compare vol, in. p. 418, foil. 
 
 L 2 
 
148 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 dena, Parma, and Bologna, as far as the Romagna. Fifty 
 years before, they had been almost extirpated, but the po- 
 pulation was now nearly restored. Ever since their first 
 conflict with the Romans, they had been longing for an op- 
 portunity to take vengeance upon them ; and now, when the 
 Romans settled on their frontiers, they began negotiations 
 with the Transalpine Gauls, among whom great movements 
 were going on at this time. Several years, however, passed 
 away without anything further being done. The nego- 
 tiations with the Transalpine Gauls caused great appre- 
 hensions among the Romans, and when at length an 
 innumerable host of Gauls invaded Italy, the war broke 
 out in the year 527 ^. The swarms which now descended 
 into Italy from the north, were like those of the Cimbrians 
 in after times. This war is memorable on account of the 
 extraordinary preparations of the Romans, who made a ge- 
 neral levy throughout Italy. The Italian allies obeyed 
 this time also, and even more readily than ever ; for 
 they anticipated with horror an invasion like the one which 
 had taken place about 150 years before. The Romans 
 sent one army to Ariminum and stationed another in Etru- 
 ria. The consul, C. Atilius, was still in Sardinia with his 
 army and fleet. A corps of reserve was stationed in the 
 neighbourhood of Rome. All the Italian allies capable of 
 bearing arms were kept ready to march. A list of them is 
 given by Polybius^, but it shews that he himself was not 
 quite clear about the matter. The numbers are unfor- 
 tunately not exact, and Schweighaiiser's computation is 
 quite wrong, for he speaks of the legions as if they had 
 not been contained in the census. But this is the only in- 
 stance in which I can say that Polybius used materials 
 without being perfectly clear about them. According to 
 him the whole of the Roman forces consisted of about 
 700,000 foot and 70,000 horse, numbers of which we can 
 make no use and from which we can draw no conclusions ; 
 
 * Polybius, II. 25, foil. ® ii. 24. 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 149 
 
 but least of all can we, as Hume did, draw from them any 
 inference as to the amount of the population in Italy. 
 The list in Polybius is not complete ; but I cannot think 
 that he could have made a mistake in his calculations 
 without being aware of it, for he is always very exact in 
 his numbers. I have said thus much upon this point, be- 
 cause the census of that time is so often referred to. If 
 we had the original lists we might see where the fault lies ; 
 but, as things are, we can say no more than that there is 
 something wrong. 
 
 The Romans had looked forward to the breaking out 
 of this war with far greater apprehensions than they after- 
 wards did to that of Hannibal : such is human foresight ! 
 The Gauls, unconcerned about the consul near Ariminum, 
 marched into Etruria, and the swarm advanced irresistibly 
 as far as Clusium, a distance of only three days journey 
 from Rome''^. The Roman army was probably stationed in 
 the neighbourhood of Arezzo, whither the Gauls advanced, 
 either through the marshes near Pisa, or across the moun- 
 tains in the neighbourhood of Mutilium. Here the Gauls 
 perceived that an army, which was to protect Etruria, was 
 closely following their traces, and they returned to meet 
 the enemy. Polybius says that the Romans met the 
 Gauls near Faesula. The commentators on that passage 
 are wrong. Fiesole cannot possibly have been the place, 
 for how could the Gauls afterwards have marched from 
 thence along the sea coasts^? It must be a place between 
 the sea and Chiusi, perhaps on the frontier of the Papal 
 dominions near Aqua pendente. The Gauls had left their 
 cavalry behind and lay in ambush at some distance. The 
 Romans, imagining they had taken to flight, and that the 
 cavalry was only protecting their rear, followed, and fell 
 in with their whole army in full battle array. The Romans 
 suffered a great defeat, whereupon the greater part of them 
 withdrew to a hill, on which they were besieged by the 
 
 ^ Polybius, II. 25. ' Polybius, ii. 26. 
 
150 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 Gauls. The consul, L. Aemilius, who had been stationed 
 near Ariminum, fortunately hastened to their assistance ; 
 but as he arrived after the defeat, he found the Roman 
 army blockaded by the Gauls. However he delivered 
 them from their precarious position, and the Gauls march- 
 ed away along the sea coast; for as they had already col- 
 lected an immense booty, and did not wish to begin a new 
 contest with an arjmen impeditum^ they resolved first to se- 
 cure their booty in a safe place, and then to return for 
 battle^. They must have begun to march back through 
 the territory of Siena and towards the sea coast, in the 
 neighbourhood of Piombino, opposite the island of Elba. 
 The consul followed them with his army, but had not the 
 courage to attack them ; and they would have returned 
 home through the territory of Pisa without suffering any 
 harm, had not the army of C. Atilius fortunately just re- 
 turned from Sardinia and landed near Pisa. C. Atilius, 
 who met the Gauls in the neighbourhood of Pisa, was in- 
 formed that their main force was not far off, and that the 
 Roman army was following them at no great distance. 
 He attacked the enemy, and as the Gauls were pressed 
 between the two Roman armies, the greater part of their 
 forces were cut to pieces in a fearful battle ^°. 
 
 The Gaesatae mentioned among the Gauls were not 
 mercenaries, as Polybius interprets their name'\ but men 
 armed with javelins. In the second year of the war the 
 Romans crossed the Apennines, and the Boians submitted 
 to them. During the last two years, 5:29 and 530, the war 
 was carried on in the country of the Insubrians, that is, 
 in the territory of Milan. The Insubrians, who were sup- 
 ported by the Transalpine Gauls, defended themselves very 
 
 " JMany persons have been inclined to believe, that the ancients, 
 whose intellectual powers were surely not inferior to ours, carried on 
 tlieir wars at random. Here we have an instance of such warfare, 
 but the Gauls were barbarians^ aiul the Romans never acted in such 
 a way. — N. 
 
 '" Polybius, II. 27 — 31. " n. 22. 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 161 
 
 bravely in their open country, which reflects much honour 
 upon them. A portion of the Cisalpine Gauls, the Ceno- 
 manians, between the river Adda and the lake of Garda, 
 and the Venetians, were allied with the Romans and re- 
 mained faithful to their interest. The Venetians, who even 
 excelled the Cenomanians in their fidelity to the Romans, 
 were a civilized people occupying the country between the 
 rivers Adige and Plavis, whose capital was Patavium. 
 They were perfectly foreign to the Tuscans, and probably 
 belonged to the Liburnian or Pelasgian race^-. In the 
 year 529 C. Flaminius gained a great victory over the 
 Insubrians. It is unjust towards him to assert that he 
 conducted the war north of the Po badly, and I shall 
 say more about him hereafter, for it is the duty of an 
 historian to rescue from the contempt of posterity those 
 to whose names blame is attached undeservedly. The 
 end of the war was decided in the fourth year by the great 
 general M. Claudius Marcellus, who slew Viridomarus, the 
 leader of the Gauls'^. The victory was gained at Clasti- 
 dium, in the district between Parma and Piacenza. The 
 
 '^ Compare vol. i. p. 166, foil. 
 
 " The triumphal Fasti state, that Marcellus triumphed, de Galleis, 
 Insubribus, et Germanis. The corner of the stone which contains the 
 syllable ger, was broken off at one time ; but whether, when the stone 
 was restored, the syllable ger was put in at random, or whether it 
 was so on the original stone, I can neither assert nor deny. I have 
 often seen the «tone ; but although a friend of mine wished me parti- 
 cularly to ascertain the truth, I was never able to convince myself 
 whether the corner containing the syllable ger is part of the original 
 stone or not. It is evident that the name cannot have been Ceno- 
 manis, since they were allied with the Romans. If the author of 
 these Fasti actually wrote Germanis, the inscription would be the 
 most ancient document in which the name of our nation is men- 
 tioned. The thing is not at all impossible. At the time of J. Caesar, 
 it is true, the Germans did not live further south than the river 
 Main or the Neckar, but in earlier times they extended much fur- 
 ther south ; and the Germans in the Wallis, of whom Livy (xxi. 28? ) 
 speaks, were the remnants of an earlier German poi)ulation which 
 had been expelled by the Gauls. — N. 
 
152 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 lusubriaus recognised the supremacy of the Romans, who 
 now became masters of the whole plain of Lombardy. 
 Here they founded the two colonies of Placentia and Cre- 
 mona; and I am inclined to believe that Modena, though 
 it is not mentioned till a later period, was likewise for- 
 tified by the Romans immediately after this war, in order 
 to secure the possession of their new acquisitions^*. 
 
 While these things were taking place, events were 
 ripening in secret, the greatness and fearfulness of which 
 the Romans were unable to conceive. During the interval 
 that had elapsed since the first Punic war, Hamilcar Bar- 
 ca had displayed those qualities which commonly distin- 
 guish a great man from a weak one. The differences of 
 character are never seen more distinctly than in times 
 when men are surrounded by difficulties and misfortunes. 
 There are some who, when disappointed by the failure of 
 an undertaking from which they expected great things, 
 make up their minds at once to exert themselves no longer 
 against what they call fate, as if thereby they could avenge 
 themselves upon fate; others grow desponding and hope- 
 less ; but a third class of men will rouse themselves just at 
 such moments, and say to themselves, " the more difficult it 
 is to attain my ends, the more honourable it will be ;" and 
 this is a maxim which every one should impress upon him- 
 self as a law. Some of those who are guided by it pro- 
 secute their plans with obstinacy, and so perish ; others, 
 who are more practical men, if they do not succeed in one 
 way, will try another. There are, it is true, persons who 
 succeed in nothing, but the old proverb audacea furtuna ad- 
 juvat, holds good nevertheless. Of this Hamilcar is an 
 example. Carthage had for centuries been wasting her 
 best energies in Sicily. I believe that there were men at 
 Carthage, such as Hanno^^, who, partly from envy against 
 Hamilcar, and partly from their own stupidity, would or 
 
 '* This may be inferred from PolybiuSj iii. 40, and Livy, xxi. 25. 
 '^ The account of the early part of the second Punic war in Livy 
 is disfigured. — N. 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 153 
 
 could not see that, after the loss of Sicily and Sardinia, 
 there were yet other quarters from which the republic might 
 derive great benefits. When, after the American war, 
 it was thought that the ignominious peace of Paris had put 
 an end to the greatness of England, Pitt undertook with 
 double courage the restoration of his country, and dis- 
 played his extraordinary powers. It was in the same spirit 
 that Hamilcar acted: he turned his eyes to Spain. The 
 only parts of Spain that Carthage had possessed hitherto 
 were Granada and Murcia; but Hamilcar's object was to 
 make Spain a province which should compensate for the 
 loss of Sicily and Sardinia. The latter island was then 
 and is still very unhealthy, and its interior was almost in- 
 accessible. Sicily had an effeminate and unwarlike popula- 
 tion, and rich as it was, it might indeed have increased the 
 maritime power of Carthage, but it would not have given 
 her any additional military strength. The weakness of 
 Carthage consisted in her having no armies, and it was a 
 grand conception of Hamilcar's, to transform Spain into a 
 Carthaginian country from whence national armies might 
 be obtained. His object therefore was, on the one hand, 
 to subdue the Spaniards, and on the other, to win their 
 sympathy and to change them into a Punic nation under 
 the dominion of Carthage ^^. The conduct of the Romans 
 towards their subjects was haughty, and always made them 
 feel that they were looked down upon. The highly re- 
 fined Greeks, who were themselves wont to look down with 
 contempt upon all foreigners, must have felt that haughti- 
 ness very keenly. The Spaniards and Celts were of 
 course still less respected. Common soldiers in the Roman 
 armies not unfrequently, especially in the times of the 
 emperors, married native women of the countries in which 
 they were stationed. Such marriages were regarded as 
 concubinage, and from them there sprang a class of men 
 who were very dangerous to the Romans. The Carthagi- 
 
 '" Polybiiis, n. 1 ; Diodorus, Fr:4t,fm. lib. xxv. Eclog. 2, p. 510. 
 
154 HISTORY OP^ ROME. 
 
 nians acted more wisely, by making no restrictions in re- 
 gard to such marriages. Hannibal himself married a Span- 
 ish woman of Castulo^', and the practice must have been 
 very common among the Carthaginians. This was an 
 excellent way to gain the good feehng of the natives. The 
 whole of the southern coast of Spain had resources of no 
 ordinary kind : it furnished all the productions of Sicily 
 and Sardinia, and in addition to them it had very rich 
 silver mines, the working of which has been revived in our 
 own days. Hamilcar was the first who introduced there a 
 regular and systematic mode of mining. While thus the 
 Carthaginians gained the sympathy of the nation, they 
 acquired a population of millions which placed them be- 
 yond the necessity of hiring faithless mercenaries, as they 
 had been obliged to do in the first Punic war : they were 
 enabled to raise armies in Spain, just as if it had been in 
 their own country. Hamilcar had come to Spain as soon 
 as he had subdued the rebellious mercenaries ; here he 
 remained eight years, which time he employed with incom- 
 parable wisdom, in establishing the Carthaginian empire. 
 When he died, he left the command to Hasdrubal, his son- 
 in-law. Here we see a characteristic difference between 
 the Romans and Carthaginians : the general of the latter 
 not only holds his office for life, but he leaves it to his son- 
 in-law, like an inheritance. This is what Livy calls Bar- 
 cina f actio. 
 
 ''" Livy, XXIV. 41, Compare Diodorus, Fragm. lib. xxv. Eclog. 2, 
 p. 510 foil. 
 
HISTORY "OF ROME. 155 
 
 LECTURE VIII. 
 
 THE SKCOND PUNIC WAR. ITS mPORTANCE. THE LITE- 
 RATURE UPON IT. — THE GREAT COMMANDERS : HANNIBAL, 
 SCIPIO, Q. FABIUS MAXIMUS, AND CLAUDIUS MARCELLUS. 
 DIVISION OF THE WAR INTO FIVE PERIODS. — CONTEM- 
 PORARY WARS. 
 
 LivY opens his narrative of the second Punic war with 
 the remark, that it was the greatest and most memorable 
 that had ever been carried on, and he could say so with 
 justice; but after the lapse of more than 2000 years we 
 cannot think the same, for in the wars of the French revo- 
 lution far greater energies were called into action ; even 
 the seven-years war has greater changes of fortune, and as 
 for the greatness of the generals engaged in it, it is by no 
 means inferior to the second Punic war. But we may 
 truly say, that in all ancient history there is no war which 
 equals that against Hannibal in the greatness of the events. 
 We may on the whole say, that there never was a general 
 superior to Hannibal, and in antiquity there is not even 
 one whom we could place by the side of him : before him 
 all the other Carthaginian generals shrink into insignifi- 
 cance. Against him there stood Scipio, who, although 
 perhaps he did not quite equal Hannibal, yet must be con- 
 sidered as a general of the first order : Fabius and Marcel- 
 lus, who might have acquired great fame in other wars, are 
 eclipsed by him. I do not hesitate to adopt the opinion of 
 Hannibal himself, when he places himself above Scipio^. 
 
 According to Livy, the second Punic war was described 
 separately by several writers. The first, but more espe- 
 
 ' Livy, XXX. ;jo. 
 
156 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 cially the second war against Carthage, was the real sub- 
 ject of the annals of Fabius, who, like Cincius, prefixed to 
 his history of it a brief sketch of the early history of 
 Rome. I have no hesitation in saying that the account 
 which Appian gives of this war is mainly based upon that 
 of Fabius ; Dionysius of Halicarnassus left him at the be- 
 ginning of the first Punic war. I can prove satisfactorily, 
 that the principal points in the narrative of Appian and 
 Zonaras are derived from Fabius : Dion Cassius knew that 
 Fabius was an eminent historian. The Hannibalian war 
 was also described separately by two Greeks, Chaereas and 
 Sosilus, both of whom are spoken of by Polybius with con- 
 tempt-. Sosilus, if we may trust the account \ had lived 
 in the camp of Hannibal. When Livy wrote the history 
 of this war, he did not think of using the memoirs written 
 by Hannibal, or the Greek letters which Scipio had ad- 
 dressed to the king of Macedonia. Polybius* made use of 
 some documents of Hannibal which were kept at Rome in 
 the temple of Juno Lacinia, and drew all his materials from 
 authentic sources. As far as we possess his work, we can- 
 not wish for anything further or better : his third book is a 
 master-work, and there is nothing in it that leaves the mind 
 of the reader unsatisfied. In the Latin language there 
 was only one separate history of the second Punic war, by 
 L. Caelius Antipater, who, to judge from his name, must 
 have been a Greek, and was either a freedman or enfran- 
 chised and adopted into the gens Caelia. He wrote in the 
 seventh century with declamatory pretensions, and many 
 points in Livy's account are derived from him. The work 
 of Dr. Becker of Ratzeburg^ on this war is good, al- 
 
 ■^ III. 20. 
 
 ^ Cornel. Nepos, Hannib. 13, where also one Silenus is mentioned, 
 who had lived in the camp of Hannibal and written a liistory of the 
 war. ^ 111. 34 and 56. 
 
 * The book here alluded to bears the title " Vorarbeiten zu einer 
 Geschichte des zweiten Punischen Krieges," Altona, 1822. A sup- 
 plementary work by the same author is entitled " Ueber Livius xxx. 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 157 
 
 though it is not founded on matured studies ; it contains 
 some strange prejudices, and neglects many points which 
 one would like to see explained. It is, however, a valua- 
 ble work nevertheless, which should not be overlooked, 
 and the name of its author will not be forgotten. In the 
 narrative of Livy we can distinguish the different sources 
 from which he derived his information. The account of 
 the first period of the war, and especially the rhetorical 
 description of the siege of Saguntum, are unquestionably 
 derived from Caelius Antipater, and if his history of the 
 remaining period of the war were not based on better 
 grounds, the whole of his third decad would be worth 
 nothing. But in some parts, in the description of the 
 battle of Cannae, for instance, Livy follows Polybius very 
 carefully ; in other parts of this decad, as for instance at 
 the end of a year, when he gives a brief summary of the 
 events which occurred during the year, he followed the 
 pontifical annals, or some annalist. He evidently wrote 
 this decad with great pleasure, and some portions of it 
 are among the most beautiful things that have ever been 
 written. The points in which he is deficient are, a know- 
 ledge of facts, experience, an intimate acquaintance with 
 the affairs of real life — he does not step out of the walls 
 of the school — and a control over his subject. He worked 
 with great ease, and repeated what others had said before 
 him without toiling and moiling. 
 
 If I were to relate the history of this war according to 
 my own inclination, the time which is set apaVt for these 
 lectures would be much too short. I must therefore con- 
 fine myself to brief sketches and outlines; but abridged 
 narratives require a perfect consistency in all their parts, 
 a thing which a person can attain only by writing them 
 down with great care. Lord Chesterfield very appro- 
 priately said on a similar occasion, " I beg your pardon 
 
 25 und 29 : oder Entwickelung der Begebenheiten, welche zwischen 
 Hannibals Riickkehr nach Africa und der Schlacht bei Zama 
 liegen." 
 
158 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 for my prolixity, but I have no time." All abridgments 
 require time. The greater part of my labours consists in 
 condensing that which I have written; but in these lec- 
 tures I cannot give such an abridgment with the neces- 
 sary consistency ; and if the limits of an abridgment are 
 overstepped here and there, in a subject which has been 
 dear to my heart for the last forty years, I trust no one 
 will find fault with me. 
 
 After Hasdrubal had had the administration of Spain 
 for nearly nine years, he was assassinated. Hannibal, the 
 son of Harailcar Barca, was at this time living in the 
 camp to finish his military education. Nothing in history 
 is so well known as the vow of Hannibal, which I believe 
 to be historical. Hannibal himself is said to have men- 
 tioned it in aftertimes^ : and what reason have we for doubt- 
 ing it? The fact that the circumstances under which it 
 was made are stated differently, is no ground for disbeliev- 
 ing it: according to some, it was the condition on which 
 Hamilcar took his son to Spain ; and according to others, 
 it was made at the moment he took leave of his father. 
 1 also beheve that when Hamilcar went to Spain in 51 G, 
 or 517, Hannibal was not more than eight years old ; and, 
 consequently, born in 507 or 508, previous to the time 
 when Hamilcar went to Sicily. He began his expedition 
 to Italy in his twenty-seventh year. Against such an age 
 nothing can be said : it is just the age at which a general 
 may best display all his great qualities. Frederick the 
 Great was not more than twenty-eight years old when he 
 undertook the conquest of Silesia, and Napoleon was 
 twenty-seven, or twenty-eight years old, when he made 
 his first Italian campaign. Remarks like these may be 
 laughed at v/hen they are mistaken for proofs ; but I know 
 what proofs are, and what I mean to say here is simply 
 this : that at such an age he could act the great part which 
 
 •^ Polybius, III. 11 ; Corn. Nepos, Hannib. 2. Compare V;il. 
 Maxinius, ix. 3. Ext. .'5; Appian, De Rep. Hinpan. f). p. 110. 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 159 
 
 history ascribes to him. His whole conduct bears the 
 character of that of a young man ; and at the time of his 
 death he was not much more than fifty years old. He 
 had two brothers, Hasdrubal and Mago. Whether Has- 
 drubal was older than Hannibal is unknown, but Mago 
 was yet very young when Hannibal went to Italy. Opi- 
 nions may be divided as to the personal character of Han- 
 nibal : he appears everywhere in history as some formid- 
 able being. The description of his character as a general 
 in Livy is very beautiful ; but when Livy adds that his 
 virtues were counterbalanced by as many vices, he contra- 
 dicts Polybius", v/ho expressly denies the charge of cruelty. 
 Wherever any cruel or faithless action occurs, it must be 
 attributed to Hannibal's subordinate officers in the Car- 
 thaginian army ; and, it is probable, that many of the cruel 
 acts of another Hannibal, surnamed Monomachus'^, gave 
 rise to false reports about the great Hannibal. The name 
 Hannibal was as common at Carthage as many of our 
 Christian names are among us. There are statements 
 respecting his cruelty, especially in Appian, who derived 
 them from Fabius, but Polybius knows nothing of them. 
 I do not mean to say, that he committed no act of cruelty ; 
 but what he did was no more than what was the common 
 practice among the Romans themselves, with whom, as 
 with the ancients in general, the destruction of the enemy 
 was the principal object of war. In modern times warfare 
 has assumed a more humane character, and really destruc- 
 tive wars, such as we find in the history of Spain, are 
 among the exceptions. Of Hannibal's alleged perfidia plus 
 quam Punica^ not a single instance is known; and we may 
 confidently assert, that, in capitulations he always kept his 
 engagements; for if he had not, the charge would have 
 been brought against him, and no one would have made 
 any capitulation with him. His whole greatness, however, 
 was no less striking in times of peace than in war, and 
 
 ■^ IX. 22. ^ Polybius, IX. 21.. » Livy, xxi. 4- 
 
160 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 in this respect the difference between him and Scipio is 
 very remarkable. In times of peace Scipio was a useless 
 citizen, nay, the dangerous example which he set in de- 
 spising his lawful accusers ^° might have led the Romans 
 to despise the laws of their country ; and who knows 
 whether his example was not actually a slow poison ! I 
 like Scipio for many reasons, but there is, on the whole, 
 something exceedingly haughty in his character : he was 
 conscious of his own greatness. He shewed his haughty 
 pride from the moment he began to take part in public 
 affairs, until he became a candidate for the consulship ; 
 afterwards he set himself altogether above the laws of his 
 country. This feature in his character is visible through- 
 out his life : he wanted to set himself above the laws, and 
 submission to their sovereign power was quite foreign to 
 him. We do not hear that he was the author of any insti- 
 tution or law to benefit his country, althoygh he might 
 have bestowed great blessings upon it by his influence ; 
 and Rome was surely in need of blessings. This neglect 
 after the maritime war was one of the causes of the decline 
 of the Roman constitution and morals. Hannibal, on the 
 other hand, shewed his genius in everything; and, in times 
 of peace, he was the benefactor and reformer of his country 
 by wise laws and institutions. He and Scipio were both 
 men of highly cultivated minds, and were intimately ac- 
 quainted with Greek literature. Hannibal's companions 
 were Greeks with whom he conversed in his leisure hours, 
 and although they were not men of the first order, still the 
 fact shews in what manner he employed his leisure time. 
 Among many other advantages in his relations with others, 
 he possessed irresistible personal attractions, which he 
 seems to have inherited from his father, who subdued sa- 
 vages, and then managed and guided them without any 
 difficulty. Hannibal was placed in difficult circumstances, 
 
 '" Livy, xxxviii. 65 foil. ; A. Gellius, iv. 18 foil.; Val. Maximus, 
 III. 7. 1. 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 161 
 
 but although individual Gauls and Celts, or some of the 
 frivolous and unprincipled Numidians, were now and then 
 faithless to him, or deserted and betrayed him, yet not one 
 ever raised his hand against him^^. He was obliged to 
 sacrifice his soldiers to his objects ; he could not spare 
 them, and made enormous demands upon them: but not 
 one ever attempted any thing against him. He was like 
 a being of a higher order, that governed all and dazzled 
 them by his lustre. A man who settled the administration 
 of Spain, crossed the Alps, shook the power of the Ro- 
 mans, and reduced them to extreme weakness — such a man 
 I call the greatest among his contemporaries ; yea, I may 
 call him the greatest of all ages. His perseverance and 
 his faithfulness towards his country cannot be praised 
 enough ; his transactions with other states had only one ob- 
 ject, — to serve his own country. Wherever he was, he com- 
 manded ; he did not seek protection anywhere, and bowed 
 before no one ; he never violated truth, and never did any 
 thing which was opposed to the dignity of his character, 
 even if he lost by so doing. This man I honour, esteem, 
 and love, almost unconditionally ; although I do not wish 
 to deny, that things are related of him which fill our eyes 
 with tears. But when he was at Capua, and allowed Decius 
 Magius to depart uninjured, he did not follow the dictates 
 of policy, but those of his own generous heart. Few Ro- 
 mans could boast of such magnanimity, and at that time 
 Scipio was, perhaps, the only one among them who was 
 capable of it. 
 
 The third hero of this war is Q. Fabius Maximus, a 
 man who has been very much overrated. Great circum- 
 spection and self-control are indeed qualities which we 
 cannot help recognizing in him; and he was a good gene- 
 ral, but not a better one than many others. The only 
 important feat of his is the recovery of Tarentum ; but 
 what was that, after all ? The fact of his holding out after 
 
 " Polybius, XXIV. 9. 
 
 M 
 
162 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 the battle of Trasimenus is no more than what the republic 
 had a right to expect of him, I am inclined to compare 
 him with field- marshal Daun, and ara convinced that 
 Daun, as a general, was, at least, not inferior to him. 
 Q. Fabius Maximus was probably the great-grandson of 
 the great Q. Fabius, who displayed such eminent qualities 
 during the second and third wars against the Samnites. I 
 am very apt to transfer my affection for great ancestors 
 to their descendants ; but however much I should like to 
 speak of Q. Fabius Maximus with affection, I cannot. 
 His opposition to Scipio is not a rhetorical exaggeration, 
 but an historical fact. The speeches which Livy puts 
 into the mouth of Hanno are rhetorical flourishes, taken 
 from Caelius Antipater, but the character of those of Fa- 
 bius is historical ; it is evident that he was envious, and 
 that he could not bear the star which was rising before 
 him. It must make a man feel wretched, if, on the thresh- 
 old of old age, he looks upon the rising generation with 
 uneasiness, and does not rather rejoice in looking upon it ; 
 and yet this is very common with old men. Fabius would 
 rather have seen Hannibal unconquered, than see his own 
 fame obscured by Scipio. Hence, he would not destroy 
 Hannibal, but only weaken him. 
 
 Claudius Marcellus, an able and enterprising general, 
 was quite the opposite of Fabius by his great boldness; 
 he was distinguished both as a general and a brave war- 
 rior. 
 
 These are the men who acted the most prominent part 
 in the second Punic war. The war itself must be divided, 
 like the first, into several periods. The first comprises 
 all that took place in Spain, including the conquest 
 of Saguntum, &c., until the year 534, when Hannibal 
 began his march towards the Alps. All the events of this 
 period, however, must be regarded merely as preliminary 
 to the war itself. The second period comprises the next 
 three years and a part of the fourth, from 534 to 537, 
 during which Hannibal made his irresistible progress, 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 163 
 
 crossed the Alps and overran Italy, until the taking of 
 Capua. During the third period from this event, in 537, to 
 541, his star began to sink: the Romans conquered Capua, 
 and their hopes of success received new strength, for it was 
 now decided that Hannibal had irreparably lost the object 
 of his war. The fourth period extends from 541 to 547, 
 and in this time Hannibal began to set his hopes on Spain 
 and on the reinforcements which he expected from his bro- 
 ther Hasdrubal. He maintained himself in a part of Apu- 
 lia, Lucania, and Bruttium, and the Carthaginians raised 
 fresh armies in Spain, until the defeat of Hasdrubal on the 
 Metaurus. The fifth and last period, from 547 to 550, 
 which may be called the African war, comprises the events 
 from the time when Hannibal, at the command of the Car- 
 thaginian senate, left Italy, down to the end of the war. 
 Several other wars run parallel to, or are interwoven with 
 that against Hannibal ; thus we have to notice, from 534 to 
 547, the wars of the Romans in Spain, which were carried 
 on with various success until the taking of New Carthage ; 
 from 537 to 540 the SiciUan war and the insurrection of 
 Sardinia, which were brought to a conclusion by the sub- 
 jugation of Sardinia and the conquest of Syracuse ; and 
 lastly, from 540 to 547, the Macedonian war. Those who 
 wish to form an accurate idea of the second Punic war 
 must keep all these great masses separate from one an- 
 other, vv'hereby they will get rid of much that is perplexing 
 in the detail. 
 
 M 2 
 
164 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 LECTURE IX. 
 
 THE CARTHAGINIAN EMPIRE IN SPAIN. TREAIT OF ROME 
 
 WITH HASDRUBAL. SIEGE OF SAGUNTUM. EXPEDITION 
 
 OF HANNIBAL TOWARDS THE ALPS. PROCEEDINGS OF 
 
 THE ROMANS ON THE APPROACH OF HANNIBAL. HAN- 
 
 NIBAL's passage over THE ALPS. 
 
 While Hamilcar was establishing a Carthaginian em- 
 pire in Spain, the Romans acted the part of mere spec- 
 tators. On his arrival in that country, the Carthaginians 
 possessed only the coasts of Granada and Murcia; but 
 under his administration, Andalusia and the greater part 
 of Valencia, seem to have been added to their dominions. 
 The empire of Carthage did not yet extend beyond the 
 Sierra Morena, but connexions with the natives had already 
 been formed, and it may have been under Hasdrubal that 
 greater progress was made in that quarter. When we read 
 that Hannibal was master of all Spaing it is only a mistake 
 of the writer, for the Carthaginians never advanced further 
 than a little north of New Castile and Estremadura, and 
 the northernmost point to which we can trace the con- 
 quests of Hannibal, in Polybius, is Salamanca"; and even if 
 we consider this acquisition as a lasting one, still the Car- 
 thaginian empire did not extend over one half of the pen- 
 insula. The tribes of the interior and the Celtiberians 
 seem not to have recognised the supremacy of Carthage, 
 and were only her allies, retaining their own peculiar form 
 of government, and only furnished mercenaries for the 
 Carthaginian armies ; which they did the more willingly, 
 
 ' Corn. Nepos, Hanriib. 3. " See Polybius, in. 14. 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 165 
 
 as they were of a very warlike disposition. Polybius^ 
 justly remarks, that the Romans were silent at the progress 
 which the Carthaginians made in Spain, because they 
 dreaded to renew the war against them, while they were 
 threatened themselves in Italy by the Gauls. Hamilcar and 
 Hasdrubal were thus enabled to train and prepare their new 
 nation, during the great war of the Romans with the Cisal- 
 pine Gauls. We are surprised at an account, which mentions 
 that during this time a Carthaginian fleet appeared off the 
 coast of Etruria*. If the account be true, it was certainly 
 not a step taken by the government, but probably by 
 Hasdrubal on his own responsibility. During the Cisal- 
 pine war the Romans had, strangely enough, concluded a 
 treaty, not with the government of Carthage, but merely 
 with Hasdrubal, the governor of Spain ^. This seems to 
 shew, that Carthage wa?? in a state of anarchy. The treaty, 
 however, was concluded merely with reference to Spain, 
 where the river I her us was fixed upon, as the boundary 
 between the two empires. It is owing to the loss of the 
 second decad of Livy, that we do not know at what time the 
 Romans had gained possession of that part of Spain ; for, at 
 the beginning of the second Punic war, we find them in 
 possession of Tarraco, and the inhabitants of the coast of 
 Catalonia were then under their protection. Their friend- 
 ship and alliance with Massilia was very old, Livy adds, 
 that it was stipulated in the treaty that Saguntum should 
 be free, between the dominions of the two powers; and if 
 this had really been the case, the hostilities of the Car- 
 thaginians against that town would certainly have been a 
 violation of the treaty. But Polybius knows nothing of 
 such a clause; and if he, who had authentic documents 
 before him, had found anything about it, he would assuredly 
 have stated that Hannibal had committed a breach of the 
 treaty. 
 
 Livy places the siege of Saguntum in the year 534, 
 
 ^ II. 13. * Zonaras, viii. 19. 
 
 ^ Livy, XXI. 2; Polybius, ii. 13, 22; iii. 27, 29. 
 
166 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 although he must have seen that this is an impossibility. 
 It must have taken place the year before, 533^. Hannibal 
 brought on the war by his interfering in the hostilities be- 
 tween the Saguntines and Turdetanians, or, as I should 
 like to read, the Edetanians, for it is hardly to be con- 
 ceived how the Turdetanians, at so great a distance, could 
 have had any complaints against the Saguntines. The 
 Edetanians, on the other hand, were the inhabitants of Va- 
 lencia, and must at that time have been under the protec- 
 tion of the Carthaginians'^. The siege of Saguntum lasted 
 for eight months, and has gained an imperishable celebrity 
 in history from the heroic resistance of the Saguntines. 
 But the description of it in Livy is a romance, undoubtedly 
 derived from the account of Caelius Antipater. The town 
 was, like several others in Spain, razed to the ground. 
 The description of Polybius is much more authentic; he 
 only knows that the town was taken, that Hannibal made 
 extraordinary booty, and gained courage and strength for 
 further undertakings*^. Hereupon Hannibal took up his 
 winter quarters at New Carthage, and completed the pre- 
 parations for his great expedition. The Romans now sent 
 ambassadors to him to call him to account for his conduct 
 towards Saguntum; but he referred them to Carthage, 
 where they were received in the senate in a manner which 
 might have been foreseen, after so long an irritation and so 
 ardent a desire to take vengeance for the injustice which 
 Rome had inflicted on Carthage in regard to Sardinia. 
 The declaration of war was received by the Carthaginians 
 with loud acclamations. 
 
 Hannibal assembled his troops in the neighbourhood of 
 Carthagena, and shewed great foresight in drawing Libyans 
 to Spain and sending Spaniards to Libya, where they were 
 to serve as garrisons ; but, at the same time, he retained 
 
 * See Sigonius on Livy, xxi. 6. 
 
 ^ Appian, De Rebus Hispan. 10, calls them Tarboletans. 
 
 ^ Polybius, HI. 17. 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 167 
 
 great numbers of Spaniards, to accompany him on his ex- 
 pedition. The army with which he crossed the Iberus is 
 said to have consisted of 90,000 foot and 12,000 horse 9. 
 He must have crossed the Iberus in the early part of May. 
 P. Cornelius Scipio and Tiberius Sempronius had already 
 been consuls since the 15th of March. The tribes of 
 Catalonia, which were under the protection of Rome, of- 
 fered little or no resistance. He crossed the Pyrenees 
 in the neighbourhood of Figuera and Ilofas, in the direc- 
 tion of Roussillon, where the mountains slope down to- 
 wards the coast of the Mediterranean and are of no con- 
 siderable height. He had previously sent envoys to the 
 Gallic tribes, to ask for a free passage through their coun- 
 try. These envoys now returned with presents and the as- 
 surance that Hannibal would meet with no resistance in 
 Gaul as far as the Rhone. A part of his forces was left 
 behind in Catalonia, and when he approached the passes 
 of the Pyrenees a dangerous mutiny broke out among his 
 soldiers. Three thousand Carpetanians returned home, 
 and that others might not be encouraged to follow their 
 example, Hannibal was wise enough to send back all those 
 in whom he discovered any unwillingness to follow him, 
 since he was convinced that a cheerful and small army 
 is better than a numerous and discontented one. After 
 having allowed his soldiers some rest in the neighbourhood 
 of Perpignan, he continued his march with 50,000 foot and 
 9,000 horse. 
 
 When the Romans discovered that it was his plan to 
 cross the Alps, they decreed to send the consul, P. Corne- 
 lius Scipio, the father of the great Scipio, with an army to 
 Spain, and a great fleet was equipped to sail to Africa 
 under the command of the other consul, Tiberius Sempro- 
 nius. Carthage, at this time, had no fleet of any import- 
 ance, which shews a great carelessness in the management 
 of affairs on the part of the Carthaginians themselves; 
 
 '^ Polybius, 111. 35 j Livy, xxi. 13. 
 
168 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 whereas all that Hannibal did was wise and well calcu- 
 lated. But in the senate of Carthage there were men of a 
 different stamp; and it is not improbable that a property- 
 tax was found necessary to cover the expenses of the war, 
 and that in paying it the wealthy shewed a niggardly spirit ; 
 otherwise the mean parsimony of Carthage is quite unac- 
 countable. The plan of the Romans was, in certain re- 
 spects, not ill -calculated, but it is a proof that they under- 
 rated their enemy and his strength. Had P. Cornelius 
 Scipio arrived with his fleet before Hannibal left Spain, 
 Hannibal might possibly have been stopped in his progress ; 
 although I am almost convinced that Hannibal would have 
 thrown him back upon the sea, and that he would thus 
 have facilitated his expedition still more. But the Roman 
 fleet did not sail, until Hannibal was master of Catalonia ; 
 and it cannot be denied that at the beginning of this great 
 war the Romans were slow and awkward, so that Hannibal 
 was beforehand with them in everything. It is true, they 
 had just before made great exertions against the Cisalpine 
 Gauls, but with the exception of this they had been en- 
 gaged only in petty warfare since the conclusion of the 
 first Punic war, and they had no standing armies. Their 
 troops were a sort of militia without any regular training, 
 whereas the Carthaginian army under Hannibal consisted 
 of veterans. iNIoreover, the Romans did not think it ne- 
 cessary to place the best of their generals at the head of 
 their armies, but made their choice with their usual views ; 
 and the consuls of this year were dull and slow like their 
 soldiers. 
 
 Hannibal continued his march with the utmost rapidity, 
 and, according to the calculation of Polybius '°, he led his 
 Carthaginians a distance of 9,000 stadia. This is indeed 
 rather exaggerated, but still the distance between Cartha- 
 gena and the river Po is immense. When Hannibal ar- 
 rived in Cisalpine Gaul, envoys of the Gauls implored his 
 assistance against the Romans, but until then he had had 
 
 '" in. 39. 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 169 
 
 to make his way through a country all peopled by inde- 
 pendent and hostile tribes, to whom an army like his must 
 have appeared like an inundation. Among such a host it 
 was impossible to prevent acts of violence, especially if we 
 consider the wants with which they had to struggle, and 
 which impeded their progress everywhere. He passed 
 through the magnificent country of Languedoc to Pont 
 St. Esprit on the Rhone in order to reach the Alps. The 
 inhabitants of Languedoc could not indeed resist the tor- 
 rent that poured in upon them, and they sent their women 
 and children into the Cevennes mountains for shelter; 
 but the Gauls in Dauphine and Provence had large rivers, 
 and could defend themselves. They heard at the same 
 time that a Roman army was already on the coast, and al- 
 though the hostile feeling which existed between the Gauls 
 and the Romans was very strong, and although the inha- 
 bitants of Languedoc had rejected with scorn the request 
 of the Romans, still they looked upon the Romans as 
 auxiharies against the starved host of invaders, who in their 
 rapid course were obliged to take all they could. Hannibal 
 forced his passage across the Rhone by sending, during the 
 night, a part of his army up the river where they passed 
 over on rafts. The attention of the Gauls was thus drawn 
 away from the main army, and this success, in a place where 
 nature herself seemed to have drawn the boundary line, 
 made the deepest impression upon the barbarians. 
 
 Scipio had landed in the meantime at Marseille and 
 marched up the river, but he came too late, and Hannibal 
 was already on the left bank when the Roman cavalry ar- 
 rived. Hannibal now marched farther up the Rhone, 
 and Scipio returned to his ships, though he might have 
 been of real service to his country, if he had taken his 
 road towards Brian9on and Susa ; for he would thus have 
 been enabled to attack the rear of the Carthaginians, while 
 the Gauls might have stopped the vanguard by an abattis. 
 Concerning the i)articulars of the passage of the Rhone, 
 and the subsequent events until Hannibal reached the 
 Alps, I must refer you to Livy. 
 
170 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 It has been one of the most disputed points of ancient 
 history, in what part Hannibal crossed the Alps, and the 
 ancients themselves ditfer widely in their accounts. Livy's 
 description is obscure, and Polybius does not enter into 
 any disquisition concerning the localities, because they 
 were known in his time, and no one had any doubt about 
 them. Livy imagines, that he passed by Brian^on, through 
 the valley of the Durance, and descended somewhere in 
 the neighbourhood of Turin ; but this is erroneous. The 
 other ancients are divided in their opinions : some main- 
 tained that he passed over the Little, and others that he 
 passed over the Great St Bernard ; some even thought it 
 probable that he crossed the Simplon. Modern writers" 
 are likewise divided ; but, after the researches of General 
 Melville, there can be no longer any doubt as to the road 
 which Hannibal took ; and if any one who has a prac- 
 tical mind compares with these researches the account 
 which Polybius gives, he must see that no other road 
 is possible. It is strange that even ingenious and learned 
 men have, in this instance, opposed the most palpable 
 evidence. Melville has proved, by the strongest possible 
 evidence, that Hannibal marched across the Little St. 
 Bernard, and that this took place about the beginning 
 of October. The mountain cannot have been a glacier 
 covered with eternal ice ; for not far from its top a Httle 
 corn was grown, and during the summer months it was 
 a green Alp, which served as pasture. On his arrival 
 there, Hannibal found fresh snow and a frequented road. 
 In a district near the little St. Bernard, in the valley of 
 Tarentaise, he had a severe contest with the Alpine 
 tribes ; and Polybius, evidently with the intention to 
 mark Hannibars road, says that he halted near a white 
 rock}"^ Now, there is only one gypseous cliff in those 
 Alps, and that is near Tarentaise, along which the an- 
 
 " A complete list of the modern works on this subject will be 
 found in Ukert's Geographic der Griechen und Romer, ii. 2. p. 565, 
 foU. '" iii. 53. 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 171 
 
 cient road ran, and which is discernible even at the 
 present day, and known to the inhabitants of the country 
 under the name of la roche blanche. This circumstance 
 alone would suffice to remove all doubts, but this road 
 also perfectly agrees with the number of days which 
 Hannibal spent upon his march ; and this number differs 
 so widely from the number of days required for the road 
 over Susa, that this place cannot here come into consi- 
 deration at all. Had Scipio ventured to follow his enemy, 
 Hannibal would certainly have defeated him, and Scipio 
 would have been lost among those Gallic tribes, which 
 would have risen against him. The remark of General 
 Melville is true, that Hannibal had marched up the 
 Rhone as far as Vienne, the ancient capital of the Allo- 
 brogians, which is not mentioned by Livy. Here Hanni- 
 bal took up the cause of a pretender ; and after having 
 established him on the throne, he received supplies for 
 his army and continued his march. The AUobrogians 
 were at that time in possession of the country between 
 the Isere and the Rhone, of a part of Dauphine, the 
 western districts of Savoy, and some other neighbouring 
 territories. At Vienne, Hannibal left the Rhone. Mel- 
 ville saw here a Roman road leading to Yenne, which 
 was used throughout the middle ages, and down to the 
 beginning of the seventeenth century. From Vienne 
 Hannibal went to Chambery, and into the valley of Ta- 
 rentaise up towards the source of the river. General 
 Melville has shewn that the march through this narrow 
 valley was a very troublesome one, as it was easy for the 
 inhabitants to defend themselves in their mountains. It 
 is a gross mistake, when some writers describe Hannibal 
 as marching over immense fields of ice ; for about Taren- 
 taise there are luxuriant plantations of nut trees, and in 
 the valley itself a considerable quantity of corn is grown. 
 The arrival of Hannibal and his army was a fearful cala- 
 mity for the inhabitants of this valley, for it was a host 
 which consumed everything that these poor people pos- 
 
172 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 sessed. The less Hannibal was able to satisfy their hun- 
 ger with the supplies he carried with him, the greater 
 was the devastation caused by his army, for in such cir- 
 cumstances soldiers destroy everything. However great, 
 therefore, his exertions were in pacifying the mountaineers, 
 yet they manifested a desperate exasperation against him, 
 and the losses of the Carthaginians in these contests were 
 immense. In the last days of September, Hannibal 
 reached the Little St. Bernard. Snow began already to 
 fall in those regions, and frosts and the other miseries 
 of winter were now added to the sufferings with which 
 he had been struggling hitherto. His army suffered not 
 less from hunger than the French did on their retreat 
 from Russia : thousands perished in a few days, but yet 
 Hannibal was glad that he had arrived at the summit 
 of the mountains. Those among his soldiers who were 
 rather discontented, and had been lingering behind, now 
 joined him again. The account of Livy, that Hannibal 
 broke the rocks by means of vinegar, is one of those tales 
 which we grieve to see related seriously by an intelligent 
 man. It was undoubtedly derived from Caelius Anti- 
 pater, and is nothing but a misrepresentation of an actual 
 fact which has been explained by General Melville. The 
 roads in the Alps run along rivers, by which they were 
 originally formed. These rivers often pass from one 
 mountain to another, and then roads run along above the 
 rivers. Such a road is often buried under avalanches, or 
 cut off by a sinking of the ground. Hannibal found such 
 a spot on his road from the Little St. Bernard to the 
 valley of Aosta." He was obliged to encamp there for 
 three days, though suffering severely from hunger, cold, 
 and snow, and to open a new road. General Melville 
 has admirably illustrated this part of the march from 
 Polybius. Livyi* says, that the mountain formed a pre- 
 cipice of one thousand feet, and that the new road was 
 
 '^ Polybius, III. 54. foil. " xxi. 36. foil. 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 173 
 
 built down that precipice ! This is nonsense, as every 
 one must see. In the account of Polybius, on the other 
 hand, there is not one feature which is not perfectly 
 correct, and founded upon accurate observation. On his 
 arrival in the valley of Aosta, Hannibal had lost nearly 
 all his elephants, and his army was reduced to 20,000 
 foot and 6,000 horse. '^ It is astonishing that so large a 
 number of horses were preserved ; but it shews what hard- 
 ships the southern horses are able to endure, and the 
 great care which the Numidians must have taken of them. 
 
 '* Compare Livy, xxi. 38, with Polybius, iii. 56. 
 
174 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 LECTURE X. 
 
 conduct of the romans on the approach of hanni- 
 bal. first engagement with the romans on the 
 
 ticinus. battle on the trebia. c. flaminius. 
 
 Hannibal's march into etruria. — battle of lake 
 trasimenus. 
 
 The whole mode of conducting the war on the part of 
 the Romans is a remarkable instance of the same want of 
 design, and of the same slackness, with which war was car- 
 ried on in the time of the French Revolution. Without 
 knowing any particulars, and by mere tradition, we may 
 form the most vivid image of the manner in which the Ro- 
 mans viewed their impending danger. When they heard 
 that Hannibal had passed through the country of the Allo- 
 brogians towards the Alps, they undoubtedly thought him 
 a fool whose army must perish by the elements. It is, in- 
 deed, only by supposing that this conviction was general 
 among them, that we can account for their inactivity and 
 drowsiness. The consul Scipio, who was stationed at Mar- 
 seille, and had advanced into the interior as far as Avignon, 
 ought to have been in Lombardy before Hannibal arrived 
 there ^; but he did not reach the Po until Hannibal de- 
 scended from the Alps, and, to the amazement of the Ro- 
 mans, had defied and overcome all the immense difficulties 
 which nature had placed in his way. We may well ima- 
 gine what reports were spread about the losses sustained 
 by the Carthaginian army, if we remember the logic of the 
 
 ' The same slowness we saw in the year 1800, when the Austrians 
 had it in their power either to prevent the passage over the Great 
 St. Bernard or to render it fruitless. — N. 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 175 
 
 senseless among the allies in the war against the French 
 Revolution. What the Romans believed and said to one 
 another was something to this effect : that it was madness 
 of Hannibal to have led his army to such a monstrous un- 
 dertaking; that he and his host would be destroyed by 
 diseases and the want of all the necessaries of life ; and 
 that not one individual would survive to return home across 
 the Alps. It has often caused me the deepest grief to hear 
 such reasoning, when people consoled themselves in this 
 childish manner, and neglected the most necessary precau- 
 tions. Had Hannibal been an ordinary general, he would 
 indeed have been in a precarious position ; but with an un- 
 daunted spirit he advanced with his army, which after its 
 severe sufferings must indeed have been in a frightful con- 
 dition, and may not have appeared much better than a host 
 of gipsies. The Cisalpine Gauls were anxious to get an 
 opportunity to rise against the Romans, but they did not 
 venture to move until Hannibal arrived, for the Romans 
 kept them in submission. Scipio, astonished at what he 
 heard, crossed the river Po, and encamped on the Ticinus 
 in the neighbourhood of Pavia. Hannibal came down the 
 valley of Aosta: the expected insurrection of the Gauls 
 did not yet break out. An engagement with the Roman 
 cavalry took place, in which the Romans were beaten by 
 the Spanish and Numidian horsemen. In this skirmish, 
 the consul Scipio received a dangerous wound, and it was 
 only with great difficulty that he was rescued from the tu- 
 mult, according to some writers, by his own son*^. 
 
 The issue of this engagement, which would have cre- 
 ated but little sensation in other wars, convinced the Ro- 
 mans at once of the delusion under which they had been 
 labouring. They now fixed their hopes on the support of 
 'lib. Sempronius, who had been ravaging the coast of Afri- 
 ca, but was now called back, and sailed to Ariminum. 
 Scipio retreated across the Po, gave up its northern bank, 
 
 ^ Livy, XXI. 46: Polybius, x. 3. 
 
176 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 and pulled down the bridge of rafts which he had con- 
 structed. Hannibal had difficulties in crossing the Po, and 
 had to collect boats from the neighbouring rivers. In the 
 meanwhile the Insubrians declared for him. 
 
 The Romans were encamped near Placentia, and were 
 waiting for the arrival of Sempronius and his army. I be- 
 lieve that there is something incorrect in our descriptions 
 of these occurrences. General Vaudoncourt has endea- 
 voured to clear up the matter, but his idea of the battle on 
 the Trebia is false in the highest degree. We find Hanni- 
 bal on the eastern bank of the Trebia ; the Romans cross 
 the river to offer battle, consequently Hannibal, who was on 
 the right bank of this river, must have crossed the Po 
 somewhat below Placentia \ In order to render a battle in 
 which you are quite sure of victory quite decisive, you 
 must elude the enemy: such was the constant method of 
 Hannibal, and has at all times been the method of every 
 courageous general who was conscious of the strength of 
 his army as well as of his own superiority, and was confi- 
 dent of victory ^. We must suppose that the Romans had 
 crossed the Po in the neighbourhood of Pavia, and Hanni- 
 bal, as all circumstances shew, and as 1 have already ob- 
 served, some distance below Piacenza^ It is said, for 
 instance, that the Romans transferred their camp from the 
 left bank of the Trebia towards the foot of the Apennines, 
 where they were better protected against the cavalry of the 
 Carthaginians by several low hills rising out of the plain ^. 
 This and several other things are intelligible only if we 
 suppose that Hannibal crossed the Po somewhere between 
 
 ^ See Livy, xxi. 47 foil.; Polybius, in. 58 foU. 
 
 ■• When in the year 1800 Napoleon crossed the Po, between Pavia 
 and Piacenza, he defeated Melas, the old and awkward Austrian 
 field-marshal, by the same tactics. — N. 
 
 ^ One of my friends, who is a highly distinguished tactician, has 
 perfectly convinced himself and me too, that Hannibal cannot have 
 followed the traces of the Romans. — N. 
 
 *> Polybius, III. 58 ; Livy, xxi. 48. 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 177 
 
 Piacenza and Parma. The Romans had in the meantime 
 been joined by the army of Tib. Sempronius. If Provi- 
 dence has once decided upon the destruction of an army, 
 all the most unfortunate circumstances will conspire for 
 that purpose. At that moment the wound of Scipio was 
 no trifling matter, it healed very slowly, and was so severe 
 that he could not appear at the head of his army ; and who 
 among his legates could have undertaken the command ? 
 Two months and a half had elapsed from Hannibal's pas- 
 sage over the little St. Bernard to his arrival on the 
 Trebia. He had employed this time in establishing him- 
 self in the country, and in restoring his men and horses. 
 The number of 6000 horsemen whom we m.entioned above, 
 may have included those who had been newly mounted. 
 Hannibal pressed the Romans very much, and took their 
 stores of provisions. The consul Sempronius, now united 
 with Scipio, thought it a disgrace to the Roman name to 
 remain idle, and insisted upon offering a battle ; but Scipio 
 refused to give his consent, partly on account of the state 
 of his health, and partly because he had already had some 
 experience of the character of his enemy. Hannibal, on the 
 other hand, who was perfectly sure of victory, was greatly 
 inclined to begin an engagement with the Romans, for as 
 long as the two armies were encamped opposite one ano- 
 ther, Hannibal could not take his winter quarters, which 
 was an essential point, as he wanted rest for his troops, and 
 was also anxious to get rid of the Romans in those districts, 
 that he might be enabled to organize the Gauls. He was 
 encamped south of Piacenza, on the right bank of the Tre- 
 bia, and the Romans opposite to him on the left bank. 
 He irritated the Romans by little skirmishes, in which he 
 allowed them some apparent advantages over him. The 
 Trebia has become memorable in modern history for a battle 
 which Macdonald lost on its banks in the year 1799 : it 
 does him great honour that he effected his retreat to Genoa, 
 where he joined the rest of the army. I never saw the 
 river myself, but I have gathered information concerning 
 
 N 
 
178 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 its localities, and it is remarkable that to this day they 
 perfectly agree with the description given by Polybius. It 
 is a very broad torrent which comes down the Apennines in 
 many arms, and in such a manner that the river flows be- 
 tween its two banks in the form of several small streams. 
 The ground consists of gravel and is covered with shrubs. 
 In winter, when the snow melts on the mountains, or after 
 a heavy rain, the river is very broad and overflows the 
 neighbouring country ; but at other times one can walk 
 through it. Hannibal placed some detachments in ambush 
 in the shrubs, which then, as now, covered the banks of the 
 river. He had for some days been trying the Romans, and 
 Sempronius began to imagine that Hannibal was timid and 
 would not venture upon an open contest. But the simple 
 truth was, that he would not attack the Romans on their 
 left bank, because he would not lead his army, at a cold 
 season, through an icy river. The Romans went into the 
 snare. Every pedestrian traveller in Italy is accustomed 
 to walk through the Trebia in summer, but at that time 
 the cold was very severe. Hannibal had large fires in 
 his camp, for brandy was then not known, except in 
 Egypt^ ; and he gave his soldiers warm and plentiful food, 
 and made them rub their bodies with oil at the fires, so 
 that they became quite brisk and warm^. During the day 
 there was a strong sprinkling of snow, and the cold in that 
 part of Lombardy, especially in the neighbourhood of Ve- 
 rona, is in truth not less severe than an ordinary winter in 
 Germany. Notwithstanding the snow, the Romans were 
 imprudent enough to wade through the river, and they 
 were almost frozen when they arrived on the right bank : 
 in addition to this, the wind blew the snow into their faces. 
 Hannibal now advanced to meet them, and the Romans, 
 although in reality they were already defeated by the ele- 
 ments, yet fought as brave soldiers ; but they were a mi- 
 
 ^ In the paintings of Thebes, the whole process of distilling is re- 
 presented. — N. * Polybius, iii. 72 ; Livy, xxi. 55. 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 179 
 
 litia against an army of veterans. When all had got 
 through the river, the Carthaginians who had heen lying 
 in ambush, rushed forth and attacked their flanks. The 
 loss of the Romans was very great: the whole of their left 
 wing retreated to Placentia. The weather afterwards be- 
 came so fearful, that the Carthaginians did not pursue the 
 Romans any further, although their usual maxim was to 
 follow up a victory to the utmost. All the Romans who 
 survived the day, threw themselves into Placentia where 
 they had their stores, and there they remained for some 
 time. 
 
 The consuls were at first base enough to deceive the 
 senate at Rome, and to conceal the extent of their loss, 
 but the truth became known but too soon. Hannibal's 
 army spread over both banks of the Po, and he now took up 
 his winter quarters in order to give his soldiers rest. He 
 did not attack Placentia, because it was of no importance 
 to him : and he always knew what was necessary. The 
 army in Placentia thus escaped, and a portion of it 
 marched down the Po to Cremona, from whence the 
 whole afterwards went to Ariminum, where the consul, 
 C. Flaminius, had arrived with his reinforcements. Ac- 
 cording to Livy9, Hannibal made an attempt to march 
 across the Apennines into Etruria, but of this Polybius 
 knows nothing. That time was one of those which af- 
 ford abundant materials for rhetorical exaggeration. It 
 may be however that Hannibal made some excursion to 
 reconnoitre the country, or perhaps even some greater ex- 
 pedition ; but the description which Livy gives of this re- 
 puted march from Modena to Lucca, of the localities and 
 the storm, is a masterly production. I have witnessed 
 myself a storm in those Apennines in summer, and judg- 
 ing from what I then saw, a storm in winter must render 
 it utterly impossible to ascend those mountains. But to 
 the inhabitants of the adjacent country such a storm is 
 
 * XXI. 58. 
 
 N 2 
 
180 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 nothing uncommon: they speak of it as an ordinary oc- 
 currence. In the plain its effects are not so strongly felt, 
 but on the mountains it is really frightful. 
 
 Caius Flaminius had now obtained the unlucky honour 
 of the consulship. It would be unjust to judge of this 
 man, whose name has come down to us in an unfavourable 
 light, by his deeds. In his tribuneship he carried the as- 
 signment of the ager Gallicus Piceniis, for which the illustri- 
 ous Roman families never forgave him. He afterwards 
 made himself still more obnoxious by supporting a tribun- 
 ician law which was very offensive to the Roman nobles. 
 This transaction is a curious example of the hypocrisy 
 of those who always talked of the good old times, and 
 spoke of all trade and industry with contempt ; although 
 they endeavoured to gain by the same means for them- 
 selves all the advantages they could. . Such men are not 
 capable of a generous action under any circumstances, 
 or of sacrificing their own personal interest in any way. 
 The tribunician law which C. Flaminius supported forbade 
 all senators to have, either directly or indirectly, any sea 
 ships of more than 300 amphorae, and those which they 
 were allowed to have, were only to be used in conveying 
 corn from their estates to Rome^°. The greediness of the 
 Roman aristocracy was extremely hurt at the blow which 
 this law inflicted upon them ; but its principle was per- 
 fectly consistent, and it was only right that the senators 
 should not interfere with the pursuits of the knights or 
 the wealthy merchants, who now formed the second class 
 in Roman society, and to whom banking, commerce, and 
 industry should have been left undisturbed. But the law, 
 nevertheless, produced among the aristocrats such a state 
 of excitement against C. Flaminius, that they spoke of 
 him only as a mutineer. He may have been a sanguine 
 and inconsiderate man, but I am convinced that he was 
 actuated by anything but revolutionary ideas. If a man 
 is once doomed to be decried, he is generally made to feel 
 
 '" Livv, XXI. 63. 
 
HISTORY OF ROxME. 181 
 
 hia doom in all possible ways. Thus, in regard to his 
 march to Ariminum, he was charged with rashness and 
 with having neglected the Latin holidays — charges which 
 are quite ludicrous. Surely Hannibal would not have 
 waited till the holidays were over ; he had, on the con- 
 trary, set out so early, that Flaminius was in reality al- 
 ready too late. 
 
 Hannibal had before him three roads, two leading into 
 Tuscany and one along the Adriatic leading past Rimini, 
 in the neighbourhood of which Flaminius was encamped, 
 with the reinforcements which he had brought to the 
 army of Scipio and Sempronius. It is an unaccountable 
 fact, that the Romans do not appear to have expected the 
 enemy in Etruria, for Hannibal penetrated into the coun- 
 try through the marshes without meeting with any resist- 
 ance. There were two roads by which he could enter into 
 Etruria : the one led from Bologna across the Apennines to- 
 wards Florence, and the other from Modena. The former 
 may have been impassable and overgrown, in order to pre- 
 vent the inroads of the Gauls. Hannibal might have 
 forced his way through, though perhaps with some danger ; 
 but, for his purpose, it ran too close by the Apennines, and 
 if he had been betrayed there, Flaminius might easily 
 have fallen upon his flanks from Rimini. Hannibal there- 
 fore took the other road. It is surprising that this opi- 
 nion has ever been disputed. Strabo, who very seldom 
 makes a mistake, had a wrong idea of the matter, and the 
 marsh of which he speaks may be traced in the neigh- 
 bourhood of Parma ^^ In Italy, or at least in Tuscany, 
 no one has any doubt as to which road is to be under- 
 stood. The river Arno emptied itself, at a very remote 
 period, into a bay which has gradually been filled up. On 
 its northern bank, not far from its mouth, there is still a 
 number of little lakes, some of which are quite close to 
 one another : many of them have been drained by canals. 
 
 " Strabo, V. \k 217 ; Compare Polybius, iii. 78, and Livy, xxii. 2. 
 
182 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 Pisa itself is situated somewhat iiigher, and the ground 
 on which it stands is a continuation of the fruitful fields 
 of Lucca. In the spring the whole district is covered with 
 water, and forms one lake. The Romans, therefore, 
 thought themselves quite safe in that quarter. Han- 
 nibal, however, invaded Etruria: he shewed the Romans 
 that he could get through, although he had to struggle 
 with unspeakable difficulties. In times of war he never 
 asked whether what he thought necessary could be done 
 with or without loss, and with this maxim he set out on 
 his march towards Etruria. We may imagine that at first 
 he went as far as Modena in order to deceive the Romans, 
 and then proceeded to Lucca. The difficulties which he 
 is said to have encountered may be exaggerated, but the 
 description which we have of his march seems, on the 
 whole, to convey a correct idea of it. He lost a great 
 number of men, and he had only one elephant left. 
 During his passage over the Alps he had been attacked 
 by a disease of the eyes, and now on his passage through 
 those marshes, he lost the use of one eye completely. 
 After a march of three days and a half, he arrived in the 
 neighbourhood of Faesulae, and then turned towards the 
 river Arno, where the country is now wonderfully im- 
 proved by drainage. His army had been considerably in- 
 creased by the Gauls. A report of his march had reached 
 C. Flaminius, who for this reason broke up his camp 
 without delay, in order to gain possession of the road to 
 Rome before Hannibal's arrival. The latter proceeded 
 on the road of Chiusi towards Rome and ravaged the 
 country which he traversed. Flaminius followed him with 
 the greatest speed. One of the hypocritical charges 
 brought against him was, that he paid so little attention 
 to the auguries, and that he did not defer his march 
 because the standard-bearer could not draw the stand- 
 ard — probably from fear — from its case ' ". We can 
 scarcely form an idea of the extent of such absurdities, 
 
 '^ Livy, XXII. 3. 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 183 
 
 but they prove what Polybius says, that during this 
 war the Romans were very much given to supersti- 
 tion. 
 
 Hannibal had advanced beyond Cortona and had the 
 lake of Trasimenus on his right. Flaminius followed him 
 in haste and amazement, for Hannibal had gained a few 
 days marches upon him on his road towards Rome, and 
 might have advanced still further : but he knew the advan- 
 tages of his ground and wished to gain a decisive battle. 
 Flaminius hastily marched along below Cortona. Hanni- 
 bal had in the meantime turned around the lake, and 
 Flaminius, in the belief that he was still continuing his 
 road towards Rome, descended from the hills which stretch 
 along the lake : in some places they are not more than a 
 stone's throw distance from its borders. Hannibal as- 
 cended the hills from behind in columns, took his sta- 
 tion upon them, and placed his light armed troops where 
 the space between the hills and the lake was narrowest, 
 and formed a very long defile. Here we see again the 
 finger of Providence ; for the day was foggy, and the 
 Romans broke up very early, before sunrise, to continue 
 their march, in very thick columns which were unable to 
 manoeuvre. When they arrived in the narrow defile, they 
 fell in with the light armed troops of Hannibal, and ima- 
 gining that the Carthaginians were returning to meet 
 them, they thought it necessary to hasten onward with- 
 out delay. Hannibal drew his columns to the right and 
 outflanked the Romans ; and while they attempted to force 
 their way through the light armed troops, Hannibal at- 
 tacked them from behind and from the hills. Thus the 
 Romans were driven into the lake, and not more than 
 6000 forced their way through the enemy. The greater 
 part perished in the lake, and C. Flaminius was among 
 the slain. There are two spots, Ossaia and the small 
 stream of Sanguinetto, which are pointed out by different 
 writers as the places where the battle was fought, and 
 which are generally cited as instances of the manner in 
 
184 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 which local traditions are preserved. But the Sanguinetto 
 cannot have been the actual scene of the battle, though it 
 may have been fought in its vicinity ; and as for Ossaia, 
 I have discovered that in the sixteenth century it was 
 called Orsaia, and that the nobles of Perugia used to 
 keep bears (orsi) on that spot, from which it derived the 
 name Orsaia, which was subsequently corrupted into Os- 
 saia. 
 
185 
 
 LECTURE XI. 
 
 EXTRAORDINARY PHENOMENA IN NATURE. PROCEEDINGS 
 
 OF HANNIBAL AFTER THE BATTLE OF TUASIMENUS. 
 
 WHY HE DID NOT MARCH AGAINST ROME? — HIS ARRIVAL 
 IN APULIA. — L. AEMILIUS PAULLUS AND C. TERENTIUS 
 VARRO. — BATTLE OF CANNAE. 
 
 Shakespeare has connected awful phenomena of phy- 
 sical nature with occurrences in the moral world, as 
 Thucydides connects the physical phenomena of the Pelo- 
 ponnesian war with the moral condition of the people. 
 During the second Punic war, the earth was shaken by 
 extraordinary convulsions and fermentations which were 
 going on in its bowels, and Pliny ^ says, that in one year 
 fifty-seven earthquakes were reported at Rome, a greater 
 number than had ever been observed before within so 
 short a period. Whether the earth shook in fifty-seven 
 different places, or at different times of the year, cannot be 
 decided, on account of the vague manner in which Pliny 
 speaks of the fact. We may, however, believe that the 
 earth shook under the feet of the combatants, near lake 
 Trasimenus, without their being aware of it^. It may be 
 that the thick fogs, which covered the scene on the morn- 
 ing of the battle, had some connexion with these internal 
 convulsions of the earth, although in spring such fogs 
 are not unfrequent in those districts. 1 myself saw one, 
 in the month of June, in the valley of the Tiber, not 
 far from lake Trasimenus, which reminded me very forci- 
 bly of the morning of that memorable battle. 
 
 ' Hist. Nat. II. 86. 
 
 ^ Pliny, 1. c ; Livy, xxii. o , Zonaras, viii. 25. 
 
18G HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 After the battle of Trasimenus, Hannibal exchanged 
 the Libyan armour of his soldiers for that of the Romans ■*, 
 which shews how well he knew how to train his army. 
 In order to use the Roman armour with success, it was 
 indispensable to adopt their whole method of training 
 and exercising the troops, and this could not be learned 
 as quickly as the manoeuvres of the phalanx. The in- 
 troduction of the pilum alone shews how, in the midst 
 of war, he kept his troops ready for any improvement. 
 Ever since the battle on the Trebia he had treated the 
 Italians with kindness; he took care of the wounded, 
 and restored the prisoners to freedom, probably on con- 
 dition that they should never again take up arms against 
 him. He now adopted the same line of conduct towards 
 the far greater number of prisoners who were taken in 
 the battle of Trasimenus. When he crossed the Alps, 
 it was not his intention to fall upon Rome like a torrent, 
 and to scale its walls; he was not capable of such a false 
 calculation ; he must, like Pyrrhus, have entertained the 
 idea of forming a close alliance with the Italians, and 
 of thus crumbling Rome to dust by a series of wars. He 
 was obliged to create for himself a power in Italy, before 
 he could hope successfully to combat and crush Rome. 
 
 When he broke up from lake Trasimenus, which must 
 have been immediately after the battle, he fell in with 
 a detachment of four thousand Romans, who had been 
 sent from Rimini to reinforce the army of C. Flaminius, 
 and were now cut to pieces. He did not march towards 
 Rome, but to Spoleto, the third line of Roman colonies, 
 in the hope of making an impression upon the town, 
 the conquest of which would necessarily afford him great 
 advantages. But the town held out, and remained faith- 
 ful to the Romans^. It is a peculiar feature which Han- 
 nibal had, in common with many great generals of modern 
 times, that he had an aversion to sieges. He him- 
 
 3 Polybius, III. 87 ; LivV;, xxil. 46. " Livy, xxii. 9. 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 187 
 
 self never besieged a place, and long sieges were always 
 conducted by his generals. When, therefore, he found 
 that his attempt upon Spoleto did not succeed, he broke 
 up, and continued his march into Picenum. Now, every 
 one will ask, Why did he not march directly towards 
 Rome ? Why did he not avail himself of the general 
 consternation which prevailed there ? — for the Romans 
 were alarmed in the highest degree, and the city and 
 its immediate vicinity were no longer their recruiting 
 places ; their forces could only be strengthened by draw- 
 ing reinforcements from distant parts of Italy; — or why 
 did not Hannibal attempt to blockade Rome, if he des- 
 paired of taking it by assault? To these questions we 
 may give the following answer : in those times Rome 
 was an extremely strong fortress, protected by steep rocks, 
 walls, banks, and moats. The Capitoline rock was hewn 
 quite steep ; one side of the Quirinal, as far as the porta 
 CoUina, was a rugged rock, and protected by a strong 
 wall ; further on was the wall of Servius Tullius, an 
 Italian mile in length. Where the city was not protected 
 by anything but a wall, as between the Aventine and 
 Caelius, there it was backed, at least partly, by marshes; 
 in short, a great army would have been required to under- 
 take the blockade. Hannibal might have burnt down the 
 suburbs, and thus have produced great terror and alarm ; 
 but that was not what he wished, and he had, besides, 
 several reasons for not undertaking anything of the sort. 
 His army was suffering from diseases, principally of a 
 cutaneous nature, and required rest for their recovery^. 
 The connexions which he hoped to form with the Italians 
 by his generous conduct towards them, had not yet been 
 effected". Another reason must assuredly have been, the 
 unhealthy state of the atmosphere in the neighbourhood 
 of Rome, during the summer months. The battle of Tra- 
 simenus must have taken place about the end of May, or 
 
 * Polybius, 111. 87. ° Polybius, iii. 90. 
 
188 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 the beginning of June : there is a passage from which 
 its exact date can be inferred, but I do not recollect it 
 at present". His army, therefore, would have been con- 
 sumed by diseases, even if the health of the soldiers had not 
 already been impaired. He took up his summer-quarters 
 — for they are as necessary in Italy as winter- quarters are 
 in other countries, — in Piceuum and the Marca Ancona, a 
 fruitful and healthy country, with a moderate temperature. 
 Providence here again evidently interfered on his behalf; 
 the earthquakes, which announced awful events to the 
 world, had paved his way, and been his battering-rams, 
 for the walls of several fortified towns were thrown down, 
 and he was enabled to gain his entrance in many places 
 without resistance^. While thus his soldiers recovered 
 from their suflTerings, the Romans exerted all their powers. 
 Q. Fabius Maximus was made dictator, and received the 
 command of the army which he formed by collecting those 
 who had survived the day of Trasimenus, and by fresh 
 levies 9. The Romans began even to enlist prisoners as 
 soldiers, when they were willing to serve. 
 
 In the meantime Hannibal left his quarters, for at the 
 beginning of autumn the season became more favourable. 
 He marched through Abruzzo, the country of the Pelig- 
 nians and Marrucinians, along the coast of the Adriatic, 
 wishing to reach Casinum and the Via Latina, and by 
 confining the communication between Rome and Cam- 
 pania to the Via Appia, he wished to see whether such 
 a position would encourage the Italians to venture upon 
 something decisive. He soon found himself involved in 
 difficulties on account of his having no maps, though it 
 is wonderful how well, in general, the ancients attained 
 their objects without them. He knew that Casinum lay 
 
 ' The atmosphere in and about Rome is pestiferous even before 
 the end of June, and in ancient times it was no less so than at pre- 
 sent. — N. 
 
 * Livy, XXII. 18, who gives one instance of it. 
 
 ° Livjv, XXII. 11 ; Polybius, iii. 88. 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 189 
 
 on the road, and he commanded one of his generals to 
 lead his troops thither. Now whether it was that he 
 made a mistake in speaking, or that his general misunder- 
 stood him, we know not, but the general led his troops 
 through Samnium and upper Campania, to Casilinum^". 
 Hannibal did not discover the mistake till it was too late, 
 for Fabius was before hand, and had turned from the 
 Via Latina into Samnium, and fortified himself there. 
 When, therefore, Hannibal saw that his plan was thwarted 
 by this unlucky accident, he ravaged the beautiful country 
 of Campania, where many of the Roman nobles had their 
 estates, and he wished to return through Samnium, into 
 Apulia, in order to take up his winter-quarters in those mild 
 districts, and at the same time to have, by his presence, 
 the Italians more under his direct influence. He had by 
 this time already conceived the idea of forming an alliance 
 with the king of Macedonia. But Fabius cut off his 
 retreat near mount Callicula ; Hannibal, however, did 
 not lose his presence of mind, and availing himself of the 
 superstition of the Romans, used the well known stratagem 
 of fastening bundles of brushwood to the horns of a great 
 number of oxen, and kindling the wood in the darkness 
 of night, &c. The Romans were so alarmed at this 
 strange phenomenon that they took to flight". Hannibal 
 now quickly took the position which had been occupied 
 by the Romans, and continued his march through Sam- 
 nium, until he reached the frontiers between Apulia and 
 the Frentanians, where he pitched his camp. Here Fabius 
 again met his enemy, but without suffering any defeat; 
 in petty skirmishes the Romans even gained some advan- 
 tages. But these little victories led the Romans to forget 
 their real position, and to believe that their former defeats 
 were to be attributed merely to chance, and that Fabius, 
 with more courage, might wipe off the disgrace from the 
 
 '" Li\ y, XXII. 13. 
 
 " Livy, XXII. 16; Polybiiis, iii. 93 ; Zonaras, viii 26. 
 
190 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 Roman name. Fabius was obliged to return to Rome, 
 and left the whole command of the army to his legate, 
 M. Minucius Rufus. It is well known that the senate 
 gave to Minucius the power of prodictator, so that both 
 had equal powers ^" ; and when Fabius returned, the troops 
 were divided between him and Minucius. When Hannibal 
 was informed of this measure he provoked Minucius, lay 
 in ambush, and gained such a victory over him, that he 
 would have been completely lost, had not Fabius and a 
 corps of Samnites come to his assistance. Minucius now 
 resigned his power, and Fabius terminated the campaign 
 in as favourable a manner as the circumstances would 
 allow of. 
 
 During the ensuing winter, Hannibal was, properly 
 speaking, in distressed circumstances : the harvest appears 
 to have been safely carried into fortified towns before his 
 arrival, for provisions were scarce, and he had great diffi- 
 culty in supporting his army ; but what rendered his situa- 
 tion more precarious than anything, was the fact that not 
 one of the Italian nations had yet joined him against the 
 Romans. 
 
 The consuls of the year 537 were L. Aemilius PauUus 
 and C. Terentius Varro. It seems a well-established fact 
 that the father of the latter was a butcher, a circumstance 
 which, in former times, would have rendered it impossible 
 for him to obtain the consulship. Whether a man pos- 
 sessed a hide of land, of two or of four jugers, nay, whether 
 they were his own property, or whether he merely tilled 
 them as a labourer, was a matter of indifference to the 
 Romans, but it was husbandry, which in their opinion 
 made a man honourable. Varro is said to have risen by 
 demagogic artifices'^; but whether the account of Livy 
 is correct or exaggerated, or whether it is a mere tale, 
 
 '* Livy, XXII. 26 ; Polybius, iii. 103; Dion Cassius, Fragm. 48; 
 Plutarch, Fabius, c. 7 ; Zonaras, viii. 26. 
 
 '^ Livy, xxTi. 25, full. Polybius knows nothing of it. 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 191 
 
 cannot be ascertained. We may, at any rate, ask, how did 
 it happen that, after the battle of Cannae, the senate went 
 out to meet him, and offer thanks to him for not having 
 despaired ^"^ ; and that from that moment, down to the end 
 of the second Punic war, he alone had an army with 
 extraordinary powers ? If he had actually, as Livy says, 
 been a contemptible man, such distinctions would be in- 
 comprehensible. My belief is, that he was one of those 
 unfortunate persons who are doomed in history to do 
 penance for their misfortunes. In their political opinions 
 the two consuls were diametrically opposed to each other. 
 Aemilius PauUus was not merely a patrician, which would 
 have made little difference, but he was literally a fx,»(roSj3ju,oj, 
 on account of a charge which had been brought against 
 him before the beginning of the Punic war. 
 
 The Roman armies were encamped in Apulia, not far 
 from Cannae. The Romans had exerted themselves to 
 their utmost to raise their troops to an equal number with 
 those of the Carthaginians. Their forces consisted of no 
 less than eight legions, all more than complete, each con- 
 sisting of 5000 men. There were consequently 40,000 
 Romans, independent of their allies, who served as in- 
 fantry % 2400 Roman horsemen, and 6000 of their alUes. 
 Hannibal had no more elephants, but he had a conside- 
 rable number of Gallic horsemen ; the Spanish cavalry, 
 however, was the best. The Numidians, like the Cos- 
 sacks, were not made for a shock, but were most excellent 
 for reconnoitering, foraging, and harassing the enemy; 
 against the infantry or heavy cavalry they were useless. 
 It is a mere chance that we know the date of the battle 
 of Cannae, and we are astonished to find that it was at 
 so late a season of the year: Gelhus^*' says that it took 
 place on the second of August. But how was it that so 
 long a time was allowed to pass away in inactivity ? Both 
 
 ^* Livy, XXII. 61 ; Plutarch, Fabius, 18. 
 
 '^ Polybius, III. 107 ; Livy, xxii. 36. '^ f^oct. Att. v. 17. 
 
192 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 armies were encamped for a considerable time opposite 
 each other on the banks of the Aufidus, a river which 
 flows from the mountains of Samnium, and empties itself 
 into the Adriatic. The Roman forces were divided into 
 two camps, each occupying one bank of the river ; their 
 head quarters were at Canusium, and their stores at 
 Cannae. The latter place, which was only a few miles 
 distant from the Roman camp, was taken by HannibaP^ ; 
 but the Romans seem nevertheless to have been too timid 
 to engage in a decisive battle. It may be, however, that 
 all their troops had not yet arrived, and that for this 
 reason Aemilius Paullus would not yet venture anything. 
 But what ought to have been done ? The wisest plan, 
 1 believe, would have been to refuse a battle as long as 
 Hannibal did not compel him to it ; for the longer the 
 hopes which Hannibal entertained in regard to the Italians 
 continued to be disappointed, the better it was for the 
 Romans. But it might, on the other hand, be said also, 
 that a longer delay might have encouraged the allies of 
 the Romans to do what they wished, but did not yet 
 venture to do. Everything depended upon one decisive 
 moment ; and if Lucania and Apulia had deserted the 
 Romans, their situation would have been fearful. Aemi- 
 lius Paullus knew that if he conquered in the battle, the 
 advantages would be immense; but he also knew that if 
 he lost the battle, all would be lost. One camp of the 
 Romans crossed the river Aufidus, which in that part forms 
 two great reaches, and joined the other. Hannibal like- 
 wise crossed the river, and drew up his army in battle array 
 in the face of the enemy, between the two reaches, and 
 in such a manner that his two flanks were leaning against 
 the reaches. His position was such, that the Romans 
 could derive no advantage from their superiority in num- 
 bers. They had placed their cavalry on the two wings : 
 Hannibal did the same, but in such a way, that one wing 
 
 '' Polybius, III. 107. 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 193 
 
 was occupied by his light, and the other by his heavy 
 cavalry. He ordered a part of his infantry, chiefly Gauls, 
 to advance against the Romans, and to open the contest ; 
 but they were easily overwhelmed by the Romans, and 
 on their retreat they were received by both the Cartha- 
 ginian wings, on the right and on the left. The Romans 
 followed them in columns, and now attacked the Cartha- 
 ginians, Numidians, and Spaniards, who had the river in 
 their rear. The two Carthaginian wings fell upon the 
 advancing Romans, and the whole Carthaginian cavalry 
 rushed forth against one wing of the Roman (Cavalry, and 
 a fierce contest began, in which the Romans were unable 
 to maintain their ground, and were, in a short time, com- 
 pletely routed. It is not improbable that many of the 
 Italian allies of the Romans, especially those who de- 
 serted their cause soon after, did not do their duty during 
 the engagement. The Carthaginian cavalry now threw 
 themselves upon the Roman infantry, and routed them 
 also most completely. The victory was decided, although 
 the contest was still maintained for a long time, until at 
 nightfall the defeat of the Romans was complete. I must 
 notice here a curious circumstance, which is mentioned 
 by Appian and Zonaras'*^, and was probably derived from 
 Fabius ; namely, that in that part of Apulia a sea-breeze 
 rises every day at noon-time. This is probable enough. 
 The whole district is of a calcareous nature, and in 
 summer the whole of Apulia is covered with clouds of 
 dust. But in this case it is added that, on the day before 
 the battle, Hannibal had ordered the fields to be ploughed, 
 and that he took such a position that the wind, blowing 
 towards the Romans, carried the clouds of dust into their 
 faces, so that they were unable to fight. I readily believe 
 that Hannibal may have availed himself of the wind ; but 
 the rest sounds rather marvellous, and is perhaps nothing 
 more than one of those fictions by which a conquered 
 
 1^ Appian, De Bello Annibal. 20. foil. ; Zonaras, ix. 1 foil. Comp, 
 Livv, XXII. 46. 
 
194 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 party endeavours to cover its own disgrace. Aemilius 
 Paullus was among the slain, and the number of the dead, 
 according to the lowest estimation, amounted to 40,000 
 foot and 2,700 horse ^9. 
 
 After the battle, the surviving Romans of both camps 
 capitulated, with the exception of a small detachment, 
 which threw itself into Canusium, and afterwards escaped 
 into the mountains. They surrendered, on condition that 
 Hannibal should enter into negotiations with Rome con- 
 cerning the ransom of the prisoners, as had been done in 
 the first Punic war, when the captives were always ex- 
 changed, and the party which had the greater number re- 
 ceived a sum of money as a compensation. Hannibal, who, 
 as I have already remarked, had an aversion to sieges, 
 was unconcerned about the Romans at Canusium, and 
 marched towards Capua. This must have been sooner 
 after the battle than Livy represents it : Hannibal cannot 
 have deferred it, for there is yet an immense number of 
 events, all of which belong to this same year. It is a 
 very well known story related by Cato"", that Maharbal-^ 
 the commander of the Carthaginian horse, immediately 
 after the battle, requested Hannibal to send him to Rome, 
 where, in five days, he promised to celebrate his victory 
 by a banquet on the Capitol. Hannibal answered with 
 a smile, that it was a fine idea, but impracticable ; where- 
 upon Maharbal replied, " Thou knowest, indeed, how to 
 gain a victory, but not how to make use of it." We cannot 
 say how great the consternation and paralysis would have 
 been at Rome, if the Carthaginian cavalry had made its 
 appearance on the Via Latina, before the mournful tidings 
 of the destruction of the Roman army had reached the 
 capital; but no part of the army could have reached 
 
 ■* Livy, XXII. 49. Compare Polybius, iii. 117; Appian, De Bello 
 Annibal, 25; Plutarch, Fabius, 16. 
 
 ^^ Gellius, Noct. Att. x. 24; compare Livy, xxii. 51 ; Plutarch, 
 Fab. 17. 
 
 -' I believe we must pronounce iVLiharbal, and not Maharbal. — N. 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 195 
 
 Rome in so short a time, except the cavalry, and even 
 this not without the greatest difficulty, and without chang- 
 ing the horses on its road ; for the distance between the 
 field of battle and the city of Rome was at least two 
 hundred miles, even if we suppose the road to have 
 formed a straight line. The only thing, however, which 
 the Romans would have had to do against cavalry, in order 
 to be safe, would have been simply to shut their gates. 
 It is not impossible that Maharbal may have fancied Rome 
 to be in a state of consternation, similar to that after the 
 battle on the Allia; but, although there were in the city 
 only recruits and soldiers destined for the navy, yet I 
 can never believe that the Romans would have been so 
 desponding as not to defend their walls ; and although 
 their defence would perhaps have been of no avail, it 
 might at least have compelled Hannibal to lay encamped 
 before Rome in the middle of August, which is the most 
 unfavourable season. 
 
 o 2 
 
196 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 LECTURE XII. 
 
 HANNIBAL IN CAMPANIA. CAPUA. — THIRD PERIOD OF THE 
 
 WAR, FROM 537 TO 541. EXERTIONS OF THE ROMANS. 
 
 THEY GAIN ADVANTAGES IN CAJNIPANIA. BESIEGE 
 
 CAPUA. HANNIBAL AT THE GATES OF ROME. HIERO- 
 
 NYMUS OF SYRACUSE. HIS SUCCESSORS, HIPPOCRATES 
 
 AND EPICYDES. — SIEGE AND CAPTURE OF SYRACUSE 
 BY THE ROMANS. 
 
 LivY^ gives a list of the Italian nations which deserted 
 Rome after the battle of Cannae, and the fact is repre- 
 sented as if it had happened immediately after the battle. 
 But this cannot have been the case : several of them 
 continued to be faithful to Rome for a considerable time 
 afterwards, and we see that the belief in the unshaken 
 omnipotence of Rome was still very strong among them ; 
 but it was especially the fortresses of Beneventum, Luceria, 
 Venusia, Brundusium, Paestum, and Aesernia, that exerted 
 their influence upon the people far around them, so as to 
 paralyze them, and prevent their joining the Carthaginians. 
 Even before the battle of Cannae, Hannibal had entered 
 into negotiations with Capua, — next to Rome the most 
 flourishing city of Italy, but, in regard to moral power 
 and political importance, quite the reverse of Rome. Cam- 
 pania was proverbial for its wealth, but its inhabitants were 
 luxurious and effeminate in the highest degree : they stood 
 to Rome in the very favourable relation of isopolity ; and 
 the great families of Campania thought themselves quite 
 equal to those of Rome, and were connected with them by 
 
 * XXII. 61, with the note of Glareanus. 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 197 
 
 intermarriages'^. They entertained the hope, which was 
 fostered by Hannibal, that the fall of Rome would transfer 
 the supreme power to Capua. When, therefore, Hannibal 
 appeared in Campania, every thing was prepared. The 
 Romans had small garrisons in all places, but at Capua 
 there was none, and the only thing which made the inha- 
 bitants of Capua hesitate was the circumstance, that 300 of 
 the noblest Campanians, who formed the cavalry belonging 
 to the Campanian legion, were still engaged in the service of 
 Rome, and had been sent to Sicily, where they were kept, 
 so to speak, as hostages to insure the loyalty of Capua. 
 The Romans were unable to do anything except by per- 
 suasion. One voice only rose at Capua to recommend 
 the people to remain faithful to Rome^ The apostacy of 
 Capua was the most glaring ingratitude, and it is only natu- 
 ral that the Romans could not forgive it ; for no kind of 
 ingratitude is so mortifying as the assum.ptions of unworthy 
 men, when they become refractory, and wish to occupy 
 places which are filled by others worthier than themselves. 
 But Capua was not merely ungrateful, but it displayed a 
 useless barbarity by putting the Romans to death in hot 
 bath rooms. Capua now concluded a very favourable 
 treaty with Hannibal, in which no mention is made of 
 any kind of Carthaginian supremacy ; but Hannibal recog- 
 nized their independence, did not claim the right of levy- 
 ing contributions among them, or of making them serve in 
 his armies, and allowed them to select 300 from among the 
 noblest of his Roman captives, as a compensation for the 
 300 Campanian horsemen in Sicily '*^. He also promised 
 them, in the name of Carthage, that they should not be 
 forgotten in any future peace. It is not known what 
 became of those 300 noble Romans, whether the Campa- 
 nians put them to death, or exchanged them for their 
 own nobles ; but I believe that they were exchanged, 
 
 2 Compare vol. in. p. 109, foil, and p. 291. 
 ^ Livy, XXIII. 7. * Livy, xxiii. 7. 
 
198 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 for at that time Rome was not as haughty as she had 
 used to be. 
 
 The acquisition of Capua was a great gain to Han- 
 nibal. It may be taken for granted, that on his march into 
 Campania the Hirpinians had declared for him. Acerrae, 
 which also enjoyed the right of isopolity with Rome, was 
 taken after a long siege ; but the attempts against Cumae, 
 Naples, and Nola, were unsuccessful, and, near the last of 
 these places, the Carthaginians were repulsed with some 
 loss. Livy^ does not seem to think that this loss was very 
 considerable, and it may certainly have been somewhat ex- 
 aggerated by other writers, as it was the first advantage 
 which the Romans gained after many defeats. It was 
 however, at any rate, of great importance to them, that 
 Hannibal did not succeed in his attempts to obtain posses- 
 sion of Cumae and Naples ; for if he had succeeded, he 
 would have had a place of arms and of communication with 
 Carthage, from which he might have derived incalculable 
 advantages. But he was now in the strangest position : he 
 had, in reality, not a single sea-port town ; and although he 
 was the general of a maritime state, yet he was in the 
 midst of a foreign country, and shut out from the sea. 
 
 The taking of Capua forms the conclusion of the 
 second period of the second Punic war : Hannibal had 
 now reached the highest point of his glory. Whether it 
 be true, that his winter quarters in the luxurious city of 
 Capua destroyed the character and disdpline of his army, 
 or whether this statement be a mere rhetorical declamation, 
 is a point, concerning which I think it preferable to be 
 silent. Thus much however is certain, that when, after 
 extraordinary exertions, men betake themselves to rest, 
 they lose their disposition for great and energetic activity, 
 and sometimes never acquire it again. This is a dan- 
 gerous cliff in the lives of many, and it may have been 
 so to Hannibal and his army. But there is another 
 
 * XXIII. l(j. 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 199 
 
 circumstance which is usually overlooked, namely, that 
 he could not recruit his army either from Africa, or from 
 Spain or Gaul. Every battle cost him a number of men ; 
 his being in the heart of a foreign country rendered a 
 series of little skirmishes unavoidable ; and the greatest 
 loss is always that which we sustain in a foreign land. 
 When Hannibal descended from the Alps, he had only 
 20,000 foot and 6000 horse; since then he had fought 
 three great battles, and not received a single man to rein- 
 force his army. He had no choice but to complete his 
 forces by Italians, We know that he drew soldiers from 
 Bruttium, and we may suppose, that he strengthened 
 himself in other parts also. The year after the battle of 
 Cannae, he received reinforcements and elephants ; the ex- 
 act numbers are not mentioned, but they must have been 
 considerable^. At the end of the war, only a few of the 
 veterans were surviving who had crossed the Alps. All 
 this must account for the fact, that the character of his 
 soldiers was afterwards no longer equal to that of the army 
 with which he had begun the war'^. Whatever injurious 
 influence, therefore, the stay at Capua may have had 
 on the army of Hannibal, the above-mentioned circum- 
 stances alone are sufiicient to account for its state of 
 dissolution. 
 
 I shall relate very briefly the history of the period 
 from the taking of Capua in 587, down to the year 541. 
 The Romans now made the most incredible exertions. 
 
 ^ Livy XXIII. 13, relates, that the senate of Carthage decreed in 
 the very year of the battle of Cannae, to send reinforcements to 
 Hannibal ; and he adds, that the decree was carried into effect with 
 that slowness which is common in prosperous circumstances. This 
 might, indeed, have delayed the arrival of the reinforcements till the 
 year after ; but elephants are mentioned in the camp of Hannibal 
 even before he took up his winter-quarters. — Livy, xxiii. 18. 
 
 ^ The Prussian army of 1762 was infinitely inferior to that of 
 1757 ; and those who have seen the French armies must own, that the 
 one of 1807 was incomparably better than that of 1812, during the 
 campaign to Russia. — N. 
 
200 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 Their legions were henceforth constantly increased. Allies 
 are no longer mentioned ; and it is highly probable that, 
 in this year, they were incorporated with the legions for 
 the whole duration of the war, in order not to let them 
 stand isolated. This is, however, a mere conjecture of 
 mine, which I do not mean to give as an historical fact ; 
 it may be nothing but a false appearance, but as long as 
 I have no evidence to the contrary, I take it to be correct. 
 Instead of confining themselves, after such losses, to ope- 
 rations on a smaller scale, the Romans conceived the 
 great idea of multiplying everything. They were obliged 
 to create a new army, and with it to meet the Cartha- 
 ginians, who were accustomed to victory. They refused 
 to ransom those who had been taken prisoners at Cannae^; 
 but, whether this measure was wise and just, and whether 
 the prisoners were worth being ransomed, is a point about 
 which a great many things might be said. The awful 
 consequence, however, was, that Hannibal sold them all 
 as slaves. The actions of those who belong to a great 
 body of men, must not be judged with the same severity 
 as those of single and independent persons, for the former 
 are obliged to give up their own individuality. I have 
 known persons who acted in a similar manner, although 
 they were perfectly incapable of doing the same thing 
 either before or after such an occasion. We have, more- 
 over, to consider, whether Hannibal did not, perhaps, 
 demand ready money, which the Romans were not in a 
 condition to pay. But even those who survived the day 
 of Cannae, without having been taken prisoners, were 
 treated as cowards, with bitterness and contempt^; just 
 as the unfortunate admiral Byng was shot, in order to 
 establish a maxim. As a sufficient number of freemen 
 could not be found, 8000 slaves were bought on credit 
 of their masters, and formed into two regiments^''; nay, 
 
 * Livy, XXII. 59, foil.; PolybiuSj vi. 58. 
 
 ^ Livy, xxiii. 31 ; xxv. 6. '" Livy, xxiv. 11. 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 20l 
 
 even gladiators were enlisted with their arms. We can 
 hardly form an idea of the distressed state of Rome: 
 the price of corn had risen to ten times the ordinary 
 price, and Rome was in a complete state of famine ^^ 
 Lucania (with the exception of Petelia), Bruttium, the 
 greater part of Samniura, and almost all the Greek towns 
 of Italy, threw themselves into the arms of Hannibal^"; 
 and it is surprising that, under these circumstances, he 
 not only gained no lasting advantages, but that, from this 
 time forward, the Romans continually acquired new 
 strength. 
 
 In the year after the battle of Cannae, Hannibal made 
 two unsuccessful attempts upon the fortified camp of M. 
 Claudius Marcellus at Nola", and sustained a considerable 
 loss. Q. Fabius Maximus and Marcellus were his an- 
 tagonists; and he is reported to have said at the time, 
 that he respected Fabius as his tutor, but Marcellus as 
 his rival ; that Fabius prevented his committing any mis- 
 take, and that Marcellus gave him exercise for the de- 
 velopment of his own powers ^^. This is not a mere 
 rhetorical phrase. The Romans established themselves in 
 Campania with a decided superiority, as early as the year 
 539. The Campanians were cowards; they took the field 
 only in the neighbourhood of Cumae, but were defeated, 
 and allowed themselves to be shut up like sheep in a 
 fold. Hannibal made several attempts to relieve them ; 
 one Carthaginian army, under the command of Hanno, 
 advanced as far as Beneventum, but was beaten there by 
 Tib. Sempronius Gracchus and his slaves, whose bravery 
 was afterwards rewarded with their freedom ^^ After 
 being thus thwarted, Hannibal made only feeble attempts. 
 I do not understand why Hannibal, who had in the mean- 
 while received reinforcements from Carthage, did not exert 
 
 " Polybius, IX. 44. '^ Livy, xxiii. 30; PolybiuSj vii. 1. 
 
 '' Livy, XXIII, 46 ; compare xxiv. 13. 
 
 •^ Plutarch, Marcellus, c. 9. '* Livy, xxiv. 14 foil. 
 
202 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 all his powers to relieve Capua, which was blockaded by 
 the Romans with double entrenchments. It is true the 
 communication with the city was extremely difficult, but 
 Hannibal ought to have stormed the entrenchments ; this 
 neglect is unaccountable to me. He lingered in Apulia 
 and Lucania, made some petty conquests, and abandoned 
 Capua to its hopeless fate. At last, however, he made 
 an attempt, the real object or meaning of which history 
 is at a loss how to explain. He appeared before Capua '^; 
 and, W'hen he found that he could not induce the Romans 
 to engage in an open contest, he marched along the Via 
 Latina towards Rome, and crossed the river Liris in the 
 neighbourhood of Fregellae^^. He found no favourable 
 reception anywhere, and marched towards Rome, which 
 was thrown into a state of the greatest alarm. Q. Fulvius 
 was hastily called away from Capua, for the protection of 
 the capital. This was just what Hannibal wished. He 
 had probably calculated that both armies would be called 
 back, which would have enabled him to relieve Capua, 
 and to introduce provisions, or to lead away its population. 
 But it seems that the general, to whom he had left the 
 command to effect this, was not fit for the task. Hannibal 
 was encamped near the porta Collina, on a projection of 
 Monte Pincio, opposite the low grounds of the garden of 
 Sallust, and he challenged the Romans to fight. Q. Ful- 
 vius hastened along the Via Appia towards Rome, and 
 ofiered battle. But to fight a battle in that position could 
 surely not be the real object of Hannibal, and he confined 
 himself to ravaging the country, and then returned to 
 Campania and Rhegium^^. If his Italian allies, the Sam- 
 nites, Lucanians, and Bruttians, had, in the meanwhile, 
 compelled the other consul to raise the siege of Capua, 
 Hannibal would have gained his end ; but he was always 
 obliged to do everything himself. 
 
 ^^ Livy, XXVI. 6 foil; Polybius, ix. 3 foil. 
 
 '" Livy, XXVI. 9. '® Polybius, ix. 6. 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 203 
 
 Hiero died at the age of ninety, either in the year of 
 the battle of Cannae, or the year after, and was succeeded 
 by his grandson Hieronymus. We find almost invariably 
 in Greek dynasties, that the successors of great men do 
 not seem to know what use to make of the power be- 
 queathed to them, except so far as their own enjoyment 
 is concerned. Hieronymus was the son of Gelo, the son 
 of Hiero ; had Gelo been alive, he would have followed 
 quite a different line of policy ^^^ but Hieronymus, in the 
 belief that, after the battle of Cannae, Rome would not 
 raise her head again, thought that he might treat the Ro- 
 mans with contempt, although he had no wish to throw 
 himself into the arms of the Carthaginians. He was a 
 contemptible young man, without ability or experience, and 
 fancied that, in the confusion of the war, he might make 
 himself sole master of Sicily *°. He intended to give up the 
 alliance with Rome, and to negotiate with the Cartha- 
 ginians. Hannibal, who kept his own objects in view in 
 such cases, made all possible concessions without any 
 scruple, on condition that Hieronymus should renounce 
 his alliance with Rome. This Hieronymus did ; but he 
 took no further steps. The Romans established them- 
 selves in Sicily, notwithstanding their immense difficulties, 
 and Hieronymus, who had exasperated his subjects by 
 his tyrannical despotism, was murdered "^ After him two 
 Carthaginians of Syracusan origin, Hippocrates and Epi- 
 cydes, usurped the government. The Romans endeavour- 
 ed, in their negotiations with them, to be as gentle as 
 they could, and to gain them over to their cause by per- 
 suasion ; and as Hannibal did not, in the meantime, derive 
 from his alliance with Syracuse the advantages which he 
 had expected, the negotiations of the Romans began to 
 gain ground. But the two usurpers had declared them- 
 selves in the most decided way against the Romans. M. 
 
 '^ Polybius, VII. 8. "" Livy, xxiv. 6 ; Polybius, vii. 4. 
 
 ■-' Livy, XXIV. 7 ; Poljbius, vii. 6. 
 
204 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 Marcellus was now sent to Sicily. The events which 
 now followed may be related briefly. The siege of Sy- 
 racuse occupied a great part of the year. Marcellus, by 
 careful operations, took possession of two parts of the 
 town, Neapolis and Tyche; but Acradina, the principal 
 part of the city, was taken by treachery 2-. This siege is 
 remarkable on account of the engines which Archimedes 
 is said to have used. We have different accounts about 
 this subject; but that which is well established, may be 
 reduced to the fact, that Archimedes constantly thwarted 
 the attempts of the battering-rams, and destroyed the 
 great engines of the Roman ships by his superior skill 
 in mechanics, but not by fire and the like"^. The account 
 of the burning-glasses must be rejected. It is not im- 
 probable, that when afterwards such glasses were invented, 
 and persons thought that they might be used in sieges, 
 or for the destruction of ships, this possibility was trans- 
 formed into an historical fact, and forged into the siege 
 of Syracuse. That these glasses were not mentioned by 
 Polybius may be inferred, from the silence of Livy about 
 them. The humanity and gentleness of Marcellus after the 
 taking of Syracuse are generally spoken of as something 
 quite extraordinary -% and I agree in declaring it an act 
 of humanity, that he did not order the town to be plun- 
 dered or destroyed; but from the Excerpta Ylsp) FvcoftaJv, 
 published by A. Mai "5, we see this humanity in a different 
 light : those of its inhabitants who were not sold as slaves 
 were driven out of the town into the open fields, where 
 they died of starvation, so that the free Syracusans had to 
 envy the lot of slaves, and that many of them pretended 
 to be slaves, merely to obtain the means of satisfying their 
 hunger. Such were the manners of the times ! 
 
 ^ Livy, XXV. 2.5 foil; Polybius, viii. 5—10 and 37. 
 *" Polybius, 1. c; Livy, xxiv. 34 foil.; Plutarch, Marcellus, 
 c. 14 foil.; Zonaras, ix. 4. '* Livy, xxv. 40. 
 
 ^ Diodorus, Excerpta Vaticana, p. 68 ed. L. Dindorf; compare 
 Excerpt. Vales, p. 569 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 205 
 
 LECTURE XIII. 
 
 SURRENDER OF CAPUA. THE YEARS FROM 541 TO 545. 
 
 THE WAR IN SPAIN. — P. CORNELIUS SCIPIO. HAS- 
 
 DRUBAL. BATTLE ON THE METAURUS. 
 
 The taking of Syracuse and the treatment which its 
 inhabitants experienced, shew how little the wars of the 
 ancients can be compared with those of modern times, and 
 how grateful we may be that the principles of war are so 
 much altered for the better. Another example of the same 
 cruelty was exhibited at the taking of Capua. Cicero^ 
 seems to think it a wise clemency that the Romans did 
 not destroy the town, but they raged against its inhabitants 
 with all the fury that one can imagine. The citizens were 
 obliged to throw their gates open to the Romans, but 
 were at the same time so fully convinced of the fate which 
 awaited them, that a number of senators mutually opened 
 one another's veins, and thus put an end to their lives ^. 
 One noble Capuan killed his wife and two children, before 
 the town was surrendered. When the gates were opened, 
 the inhabitants suffered everything that can be inflicted 
 by an army of enraged soldiers, who were, in truth, no 
 better than demons. All Campanian citizens were com- 
 pelled to quit the town ; the noblest persons were thrown 
 into chains ; and Fulvius Flaccus ordered all the senators 
 to be put to death. Only freedmen and slaves were 
 allowed to remain and inhabit the place ^ The town 
 thus received quite a different population, and its whole 
 territory was confiscated by the Romans*. 
 
 ' De leg. Agr. i. 6. 
 
 * Livy, XXVI. 14, says that they poisoned themselves. 
 
 ^ Livy, XXVI. 16. '' Livy, xxvin. 46. 
 
206 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 During the period from 541 to 545, no great events 
 or battles took place. Hannibal defeated the proconsul 
 Cn. Fulvius^ and from an ambuscade he fell upon the 
 consuls M. Marcellus and T. Quinctius Crispinus. Mar- 
 cellus was slain, and Crispinus died afterwards in conse- 
 quence of his wounds'^. Hannibal gained possession of 
 the towns of Arpi and Salapia, but both were re-con- 
 quered by the Romans : he had taken Tarentum after 
 a long siege, the issue of which was, for a time, very 
 doubtful ; but, soon after, the town was surrendered 
 to the Romans, by the treacherous governors whom he 
 had entrusted with the command of the garrison. 
 All the Greek towns thus abandoned the cause of 
 Hannibal. 
 
 Let us now turn our attention to Spain. At the be- 
 ginning of the war the Romans thought that the Cartha- 
 ginians, after such brilliant successes in Spain, would send 
 army upon army to reinforce Hannibal ; and although the 
 Romans themselves were in the most difficult circum- 
 stances, they sent out an army under the brothers Publius 
 and Cneius Scipio'^. They arrived in Spain in the year 
 535, the second of the war, established themselves in the 
 neighbourhood of Taragona and harassed the Carthagini- 
 ans. After the battle of Cannae the Carthaginians wished 
 Hasdrubal to march into Italy, but he was prevented by 
 the Scipios, The Spaniards were a strange people : they 
 always hated their rulers, whether they were Carthagini- 
 ans or Romans. The district in which the war was carried 
 on cannot be distinctly seen hi the narrative of Livy. It 
 seems surprising, but cannot be doubted, that the Romans 
 advanced into Andalusia as far as Cordova, for how they 
 could venture to penetrate so far, is quite unaccountable. 
 The war in Spain deserves the less to be minutely de- 
 
 * Livy, xxvn. 1. « Livy, xxvii. 27 ; Polybius x. 32. 
 
 ' The name of the duofulmina belli seems to have been transferred 
 from Hamilcar Barca to the Scipios. — N. 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 207 
 
 scribed, as all accounts of it differ, according to Livy, most 
 widely from one another, and are very far from being 
 trustworthy^. In one year — it is uncertain which — the 
 Scipios made several successful campaigns. In the eighth 
 year after their arrival in Spain, according to Livy 9 about 
 540, the Romans sustained great losses, and within thirty 
 days both the Scipios were slain. Publius fell first by the 
 faithlessness of the Celtiberians who served in the Roman 
 army, and allowed themselves to be bribed by the Cartha- 
 ginians ^°. The Romans lost by this defeat all their pos- 
 sessions west of the Iberus, but the progress of the enemy 
 was checked by L. Marcius. The advantage, however, 
 which Hasdrubal derived from his victory, was that it 
 afforded him the means for his expedition into Italy. 
 Whether Spain in his absence remained faithful to the 
 Carthaginians or not, was to him a matter of indiffer- 
 ence, for he thought that it would be easy to re- con- 
 quer it after having gained possession of Italy. The 
 Romans, on the other hand, were determined not to give 
 up Spain; and as they knew of the preparations which 
 Hasdi'ubal was making, they resolved to send a pro-con- 
 sul to Spain. But when no one was prepared to under- 
 take the command, Publius Scipio, the son of Publius 
 Scipio who had fallen in Spain, came forward and offered 
 to go. He is said to have warded off a fatal stroke aimed 
 
 ^ Livy, XXV. 39 ; xxvi. 49 ; compare xxvii. 7. (Even the death 
 of MarceUiis is related in three different ways. — N.) — See Livy, 
 xxvii. 27. ^ XXV. 36. 
 
 ^^ Polybius, X. 6 ; Livy, xxv. 35 ; Appian Hispan. 14—16. 
 (These Celtiberians had many of the peculiarities which distinguish 
 the barbarous nations of the early times : the same features are 
 found among the Vandals and the Goths, who were anything but 
 faithful. Faithfulness is not a characteristic of barbarians, and 
 the more civilized men are, the more faithful do they become. 
 The ancient Germans were as faithless as the modern Albanese, 
 who will do anything for money. Such also was the character 
 of the Celtiberians, notwithstanding their gi-eat heroism in other 
 respects. — N.) 
 
208 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 at his father in the battle on the Ticinus ; but if we con- 
 sider that he was not more than twenty-four years old 
 when he went to Spain ^i, it seems impossible that he 
 should have done what is ascribed to him, as early as 
 the battle on the Ticinus. As there was no other choice, 
 he obtained the votes of the people, although many ob- 
 jected because he was too young, and, in their supersti- 
 tion, considered it an evil omen that he was yet in mourn- 
 ing for his father. There is one point in his character 
 which has led many to the belief that he was an impostor : 
 he was accustomed to go early in the morning into the 
 sanctuary of Jupiter on the Capitol, and to remain there 
 alone for some time, pretending that he had interviews 
 with the gods. His pretension to prophetic powers, 
 which, in some instances, seemed to be justified by what 
 actually took place, gained him the confidence of all. 
 Similar things are related of Mohammed and Cromwell; 
 and some persons believe that these men were under the 
 influence of a supernatural inspiration, while others re- 
 gard them as mere hypocrites ; but I think, that we are 
 justified in supposing that there was a mixture of both : 
 the truth is known to God alone. Scipio was very popu- 
 lar, and was supplied with all that was necessary for his 
 great undertaking. 
 
 The year in which New Carthage was taken is uncer- 
 tain, as Livy^" himself confesses, but I believe that it was 
 the year 546. It is hardly conceivable how it was pos- 
 sible for the Romans to take the town, when we consider 
 that their possessions were confined to the small coast of 
 Valencia, and that there were three Carthaginian armies 
 in Spain. The event, however, shews that it was possible. 
 But we must say, that the Carthaginians took no pains to 
 relieve the town, although it had become, within a short 
 period, a place of great importance, and had a numerous 
 
 " Livy, XXVI. 18; Appian, De Reb. Hisp. 18. But Polybius, 
 X. 6. says : "Ero? i^hojxov ex*"" ivpog roTy t'lKom. '° xxvii. 7. 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 209 
 
 population i\ It was situated on a peninsula, and Scipio 
 first made a powerful attack upon its walls from the land 
 side, but he was repelled with great loss. On the north- 
 ern side of the peninsula there was a marshy district, 
 which, when the tide came in, was always under water'*. 
 The existence of that district was not unknown to Scipio, 
 and after having sent some men to reconnoitre, and having 
 heard that it was possible to ford the district, he re- 
 newed his attack from the land side ; and while the in- 
 habitants were defending themselves here, a detachment 
 of the Romans entered the town from the marsh, not far 
 from the main wall, and took possession of one of the 
 gates. The taking of New Carthage was an irreparable 
 loss to the Carthaginians. It seems that Hasdrubai must 
 have been in the neighbourhood, but his whole care and 
 attention were directed to his Italian expedition. The 
 number of his forces is not known, for Polybius does not 
 mention it, but a large army had been assembled with an 
 adroitness equal to that of his father and his brother, and 
 he also formed connexions of friendship with the Gauls. 
 Livy says that, since the passage of Hannibal across the 
 Alps, many Carthaginians had followed the same road, and 
 that in this manner they had become better acquainted 
 with the Gallic tribes i^. From his account we also see 
 that, at this time, the Arvernians had the supremacy in 
 Gaul, and that, owing to their intercession, Hasdrubai met 
 with no resistance on his progress. Hence it is said, that 
 he marched in two months the same distance as that on 
 which his brother had spent five^''. This, however, must 
 be understood of the distance between the Pyrenees — for 
 here he had been in winter quarters — and the Italian foot 
 of the Alps. Hannibal had not expected his brother so 
 
 '^ Livy, XXVI. 42 foil. ; Polybius, x. 11 foil. 
 
 '* The tide is not as striking here as in the ocean, but it is never- 
 theless of considerable importance. — N. 
 
 '* Livy, XXVII. 39. "^ Appian, De Bell. Aniiib 52. 
 
 P 
 
210 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 early, since Hasdrubal had set out on his march very 
 much sooner than had been anticipated. Hannibal, in 
 the meantime, drew the Romans from one point to 
 another, as if he had been playing at chess with them. 
 Hasdrubal was met by M. Livius Salinator, but he hoped 
 to be able to put himself in possession of Placentia, which 
 would serve him as a safe place of arms. It is almost in- 
 conceivable how this town, surrounded as it was by Gallic 
 tribes, could maintain itself. By his unsuccessful siege 
 of it Hasdrubal lost a great deal of time, and it was par- 
 ticularly unfortunate, that the letters he sent to his brother 
 fell into the hands of the Romans, who were thus made 
 acquainted with his whole plan. Livius Salinator encamp- 
 ed ; and C. Claudius Nero, his colleague, who was then 
 operating against Hannibal, tried to deceive him, and has- 
 tened to his colleague whom he met near Sena. During 
 the night, Hasdrubal's attention was excited by hearing 
 the military music play twice, and he concluded from this 
 circumstance that there must be two consuls. He there- 
 fore wished to retreat, and to occupy a defensive position 
 behind the river Metaurus ; but the guides whom he had 
 with him ran away, and he was unable to find the fords 
 by which he had crossed the river. It is probable that 
 there had been heavy rains, since otherwise the Metaurus 
 might have been forded in any place without difficulty ; for, 
 in ordinary circumstances, the water at most reaches up to 
 a man's breast. While he was thus marching along the 
 banks, he was attacked by the Romans. Hasdrubal fell, 
 and his whole army was routed and cut to pieces. Those 
 who escaped alive owed their delivery only to the circum- 
 stance, that the Romans were tired of slaughtering. A 
 Roman threw the head of Hasdrubal into the camp of 
 Hannibal. Thus ended the third period of the war'". 
 
 " Livy, XXVII. 46. foil. ; Polybius, xi. l.foll. : Appian, De Boll. 
 Amiib 52. 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 211 
 
 LECTURE XIV. 
 
 CONTINUATION OF THE WAR IN SPAIN. INSURRECTION OF 
 
 THE ITALIAN ALLIES IN THE ARMY OF SCIPIO. — SY- 
 PHAX. — P. CORN. SCIPIO, CONSUL, CROSSES OVER TO 
 AFRICA. — MASINISSA. NEGOTIATIONS FOR PEACE. 
 
 After Hasdrubal had led his forces into Italy, the 
 Carthaginians had still two armies in Spain, one under 
 the command of Hasdrubal, the son of Gisco, and the 
 other under the command of Mago. Scipio continued 
 the war against these two, and it soon became evident 
 that Hasdrubal, the son of Hamilcar, had been the soul 
 of all the undertakings of the Carthaginians; for, after 
 a succession of battles, Hasdrubal, the son of Gisco, left 
 Spain and went to Africa, and Mago also embarked, and 
 led the remainder of his forces to the Balearian islands, 
 which seem to have refused obedience. Mago soon after- 
 wards went to Liguria, endeavouring to establish a power 
 there, with which he might attack the Romans in Etruria ; 
 for this country, which had been faithful to Rome until 
 then, began to shew somewhat of a refractory spirit, which 
 alarmed the Romans with fear of a rebellion. When the 
 nations of Spain perceived that they were given up by 
 the Carthaginians, and that they were making their last 
 efforts only to extort from them the means for carrying 
 on the war in other quarters, they refused obedience, and 
 endeavoured to expel the Carthaginians. Even the town 
 of Gades, which was older than Carthage itself, shut its 
 gates against Mago ; but its magistrates, who were tempted 
 to come out into the camp of Mago, were put to deaths 
 
 1 Livv, xxviii. 37. 
 
 P 2 
 
212 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 This injustice on the part of Mago was the signal for 
 Gades to abandon the cause of Carthage for ever. A 
 treaty was concluded with the Romans, which, in some 
 accounts, is ascribed to an earlier date than the narrative 
 of Livy allows us to suppose. But it is not improbable, 
 that the tradition of an earlier treaty with the Romans 
 may be a politic forgery of the Gaditans themselves, by 
 which they ascribed to themselves the merit of having 
 shewn a friendly disposition towards the Romans, even 
 immediately after the fall of the Scipios. 
 
 Scipio remained in Spain during the years 545 and 546, 
 and punished the towns which had violated their alliance with 
 the Romans, or had treated them cruelly. The most re- 
 markable event of this time is an insurrection in the Roman 
 army-. The accounts of it in our historians are not com- 
 plete, and evidently do not hit the main point. The rebel- 
 lion did not take its rise among the Roman soldiers, but 
 among the Italian allies. They chose an Umbrian and a 
 Latin of Gales for their leaders, and gave them the title 
 and the ensigns of Roman consuls. Here we see the first 
 symptoms of the tendency of the Italian allies to place 
 themselves on an equality with the Romans, for they began 
 to feel their own importance, and saw that, although they 
 were not inferior to the Romans in war, they were dis- 
 regarded by them on all occasions. Another cause of their 
 discontent may have been the circumstance, that they re- 
 ceived their pay more irregularly than the Roman soldiers. 
 But, in short, the affair was of a very serious nature. The 
 deep cunning of Scipio, however, deceived them : he per- 
 suaded them that, in reality, justice was on their side, that 
 he would give them their pay either as a body, or to 
 every one separately at Carthagena ; and, in order to 
 inspire them with full confidence, he sent the trusty 
 garrison of Romans out of the town. The rebels, there- 
 
 "^ Livy, XXVIII. 21.. foil. ; Polybius, xi. 25. foil.; Appian, De Reb. 
 Hispan. 35. foil. 
 
HISTORY OF ROME 213 
 
 fore, believed that they would find Scipio alone in it : but 
 the columns which were marching out received orders 
 to halt at the gates. The leaders of the insurgents were 
 invited to the houses of several distinguished Roman 
 officers, and were detained there : the others, in the 
 meantime, assembled in the market-place without their 
 arms. The Roman garrison then returned in arms, and 
 compelled the rebels to submit to the will of Scipio. He 
 could not expect any advantage from excessive severity, 
 and therefore contented himself with putting to death 
 thirty-five of the most guilty. He also punished some 
 Spanish princes, who, although they had supported him 
 before, had now become tired of the Romans. These 
 were his last actions in Spain ; but, before he returned 
 to Rome, he had ventured upon the romantic enterprise 
 of paying a visit to Syphax, king of the Massylians, or 
 Masasylians, whose capital was Cirta'. Syphax was not 
 tributary to Carthage, but in that state of dependence 
 in which we always find the princes of a barbarous nation 
 in their relation to a very wealthy, civilized, and powerful 
 neighbouring state. He served them for money, and ac- 
 knowledged their supremacy without resistance ; and, as 
 it has always been with the barbarians in those countries, 
 he was sometimes quite the subject of Carthage, while 
 at another time he revolted from her, and soon after 
 again became reconciled with her. When Hasdrubal 
 was in Spain, Syphax was at war with Carthage, made 
 overtures to the Romans in Spain, and requested the 
 Scipios to send over some Roman officers, that he might 
 learn from them the art of conducting war in the manner 
 of the Romans. But peace was concluded with Carthage, 
 and these transactions were not followed by any results^. 
 Syphax was now neutral ; and Scipio was induced, by 
 his invitation, to cross over to Africa, and to enter into 
 an alliance with him. Scipio had, from the first, enter- 
 
 ' Livy, xxviii. 17. foil. ; Polybius, vii. 19. * Livy, xxi\ . 48. 
 
214 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 tained the very just opinion, that the Carthaginians ought 
 to be conquered in Africa. At the court of Syphax, 
 Scipio met Hasdrubal, the son of Gisco, who arrived 
 there as ambassador from Carthage. The conduct of 
 Syphax towards the Romans had, undoubtedly, no other 
 object than to prevent the Carthaginians becoming too 
 powerful, and to obtain as much money as possible : surely, 
 we have every reason to wonder, that Scipio was not sold 
 to the Carthaginians for some enormous sum. 
 
 Scipio was still pro-consul; he had been curule aedile^, 
 but not praetor, and he now offered himself as a candidate 
 for the consulship. The lex annalis was already in force, 
 and he had not yet attained the age prescribed by the law. 
 But all restrictions of this kind were wisely set aside for 
 the time that the war lasted, and Scipio was made consul 
 by the unanimous votes of all the centuries^, for no one 
 enjoyed such a degree of popularity. The nation longed 
 to see the end of the war. It is, according to all appear- 
 ance, nothing but one of those foolish opinions, by which 
 the majority of people are so easily misled, when we hear 
 it said that the Roman aristocrats did not want to put 
 an end to the war, in order to be able to multiply the 
 number of their consuls. I have myself heard persons ex- 
 press similar opinions. When Louis XVI. was executed, 
 I heard very intelligent men say, that it was the emigrants 
 who had prevailed upon the Convention to pronounce the 
 sentence, in order to call forth the general indignation 
 of Europe against the republic. Absurd as this opinion 
 was, we cannot wonder that a similar one became current 
 among the Romans. The charge fell upon the nobles of 
 both orders; and it was the ruling party, whose rallying 
 point was old Fabius", which gave rise to this opinion by 
 their jealous attempts against Scipio, whom they tried to 
 keep down as much as possible. It was this same party 
 which, after Scipio was made consul, refused him the means 
 
 ^ Livy, XXV. 2. ^ Livy, xxviii. 38. ' Livy, xxviii. iO. foll_ 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 215 
 
 of transferring the war to Africa; but, the more this party 
 lowered itself, the more vehemently did public opinion, 
 not only in the senate but in all Italy, express itself in 
 favour of Scipio. But yet the senate expressly refused 
 sending an army to Africa. Sicily was given to Scipio 
 as his province, with the remark that, with the means he 
 thus obtained, he might go over to Africa, if he thought 
 it useful to the republic^. But nothing at all could be 
 done on such a condition ; and he demanded the permis- 
 sion to increase his forces at least by enlisting volunteers, 
 who would be no burden to the senate. When persons 
 praise the perseverance of the Roman senate during this 
 war, this conduct towards Scipio, which nobody can think 
 very praiseworthy, ought not to be kept out of sight. The 
 senate in this instance behaved in the same manner to- 
 wards Scipio, in which the senate of Carthage acted to- 
 wards Hannibal. We can well understand, that the irrita- 
 tion produced by the nobles must have been the more 
 provoking, in proportion to the enthusiasm which the other 
 party shewed for Scipio. It may be, that the ruling party 
 imagined that Scipio intended to usurp the supreme power 
 in the republic; but he never thought of such a thing. 
 These disputes brought Rome nearly to the point of giving 
 up all the advantages which it had gained. Italy was 
 visited by famine and epidemic diseases ; and Rome her- 
 self was so much worn out, that the voluntary exertions 
 which were made on her behalf must excite our admir- 
 ation. The towns of Etruria made extraordinary efforts ; 
 although, in point of duty, they were bound to little or 
 nothing at all. This shews that hitherto they had suf- 
 fered less than others, and that the Romans had strictly 
 kept to the letter of their treaties with Etruria. A part 
 of the Umbrians built a fleet : great numbers of men, who 
 had already served their time, as well as of young men, 
 came from the Sabines, Marsians, and Picentians, and 
 
 " Livy, xxvm. i5. 
 
210 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 offered to serve as volunteers in the army of Scipio. Thus 
 a great army and a fleet were soon ready to follow him 
 to Sicily, contrary to the expectations and wishes of the 
 senate. The year, however, passed away without any 
 important event, either because the Roman general forgot 
 his duties under the beautiful Grecian sky of Sicily, and 
 in his intercourse with the enlightened Greeks, or because 
 he was occupied with preparations. Hannibal was confined 
 to Bruttium, and was hardly able to step over into Lu- 
 cania; but in this confinement he resembled a lion sur- 
 rounded by hounds, and whoever attacked him, paid dearly 
 for it. 
 
 In the year following, when Scipio had assembled a 
 considerable fleet, he sailed to Africa with 16,000 foot and 
 several thousand horse. The timid party at Rome trem- 
 bled, as they imagined that the last resources were now 
 going to be lost. Scipio landed in the neighbourhood of 
 Utica, at a place which may be recognised to this day, and 
 which bore the name of Castra Corneliana^, as long as the 
 Roman empire existed. It was a barren head-land, near 
 which there was a convenient harbour. Here he en- 
 camped and fortified himself i°. Syphax had, in the mean- 
 while, been entirely gained over by the Carthaginians, and 
 Hasdrubal, either of his own accord or at the command of 
 the Carthaginian senate, had given him his daughter So- 
 phonisbe in marriage. After Scipio had landed, he was met 
 by three armies, one Carthaginian under Hasdrubal, and 
 two Numidian armies, under the command of Syphax and 
 Masinissa. Masinissa, although a barbai'ian, has a great 
 fame in history. Among the Romans he was very favour- 
 ably known, as connected with Scipio by ties of hospitality, 
 as we see from Cicero's Somnium Scipionis, where he ap- 
 pears as a venerable old man. He had received at Car- 
 thage an education superior to that of other barbarians ^^ 
 
 ' Caesar, De Bell. Civil, ii. 2i ; Orosius, iv. 22. 
 
 '" Livy, XXIX. 28. " Appian, De Rob. Pun. 10. 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 217 
 
 and in his later years, he must evidently have been con- 
 versant with the Greek or Latin language. His life was 
 subject to great changes of fortune^". According to the 
 accounts of the Romans he was faithlessly treated by the 
 Carthaginians ; but however this may be, thus much is cer- 
 tain, that while he served under the Carthaginians in 
 Spain, he had always kept up secret negotiations with the 
 Romans. The romance that he was in love with Sophon- 
 isbe, and that she was nevertheless given in marriage to 
 Syphax, was probably invented to excuse his faithlessness 
 to Carthage. It seems that, at the time when he was in 
 Spain, he received money from the Romans, for he re- 
 turned to Africa and revolted from Carthage. At the time 
 of Scipio's arrival in Africa, we find him again as the ally 
 of the Carthaginians, and operating, together with Hasdru- 
 bal, against the Romans. Scipio, however, renewed his 
 former connexions with him, and Masinissa promised him 
 to desert the Carthaginians, but that, before taking that 
 step openly, he would procure the Romans some material 
 advantages. This fraudulent conduct shews that, in a 
 moral point of view, Masinissa was no better than a com- 
 mon barbarian : he was a base traitor, who deserves the 
 hatred of every honest man. His whole life was an unin- 
 terrupted series of treacheries against Carthage. It was 
 he who now led out the Carthaginians to an expedition 
 which he had planned with Scipio ^\ Scipio lay in am- 
 bush, fell upon the Carthaginians, and Masinissa went over 
 to the Romans^*. A great number of Carthaginian citi- 
 zens were slain. After this, Scipio blockaded Utica, but 
 could do nothing. Syphax and Hasdrubal took the field 
 against him : it is unknown whether their camps were open 
 or fortified ; but they consisted of straw-huts and tents built 
 of branches, which, in the climate of Africa, must have 
 become as dry as touchwood'^. The Romans set fire to 
 
 '^ Livy, XXIX. 29 foil. '^ Appian, De Reb. Pun. 13 and 14. 
 
 '* Livy, XXIX. 34. '* Livy, xxx. 3; Polybius, xiv.4. 
 
218 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 them, and the conflagration produced such a confusion, 
 that the fugitives allowed themselves to be slaughtered 
 like sheep. Syphax now abandoned the Carthaginians and 
 withdrew to his own dominions : such is the general cus- 
 tom in the east, where all desert him who is deserted by 
 fortune. Masinissa now came forth with claims to the 
 throne of Syphax, and many Africans declared themselves 
 in favour of him. Masinissa even made a campaign 
 against him, and Laelius completed the undertaking : Sy- 
 phax was defeated and taken prisoner. Masinissa followed 
 up his victory and took possession of the town of Cirta. 
 Every one knows the tragic fate of Sophonisbe'^ : Masi- 
 nissa married her, but she was afterwards poisoned, because 
 Scipio did not trust her. A part of the dominions of 
 Syphax was given to his son ^'^ ; he himself afterwards 
 adorned the triumph of Scipio, and spent the last years of 
 his life as a prisoner at Alba'^. 
 
 Carthage was in the greatest difficulties, and Hannibal 
 received orders to quit Italy. At the same time negotia- 
 tions for peace were commenced with the Romans. Here 
 we see what injury the annual change of the magistrates 
 might have done to the Roman republic. Scipio may have 
 thought, and with justice, that, if he should be obliged to 
 resign his command, his successors would reap the fruits of 
 his labours, — that this did not actually happen, is surprising 
 enough — and he therefore endeavoured to accelerate the 
 end of the war. The conditions which he proposed to the 
 Carthaginians, were hard indeed, but yet tolerable in com- 
 parison with what happened afterwards. He demanded 
 that the Carthaginians should confine themselves within 
 
 '^ Livy, XXX, 12 and 15 ; Appian, De Reb. Pun. 27 foil. ; Diodor. 
 Fi-agni. lib. xxvii. 
 
 " Appian., 1. c. 33 ; Livy, xxx. 44. 
 
 '* Livy, xxx. 45 ; Polybius xvi. 23. (There are several pedestals 
 on which we read the name and history of Syphax : a proof that 
 there must have been several statues of him^ for the pedestals are 
 unquestionably genuine. — N.) 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 219 
 
 the Punic canaP^, surrender all their ships with the excep- 
 tion of thirty triremes, give up Spain, as they had before 
 given up Sicily and Sardinia, and deliver up all Roman 
 prisoners and deserters. Respecting the sums of money 
 which were demanded of the Carthaginians to defray the 
 expenses of the war, the accounts differed, as Livy says,^'* 
 greatly : the fact, that Greek authors give us exact num- 
 bers, proves nothing. A truce was now concluded, during 
 which the Carthaginians sent ambassadors with full pow- 
 ers to Rome, to obtain the sanction of the senate and 
 people to the peace. There the peace was accepted on 
 condition that Hannibal should quit Italy. When the 
 ambassadors returned, and the Carthaginians at the same 
 time heard that Hannibal was returning with forces suffi- 
 cient again to take the field against Scipio, those people 
 who had done least before were now vexed that steps had 
 been taken to conclude a peace. Such people generally 
 appear in history in a false light: in this instance they 
 were contemptible if compared with the noble spirit of 
 Hannibal. He recommended the peace, but the riotous 
 and turbulent popular party at Carthage raved and stormed 
 against it, trusting that the gods would come to their assist- 
 ance. These were the sentiments of the majority. The 
 peace had been agreed to on both sides, but it had not yet 
 been confirmed by oath. In the meanwhile there arrived a 
 large convoy with provisions for Scipio, and the restless 
 party at Carthage insisted on taking possession of it by 
 force. When Scipio sent ambassadors to remonstrate 
 against such proceedings, they were insulted, and the 
 Carthaginian magistrates had great difficulty in getting 
 them on board their ships in safety. But even here they 
 were pursued and attacked, and some of them lost their 
 lives. This was the same violation of the law of nations 
 as the murder of the ambassadors at Rastadt in 1799, 
 when many persons believed that the French government 
 
 ^^ Appian, De Reh Pun. 32. (This canal is unfortunately un- 
 Icnown. — N.) ^ xxx. 16. 
 
220 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 had given secret orders to murder them. But this was a 
 mere conjecture and can never be proved. Hannibal had 
 in the meantime landed at Adruraetum, and had brought 
 with him from Bruttium all who could be induced to fol- 
 low him : he left the country almost uninhabited. All the 
 Italian and Roman deserters who were willing to serve 
 under him were enlisted as soldiers — and they were men 
 whom he could trust, for a peace with the Romans would 
 have been death to them, — and it is not improbable that 
 they had some influence in the breaking off of the nego- 
 tiations with the Romans. Scipio was really inclined to 
 make peace, but the Carthaginians were resolved once 
 more to try their fortune. 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 221 
 
 LECTURE XV. 
 
 THE NEGOTIATIONS FOR PEACE BROKEN OFF. — BATTLE 
 
 OF ZAMA. PEACE CONCLUDED. CONSEQUENCES OF 
 
 THE SECOND PUNIC WAR. WAR WITH MACEDONIA. 
 
 CONDITION OF MACEDONIA. PHILIP III. — GENERAL 
 
 VIEW OF THE STATE OF THE EAST. PEACE WITH MA- 
 CEDONIA. 
 
 The war was brought to a close in Africa, according to 
 Cato, in the year 550, and according to Varro, 553. When 
 Hannibal saw the true state of aifairs, he endeavoured to 
 continue the negotiations for peace ; for he foresaw the im- 
 possibility of carrying on the war successfully, and he was 
 convinced that, if the last battle should be lost, the Car- 
 thaginians would be obliged to accept a peace which would 
 render it impossible for them ever to recover again. Peace, 
 therefore, appeared desirable to him as well as to Scipio, who 
 had every reason for fearing lest his adversaries at Rome 
 should take the command from him, and appoint a succes- 
 sor. But the negotiations were broken off through the 
 folly of the people of Carthage; for as their invincible 
 general was within their walls, they believed, what he him- 
 self neither could nor did believe, that everything was 
 gained ; and they would hear no more of peace, although 
 Scipio demanded nothing more than the conditions agreed 
 to before, and a trifling indemnification for the injury they 
 had done to the convoy. 
 
 In the decisive battle of Zama the Carthaginians were 
 completely defeated : the greater part of their army was 
 cut to pieces, and the remainder dispersed. Hannibal es- 
 caped with a small band to Adrumetum. This was the 
 
222 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 only battle in which he made use of the elephants, but 
 they had ceased to be formidable to the Romans. Scipio, 
 instead of forming his cohorts into maniples, arranged 
 them in echelons or columns, the one by the side of the 
 other ^; but, between these columns, he left large spaces 
 which were afterwards filled up by the cavalry. These 
 spaces were left open, that the elephants, when frightened 
 by the light troops of the Romans, might escape through 
 them : and the event proved how well the plan was cal- 
 culated. 
 
 After this battle was lost, the only thought which oc- 
 cupied the minds of the Carthaginians was to make peace. 
 It was a piece of great good luck for them, that Scipio 
 himself, for reasons which I have already mentioned, was 
 desirous to bring the war to a close. The terms, however, 
 which he now made, were much harder than those which he 
 had proposed before. While the first treaty allowed them 
 to have thirty triremes, their number was now reduced to 
 ten ; they were to keep no elephants for purposes of war, 
 and those which they had were to be surrendered ; 10,000 
 Euboean talents were to be paid by instalments in the 
 course of fifty years, that is 200 every year; 150 hos- 
 tages were to be given, and all prisoners and deserters to be 
 delivered up to the Romans. Among the deserters were 
 the unhappy Italians, especially Bruttians, who had fought 
 in the army of Hannibal. Whether all were put to death, 
 or sold as slaves, is unknown, for Livy passes over this part 
 of the treaty, which is mentioned by Appian-, and must 
 consequently have been spoken of by Polybius. The 
 Carthaginians were further obliged to recognise Masinissa 
 as king of Numidia, and to conclude a passive offensive 
 and defensive alliance with the Romans, who thus shook 
 off all obligations on their own part. The Carthaginians 
 
 ' Livy, XXX. 33 ; Polybius, xv. 9. 
 
 ^ De Rebus Pun. 54. Compare Livy, xxx. 37; Polybius, xv. 18. 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 223 
 
 pledged themselves to undertake no war without the sanc- 
 tion of the Romans, and to provide the Roman army in 
 Africa with all that was necessary for the space of five 
 months. Some of the nobles spoke against these terms, 
 and it was on this occasion that Hannibal seized one 
 Gisco, and dragged him down from the elevated place 
 where he stood, amidst the cries of the multitude that 
 their rights as citizens were violated. Hannibal saved 
 himself only by declaring that, having left Carthage at 
 the age of nine years, he was not acquainted with its 
 manners and customs 3. He then urged the absolute ne- 
 cessity of concluding peace, of which, in fact, every sen- 
 sible man must have been convinced. The Carthaginians 
 ought to have staked their whole existence in support- 
 ing him ; but some of them entertained the foohsh hope 
 of still obtaining advantageous and easy terms. 
 
 After the peace was concluded and sanctioned at 
 Rome, the Roman army returned to Italy. It was un- 
 doubtedly the first object of attention to the Romans 
 to heal the wounds which had been inflicted upon the 
 Italians. Many of the inhabitants of southern Italy 
 were punished, and their lands confiscated, and no small 
 number of colonies were founded in those districts, per- 
 haps rather with the intention to provide for impover- 
 ished Romans, than to secure the possession of the 
 country. The veterans who had served in the army of 
 Scipio, received settlements in Apulia and Lucania*: 
 the first instance of provisions being made for veterans, 
 which, however, became gradually established as a re- 
 gular custom. 
 
 Much might be said respecting the consequences of 
 this war, although little is mentioned in our historians. 
 
 ^ Livy, XXX. 37; Polybius, xv. 19. 
 
 * Livy, XXXI. 4, whose words, however, are : — Decreverunt Patres, 
 ut M. Junius, praetor urbis, si ei videretur, decemviros agro Samniti 
 Appuloque, quod eius publicum populi llomani esset, metiendo divi- 
 dendoque crearet. 
 
224 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 The prices of everything had risen to an unnatural height, 
 and the middle classes must have been exhausted by the 
 constant and heavy contributions which they had been 
 obliged to pa3\ And the result of this must have been, 
 that the separation between the rich and the poor became 
 more marked than it had ever been before, and it is, in- 
 deed, not long afterwards that there appears a state of 
 things, which is completely contrary to the spirit of the 
 earlier Romans. It must have been soon after the war, 
 that the people of Rome proposed to make Scipio censor 
 and consul for life, but he declined the honour^. The 
 fact itself is well established. He was the first Roman 
 who received the honourable title of the Great, as Sigo- 
 nius has shewn ^: in the Fasti this is overlooked, but Poly- 
 bius" expressly calls him 6 [Jt^sya;. It is an interesting fact, 
 that towards the end of the war the Romans made a public 
 loan which was to be paid back by three instalments^; 
 but the difficulties during the Macedonian war were so 
 great, that the last payment could not be made in any 
 other way than in lands. Livy has very much neglected 
 the internal condition of Rome, but we cannot enter upon 
 it here. Concerning the state of intellect and literature 
 I shall speak hereafter, when I have reached the end of 
 the war with Antiochus. 
 
 Immediately after the battle of Cannae Philip III. of 
 Macedonia had sent ambassadors to Hannibal, and had 
 concluded a treaty with him, the document containing 
 which fell, by chance, into the hands of the Romans^; 
 there was, indeed, no reason for keeping it secret. This 
 treaty, as we read it in Polybius, is certainly genuine ; for it 
 is written in quite a peculiar form, which is not Greek, and 
 
 ' Livy, XXXVIII. 5, and Valerius Maximus, iv. 1. 6, speak of a 
 consulship and dictatorship for life, but do not mention the censor- 
 fchip. ^ Animadv. histor. c. 1. 
 
 ^ xviii. 18; xxxii. 12. foil. ® Livy, xxix. 16. 
 
 3 Livy, XXIII. 33 foil.; Polybius, vii. 9. 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 225 
 
 which is undoubtedly an example of the style in which 
 the Carthaginians drew up such documents. Neither of 
 the contracting parties had undertaken any important ob- 
 ligations towards the other. As regards the advantages 
 granted to Philip, Hannibal had assured him that he 
 would compel the Romans to give up their possessions 
 east of the Adriatic: that is, Corcyra, Apollonia, Epidam- 
 nus, the island of Pharos, the Atintanians, a people of 
 Epirus, the Parthinians, an lUyrian tribe, and the Illyrian 
 town of Diraalle ; all these places were to be given to 
 Philip. But when the treaty fell into the hands of the 
 Romans, they displayed all the heroism and perseverance 
 which distinguish them during this whole period, and 
 sent out a fleet under the command of M. Valerius Laevi- 
 nus, to protect those possessions ^°. The war began in 
 the year 537 or 538, — as Laevinus was not consul, but 
 only praetor, the exact year cannot be ascertained, — and 
 ended in 558. On the part of the Romans it was badly 
 conducted, but no less so on that of Philip, although he 
 had to make but small exertions against a few places to 
 expel the Romans, and he might easily have made himself 
 master of those places ; in short, he conducted the war in 
 a manner which might make us inclined to form quite 
 a different idea of his power from that which it after- 
 wards actually proved to be. 
 
 At the time when the war broke out, Philip was per- 
 haps not more than twenty years old. When his father 
 Demetrius II. died, he was left a child under the guardian- 
 ship of an uncle, or rather an elder cousin, Antigonus, 
 with the nickname of Doson. This man shewed a con- 
 scientiousness which, considering the character of those 
 times, excites our astonishment, — for he w Si's, faithful. As 
 Philip at first appears not only as a young man of an 
 amiable disposition, but of great accomplishments, we must 
 infer that his guardian bestowed equal care upon the 
 
 "• Livy, XXIV. 40 ; Justin, xxix. 4, 
 
226 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 formation of his character, as upon the development of 
 his mind. But there was something vicious in the nature 
 of Philip, which led him soon to rid himself of the watch- 
 ful eye of Antigonus. Yet he possessed great abilities ; 
 he had decided talents as a military commander, great 
 courage, and the power of using and increasing the re- 
 sources of his kingdom, which became more particularly 
 manifest after his peace with the Romans. He gave to 
 his kingdom a power which it did not possess at the time 
 when he succeeded to the throne, for the jNIacedonian 
 empire had fallen into decay under Antigonus Gonatas. 
 The Aetolians had risen, and the Achaeans had eman- 
 cipated themselves ; under his successor, Demetrius II., 
 the empire had been still more reduced, and from this 
 state it did not recover till the last year of the guardian- 
 ship of Antigonus Doson. Old Aratus had sacrificed the 
 freedom of his country by an act of high treason, and had 
 given up Corinth rather than establish the freedom of 
 Greece by a union among the Peloponnesians, which 
 would have secured to Cleomenes the influence and power 
 he deserved. In the beginning of his reign, Philip, in 
 conjunction with the Achaeans, carried on a war against 
 the Aetolians, in which the latter lost a considerable part 
 of their importance : some of their fortified places fell 
 into the hands of the enemy, and the respect, which they 
 had until then enjoyed in Greece, was lost. At the time 
 when Philip entered into the alliance with Hannibal, 
 Greece was in the enjoyment of peace. The Aetolians 
 had concluded a disadvantageous peace, though they were 
 otherwise free. The part of Thessaly which had been 
 taken from them, Phocis, Locris, Euboea, together with 
 Chalcis, Corinth, Therea, and some other places, now 
 belonged to Macedonia. The Achaeans, nominally free 
 and united, were in reality in a state of dependence. The 
 same was the case with the Boeotians. The Aetolians, 
 on the other hand, were free, and had still a large terri- 
 tory, which comprised, besides Aetolia proper, the coun- 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 227 
 
 try of the Ozolian Locrians, of the Dolopes, and the 
 greater part of Phthiotis. Acarnania was under the pro- 
 tection of the Macedonians. Philip was allied with the 
 Eleans, Messenians, and Lacedaemonians, who were at 
 that time ruled by a mere nominal king ; Rhodes, with 
 its great maritime power, was connected with Mace- 
 donia by treaties and ties of friendship. The kings of 
 Syria at this time governed over western Asia, but Caria, 
 Samos, and the maritime towns on the Hellespont and 
 Bosporus, belonged to Egypt; Chios, Lesbos, and Rhodes 
 formed a free confederacy. A war had been carried on 
 between the states of Macedonia, Syria, and Egypt, which 
 was terminated by a peace, in which Egypt lost its pos- 
 sessions in Syria. Now, while all the countries east of 
 the Adriatic were thus restored to peace, the attention 
 of the Greeks was directed towards the Romans. Athens, 
 in its state of impotence, was connected with them by 
 friendship, and kept aloof from all political associations. 
 
 It might have been thought that Philip, at the bead 
 of such an extensive empire, and with such warlike nations 
 at his command, would have been able to gain important 
 advantages over the Romans ; but in the beginning of the 
 war there were only little skirmishes, and Philip con- 
 quered Atintania and the Ardyaeans, who occupied the 
 northern part of Illyricum. About the fourth year of the 
 war the Romans concluded an aUiance with the Aeto- 
 lians'S and unfortunately for unhappy Greece, they now 
 became more enterprizing. They sent, it is true, only 
 one legion, consisting of the epibatae of their ships, but 
 they had a fleet in the Grecian seas of considerable im- 
 portance. Through the Aetolians, they became acquainted 
 and enticed into friendly relations with Attains L of Per- 
 gamus, who was engaged in the conquest of Lydia, and 
 ruled over a rather extensive and rich principality. 
 The Roman fleet, under Laevinus and his successor P. 
 
 '' Livy, XXVI. 24 ; compare 26, and Polybius, xi. 6 ; xxiri. '8 
 
 u2 
 
228 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 Sulpicius Galba, was a curse to Greece. In the treaty 
 with the Aetolians, it was stipulated that all places (Livy 
 says only those between Aetolia and Corcyra,) which 
 should be conquered by their united forces, should be 
 treated in such a manner, that the towns and the soil 
 should belong to the ^Etolians, but the inhabitants and 
 all their moveable property to the Romans, who might 
 sell them or carry them away, just as they pleased. In 
 discussing the question whether Polybius, in his judgment 
 of the Aetolians '2^ be just or not, we ought to remember 
 this ignominious clause, for it shews incontrovertibly what 
 they were. After the Lamian war, it is true, they de- 
 served praise, but afterwards they proved that they were 
 barbarians in their manners, as well as in their ways of 
 thinking, although they may have spoken the Greek lan- 
 guage. The deplorable consequence of their treaty with 
 the Romans was, that when Dyme, Oreum, and Aegina 
 were taken, the Romans sold the inhabitants as slaves. 
 The Aetolians, however, were unable to maintain their 
 possession of Dyme and Oreum, and it was only in Aegina 
 that they held out'^; but they sold this important island 
 to Attains for thirty talents^*. This shameful conduct 
 roused the indignation of the Greeks against the Aetolians 
 and Romans, and increased the popularity of Philip. As 
 the Romans left the Aetolians without support, Philip 
 and the Greeks penetrated into the heart of their coun- 
 try, and took vengeance for the ravages they had made 
 on the sea coast. Thus the Aetolians, abandoned by the 
 Romans, concluded a disadvantageous peace, the terms of 
 of which are not known ^^. 
 
 Two or three years afterwards, — the chronology in 
 Livy is very uncertain, — perhaps in the year 548, the 
 
 " In such passages as, ii. 3 foil. 45 foil. 49; iv. 3, 67 ; ix. 38, 
 and many others. 
 
 " Polybius, XI. 6 ; xxiii. 8. '* Livy, xxvii. 29 foil. 
 
 '* Livy, XXIX. 12 ; Appian, De Reb. Maced. 2. 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 229 
 
 Romans concluded a peace with Philip, the terms of which 
 were calculated to conceal great disadvantages^^. The 
 fact was, that the Romans, in order to obtain peace, gave 
 up Atintania, which belonged to them, and allowed Philip 
 to establish himself in Epirus. The Ardyaeans were like- 
 wise left to Philip ; but the Romans concluded this peace 
 in the hope that, before long, an opportunity would offer 
 for recovering what was now lost. 
 
 '^ Livy and Appian^ 11. cc ; Justin, xxxx. 4. 
 
230 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 LECTURE XVI. 
 
 AFFAIRS IN THE EAST. — INTERNAL CONDITION OF ROME. — 
 
 SECOND MACEDONIAN WAR. — CONDITION OF GREECE. T. 
 
 QUINCTIUS FLAMININUS. BATTLE OF CYNOSCEPHALAE. 
 
 PEACE WITH PHILIP. FREEDOM OF GREECE. 
 
 After having concluded peace with Rome, Philip 
 entered into an alliance with Antiochus the Great of Syria, 
 for the purpose of taking from Ptolemy Epiphanes, — who 
 had succeeded his father (the contemptible Ptolemy Philo- 
 pator) ; being a child of five years, — his possessions in Caria, 
 and on the coasts of Asia and Thrace. This led to a war 
 with the Rhodians and Attains, whose interest it was that 
 Egypt should continue in the possession of those districts. 
 But Phihp and Antiochus gained their end; the whole coast 
 of Thrace, Perinthus, and Lycia, were conquered, and the 
 Egyptians lost all their possessions in those parts. The 
 distress inflicted upon Athens afforded the Romans a wel- 
 come pretext for renewing the war with Philip. Athens 
 was at that time utterly decayed, desolate, and impove- 
 rished, but it had, nevertheless, hitherto enjoyed a kind of 
 independence: it had been for upwards of twenty-five years 
 in friendly relations with Rome. The murder committed 
 on two young Acarnanians, who had entered the temple 
 of Demeter at Eleusis during the celebration of the mys- 
 teries, induced the Acarnanians to call Philip to their 
 assistance, in taking revenge on the Athenians. Philip, 
 who had long been wanting to get possession of Athens, 
 was delighted with the opportunity, and ravaged Attica 
 in a most cruel manner. The complaints of the Athenians 
 were carried to Rome, where long discussions took place 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 231 
 
 as to what should be done^ The senate and the ruUng 
 party, whose desires already knew no bounds, would 
 not hesitate for a moment to declare war against Philip, 
 to indemnify themselves for what had been sacrificed in 
 the late peace with him. But the people, who were ex- 
 hausted in the highest degree, wished for rest, and when 
 the proposal was first brought before them, it was rejected. 
 It is one of the greatest errors to believe that a consti- 
 tution remains the same so long as its forms remain un- 
 altered. When changes have taken place in the distri- 
 bution of property, in the social condition, in the sentiments 
 and the mode of life of a nation, the nature of its con- 
 stitution may become quite the reverse of what it was 
 before, even though not an iota may have been altered 
 in its form ; it may at one time be democratical, and at 
 another it may, with the same forms, be aristocratical. 
 We moderns pay too little attention to such internal 
 changes, although they are among those points which we 
 must endeavour to ascertain, and without which history 
 cannot be understood. The constitution of the Roman 
 republic was at that time quite diffei'ent from what it had 
 been before, although no change had been made in the 
 letter of it. An oligarchy and the influence of wealth 
 already existed, and the people, who had very little in- 
 fluence, decreed what in reality they did not wish. This 
 state of the constitution is manifest during the seventh 
 century on a hundred occasions ; and in these trans- 
 actions about the war with Philip, we see one of the 
 earliest and most remarkable symptoms of it. It was a 
 great misfortune that, after the second Punic war, there 
 was not some great man of suSicient influence to examine 
 the constitution, and to regulate its spirit" in accordance 
 with the actual state of things ; for if the issue of a long 
 disease is left to chance, without remedies being applied, 
 a state must necessarily come to ruin. 
 
 The second war against Philip was decreed in 552. 
 * Livy, XXXI. 51. foil. 
 
232 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 The proconsul, P. Sulpicius Galba, who had carried on 
 the war in those parts before, and had been the scourge 
 of Aegina, Oreum, and Dyme, was entrusted with the 
 command. PhiUp remained on the defensive, especially 
 at first. The war must have been declared at a very 
 late season of the year, for it commenced after the end 
 of the consulship of Sulpicius. Livy^ erroneously places 
 the beginning of it in the year of the consulship of Sul- 
 picius Galba, according to which date, the consulship of P. 
 Villius Tappulus would have no place left for it. During 
 the first campaign, in the year 553, the Romans gained 
 little or nothing: the undertaking failed altogether, for 
 they had, as it were, taken the bull by the horns. Illy- 
 ricum, as far as Scutari, is a land similar to Franconia: 
 it has many hills of a moderate height, and many parts 
 are almost perfect plains. On the eastern frontier, how- 
 ever, lofty mountains, which branch out from Scardus 
 and Scomius, rise up and occupy the western part of 
 Macedonia, and range southwards as far as Pindus and 
 Parnassus. These mountains are high, rough, and cold, 
 and even the valleys between them are almost unin- 
 habitable^. Sulpicius attacked the Macedonians in these 
 mountains ; and, however much the historians may have 
 disguised the fact, or have been ignorant of it, he was 
 completely thwarted in his undertaking. T. Quinctius 
 Flamininus, who undertook the command as consul in 
 554, was wiser, and altered the mode of action. The 
 Macedonians had fortified the passes in the mountains 
 on their frontier; their main camp was near Argyrocastro, 
 where the river Aous flows through a narrow defile be- 
 tween two mountains, one of which stretches towards 
 Pindus and the other towards Acroceraunus^ : both 
 
 * xxxl. 33. foil. ^ Those mountains were the original seats 
 
 of the true Macedonians. — N. 
 
 '' Livy, XXXII. 5. Compare Polybius, ii. 5; Plutarch, Flamin. 3. 
 (This is still, and ever will be, the true road of communication be- 
 tween lUyricum and Greece, the ancient /awce* Antigoneae. — N.) 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 233 
 
 were wild and impassable. Here the king of Ma- 
 cedonia was encamped. The Aetolians, with whom the 
 Romans had renewed their alliance, in the meanwhile 
 made an attack upon the frontiers of Thessaly^. It was 
 of great importance to the Macedonian to prevent their 
 uniting their forces with the Romans ; and he succeeded in 
 effecting this by the energy with which he maintained his 
 ground in Epirus. Villi us had already pitched his camp 
 there, but Flamininus was convinced of the uselessness of 
 an attack upon the front of the Macedonians. Faitliless- 
 ness was in those times the prevailing characteristic of 
 the Greeks : an Epirot chief of the name of Charopus 
 now got Flamininus out of his difficulty; he sent to the 
 consul a man by whose guidance he might evade the 
 mountain pass^. A detachment of 4000 Romans was ac- 
 cordingly sent to follow the guide along the discovered 
 path, and having made a long circuit, they reached, on 
 the third day, the heights in the rear of the Macedo- 
 nians. When the preconcerted signal was given, the 
 consul attacked the front lines of the enemy, but was 
 beginning to sustain great loss, when on a sudden the 
 Macedonians discovered that they were surrounded by 
 the Romans, and that in a few minutes their retreat 
 might be cut off. The Macedonians, therefore, quitted 
 their position after a contest in which they did not lose 
 many lives, and retreated across mount Pindus into Thes- 
 saly. Flamininus penetrated further into Epirus, and all 
 the towns threw their gates open to him. This expedi- 
 tion, however, was not followed by any great results. The 
 consul now took up his winter quarters in Phocis, after 
 having made himself master of Elatea. 
 
 King Attains, the Rhodians, and the Roman fleet were 
 
 ^ Livy, XXXII. 13. 
 
 ® Livy, XXXII. 11 ; Appian, De Reb. Maced. 4, (Most passes can 
 be evadedj and on this account they have lost their importance in 
 civilised countries. If the pass of Antrodoco, near Naples, could not 
 be evaded, it would be impossible to attack Naples. — N.) 
 
234 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 in the Aegean. The Achaeans were at this time the 
 most powerful confederacy in Greece : they possessed 
 more than half the Peloponnesus, viz. : Elis, Messenia, 
 Achaia, Argolis, Corinth, and Arcadia; Corinth, how- 
 ever, was given up to the Macedonians. Philip had un- 
 ceremoniously retained Orchomenos, although it should 
 have been restored to the Achaeans ; but at the com- 
 mencement of the second war with Rome he gave it 
 back to them. Sparta was governed by the furious tyrant 
 Nabis. Had Philip at this juncture given up Corinth 
 to the Achaeans, they would probably never have been 
 induced to abandon his cause ; for they entertained an 
 implacable hatred of the Aetolians, and it was only 
 this hatred that led them to the otherwise disgraceful 
 amity with Macedonia. They were indignant at the 
 Romans also, on account of the ravages they had made 
 in Greece during the first Macedonian war. Philip was 
 unable to defend himself, and the country as far as Ther- 
 mopylae was in the hands of the Romans. A party 
 among the Achaeans now urged the necessity of enter- 
 ing into an alliance with the Romans, and Aristaenus, 
 their strategus, at the congress of Sicyon, which was at- 
 tended by the ambassadors of the Greek states, carried a 
 decree to that effect, though not without great opposi- 
 tion. The Achaeans were never a warlike people, even 
 at the time when Philopoemen did his utmost to inspire 
 them with a warlike spirit: war was troublesome to them. 
 The general, Philocles, to whom Philip had given the 
 command of Corinth, made himself master even of Argos, 
 the greatest among the Achaean cities. The Boeotians 
 were taken by surprise and compelled to join the Romans, 
 for in the year 555 the proconsul Flamininus appeared 
 before the gates of Thebes, and demanded to be admitted, 
 in order to negotiate with them within the walls of the 
 city. He was accompanied by his troops, and as he 
 was entering with them, the Boeotians decreed the al- 
 liance with Rome, which under these circumstances was 
 
HISTORY OF liOME. 235 
 
 a mere farce '^. One hundred and twenty five years had 
 passed since the death of Alexander the Great, and the 
 Macedonian party in Boeotia was very weak : all things 
 had assumed a different aspect : the Greeks no longer 
 considered themselves as a nation destined to govern, 
 but saw in the Macedonians their natural protectors 
 against the Gauls, Scordiscans, Thracians, and Darda- 
 nians, to resist whom they felt that their own strength 
 was insufficient. They had become accustomed to look- 
 ing up to the court of Macedonia, and had derived no 
 small benefit from the gold which flowed from that 
 quarter: in short, it had become a natural feeling with 
 the Greeks to resign the supremacy to the Macedonians, 
 who were no longer looked upon as barbarians : the well 
 educated classes in Macedonia spoke Greek as their 
 mother tongue, and at Pella Greek was unquestionably 
 spoken just as much as the Macedonian idiom, so that, 
 in reality, the difference between Macedonians and Greeks 
 had become effaced. 
 
 Thessaly was now the natural scene of the war. 
 Philip had exerted all his strength, and if it be true that 
 he made a general levy, the small number of troops that 
 was brought together proves that Macedonia must have 
 been in a fearful state of desolation, in consequence of 
 the ravages made there by the Gauls, and of the wars 
 under Antigonus Gonatas; for, even with a moderate 
 population, it would have been easy to raise an army of 
 100,000 men. Flamininus seems to have had few other 
 allies besides the Aetolians, who, if our accounts be cor- 
 rect, amounted to no more than a few thousand foot 
 and 500 horse ^. The campaign was opened at an early 
 season of the year : and, as the harvest in Thessaly takes 
 place in the early part of June, the battle of Cynosce- 
 phalae was fought in the course of the same month. The 
 
 ' Livy, xxxni. 1 and 2. 
 
 ' Livy, XXXIII. 3; Polybius, xviii. 4; Plutarch, Flaniin. 7. 
 
236 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 corn was ripe, but not yet cut^, so that, on their foraghig 
 excursions, the soldiers had only to reap it. The Romans 
 and Macedonians approached each other at a spot where 
 a line of small hills (Cynoscephalae) separated the two 
 armies. Here the vanguards of both met unexpectedly; 
 but three days passed away before the battle began, and 
 both armies made side marches for the purpose of foraging, 
 and without being aware how near each other they were, 
 behind that line of hills. On the third day, heavy showers 
 and a thick fog kept the Romans within their camp. 
 Neither Flamininus nor Philip had any wish to begin 
 the contest ; the former also intended to take another 
 position, because the district was too open for him, not- 
 withstanding the hills. Under such circumstances, things 
 usually happen which are not wished for. A trifling skir- 
 mish took place, in which the Macedonians were repulsed, 
 and retreated to the highest of the neighbouring hills. 
 Reinforcements came up on both sides, without there 
 being any intention on the part of the commanders to 
 give battle, and the struggle became more serious. The 
 Romans were now repulsed; and this success had such 
 an effect upon the Macedonians, that the king was obliged 
 to give battle, for fear of discouraging his soldiers. The 
 description of the battle in Polybius is masterly i°. The 
 right wing of the Romans gained a decided victory; 
 but on their left, which faced the dense masses of the 
 Macedonian phalanx, the victory was undecided. At first, 
 they could not resist those masses of sixteen men in depth, 
 where the hindmost lines were protected, and held forth 
 their Macedonian lances (a-ugKra-ui). The Romans owed 
 their victory unquestionably to their cavalry, especially 
 to that of the Aetolians. According to Polybius and Livy, 
 8000 Macedonians were slain, and 5000 taken prisoners'^ 
 Philip fled to Larissa, and from thence to Tempe, and 
 
 5 Polybius, xviii. 3; Livy, xxxiii. (i. '° xviii. 5. foil. 
 
 " Polybius, XVIII. 10 ; Livy, xxxiii. K) ; Plutarch, Flamin, 8. 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 237 
 
 immediately began to negotiate with the Romans. A 
 truce was concluded; during which he was to send am- 
 bassadors to Rome, to provide for the Roman army, and 
 to pay down a contribution towards defraying the expenses 
 of the war. The Romans were the more inclined to make 
 peace, as they were no longer on a good understanding with 
 the Aetolians, which state of feeling may, perhaps, have ex- 
 isted even before this campaign ; but, immediately after the 
 battle of Cynoscephalae, the Aetolians gave vent to most 
 vehement ill-temper, in consequence of which Flamininus 
 was placed in a desperate position. The Aetolians, in their 
 conceit, placed themselves on a footing of equality with the 
 Romans, and felt hurt when the latter claimed a higher au- 
 thority for themselves than they thought fit to concede to 
 them. The Aetolians behaved with such a deplorably 
 mean spirit towards Rome, that nothing short of the foolish 
 character of a southern nation can account for it. Wher- 
 ever such a state of feeling exists, the fruits of it are the 
 greatest ingratitude and hostile malice towards allies ^-. 
 The Aetolians wanted to turn the happy issue of the war 
 to their own advantage and aggrandizement, but of this 
 the Romans would not hear ; for their policy was, to re- 
 store the Greeks in such a manner, that the separate 
 nations might balance one another, without any one of 
 them being predominant, nor was it their wish to destroy 
 Macedonia. The Aetolians, on the other hand, insisted 
 upon the Macedonian dynasty being expelled, in order 
 that they themselves might be able to take the govern- 
 ment into their hands. It was, without doubt, immedi- 
 ately after these events, that Alcaeus, the Messenian, 
 wrote his beautiful epigram on the victory of Cynosce- 
 phalae, in which he speaks with contempt of thirty thou- 
 sand Macedonians, who were slain by the Aetolians and 
 
 '^ The Spaniards, down to this day, have no feeling of gratitude 
 towards the English , who were their deliverers ; and they boast of 
 the battle of Salamanca, although it was the English who gained it 
 for them. — N. 
 
238 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 Latins^^. This was an insolence for which Greece had 
 to pay dearly. Any other general, who had not borne in 
 his heart that love of the Greeks which Flamininus che- 
 rished, would have taken such conduct very differently. 
 But peace was concluded with Macedonia in the year 
 556, on conditions which were very humiliating to Philip ; 
 for he was obliged to give up all his possessions out of 
 Macedonia, — that is, Thessaly, all the towns in Greece, 
 and the coasts of Thrace and Asia Minor; to surrender 
 all his ships of war, with the exception of five ; to keep 
 no more than five hundred soldiers ; to pay 1000 talents, 
 by instalments, in ten years ; and to give his son Deme- 
 trius as a hostage to the Romans^*. 
 
 After various expectations, hopes, and resolutions, the 
 Romans made a noble use of this peace. Whatever their 
 policy may have been, Quinctius Flamininus, at least, 
 seems to have acted from very pure motives : they re- 
 stored freedom to all the Greek states, they gave back 
 Corinth to the Achaeans, and pledged themselves to evacu- 
 ate the invincible Acrocorinthus, Chalcis, and Demetrias, 
 as soon as the affairs with Antiochus should be settled. 
 Flamininus had, unfortunately, concluded an alliance with 
 Nabis, that monstrous tyrant, who had induced Philip 
 to sell Argos to him : and here an evil policy was cer- 
 tainly at work. The Romans constituted Thessaly as an 
 independent state ; and the Orestians, who formed a 
 part of Macedonia proper, but had revolted, received a 
 republican constitution, though it seems to have been 
 connected with Thessaly, as I conclude from a list of 
 Thessalian generals. Euboea formed one republic; Pho- 
 cis, Ambracia, Phthiotis, and Athens were proclaimed 
 free; three states of Peloponnesus — Elis, Messenia, and 
 Laconia — became independent. But, although the Romans 
 
 '^ It is preserved in Plutarch, Flamin. 9. 
 
 '^ Polybius, xvin. 27 ; Livy, xxxiii. 30 ; Appian, De Reb. Ma- 
 ced. 2. 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 239 
 
 thus proclaimed themselves the deliverers of Greece, yet 
 they gave the towns of Oreum and Eretria to Eumenes, 
 the son of Attains — he seems to have sold Eretria after- 
 wards, — and left him in possession of Aegina^^ The Athe- 
 nians received the islands of Paros, Scyros, Delos, and 
 Imbros. Down to the time of Sulla, the Romans always 
 shewed a particular favour and respect for the Athenians, 
 and never have the Muses been more kindly towards any 
 nation than towards the Athenians. 
 
 '* Livy, XXXIII. 30 and 34. 
 
240 
 
 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 LECTURE XVII. 
 
 WAR AGAINST THE BOIANS AND INSUBRIANS. — ANTIOCHUS 
 AND HIS EMPIRE. HANNIBAL AT THE COURT OF AN- 
 TIOCHUS. WAR AGAINST NABIS. FEELINGS OF THE 
 
 GREEKS. BATTLE OF THERMOPYLAE. WAR AGAINST 
 
 THE AETOLIANS. 
 
 If, in relating the history of Rome, we were to follow 
 the standard of the ancients, we could have little hope 
 of attaining our end within the time allowed for these 
 lectures; for all that I have hitherto related is contained 
 in about thirty-three books of Livy, which constitute only 
 a small part of his whole work. But the constitution of 
 Rome, which is to us the most important part of her 
 history, has been growing, and fully developing itself be- 
 fore our eyes ; and the wars, which have any moral or 
 artistic interest, are over. Henceforth, we have only 
 masses to consider. I shall relate at full length the 
 history of the destruction of Carthage, and of the Clm- 
 brian war; but why should I enter into the detail, for 
 instance, of the battle of Magnesia, in which rude and 
 undisciplined masses of barbarians fought against the 
 Romans ? Livy's history, from the time we have now 
 reached, down to where it broke off, formed more than 
 three fourths of the whole work, though it comprised a 
 period of no more than about 215 years. We may follow 
 just the opposite course, and condense our narrative as 
 we proceed further. 
 
 The Boians, Insubrians, and other Gallic tribes, at 
 first supported a Carthaginian general, of the name of 
 Hamilcar, in order to inflict some severe wound upon the 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 241 
 
 Romans, and then they commenced war against them. As 
 they were barbarians, they had taken no part in the second 
 Punic war, nor did the Romans provoke them in any way ; 
 they enjoyed perfect peace until Hamilcar arrived among 
 them, and made their forces rally round him. The Insu- 
 brians submitted after a few campaigns ; but the Boians 
 held out for more than nine years, in the course of which 
 Placentia and Cremona were entirely destroyed, for the 
 Boians knew that it was the intention of the Romans to an- 
 nihilate them ; and we see from Pliny, that they had vanish- 
 ed from the face of the earth at the time when Cato wrote ^ 
 The fate of this people is very remarkable : the towns 
 which they once inhabited in Gaul proper were scarcely 
 known in after times. One branch of them had marched 
 into Italy, and another to the countries on the Danube. 
 In the Cimbrian war, this latter branch was extirpated, 
 whence the name of the country Deserta Boiorum" (Bo- 
 hemia), which was subsequently occupied by the Mar- 
 comannians. According to Cato, the Boians had con- 
 sisted of 120 tribes (tribus), which, in his days, had 
 ceased to exist. It is not more than seventeen or eighteen 
 years ago, that persons wondered why the Boians were not 
 oftener mentioned in history ; but they forgot that the 
 Gauls, south of the Po, were completely extirpated by 
 the Romans in the war which followed after the second 
 Punic war. The Romans then established colonies in 
 those districts, with very extensive territories, such as Bo- 
 logna, Modena, Parma, and Lucca. Even in the time of 
 Polybius, those districts had scarcely any population ; but 
 afterwards they were rapidly peopled, and the Julian law 
 united the country with Italy. The Celts on the northern 
 banks of the Po had no connexion with the Romans^. 
 
 At the close of the war against Philip, the Aetolians 
 shewed themselves not only ungrateful towards the Ro- 
 
 ' Pliny, Hist. Nat. in. 21. ' Pliny, Hist. Nat. in. 27. 
 
 ^ Respecting the war against the Boians, Insubrians, &c., see 
 Livy, xxxn. 30. foil. ; xxxin. .36. foil.; xl. 38.; XLn. 7, foil. 
 
 R 
 
242 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 mans, but were most vehemently exasperated^ at their 
 not having received the rewards they expected for their 
 services, and this feehng did not by any means subside 
 afterwards. They were right in some respects, but wrong 
 in others: they made too great pretensions, while the 
 Romans did not act fairly with regard to the towns of 
 Phthiotis, which they did not surrender to the Aetolians. 
 But I am convinced that, even if there had been no real 
 ground for complaint, the Aetolians would have moved 
 heaven and earth, in order to drive the Romans out of 
 Greece. They now turned their eyes towards Antiochus, 
 who bears the surname of the Great quite undeservedly. 
 The dynasty of the Seleucidae is poorer in great men 
 than any other of those which became established in the 
 various kingdoms of the empire of Alexander. Seleucus 
 the first was the most distinguished among them, though 
 even he can scarcely be called a great man ; but the ma- 
 jority of his successors are unworthy and degenerate orien- 
 tals, like some of the first Ptolemies. Antiochus is sur- 
 named the Great, merely because his reign was a happy 
 one. His empire extended from the Hellespont to the 
 frontiers of India, and comprised Phrygia, Cilicia, Syria, 
 Coele-Syria, Babylonia, Media, Persia, and all the coun- 
 try as far as Cabul: he concluded treaties with Indian 
 chiefs, and had immense treasures ; but, with all this, his 
 power was not greater than that of the former kings of 
 Persia. The descendants of the Macedonians and Greeks, 
 in their numerous colonies in Asia, had become just as 
 unwarlike as, at a much later period, the descendants of 
 the Crusaders, who were held in the greatest contempt 
 by the natives, and had adopted all the vices of eastern 
 nations without any of their virtues. Antiochus was a 
 haughty and presumptuous man. I have already men- 
 tioned that he entered into an alliance with Philip, against 
 the young king of Egypt. He was now in Asia Minor, 
 and fancied that he might easily extend his dominion over 
 
 * PolybiuSj xviii. 28. 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 243 
 
 a part of Europe. The countries which Philip had taken 
 from Egypt, and which, in his peace with Rome, he had 
 been obliged to give up, were in a defenceless state, and 
 overwhelmed by Thracians; just as the Britons were by 
 the Picts and Scots, and they therefore called Antiochus 
 to their assistance. This invitation was flattering to his 
 vanity ; but the Romans declared, that they would not 
 suffer him to overstep the natural boundaries of his empire, 
 and demanded of him to restore the Greek towns in Asia 
 to freedom, that they might enjoy the same benefit which 
 had been granted to the European Greeks. This was 
 the arrogant demand of a people anxious for war. Han- 
 nibal was at that time with Antiochus ; for he had been 
 obliged to leave Carthage, because he had attempted to 
 do away with abuses of every description, and to reform 
 the constitution of his country. When we read in Livy^ 
 that Hannibal reformed the ordo judicum, we must not 
 conceive these judices to be the same as the judges among 
 the Jews : they were, undoubtedly, no others than those 
 whom Aristotle calls the One Hundred, or the One Hun- 
 dred and Four, and whom he compares to the ephors of 
 Sparta. They seem to have had a great resemblance 
 to the state-inquisition of Venice, which, although quite 
 distinct from the organism of the state, yet had the right 
 to interfere in state affairs. HannibaVs reforms in the 
 financial department were extraordinary ; for, in order to 
 prevent the ruling men from enriching themselves at the 
 cost of the nation, he introduced a system of economy, 
 and revealed the abuses which had been carried on. The 
 party, whose interests he thus opposed, set all their en- 
 gines to work against him, until he found himself com- 
 pelled to quit his country. At last, they had endeavoured 
 to excite the Romans against him ; and the latter began 
 to silence their own sense of justice, by arguing that they 
 had made peace with the Carthaginians, but not with 
 Hannibal : they sent ambassadors to demand that he should 
 
 * xxxiri. 46. 
 
 K 2 
 
244 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 be arrested as a conspirator. This step, if we may believe 
 Livy, met with much opposition on the part of the great 
 Scipio. Hannibal, on being informed of the fate which 
 awaited him, fled to Antiochus. When, on his arrival 
 in Asia, he heard of the king's plans, he saw at once that 
 he would ruin himself, and advised him not to enter upon 
 a war with the Romans without the alliance of Philip 
 of Macedonia and Egypt. Antiochus was at first greatly 
 astonished at finding that Hannibal thought so little of 
 the monarch of so great an empire, as to consider it ne- 
 cessary to form alliances for the purpose of undertaking 
 a war against Rome. It was very easy to form an alliance 
 with the Aetolians, (the Achaeans were firmly attached 
 to the Romans;) but matters could not be so easily ar- 
 ranged with the king of Macedonia, for, on the one hand, 
 Philip could not forgive Antiochus for not having sup- 
 ported him in his last campaign, and Antiochus, on the 
 other hand, wished, in the case of his being successful, 
 to make himself master of Greece and Thrace. But, if 
 we leave these difficulties out of the question, an alliance 
 between the two kings would certainly have succeeded in 
 weakening the Romans considerably. Hannibal's opinion, 
 however, was approved of only by a few who were not 
 blinded by pride and vanity, as Antiochus himself was, 
 and the negotiations were not followed by any results. 
 Had Antiochus been a wise man, he would have had 
 nothing to do with the Aetolians, or he ought at least to 
 have convinced himself of the real extent of their power. 
 The small number of their troops seems to us almost in- 
 comprehensible. 
 
 Before the war broke out, Flamininus and the Achaeans 
 carried on a war against Nabis. The description of this 
 war in Livy^ is taken from Poly bins, whose original ac- 
 count is lost. I shall only mention its issue very briefly. 
 The Roman army engaged in this war was extremely 
 small. The result of the war was, that the district of the 
 
 s xxxiv. 22, foil. 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 245 
 
 Eleuthero-Lacones, which is now called Maina, was detached 
 from Lacedaemon, and constituted as an independent state? 
 that Nabis, for a period of eight years, had to pay a tribute 
 of fifty talents annually, and had to give his son Armenes as 
 a hostage to the Romans. Argos with its whole territory 
 was given back to the Achaeans^. But they mistrusted 
 the Romans, since the Roman garrisons had not yet been 
 withdrawn from Chalcis, Acrocorinthus, and Demetrias, as 
 had been promised. Roman cohorts were thus still in the 
 heart of Greece ; but although they had wrong opinions of 
 the great powers of Antiochus, they were wise enough now 
 to withdraw their garrisons^. Boeotia also was exaspe- 
 rated against the Romans : in short, all the Greeks were di- 
 vided into two parties, the one for, and the other against the 
 Romans. Quinctius Flamininus has stained the history of 
 his life, by allowing the faction devoted to him to murder 
 the head of the Macedonian party, and by protecting the 
 murderers against the justice of the law 9. The friend- 
 ship of the Achaeans towards the Romans was only of a ne- 
 gative nature, and all the Greeks bore, in truth, ill will 
 towards them, and would have openly declared against 
 them, had it not been repugnant to their feelings to make 
 common cause with the Aetolians. 
 
 After many and fruitless discussions, Antiochus resolved 
 to follow the pressing invitations of the Aetolians, but he 
 took with him only 10,000 men and landed at Demetrias 
 in Thessaly^^, which, after the departure of the Roman 
 garrison, had fallen into the hands of the Aetolians. He 
 made himself master of Phthiotis, went to Euboea, and took 
 the fortified town of Chalcis : it would seem as if fate had 
 wished to justify the unwillingness with which the Romans 
 had entrusted these places to the Greeks. In Boeotia his ar- 
 rival was hailed with joy"; but the eyes of the Boeotians 
 
 ' Livy, XXXIV. 35. * Livy, xxxiv. 51. 
 
 " Livy, xxxiii. 27, foil. '" Livy, xxxv. 43. 
 
 " PolybiiiSj XX. 4. 
 
246 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 as well as of the Aetolians, were soon opened to the delu- 
 sion by which they had been led on, for they had expected 
 the king to come over with an army of at least 50,000 men. 
 Antiochus was likewise surprised and perplexed when he 
 discovered, that the Aetolians had only 4000 men infantry 
 and some hundred horse. In these difficulties Hannibal was 
 looked to for help. It is one of the most distressing things 
 that can happen to a great man, to be asked for his advice 
 in dangerous moments which he has foreseen and foretold, 
 and which would have been averted, had he been listened to. 
 But as there was no other way left, Hannibal's advice, to 
 enter into an alliance with Macedonia, was now followed 
 with the most ardent zeal ^", but quite in vain ; for Philip 
 concluded an alliance with the Romans, in the hope of ob- 
 taining possession of Thessaly, and it is indeed not im- 
 probable, that in some secret article of his treaty with 
 Rome, Demetrias and Lamia were assigned to him. This 
 was an immense advantage to him, though he valued the ac- 
 quisition more, inasmuch as it afforded him the means of 
 ruining the Aetolians with the help of the Romans. The 
 consul, M.'Acilius Glabrio, united his forces with those of 
 Philip at Larissa, and marched southward. Antiochus and 
 the Aetolians retreated towards Thermopylae: which was 
 now to be defended by Macedonian Asiatics. That the 
 memorable pass could be evaded was generally known. 
 The Romans made a gallant attack. Some Aetolians had 
 occupied the heights. M. Porcius Cato and L. Valerius 
 Flaccus went up the mountain path ; and no sooner had 
 they chased the Aetolians from the mountains, than the 
 whole army of Antiochus took to flight, and made for 
 Chalcis, where the king had passed the preceding winter in 
 the enjoyment of Asiatic luxuries. But he soon quitted 
 this place also, and leaving only a small garrison behind, 
 he returned to Asia Minor, as if the war had been at an 
 end. Here the great Antiochus abandoned himself to 
 
 ■2 DiodoruSj Fragm. lib. xxix. Exc. tie Virt. et Vitiis, p. 571'. 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 247 
 
 seusual pleasures, and ordered an army to be raised from 
 all Asia, which was to be so numerous as to render all re- 
 sistance of the Romans hopeless. 
 
 The Aetolians were left entirely to themselves. He- 
 raclea and Lamia, two towns belonging to them, were 
 besieged, the former by the Romans, and the latter by 
 Philip, according to the secret article in his treaty with 
 Rome, above alluded to. The siege of Heraclea was car- 
 ried on systematically and with great energy, and the town 
 was taken by assault ; the garrison and the citadel surren- 
 dered at discretions^. All the fair prospects of the Aeto- 
 lians had now vanished, for it was more than probable that 
 Antiochus would never return to Greece. But what saved 
 them was the wish of the Roman generals to cross over to 
 the rich countries of Asia, and the policy of the Romans to 
 prevent Philip attaining his purposes of aggrandizement. 
 When, therefore, Lamia was on the point of surrendering, 
 the Roman consul sent Philip a message, ordering him to 
 raise the siege. Henceforth Philip took no active part in 
 the war, and confined himself to extending his dominions 
 to the west of his kingdom, by conquering Athamania and 
 the Dolopians. The Aetolians would have been extirpated, 
 had not the Romans had reasons for preserving them. 
 The Romans now appeared before Naupactus, and laid 
 siege to it. The town would have been taken had the 
 Romans acted with the same energy as at Heraclea ; but 
 they carried on the siege with the wish to spare the enemy, 
 and the Aetolians having in the meantime gathered all 
 their scattered forces, the Romans withdrew from the 
 place '^. The war came to its close with the siege of Am- 
 bracia^^ which belonged to the Aetolian state. The 
 peace was concluded by the consul M. Fulvius, and the 
 Aetolians obtained tolerable terms, for they had only to 
 
 '^ Livy, XXXVI. 24. foil. 
 
 " Livy, XXXVI. 35 ; Plutarch, Flamin. 15. 
 
 '■^ Livy, XXXVIII. 5. 
 
248 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 pay a contribution of a few hundred talents ^^. Ambracia 
 was saved, and passed peaceably into the hands of the Ro- 
 mans. The siege of this town is one of the most inge- 
 nious in ancient history, and its defence does honour to 
 the Aetolians, whose wars are, on the whole, not glorious. 
 I have here somewhat anticipated the time, for the siege 
 of Ambracia took place in the year .564. Cephallenia, 
 which had also belonged to the Aetolians, fell entirely into 
 the hands of the Romans, as had been the case before with 
 the Atintanians. Rome had thus secured to herself all 
 the landing places along this coast, and had opened to her- 
 self all the roads into Greece. 
 
 '^ Livy, XXXVIII. 11 ; Polybius, xxii. 13. 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 249 
 
 LECTURE XVIII. 
 
 WAR WITH ANTIOCHUS IN ASIA. — BATTLE OF MAGNESIA. 
 
 PEACE WITH ANTIOCHUS, AND THE SUBSEQUENT AR- 
 RANGEMENTS IN ASIA. DEATH OF P. CORNELIUS SCIPIO. 
 
 BEGINNING OF DEMORALIZATION AMONG THE RO- 
 MANS. M. PORCIUS CATO. 
 
 After Antiochus had left Europe, he confined himself 
 to defending his fleet against the Rhodians, Attains, and Eu- 
 menes. With regard to the Romans, he was as much at ease 
 as if he had been secured from them by an impassable gulf; ^ 
 and it was Hannibal alone who induced him to keep pos- 
 session of the Hellespont. This he did, but no more ; for 
 he thought it sufficient to prevent the Romans from attack- 
 ing him in his own dominions. But M. iEmilius Regillus, 
 a Roman admiral, was already approaching with a Roman 
 fleet. How little the sea was the element of the Romans 
 may be seen from the fact, that immediately after the 
 Punic war they had given up their fleet. Hence we find 
 them at Myonnesus with no more than from eighty to 
 ninety ships, half of which, at the least, belonged to the 
 Rhodians, who were by far the best sailors of those times. 
 A Phoenician- fleet, which approached under the command 
 of Hannibal, was not able to join that of Antiochus. The 
 Romans gained a victory, and the fleet of Antiochus was 
 almost entirely destroyed. 
 
 L. Cornelius Scipio and his friend C. Laelius, were con- 
 
 ' Livy, XXXVI. 41. 
 
 ' The Phoenician towns, so powerful in the time of Alexander the 
 Great, appear wholly to have lost their importance. — N. 
 
250 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 suls in the year 562, and it was at this time that they fell 
 out with each other. LaeHus aspired to the command of 
 the army ; but the great Scipio, who had been the best 
 friend of Laehus in private hfe, now exerted himself in 
 favour of his own brother; and by his influence, which was 
 still unbounded in the republic, he succeeded in getting 
 the command conferred upon his brother. P. Cornelius 
 Scipio, who had in the meantime been censor, accompanied 
 his brother to Asia as his legate. The Roman army in 
 Asia consisted of only about 20,000 men, partly Romans 
 and partly Italians, independent of some thousands of 
 Achaean and Pergamenian soldiers. When the Romans 
 drew nearer, Antiochus was seized with such an incon- 
 ceivable panic, that he immediately quitted Lysimachia, 
 Abydos, and the whole coast of the Hellespont. The Ro- 
 mans thus crossed over, like Alexander the Great, without 
 meeting with any resistance. It is a fact not generally 
 known, that Philip had already commenced the war, and 
 led his troops into Asia before the arrival of the Romans.^ 
 As soon as the Scipios reached the coast of Asia, there 
 came an ambassador from Antiochus, expressing the wish 
 of his king to restore peace. Scipio proposed moderate 
 terms, which however appeared intolerable to the pride of 
 the Syrian king. A son of the great Scipio, we know not 
 how, had fallen into the hands of the Syrians, and was 
 treated by them with great distinction. The ambassador 
 oflered to restore him to freedom ; but Antiochus, who 
 thereby hoped to attain his end the more surely, sent him 
 back to his father at once, and without ransom.^ This, 
 however, did not produce the desired effect; and as it was 
 impossible to come to any terms, the decision was left to a 
 battle, which was fought near Magnesia, at the foot of 
 Mount Sipylus. The Roman army, including the allies, 
 
 ^ Livy, xxxvii. 7; Appian, De Reb. Maced. 7 ; De Reb. Syr. 28; 
 Polybius, XX. 13. 
 
 * Livy, XXXVII. 34 full.; Diodorus, Fragm. lib. xxix. Excerpt, 
 de Legat. vi. p. 620. 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 251 
 
 did not amount to 30,000 soldiers ; the Syrian army, which 
 is said to have consisted of 100,000 men, was a motley 
 host of Asiatics. The event of the battle was decided very- 
 soon, and it was of no avail that Antiochus gained some 
 advantages on his right wing: the elephants made no im- 
 pression upon the Romans, who had learnt to despise them, 
 and they themselves had African elephants, which however, 
 like the African lions, are much weaker and more timid 
 than the Indian ones. Even the Macedonian phalanx, 
 which at Cynoscephalae had given the Romans so much 
 trouble, was soon overwhelmed. The loss of the Romans 
 is said to have been very small ;^ and this is indeed pro- 
 bable enough, for the soldiers against whom they fought 
 were like those whom Alexander defeated at Arbela. An- 
 tiochus sued for peace, and was wilhng to accept any terms 
 that might be offered. A preliminary treaty was granted 
 to him, on condition that he should pay down immediately 
 500 talents for the truce, during which all the other arti- 
 cles should be made out at Rome, 2500 talents after the 
 treaty should have received the sanction of the senate and 
 people at Rome,^ and 12,000 additional talents by instal- 
 ments of 1000 a year. Antiochus was further to give hos- 
 tages, to give up to the Romans all the countries west of 
 Mount Taurus, — that is, the whole of Asia Minor, with the 
 exception of Cilicia, — to pledge himself not to interfere in 
 the affairs of the Roman allies in Europe without the con- 
 sent of the Romans, give up all ships of war, and even 
 his triremes, keep no elephants, and raise no mercenaries 
 in countries allied with Rome. This treaty was signed in 
 the year 562, The peace was not definitively concluded till 
 some time after. ^ 
 
 In the spring of the year after this, Cn. Manlius Vulso, 
 
 * Livy, XXXVII. 44, 
 
 ® It is only accidental that this point is not mentioned afterwards. 
 — N. (See Livy, xxxviii. 38.) 
 
 ' Livy, XXXVIII. 38; Polybius, xxi. 14, xxii. 26; Diodorus, Fraj,mi. 
 lib. XXI. Exc. de Legat. ix. p. 621 ; Appian, Syriac. 39. 
 
252 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 the successor of L. Cornelius Scipio, anxious for an oppor- 
 tunity to undertake something from which he might derive 
 fame and wealth — a desire which is henceforward the prevail- 
 ing character of the Roman generals — made a campaign 
 against the Galatians in Phrygia.^ These barbarians had 
 wandered through Macedonia and Greece ; and after having 
 ranged for a long time over Asia Minor, — which though it 
 seems to have been destined by Providence to be one of 
 the most flourishing and happiest countries in the world, is 
 now, under the despotism of barbarians, like an accursed 
 desert, — they had settled in Phrygia, in the district about 
 Ancyra. They had accumulated immense riches in the 
 course of a few years. They consisted of three tribes, 
 bearing the strange names of Trocmi, Tectosagae, and To- 
 listoboii, which became gradually hellenized. The cam- 
 paign of Manlius Vulso against them was most unfortu- 
 nate for the inhabitants of Asia Minor: on the part of the 
 Romans, it was very unjust that Manlius Vulso should un- 
 dertake this war, contrary to the express wish of the decern 
 legati who had come to Asia. The Galatians were not ex- 
 tirpated, but suffered so severe a defeat, that from this time 
 forward they continued to live in quiet obedience to the 
 Romans, Eumenes, who was quite an insignificant prince, 
 was now made a great king by the Romans, and received an 
 independent kingdom, comprising Mysia, Lydia, Phrygia, 
 and Ionia, with the exception of a few of the Greek maritime 
 towns, which were constituted as republics,^ a kingdom for 
 which he might be envied by many a European king. 
 The Rhodians also were not forgotten, for they received 
 Lycia and Caria, with the exception of Telmessus, which 
 was given to Eumenes. The Rhodians deserved indeed to 
 possess such rich countries, for they were a thoroughly 
 respectable people, respecting whom the Romans them- 
 
 * Livy, xxxviii. 12. foil.; Polybius, xxii. 16 foil. 
 ' Polybius, XXII. 26 foil.; Livy, xxxviii. 39; Diodorus, Fragm. 
 lib. XXIX. Exc. de Legat. x. p. 621 ; Appian, Syriac, 44. 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 258 
 
 selves owned that they had not the levitas Graecorum but 
 a severitas disciplinae equal to their own. 
 
 Before I proceed to give you an outline of the state of 
 morality and literature among the Romans, I have to mention 
 the death of P. Cornelius Scipio, which is obscured by 
 various contradictions. It is a remarkable instance of the 
 manner in which false and impossible tales have crept into 
 the annals of those times, so as to make it hopeless for us 
 to attempt to arrive at a positive conviction as to what is his- 
 torically true and what is mere fiction. Contradictory oc- 
 currences, and such as took place at different times, are 
 here put together. What Livy^° mentions from the speech 
 of Tiberius Gracchus, may be looked upon as something 
 more than the narrative of an annalist. There is however 
 no doubt that, at one time, Scipio was called upon before 
 the senate to answer to the charge of having embezzled 
 sums of money which he had received from Antiochus, and 
 of not having given to the republic an account of money 
 which he had gained in the course of the war ^^ This was 
 a peculiar point with the Romans; their generals had full 
 right to dispose of the spoils and the money exacted from 
 a conquered enemy in what manner they pleased; they 
 might distribute them among their soldiers, or make them 
 over to the treasury of the republic ; but they were obliged 
 to be prepared to give an account of the manner in which 
 they had acted ; and to demand such an account was consi- 
 dered by the people as their constitutional and inalienable 
 right. L. Scipio had given no account; and when called 
 upon to defend himself against certain suspicions, he sent 
 for his account-books, and caused them to be read before 
 the senate ; but his brother snatched them from his hands 
 and tore them to pieces, declaring it to be inconsistent that, 
 as he and his brother had so much enriched the state, he 
 should be taken to account for the trifling sum of about 
 
 '" XXXVIII. 56. " Livy, xxxviii. 54. foil. 
 
254 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 36,000/.'" The fact that Scipio could speak of such a sum 
 as a trifle, shews how high the standard of property must 
 have been even as early as that time. But this act of P. 
 Scipio did not remain without consequences. A charge 
 was also brought against him of having been bribed by 
 Antiochus ; and when he was summoned to appear before 
 the tribunes, he said that the day was ill suited for litiga- 
 tion, since it was the very same day on which he had con- 
 quered Hannibal, and went to the capitol, whither he was 
 accompanied by the whole people ^^. This charge may 
 have been the one to which allusion was made in the 
 speech of Gracchus, where it was stated that Gracchus 
 had intended to arrest L. Scipio, and that P. Scipio on 
 hearing of it returned from Etruria, and rescued his brother 
 from the hands of the constable. But however this may 
 be, he was accused, because animos plus quam civiles gerebat. 
 He had not expected such a charge, and it may be that he 
 withdrew or went into voluntary exile to Liternum, a Ro- 
 man colony ; thus much at least is certain, that he passed 
 the last years of his life away from his country. It is 
 during the time of his living abroad that he is said to have 
 betrothed his daughter Cornelia to Tib. Gracchus; but 
 if we consider the age of her sons, it seems more probable 
 that the engagement did not take place till after Scipio's 
 death ^\ 
 
 The history of Scipio is very instructive, for it shews 
 how the state was hastening towards its dissolution. No 
 one thought of the republic being in danger, and the danger 
 was indeed as yet far distant; but the seeds of dissolution 
 were nevertheless sown, and its symptoms were already 
 beginning to become visible. We hear it generally said 
 that, with the victories of the Romans in Asia, luxury 
 and all the vices which accompany avarice and rapacity, 
 
 '2 Livy, xxxviir. 55; Gellius, N. A. iv. 18; vii. 19; Diodorus, 
 Exc. Vatican, p. 78 foil. ed. Dindorf. 
 
 " Gellius, N. A. iv. 18. '^ Livy, xxxviii. 57. 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 255 
 
 began to break in upon them. This is indeed true 
 enough, but it was only the symptom of corruption, and 
 not its cause : the latter lay much deeper. After so 
 many years of destructive and cruel wars, during which 
 the Romans had been almost uninterruptedly in arms, the 
 whole nation was in a frightful condition: the poor were 
 utterly impoverished, the middle class had sunk deeper 
 and deeper, and the wealthy had amassed immense riches. 
 The same men who had marched into rich foreign coun- 
 tries as hungry soldiers, now returned with exorbitant 
 riches — the treasures extorted from conquered nations. 
 The officers and nobles had now opportunities to sa- 
 tisfy their desires with splendid buildings and luxuries 
 of every kind, and to fill their houses with costly furni- 
 ture, carpets, plate, &c. The Romans had grown rich, 
 but the immediate consequence was a brutal use of their 
 riches. Agriculturists are excellent men, so long as they 
 live in favourable circumstances, but when they acquire 
 wealth on a sudden, they exhibit a striking proof of 
 how difficult it is to make a rational use of it. A si- 
 milar instance occurs in the history of Ditmarsch, where 
 corruption became general at a time when after some 
 years of scarcity, the people acquired wealth by extra- 
 ordinary sales of corn. Thus, the Romans who had ac- 
 cumulated immense wealth, and did not know how to use 
 it, began to abandon themselves to gluttony. Hence it 
 came to pass, as Livy says^^, that cooks who had before 
 been the most despised class of slaves, now became the 
 most expensive. The Roman pontiffs, as we see from 
 their bills of fare, might in their eating and drinking have 
 rivalled the canons of modern times ^^. Before this time 
 the Romans had lived like simple peasants, but now exorbi- 
 tant sums were spent upon Greek cooks : gluttony and the 
 most disgusting vulgarity took the place of former fruga- 
 
 "^ XXXIX. 6. 
 
 '^ Horat. Carm. ii. 14. 26 foil, with the notes of the commen- 
 tators. 
 
256 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 lity. The Athenians lived frugally at all times, and the 
 Greeks are on the whole a frugal nation ; the Italians, 
 on the other hand, can be frugal; but at times, when 
 they are let loose, they indulge in brutal intempe- 
 rance. 
 
 Although the form and appearance of the Roman con- 
 stitution continued to be democratical, yet the nobles could 
 do anything with impunity. I need only remind you of 
 L. Quinctius Flamininus who slaughtered a man of Gallic 
 origin, who implored his assistance either against an un- 
 just verdict, or because he, being an hostage, had been 
 insulted, merely to afford his favourite the pleasure of 
 seeing a man struggling in the agonies of death '^ — a 
 crime more horrible than that of the sultan who called 
 in a man and ordered him to be beheaded, in order that 
 his painter might have something frightful to paint. Cato 
 ejected him from the senate. Although the Romans were, 
 in general, much more conscientious than the Greeks, 
 and although Polybius, fifty years after this time, places 
 them very far above the Greeks, still embezzlement of 
 the public money, extortions from the allies, and acts of 
 violence and wantonness of every description, are hence- 
 forth of quite common occurrence. This is the state of 
 things which we see in the fragment of Cato"'s oration 
 De Sumtu Suo'^% the gem among the fragments in Fronto, 
 who made the extracts for the emperor Antoninus Pius. 
 Cato was at this time the most remarkable man, the 
 man of the good old times, in the true sense of the 
 word. His name of Priscus is expressive of his Latin 
 origin from Tusculum. Rome perhaps never produced 
 such another singular genius. The Romans at that time 
 acquired all scientific refinement through the medium of 
 Greek literature, but Cato formed an exception, for al- 
 though, at a late period of his life, he acquired the lan- 
 
 ^^ Livy, XXXIX. 42. 
 
 '« Fronto, p. 149, ed. A. Mai, Rome, 1823. Comp. Meyer, Frag- 
 menta oratorum Ronianorum, p. .30, foil. 2nd edit. 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 257 
 
 guage and made himself acquainted with the literature 
 of the Greeks; yet in reality he despised the Greeks, 
 and his peculiar mode of thinking, his style and lan- 
 guage, are pure old Roman : a circumstance which shews 
 that it was not absolutely necessary for a Roman to be 
 imbued with the spirit of the Greeks in order to be a 
 great man. He displayed his immense powers in the 
 most various ways ^9: he was a great general, a great 
 statesman and orator, an excellent agriculturist: in short, 
 an active man in all the affairs of human life, and inde- 
 fatigable in his exertions for the good of his country. 
 There was no polish in anything he did, nothing that 
 was merely put on : all was with him the gift of na- 
 ture, and nothing was the result of artificial training. 
 Livy, without wishing to attach any blame to him, — for 
 he loved him, — uses of him the expression allatrare so- 
 litus est-^. He could not live at peace with the noble 
 and the wealthy, for they and their acquired manners 
 were disgusting to him in the highest degree, and to 
 combat what was repugnant to him was the natural turn 
 of his mind. With regard to the conduct which he re- 
 quired of every one to shew towards the state, we cannot 
 charge him with affectation : it arose from his purest con- 
 victions. L. Valerius Flaccus was a man who agreed with 
 him in sentiment. Cato had the nature of a lion, and 
 was active with unremitting zeal. At the age of eighty- 
 six he carried on a great law -suit, and at the age of 
 ninety he accused Servius Galba. He was a Roman in 
 the fullest sense of the word, and was bent upon seeing 
 the sovereignty and grandeur of his nation firmly esta- 
 blished. He was a great patron of industry; he defended 
 the Rhodians, protected the Lusitanians, and all those 
 who were helpless or friendless. He is one of the great- 
 est and most honourable characters in Roman history: 
 he resembles the great men of the sixteenth century in 
 
 '" Livy, XXXIX. tO. -" xxxviii. .54. 
 
 s 
 
258 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 whom that which we call rudeness was nothing but the 
 peculiar manners of the time. Respecting the other 
 Romans of that time, who are usually called great men, 
 I have nothing to say: there is none among them who 
 deserves the name of a great man. 
 
 i 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 259 
 
 LECTURE XIX. 
 
 EARLY ACQUAINTANCE OF THE ITALIANS WITH GREEK LI- 
 TERATURE. ROMAN LITERATURE. ATELLANAE AND 
 
 PRAETEXTATAE. LIVIUS ANDRONICUS. NAEVIUS. 
 
 PLAUTUS. ENNIUS. PACUVIUS. ROMANS WHO WROTE 
 
 GREEK. DEATH OF SCIPIO AND HANNIBAL. THE IM- 
 PORTANCE OF CAPITAL AT ROME. 
 
 The current ideas respecting Roman literature are 
 no less one-sided than those respecting the early intellec- 
 tual condition of the Romans. We must not imagine 
 that, previous to their conquests in Greece, they were as 
 ignorant of Greek literature as, for instance, our ances- 
 tors were, previous to the revival of letters, or that they 
 had no literature of their own. It is certain, however, 
 that the Romans did not possess any such distinct class of 
 literary men as there existed in Greece. With regard to 
 their knowledge of Greek literature and poetry, we have 
 the strongest possible evidence that the Romans, and 
 the Italian nations in general, were intimately acquainted 
 with them at a very early period. In the ancient works 
 of art of the Etruscans and Oscans, we find representations 
 of subjects from the ancient Greek fables, and of Greek 
 persons, although the names of these persons, by passing 
 through the mouth of the people, had sometimes under- 
 gone peculiar changes. Instead of Odysseus, for example, 
 we find Ulixes, which seems to have been a Siculian 
 form ; instead of Ganymedes we find Catamitus. These 
 and similar instances prove that Greek myths were ge- 
 nerally known in Italy ^ But to understand them must 
 
 ' Compare vol. iii. p. 310 foil. 
 
 s 2 
 
260 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 have been difficult for the Romans, especially for the 
 Sabines and the original inhabitants of Italy, whose re- 
 ligion was not a mythology, but a real theology with my- 
 thical legends. Their divinities were numena, and conse- 
 quently without those elements which gave life to the 
 poetry of the Greeks. Among the Pelasgians and Latins, 
 on the other hand, there was a greater resemblance to 
 the elements of Grecian mythology and poetry, which 
 struck root also among the Romans through the medium 
 of the Sibylline books, so that Greek poetry soon became 
 intelligible to them. The theatre of Tusculura, which, if we 
 may judge from the foundations, cannot have been erected 
 later than the second Punic war, but in all probability 
 was built much earlier, presupposes the performance of 
 dramas, whether of Greek or of native growth. After 
 the first Punic war, Greek poetry took root at Rome, and 
 was cultivated and imitated in the Latin language. 
 
 The atellanae^ which we meet with at the close of the 
 fourth century, are an evident proof of a fresh vein of 
 national poetry. I believe they were extempore produc- 
 tions, like the poetry of the improvisatori of modern Italy, 
 and they were certainly not confined to the Romans. As 
 the atellanae present to us a kind of national comedy, so 
 the praetextatae were very old national tragedies". I be- 
 lieve we are not mistaken in thinking that there was some 
 connexion between these praetextatae and the solemn fune- 
 ral processions, in which the masks of the dead, who had 
 curules imagines, were carried about. There is no mention 
 of any earlier praetextatae than those of Attius. The fact 
 of his having composed them according to certain rules of 
 art and in a poetical style is a proof of their existence 
 previous to his time. 
 
 The translation of Greek poetry into the Latin lan- 
 guage was a great and important step. Livius Androni- 
 cus is called a Tarentine, probably for no other reason 
 but because he was confounded with Livius Macatus, who 
 
 ' Compare vol. i. p. 520, note 1150. 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 261 
 
 maintained himself at Tarentum^. The interval between 
 his alleged departure from Tarentum and the time when 
 he appeared before the public with his dramas seems to 
 be too long, unless we suppose him to have spent only his 
 early childhood at Tarentum. In early times, the personal 
 character and circumstances of bards were generally ne- 
 glected, and the Romans in particular paid little atten- 
 tion to the history of the lives of their early poets. At a 
 later period, they began to compile historical information 
 concerning them ; but the most incredible things were put 
 together, as we see in the biographies of Naevius and Te- 
 rence. Livius Andronicus translated the Odyssey, which, 
 from its relation to Latium, had greater attractions for the 
 Romans than the Iliad ^: he did not however translate the 
 whole of the Odyssey, but made an abridgment of it in 
 the national Italian rhythm and not in a Greek metre. 
 The great poem of Naevius was likewise in the Saturnian 
 rhythm. All that Livius wrote besides his Odyssey are 
 tragedies, which, like the atellanae, were not performed in 
 standing theatres, but on a kind of scaffolding in the Ci'-cus. 
 Besides the historical poem of Naevius, in which he 
 combined national subjects with Greek mythology, he 
 wrote both tragedies and comedies. That he was a great 
 poet we may believe on the assertion of Cicero,^ who had 
 in reality no taste for the old national poetry of his 
 countrymen. In the latter period of his life Naevius 
 was persecuted, for considering that he had not the full 
 franchise, he had been too bold, and had insulted the Me- 
 telli, who availed themselves of the circumstance of his 
 being a Campanian, and threw him into prison. 
 
 When Naevius was an old man, Plautus, one of the 
 greatest poetical geniuses of antiquity, was just entering 
 on his best period. He shews his great talent in his bold 
 and free though somewhat singular manner of dealing 
 with his characters. He takes Greek pieces with Greek 
 
 ^ See Livy, xxvii. 34, and xxiv. 20. 
 
 ■• It is a very ancient idea that Circe had some connexion with 
 Circeii. — N. ^ Bnitiis, c. 19. 
 
262 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 dramatis personae, and treats them with a perfect irony ; 
 the Greeks in his plays speak, act, and are witty, as Ro- 
 mans would be, and there occurs in them nothing that 
 could have been foreign to the Romans. All his person- 
 ages display those peculiarities of character which distin- 
 guished the aerarii, who formed a lower order in the popu- 
 lation of Rome, and consisted chiefly of freedmen and 
 strangers who had become naturalized, but could not rise 
 to the rank of free Roman warriors. The scenes are laid 
 at Athens, Epidamnus, or Ephesus, and the names of the 
 persons are Greek, but we are reminded every moment 
 that we are in the very heart of Rome. The parasite is, I 
 believe, not a Roman character. What makes Plautus 
 such a wonderful poet is that on this slippery ground 
 which he had chosen he always shews the most extraor- 
 dinary skill in hitting the right point. His language is 
 no less admirable than his poetical skill : if we compare 
 his language with that of his predecessors we find it 
 greatly altered, enriched, and refined, which is a proof that 
 the language was much cultivated at that time, for, had 
 this not been the case, it would certainly be very different 
 from what it is in the comedies of Plautus. We have for- 
 tunately the opportunity of comparing his language with 
 that of a senatus-consultum of the fifth century, and that 
 of the tomb-stone of Scipio Barbatus. 
 
 Livius Andronicus was the client of one Livius ; Nae- 
 vius was a Roman citizen, a inuniceps Camjmnus, and lived 
 at Rome, though only with the rights of an aerarius ; but 
 as regards Plautus, it is not known whether he was a Ro- 
 man citizen — he had perhaps not given up the franchise of 
 his native place. 1 do not believe the story, that he 
 gained his living by working at a hand-mill. 
 
 Ennius, who was somewhat younger than Plautus, was 
 a gentleman, a Roman citizen, and belonged unquestionably 
 to one of the tribes. He lived on terms of great intimacy 
 with Scipio, Fulvius Nobilior, Laelius, and the principal 
 men of the republic, and was not only much esteemed 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 263 
 
 personally, but he was the first who made the Romans es- 
 teem and honour men of literary occupation. Among his 
 fragments there are some very excellent specimens of his 
 poetry. He seems to have despised comedy — a rare saint ! 
 Some of his poems were written in the national Italian 
 rhythm, for instance, his Sabine women. But, on the whole, 
 he followed his own method, and, although he used some 
 Greek metres, still we cannot say, that he borrowed them ; 
 for it is true that the Greeks have their pure iambic and 
 trochaic metres, but the same metres, with some modifica- 
 tions, were national also among the Romans ; and I believe 
 that the senarius is as little peculiar to the Latin language 
 as it is to our own, and Naevius merely adopted it as 
 Ennius adopted the hexameter. The introduction of this 
 latter verse produced at Rome the same sort of poetry 
 which it produced in Germany; and the hexameters of 
 Ennius are nearly as awkward and as imperfect as the 
 earliest German hexameters. Those of Ennius have some- 
 times no caesura at all, and sometimes wrong ones in the 
 fourth foot, which render them altogether unsatisfactory. 
 I must confess that, much as I like the numeri and sales of 
 Plautus, I cannot be pleased with the hexameters of En- 
 nius. They have a great many peculiarities, such as the 
 entire suppression of short syllables : ego, for instance, is 
 used like the Italian io, as one syllable. Ennius wished to 
 try all the Greek metres, with the exception of the really 
 lyric ones, and constructed them with more accuracy than 
 the earlier dramatists; for through Plautus the senarius, for 
 instance, became a rhythmical verse. If we compare the 
 metrical forms of the poetry of Klopstock with those of 
 count Platen Hallermlinde, we find the same contrast as 
 between the verses of Ennius and those of Virgil. En- 
 nius is less original than either Naevius or Plautus. He 
 was a native of Campania, he belonged to a hellenized peo- 
 ple, he had received a Greek education, and the Greek lan- 
 guage was his second mother tongue : no wonder, therefore, 
 that he wished to introduce Greek forms into Roman 
 
2G4 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 poetry. The literature of the Romans was at this time 
 very brilliant in comparison with that of the Greeks ; for 
 the best Alexandrian period was over, and, when Livius 
 Andronicus began his career, Callimachus was either 
 already dead or near his end : Eratosthenes was more of a 
 versifier than a poet : Antagoras and Aratus were dead : 
 in short, Greek literature was fast dying away, whereas 
 at Rome it was thriving with extraordinary vigour; and 
 would have done so still more, if Ennius had not had 
 such great influence : for some time, however, the Ro- 
 mans held out against it. 
 
 Pacuvius was younger than Ennius, and a son of the 
 sister of Ennius. He well deserves the name of the deep- 
 thinker. Horace depreciates him very unjustly. Pacuvius 
 followed Aeschylus and Sophocles as his models, and 
 despised Euripides, which is a very characteristic feature, 
 and one by which he placed himself in opposition to the 
 taste of his whole age. 
 
 How familiar the Romans were with Greek literature 
 may also be seen from the works which were written 
 immediately after the second Punic war. Fabius Pictor 
 and L. Cincius wrote the history of their country in the 
 Greek language. Fabius is often mentioned, but no one, 
 not even Dionysius, has ever objected to him that his 
 language was barbarous or unreadable ; nay, the very fact 
 that Dionysius carried his history down to the commence- 
 ment of the first Punic war must shew that, in his judg- 
 ment, Fabius was from that time forward all that could 
 be desired : at the same time, however, he saw that for the 
 early times of Roman history, Fabius was not satisfactory. 
 Subsequently we still find many other Romans who wrote 
 historical works in Greek ; the great Scipio wrote his 
 own history in the form of a letter to Philip of Mace- 
 donia^; P. Scipio Nasica wrote the history of the war 
 
 ^ I have not been able to find any authority for this statement. 
 Cicero (De Officiis, iii. 1^) says distinctly : nulla cius (Africani,) m- 
 yaiii inoiiumeuta mundata litcrin, nullum oputi otiiynuUiun .sulitudinis 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 2G5 
 
 against Perseus^; and Aemilius PauUus engaged Greek 
 dramatists, rhetoricians, painters, and drawing-masters, to 
 instruct his sons. 
 
 The Great Scipio died in the year 569, and in the 
 same year Hannibal put an end to his life by poison, 
 because the Romans very dishonourably demanded of 
 Prusias of Bithynia to deliver him up to them. Bithynia 
 was a very small country on the coast of the Euxine, ex- 
 tending from Byzantium to Heraclea ; but after the fall of 
 the Persian empire it had been extended ; and some districts 
 in its vicinity, which were not occupied by other states, 
 were added to it, so that it comprised the whole country, 
 from the frontiers of Paphlagonia, to those of Mysia ; 
 it was a rich but not a powerful state. At the time we 
 are here speaking of, it was governed by Prusias. The 
 other states of Asia Minor were Pergamus, Paphlagonia 
 west of the river Halys, Cappadocia, which was divided 
 into Upper Cappadocia and the rich country of Pontus, 
 and Pamphylia, — Cilicia belonged to Syria. Prusias had 
 hitherto been independent. It is almost inconceivable how 
 Hannibal, while staying at his court, could have been over- 
 looked by the Romans, but when they were informed of 
 his presence there, they sent an embassy to Prusias. It 
 is an unpardonable act of T. Quinctius Flamininus that 
 he allowed himself to be made use of for such an object". 
 But virtue and the sense of honour were vanishing more 
 and more from the Roman republic, and its condition 
 was already most deplorable. 
 
 In the earlier times the strength of Rome consisted in 
 her free peasantry, but this class of her population was 
 gradually losing its importance and influence. One of 
 
 munus extat. In another place (Brutus, 20,) Cicero speaks of an 
 historia quaedam Graeca, scripta dulcissime, as the work of P. Cor- 
 nelius Scipio Africanus minor^ the son of the great Scipio; but it is 
 scarcely possible to suppose that Niebuhr made a mistake here, espe- 
 cially as he mentions the letter of Scipio also in another passage 
 above, p. 136. '' Polybius, xxix, 6. 
 
 ^ Livy, XXXIX. 31 foil.; Appian, SyriacHj 11. 
 
266 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 those levies which the late wars had required must have 
 ruined numbers of whole families. Another change which 
 had lately taken place, and which could not remain with- 
 out political consequences, was the importance which 
 capital had acquired. Ever since the end of the first 
 Punic war, when the Romans had gained possession of 
 Sicily, we find capitalists engaged in enterprises and specu- 
 lations to increase their moveable property, and this spirit 
 was encouraged by the facility and impunity with which 
 they could pursue their objects in the provinces. Usury 
 was indeed forbidden by the Roman law, as it was in later 
 times forbidden by the canon law; but such a law is un- 
 natural, and of no avail, for, in defiance of the canon law, 
 a variety of ways were devised, which enabled capitalists 
 to take interest with impunity ; and similar methods were 
 resorted to at Rome, where capitalists did business with 
 foreigners, or substituted other names for their own. The 
 canon law imposed no restrictions on the Jews, and the 
 Roman law did not extend its protection to the Italian 
 allies, or to freedmen ; so that a thousand ways were 
 left open to evade the law. In the provinces the spirit 
 of usury found no obstacles. The Publicum Romanum had 
 been immensely extended : the tunny -fisheries, the tithes 
 of Illyricum and other countries, put large sums of money 
 into circulation, and the profits made by these things 
 were as great as those made in modern times by specu- 
 lators in paper securities. Whenever, for instance, a con- 
 tribution was to be raised, the publicani were immediately 
 ready to oifer the money at an interest of at least 12, but 
 sometimes 24, or even 36 per cent, and the governors 
 of the provinces took good care that the debts were paid. 
 This is the manner in which the class of publicani was 
 gradually formed. Distinct traces of them are found in 
 Livy9 as early as the second Punic war, although it was 
 not until the century following that they acquired their 
 notorious importance. They form a parallel to the money- 
 dealers whom the eighteenth century produced. 
 ^ xxiii. 48 and 49; xxv. 3 and 4. 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 267 
 
 LECTURE XX. 
 
 THE LIGURIAN WAR. WAR IN SPAIN. CATO AND TI. SEM- 
 
 PRONIUS GRACCHUS. THE LAST YEARS OF THE REIGN 
 
 OF PHILIP OF MACEDONIA. CONDUCT OF THE ROMANS. 
 
 DEMETRIUS. PERSEUS. DEATH OF PHILIP. — THE 
 
 FIRST PERIOD OF THE REIGN OF PERSEUS. WAR WITH 
 
 THE ROMANS. FEELINGS OF THE GREEKS AT THAT 
 
 TIME. 
 
 The Ligurian war^ is not only insignificant, but ex- 
 tremely obscure, on account of our want of accurate geo- 
 graphical knowledge. It has some resemblance to the 
 present undertakings of the Caucasian tribes. The Apen- 
 nines are not, indeed, as high as the Caucasus, but they 
 offer the same advantages for armies to defend themselves. 
 The Ligurians were defeated in the end, which is always 
 the unavoidable fate of such nations. The war did not 
 extend beyond the river Varus, or the frontiers of the 
 Provence. The Ligurian tribes defended themselves and 
 their poverty with such a resolute determination, that the 
 Romans, who could not expect any rich spoils, aimed at 
 nothing short of extirpating them, or expelling them from 
 their mountains. The consuls, P. Cornelius Cethegus and 
 M. Baebius Tamphilus, were sent against them with an 
 army of 50,000 men. The Ligurians capitulated and were 
 transplanted into Samnium, where they afterwards dwelt 
 under the name of the Cornelian and Baebian Ligurians". 
 
 Ever since the successful campaign of Scipio in Spain, 
 the Romans had sent thither one, and sometimes two 
 
 ' L'lvy, XXXV. 3 foil. - L'lvy, xl. 37 foil. 
 
268 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 praetors, and kept regular troops there. From the second 
 Punic war, or perhaps even from the time of Pyrrhus, one 
 legion seems to have been stationary at Tarentum, and 
 another in Sicily ; and now we find two legions stationary 
 in Spain. This system of keeping stationary troops altered 
 the character of the Roman armies, and had a decided in- 
 fluence upon all their civil relations. In former times 
 the legions had always been disbanded at the end of every 
 campaign, and new ones were formed. This method had 
 the advantage, that every Roman passed through his time 
 of military service and then returned home, so that the 
 soldiers were never separated or distinct from the citizens. 
 Now things became diff'erent. The legions stationed in 
 Spain, for instance, remained there for a number of years, 
 married Spanish women, and became estranged to Italy. 
 When therefore such legions were disbanded, many sol- 
 diers would remain in Spain, unwilling to return to a 
 country to which they had become strangers. The Roman 
 dominion in Spain extended over Catalonia, Valencia, and 
 Andalusia ; but at the end of the second Punic war their 
 authority seems to have become unsettled, until it was 
 re-established by Cato, who won the hearts of the Span- 
 iards by his justice. It is indeed surprising to see that 
 a Roman general with humane feelings was able to win 
 the affections and confidence of those tribes, and to es- 
 tablish the authority of Rome for a length of time, 
 until fresh acts of injustice provoked their resentment. 
 But Cato succeeded, and that not merely by his justice 
 and bravery, but also by his cunning, which was a pro- 
 minent feature in the Roman character from the earliest 
 times. The Spanish towns were strongly fortified, for the 
 Spaniards were a civilized nation, and to conquer them 
 was a matter of great diflBculty. These fortifications be- 
 came the occasion of a general war. It is said that Cato 
 sent circulars to the magistrates of seventy or eighty towns, 
 with the command not to open them before a certain day 
 fixed by him. These letters contained, for each town, the 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 2G9 
 
 command to raze its walls to the ground on that day, 
 and the threat that, in case of disobedience, the town 
 would be besieged and its inhabitants reduced to slavery. 
 Each town obeyed, imagining that it alone had received 
 such a command ; and before the stratagem was discovered, 
 the towns had already made considerable progress in the 
 destruction of their fortifications \ 
 
 In the year 574 the consul Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus, 
 the son of that Gracchus who had distinguished himself in 
 the war against Hannibal, and the father of the two unfor- 
 tunate brothers, was in Spain. The hostile feeling towards 
 the Romans had spread even among the Celtiberians, who 
 occupied the countries from the sources of the river Ebro, 
 including La Mancha, Andalusia, Old and New Castile, 
 and the western part of Valencia and Arragon. They had 
 in reality never been subject to the Carthaginians, and 
 their mercenaries had served in the armies of both belli- 
 gerent parties. They were now involved in a war with the 
 Romans, who wished to reduce them to submission. The 
 more difficult this undertaking — the Celtiberians were 
 the bravest among the Spaniards — the more was it incum- 
 bent on the Romans to subdue those countries. But Tib. 
 Sempronius Gracchus concluded a peace with them, which 
 was so fair and reasonable, that those nations, who had in 
 reality no wish at all to carry on the war, looked upon it as 
 the greatest favour that they could have implored from 
 heaven.^ The whole family of the Gracchi is distinguished 
 for their extraordinary gentleness and kindness, qualities 
 which were, on the whole, foreign to the Romans. This 
 peace was the means by which Gracchus gained a hold on 
 the affections of the natives of Spain. 
 
 Philip of Macedonia did not live to a great age; at his 
 death he may have been about sixty years old. His ex- 
 pectations respecting the war against Antiochus had not 
 been realized, though his circumstances had been improved, 
 
 ' Appian, De Rebus Hispan. 41. Compare Livy, xxxiv. 17. 
 
 * Livy, XL. 47 foil.; xli. 3 foil.; Appian, De Rebus Hispan. 43. 
 
270 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 by the acquisition of Demetrias and Magnesia, by means of 
 which he encompassed Thessaly. The Dolopians had con- 
 tinued to be subject to him, and he was also in possession 
 of Athamania and the Greek towns on the coast of Thrace, 
 which he had first taken from the Egyptians, then given up, 
 and at last re -occupied during the war against Antiochus. 
 The Romans for some time allowed this state of things to 
 continue, but then they began insidiously to undermine his 
 empire. They supported Amynander, who expelled the 
 Macedonian garrisons from Athamania,^ and they readily 
 listened to the ambassadors from the Thracian towns and 
 the Thessalians, who complained of Phihp.^ The Romans 
 sent commissioners to Macedonia, whom Philip received with 
 feelings of great exasperation ; but he yielded in what he 
 could not help, merely with a view to gain time. Misfor- 
 tune had taught him wisdom. He had conducted the war 
 from which he might have derived advantages with laxity, 
 and as a matter of secondary importance. But ever since 
 the year 555, during the last eighteen years of his life, he 
 had been making constant and serious preparations, and he, 
 as well as the Romans, acted with mutual faithlessness to- 
 wards each other. When the Roman army returned from 
 Asia, he instigated the Thracians to fall upon them and 
 take possession of their baggage, while he endeavoured to 
 secure himself as much as possible against any attack that 
 might be made on him. Not being allowed to keep ships 
 of war, he formed the plan of entirely abandoning the mari- 
 time towns which had no considerable fortifications, and of 
 drawing the population into the interior of Macedonia, and 
 he established Thracian settlements in the desolate towns 
 of his kingdom.^ The working of the Macedonian mines 
 was carried on with double zeal, and the arsenals were 
 filled with arms. At the same time Philip kept up negoti- 
 
 * Livy, xxxviii. 1 — 3. 
 
 * Livy, XXXIX. 24 foil., 33 foil.; Polybius, xxiii. 4—6, 11—16; 
 Appian, De Rebus Maced. 4. p. 516. full. ed. Schweigh. 
 
 ' Polybius, XXIV. 8; Livy, xl. 3. 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 271 
 
 ations with foreign powers, and turned his eyes not so much 
 to the impotent kings of the east — Eumenes was dependent 
 on the Romans, and Prusias was an insignificant prince, 
 who could effect nothing with his troops ; the utmost he 
 could have done would have been to assist with money — 
 but he formed friendly connexions with the Thracians, es- 
 pecially the Getae and Bastarnae, who were inclined to 
 abandon their abodes, because the Sarmatians were at that 
 time constantly advancing in the countries on the Dniepr. 
 Philip endeavoured to persuade those tribes to seek new 
 homes in Italy.^ Such an undertaking on the part of the 
 Thracians would have been the only means of giving the 
 Roman power a shock; and had those nations actually in- 
 vaded Italy, Philip would have been sure to gain consider- 
 able advantages, for the Romans were generally hated, and 
 deserved to be hated. Of virtue and honesty towards fo- 
 reign nations not a trace was left among them; and of jus- 
 tice, which had formerly been the very foundation of their 
 religion, they had no longer any idea. Among the many 
 things for which they drew well-deserved hatred upon 
 themselves, we must mention here the intrigues by which, 
 both in free states and within the famihes of princes, they 
 contrived to gain over to their interest the most contempti- 
 ble persons, who, encouraged by and relying on the pro- 
 tection of the Romans, ventured to do anything. By such 
 means they created within the royal family of Macedonia 
 an enmity between the heirs of the throne, Demetrius and 
 Perseus : 9 the former was the younger son of Phihp by his 
 legitimate wife, and the latter the son of a concubine. 
 Demetrius had spent some time among the Romans as a 
 hostage, and they had gained possession of his mind by 
 holding out to him the hope of succeeding to the throne of 
 his father, and by the promise that they would recognise 
 him and not Perseus.^'' How far Demetrius may have 
 
 ^ Livy, XXXIX. 35. ^ Justin, xxxii. 2; Polybius, xxiv. 7. 
 
 '" Livy, xxxix. 53, 
 
272 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 gone to fiivour the scheme of the Romans, or whether he 
 actually did make himself guilty of anything more than a 
 mere transitory unjust thought, cannot be ascertained ; but 
 it is quite certain that the charges against him, of which 
 we read in Livy", are very much exaggerated, and that 
 the account of the manner in which Perseus calumniated him 
 and seduced his father to murder him, are rather romance 
 than history, however beautiful they are to read. 
 
 Philip died soon after, in the year 573. It is per- 
 haps one of those suspicions which hang over so many 
 things, when Livy^^ pa.lls the death of Philip perop- 
 portuna Perseo, insinuating thereby that his death was 
 brought about by Perseus. Why should not Philip at his 
 age have died a natural death ? How could he have con- 
 ceived the idea of excluding his son, who was certainly not 
 an idiot, from the succession, and of fixing upon Anti- 
 gonus, his cousin, as his successor? All this is highly 
 improbable. When Philip died, he left his kingdom, 
 stronger and more powerful than any one could have ex- 
 pected, to his son Perseus. 
 
 Perseus ^^ is one of those characters of which it is dif- 
 ficult to give a definite idea; one of his prominent features, 
 however, was avarice. This vice was his ruin; he could 
 not separate himself from the treasures with which he 
 might have raised a formidable power against the Romans; 
 
 '• Livy, XL. 23. '^ XL. 57. 
 
 '^ The name Perseus has been the subject of much discussion. 
 Schneider (Ausfiihrliche Grammat. der Lateinischen Sprache, vol. i. 
 part 2, p. 71 foil.) has some pages about the declension of the names 
 terminating in eus, but has not found the simple solution of the 
 question. All Greek names terminating in evs had in old Latin the 
 termination es, and were declined after the second declension, form- 
 ing their genitive case in i ; for example, Piraees, gen. Piraei, not 
 Piraeei, as we sometimes find it written in a barbarous way. In later 
 times, hovvever, Perseus falls under the third declension, but the geni- 
 tive is Persi, as if tiie nominative were Pcrsus. The accusative is 
 Persen. I have never met with the form Persum, although of Virae- 
 cii.s, the accusative Pirneitni sometimes occurs. — N. 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 273 
 
 and when he promised subsidies, his avarice did not allow 
 him to abide by his word^^. In his wars he was undecided 
 and wavering, which arose, it is true, partly from the na- 
 ture of the circumstances, but partly also from his own 
 peculiar character. He was not a general, for he had no 
 calmness or composure in moments of pressing danger. 
 But we must nevertheless say of him thus much, that so 
 long as circumstances were not harassing or perplexing, 
 and so long as he could act according to his own plans, he 
 was always skilful in choosing the right way of proceeding. 
 In the first year of his reign he endeavoured to gain popu- 
 larity among the Greeks, among the Rhodians, Boeotians, 
 Acarnanians, and Thessalians, as well as among the Achae- 
 ans, and he was most successful in his endeavours'^. 
 During this ^period he concealed his avarice ; he was even 
 generous, dispensed with tributes, and pardoned those 
 against whom justice had pronounced her severe judg- 
 ment. In short, his popularity rose to such a height, that 
 the Greeks looked upon him as the prince in whose power 
 it was to restore the Macedonian empire, and to drive the 
 Romans away from the eastern shores of the Adriatic. 
 The Rhodians were not bound to the Romans by any 
 treaty, and therefore could, without violating any obliga- 
 tion, enter into friendly relations with Perseus. He mar- 
 ried a Syrian princess, the daughter of Antiochus Epi- 
 phanes'^, who is accurately described in the Bible ^" as a 
 savage tyrant and a frantic man, who however displayed 
 considerable energy. Perseus hoped to find a useful ally 
 in him. A sister of Perseus was married to Prusias^*^. 
 These connexions raised the suspicion of king Eumenes, 
 and his fear lest he should fall a prey to Prusias 
 and Antiochus. The natural consequence was, that he 
 
 '* Livy, XLiv. 26. Compare PolybiuSj xxviii. 8. 
 
 '^ Livy, XLI. 23 foil. XLii. 5. Comp. Polybius, xxvi. 5. 
 
 '® Livy, XLII. 12. 
 
 " Maccab. i. 6. 1 ; ii. 1. 14 foil. 9. 3 foil. 
 
 '^ Livy, XLii. 12. 
 
 T 
 
274 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 brought complaints against Perseus before the Romans, 
 who not only listened to his suggestions, but took up the 
 complaints against the Macedonian king, as well as those 
 against the Rhodians. The small tribes of Thrace, which 
 were oppressed by Perseus, justly or unjustly, likewise 
 brought complaints against him. The Carians and Ly- 
 cians complained of the Rhodians.^9 In order to weaken 
 the Rhodians, the Romans, whose policy was completely 
 Machiavellian, gave to the Carian and Lycian towns the 
 most favourable and decided answers, and thus rendered 
 the Rhodians more and more disaffected. But enough of 
 this. One party among the Rhodians was attached to the 
 Romans, and had yet power enough to prevent an open de- 
 claration of hostilities. The Rhodians were thus kept 
 quiet at the beginning of the war with Perseus. 
 
 Perseus had reason to hope that, unless he himself 
 broke the peace, the Romans would leave him alone. But 
 in the meanwhile, an attempt was made at Delphi to as- 
 sassinate Eumenes-". The devising such a plan for getting 
 rid of an enemy is just what might have been expected 
 of Perseus, although he afterwards positively denied hav- 
 ing had any share in the attempt. It may be that the 
 whole affair was merely a wretched farce of Eumenes, but 
 it is almost too bad to suspect such a thing without evi- 
 dence. The Romans demanded of Perseus to deliver up 
 some persons who enjoyed his especial favour, and who 
 were suspected of being the instigators of the attempt. 
 The refusal of Perseus caused the final outbreak of the 
 war, which did not last quite four years, from 581 to 585. 
 The turn it took was quite different from what the Romans 
 had anticipated, for they imagined that it might be brought 
 to a close by a single campaign. The war itself, however, 
 came very opportunely for them, for their wish was to 
 overthrow the kingdom of Macedonia; and not merely this, 
 
 '^ Polybius, XXVI. 7; Livy, xLi. 6. Compare xliv. 15. 
 20 Livy, XLii. 15 foil.; Appian, De Rebus Maced. 2. p. 521, ed. 
 Sch weigh. 
 
HISTORY OF ROME, 275 
 
 but to place all the relations of those eastern countries 
 upon a different basis, to remove the treaties by which 
 they were restrained, and to introduce altogether a new 
 order of things. 
 
 As the last books of Livy are mutilated, we cannot 
 form an accurate notion of one part of the time, and we 
 are left in ignorance of the exact connexion of the opera- 
 tions. The Roman general P. Licinius Crassus appeared 
 in Thessaly, where Perseus came to meet hira,^^ having 
 conceived the mad hope that, by resolute conduct, he 
 would obtain more favourable terms. His calculation was 
 wrong, for the Romans were faithful to their maxim, not 
 to lay down their arras until Perseus was subdued. Ne- 
 gotiations were entered into, but the Romans demanded 
 entire submission. A battle was then fought in Thessaly 
 near Sycurium, in which many Romans were slain, and 
 still more were taken prisoners. The Roman fleet was a 
 curse to many of the Greek sea-towns. With the excep- 
 tion of a few, such as Charops in Epirus, Lyciscus in 
 Aetolia, and Callicrates in Achaia, all the Greeks had 
 joined Perseus against the Romans. The rational men 
 among the Greeks indeed wished that the issue of the war 
 might be such as to enable Perseus to maintain himself, 
 but very few had confidence enough to act in reliance upon 
 such an issue. The great mass of the people, however, 
 fancied that it was impossible for Perseus not to conquer 
 the Romans, and after the successful battle in Thessaly all 
 their heads were completely turned, so that the Greeks 
 indulged in every kind of insolence towards the Romans 22. 
 We have seen a similar state of feeling in Germany, where 
 a general exasperation against the dominion of the French 
 was manifested just at the time when their power had 
 reached its height ; and whenever the French sustained a 
 trifling loss, some people were foolish enough to imagine 
 that their power was on the decline, and to indulge in the 
 
 =' Livy, XLii. 55 foil. ''' Livy, XLii. 63 
 
 T 2 
 
276 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 most insulting language against them. Such was the feel- 
 ing of Polybius, who, as long as he was in Greece, hated 
 the Romans as bitterly as his father Lycortas, or Philopoe- 
 men, although he cannot surely have been deceived as to 
 the personal character of Perseus -^ Afterwards when he 
 lived among the Romans, he resigned himself to his fate, 
 and became reconciled to them. It was this feeling which 
 led the Greeks to their own ruin. On every occasion they 
 gave vent to it, and such occasions occurred frequently. 
 The Romans, on the other hand, acted with the greatest 
 cruelty, treating all the Greeks as their enemies. A 
 number of maritime towns were taken, and destroyed 
 or burned to ashes, and the inhabitants were carried away 
 as slaves. The consul A. Hostilius Mancinus, and in par- 
 ticular the praetor C. Lucretius, were distinguished for 
 their cruelty. Perseus tried on every occasion to negoti- 
 ate ; in the third year of the war he was particularly 
 fortunate, and had even time enough to undertake an 
 expedition against the neighbouring Dardanians^^. 
 
 '^ Polybius, xxviii. 10. ^* Livy, xliii. 5. 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 277 
 
 LECTURE XXI. 
 
 CONTINUATION OF THE WAR AGAINST PERSEUS. L. AEMI- 
 
 LIUS PAULLUS. BATTLE OF PYDNA. CONDUCT OF 
 
 THE ROMANS AFTER THEIR VICTORY. ARRANGEMENTS 
 
 IN MACEDONIA AND GREECE. THE PERIOD BETWEEN 
 
 THE CONQUEST OF MACEDONIA AND THE THIRD PUNIC 
 WAR. 
 
 In the third year of the war, Perseus evacuated Thes- 
 saly and withdrew to Pieria, a tract of coast extending from 
 mount Olympus to the gulf of Thermae, where his army 
 took up its winter-quarters. Tempe alone was occupied 
 by one of his generals. The Roman consul, Q. Marcius 
 Philippus, made a bold attempt, for, being stationed at 
 the entrance of Tempe, at the foot of mount Olympus, 
 and not being able to force the entrance, he endeavoured 
 to evade it, and marched with his whole army across 
 Olympus ^ The Macedonians who did not expect such 
 boldness, thought themselves quite safe. It was, however, 
 not without incredible difficulties that the Romans arrived 
 at the northern foot of Olympus, and here they found 
 themselves in a position where they might have been cut 
 to pieces. The whole undertaking deserves censure, for 
 if Perseus had had his wits about him the Roman army 
 might have been completely destroyed. But he left Dium, 
 after having set fire to a portion of it, and retreated to 
 Pydna. The Roman general, after having advanced as 
 far as the river Ascordus, finding his situation perilous, 
 returned to Dium and thence to Phila. The Macedoni- 
 ans, emboldened by this apparent flight, advanced again. 
 
 ' Livy, XLiv. 6 foil. 
 
278 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 The whole advantage which the Romans derived from this 
 undertaking was, that Tempe was evacuated by the Mace- 
 donians. Some decisive step, however, had now become 
 necessary. The Romans made slow progress, like the 
 progress of a besieging army ; but the Greeks were unde- 
 cided in the highest degree, the one relying upon the 
 other, and hoping that a coalition would be formed against 
 the Romans, and so forth. The Rhodians thought that the 
 time had now come for shewing that they were indepen- 
 dent : they were highly exasperated against the Romans, 
 and hoped to see them defeated, in order to be able to 
 maintain their own authority in Lycia and Caria. The 
 relation subsisting between Prusias and Antiochus had 
 lately gained more strength, and Antiochus had not direct- 
 ed his arms against Europe, but against Egypt. Eumenes 
 began to feel more secure : he altered his whole policy, 
 and thought it more advisable to support the interests of 
 Perseus than those of the Romans. Secret negotiations 
 were commenced, which however could not remain con- 
 cealed long in such a demoralized age. The Romans 
 never forgave Eumenes this apostacy. The Bastarnae, 
 with whom Perseus had long been carrying on negotia- 
 tions, were now in movement-, and Genthius, king of the 
 northern part of lllyricum, with the capital of Scutari 
 (Scorda), was allied with Perseus. On this occasion, the 
 Macedonian king shewed his contemptible character, for, 
 after having promised Genthius 300 talents, he sent him 
 only ten, and kept back the rest, declaring that he would 
 send them soon after ; but the fact was, he wished to de- 
 ceive Genthius, for he could not prevail upon himself to 
 part with his money. Genthius, not suspecting Perseus to 
 be capable of such meanness, threw the Roman ambas- 
 sadors into prison, so that now he had no longer any 
 choice between Rome and Macedonia^. 
 
 ^ It is quite unpardonable that Perseus did not send the Bastar- 
 nae into Italy, according to the grand scheme of his father. — N. 
 3 Polybius, XXIX. 2 ; Livy, xliv. 27. 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 279 
 
 In the year 584, L. Aemilius Paullus was made consul 
 for the second time. He was convinced of the necessity 
 of bringing the Macedonian war to a close, and was pro- 
 vided with the means of attaining his object. The Rho- 
 dians had unfortunately attempted to mediate between the 
 Romans and Macedonians, but in a manner which had of- 
 fended the former. The Rhodians felt that at home they 
 were powerful and respected by their neighbours, so that 
 whenever opinions were divided on any subject, it was in 
 their power to give the casting vote, as had been the case 
 in the war against Antiochus. Such circumstances are al- 
 ways very deceptive, and in this instance they made the 
 Rhodians forget the enormous disproportion between their 
 own power and that of the Romans^. The language which 
 they used towards the Romans was not what it should have 
 been : their wish was to save Macedonia from destruction. 
 
 Perseus opened the last campaign without any addi- 
 tional forces, except those of Genthius, who continued his 
 hostilities against the Romans. The king had pitched 
 his camp in the neighbourhood of Pydna, and his lines 
 extended from mount Olympus, which is here 6000 feet 
 high, to the sea. Aemilius Paullus marched into Pieria, 
 and made an attack upon the Macedonian lines, but with 
 little success. He too succeeded in marching across the 
 mountain ; and although the Macedonians were not taken 
 by surprise, yet their advanced corps was defeated by a 
 Roman army under the command of young Scipio Nasica^ 
 The Romans advanced in such a manner that the king 
 was obliged to retreat. But soon the decisive battle com- 
 menced, in which the Macedonian kingdom found its in- 
 glorious end. In the space of a single hour, the whole 
 army was defeated : the infantry was cut to pieces, and 
 the cavalry escaped in a disgraceful manner, without any 
 considerable loss. The king had now no confidence in 
 any one, or any thing. He could not make up his mind 
 to hold out against a siege either at Pella or at Amphi- 
 
 * Polybius, XXIX. 4; Livy^ xliv. 14. ^ Livy, xliv. 36. 
 
280 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 polis : his avarice went so far that, even now, he thought 
 of nothing but of saving his treasures, as if it had been 
 possible to find any place where they could be safe. All 
 the towns opened their gates, and Perseus fled. If he 
 had wished to save his life as a free man, he might have 
 gone to his allies in Thrace, and from thence to some 
 of the Greek towns on the coast of the Euxine, which 
 could have no motive for delivering him up to the Ro- 
 mans. But he acted like a blind man, and went to 
 Samothrace, to seek an asylum in its inviolable sanc- 
 tuary^. This was foolish, but his chief motive was to 
 save the beloved money, which he had taken with him. 
 He was surrounded by traitors, and after he had put to 
 death one of them, the others deserted '^. His eyes were 
 now opened, and seeing that his fate might be like that 
 of Pausanias, he surrendered into the hands of the Ro- 
 mans. Genthius saw his kingdom destroyed in a very 
 short time, and he himself was taken prisoner. 
 
 L. Aemilius Paullus made a cruel use of his victory, 
 if we may judge from our own feelings of humanity : 
 one hundred and ten years after the war with Pyrrhus 
 the Romans took vengeance on Epirus. Its inhabitants 
 were divided, and some had declared in favour of Mace- 
 donia: there was no national feeling among them. The 
 Romans took up their quarters among the Molossians, and 
 here scenes took place like those in Scotland in the mas- 
 sacre of Glencoe, though not with so much cunning : 
 but in both cases a massacre took place in the midst of 
 a population which believed itself to be in perfect safety^. 
 The inhabitants were first commanded, under penalty of 
 death, to deliver up all their gold and silver, and im- 
 mediately after, the soldiers fell upon the devoted people. 
 
 ^ There is no doubt, that the worsliip of Samothrace and that of 
 Lanuvium were of the same kind. — N. ' Livy, xlv. 6. 
 
 * Livy, XLV. 34; Plutarch, Aemil. Paul. 29; Appian, De Rebus 
 lllyr, 9 ; Polybius ap. Strabon. vii. p. 322. 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 281 
 
 150,000 men are said to have been sold as slaves, or put 
 to death. After such a cruelty, which was perpetrated at 
 the command of L. AemiUus Paullus, he cannot possibly 
 be reckoned among the number of great and virtuous 
 Romans. This mode of acting would have been cruel 
 enough even in the course of a war; and I cannot see 
 the reason why many persons call Aemilius Paullus a 
 mild and humane man. It was in a similar manner that he 
 acted in Boeotia, and throughout Greece those places in 
 which a party favoured the cause of the Romans received 
 Roman soldiers to crush their opponents. In Aetolia they 
 broke into the senate-house, and the senators were put to 
 death instantaneously, at the request of the leading men 
 of the Roman party 9. It was by the same kind of policy 
 that ten commissioners were sent to settle the affairs of 
 Macedonia, and others to Achaia, who compelled the 
 Achaeans to pass a decree, that all those who had been 
 supporters of Perseus should be put to death. The 
 Achaeans gave a very appropriate answer, requesting the 
 Romans to name the offenders, that they might be tried. 
 But the Roman commissioners refused to condescend to 
 this, and insisted upon a decree being passed pronouncing 
 death on the Macedonian party in general, before they 
 would bring forward a list of them. When the Romans 
 were pressed further, they declared all those who had been 
 strategi to be guilty. One man, Xenon, who had been 
 strategus himself, now rose, and declared that he was so 
 convinced of his own innocence, that he would willingly 
 submit his case not only to a court of his own country- 
 men, but to the Romans themselves. This offer came op- 
 portunely for the Romans, and they immediately made out 
 a list of no less than one thousand persons, who were to 
 quit their country and go to Italy. On their arrival at 
 Rome, however, they were not placed befor^ a court of 
 justice, but were distributed as hostages in the towns of 
 
 ^ Polybius, XXX. li; Livy, xlv.28 ajid 31. 
 
282 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 Etruria. Seventeen years after this event, not more than 
 300 of them were surviving: some of them, who had at- 
 tempted to escape, had been convicted and put to death ^''. 
 One among these Achaean hostages was Polybius, the 
 historian : his condition, however, was soon improved, as 
 he became acquainted with the great Roman famiHes, 
 and AemiUus PauUus selected him to give his sons a 
 Greek education. From this time forward it is difficult 
 to say what belongs to Roman and what to universal 
 history. 
 
 Macedonia was declared free, no Roman proconsul 
 was sent out to undertake its administration, and the 
 tribute was reduced to half the amount which had been 
 paid to the kings"; but the country was cunningly divided 
 into four republics, and in such a way that tribes natu- 
 rally connected together were severed from one another, 
 and were annexed to a different republic with which they 
 had no natural connexion. The object of this measure 
 was to destroy all national feeling in each of the four 
 states'-. 
 
 From this time we must date the great wealth of the 
 Romans, but the condition of the people grew worse and 
 worse: the cancer of poverty spread further every year, 
 while one class of the population accumulated enormous 
 riches. The moral corruption was general at Rome, and, 
 even before the war against Perseus, Roman history has 
 recorded some monstrous crimes. At the beginning of 
 the seventh century, two of the most distinguished Roman 
 ladies, the wives of consuls, were accused of having poi- 
 soned their husbands, and were put to death by the decree 
 of their own cousins i^. The republic grew richer in the 
 same proportion as the inner or moral condition of the 
 people became worse. During the war against Perseus, 
 contributions had still been raised; but this afterwards 
 ceased, though I have no doubt that contributions were 
 
 '" Pausanias, vii. 10, 2. " Plutarch, Aemil. 28. 
 
 '2 Livy, XLV. 29 foil. 32. '^ Livy, Epitome 48. 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 283 
 
 again resorted to during the Social war, a circumstance 
 which has hitherto been overlooked. Plutarch ^^ and most 
 modern writers speak as if the spoils of jMacedonia had 
 been so ample, as to render contributions for war unneces- 
 sary. But those spoils were deposited in the public trea- 
 sury, and it was the continual revenues derived from Mace- 
 donia and Illyricum which rendered contributions super- 
 fluous. 
 
 After the destruction of the kingdom of Macedonia, 
 the Romans, who wished to overthrow the power of the 
 Rhodians also, were on the point of declaring war against 
 them. When the Rhodians saw that there was no possibi- 
 lity of escaping, they descended to the lowest humiliation. 
 Some of those who had rendered themselves guilty by 
 keeping up a correspondence with Perseus put an end to 
 their own lives, so that only corpses were delivered up 
 to the Romans ; others fled from their homes, but finding 
 no asylum anywhere, they likewise found themselves, in 
 the end, compelled to bring their wretched existence to 
 an end. At length, however, the Rhodians were pai'doned, 
 but had to submit to the hardest conditions : they lost 
 Caria and Lycia, with the exception of Peraea, Caunus, 
 and Stratonicea, so that they did not even retain their most 
 ancient possessions on the opposite coasts. They acknow- 
 ledged the supremacy of Rome'^. 
 
 The war against Perseus was followed by a period so 
 barren of important events that Polybius, when he made 
 a second edition of his history, after the destruction of 
 Corinth ^^, wrote the intermediate period, from the Ma- 
 cedonian war to the taking of Corinth, merely as an intro- 
 ductory sketch to the subsequent history, which formed a 
 
 •* Aemil. Paul. 38. Compare Cicero, De Off. ii. 22 ; Pliny, Hist. 
 Nat. XXIII. ir. '^ Livy, xlv. 10 and 25. 
 
 '^ The first edition of lus history ended with the destruction of 
 the kingdom of Macedonia and its immediate consequences, the re- 
 conciliation of the Rhodians with Rome, and the carrying away of 
 the Achaean hostages. — N. 
 
284 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 work quite distinct from his earlier history, and was con- 
 nected with it only by the slight sketch of that interme- 
 diate period. I shall follow his example, and relate only 
 that which is most necessary to fill up the gap. One of 
 the points which must not be overlooked is that at the 
 close of the sixth century the Romans began to attack 
 the Gauls in the Alps^'^. Soon after the war against 
 Perseus they protected the Massilian colony of Antipolis 
 near Nicaea, and other towns, against the Ligurians^^. 
 The whole country round Genoa was already subdued by 
 the Romans, whose object was gradually and as occasion 
 offered to make themselves masters of the whole coast 
 as far as Spain. In the east they subdued the Dalma- 
 tians, and gained possession of the country extending from 
 Zara to Ragusa. They also endeavoured to subdue Cor- 
 sica completely. In Spain the war still continued and was 
 conducted with the greatest energy against the Celtibe- 
 rians. If the other Spanish nations had co-operated with 
 the Celtiberians, they might have been able to repel the 
 Romans and confine them to the coast, as they could not 
 have sent very numerous armies to Spain ; but this was not 
 done, for the Spaniards did not feel the necessity of a na- 
 tional union, and the Lusitanians were quite satisfied, pro- 
 vided they themselves were left in peace. The Celtibe- 
 rians were likewise desirous of peace, and the Romans 
 succeeded in gradually gaining tracts of country from 
 them, especially the district of Cuenca in the south, and 
 parts of Lusitania and Estremadura. In the west they ad- 
 vanced towards the Vaccaeans and Salamanca. The Lusi- 
 tanians were an ingenious and able people, but they had 
 not yet got a general such as shortly afterwards arose 
 among them. All these tribes, as well as the Celtiberians, 
 would willingly have recognised the supremacy of Rome, 
 and have strengthened her military power, had the Romans 
 only been inclined to make peace on tolerable conditions : 
 
 " Livy, Epitom.46 and 47. ^^ PolybiuSj xxxm. 4. 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 285 
 
 but this was not their object; they wanted to reduce 
 Spain to perfect submission and rule over it. What they 
 promised they did not perform, and hostilities always began 
 afresh on the arrival of a new general, so that no one 
 could place any further confidence in the Romans. In 
 this manner the time was approaching, when a new and 
 grand historical drama was to commence. 
 
286 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 LECTURE XXII. 
 
 CARTHAGE DURING THE INTERVAL BETWEEN THE SECOND 
 
 AND THIRD WAR WITH ROME. MASINISSA BECOMES 
 
 THE OCCASION OF THE THIRD PUNIC WAR. CONDUCT 
 
 OF THE ROMANS. BEGINNING OF THE WAR. P. COR- 
 NELIUS SCIPIO. 
 
 The outbreak of the third Punic war had long been 
 prepared by the relations existing between Carthage and 
 Masinissa. The peace with Rome lasted for fifty years, 
 during which the Carthaginians did not give the Romans a 
 single reason for complaint. We must suppose that this 
 interval was a time of prosperity for Carthage, for after it 
 we find the town very rich and populous ; and it is not dif- 
 ficult to conceive that the obstacles which prevented the 
 maritime nations of the east from entering upon great 
 commercial enterprises, were of great advantage to the 
 Carthaginians. During the wars between Egypt and 
 Syria, for instance, the Carthaginians, who were neutral, 
 were allowed to sail and trade where they pleased. But 
 still, so long as that state of things lasted, in which they 
 were kept in a sort of minority, their national character 
 and their constitution seem to have fallen into decay. 
 The government was weak, and the democratical element 
 gained the ascendancy — I believe that Carthage became 
 a wild democracy, and was in a state of total dissolution. 
 What we positively know is but little, and we can only 
 here and there catch a glimpse of the real state of things 
 among the Carthaginians. The great object of their com- 
 plaints was ever and anon Masinissa. It is not improba- 
 ble that he may have received secret instructions from the 
 Romans, for he seems to have been convinced that, how- 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 287 
 
 ever glaring his acts of injustice might be, the Romans 
 would not declare against him. The Carthaginians en- 
 dured everything with extraordinary forbearance, in order 
 not to give Rome any occasion for making war upon them, 
 for they clearly saw that their bright and happy days were 
 gone, and they resigned themselves to their melancholy 
 fate. And this is the only reasonable course that can be 
 adopted under such circumstances ; though a nation must 
 not cease to be aware of the heavy sacrifice it is making, 
 or forget the fact that it is unhappy, for as soon as this 
 feeling is gone, demoralisation, baseness, and cowardice, 
 step into its place; and I am rather inclined to believe 
 that, at least to a certain extent, this was the case with the 
 Carthaginians. 
 
 Very soon after the death of Philip of Macedonia, the 
 Carthaginians complained bitterly of Masinissa, who had 
 snatched from them one district after another. The Ro- 
 mans, for appearance sake, sent over some persons to 
 act as mediators between Carthage and Masinissa. But 
 these commissioners did not bring anything to a decision : 
 they allowed things to go on as they might, without pro- 
 nouncing a sentence either one way or the other ^ At 
 last, a war broke out between the Carthaginians and 
 Masinissa. The exact time at which this took place is 
 one of those points which cannot be accurately deter- 
 mined ; but I am not inclined to place the event as near 
 the outbreak of the third Punic war as is commonly done. 
 The territory of Carthage embraced the modern Tunis 
 and the western part of Tripoly, the interior of which had 
 been in the possession of Masinissa even before this time. 
 He was now very powerful, and much stronger than Car- 
 thage. Had the Carthaginians taken up arms at a proper 
 time, they would perhaps have been able to keep him 
 at a distance : but this was neglected. Their armies still 
 consisted of mercenaries; and they had the misfortune 
 
 ' Appian, De Rebus Pun, 68 ; Livy, xlii. 23. foil.; compare Zo- 
 naras, ix. 15. 
 
288 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 of having an unskilful general, who lost the decisive 
 battle against Masinissa, and, after being surrounded by 
 the enemy, concluded a most disgraceful peace. The 
 Carthaginian army surrendered their arms, a part of their 
 territory was given up, and Carthage had to pay 5000 
 talents by instalments of one hundred every year. Car- 
 thage was so wealthy that this was not a very exorbitant 
 demand upon her, but the best part of her territory was 
 lost. The Romans had, as usual, sent commissioners, who, 
 with a truly diabolic spirit, deferred giving any decision, 
 but instigated Masinissa. They sent their reports to 
 Rome, informing the senate of the great resources which 
 Carthage still possessed; for the Carthaginians seem to 
 have made great preparations for several years before the 
 war with Masinissa broke out. They had, it is true, no 
 ships of war, but they were abundantly supplied with ma- 
 terials for building a fleet ; their arsenals were filled with 
 arms : they were, in fact, fully prepared, and that with the 
 greatest justice, since they were under no restrictions in 
 this respect by their treaty with Rome. It was at this 
 time that old Cato perpetually repeated his advice to de- 
 stroy Carthage — a blindness hardly conceivable in so wise 
 a man. Scipio Nasica was much wiser, who declared that 
 the existence of such a rival state was the only means of 
 saving Rome. 
 
 After this victory of Masinissa, things came to a cri- 
 sis. The Romans, imagining that it was an easy affair, 
 determined upon the destruction of Carthage. The Car- 
 thaginians were taken to account for their conduct to- 
 wards the Numidian king ; desponding and broken-hearted, 
 they sent ambassadors to Rome. The answer which was 
 there given them was obscure: they were requested to 
 make reparation to Rome, but, at the same time, they 
 were assured that nothing should be undertaken against 
 Carthage 2. But, in 603, the consuls M'. Manilius and 
 L. Marcius Censorinus led an army consisting, it is said, 
 
 2 Appian, De Reb. Pun. 74. foil. ; comp. Polybius, xxxvi. 1. foil. 
 
HISTORY 0;F ROME. 289 
 
 of 80,000 foot and 4000 horse, among whom there were 
 perhaps many other troops besides those of the Italian 
 alhes, to Sicily, where the troops were organized, and 
 other Carthaginian ambassadors were waited for. Utica, 
 without having any grounds for complaining, but despair- 
 ing of the fate of Carthage, had thrown itself into the 
 arms of the Romans, and had been received by them, 
 contrary to the treaty with Carthage. When the Car- 
 thaginian ambassadors appeared, the consuls declared that 
 the senate did not wish to encroach upon the freedom of 
 the Carthaginian people; but, as they were divided into 
 so many parties, they desired to have some security; and 
 for this purpose they demanded that, within thirty days, 
 300 children of the noblest Carthaginian families should 
 be delivered up into their hands as hostages. These chil- 
 dren were sent over to Sicily by their parents, in heart- 
 rending despair^. After the Romans had, in this manner, 
 secured the submission of Carthage, their army crossed 
 over to Africa, and landed, partly at Utica, and partly at 
 the place where Scipio had been encamped. The Roman 
 consuls now informed the Carthaginians, that they were 
 ready to treat with them on anything that had not been 
 settled previously. When the Carthaginian ambassadors 
 appeared before the consuls, they were told that the 
 Romans had information about all their proceedings, and 
 knew their plans : that the Carthaginians must deliver 
 up all their arms and artillery ; for, they said, as Rome 
 was able to protect them, there was no reason for Carthage 
 to possess arms, and all the preparations that had been 
 made could have no other object than to make war against 
 Rome. Hard as this command was, still it was obeyed, 
 and the Carthaginians now believed that they had satisfied 
 the Romans in every respect. But when they had their 
 last audience, they were led through the lines of the Roman 
 army, and were told that the government of Carthage 
 had indeed shewn its good-will, but that it had no con- 
 * Polybius, XXXVI. '2- ; Appian, 1. c. 76. 
 
290 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 trol over the city so long as it was fortified ; the preserva- 
 tion of peace, therefore, required that the people should 
 quit the city, give up their navy, and build a new town, 
 without walls, at a distance of ten miles from the sea- 
 coast. This announcement produced the highest degree 
 of despair among the ambassadors : they foresaw that, on 
 their return to Carthage, they would be exposed to the 
 fury of an enraged people ; and some of them, who had 
 not the courage to return, remained with the Romans. 
 The indignation and fury which this news excited in 
 the city of Carthage was so great that all the gates were 
 instantly shut, and all the Romans and Italians, who 
 happened to be there, were seized and tortured to death ^. 
 This the consuls had not expected. They were, accord- 
 ing to the Roman standard, men of learning and good 
 education; but, distinguished as INIanilius was as a jurist, 
 he was incapable of commanding an army : — this whole 
 transaction with Carthage was a cursed and diabolical un- 
 dertaking. 
 
 The consuls imagined that Carthage might be taken 
 by storm in an instant. The city, situated on a peninsula, 
 was protected on one side by a treble wall: but, on the 
 side towards the bay of Tunis, it had only one low wall. 
 The Romans, who expected to find a defenceless popu- 
 lation, attempted to storm both walls. But despair had 
 suggested to the Carthaginians means of defence on both 
 sides, and they repelled the assault. Everybody was en- 
 gaged, day and night, in the manufacture of arms, with 
 enormous and unexampled exertions. Hasdrubal, who 
 lived in exile on account of his conduct, continued the war 
 against Masinissa, independent of Carthage, with an army 
 of 20,000 exiles, and ravaged the open country. The sen- 
 tence of his banishment was now repealed, and he was 
 made general of the Carthaginian forces out of the city. 
 
 The end of this war was not decided until the fourth 
 year after its commencement. The history of it is so 
 ■* Polybius, XXXVI. 5. ; Appian, 1. c, 92. 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 291 
 
 distressing, that it is painful to me to think of, and 
 much more to relate. There can be nothing more 
 heart-rending than this last struggle of despair, which 
 was necessary, and yet could not end otherwise than in 
 the destruction of Carthage. I will not, therefore, enter 
 into the detail. At first, the Carthaginians rejoiced to 
 see the Romans, with their great forces, fail in their 
 attempts. We do not know who had the command in 
 the city : outside of it there were two generals, Hasdrubal 
 and Himilco Phamaeas. The manner in which the latter 
 carried on the war, and relieved his native city by various 
 diversions, bears great resemblance to that of Francesco 
 Ferrucci, against the emperor Charles V., who accom- 
 plished a thousand brilliant feats, until he fell into the 
 hands of the enemy, and was murdered. But Himilco 
 Phamaeas, who at first displayed great military talents, 
 shewed in the end how great the moral corruption of his 
 country was, and that he lived in an age in which all 
 sense of honour had become extinct. For, after having 
 accomplished things which were really brilliant, he entered 
 at last into negotiations with Scipio : declaring that the 
 fate of Carthage was decided ; that everyone's duty was 
 to take care of himself; that, for this reason, he would 
 conclude a treaty for himself; and that he would assist 
 anyone who would not identify his own fate with that 
 of Carthage^. Some thousands, with their officers, fol- 
 lowed his example, and went over to the Romans. This 
 was a great misfortune for Carthage. The Roman senate 
 did not blush to honour this traitor with magnificent robes, 
 extensive estates, money, and other things. Hasdrubal 
 twice defeated the Romans, who had raised the siege and 
 retreated into the country. An attempt of their's on Hippo 
 likewise failed. It now appeared as if a great diversion 
 was going to take place. 
 
 Masinissa does not deserve the praise of the Romans, 
 who call him socius Jidelissimus : he was in reality a pro- 
 
 * Appian, 1. c. 108. 
 
 u 2 
 
292 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 fligate and unprincipled oriental sultan. He began to 
 think that it would be better for him if Carthage were 
 saved than if it were destroyed, for he was very cunning, 
 and foresaw that, if Carthage existed no more, he could 
 extort nothing from the Roman province. This, however, 
 was not all: he also knew that the Romans, according 
 to their maxim, bella ex hellis serere, would one day attack 
 his kingdom also ; and he was conscious that his friendship 
 towards the Romans was not so enthusiastic as to give him 
 a claim on the permanence of their favour and indulgence. 
 He therefore began to negotiate^. Those who are ac- 
 quainted with the history of the East, will remember 
 many parallels to this conduct^. The Romans conse- 
 quently found that he was anything but inclined to sup- 
 port their undertaking^. Had the Carthaginians sub- 
 mitted to Masinissa, he would unquestionably have come 
 forward as their protector; and it is not impossible that 
 the Roman dominion in Africa would then have been 
 broken. It was folly in the Carthaginians not to do so ; 
 but the state of the open country may have prevented 
 them. Just at this time a rebellion had broken out in Ma- 
 cedonia under a Pseudo- Philip, and shortly after Achaia 
 also rose against the Romans. This state of general dis- 
 content must have suggested to the Carthaginians the 
 hope that Nemesis would intervene, and make Rome 
 herself the victim of her ambition. 
 
 Thus the time passed away, until in 605, P. Cornelius 
 Scipio was made consul. Public opinion distinguished 
 him above all his contemporaries. We generally call him 
 Aemilianus, a name which he assuredly never bore in his 
 
 " Appian, 1. c. 94. 
 
 " The pasha, who had at first instigated the sultan against Ali 
 Pasha of Janina, afterwards found that it was more to his own in- 
 terest that Ali should not be overthrown, but merely weakened. — N. 
 
 * The Introduction to the Somnium Scipionis cannot be looked 
 upon as historical ; Cicero is also greatly mistaken in supposing that 
 Scipio had not gone to Africa as tribune until then. — N. 
 
I 
 
 HISTORY OF ROME. 293 
 
 lifetime. Analogy and the icsus loquendi frequently differ 
 very widely, and such is the case here, for according to 
 analogy he ought to have been called Aemilianus. Cicero 
 always calls him hie Paulli /ilius, and the name Aemi- 
 lianus is an invention of later times: I am so strongly 
 convinced of this, that I would unhesitatingly declare 
 any passage to be spurious if the name occurred in it. 
 Scipio is one of those characters who have a great re- 
 putation in history, which however, in my opinion, is 
 not altogether well deserved. He was, it is true, a very 
 eminent general and a great man, he did many a just 
 and praiseworthy thing ; but he made a show of his great 
 qualities, and Polybius, his friend and instructor in mi- 
 Htary affairs, who in other respects loves him very much, 
 shews in his narrative quite clearly, that the virtues of 
 Scipio were ostentatious 9. Things which every other 
 good and honest man does quietly, Scipio boasts of, be- 
 cause they are not common among his own countrymen. 
 What distinguishes him is an unflinching political cha- 
 racter: he belonged to those who wished, by all means, 
 to maintain the state of things such as it actually was. 
 Everything which existed had in his eyes an indisputa- 
 ble right to exist, and he never asked whether it was 
 right or wrong in its origin, or how detrimental its in- 
 justice was to the republic itself. Even where he saw 
 the deplorable condition of the state, and knew the evil 
 consequences that would result from it, he nevertheless 
 persisted in upholding the actual state of things. I know 
 many good men of a similar disposition, who oppose re- 
 forms where they ought to be made. The elder, or great 
 Scipio, was free and great in all his movements, but the 
 younger did not possess those qualities: in many things 
 he was cunning and obstinate, but we must at the same 
 time acknowledge, that he was a very distinguished ge- 
 neral at a time when Rome was not rich in military ge- 
 niuses. 
 
 " See Fragment. Peiresc. 89. 
 
294 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 LECTURE XXIII. 
 
 TOPOGRAPHY OR CARTHAGE. — ITS SIEGE AND DESTRUC- 
 TION. PSEUDO-PHILIP OF MACEDONIA, HIS WAR WITH 
 
 ROME AND HIS DEFEAT. ACHAIA, ITS CONSTITUTION 
 
 AND THE EVILS RESULTING FROM IT. UNREASONABLE 
 
 DEMAND OF THE ROMANS. INSULTS OFFERED TO THE 
 
 ROMAN AMBASSADORS. 
 
 CicERO has bestowed his special favour on this second 
 Scipio. We sometimes feel a particular interest in a 
 person if, in placing ourselves in his circumstances, we 
 discover that we are one with him : and the position of 
 Scipio is indeed somewhat similar to that of Cicero. 
 Although the leges annales'^ were otherwise strictly ob- 
 served, and although Scipio had not yet attained the age 
 required for the consulship, still he was made consul by 
 the unanimous desire of the people, and without him the 
 war would have been protracted a long time. 
 
 Carthage, as 1 have already remarked, was situated on 
 a peninsula, but did not occupy the whole of it, as has 
 been erroneously inferred from the statement- that it was 
 23,000 paces in circumference ^. The town was completely 
 
 * Those which existed in the time of Cicero had been framed by 
 Sulla ; but whether those of the time of Scipio were the same I 
 cannot say ; but the lex Villia (Livy, xL. 44) was unquestionably in 
 force. — N. 
 
 ' Livy, Epitome, lib. 51. Compare Strabo, xvii. p. 832. 
 
 ' This opinion has been refuted by the researches made on the 
 spot by Colonel Romberg (I cannot answer for the correctness of 
 the name, it being written differently in the different MSS. and 
 nothing ever having been jjublished upon the matter, as far as I 
 am aware. — Ed.), a sincere, oi)en, single-minded, and straightfor- 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 295 
 
 destroyed by the Romans : buildings are not found at pre- 
 sent, but foundations of buildings are still visible. The an- 
 cient city of Carthage lay between the treble wall running 
 across the isthmus, and a line dividing the peninsula into 
 a western and an eastern part. Bozra, the citadel, was 
 somewhere about the centre of the place occupied by 
 the city. Whether a portion of the space assigned to 
 the city was distinct from the rest and bore a distinct 
 name is not known, but seems to me probable enough. 
 The north-eastern part of the peninsula was called by 
 the name of Megara, and in this district it was difficult 
 for ships to land, l^he whole peninsula seems to have 
 been surrounded by a breast-work. The harbour of 
 Cothon was in the south-west^. When C. Gracchus, and 
 after him Julius Caesar, endeavoured to restore the city, 
 they heeded the curse that lay on the ancient site, and 
 built the Roman Carthage by the side of the ancient 
 city^. In Megara Punic tombs have been discovered, 
 which cannot, of course, surprise us, for it was outside 
 the city. Roman antiquities have likewise been found 
 there. 
 
 About the time when Scipio was made consul, L. Man- 
 cinus discovered a spot on the northern side of Megara 
 
 ward soldier. But his drawings fell into the hands of a real ad- 
 venturer, Camillo Borgia, a nephew of Cardinal Borgia^ who had 
 great talent for drawing. He abused the confidence which Colonel 
 Hombei-g had placed in him, by copying his drawings and giving 
 them out as his own. What 1 here say is known to many, but 
 in Germany no one is aware of it. — N. — The work of Camillo 
 Borgia, as far as I know, has never been published ; but the 
 learned Dane, Estrup, saw the MS. at Naples after the death of 
 C. Borgia, and made some use of it for his work " Lineae Topo- 
 graphicae Carthaginis Tyriae," Hafniae, 1821. 
 
 ■• See Livy and Strabo, 11. cc. ; Appian, De Rebus Pun. 95 foil.; 
 Polybius, I. 29 ; Orosius, iv, 22. 
 
 5 Appian, I.e. 136; Plutarch, C. Gracchus, 11; Jul. Caesar, 57; 
 Livy, Epitome lib. 60; Dion Cassius, xlih. 50, lii. 43; Pausanias, 
 II. 1. 2. 
 
296 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 where an army might land and establish itself^. Megara 
 must have been a kind of suburb full of gardens, and of 
 great importance to Carthage. After this was taken, Sci- 
 pio began to besiege the city itself with all his energy : it 
 was useless to attack Carthage on the land side where it 
 was protected by the treble wall, and he therefore directed 
 his attacks against the southern side. The entrance of the 
 harbour Cothon was a very narrow passage, and within the 
 harbour there were several smaller basins which, though 
 built for different purposes, may be compared to the docks 
 of London. One of them was destined for the reception 
 of merchant-vessels, and another for ships of war. The 
 Carthaginians soon began to suffer from scarcity of provi- 
 sions, and a famine would unquestionably have compelled 
 them to submit ; but Bithyas, with the greatest resolution 
 and indefatigable exertions, succeeded in carrying into the 
 city a convoy of provisions, through the midst of the awk- 
 ward ships of the Romans 7. In order to prevent the repe- 
 tition of such boldness, Scipio had recourse to stopping up 
 the mouth of the harbour, in which he succeeded so com- 
 pletely that the whole bay is now a swamp, though this 
 is partly the result of the mud and sand which are driven 
 thither by the current from the Syrtes. Its extent can now 
 be recognised only from the nature of the ground, as in 
 Italy the port of Trajan is recognised in the place called 
 Porto ^. When the Carthaginians perceived that they 
 would soon be shut up, they immediately set about dig- 
 ging a new passage out of the harbour, through the narrow 
 neck of land by which the harbour was separated from the 
 sea. They also secretly built a fleet of 50 triremes, and 
 when all was ready the new passage was opened on a sud- 
 den, and the Carthaginian fleet sailed out into the sea. 
 The Romans were so perplexed and confused at this sight, 
 
 ^ (Appian, 1. c. 113.) The most satisfactory account of this war 
 is to be found in Appian, who had here nothing to do but to abridge 
 the narrative of Polybius. — N. ' Appian, 1. c. 120. 
 
 * Pliny, Epistol. vi. 31 ; Rutilius, 237, &c. 
 
i 
 
 HISTORY OF ROME. 297 
 
 that if the Carthaginians had attacked them at this mo- 
 ment, they might have destroyed the Roman fleet entirely. 
 But here we see the same thing that we so often meet with 
 in the history of man — their resolution failed; and while 
 the Romans were preparing themselves to meet a serious 
 attack, the Carthaginians lost their opportunity irreparably. 
 The Romans, who had renounced the sea, had only Greek 
 vessels, and when on the third day after the Carthaginians 
 again sailed out, the Roman fleet turned round and a 
 battle ensued, which lasted till towards the evening. The 
 Carthaginians then ceased and withdrew towards the 
 harbour, with the intention of renewing the contest the 
 next morning. But, on their return, a great confusion 
 arose within the narrow channel, as the ships were 
 hurrying into the port, and many of their vessels were 
 thrown by the Romans against the quay, and the fruit 
 of their enormous exertions was destroyed. It is sad 
 to see how every thing was lost through the unhappy 
 chance of a single moment. Scipio now took pos- 
 session of that part of the harbour which was destined for 
 merchant-ships, whereupon the Carthaginians set fire to 
 their arsenal. 
 
 At length the Romans were within the walls of the city, 
 and Bozra, the citadel, which was not protected by walls, 
 now became the object of the contest. The treble wall on 
 the isthmus, however, was not yet in the hands of the 
 Romans. The struggle which now commenced is similar 
 to that of Saragossa in Spain in 1808. The three main 
 streets, leading from the market place to the centre of 
 the citadel, were lined with rows of houses, of from six 
 to eight stories in height, all of which, as we may imagine, 
 were of solid structure 9. The houses were conquered one 
 by one, by breaking through the walls from room to room 
 
 ' As regards architectural beauty, we must consider Carthage as 
 a town like those of Greece or like Rome ; but Carthage was built on 
 a more grand and magnificent scale, in confirmation of which we 
 need only remember that the streets were constructed according to 
 
298 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 and from house to house, for the means of blowing up the 
 houses, which were used at Saragossa, were then unknown. 
 The struggle was at the same time carried on upon the flat 
 roofs of the houses. A complete famine raged in the city, 
 and the living fed upon the bodies of the slain. During 
 this unspeakable misery the Romans gradually advanced 
 up to the highest point, which is called by our historians 
 the temple of Aesculapius ^°. Only those who begged the 
 favour as suppliants were allowed to surrender as slaves, 
 and in this manner 50,000 were sent away into slavery. 
 Hasdrubal, who had before mutilated the Roman prisoners 
 in the most cruel manner, retreated into the temple of 
 Aescupalius, where he was joined by some Roman de- 
 serters who set fire to the building. But his courage 
 failed him, and he begged of Scipio to save his life, 
 which was readily granted, that he might adorn the 
 triumph of the Roman general. But his wife, standing 
 on the pinnacles of the temple, gave vent to her indig- 
 nation at this cowardly act of her husband, and threw 
 herself with her children into the flames. Thus perished 
 Carthage, after it had existed for nearly seven hundred 
 years. The life of the unworthy Hasdrubal was spared 
 by those Romans whose ancestors had put to death the 
 great C. Pontius. The destruction of Carthage was com- 
 plete ; a part of its territory was given to the king of 
 Numidia — Masinissa was dead, — and the rest was con- 
 stituted as a Roman province, governed by a proconsul 
 or praetor. 
 
 At this time a war, which had in the meanwhile broken 
 out in Macedonia, was already brought to its close, and 
 Achaia was near its end. As regards the Macedonian war, 
 it is almost impossible to conceive how the nation could 
 allow itself to be imposed upon in the manner we are told of. 
 
 artistic rules, which were unknown to the Greeks. The first con- 
 struction of regular streets is ascribed to the Carthaginians, and, I 
 believe, with justice. — N. — See Isidorus, xv. 16, § 6. 
 '" Appian, 1. c. 130 ; Strabo, xvii. p. 832. 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 299 
 
 The Pseudo-Demetrius in Russia was, according to some 
 historians, not an impostor by any means; and the reason 
 why he was not recognised was only the fact that he had 
 become a Roman Catholic while in Poland. Sebastian of 
 Portugal, although there is not that amount of evidence in 
 his favour which there is for Demetrius, was probably an 
 unfortunate prince. But the Pseudo-Philip of Macedonia 
 was a real impostor, probably a Thracian gladiator, whose 
 name was Andriscus, and to whom it occurred, no one 
 knows how, to give himself out as the son of Perseus. Such 
 impositions are not uncommon in Asia, but during the mid- 
 dle ages some instances occur in Europe also. The Pseudo- 
 PhiHp first appeared at the court of the king of Syria, but 
 was delivered up to the Romans.^^ At Rome he was so 
 much despised, and so carelessly watched, that he found an 
 opportunity to escape. It was well known that Philip, the 
 son of Perseus, whose name Andriscus assumed at first, 
 had died in captivity at Alba, in the country of the Mar- 
 sians,'- or rather had been killed by having been perpetu- 
 ally disturbed in his sleep ; ^^ and yet when Andriscus ap- 
 peared in Thrace, whither he had fled from Rome, num- 
 bers of people gathered round him, by whose assistance he 
 was enabled to enter Macedonia, where he immediately 
 issued a proclamation declaring himself the son of Perseus. 
 The Romans had no army in those parts, so that the im- 
 postor had only to conquer the Macedonians, whom he 
 defeated on the eastern bank of the Strymon. To the 
 great amazement of all, he crossed this river, and gained a 
 second victory over the Macedonians, after which they all 
 submitted to him. The noblest Macedonians had been 
 transplanted to Italy by the Romans ; and as the rest of 
 the population were very credulous, Andriscus made the 
 
 " Livy, Epitome, lib. 49. 
 
 ^2 Polybius, Excerpt. Vat lib. xxxiv. — xxxvii. p. 79, ed. Lucht. 
 
 '^ All the children of Perseus died in misery, and had hardly their 
 daily bread. His last son earned his living by being employed as a 
 scribe. — N. (Plutarch, Aemil. PauUus, 33, 37.) 
 
300 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 most astonishing progress. He invaded Thessaly, which 
 would have been inevitably lost, had not the Achaean 
 troops come to its assistance. His government was en- 
 tirely tyrannical. ^^ Polybius in one of his fragments calls 
 him uvrjp o-Tuyvof.'^ But he nevertheless knew how to 
 make people respect him. The Roman praetor P. Juven- 
 tius was defeated, and Andriscus again entered Thessaly. 
 The affair had now assumed a serious aspect, but Q. Cae- 
 cilius Metellus, who was now sent as praetor against him, 
 increased his forces with auxiliaries. The position of the 
 usurper was particularly difficult, from the circumstance of 
 Macedonia being in some parts accessible by sea. After 
 several engagements, it was in the neighbourhood of Pydna, 
 where Perseus had been defeated, that a decisive battle 
 was fought. The usurper lost it, and was delivered up to 
 the Romans by the Thracians, to whom he fled after the 
 battle. It must have been on this occasion that Pella 
 was destroyed ; Dion Chrysostom ^^ speaks of it as having 
 been completely razed to the ground. At present it lies 
 buried under mounds of earth, and the most interesting 
 remains of ancient art might be discovered there, but the 
 hope of seeing them brought to light has vanished. 
 
 Had the Achaeans clearly known what they wanted, 
 they would have exerted themselves at the time when An- 
 driscus rose against the Romans ; but imprudence led them 
 into follies which could not have any beneficial conse- 
 quences. The history, or rather the explanation of the 
 decline and fall of Achaia, is foreign to my plan ; but I may 
 make a few observations, to give you some notion of the 
 state of things there. Achaia then comprised the whole of 
 Peloponnesus, and formed a confederation of states, which 
 was as irrational as the old German confederacy, in which 
 the pettiest prince had, in reality, as important a vote as a 
 great state. It resembled the American confederacy pre- 
 
 '* Diodorus, Fragm. lib. xxxii. p. 590. 
 
 '* Excerpt. Vat. p. 8.5, ed. Lucht. 
 
 "' Orat. XXXIII. p. 12. foil. ed. Reiske. 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 301 
 
 vious to the constitution of Washington, when Delaware, 
 for instance, with its 70,000 inhabitants, was on an equaUty 
 with Virginia, which had a population of one million and a 
 half '7. It was this irrational constitution which ruined the 
 Achaean league. Elis was a great country, and Laconia, 
 even without its maritime towns, was larger than Achaia 
 proper. The latter had only twelve towns, some of which 
 were surely not more important than Sinzig on the Rhine, 
 and each of these towns had the same vote as Sparta.^^ 
 Some modifications, it is true, were made to render this 
 state of things bearable. Other parts of Greece out of 
 Peloponnesus had likewise adopted the constitution of the 
 Achaeans, and had joined them. The laws of this consti- 
 tution interfered with everything : the education of children, 
 as well as the mode of living of the people. The Lace- 
 daemonians, who had abolished the laws of Lycurgus and 
 adopted those of the Achaeans, were now desirous of 
 getting rid of them. The Romans insidiously encouraged 
 them, and approved of their proceedings; they expressed 
 their sorrow, but left the people to their internal disputes. 
 The consequence was that Lacedaemon declared itself in- 
 dependent of the confederacy; and when it was attacked 
 by the Achaeans, it appealed to the Romans to decide the 
 question. The Romans had not yet made up their minds 
 as to what course to pursue, for they were at the time en- 
 gaged in the last Punic war; but when in the year 605 
 they clearly saw that Carthage would fall, they spoke in a 
 different tone to the Achaeans, and they now took a step 
 for which they had undoubtedly made up their minds long 
 before; they demanded, on the ground of the disorders 
 arising from the combination of so many heterogeneous 
 elements, that those places, which had not been united with 
 
 " A similar state of things is found in the history of Holland, 
 where the Dutch, who formed more than one half of the population, 
 and paid 38 per cent, of the taxes, had the same number of votes 
 as Zeeland, which paid only 3 per cent. — N. 
 
 '* Compare vol. ii. p. 29 foil. 
 
302 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 Achaia at the time when (after the war with Philip) the 
 treaty with Rome was concluded, should be separated from 
 the confederacy. These places were Sparta, Corinth, Ar- 
 gos, Heraclea, at the foot of Mount Oeta, and Orcho- 
 menos, in Arcadia.'^ This command of the Romans called 
 forth such a degree of exasperation, that the Roman am- 
 bassadors at Corinth were attacked in the theatre, insulted, 
 and driven out of the town.-*^ 
 
 '® Livy, Epit. lib. 51 ; Pausanias, vii. li; Dion Cassius, Fi'agni. 
 Ursin. 165; Justin, xxxiv. 1 ; Polybius, xxxviii. 1 foil. 
 
 ^° We often find in Roman authors the expression that Corinth 
 was destroyed ob pidsntos legates. The vei'b pulsare is not correctly 
 explained in our dictionaries, for it does not imply that the ambassa- 
 dors were actually beaten : pukare means in general to insult an am- 
 bassador, and to treat him in a manner contrary to the laws of 
 nations. — N. 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 303 
 
 LECTURE XXIV. 
 
 CONDITION OF THE ACHAEANS. THEY DECLARE WAR 
 
 AGAINST ROME. CRITOLAUS DEFEATED IN LOCRIS. ME- 
 
 TELLUS. DIAEUS. MUMMIUS. DESTRUCTION OF CO- 
 RINTH. — WARS IN SPAIN, AGAINST THE CELTIBERIANS. 
 
 M. CLAUDIUS MARCELLUS CONCLUDES PEACE WITH THEM. 
 
 WARS AGAINST THE LUSITANIANS, VIRIATHUS, AND NU- 
 
 MANTIA. 
 
 This demand of the Romans was a glaring injustice. 
 But Roman history during this period is full of atrocities 
 and arbitrax-y proceedings against foreign nations ; there is 
 nothing pleasing in it, and we can only seek for instruction. 
 Just at the time when it loses its moral interest, the whole 
 history of antiquity is swallowed up in it. The Achaeans 
 ought to have submitted to necessity, and it was madness 
 on their part to set themselves against it. Those persons 
 who use the boasting language of patriotism in such cir- 
 cumstances mislead their nation, and are themselves the 
 most outrageous tyrants, but those who preach submis- 
 sion are looked upon with contempt. Such was the case 
 among the Achaeans. I refer you, by way of illustration, 
 to the prophet Jeremiah: it was the false prophets that 
 brought about the destruction of Jerusalem. 
 
 The insult which had been offered to the Roman ambas- 
 sadors did not call forth immediate revenge, but it was 
 kept in reserve, and embassies went to and fro between 
 Rome and Achaia. CaUicrates, the traitor, who had been 
 at the head of the Roman party, had completely sold him- 
 self to the Romans. After his .death the Achaeans were 
 
304 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 under the influence of Critolaus and Diaeus, who were 
 literally madmen; if they had given the matter but one 
 thought, they would necessarily have seen that it was im- 
 possible to stand against the Romans, even if the Homeric 
 gods themselves could have come to their assistance. The 
 Achaeans had for the last fifty years been under the pro- 
 tection of the Romans, and during that period they had 
 only occasionally carried on petty warfare ; but during the 
 greater part of that time they had been inactive : they had 
 no standing army, but only a militia. They had spent 
 their time very ill in indulging in sensual pleasures, and 
 had neglected to prepare themselves for the evil day that 
 was coming. From the new fragments of Polybius we see 
 that a moral depravity, which it is highly distressing to 
 contemplate, had spread very widely among the Achaeans. 
 After several discussions for and against, they had the 
 wantonness to declare war against the Romans. The 
 Boeotians and Chalcidians, who were as thoughtless as the 
 Achaeans, joined them.^ Critolaus led a small army to- 
 wards Thessaly, for he probably hoped to find the Pseudo- 
 Philip still able to hold out against the Romans, who 
 would thus have been shut up between two hostile armies; 
 he had imagined that Thessaly and Macedonia would join 
 him immediately on his arrival, but before he reached 
 Thermopylae the fate of Macedonia was decided. In 
 Heraclea, at the foot of Mount Oeta, which in compliance 
 with the command of the Romans had renounced the 
 Achaean confederacy, there was still an Achaean party, 
 which now quitted the town to join the army of Critolaus. 
 As soon as Metellus heard of the invasion of Thessaly, he 
 hastened from Macedonia to meet the Achaeans. Crito- 
 laus no sooner heard of his approach, than he abandoned 
 his position, and withdrew into Locris. Here the Achaeans 
 
 * Pausanias, vii. 14.; Livy, Epit. lib. 52; Polybius, xl. 1 foil. 
 (Whether the Chalcidians were influenced by their love of freedom, 
 or J)y the fear of being given over to Macedonia, is uncertain. — N.) 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 305 
 
 were overtaken by Metellus and dispersed like chaff.* 
 Critolaus himself vanished from the field of battle, and it 
 is not improbable that he may have sunk with his horse in 
 the marshes on the sea coast.^ After the Achaeans were 
 thus completely routed, a detachment of 1000 Arcadians, 
 who had not advanced further than Elatea in Phocis, fell 
 into the hands of the Romans on their retreat, in the 
 neighbourhood of Chaeronea, and were all cut to pieces. 
 The distressing state of Greece at this time is well de- 
 scribed in the fragments of Polybius, which also shew how 
 greatly he has been wronged by the reproach of a want of 
 feeling for the woes inflicted on his country, for all he 
 says is the expression of the most unspeakable grief 
 
 The Roman fleet sailed round Peloponnesus, landed near 
 Patrae in Achaia, and ravaged the country in the most bar- 
 barous manner, for it was impossible for the Achaeans to 
 defend the coast. The inhabitants of Thebes quitted their 
 city and sought refuge on the heights of Cithaeron and Heli- 
 con. Metellus after his victory shewed a humane disposi- 
 tion and a wish to spare the Greeks, for he pitied them ; but 
 it was of no avail : he could not act as he wished, partly 
 on account of the conduct of the Greeks themselves, and 
 partly because Providence had decreed their destruction. 
 When he had advanced as far as Megara, Mummius hast- 
 ened to take the command against the Achaeans. He 
 was not of as gentle a disposition as Metellus, for all that 
 he sought was, laurels for himself, and treasures for Rome. 
 Diaeus, who was now strategus of the Achaeans, had en- 
 listed in his army all the slaves capable of bearing arms, 
 the small number of whom shews the high degree of both 
 the moral and political misery of Greece, a country in which 
 every thing is so easily restored, and in which wealth and 
 abundance flow from ever inexhaustible sources. Diaeus, 
 a man perfectly mad and without conscience, who ought to 
 
 ^ Pausanias, vii. 15; Veil. Pat. i. 11; Livy^ Epit. lib. 52; Po- 
 lybius, XL. 3 foU. 
 
 ' Pausanias, vii. 15. 3. Compare Livy, Epit. lib. 52. 
 
 X 
 
306 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 have put an end to his life now, instead of afterwards, — 
 for, in that case, it would have been easy for the Achaeans 
 to obtain a favourable peace — fancied that he was able to 
 defend the Isthmus: he rejected all proposals of peace, 
 and his faction predominated. The Achaeans were suc- 
 cessful in one engagement, but in a second they were so 
 completely defeated, that there was no possibility of facing 
 the enemy again. The whole army in its flight passed by 
 Corinth, and sought shelter in the mountains, and the Cor- 
 inthians, who saw their own defenceless condition, likewise 
 took to flight. Thus the Romans, on the third day after 
 the battle, took possession of Corinth and began to plun- 
 der it^. Corinth possessed the most splendid works of art, 
 which were either carried away or destroyed, and the town 
 itself was reduced to a heap of ashes: the honesty of 
 Mummius was that of a barbarian. The Corinthians 
 were sold as slaves, and the other Greeks who had taken 
 no part in this war were nominally restored to freedom ; 
 but all national relations were destroyed, so that the con- 
 cilia, and probably the commercium and connubium between 
 the several places also, were abolished. Thebes was de- 
 stroyed, and in the time of Pausanias^ there existed only a 
 village within the walls of the Cadmea. The territory of Co- 
 rinth was made ager puhlicus Romanus. During this distress 
 of Greece, Polybius fulfilled the bitterest of duties : he 
 went to his country to obtain, by his mediation, tolera- 
 ble terms for those who survived the fall of their country, 
 and to save many a relic dear to his feelings. He thus 
 obtained the restoration of the honours paid to Philo- 
 poemen, whose name the Romans hated''. The lot of 
 Polybius was that of a physician who has to make a de- 
 sperate cure on his own children. 
 
 The wars which had been carried on in Spain for many 
 years may. be divided into great periods : the first comes 
 
 * Pausanias, vii. 16. * ix. 7. 4. 
 
 « Polybius, XL. 8 foil. ; Excerj)!. Vat. p. 89, ed Lucht. 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 307 
 
 down to the end of the second Punic war ; the second 
 extends from that time to the peace of Sempronius Grac- 
 chus, the result of which was, that the Romans became 
 masters of Catalonia, Valencia, and Andalusia, and ac- 
 quired a kind of supremacy over the Celtiberians and 
 some other tribes. In one of the articles of this peace, 
 the Spaniards had pledged themselves not to build any 
 more towns. But, at the close of the sixth century, when 
 the Celtiberians extended the circumference of their town 
 of Segeda, the Romans, referring to that article of the 
 treaty, interfered, and a fresh war broke out, which lasted 
 for nearly four years 7, and may be called the first Celtibe- 
 rian war, as it was in reality confined to the Celtiberians, 
 who consisted of four tribes. The Romans, with their 
 much superior forces, made progress, but, on many occa- 
 sions, they were fairly beaten. The consul M. Claudius 
 Marcellus, the grandson of the Marcellus who had been 
 five times consul during the period of the second Punic 
 war, was a man of ancient Roman virtue and of great hu- 
 manity, who honoured and respected those people who 
 were struggling for nothing but their freedom. He there- 
 fore endeavoured to intercede for them, and procure them 
 a peace on equitable terms. But the Roman senate main- 
 tained that it was incompatible with the dignity of the 
 republic to conclude a peace with a nation inferior to the 
 Romans, and that the Celtiberians must submit to their 
 discretion before any thing could be said about peace. 
 Marcellus, therefore, seeing no other way of putting an end 
 to the war, and abhorring the miseries which might be in- 
 flicted on the Celtiberians by a cruel successor, managed 
 to gain their confidence. It is remarkable to see the ex- 
 traordinary power which personal qualities had over the 
 minds of the Spaniards, and how they gave their full con- 
 fidence to one general, while there were others whom they 
 would not trust on any condition. They followed the ad- 
 vice of Marcellus, who concluded a very reasonable peace 
 
 7 Appiaiij De Rebus Hispan. 44. 
 
 X 2 
 
308 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 and received hostages. The hostages, however, vi^ere sent 
 back, and he merely obUged them to provide a number of 
 horsemen to serve in the Roman army. For the present 
 the war was thus concluded. 
 
 But, even before this time, another war had been going 
 on in the south of Lusitania^ The Lusitanians were a 
 nation of robbers and very different from the Celtiberians, 
 who were a serious, conscientious and just people ; and the 
 Lusitanians were therefore just as troublesome to the an- 
 cient Spaniards as the Romans. On one occasion when 
 they had insulted the Romans, a war was commenced 
 against them, which the Romans carried on in a very pro- 
 fligate manner, as was their custom during that time. But 
 they were victorious, and the Lusitanians who sought for 
 mercy gave hostages, surrendered their horses, and were 
 willing to submit to any terms that might be dictated. 
 The Romans promised to transplant them and give them 
 settlements in a fertile country. The treaty was concluded 
 by the consul Ser. Sulpicius Galba, the mortal enemy of 
 old Cato, who was the pillar and the light of the aristo- 
 cracy. He then ordered the Lusitanians to encamp in 
 three divisions at some distance from one another, and 
 after having treacherously induced them to surrender their 
 arms, he ordered all of them to be massacred 9. It may 
 be that this cruelty did not arise from Galba's savage na- 
 ture alone, but in part also from the fact that he could not 
 trust the sincerity of the Lusitanians. But however this 
 may have been, honest old Cato brought a capital charge 
 against him for this crime ; and Sulpicius Galba would have 
 been condemned to death, had he not implored the mercy 
 of the people by producing his own young children and 
 those of his cousin ^°. 
 
 * Appian, De Rebus Hispan. 56 foil. 
 
 ^ Appian, De Reb. Hispan. 59, 60. 
 
 '" Suetonius, Galba, 3 ; Valer. Maxim, ix. 62. ; Cicero, De Oral. 
 I 53 ; Brutus, 20 ; pro Murena, 28 ; P.seud(i-Ascon. in Divinat. p. 121.; 
 Livy, Epit. lib, 49 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 309 
 
 Out of this war arose that against Viriathus. If, as 
 we read in an epitome of Livy^S he carried on the war 
 against the Romans for fourteen years, we must suppose 
 that he had acted a prominent part in the Lusitanian war. 
 In the earher part of his life he had been a robber, and 
 was one of those Lusitanians who had escaped from the 
 massacre of Ser. Sulpicius Galba, He now roused his 
 countrymen to revenge, assembled around himself all his 
 former comrades who were still alive, and began the war 
 against the Romans in the year 605, which he himself 
 conducted for a period of eight years. If I were to relate 
 to you how he wore out the Roman armies, how he was 
 present every where with his hght cavalry, dispersed the 
 Romans, and then conquered them one by one, and how 
 many Roman generals he defeated — more than one of them 
 lost his life, — it would be attractive and interesting indeed, 
 but my time does not permit me to do so. Suffice it 
 to say that towards the end of the war in 612, the Ro- 
 mans, desirous to put an end to it, concluded a peace 
 with Viriathus, in which they recognised him as socius 
 and amicus, as if he had been a king aequo jure with 
 themselves. It was contrary to Roman principles to con- 
 clude such a peace; but it was not kept, and it was violated 
 the very year after by Q. Servilius Caepio^^, who got rid 
 of Viriathus by treacherously engaging some Lusitanians 
 to murder their own leader. They went into his tent, 
 and finding him asleep they cut his throat, and returned 
 to the Romans to receive their blood-money *2. Among the 
 Lusitanians we frequently meet with instances of the most 
 malicious treachery, and we shall form a tolerably correct 
 notion of them, if we compare them with the modern Spa- 
 niards, who still shew the same character in many things. 
 But although the modern, as well as the ancient Spaniards — 
 the Celtiberians must always be excepted — are distinguish- 
 
 " Lib. 54 in fine. '= Appian, 1. c. 69 and 70. 
 
 '^ Appian, 1. c. 74, 
 
310 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 ed for their love of money, still their treachery is oftener 
 to be ascribed to their fearful party-spirit than to their 
 avarice. The Spaniards seem to act on the principle, 
 that friendship is mortal, and hatred immortal. They 
 never become reconciled to those with whom they have 
 once fallen oat ; and this feature appears both in ancient 
 and in modern times. Their mode of warfare is likewise 
 the same as it was of old, for they have never fought a 
 battle in the open field, except under the command of an 
 Hamilcar and a Hannibal ; and in modern times under 
 a Gonsalvo, a Corduba, or an Alba ; but they are excellent 
 in petty warfare, and in the defence of fortified places; 
 in the lines they are good for nothing. There are many 
 other features besides which the modern Spaniards have 
 in common with their ancient forefathers. Perperna could 
 not maintain himself in Spain against Pompey, nor could 
 the successors of Viriathus against Caepio. Unless a 
 general inspire the Spaniards with confidence in his own 
 personal qualities, they have no confidence in themselves. 
 D. Junius Brutus Gallaicus concluded a peace with them, 
 and assigned them a district in Valencia, in the mildest 
 climate, where they completely lost their warlike spirit. 
 Brutus was the first Roman who advanced as far as the 
 frontiers of Gallicia, across the river Minho i*. This ex- 
 pedition was, it is true, merely transitory, but it left a 
 deep impression ; the permanent subjugation of those coun- 
 tries did not take place till a later period. 
 
 Out of the war against Viriathus arose that against 
 Numantia. This town was the capital of the Arevaci. 
 We are not able to give a satisfactory account of the con- 
 stitutions and of the condition of the people of Spain ; 
 but it is evident that the Celtiberians must have had a 
 republican constitution, and were not governed by kings 
 like the nations in southern Spain. But although the Cel- 
 tiberians as a nation had a national constitution, still their 
 important cities seem, like the towns of Greece, to have 
 
 " Florus, II. 17; Livy, Epit. lib. 55. 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 311 
 
 had an independent political existence of themselves. 
 The Arevaci had two great towns, Termantia or Ter- 
 mestia, and Numantia. The latter was the stronger of 
 the two, although the number of its soldiers did not 
 amount to more than 8000^^. It was situated in a very 
 rough district, amidst rocks and mountain torrents, in the 
 neighbourhood of the modern Soria. Whether it was pro- 
 tected by walls, or whether the statement that it was 
 strong enough without them, be a mere rhetorical figure 
 to express its resemblance to Sparta, I cannot decide'^. 
 The longer this war lasted, the more formidable was it 
 to the Romans. They twice concluded a peace, but 
 broke through it each time, till at length Scipio Af- 
 ricanus was appointed to torture to death the brave 
 people of Numantia. 
 
 '* Appian, 1. c. 76. 
 
 '« See Florus, ii. 18 ; Strabo, ni. p. 162; Appian, 1. c. 90. 
 
312 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 LECTURE XXV. 
 
 WAR AGAINST NUMANTIA, CONTINUED. — ITS DESTRUCTION 
 
 BY SCIPIO. — SERVILE WAR IN SICILY. ATTALUS OF 
 
 PERGAMUS. — ARISTONICUS. CONSTITUTIONAL CHANGES 
 
 AT ROME. 
 
 We are generally inclined to believe that the ancient 
 Spaniards were barbarians, but if by this name we under- 
 stand savages, they were certainly not barbarians. The 
 Turdetani were civilized at a very early period^; they 
 had an alphabet similar to that of the Libyans, and their 
 coins are infinitely better than those of any European 
 nation during the middle ages. We have also ancient 
 inscriptions, of which however no rational interpretation 
 has yet been given, and which can be explained only 
 through the medium of the Biscay language. With the 
 exception of Baron Wilhelm Von Humboldt, there is no 
 one in our days who could throw any light upon the sub- 
 ject. Some persons pretend to find in the alphabet of 
 the Turdetani a jargon of Greek, but this is an absurdity. 
 
 During its first years the war against Numantia was 
 carried on by the Romans without any success. In the 
 year 613 the consul Q. Pompeius, the son of Aulus, ob- 
 tained the command in Spain 2. He was unfortunate in 
 
 ' Strabo, iii. p. 139. 
 
 ^ This man was one of the ancestors of Pompey the Great, and 
 was at the head of the aristocracy of his time, although he was the 
 son of a musician. Thfe fact itself is very characteristic. He 
 was a man of talent, and acquired his wealth not in a very honour- 
 able manner; but after having once obtained great celebrity and 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 313 
 
 his undertakings, and the Numantines even conquered his 
 camp. His position was so desperate, that he thought it 
 advisable to offer peace. The Numantines who wished 
 for nothing else, accepted the offer ; and in order that the 
 peace might obtain the sanction of the Roman senate, they 
 were obliged nominally to submit to Rome, to pay a cer- 
 tain sum of money, to promise to serve in the Roman armies 
 as auxiliaries, and to give hostages, who however were 
 to be sent back afterwards^. But this reasonable peace 
 did not satisfy the Romans, as Pompeius had foreseen ; 
 it was annulled by the senate, or at least not observed by 
 the successor of Pompeius, M. Popillius Laenas. The 
 Numantines then sent ambassadors to Rome, appealing to 
 the treaty of Pompeius. The oflBcers of his army bore 
 witness to the treaty, but Pompeius applied every means 
 to induce the senate to annul the treaty without making 
 him answerable for it, and the war was renewed. The 
 command was afterwards given to the consul, C. Hostilius 
 Mancinus, who soon saw himself surrounded by the enemy, 
 and had no other way of escape left except in the mercy 
 of the conquerors. But the Numantines had lost their 
 confidence, and he was obliged to confirm his promise by 
 a solemn oath. At that time Tib. Sempronius Gracchus 
 was in the Roman camp as quaestor, and as he was the 
 only one in whom the Numantines could place any con- 
 fidence, he was obliged to pledge his own honour before 
 they could be persuaded to trust Mancinus^. When the 
 Roman camp was taken, they shewed a noble confidence 
 and benevolence towards Gracchus; for having lost his 
 account-books in the camp he went to Numantia, and the 
 
 having become rich, he was welcome to the faction of the aris- 
 tocrats; whereas T. Sempronius Gracchus, of a plebeian but truly 
 ancient and noble family, was at the head of the people. — N. 
 ^ Appian, 1. c. 79. 
 
 '' Appian, 1. c. 80. ; Comp. Plutarch, Tib. Gracchus, 6 foil.; Aurel. 
 Victor, Ue Vir. illustr. 61. 
 
314 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 inhabitants, iiis former enemies, gladly returned to him 
 his papers, though they might easily have retained him as 
 a hostage. When afterwards the peace concluded with the 
 Numantines excited the displeasure of the senate, Man- 
 cinus had to act the same part which Sp. Postumius 
 had acted after the defeat of Caudium^. It was decreed 
 that he should be delivered up to the enemy, in order 
 that the treaty might thus be annulled. But the Numan- 
 tines refused to accept him, and sent him back, that the 
 curse of the perjury might fall upon the Romans^. After 
 this again a few years passed without any progress being 
 made by the Romans, and it was obvious that there was 
 no hope of bringing the war to a close, unless Scipio 
 Africanus was made consul^. It seems probable that by 
 this time he had attained the age prescribed for the con- 
 sulship by the lex annalis^ and there must be some mis- 
 understanding in the ancient writers, for they found diffi- 
 culties here which we cannot see^ He began his opera- 
 tions by introducing a better discipline among his troops, 
 whose number amounted to 60,000 ; and after having driven 
 the Numantines back into their town, he surrounded it with 
 several lines of fortifications, as the Spartans had done at 
 Plataeae, and took all possible precautions to prevent pro- 
 visions being introduced into the town. The Numantines 
 might have received sacks of flour by the river Durius ; but 
 in order to render this impossible, he threw into the river 
 long beams, which were armed with swords and darts, 
 and fastened to the banks, to float both above and below 
 the town. How long this blockade lasted we cannot say. 
 All attempts of the Numantines to break through the 
 Roman fortifications failed. On one occasion, however, 
 some men succeeded in their bold undertaking, and forced 
 their way to the town of Lutia, where they met with such 
 admiration of their courage that several hundred young 
 
 ' Compare vol. in. p. 220, foil. ® Velleius Paterc. ii. 1 
 
 ' Appian, 1. c. 84. * Livy, Epit. lib. 56 ; Appian^ 1. c. 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 315 
 
 men offered their assistance, and a general insurrection 
 seemed on the point of breaking out. On this occasion 
 Scipio acted in a manner of which we cannot think with- 
 out a shudder. To follow the Numantines to Lutia was 
 his duty, but he committed the atrocity of cutting off the 
 hands of about four hundred young men, who were brought 
 before him as friends to the cause of the Numantines. 
 After the Numantines had consumed all their provisions, 
 after they had for some time been living upon the corpses 
 of their enemies and their own friends, and had experi- 
 enced all the horrors and miseries which we have seen 
 inflicted upon Missolonghi, they at length wished to sur- 
 render. Scipio demanded that they should lay down their 
 arms and surrender at discretion. The Numantines then 
 begged for a truce of three days to consider the proposal. 
 This time they employed, especially the persons of the 
 higher classes, in destroying their wives and children, 
 that they might not fall into the hands of the Romans; 
 and the slaughter which they made among themselves 
 was so great, that on the third day only a small number 
 came forth from the town, in such a condition that their 
 features scarcely shewed any traces of human beings. 
 Scipio selected fifty for his triumph, and the rest were 
 sold as slaves 9. According to some authors all the 
 Numantines had put an end to their lives, but this state- 
 ment is unhistoricaP°. Numantia vanished from the face 
 of the earth, and was never rebuilt by the Romans. 
 The day of punishment for the awful deed was not far 
 distant. 
 
 Even before the fall of Numantia, a Servile war had 
 broken out in Sicily, the particulars of which belong, 
 properly speaking, to the history of Sicily. This insur- 
 rection had its origin in the decrease of the population 
 of the island, where famine and plagues had raged in the 
 same degree as in Germany during the Thirty-years' war. 
 
 ^ Appian. 1, c. 97 foil. '" Floras, ii. 18 ; Vegetius, in. 10. 
 
316 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 Hardly twenty-four years had passed after the conclu- 
 sion of the first Punic war, when the second broke out, 
 and completed the devastation of Sicily. Many of the 
 conquered places had been razed to the ground, and 
 whole districts had become ager publicus, which were oc- 
 cupied by speculators, and formed into extensive estates. 
 They were chiefly used as pasture-land, just as in the 
 time of Arcadius and Honorius, when, as we see from 
 the Theodosian Code, Calabria and Bruttiura were 
 changed into vast pasture lands, and the herdsmen 
 formed gangs of robbers^'. Immense numbers of slaves 
 were kept on these estates^-. Formerly slaves had, com- 
 paratively speaking, been rare ; but, after the destruction 
 of so many towns, we hear of immense numbers of them, 
 and they were sold in the markets for a mere trifle. Ima- 
 gine the three Punic wars, the war in Syria about the 
 inheritance of Antiochus Epiphanes, the numerous pirates 
 along the whole coast of Cilicia, the ravages in Achaia, 
 Macedonia, Africa, and Spain; and remember that, in 
 poor countries, men were always carried away, and sold 
 as slaves— and you will be able to form a tolerably correct 
 estimate of the number of slaves '3. The slaves in Sicily 
 were treated very cruelly; their masters were partly Ro- 
 mans and partly Sicilians. This rebellion of the slaves 
 in Sicily exhibited the same features as that of the negroes 
 in St. Domingo, in 1791. Their leader was a Syrian, of 
 
 '* The herdsmen, in all parts of Italy, are still a degenerate race 
 of men. I have frequently spoken with great respect of the Italians 
 as husbandmen, but I repeat that the herdsmen are degenerate. In 
 Tuscany, there are but few ; but, in the papal state, they are nume- 
 rous, and when they are not robbers themselves, they are the com- 
 rades and spies of robbers. — N. 
 
 1- Diodorus, xxxiv. Eclog. 2. p. 525. foil. 
 
 " It has been said that, in the slave-market of the island of 
 Delos, 10,000 slaves were sold every day : but nothing can be more 
 absurd than this ; and, from the account given by Strabo (xiv. p. 668), 
 it is clear that he only meant to say, that there were in one 
 day 10,000 slaves.— N. 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 317 
 
 the name of Eunus, who even assumed the diadem. The in- 
 surrection spread over the greater part of the island : 
 Enna and Tauromenium fell into the hands of the slaves, 
 and the free men who could not escape were all murdered. 
 Four Roman praetorian armies were defeated, until the 
 consul P. Rupilius at length conquered them, and took 
 their fortified places. 
 
 During this time, Attains Philometor, of Pergamus, 
 had died, and with him the dynasty of the princes of 
 Pergamus had become extinct. The first princes of that 
 family were clever men, and of a mild disposition, although 
 much may be said against their policy, if we take humanity 
 as our standard. But the last Attains was a man of dif- 
 ferent character : his reign was tyrannical, and he himself 
 was one of those contemptible miscreants whom we meet 
 with occasionally in the history of the East, where a little 
 natural perversity is easily carried to the highest pitch, 
 as in the case of the gluttony of Sultan Ibrahim. In the 
 East, men sometimes take a delight in what is most un- 
 natural and disgusting, and thus become true incarnations 
 of a base and satanic nature. Such a man was Attains. 
 The only art he occupied himself with, was that of 
 preparing poisons ; and what amused him most was, to 
 get rid of those who were his nearest in kindred^*. He 
 died without issue, and left his whole kingdom to the 
 Romans, who certainly would not easily have recognised 
 any one else as his successor ; for they looked upon his 
 kingdom as their own property, which they had a right 
 to claim, just as a master had the right of succession to the 
 estate of his slave or his freedman, who died without 
 having made a will. The remarks of Florus^^, therefore, 
 on this affair are foolish. But there was a natural son 
 of Eumenes, the predecessor of Attains, called Aristonicus, 
 who claimed the kingdom of Attalus as his lawful inherit- 
 ance; as, however, there was no one in the world who 
 
 '* Diodorus, xxxiv. Exc de Virt. etVit. p. GOl ; Justin, xxxvi. 4. 
 '^ II. 20. 
 
318 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 could give him assistance, it is inconceivable how he 
 could have the madness to believe that he would be able 
 to hold out against the Romans, and how it was possible 
 for him to find any support among the people of Per- 
 gamus. And yet the war lasted much longer than had 
 been anticipated. The effeminate inhabitants of the mag- 
 nificent country of Lydia and Ionia carried on the war 
 with great resolution ; and, besides them, Aristonicus had 
 many Thracian mercenaries in his army. On the part 
 of the Romans, the war was badly conducted, as their 
 generals thought of nothing else but enriching themselves, 
 and turning everything into money, instead of making the 
 proper use of their victories : they were, in fact, glad 
 when a powerful and wealthy town revolted, because it 
 afforded them an opportunity for plunder. The war 
 was at length brought to an end by M. Perperna and M.' 
 Aquillius. Aristonicus was taken prisoner at Stratonicea, 
 and adorned the triumph at Rome ^^. The Romans thus 
 acquired an extremely rich province. The end of this, 
 as well as of the Servile war, belongs to a later date 
 than the year 619, which is the year of the tribuneship 
 of Tib. Sempronius Gracchus. The reduction of Sicily 
 falls in the year 620, and the defeat of Aristonicus in 
 62217. 
 
 The time at which we have now arrived is marked 
 by a change in the constitution ; for, in the year 622, we 
 find for the first time two plebeian censors i^. The first 
 time that both the consuls were plebeians, had been in 
 the year 580, a fact recorded in the Fasti, where we read 
 
 '6 Sallust, Fragm. Hist. lib. iv ; Veil. Paterc. ii. 4. 
 
 1^ The Annales of Zumpt deserve to be recommended, and, with 
 the exception of a few inaccuracies, they are satisfactory. For the 
 early periods of Greek history, however, the work is not always 
 founded on careful investigation. — N. A new and improved edition 
 was published at Berlin in 1838, under the title " Annales veterum 
 regnorum et populorum, imprimis Romanorum, confecti a C. T. 
 Zumptio." " Livy, Epit. lib. 59. 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 319 
 
 ambo primum de jjlebe^^ ; it is strange that Livy does 
 not mention it. But circumstances had now so long been 
 ripening, that no one thought of opposing the election of 
 two plebeian censors. Dionysius says-'^ that, in his time, 
 there were no more than fifty patrician families left, which 
 is not to be understood of gentes, but of families in the 
 proper sense of the word ; so that, for example, the 
 Seipios, Cethegi, and Lentuli were considered as three 
 families. My belief is that, at the time when the con- 
 sulship was in the hands of two plebeians, the number 
 of patrician gentes, whose members were invested with 
 public honours, did not amount to more than fifteen. 
 But these gentes were not taken into account, since the 
 curiae, in which alone their influence could be exerted, 
 had lost their political importance long before, and their 
 influence was only that of separate families. Thus, in 
 the Aemilia gens, we have only the Lepidi, Paulli, and 
 Scauri ; in the Cornelia gens, the families of the Seipios, 
 Sullae, Lentuli, and Cethegi, &c. The Claudia gens con- 
 sisted of a single family, and of the Valeria gens, the only 
 family remaining was that of the Messalae : in short, the 
 patricians formed a very trifling number. The noble ple- 
 beian families, on the other hand, were very numerous, 
 and constantly increasing. A very great majority of the 
 senators were plebeians ; and, ever since the end of the 
 Hannibalian war, most of the praetors had been plebeians : 
 at one time, among six praetors there was only one pa- 
 trician. This, however, must not be understood as if 
 there had been any feud between the two orders, for the 
 contest had passed from the plebeians to the Jiovi homi- 
 lies. It is only the unlearned, though often ingenious 
 historians of the eighteenth century, and especially those 
 of foreign countries, that were mistaken on this point. 
 At Rome, nobody thought any longer of a distinction 
 between patricians and plebeians. This may account for 
 
 '^ Compare vol. iii. p. 70. 
 
 ^° Dionysius, i. 85. Comp. vol. i. p. 329. 
 
320 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 Livy not mentioning the change, since, in reaUty, the dis- 
 tinction had ceased altogether. But the number of pa- 
 tricians was then still sufficient for the censorship, and 
 hence forty years more passed, before both censors were 
 plebeians. 
 
 About this time, a change must also have taken place 
 in the aedileship, which had been divided for a long period 
 in such a manner, that it was held alternately, one year 
 by patricians and the other by plebeians, for the patricians 
 had been less jealous about this office on account of its cost- 
 liness. Various other changes besides must have occurred 
 during this period ; they were not, indeed, of a legislative 
 nature, but they were manifested in the whole habitus of 
 the Romans. Among these, I reckon the entire change 
 in the character of the tribuneship. A tribune was at this 
 time like a despot, to whom absolute power was given. An 
 instance of this occurred on one occasion, when the tribunes 
 threw the two consuls into prison, because, at a levy of 
 troops, they refused to comply with the wishes of the tri- 
 bunes "^ Such occurrences were intimately connected with 
 the changes which had taken place in the condition of the 
 people. In former times, every citizen capable of bearing 
 arms was made a soldier in case of need ; but it had gradu- 
 ally become customary to select men from the masses, which, 
 though it seems to us an arbitrary mode of proceeding^ 
 yet had the advantage that the strongest and best known 
 persons were taken. As the legions had now generally 
 to remain a long time in the provinces, military service 
 had become hard and oppressive, and many tried to escape 
 by the interference of their friends and patrons. In such 
 cases, the tribunes frequently acted from personal mo- 
 tives; while, formerly, they had acted upon higher prin- 
 ciples. And if it so happened that the consuls selected 
 a friend of the tribunes to serve in the legions, the tri- 
 bunes would interpose their veto, and thus protect him. 
 As the levy of new legions had become a matter of great 
 
 *' Livy, Epit. lib. 48; comp. 55. 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 321 
 
 difficulty, by the wide extension of the Roman franchise, 
 inasmuch as, instead of the men appearing in person, and 
 submitting to an examination, as had been the case before, 
 the custom of making levies by lot was introduced in 
 601 2-. The tribunes therefore now demanded, that each 
 of them should have the privilege of exempting from 
 military service ten of the men selected by the consuls 
 for the legions ; and, when the consuls would not consent 
 to this, the tribunes ordered them to be imprisoned-^. 
 This is a remarkable fact, which shews how much the 
 character of the tribuneship had become altered and de- 
 generated *^ A few years later, the tribune C. Atinius 
 Labeo ordered the censor Q. Metellus to be thrown down 
 the Tarpeian rock, and it was only with difficulty that 
 he was saved from the hands of this tyrant by the other 
 tribunes, on whom his relations called for protection-^. 
 Such wild acts of tribunes, which are not unfrequent 
 during this period, prove that the tribunes themselves 
 no longer knew what they really were. The same Atinius, 
 whom I mentioned before, carried a law of great import- 
 ance, that the tribunes of the people should be senators 
 by virtue of their office, and that they should not be 
 excluded from the senate on any other grounds than 
 those on which other senators were excluded -6. By this 
 law, the senate would have become an entirely democratic 
 and elective assembly ; but, although Gellius supposes 
 that this law remained in force, yet it cannot have been 
 of long duration. I believe that the leges Aelia and Fuvia, 
 which are only mentioned by Cicero-'^, belong to the end 
 of the sixth century. They ordained that the concilia 
 convoked by the tribunes should, like the comitia of the 
 
 '* Appian, De Reb. Hispan. 49. 
 
 ^ Livy, Epit. lib. 55. *" Compare vol. i. p. 6^25. foil. 
 
 ** Livy, Epit. lib. 59 ; Cicero, pro Domo, 47. 
 
 -^ Gellius, XIV. 8; Zonaras, vii. 15. 
 
 " See the passages in Orelli's Onomasticon Tullianum, pars iii. 
 
 p. 126 foil. 
 
 Y 
 
322 
 
 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 centuries, be liable to be dissolved by signs in the heavens. 
 This measure had been resorted to in order to effect 
 something which was necessary, for the higher classes 
 required protection against the violence of the tribunes, 
 which threatened to break up the constitution ; and the 
 augurs now had a veto against the tribunes, as the tri- 
 bunes had against the government. The importance of 
 these laws is evident from the manner in which Cicero 
 speaks of them. Yet it was unworthy on the part of 
 the Romans that, in order to attain their object, they had 
 recourse to a lie, with the full consciousness that it was 
 one. The form of the leges Aelia et Fuvia is strange and 
 offensive, but the meaning was to create a sort of counter- 
 tribuneship. 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 323 
 
 LECTURE XXVI. 
 
 ACER PUBLICUS AND ITS OCCUPATION. CONDITION OF 
 
 THE ROMAN PEOPLE AT THE TIME OF THE GRACCHI. 
 AGRARIAN LAW OF TI. SEMPR. GRACCHUS, CHARAC- 
 TER OF THE OPPOSITION. 
 
 There was a time when the name of the Gracchi 
 was branded with infamy, and when they were looked 
 upon as notorious only for their arbitrary proceedings, 
 and as the ringleaders of a tyrannical faction ; but such 
 opinions, as well as the old view of the agrarian laws, are 
 now undermined ; and, although the intricate nature of the 
 ager puhlicus may not be universally understood, yet, in 
 Germany \ the correctness of the results of our historical 
 investigations is generally recognised-. 
 
 Ager puhlicus was land conquered in war, and belong- 
 ing to the republic. The use of it was given either to 
 Romans, or to natives, or to others, on certain conditions. 
 The Licinian law had ordained that no one should pos- 
 sess more than five hundred jugers of it^ The occupa- 
 tion of such public land could indeed be transmitted 
 from father to son as an inheritance, and it could be sold 
 or disposed of in other ways ; but the occupant always 
 remained a precarious tenant, whom the owner, that is 
 
 ' With the exception, perhaps, of some obscure and isolated 
 corner of Austria. — N. 
 
 2 See vol. II. p. 130 foil. (In an American work on my History 
 of Rome, the author, a remarkable man, states that there was not a 
 person in the world to whom the notion that the Gracchi did not at- 
 tack pi-ivate property was not perfectly new when it was first pro- 
 mulgated. — N.) ' Compare vol. iii p. 13- 
 
 Y 2 
 
324 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 the republic, had the right to turn out, whenever it was 
 thought necessary to apply such land to other purposes. 
 The manner in which the Licinian law was observed, 
 was such as might have been expected. L. Postumius 
 employed a whole legion in the cultivation of an exten- 
 sive tract of domain land ^ ; and it is a well-known fact, 
 that Licinius Stolo himself emancipated his son, that he 
 might be able, in his name, to occupy a greater portion 
 of public land than his own law permitted^. Down to 
 the war with Pyrrhus, immense tracts of land had been 
 acquired; and, during the time of the Punic wars, the 
 public domain was increased to an enormous extent. A 
 great part of it was used for the foundation of colonies, 
 or was assigned to the Roman allies ; but, in this case 
 also, in such a manner that the republic retained the 
 ownership for itself After the Hannibalian war, a num- 
 ber of colonies were founded, and extraordinary assign- 
 ments had only been made to the veterans of Scipio in 
 Apulia, Samnium, and Lucania ; and, ever since the time 
 of C. Flaminius, nothing had been assigned viritivi to all 
 the plebeians. A man who himself farms a piece of land 
 which requires no capital can, of course, pay a much higher 
 rent than a man who cannot farm it himself; for the latter 
 requires labourers, whereas the former not only reaps the 
 whole produce of the soil, but has not to pay any wages. 
 I have a very accurate knowledge of the present system of 
 agriculture in Italy, and I am acquainted with large farmers, 
 who have vast possessions, which they manage on specu- 
 lation, and who are an abominable class of men, and must 
 lead to the ruin of their country; although, in some re- 
 spects, they have a title to praise, which is not suflBciently 
 acknowledged. But I also know small independent pea- 
 sants, the most respectable class of men in Italy*', and I re- 
 
 * See vol. III. p. 413. * See vol. in. p. 52. 
 
 ^ With these sentiments, and those which follow, compare a letter 
 of Niebuhr, in Lebensnachi-khten iibcr B. G. Niebuhr, vol. ii. p. 398 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 325 
 
 member very well one poor peasant of Tivoli, who was 
 obliged to recover his small estate from the hands of a 
 usurer, and exerted all his powers to satisfy his noble pride 
 of being an independent proprietor. On that occasion, I 
 saw very clearly the influence of wages, and how important 
 it is for a family to have a piece of land which they can cul- 
 tivate themselves without the employment of labourers. In 
 Italy, the money is in the hands of the few, the nobles ; 
 and, in unproductive seasons, the peasant is obliged to sell 
 or pledge his piece of land. During the middle ages, the 
 number of these small proprietors was very great, but at 
 present it is greatly reduced. In my inquiries at Tivoli, I 
 learned that formerly almost every citizen had his hide of 
 land ; but that, in times of war, many had been obliged to 
 sell their property; so that, fifty years ago, the number 
 of small landed proprietors was five times, and 400 years 
 ago, fifty times greater than at present. I can assert this 
 the more confidently, as I have my information from the 
 old statistical documents of Tivoli itself^. It was exactly 
 such a state of things as this which presented itself to 
 Tib. Sempronius Gracchus. While the number of Roman 
 citizens was increasing every year by Italian allies, who 
 obtained the Roman franchise, and more especially by 
 freedmen, the number of landed proprietors decreased. 
 
 The numerous small estates of former times were no 
 more. During the Hannibalian war everything had be- 
 come altered ; for where, for example, a poor peasant 
 was the neighbour of a rich one, the former had been 
 compelled, during those times of distress and epidemic 
 disorders among the cattle, to borrow money from his 
 neighbour, and not being able to give security, he had 
 undoubtedly to pay a high per centage as interest. Now 
 the son of such a peasant was, perhaps, serving in the 
 legions, and if the father happened to be attacked by 
 
 foil., where a more detailed description of the state of the Italian 
 peasantry is given. 
 
 ' Compare Lebcnsnachrichten iiber B. G. Niebuhr, vol. ii. p. 404. 
 
326 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 illness, he was obliged to engage labourers. In this 
 manner he was reduced more and more, and if in the 
 end he was not able to pay the interest, he was com- 
 pelled to give up his land to his neighbour. In this and 
 various other ways many a small estate had passed into the 
 hands of the rich*^. Such a change of property increases 
 in its progress like an avalanche. The Licinian law had 
 enacted that, on a piece of one hundred jugers of the 
 domain land, a certain number of citizens should be em- 
 ployed as labourers, in order that it might be cultivated 
 by freemen and not by slaves 9. But this enactment had 
 not been observed, and thousands of slaves were em- 
 ployed on account of their cheapness. It is not im- 
 probable that the first idea of reform occurred to Tib. 
 Sempronius Gracchus, when on his march to Spain he 
 passed through Etruria, on whose extensive estates he 
 saw far and wide no free labourers, but numbers of slaves 
 in chains ^°. 
 
 The population of Rome had more and more become a 
 true populace, while in the country the number of the poor 
 was increasing to an awful extent. It was a state of things 
 like that towards which, unfortunately all Europe is, at pre- 
 sent, hastening ; but the difference is, that the Romans had 
 it in their power to remove the evil. Few Romans reflected 
 upon the causes out of which it had grown ; but many must 
 have known that the misery would never have reached that 
 height, if the Licinian law had been observed, if men had 
 been appointed to watch over its proper execution, and if 
 the newly acquired lands had from time to time been dis- 
 tributed or their occupation been rightly conducted. Every 
 one, like the king in Goethe's poem, wished for a different 
 state of things, but no one had the courage or will to un- 
 dertake the reform. After the second Punic war it would 
 not have been difficult to accomplish the object. In the 
 
 * Ciito ap. Plin. Hist. Nat. xviii. 6 and 7; Sallust, Jugurth. 41. 
 '^ See vol. III. i>. 16. '" Plutarch, Tib. Gracch. 8. 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 327 
 
 midst of great shocks and suiFerings of a state there occur 
 moments which must be seized, and in which the disease 
 can be overcome ; but that moment had been neglected at 
 Rome, and was now irreparably lost. Seventy years had 
 now elapsed from the time of the Hannibalian war, and 
 every one who contemplated the condition of the republic 
 must have felt like a person who is suddenly placed before 
 a bottomless abyss. C. Laehus is said to have had the in- 
 tention to interfere and to help, but afterwards to have 
 given up the idea as impracticable. Hence he is said 
 to have received the surname Sapiens, either in mockery 
 or to indicate his real wisdom.^^ 
 
 All the great Roman families were concerned in these 
 things, for there were surely few of the illustrious families 
 which were not in the possession of public domain exceed- 
 ing by far the lawful extent of 500 jugers, or which did not 
 keep upon it more than the legal number of a hundred 
 large and five hundred small cattle. To offend these 
 families was unavoidable. But the law was perfectly clear, 
 and might have been enforced with the utmost strictness; 
 and if this had been done according to the letter no one 
 could have raised any objection, any more than a farmer of 
 domains can object to the government, when he is told that 
 he must leave his farm, that his holding the land alone is 
 considered detrimental to the state, and that it must be 
 parcelled out and distributed among other tenants. But 
 there was, on the other hand, a kind of equity to be 
 observed. Even C. Flaminius had not applied his law 
 to domain land already occupied, but only to newly- con- 
 quered land, and he had thus tacitly acknowledged the 
 right of possession. Since that time a hundred years had 
 elapsed, and those lands had consequently been in the pos- 
 session of a family for the period of a hundred, and other 
 lands even for a period of 150 or 200 years; and where they 
 had not continued in the same family, they had been bought 
 
 ^" Plutarch, Tib, Gracch. 8. 
 
328 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 of them by others who never thought that these lands would 
 be taken from them. Many might have said that they had 
 acquired them honajide; many also had received them in a 
 desolate condition after having been ravaged and laid waste 
 in war, and had, at great cost, cultivated and changed them 
 into fertile fields or olive plantations, which require a long 
 time before they bear fruit ; others had spent large sums in 
 erecting extensive buildings on those lauds. The question 
 therefore naturally arose, whether all these things should 
 be sacrificed by the occupants. If Gracchus had demanded 
 this, he would have acted with perfect justice, and in ac- 
 cordance with the letter of the Licinian law ; but it would, 
 nevertheless, have been in the highest degree unfair. He 
 therefore formed a different plan. The bill he brought 
 forward enacted that no one should occupy more than 500 
 jugers of the domain land, and 250 jugers for each of his 
 sons, which however must have been limited to two sons, 
 as I conclude from the expression neqais plus mille agri 
 jugera haheret^^. He further wished to enact that the lands 
 thus recovered by the state should not be allowed to 
 be sold, in order to prevent the wealthy Romans from 
 sooner or later acquiring them again. Buildings erected 
 on land which according to this law was to be taken from 
 the possessors, were to be valued, and the price to be given 
 in money to the owner of the buildings. The only difficulty 
 now remaining was this. Those who had purchased such 
 lands and paid for them their actual value, lost their 
 money; and a man, for instance, who possessed 400 jugers 
 and bought 400 in addition with ready money, lost the 
 value of 300 jugers. What should have been done in 
 such a case? The state ought undoubtedly to have 
 paid a moderate price for such lands, and then no one 
 could have objected. And, indeed, this plan would not 
 have involved any difficulties, for the number of those 
 who possessed more than 1000 jugers cannot, after 
 
 '° Aurel Victor, De Vir. illustr. 64; Livy, Epit. lib. 58 ; Appian, 
 De Bell. Civil, i. 9. 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 829 
 
 all, have been so very great, and certainly the public 
 treasures could not have been appHed in a better way. 
 The sentina rei puhlicae, or the poor — who were a burden 
 to the state and a disgrace to the Roman people, they 
 sold their votes, for they could not be excluded from the 
 comitia — might thus have been made honest citizens, and 
 in this manner the object of Gracchus would have been 
 fully and completely attained. It is ever to be lamented 
 that Gracchus did not adopt this course, which was abso- 
 lutely necessary, whatever it might have cost the republic. 
 Even this plan would undoubtedly have called forth a ve- 
 hement opposition on the part of the wealthy aristocrats, 
 but certainly not that bitter exasperation which Gracchus 
 had to encounter. There were many who felt how dan- 
 gerous the disease was under which Rome was labouring ; 
 but most of them considered its condition perfectly hope- 
 less, and thought that it was impossible to interfere with- 
 out calling forth a host of other evils. 
 
 Tib. Gracchus did not stop short here : he is further said 
 to have contemplated to extend the Roman franchise"; but 
 the account we have does not allow us to take this for 
 certain. From the actions of his brother we clearly see 
 that he was aware of the fact, that the middle class of 
 citizens had vanished almost entirely, and that in order to 
 restore that class, it was thought necessary to grant to the 
 Italian allies the full rights of citizenship. A wise plan ! 
 The party of Gracchus contained many distinguished men, 
 who were certainly as great losers by his law as its opponents, 
 but they were nevertheless ready to support the noble cause. 
 Even Appius Claudius, his father-in-law, who in other re- 
 spects shared the pride of his family and P. Mucins Scae- 
 vola^*, the great jurist, who was consul that year^^, saw the 
 
 '3 Vellej. Paterc. ii. 2. 
 
 " Plutarch, Tib. Gracch. 8 and 9 ; Cicero, Academ. i. 5. 
 
 '^ Both the consuls of that year were plebeians, which shews the 
 absurdity of French and Italian historians who speak of a struggle 
 between patricians and plebeians. — N. 
 
330 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 necessity, and encouraged Tib. Gracchus, although they un- 
 questionably occupied as much of the public domain as the 
 Scipios. It is difficult to describe the exasperation of the 
 opposition party ^^, who violated even the laws of public 
 decency; for men of distinction and champions of the oli- 
 garchs no sooner perceived that their interests were at- 
 tacked, than they displayed all the greediness and avarice 
 which we usually see only in persons without any educa- 
 tion : they had recourse to excesses such as are generally 
 committed only by the lowest of the rabble. It is one of 
 the most revolting sights, when such men assume a con- 
 duct by which they place themselves entirely on a level 
 with the populace — and such was the conduct of those 
 oligarchs. Tib- Gracchus was the noblest among the 
 young men of his time, and enjoyed among his country- 
 men the same degree of respect as among the barbarians. 
 Every one acknowledged his virtues, and even those who 
 had none themselves could not deny that he possessed 
 virtues, or as they may have called them — follies. But 
 all this was forgotten by his antagonists: they spoke of 
 him as a rioter and a mutineer, and a coalition was 
 formed against him. P. Cornelius Scipio Nasica, — the 
 grandson of him whom the Roman senate had called the 
 best of the Romans, in the time of the Hannibalian war, 
 and the son of him who had zealously exerted himself to 
 preserve the manners of the olden times, — now conspired 
 with the infamous Q. Pompeius. But still we cannot 
 conclude from this fact that he was a thorough mis- 
 creant: he was only a man who had become hardened 
 and intractable in his oligarchical pretensions, who saw 
 his enemy in the light in which his interest placed him, 
 and hated him, and wished to hate him with justice. 
 According to the Publilian law, the law of Gracchus did 
 not require the sanction of the senate, and as soon as 
 
 "" The whole opposition was confined to the senate, for the tri- 
 bunes, with the exception of M. Octavius, and the assembly of the 
 people, supported him. — N. 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 331 
 
 the tribes had passed it, its execution could follow im- 
 mediately. A triumvirate was to be appointed as a per- 
 petual magistracy, to watch that the law was fairly car- 
 ried into effect. All that the opponents of Gracchus 
 could do was to incite his colleague, M. Octavius, against 
 him. 
 
 In certain Roman families we find certain sentiments 
 and opinions hereditary. Such is the case in all free 
 countries, and it is one of the tahsmans by which their 
 constitution is preserved. So it is in England, and so 
 it is with our views about the Church in which we are 
 born. There are also certain family characters, and all 
 the Gracchi are distinguished for their mildness, their 
 unaffected and sincere love of the oppressed, a feature 
 which we can trace through three generations: we first 
 find it in the Gracchus who occurs in the second Punic 
 war, then in Gracchus, the censor, who married the 
 daughter of the great Scipio, and lastly in his two sons. 
 To dwell on such characters as these is the more de- 
 lightful, as they are seldom met with in history : in our 
 own days they seem to be quite extinct. 
 
832 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 LECTURE XXVII. 
 
 MACHINATIONS OF THE OPPOSITION. M. OCTAVIUS IS DE- 
 PRIVED OF HIS OFFICE, AND THE LAW OF TIB. GRAC- 
 CHUS CARRIED.— HE TRIES TO OBTAIN THE TRIBUNE- 
 SHIP FOR THE NEXT YEAR. IS MURDERED. — PERSE- 
 CUTIONS OF HIS FRIENDS. EVENTS OF THE PERIOD 
 
 FROM THE DEATH OF TIB. GRACCHUS TO THE TRIBUNE- 
 SHIP OF C. SEMPRONIUS GRACCHUS. 
 
 As there was no other way of preventing the agrarian 
 bill of Tib. Gracchus being carried, than by inducing one 
 of the college of tribunes to interpose his veto, the antago- 
 nists of Gracchus contrived to gain M. Octavius for that 
 purpose. If the notion that the tribunes originally be- 
 longed to a class of Romans inferior to the ruling party 
 is utterly groundless, it is still more so in regard to the 
 times of which we are now speaking; nay, we may say, 
 without any hesitation, that at this time the tribuneship 
 was held almost exclusively by such men as belonged 
 to consular families, and that a plebeian very seldom ob- 
 tained the consulship without having previously been a 
 tribune." Thus the tribunes were just as much persons 
 of distinction, as those who were invested with the highest 
 magistracies, and it was by no means an extraordinary 
 case that a man like Gracchus was among the tribunes. 
 All ?iovi homines passed through the tribuneship, and any 
 plebeian, who had the opportunity of being raised to this 
 office, was assuredly very glad to obtain it. M. Octavius 
 belonged to a very distinguished family, and would himself 
 have been a great loser by the law of his colleague. But 
 Gracchus offered to make good this loss out of his own 
 
I 
 
 HISTORY OF ROME. 333 
 
 property. Octavius could not accept this offer without low- 
 ering himself. Gracchus then entreated and besought him 
 to give up his opposition, and intimated to him, that unless 
 he did so he himself would be obliged to proceed to ex- 
 tremes, and to propose to the people to deprive him of his 
 office. This was indeed the greatest irregularity, but Grac- 
 chus might have said in his own defence, that a tribune 
 who was independent of the people was an abuse, and a 
 still greater irregularity. The people had surely the right 
 to take away a commission from a man to whom they had 
 given it ; and it is an absurdity, if, in a republic, this 
 right is not maintained. Gracchus was therefore in reality 
 right, but as far as the forms were concerned, he upset 
 the laws of the constitution. Yet it was a case, as he 
 might have said, in which necessity broke through all 
 laws ; and in order to act with perfect justice, he offered 
 himself to be put to the vote first. When Octavius per- 
 sisted in his refusal, Gracchus, who saw that his object 
 could not be attained in any other way, proceeded to carry 
 his threat into effect. When seventeen tribes had already 
 accepted the proposal, Gracchus again entreated Octavius, 
 either to desist from his opposition, or to give up his 
 office; and when Octavius still persevered, the eighteenth 
 tribe voted, and his tribuneship was gone. Gracchus had 
 thus been driven by his opponents to an act of formal 
 injustice, and those who had no feeling of right and wrong 
 triumphed over him, as if he had really violated the laws 
 of the constitution. 
 
 The agrarian law was now carried without opposition, 
 and a permanent triumvirate was appointed, consisting of 
 Tib. Gracchus, his brother Caius, and Appius Claudius. 
 He also carried a law, that the treasures which king At- 
 tains had bequeathed to the Roman people, should be 
 divided among those to whom lands should be assigned, 
 in order to afford them the means of purchasing the neces- 
 sary implements. 
 
 The time was now approaching when the tribunes for 
 
334 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 the next year were to be elected. The tribunes entered 
 upon their office on the ninth of December, but for a long 
 time past — we do not know when this custom began, — 
 the elections had taken place very early in the year, at 
 the commencement of June, the harvest time in Italy. 
 The tribunes at that time always appeared in the senate, 
 and took part in the discussions ; and here Tib. Gracchus 
 was treated with the most vulgar and unbridled fury. It 
 must have been evident to him, that if he should one day 
 be without his sacred magistracy, he would be the victim 
 of his opponents; he would, after the expiration of his 
 tribuneship, still have been triumvir agrorwn dividendorum, 
 but he would not have been inviolable. He therefore 
 offered himself as a candidate for the tribuneship for the 
 year following. This was the more agreeable to his enemies, 
 as it was contrary to the existing law or custom. This 
 custom may have arisen out of the mere circumstance 
 that, for a long period, no tribune had held his office for 
 two successive years; but in later times the re-election 
 of the same man is by no means uncommon. When the 
 tribe which had the praerogativa had elected him and the 
 second had given its vote the same way, the opposition 
 party declared the votes to be illegal, and demanded of 
 the tribunes to stop the election. Q. Rubrius, the col- 
 league of Gracchus, who presided at the election, hesitated 
 not knowing what to do ; and Mummius, the successor of 
 Octavius, offered to take the place of the president ; the 
 other tribunes demanded that the presidency should be 
 decided by lot. These disputes occupied the whole day, 
 which passed away without anything being decided i. 
 
 The events which occurred on that day convinced Tib. 
 Gracchus that his life was in danger, and he went about 
 among the people like an accused criminal with his only 
 little son, begging them to protect his and his child's life. 
 It was his misfortune that the election took place at this 
 season of the year, for the country people, who, at any 
 • Appian, De Bell. Civil, i. U. 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 335 
 
 other time would have flocked to Rome by thousands to 
 protect him, were now detained by their labours in the 
 fields. The population of the city was indifferent towards 
 Gracchus, and could, in fact, not be otherwise, for a great 
 number of them had no interest whatever in the affair. 
 In this instance too we see how the nature of the con- 
 stitution had become different from what it had been in 
 former times, though not a single iota of the laws had 
 been altered. In former times, when the territory of Rome 
 did not extend further than about fifty or sixty miles from 
 the city, every one could come to Rome on extraordinary 
 occasions, and the rustic tribes could be really represented 
 by the Romani rustici ; but after the assignments made by 
 C. Flaminius some country-people lived at a great distance, 
 as far as the Romagna, and it was impossible for them 
 to come to the city to attend the assemblies. 
 
 The election was to be continued the next day, and 
 the people assembled with a presentiment that blood 
 would be shed. Tib. Gracchus himself was scarcely 
 armed. In the earliest times of the republic, at least as 
 far as the first decad of Livy goes, we see that the place 
 where the tribunes addressed the plebs was the rostra in 
 the forum, and it was in the forum that the plebs gave 
 their votes. In later times, and even as early as the 
 Hannibalian war, the plebs never voted in the forum but 
 on the area in front of the capitol-. Here a scaffolding 
 
 ^ The time at which this change took place is not known, but it 
 is possible that some one may discover it. What is said about it 
 in the common works on Roman Antiquities is wrong. The votes 
 were at this time probably given viva voce. In the comitia of the 
 centuries the votes were given, according to the lex Cassia, by means 
 of little tablets. (Orelli, Onomast. Tullian, in. p. 278, foil.) This 
 lex tabellaria still requires to be more fully explained than has yet 
 been done. In works on Roman Antiquities it is erroneously stated 
 that the votes in the assemblies of the tribes were always given viva 
 voce; and it is the great Cicero, for whom I nevertheless entertain 
 the highest esteem, who has occasioned this and otlier errors respect- 
 ing the constitution. — N. 
 
330 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 was erected on such occasions, and benches were placed 
 around it, as is still the custom in Italy. When the people 
 were assembled a tumult broke out, and the uproar became 
 so violent, that several benches were broken. The senate 
 had purposely assembled in the neighbourhood. 
 
 The tumult was declared seditious, and the senators, 
 P. Scipio Nasica at their head, entered the assembly. A 
 lie had been spread abroad, that Tib. Gracchus had ap- 
 peared with the diadem ; no one surely believed in this 
 impudent calumny, except those whose interest it was to 
 assert it^. The people, who had no clear notion of what 
 they wanted, deserted Gracchus. A common man, or one 
 of the colleagues of Gracchus — for many claimed the 
 honour — was the first who struck him on his head with a 
 piece of wood, and he was killed. A number of his fol- 
 lowers were instantly taken prisoners as his accomplices. 
 His friend P. Mucins Scaevola had opposed the persecu- 
 tion, but in vain. The real persecutions, however, were 
 carried on in the year following, by P. Popillius Laenas 
 in a manner worthy of the Inquisition, or of an Alba. 
 Thousands were consigned to prison with or without a ju- 
 dicial verdict, and this Popillius was descended from a man 
 who, about 240 years before, had been one of the greatest 
 champions of liberty*. The cruelties of this monster may 
 be read in Plutarch's lives of the Gracchi. There is how- 
 ever one anecdote which I cannot leave unnoticed, and 
 which refers to an event that must have taken place the 
 year before the consulship of Popillius Laenas. The most 
 intimate friends of Tib. Gracchus were not warriors or 
 statesmen, but Greeks of cultivated minds, such as Dio- 
 phanes of Mitylene and Blossius of Cuma. The latter was 
 a Greek philosopher, for although the inhabitants of Cuma 
 spoke the Oscan language, yet they were in reality Greeks. 
 When he was summoned by the lictors to appear before 
 the tribunal of the consuls, and was questioned about the 
 relation between him and Gracchus, he openly avowed that 
 
 ^ Plutarch, Tib. Gnicch. 19. ■* See vol. iii. p. 46 foil. 
 
 LL 
 
L 
 
 HISTORY OF ROME. 337 
 
 he had been his intimate friend, and on being asked 
 whether he had always obeyed his commands, Blossius 
 answered in the affirmative, adding that Gracchus had 
 never desired anything that was bad. At length he was 
 asked, what he would have done if Gracchus had ordered 
 him to set fire to the capitol. Blossius replied : Gracchus 
 would never have given such a command, but if he had 
 I should have obeyed it, for I am convinced that it would 
 have been for the good of the people^. This answer of 
 Blossius has been censured, but it was the fault of those 
 who pat such a captious question to him. He saw in 
 Gracchus his own exalted self, and the word he spoke, 
 does not disgrace him, but those who wrenched it from 
 him. The persecutions of Popillius Laenas cannot be 
 characterized in any other way than by saying, that they 
 were the most horrible murders : all whom he put to death 
 were pure and innocent victims. 
 
 Notwithstanding their victory, the ruhng party could 
 not abolish the triumvirate. The place of Tib. Gracchus 
 was occupied by M. Fulvius Flaccus, and when Appius 
 Claudius died, C. Papirius Carbo, a disciple of Gracchus, 
 but, as usually happens in such circumstances, an unwor- 
 thy one, was appointed in his stead. Carbo followed the 
 foot-steps of Gracchus, but with evil intentions. A man 
 of great distinction who had passed a life full of awful 
 changes of fortune once said to me : " You do not know 
 what a recollection it is to have lived during a revolution : 
 one begins the attack with the best, and in the end one 
 finds oneself among knaves." Such times as the French 
 revolution to which my friend alluded are no longer to be 
 feared, and centuries may pass before a revolution breaks 
 out in Europe^. But in such times it cannot be said impres- 
 
 * Plutarch, Tib. Gracch. c. 20. 
 
 * This feeling of security and the firm conviction of Niehuhr, 
 that no state of Europe had to fear a revolution are expressed in 
 several of his letters published in the Lebensnachi-ichten. Hence his 
 extraordinary surprise at the outbreak of the French revolution of 
 
 Z 
 
338 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 sively enough, that circumstances are often such as to draw 
 the most innocent persons into the current, without their 
 being aware of there being anything dangerous in it. Cir- 
 cumstances are often so fearfully complicated, that only those 
 who possess an iron determination are able to stand and 
 see their way. In this manner honest men may continue 
 to be the supporters of a government, which, without their 
 knowing it, has already passed into the hands of knaves. 
 We have now come to that period of Roman history, 
 when the explanation of the mere forms of the consti- 
 tution is no longer sufficient, and when the men them- 
 selves must be coifsidered each by himself, and when each 
 is a separate psychological problem. The spectacle which 
 is presented to our eyes is that of men engaged in combat 
 with one another for the spoils of the dead body of the 
 state. Papirius Carbo was a man of great talent, a cir- 
 cumstance which often deceives us ; but we must remem- 
 ber that a man may even be benevolent and affectionate, 
 and may yet be in the power of the evil spirit. I have 
 known persons who were all that is amiable and good, in 
 times of peace, but who, under the influence of the demon 
 of war, committed acts of which everybody would have 
 thought them incapable. Carbo was a man of that cha- 
 racter, so that the report of his having murdered Scipio is 
 not at all incredible, although it may be false. Scipio may 
 have died a natural death, for it is not un frequent in 
 southern countries that persons are said to have been poi- 
 soned, who are in reality carried off quite naturally by a 
 sudden death, in an attack of putrid fever. But Scipio 
 may yet have been murdered, for he had exasperated the 
 people in the highest degree by a conduct which no one 
 can approve of. The opponents of the Sempronian law 
 
 July 1830. The writer of these lines very well recollects the day 
 when the news of it reached Bonn. Niebuhr, who had read them just 
 before entering the lecture room, spoke during the whole hour about 
 nothing else but the circumstances which had caused the outbreak of 
 that revolution. 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 339 
 
 were not the Roman nobles alone, but among them were also 
 many Italian allies ; for when, for instance in Samnium, a 
 district was taken by the sword, it belonged to the Roman 
 domain and might be given to Roman citizens, or, as was 
 done in many cases, to allies of the Romans, who were 
 allowed to cultivate the land on condition of their paying 
 a certain tribute. The Romans, moreover, sometimes as- 
 signed conquered lands to their allies, on condition that 
 they should perform certain services. Now all those al- 
 lies who were in the possession of public land — although 
 the Sempronian law affected only Roman citizens — com- 
 bined with the wealthy Romans; and Scipio, after his re- 
 turn from Numantia, was their leader. In this unhappy 
 conflict, in consequence of which the right of citizenship 
 was withheld too long from the allies, the exasperation on 
 both sides rose to the highest pitch. Scipio intended to 
 address the people, and was preparing his speech in the 
 evening, but in the morning he was found dead in his bed. 
 He was the brother-in-law of the Gracchi, for Sempronia, 
 their sister, was his wife : and yet he had declared before 
 the people, that he approved of the murder of Tib. Grac- 
 chus. 
 
 The period from the death of Tib. Gracchus, to the 
 tribuneship of C. Sempronius Gracchus, is marked by se- 
 veral attempts of both parties, but the particulars are not 
 recorded. We know, for instance, that even a tribune, M. 
 Junius Pennus, quite in the spirit of the oligarchy, de- 
 clared that he would not consent to the civic franchise 
 being given to the Italian allies'^. But as a wish for it 
 had once arisen among them, it could no longer be re^ 
 fused. Among the Marsians and other nations of Italy, 
 there were large, wealthy, and very illustrious families, 
 whose morals were uncorrupted, and at all events superior 
 to those of the Romans. And yet they were excluded 
 from the franchise, and not even tolerated in the city. A 
 
 " Cicero, De Officiis, iii. 11 ; compare Appian, De Bell. Civil. 
 1.21. 
 
 z 2 
 
340 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 discontent spread among the allies, like that which we have 
 seen produced in Ireland on the Catholic emancipation 
 question. Even in the tribuneship of Tib. Gracchus the 
 subject had been discussed, whether the franchise should 
 not be given to the Latins, that is, to those Latin colonies 
 which had not received it in 417,^ especially Tibur and 
 Praeneste. These colonies consisted of Roman citizens 
 and Italians of every description, who lived according to 
 the Latin law, and had the first claims to the Roman fran- 
 chise. Tib. Gracchus is said to have thought of propos- 
 ing a law to satisfy their wish, but he probably never 
 carried out this intention. They then supported the senate 
 against him, and afterwards demanded the rights of Ro- 
 man citizens. We have unfortunately merely a few traces 
 of the particular circumstances of that time, and we can 
 hardly conceive how Fregellae could be so mad as to 
 think of compelling the Romans by force to grant its re- 
 quest. We find Fregellae in arms, but the other towns 
 took no part in the struggle. The Italian allies also kept 
 aloof, and may have been malicious enough to rejoice 
 at the inconsiderate conduct of Fregellae, for the nature 
 of their demands was quite different. Fregellae, which 
 thus stood alone, was destroyed by the praetor L. Opimius, 
 and heavy vengeance was taken on its inhabitants 9. 
 
 8 See vol. III. p. 140 foil. 
 
 3 Livy, Epit. lib. 60 ; Plutarch, C. Gracch. 3 ; Veil. Paterc. ii. 6; 
 Aurel. Vict. De Vir. illustr. 64; Asconius ad Pison. p. 17, ed. Orelli. 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 341 
 
 LECTURE XXVIII. 
 
 C. SEMPRONIUS GRACCHUS. HIS TRIBUNESHIP AND LEGIS- 
 LATION. — INTRIGUES OF THE SENATE TO DEPRIVE HIM 
 OF THE FAVOUR OF THE PEOPLE. 
 
 It is a well attested fact that in point of talent Tiberius 
 Gracchus was excelled by his brother Caius. We have, 
 properly speaking, no specimen of the oratory of Tiberius ; 
 but of the speeches of Caius there are extant several frag- 
 ments, which perfectly justify the praise bestowed on them 
 by Cicero ^ who could not be mistaken on this point. It 
 is further highly probable that Caius was more of a states- 
 man than his brother; he displayed, at any rate, more of 
 his talents, the cause of which may have been the circum- 
 stance that the time of his public activity lasted longer ; 
 for while the career of Tiberius did not extend beyond a 
 period of seven months, Caius took an active part in public 
 affairs for two years previous to his tribuneship, during 
 the two years of his tribuneship, and also for some time 
 after it. The statement that Caius owed his education 
 chiefly to his excellent mother deserves full credit". In 
 the filial relation of the Gracchi to their mother, we see 
 another trace of the humanity of their family : and this 
 filial attachment is a trait quite foreign to the Romans of 
 this, as well as of the subsequent periods of their history. 
 Amiable domestic relations are extremely rare among the 
 Romans, though we have a few instances of them in the 
 case of Horace and his father, and in that of Tacitus and 
 Agricola, although Tacitus was unhappy in his own family. 
 
 Caius was driven by a sort of fatality into a path where 
 
 ' Brutus, 32. ^ Cicero, Brutus, 27. 
 
342 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 certain destruction awaited him. Broken-hearted and 
 deprived of all hope by the death of his brother, he was 
 anxious to keep aloof from the high offices of state ; he 
 was, it is true, triumvir, but this could not be avoided, 
 and he wished to act merely where he could do so with- 
 out shaking or upsetting the actual state of things, some 
 inner voice dissuading him from pursuing any other course. 
 But the eyes of his own countrymen, as well as those of 
 foreigners, were fixed upon him. His unassuming be- 
 haviour when he was quaestor, and various actions which 
 were anything but calculated to produce this effect, at- 
 tracted the attention of the people towards him. The 
 senate endeavoured to detain him, and to put off his elec- 
 tion to the tribuneship, just as Charles I. refused to con- 
 voke parliament. But in these and similar cases, those 
 who are in the possession of power only render things 
 worse by their attempts to check the course of events. 
 The senate imjustly wanted to keep C. Gracchus engaged 
 in Sardinia, but he returned to Rome without asking for 
 leave of absence. When he was taken to account for 
 this step, he was acquitted, as it was too manifest that 
 it was only by intrigues that he had been kept at a dis- 
 tance. After his election to the tribuneship, which he 
 entered upon under the greatest expectations of the people, 
 his first step naturally was to avenge the death of his 
 brother and his friends. Nasica had gone to Asia, from 
 whence he had never returned; but many others of his 
 party were yet at Rome, and against these Caius directed 
 his operations. He brought forward two bills: the one 
 enacting that those who had been deprived of one office 
 by the people, should not be allowed to be candidates 
 for any other : the second, that any magistrate should be 
 liable to a capital charge, who had put to death a citizen 
 without a formal sentence having been passed upon him^ 
 The first of these bills was aimed at Octavius, but C. 
 Gracchus withdrew it at the request of his mother. 
 
 ■^ Plutarch, C Gracchus, 1. ; Cicero, pro Rabirio, 4. 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 343 
 
 The second, which was mainly directed against Popillius 
 Laenas, was carried. But Laenas quitted Italy*. These 
 two laws were the inferiae on the tomb of his brother; 
 but he did not stop short here. The execution of the 
 agrarian law had been decreed, and although things went 
 on slowly, yet some progress was made, and Caius re- 
 mained triumvir. 
 
 His subsequent legislation embraced every branch of 
 the administration, and is of the most varied nature^. 
 Those who infer from his legislation that he was a de- 
 magogue, are greatly mistaken, the laws themselves con- 
 tradict such a view. The measure against which most 
 has been said is that which ordered, that corn should be 
 sold at a low price to the inhabitants of the city*^. In 
 order to understand this law, we must remember that 
 Rome was a republic with immense revenues, a great 
 part of which belonged to the sovereign, that is, to the 
 people, and that a vast number of them were as poor as 
 the poor in our own days. What should such a population 
 of free men do ? Were they to beg ? or should the state 
 support them ? The idea of the dignity of a free state 
 lies at the bottom of many things, and this is to a certain 
 degree the case with the poor's rates in England. With 
 a barbarous people this idea has no meaning ; but with a 
 free and proud nation it is a duty to provide for those 
 members of the community who are unable to provide 
 for themselves. The number of real paupers at Rome 
 must have been immense ; many of them w^ere not in- 
 cluded in any tribe, and others belonged to the tribus 
 tirbanae, but all were descended of free parents ; — and were 
 these people to be allowed to starve ? Both the Gracchi 
 
 •• We possess a beautiful fragment of the speech in which he 
 brought forward this bill against Laenas ; it is the beginning of the 
 speech, and is censured by Gellius (xi. 13,) in a pedantic manner. 
 — N. ^ Plutarch, 1. c. 5. 
 
 « Livy, Ei)it. lib, 60; Appian, De Bell. Civil. i.21; Cicero, pro 
 Sextio, 25. 
 
344 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 entertained the idea of turning as many of them as possible 
 into industrious husbandmen ; but this was not practicable 
 in every instance, for many had no claims to portions of 
 the public land. If, in our days, a part of the revenue of a 
 capital town were set apart to pamper the poor, it would 
 indeed be culpable, although capitals are in most cases more 
 favoured in this respect than other towns. But C. Grac- 
 chus had no intention of giving away the corn for nothing ; 
 he only gave it at so low a price that, with some labour, the 
 poor might be enabled to support themselves and their 
 children. As he was in general a zealous, active, and 
 creative man, he built large corn-magazines, the ruins of 
 which were seen at Rome down to the sixteenth century, 
 between the Quai, the Aventine, and the Monte Testaceo; 
 but no trace is now to be seen of those horrea populi Ro- 
 mani. I believe that it is from this time that we have 
 to date the distinction between the plebs urbana and the 
 thirty-five tribes. 
 
 Another law of C. Gracchus was proposed with the in- 
 tention to make the service in the armies easier^. The 
 soldiers had formerly been obliged to provide themselves 
 with the necessary weapons, that is to say, their value 
 had been deducted from their pay. The republic was 
 now so rich, and the treasury so well filled, that it was 
 by no means a great sacrifice to provide the soldiers with 
 clothes and arms from the public treasury. He also made 
 new roads through Italy, improved those which existed 
 already, and brought their construction to a degree of 
 perfection which it had never before attained ^ 
 
 After this he proceeded to measures relative to the 
 constitution. A case of delictum manifestum required no 
 trial among the Romans, and it was only necessary to es- 
 tablish the identity of the person. If the case w^as not 
 manifest, the praetor appointed a judge who proceeded ac- 
 
 ' Plutarch, 1. c. 5. 
 
 « Plutarch, 1. c. 7 ; Appian, De Bell. Civil, i. 23. 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 345 
 
 cording to certain forms. This was the case both in civil 
 and criminal affairs. It had been customary from early 
 times to appoint senators as judges. Ever since the be- 
 ginning of the seventh century a number of law-suits, for 
 which formerly special quaestors had been appointed to 
 bring the cases before the popular courts, had been 
 referred to ordinary court-days. As the complaints of 
 Roman subjects against their Roman governors became 
 more frequent, a quaestio repetundarum was introduced; 
 the quaestor, however, did not bring such cases before 
 the popular courts, but before one consisting of senators 
 appointed to the office of judges by lot. But these judges 
 were in the same predicament as those on whom they had 
 to pass sentence: and this was the source of corruption, 
 and the most scandalous verdicts had been pronounced, 
 the judges having, in fact, made their office a very lucra- 
 tive traffic. The power of bringing a charge against a 
 governor was much more detrimental to the provincials 
 than if it had not existed at all, for the governors now not 
 only endeavoured to enrich themselves, but had to spend 
 large sums to bribe the judges, who again had no other ob- 
 jects in view except to enrich themselves. All feelings of 
 honour had vanished 9. It was evident that under such 
 circumstances the state was hastening towards its down- 
 fall. C. Gracchus, therefore, who knew very well that it 
 must indeed be a hard winter before one wolf will seize 
 upon another, turned his attention to the equites, — the 
 order which now constituted, in some measure, a middle 
 class between the senators and the lower people, although 
 they possessed immense riches. Things had reached that 
 
 ^ A striking analogy to this state of things is exhibited at 
 Naples. A Neapolitan minister, a very eccentric but talented man, 
 once said to me, that at Naples a rnan might have as many false 
 witnesses as he could wish, at the rate of a Carolina (about six- 
 pence) a-piece. When afterwards I asked a distinguished Neapo- 
 litan, whether this assertion was not unjust, he said that if a 
 man would carry on this traffic on a large scale, he might obtain 
 any number of false witnesses at a still lower price. — N. 
 
346 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 point which we now see in France, where no other standard 
 of distinction exists except that of wealth. C. Gracchus 
 saw in the equites a desirable equipoise to the senators. 
 From the people he expected nothing at all, for he well 
 knew that the popular courts were no longer worth any- 
 thing, and that to some extent they consisted of a popu- 
 lace just as corrupt as the Neapolitan lazaroni. C. Grac- 
 chus therefore sought a remedy in that portion of the po- 
 pulation which consisted of the rich and wealthy : and he 
 could, in fact, do nothing else. By the lex Sempronia 
 judiciaria he composed the judicia of 300 equites, who 
 were now the only judges. There are, it is true, three 
 different opinions on this point, but after the inves- 
 tigations of Manutius it can no longer be a matter of 
 doubt ^^. After an independent body of judges had thus 
 been formed, he substituted a committee of them in the 
 place of the popular courts, which from henceforward were 
 called together only on rare occasions by way of exception, 
 and extraordinary inquisitions ceased altogether. This law 
 was in reality an encroachment upon the democracy, and 
 in truth a very necessary one, for C. Gracchus knew the 
 people, and saw what a wretched class of men they were. 
 
 In order to introduce some better blood into the thirty- 
 five tribes, he proposed to bestow the Roman franchise 
 upon the Latins, who consisted of the original Latin towns 
 and a number of colonies. The other Italian allies, from 
 the Marca Ancona down to Lucania in the south, were 
 to step into the relation in which the Latins had been 
 hitherto". It may be that something was actually carried 
 into effect, but we do not know what. The plan itself 
 was so wise and useful that all intelligent Romans, who did 
 not wish to see either the aristocrats or the democrats 
 
 '0 Appian, De Bell. Civil, i. 22; Veil. Paterc. ii. 6; Tacitus, 
 Annales, xii. 60. Compare Livy, Epitome lib. 60; Plutarch, C. 
 Gracch. 5. 
 
 " Ajtpian, I.e. 23; compare Veil. Paterc. ii. 6; Plutarch^ C. 
 Gracch. 5. 
 
HISTORY OF ROME 347 
 
 gaining the upper hand, must have been rejoiced at it. In 
 many Italian towns there were famiUes of distinction, which 
 would have settled at Rome, as in the time of Augustus 
 the Asinii, Munatii, and others did. Cicero expressly 
 states 1- that, previous to the Social war, Greek science and 
 literature were more cultivated among the Latins than 
 among the Romans. Therefore, instead of increasing the 
 Roman people by freed-men and a low populace, C. Grac- 
 chus intended to add numbers of good and well-educated 
 Latins. I do not know of any wiser or more praiseworthy 
 plan than this. 
 
 Many of his laws concerning the administration are 
 either not known at all or known merely from slight allu- 
 sions, but all those of which we have any knowledge are 
 excellent. Ten years had passed away since Attains had 
 bequeathed his kingdom to the Roman people, and seven 
 since Aristonicus had been conquered; but the affairs of Asia 
 had not yet been settled, and the governors availed them- 
 selves of this neglect for the purpose of satisfying their ava- 
 rice by plunder. C. Gracchus at length carried a law by 
 which the province of Asia was regulated : this law is ad- 
 mitted, even by Cicero, to have been a model of wisdom ^^. 
 Especial care was taken to arrange the farming of the 
 public revenue, in such a manner that the interest of the 
 state was perfectly secured. While he assigned lands to 
 the people, and endeavoured to turn as many of them as 
 possible into honest peasants, he did not by any means 
 sacrifice the interests of the republic ; for the tithes which 
 the state had hitherto received from those lands were not 
 abolished, in order that the republic might lose nothing. 
 It was evident to him that Rome could only be saved by 
 returning to her own principles, and he therefore imitated 
 the ancient Romans who had renovated and, as it were, 
 
 ^* Pro Archia poeta, 3. 
 
 ^^ In Verrem, iii. 6. This is, as far as I know, the only passage 
 in which Cicei'o sjjeaks of this law, but he there says nothing in 
 praise of it. 
 
348 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 refreshed the people, by extending the franchise. He 
 opened good prospects for the Italians who were to suc- 
 ceed to the privileges of the Latins, for he undoubtedly 
 hoped that a peaceful development of the principle would 
 lead to further and still more beneficial reforms. 
 
 The senate had hitherto distributed the provinces at dis- 
 cretion, which had given rise to the most detestable system 
 of bribery. The elections of magistrates had for a con- 
 siderable time past taken place long before the close of 
 the year, and the actual consuls, after the election of their 
 successors, referred to the senate de provinciis, and the 
 senate then decided what commissions were to be given to 
 the consuls or praetors. Every one of course endeavoured 
 to obtain that from which he hoped to derive the greatest 
 profits or honour. C. Gracchus now made the wise law, 
 enacting that before the elections took place the senate 
 should decide which provinces were to be given to the 
 consuls or praetors,'^ so that the persons to whom they 
 were to be given were as yet unknown ; the division of the 
 provinces was then made by lot, and only in a few instances 
 by the senate. This law did away at once with some of 
 the most glaring abuses in the administration. 
 
 While C. Gracchus was thus quietly proceeding as a legis- 
 lator, while he was engaged in distributing the public land, 
 and founding several colonies, ^^ in which the Latins and 
 Italians were allowed to take part, the jealousy and exaspe- 
 ration of the aristocrats rose to the highest pitch, and the 
 senate now had recourse to a peculiar kind of stratagem. 
 M. Livius Drusus, one of the colleagues of C. Gracchus, 
 vv^as prevailed upon to try to undermine his popularity. 
 Here we have an instance in which it is clearly seen that 
 the constitution of Rome was suited more for a city than 
 for a whole nation. Livius endeavoured to outbid C. 
 Gracchus in conferring benefits upon the people ; he acted 
 in the name of the senate and succeeded, for the masses 
 
 '* Cicero, pro domo, 9 ; Sallust, Jugurth. 27. 
 
 '^ Veil. Paterc. i. 1 j ; Plutarchj C. GrHCfh. 8 ; Appian, 1, o. 2t, 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 849 
 
 never take the trouble to consider who the man is that 
 offers them advantages ; and in this instance, they were 
 unable to recognize in the actions of C. Gracchus the 
 purity and sincerity of his intentions. The majority of 
 the inhabitants of Rome, whom I call Romans only with 
 great reluctance, consisted of freedmen, and their children 
 or grand-children, and they perhaps thought that Grac- 
 chus intended to deceive them. As Livius held out to 
 them the same advantages as Gracchus, or even greater 
 ones, the multitude followed him, although they must have 
 seen through his scheme. Such is the character of the 
 Romans to this day ; for if a man ventures to give them 
 his advice on any matter, out of true sympathy and with the 
 greatest possible disinterestedness, they will always indulge 
 in the suspicion that he has some impure motive for doing 
 so, or that he is a knave. This trait is common to all 
 classes in modern Rome. Livius abolished the tithes of 
 the lands distributed, and proposed to found twelve co- 
 lonies, each of which was to consist of 3000 citizens'''. 
 Whether these colonies were actually established may be 
 questioned, but as those of C. Gracchus were established, 
 I do not see why those twelve should not have been 
 founded. I conceive them to be the xii. coloniae of which 
 Cicero speaks in his oration for Caecina^^. During the 
 Hannibalian war, these twelve Latin colonies had deserted 
 Rome, whereas the remaining eighteen had remained faith- 
 fuP*^. If therefore, as I think, these twelve colonies were 
 not quite new ones, but twelve Latin towns which still had 
 a large and undivided territory, so that a great additional 
 number of citizens could find room in them, it is clear 
 that these colonies obtained greater privileges than those 
 which did not receive any increase by the Livian law. C. 
 
 >« Plutarch, C Gracch. 9. " c. 35. 
 
 " (Livy, XXVII. 9 and 10.) It has been proposed to read in the 
 passage of Cicero xiix. colonim-um, instead of xii. coloniarum ; but 
 tliis conjecture cannot be admitted. N. — See Savigny, Zeitschrift fiir 
 gesch. Rechtsvvissensch. v, 2. p. 237. 
 
350 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 Gracchus saw that the thoughtless multitude followed the 
 senate, whose sole object was to deceive them. There are 
 two classes of men, the one consisting of those who are 
 sincere and open, and seek and love the beautiful and sub- 
 lime, who delight in eminent men, and see in them the 
 glory of their age and nation ; the other comprising those 
 who think only of themselves, are envious, jealous, and 
 sometimes very unhappy creatures, without having a dis- 
 tinct will of their own : they cannot bear to see great men 
 in the enjoyment of the general esteem. It was these lat- 
 ter, a set of men more fatal to mankind than original sin, 
 that rose against C. Gracchus. He was too spotless, too 
 pure, and too glorious not to be an offence to many ; for 
 every one was reminded by his exam.ple of what he ought 
 to be : it was the greatness of Gracchus which determined 
 them to bring him down. It is not surprising to find that 
 this disposition existed among his colleagues, but thou- 
 sands of others wanted to make him feel that they had no 
 gratitude for him. When the tribunes for the year fol- 
 lowing were elected, he was taken no notice of, but he 
 still remained triumvir. 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 351 
 
 LECTURE XXIX. 
 
 CONSULSHIP OF L. OPIMIUS AND DEATH OF C. GRACCHUS. 
 
 C. PAPIRIUS CARBO. L. CRASSUS. FOREIGN WARS 
 
 DURING THIS PERIOD. THE JUGURTHINE WAR, AND 
 
 SALLUST's DESCRIPTION OF IT. M. AEMILIUS SCAURUS. 
 
 L. Opimius, a powerful supporter of the senate, was 
 now raised to the consulship, which he had sought in vain 
 the year before, for C. Gracchus, who then possessed the 
 highest degree of popularity, and was convinced that the 
 people would do anything to please him, once requested 
 them to promise him something, and when the promise 
 was made, he asked them to elect C. Fannius consul — 
 none of whose ancestors had yet held this dignity — in- 
 stead of Opimius^, just as in the ancient romance the 
 ladies ask favours of king Arthur. Gracchus had thus 
 incurred the implacable enmity of Opimius, and Fannius 
 faithlessly deserted him, and made common cause with 
 his adversaries. Gracchus was now divested of the sacro- 
 sancta potestas of a tribune; the measures of the senate 
 displayed more and more their hostile spirit, and the 
 foundation of the colonies, which had been sanctioned by 
 the senate itself, was suspended. On one occasion, when 
 the people were assembled in front of the capitol, and 
 while Opimius was offering up a sacrifice, Gracchus and 
 his friends were insulted by one of the lictors of the 
 consul, who called out " Make way, you bad citizens, 
 for the good ones." A tumult arose, and the man was 
 killed^. At the instigation of Opimius and the oligarchs 
 
 ' Plutarch, C Gracch. U. 
 
 ^ Plutarch, C. Gracch. 13. Compare Appian, 1. c. i. 25. 
 
352 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 the body was carried to the forum, in order to produce 
 some great and tragic scene there. The senate made a 
 decree that the consuls should take care that the re- 
 public might not suffer any injury — a decree which in- 
 vested them with dictatorial power, because it was no 
 longer customary to appoint a dictator. C. Gracchus 
 took leave of his wife, and went with M. Fulvius to 
 the Aventine, which had at all times been a place of 
 refuge for the oppressed. But everything was in a state 
 of utter dissolution, and he had no power to oppose the 
 senate ; he never thought of going to extremes, and he 
 could not make up his mind to shed one drop of blood. 
 His friend Fulvius, a man of a bolder and more deter- 
 mined character, armed as many of the populace and as 
 many slaves as he could, to defend himself. Their con- 
 duct was like that of Brutus and Cassius. The elements 
 of the old plebeian movements existed no more, and the 
 populace of the city was in such a degraded condition 
 that they had no sympathy for Gracchus, nor could he 
 feel any for them. The consuls therefore had no diflS- 
 culty, and the only thing they had to do, was to attack 
 the Aventine 'with a small force. The fact that the 
 equites, who owed their existence as a distinct class to 
 Gracchus, and who from this time forward are mentioned 
 along with the people, as equites et populus^ acted the part 
 of mere lookers-on, is at first sight rather surprising, 
 but is easily accounted for by the fear which is so pe- 
 culiar to wealthy persons whose property does not con- 
 sist of land but of capital. There is, on the whole, no 
 class of men more cowardly than that of mere capitalists, 
 as we see in the history of Florence and of all other re- 
 publics. 
 
 The Aventine was feebly defended, and the clivus pub- 
 licius was taken bv storm. Fulvius Flaccus sent his son, a 
 youth of eighteen years, to the senate to sue for a truce, 
 but the youth was thrown into prison and afterwards put 
 to death. Flaccus himself was overtaken in some house 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 353 
 
 and slain. Gracchus leaped down from the steep wall of 
 the temple of Luna on the Aventine, at present the church 
 of St. Alessio, in order to reach the Sublician bridge; but 
 he strained his foot, and as no horse was to be had, it 
 was only with great difficulty that he arrived at the bridge. 
 His friends Pomponius and Laetorius, two equites of great 
 fortunes, defended him against the pursuing enemy at the 
 bridge, until they were cut to pieces^. Gracchus in the 
 mean time fled across the Tiber into a sacred grove, which 
 however afforded him no protection, for Opimius had pro- 
 mised to give the weight of his head in gold to any one 
 who should bring it to him. Gracchus was soon over- 
 taken, but it is probable that some faithful slave, or client, 
 put an end to his life. Every one knows the horrible bar- 
 barity of Septimuleius of Anagnia, who, himself a stranger 
 to all these disputes, filled the head of Gracchus with lead 
 to increase its weight. Opimius put to death, during his 
 consulship, more than 3000 persons, all of whom may be 
 said to have been murdered^. Some may have escaped. 
 The scene was, on the whole, like that at Naples in 1799, 
 and all those who fell as victims were men of distinc- 
 tion. Some of those who had belonged to the party of 
 Gracchus became apostates, and among them we find 
 C. Papirius Carbo, who, after being raised to the consul- 
 ship, defended Opimius against the tribune, Q. Decius, 
 who accused him of having put to death Roman citizens 
 without a trial ^. Carbo thus became the favourite of the 
 
 ^ Plutarch, C.Gracch. 16 and 17 ; Appian, I.e. i. 26; Aurel. Vic- 
 tor, De Vir. Illustr. 65. 
 
 * Plutarch, 1. c. ; Orosius, v. 12. 
 
 ■' (Cicero, De Oratore, ii. 25, conip. 39 ; Livy, Epitom. lib. 61.) 
 It is curious to see how great the power and influence of tradition is 
 in some of the tribunician families, and how the same characteristics 
 appear through several generations, or recur after the lapse of a long- 
 intermediate period. An analogy to this is seen in England, in the 
 family of the Russells. As instances of it in Roman history I may 
 mention the Maelii, Publilii, Licinii, and Decii A Decius is men- 
 tioned among the first tribunes, and it was a Decius who now had 
 
 2 A 
 
354 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 oligarchs. But he soon found himself attacked by L. 
 Crassus, the brother-in-law of C. Gracchus, and the same 
 of whom Cicero speaks so often in his " Brutus," and in the 
 masterly dialogue " De Oratore." He was a man of very 
 great talent and genius, but it was not cultivated in him 
 as it had been in C. Gracchus. Crassus began his career 
 with the popular party, but he afterwards deserted it: he 
 went over to the senate, and became the detained champion 
 of the oligarchy. His apostacy, however, has nothing in it 
 that is odious, and no blame can be attached to him for it. 
 His coming forth against Carbo was the first blow which 
 the victorious party received ; his attacks were so severe, 
 that Carbo put an end to his own life by taking a solution 
 of vitriol {atramentum sutorium)^. All this was satisfactory 
 to the feelings of those who still cherished the hope that a 
 better time would come. But things remained as they were. 
 The equites were very much intimidated, and the conse- 
 quences of the independence of the judges had not yet 
 become visible. But matters were brought to a crisis by 
 the war against Jugurtha. 
 
 I have not spoken of the foreign wars of the Romans 
 during this period ; and, as our time is very limited, I 
 can now only just direct your attention to them. From 
 
 the courage to accuse Opimius. In the political condition of our 
 country we can scarcely form a correct notion of such a principle ; 
 but in antiquity and in aU free countries it preserves the identity 
 of sentiment from generation to generation, and is the security for 
 the identity of the political state of a nation. AVhere this principle 
 does not exist, we may declare without hesitation that the line 
 which i-uns through the nation is made of sand, and may break 
 off any where and at any time ; so that such a nation is a mere 
 assemblage of individuals, but not a state with an hereditary con- 
 stitution. I have mentioned this because it is a thing so completely 
 foi'eign to us, and because some of us might be inclined to look upon 
 it as an enslaving principle. — N. 
 
 ® Cicero, Ad Famil. ix. 21 says cantharidas sumpsisse dicitur. 
 Niebuhr here confounds C. Carbo with another person of the same 
 family, who when accused by M. Antonius, sutorio atramento ab- 
 solutus putatur. Cicei'o, Ad Fam. ix. 21. 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 355 
 
 the time of Tiberius Gracchus, to that when the Ju- 
 gurthine war broke out, the Spaniards had shewn but 
 httle hostiUty towards the Romans. The Balearian islands 
 were taken by Q. Metellus, one of the four sons of Metel- 
 lus Macedonicus. The MeteUi now formed the greatest 
 among the illustrious plebeian families, and represented 
 the pride of the oligarchy. They had great characters 
 among them ; and all that can be censured, for instance, 
 in Metellus Numidicus, leaves his personal character un- 
 touched. The Balearian islands were conquered by one 
 of his brothers, and another subdued the Dalmatians, who 
 appear from henceforward as subject to Rome". The 
 Roman dominion in Gaul was likewise extended. The 
 first who were conquered there were the Salluvians, in 
 Provence, where Aquae Sextiae (Aix en Provence) be- 
 came the first Roman colony beyond the Alps. During 
 the Hannibalian war, the Arverni had the patronage, or, as 
 it is called in the history of Greece, the supremacy over 
 the greater part of southern Gaul; they were governed 
 by kings, and were in the possession of a splendid empire. 
 In the time of the Gracchi the Romans were engaged 
 in a war against their king, Bituitus, and the Allobro- 
 gians, and gained signal victories under Cn. Domitius 
 Ahenobarbus and Q. Fabius Maximus Allobrogicus. Bi- 
 tuitus was treacherously taken prisoner, and spent the 
 remainder of his days in Italy ^. Soon after these victories, 
 we must conceive the Roman empire to have extended 
 over Dauphine, the inhabitants of which (the Allobro- 
 gians) however, although they recognised the supremacy 
 of Rome, did not belong to the Roman province. But 
 Provence and lower Languedoc formed a real Roman 
 province; and, although there was not always a praetor 
 or a proconsul residing there, yet the whole administra- 
 tion was that of a province. The exact time when that 
 
 ^ Livy, Epit. lib. 60 and 62; Florus, iii. 8. 
 
 ^ Livy, Epit. lib. 61; Florus, in. 2; Veil. Patercul. ii. 10; 
 Appian, De Reb. Gall, 12; Eutropius, iv. 22. 
 
 2 A 2 
 
356 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 country was constituted as a Roman province can only 
 be guessed, as we do not possess the books of Livy in 
 which he must have mentioned it. 
 
 But by far the most important war of this period is 
 that against Jugurtha. The description which Sallust 
 has given of it is one of the best specimens of ancient 
 hterature, and I am almost inclined to prefer it to his 
 Catiline. But both works are peculiar phenomena in 
 Roman literature : they are what we call monographies, 
 which are otherwise unknown among the Romans; for the 
 memoirs of Fannius were of quite a different nature. The 
 books of Sallust are not written in the form of annals, 
 the character of which he evidently tries to avoid : his 
 intention was to write history in a compact and plastic 
 manner. The works of Sallust are of such a kind, that 
 the more we read them the more do we find to admire in 
 them : they are true models of excellent historical compo- 
 sition. As regards the Jugurthine war, I can do no 
 better than refer you to Sallust's description of it. 
 
 When Masinissa died, he entrusted Scipio with the exe- 
 cution of his will, and left his kingdom to his three sons, 
 Gulussa, Micipsa, and Mastanabal, the last of whom is ex- 
 pressly said to have been well acquainted with Greek lite- 
 rature 9, so that he was not a barbarian. We must also re- 
 member that, at the taking of Carthage, its libraries were 
 given to these Numidian princes. The present shahs in 
 those countries are in an infinitely lower state of civilisa- 
 tion than the ancient kings of Numidia. Gulussa and Mas- 
 tanabal died ; the latter left no legitimate children, but 
 only Jugurtha, a son by a concubine ; and thus the vast 
 Numidian empire, extending from the frontiers of Morocco 
 to the Syrtes, fell into the hands of Micipsa ^°. He had 
 two sons, Adherbal and Hiempsal. Jugurtha, who from 
 his childhood had always gained the affections of all who 
 came in contact with him, attracted the attention of king 
 Micipsa. But, when the latter discovered that the talents 
 
 ^ Livy, Epit. lib. 50. '" Sallust, Jugurth. 5. 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 357 
 
 of his young nephew were far superior to those of his 
 own sons, he was led by jealousy to send him to Spain, 
 hoping that he would there terminate his career in the war 
 against Numantia. But Jugurtha was spared by fortune ; 
 he distinguished himself, and became the intimate friend 
 of Scipio^^ Some noble Romans tried to persuade him 
 to cause a revolution, and place himself on the throne 
 of Numidia. When Jugurtha left Spain, he received 
 from Scipio a letter of recommendation to Micipsa, who 
 thus became reconciled to him ; and in his will he even 
 placed him on a footing of equality with his own sons 
 — probably in compliance with the wish of the Romans — 
 and the three princes were to govern their empire in 
 common. Hiempsal was proud and ferocious, and insulted 
 Jugurtha, though he was unable to cope with him in any 
 way. As these princes could not live at peace with one 
 another, they resolved to divide the kingdom; but Jugurtha, 
 not satisfied with this, murdered Hiempsal. Jugurtha's 
 character was like that of an Albanese, bold, audacious, 
 cunning, and adroit; he had no notion of the sanctity 
 of an oath, no honesty, and no humanity : he was, in short, 
 of a Satanic nature. He also made an attempt on the 
 life of Adherbal, who, however, fied to the Romans. They 
 were, at first, willing to investigate the matter; but Jugur- 
 tha bribed the commissioners, among whom Opimius, the 
 murderer of C. Gracchus, was the most conspicuous. They 
 were so overwhelmed with gold by the Numidian usurper, 
 that they decided everything according to his wishes, and 
 divided the kingdom in such a manner that he obtained 
 the most warhke and most productive portion of it^". But, 
 immediately after the division, new quarrels arose between 
 him and Adherbal, who was besieged in Cirta. The 
 Italians, who were with Adherbal, advised him to surren- 
 der, and tried to stipulate that his life should not be 
 endangered; but Jugurtha cared little about this, and 
 even gave vent to his rage against the Italians. During 
 
 " Sallust, Jugurth. 7. '- Sallust, Jugurth. 16. 
 
358 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 the siege of Cirta, a Roman embassy arrived, and called 
 Jugurtha to account for his conduct ; but he evaded their 
 summons in the most audacious manner : he deceived 
 them, and gained his object. One of these ambassadors 
 was M. Aemilius Scaurus, a great man in Roman history : 
 but vi^e are, nevertheless, in the greatest difficulty as to 
 what to think about him. When in earlier years I read 
 in Horace 1^, 
 
 Regulum et Scauros, animaeque magnae 
 
 Prodigum Paullum, &c., 
 
 I imagined that there must be in his history many things 
 which I did not know, for I was not acquainted with 
 anything to justify such praise. It is at all events a 
 great mistake of Horace to use the plural Scauros, for the 
 son of our M. Aemilius Scaurus, whom Cicero defended 
 merely to confer a favour on his family, was a mon- 
 ster, and only another Verres. What seems to speak 
 in favour of our Scaurus, is the great veneration which 
 Cicero entertained for him. To Cicero it was one of 
 the most pleasing recollections of his youth when he 
 thought of the time when, at the age of sixteen, he was 
 introduced by his father into the house of M, Aemilius 
 Scaurus, and formed the acquaintance of Mucins Scaevola, 
 and all the great men of that age. But if we look upon 
 Scaurus as a man, without any such bias in his favour, we 
 can say nothing without falling into the greatest contradic- 
 tions, for at different times he is quite a different man. 
 There are persons who at one time display a very honour- 
 able character, though at an earlier period of their lives 
 they may have acted as very bad citizens, and as if they 
 had no principles whatever. Such a man was, in the his- 
 tory of England, old Shaftesbury, and the patriots under 
 Charles H., who at one time kept up a secret corre- 
 spondence with Louis XIV., while at other times they 
 were real patriots^*. The fundamental features in the 
 
 '3 Carm. i. 12, 37. 
 
 '^ 1 know a man who has a great name in history, and who at one 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 359 
 
 character of Scaurus were \ery great pride, decided ta- 
 lents, and inflexibility. He was a great statesman, and 
 during the last twenty years of his life he seems to have 
 conducted himself, if not in a virtuous manner, yet with 
 great consistency, so that, at least as far as appearance 
 goes, he deserves the reputation which he has in history. 
 His conduct, at the time when he was one of the commis- 
 sioners to Numidia, was blameless, for he was particularly 
 hostile towards Jugurtha. But after the death of Adher- 
 bal, things became too bad : the consul L. Carpurnius 
 Piso Bestia, received orders to lead an army into Africa 
 against Jugurtha, and Scaurus accompanied him as his 
 legate. The war was at first conducted in an honest way, 
 but Jugurtha contrived to persuade Bestia and Scaurus 
 that peace was far more advantageous to them than war. 
 He nominally submitted to the Romans ; thirty elephants, 
 money, cattle, and deserters were surrendered to them ; 
 but the whole transaction was a shameful masquerade, for 
 the deserters were allowed to escape, and the elephants 
 were given back for money ^^. These things excited the 
 greatest indignation at Rome, and C. Memmius, a bold 
 tribune, came forward to expose the whole of the revolting 
 system. 
 
 time did not scruple to appropriate advantages to himself with the 
 utmost indelicacy^ hut who, at other times, has acted like a true po- 
 litical hero. Man is a changeable being. — N. 
 '^ Sallust, Jugurth. 29. 
 
360 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 LECTURE XXX. 
 
 THE WAR AGAINST JUGURTHA CONTINUED. Q. CAECILIUS 
 
 METELLUS. — C. MARIUS BRINGS THE WAR TO A CLOSE. 
 
 — THE CIMBRI AND TEUTONES. DEFEATS OF THE 
 
 ROMANS BY THE CIMBRI. C. MARIUS FOUR TIMES 
 
 consul; BEGINS HIS CAMPAIGN IN HIS FOURTH CON- 
 SULSHIP. 
 
 Bestia's treaty with Jugurtha was so scandalous, that 
 C. Memmius carried a decree that an inquiry should be 
 made into those transactions ; and L. Cassius, who was 
 looked upon as a man of the greatest integrity, was 
 appointed for the purpose. His word was of such weight 
 that Jugurtha, in reliance upon it, ventured to come to 
 Rome to be tried. In Jugurtha's whole conduct we see 
 an evil tendency, combined with a feeling of weakness, in 
 his relation to Rome. He was on the point of betraying 
 his accomplices, to avoid which there was no other means 
 than that of abusing the tribunician power : so C. Baebius, 
 one of the tribunes, was bought over to forbid Jugurtha 
 to speak. The tribunician power had at that time 
 become strong for evil, but feeble for good. Jugurtha, 
 encouraged by such proceedings, murdered Massiva, a 
 young Numidian, and a descendant of Masinissa, who was 
 then staying at Rome, and Jugurtha escaped to Africa 
 in safety, leaving his sureties behind him. The senate, 
 however, now annulled the transactions with Jugurtha, 
 and sent Sp. Postumius Albinus with an army to Africa. 
 He conducted the war in a slow and careless manner, and 
 then resigned the command to his brother Aulus, who 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 361 
 
 allowed himself to be imposed upon to such an extent 
 that he was surrounded by the Nuraidians; he lost his 
 camp, and concluded a disgraceful treaty with Jugurtha. 
 
 Q. Caecilius Metellus now obtained the command, and 
 was provided with great military forces. Three quaes- 
 tors were appointed to inquire into the transactions 
 with Jugurtha ; they were equites, and did not form 
 a popular court, — one of whom was M. Scaurus, accord- 
 ing to the statement of Sallust^. Scaurus had contrived 
 to get this office in order to conceal the part he had taken 
 in former crimes ; for many of his accomplices, and among 
 them Opimius, had been condemned, and the whole party 
 had completely lost the favour of public opinion. From 
 this moment the division began, which afterwards led to 
 the civil war between the parties of Marius and Sulla. 
 The equites formed the opposition. Respecting the 
 internal history of Rome during this time little is known, 
 and not even the names of those who were put to death 
 by the sentence of the quaestors. That Opimius and 
 Bestia fell is certain, but it is Oiper multos vagata qiiaestio. 
 Metellus conducted the war for two years in a manner 
 which deserves our greatest respect, although he made 
 some mistakes. For the details I refer you to Sallust. 
 Jugurtha engaged in an open battle only once, and lost it. 
 
 The war had been protracted, and no one knew how 
 long it would yet last, when the opinion became prevalent 
 at Rome that it was the fault of Metellus that it had not 
 yet been brought to a close, although no one had reason 
 to doubt his virtue. He was incorruptible, disinterested, 
 just, a great statesman and general, and his personal 
 character was quite blameless, but his pride and his pre- 
 tensions were unbearable ; and it cannot be denied that 
 this trait in his character brought great sufferings upon 
 his country, and that the immense irritation of Marius 
 would never have been roused had not the whole party of 
 the optimates set their engines to work to keep him down. 
 
 * Jugurth. 40. 
 
362 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 C. Marius was his legate. The accounts of the ancients 
 respecting his descent are doubtful : some represent him 
 as a man of very low birth, others raise him somewhat 
 higher-; but it is quite certain that his ancestors were 
 clients of a municipal family of Arpinum, which does not 
 however imply that they were not free men. His name 
 is Campanian, and consequently Oscan. He was poor, 
 but this did not do him any harm; and I also believe it 
 to be true, that he served at first as a common soldier, 
 and that at a still earlier period he worked as a field 
 labourer^. But his extraordinary genius must soon have 
 become manifest, otherwise he would never have been able 
 to rise so high ; for it was a rare occurrence among the 
 Romans, especially in later times, for a common soldier 
 to rise above the rank of a military tribune, unless indeed 
 he had the very best connexions. But Marius rose without 
 them. At the time when he came forward as a candidate 
 for the aedileship, he must have acquired considerable 
 property, but he was unsuccessful. Soon after, however, 
 he obtained the praetorship; but even at that time the 
 oligarchs acted badly towards him"*. He, however, main- 
 tained his ground against their charge of ambitus, which 
 was at that time an every-day occurrence ; for every one 
 was accustomed to spend his money when he offered 
 himself as a candidate for some office, and then to make the 
 crime, of which he himself was guilty, a charge against 
 his competitors. When Metellus went to Numidia, he 
 made Marius one of his legates. It was at that time not 
 very uncommon for a homo novus to rise to the office of 
 praetor; and when Sallust^ says that a Jiomo novus had 
 never before obtained the consulship, he is very much 
 mistaken ; for out of the six praetors, four usually rose 
 to the consulship; and it was in this way that Fannius 
 had been made consul. 
 
 • Plutarch, Mar. 3; Veil. Patercul. ii. 11 ; Sallust^ Jugurth. 63. 
 ^ See the passage of Juvenal, quoted in vol. iii. p. 11. 
 ■* Plutarch, Mar, 5. ^ Jugurth. 63. 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 363 
 
 Marius, who at the time of the Jugurthme war must 
 have been a man of about fifty years of age, signahsed 
 himself very much in the Roman army. He was very 
 superstitious, and was always accompanied by a Syrian, 
 probably a Jewish, prophetess, of the name of Martha, in 
 whose counsels he had implicit faith ^. Once, while he 
 was offering a sacrifice, something had happened which, as 
 he believed, promised him the highest honours of the 
 republic^. Stimulated by such circumstances, he resolved 
 to seek the consulship. This presumption was more than 
 Metellus could brook, and he therefore tried to dissuade 
 him from it, and to detain him in the camp, by throwing 
 ridicule on his ambitious scheme. But, when Marius reso- 
 lutely applied to Metellus for leave to go to Rome, the 
 latter forgot himself so far as to say that he need not be in 
 a hurry to obtain a refusal, and that he had better wait 
 until his ( Metellus^) son could be elected as his colleague. 
 The son of Metellus was a young man of about twenty, 
 and had consequently to wait twenty years longer before 
 he was allowed to sue for the consulship. Marius never 
 forgot this mockery : he quitted Africa without leave of 
 absence, and, on his arrival at Rome, he was received 
 by the people with extraordinary favour. It is unjust to 
 call the Gracchi demagogues, but Marius deserves that 
 name in the fullest sense. He flattered the populace, 
 and delighted in appearing among them as one of their 
 equals. He was not fit for the time in which he lived; 
 for he had a peculiar kind of pride, which many circum- 
 stances tended to wound ; and this perpetual irritation 
 exasperated him. Greek education and Greek literature 
 were then as prevalent, and thought to be as necessary, 
 as an intimate acquaintance with French literature was 
 in my youth ; and, if we recall to our minds that period 
 of our own history, we may understand how great the 
 demand for Greek literature must have been at that 
 time. Marius, though he was undoubtedly acquainted 
 
 f' Plutarch, Mar. 17. '" Plutarch, Mar. 8; Sallust, 1. c. 
 
364 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 with the literature of his own country, despised that of 
 the Greeks, as well as that which was then the fashion- 
 able literature of the day among the Romans. He pos- 
 sessed great wealth, which can have been acquired only 
 in war ; and it is a remarkable characteristic of the times, 
 that he was nevertheless considered as a man of incorrupt- 
 ible manners, as a uzV sanctus ; whereas, about 180 years 
 before, Fabricius was thought a vir sanctus, because he 
 possessed nothing that belonged to the luxuries of life. 
 We must, however, acknowledge that C. Marius had not 
 robbed the republic. His talents as a general were 
 immense, and it was the consciousness of his superiority 
 in this respect that bore him aloft. The opinion of the 
 nation was not divided on this point. He was as great 
 on the day of battle, as in the disposition of his troops 
 and in the art of fortifying his camp ; and in the manage- 
 ment of a campaign he was unrivalled. He had few 
 friends, for the prominent features of his character were 
 bitterness, hatefulness, and cruelty ; but he was, at the 
 same time, the man whom Providence had sent to save 
 Rome, the degradation of which had been brought about 
 by those who opposed him. Metellus, when compared 
 with Marius, was no more than an ordinary general; 
 for Marius was an extraordinary man, of great fore- 
 sight, and free from all rashness : at times when it 
 was necessary to act, his energy knew no bounds, and 
 he had at once the clearest possible insight into all 
 the circumstances and relations of the case. His hatred 
 of the optimates led him to bring many a charge against 
 them, which, although unjust, appeared to him per- 
 fectly just. After being raised to the consulship, he re- 
 ceived the command to bring the war against Jugurtha 
 to a close. On this occasion, Metellus shewed a mean 
 spirit ; and, not being able to bear the sight of Marius, 
 he departed to Rome in secret^. Marius could not termi- 
 nate the war till his second campaign, when he entered 
 
 = Sallust, Jugurth. 86. 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 365 
 
 into negotiations with Bocchus, king of Mauretania, who 
 delivered up Jugurtha into the hands of the Romans. 
 The conduct of Jugurtha had been alternately pusillani- 
 mous and audacious, and he was unable to accommodate 
 himself to circumstances. He had delivered up to Me- 
 tellus 200,000 pounds of silver, all his elephants, and a 
 part of his horses and arms ; but, when he himself was 
 ordered to surrender, he escaped into the desert. He had 
 thus himself destroyed all his resources^. 
 
 The war against Jugurtha was thus concluded; and 
 it was high time indeed, for the republic required the 
 talents of Marius in a war, compared with which that 
 against the Numidian king was little and insignificant. 
 The Cimbri and Teutones were expected on the frontiers 
 of Italy, after they had cut to pieces the armies of Q. 
 Servilius Caepio and Cn. Manlius. The Cimbri were 
 not real Gauls, but Cyinri, of the same stock to which 
 belonged the Welsh, the Basbretons, the early inhabitants 
 of Cumberland, and the whole western coast of England. 
 Their language was still spoken by some persons in Cum- 
 berland as late as 150 years ago. 
 
 The Picts of Scotland were likewise Cyniri, and the 
 Belgae also belonged to the same race. The Gauls who 
 had conquered Rome included a great number of Gael, 
 and the Cymri must have been predominant. They ex- 
 tended eastward as far as the river Dniepr, where they 
 were called Galatians.-'' But the whole question about 
 these nations is one which we cannot settle with proper 
 accuracy. These tribes had been driven from their seats 
 by the progress of the Sarmatians. In the year 639 they 
 appeared in Noricum, on the frontier of Italy, which ex- 
 tended in reality as far as the bay of Triest, a district 
 which was already inhabited by Gauls who lived under 
 the protection of the Romans. The Cimbri, who re- 
 
 ^ Sallust, 1. c. 62. 
 
 '" Compare vol. ii. p. 522 foil. ; Arnold, Hist, of Rome, i. p. 
 519 foil. 
 
3G6 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 mained behind, appear on the middle Danube and in 
 Hungary, attacking the Boians, a kindred tribe, as well 
 as foreigners, in order to acquire a territory to live in. 
 The Teutones had already left the southern part of Bo- 
 hemia. That they were Germans is as certain as that 
 the Cimbri were Cymri, or, more generally speaking, 
 Gael. Many Gaelic words have a general affinity to the 
 Cymrian, and yet the languages differ so much from each 
 other, that the Cymri and Gael do not understand 
 each other, though both are comprised under the generic 
 name of the Gaelic nation. Whether the Cimbri and 
 Teutones had already united their forces in Noricum, or 
 whether they were yet separated there, is unknown. The 
 Romans sent out an army to protect the Carnians under 
 Cn. Papirius Carbo^^, the son of the Carbo who had put 
 an end to his life when accused by L. Licinius Crassus ; 
 but he was defeated in 639, in the neighbourhood of Nor- 
 eia, by the Cimbri, who seem to have fought alone there. 
 The Cimbri, who were satisfied with this victory, did not 
 descend into Italy, either because they were overawed 
 by the name of the Romans, or from other reasons un- 
 known to us. They afterwards appear in Helvetia, where 
 they were joined by the Tigurini. What country the 
 Ambrones came from is totally unknown ; one might 
 almost suspect that they were Ligurians from the Alpine 
 mountains, but the question is an inextricable problem. 
 The Cimbri now threw themselves into Gaul, hke a horde 
 of nomades, with an immense number of waggons loaded 
 with women and children. It is difficult to say where 
 they defeated M. Junius Silanus and M. Aurelius Scau- 
 rus^-, for our accounts are incredibly scanty. According 
 to one statement it might almost seem that in one of 
 these battles the Romans had advanced as far as La Ro- 
 chelle, between Poitou and the Garonne ^^ Another de- 
 
 " Appiaiij De Reb. Gall. 1.5; Livy, Epit. lib. 63. 
 '^ Livy, Epit. fi5 and 67; Florus, iii. 3; Asconiiis Petlian. in 
 Cornel. '* Orosius, v. 1.5. 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 367 
 
 feat was sustained near the lake of Geneva by the consul 
 L. Cassius Longinus^*. Thus defeat followed after defeat. 
 The Romans wished to protect the Gauls, but all attempts 
 failed. These ravages of the Cimbri brought, for the 
 moment, infinite misery upon the Gauls, but they prepared 
 at the same time the way for the victories of Caesar ; for 
 with the exception of the Belgae, who made a successful 
 stand against the Cimbri, nearly all the other towns of 
 Gaul were taken and laid waste. 
 
 The greatest defeat which the Romans suffered in this 
 war, was on the river Rhone, the year after the first con- 
 sulship of Marius. The proconsul Q. Servilius Caepio 
 and the consul Cn. Manlius undertook the war in that year 
 with two consular armies. Their number, which is stated 
 to have been 80,000,^^ makes us suppose that a great 
 number of Gallic auxiliaries served in the Roman armies. 
 The two consular armies were totally annihilated'^. The 
 consequence was, that Marius, now again the only man 
 on whom the nation fixed their hopes, was made consul for 
 the second time; and even his political adversaries, who 
 saw the very existence of the republic endangered, now 
 supported his elevation. It was fortunate for the Romans 
 that the Cimbri, after this great victory, turned to Spain, 
 either because they dreaded the passage over the Alps, 
 or because they shrunk from attacking the Romans in 
 their own country. They now for a few years ranged over 
 Spain, and the ravages which they made there were per- 
 haps as great as those inflicted on the same country by 
 the Suevi and Vandals, in the fifth century of our aera. 
 The Celtiberians shewed their usual bravery, and main- 
 tained themselves in their towns, while other places were 
 
 " Livy, Epit. lib. 65; Orosius, v. 15; compare Caesar, De Bello 
 Gall. I. 12. 
 
 '' According to Orosius (v. 16) Valerius Antias was the only- 
 authority for this number. — N. Compare Livy, Epit. lib. 67. 
 
 ^® Dion. Cass. Excerpt. Vales, p. 631; Florus, in. 3; Eutrop. 
 v. 1 ; Veil. Patercul. ii. 12. 
 
368 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 taken and destroyed. Marius devoted the time of his 
 second and third consulships to the forming and training 
 of a new army. The elements of which the Roman ar- 
 mies had formerly consisted had degenerated with the 
 social and political condition of the people : the Roman 
 population no longer consisted of a free peasantry, and 
 armies could be raised only from a mass, which deserved 
 no other name than that of a populace. The task of 
 Marius, to make well disciplined soldiers out of such ma- 
 terials, was a very difficult one indeed. The remnants of 
 former armies were, for the most part, utterly demoralized, 
 and the army which he formed, consisted of foul-hearted 
 recruits of the very worst description, and of veterans 
 whom he had brought over from Africa. At length, in his 
 fourth consulship, he marched out against the enemy ; but 
 even before this he had chosen the banks of the Rhone, 
 on the frontiers of Provence and Dauphine, as the field 
 for exercising his troops, and he had accustomed them to 
 the greatest possible exertions. Many had perished under 
 the hardships they had to endure, but those who survived 
 had become hardened and stedfast soldiers. 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 369 
 
 LECTURE XXXI. 
 
 C. MARIUS DEFEATS THE TEUTONES, AND, IN CONJUNCTION 
 
 WITH C. LUTATIUS CATULUS, THE CIMBRI ALSO. THE 
 
 CONSULSHIPS OF MARIUS. L. APPULEIUS SATURNINUS 
 
 AND HIS AGRARIAN LAWS. HE AND HIS ASSOCIATES 
 
 ARE PUT TO DEATH. THE EQUITES AS JUDICES AND 
 
 FARMERS OF THE REVENUE. 
 
 When the Cimbri were returning from Spain, and when 
 it was generally believed that they would take the same 
 road across the Alps which Hannibal had chosen, the Gauls 
 forgot their hostile feelings towards the Romans, and began 
 to look upon them as their protectors. The barbarians, 
 for reasons which we do not know, shewed no inclination 
 to attack Marius. The Cimbri separated their troops from 
 those of the Teutones, and the former marched round the 
 northern foot of the Alps towards Noricum, in order to 
 invade Italy from that quarter, while the latter remained in 
 Gaul. The reason why Marius now retreated is unknown, 
 like many other things connected with this war. The 
 Cimbri passed by the Roman camp, jeering and mocking 
 their enemies, and marched around Switzerland, and be- 
 tween the Pennine Alps and those of Trent, where at that 
 period there was no practicable road for such hosts with 
 their waggons. The Romans sent an army under the 
 proconsul, C. Lutatius Catulus, to meet them in the 
 neighbourhood of Trent ; but in point of discipline his 
 army was quite the reverse of that of Marius; just as 
 Catulus himself was the very opposite to Marius in ac- 
 quirements and accomplishments, for according to Cicero', 
 
 ' Brutus, 3.5. 
 
 2b 
 
370 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 he was well acquainted with Greek literature. When 
 Marius retreated from the Isere, the Teutones followed 
 him with increased confidence in their own strength, as 
 is generally the case when an enemy seems to take to 
 flight. Marius pitched his camp, either intentionally or 
 by chance, in such a position that the soldiers could not 
 venture to go out to provide themselves with water without 
 their arms. The skirmishes which thus took place led 
 to the decisive engagement, which lasted for two days. 
 Marius sent his legate, M. Claudius Marcellus, with one 
 legion to attack the enemy''s rear ; and this plan was success- 
 ful, as it frustrated the attacks of the barbarians upon the 
 Roman camp. Southern nations have much stronger mus- 
 cles, and can endure much more than we can, and it is an 
 erroneous opinion that they can bear less cold than we ; for in 
 Napoleon's campaign in Russia the Italians held out much 
 longer than the other soldiers. The battle against the 
 Teutones, which took place in summer, also furnishes a 
 proof of their superiority in this respect ; for the northern 
 barbarians, unable to bear the heat of the sun, were defeated 
 on the second day. They retreated to their waggons, but 
 could not maintain their ground, and the whole nation 
 was literally annihilated, for those who survived put an 
 end to their own lives". 
 
 When half of the danger had thus been removed, the 
 Cimbri descended from the Alps of Trent. Orosius^ is 
 the only ancient writer on these events, in whom we rejoice 
 to find a pure source of information ; in other narratives, es- 
 pecially that of Florus, it would seem as if the Cimbri had 
 been the most senseless of barbarians. Had Florus not been 
 the hovio umhraticus he really was, he would have known that 
 when an army has to march through a river, the cavalry ride 
 through it in thick columns at a higher place, which most 
 assuredly does check the current of the river, and greatly 
 
 » Plutarch, Marius, 19 foil.; Livy, Epit. lib. 69; Veil. Patercul. 
 II. 12. ^ V. 16. 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 371 
 
 facilitates the passage for the infantry below; and in many 
 parts of the river Adige this method is particularly suc- 
 cessful. Florus further says that they threw trees into 
 the river, intending thereby to stop its course ; but I cannot 
 believe that they were so foolish as to imagine anything 
 of the sort. If they threw trees into the river, it was 
 certainly with a view to break down the bridge of the 
 Romans, and this plan could not but succeed. Lutatius 
 Catulus, being unable to hold out against the rapid pro- 
 gress of the Cimbri, retreated even beyond the river Po. 
 The towns of Verona, Mantua, and others were left to the 
 protection of their own walls. We are completely in the 
 dark as to what took place further; we do not even know 
 the exact position of the Campi Raudii, on which the great 
 battle was fought. Some place it near Vercellae \ and as it 
 does not appear who could have invented such a statement, 
 there seems to be no reason why we should reject it. It is, 
 however, certain that the Cimbri for some time ranged over 
 Lombardy north of the Po, and that they made dreadful ra- 
 vages. But Marius, now consul for the fifth time, came to 
 the assistance of Catulus, and after the two armies were 
 united they won the decisive battle, concerning the detail 
 of which scarcely anything is known. Thus much only is 
 certain, that the Cimbri formed a great mass, and it may 
 be that their front lines were bound together with chains, 
 in order to form, as it were, an impregnable wall^ Dis- 
 eases had already begun to rage among the barbarians, 
 for Lombardy is, in general, a very unhealthy country, 
 on account of the bad water. Marius is said to have 
 placed his lines in such a position, that the sun and the 
 wind were against his enemy*', but we cannot decide 
 whether this is true or not. But the fate of the Cimbri 
 was the same as that of the Teutones, and those who 
 escaped could do nothing but take refuge among the small 
 tribe of the Aduatici, with whom they had formed an 
 
 * Plutarch, Mar. 25. 
 
 ^ Plutarch, 1. c. 27. "^ Florus, in. 3. 
 
 2 B 2 
 
872 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 alliance. Here they must have taken up their abode for 
 a time'''. 
 
 It is a controverted point whether the merit of this vic- 
 tory belongs to Marius or Catulus, but I believe that there 
 is no ground for looking upon the matter as doubtful, for it 
 cannot be denied that Catulus was jealous and envious of 
 the vulgar upstart. Marius celebrated his victory by the 
 most brilliant triumph; but how giddy he had become by 
 his lofty position was seen most strikingly when he en- 
 tered the senate in his triumphal robes. He was rewarded 
 for his services by being made consul for the sixth time, 
 perhaps the first instance of a man being invested six times 
 with this honour; for it cannot be said with certainty, whe- 
 ther Valerius Corvus had been consul six times^, though I 
 am almost convinced of it. The general opinion at Rome 
 was, that some one before C. Marius had been invested with 
 the consulship six times, and the Romans evinced no sur- 
 prise, until he obtained the same dignity for the seventh 
 time. 
 
 The period which now follows is so full of horrors, that 
 it would have been better for Marius if he had died on the 
 day of his triumph, for then the world would have seen 
 him only in his glory, and — have been deceived. He had 
 formed connexions with a knave, L. Appuleius Saturninus, 
 a man who is frequently coupled with the Gracchi, al- 
 though there can hardly be any difference so great as that 
 between Saturninus and the Gracchi. This Saturninus is 
 a strange phaenomenon. I can hardly believe that there 
 were real foundations for all the charges brought against 
 Catiline, for in regard to some of them it is impossible 
 to discover what could have been his object ; but such 
 is not the case with Saturninus: it is really difficult to 
 account for his conduct. He was by no means of vulgar 
 origin: he belonged to a noble plebeian family. I do not 
 recollect at this moment whether it is of him or of his 
 companion, C. Servilius Glaucia, that Cicero says that 
 
 ^ Caesar, De Bello Gall. n. 29. « Compare vol. iii. p. 124. 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 373 
 
 he had never known a man of a more malign wit^. In his 
 career to the higher offices of the republic he had been 
 offended. Italy was divided into eight quaesturae, which 
 were distributed by lot, and one of them was the quaestura 
 Ostiensis, with which the duty of providing for the gra- 
 naries at Rome was connected. Saturninus had held the 
 office of quaestor Ostiensis, but owing to some acts of 
 injustice, he was deprived of it. Just as this punishment 
 was, it gave him a severe blow^". He then became tri- 
 bune, and in this capacity he shewed the most scan- 
 dalous conduct towards the censors. When he offered 
 himself for the tribuneship a second time, and a certain 
 Nonius was put forward as his competitor, Saturninus 
 incited the people so much against him, that the unfor- 
 tunate man was murdered in the market place. Satur- 
 ninus thus obtained the tribuneship by force. One of 
 his comrades was the praetor C. Servilius Glaucia, a 
 man of very noble birth. It is difficult to say what 
 these two in reality wanted, but we must believe that, 
 however wild their scheme may appear, one of them in- 
 tended in his frantic folly to establish himself as tyrant. 
 In order to comprehend the characters of this period of 
 Roman history, we must look upon them as complete 
 madmen. Robespierre was a man of a similar stamp, for no 
 one can say what his real object was. Men of that descrip- 
 tion merely wish to rule at random, without having them- 
 selves any distinct notion of what they want. The second 
 tribuneship of Saturninus was at the time of the sixth con- 
 sulship of C. Marius. He began a complete course of 
 legislation, commencing with agrarian laws". It would 
 seem as if the lands, which were to be distributed ac- 
 cording to his agrarian law, were in Gaul, and that it 
 
 " Something to this effect is said by Cicero (Brutus, 62) of 
 Glaucia. 
 
 '" Cicero, Pro Sext. 17 ; De Harusp. Respons. 20; Diodorus 
 Fragm. lil». xxvi. Eclog. 2, p. 527. 
 
 " Plutarch, Marius. 29. 
 
374 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 was his intention to establish colonies there ^'^. Marius, 
 whom he flattered immoderately, was to have the honour 
 of bestowing on three individuals in each of these co- 
 lonies the rights and privileges of Roman citizens. If in 
 former times a general had had such presumption, it 
 would have called forth a rebellion. The agrarian laws, 
 when passed by the people, no further required any sanc- 
 tion, and as the senate did not prevent their passing, Sa- 
 turninus demanded that all the senators should expressly 
 swear to them beforehand '\ Marius refused taking the 
 oath, perhaps because he had acquired some insight into 
 the contemptible character of Saturninus, or, what is more 
 probable, from a want of fixed principles, which he shewed 
 on many occasions; for soon afterwards he changed his 
 mind, and advised the senators to take the oath, declaring 
 that it was impossible to refuse it any longer. Metellus 
 Numidicus now alone resisted, and shewed a determination 
 of character which was greater than his Numidian vic- 
 vories. Saturninus had him dragged out of the senate- 
 house. The year passed away amidst the greatest atro- 
 cities. But fortunately Saturninus and his followers car- 
 ried their excesses so far, that Marius abandoned their 
 cause. When the time of the new elections came on, 
 Glaucia offered himself as a candidate for the consulship, 
 and with him a noble Roman, C. Memmius, probably 
 the same man who had been tribune in the time of the 
 war with Jugurtha. The adversaries of Memmius did 
 not scruple to attack and murder him in the public 
 market^*. This was too glaring a crime, and Marius 
 was applied to to put an end to these atrocities, and he 
 at once resolved to do so. He received from the senate 
 the command, videret, nequid res puhlica detrimenti caperet. 
 He forthwith summoned all the citizens, and the knaves 
 retreated to the capitol, where they were besieged. There 
 
 '^ Appian De Bell. Civil, i. 29 ; Cicero, pro Balbo, 21 ; Livy, 
 Epit. lib. 69. '3 Plutarch, Mar. 29. 
 
 '* Cicero, in Catilin. iv. 2; Appian, De Bell. Civil, i. 32. 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 375 
 
 is in the capitol a very ancient well, which I have disco- 
 vered, and which at that time must have been in the same 
 condition as it is at present, otherwise the besieged would 
 have been able to satisfy their thirst ^^. This well is now 
 in the most wretched condition, and it is impossible to 
 drink the water. At length the besieged surrendered at 
 discretion, and were all put to death. This act recon- 
 ciled the minds of the people to Marius, who now took, 
 a second step towards a better course, by causing Me- 
 tellus to be recalled from his exile. He then retired to 
 the station of a private man, for he had never entertained 
 the idea of making himself tyrant. 
 
 The republic was shaken to its very foundations. 
 The equites, from their jealousy and hatred of the se- 
 nate and of the governors in the provinces, had abused 
 their judicial powers in such a way that they were 
 looked upon as tyrants, and parties again began to 
 apply to the senate. The great farmers of the public 
 revenues had amassed the most exorbitant treasures, and 
 their extorting far greater portions than the laws per- 
 mitted brought them into collision with the consuls. In 
 the Bible we see the manner in which the rsKoovai, the 
 agents of the publicani, carried on their proceedings. 
 When a consul himself oppressed the provincials, he might 
 be accused of malversation, repetundarum ; but when one 
 of the publicani was accused, he had only to write to one 
 of his colleagues at Rome, and request them to deal gently 
 with him, and he was sure to escape. As soon as the 
 equites had once established the system of regarding only 
 their own interest, every attempt on the part of the provin- 
 cials to obtain justice was useless. 
 
 ■* Plutarch, Mar. 30 ; Aurel. Victor, De A'^ir. lllustr. 73 ; Appian, 
 1. c. Compare, vol. iii. p. 306. notes, 524 and 529. 
 
376 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 LECTURE XXXII. 
 
 INTERNAL CONDITION OF ROME. THE LEX DOMITIA DE 
 
 SACERDOTIIS. THE JUDICIAL POWER OF THE EQUITES. 
 
 THE QUESTION ABOUT THE FRANCHISE OF THE ITA- 
 LIANS. M. LIVIUS DRUSUS, AND HIS LEGISLATION. 
 
 HIS ASSASSINATION. — THE LAW OF Q. VARIUS. 
 
 The happy termination of the war against the Cimbri 
 and Teutones and the suppression of the disturbances 
 of Saturninus were followed by a period of precarious 
 tranquillity, during which no reflecting man could be mis- 
 taken as to the internal condition of the republic and its 
 prospects, although the great mass undoubtedly continued 
 to live on quietly and heedlessly. The condition of the 
 rich and powerful was brilliant, but those who saw deeper 
 cannot have overlooked the state of disease, and even the 
 decomposition which was taking place; they must have 
 seen the necessity of coming to a determination respect- 
 ing the Italian subjects of Rome. But no one seems to 
 have thought of a reform calculated to avert the threaten- 
 ing evil; various things were undertaken, but not carried 
 out. It is a characteristic sign of those times, that those 
 who wanted to get power began by making themselves 
 popular, and after having obtained their ends they went 
 over to the opposite party. Thus Cn. Domitius Aheno- 
 barbus deprived the college of pontiffs of the right of 
 filling up the vacancies which occurred in the college, 
 and transferred it to the tribes in such a manner that 
 only seventeen tribes (the smaller half of thirty-five,) 
 were chosen by lot to elect the priests'. In former times 
 
 ' Cicero, De leg. Agrar. ii. 7 ; Veil. Pateicul. ii. 12. 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 377 
 
 the pontiffs had been chosen from among the patricians, 
 and by them in their curiae ; and when subsequently the 
 plebeians were admitted to share the pontificate with the 
 patricians, they naturally took part in the elections also; 
 but when this custom ceased, and when the curiae had 
 become something quite different from what they had been 
 originally, the college of pontiffs itself naturally acquired 
 the right of co-optation. Now, how was it that Cn. Do- 
 mitius transferred this right to seventeen out of the thirty- 
 five tribes ? The origin of the measure must have been 
 that Cn. Doraitius attributed a different meaning to an 
 ancient expression, according to which the Luceres had 
 been called the minor pars popidi, and which he applied 
 to the seventeen tribes. This Domitian law is the latest 
 instance of an occurrence in which we can trace any of 
 the characteristics of the primitive constitution of Rome. 
 
 The great question, which was now brought forward 
 on all occasions, was that concerning the judicial power 
 of the equites, because, as I said yesterday, it had become 
 more and more evident every year that they exercised 
 their right no better than the senators had done before, 
 and that they were just as accessible by bribes. Their 
 courts of justice had reduced the senate to a real state of 
 dependence, and the senate and the government, the best 
 among them as well as the worst, must have felt the 
 urgent necessity of a remedy. Among the best we may 
 mention Q. Mucins Scaevola, who shewed such an ex- 
 emplary conduct in Asia-, that had the publieani, against 
 whom he protected the provincials, been able to find 
 any pretext for accusing him, he would have been 
 condemned like a guilty criminal 3. Here then was a 
 case in which the necessity of a reform must have been ge- 
 nerally felt ; but it is a misfortune which Rome suffered 
 in common with all other free states, that although every 
 
 * Cicero, c. Verrem, ii, 10; Pseudo-Asconius in Verr. ii p. 210, 
 in Divinat. p. 122, ed. Orelli. 
 ^ Cicero, pro Plancio, 11, 
 
378 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 one may be convinced of the necessity of a reform, yet no 
 one appears to see the way in which it is to be effected. 
 
 The second important question was that respecting 
 the civic franchise of the Itahans, so similar to the 
 present Catholic emancipation question in Great Britain. 
 Every one was convinced that the franchise must be 
 granted, and every one was inclined to grant it; but 
 then again, so soon as private interests were consulted, 
 the affair appeared in a diflFerent light; and while thus 
 the Romans were one year willing to bestow the fran- 
 chise upon the Italians, another year they refused to 
 do so. There had hitherto been a good understand- 
 ing between the Romans and the Italians, but a great 
 bitterness now began to spread, and the Italians came 
 forward, and resolutely demanded the Roman fran- 
 chise. The men who had before inspired the Italians 
 with hopes were now driven to the adoption of mea- 
 sures which exasperated the Italians. Such a measure 
 was the lex Mucia Licmia'*', which did not indeed forbid 
 the allies to reside in Rome, but deprived them of the 
 privileges connected with the residence at Rome, and 
 thus took from them rights which they had acquired by 
 custom. The lists of citizens were revised, and the names 
 of allies were expunged, so that at the very time when 
 they demanded more than they possessed, the little which 
 they did possess was taken from them. The degree of 
 exasperation produced by this measure may easily be 
 imagined. Under these circumstances the tribune, M. 
 Livius Drusus, a son of the opponent of C. Gracchus, 
 came boldly forward with a remedy for the distressed 
 state of Rome. He was a man of extraordinary talents, 
 and of a better nature than his father. The eyes of the 
 whole nation were directed towards him, and the leading 
 men of the republic joined him in his endeavours to 
 prevent a revolution by introducing the necessary re- 
 
 '' Cicero, pro Cornel, fragm. 10. p. 449 ; Asconius in Cornel, 
 p. 67 ed. Orelli; De Officiis^ in. 11 ; De Oratore, u. 64. 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 379 
 
 forms. It is a strange thing that, in the history of this 
 late period, there are more things which we can only 
 guess at than in the early times of Roman history. In 
 regard to the latter, the traditionary forms are firmly es- 
 tablished, and we may draw conclusions from them as 
 evident as those drawn from mathematical premises, and 
 say : " if such or such a thing took place, this or that 
 other thing must of necessity have taken place likewise." 
 But in these later times, when all institutions had lost 
 their stability, we can no longer draw such inferences. 
 It is for this reason that the changes introduced by 
 M. Livius Drusus are so very obscure. To me, how- 
 ever, it appears probable that the account given by 
 Appian^ is correct. It is acknowledged on all hands that 
 the main object of Drusus was to introduce a mixture 
 in the composition of the courts of justice^. Had he 
 attempted to give them back entirely into the hands of 
 the senators, the consequence would have been a revo- 
 lution. The number of senators amounted to three hun- 
 dred, and to these he wished to add three hundred 
 equites, who were to be received into the senate ; and 
 out of these six hundred the jury' were to be taken, 
 half of whom would undoubtedly be senators. As he 
 thus admitted the equites into the senate, he offered them 
 an advantage which might be a compensation for their 
 loss of the exclusive possession of the judicial power. A 
 clause was added to this bill, that quaestiones concerning 
 judges who had accepted bribes should be instituted be- 
 fore the same tribunal : an awful symptom of the times ! 
 
 ' Appian, De Bell. Civil, i. 35. Compare Livy, Epit. lib. 71 ; 
 Aur. Victor, De Vir. illustr. 66. 
 
 * Veil. Patercul. ii. 13 ; Cicero, pro Rabir. Postumo, 7 ; pro 
 Cluent. 56 ; Livy, Epit. lib. 70. 
 
 ^ From the time of the Gracchi the judices at Rome may be 
 looked upon as analogous to our jury, a term which some English 
 scholars have improperly applied to a much earlier period. But 
 previous to the time of the Gracchi we read only of single judices, 
 or of popular courts. — N. 
 
380 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 This clause determined the equites to oppose the bill, 
 as we clearly see from a passage in Cicero^. Many of 
 the equites also had no wish to enter the senate, and 
 preferred a position in which they were lords and masters 
 of the state, and which enabled them to censure others, 
 to one which imposed upon them a moral responsibility, 
 and exposed them to the danger of being censured and 
 accused. It moreover appears that it was not the in- 
 tention of the law of Drusus constantly to keep up the 
 number of three hundred equites in the senate by filling 
 up any vacancy that might occur, and the addition of 
 three hundred equites seems to have been only a tempo- 
 rary measure. The equites may therefore have said, 
 " the consequence of this bill will be, that in the end 
 the judicial power will again fall into the hands of a 
 senate of 600 nobles, and vacancies will be filled up at 
 the discretion of the senate, as if we did not exist at all : 
 the bill therefore is only a scheme to deceive us." But, 
 notwithstanding all this, the measure of Drusus seems to 
 me the best that could have been devised, because it was 
 not his intention to stop short there, but, at the same time, 
 to confer the franchise upon the Italians. This reform 
 was intended to impart fresh life and energy to the higher 
 classes of the Romans, and to extend the body of Roman 
 citizens, so as to make them a nation with a new aristo- 
 cracy. His agrarian laws 9, on the other hand, respect- 
 ing which scarcely anything is recorded, aimed at raising 
 the lower and restoring the middle classes, and were in- 
 tended to benefit both the Italians and the Romans. The 
 divisions among the Italians, Umbrians, and Etruscans, 
 became as manifest on this occasion, as those among the 
 Italians, Latins, and Romans, had been in the time of 
 C. Gracchus. In what manner such divisions spread fur- 
 
 " Pro Rabirio Postumo, 7 ; comp. pro Cluentio, 56. 
 
 ^ Aurel. Victor, De Vir. illustr. 66 ; Scholia Bobiens. pro Milone, 
 p. 282 ed. Orelli ; Diodorus, Excerpt. V;itic. p. 128 ed. Dindorf; 
 Veil. Patercul. II. It. 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 381 
 
 ther and further, may be seen in the history of the 
 internal disputes of other free states, with which our 
 scholars are so seldom acquainted *'\ Thus the tribune- 
 ship of Drusus has been a real crux historicorum, and peo- 
 ple have asked " how could the bitter hostility between 
 Drusus and the consul L. Marcius Philippus have arisen ? 
 Drusus was popular, and would not his laws have strength- 
 ened the aristocracy? Where then was the difference?" 
 The answer to these questions must be looked for in the 
 nature of the circumstances. We know that Drusus was 
 hated by the senate as well as by the equites, and that in 
 the end he was murdered by assassins. Philippus was 
 his sworn enemy, and when he pronounced the awful 
 word preserved by Cicero ^\ revealing the secret that 
 there were no more than 2000 familes whose property 
 was unimpaired, we at once catch a glimpse of the abyss of 
 destruction, and of the forlorn state of the republic. It is 
 natural enough, that the stupid ruling party should have 
 been exasperated against Drusus, and have thought it de- 
 grading that they, the three hundred senators who were in 
 possession of the power, should allow three hundred equites 
 to be placed on a footing of equality with them. In such 
 
 '" In Geneva, for instance, there was a long dispute between the 
 bourgeois and the citoycns, the latter claiming the rights of the 
 former ; and after the two parties were placed on a footing of equa- 
 lity, the Natives, being the sons of foreign parents^ but born at 
 Geneva, supported the party of the Repr'csentants in their dispute 
 with the Ni'gatifo ; and when the demands of the Repr'esentunts were 
 satisfied in 17S9, the resident aliens or Habitants, came forward 
 and made the same claims. Such is always the case in free states, and 
 in this and similar instances we may see clearly, how impossible it is 
 for a scholar like Freinsheim, though he was a learned and industri- 
 ous man, to form a clear notion of the real condition of the ancient 
 republics. Freinsheim might have had an accurate knowledge of 
 many things, if he had concerned himself about the history of the 
 constitution of his own native city of Strassburg ; but he knew 
 nothing but his library, and thus, whenever he touched upon the 
 living reality of ancient history, he saw nothing but hollow words. 
 It is only when we conceive ancient history as something actual 
 and real that it has any meaning. — N. " De Officiis, ii. 21. 
 
382 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 circumstances oligarchs exhibit a degree of stupidity and 
 obstinacy which excites our amazement : they will make no 
 concessions and no improvements. Such was the real state 
 of things in those times, and we cannot wonder how it 
 happened that the unfortunate Drusus found himself aban- 
 doned by both parties. He was an impetuous man, and 
 had undertaken the dangerous part of a mediator between 
 the Romans and Italians, whom we must conceive of as a 
 free Italian nation, not including, however, the Greeks, Um- 
 brians. Etruscans, and the Latin colonies, for the last of 
 these were sure to be the first to obtain the Roman fran- 
 chise. Things went so far that the Italians swore an oath 
 of allegiance to Drusus, which in the Excerpta Vaticana 
 of Diodorus^" is absurdly called op->iog ^tXiTnrov. This 
 oath is extremely remarkable, for it shews an association 
 of a peculiar kind, such as existed in Ireland thirty years 
 ago. The Italians swore that they would obey him un- 
 conditionally, and endeavour to persuade others to under- 
 take the same obligation to him. During this period 
 Drusus was really in a feverish state : he was not in full 
 possession of his own free will : he knew not what he was 
 doing. Had he been supported by the ruling party, he 
 might have still been able to solve the difficulties, and 
 the war between Marius and Sulla would perhaps not 
 have broken out. But after being irritated to the ex- 
 treme — Philippus may have reduced him to despair — 
 he was assassinated by a wound in his side, which he 
 received while he was walking up and down in the hall 
 of his house, and conversing with the people ^^. The 
 perpetrator of the crime was never discovered. 
 
 I'' p. 128 ed. Dindorf. 
 
 i» (Veil. Patercul. ii. 14; Appian, De Bell. Civil. 1.36 ; Livy, 
 Epit. lib. 71.) In the great houses of the Romans, as in the baths 
 of Titus, there were spacious halls without windows, which were 
 lighted only by torches. In these halls numbers of persons, both 
 known and unknown, used to assemble, to obtain an audience 
 of the master of the house, for the noble Romans were in reality 
 more like princes than anything else. — N. 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 383 
 
 The Italians were now in a state of the greatest ex- 
 citement; for the best prospects had been held out to 
 them, and there was now no one to realize them. At 
 Rome, the disinclination to grant them the franchise was 
 as general as, for instance, it was in England to grant 
 independence to the Americans, and as it is at the present 
 moment to grant the emancipation of the Roman Catho- 
 lics. The Italians were, in fact, looked upon as rebels. 
 The party of Drusus was now in the senate itself. Crassus 
 died about this time. The wisest men, such as M. An- 
 tonius and the Scaevolas, did not know what to do. As 
 the storm had not been averted in the proper time, the 
 Romans now threw themselves right in its way. It was 
 chiefly the equites who accused the senators as traitors. 
 They had gained over the tribune Q. Varius, a Spaniard 
 by birth ^^, whom Cicero calls homo vastus et foedus^^. 
 This uncouth fellow, with whom impudence supplied the 
 place of talent, brought forward a bill, that a commission 
 should be appointed for the purpose of inquiring who 
 had had any public or private communication with the 
 Italians about their emancipation^^. The lower classes 
 at Rome, although they had nothing to lose by the laws 
 of Drusus, were most furious against the Italians, and 
 the equites condescended to make common cause with 
 the populace to support the bill of Q. Varius. It was 
 carried, notwithstanding the greatest opposition of the 
 senate ; for, as the people appeared in the forum in 
 arms, the rational opposition of the ruling party was soon 
 overwhelmed. This law gave rise to a great many law- 
 suits, and several noble senators were condemned. The 
 Italian allies, in the meanwhile, had already been in arms 
 some time. 
 
 '^ His father was a Roman, but his mother was a Spanish woman. 
 — N. (CicerOj Brutus, 62 ; Appian, De Bell. Civil, i. 37.) 
 '* De Oratore, i. 25. 
 '^ Appian, 1. c. ; Val. Maximus, viii. 6. 4. 
 
384 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 LECTURE XXXIII. 
 
 THE SOCIAL OR MARSIC WAR, — THE LEX JULIA DIVISION 
 
 OF THE SCENE OF WAR INTO THREE REGIONS. OUT- 
 LINE OF THE COURSE OF EVENTS. 
 
 We have now come to a period during which the scan- 
 tiness of our information is particularly painful to us. Livy 
 had devoted four books to the two years of the Social war, 
 and nearly all we know about it is contained in the meagre 
 narrative of Appian, who not unfrequently makes state- 
 ments which are incredibly one-sided. The passions, the 
 exertions, the various changes of fortune, and the excel- 
 lent conduct on both sides, warrant the assertion that 
 this war is one of the greatest in all antiquity. The first 
 symptoms of the tendency of the Italian allies to separate 
 themselves from Rome and form a new kind of Roman 
 state had been manifested as early as the second Punic 
 warK Subsequently Fregellae had revolted against Rome. 
 Those who had been the first to determine on begin- 
 ning the war were not those who afterwards actually took 
 the field. We do not know which nations were the first 
 that resolved to take up arms, but it is certain that be- 
 fore this it had been the intention of the Latins to eman- 
 cipate themselves, during the celebration of the Feriae 
 Latinae, and to put the Roman consuls to death % It was 
 their plan on that occasion to throw Rome into a state of 
 anarchy, and then to put to death as many persons as they 
 could. This conspiracy was shared in by the Tiburtines 
 and several of the neighbouring towns, and the Italians 
 who flocked to the festival in great numbers, had undoubt- 
 
 ' See above, p. 212. - Florus, iii. 18. 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 385 
 
 edly taken a part in it. Drusus heard of the intention 
 of the Latins and informed the consuls of it^, for he 
 was a Roman, and what he wanted to do for the alUes 
 was merely intended to strengthen Rome. The conspi- 
 racy was manifest. After the murder of Drusus, the 
 Italians formed an association among themselves, and se- 
 cured their mutual fidelity by giving hostages to one an- 
 other. But the Romans sent proconsuls into several dis- 
 tricts, in order to keep the allies within the bounds of their 
 duty, as they called it, and to thwart their undertaking. 
 There was at this time a day of assembly of the Picen- 
 tians at Asculura, and the proconsul Servilius Caepio 
 came forward with his legate Fonteius on this occasion 
 to address the assembly, and deter them by threats from 
 their undertaking; but he and his legate were murdered 
 in the theatre of Asculum. The Italians, who had at 
 first only wished to obtain the Roman franchise, were 
 now bent upon destroying Rome, and establishing an 
 Italian republic, of which they themselves were to be 
 the centre. The exasperation at Asculum rose to such 
 a pitch, that all the Romans who happened to be in 
 the place were seized and put to death*. The insur- 
 rection now broke out everywhere, but not everywhere 
 with the same cruelty as at Asculum ; and it is highly 
 probable that such nations as the Marsians, who were 
 not inferior to the Romans in point of civilization, did 
 not make themselves guilty of such atrocities as the 
 Picentians, who were a contemptible people. In the Epi- 
 tome of the seventy-second book of Livy the following 
 people are mentioned as having joined in the war: — the 
 
 ^ Aur. Victor, De Vir. illustr. 66. 
 
 * I will here make a remark merely because I want to mention to 
 you a conjecture which I have made. In one of the newly discovered 
 fragments of Diodorus (p. 129 ed. Dindorf.) we read that a Latin was 
 nearly killed at Asculum, because he was believed to be a Roman. 
 His name, according to my conjecture, was not Saunion, but San- 
 nion. — N. 
 
 2 C 
 
386 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 Picentians, Vestinians, Marsians, Pelignians, Marrucini- 
 ans, Samnites, and Lucanians. Appian^ adds the Apu- 
 lians, but it is not probable that they had any share in 
 the ItaUan state. All the other peoples of whom the 
 state was to consist, were Sabellians ; and the Apulians, 
 who belonged to the Oscan race, merely joined them 
 out of hostility towards Rome. These confederate Ita- 
 lian nations are said by Diodorus to have established a 
 senate of five hundred, and to have appointed two annual 
 consuls and twelve praetors, thus imitating the forms of 
 the Roman senate and magistrates. Their first consuls 
 were Q. Popaedius Silo, a Marsian, and C. Aponius Mu- 
 tilus, a Samnite. Popaedius had been a friend of Livius 
 Drusus, and had carried on the negotiations peaceably, 
 but he was now determined to obtain his objects by force. 
 The senate of five hundred was entrusted with the care 
 of providing the armies with all that was necessary. 
 Among themselves, these nations were actuated by very 
 different feelings. The Samnites still bore their old 
 grudge against Rome: hence the implacable hatred of 
 Pontius Telesinus, who declared in the battle at the 
 Colline Gate, that, unless the den of the wolf was de- 
 stroyed, Italy could never be safe against her ravages^. 
 He probably belonged to the gens Pontia which is so 
 prominent in the second Samnite war. The Marsians 
 and Samnites were still as heterogeneous as before: they 
 also differed from each other in language; the Marsians 
 spoke Oscan, but in writing they used the Latin charac- 
 ters. The Samnites used the Oscan language, because 
 the ruling class among them were Sabines. The seat of 
 the Italian government was Corfinium, in the country of 
 the Pelignians, and its name was changed into Italica. 
 It is not improbable that here, too, the differences among 
 the confederates had their influence. 
 
 When the war broke out, the advantage was decidedly 
 
 * De Bell. Civil i. 39. Compare also Diodorus, xxxvii. Eclog. 
 1, p. 538 foil. « Veil. Patercul. ii. 27. 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 387 
 
 on the part of the alhes ; and the only thing which saved 
 Rome was the fact, that the Latin colonies remained faithful 
 to her. Immediately after the commencement of the war, 
 the Romans made up their minds to reward them with all 
 the rights of Roman citizens^. This decree is the lexJulia^ 
 proposed by L. Julius Caesar, which is so often spoken of 
 in works on Jurisprudence. It is a very common but 
 erroneous opinion that the lex Julia conferred the privileges 
 of Roman citizens upon the Italians, who, in fact, never 
 acquired those privileges by any one law, but gained them 
 successively one by one. It is quite certain that the lex 
 Julia affected the Latins only ; its benefits extended over 
 fifty Latin colonies, and not only to such as were established 
 in Italy, but also to Aquae Sextiae in Gallia Narbonensis. 
 The old Latin towns of Tibur and Praeneste also, and 
 all the other parts of Latium, which had not yet received 
 the full franchise, were unquestionably included among 
 the places which now received it. We may further take 
 it for granted that it was bestowed upon the Hernican 
 towns, and perhaps also on those places which, until then, 
 had been praefecturae, such as Atina, and several others. 
 This prudent law greatly increased the number of Roman 
 citizens ; for even previous to the Hannibalian war the 
 number of Latin citizens amounted to 80,000, all of whom 
 spoke Latin, and were more or less mixed up with 
 Romans. Here then the Romans had a people on whom 
 they could rely, and it is only to be lamented that the 
 rights of Roman citizens had not been granted to them 
 before. The Roman armies were considerably increased 
 by the numbers of Latins ; and none of the places that were 
 tributary to Rome were overlooked, but all had to send 
 reinforcements. Hence we find in the Roman armies 
 Gauls, Mauretanians, Numidians, and Asiatics, so that in 
 point of numbers the Itahans were surpassed by the 
 Romans. Another very great advantage possessed by 
 
 7 Appian, De Bell. Civil, i. 49; Cicero, pro Balbo. 8; Gellius, 
 IV. 4. 
 
 2 C 2 
 
388 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 Rome was its central position and its colonies, which, 
 being scattered all over Italy, tore the countries of the 
 enemy asunder, and obliged them to leave every where 
 strong garrisons as protections against those colonies. 
 
 If we had suflScient materials, I might describe to you this 
 war in such a manner as to lay before you the great masses 
 into which it must be divided ; but as things are, I will, 
 as far as I can, give you only brief outlines. The scene of 
 the war must be divided into three regions : the southern, 
 the middle, and the northern. The southern field of 
 operation was Campania as far as the river Liris; the 
 middle comprised the banks of the Liris and the country of 
 the Sabines as far as Picenum; and the northern was in 
 Picenum itself. The Bruttians are not mentioned in this 
 war, a circumstance which shews how nearly they must 
 have been annihilated in the Hannibalian war. The colony 
 of Venusia remained faithful to Rome, although the popu- 
 lation had become entirely Apulian and Lucanian. The 
 army of the south was under the command of C. Papius 
 Mutilus, and was opposed by the Romans under L. Julius 
 Caesar. Mutilus conquered a number of towns, and trans- 
 ferred the scene of war to Campania ; but Capua was 
 maintained by the Romans, and the war became concen- 
 trated around Acerrae^. Towards the close of the year 
 the advantage was still on the side of the allies. P. Ruti- 
 lius Lupus, Marius, and Sulla, commanded the middle 
 army, and were opposed by Popaedius Silo, who displayed 
 the qualities of a very great general. The Roman consul, 
 Rutilius Lupus, was personally by no means able to cope 
 with him, and Rome had to thank Marius and Sulla alone 
 for checking the progress of the enemy. Aesernia, a 
 Roman colony in Samnium, was conquered after a vigorous 
 defence, and not until it was compelled to surrender by 
 the most fearful famine, probably because its citizens 
 relied too much on the good fortune of the Roman arms. 
 
 * Appian, De Bell. Civil, i. 42. 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 389 
 
 The first Roman who gained a brilliant advantage was 
 Cn. Pompeius Strabo, who conducted the war as proconsul 
 in Picenum. He was a man who, although marked by 
 all the profligacy of the times, was nevertheless a distin- 
 guished general. After he had been beaten by the Picen- 
 tians, the hostile armies, 70,000 Italians and 65,000 
 Romans, faced each other near Asculum^. The Romans 
 gained a decided victory ; Asculum was taken by the 
 sword, and the fate of its inhabitants was fearful. Pom- 
 peius now penetrated into the country of the enemy from 
 the north ; and some of the allies, seeing that fortune did 
 not favour them, already began to abandon the cause of 
 their friends. The first who did so were the Vestinians. 
 The Romans, who perceived the wavering spirit of some 
 of the allies, tried to gain them over, by granting peace 
 and the Roman franchise to those who were willing to 
 lay down their arms. On what terms the franchise was 
 given in these cases is not known ; but what these allies 
 received must have been more than the mere civitas sine 
 suffragio, for we afterwards hear of disputes as to the real 
 meaning of the franchise of these people. 
 
 Velleius Paterculus, who, whatever may be said against 
 him, is an ingenious writer and master of his subject, 
 says^° that in this war upwards of 300,000 Italians lost 
 their lives. The course of the war during the second 
 year can be traced even with less accuracy than during 
 the first. The northern Sabellians, the Marsians, Pelig- 
 nians, and Marrucinians had, like the Vestinians, con- 
 cluded a separate peace for themselves; and after their 
 abandonment of the cause of the Italians, the seat of the 
 Italian government was removed to Aesernia, and Italica 
 again received its old name, Corfinium. 
 
 The Samnites now formed the centre of the war, which 
 they carried on with the same perseverance as in former 
 times ; they would not hear of peace. The Romans, in 
 
 ' Appian, 1. c. 48 ; Veil. Patercul. u. 21. '° n. 15. 
 
390 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 their usual way, marched into Apulia and surrounded the 
 Samnites, who, at the close of the year 663, still main- 
 tained their ground ; but besides them only a part of the 
 Lucanians continued to be in arms, and these people 
 persevered only out of despair. They either reckoned 
 upon the movements of Mithridates in Asians or they 
 were determined to perish sword in hand. In the course 
 of the second year, the Umbrians and Etruscans also took 
 up arms, but soon became reconciled to the Romans. The 
 history, as I have related it here, is not contained in any 
 ancient author ; it can only be gathered from a careful 
 examination of the circumstances — a source of information 
 which is too much neglected. A Roman praetor con- 
 quered the Etruscans, and the Roman franchise was im- 
 mediately granted to them. The ambition of the noble 
 Romans had very dangerous rivals in the Marsians, who 
 did not differ from them more than, for example, the in- 
 habitants of lower from those of upper Germany. But 
 the Etruscans and Romans were quite distinct, and hence 
 it was less repugnant to the feelings of the proud Romans 
 to grant the rights of equality to the Etruscans, than to 
 the Marsians and others. 
 
 '^ Diodorus xxxvii. Eclog. i. p. 538, foil. 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 391 
 
 LECTURE XXXIV. 
 
 C. MARIUS AND L. CORNELIUS SULLA. — THE KINGDOM OF 
 
 PONTUS. MITHRIDATES VI. FIRST WAR AGAINST MITH- 
 
 RIDATES. — CIVIL WAR BETWEEN MARIUS AND SULLA. 
 
 VICTORY OF SULLA, AND HIS DEPARTURE FOR GREECE. 
 — THE TRIBES OF THE NEW CITIZENS. 
 
 Plutarch has raised the fame of Sulla to the highest 
 pitch. In the year 664 he was forty-nine years oldS 
 while Marius was upwards of seventy. Sulla and Marius 
 were men of two different generations, and this circum- 
 stance completed the mutual aversion which existed be- 
 tween them. While the former was a man of noble birth, 
 the latter was a soldier, who had risen by his talents 
 and by fortune. Sulla was intimately acquainted with 
 Greek literature ; he spoke and wrote Greek in a masterly 
 manner, and entertained the greatest partiality for Greek re- 
 finements and for Greeks of literary pursuits. In the war 
 against Jugurtha he had been the quaestor of Marius, and 
 had taken a prominent part in the transactions with king 
 Bocchus. He therefore looked upon the termination of 
 that war as his own work. Fortune accompanied him 
 everywhere, and it was especially this good fortune which 
 drew the attention of the people towards him. Marius 
 acquired great merits in the Italian war, but Sulla eclipsed 
 his fame, and it may be said that in that war he was the 
 only general who displayed brilliant qualities. Marius 
 was under the influence of the sad feeling which must 
 be particularly painful to an old man, that the rising sun 
 outshone him, and made him invisible. Sulla thus called 
 
 > Veil Patercul, ii. 17 
 
392 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 forth in Marius a spirit of opposition, and in others of envy. 
 "We know that Marius endeavoured to keep him down, 
 even at the time of the war against Jugurtha; and a man 
 hke Sulla must have owned to himself that he would 
 have done the same, if he had been in the place of Marius. 
 Thus the old man, by his wish to crush the younger one, 
 gave rise to the bitter feelings which afterwards vented 
 themselves in so fatal a manner. 
 
 Marius was insatiable in his ambition and his love of 
 power, and he was now anxious to obtain the command 
 in the war against Mithridates. As I have been led by 
 circumstances to mention this war, I will here relate its 
 origin. The cause of it was, as far as Mithridates was 
 concerned, the most just; whereas, the conduct of the 
 Romans was the most glaring injustice. The kings of 
 Pontus belonged to one of the seven great families of the 
 Persians, and had maintained their government over those 
 parts ever since the time of the kings of Persia. The 
 ancestors of Mithridates had been powerful, and in the 
 possession of Pontus, as early as the time of Antiochus 
 the Great ^. The nation consisted of Syrians, though they 
 must originally have been Armenians until the mighty 
 empire of Assyria sent its colonies into those quarters. 
 Hence the inhabitants of Pontus are called Syrians, or 
 Assyrians. The kingdoms of Pontus and Cappadocia 
 had been left untouched by Alexander of Macedonia ; and 
 the father of the present monarch, Mithridates V., had 
 afforded the Romans considerable assistance against Aris- 
 tonicus. The Romans had rewarded him, as they said, 
 with Great Phrygia; but, from a fragment of a speech 
 by C. Gracchus ^ we see that he bought it at Rome with 
 his own money. He left these dominions to his son, 
 Mithridates VI., who was yet under age, and the Romans 
 unceremoniously took Phrygia from him*. But the young 
 
 2 Appian, De Bello Mithrid. 8 and 9 ; Florus, iii. 5. 
 
 " In Gellius, xi. 10. 
 
 ■• Appian, De Bell. Mithrid. 13. 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 393 
 
 monarch, who shewed a great mind while he was growing 
 up, prepared himself quietly, and endeavoured to extend 
 his dominions, wherever he could do so without coming 
 in contact with the Romans. He subdued the country 
 about the Bosporus and the Crimea, so that in the end 
 his empire extended as far as the Ukraine and the river 
 Dniester. It might seem wonderful that the Romans 
 did not interfere to check his progress; but Mithridates 
 availed himself of the favourable time during which the 
 Romans were at war with their allies. But the fact of the 
 Romans being nevertheless fully aware of what was going 
 on, shews that nothing escaped their notice. The family 
 of the kings of Cappadocia had become extinct, and Mith- 
 ridates gave the throne to Ariarathes, his son or brother ; 
 but the Romans set up an opposing king against him. 
 Nicomedes, king of Bithynia, had been incited by the 
 Romans to attack Mithridates, but was defeated ; and 
 Mithridates set up Nicomedes' own brother against him. 
 The Romans now openly interfered, and spoke to the 
 Pontic king in a tone as if he had been the offender. 
 Nothing could be more unjust. They collected three 
 armies against him, in which there were scarcely any 
 Romans ^ but which were composed of the effeminate 
 inhabitants of Asia Minor : they were to act against the 
 well-disciplined troops of Mithridates, and the issue of 
 the undertaking accordingly was such as it deserved to 
 be. Two Roman armies were defeated, and the king met 
 with scarcely any resistance to his progress. The whole 
 continent of Asia Minor recognised Mithridates as their 
 sovereign, and Mitylene and Chios likewise submitted to 
 him. As he had received a Greek education, he had re- 
 jected the doctrines of the Magi, and the Greeks looked 
 upon him as a Greek, and placed all their hopes in him. 
 This induced him to advance even into Greece, and he 
 was everywhere received with joy. Athens allowed itself 
 to be persuaded by sophists to open its gates to him ; the 
 
 * Appian^ 1. c. 17. 
 
394 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 consequence of which was, that the sophists themselves 
 usurped the government^. Peloponnesus and Boeotia, 
 and in short nearly the whole of Greece, submitted to 
 Mithridates. The Lycians and Rhodians alone remained 
 faithful to Rome. The Rhodians foresaw the issue of 
 the war, and were actuated only by prudence, for they 
 could not possibly feel any attachment to Rome. Most 
 of the Greek towns in Lydia and Caria, which in reality 
 were not inhabited originally by Greeks, were pro- 
 voked by the Romans; and, being encouraged by Mithri- 
 dates, they put to death on one day all the Romans and 
 Italians within their several territories. Their number 
 is stated to have amounted to 80,000'*, which seems al- 
 most incredible, if we recollect that on the whole it was 
 only the wealthy that went to Asia. This act demanded 
 vengeance, and called forth the utmost exertions on the 
 part of the Romans. 
 
 The senate, in whose power it was to appoint a general 
 for conducting the war, gave the command to Sulla. 
 Marius, impelled by his irresistible desire to humble his 
 adversary, induced the tribune P. Sulpicius to make a 
 plebiscitum, by which the command was taken from Sulla 
 and given to Marius^. It needs hardly to be said, that 
 this act of Sulpicius was unjustifiable, and no one can 
 believe that he had any noble motives for it. But it is 
 nevertheless inconceivable to me that this Sulpicius, whom 
 Cicero loved so tenderly, should have deserved the severe 
 censure passed upon him by Appian and Plutarch. Ac- 
 cording to Cicero 9, he was a man of genius. It is true, 
 that a man ever so great may be placed in circumstances 
 in which he would act in the way that Sulpicius did; but 
 
 ® Appian, 1. c. 28 &c. ; Plutarch, Sulla, 13 ; Athenaeus, v. p. 211 
 foil. 
 
 ' Appian, 1. c. 22 and 23; Val. Maximus, ix. 2. Exter. 3; Veil. 
 Patercul. ii. 18 ; Cicero, pro Flacco, 24.; Florus, iii. 5. 
 
 * Plutarch, Sulla, 8 ; Marius, 35 ; Appian, De Bell. Civil, i. 55. 
 foil. ^ Brutus, 55, and several other passages. 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 395 
 
 I cannot believe that Cicero would have spoken so favour- 
 ably of him had he seen his actions in the light in which 
 they appeared to Greek writers. We must also remem- 
 ber that the Memoirs of Sulla were almost the only 
 source from which those Greek writers derived their in- 
 formation; and that Sulla should speak of him in a 
 derogatory manner cannot be surprising. Sulla was ex- 
 asperated in the highest degree at this injustice ; and his 
 rising against it is a circumstance which, however formid- 
 able its consequences were, must not be censured too 
 severely, if we consider the spirit of the times. He had 
 wished, before setting out for the war against Mithridates, 
 to put an end to the war with the Samnites, an army of 
 whom was still assembled in the neighbourhood of Nola. 
 Here he was informed of the measure of Sulpicius. He 
 immediately took six legions, and marched with them 
 against Rome. His adversaries were surprised at this 
 step, which they had not anticipated, and closed the gates 
 of the city against him. But the gates were in a state of 
 decay, and houses had been built close up to them, as 
 in the old towns of our own country ; the walls were also, 
 in some parts, so much decayed that it was easy to step 
 over them. In the Hannibalian war, it had still been 
 possible to defend Rome ; but now, after an interval of 
 more than a century, when fortifications had ceased to 
 be thought necessary, a great part of the city lay open, 
 and the rest could not be defended. Sulla thus entered 
 the city without any difficulty, and marched down the 
 Via Sacra to the forum. He used his victory with mode- 
 ration. Marius with his son, Sulpicius, and nine others 
 of his followers fled, and were outlawed, but Sulpicius 
 was overtaken and killed. Marius fled to Ostia, and 
 thence along the sea- coast, in the greatest danger of 
 being delivered up to his enemy. At length, he was found 
 in the marshes in the neighbourhood of Minturnae, and 
 thrown into prison. The inhabitants of Minturnae, not 
 venturing to put him to death, sent a public slave to kill 
 
39(3 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 him. But the barbarian was daunted by the sight of the 
 aged warrior, and was unable to fulfil the command of the 
 magistrates. As fortune thus seemed to declare in his 
 favour, he was put on board a vessel and transported 
 to Africa, where, for a time, he lived quietly, watching 
 the course of events. 
 
 Sulla used his victory with such moderation that he con- 
 tented himself with making some peaceful regulations, the 
 particulars of which are not known. He was so little ty- 
 rannical that he even allowed the election of the consuls for 
 the year to take place without any interference on his part. 
 The men who obtained the consulship belonged to different 
 parties: Cn. Octavius to that of Sulla, and L. Cornelius 
 Cinna to that of Marius. It is rather strange to find 
 that Cinna and L. Valerius Flaccus, although descend- 
 ed of noble patrician families, were now at the head of 
 the demagogues. Towards the end of the year, when 
 Sulla thought that he had made all the necessary ar- 
 rangements, he went over to Greece, and there carried 
 on the war against Archelaus, about whom I shall say 
 more hereafter. The senate gave to Q. Pompeius Rufus, 
 the colleague of Sulla in the consulship, Italy as his 
 province for the year following, that he might counter- 
 act Cinna and support Cn, Octavius. Cn. Pompeius 
 Strabo, the father of Pompey the Great, commanded at 
 this time his array on the coast of the Adriatic and in 
 Apulia. This man possessed more malice and artful- 
 ness than we can conceive: he cared about no party, 
 and only calculated how in the end he might gain the 
 greatest power from the general confusion. The senate 
 ordered him to resign the command of his army to Q. 
 Pompeius ; but in secret Pompeius Strabo incited his 
 troops against Quintus, and while the latter was admi- 
 nistering to them their military oath, he was mui'dered 
 by them'°. Cn. Pompeius assumed the appearance of 
 
 '0 Appian, De Bell. Civil, i. 63 ; V^ell. Patercul. ii. 20. 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 397 
 
 intending to institute an investigation of the matter, but 
 he soon forgot it. He was now at the head of the army 
 in Italy. Sulla had led his into Greece, and the Sam- 
 nites had thus again obtained breathing time. But this 
 state of tranquillity did not last long, for early in the year 
 following the rupture between Cinna and Cn. Octavius 
 became complete. The Romans had adopted the system 
 of forming new tribes to contain the Latins, for if they 
 had distributed them among the existing tribes, the Latins 
 would, on all occasions, have far outvoted the Romans, 
 and the old citizens would have sunk into insignificance'*. 
 To prevent the old citizens being completely overruled 
 by the new ones, it was necessary to follow the same 
 plan which had been adopted in earlier times with regard 
 to the Volscians and others. Respecting the number of the 
 new tribes which were added to the thirty-five old ones, 
 we have two different accounts, the one in Velleius Pa- 
 terculus, and the other in Appian. The former states 
 their number to have been eight; but in Appian we 
 read Sexarsuovrsj u'7re<py]voiv sTsgag (they formed ten new 
 tribes). The word SsjcareuovTej in this passage is an ab- 
 surdity, and I believe that we must read Slxa -srevrs oc7r£(prj- 
 vav ETsgctg. What induces me to make this conjecture, 
 is a feeling of symmetry. If fifteen new tribes were 
 added, the total number was fifty, against which number 
 nothing can be said, whereas forty-five would have been 
 a very awkward one. Moreover the number 15 bears 
 the same proportion to 35, that 3 bears to 7 ; thus the 
 number of the fifteen new tribes is a little less than 
 half the number of the old ones. The different statement 
 of Velleius presents, in my opinion, no difficulties; and I 
 account for it by the supposition, that at first the Latins 
 were formed into eight new tribes, to which afterwards 
 seven others were added, which were formed of Etrus- 
 cans and Umbrians. The custom at Rome henceforth 
 
 •' Appian, De Bell. Civil, i. 49 ; Veil. Patercul. ii. 20. 
 
398 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 was, that the fifteen new tribes did not give their votes 
 until the old ones had given theirs. P. Sulpicius had 
 promised the new citizens that they should be distri- 
 buted among the old tribes^", which was a manifest in- 
 justice towards the old ones. Most of the Romani rus- 
 tici lived at a great distance from the city, and it was an 
 important advantage to those who lived in the city to 
 be inscribed in the rustic tribes. 
 
 ^' Livy, Epit. lib. 77 : Appian, 1. c. i. 55. 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 399 
 
 LECTURE XXXV. 
 
 CINNA AND CN. OCTAVIUS. — STRUGGLE BETWEEN THE PAR- 
 TIES OF MARIUS AND SULLA. Q. SERTORIUS. ROME 
 
 BESIEGED AND TAKEN BY THE MARIAN PARTY. 
 
 bulla's EXPLOITS IN ACHAIA AND ASIA. 
 
 CiNNA came openly forward as the head of the party 
 of Marius. Cn. Pompeius Strabo had displayed a very 
 equivocal conduct, in remaining quite passive after the 
 murder of Q. Pompeius Rufus. The divisions among 
 the Italians were almost as great as those among the 
 parties at Rome. The party of Cinna consisted of the 
 old Latin towns from Tibur to Capua, comprising Tibur, 
 Praeneste, the towns of the Hernicans, and several places 
 between the Liris and Vulturnus. He demanded that the 
 tribes formed out of these places should be dissolved, and 
 be distributed among the thirty-five old ones^. I cannot 
 conceive why Sulla did not adopt this very same measure, 
 as it was the only method of forming a strong and power- 
 ful aristocracy. Multitudes of the new citizens now flocked 
 to Rome, in order to carry Cinna's measure by their supe- 
 riority in numbers. Cinna's colleague declared against it, 
 and a fierce contest arose within the city, in which Cinna 
 was defeated. The number of new citizens who are said 
 to have been killed in this struggle is exaggerated, and 
 cannot be believed. The senate now committed an il- 
 legal act in declaring, by a senatusconsultum, the con- 
 sular dignity of Cinna to be forfeited. Such a power 
 might in former times have been exercised by the curies 
 and centuries, but never by the senate alone. 
 
 ' Appian, De Bell. Civil, i. 64 ; VelLPatercul. ii. 20. 
 
400 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 7^he war against the Samnites was still carried on in 
 the neighbourhood of Nola, where an army of the Samnites 
 must have been stationed. Thither Cinna now repaired. 
 The soldiers, who had learned from Sulla that they held 
 the fate of the republic in their hands, supported him, and 
 requested him to reassume the ensigns of the consular 
 dignity, and to lead them against Rome to humble the 
 pride of the rulers. This he did ; and in order to raise his 
 authority he recalled the aged Marius and the other exiles. 
 They sailed from Libya to the coast of Etruria, where they 
 were joined by Etruscan cohorts. Marius was not at all 
 delicate in collecting troops, and even restored slaves to 
 freedom on condition of their taking up arms for him. 
 Q, Sertorius had another army. This man had joined 
 the party of Marius, chiefly on account of his aversion 
 to the rulers, and had no share whatever in the tyran- 
 nical feelings of the demagogues. He is one of the best 
 Romans of those times : he was noble-minded, humane, 
 free from the narrow prejudices of his countrymen, and 
 endowed with all the qualities requisite to make a great 
 general. He was in that position in which, at the outbreak 
 of a revolution, excellent men so often find themselves: 
 they are not aware of what will take place, and in their 
 mnocence they allow themselves to be led away. After- 
 wards they cannot get out of the connexions into which 
 circumstances have thrown them, and thus they share the 
 disgrace and crimes with those by whom they are sur- 
 rounded. Sertorius was innocent, although he had been 
 an eye-witness of the horrors which had taken place at 
 Rome. We often cannot avoid pronouncing unjust opini- 
 ons upon men, if we judge of them merely from the obser- 
 vation that they are connected with such or such persons. 
 Cinna advanced with a third army from Campania, on the 
 same road which Sulla had taken when he marched against 
 Rome. Carbo, an accomplice of Cinna, joined his army. 
 Marius advanced against Rome from Etruria. The senate 
 had called upon Cn. Pompeius Strabo for assistance, and 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 401 
 
 he had accordingly given up the war on the Adriatic, and 
 proceeded to Rome. Cn. Octavius was encamped on the 
 Janiculus, and Cn. Pompeius at the ColHne gate. The 
 conduct of the latter was for a time so suspicious that the 
 senate began to fear treason 2. Bat at last he commenced 
 an engagement with Cinna, which is much exaggerated in 
 some accounts ^ and which seems in reality to have been 
 only an insignificant skirmish. Its issue, however, was ad- 
 vantageous to the rebels. After this a pestilence began to 
 rage in both armies, by which many thousands were carried 
 off. Cn. Pompeius Strabo fell, according to some accounts, 
 a victim to it ; but according to others, he was killed by a 
 flash of lightning*. The people, rejoiced at his death, 
 gave vent to their exasperation against him, and tore his 
 body from the bier, for he had been the object of general 
 hatred of all parties. One army was encamped near Albano, 
 at the foot of Monte Cavo, and was opposed to one of the 
 rebels. Latium, which, after suffering dreadful devasta- 
 tions, had been in the enjoyment of peace for some cen- 
 turies, now received its death-blow; and the condition 
 in which we find it under Augustus must be traced to 
 the effects of this war. Ostia, Antium, Aricia, Lanuvium, 
 and other places, were taken by storm and laid waste. 
 Four camps enclosed the city; and though they were not 
 strong enough to take it by storm, still the effect which 
 they produced in the city was a complete famine. Negotia- 
 tions were at last resorted to, and the deputies of the senate 
 were obliged to comply with all the demands that were 
 made. Cinna was recognised in his dignity of consul, and 
 Marius stood by the side of the curule chair with contemp- 
 tuous smiles ^ It was stipulated that no blood should be 
 shed; but Cinna made a very equivocal promise, and no 
 
 * Veil. Patercul. 11. 21 ; Livy, Epit. lib. 79 ; Appian, De Bello 
 Civil. I. 67. 
 
 3 Veil. Patercul. 1. c. 
 
 * Compare Livy, Epit. lib. 79 ; Appian, 1. c. i. 68. 
 ' Appian, 1, c. i. 70. 
 
 2 D 
 
402 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 sooner had the rebels entered the city than Cn. Octavius 
 was slain ; and the flamen dialis, L. Merula, bled himself 
 to death in the vestibule of the Capitoline temple, in order 
 to escape a similar fate. Marius caused himself to be 
 made consul for the seventh, and Cinna for the second 
 time, without any elections. This was the point after 
 which Marius had always been striving, in order to realize 
 a prophecy which had been made to him, in consequence 
 of an eagle's nest, with seven young ones, having fallen 
 into his lap from an oak tree, when he was yet a child. 
 He had often consoled his friends with his prospect of seven 
 consulships when they began to despair of his fortune, for 
 he was extremely superstitious'^. 
 
 The victory which the rebels had thus gained was fol- 
 lowed by the wildest cruelties. Marius had a body-guard 
 of slaves, whom he sent out to murder those whom he 
 wished to get rid of. In this manner the most distin- 
 guished persons were despatched, especially his personal 
 enemies. Among these unhappy victims was the cele- 
 brated orator M. Antonius. Q. Catulus who had once 
 been the colleague of Marius, put an end to his own 
 life. No proscription took place, but the butchery was 
 carried on to such an extent that at length even 
 Cinna himself could bear it no longer ; and he was in- 
 duced, by the advice of Sertorius, to put to death the 
 band of servile assassins kept by Marius. On the six- 
 teenth day after Marius had entered on his seventh con- 
 sulship, he died, in the middle of January. The shed- 
 ding of blood now ceased, but not the bitter spirit of the 
 parties'^. 
 
 At the time when Cinna approached the city, the 
 senate had given Q. Metellus full power to conclude 
 peace with the Samnites on whatever terms he might 
 
 ^ It is not improbable tliat his Syrian prophetess, Martha, may 
 have suggested to him the number seven, which was a sacred number 
 among the Jews and Phoenicians, as three was among the Romans. — N. 
 
 '' Appian, 1. c. 75 ; Veil. Patercul. ii. 23; Plutarch, Marius, 45. 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 403 
 
 think proper^. The Samnites abused the favourable mo- 
 ment, and demanded the Roman franchise, not only for 
 themselves, but also for their allies ; and that all their 
 captives and deserters should be given up to them, whereas 
 the Romans were not to have theirs restored to them. 
 Metellus concluded the peace on these conditions, and 
 the Samnites became Roman citizens. The new tribes 
 of the Italians were now broken up, and the new citi- 
 zens were distributed among the old tribes ; but we do 
 not know whether this was the case with all of them. In 
 whatever manner, however, it may have been done, it gave 
 the new citizens a dangerous numerical preponderance. 
 At the time of Cicero, it would seem as if all the Italians 
 collectively had formed only one tribe ; and if so, it was, 
 in my opinion, one of the changes introduced by Sulla, in 
 order to render their numerical preponderance harmless. 
 
 The death of C. Marius was followed by a period of 
 three years, during which Sulla was conducting the war 
 in Achaia and Asia, and Italy was completely in the hands 
 of the party of Cinna. But the latter soon found that 
 he had reason to mistrust his own followers : the plunder 
 of his soldiers had made them so averse to him that he 
 found it necessary to demand hostages, which however were 
 refused. His colleague, L. Valerius Flaccus, the succes- 
 sor of C. Marius, was commissioned to undertake the 
 war against Sulla, but was murdered in Asia by C. Fla- 
 vins Fimbria. In his fourth consulship, Cinna was at 
 Ariminum, forming a numerous army to attack Sulla in 
 Greece — a very sensible plan. But the soldiers refused 
 to embark, and slew Cinna in his camp. Cn. Papirius 
 Carbo, whom Cinna had chosen for his colleague after 
 the death of L. Valerius Flaccus, now remained consul 
 alone for a whole year. These men retained indeed the 
 name of consuls, but they were in fact true tyrants. 
 
 In the year 665 Sulla had gone over to Thessaly. 
 
 ^ Appian, 1. c. i. 68, who however gives a somewhat different ac- 
 count. 
 
 2 D 2 
 
404 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 Archelaus and Taxiles were at the time the generals of 
 Mithridates, and in possession of Peloponnesus and south- 
 ern Greece, as far as Thermopylae. Sulla gained the 
 battle of Chaeronea against an innumerable host of bar- 
 barians — whom he himself probably did not call barba- 
 rians, in order to raise his military glory — who were as 
 cowardly as the Persians or the Indian chiefs. They 
 had the phalanx, and were armed as Macedonians, but a 
 Scipio or a Hannibal would have said of them that, not- 
 withstanding all this, they were like fish prepared by a 
 clever cook, in various ways and under various names, but 
 were after all nothing but fish. Sulla himself lost only 
 a few of his soldiers y. Archelaus defended himself in 
 Piraeeus. The long walls connecting the city of Athens 
 with the port-town, may have been destroyed by Deme- 
 trius Poliorcetes ; but Piraeeus, as well as the city, was 
 still pi'otected by the strong walls which had been restor- 
 ed by Conon '°. Piraeeus was occupied by a Pontic garri- 
 rison, and the city was defended by the tyrant Aristion, 
 to whom Archelaus had entrusted it. Archelaus also did 
 all he could to introduce provisions from Piraeeus into 
 the city, but with no success; for Sulla was watchful, 
 and superior in every respect. The distress in the city 
 rose to such a degree that the inhabitants were at last 
 completely exhausted. The city was taken by storm, and 
 the massacre which followed was enormous ; as if the 
 conqueror had acted under the influence of an implac- 
 able hatred of Athens,^' for which there was no reason. 
 Few of the buildings of the city were destroyed ; but 
 when Piraeeus was taken soon after, the walls of this 
 place were pulled down, and the magnificent arsenal was 
 burnt to ashes : in short, Piraeeus was completely de- 
 stroyed, so that from this time it resembled the decayed 
 
 8 Plutarch, Sulla, 19 foil. ; Appian, De Bell. Mitlirid. 42, foil. 
 '" Appian, 1. c. 30. 
 
 " Appian, 1. c. 38 : Plutarch, Sulla, 13, foil. ; Veil. Patercul. 
 II. 23. 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 405 
 
 towns in the north of Holland, where grass grows in the 
 streets. In the time of Pausanias it was only a small 
 village near the port. Athens itself was almost depo- 
 pulated. The Pontic commander was driven back into 
 Asia. 
 
 I mentioned above that before this time L. Valerius 
 had led an army to Asia, but that he was murdered by 
 his legate C. Fimbria, who assumed the command of the 
 army and destroyed Ilium ^-. Sulla concluded a peace 
 with the king of Pontus, on conditions which appear 
 scarcely credible ^^: the king gave up Bithynia, Paphla- 
 gonia, and Cappadocia, and withdrew to his former domi- 
 nions ; he paid a contribution of war of 2000 talents, and 
 surrendered seventy ships of war. It was impossible to 
 make more moderate terms, and Sulla did not even de- 
 mand the surrender of the king's advisers. 
 
 Sulla now began to press C. Fimbria with all his 
 energy, and the latter, who saw himself deprived of every 
 hope of success, put an end to his life. His soldiers 
 went over to Sulla, who however mistrusted them, as 
 men who had been corrupted by the contagion of their 
 general. They were Italians, and had been regularly 
 trained against Sulla in the time of Marius'*. It had 
 been the wish of Cinna that C. Fimbria should conclude 
 peace with Mithridates, and enter into an alliance with 
 him. But this plan had not been realized. Sulla settled 
 the affairs of Asia, and punished the Greeks, Lydians, 
 and Carians, in whose dominions the Romans had been 
 murdered before the outbreak of the war. They were 
 compelled to pay down at once five years* tribute, and in 
 
 '^ Appian, 1. c. 53. 
 
 '3 Appian, 1. c. 55, foil. ; Plutarch, Sulla, 22. 
 
 '* These soldiers remained in Asia for many years, and were 
 known under the name of the Valeriani down to the time of Lu- 
 cuUus and Pompey. After the battle of Cannae, such a corps 
 of soldiers had been sent out to Sicily. — N. — (Sallust, ap. Non. 
 XVIII. 7.) 
 
406 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 addition to it so heavy a war contribution that those beauti- 
 ful countries were ruined for a long time. The first gene- 
 ration after these events was so completely borne down that 
 recovery was impossible; but still they gradually gained 
 new strength, and in the time of the Roman emperors we 
 find them in the most flourishing condition ^^. Nearly five 
 millions of our money were raised there within a very short 
 time. We have seen similar things under Napoleon, who 
 did not trouble himself much about their practicability. 
 The Roman equites, who formed the retinue of the general, 
 advanced the money for the towns on interest at the rate of 
 24, or 36, or even 48 per cent., and afterwards raised their 
 capital together with the interest on it, with the aid of Ro- 
 man soldiers. This was a horrible tyranny, but Sulla want- 
 ed money to carry on the war. During all this time he had 
 shewn an extraordinary greatness of character. His house 
 at Rome had been pulled down, his property had been wast- 
 ed, his friends put to death, his family driven into exile, and 
 all of them begged and entreated him to come back and take 
 vengeance upon his enemies. But he was resolved to bring 
 the war in Asia to a close before returning. If he had 
 not been a great man, he might have concluded a peace with 
 Mithridates at an earlier period, and the king would have 
 been glad of it. But Sulla acted differently, and wished 
 to fulfil his duties towards the republic, before he thought of 
 occupying himself with his private aff'airs^''. And this was 
 indeed the wisest course, for he was now in a condition to 
 
 '* Caria, Lydia, and Ionia, form a true earthly paradise. These 
 countries, after having suffered the §^eatest ravages, and even under 
 a bad government — unless it be like that of the Turks — such as 
 that of tlie Byzantines or Persians, may be restored to the highest 
 degree of prosperity in the course of a few generations. If they 
 were without any population and were colonized by Europeans, 
 they would, within fifty years, be in a very flourishing condition. 
 This is the unanimous opinion of all travellers, to whatever 
 nation they belong : all declare that they do not know a finer 
 country in the world. — N. 
 
 '^ Appian, I.e. 51 ; Veil. Patercul. ii. 24. 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 407 
 
 return with a victorious army which was attached to hiin, 
 and with large sums of money at his disposal. But the 
 undertaking on which he now entered, was nevertheless 
 one of extreme boldness ; for he had no more than 30,000 
 men, while his enemies had at their command an army of 
 450 cohorts, that is 189,000 men, including such brave sol- 
 diers as the Samnites^^ From the time of Marius military 
 forces are always counted by cohorts or small batallions, 
 each containing 420 men. Sulla's troops had to fight 
 against these hosts for their existence, and he attacked 
 them boldly, with confidence in his good fortune and his 
 own strength. 
 
 ''' Veil. Patercul. ii. 24, who states the number of his enemies 
 to have been 200,000. Comp. Appian, De Bell. Civil, i. 79 
 
408 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 LECTURE XXXVI. 
 
 SULLA's return to ITALY. THE CONSULSHIP OF C. 
 
 MARIUS THE YOUNGER, AND CN. PAPIRIUS CARBO. 
 
 BLOCKADE OF PRAENESTE. SULLA AT ROME, AND 
 
 HIS VICTORY AT THE COLLINE GATE. HIS PROSCRIP- 
 TION AND HIS MILITARY COLONIES. HIS REFORMS 
 
 OF THE CONSTITUTION, &C. — ABDICATION AND DEATH. 
 
 The consuls of the year, in which Sulla led his army 
 back to Italy, were L. Cornelius Seipio and C. Julius 
 Norbanus, who, like the rest of the few surviving patri- 
 cians, were disposed to favour the democratical party. 
 If superiority in numbers had decided the issue, or if 
 one of the consuls had been invested with dictatorial 
 power, and had known what use to m.ake of it, Sulla 
 could not possibly have met with success. But the re- 
 public was in a state of dissolution, and its leaders were 
 no better than the Directoire in 1799, when the disgust 
 with the government was so general in France, and the 
 government itself was in such a state of decay, that the 
 whole fabric would have broken down, if Napoleon had 
 not returned from Egypt. Rebellions are multiplied under 
 such circumstances, as the people cannot help expecting 
 more from a change than from a continuation of the actual 
 state of things. At the time of Sulla's return even the 
 majority of the new citizens were disgusted with the rulers, 
 who, had they been able to rely on the new citizens, might 
 have thwarted all the attempts of Sulla. But the cohorts 
 consisting of new citizens went over to him, and concluded 
 a treaty with him, in which he confirmed their newly- 
 acquired privileges — an occurrence resembling those which 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 409 
 
 had taken place in earlier times between patricians and 
 plebeians. 
 
 Sulla landed at Brundusium, and if the account be 
 true, he had an engagement with Norbanus near Canu- 
 sium^; but however this may be, we know that he found 
 his enemies encamped near Capua at the foot of mount 
 Tifata, where Norbanus was defeated, and many of his 
 soldiers deserted to Sulla. The latter had commenced 
 negotiations while yet in Greece, and he now did the same 
 with the consul Scipio. A truce was concluded, and hos- 
 tages exchanged. But the negotiations, which were pro- 
 tracted by Sulla with a view to seduce the troops of the 
 consul, were interrupted, perhaps intentionally, by Q. Ser- 
 torius, who saw that the soldiers were gradually deserting 
 their consul. The truce was broken when Sertorius occu- 
 pied Suessa. The desertion among Scipio's troops be- 
 came so general that at length he found himself com- 
 pletely left alone. Towards the end of the year, when 
 Sulla had gained such advantages, and was extending his 
 power in southern Italy, many of his supporters took up 
 arms in various parts of Italy. Among these were Metel- 
 lus Pius in the modern Romagna, and Cn. Pompey, then 
 twenty-three years of age, in Picenum, where he had great 
 influence, for that country which had been subdued by 
 his father stood in a sort of clientship to him. M. Lu- 
 cullus and several others likewise took up arras for Sulla. 
 Their party, and the forces with which they carried on the 
 war, consisted of new citizens, with the exception of the 
 army of Metellus. 
 
 The beginning of the year following, the second of the 
 war, is marked by the most bloody and decisive occurrences. 
 C. Marius the younger, then twenty-six years old, was 
 consul, with Cn. Papirius Carbo. The latter had the com- 
 mand in the northern districts in the neighbourhood of 
 Ariminum, against Metellus, Pompey, and Lucullus ; 
 young Marius was stationed on the frontiers of Latium. 
 
 » Appian, De. Bell. Civil, i. 84. 
 
410 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 Sulla seems to have passed the winter in Campania. Here 
 a decisive battle was fought near Sacriportus (it was not a 
 town), where Marius had concentrated his forces to pro- 
 tect Rome against Sulla. Marius was defeated, and a part 
 of his troops deserted to the enemy, whose loss was very 
 slight. These districts and Etruria were the real seats of 
 the party of Cinna, and both countries were passionately 
 interested in the cause. The rest of Italy, with the ex- 
 ception of Samnium and Lucania, was foreign to this party, 
 or at least indifferent towards it. After the defeat of Sa- 
 criportus, Marius fled to Praeneste, which was at that time 
 a very large town". Sulla followed him, and blockaded the 
 place; but he soon after led his army towards Rome, and 
 left behind him Q. Lucretius Ofella to continue the block- 
 ade of Praeneste, whose inhabitants v/ere, for the most 
 part, old Roman citizens. While Rome was yet in the 
 hands of the party of Marius, the praetor, L. Junius Brutus 
 Damasippus, caused a great massacre among the opposite 
 party, in which the pontiff, Q. Mucius Scaevola was mur- 
 dered, because he relied on his innocence and disdained 
 to flee^. The perpetrators of these horrors now escaped, 
 and Sulla entered the city: he promised moderation, but 
 his indulgence was meant in an awful sense. He then 
 followed Carbo into Etruria, which was now the scene of 
 the war — so far as Etruria was concerned, a real national 
 war. Carbo was at Clusium. The history of this war is 
 wrapped in deep darkness, and very perplexing. Carbo, 
 who had still a considerable army, made two attempts to 
 relieve Praeneste, but he failed in both. In the meantime 
 he made some other undertakings; but one against Pice- 
 num, which was conducted by Carinas, likewise failed, and 
 his troops deserted to the enemy. The war was brought 
 to a decision by Pontius Telesinus, whose brother com- 
 
 ^ The modern town of Palestrina, which contains about 6000 
 inhabitants, occupies only a part of the ancient citadel, that is, the 
 space of the ancient temple of Fortune and its precincts. — N. 
 
 ^ Appian, De Bell. Civil, i. 88 ; Veil. Patercul. ii. 26. 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 411 
 
 manded the Samnites in Picenum. He and the Lucanian 
 general, C. Lamponius, made an attempt to relieve Prae- 
 neste ; but not being able to effect any thing against the 
 line of fortifications by which the place was surrounded, 
 they hastened towards Rome, which they hoped to take by 
 surprise. But Sulla, who was informed of their movement, 
 threw himself into the city. The decisive battle was 
 fought at the Colline gate. The Samnites and their allies 
 are said to have amounted to 40,000 men*. Had they 
 succeeded, Rome, according to the expressed intentions 
 of Pontius Telesinus, would have been razed to the ground. 
 The fear excited by the presence of such an enemy at the 
 very gates of the city must have made many of the par- 
 tizans of Marius inclined to become reconciled with Sulla. 
 Towards the evening of the day of battle, Sulla succeeded 
 in breaking the lines of the Samnites ; and their defeat was 
 so great that Telesinus, in despair, put an end to his life. 
 After this loss Marius, and the brother of Telesinus too, 
 began to despond : they endeavoured to escape by subter- 
 raneoi7s passages which led through the rocks into the 
 fields, but finding that their flight was discovered, they 
 killed each other mutually^. Marius the younger cannot 
 claim to be called a man of any extraordinary greatness : 
 he had all the faults of his father ; but of his father's great 
 qualities we cannot discover any but his perseverance; and 
 this cannot excite our admiration, as it was commanded by 
 necessity. Carbo also despaired, and fled to Africa. Thus 
 ended this civil war. Italy was now cleared of all hostile 
 armies ; and only a few isolated towns, of which I shall 
 speak presently, continued to offer resistance. 
 
 In the battle of the Colline gate, 8000 Samnites had 
 been taken prisoners, all of whom were surrounded and 
 cut down in the field of Mars by the command of Sulla^. 
 After the death of Marius, Praeneste surrendered at dis- 
 
 * Veil. Patercul. ii. 27. 
 
 * Veil. Patercul. 1. c. ; Apj)ian, De Bell. Civil, i. 9J.. 
 
 * Appian, 1. c. i. 93. Compare Plutai-ch, Sulla, 29. 
 
412 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 cretion to Lucretius Ofella : it received no capitulation ; 
 Sulla divided all its inhabitants into three great masses — 
 the old Roman citizens, the Praenestines, and Samnites ; 
 and, sparing the lives of the first, he put all the rest to the 
 sword. The towns of Etruria surrendered one by one, and 
 the inhabitants of most of them experienced the same fate 
 as the Praenestines. Praeneste itself, however, was not 
 destroyed, while most of the Etruscan towns, such as Clu- 
 sium, Arretium, Populonia, Volaterrae, which had defended 
 itself for two years, and Faesulae, were razed to the ground. 
 The last of these places may have been restored after- 
 wards. At Rome, Sulla acted with absolute tyranny, and 
 set the first example of a proscription, that is, he made 
 out a list of those whom any one was at liberty to kill, 
 and for whose heads prizes were offered ; and it is said 
 that, in this manner, no less than 1600 equites lost their 
 lives'^. Whether the names of all of them were in the 
 proscription list may be doubted. Twenty-three, or, 
 according to other but incorrect accounts, forty-seven 
 legions, had military colonies assigned to them in Italy ^. 
 In former times, no such colonies had been founded : the 
 first colonies were simple settlements, serving as garrisons, 
 to which a third of the territory of the town they occupied 
 was assigned, and one member of each gens went out as 
 colonus^. As each colonist did not receive more than two 
 jugers of land, they must have had some other advan- 
 tages besides ^°; we know that they bore arms, which 
 the old citizens of those towns did not. At a later period, 
 we find the Latin colonies, in which Romans and Latins 
 had equal shares ; but both kinds of colonies must be 
 considered as garrisons to protect the frontiers, and we 
 may take it for granted that in most cases the colonists 
 were soldiers, who had fought in the legions. But there 
 
 ' Appian, 1. c. i. 95. * Appian, 1. c. 100 ; Livy^ Epit. lib. 89. 
 
 ^ Compare vol. ii. p. 45. 
 
 "• Compare vol. ii. p. 47 foil.; vol. iii. p. 176. 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 418 
 
 existed no relation between colonization and military serv- 
 ice, and the former was by no means a reward for the 
 latter. Bononia is the only colony in which we discern 
 some analogy with such a system, in so far as that the 
 allotments given to the equites differed from those of the 
 other colonists, the former receiving seventy, and the latter 
 fifty jugersi^ But the colonies of Sulla were real mili- 
 tary colonies, the meaning of which is this : a certain 
 legion, when dismissed from service, was constituted as 
 the body of citizens of a certain town, the whole territory 
 of which was given up to the legionaries. If its extent did 
 not come up to what the imperator had promised, pieces 
 were cut away from neighbouring districts, and added to 
 the colony. We do not know all the places which were 
 thus colonized ; that Florence and Fiesole were made mili- 
 tary colonies is certain ; but, in regard to other places, 
 it cannot be proved satisfactorily. New Arretium was 
 built by Sulla. It was these colonies which formed the 
 firm basis of his power. The nation of the Samnites 
 had been so far reduced by Sulla that nearly the whole 
 country of the Hirpini was changed into a wilderness. 
 Wherever he did not establish colonies, he gave the land, 
 which in former times would have become ager publicus, 
 to his favourites. 
 
 He now began to change the laws, and to constitute 
 the senate. It had been expected that, according to the 
 principles of the party for which he had declared himself, 
 he would complete the senate out of the old nobility, 
 but such was not the case : with a curious inconsistency, 
 which shews how much even he, with all his absolutism, 
 was under the influence of circumstances, he filled up the 
 vacancies in the senate not only with equites, but even 
 with centurions of quite vulgar descent, who, however, 
 were ready to do anything that he might wish^". So he 
 forgot the device of his party. 
 
 The Cornelian laws, when looked into attentively, are 
 " Livy, XXXVII. 57. '^ Compare vol. in. p. 301 foil. 
 
414 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 a highly remarkable instance of the conduct of a short- 
 sighted and obstinate man, who imagines that he can re- 
 store by-gone times by restoring the ancient forms, and 
 that nations can be made to assume any shape or form, like 
 inanimate matter. The number of patricians was so much 
 reduced that, for the last four or five years, both the con- 
 suls had been plebeians ; but from henceforth, and so long 
 as Sulla lived, the consulship was regularly divided between 
 a patrician and a plebeian, — further he could not have gone 
 without driving the people to madness — a change which in 
 those times was perfectly childish, although many others 
 besides Sulla himself may have looked upon it as a very sa- 
 lutary measure. He might have done many other things, 
 which would have been far more profitable. He reduced 
 the tribunician power to what it had been previous to the 
 Publilian law, and thus undid the work of centuries. The 
 tribunes accordingly were deprived of the power of pro- 
 posing laws, which became now the exclusive privilege 
 of the consuls and the senate. I almost wonder that he 
 did not try to restore the curies ; but he may have been 
 prevented by the circumstance, that the curies had be- 
 come something quite different, and were altogether ple- 
 beian. This also accounts for the fact that Dionysius 
 saw in them something quite different from what they 
 had been originally. Sulla neglected everything that he 
 ought to have done, and did everything that was foolish. 
 His depriving the tribunes of their power was a measure, 
 however revolting it may be, for which much might be 
 said. There are things which are necessary and salutary, 
 but which cannot be done without the greatest caution, be- 
 cause they run counter to the common prejudices. As 
 Sulla remembered that the tribunes had originally been 
 only a protecting magistracy, and that they had not been 
 allowed to hold any of the curule magistracies, which 
 were reserved for the patricians, he again went back and 
 ordered that no tribune, after the year of his office, should 
 be admitted to any office leading into the senate. In 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 415 
 
 order to secure his own person, he deprived the children 
 of those who had been proscribed of the right of holding 
 any office whatsoever ^^. This shameful law remained in 
 force, until it was abohshed by Julius Caesar. Sulla's 
 greatest change, however, was that by which he restored 
 the judicia to the senate^'*. The senators ought now 
 to have endeavoured to exercise their judicial power as 
 impartially as possible ; but very far from it ! — justice had 
 never been so venal as it was now ; and the system of 
 bribery was carried on in so intolerable and detestable a 
 manner, that the senators themselves appeared to be pur- 
 posely undermining their own power ; and, had it not been 
 for the military colonies of Sulla, severe punishment would 
 have been the well-deserved fruit of their proceedings. 
 
 Sulla also increased the numbers of magistrates and 
 pontiffs. In early times there were only four pontiffs 
 and the pontifex maximus, all of whom were taken from 
 the two most ancient tribes. The number of augurs was 
 likewise four in those times, and when subsequently the 
 plebeians were admitted to a share in these dignities, each 
 of these two colleges consisted of nine members, so that 
 each of the three old tribes v/as represented in each col- 
 lege by three members ^s. At that time it was the inten- 
 tion to divide the priestly dignity equally between the two 
 orders ; when this ceased to be observed is uncertain, 
 but it was probably before the Doraitian law. Sulla did 
 not think of dividing the augurate and pontificate between 
 the patricians and plebeians, but he abolished the Domitian 
 law, and restored to the colleges the right of co-optation, 
 increasing at the same time the number of priests in each 
 college to fifteen ^"5. This number was a multiplication 
 of three by five, whereas it had before been by three, for 
 
 13 Velleius Paterc. ii. 28; Plutarch, Sulla, 31. 
 
 '■• Tacitus, Annal. xi. 22; Vellej. Paterc. ii. 32; Cicero, c. Verr. 
 I. 13. '^ Compare, vol. iii. p. 351 foil. 
 
 '^ Livy, Epitom, lib. 89; Pseudo-Ascon. in Divinat. p. 102 ed. 
 Orelli. 
 
416 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 we must remember that the pontifex maximus was in- 
 cluded in either case. This change had no great influ- 
 ence upon the state, but the increase of the number of 
 praetors to eight, and of that of the quaestors to twenty, 
 was of great importance ; to the latter he gave the quaes- 
 tiones jjerpetuae. The number of offices which possessed 
 the curule dignity was increased by the praetorship. The 
 quaestors became members of the senate by virtue of their 
 office, so that the twenty quaestors, who were elected every 
 year, were almost sufficient to keep up the regular number 
 of 600 senators*". The arbitrary power of the censors 
 to create new members of the senate was entirely done 
 away with. The senate was now a body representing the 
 people, as in the early times it had represented the burgh- 
 ers ; for the yearly election of twenty quaestoi's, who became 
 at the same time members of the senate, gave to the senate 
 the character of an elective assembly : whether the people 
 elected every year twenty new senators, or whether they ap- 
 pointed the same number of magistrates, who completed the 
 senate, is one and the same thing ^^ 
 
 Sulla was very active as a legislator, and senseless as 
 he shewed himself in most matters connected with the 
 political constitution, he must have had very superior ad- 
 visers in his criminal legislation ; for it was he who first 
 introduced any tolerable arrangements in the criminal laws, 
 which had before been in a dreadful state. The particulars 
 of this part of his legislation belong to a history of the 
 Roman law. 
 
 He kept a kind of body-guard of freedmen under the 
 name of the Cornelians : freedmen were, on the whole, 
 the most powerful persons in his retinue. The state of 
 Italy, especially in country towns, after the first storm 
 was over, may be best learnt from the excellent speech 
 
 " There is no direct authority for this number of senators, but 
 see Appian, De Bell. Civil, i, 100; Tacitus, Annal. xi, 22; Cicero, 
 ad Attic. I. 14. 
 
 '* Compare vol. in. p. 5.51 foil. 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 417 
 
 of young Cicero for Roscius of Ameria, and from that 
 for Cluentius. A person like Chrysogonus, a freed-man 
 and favourite of Sulla, might rob and murder with im- 
 punity: no one was safe from such persons, not even at 
 the very gates of Rome. The condition of Italy was 
 frightful. 
 
 Sulla gave his laws as dictator, for after the death of 
 Marius and Carbo he had caused himself to be made dic- 
 tator for an indefinite space of time, by the interrex L. Va- 
 lerius Flaccus'9, and with this title he governed the re- 
 public for two years. No one expected that he would re- 
 sign his dictatorship, but he was probably exhausted by his 
 long struggles ; he may have felt that he was too old to 
 carry on wars in foreign countries, or he may not have 
 wished to do so : he may have believed that in the republic 
 itself all the necessary reforms were effected, or else he 
 may have despaired of their successful working : in short, 
 he laid down his power to the surprise and astonishment 
 of every one. This was by no means a bold step, as 
 Appian justly observes"", for he had his military colonies 
 and the senate to rely upon, and his opponents were 
 crushed into the dust. He retired to Puteoli, where 
 he is said to have been attacked by a most disgusting 
 disease : his body was covered with ulcers and vermin. 
 I believe that the fact of his having had this disease 
 cannot be denied, and he deserved it. It occurs chiefly 
 in the case of tyrants, such as Philip II., and also in the 
 history of the Jews. It is also said to have befallen a rich 
 land-owner, who had been guilty of brutal conduct towards 
 his tenants. At Puteoli he played with the legislation 
 of Italian towns, and insisted upon his wishes being car- 
 ried into eflfect, although he pretended to live as a simple 
 citizen like everybody else-'. He died at the age of sixty 
 of a haemorrhage, arising from his having gone into a rage 
 
 '^ Appian, De Bell. Civil, i. 98. ^o Dg Bell. Civil, i. 103. 
 
 =' Plutarch, Sulla, 37. 
 
 2 E 
 
418 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 with a young man. Had he Hved ten years longer, he 
 would have died as quietly as he now died, and no one 
 would have ventured to do anything against him. The 
 pomp of his burial was not less magnificent than that of 
 Augustus, a fact which shews that his influence did not 
 depend upon his person alone, and that the attempts 
 of Lepidus were senseless. 
 
 I 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 419 
 
 LECTURE XXXVII. 
 
 THE LITERATURE AND MANNERS OF THE ROMANS AT THIS 
 
 TIME. ATTEMPT OF M. AEMILIUS LEPIDUS TO RESCIND 
 
 THE ACTS OF SULLA. SERTORIUS. 
 
 Before proceeding with the poUtical history, let us 
 cast a glance at the state of literature and the manners of 
 the Romans in that period. The Historiae of Sallust began 
 with the consulship of M. Aemilius Lepidus and Q. Lutatius 
 Catulus. If we may judge of its importance from the 
 speeches and letters which formed part of the work, and 
 are still extant, its loss is one of the most painful that we 
 have to lament in antiquity; though, perhaps, less on 
 account of its historical value than on account of its merits 
 as a work of art, as a masterly specimen of historical com- 
 position. The Social war and the period of Sulla had 
 been described by Sisenna, a contemporary and early 
 acquaintance of Cicero, who does not judge very favourably 
 of his work as a literary production \ But we ought not 
 to receive Cicero's opinion on this point as absolute truth ; 
 for he disliked the style of Sisenna because it was the 
 antiquum et horridum, and an imitation of the exile genus 
 of the Greek historian Clitarchus. Although the whole 
 aspect of literature underwent, at that time, a great change, 
 just as was the case in Germany after the Seven years' war, 
 yet there were some who would not abandon the old style 
 and manner; and the opinion of Cicero upon writers of 
 this class must be received with great caution, though we 
 cannot deny that Sisenna must have shewn great awkward- 
 
 ' De Legibus, i. 2, Brutus, 64. Compare De Divinat. i. 44, and 
 Sallust, Jugurth. 95. 
 
 2 K 2 
 
420 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 ness and a want of refinement. Pacuvius, of whom I 
 have already spoken, ranks very high among the Roman 
 poets ; and if his works were still extant they would 
 undoubtedly excite our high admiration. He wrote only 
 tragedies^. At the beginning of the seventh century, 
 Terence introduced quite a new style ; and if we compare 
 him with Plautus, Ennius, and Pacuvius, he is entirely 
 modern. Caecilius Statius was somewhat younger than 
 Terence : his skill as a comic writer is praised by the 
 ancients^, but his language is censured^. L. Attius lived 
 to a very old age; he was a true genius in tragedy, the 
 subjects of which he partly borrowed from the Greeks. He 
 chiefly followed Aeschylus, and the fragments we still 
 possess of his pieces are so beautiful that they will bear a 
 comparison with the works of the Greek poet. But he 
 was not a mere imitator ; he also composed original works ; 
 and besides him no one has written praetextatae of the 
 character of Shakespeare's historical dramas, which are not 
 bound by any restrictions as to time and place, though 
 Attius approached nearer to the Greek tragedies. In his 
 tragedies he seems to have chiefly used the senarius and 
 the anapaestic verse of four feet, in which, however, he 
 did not strictly conform to the laws laid down by the 
 Greeks; but his choruses were composed with the greatest 
 strictness according to the Greek rules of versification. 
 In his anapaestic metres he displays greater freedom even 
 than Terence; for his anapaests are metrical and no 
 longer rhythmical. His praetextatae were written in long 
 trochaic and iambic octenarii according to rhythm, but were 
 more refined than those of his predecessors. Attius may 
 serve as a proof to shew how much more refined the ears 
 of the Romans had become in his time. His contemporary, 
 C. Lucilius, of Suessa Aurunca, was not so distinguished in 
 
 * Fulgentius, Exposit. Sermon. Antiq. p. 562, however, mentions 
 a comedy of Pacuvius entitled " Pseudo." 
 
 ^ Horat. Epist. ii. 1, 59 ; Veil. Paterc. i. 17 ; Charisius, lib, 
 II. in fin. * Cicero, ad Attic, vii. 3 ; Brutus, 74. 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 421 
 
 this respect; he used the hexameter verse with licenses, 
 which sometimes exceed anything that Ennius had ven- 
 tured upon. He was either unacquainted with the laws of 
 versification, or else he despised them. A remark which, 
 I believe, no one has yet made is that most of his books 
 of satires were written in hexameter, but not alP. His 
 satires must have been spirited and witty; and if we 
 possessed them we should not, like Horace, naso adunco 
 suspendere, but we should read his cutting and biting 
 satires with pleasure. It must have been about the same 
 time that Laevius^, the lyric poet, lived, who perhaps 
 attained the highest possible degree of euphony in the old 
 Roman style. But however great may have been the care 
 that was bestowed upon poetry down to the time of Sulla, 
 the cultivation of a refined and elegant prose was com- 
 pletely neglected. A fragment, which has lately been 
 discovered, shews that the prose written during this period 
 was even harsher and ruder than in the time of Cato. 
 C. Gracchus was the only one whose prose was distinguished 
 for its numerus. The men of the sixth century, who were 
 great as orators, were not great as writers ; and the histori- 
 ans of that same period can claim as little merit for the 
 style of their productions, as our old knights Gbtz von 
 Berlichingen, Schartlin, and others of the same class. 
 
 As regards the manners and mode of life of the Romans, 
 their great object at this time was the acquisition and 
 possession of money. Their moral conduct, which had been 
 corrupt enough before the Social war, became still more so 
 by their systematic plunder and rapine; immense riches 
 were accumulated and squandered upon brutal pleasures. 
 The simplicity of the old manners and mode of living had 
 been abandoned for Greek luxuries and frivolities, and 
 
 ^ Dunlop, History of Roman Literature (published in 1824), vol. 
 I. p. 362, says " Twenty books of his Satires, from the commence- 
 ment, were in hexameter verse, and the rest, witli the exception of 
 the thirtieth, in iambics or trochaics." 
 
 * Ausonius, Cent. Nupt. p. 181, ed. Scalig. 
 
422 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 the whole household arrangements had become altered. 
 L. Crassus, the orator, was the first who had four large 
 saloons built in his house. The Roman houses had for- 
 merly been quite simple, and were built either of bricks 
 or peperino, but in most cases of the former material : nowj 
 on the other hand, every one would live in a splendid 
 house and be surrounded by luxuries. The condition of 
 Italy after the Social and Civil wars was indescribably 
 wretched, Samnium had become almost a desert ; and as 
 late as the time of Strabo^ there was scarcely any town in 
 that country which was not in ruins. But worse things 
 were yet to come. 
 
 At the time of Sulla's death, Cicero was twenty-eight 
 years old ; he had already spoken several times and excited 
 great attention. Q. Hortensius was older than he, and not 
 free from envy, but he was in no way to be compared M'ith 
 Cicero. He had his share of all the depravities of his age ; 
 and it is an undoubted fact that he sold his own convictions, 
 a thing from which Cicero was altogether free. Such 
 dreadful times as those were, generally produce a great 
 mental excitement. All studies and philological learning 
 were destroyed in France during the time of the League, 
 but the great commotion of the same time roused the intel- 
 lectual and mental energies. The Thirty years' war pro- 
 duced no such effect in Germany, but the Seven years' war 
 gave a fresh impulse to every thing. Owing to similar cir- 
 cumstances the time of Cicero was rich in talented men, but 
 none among his contemporaries could stand the comparison 
 with him. Sallust was considerably younger than Cicero, 
 and at this time only a boy ; and when he had grown to 
 manhood Cicero was still shining in his undiminished glory. 
 
 The movement of M. Aemilius Lepidus was one of 
 those convulsions which so often follow after great com- 
 motions. He was blind to the fact that the present state 
 of things was the result of the shocks which the republic 
 had experienced, and he wanted to rescind the acts of 
 
 ^ VI. p. 253. 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 423 
 
 Sulla, and to make a counter-revolution. But in order to 
 effect this he had to do away with the military colonies of 
 Sulla, to dismiss a number of senators, and to fill up their 
 places with sons of the proscribed. His whole undertaking 
 was impracticable, for the victory of Sulla had been as 
 decisive as possible, and Lepidus himself was not quahfied, 
 either by his intellect or his character, to carry such a plan 
 into effect. From a fragment of Saliust's Historiae^ we see 
 that he had belonged to the party of Sulla, and had derived 
 considerable advantage from the plunder which was carried 
 on so long as Sulla was in power^. His colleague, 
 Q. Lutatius Catulus, was an honest man, and had not 
 enriched himself; he possessed great experience, and was 
 considered a wise man. He thus enjoyed a great reputation, 
 whereas Lepidus had none. Fuel for a new conflagration 
 was not wanting. In all the towns which had received 
 military colonies the whole of the old population had been 
 expelled and reduced to beggary, unless they farmed their 
 former estates as tenants of their new lords, and thus had 
 an opportunity of waiting till the licentious soldiers were 
 reduced to the necessity of selling their property. All 
 these unfortunate creatures, as well as many of the military 
 colonists who had already squandered their newly-acquired 
 fortunes, were ready to take up arms. It would thus have 
 been very easy to form an army of desperadoes. In order 
 to prevent any outbreak, the senate made the consuls, 
 Lepidus and Catulus, swear not to take up arms against 
 each other, and this precaution did good so long as they 
 were consuls and at Rome. It was at that time the custom, 
 probably introduced by Sulla, for the consuls to remain at 
 Rome during the year of their office, and then to go to their 
 provinces. But after the termination of his consulship, 
 
 * The speech of L. Philippus against Lepidus. 
 
 ^ During the French revolution many persons were compelled to 
 purchase confiscated estates ; in like manner Sulla obliged many 
 tliousands to purchase estates of the proscribed, and Lepidus had 
 acquired many such estates which Sulla had offered for sale. — N. 
 
424 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 when Lepidus went to his province of Gaul, the war broke 
 out. Catulus had taken wise precautions; and after an 
 insignificant engagement, Lepidus himself lost all hopes, 
 and embarked for Sardinia, where he died shortly after. 
 His soldiers, after having maintained themselves for a time 
 under Perperna, went to Spain to join the army of Sertorius. 
 M. Junius Brutus, who had endeavoured to arm the 
 Cisalpine Gauls, for the purpose of supporting Lepidus, 
 was defeated by Pompey and put to death ^o. 
 
 The war of Sertorius is of infinitely greater impor- 
 tance. We should be glad, if we could read the detailed 
 account which Sallust had written of it^^ Sertorius, by 
 no means a man of noble birth, was a Sabine of the prae- 
 fecture of Nursia, subsequently the birth place of Polla, 
 the mother of the emperor Vespasian. The whole dis- 
 trict was proverbial among the Romans for its clinging 
 to the old manners and discipline^". It forms a sort of Al- 
 pine valley in the Apennines, and it is a singular fact that 
 the place preserved its freedom throughout the middle ages, 
 and never lost it until the time of the French revolution *3. 
 
 " Appian, De Bell. Civil, i. 105—108 ; Livy, Epit. lib. 90 ; Plu- 
 tarch. Pomp. 16; Florus, iii. 23. 
 
 ^' We cannot say of how many books the Historiae of SaUust 
 consisted. We have many fragments of the first five books, and 
 from these fragments, as well as from the speeches extracted from the 
 work, we must infer, that it comprised the period from the consul- 
 ship of Lepidus down to the end of the war of Pompey in Asia. He 
 was here perhaps obliged to adopt the annalistic form which he 
 otherwise despised. The work belongs to a late period of his life : 
 his earliest production was the Catiline which was followed by the 
 Jugurtha, and his last work was his Histories. That they com- 
 menced with the consulship of Lepidus and Catulus, is attested by 
 evidence, and may also be inferred from the fact that this was the 
 point to which Sisenna had carried his historical work. — N. 
 
 '2 Nursina duritia. Fronto, p. 242 ed. Niebuhr. 
 
 '3 Down to the French revolution several places within the papal 
 dominions had their own constitutions and jurisdiction, and even 
 small places had their own criminal jurisdiction without any appeal 
 to a higher court. Very few persons have any correct notion of the 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 425 
 
 The inhabitants of the Valle Norcia are still considered 
 as robust and free mountaineers, but have not always made 
 the best use of their love of liberty, for they have often 
 been notorious as banditti and criminals^*. But among 
 the Romans the Nursians had the reputation of having, 
 like the Marsians, Marrucinians, and Vestinians, preserved 
 their old Sabellian manners in their purity. Sertorius was 
 a child of his own creation, and he owed his elevation 
 to none but himself. He had first delivered Rome from 
 the freedmen of Marius, and afterwards, when Sulla came 
 to Italy, Sertorius was legate of the consul L. Cornelius 
 Scipio. In the year after, when Carbo conducted his 
 affairs in Etruria so wretchedly that all hope was lost, 
 Sertorius obtained a commission for Spain, which he was 
 to maintain for his party. The manner in which he 
 acted in Spain did not arise by any means from mere 
 policy, but from his noble disposition, and could not fail 
 to win for him the affections of the Spaniards. He paid 
 attention to their just complaints, afforded relief when- 
 ever he could, and treated the Spaniards not as contempt- 
 state of Italy previous to the revolution, and there is no work from 
 which we could derive any satisfactory information upon it. I was 
 therefore greatly surprised at the results of my inquiries in Italy. 
 Tivoli, to mention one instance, was almost free, and the interfer- 
 ence of the papal nuntio in its affairs was like that of a Roman pro- 
 consul, who arbitrarily encroached upon the liberties of a free town. 
 This, and similar phenomena, were remnants of the times of the Ro- 
 mans. (Compare upon this subject an interesting letter of Niebuhr 
 to Savigny in Lebensnachrichten von. B. G. Niebuhr, vol. ii. p. 402 
 foil.) While thus some places had a republican constitution, others 
 were oppressed, and within the Ecclesiastical state alone there were, 
 perhaps, no less than a hundred petty constitutions and states, which 
 were kept together only by the pope. During the French revolu- 
 tion, however, all of them were abolished and supplanted by prefec- 
 tures. I have discovered and collected several of those old constitu- 
 tions. The country was often in a very flourishing, but at times also 
 in quite a deplorable condition. — N. 
 
 '* I am indebted for my knowledge of the Valle Norcia to a Ro- 
 man Abbe. — N. 
 
426 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 ible provincials, but tried to amalgamate them as much as 
 possible with the Romans ^^ The plan of maintaining 
 himself in Spain arose as early as that time, for Italy 
 was almost entirely lost to his party. An army which 
 he sent against C. Annius allowed itself to be treacher- 
 ously seduced on the road towards Perpignan; and after 
 Julius Salinator, the legate of Sertorius, had been killed, 
 Sertorius, deserted by his troops, could only save his life, 
 and with a few attached followers he cruised for some 
 time in the Mediterranean. He met everywhere with 
 great confidence, and was welcomed by the Lusitanians; 
 but he could not hold out anywhere and embarked for 
 Mauretania, where he maintained himself for some time, 
 and took part in a war between two pretenders in that 
 kingdom 1^. After having made rich booty in Africa, he 
 wished to sail to the Canarian islands and to spend his 
 life there in freedom and independence ; but at that mo- 
 ment he was invited by the Lusitanians, for his success 
 in Mauretania had made him still more popular ; and the 
 Roman governors in Lusitania, who belonged to the party 
 of Sulla, had indulged, in the meanwhile, in plunder and 
 in the persecution of the friends of Sertorius. Sulla him- 
 self had died; the belief that the edifice, which the dic- 
 tator had built up, would now fall to pieces, very natu- 
 rally took root in the mind of Sertorius, who lived at so 
 great a distance, and he gladly accepted the invitation of 
 the Lusitanians. Wherever he appeared, both the Spa- 
 niards and the Romans declared for him. He found his 
 elements of power in that part of the population which 
 consisted of the children of Roman soldiers and Spanish 
 women : they spoke both languages, and considered them- 
 selves as Romans; they formed the mediators between 
 him and the Spaniards. Proscribed Romans also sought 
 refuge with him, and the Celtiberians, who became enthu- 
 siastic for him, took up arms to support him. 
 
 1' Plutarch, Sertor. 6. '^ Plutarch, Sertor. 9 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 427 
 
 LECTURE XXXVIII. 
 
 PROCEEDINGS OF SERTORIUS IN SPAIN. — HIS WAR AGAINST 
 
 Q. METELLUS PIUS AND POMPEY. POMPEY. — M. PER- 
 
 PERNA. SERTORIUS MURDERED. WAR AGAINST SPAR- 
 
 TACUS. — SECOND WAR AGAINST MITHRIDATES, AND CAUSE 
 OF THE THIRD WAR. 
 
 As SOON as Sertorius had made such progress that 
 he could look upon himself as the chief general of Spain, 
 he began acting upon a well considered plan : he wished 
 to blend the Spaniards and Romans together in such a 
 manner, that Roman civilisation should give to the nation 
 its real character, without however their ceasing to be 
 Spaniards. He thus constituted a Rome out of Rome, and 
 formed a senate of three hundred members, consisting 
 partly of proscribed Romans and partly of distinguished 
 Spaniards. This senate is known in history as the se- 
 natus Hispajiiensis^. At Osca, the modern Huesca, he 
 established an academy, and collected the sons of the 
 most distinguished families, whom he had instructed in 
 the Latin and Greek languages and literature. They 
 were also dressed like the sons of noble Romans, and 
 wore the bulla and praetexta, at which their parents felt 
 not a little pleased^. These boys were at the same time 
 a sort of hostages to him — a necessary precaution against 
 the fickleness of the Spaniards, who, however, were also 
 distinguished for their personal attachment to eminent 
 men, which gave rise to the noble custom of warriors 
 generally vowing not to survive their general. Sertorius 
 remarked with pleasure, that the number of those who 
 
 ' Appian, De Bell. Civil. I. lOS. " Plutarch, Sertor. 14. 
 
428 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 gathered around him and vowed to die with him was 
 greater than ever before with any other general. He 
 also worked upon their imagination. It may be that the 
 story about the white fawn, by which he gained so much 
 confidence, was, as Plutarch^ says, a piece of imposition 
 on his part ; but I do not see why he should not, like his 
 master, Marius, have been susceptible of such notions 
 himself; and it seems to me not at all improbable that 
 he himself entertained the same views on this point as 
 the Spaniards. 
 
 Reckoning from the time when Sertorius first appeared 
 in Spain, the war lasted eight years, but if we calculate 
 from the time when, after the fall of his party, he placed 
 himself at the head of Spain, it lasted only six years^. Q. 
 Metellus Pius — the surname refers to his filial affection 
 for his father, Q. Metellus Numidicus, — was sent into 
 Baetica, and entrusted with the conduct of the war against 
 Sertorius ; but the latter soon gained more and more de- 
 cided advantages over him, and things went at last so 
 much backward that the senate sent out Cn. Pompey 
 with a fresh army. Pompey was then yet an eques^, that 
 is, he had not yet been invested with any office that con- 
 ferred upon him the right of appearing in the senate. He 
 was about thirty years old, and in the prime of life. It is 
 very difficult to pronounce a decided opinion upon Pom- 
 pey ; he is not one of those characters whose outlines are 
 clear and indisputable, as in the case of Marius, Sulla, 
 Sertorius, and Caesar ; and it is even difficult to say whe- 
 ther he was a great general or not, or whether he was one 
 of those who do not possess sufficient strength to act 
 consistently throughout life, and to be the same under 
 all circumstances. There can be no doubt that he had 
 distinguished himself very much in the war of Sulla, for 
 Sulla treated him with marked respect; nor that in the 
 
 3 Plutarch, Sertor. 11. Conip. Appian, De Bell Civil, i. 110. 
 * Appian, De Bell. Civil, i. 108; Livy, Epit. lib. 96; Eutrop, 
 VI. 1. * Veil. Paterc. ii. 30. 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 429 
 
 war against Sertorius he very far excelled Metellus ; he 
 conducted it with great skill, though in point of general- 
 ship Sertorius surpassed him. The war against the pirates 
 was well planned and happily concluded ; that against 
 Mithridates was indeed not difficult, but Pompey shewed 
 himself resolute and active in employing the means which 
 he had at his command. If, on the other hand, we con- 
 sider him in his civil proceedings, especially during the 
 period from his triumph to the war against Caesar, it 
 cannot be denied that he had a cowardly fear of the 
 Clodian party, and that he had a mean jealousy of Caesar, 
 whom he designedly wished to keep down, and to whose 
 superiority he would be blind, although he knew it. In the 
 accusation of Cicero he behaved in a cowardly way ; he was, 
 in fact, never a trustworthy friend. In the time of Sulla, 
 when he was yet a young man, he was cruel, and Cicero 
 himself does not doubt that, if the civil war had taken a 
 different turn, Pompey would have displayed the same 
 cruelty as Sulla '^. In eloquence and acquirements he was 
 below mediocrity. His head in statues and busts shews a 
 considerable degree of vulgarity and rudeness, whereas 
 Caesar's head displays all his great intellectual activity. I 
 will not deny that I have a dislike for Pompey, for I know 
 that he was a different man at different periods of his life, 
 and that in his later years there was a great falling off in 
 his character, which cannot have been the consequence of 
 old age, since, at the time of his death, he was not above 
 fifty-six or fifty-seven years old. 
 
 Sertorius succeeded in two campaigns so far as to 
 compel Metellus to withdraw into Andalusia and Pompey 
 to retreat across the Pyrenees. Had the Spaniards been 
 unanimous among themselves, Sertorius might have defied 
 the whole power of Rome, and have annihilated his two op- 
 ponents; but he had unfortunately to struggle against 
 the rebellious attempts of the Spaniards, as well as against 
 the Roman legions. He fought two battles in Andalusia 
 
 * Ad. Attic. IX. 10 and 11. Compare x. 4. 
 
430 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 against the united Roman proconsuls, in both of which 
 one wing of each army gained a victory, so that they were 
 not productive of any considerable advantage'^. But, as the 
 Spaniards did not remain faithful, Sertorius in the end fell 
 into difficulties, notwithstanding the immense resources of 
 his mind. Some towns remained faithful to the last, such 
 as Pallantia, but others deserted him ; and these disap- 
 pointments roused his indignation, under the influence of 
 which he committed an act which is the only stain on his 
 character : he sold the hostages assembled at Huesca as 
 slaves^. This would have been quite natural with any 
 other general, but Sertorius was of too noble a character, 
 and should not have done it. 
 
 M. Perperna^, probably a son of the consular M. Per- 
 perna, had led the remainder of the army of Lepidus from 
 Sardinia to Spain, wishing, however, to carry on the war 
 in his own name ; but his soldiers compelled him to submit 
 to Sertorius. To take vengeance for this he, in conjunc- 
 tion with a number of Romans, formed a conspiracy against 
 him. Sertorius had several of them put to death, but he 
 was murdered at a repast ^'^. Those Spaniards who had 
 remained faithful to him shewed their attachment by kill- 
 ing themselves at his burial. Perperna compelled the 
 Spaniards to recognise him as their general, but he lost 
 the first battle he fought against Pompey, and he was put 
 to death. 
 
 Pompey now returned to Rome to sue for the consul- 
 
 7 Appian, De Bell, Civil, i. 110; Plutarch, Sertor. 18 foil.; 
 Pomp. 19. * Plutarch, Sertor. 25. 
 
 * He was a noble Roman, probably of an Etruscan family, for the 
 termination na is Etruscan. It has been said that all gentile names 
 must terminate in ius, and that consequently Perperna must be a 
 mere cognomen ; but the Etruscan na answers to the Roman ius. 
 We cannot think of Ernesti without loving and respecting him, but 
 he was mistaken in a great many things ; for example, when he said 
 that Caecina was an agnomen. — N. Compare vol. i. notes 344, 922. 
 
 '» Appian, De Bell. Civil, i. 113; Plutarch, Sertor. 26; Veil. 
 Paterc. ii. 30. 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 431 
 
 ship. The people admired him with enthusiasm, and he 
 was their favourite to an unprecedented degree, a fact for 
 which I cannot account. In Caesar there were indeed 
 reasons for such an enthusiasm, though I do not mean to 
 say that his conduct was altogether praiseworthy, but men 
 could not help loving him, and Cicero, in reality, always 
 loved him. Pompey had not yet held any curule office, 
 and had been invested with proconsular power without 
 having had a magistracy. He was now made consul, to- 
 gether with M. Licinius Crassus, to whom he was so 
 hostile that the Romans trembled with fear lest they 
 should take up arms against each other. But at the 
 request of the senate they made a reconciliation, and 
 behaved honourably ^^ ; they were never after false towards 
 each other, though they lived together for nineteen years. 
 Sometimes it even appeared as if they were good friends, 
 but this appearance sometimes vanished again. Crassus 
 has acquired his historical importance mainly by his con- 
 quest of Spartacus. 
 
 About five years after the death of Sulla, a Thracian 
 of the name of Spartacus had broken forth from a bar- 
 rack of gladiators at Capua, with about seventy other gla- 
 diators^-. The number of gladiators had increased at that 
 time to an immense extent, and the rage of the Romans 
 for this kind of public spectacles spread more and more 
 every day ; ambitious persons availed themselves of this 
 mania as a means of gaining popularity. Spartacus, after 
 having broken forth with his fellow-prisoners, took his po- 
 
 >' Appian, De Bell. Civil, i. 121. 
 
 '- (Appian, De Bell. Civil, i. 116 ; Livy, Epit. lib. 95; Plutarch, 
 Crass. 8.) There is at Pompeii an edifice similar to a barrack ; it has 
 parapets and a number of arms have been found in it. At first I 
 thought the building might have been a barrack, but I could not con- 
 ceive why the Romans should have had barracks in that place, and 
 on a closer examination I found that the arms were those of the Sam- 
 nites, which were, as Livy (ix. 40) says, afterwards given to the 
 gladiators in Campania. Hence I believe that the above-mentioned 
 edifice might be called a ludus gladiatorius instead of a barrack. — N. 
 
432 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 sition on mount Vesuvius, which then formed an old de- 
 cayed crater and was difficult of access. Many have ac- 
 knowledged that Spartacus must have been a great man. 
 He and his followers concealed themselves in the crater, 
 and a great number of runaway slaves joined them. Spar- 
 tacus and his associates at first formed a band of robbers, 
 and not only escaped the regular troops that were sent 
 against them, but made great havoc among them, and thus 
 acquired arms and ammunition, with which they must have 
 been provided very scantily at the beginning. Spartacus 
 proclaimed the freedom of the slaves, and numbers flocked 
 to him from all parts of southern Italy. The consequences 
 of Sulla's devastations in those districts now became vi- 
 sible at once, for there were no freemen to defend them- 
 selves. It is surprising to find that Germans are also men- 
 tioned among those slaves ''': it may be that there were among 
 them some of the Teutones, but it is more probable that they 
 were Germans who had been sold as slaves by the Gauls. 
 Crixus, a Gaul, and Oenomaus were the generals of Spar- 
 tacus, who ruled over his men with dictatorial power. The 
 war lasted upwards of two years: three praetors and two 
 consular armies were completely defeated, a great number 
 of towns, such as Nola, Thurii, Grumentum in Lucania, 
 and perhaps Compsa in the country of the Hirpinians, 
 were taken and ravaged, and in fact few places escaped de- 
 struction. At length, however, Crassus baffled the slaves. 
 They possessed large establishments for the manufacture of 
 arms, and they firmly believed that they might conquer and 
 govern the greater part of Italy, though they would not, 
 perhaps, destroy Rome. This plan of theirs would not in- 
 deed have been impossible, had it not been thwarted by 
 Crassus and their own divisions. They were divided into 
 three armies, and it was this circumstance alone that ena- 
 bled Crassus to defeat them. His last victory was gained 
 near Petelia in Lucania, and he made the same cruel use of 
 it as the German princes did of their victory in the Peasant 
 '^ Plutarch, Crass. 9. 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 433 
 
 war in the sixteenth century. The bodies of the conquered 
 or their limbs were seen impaled along the high road from 
 Capua to Rome'*. 
 
 Italy was thus delivered from the most fearful of all 
 dangers, but the ravages in the south were so great that 
 the country has never been able to recover the state of 
 prosperity which it enjoyed before the outbreak of this 
 war: its condition was in fact more wretched than in the 
 -worst periods of the Roman empire. This is evident from 
 the few monuments of this time, and from the small num- 
 ber of towns occurring in the itineraries of the emperors ; 
 and these towns were scarcely anything more than places 
 for changing horses. The free population was extirpated, 
 and the country was cut up into large estates, which served 
 as pasture for cattle and horses. 
 
 At the time when these events took place in Italy, a 
 war was carried on in Asia against Mithridates, which is 
 sometimes called the second, but more properly with Ap- 
 pian'^, the third Mithridatic war. It arose out of the ne- 
 gotiations which had been carried on between Sertorius and 
 Mithridates. After Sulla had left Asia, Mithridates ful- 
 filled the greater part of the terms on which peace had 
 been concluded: he gave up Bithynia and Paphlagonia, 
 but of Cappadocia he gave only a portion back to Ariobar- 
 zanes, and kept the rest for himself. No one, surely, can 
 blame him for this, for the peace had never yet received 
 the sanction of the Roman senate and people, and as he 
 had signed it, he demanded of the Romans to do the same. 
 Sulla himself was not dishonest in this affair, but the se- 
 nate of Rome was dishonest, and Mithridates was unable 
 to get any document. L. Murena, a Roman general, 
 marched into Cappadocia, invaded the territory of Mithri- 
 dates, plundered the rich temple of Comana, and carried 
 his aggressions so far that at length an open war broke out. 
 Murena was defeated. As Mithridates had merely acted 
 
 '* Appian De Bell. Civil, i. 120; riutarch. Crass. 11. 
 " De Bell. Mithrid. 68. 
 
 2 F 
 
434 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 on the defensive in this whole affair, and as at the end of it 
 he shewed himself willing to renew the peace, the Romans 
 readily agreed: they left him in possession of a part of 
 Cappadocia, and he engaged himself to one of the daugh- 
 ters of Ariobarzanes ^'^. 
 
 The great and last war against Mithridates, which 
 lasted for nearly twelve years, was brought about, as I 
 have already remarked, by his negociations with Sertorius, 
 who sent two proscribed Romans, L. Magius and L. Fannius, 
 to Mithridates and concluded an alliance with him. Mithri- 
 dates was to assist Sertorius with his fleet ; and it was 
 especially stipulated that he should induce the Cilician 
 pirates, who were under his influence, to support the 
 interest of Sertorius. Mithridates was to have the sove- 
 reignty of Asia in case of their being successful against- 
 the Romans*'. 
 
 '^ Appian, De Bell. Mithrid. 64—67. '^ Appian, De Bell. 
 
 Mithrid. 68; Plntavch, Sertor. 23 and Si. 
 
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